Publications by authors named "J M Coxon"

Secondary motor cortical regions, such as the supplementary motor area (SMA) are involved in planning and learning motor sequences, however the neurophysiological mechanisms across these secondary cortical networks remain poorly understood. In primary motor cortex, changes in excitatory and inhibitory neurotransmission (E:I balance) accompany motor sequence learning. In particular, there is an early reduction in inhibition (i.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • The study evaluated the non-return rate of faecal immunochemical tests among patients referred for high-risk colorectal cancer symptoms, finding that 11.9% of 7345 patients did not submit their tests.
  • Non-returners tended to be younger, predominantly male, and from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, and they exhibited different clinical outcomes compared to those who returned the test.
  • Despite a higher prevalence of colorectal cancer in those who underwent investigations, the overall cancer prevalence was similar between returners and non-returners over a median follow-up of 25 months, indicating potential issues in care access or follow-up for non-returners.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Cannabis Use Disorder (CUD) is linked to negative effects on mental health, social interactions, and cognitive abilities, with increasing prevalence rates highlighting the need for effective risk assessment.
  • Utilizing advanced MRI techniques, this study analyzed white matter (WM) changes in 56 individuals with CUD compared to 38 healthy controls, revealing significant alterations in structural connectivity and WM density in specific brain regions.
  • Results indicate that higher cannabis use correlates with increased connectivity strength and specific age-related changes in WM density, providing new insights into the brain’s structural changes associated with CUD.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Key event-related potentials (ERPs) of perceptual decision-making such as centroparietal positivity (CPP) elucidate how evidence is accumulated toward a given choice. Furthermore, this accumulation can be impacted by visual target selection signals such as the N2 contralateral (N2c). How these underlying neural mechanisms of perceptual decision-making are influenced by the spatial congruence of distractors relative to target stimuli remains unclear.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Regular exercise benefits learning and memory in older adults, but the neural mechanisms mediating these effects remain unclear. Evidence in young adults indicates that acute exercise creates a favourable environment for synaptic plasticity by enhancing cortical disinhibition. As such, we investigated whether plasticity-related disinhibition mediated the relationship between cardiorespiratory fitness and memory function in healthy older adults (n = 16, mean age = 66.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF