Neuroscience
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Working memory refers to the ability to temporarily store and manipulate information that is necessary for complex cognition activities. Previous studies have demonstrated that working memory capacity can be improved by behavioral training, and brain activities in the frontal and parietal cortices and the connections between these regions are also altered by training. Our recent neurofeedback training has proven that the regulation of the left dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) activity using real-time functional magnetic resonance imaging (rtfMRI) can improve working memory performance. ⋯ The results revealed that the direct effect of the frontoparietal connection in the left hemisphere was enhanced by the rtfMRI training. Specifically, the increase in the path from the left DLPFC to the left inferior parietal lobule (IPL) was positively correlated with improved performance in verbal working memory. These findings demonstrate the important role of the frontoparietal connection in working memory training and suggest that increases in frontoparietal connectivity might be a key factor associated with behavioral improvement.
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Recent studies of electromagnetic ultra-slow waves (⩽0.1Hz) have suggested that they play a role in the integration of otherwise disassociated brain regions supporting vital functions (Ackermann and Borbely, 1997; Picchioni et al., 2010; Knyazev, 2012; Le Bon et al., 2012). We emphasize this spectral domain in probing sensor coherence issues raised by these studies using Hilbert phase coherences in the human MEG. In addition, we ask: will temporal-spatial phase coherence in regional brain oscillations obtained from the ultraslow spectral bands of multi-channel magnetoencephalograms (MEG) differentiate resting, "task-free" MEG records of normal control and schizophrenic subjects? The goal of the study is a comparison of the relative persistence of intra-regional phase locking values (PLVs), among 10, region-defined, sensors in examined in the resting multichannel, MEG records as a function of spectral frequency bands and diagnostic category. ⋯ Leave one out, bootstrapping of the PLVs via a support vector machine (SVM), classified clinical status with 97.3% accuracy. It was generally the case that spectral bands ⩽1.0Hz generated the highest values of the PLVs and discriminated best between control and patient populations. We conclude that PLV analysis of the oscillatory patterns of MEG recordings in the ultraslow frequency bands suggest their functional significance in intra-regional signal coherence and provide a higher rate of classification of patients and normal subjects than the other spectral domains examined.
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Hemifacial spasm (HFS) is a peripheral nerve disorder which impacts the living quality of patients both psychologically and physically. Whether HFS has structural changes under these specific stressors including psychological and physiological conditions in the CNS remains largely unknown. In the current study, voxel-based morphometry (VBM) was used to evaluate changes in gray matter (GM) by using T1-weighted imaging in 25 HFS patients and 25 demographically similar healthy volunteers. ⋯ Additionally, the GM volume changes in the amygdala did not exhibit any significant between-group differences with HAMA and HAMD scores as covariates. Our results suggested that HFS probably led to GM volume abnormalities of the CNS. We indicated that the GM volume changes of the amygdala may be highly related to emotional factors.
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Sex- and season-specific modulation of hippocampal size and function is observed across multiple species, including rodents. Other non-hippocampal-dependent behaviors exhibit season and sex differences, and whether the associated brain regions exhibit similar variation with sex and season remains to be fully characterized. As such, we examined the brains of wild-caught Richardson's ground squirrels (RGS; Urocitellus richardsonii) for seasonal (breeding, non-breeding) and sex differences in the volumes of specific brain areas, including: total brain volume, corpus callosum (CC), anterior commissure (AC), medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), total neocortex (NC), entorhinal cortex (EC), and superior colliculus (SC). ⋯ Only two simple main effects of sex were observed: males captured in the non-breeding season had significantly larger total brain volume than females captured in the non-breeding season, and females captured during the breeding season had larger volumes of the mPFC and EC than males captured in the breeding season. These results indicate that females have more pronounced seasonal differences in brain and brain region sizes. The extent to which seasonal differences in brain region volumes vary with behaviour is unclear, but our data do suggest that seasonal plasticity is not limited to the hippocampus and that RGS is a useful mammalian species for understanding seasonal plasticity in an ecologically relevant context.
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To probe the mechanism underlying the auditory behavior-related response patterns of inferior collicular neurons to constant frequency-frequency modulation (CF-FM) stimulus in Hipposideros pratti, we studied the role of post-spike hyperpolarization (PSH) in the formation of response patterns. Neurons obtained by in vivo extracellular (N=145) and intracellular (N=171) recordings could be consistently classified into single-on (SO) and double-on (DO) neurons. ⋯ These data suggested that the PSH directly participated in the formation of SO and DO neurons, and the PSH elicited by the CF component was the main synaptic mechanism underlying the SO and DO response patterns. The possible biological significance of these findings relevant to bat echolocation is discussed.