Early alterations of functional connectivity, regional brain volumes and astrocyte markers in the beta-sitosterol beta-d-glucoside (BSSG) rat model of parkinsonism.

The β-sitosterol-β-ᴅ-glucoside (BSSG) rat model of experimental parkinsonism develops pathological behaviour and motor changes that progress over time. The purpose of this study was to identify early changes in structure and function of the brain of rats treated with BSSG using both structural and resting-state functional MRI. BSSG and non-BSSG rats were fed five days a week for sixteen weeks, then underwent in vivo MRI scans and an assessment of motor performance 2 and 8 weeks later (18 and week 24 from BSSG).

Estimating the energy of dissipative neural systems.

There is, at present, a lack of consensus regarding precisely what is meant by the term 'energy' across the sub-disciplines of neuroscience. Definitions range from deficits in the rate of glucose metabolism in consciousness research to regional changes in neuronal activity in cognitive neuroscience. In computational neuroscience virtually all models define the energy of neuronal regions as a quantity that is in a continual process of dissipation to its surroundings.

Metastability demystified - the foundational past, the pragmatic present and the promising future.

Healthy brain function depends on balancing stable integration between brain areas for effective coordinated functioning, with coexisting segregation that allows subsystems to express their functional specialization. Metastability, a concept from the dynamical systems literature, has been proposed as a key signature that characterizes this balance. Building on this principle, the neuroscience literature has leveraged the phenomenon of metastability to investigate various aspects of brain function in health and disease.

Extra-axial inflammatory signal and its relationship to peripheral and central immunity in depression.

Although both central and peripheral inflammation have been observed consistently in depression, the relationship between the two remains obscure. Extra-axial immune cells may play a role in mediating the connection between central and peripheral immunity. This study investigates the potential roles of calvarial bone marrow and parameningeal spaces in mediating interactions between central and peripheral immunity in depression.

ASCHOPLEX: A generalizable approach for the automatic segmentation of choroid plexus.

Background: The Choroid Plexus (ChP) plays a vital role in brain homeostasis, serving as part of the Blood-Cerebrospinal Fluid Barrier, contributing to brain clearance pathways and being the main source of cerebrospinal fluid. Since the involvement of ChP in neurological and psychiatric disorders is not entirely established and currently under investigation, accurate and reproducible segmentation of this brain structure on large cohorts remains challenging. This paper presents ASCHOPLEX, a deep-learning tool for the automated segmentation of human ChP from structural MRI data that integrates existing software architectures like 3D UNet, UNETR, and DynUNet to deliver accurate ChP volume estimates.