European Journal of Neuroscience

Focal structural damage to white matter tracts can result in functional deficits in stroke patients. Traditional voxel-based lesion-symptom mapping is commonly used to localize brain structures linked to neurological deficits. Emerging evidence suggests that the impact of structural focal damage may extend beyond immediate lesion sites. In this study, we present a disconnectome mapping approach based on support vector regression (SVR) to identify brain structures and white matter pathways associated with functional deficits in stroke patients...

The present study aimed to examine the effect of cholinergic interneuron lesions in the dorsal striatum on duration-memory formation. Cholinergic interneurons in the dorsal striatum may be involved in the formation of duration memory since they are among the main inputs to the dorsal striatal muscarinic acetylcholine-1 receptors, which play a role in the consolidation of duration memory. Rats were sufficiently trained using a peak-interval 20 s procedure and then infused with anti-choline acetyltransferase-saporin into the dorsal striatum to cause selective ablation of cholinergic interneurons...

Detection and measurement of amyloid-beta (Aβ) in the brain is a key factor for early identification and diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease (AD). We aimed to develop a deep learning model to predict Aβ cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) concentration directly from amyloid PET images, independent of tracers, brain reference regions or preselected regions of interest. We used 1870 Aβ PET images and CSF measurements to train and validate a convolutional neural network ("ArcheD"). We evaluated the ArcheD performance in relation to episodic memory and the standardized uptake value ratio (SUVR) of cortical Aβ...

Dual tasks (DTs) combining walking with a cognitive task can cause various levels of cognitive-motor interference, depending on which brain resources are recruited in each case. However, the brain activation and functional connectivity underlying cognitive-motor interferences remain to be elucidated. Therefore, this study investigated the neural correlation during different DT conditions in 40 healthy young adults (mean age: 27.53 years, 28 women). The DTs included walking during subtraction or N-Back tasks...

Metabolic disorders are risk factors for stroke exacerbating subsequent complications. Rapidly after brain injury, a glial scar forms, preventing excessive inflammation and limiting axonal regeneration. Despite the growing interest in wound healing following brain injury, the formation of a glial scar in the context of metabolic disorders is poorly documented. In this study, we used db/db mice to investigate the impact of metabolic perturbations on brain repair mechanisms, with a focus on glial scarring. First, we confirmed the development of obesity, poor glucose regulation, hyperglycaemia and liver steatosis in these mice...

Having a multitude of choices can be advantageous, yet an abundance of options can be detrimental to the decision-making process. Based on existing research, the present study combined electroencephalogram and self-reported methodologies to investigate the neural mechanisms underlying the phenomenon of choice overload. Behavioural data suggested that an increase in the number of options led to negative evaluations and avoidance of choice tendencies, even in the absence of time pressure. Event-related potential results indicated that the large choice set interfered with the early visual process, as evidenced by the small P1 amplitude, and failed to attract more attentional resources in the early stage, as evidenced by the small amplitude of P2 and N2...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

The postsynaptic density (PSD) is a collection of specialized proteins assembled beneath the postsynaptic membrane of dendritic spines. The PSD proteome comprises ~1000 proteins, including neurotransmitter receptors, scaffolding proteins and signalling enzymes. Many of these proteins have essential roles in synaptic function and plasticity. During brain development, changes are observed in synapse density and in the stability and shape of spines, reflecting the underlying molecular maturation of synapses. Synaptic protein composition changes in terms of protein abundance and the assembly of protein complexes, supercomplexes and the physical organization of the PSD...

Ca2+ /calmodulin-dependent protein kinase IIα (CaMKIIα) is widely expressed in the brain and is involved in various functions, including memory formation, mood and sleep. We previously reported that CaMKIIα is involved in the circadian molecular clock. Mice lacking functional CaMKIIα (K42R mice) exhibited a gradual increase in activity time (α decompression) of running-wheel (RW) activity due to a lengthened circadian period (τ) of activity offset under constant darkness (DD)...

Differences between autistic and non-autistic individuals in perception of the temporal relationships between sights and sounds are theorized to underlie difficulties in integrating relevant sensory information. These, in turn, are thought to contribute to problems with speech perception and higher level social behaviour. However, the literature establishing this connection often involves limited sample sizes and focuses almost entirely on children. To determine whether these differences persist into adulthood, we compared 496 autistic and 373 non-autistic adults (aged 17 to 75 years)...

Neuromodulation with transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) can transiently alter neural activity, but its spatial precision is low. High-definition (HD) tDCS was introduced to increase spatial precision by placing additional electrodes over the scalp. Initial evaluations of HD tDCS indicated polarity-specific neurophysiological effects-similar to conventional tDCS albeit with greater spatial precision. Here, we compared the effects of cathodal tDCS or HD tDCS in a 4 × 1 configuration over prefrontal cortex (PFC) regions on behavioural outcomes in a magnitude classification task...

Notwithstanding the huge progress in molecular and cellular neuroscience, our ability to understand the brain and develop effective treatments promoting mental health is still limited. This can be partially ascribed to the reductionist, deterministic and mechanistic approaches in neuroscience that struggle with the complexity of the central nervous system. Here, I introduce the Context theory of constrained systems proposing a novel role of contextual factors and genetic, molecular and neural substrates in determining brain functioning and behavior...

When an academic paper is published in a journal that assigns a digital object identifier (DOI) to papers, this is a de facto fait accompli. Corrections or retractions are supposed to follow a specific protocol, especially in journals that claim to follow the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines. In this paper, we highlight a case of a new, fully open access neuroscience journal that claims to be COPE-compliant, yet has silently retracted two papers since all records, bibliometrics, and PDF files related to their existence have been deleted from the journal's website...

This study aimed to review the prevalence of developmental coordination disorder (DCD) in individuals born preterm and systematically explore this prevalence according to gestational age and different assessment cut-offs and compare it to full-term peers. The eligibility criteria were observational and experimental studies reporting the prevalence of DCD in preterm individuals. A systematic search was performed in databases from inception until March 2022. Two independent reviewers performed the selection. Study quality assessment was performed using the checklists from Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI)...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

Since the discovery of the genetic origin of the circadian clock in Drosophila melanogaster by Konopka and Benzer in 1971, most of the research about the regulation of the molecular circadian clock relies on laboratory models. Additional models such as Cyanobacteria, Neurospora crassa, Arabidopsis and rodents helped chronobiologists to describe the species-specific molecular clocks and their regulation. However, the lack of tools and the difficulty to access biological samples somehow excluded human from this research landscape outside behavioural research...

The posterior parietal cortex (PPC) integrates multisensory and motor-related information for generating and updating body representations and movement plans. We used retrograde transneuronal transfer of rabies virus combined with a conventional tracer in macaque monkeys to identify direct and disynaptic pathways to the arm-related rostral medial intraparietal area (MIP), the ventral lateral intraparietal area (LIPv), belonging to the parietal eye field, and the pursuit-related lateral subdivision of the medial superior temporal area (MSTl)...

Dopaminergic neurons of the substantia nigra exist in a persistent state of vulnerability resulting from high baseline oxidative stress, high-energy demand, and broad unmyelinated axonal arborisations. Impairments in the storage of dopamine compound this stress because of cytosolic reactions that transform the vital neurotransmitter into an endogenous neurotoxicant, and this toxicity is thought to contribute to the dopamine neuron degeneration that occurs Parkinson's disease. We have previously identified synaptic vesicle glycoprotein 2C (SV2C) as a modifier of vesicular dopamine function, demonstrating that genetic ablation of SV2C in mice results in decreased dopamine content and evoked dopamine release in the striatum...

Nasal cycle (NC) is a rhythmic change of lateralised nasal airflow mediated by the autonomous nervous system. Previous studies reported the dependence of NC dominance or more patent side on handedness and hemispheric cerebral activity. We aimed to investigate firstly the possible lateralised effect of NC on olfactory bulb volume and secondly the association of NC with the lateralised cerebral dominance in terms of olfactory processing. Thirty-five subjects (22 women and 13 men, mean age 26 ± 3 years) participated in the study...

Despite altered brain activities being associated with suicidal ideation (SI), the neural correlates of SI in major depressive disorder (MDD) have remained elusive. We enrolled 82 first-episode drug-naïve MDD patients including 41 with SI and 41 without SI, as well as 41 healthy controls (HCs). Resting-state functional and structural MRI data were collected. The measures of fractional amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation (fALFF) and grey matter volume (GMV) were calculated and compared. Compared with HCs, patients with SI exhibited increased fALFF values in the right rectus gyrus and left medial superior frontal gyrus, middle frontal gyrus and precuneus...