Brain-body dysconnectivity: deficient autonomic regulation of cortical function in first-episode schizophrenia.

Background: An accumulating body of evidence indicates that peripheral physiological rhythms help regulate and organize large-scale brain activity. Given that schizophrenia (SZ) is characterized by marked abnormalities in oscillatory cortical activity as well as changes in autonomic function, the present study aimed to identify mechanisms by which central and autonomic nervous system deficits may be related. We evaluated phase-amplitude coupling (PAC) as a physiological mechanism through which autonomic nervous system (ANS) and central nervous system (CNS) activity are integrated and that may be disrupted in SZ.

Fetal Gene Regulatory Gene Deletions are Associated with Poor Cognition and Altered Cortical Morphology in Schizophrenia and Community-Based Samples.

Schizophrenia spectrum disorders (SSDs) are characterized by substantial clinical and genetic heterogeneity. Multiple recurrent copy number variants (CNVs) increase risk for SSDs; however, how known risk CNVs and broader genome-wide CNVs influence clinical variability is unclear. The current study examined associations between borderline intellectual functioning or childhood-onset psychosis, known risk CNVs, and burden of deletions affecting genes in 18 previously validated neurodevelopmental gene-sets in 618 SSD individuals.

Intrinsic Infant Hippocampal Function Supports Inhibitory Processing.

Impaired cerebral inhibition is commonly observed in neurodevelopmental disorders and may represent a vulnerability factor for their development. The hippocampus plays a key role in inhibition among adults and undergoes significant and rapid changes during early brain development. Therefore, the structure represents an important candidate region for early identification of pathology that is relevant to inhibitory dysfunction.

Task-based default mode network connectivity predicts cognitive impairment and negative symptoms in first-episode schizophrenia.

Individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia (SZ) demonstrate difficulty distinguishing between internally and externally generated stimuli. These aberrations in "source monitoring" have been theorized as contributing to symptoms of the disorder, including hallucinations and delusions. Altered connectivity within the default mode network (DMN) of the brain has been proposed as a mechanism through which discrimination between self-generated and externally generated events is disrupted.

Oscillatory Coupling Between Neural and Cardiac Rhythms.

Oscillations serve a critical role in organizing biological systems. In the brain, oscillatory coupling is a fundamental mechanism of communication. The possibility that neural oscillations interact directly with slower physiological rhythms (e.

Connectome-based predictive modeling of empathy in adolescents with and without the low-prosocial emotion specifier.

Empathy impairments are an important part of a broader affective impairments defining the youth antisocial phenotype callous-unemotional (CU) traits and the DSM-5 low prosocial emotion (LPE) specifier. While functional connectivity underlying empathy and CU traits have been well studied, less is known about what functional connections underly differences in empathy amongst adolescents qualifying for the LPE specifier. Such information can provide mechanistic distinctions for this clinically relevant specifier.

Effective connectivity between Broca's area and amygdala as a mechanism of top-down control in worry.

Individuals higher in trait worry exhibit increased activation in Broca's area during inhibitory processing tasks. To identify whether such activity represents an adaptive mechanism supporting top-down control, functional and effective connectivity of Broca's area were investigated during a task of inhibitory control. fMRI data obtained from 106 participants performing an emotion-word Stroop task were examined using psychophysiological interaction and Granger Causality (GC) analyses.

Magnetoencephalography for Schizophrenia.

Schizophrenia (Sz) is a chronic mental disorder characterized by disturbances in thought (such as delusions and confused thinking), perception (hearing voices), and behavior (lack of motivation). The lifetime prevalence of Sz is between 0.3% and 0.

Extreme-groups designs in studies of dimensional phenomena: Advantages, caveats, and recommendations.

Extreme-groups designs (EGDs) are common in psychopathology research, often using diagnostic category as an independent variable. Continuous-variable analysis strategies drawing from a general linear model framework can be applied to such designs. The growing emphasis on dimensional examinations of psychological constructs, encouraged by the National Institute of Mental Health Research Domain Criteria framework, encourages continuous-variable analytic strategies.

Human behavioural discrimination of human, chimpanzee and macaque affective vocalisations is reflected by the neural response in the superior temporal sulcus.

Accurate perception of the emotional content of vocalisations is essential for successful social communication and interaction. However, it is not clear whether our ability to perceive emotional cues from vocal signals is specific to human signals, or can be applied to other species' vocalisations. Here, we address this issue by evaluating the perception and neural response to affective vocalisations from different primate species (humans, chimpanzees and macaques).

Prefrontal Recruitment Mitigates Risk-Taking Behavior in Human Immunodeficiency Virus-Infected Young Adults.

Background: Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected (HIV+) young adults often engage in risk-taking behavior. However, the disruptive effects of HIV on the neurobiological underpinnings of risky decision making are not well understood.

Methods: Risky decision making, measured via the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT), was compared voxel-wise to resting cerebral blood flow (rCBF) acquired via arterial spin labeling.

Intrinsic network connectivity abnormalities in HIV-infected individuals over age 60.

Individuals infected with HIV are living longer due to effective treatment with combination antiretroviral therapy (cART). Despite these advances, HIV-associated neurocognitive disorders (HAND) remain prevalent. In this study, we analyzed resting state functional connectivity (rs-fc) data from HIV-infected and matched HIV-uninfected adults aged 60 years and older to determine associations between HIV status, neuropsychological performance, and clinical variables.

Enhanced response to music in pregnancy.

Given a possible effect of estrogen on the pleasure-mediating dopaminergic system, musical appreciation in participants whose estrogen levels are naturally elevated during the oral contraceptive cycle and pregnancy has been investigated (n = 32, 15 pregnant, 17 nonpregnant; mean age 27.2). Results show more pronounced blood pressure responses to music in pregnant women.