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Nature Communications Jul 2024Attention supports decision making by selecting the features that are relevant for decisions. Selective enhancement of the relevant features and inhibition of...
Attention supports decision making by selecting the features that are relevant for decisions. Selective enhancement of the relevant features and inhibition of distractors has been proposed as potential neural mechanisms driving this selection process. Yet, how attention operates when relevance cannot be directly determined, and the attention signal needs to be internally constructed is less understood. Here we recorded from populations of neurons in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) of mice in an attention-shifting task where relevance of stimulus modalities changed across blocks of trials. In contrast with V1 recordings, decoding of the irrelevant modality gradually declined in ACC after an initial transient. Our analytical proof and a recurrent neural network model of the task revealed mutually inhibiting connections that produced context-gated suppression as observed in mice. Using this RNN model we predicted a correlation between contextual modulation of individual neurons and their stimulus drive, which we confirmed in ACC but not in V1.
Topics: Animals; Gyrus Cinguli; Decision Making; Attention; Mice; Neurons; Male; Mice, Inbred C57BL; Models, Neurological; Photic Stimulation; Visual Cortex
PubMed: 38956080
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-49845-2 -
Nature Communications Jul 2024Olfaction is influenced by contextual factors, past experiences, and the animal's internal state. Whether this information is integrated at the initial stages of...
Olfaction is influenced by contextual factors, past experiences, and the animal's internal state. Whether this information is integrated at the initial stages of cortical odour processing is not known, nor how these signals may influence odour encoding. Here we revealed multiple and diverse non-olfactory responses in the primary olfactory (piriform) cortex (PCx), which dynamically enhance PCx odour discrimination according to behavioural demands. We performed recordings of PCx neurons from mice trained in a virtual reality task to associate odours with visual contexts to obtain a reward. We found that learning shifts PCx activity from encoding solely odours to a regime in which positional, contextual, and associative responses emerge on odour-responsive neurons that become mixed-selective. The modulation of PCx activity by these non-olfactory signals was dynamic, improving odour decoding during task engagement and in rewarded contexts. This improvement relied on the acquired mixed-selectivity, demonstrating how integrating extra-sensory inputs in sensory cortices can enhance sensory processing while encoding the behavioural relevance of stimuli.
Topics: Animals; Odorants; Mice; Smell; Reward; Male; Olfactory Cortex; Piriform Cortex; Mice, Inbred C57BL; Olfactory Perception; Neurons; Female; Discrimination, Psychological
PubMed: 38956072
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-49897-4 -
Scientific Reports Jul 2024Across vertebrates, adaptive behaviors, like feeding and avoiding predators, are linked to lateralized brain function. The presence of the behavioral manifestations of...
Across vertebrates, adaptive behaviors, like feeding and avoiding predators, are linked to lateralized brain function. The presence of the behavioral manifestations of these biases are associated with increased task success. Additionally, when an individual's direction of bias aligns with the majority of the population, it is linked to social advantages. However, it remains unclear if behavioral biases in humans correlate with the same advantages. This large-scale study (N = 313-1661, analyses dependent) examines whether the strength and alignment of behavioral biases associate with cognitive and social benefits respectively in humans. To remain aligned with the animal literature, we evaluate motor-sensory biases linked to motor-sequencing and emotion detection to assess lateralization. Results reveal that moderate hand lateralization is positively associated with task success and task success is, in turn, associated with language fluency, possibly representing a cascade effect. Additionally, like other vertebrates, the majority of our human sample possess a 'standard' laterality profile (right hand bias, left visual bias). A 'reversed' profile is rare by comparison, and associates higher self-reported social difficulties and increased rate of autism and/or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. We highlight the importance of employing a comparative theoretical framing to illuminate how and why different laterization profiles associate with diverging social and cognitive phenotypes.
Topics: Humans; Cognition; Male; Female; Functional Laterality; Adult; Young Adult; Adolescent; Social Skills; Middle Aged; Emotions
PubMed: 38956070
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-64372-2 -
Translational Psychiatry Jul 2024Addiction is a complex behavioral disorder characterized by compulsive drug-seeking and drug use despite harmful consequences. The prefrontal cortex (PFC) plays a...
Addiction is a complex behavioral disorder characterized by compulsive drug-seeking and drug use despite harmful consequences. The prefrontal cortex (PFC) plays a crucial role in cocaine addiction, involving decision-making, impulse control, memory, and emotional regulation. The PFC interacts with the brain's reward system, including the ventral tegmental area (VTA) and nucleus accumbens (NAc). The PFC also projects to the lateral habenula (LHb), a brain region critical for encoding negative reward and regulating the reward system. In the current study, we examined the role of PFC-LHb projections in regulating cocaine reward-related behaviors. We found that optogenetic stimulation of the PFC-LHb circuit during cocaine conditioning abolished cocaine preference without causing aversion. In addition, increased c-fos expression in LHb neurons was observed in animals that received optic stimulation during cocaine conditioning, supporting the circuit's involvement in cocaine preference regulation. Molecular analysis in animals that received optic stimulation revealed that cocaine-induced alterations in the expression of GluA1 subunit of AMPA receptor was normalized to saline levels in a region-specific manner. Moreover, GluA1 serine phosphorylation on S845 and S831 were differentially altered in LHb and VTA but not in the PFC. Together these findings highlight the critical role of the PFC-LHb circuit in controlling cocaine reward-related behaviors and shed light on the underlying mechanisms. Understanding this circuit's function may provide valuable insights into addiction and contribute to developing targeted treatments for substance use disorders.
Topics: Animals; Prefrontal Cortex; Cocaine; Male; Reward; Habenula; Neurons; Receptors, AMPA; Optogenetics; Cocaine-Related Disorders; Neural Pathways; Rats; Proto-Oncogene Proteins c-fos; Phosphorylation; Ventral Tegmental Area; Behavior, Animal
PubMed: 38956048
DOI: 10.1038/s41398-024-02988-8 -
Translational Psychiatry Jul 2024The Addictions Neuroclinical Assessment (ANA) is a neurobiologically-informed framework designed to understand the etiology and heterogeneity of Alcohol Use Disorder... (Observational Study)
Observational Study
The Addictions Neuroclinical Assessment (ANA) is a neurobiologically-informed framework designed to understand the etiology and heterogeneity of Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD). Previous studies validated the three neurofunctional domains of ANA: Incentive Salience (IS), Negative Emotionality (NE) and Executive Function (EF) using secondary data. The present cross-sectional observational study assessed these domains in an independent, prospective clinical sample. Adults across the drinking spectrum (N = 300) completed the ANA battery, a standardized collection of behavioral tasks and self-report assessments. Factor analyses were used to identify latent factors underlying each domain. Associations between identified domain factors were evaluated using structural equation models. Receiver operating characteristics analyses were used to determine factors with the strongest ability to classify individuals with problematic drinking and AUD. We found (1) two factors underlie the IS domain: alcohol motivation and alcohol insensitivity. (2) Three factors were identified for the NE domain: internalizing, externalizing, and psychological strength. (3) Five factors were found for the EF domain: inhibitory control, working memory, rumination, interoception, and impulsivity. (4) These ten factors showed varying degrees of cross-correlations, with alcohol motivation, internalizing, and impulsivity exhibiting the strongest correlations. (5) Alcohol motivation, alcohol insensitivity, and impulsivity showed the greatest ability in classifying individuals with problematic drinking and AUD. Thus, the present study identified unique factors underlying each ANA domain assessed using a standardized assessment battery. These results revealed additional dimensionality to the ANA domains, bringing together different constructs from the field into a single cohesive framework and advancing the field of addiction phenotyping. Future work will focus on identifying neurobiological correlates and identifying AUD subtypes based on these factors.
Topics: Humans; Male; Female; Adult; Cross-Sectional Studies; Alcoholism; Executive Function; Neuropsychological Tests; Motivation; Middle Aged; Prospective Studies; Impulsive Behavior; Young Adult; Behavior, Addictive; Emotions; Factor Analysis, Statistical
PubMed: 38956031
DOI: 10.1038/s41398-024-02987-9 -
Nature Communications Jul 2024Goal-directed tasks involve acquiring an internal model, known as a predictive map, of relevant stimuli and associated outcomes to guide behavior. Here, we identified...
Goal-directed tasks involve acquiring an internal model, known as a predictive map, of relevant stimuli and associated outcomes to guide behavior. Here, we identified neural signatures of a predictive map of task behavior in perirhinal cortex (Prh). Mice learned to perform a tactile working memory task by classifying sequential whisker stimuli over multiple training stages. Chronic two-photon calcium imaging, population analysis, and computational modeling revealed that Prh encodes stimulus features as sensory prediction errors. Prh forms stable stimulus-outcome associations that can progressively be decoded earlier in the trial as training advances and that generalize as animals learn new contingencies. Stimulus-outcome associations are linked to prospective network activity encoding possible expected outcomes. This link is mediated by cholinergic signaling to guide task performance, demonstrated by acetylcholine imaging and systemic pharmacological perturbation. We propose that Prh combines error-driven and map-like properties to acquire a predictive map of learned task behavior.
Topics: Animals; Mice; Perirhinal Cortex; Memory, Short-Term; Male; Learning; Mice, Inbred C57BL; Vibrissae; Acetylcholine; Behavior, Animal; Female
PubMed: 38956015
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-47365-7 -
International Ophthalmology Jul 2024To review long-term outcomes of circumscribed choroidal hemangioma (CCH).
PURPOSE
To review long-term outcomes of circumscribed choroidal hemangioma (CCH).
METHODS
Hospital charts of all CCH cases diagnosed from 2008 to 2019 were retrospectively reviewed.
RESULTS
All 172 patients were managed with either observation, transpupillary thermotherapy, argon laser photocoagulation, photodynamic therapy, plaque brachytherapy or stereotactic radiosurgery. The most common 3 modes of management were clinical observation (30.2%), transpupillary thermotherapy (52.9%) and argon laser photocoagulation (8.7%). Median follow-up time was 10 months (range: 3, 160). Anatomical outcomes were stable in 87.1% of observation group and improved in 60.5% of thermotherapy group. Quantified optical coherence tomography angiography findings showed statistical differences in vascular and perfusion densities in fellow eyes of hemangioma patients.
CONCLUSION
Circumscribed choroidal hemangioma can be treated in various ways. Transpupillary thermotherapy is an anatomically effective treatment in selected cases. The diagnosis of CCH may have vascular implications in fellow eyes of the patients.
Topics: Humans; Choroid Neoplasms; Female; Male; Retrospective Studies; Middle Aged; Tomography, Optical Coherence; Fluorescein Angiography; Adult; Tertiary Care Centers; Hemangioma; Visual Acuity; Aged; Follow-Up Studies; Photochemotherapy; Hyperthermia, Induced; Fundus Oculi; Young Adult; Choroid
PubMed: 38955894
DOI: 10.1007/s10792-024-03238-y -
East Asian Archives of Psychiatry :... Jun 2024There is evidence suggesting that autistic traits are associated with schizotypal traits. This study examined the factor structure of the Autism Spectrum Quotient 10...
BACKGROUND
There is evidence suggesting that autistic traits are associated with schizotypal traits. This study examined the factor structure of the Autism Spectrum Quotient 10 (AQ-10) and its associations with schizotypal traits (measured by the Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire-Brief [SPQ-B]) in a cohort of Chinese adolescents and young adults.
METHODS
Invitation letters, stratified by locations and housing types, were randomly sent to individuals aged 15 to 24 years for participation. Assessments were made using face-to-face or online interviews. Autistic traits were assessed using the Chinese version of the AQ-10. Schizotypal personality traits were assessed using the Chinese version of the 22-item SPQ-B.
RESULTS
In total, 395 male and 536 female participants (mean age, 19.93 years) were recruited between July 2020 and May 2021. Exploratory factor analysis of the AQ-10 yielded three factors (theory of mind, task switching, and attention deficits) explaining 55.11% of the total variance. Autistic traits were positively correlated with schizotypal traits of disorganised features ( = 0.21, p < 0.001), interpersonal relationship deficits ( = 0.19, p < 0.001), and cognitive-perceptual deficits ( = 0.11, p = 0.001).
CONCLUSION
In Chinese adolescents and young adults, autistic traits, especially task switching and attention deficits (compared with theory of mind) are more closely correlated with schizotypal personality traits. Disentangling the overlapping and diametrical structure of autistic traits and schizotypal traits may help understand their aetiologies, assessment, and interventions.
Topics: Humans; Male; Female; Adolescent; Young Adult; Schizotypal Personality Disorder; Autism Spectrum Disorder; Hong Kong; Factor Analysis, Statistical; Surveys and Questionnaires; Adult; Theory of Mind; Psychiatric Status Rating Scales
PubMed: 38955787
DOI: 10.12809/eaap2409 -
East Asian Archives of Psychiatry :... Mar 2024
Topics: Humans; Dreams; Male; Singapore; Adult; Female; Prazosin; Middle Aged; Adrenergic alpha-1 Receptor Antagonists; Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic; Young Adult
PubMed: 38955779
DOI: 10.12809/eaap2344 -
Zhonghua Er Ke Za Zhi = Chinese Journal... Jul 2024
Topics: Pediatrics; Humans; Consensus; China; Practice Guidelines as Topic; Periodicals as Topic; Child; East Asian People
PubMed: 38955680
DOI: 10.3760/cma.j.cn112140-20240227-00127