Relational neuroscience: Insights from hyperscanning research.

Humans are highly social, typically without this ability requiring noticeable efforts. Yet, such social fluency poses challenges both for the human brain to compute and for scientists to study. Over the last few decades, neuroscientific research of human sociality has witnessed a shift in focus from single-brain analysis to complex dynamics occurring across several brains, posing questions about what these dynamics mean and how they relate to multifaceted behavioural models.

Testing Hubel and Wiesel's "ice-cube" model of functional maps at cellular resolution in macaque V1.

Hubel and Wiesel's ice-cube model proposed that V1 orientation and ocular dominance functional maps intersect orthogonally to optimize wiring efficiency. Here, we revisited this model and additional arrangements at both cellular and pixel levels in awake macaques using two-photon calcium imaging. The recorded response fields of view were similar in size to hypercolumns, each containing up to 2,000 identified neurons and representing full periods of orientation preferences and ocular dominance.

Simultaneous intracranial recordings of interacting brains reveal neurocognitive dynamics of human cooperation.

Cooperative interactions profoundly shape individual and collective behaviors of social animals. Successful cooperation requires coordinated efforts by cooperators toward collective goals. However, the underlying behavioral dynamics and neuronal mechanisms within and between cooperating brains remain largely unknown.

Ciliary length regulation by intraflagellar transport in zebrafish.

How cells regulate the size of their organelles remains a fundamental question in cell biology. Cilia, with their simple structure and surface localization, provide an ideal model for investigating organelle size control. However, most studies on cilia length regulation are primarily performed on several single-celled organisms.

Unstable functional brain states and reduced cerebro-cerebellar modularity in elderly individuals with subjective cognitive decline.

The preclinical stage of Alzheimer's Disease (AD) holds great potential for intervention, therefore, it is crucial to elucidate the neural mechanisms underlying the progression of subjective cognitive decline (SCD). Previous studies have predominantly focused on the neural changes in the cerebrum associated with SCD, but have relatively neglected the cerebellum, and its functional relationship with the cerebrum. In the current study, we employed dynamic functional connectivity and large-scale brain network approaches to investigate the pathological characteristics of dynamic brain states and cerebro-cerebellar collaboration between SCD (n = 32) and the healthy elderly (n = 29) using resting-state fMRI.

Ultrathin Bioelectrode Array with Improved Electrochemical Performance for Electrophysiological Sensing and Modulation.

To achieve high accuracy and effectiveness in sensing and modulating neural activity, efficient charge-transfer biointerfaces and a high spatiotemporal resolution are required. Ultrathin bioelectrode arrays exhibiting mechanical compliance with biological tissues offer such biointerfaces. However, their thinness often leads to a lack of mechano-electrical stability or sufficiently high electrochemical capacitance, thus deteriorating their overall performance.

The role of children's neural responses to emotional faces in the intergenerational transmission of anxiety symptomatology.

Children's neural responses to emotions may play a role in the intergenerational transmission of anxiety. In a prospective longitudinal study of a community sample of = 464 mother-child dyads, we examined relations among maternal anxiety symptoms when children were infants and age 5 years, child neural responses to emotional faces (angry, fearful, happy) at age 3 years, and child internalizing symptoms at age 5 years. Path analyses tested whether amplitudes of event-related potential (ERP) components selected a priori (N290, Nc, P400) (a) mediated associations between maternal anxiety symptoms in infancy and child internalizing symptoms at 5 years and/or (b) moderated associations between maternal anxiety symptoms at 5 years and child internalizing symptoms at 5 years.

Gut microbiota regulate insomnia-like behaviors via gut-brain metabolic axis.

Sleep interacts reciprocally with the gut microbiota. However, mechanisms of the gut microbe-brain metabolic axis that are responsible for sleep behavior have remained largely unknown. Here, we showed that the absence of the gut microbiota can alter sleep behavior.

Impact of working memory training on brain network plasticity and genetic associations: insights from individual differences.

Considerable individual differences in learning ability have long been recognized, yet cognitive learning studies traditionally emphasized group averages while overlooking individual differences. We conducted intersubject similarity of functional connectivity analysis on a month-long randomized controlled trial dataset. Subjects in the training group, together with an additional 66 subjects undergoing the same training, were included to examine the correlations between intersubject similarity of functional connectivity and the intersubject similarity of single nucleotide polymorphisms related to mental disorders (schizophrenia, attention-deficient hyperactivity disorder, and autism spectrum disorder).

Developmental and Adult Striatal Patterning of Nociceptin Ligand Marks Striosomal Population With Direct Dopamine Projections.

Circuit influences on the midbrain dopamine system are crucial to adaptive behavior and cognition. Recent developments in the study of neuropeptide systems have enabled high-resolution investigations of the intersection of neuromodulatory signals with basal ganglia circuitry, identifying the nociceptin/orphanin FQ (N/OFQ) endogenous opioid peptide system as a prospective regulator of striatal dopamine signaling. Using a prepronociceptin-Cre reporter mouse line, we characterized highly selective striosomal patterning of Pnoc mRNA expression in mouse dorsal striatum, reflecting the early developmental expression of Pnoc.

Intracortical recordings reveal the neuronal selectivity for bodies and body parts in the human visual cortex.

Body perception plays a fundamental role in social cognition. Yet, the neural mechanisms underlying this process in humans remain elusive given the spatiotemporal constraints of functional imaging. Here, we present intracortical recordings of single- and multiunit spiking activity in two epilepsy surgery patients in or near the extrastriate body area, a critical region for body perception.

Unveiling the Heterogeneity of Sensation Seeking and Collectivism Development in Chinese Adolescents.

Objective: Understanding the impact of sociocultural tendencies on the personality development of adolescents represents a critical theoretical and practical issue in the field of adolescent development. In the context of China's collectivist culture, the developmental trajectories of and the interaction between sensation seeking and collectivism among adolescents remain largely unknown.

Method: This study examined the heterogeneity of the joint growth patterns of sensation seeking and collectivism and their interactions across distinct latent trajectory classes.

Distinguishing deception from its confounds by improving the validity of fMRI-based neural prediction.

Deception is a universal human behavior. Yet longstanding skepticism about the validity of measures used to characterize the biological mechanisms underlying deceptive behavior has relegated such studies to the scientific periphery. Here, we address these fundamental questions by applying machine learning methods and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to signaling games capturing motivated deception in human participants.

Multiple loci for foveolar vision in macaque monkey visual cortex.

In humans and nonhuman primates, the central 1° of vision is processed by the foveola, a retinal structure that comprises a high density of photoreceptors and is crucial for primate-specific high-acuity vision, color vision and gaze-directed visual attention. Here, we developed high-spatial-resolution ultrahigh-field 7T functional magnetic resonance imaging methods for functional mapping of the foveolar visual cortex in awake monkeys. In the ventral pathway (visual areas V1-V4 and the posterior inferior temporal cortex), viewing of a small foveolar spot elicits a ring of multiple (eight) foveolar representations per hemisphere.

Models optimized for real-world tasks reveal the task-dependent necessity of precise temporal coding in hearing.

Neurons encode information in the timing of their spikes in addition to their firing rates. Spike timing is particularly precise in the auditory nerve, where action potentials phase lock to sound with sub-millisecond precision, but its behavioral relevance remains uncertain. We optimized machine learning models to perform real-world hearing tasks with simulated cochlear input, assessing the precision of auditory nerve spike timing needed to reproduce human behavior.

Disease-specific suppressive granulocytes participate in glioma progression.

Glioblastoma represents one of the most aggressive cancers, characterized by severely limited therapeutic options. Despite extensive investigations into this brain malignancy, cellular and molecular components governing its immunosuppressive microenvironment remain incompletely understood. Here, we identify a distinct neutrophil subpopulation, termed disease-specific suppressive granulocytes (DSSGs), present in human glioblastoma and lower-grade gliomas.

Older is order: entropy reduction in cortical spontaneous activity marks healthy aging.

Background: Entropy trajectories remain unclear for the aging process of human brain system due to the lacking of longitudinal neuroimaging resource.

Results: We used open data from an accelerated longitudinal cohort (PREVENT-AD) that included 24 healthy aging participants followed by 4 years with 5 visits per participant to establish cortical entropy aging curves and distinguish with the effects of age and cohort. This reveals that global cortical entropy decreased with aging, while a significant cohort effect was detectable that people who were born earlier showed higher cortical entropy.

Pupillometry reveals hyper-arousal in response to auditory stimuli in autistic children.

Atypical sensory responsivity is widely reported in autistic individuals and is related to elevated functional difficulties. Dynamically, altered initial responses and/or habituation rates could underlie their atypical averaged responses to repeated sensory stimuli. In this study we aimed to measure the arousal level in response to different types of auditory stimuli and the dynamic change of atypical arousal level using pupillometry in autistic children.

Substitution of physical activity for sedentary behaviour contributes to executive function improvement among young adults: a longitudinal study.

Background: Sedentary lifestyles may affect cognitive capacities which are essential for daily tasks. There is a lack of research on the effects of replacing sedentary behaviour with physical activity on executive function, as well as the dose-response relationship between physical activity and executive function among young adults, underscoring the critical need for prompt investigation.

Methods: Employing a longitudinal experimental design, the study conducted two assessments (baseline and at three months) on a cohort of participants.

Oxytocin in Human Social Network Cooperation.

Human society is organized in structured social networks upon which large-scale cooperation among genetically unrelated individuals is favored and persists. Such large-scale cooperation is crucial for the success of the human species but also one of the most puzzling challenges. Recent work in social and behavioral neuroscience has linked human cooperation to oxytocin, an evolutionarily ancient and structurally preserved hypothalamic neuropeptide.

Brain-clinical pattern alterations after treatment in schizophrenia.

Discovering meaningful brain-clinical patterns would be a significant advancement for elucidating the pathophysiology underlying schizophrenia. In the present study, we analyzed associations between functional brain characters (average functional connectivity strength and its fluctuations) and clinical features (age onset, illness duration, and positive, negative, disorganized, excited, and depressed) using partial least squares. Also, we analyzed the brain-clinical relationship changes after 6-wk of treatment.