Neural correlates of chocolate brand preference: A functional MRI study.

Background And Purpose: Preferences can be developed for, or against, specific brands and services. Using two functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiments, this study investigated two dissociable aspects of reward processing, craving and liking, in chocolate lovers. The goal was to further delineate the neural basis supporting branding effects using familiar chocolate (FC) and unfamiliar chocolate (UC) brand images.

Risky decision-making strategies mediate the relationship between amygdala activity and real-world financial savings among individuals from lower income households: A pilot study.

Lower financial savings among individuals experiencing adverse social determinants of health (SDoH) increases vulnerabilities during times of crisis. SDoH including low socioeconomic status (low-SES) influence cognitive abilities as well as health and life outcomes that may perpetuate poverty and disparities. Despite evidence suggesting a role for financial growth in minimizing SDoH-related disparities and vulnerabilities, neurobiological mechanisms linked with financial behavior remain to be elucidated.

Reward Processing in Children With Disruptive Behavior Disorders and Callous-Unemotional Traits in the ABCD Study.

Objective: Disrupted reward processing is implicated in the etiology of disruptive behavior disorders (DBDs) and callous-unemotional traits. However, neuroimaging investigations of reward processing underlying these phenotypes remain sparse. The authors examined neural sensitivity in response to reward anticipation and receipt among youths with DBDs, with and without callous-unemotional traits.

Disruptive Behavior Problems, Callous-Unemotional Traits, and Regional Gray Matter Volume in the Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development Study.

Background: Neurobiological differences linked to socioemotional and cognitive processing are well documented in youths with disruptive behavior disorders (DBDs), especially youths with callous-unemotional (CU) traits. The current study expanded this literature by examining gray matter volume (GMV) differences among youths with DBD with CU traits (DBDCU+), youths with DBD without CU traits (DBD-only), and youths that were typically developing (TD).

Methods: Data were from the first full sample release of the Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development Study (mean age = 9.

Covertly active and progressing neurochemical abnormalities in suppressed HIV infection.

Objective: To assess whether HIV-related brain injury is progressive in persons with suppressed HIV infection.

Methods: Seventy-three HIV+ virally suppressed men and 35 HIV- men, screened for psychiatric and alcohol/drug use disorders, underwent neuropsychological evaluation and proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (H-MRS) at baseline and after and 23 ± 5 months. H-MRS included brain regions known to be vulnerable to HIV and aging: frontal white matter (FWM), posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), and caudate area (CA).

Different patterns of age-related central olfactory decline in men and women as quantified by olfactory fMRI.

Age-related olfactory decline, or presbyosmia, is a prevalent condition with potentially devastating consequences on both quality of life and safety. Despite clear evidence for this decline, it is unknown whether presbyosmia is sex-dependent and also whether it is due to central or peripheral olfactory system deterioration. Therefore, the goals of this study were to investigate the neurofunctional substrate of olfactory decline and examine its relationship to age and sex in thirty-seven (18 women, 19 men) healthy older participants using olfactory functional MRI (fMRI).

Dynamic functional connectivity and individual differences in emotions during social stress.

Exposure to acute stress induces multiple emotional responses, each with their own unique temporal dynamics. Dynamic functional connectivity (dFC) measures the temporal variability of network synchrony and captures individual differences in network neurodynamics. This study investigated the relationship between dFC and individual differences in emotions induced by an acute psychosocial stressor.

Age-related resting-state functional connectivity in the olfactory and trigeminal networks.

Brain networks for intranasal chemosensation have been shown to be intrinsically organized in humans . However, little is known about how changes in the intrinsic functional connectivity (FC) in chemosensory networks are related to aging. We, therefore, investigated the impact of age on resting-state FC in the olfactory and trigeminal networks (ON and TN) by combining two freely available resting-state fMRI data sets (obtained from the NITRC.

Tool selection and the ventral-dorsal organization of tool-related knowledge.

Tool selection is a cognitive process necessary for tool use, and may rely on distinct knowledge under different conditions. This fMRI experiment was designed to identify neural substrates mediating tool selection under different conditions. Participants performed a picture-matching task that presented a recipient object and an action-goal, and required the selection of the best tool object from among four candidates.

Default mode network deactivation during odor-visual association.

Default mode network (DMN) deactivation has been shown to be functionally relevant for goal-directed cognition. In this study, the DMN's role during olfactory processing was investigated using two complementary functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) paradigms with identical timing, visual-cue stimulation, and response monitoring protocols. Twenty-nine healthy, non-smoking, right-handed adults (mean age = 26 ± 4 years, 16 females) completed an odor-visual association fMRI paradigm that had two alternating odor + visual and visual-only trial conditions.

Context-specific behavioral surprise is differentially correlated with activity in anterior and posterior brain systems.

This experiment investigated whether behavioral surprise, an information-theoretic measure of the amount of memory and information integration associated with a response, is correlated with neural activity during decision making. A total of 30 participants (age 18-30) were scanned with functional MRI while completing 240 trials of a sequential decision-making task in which they selected an amount to wager from four possible values on each trial. Behavioral surprise was computed trial by trial using both context-free and context-specific formulations, and was used as a parametric modulator in functional MRI analyses.

Intrinsic intranasal chemosensory brain networks shown by resting-state functional MRI.

The human brain is organized into functional networks for sensory-motor and cognitive processing. Intrinsic networks are detectable in the absence of stimulation or task demands, whereas extrinsic networks are detectable when stimulated by sensory or cognitive demands. Intranasal chemosensory processing relies on two dissociable networks for processing incoming trigeminal and olfactory stimulation, but it is not known whether these networks are intrinsically organized.

Altered behavioral and neural responsiveness to counterfactual gains in the elderly.

Counterfactual information processing refers to the consideration of events that did not occur in comparison to those actually experienced, in order to determine optimal actions, and can be formulated as computational learning signals, referred to as fictive prediction errors. Decision making and the neural circuitry for counterfactual processing are altered in healthy elderly adults. This experiment investigated age differences in neural systems for decision making with knowledge of counterfactual outcomes.

Rapidly acquired multisensory association in the olfactory cortex.

Background: The formation of an odor percept in humans is strongly associated with visual information. However, much less is known about the roles of learning and memory in shaping the multisensory nature of odor representations in the brain.

Method: The dynamics of odor and visual association in olfaction was investigated using three functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) paradigms.

The effect of estrogen synthesis inhibition on hippocampal memory.

17-Beta-estradiol (E2) facilitates long term-potentiation (LTP) and increases spine synapse density in hippocampal neurons of ovariectomized rodents. Consistent with these beneficial effects on the cellular level, E2 improves hippocampus-dependent memory. A prominent approach to study E2 effects in rodents is the inhibition of its synthesis by letrozole, which reduces LTPs and spine synapse density.

Differential lateralization of hippocampal connectivity reflects features of recent context and ongoing demands: an examination of immediate post-task activity.

Neuroimaging studies have shown that task demands affect connectivity patterns in the human brain not only during task performance but also during subsequent rest periods. Our goal was to determine whether ongoing connectivity patterns during rest contain information about both the current rest state, as well as the recently terminated task. Our experimental design consisted of two types of active tasks that were followed by two types of low-demand rest states.

Risk-sensitive reinforcement learning.

We derive a family of risk-sensitive reinforcement learning methods for agents, who face sequential decision-making tasks in uncertain environments. By applying a utility function to the temporal difference (TD) error, nonlinear transformations are effectively applied not only to the received rewards but also to the true transition probabilities of the underlying Markov decision process. When appropriate utility functions are chosen, the agents' behaviors express key features of human behavior as predicted by prospect theory (Kahneman & Tversky, 1979 ), for example, different risk preferences for gains and losses, as well as the shape of subjective probability curves.

Neural systems mediating recognition of changes in statistical regularities.

Neuroimaging research has identified several brain systems sensitive to statistical regularities within environmental input. However, the continuous input impinging on sensory organs is rarely stationary and its degree of regularity may itself change over time. The goals of the current fMRI study were to identify systems sensitive to changes in statistical regularities within an ongoing stimulus, and determine to what extent sensitivity to such changes depends on intentional monitoring of order.

Multiple sensitivity profiles to diversity and transition structure in non-stationary input.

Recent formalizations suggest that the human brain codes for the degree of order in the environment and utilizes this knowledge to optimize perception and performance in the immediate future. However, the neural bases of how the brain spontaneously codes for order are poorly understood. It has been shown that activity in lateral temporal cortex and the hippocampus is linearly correlated with the order of short visual series under tasks requiring attention to the input and when series order is invariant over time.

Delay eyeblink classical conditioning is impaired in Fragile X syndrome.

The authors examined 400 ms delay eyeblink classical conditioning in 20 participants with Fragile X syndrome ages 17 to 77 years, and 20 age-matched, healthy control participants. The participants in the Fragile X group demonstrated impaired learning and abnormal conditioned response timing. Adults with Fragile X (n=16) were also tested at two successive 12-month follow-up sessions to examine reacquisition and long-term retention.

Preclinical investigation of the functional effects of memantine and memantine combined with galantamine or donepezil.

Combinations of drugs approved to treat Alzheimer's disease (AD) were tested in older rabbits with delay eyeblink classical conditioning, a form of associative learning severely impaired in AD. In Experiment 1 (n=49 rabbits), low doses (0.1, 0.