Convergent Validity of Experimental Cognitive Tests in a Large Community Sample.

Experimental cognitive tests are designed to measure particular cognitive domains, although evidence supporting test validity is often limited. The Consortium for Neuropsychiatric Phenomics test battery administered 23 experimental and traditional neuropsychological tests to a large sample of community volunteers ( = 1,059) and patients with psychiatric diagnoses ( = 137), providing a unique opportunity to examine convergent validity with factor analysis. Traditional tests included subtests from the Wechsler and Delis-Kaplan batteries, while experimental tests included the Attention Networks Test, Balloon Analogue Risk Task, Delay Discounting Task, Remember-Know, Reversal Learning Task, Scene Recognition, Spatial and Verbal Capacity and Manipulation Tasks, Stop-Signal Task, and Task Switching.

Smoking, tobacco dependence, and neurometabolites in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex.

Cigarette smoking has a major impact on global health and morbidity, and positron emission tomographic research has provided evidence for reduced inflammation in the human brain associated with cigarette smoking. Given the consequences of inflammatory dysfunction for health, the question of whether cigarette smoking affects neuroinflammation warrants further investigation. The goal of this project therefore was to validate and extend evidence of hypoinflammation related to smoking, and to examine the potential contribution of inflammation to clinical features of smoking.

Negative affect and craving during abstinence from smoking are both linked to default mode network connectivity.

Background: Negative affect and craving during abstinence from cigarettes predict resumption of smoking. Therefore, understanding their neural substrates may guide development of new interventions. Negative affect and craving have traditionally been linked to functions of the brain's threat and reward networks, respectively.

Nicotine dependence and insula subregions: functional connectivity and cue-induced activation.

Nicotine dependence is a major predictor of relapse in people with Tobacco Use Disorder (TUD). Accordingly, therapies that reduce nicotine dependence may promote sustained abstinence from smoking. The insular cortex has been identified as a promising target in brain-based therapies for TUD, and has three major sub-regions (ventral anterior, dorsal anterior, and posterior) that serve distinct functional networks.

Cortical thickness and related depressive symptoms in early abstinence from chronic methamphetamine use.

Methamphetamine use is surging globally as a cause of morbidity and mortality. Treatment is typically sought in early abstinence, when craving and depressive symptoms are intense, contributing to relapse and poor outcomes. To advance an understanding of this problem and identify therapeutic targets, we conducted a retrospective analysis of brain structure in 89 adults with Methamphetamine Use Disorder who were in early abstinence and 89 healthy controls.

Neurocognitive subprocesses of working memory performance.

Working memory (WM) has been defined as the active maintenance and flexible updating of goal-relevant information in a form that has limited capacity and resists interference. Complex measures of WM recruit multiple subprocesses, making it difficult to isolate specific contributions of putatively independent subsystems. The present study was designed to determine whether neurophysiological indicators of proposed subprocesses of WM predict WM performance.

Effects of oral contraceptive pills on mood and magnetic resonance imaging measures of prefrontal cortical thickness.

Gonadal hormones influence neuronal organization and plasticity. Yet the consequences of altering their concentrations by administering contraceptive agents, which are used by most reproductive-age women in the United States, are unclear. Cross-sectional studies have found both larger and smaller cortical regions alongside a variety of mood alterations in women who use oral contraceptive pills (OCPs) compared to naturally-cycling women.

First result from the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer on the International Space Station: precision measurement of the positron fraction in primary cosmic rays of 0.5-350 GeV.

A precision measurement by the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer on the International Space Station of the positron fraction in primary cosmic rays in the energy range from 0.5 to 350 GeV based on 6.8 × 10(6) positron and electron events is presented.

Excessive checking for non-anxiogenic stimuli in obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Background: Repetitive checking in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) would serve to relieve obsession-related anxiety and/or to compensate memory deficit, but experimental literature on this subject is inconsistent. The main objective is to test the influence of obsession-related anxiety and memory on repetitive checking in OCD.

Methods: Twenty-three OCD checkers, 17 OCD non-checkers and 41 controls performed a delayed-matching-to-sample task with an unrestricted checking option.

Processing of emotional information in the human subthalamic nucleus.

Background: The subthalamic nucleus (STN) is an efficient target for treating patients with Parkinson's disease as well as patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) using high frequency stimulation (HFS). In both Parkinson's disease and OCD patients, STN-HFS can trigger abnormal behaviours, such as hypomania and impulsivity.

Methods: To investigate if this structure processes emotional information, and whether it depends on motor demands, we recorded subthalamic local field potentials in 16 patients with Parkinson's disease using deep brain stimulation electrodes.

A video Clinical Global Impression (CGI) in obsessive compulsive disorder.

The Clinical Global Impression scale (CGI) is frequently used in clinical research because of its face validity and ease of use but data on its reliability are scarce. Our goal was to estimate the reliability of the scale and compare reliability between face-to-face and video scoring. We analyzed 50 different video interviews recorded during 5 visits of a crossover trial to study the effect of subthalamic nucleus stimulation.

Observation of the suppression of the flux of cosmic rays above 4 x 10 (19) eV.

The energy spectrum of cosmic rays above 2.5 x 10;{18} eV, derived from 20,000 events recorded at the Pierre Auger Observatory, is described. The spectral index gamma of the particle flux, J proportional, variantE;{-gamma}, at energies between 4 x 10;{18} eV and 4 x 10;{19} eV is 2.

Upper limit on the diffuse flux of ultrahigh energy tau neutrinos from the Pierre Auger Observatory.

The surface detector array of the Pierre Auger Observatory is sensitive to Earth-skimming tau neutrinos that interact in Earth's crust. Tau leptons from nu(tau) charged-current interactions can emerge and decay in the atmosphere to produce a nearly horizontal shower with a significant electromagnetic component. The data collected between 1 January 2004 and 31 August 2007 are used to place an upper limit on the diffuse flux of nu(tau) at EeV energies.

Functional imaging of decision conflict.

Decision conflict occurs when people feel uncertain as to which option to choose from a set of similarly attractive (or unattractive) options, with many studies demonstrating that this conflict can lead to suboptimal decision making. In this article, we investigate the neurobiological underpinnings of decision conflict, in particular, the involvement of the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). Previous studies have implicated the ACC in conflict monitoring during perceptual tasks, but there is considerable controversy as to whether the ACC actually indexes conflict related to choice, or merely conflict related to selection of competing motor responses.

A challenging task for assessment of checking behaviors in obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Objective: The present study concerns the objective and quantitative measurement of checking activity, which represents the most frequently observed compulsions in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). To address this issue, we developed an instrumental task producing repetitive checking in OCD subjects.

Method: Fifty OCD subjects and 50 normal volunteers (NV) were administered a delayed matching-to-sample task that offered the unrestricted opportunity to verify the choice made.

Correlation of the highest-energy cosmic rays with nearby extragalactic objects.

Using data collected at the Pierre Auger Observatory during the past 3.7 years, we demonstrated a correlation between the arrival directions of cosmic rays with energy above 6 x 10(19) electron volts and the positions of active galactic nuclei (AGN) lying within approximately 75 megaparsecs. We rejected the hypothesis of an isotropic distribution of these cosmic rays with at least a 99% confidence level from a prescribed a priori test.

Prefrontal cortex is involved in internal decision of forthcoming saccades.

Deciding where to look is mandatory to explore the visual world. To study the neural correlates subserving the cognitive phase of self-initiated eye movements in humans, we tested 12 healthy participants, using event-related functional MRI. Changes in the frontal-cortical activity preceding voluntary saccades were studied when the participants freely decided the direction of a forthcoming saccade, compared with a condition in which they had only to prepare an externally cued saccade.

Cognitive control and brain resources in major depression: an fMRI study using the n-back task.

Several neuroimaging studies have reported 'hypofrontality' in depressed patients performing a cognitive challenge compared to control subjects. Hypofrontality in depression is likely associated with an impaired behavioral performance. It is unclear whether this impaired performance is the consequence or the cause of hypofrontality.

Motor control in basal ganglia circuits using fMRI and brain atlas approaches.

In this study, we examined how the motor, premotor and associative basal ganglia territories process movement parameters such as the complexity and the frequency of movement. Twelve right-handed volunteers were studied using EPI BOLD contrast (3 T) while performing audio-paced finger tapping tasks designed to differentiate basal ganglia territories. Tasks varied movement complexity (repetitive index tapping, simple sequence of finger movements and complex sequence of 10 moves) and frequency (from 0.