Functional connectivity of reward processing in the brain.

Controversial results have been reported concerning the neural mechanisms involved in the processing of rewards and punishments. On the one hand, there is evidence suggesting that monetary gains and losses activate a similar fronto-subcortical network. On the other hand, results of recent studies imply that reward and punishment may engage distinct neural mechanisms.

PyMVPA: A Unifying Approach to the Analysis of Neuroscientific Data.

The Python programming language is steadily increasing in popularity as the language of choice for scientific computing. The ability of this scripting environment to access a huge code base in various languages, combined with its syntactical simplicity, make it the ideal tool for implementing and sharing ideas among scientists from numerous fields and with heterogeneous methodological backgrounds. The recent rise of reciprocal interest between the machine learning (ML) and neuroscience communities is an example of the desire for an inter-disciplinary transfer of computational methods that can benefit from a Python-based framework.

Contribution of subcortical structures to cognition assessed with invasive electrophysiology in humans.

Implantation of deep brain stimulation (DBS) electrodes via stereotactic neurosurgery has become a standard procedure for the treatment of Parkinson's disease. More recently, the range of neuropsychiatric conditions and the possible target structures suitable for DBS have greatly increased. The former include obsessive compulsive disease, depression, obesity, tremor, dystonia, Tourette's syndrome and cluster-headache.

Nucleus Accumbens is Involved in Human Action Monitoring: Evidence from Invasive Electrophysiological Recordings.

The Nucleus accumbens (Nacc) has been proposed to act as a limbic-motor interface. Here, using invasive intraoperative recordings in an awake patient suffering from obsessive-compulsive disease (OCD), we demonstrate that its activity is modulated by the quality of performance of the subject in a choice reaction time task designed to tap action monitoring processes. Action monitoring, that is, error detection and correction, is thought to be supported by a system involving the dopaminergic midbrain, the basal ganglia, and the medial prefrontal cortex.

The impact of aphasia on the patient and family in the first year poststroke.

This article reports a study that addressed coping strategies and possible related factors in 58 patients with aphasia and their relatives in the first year poststroke. Coping strategies, psychosocial changes, expectations of psychosocial adjustment, illness-related causal attributions, control beliefs, and activities of daily living were investigated in a longitudinal study. The data show that subjects with aphasia and their relatives experience significantly more severe professional and social changes than do subjects without aphasia and their families.