Age-related differences in transient gamma band activity during working memory maintenance through adolescence.

Adolescence is a stage of development characterized by neurodevelopmental specialization of cognitive processes. In particular, working memory continues to improve through adolescence, with increases in response accuracy and decreases in response latency continuing well into the twenties. Human electroencephalogram (EEG) studies indicate that gamma oscillations (35-65 Hz) during the working memory delay period support the maintenance of mnemonic information guiding subsequent goal-driven behavior, which decrease in power with development.

Early onset consumption of coca paste associated with executive-attention vulnerability markers linked to caudate-frontal structural and functional abnormalities.

Coca paste is the most popular form of smoked cocaine (SC) in Latin America and also the most widespread among adolescents in vulnerable sectors of society, thus representing a significant public health concern. Despite evidence suggesting that abnormal executive-attention function is predictive of addiction to stimulant drugs, no study to date has compared clinically relevant neuropsychological (NPS) and physiological variables between individuals with histories of smoked cocaine dependence (SCD) and insufflated cocaine hydrochloride dependence (ICD). In this study we evaluated 25 SCD and 22 ICD subjects matched by poly-consumption profiles, and 25 healthy controls (CTR) matched by age, gender, education, and socioeconomic status.

Relationship among subjective responses, flavor, and chemical composition across more than 800 commercial cannabis varieties.

Background: Widespread commercialization of cannabis has led to the introduction of brand names based on users' subjective experience of psychological effects and flavors, but this process has occurred in the absence of agreed standards. The objective of this work was to leverage information extracted from large databases to evaluate the consistency and validity of these subjective reports, and to determine their correlation with the reported cultivars and with estimates of their chemical composition (delta-9-THC, CBD, terpenes).

Methods: We analyzed a large publicly available dataset extracted from Leafly.

At the Heart of Neurological Dimensionality: Cross-Nosological and Multimodal Cardiac Interoceptive Deficits.

Objective: Neurological nosology, based on categorical systems, has largely ignored dimensional aspects of neurocognitive impairments. Transdiagnostic dimensional approaches of interoception (the sensing of visceral signals) may improve the descriptions of cross-pathological symptoms at behavioral, electrophysiological, and anatomical levels. Alterations of cardiac interoception (encompassing multidimensional variables such as accuracy, learning, sensibility, and awareness) and its neural correlates (electrophysiological markers, imaging-based anatomical and functional connectivity) have been proposed as critical across disparate neurological disorders.

A multidimensional and multi-feature framework for cardiac interoception.

Interoception (the sensing of inner-body signals) is a multi-faceted construct with major relevance for basic and clinical neuroscience research. However, the neurocognitive signatures of this domain (cutting across behavioral, electrophysiological, and fMRI connectivity levels) are rarely reported in convergent or systematic fashion. Additionally, various controversies in the field might reflect the caveats of standard interoceptive accuracy (IA) indexes, mainly based on heartbeat detection (HBD) tasks.

Multimodal neurocognitive markers of interoceptive tuning in smoked cocaine.

Contemporary neurocognitive models of drug addiction have associated this condition with changes in interoception -namely, the sensing and processing of body signals that fulfill homeostatic functions relevant for the onset and maintenance of addictive behavior. However, most previous evidence is inconsistent, behaviorally unspecific, and virtually null in terms of direct electrophysiological and multimodal markers. To circumvent these limitations, we conducted the first assessment of the relation between cardiac interoception and smoked cocaine dependence (SCD) in a sample of (a) 25 participants who fulfilled criteria for dependence on such a drug, (b) 22 participants addicted to insufflated clorhidrate cocaine (only for behavioral assessment), and (c) 25 healthy controls matched by age, gender, education, and socioeconomic status.

Tackling variability: A multicenter study to provide a gold-standard network approach for frontotemporal dementia.

Biomarkers represent a critical research area in neurodegeneration disease as they can contribute to studying potential disease-modifying agents, fostering timely therapeutic interventions, and alleviating associated financial costs. Functional connectivity (FC) analysis represents a promising approach to identify early biomarkers in specific diseases. Yet, virtually no study has tested whether potential FC biomarkers prove to be reliable and reproducible across different centers.