Muscarinic receptors mediate motivation via preparatory neural activity in humans.

Motivation depends on dopamine, but might be modulated by acetylcholine which influences dopamine release in the striatum, and amplifies motivation in animal studies. A corresponding effect in humans would be important clinically, since anticholinergic drugs are frequently used in Parkinson's disease, a condition that can also disrupt motivation. Reward and dopamine make us more ready to respond, as indexed by reaction times (RT), and move faster, sometimes termed vigour.

Corrigendum: L-DOPA increases slow-wave sleep duration and selectively modulates memory persistence in older adults.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fnbeh.2023.

-Methyl-D-Aspartate Receptor-Antibody Encephalitis Impairs Maintenance of Attention to Items in Working Memory.

NMDA receptors (NMDARs) may be crucial to working memory (WM). Computational models predict that they sustain neural firing and produce associative memory, which may underpin maintaining and binding information, respectively. We test this in patients with antibodies to NMDAR ( = 10, female) and compare them with healthy control participants ( = 55, 20 male, 35 female).

Relational Work Is the Work: Virtual Healthcare Transformation for Rural, Remote and First Nations Communities in British Columbia.

The healthcare crisis across unceded First Nations' territories in rural, remote and Indigenous communities in British Columbia (BC) is marked by persistent barriers to accessing care and support close to home. This commentary describes an exceptional story of how technology, trusted partnerships and relationships came together to create an innovative suite of virtual care programs called "Real-Time Virtual Support" (RTVS). We describe key approaches, learnings and future considerations to improve the equity of healthcare delivery for rural, remote and First Nations communities.

Confidence is predicted by pre- and post-choice decision signal dynamics.

It is well established that one's confidence in a choice can be influenced by new evidence encountered after commitment has been reached, but the processes through which post-choice evidence is sampled remain unclear. To investigate this, we traced the pre- and post-choice dynamics of electrophysiological signatures of evidence accumulation (Centro-parietal Positivity, CPP) and motor preparation (mu/beta band) to determine their sensitivity to participants' confidence in their perceptual discriminations. Pre-choice CPP amplitudes scaled with confidence both when confidence was reported simultaneously with choice, and when reported 1 second after the initial direction decision with no intervening evidence.

L-DOPA increases slow-wave sleep duration and selectively modulates memory persistence in older adults.

Introduction: Millions of people worldwide take medications such as L-DOPA that increase dopamine to treat Parkinson's disease. Yet, we do not fully understand how L-DOPA affects sleep and memory. Our earlier research in Parkinson's disease revealed that the timing of L-DOPA relative to sleep affects dopamine's impact on long-term memory.

Motivation improves working memory by two processes: Prioritisation and retrieval thresholds.

Motivation can improve performance when the potential rewards outweigh the cost of effort expended. In working memory (WM), people can prioritise rewarded items at the expense of unrewarded items, suggesting a fixed memory capacity. But can capacity itself change with motivation? Across four experiments (N = 30-34) we demonstrate motivational improvements in WM even when all items were rewarded.

Dissociable effects of -ε4 and β-amyloid pathology on visual working memory.

Although -ε4 carriers are at significantly higher risk of developing Alzheimer's disease than non-carriers, controversial evidence suggests that -ε4 might confer some advantages, explaining the survival of this gene (antagonistic pleiotropy). In a population-based cohort born in one week in 1946 (assessed aged 69-71), we assessed differential effects of -ε4 and β-amyloid pathology (quantified using F-Florbetapir-PET) on visual working memory (object-location binding). In 398 cognitively normal participants, -ε4 and β-amyloid had opposing effects on object identification, predicting better and poorer recall respectively.

A new toolbox to distinguish the sources of spatial memory error.

Studying the sources of errors in memory recall has proven invaluable for understanding the mechanisms of working memory (WM). While one-dimensional memory features (e.g.

Dopamine promotes instrumental motivation, but reduces reward-related vigour.

We can be motivated when reward depends on performance, or merely by the prospect of a guaranteed reward. Performance-dependent (contingent) reward is instrumental, relying on an internal action-outcome model, whereas motivation by guaranteed reward may minimise opportunity cost in reward-rich environments. Competing theories propose that each type of motivation should be dependent on dopaminergic activity.

Short-term memory advantage for brief durations in human APOE ε4 carriers.

The Apolipoprotein-E (APOE) ε4 gene allele, the highest known genetic risk factor for Alzheimer's disease, has paradoxically been well preserved in the human population. One possible explanation offered by evolutionary biology for survival of deleterious genes is antagonistic pleiotropy. This theory proposes that such genetic variants might confer an advantage, even earlier in life when humans are also reproductively fit.

Comparison of conventional and rapid-acting antidepressants in a rodent probabilistic reversal learning task.

Deficits in reward processing are a central feature of major depressive disorder with patients exhibiting decreased reward learning and altered feedback sensitivity in probabilistic reversal learning tasks. Methods to quantify probabilistic learning in both rodents and humans have been developed, providing translational paradigms for depression research. We have utilised a probabilistic reversal learning task to investigate potential differences between conventional and rapid-acting antidepressants on reward learning and feedback sensitivity.

Effects of Parkinson's disease and dopamine on digit span measures of working memory.

Rationale: Parkinson's disease (PD) impairs working memory (WM)-the ability to maintain items in memory for short periods of time and manipulate them. There is conflicting evidence on the nature of the deficits caused by the disease, and the potential beneficial and detrimental effects of dopaminergic medication on different WM processes.

Objectives: We hypothesised that PD impairs both maintenance and manipulation of items in WM and dopaminergic medications improve this in PD patients but impair it in healthy older adults.

Effects of dopamine on reinforcement learning and consolidation in Parkinson's disease.

Emerging evidence suggests that dopamine may modulate learning and memory with important implications for understanding the neurobiology of memory and future therapeutic targeting. An influential hypothesis posits that dopamine biases reinforcement learning. More recent data also suggest an influence during both consolidation and retrieval.

Dopamine and Consolidation of Episodic Memory: Timing is Everything.

Memory consolidation underpins adaptive behavior and dopaminergic networks may be critical for prolonged, selective information storage. To understand the time course of the dopaminergic contribution to memory consolidation in humans, here we investigate the effect of dopaminergic medication on recall and recognition in the short and longer term in Parkinson disease (PD). Fifteen people with PD were each tested on or off dopaminergic medication during learning/early consolidation (Day 1) and/or late consolidation (Day 2).

Paced reading in semantic dementia: word knowledge contributes to phoneme binding in rapid speech production.

Patients with semantic dementia (SD) show deficits in phoneme binding in immediate serial recall: when attempting to reproduce a sequence of words that they no longer fully understand, they show frequent migrations of phonemes between items (e.g., cap, frog recalled as "frap, cog").

Diesel particulate matter exposure to railroad train crews.

Exposure assessments were conducted aboard diesel locomotives. Results were evaluated to determine variables that affect exposure to DPM (diesel particulate matter) and to assess use of EC (elemental carbon) and OC (organic carbon) as surrogates for DPM. National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health Method 5040 was used for collection and analysis of samples in locomotives and in nonrailroad settings.