Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Brendan Parsons, Jocelyn Faubert
Summary: This study presents a highly efficient closed-loop paradigm that uses real-time brain activity to improve learning performance in a perceptual-cognitive training scenario. Results show significant improvements in learning speed and degree when manipulating tasks using real-time brain signals. Superior performance persists even after the feedback signal is removed, suggesting that this paradigm could address the limitations of neurofeedback and cognitive enhancement techniques.
SCIENTIFIC REPORTS
(2021)
Article
Neurosciences
Brianna Fitapelli, Jean-Pierre Lindenmayer
Summary: This article reviews the progress of Cognitive Remediation Training (CRT) in improving the everyday functioning of individuals with cognitive impairment. It summarizes the effects of CRT on cognitive changes, the modalities of intervention, the persistence of improvements, and their generalization to other domains of functioning. The article also discusses barriers to the wider dissemination of CRT and future developments.
Article
Psychiatry
Frances Louise Dark, Victoria Gore-Jones, Ellie Newman, Maddison Wheeler, Veronica Demonte, Korinne Northwood
Summary: This study compared the relative effectiveness of Cognitive Compensatory Training (CCT) and Computerized Interactive Remediation of Cognition-Training for Schizophrenia (CIRCuiTs). The results showed no significant difference between the two approaches in terms of cognitive and functional outcomes. This finding has implications for addressing cognitive deficits in schizophrenia spectrum disorders.
FRONTIERS IN PSYCHIATRY
(2022)
Editorial Material
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Rufin Vogels
Summary: A new psychophysical study in humans shows that increasing the variability of task-irrelevant features during training improves the generalization of visual perceptual learning to untrained stimuli and locations.
Article
Cell Biology
Rotem Broday-Dvir, Yitzhak Norman, Michal Harel, Ashesh D. Mehta, Rafael Malach
Summary: The magnitude of neuronal activation is commonly considered important for conscious perception of visual content. However, the phenomenon of rapid adaptation challenges this belief, as neuronal activation drops while visual stimuli and conscious experience remain stable. This study shows that multi-site activation patterns and their similarity distances, as measured by iEEG recordings, remain consistent during extended visual stimulation despite the decrease in magnitude. These findings suggest that conscious perception in the human visual cortex is linked to neuronal pattern profiles and their similarity distances, rather than overall activation magnitude.
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Yichen Henry Liu, Junda Zhu, Christos Constantinidis, Xin Zhou
Summary: The study found that there are progressive changes in prefrontal activity during working memory and response inhibition tasks from adolescence to adulthood, revealing universal properties underlying neuronal computations and the nature of changes that occur as a result of developmental maturation.
Article
Medicine, General & Internal
Nikolaos Moschopoulos, Ioannis Nimatoudis, Stergios Kaprinis, Kosmas Boutsikos, Christos Sidiras, Vasiliki Iliadou
Summary: The study found that there is a correlation between auditory processing deficits and cognitive impairment in schizophrenia patients, which is also related to formal thought disorder. This suggests a coexistence of these factors in a subgroup of schizophrenia patients, highlighting the potential implications for schizophrenia research, early diagnosis, and nonpharmacological treatment of the disorder.
JOURNAL OF CLINICAL MEDICINE
(2021)
Article
Pharmacology & Pharmacy
Xueli Yu, Xueyu Qi, Long Wei, Liansheng Zhao, Wei Deng, Wanjun Guo, Qiang Wang, Xiaohong Ma, Xun Hu, Peiyan Ni, Tao Li
Summary: Fingolimod shows potential in ameliorating cognitive deficits in a rat model of schizophrenia by inhibiting inflammation and promoting neurogenesis. This study provides new insights into the use of immunomodulatory strategies to improve cognitive function in schizophrenia.
BRITISH JOURNAL OF PHARMACOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Nirit Sukenik, Oleg Vinogradov, Eyal Weinreb, Menahem Segal, Anna Levina, Elisha Moses
Summary: Research has shown that networks with different E/I ratios can maintain stable bursting dynamics, with changes only in extreme cases of 0-10% and 90-100% inhibitory cells. Single-cell recordings and modeling indicate that networks adapt to chronic alterations of E/I compositions by balancing E/I connectivity. Gradual blockade of inhibition substantiates the agreement between the model and experiment, defining its limits.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
(2021)
Article
Psychiatry
Yash B. Joshi, Christopher E. Gonzalez, Juan L. Molina, Laura R. MacDonald, Jenny Min Din, Jessica Minhas, Taylor Leposke, Bethany Nordberg, Francesca Li, Jo Talledo, Joyce Sprock, Neal R. Swerdlow, Gregory A. Light
Summary: Auditory-based targeted cognitive training (ATCT) programs aim to attenuate cognitive impairment by improving auditory processing. This study found that early auditory information processing (EAIP) biomarkers, such as mismatch negativity (MMN), can predict ATCT performance in a diverse neuropsychiatric population. MMN and cognition scores were strongly correlated with most ATCT measures, while diagnosis was not a significant predictor. These findings suggest that MMN should be considered in ATCT studies across different diagnoses.
PSYCHIATRY RESEARCH
(2023)
Review
Psychology, Multidisciplinary
Annabelle Limballe, Richard Kulpa, Simon Bennett
Summary: Dynamic and interactive sports require athletes to quickly process relevant information and respond appropriately. Perceptual-cognitive skills are crucial for elite sporting performance. Recent research has explored the use of blurred stimuli to assess and train these skills. The findings show that blur can enhance performance and learning in novice participants, particularly when applied to peripheral stimuli. However, its effects on intermediate and expert level participants remain uncertain.
FRONTIERS IN PSYCHOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Clinical Neurology
Henry W. Mahncke, Joseph DeGutis, Harvey Levin, Mary R. Newsome, Morris D. Bell, Chad Grills, Louis M. French, Katherine W. Sullivan, Sarah-Jane Kim, Annika Rose, Catherine Stasio, Michael M. Merzenich
Summary: This study evaluated the efficacy of self-administered plasticity-based cognitive training for individuals with a history of mild traumatic brain injury and cognitive impairment. The treatment group showed significant improvement in cognitive function compared to the active control group, with equivalent results in depressive and cognitive symptoms between the two groups.
Article
Psychology, Clinical
James A. Grange, Michelle Rydon-Grange
Summary: This study investigates the attentional selectivity performance of individuals with depression in flanker tasks using two computational models. The findings suggest that individuals with depression have deficits in perceptual representations, potentially exacerbating control deficits.
PSYCHOLOGICAL MEDICINE
(2022)
Article
Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence
Dmitry A. Tarasov, Oleg B. Milder
Summary: In this study, using discrete form of gradation surfaces as a mathematical model of double dye overlays to adjust gray balance in electrophotography is proposed.
JOURNAL OF MATHEMATICAL IMAGING AND VISION
(2021)
Editorial Material
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Aleksandra A. W. Dopierala, Lauren L. Emberson
Summary: A new study has shown that young human infants do exhibit a key feature of consciousness, known as attentional blink, but this early consciousness changes as they grow older.
Article
Neurosciences
Agnese Zazio, Philipp Ruhnau, Nathan Weisz, Andreas Wutz
Summary: The study explored the impact of pre-stimulus alpha power and phase on subsequent visual-evoked responses using magnetoencephalography recordings and a near-threshold visual detection task. Results indicated distinct neural generators for pre-stimulus effects, with power effects mainly in occipital-temporal regions and phase effects involving prefrontal areas. It was found that only alpha power influenced the post-stimulus correlate of conscious access, while alpha phase effects did not show an impact.
EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE
(2022)
Article
Neurosciences
Quirin Gehmacher, Patrick Reisinger, Thomas Hartmann, Thomas Keintzel, Sebastian Rosch, Konrad Schwarz, Nathan Weisz
Summary: This study found that the auditory nerve in cochlear implant users is sensitive to selective attention, and the relevant neural activity can be decoded from single-trial data. These findings have important implications for the future development of cochlear implant technology and closed-loop systems.
JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE
(2022)
Article
Neurosciences
Tzvetan Popov, Bart Gips, Nathan Weisz, Ole Jensen
Summary: This study demonstrates the similarity in mechanisms between visual and auditory spatial attention in the brain, using alpha power modulation for top-down suppression of distractors and its close relationship with oculomotor action.
Article
Neurosciences
Juliane Schubert, Fabian Schmidt, Quirin Gehmacher, Annika Bresgen, Nathan Weisz
Summary: Listening is a process in which the brain forms internal models to integrate auditory information using bottom-up and top-down processes. Individual prediction tendencies contribute to experiential differences in everyday listening situations and shape the processing of acoustic input. In this study, we measured auditory prediction tendency using tone sequences and found that it can predict cortical speech tracking. We also observed interactions between prediction tendency and background noise as well as word surprisal in different brain regions.
Article
Neurosciences
Moritz Herbert Albrecht Koehler, Nathan Weisz
Summary: This study provides evidence that attention can modulate the rhythmic activity of the auditory system by influencing the functioning of sensory receptors. It was found that intermodal and interaural attention have different effects on auditory processing, with intermodal attention modulating activity level and interaural attention modulating timing.
JOURNAL OF COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE
(2023)
Article
Psychiatry
Sarah Wilker, Vanja Vukojevic, Anna Schneider, Anett Pfeiffer, Stefan Inerle, Markus Pauly, Thomas Elbert, Andreas Papassotiropoulos, Dominique de Quervain, Iris-Tatjana Kolassa
Summary: Epigenetic changes are associated with effective psychotherapy, and DNA methylation at the glucocorticoid receptor gene (NR3C1) is a potential biomarker for therapy success in treating Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). This study found that methylation at CpG site cg25535999 was negatively associated with PTSD symptoms, and treatment responders showed an increase in this methylation after therapy. Lower methylation at cg25535999 before treatment predicted greater symptom improvement.
TRANSLATIONAL PSYCHIATRY
(2023)
Article
Neurosciences
Ya-Ping Chen, Fabian Schmidt, Anne Keitel, Sebastian Roesch, Anne Hauswald, Nathan Weisz
Summary: Neural speech tracking and coherence spectra analysis were used to investigate the temporal dynamics of degraded speech understanding; Results showed that different time intervals of temporal response functions (TRFs) had differential effects on speech intelligibility, with early peak responses increasing and late responses decreasing as intelligibility reduced; This study contributes to a better understanding of how the brain processes degraded speech.
Article
Psychology, Biological
Fabian Schmidt, Ya-Ping Chen, Anne Keitel, Sebastian Roesch, Ronny Hannemann, Maja Serman, Anne Hauswald, Nathan Weisz
Summary: The most prominent acoustic feature in speech is intensity modulation, which is represented by the amplitude envelope of speech. Neural activity synchronizes with these modulations to support speech comprehension. However, investigations often fail to distinguish between lower-level acoustic (envelope modulation) and higher-level linguistic (syllable rate) information in neural speech tracking studies. Our study manipulated speech intelligibility using noise-vocoded speech and examined the spectral dynamics of neural speech processing at cortical and subcortical levels. The results showed that cortical regions predominantly track the syllable rate, while subcortical regions track the acoustic envelope. Furthermore, as speech intelligibility decreases, tracking of the modulation rate becomes more dominant. The study emphasizes the significance of distinguishing between envelope modulation and syllable rate and offers new possibilities for understanding differences between auditory processing and speech/language processing disorders.
Article
Psychology, Biological
Annekathrin Weise, Thomas Hartmann, Fabrice Parmentier, Nathan Weisz, Philipp Ruhnau
Summary: The study found that the sudden siren of an ambulance can interfere with people's attention and performance. The experiment showed that when the target and the distracting sound occurred on the same side, individuals responded faster, indicating a spatial shift of attention. The results of the brainwave data also supported this finding, suggesting that spatial attention bias influences the impact of distracting sounds.
Article
Medicine, General & Internal
Lisa Reisinger, Fabian Schmidt, Kaja Benz, Lorenzo Vignali, Sebastian Roesch, Martin Kronbichler, Nathan Weisz
Summary: This study aimed to investigate whether aging is a risk factor for tinnitus. The results showed that aging itself is a significant predictor of tinnitus, and age-related hearing loss is also associated with tinnitus.
Article
Psychology, Biological
Juliane Schubert, Nina Suess, Nathan Weisz
Summary: Predictive processing theories describe the brain as a prediction machine and explain various cognitive functions. It is known that abnormal prediction tendencies are important for psychiatric disorders. In this study, we quantified the generalization of individual prediction tendencies across modalities and found that the tendency to anticipate sensory features of high probability does not correlate between auditory and visual modalities. Our findings challenge the assumption of a unified trait for prediction tendency.
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Johanna Dobernecker, Andria Spyridou, Thomas Elbert, Maggie Schauer, Susan Garthus-Niegel, Martina Ruf-Leuschner, Inga Schalinski
Summary: Exposure to traumatic experiences can increase the risk of depression and anxiety in pregnant women, and lower hair cortisol concentrations. This study found negative associations between trauma load, symptoms of depression and anxiety, and hair cortisol concentrations. These findings highlight the long-lasting effects of trauma on maternal HPA axis activity and mental health, potentially impacting the gestational biology of the unborn child.
SCIENTIFIC REPORTS
(2023)
Article
Primary Health Care
Linda Sanftenberg, Antina Beutel, Chris Maria Friemel, Robert Philipp Kosilek, Maggie Schauer, Thomas Elbert, Ulf-Dietrich Reips, Sabine Gehrke-Beck, Tomke Schubert, Konrad Schmidt
Summary: The PICTURE trial in Germany aims to test a brief psychological intervention for post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms following intensive care unit treatment. This study found that a short-term psychological intervention in a primary care setting is feasible and well-received, particularly when there is a long-term trustful relationship between patient and GP team, the intervention is conducted by a medical doctor, the GP team maintains a professional emotional distance, and the intervention is brief.
Article
Clinical Neurology
Barbara Ladisich, Stefan Rampp, Eugen Trinka, Nathan Weisz, Christoph Schwartz, Theo Kraus, Camillo Sherif, Franz Marhold, Gianpaolo Demarchi
Summary: By analyzing the network topology of neurooncological patients, it was found that the network topology in brain tumor patients is altered, but there is no consensus on the pattern of these changes and evidence on potential drivers is lacking.
THERAPEUTIC ADVANCES IN NEUROLOGICAL DISORDERS
(2023)
Review
Neurosciences
Lisa Reisinger, Gianpaolo Demarchi, Nathan Weisz
Summary: This review introduces the underlying causes and altered neural activity of tinnitus in different brain regions, and discusses the methods and limitations of using MEG for tinnitus research. The authors suggest novel approaches and frameworks to gain a more comprehensive understanding of tinnitus and its underlying processes.
JARO-JOURNAL OF THE ASSOCIATION FOR RESEARCH IN OTOLARYNGOLOGY
(2023)
