Article
Clinical Neurology
Isabelle Lambert, Nicolas Roehri, Julie Fayerstein, Bernard Giusiano, Bruno Colombet, Christian-George Benar, Fabrice Bartolomei
Summary: This study investigated changes in thalamo-cortical and cortico-cortical connectivity during different sleep stages using stereoelectroencephalography (SEEG) recordings in humans. The results showed stronger connectivity between the thalamus and other brain regions during N2 and REM sleep compared to N3 sleep, while N3 sleep exhibited stronger cortico-cortical connectivity. The thalamus played a driving role in thalamo-insular connectivity during REM sleep.
CLINICAL NEUROPHYSIOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Neurosciences
Kazutaka Ohi, Kentaro Takai, Ayumi Kuramitsu, Shunsuke Sugiyama, Toshiki Shioiri
Summary: This study identified common cortical alterations between smoking behavior and bipolar disorder (BD), suggesting the common neurobiological involvement of insular thickness in smoking behavior and BD risk.
Article
Radiology, Nuclear Medicine & Medical Imaging
Fengfang Li, Yin Liu, Liyan Lu, Hui Li, Chunhua Xing, Huiyou Chen, Fang Yuan, Xindao Yin, Yu-Chen Chen
Summary: Using resting-state fMRI, this study found abnormalities in the insula-based directional effective connectivity in mTBI patients, and these abnormal connections were significantly correlated with cognitive function scores.
EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF RADIOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Neurosciences
Junle Li, Rui Wang, Ning Mao, Manli Huang, Shijun Qiu, Jinhui Wang
Summary: Using multimodal MRI and various data, this study found that major depressive disorder (MDD) is associated with widespread and irregular cortical thinning. These reductions are related to structural covariance, functional synchronization, gene co-expression, and chemoarchitectonic covariance. The study also found that the specific cytoarchitectonic class and genes enriched in metabolic and membrane-related processes play a significant role in MDD.
Article
Neurosciences
Delin Sun, Viraj R. Adduru, Rachel D. Phillips, Heather C. Bouchard, Aristeidis Sotiras, Andrew M. Michael, Fiona C. Baker, Susan F. Tapert, Sandra A. Brown, Duncan B. Clark, David Goldston, Kate B. Nooner, Bonnie J. Nagel, Wesley K. Thompson, Michael D. De Bellis, Rajendra A. Morey
Summary: This study used unsupervised machine learning to successfully identify spatial patterns of cortical thickness variation at the vertex level, which are not constrained by neuroanatomical features. The findings suggest that age-appropriate cortical thinning is faster in younger drinkers and slower in older drinkers, with the strongest effect observed in heavy drinkers.
NEUROPSYCHOPHARMACOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Clinical Neurology
Iseul An, Minji Bang, Sang-Hyuk Lee
Summary: The study suggests that early trauma exposure may impact brain structures differently based on a diagnosis of panic disorder, and individual variations in brain alterations after early trauma may confer susceptibility to developing panic disorder. Further longitudinal studies are needed to elucidate the neurobiological mechanisms underlying early trauma and psychiatric outcomes.
JOURNAL OF AFFECTIVE DISORDERS
(2021)
Article
Neurosciences
Mattias Savallampi, Anne M. S. Maallo, Sumaiya Shaikh, Francis McGlone, Frederique J. Bariguian-Revel, Hakan Olausson, Rebecca Boehme
Summary: Unmyelinated low-threshold mechanoreceptors (C-tactile, CT) in the human skin play a crucial role in transmitting hedonic aspects of touch. Our previous research demonstrated that CT-targeted brush stroking by a robot can reduce experimental mechanical pain. In order to enhance the ecological validity of the stimulation, we developed standardized human-human touch gestures for signaling attention and calming, where the attention gesture is perceived as neutral and the calming gesture is perceived as pleasant. The fMRI study conducted in this research showed that the calming touch gesture led to stronger activation in the periaqueductal gray matter and reduced pain compared to the tapping touch gesture.
Article
Neurosciences
Zhiting Ren, Cheng Liu, Jie Meng, Qiang Liu, Liang Shi, Xinran Wu, Li Song, Jiang Qiu
Summary: This study explored the associations between polygenic scores of Openness to Experience (OTE) and brain structure and functions in a large Chinese sample. The results showed that PGSs of OTE were negatively correlated with the thickness of the fusiform gyrus and the functional connectivity between the left intraparietal sulcus (IPS) and the right posterior occipital lobe. These findings suggest that OTE-related genetic factors may partially regulate the brain structure and functions of fusiform gyrus, IPS, and posterior occipital lobe.
FRONTIERS IN NEUROSCIENCE
(2021)
Article
Neurosciences
Tao Yin, Zhaoxuan He, Peihong Ma, Ruirui Sun, Kunnan Xie, Tianyu Liu, Li Chen, Jingwen Chen, Likai Hou, Yuke Teng, Yuyi Guo, Zilei Tian, Jing Xiong, Fumin Wang, Shenghong Li, Sha Yang, Fang Zeng
Summary: This study identified abnormal brain dynamics in functional constipation patients, which were correlated with symptom severity. Graph-theoretic analysis showed higher sample entropy at nodal efficiency in the anterior insula of FCon patients.
HUMAN BRAIN MAPPING
(2021)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Michael Lombardo, Lisa Eyler, Tiziano Pramparo, Vahid H. Gazestani, Donald J. Hagler, Chi-Hua Chen, Anders M. Dale, Jakob Seidlitz, Richard A. I. Bethlehem, Natasha Bertelsen, Cynthia Carter Barnes, Linda Lopez, Kathleen Campbell, Nathan E. Lewis, Karen Pierce, Eric Courchesne
Summary: Autistic toddlers with poor early language outcome exhibit independent genomic patterning effects on cortical thickness, potentially originating from midgestational gene expression gradients and cell types. These effects are associated with prenatal coexpression networks enriched for high-penetrance autism risk genes.
Article
Pharmacology & Pharmacy
S. Bashir, F. Al-Sultan, A. A. Jamea, A. Almousa, M. S. Alzahrani, F. A. Alhargan, T. Abualait, W. K. Yoo
Summary: Physical exercise has been shown to have a significant impact on cortical thickness, particularly in the left pericalcarine area and right rostral middle frontal. This suggests that regular exercise can enhance brain structures.
EUROPEAN REVIEW FOR MEDICAL AND PHARMACOLOGICAL SCIENCES
(2021)
Article
Clinical Neurology
Doeschka A. Ferro, Hugo J. Kuijf, Saima Hilal, Susanne J. van Veluw, Danielle van Veldhuizen, Narayanaswamy Venketasubramanian, Boon Yeow Tan, Geert Jan Biessels, Christopher Chen
Summary: This study found cortical atrophy surrounding CMIs, suggesting a perilesional effect in a cortical area many times larger than the CMI core. Our findings support the notion that CMIs affect brain structure beyond the actual lesion site.
Article
Neurosciences
Christopher M. Endemann, Bryan M. Krause, Kirill Nourski, Matthew Banks, Barry Van Veen
Summary: Understanding how different regions of the brain interact with each other is crucial for studying its functional organization. Multivariate autoregressive (MVAR) modeling techniques offer a promising approach to identify causal links between brain regions. This study explores how including mediating variables in the model can reduce spurious causal connectivity, and how dimensionality reduction techniques can be used to estimate MVAR models from limited data. The findings demonstrate the effectiveness of using these methods to analyze high-dimensional time series data in neuroscience.
Article
Behavioral Sciences
Borja Blanco, Sarah Lloyd-Fox, Jannath Begum-Ali, Laura Pirazzoli, Amy Goodwin, Luke Mason, Greg Pasco, Tony Charman, Emily J. H. Jones, Mark H. Johnson, BASIS STAARS Team
Summary: This study investigates cortical specialization differences in infants at elevated likelihood of ASD and/or ADHD using fNIRS, revealing both common and distinct neurodevelopmental profiles. The findings contribute to understanding neurodiversity and provide important insights into the mechanisms underlying ASD and ADHD.
Article
Neurosciences
Linghong Kong, Haijun Li, Yongqiang Shu, Xiang Liu, Panmei Li, Kunyao Li, Wei Xie, Yaping Zeng, Dechang Peng
Summary: The study explored the functional connectivity between insular subregions and other brain areas in patients with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) and its relationship with clinical symptoms. The results showed that OSA patients exhibited abnormal functional connectivity in the insular subregions, which were related to cognitive, emotional, and sensorimotor networks. These findings provide a new imaging perspective for understanding OSA-related cognitive and affective disorders.
FRONTIERS IN NEUROSCIENCE
(2022)
Article
Psychology, Developmental
Tegan Penton, Natalie Bowling, Aikaterini Vafeiadou, Claudia Hammond, Geoffrey Bird, Michael J. Banissy
Summary: Unemployment and underemployment are more common in autistic adults compared to non-autistic adults, possibly due to a lack of workplace accommodations. This study found that employed autistic individuals had more negative attitudes towards touch in the workplace, as well as higher levels of loneliness and reduced well-being compared to non-autistic individuals.
JOURNAL OF AUTISM AND DEVELOPMENTAL DISORDERS
(2023)
Article
Psychology, Clinical
Paul A. G. Forbes, Ekaterina Pronizius, Anja C. Feneberg, Urs M. Nater, Giulio Piperno, Giorgia Silani, Ana Stijovic, Claus Lamm
Summary: This study investigates the real-time effects of social interactions on momentary changes in stress and mood during COVID-19 lockdowns. The findings suggest that social interactions, especially face-to-face interactions, can improve momentary affect by reducing stress and boosting mood. Additionally, individual differences in responsiveness to social rewards modulate the impact of social interactions on momentary mood.
BRITISH JOURNAL OF HEALTH PSYCHOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Psychology, Biological
Helio Clemente Jose Cuve, Joseph Harper, Caroline Catmur, Geoffrey Bird
Summary: A central tenet of many theories of emotion is that emotional states are accompanied by distinct patterns of autonomic activity. However, experimental studies of coherence between subjective and autonomic responses during emotional states provide little evidence of coherence. The current study addressed this question using a multivariate dimensional approach to build a common autonomic-subjective affective space incorporating subjective responses and three different autonomic signals, and provides a framework for future multimodal emotion research, enabling both hypothesis- and data-driven testing.
Article
Medicine, General & Internal
Anja C. Feneberg, Ana Stijovic, Paul A. G. Forbes, Claus Lamm, Giulio Piperno, Ekaterina Pronizius, Giorgia Silani, Urs M. Nater
Summary: Music listening is found to be associated with stress and mood perception during the COVID-19 lockdown period, suggesting that it can be a helpful tool for managing stress and mood during psychologically demanding periods.
Article
Psychology, Educational
Katharina A. M. Stiehl, Ina Krammer, Beate Schrank, Isabella Pollak, Giorgia Silani, Kate. A. A. Woodcock
Summary: This qualitative study aimed to understand children's fears and coping strategies during the transition from primary to secondary school. The study found four types of fears among students: peer victimization, being alone, victimization by authority figures, and academic failure. The strategies they used to cope with these fears included building supportive networks, personal emotion regulation, and controlling behavior. Overall, students reported more social fears than academic fears.
SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION
(2023)
Article
Behavioral Sciences
Andrew J. Lampi, Rebecca Brewer, Geoffrey Bird, Vikram K. Jaswal
Summary: Autistic people's emotional expressions may be misunderstood by non-autistic individuals due to differences in their internal representations of emotion. However, three studies conducted with non-autistic college students in the US revealed that autistic expressions were recognized more accurately than non-autistic expressions in most cases. Furthermore, it was found that the autistic expressions were better and more intense examples of the intended emotions. The findings suggest that internal representations of emotional expressions are unlikely to be the main cause of misunderstandings between autistic and non-autistic individuals.
Article
Clinical Neurology
Ildefonso Rodriguez-Leyva, Karla Cantu-Flores, Arturo Dominguez-Frausto, Anna Elisabetta Vaudano, John Archer, Boris Bernhardt, Lorenzo Caciagli, Fernando Cendes, Yotin Chinvarun, Paolo Federico, William D. Gaillard, Eliane Kobayashi, Godwin Ogbole, Stefan Rampp, Irene Wang, Shuang Wang, Luis Concha
Summary: The ILAE Neuroimaging Task Force published educational case reports on neuroimaging in epilepsy. Neurocysticercosis is highly endemic in resource-limited countries and is increasingly seen in non-endemic regions due to migration. This article presents two cases with different clinical features to illustrate the varying severity of symptoms caused by this parasitic infestation, as well as examples of imaging characteristics that emphasize the central role of neuroimaging in diagnosing neurocysticercosis.
EPILEPTIC DISORDERS
(2023)
Article
Psychology, Biological
Mirta Stantic, Jacob Knyspel, Akhina Gaches, Yining Liu, Geoffrey Bird, Caroline Catmur
Summary: This study shows that removing perceptual similarity judgments can significantly reduce administration time without affecting test performance.
QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Neurosciences
Federica Riva, Ekaterina Pronizius, Melanie Lenger, Martin Kronbichler, Giorgia Silani, Claus Lamm
Summary: Humans have a tendency to imitate others and control this behavior. Interference control develops rapidly in childhood, plateaus in adulthood, and declines with age. However, the neural processes underlying these differences across the lifespan are unclear.
SOCIAL COGNITIVE AND AFFECTIVE NEUROSCIENCE
(2023)
Article
Psychology, Multidisciplinary
Ana Stijovic, Paul A. G. Forbes, Livia Tomova, Nadine Skoluda, Anja C. Feneberg, Giulio Piperno, Ekaterina Pronizius, Urs M. Nater, Claus Lamm, Giorgia Silani
Summary: Recent evidence suggests that social contact is a basic need governed by a social homeostatic system. The effects of 8 hr of social isolation on psychological and physiological variables were investigated and compared with 8 hr of food deprivation in a lab experiment. Social isolation led to lowered self-reported energetic arousal and heightened fatigue, comparable with food deprivation. A preregistered field study during a COVID-19 lockdown replicated the drop in energetic arousal after social isolation, suggesting that lowered energy could be part of a homeostatic response to the lack of social contact for individuals living alone or with high sociability.
PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE
(2023)
Article
Psychology, Mathematical
Mirta Stantic, Katie Brown, Eri Ichijo, Zoe Pounder, Caroline Catmur, Geoffrey Bird
Summary: This study found that face perception and face matching have independent impacts on face memory, and impaired face perception and memory were observed in individuals with autism.
PSYCHONOMIC BULLETIN & REVIEW
(2023)
Article
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Bin Wan, Seok-Jun Hong, Richard A. I. Bethlehem, Dorothea L. Floris, Boris C. Bernhardt, Sofie L. Valk
Summary: Autism is a neurodevelopmental condition characterized by atypical sensory-perceptual functions, language deficits, and socio-cognitive impairments. Previous research has shown that individuals with autism exhibit subtle alterations in brain structure asymmetry and reduced functional activation laterality compared to non-autistic individuals. However, whether these functional asymmetries reflect altered intrinsic systematic organization in autism is still unclear.
MOLECULAR PSYCHIATRY
(2023)
Article
Biology
Sofie Louise Valk, Philipp Kanske, Bo-yong Park, Seok-Jun Hong, Anne Boeckler, Fynn-Mathis Trautwein, Boris C. Bernhardt, Tania Singer
Summary: Research shows that different types of social mental training can alter brain function and structure. Attention-mindfulness and socio-cognitive training can change the function and microstructure of brain regions associated with attention and interoception, while socio-affective and socio-cognitive training can affect the microstructure of brain regions involved in interoceptive and emotional processing.
Article
Biology
Benjamin Haenisch, Justine Y. Hansen, Boris C. Bernhardt, Simon B. Eickhoff, Juergen Dukart, Bratislav Misic, Sofie Louise Valk
Summary: This study investigates the role of neurotransmitter transporter and receptor molecules in the structure-function relationships in the human brain. Using positron-emission tomography imaging studies of 19 different neurotransmitter transporters and receptors, the researchers discovered three main spatial gradients of chemoarchitectural similarity in the cortical and subcortical regions of the brain. The findings show that the organization of the receptome shares similarities with functional and structural brain anatomy.
Article
Biology
Qirui Zhang, Jiao Li, Yan He, Fang Yang, Qiang Xu, Sara Lariviere, Boris C. Bernhardt, Wei Liao, Guangming Lu, Zhiqiang Zhang
Summary: Atypical brain network hierarchy organization is observed in Rolandic epilepsy, which is related to seizure incidence, cognition, and connectivity deficit. The altered connectivity hierarchy is a system-level substrate of Rolandic epilepsy and indicates impairment in information processing across multiple functional domains. This study establishes a framework for investigating brain hierarchical organization.
COMMUNICATIONS BIOLOGY
(2023)
