Article
Neurosciences
David St-Amand, Curtis L. Baker Jr
Summary: Neurons in the primary visual cortex (V1) respond more strongly to dark stimuli due to slower inhibition to dark stimuli rather than stronger excitation from the OFF pathway. This dark-dominance occurs in the early latencies of neurons' responses and is associated with less orientation selectivity. This novel approach provides new insight into the dark-dominance phenomenon and opens up avenues for further exploration of excitatory and inhibitory integration in cortical neurons.
JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE
(2023)
Article
Radiology, Nuclear Medicine & Medical Imaging
Jinglong Wu, Chenyu Wang, Luyao Wang, Yutong Wang, Jiajia Yang, Tianyi Yan, Dingjie Suo, Li Wang, Xin Liu, Jian Zhang
Summary: This study investigates the characteristics of human finger population receptive fields (pRF) in the primary somatosensory cortex using a multichannel tactile stimulation device. The results show that the device has no effect on the image's signal-to-noise ratio and can accurately characterize the representation of the right-hand somatosensory system.
JOURNAL OF MAGNETIC RESONANCE IMAGING
(2022)
Article
Neurosciences
Luyao Wang, Zhilin Zhang, Tomohisa Okada, Chunlin Li, Duanduan Chen, Shintaro Funahashi, Jinglong Wu, Tianyi Yan
Summary: This study investigated the somatotopic map of the undominant hand using a Bayesian population receptive field (pRF) model, revealing an orderly representation between digits with elliptical pRF shapes and varying width changes across dimensions for different digits. These results provide new insights into neural mechanisms in the primary somatosensory cortex (S1) and allow for further exploration of somatosensory information processing and disease-related reorganization.
Article
Neurosciences
Garikoitz Lerma-Usabiaga, Jonathan Winawer, Brian A. Wandell
Summary: The study investigates accurate estimation of the RF of neuronal populations and its shape, finding that elliptical pRFs are common in the early visual cortex. Researchers also found discrepancies in estimation results using different software packages.
JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE
(2021)
Article
Neurosciences
Sarah Khalife, Susan T. Francis, Denis Schluppeck, Rosa-Maria Sanchez-Panchuelo, Julien Besle
Summary: This study compared the efficiency and reliability of fast and slow event-related designs in mapping tactile tuning properties. The results showed that the fast design yielded more reliable responses, while the slow design was more efficient. The study also identified two separate somatotopically-organized tactile representations in the human cortex.
Article
Biology
P. Christiaan Klink, Xing Chen, Wim Vanduffel, Pieter R. Roelfsema
Summary: The research indicates that fMRI-based pRF maps reliably reflect neuronal receptive field properties in the primate brain, especially in areas V1 and V4. In addition, whole-brain fMRI measurements reveal retinotopic tuning in many other areas, as well as a retinotopically specific deactivation of default mode network nodes.
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Alan J. Emanuel, Brendan P. Lehnert, Stefano Panzeri, Christopher D. Harvey, David D. Ginty
Summary: Research shows that signals from physiologically distinct mechanoreceptor subtypes are extensively integrated and transformed within the subcortical somatosensory system to generate cortical representations of touch.
Editorial Material
Biology
I. P. Betina, Holly Bridge
Summary: Visual maps measured non-invasively in the brain of human and non-human primates reliably reflect the underlying neuronal responses recorded with invasive electrodes.
Article
Neurosciences
Zhengyang Wang, Balbir Singh, Xin Zhou, Christos Constantinidis
Summary: Working memory ability continues to mature into adulthood in humans and nonhuman primates. Adolescent development is characterized by increased frontal firing rate in the delay period, but less is known about the coordinated activity between neurons. This study found that there was higher power in the gamma frequency range in both the cue and delay period in adolescents compared to adults. These changes were observed in various recording sites and could not be explained by performance differences.
JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE
(2022)
Article
Cell Biology
Yunfeng Hua, Sahil Loomba, Verena Pawlak, Kay-Michael Voit, Philip Laserstein, Kevin M. Boergens, Damian J. Wallace, Jason N. D. Kerr, Moritz Helmstaedter
Summary: Thalamic input drives a subset of interneurons with high specificity, which in turn target excitatory neurons with subtype specificity, creating a directed disinhibitory network directly driven by thalamic input.
Article
Neurosciences
Jennifer Brown, Ian Anton Oldenburg, Gregory Telian, Sandon Griffin, Mieke Voges, Vedant Jain, Hillel Adesnik
Summary: Active haptic sensation is crucial for object identification, with animals needing to summate input from multiple whiskers specifically along the whisker arc. Cortical neurons across whiskers encode each orientation, and acute optogenetic manipulation reveals that infragranular layers alone are insufficient to solve the task.
Article
Neurosciences
Ayelet McKyton, Edward Averbukh, Devora Marks Ohana, Netta Levin, Eyal Banin
Summary: The study of two CNGA3-achromatopsia adults before and after ocular gene augmentation therapy revealed minor improvements behaviorally and cortically, but color perception still faced challenges either due to insufficient recovery at the retinal level or limitations in processing new cone-derived inputs in the adult cortex.
JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE
(2021)
Article
Neurosciences
Hamed Rahimi-Nasrabadi, Veronica Moore-Stoll, Jia Tan, Stephen Dellostritto, JianZhong Jin, Mitchell W. Dul, Jose -Manuel Alonso
Summary: Human vision processes light and dark stimuli through separate ON and OFF neuronal pathways. At high contrast, dark stimuli are located faster and more accurately, indicating the dominance of the OFF pathway. At low contrast, light stimuli are located faster and more accurately, indicating the dominance of the ON pathway. The correlation between luminance contrast and ON/OFF dominance ratios highlights the importance of contrast polarity in visual field measurements.
JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE
(2023)
Article
Biochemical Research Methods
Mohammad Reza Keshtkaran, Andrew R. Sedler, Raeed H. Chowdhury, Raghav Tandon, Diya Basrai, Sarah L. Nguyen, Hansem Sohn, Mehrdad Jazayeri, Lee E. Miller, Chethan Pandarinath
Summary: AutoLFADS is a model-tuning framework that automatically generates high-performing autoencoding models on data from different brain areas and tasks.
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Feng Ni, Junnian Wang, Jialin Tang, Wenjun Yu, Ruihan Xu
Summary: In this paper, an improved lightweight convolutional neural network is constructed based on the feature fusion network for side-channel analysis. The experimental results show that the new network has faster convergence, better robustness, and higher accuracy. Compared with traditional neural network methods, it has higher heat value and more concentration in the key interval.
Article
Engineering, Biomedical
Ana Dominguez-Bajo, Juliana M. Rosa, Ankor Gonzalez-Mayorga, Beatriz L. Rodilla, Ana Arche-Nunez, Esther Benayas, Pilar Ocon, Lucas Perez, Julio Camarero, Rodolfo Miranda, M. Teresa Gonzalez, Juan Aguilar, Elisa Lopez-Dolado, Maria C. Serrano
Summary: Nanotechnology provides upgraded materials to better mimic the native extracellular environment and establish more intimate contacts with individual neurons, leading to neural network growth and enhanced functionality.
Article
Neurosciences
Justin Lines, Andres M. Baraibar, Cenxiao Fang, Eduardo D. Martin, Juan Aguilar, Michael K. Lee, Alfonso Araque, Paulo Kofuji
Summary: Research has found that dysfunction of astrocyte networks in AD mice may dysregulate cortical electrical activity, leading to cognitive decline.
Review
Neurosciences
Javier Blesa, Guglielmo Foffani, Benjamin Dehay, Erwan Bezard, Jose A. Obeso
Summary: The prevailing theory of Parkinson disease pathogenesis involves the spread of alpha-synuclein toxicity from the periphery to the brain. While this bottom-up mechanism is implicated, early neuronal loss in the nigrostriatal system also plays a prominent role.
NATURE REVIEWS NEUROSCIENCE
(2022)
Article
Medicine, General & Internal
Sara Marceglia, Costanza Conti, Oleg Svanidze, Guglielmo Foffani, Andres M. Lozano, Elena Moro, Jens Volkmann, Mattia Arlotti, Lorenzo Rossi, Alberto Priori
Summary: This study aims to evaluate the safety and efficacy of the new generation AlphaDBS system for aDBS and cDBS treatment in patients with Parkinson's disease. The study involves multiple international sites and 15 patients, and will include short-term and long-term follow-ups.
Review
Clinical Neurology
Carla Fernandez-Garcia, Mariana H. G. Monje, Victor Gomez-Mayordomo, Guglielmo Foffani, Rafael Herranz, Maria Jose Catalan, Mercedes Gonzalez-Hidalgo, Jorge Matias-Guiu, Fernando Alonso-Frech
Summary: This study evaluated the effectiveness of directional subthalamic stimulation in Parkinson's disease based on intraoperatively recorded beta oscillations. The results showed a strong correlation between clinical efficacy and beta activity, and selecting the contacts with the highest beta peaks improved the therapeutic window. Long-term follow-up showed similar improvements in both groups, validating the efficacy of directional stimulation guided by intraoperative beta oscillations.
Letter
Clinical Neurology
Michele Dileone, Claudia Ammann, Valentina Catanzaro, Cristina Pagge, Rosanna Piredda, Mariana H. G. Monje, Irene Navalpotro-Gomez, Alberto Bergareche, Maria Cruz Rodriguez-Oroz, Lydia Vela-Desojo, Fernando Alonso-Frech, Maria J. Catalan, Jose A. Molina, Nuria Lopez-Ariztegu, Antonio Oliviero, Jose A. Obeso, Guglielmo Foffani
Letter
Clinical Neurology
Guglielmo Foffani
MOVEMENT DISORDERS
(2022)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Vanesa Soto-Leon, Mabel Torres-Llacsa, Laura Mordillo-Mateos, Carmen Carrasco-Lopez, Jose A. Pineda-Pardo, Ana Velasco, Laura Abad-Toribio, Jesus Tornero, Guglielmo Foffani, Bryan A. Strange, Antonio Oliviero
Summary: Focal application of transcranial static magnetic field stimulation (tSMS) over the human motor cortex induces reductions in functional connectivity within the stimulated sensori-motor network, with time-dependency.
SCIENTIFIC REPORTS
(2022)
Article
Clinical Neurology
Jose A. Pineda-Pardo, Carmen Gasca-Salas, Beatriz Fernandez-Rodriguez, Rafael Rodriguez-Rojas, Marta Del Alamo, Ignacio Obeso, Frida Hernandez-Fernandez, Clara Trompeta, Raul Martinez-Fernandez, Michele Matarazzo, David Mata-Marin, Pasqualina Guida, Alicia Duque, David Albillo, Isabel Plaza de las Heras, Juan Montero, Guglielmo Foffani, Gabriella Toltsis, Itay Rachmilevitch, Javier Blesa, Jose A. Obeso
Summary: This study aims to investigate the safety and feasibility of opening the blood-brain barrier in the striatum of Parkinson's disease patients using focused ultrasound. The results of the study suggest that this technique is feasible and safe, and may potentially be an effective tool for delivering therapeutic molecules in Parkinson's disease.
MOVEMENT DISORDERS
(2022)
Article
Cell Biology
Maria Elvira Brocca, Arancha Mora-Rubio, Elena Alonso-Calvino, Elena Fernandez-Lopez, Natalia Diez-Revuelta, David Martos-Punal, Juan Aguilar, Alonso M. Higuero, Jose Abad-Rodriguez
Summary: Gal-4, a carbohydrate-binding protein, is believed to be a regulator of myelin patterning. However, the study on Gal-4-deficient mice shows that Gal-4 does not significantly affect cortical myelination. The composition, organization, and function of cortical myelin in Lgals4-KO mice are similar to the control group.
Article
Clinical Neurology
Vanesa Soto-Leon, Eva Diez-Rodriguez, Salvador Herrera-Perez, Juliana M. Rosa, Juan Aguilar, Antonio Hernando, Carlota Bravo-Sanchez, Veronica Lopez-Gonzalez, Yolanda Perez-Borrego, Sven Bestmann, Antonio Oliviero
Summary: This study investigated the effects of transcranial static magnetic field stimulation (tSMS) on the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) function. It found that tSMS can transiently modulate DLPFC function, specifically affecting inhibitory control and response selection. These findings suggest the potential use of tSMS for the treatment of neuropsychiatric disorders.
CLINICAL NEUROPHYSIOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Cell Biology
Gregory D. Disse, Bharadwaj Nandakumar, Francois P. Pauzin, Gary H. Blumenthal, Zhaodan Kong, Jochen Ditterich, Karen A. Moxon
Summary: This study investigates the patterns of neural activity in the cortex during unexpected perturbations and identifies unique neuronal classes that differentiate different characteristics of applied postural perturbations. These findings provide insights into how the cortex engages in postural control and can contribute to understanding postural instability after neurological disease.
Article
Neurosciences
Elena Alonso-Calvino, Elena Fernandez-Lopez, Marta Zaforas, Juliana M. Rosa, Juan Aguilar
Summary: Spinal cord injury can lead to cortical reorganization, but it depends on the type of injury. The reorganization differs in response to different spinal cord injuries and may be accompanied by increased cortical excitability. Additionally, changes in GABAergic transmission at the deprived cortex may be related to cortical reorganization.
EXPERIMENTAL NEUROLOGY
(2023)
Article
Cell Biology
Claudia Miguel-Quesada, Marta Zaforas, Salvador Herrera-Perez, Justin Lines, Elena Fernandez-Lopez, Elena Alonso-Calvino, Maria Ardaya, Federico N. Soria, Alfonso Araque, Juan Aguilar, Juliana M. Rosa
Summary: In this study, the researchers observed and manipulated the activity of astrocytes to investigate their role in sensory information processing at both circuit and behavioral levels. They found that astrocytes are able to control the dynamic range of cortical network activity, optimizing its responsiveness to sensory inputs. This astrocytic modulation of sensory processing helps to set the detection threshold for tactile and thermal behavior responses. The researchers also discovered that astrocytes achieve this control by modulating inhibitory transmission to adjust the gain and sensitivity of responding networks.
Article
Neurosciences
C. Rivadulla, J. L. Pardo-Vazquez, C. de Labra, J. Aguilar, E. Suarez, C. Paz, M. Alvarez-Doladog, J. Cudeiroa
Summary: In this study, transcranial static magnetic stimulation (tSMS) was used to effectively reduce the number and intensity of seizures in a mouse model of Dravet syndrome. Numerical simulation was also performed to estimate the magnetic field intensity reached in the cerebral cortex, providing insights for designing stimulation strategies in Dravet syndrome patients.
EXPERIMENTAL NEUROLOGY
(2023)
Article
Neurosciences
Yang He, Jun Tang, Meng Zhang, Junjie Ying, Dezhi Mu
Summary: This study investigated the protective effects and mechanisms of human placenta derived mesenchymal stem cells (hPMSCs) transplantation in a rat model of hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (HIE). The results showed that hPMSCs transplantation reduced apoptosis and improved long-term neurological prognosis. Furthermore, the downregulation of Sema 3A/NRP-1 expression and activation of the PI3K/Akt/mTOR signaling pathway played a key role in the protective effects of hPMSCs.
Article
Neurosciences
Emily L. Isenstein, Edward G. Freedman, Jiayi Xu, Ian A. DeAndrea-Lazarus, John J. Foxe
Summary: This study evaluated electrophysiological discrimination of parametric somatosensory stimuli in healthy young adults to understand how the brain processes the duration of tactile information. The results showed that participants did not electrophysiologically discriminate between 100 and 115 ms, but they exhibited distinct electrophysiological responses when the deviant stimuli were 130, 145, and 160 ms. These findings contribute to a better understanding of tactile sensitivity in different clinical conditions.
Article
Neurosciences
Juliana R. Souza, Ludmila Lima-Silveira, Daniela Accorsi-Mendonca, Benedito H. Machado
Summary: This study demonstrates that A2A receptors play a crucial role in modulating synaptic transmission in the NTS neurons and are required for the enhancement of glutamatergic transmission observed under short-term sustained hypoxia conditions.
Article
Neurosciences
Miki Hashizume, Rina Ito, Rie Suge, Yasushi Hojo, Gen Murakami, Takayuki Murakoshi
Summary: The basolateral amygdaloid complex (BLA) is closely involved in the formation of emotional memories, including both aversive memory and contextual fear memory. Acute sleep deprivation (SD) disrupts the acquisition of tone-associated fear memory in juvenile rats, but has no significant effect on contextual fear memory. Slow network oscillation in the amygdala contributes to the formation of amygdala-dependent fear memory in relation to sleep.
Article
Neurosciences
Qunxian Wang, Shipeng Guo, Dongjie Hu, Xiangjun Dong, Zijun Meng, Yanshuang Jiang, Zijuan Feng, Weihui Zhou, Weihong Song
Summary: GSDME plays a crucial role in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease by regulating the switch from apoptosis to pyroptosis and participating in neuroinflammatory response. Knockdown of GSDME has been shown to improve cognitive impairments, indicating that GSDME could be a therapeutic target for Alzheimer's disease.