Differences in ongoing thought between autistic and non-autistic adults.

Autistic people may be distinguishable from non-autistic individuals in the content and modality of their thoughts. Such differences potentially underlie both psychological vulnerability and strengths, motivating the need to better understand autistic thought patterns. In non-clinical undergraduates, a recent study found that autistic traits were associated with thinking more in words than images.

Macro-scale patterns in functional connectivity associated with ongoing thought patterns and dispositional traits.

Complex macro-scale patterns of brain activity that emerge during periods of wakeful rest provide insight into the organisation of neural function, how these differentiate individuals based on their traits, and the neural basis of different types of self-generated thoughts. Although brain activity during wakeful rest is valuable for understanding important features of human cognition, its unconstrained nature makes it difficult to disentangle neural features related to personality traits from those related to the thoughts occurring at rest. Our study builds on recent perspectives from work on ongoing conscious thought that highlight the interactions between three brain networks - ventral and dorsal attention networks, as well as the default mode network.

Personality traits vary in their association with brain activity across situations.

Human cognition supports complex behaviour across a range of situations, and traits (e.g. personality) influence how we react in these different contexts.

Age-associated proteins explain the role of medial temporal lobe networks in Alzheimer's disease.

The structural connectivity (SC) of the medial temporal lobe and its associated cortical anterior temporal and posterior medial networks (MTL-AT-PM) is linked to pathologies and memory decline in Alzheimer's disease (AD). However, neuroimaging analyses cannot tell us how SC changes occur in AD at the molecular level and do not provide a means of intervening to slow/prevent pathology-related changes in MTL-AT-PM SC. The current study aimed to understand how and where AD-related changes occur within MTL-AT-PM using proteomics.

Risk-Taking Behavior Differs Between Older Adults with and without Mild Cognitive Impairment.

Background: Adequately evaluating risk and making decisions is vital but understudied for older adults living independently but with compromised cognition, as seen in those with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), specifically those with amnestic MCI (aMCI) which is associated with higher risk of conversion to Alzheimer's disease.

Objective: We propose to comprehensively evaluate risk-taking behaviors across domains important for everyday activities between an aMCI group and their cognitively healthy counterparts (HC).

Methods: A case-control study design.

Vision-based estimation of fatigue and engagement in cognitive training sessions.

Computerized cognitive training (CCT) is a scalable, well-tolerated intervention that has promise for slowing cognitive decline. The effectiveness of CCT is often affected by a lack of effective engagement. Mental fatigue is a the primary factor for compromising effective engagement in CCT, particularly in older adults at risk for dementia.

Positive affect disrupts neurodegeneration effects on cognitive training plasticity in older adults.

Cognitive training for older adults varies in efficacy, but it is unclear why some older adults benefit more than others. Positive affective experience (PAE), referring to high positive valence and/or stable arousal states across everyday scenarios, and associated functional networks can protect plasticity mechanisms against Alzheimer's disease neurodegeneration, which may contribute to training outcome variability. The objective of this study is to investigate whether PAE explains variability in cognitive training outcomes by disrupting the adverse effect of neurodegeneration on plasticity.

Brain imaging studies of emotional well-being: a scoping review.

Unlabelled: This scoping review provides an overview of previous empirical studies that used brain imaging techniques to investigate the neural correlates of emotional well-being (EWB). We compiled evidence on this topic into one accessible and usable document as a foundation for future research into the relationship between EWB and the brain. PRISMA 2020 guidelines were followed.

Experience sampling reveals the role that covert goal states play in task-relevant behavior.

Cognitive neuroscience has gained insight into covert states using experience sampling. Traditionally, this approach has focused on off-task states. However, task-relevant states are also maintained via covert processes.

Improving comparability across cognitive training trials for brain aging: A focus on interoperability.

Unlabelled: Cognitive training may promote healthy brain aging and prevent dementia, but results from individual studies are inconsistent. There are disagreements on how to evaluate cognitive training interventions between clinical and basic scientists. Individual labs typically create their own assessment and training materials, leading to difficulties reproducing methods.

Influence of affective states on informant impression of neuropsychiatric symptoms in people living with MCI.

: Alzheimer's disease (AD) and mild cognitive impairment (MCI) are often accompanied by neuropsychiatric symptoms (NPS; e.g. depression/apathy/irritability) causing challenges for people living with dementia/caregivers and predicting worse disease progression.

CCA identifies a neurophysiological marker of adaptation capacity that is reliably linked to internal locus of control of cognition in amnestic MCI.

Locus of control (LOC) describes whether an individual thinks that they themselves (internal LOC) or external factors (external LOC) have more influence on their lives. LOC varies by domain, and a person's LOC for their intellectual capacities (LOC-Cognition) may be a marker of resilience in older adults at risk for dementia, with internal LOC-Cognition relating to better outcomes and improved treatment adherence. Vagal control, a key component of parasympathetic autonomic nervous system (ANS) regulation, may reflect a neurophysiological biomarker of internal LOC-Cognition.

Effect of online tDCS to left somatomotor cortex on neuropsychiatric symptoms among older adults at risk for dementia.

Background: Neuropsychiatric symptoms (NPS) in mild cognitive impairment (MCI) cause distress to patients and caregivers, and accelerate progression to dementia. Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is a promising non-invasive treatment for NPS.

Objective/hypothesis: This pilot study assessed behavioral and neural effects of a 4-week anodal tDCS intervention targeting left sensorimotor cortex (LSMC: left precentral/postcentral gyri) during visual attention (compared to online sham tDCS), in 40 older adults (24 females, mean age = 71) with MCI.

Unifying framework for cognitive training interventions in brain aging.

Cognitive training is a promising tool for slowing or preventing cognitive decline in older adults at-risk for dementia. Its success, however, has been limited by a lack of evidence showing that it reliably causes broad training effects: improvements in cognition across a range of domains that lead to real-world benefits. Here, we propose a framework for enhancing the effect of cognitive training interventions in brain aging.

A Novel Explainability Approach for Technology-Driven Translational Research on Brain Aging.

Brain aging leads to difficulties in functional independence. Mitigating these difficulties can benefit from technology that predicts, monitors, and modifies brain aging. Translational research prioritizes solutions that can be causally linked to specific pathophysiologies at the same time as demonstrating improvements in impactful real-world outcome measures.

Enhancing cortical network-level participation coefficient as a potential mechanism for transfer in cognitive training in aMCI.

Effective cognitive training must improve cognition beyond the trained domain (show a transfer effect) and be applicable to dementia-risk populations, e.g., amnesic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI).

Age-related changes in ongoing thought relate to external context and individual cognition.

Understanding how age-related changes in cognition manifest in the real world is an important goal. One means of capturing these changes involves "experience sampling" participant's self-reported thoughts. Research has shown age-related changes in ongoing thought: e.

Exploring patterns of ongoing thought under naturalistic and conventional task-based conditions.

Previous research suggests that patterns of ongoing thought are heterogeneous, varying across situations and individuals. The current study investigated the influence of multiple tasks and affective style on ongoing patterns of thought. We used 9 different tasks and measured ongoing thought using multidimensional experience sampling.

Increased segregation of structural brain networks underpins enhanced broad cognitive abilities of cognitive training.

A major challenge in the cognitive training field is inducing broad, far-transfer training effects. Thus far, little is known about the neural mechanisms underlying broad training effects. Here, we tested a set of competitive hypotheses regarding the role of brain integration versus segregation underlying the broad training effect.

Brain Small-Worldness Properties and Perceived Fatigue in Mild Cognitive Impairment.

Background: Perceived fatigue is among the most common complaints in older adults and is substantially influenced by diminished resources or impaired structure of widespread cortical and subcortical regions. Alzheimer's disease and its preclinical stage-mild cognitive impairment (MCI)-are considered a brain network disease. It is unknown, however, whether those with MCI will therefore perceive worse fatigue, and whether an impaired global brain network will worsen their experience of fatigue.

The neural correlates of ongoing conscious thought.

A core goal in cognitive neuroscience is identifying the physical substrates of the patterns of thought that occupy our daily lives. Contemporary views suggest that the landscape of ongoing experience is heterogeneous and can be influenced by features of both the person and the context. This perspective piece considers recent work that explicitly accounts for both the heterogeneity of the experience and context dependence of patterns of ongoing thought.

Longitudinal stability of medial temporal lobe connectivity is associated with tau-related memory decline.

The relationship between Alzheimer's disease (AD) pathology and cognitive decline is an important topic in the aging research field. Recent studies suggest that memory deficits are more susceptible to phosphorylated tau (Ptau) than amyloid-beta. However, little is known regarding the neurocognitive mechanisms linking Ptau and memory-related decline.