neuroscience

Neuromodulator injections in the US increased by 24% from 2021 to 2022. This rise is attributed to new products and growing acceptance of minimally invasive aesthetic treatments. Recent studies emphasize the importance of facial anatomy for precision and, consequently, a higher efficacy of neuromodulator treatments. This study aims to evaluate the clinical efficacy of a novel previously proposed injection technique targeting the depressor anguli oris (DAO) muscle to improve oral commissure position. This clinical, prospective study included 34 volunteers from the Shinobu Clinic, São Paulo, Brazil...

Despite significant advancements in recent decades, gaining a comprehensive understanding of brain computations remains a significant challenge in neuroscience. Using computational models is crucial for unraveling this complex phenomenon and is equally indispensable for studying neurological disorders. This endeavor has created many neuronal models that capture brain dynamics at various scales and complexities. However, most existing models do not account for the potential influence of glial cells, particularly astrocytes, on neuronal physiology...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

BACKGROUND: Recent studies, including those by the National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME), have highlighted the remarkable capabilities of recent large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT in passing the United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE). However, there is a gap in detailed analysis of these models' performance in specific medical content areas, thus limiting an assessment of their potential utility for medical education. OBJECTIVE: To assess and compare the accuracy of successive ChatGPT versions (GPT-3...

In this work, we cloned and functionally expressed two novel GABAA receptor subunits from Procambarus clarkii crayfish. These two new subunits, PcGABAA -α and PcGABAA -β2, revealed significant sequence homology with the PcGABAA -β subunit, previously identified in our laboratory. In addition, PcGABAA -α subunit also shared a significant degree of identity with the Drosophila melanogaster genes DmGRD (GABA and glycine-like receptor subunits of Drosophila) as well as PcGABAA -β2 subunit with DmLCCH3 (ligand-gated chloride channel homolog 3)...

Individuals considered resilient can overcome adversity, achieving normal physical and psychological development, while those deemed vulnerable may not. Adversity promotes structural and functional alterations in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and hippocampus. Moreover, activity-dependent synaptic plasticity is intricately linked to neuronal shaping resulting from experiences. We hypothesize that this plasticity plays a crucial role in resilience processes. However, there is a notable absence of studies investigating this plasticity and behavioral changes following social adversity at different life stages...

Background. Previous studies has shown that conventional neurofeedback and cognitive rehabilitation can improve psychological outcomes in people with opioid use disorders. However, the effectiveness of LORETA Z-score neurofeedback (LZNFB) and attention bias modification training on quality of life and inhibitory control of these people has not been investigated yet. LZNFB targets deeper brain structures with higher precision, compared to conventional neurofeedback that typically focuses on surface EEG activity...

Emotional experiences deeply impact our bodily states, such as when we feel 'anger', our fists close and our face burns. Recent studies have shown that emotions can be mapped onto specific body areas, suggesting a possible role of the primary somatosensory system (S1) in emotion processing. To date, however, the causal role of S1 in emotion generation remains unclear. To address this question, we applied transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) on the S1 at different frequencies (beta, theta and sham) while participants saw emotional stimuli with different degrees of pleasantness and level of arousal...

Bile acids (BAs) are cholesterol derivatives synthesized in the liver and released into the digestive tract to facilitate lipid uptake during the digestion process. Most of these BAs are reabsorbed and recycled back to the liver. Some of these BAs progress to other tissues through the bloodstream. The presence of BAs in the central nervous system (CNS) has been related to their capacity to cross the blood-brain barrier (BBB) from the systemic circulation. However, the expression of enzymes and receptors involved in their synthesis and signaling, respectively, support the hypothesis that there is an endogenous source of BAs with a specific function in the CNS...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

Transcriptomic profiles are important indicators for molecular mechanisms and pathways involved in major depressive disorder (MDD) and its different phenotypes, such as immunometabolic depression. We performed whole-transcriptome and pathway analyses on 139 individuals from the observational, case-control, BIOmarkers in DEPression (BIODEP) study, 105 with MDD and 34 controls. We divided MDD participants based on levels of inflammation, as measured by serum high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (CRP), in n = 39 'not inflamed' (CRP < 1 mg/L), n = 31 with 'elevated CRP' (1-3 mg/L), and n = 35 with 'low-grade inflammation' (>3 mg/L)...

Abnormalities in cellular metabolism are seen early in Alzheimer's disease (AD). Astrocyte support for neuronal function has a high metabolic demand, and astrocyte glucose metabolism plays a key role in encoding memory. This indicates that astrocyte metabolic dysfunction might be an early event in the development of AD. In this paper we interrogate glycolytic and mitochondrial functional changes and mitochondrial structural alterations in patients' astrocytes derived with a highly efficient direct conversion protocol...

The formation of memories is a complex, multi-scale phenomenon, especially when it involves integration of information from various brain systems. We have investigated the differences between a novel and consolidated association of spatial cues and amphetamine administration, using an in situ hybridisation method to track the short-term dynamics during the recall testing. We have found that remote recall group involves smaller, but more consolidated groups of neurons, which is consistent with their specialisation...

Varying combinations of genetic and environmental risk factors are thought to underpin phenotypic heterogeneity between individuals in psychiatric conditions such as schizophrenia. While epigenome-wide association studies in schizophrenia have identified extensive alteration of mean DNA methylation levels, less is known about the location and impact of DNA methylation variance, which could contribute to phenotypic and treatment response heterogeneity. To explore this question, we conducted the largest meta-analysis of blood DNA methylation variance in schizophrenia to date, leveraging three cohorts comprising 1036 individuals with schizophrenia and 954 non-psychiatric controls...

Plasma biomarkers of dementia, including phosphorylated tau (p-tau217), offer promise as tools for diagnosis, stratification for clinical trials, monitoring disease progression, and assessing the success of interventions in those living with Alzheimer's disease. However, currently, it is unknown whether these dementia biomarker levels vary with the time of day, which could have implications for their clinical value. In two protocols, we studied 38 participants (70.8 ± 7.6 years; mean ± SD) in a 27-h laboratory protocol with either two samples taken 12 h apart or 3-hourly blood sampling for 24 h in the presence of a sleep-wake cycle...

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a devastating neurodegenerative disorder marked by the degeneration of motor neurons and progressive muscle weakness. Heredity plays an important part in the pathogenesis of ALS. Recently, with the emergence of the oligogenic pathogenic mechanism in ALS and the ongoing discovery of new mutated genes and genomic variants, there is an emerging need for larger-scale and more comprehensive genetic screenings in higher resolution. In this study, we performed whole-genome sequencing (WGS) on 34 familial ALS probands lacking the most common disease-causing mutations to explore the genetic landscape of Chinese ALS patients further...

BACKGROUND: Hereditary transthyretin amyloidosis (ATTR) is an autosomal dominant disease characterized by amyloid fibril deposition. The TTR c.148G > T mutation (V30L) in ATTR is rarely reported, and its biochemical properties are unknown. METHODS: Seven patients and two asymptomatic carriers from two unrelated families diagnosed with V30L variant of ATTR were included. Data on clinical manifestations, laboratory examination, electrophysiology, ophthalmological corneal confocal microscopy (CCM), pathology and molecular biological experiments was collected and analyzed...

Research on the role of working memory (WM) in language processing has typically focused on WM for phonological information. However, considerable behavioral evidence supports the existence of a separate semantic WM system that plays a greater role in language processing. We review the neural evidence that supports the distinction between phonological and semantic WM capacities and discuss how individual differences in these capacities relate to sentence processing. In terms of neural substrates, findings from multivariate functional MRI for healthy participants and voxel-based lesion-symptom mapping for brain-damaged participants imply that the left supramarginal gyrus supports phonological WM, whereas the left inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG) and angular gyrus support semantic WM...

Migraine is highly prevalent and debilitating. The persistent headaches in this condition are thought to arise from the activation and sensitization of the trigeminovascular pathway. Both clinical and animal model studies have suggested that neuroimmune interactions contribute to the pathophysiology of migraine headache. In this review, we first summarize the findings from human studies implicating the dysregulation of the immune system in migraine, including genetic analyses, measurement of circulatory factors, and neuroimaging data...