Sensory perception is one of the most fundamental brain functions, allowing individuals to properly interact and adapt to a constantly changing environment. This process requires the integration of bottom-up and topdown neuronal activity, which is centrally mediated by the basal forebrain, a brain region that has been linked to a series of cognitive processes such as attention and alertness. Here, we review the latest research using optogenetic approaches in rodents and electrophysiological recordings that are shedding light on the role of this region, in regulating olfactory processing and decisionmaking. Moreover, we summarize evidence highlighting the anatomical and physiological differences in the basal forebrain of individuals with autism spectrum disorder, which could underpin the sensory perception abnormalities they exhibit, and propose this research line as a potential opportunity to understand the neurobiological basis of this disorder.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.21500/20112084.6486 | DOI Listing |
Brain Struct Funct
December 2024
School of Medicine, Department of Neuropharmacology, Western Sydney University, Locked Bag 1797, Penrith, NSW, 2751, Australia.
This editorial celebrates the 80th birthday of Distinguished Professor Laszlo Zaborszky, co-founder of Brain Structure and Function, and reflects on his monumental contributions to neuroscience, particularly his pioneering work on the cholinergic basal forebrain. Professor Zaborszky's research has reshaped our understanding of this brain region's organization and function, uncovering its critical role in cognitive processes such as learning, memory, and attention. His findings have challenged longstanding assumptions, demonstrating that the cholinergic projections to the cortex are highly organized, with implications for neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFProg Neuropsychopharmacol Biol Psychiatry
December 2024
Department of rehabilitation Medicine, SuiNing Central Hospital, The Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University, SuiNing 629000, China. Electronic address:
The parabrachial nucleus (PBN) is responsible for integrating both internal and external sensory information and controlling/regulating a wide range of physiological processes, such as feeding, thermogenesis, nociceptive and pruritic sensations, and respiration. Recently, the PBN has been found to be involved in mediating wakefulness maintenance, sleep-wake transition, exogenous neuromodulation of awakening, and arousal-promoting process triggered by drastic changes in the internal environments, such as hypercapnia, hypoxia, and hypertension. Multiple neural pathways and subpopulations of neurons are responsible for arousal-promoting effects of the PBN.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPsychiatry Res Neuroimaging
December 2024
Department of Radiology, National Cancer Center/National Clinical Research Center for Cancer/Cancer Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing 100021, China. Electronic address:
Resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) measures have enjoyed significant success in discovering the neuropathological characteristics of schizophrenia (SZ), bipolar disorder (BD), and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). However, it is unknown whether and how the spatial and temporal coupling relationships across rsFC measures would be altered in these psychiatric disorders. Here, resting-state fMRI data were obtained from a transdiagnostic sample of healthy controls (HC) and individuals with SZ, BD, and ADHD.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCereb Cortex
December 2024
School of Medicine, Washington University in St. Louis, Fort Neuroscience Research Building, 4370 Duncan Ave., St. Louis, MO 63110, United States.
Arousal states are thought to influence many aspects of cognition and behavior by broadly modulating neural activity. Many studies have observed arousal-related modulations of alpha (~8 to 15 Hz) and gamma (~30 to 50 Hz) power and coherence in local field potentials across relatively small groups of brain regions. However, the global pattern of arousal-related oscillatory modulation in local field potentials is yet to be fully elucidated.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFProc Natl Acad Sci U S A
December 2024
Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Daejeon 34141, Republic of Korea.
Many anatomical and physiological features of cortical circuits, ranging from the biophysical properties of synapses to the connectivity patterns among different neuron types, exhibit consistent variation along the hierarchical axis from sensory to association areas. Notably, the temporal correlation of neural activity at rest, known as the intrinsic timescale, increases systematically along this hierarchy in both primates and rodents, analogous to the increasing scale and complexity of spatial receptive fields. However, how the timescales for task-related activity vary across brain regions and whether their hierarchical organization appears consistently across different mammalian species remain unexplored.
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