Neuromodulation in response to electroconvulsive therapy in schizophrenia and major depression.

Background: Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is one of the most effective treatments in severe and treatment-resistant major depressive disorder (MDD). ECT has been also shown to be effective in schizophrenia (SZ), particularly when rapid symptom reduction is needed or in cases of resistance to drug-treatment. However, its precise mechanisms of action remain largely unknown.

The macaque lateral grasping network: A neural substrate for generating purposeful hand actions.

In primates, neural mechanisms for controlling skilled hand actions primarily rely on sensorimotor transformations. These transformations are mediated by circuits linking specific inferior parietal with ventral premotor areas in which sensory coding of objects' features automatically triggers appropriate hand motor programs. Recently, connectional studies in macaques showed that these parietal and premotor areas are nodes of a large-scale cortical network, designated as "lateral grasping network," including specific temporal and prefrontal sectors involved in object recognition and executive functions, respectively.

The mirror mechanism: a basic principle of brain function.

The mirror mechanism is a basic brain mechanism that transforms sensory representations of others' behaviour into one's own motor or visceromotor representations concerning that behaviour. According to its location in the brain, it may fulfil a range of cognitive functions, including action and emotion understanding. In each case, it may enable a route to knowledge of others' behaviour, which mainly depends on one's own motor or visceromotor representations.

Mapping the brain correlates of borderline personality disorder: A functional neuroimaging meta-analysis of resting state studies.

Background: Altered intrinsic function of the brain has been implicated in Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). Nonetheless, imaging studies have yielded inconsistent alterations of brain function. To investigate the neural activity at rest in BPD, we conducted a set of meta-analyses of brain imaging studies performed at rest.

Baseline brain perfusion and brain structure in patients with major depression: a multimodal magnetic resonance imaging study.

Background: Abnormal regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) and grey matter volume have been frequently reported in patients with major depressive disorder (MDD). However, it is unclear to what extent structural and functional change co-occurs in patients with MDD and whether markers of neural activity, such as rCBF, can be predicted by structural change.

Methods: Using MRI, we investigated resting-state rCBF and brain structure in patients with MDD and healthy controls between July 2008 and January 2013.

Specificity of abnormal brain volume in major depressive disorder: a comparison with borderline personality disorder.

Background: Abnormal brain volume has been frequently demonstrated in major depressive disorder (MDD). It is unclear if these findings are specific for MDD since aberrant brain structure is also present in disorders with depressive comorbidity and affective dysregulation, such as borderline personality disorder (BPD). In this transdiagnostic study, we aimed to investigate if regional brain volume loss differentiates between MDD and BPD.

Protein arginine methyltransferase 6 enhances polyglutamine-expanded androgen receptor function and toxicity in spinal and bulbar muscular atrophy.

Polyglutamine expansion in androgen receptor (AR) is responsible for spinobulbar muscular atrophy (SBMA) that leads to selective loss of lower motor neurons. Using SBMA as a model, we explored the relationship between protein structure/function and neurodegeneration in polyglutamine diseases. We show here that protein arginine methyltransferase 6 (PRMT6) is a specific co-activator of normal and mutant AR and that the interaction of PRMT6 with AR is significantly enhanced in the AR mutant.

Increased functional connectivity in the default mode network in mild cognitive impairment: a maladaptive compensatory mechanism associated with poor semantic memory performance.

Semantic memory decline and changes of default mode network (DMN) connectivity have been reported in mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Only a few studies, however, have investigated the role of changes of activity in the DMN on semantic memory in this clinical condition. The present study aimed to investigate more extensively the relationship between semantic memory impairment and DMN intrinsic connectivity in MCI.

Parsing the intrinsic networks underlying attention: a resting state study.

The attention system functionally modulates brain activity to exert control over thoughts, feelings and actions. Three distinct but mutually interacting components of attention have been hypothesized: alerting, which mediates the maintenance of a state of vigilance toward an upcoming stimulus; orienting, which supports the selection of sensory information, and executive control that is involved in detecting and resolving cognitive conflicts. The performance of tasks probing these components engages fronto-parietal and thalamic regions.

Source-based morphometry of gray matter volume in patients with schizophrenia who have persistent auditory verbal hallucinations.

Abnormal structure of frontal and temporal brain regions has been suggested to occur in patients with schizophrenia who have frequent auditory verbal hallucinations (AVH). However, it is unknown whether this is specific to this patient subgroup. This study tested the hypothesis that frontotemporal gray matter volume changes would characterize patients with persistent AVH (pAVH) in contrast to healthy controls and patients without AVH.

Revisiting default mode network function in major depression: evidence for disrupted subsystem connectivity.

Background: Major depressive disorder (MDD) is characterized by alterations in brain function that are identifiable also during the brain's 'resting state'. One functional network that is disrupted in this disorder is the default mode network (DMN), a set of large-scale connected brain regions that oscillate with low-frequency fluctuations and are more active during rest relative to a goal-directed task. Recent studies support the idea that the DMN is not a unitary system, but rather is composed of smaller and distinct functional subsystems that interact with each other.

Projections from caudal ventrolateral prefrontal areas to brainstem preoculomotor structures and to Basal Ganglia and cerebellar oculomotor loops in the macaque.

The caudal part of the macaque ventrolateral prefrontal (VLPF) cortex hosts several distinct areas or fields--45B, 45A, 8r, caudal 46vc, and caudal 12r--connected to the frontal eye field (area 8/FEF). To assess whether these areas/fields also display subcortical projections possibly mediating a role in controlling oculomotor behavior, we examined their descending projections, based on anterograde tracer injections in each area/field, and compared them with those of area 8/FEF. All the studied areas/fields displayed projections to brainstem preoculomotor structures, precerebellar centers, and striatal sectors that are also targets of projections originating from area 8/FEF.

Somato-motor haptic processing in posterior inner perisylvian region (SII/pIC) of the macaque monkey.

The posterior inner perisylvian region including the secondary somatosensory cortex (area SII) and the adjacent region of posterior insular cortex (pIC) has been implicated in haptic processing by integrating somato-motor information during hand-manipulation, both in humans and in non-human primates. However, motor-related properties during hand-manipulation are still largely unknown. To investigate a motor-related activity in the hand region of SII/pIC, two macaque monkeys were trained to perform a hand-manipulation task, requiring 3 different grip types (precision grip, finger exploration, side grip) both in light and in dark conditions.

Neurophysiological bases underlying the organization of intentional actions and the understanding of others' intention.

Philosophical and neuroscientific investigation on intentional actions focused on several different aspects, making difficult to define what should be meant with the concept of intention. Most of our everyday actions are constituted by complex and finely organized motor sequences, planned and executed in order to attain a desired final goal. In this paper, we will identify the final goal of the action as the motor intention of the acting individual.

Altered cerebral response during cognitive control: a potential indicator of genetic liability for schizophrenia.

Aberrant activity in brain regions underlying various aspects of executive cognition has been reported in patients with schizophrenia and in their healthy relatives, suggesting an association with genetic liability. The aim of this study was to investigate brain responses to selective aspects of cognitive control in unaffected siblings who are at increased genetic risk of schizophrenia. Altogether, 65 non-affected siblings, 70 patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders, and 235 normal controls participated in this study.

Normal aging modulates prefrontoparietal networks underlying multiple memory processes.

A functional decline of brain regions underlying memory processing represents a hallmark of cognitive aging. Although a rich literature documents age-related differences in several memory domains, the effect of aging on networks that underlie multiple memory processes has been relatively unexplored. Here we used functional magnetic resonance imaging during working memory and incidental episodic encoding memory to investigate patterns of age-related differences in activity and functional covariance patterns common across multiple memory domains.

Catechol-o-methyl transferase modulates cognition in late life: evidence and implications for cognitive enhancement.

Aging is associated with deficits in several cognitive domains as well as a decline in brain dopamine activity. Catechol-O-methyl transferase (COMT), an enzyme involved in the degradation of dopamine, is a critical determinant of the availability of this neurotransmitter in the prefrontal cortex. A functional single nucleotide polymorphism in the COMT gene, Val158Met, modulates the activity of this enzyme and affects cognition and the brain regions underlying this function.

DRD2 genotype-based variation of default mode network activity and of its relationship with striatal DAT binding.

The default mode network (DMN) comprises a set of brain regions with "increased" activity during rest relative to cognitive processing. Activity in the DMN is associated with functional connections with the striatum and dopamine (DA) levels in this brain region. A functional single-nucleotide polymorphism within the dopamine D2 receptor gene (DRD2, rs1076560 G > T) shifts splicing of the 2 D2 isoforms, D2 short and D2 long, and has been associated with striatal DA signaling as well as with cognitive processing.

Grasping neurons of monkey parietal and premotor cortices encode action goals at distinct levels of abstraction during complex action sequences.

Natural actions are formed by distinct motor acts, each of which is endowed with its own motor purpose (i.e., grasping), chained together to attain the final action goal.