Mesoscale cortex-wide neural dynamics predict self-initiated actions in mice several seconds prior to movement.

Volition - the sense of control or agency over one's voluntary actions - is widely recognized as the basis of both human subjective experience and natural behavior in nonhuman animals. Several human studies have found peaks in neural activity preceding voluntary actions, for example the readiness potential (RP), and some have shown upcoming actions could be decoded even before awareness. Others propose that random processes underlie and explain pre-movement neural activity.

Neocortical kindling is associated with opposing alterations in dendritic morphology in neocortical layer V and striatum from neocortical layer III.

Previous research has shown that seizures kindled in the corpus callosum result in a persistent enhancement of the callosal-neocortical evoked response but only a transient reduction in layer III pyramidal cell morphology. To date, there are no reports on the direct effects of repeated seizures on dendritic morphology in layer V, the pyramidal layer thought to mediate the kindling-induced enhanced evoked response. This experiment examined the effect of repeated seizures elicited from the corpus callosum, at the level of the frontal neocortex, on the morphology of sensorimotor frontal (Fr1) and occipital (OC1) neocortical layer V, as well as striatal and neuronal dendrites, in male rats.

Selective brain responses to acute and chronic low-dose X-ray irradiation in males and females.

Radiation exposure is known to have profound effects on the brain, leading to precursor cell dysfunction and debilitating cognitive declines [Nat. Med. 8 (2002) 955].