Rehabilitation Services Improve Activities of Daily Living and Instrumental Activities of Daily Living Capability in Patients After Discharge From Convalescent Rehabilitation Wards.

Background/objectives: There is a notable lack of evidence regarding the long-term effects of rehabilitation services, particularly concerning functional recovery and daily living activities of patients following discharge from convalescent rehabilitation wards. This study aimed to clarify the longitudinal changes in activities of daily living and instrumental activities of daily living of patients after discharge from a convalescent rehabilitation ward and the association between the use of rehabilitation services and clinical outcomes.

Methods:  Patients discharged from Japanese convalescent rehabilitation wards in August 2021 were included.

Environmental context-dependent activation of dopamine neurons via putative amygdala-nigra pathway in macaques.

Seeking out good and avoiding bad objects is critical for survival. In practice, objects are rarely good every time or everywhere, but only at the right time or place. Whereas the basal ganglia (BG) are known to mediate goal-directed behavior, for example, saccades to rewarding objects, it remains unclear how such simple behaviors are rendered contingent on higher-order factors, including environmental context.

Environment-based object values learned by local network in the striatum tail.

Basal ganglia contribute to object-value learning, which is critical for survival. The underlying neuronal mechanism is the association of each object with its rewarding outcome. However, object values may change in different environments and we then need to choose different objects accordingly.

Primate Amygdalo-Nigral Pathway for Boosting Oculomotor Action in Motivating Situations.

A primary function of the primate amygdala is to modulate behavior based on emotional cues. To study the underlying neural mechanism, we first inactivated the amygdala locally and temporarily by injecting a GABA agonist. Then, saccadic eye movements and gaze were suppressed only on the contralateral side.

Multiple neuronal circuits for variable object-action choices based on short- and long-term memories.

At each time in our life, we choose one or few behaviors, while suppressing many other behaviors. This is the basic mechanism in the basal ganglia, which is done by tonic inhibition and selective disinhibition. Dysfunctions of the basal ganglia then cause 2 types of disorders (difficulty in initiating necessary actions and difficulty in suppressing unnecessary actions) that occur in Parkinson's disease.

The Caudal Part of Putamen Represents the Historical Object Value Information.

The basal ganglia, especially the circuits originating from the putamen, are essential for controlling normal body movements. Notably, the putamen receives inputs not only from motor cortical areas but also from multiple sensory cortices. However, how these sensory signals are processed in the putamen remains unclear.

Amygdala activity for the modulation of goal-directed behavior in emotional contexts.

Choosing valuable objects and rewarding actions is critical for survival. While such choices must be made in a way that suits the animal's circumstances, the neural mechanisms underlying such context-appropriate behavior are unclear. To address this question, we devised a context-dependent reward-seeking task for macaque monkeys.

Functional properties of parietal hand manipulation-related neurons and mirror neurons responding to vision of own hand action.

Parietofrontal pathways play an important role in visually guided motor control. In this pathway, hand manipulation-related neurons in the inferior parietal lobule represent 3-D properties of an object and motor patterns to grasp it. Furthermore, mirror neurons show visual responses that are concerned with the actions of others and motor-related activity during execution of the same grasping action.

[What mirror neurons have revealed: revisited].

The first paper on mirror neurons was published in 1992. In the span of over two decades since then, much knowledge about the relationship between social cognitive function and the motor control system has been accumulated. Direct matching of visual actions and their corresponding motor representations is the most important functional property of mirror neuron.