Review
Behavioral Sciences
Dana M. Smith, Mary M. Torregrossa
Summary: The amygdala plays a critical role in emotional processing and motivated behavior by processing the valence of environmental stimuli. It can encode positive valence and distinguish between stimuli of positive and negative valence, affecting the integration of environmental cues with positive valence.
BEHAVIOURAL BRAIN RESEARCH
(2021)
Article
Neurosciences
Li Shen, Xiqian Lu, Xiangyong Yuan, Ruichen Hu, Ying Wang, Yi Jiang
Summary: Biological motion (BM) perception is important for human survival, as it involves kinematic cues with rhythmic structures. However, the brain's representation of these rhythmic kinematic structures and their contribution to visual BM processing are not well understood. In this study, EEG experiments revealed that observers' neural oscillations entrained to the hierarchical kinematic structures of BM sequences. Specifically, cortical tracking of the higher-level rhythmic structure (gait-cycle) exhibited a specificity for BM processing, with enhanced neural responses to upright BM stimuli. This effect was consistent across different motion types and tasks, and correlated with perceptual sensitivity to BM stimuli in the right temporal brain region. Modeling results suggested that the neural encoding of integrated kinematic cues, particularly the opponent motions of bilateral limbs, drives the selective cortical tracking of BM information. These findings highlight a cortical mechanism underlying the dynamic construction of visual BM perception.
Article
Psychology, Experimental
Chuanji Gao, Svetlana Shinkareva, Marius Peelen
Summary: Recognizing written or spoken words involves multiple processing stages, and valence influences word recognition in different modalities.
JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY-GENERAL
(2022)
Article
Biology
Thomas Pfeffer, Christian Keitel, Daniel S. Kluger, Anne Keitel, Alena Russmann, Gregor Thut, Tobias H. Donner, Joachim Gross, Ole Jensen
Summary: This study provides a comprehensive explanation of the relationship between arousal and neuronal population activity in the human brain, revealing a higher specificity of arousal effects on different components of neural activity and across cortical regions. The study also identifies a cascade of effects relative to the timing of spontaneous pupil dilations, suggesting a temporal relationship between arousal and cortical activity.
Article
Neurosciences
Ryan E. Harvey, Heath L. Robinson, Can Liu, Azahara Oliva, Antonio Fernandez-Ruiz
Summary: Traditionally considered homogeneous, hippocampal pyramidal cells have recently been shown to exhibit high diversity. This study demonstrates that the anatomical identity of these cells is a major organizing principle for the dynamics of CA1 assembly, memory replay, and cortical projection patterns in rats. Different subpopulations of pyramidal cells encode specific information or track changes in reward, with their activity selectively read out by different cortical targets. Furthermore, distinct hippocampo-cortical assemblies coordinate the reactivation of complementary memory representations. These findings reveal specialized hippocampal-cortical subcircuits and provide insight into the computational flexibility and memory capacities of these structures.
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Natasha Kharas, Ariana Andrei, Samantha R. Debes, Valentin Dragoi
Summary: The brain state strongly influences the propagation of neural activity in the early visual cortex. Propagation is weak during wakefulness and inversely related to arousal level, while propagation is vigorous during rest. These state-dependent changes can be explained by neuronal coupling.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
(2022)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Natasha Kharas, Ariana Andrei, Samantha R. Debes, Valentin Dragoi
Summary: The brain state strongly influences the propagation of neural activity. While neural signals propagate weakly across cortical columns during wakefulness, light-induced population activity vigorously propagates throughout the entire cortical column during rest.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
(2022)
Article
Neurosciences
Shir Atzil, Ajay B. Satpute, Jiahe Zhang, Michael H. Parrish, Holly Shablack, Jennifer K. MacCormack, Joseph Leshin, Srishti Goel, Jeffrey A. Brooks, Jian Kang, Yuliang Xu, Matan Cohen, Kristen A. Lindquist
Summary: Thirty years of neuroimaging research have identified a set of brain regions consistently associated with pleasant and unpleasant emotions in humans. However, prior studies have not examined how the neural reference space for emotions varies in social contexts. In this meta-analysis of 614 neuroimaging studies, we found that social and non-social affective stimuli activate similar brain regions involved in visceromotor control. However, social processing also involves additional cortical activations implicated in mentalizing and prediction. A Bayesian classifier could differentiate pleasant and unpleasant affect, but not social from non-social affect. These findings suggest that highly social scenarios may have equal salience to humans, regardless of valence.
Article
Neurosciences
David Wyrick, Luca Mazzucato
Summary: To thrive in dynamic environments, animals must be capable of rapidly and flexibly adapting behavioral responses to changing context and internal state. Our theoretical framework classifies the effects of cell type-specific top-down perturbations on the information processing speed of cortical circuits, demonstrating that perturbation effects on stimulus processing can be predicted by intrinsic gain modulation. This theory leads to counterintuitive effects, such as improved performance with increased input variance, linking connectivity, dynamics, and information processing via gain modulation.
JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE
(2021)
Article
Neurosciences
Costanza Iester, Monica Biggio, Simone Cutini, Sabrina Brigadoi, Charalambos Papaxanthis, Giampaolo Brichetto, Marco Bove, Laura Bonzano
Summary: This study used fNIRS to investigate differences in functional cortical connectivity at rest linked to the time of the day. The results showed that there were significant differences in inter-hemispheric parietal cortices connectivity, with higher connectivity in the morning and intra-hemispheric fronto-parietal connectivity, with higher connectivity in the afternoon. Additionally, the questionnaire survey revealed higher scores for imaginative thinking in the afternoon compared to the morning. These findings suggest that there may be variations in brain connectivity and thought processes during resting-state at different times of the day.
FRONTIERS IN NEUROSCIENCE
(2023)
Article
Neurosciences
Luchun Wang, Xiying Li, Zhongling Pi, Shuoqi Xiang, Xuemei Yao, Senqing Qi
Summary: The study compared the spatiotemporal dynamics of affective and semantic valence by combining event-related potentials with repeated exposure. Early stages showed similarities between the two modes, while differences in brain activation patterns were evident in later stages.
FRONTIERS IN HUMAN NEUROSCIENCE
(2021)
Article
Materials Science, Multidisciplinary
Zheng Yan, Zheng Zhou, Olav F. Syljuasen, Junhao Zhang, Tianzhong Yuan, Jie Lou, Yan Chen
Summary: The quantum dimer model is a low-energy effective model for many magnetic systems that are candidates for quantum spin liquids, described by gauge field theory with local constraints. The controversy surrounding the phase diagrams of quantum dimer models, particularly on a square lattice, stems from whether the mixed state exists due to these constraints. This paper provides strong evidence, obtained through a sweeping cluster quantum Monte Carlo method, to show that the ground state belongs to the mixed phase in a vast parameter region.
Article
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Felix Schilcher, Markus Thamm, Martin Strube-Bloss, Ricarda Scheiner
Summary: In honeybees, the biogenic amines octopamine and tyramine have opposing effects on sensory responses to light, with octopamine increasing receptor response and walking speed towards light sources while tyramine decreases them. These findings suggest that tyramine and octopamine act as functional opposites in processing responses to light.
Article
Psychology, Multidisciplinary
Brigitte Fischer, Cornelia Herbert
Summary: The study extends previous research by investigating affective ratings of emoji, emoticons and human faces, and shows that emoji elicited highest arousal, stimuli related to happiness were rated highest in valence, and angry emoji were rated highest in emotionality. Additionally, discrete emotion was best recognized in emoji compared to human face stimuli and emoticons.
FRONTIERS IN PSYCHOLOGY
(2021)
Article
Nanoscience & Nanotechnology
Robert A. Yokel, Wendel Wohlleben, Johannes Georg Keller, Matthew L. Hancock, Jason M. Unrine, D. Allan Butterfield, Eric A. Grulke
Summary: Cerium oxide nanoparticles, or nanoceria, are engineered nanomaterials with varying physicochemical properties and applications. Industrial nanoceria like NM-212 are calcined, while those with pharmaceutical properties are often prepared by solvothermal synthesis. The dissolution of nanoceria is influenced by high-temperature exposure, leading to changes in solubility and surface cerium valence, which in turn affect their biological and catalytic properties.
BEILSTEIN JOURNAL OF NANOTECHNOLOGY
(2021)