Interplay of early negative life events, development of orbitofrontal cortical thickness and depression in young adulthood.

Background: Early negative life events (NLE) have long-lasting influences on neurodevelopment and psychopathology. Reduced orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) thickness was frequently associated with NLE and depressive symptoms. OFC thinning might mediate the effect of NLE on depressive symptoms, although few longitudinal studies exist.

Reduced frontal cortical tracking of conflict between self-beneficial versus prosocial motives in Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) entails severe impairments in interpersonal functioning that are likely driven by self-beneficial and exploitative behavior. Here, we investigate the underlying motivational and neural mechanisms of prosocial decision-making by experimentally manipulating motivational conflict between self-beneficial and prosocial incentives. One group of patients diagnosed with NPD and a group of healthy controls (CTL) were scanned using functional magnetic resonance imaging while performing a prosocial decision-making task.

Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) over the auditory cortex modulates GABA and glutamate: a 7 T MR-spectroscopy study.

Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is one of the most prominent non-invasive electrical brain stimulation method to alter neuronal activity as well as behavioral processes in cognitive and perceptual domains. However, the exact mode of action of tDCS-related cortical alterations is still unclear as the results of tDCS studies often do not comply with the somatic doctrine assuming that anodal tDCS enhances while cathodal tDCS decreases neuronal excitability. Changes in the regional cortical neurotransmitter balance within the stimulated cortex, measured by excitatory and inhibitory neurotransmitter levels, have the potential to provide direct neurochemical underpinnings of tDCS effects.

Partial synchronisation of glycolytic oscillations in yeast cell populations.

The transition between synchronized and asynchronous behaviour of immobilized yeast cells of the strain Saccharomyces carlsbergensis was investigated by monitoring the autofluorescence of the coenzyme NADH. In populations of intermediate cell densities the individual cells remained oscillatory, whereas on the level of the cell population both a partially synchronized and an asynchronous state were accessible for experimental studies. In the partially synchronized state, the mean oscillatory frequency was larger than that of the cells in the asynchronous state.

Tubulin-binding cofactor E-like (TBCEL), the protein product of the gene, is required in the germline for the regulation of inter-flagellar microtubule dynamics during spermatid individualization.

Individual sperm cells are resolved from a syncytium during late step of spermiogenesis known as individualization, which is accomplished by an Individualization Complex (IC) composed of 64 investment cones. encodes Tubulin-binding cofactor E-like (TBCEL), suggesting a role for microtubule dynamics in individualization. Indeed, a population of ∼100 cytoplasmic microtubules fails to disappear in mutant testes during spermatogenesis.

Clinical improvement and enhanced collateral vessel growth after xenogenic monocyte transplantation.

Monocytes (Mo) are the most important mediators in arteriogenesis. Previous results from our group demonstrated the great potential of allogenic Mo transplantation for improving collateral vessel growth, which appeared to be due to a considerable host vs. graft reaction.

The energetic brain - A review from students to students.

The past 20 years have resulted in unprecedented progress in understanding brain energy metabolism and its role in health and disease. In this review, which was initiated at the 14th International Society for Neurochemistry Advanced School, we address the basic concepts of brain energy metabolism and approach the question of why the brain has high energy expenditure. Our review illustrates that the vertebrate brain has a high need for energy because of the high number of neurons and the need to maintain a delicate interplay between energy metabolism, neurotransmission, and plasticity.

Theta oscillations underlie retrieval success effects in the nucleus accumbens and anterior thalamus: Evidence from human intracranial recordings.

Previous imaging studies independently highlighted the role of the anterior thalamus (ANT) and nucleus accumbens (NAcc) in successful memory retrieval. While these findings accord with theoretical models, the precise temporal, oscillatory and network dynamics as well as the interplay between the NAcc and ANT in successfully retrieving information from long-term memory are largely unknown. We addressed this issue by recording intracranial electroencephalography in human epilepsy patients from the NAcc (n = 5) and ANT (n = 4) during an old/new recognition test.

The Role of Activity-Dependent DNA Demethylation in the Adult Brain and in Neurological Disorders.

Over the last decade, an increasing number of reports underscored the importance of epigenetic regulations in brain plasticity. Epigenetic elements such as readers, writers and erasers recognize, establish, and remove the epigenetic tags in nucleosomes, respectively. One such regulation concerns DNA-methylation and demethylation, which are highly dynamic and activity-dependent processes even in the adult neurons.

Predictive processing increases intelligibility of acoustically distorted speech: Behavioral and neural correlates.

Introduction: We examined which brain areas are involved in the comprehension of acoustically distorted speech using an experimental paradigm where the same distorted sentence can be perceived at different levels of intelligibility. This change in intelligibility occurs via a single intervening presentation of the intact version of the sentence, and the effect lasts at least on the order of minutes. Since the acoustic structure of the distorted stimulus is kept fixed and only intelligibility is varied, this allows one to study brain activity related to speech comprehension specifically.

Onset-Duration Matching of Acoustic Stimuli Revisited: Conventional Arithmetic vs. Proposed Geometric Measures of Accuracy and Precision.

Onsets of acoustic stimuli are salient transients and are relevant in humans for the perception of music and speech. Previous studies of onset-duration discrimination and matching focused on whether onsets are perceived categorically. In this study, we address two issues.

Robust Detection of Impaired Resting State Functional Connectivity Networks in Alzheimer's Disease Using Elastic Net Regularized Regression.

The large number of multicollinear regional features that are provided by resting state (rs) fMRI data requires robust feature selection to uncover consistent networks of functional disconnection in Alzheimer's disease (AD). Here, we compared elastic net regularized and classical stepwise logistic regression in respect to consistency of feature selection and diagnostic accuracy using rs-fMRI data from four centers of the "German resting-state initiative for diagnostic biomarkers" (psymri.org), comprising 53 AD patients and 118 age and sex matched healthy controls.

Reversal Learning in Humans and Gerbils: Dynamic Control Network Facilitates Learning.

Biologically plausible modeling of behavioral reinforcement learning tasks has seen great improvements over the past decades. Less work has been dedicated to tasks involving contingency reversals, i.e.

Filtering and storage working memory networks in younger and older age.

Introduction: Working memory (WM) is a multi-component model that among others involves the two processes of filtering and storage. The first reflects the necessity to inhibit irrelevant information from entering memory, whereas the latter refers to the active maintenance of object representations in memory. In this study, we aimed at a) redefining the neuronal networks sustaining filtering and storage within visual working memory by avoiding shortcomings of prior studies, and b) assessing age-related changes in these networks.

Synaptic GluN2B/CaMKII-α Signaling Induces Synapto-Nuclear Transport of ERK and Jacob.

A central pathway in synaptic plasticity couples N-Methyl-D-Aspartate-receptor (NMDAR)-signaling to the activation of extracellular signal-regulated kinases (ERKs) cascade. ERK-dependency has been demonstrated for several forms of synaptic plasticity as well as learning and memory and includes local synaptic processes but also long-distance signaling to the nucleus. It is, however, controversial how NMDAR signals are connected to ERK activation in dendritic spines and nuclear import of ERK.

Brain atlas of the Mongolian gerbil (Meriones unguiculatus) in CT/MRI-aided stereotaxic coordinates.

A new stereotaxic brain atlas of the Mongolian gerbil (Meriones unguiculatus), an important animal model in neurosciences, is presented. It combines high-quality histological material for identification of brain structures with reliable stereotaxic coordinates. The atlas consists of high-resolution images of frontal sections alternately stained for cell bodies (Nissl) and myelinated fibers (Gallyas) of 62 rostro-caudal levels at intervals of 350 μm.

Synaptopathies: synaptic dysfunction in neurological disorders - A review from students to students.

Synapses are essential components of neurons and allow information to travel coordinately throughout the nervous system to adjust behavior to environmental stimuli and to control body functions, memories, and emotions. Thus, optimal synaptic communication is required for proper brain physiology, and slight perturbations of synapse function can lead to brain disorders. In fact, increasing evidence has demonstrated the relevance of synapse dysfunction as a major determinant of many neurological diseases.

Selective Localization of Shanks to VGLUT1-Positive Excitatory Synapses in the Mouse Hippocampus.

Members of the Shank family of multidomain proteins (Shank1, Shank2, and Shank3) are core components of the postsynaptic density (PSD) of excitatory synapses. At synaptic sites Shanks serve as scaffolding molecules that cluster neurotransmitter receptors as well as cell adhesion molecules attaching them to the actin cytoskeleton. In this study we investigated the synapse specific localization of Shank1-3 and focused on well-defined synaptic contacts within the hippocampal formation.

Selective Increase of Auditory Cortico-Striatal Coherence during Auditory-Cued Go/NoGo Discrimination Learning.

Goal directed behavior and associated learning processes are tightly linked to neuronal activity in the ventral striatum. Mechanisms that integrate task relevant sensory information into striatal processing during decision making and learning are implicitly assumed in current reinforcement models, yet they are still weakly understood. To identify the functional activation of cortico-striatal subpopulations of connections during auditory discrimination learning, we trained Mongolian gerbils in a two-way active avoidance task in a shuttlebox to discriminate between falling and rising frequency modulated tones with identical spectral properties.

Power to Punish Norm Violations Affects the Neural Processes of Fairness-Related Decision Making.

Punishing norm violations is considered an important motive during rejection of unfair offers in the ultimatum game (UG). The present study investigates the impact of the power to punish norm violations on people's responses to unfairness and associated neural correlates. In the UG condition participants had the power to punish norm violations, while an alternate condition, the impunity game (IG), was presented where participants had no power to punish norm violations since rejection only reduced the responder's income to zero.

Neuronal correlates of voluntary facial movements.

Whereas the somatotopy of finger movements has been extensively studied with neuroimaging, the neural foundations of facial movements remain elusive. Therefore, we systematically studied the neuronal correlates of voluntary facial movements using the Facial Action Coding System (FACS, Ekman et al., 2002).

Delay discounting without decision-making: medial prefrontal cortex and amygdala activations reflect immediacy processing and correlate with impulsivity and anxious-depressive traits.

Humans value rewards less when these are delivered in the future as opposed to immediately, a phenomenon referred to as delay discounting. While delay discounting has been studied during the anticipation of rewards and in the context of intertemporal decision-making, little is known about its neural correlates in the outcome phase (during reward delivery) and their relation to personality. Personality traits that have been associated with increased delay discounting include impulsivity and, potentially, anxious-depressive traits.

Effects of alternating current stimulation on the healthy and diseased brain.

Cognitive and neurological dysfunctions can severely impact a patient's daily activities. In addition to medical treatment, non-invasive transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) has been proposed as a therapeutic technique to improve the functional state of the brain. Although during the last years tACS was applied in numerous studies to improve motor, somatosensory, visual and higher order cognitive functions, our knowledge is still limited regarding the mechanisms as to which type of ACS can affect cortical functions and altered neuronal oscillations seem to be the key mechanism.

Pathological gamma oscillations, impaired dopamine release, synapse loss and reduced dynamic range of unitary glutamatergic synaptic transmission in the striatum of hypokinetic Q175 Huntington mice.

Huntington's disease (HD) is a severe genetically inherited neurodegenerative disorder. Patients present with three principal phenotypes of motor symptoms: choreatic, hypokinetic-rigid and mixed. The Q175 mouse model of disease offers an opportunity to investigate the cellular basis of the hypokinetic-rigid form of HD.

Dynamic disconnection of the supplementary motor area after processing of dismissive biographic narratives.

Introduction: To understand the interplay between affective social information processing and its influence on mental states we investigated changes in functional connectivity (FC) patterns after audio exposure to emotional biographic narratives.

Methods: While lying in the 7T MR scanner, 23 male participants listened to narratives of early childhood experiences of three persons, each having either a secure, dismissing, or preoccupied attachment representation. Directly after having listened to each of the prototypical narratives, participants underwent a 10-minute resting-state fMRI scan.