The neoliberal leaning of the neuroscience discourse when it deals with mental health and learning disorders.

Neuroscience attracted increasing attention in mass media during the last decades. Indeed, neuroscience advances raise high expectations in society concerning major societal issues such as mental health and learning difficulties. Unfortunately, according to leading experts, neuroscience advances have not yet benefited patients, students and socially deprived families.

Trial of Lixisenatide in Early Parkinson's Disease.

Background: Lixisenatide, a glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonist used for the treatment of diabetes, has shown neuroprotective properties in a mouse model of Parkinson's disease.

Methods: In this phase 2, double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial, we assessed the effect of lixisenatide on the progression of motor disability in persons with Parkinson's disease. Participants in whom Parkinson's disease was diagnosed less than 3 years earlier, who were receiving a stable dose of medications to treat symptoms, and who did not have motor complications were randomly assigned in a 1:1 ratio to daily subcutaneous lixisenatide or placebo for 12 months, followed by a 2-month washout period.

Care of Late-Stage Parkinsonism: Resource Utilization of the Disease in Five European Countries.

Background: Parkinson's disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disease that leads to progressive disability. Cost studies have mainly explored the early stages of the disease, whereas late-stage patients are underrepresented.

Objective: The aim is to evaluate the resource utilization and costs of PD management in people with late-stage disease.

[Citation misuse and its effects on public health].

In order to effectively contribute to scientific knowledge, biomedical observations have to be validated and debated by scientists in the relevant field. Along this debate that mainly takes place in the scientific literature, citation of previous studies plays a major role. However, only a few academic studies have quantitatively evaluated the suitability and accuracy of scientific citations.

Economic behaviours among non-human primates.

Do we have any valid reasons to affirm that non-human primates display economic behaviour in a sufficiently rich and precise sense of the phrase? To address this question, we have to develop a set of criteria to assess the vast array of experimental studies and field observations on individual cognitive and behavioural competences as well as the collective organization of non-human primates. We review a sample of these studies and assess how they answer to the following four main challenges. (i) Do we see any economic organization or institutions emerge among groups of non-human primates? (ii) Are the cognitive abilities, and often biases, that have been evidenced as underlying typical economic decision-making among humans, also present among non-human primates? (iii) Can we draw positive lessons from performance comparisons among primate species, humans and non-humans but also across non-human primate species, as elicited by canonical game-theoretical experimental paradigms, especially as far as economic cooperation and coordination are concerned? And (iv) in which way should we improve models and paradigms to obtain more ecological data and conclusions? Articles discussed in this paper most often bring about positive answers and promising perspectives to support the existence and prevalence of economic behaviours among non-human primates.

What is the true discharge rate and pattern of the striatal projection neurons in Parkinson's disease and Dystonia?

Dopamine and striatal dysfunctions play a key role in the pathophysiology of Parkinson's disease (PD) and Dystonia, but our understanding of the changes in the discharge rate and pattern of striatal projection neurons (SPNs) remains limited. Here, we recorded and examined multi-unit signals from the striatum of PD and dystonic patients undergoing deep brain stimulation surgeries. Contrary to earlier human findings, we found no drastic changes in the spontaneous discharge of the well-isolated and stationary SPNs of the PD patients compared to the dystonic patients or to the normal levels of striatal activity reported in healthy animals.

Optimizing Treatment in Undertreated Late-Stage Parkinsonism: A Pragmatic Randomized Trial.

Background: Treatment of patients with late-stage parkinsonism is often sub-optimal.

Objective: To test the effectiveness of recommendations by a movement disorder specialist with expertise in late-stage parkinsonism.

Methods: Ninety-one patients with late-stage parkinsonism considered undertreated were included in apragmatic a pragmatic multi-center randomized-controlled trial with six-month follow-up.

In vivo electrophysiological validation of DREADD-based modulation of pallidal neurons in the non-human primate.

Designer receptors exclusively activated by designer drugs (DREADDs) are widely used in rodents to manipulate neuronal activity and establish causal links between structure and function. Their utilization in non-human primates (NHPs) is, however, limited and their efficacy still debated. Here, we recorded and examined the neuronal activity in the hM4Di DREADD-transduced and hM4Di DREADD-free GPe of two anesthetized animals following local intra-GPe microinjection of clozapine-N-oxide (CNO).

Publisher Correction: The globus pallidus orchestrates abnormal network dynamics in a model of Parkinsonism.

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.

The globus pallidus orchestrates abnormal network dynamics in a model of Parkinsonism.

The dynamical properties of cortico-basal ganglia (CBG) circuits are dramatically altered following the loss of dopamine in Parkinson's disease (PD). The neural circuit dysfunctions associated with PD include spike-rate alteration concomitant with excessive oscillatory spike-synchronization in the beta frequency range (12-30 Hz). Which neuronal circuits orchestrate and propagate these abnormal neural dynamics in CBG remains unknown.

An asymmetry of treatment between lotteries involving gains and losses in rhesus monkeys.

Decision-making in humans is known to be subject to several biases. For instance, when facing bets, humans demonstrate some asymmetry concerning their preference for the riskiest option depending on whether stakes involve potential gains or potential losses. They are indeed risk-averse for bets involving gains but risk seeking for bets involving losses.

A Computational Model of Dual Competition between the Basal Ganglia and the Cortex.

We propose a model that includes interactions between the cortex, the basal ganglia (BG), and the thalamus based on a dual competition. We hypothesize that the striatum, the subthalamic nucleus (STN), the internal globus pallidus (GPi), the thalamus, and the cortex are involved in closed feedback loops through the hyperdirect and direct pathways. These loops support a competition process that results in the ability of BG to make a cognitive decision followed by a motor one.

Do newspapers preferentially cover biomedical studies involving national scientists?

News value theory rates geographical proximity as an important factor in the process of issue selection by journalists. But does this apply to science journalism? Previous observational studies investigating whether newspapers preferentially cover scientific studies involving national scientists have generated conflicting answers. Here we used a database of 123 biomedical studies, 113 of them involving at least one research team working in eight countries (Australia, Canada, France, Ireland, Japan, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States).

Naftazone in advanced Parkinson's disease: An acute L-DOPA challenge randomized controlled trial.

Introduction: There is an unmet need to better control motor complications in Parkinson's disease (PD). Naftazone, which exhibits glutamate release inhibition properties, has shown antiparkinsonian and antidyskinetic activity in preclinical models of PD and in a clinical proof of concept study.

Methods: We conducted a double-blind randomized placebo-controlled cross-over trial in PD patients with motor fluctuations and dyskinesia testing naftazone 160 mg/day versus placebo for 14 days.

A natural history of skills.

The dorsal pallium (a.k.a.

Social decision making in autism: On the impact of mirror neurons, motor control, and imitative behaviors.

The Mirror Neuron System (MNS) plays a crucial role in action perception and imitative behavior, which is suggested to be impaired in Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs). In this review, we discuss the plausibility and empirical evidence of a neural interaction between the MNS, action perception, empathy, imitative behavior, and their impact on social decision making in ASDs. To date, there is no consensus regarding a particular theory in ASDs and its underlying mechanisms.

Alterations in Functional Cortical Hierarchy in Hemiparkinsonian Rats.

Parkinson's disease and experimentally induced hemiparkinsonism are characterized by increased beta synchronization between cortical and subcortical areas. This change in beta connectivity might reflect either a symmetric increase in interareal influences or asymmetric changes in directed influences among brain areas. We assessed patterns of functional and directed connectivity within and between striatum and six cortical sites in each hemisphere of the hemiparkinsonian rat model.

Low statistical power in biomedical science: a review of three human research domains.

Studies with low statistical power increase the likelihood that a statistically significant finding represents a false positive result. We conducted a review of meta-analyses of studies investigating the association of biological, environmental or cognitive parameters with neurological, psychiatric and somatic diseases, excluding treatment studies, in order to estimate the average statistical power across these domains. Taking the effect size indicated by a meta-analysis as the best estimate of the likely true effect size, and assuming a threshold for declaring statistical significance of 5%, we found that approximately 50% of studies have statistical power in the 0-10% or 11-20% range, well below the minimum of 80% that is often considered conventional.

Poor replication validity of biomedical association studies reported by newspapers.

Objective: To investigate the replication validity of biomedical association studies covered by newspapers.

Methods: We used a database of 4723 primary studies included in 306 meta-analysis articles. These studies associated a risk factor with a disease in three biomedical domains, psychiatry, neurology and four somatic diseases.

Decision making under uncertainty in a spiking neural network model of the basal ganglia.

The mechanisms of decision-making and action selection are generally thought to be under the control of parallel cortico-subcortical loops connecting back to distinct areas of cortex through the basal ganglia and processing motor, cognitive and limbic modalities of decision-making. We have used these properties to develop and extend a connectionist model at a spiking neuron level based on a previous rate model approach. This model is demonstrated on decision-making tasks that have been studied in primates and the electrophysiology interpreted to show that the decision is made in two steps.

Memories of Opiate Withdrawal Emotional States Correlate with Specific Gamma Oscillations in the Nucleus Accumbens.

Affective memories associated with the negative emotional state experienced during opiate withdrawal are central in maintaining drug taking, seeking, and relapse. Nucleus accumbens (NAC) is a key structure for both acute withdrawal and withdrawal memories reactivation, but the NAC neuron coding properties underpinning the expression of these memories remain largely unknown. Here we aimed at deciphering the role of NAC neurons in the encoding and retrieval of opiate withdrawal memory.