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Frontiers in Psychology 2022
PubMed: 35865675
DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.970345 -
Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews Aug 2019Despite the exponential increase in fear research during the last years, few studies have included female subjects in their design. The need to include females arises... (Review)
Review
Despite the exponential increase in fear research during the last years, few studies have included female subjects in their design. The need to include females arises from the knowledge gap of mechanistic processes underlying the behavioral and neural differences observed in fear extinction. Moreover, the exact contribution of sex and hormones in relation to learning and behavior is still largely unknown. Insights from this field could be beneficial as fear-related disorders are twice as prevalent in women compared to men. Here, we review an up-to-date summary of animal and human studies in adulthood that report sex differences in fear extinction from a structural and functional approach. Furthermore, we describe how these factors could contribute to the observed sex differences in fear extinction during normal and pathological conditions.
Topics: Animals; Brain; Extinction, Psychological; Fear; Female; Humans; Male; Sex Characteristics
PubMed: 31129235
DOI: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2019.05.020 -
World Journal of Psychiatry Sep 2021Many of the various factors, characteristics, and variables involved in the addictive process can determine an individual's vulnerability to develop drug addiction.... (Review)
Review
Many of the various factors, characteristics, and variables involved in the addictive process can determine an individual's vulnerability to develop drug addiction. Hedonic eating, based on pleasure rather than energy needs, modulates the same reward circuits, as do drugs of abuse. According to the last report of the World Health Organization, the worldwide obesity rate has more than doubled since 1980, reaching especially critical levels in children and young people, who are overexposed to high-fat, high-sugar, energy-dense foods. Over the past few decades, there has been an increase in the number of studies focused on how eating disorders can lead to the development of drug addiction and on the comorbidity that exists between the two disorders. Herein, we review the most recent research on the subject, focusing especially on animal models of binge eating disorders and drug addiction. The complex profile of patients with substance use and binge eating disorders requires an integrated response to dually diagnosed patients. Nutritional patterns should be considered an important variable in the treatment of substance use disorders, and future studies need to focus on specific treatments and interventions in individuals who show a special vulnerability to shift from one addiction to the other.
PubMed: 34631457
DOI: 10.5498/wjp.v11.i9.517 -
International Journal of Environmental... Jan 2021The study of cognitive change across a life span, both in pathological and healthy samples, has been heavily influenced by developments in cognitive psychology as a... (Review)
Review
The study of cognitive change across a life span, both in pathological and healthy samples, has been heavily influenced by developments in cognitive psychology as a theoretical paradigm, neuropsychology and other bio-medical fields; this alongside the increase in new longitudinal and cohort designs, complemented in the last decades by the evaluation of experimental interventions. Here, a review of aging databases was conducted, looking for the most relevant studies carried out on cognitive functioning in healthy older adults. The aim was to review not only longitudinal, cross-sectional or cohort studies, but also by intervention program evaluations. The most important studies, searching for long-term patterns of stability and change of cognitive measures across a life span and in old age, have shown a great range of inter-individual variability in cognitive functioning changes attributed to age. Furthermore, intellectual functioning in healthy individuals seems to decline rather late in life, if ever, as shown in longitudinal studies where age-related decline of cognitive functioning occurs later in life than indicated by cross-sectional studies. The longitudinal evidence and experimental trials have shown the benefits of aerobic physical exercise and an intellectually engaged lifestyle, suggesting that bio-psycho-socioenvironmental factors concurrently with age predict or determine both positive or negative change or stability in cognition in later life.
Topics: Aged; Aging; Cognition; Cognition Disorders; Cross-Sectional Studies; Healthy Aging; Humans; Longitudinal Studies
PubMed: 33499254
DOI: 10.3390/ijerph18030962 -
Molecules (Basel, Switzerland) Jul 2020Taste processing is an adaptive mechanism involving complex physiological, motivational and cognitive processes. Animal models have provided relevant data about the... (Review)
Review
Taste processing is an adaptive mechanism involving complex physiological, motivational and cognitive processes. Animal models have provided relevant data about the neuroanatomical and neurobiological components of taste processing. From these models, two important domains of taste responses are described in this review. The first part focuses on the neuroanatomical and neurophysiological bases of olfactory and taste processing. The second part describes the biological and behavioral characteristics of taste learning, with an emphasis on conditioned taste aversion as a key process for the survival and health of many species, including humans.
Topics: Amygdala; Animals; Avoidance Learning; Brain Mapping; Conditioning, Psychological; Humans; Models, Neurological; Olfactory Perception; Taste Perception
PubMed: 32650432
DOI: 10.3390/molecules25143112 -
Arquivos de Neuro-psiquiatria Oct 2020
Topics: Humans; Polysomnography; REM Sleep Behavior Disorder; Sleep, REM
PubMed: 33146234
DOI: 10.1590/0004-282X20200189 -
Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience 2022
PubMed: 36035021
DOI: 10.3389/fnbeh.2022.978386 -
Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences Aug 2019Mitochondrial psychobiology is the study of the interactions between psychological states and the biological processes that take place within mitochondria. It also...
Mitochondrial psychobiology is the study of the interactions between psychological states and the biological processes that take place within mitochondria. It also examines how mitochondrial behavior influence neural, endocrine, and immune systems known to transduce psychological experiences into health outcomes. Unlike traditional biological outcomes and mediators, mitochondria are dynamic and multifunctional living organisms. By leveraging a variety of laboratory tools including omics, scientists can now map mitochondrial behavior at multiple levels of complexity - from isolated molecular markers to dynamic functional and signaling outcomes. Here we discuss current efforts to develop relevant measures of mitochondrial behavior in accessible human tissues, increase their biological specificity by applying precise measurements in defined cell populations, create composite indices reflecting mitochondrial health, and integrate these approaches with psycho-neuro-endocrino-immune outcomes. This systematic inter-disciplinary effort will help move the field of mitochondrial psychobiology towards a predictive science explaining how, and to what extent, mitochondria contribute to the biological embedding of stress and other psychological states.
PubMed: 32637466
DOI: 10.1016/j.cobeha.2019.04.015 -
Frontiers in Neuroanatomy 2020The hypothalamus is a heterogeneous rostral forebrain region that regulates physiological processes essential for survival, energy metabolism, and reproduction, mainly... (Review)
Review
The hypothalamus is a heterogeneous rostral forebrain region that regulates physiological processes essential for survival, energy metabolism, and reproduction, mainly mediated by the pituitary gland. In the updated prosomeric model, the hypothalamus represents the rostralmost forebrain, composed of two segmental regions (terminal and peduncular hypothalamus), which extend respectively into the non-evaginated preoptic telencephalon and the evaginated pallio-subpallial telencephalon. Complex genetic cascades of transcription factors and signaling molecules rule their development. Alterations of some of these molecular mechanisms acting during forebrain development are associated with more or less severe hypothalamic and pituitary dysfunctions, which may be associated with brain malformations such as holoprosencephaly or septo-optic dysplasia. Studies on transgenic mice with mutated genes encoding critical transcription factors implicated in hypothalamic-pituitary development are contributing to understanding the high clinical complexity of these pathologies. In this review article, we will analyze first the complex molecular genoarchitecture of the hypothalamus resulting from the activity of previous morphogenetic signaling centers and secondly some malformations related to alterations in genes implicated in the development of the hypothalamus.
PubMed: 33324176
DOI: 10.3389/fnana.2020.607111