The animate monitoring hypothesis proposes that humans are predisposed to attend preferentially to animate entities in the environment (New, Cosmides, & Tooby, 2007). However, there have to date been no developmental investigations of animate monitoring in younger populations, despite the relevance of such evidence to this hypothesis. Here we demonstrate that adults and preschoolers recall a novel

The distinction between different facial emotions is crucial for interpersonal communication. Shared neural circuits for facial emotion production and perception are considered to facilitate the ability to understand other's emotional state via mirror neuron mechanisms. Little is known about how diverse emotions differentially activate the Mirror Neuron System (MNS) during facial expression processing

Everyday prosociality includes helping behaviors such as holding doors or giving directions that are spontaneous and low-cost and are performed frequently by the average person. Such behaviors promote a wide array of positive outcomes that include increased well-being, trust, and social capital, but the cognitive and neural mechanisms that support these behaviors are not yet well understood. Whereas

Discrepancies between sensory predictions and action outcome are at the base of error coding. However, these phenomena have mainly been studied focussing on individual performance. Here, we explored EEG responses to motor prediction errors during a human-avatar interaction and show that Theta/Alpha activity of the frontal error-monitoring system works in phase with activity of the occipito-temporal

Across different cultures, social touch is used to alleviate distress. Here we adopt a dual-brain approach with fMRI to examine whether social touch involves similar activations between the suffering ‘target’ and the empathizer in brain regions related to emotional sharing such as the observation-execution (mirror) network. To inspect the neural underpinnings of the effects of social touch on pain

Tourette syndrome (TS) and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are two neurodevelopmental hyper-behavioral disorders that are highly comorbid. The source of this comorbidity and the neuronal mechanisms underlying these disorders are still unclear. We examined the neuronal activity of freely behaving rats before and after striatal disinhibition, to reveal the similar and distinct neuronal

Cerebral Palsy (CP), a common form of neurological pediatric disability, results from pre- or perinatal brain injury. Although there is growing evidence of the efficacy of motor learning-based therapies, several factors interact to produce variability in impairment and limit the effectiveness of these therapies. The variability of hand function present in children with CP indicates that a range of

An alien limb is a debilitating disorder of volitional control. The core feature of alien limb is the performance of simple or complex semi-purposeful movements which the patient reports to be unintentional or unwanted, or occasionally in opposition to their intentions. Theories of the mechanism of alien limb phenomena have emphasised the role of disinhibition in the brain, and exaggerated action ‘affordances’

Functional cerebral asymmetries (FCAs) are a fundamental principle of brain organisation. While specific patterns of asymmetry are characteristic of healthy human brains, atypical or reduced FCAs have been reported for several psychotic disorders, including schizophrenia and mood disorders. However, it is unclear whether atypical FCAs reflect a predisposition to psychotic disorders or a compensatory

Neuroimaging studies suggest that understanding emotions in others engages brain regions partially common to those associated with more general cognitive Theory-of-Mind (ToM) functions allowing us to infer people’s beliefs or intentions. However, neuropsychological studies on brain-damaged patients reveal dissociations between the ability to understand others’ emotions and ToM. This discrepancy might

Behavioral evidence suggests that different mechanisms mediate duration perception depending on whether regular or irregular cues for time estimation are provided, and that individual differences in interoceptive processing may affect duration perception only in the latter case. However, no study has addressed brain correlates of this proposed distinction. Here participants performed a duration reproduction

Visual perception of actions is supported by a network of brain regions in the occipito-temporal, parietal, and premotor cortex in the primate brain, known as the Action Observation Network (AON). Although there is a growing body of research that characterizes the functional properties of each node of this network, the communication and direction of information flow between the nodes is unclear. According

Self-other distinction is crucial for empathy, since it prevents the confusion of self-experienced emotions with those of others. We aimed to extend our understanding of the neurocognitive mechanisms of self-other distinction. Thirty-one female participants underwent continuous theta burst transcranial magnetic stimulation (cTBS) targeting the supramarginal gyrus (rSMG), a sub-region of the temporoparietal

Previous observations of improvements in cognition in typically developing children following moderate to vigorous exercise (e.g. Budde, Voelcker-Rehage, Pietrabyk-Kendziorra, Ribeiro, and Tidow, 2008; Hillman et al., 2009) have led to increased interest in the potential benefits of exercise for children with neurodevelopmental disorders, involving difficulties in self-regulation (e.g. Halperin and

Over the past decade there has been increasing interest in the involvement of the microbiota-gut-brain axis in mental health. However, there are major gaps in our knowledge regarding the complex signaling systems through which gut microbes modulate the CNS. The immune system is a recognized mediator in the bidirectional communication continuously occurring between gut and brain. We previously demonstrated

The brain-age paradigm is proving increasingly useful for exploring ageing-related disease and can predict important future health outcomes. Most brain-age research utilises structural neuroimaging to index brain volume. However, ageing affects multiple aspects of brain structure and function, which can be examined using multi-modality neuroimaging. Using UK Biobank, brain-age was modelled in n=2,205

Neural responses to auditory surprise are typically studied with highly unexpected, disruptive sounds. Consequently, little is known about auditory prediction in everyday contexts that are characterized by fine-grained, non-disruptive fluctuations of auditory surprise. To address this issue, we used IDyOM, a computational model of auditory expectation, to obtain continuous surprise estimates for a

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the leading cause of dementia, accounting for 70% of cases worldwide. By 2050, dementia prevalence will have tripled, with most new cases occurring in low- and middle-income countries. Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is a stage between healthy aging and dementia, marked by cognitive deficits that do not impair daily living. People with MCI are at increased risk of dementia

Recent studies have shown that prediction and attention can interact under various circumstances, suggesting that the two processes are based on interdependent neural mechanisms. In the visual modality, attention can be deployed to the location of a task-relevant stimulus (‘spatial attention’) or to a specific feature of the stimulus, such as colour or shape, irrespective of its location (‘feature-based

Recent evidence shows that hippocampal theta oscillations, usually linked to memory and navigation, are also observed during online language processing, suggesting a shared neurophysiological mechanism between language and memory. However, it remains to be established what specific roles hippocampal theta oscillations may play in language, and whether and how theta mediates the communication between

Cerebrovascular reactivity (CVR), an index of brain vessel’s dilatory capacity, is typically measured using hypercapnic gas inhalation or breath-holding as a vasoactive challenge. However, these methods require considerable subject cooperation and could be challenging in clinical studies. More recently, there have been attempts to use resting-state BOLD data to map CVR by utilizing spontaneous changes

The cerebellum plays a key role in the regulation of motor learning, coordination and timing, and has been implicated in sensory and cognitive processes as well. However, our current knowledge of its electrophysiological mechanisms comes primarily from direct recordings in animals, as investigations into cerebellar function in humans have instead predominantly relied on lesion, haemodynamic and metabolic

Do embodied semantic systems play different roles depending on when and how well a given language was learned? Emergent evidence suggests that this is the case for isolated, decontextualized stimuli, but no study has addressed the issue considering naturalistic narratives. Seeking to bridge this gap, we assessed motor-system dynamics in 26 Spanish-English bilinguals as they engaged in free, unconstrained

Human visual cortex is partitioned into different functional areas that, from lower to higher, become increasingly selective and responsive to complex feature dimensions. Here we use a Representational Similarity Analysis (RSA) of fMRI-BOLD signals to make quantitative comparisons across LGN and multiple visual areas of the low-level stimulus information encoded in the patterns of voxel responses.

Beamformers are applied for estimating spatiotemporal characteristics of neuronal sources underlying measured MEG/EEG signals. Several MEG analysis toolboxes include an implementation of a linearly constrained minimum-variance (LCMV) beamformer. However, differences in implementations and in their results complicate the selection and application of beamformers and may hinder their wider adoption in

In humans, each hemisphere comprises an overlay of two visuotopic maps of the contralateral visual field, one from each eye. Is the capacity of the visual cortex limited to these two maps or are plastic mechanisms available to host more maps? We determined the cortical organization of the visual field maps in a rare individual with chiasma hypoplasia, where visual cortex plasticity is challenged to

How the brain fluidly orchestrates visual behavior is a central question in cognitive neuroscience. Researchers studying neural responses in humans and nonhuman primates have mapped out visual response profiles and cognitive modulation in a large number of brain areas, most often using pared down stimuli and highly controlled behavioral paradigms. The historical emphasis on reductionism has placed

Macaque monkeys are an important animal model where invasive investigations can lead to a better understanding of the cortical organization of primates including humans. However, the tools and methods for noninvasive image acquisition (e.g. MRI RF coils and pulse sequence protocols) and image data preprocessing have lagged behind those developed for humans. To resolve the structural and functional

Behavioral studies investigating fundamental cognitive abilities provide evidence that processing speed accounts for large proportions of performance variability between individuals. Processing speed decline is a hallmark feature of the cognitive disruption observed in healthy aging and in demyelinating diseases such as multiple sclerosis (MS), neuromyelitis optica, and Wilson’s disease. Despite the

Experimental studies highlight profound effects of sleep disruptions on pain, showing that sleep deprivation (SD) leads to hyperalgesic pain changes. On the other hand, given that sleep helps normalizing bodily functions, a crucial role of restorative sleep in the overnight restoration of the pain system seems likely. Thus, a systematic review of experimental studies on effects of recovery sleep (RS;

Most mental disorders are now considered to have neurodevelopmental origins, with a growing body of research pointing to neural alterations that predate birth. However, lack of established methods for reliable investigation of fetal brain development has limited research into early neural vulnerability. Using a systematic approach and quantitative evaluation of study methodology, we review neurosonographic

Abstract Introduction Olfactory testing helps in diagnosing olfactory dysfunction (OD). The Sniffin’ Sticks odor test kit is widely used for research and can be reused and summed scores of threshold (T), discrimination (D), and identification (I) allow comparison to normative data. Testing can be time consuming and odor pens have to be presented by an examiner. The aim of this study was to investigate

Abstract Introduction Assessment of olfactory performance is of high clinical interest in the contexts of smell loss as well as neurological diseases, and recently gained attention in obesity research. Available olfactory tests, especially for assessing olfactory sensitivity, are time-consuming and require high cognitive capacity. Therefore, we aimed to establish a short procedure for reliably testing

Abstract Introduction Sounds can affect food and flavor perception. For example, loud noise can affect taste perception. In the present study, we examined whether exposure to ~ 80-dB magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) acoustic noise affects taste perception. Methods Participants (N = 27) came to the lab twice for a taste test, a smell test, and evaluating sweet and savory food items: once when continuously

Abstract Introduction Changes in olfactory perception observed in cross-sectional studies may not reflect actual ongoing change within individuals. The aim of the present study was to assess intra-individual as well as inter-individual variation in olfactory scores in pre-schoolers across five waves over a 2-year period. Methods The participants were 157 children (79 boys) aged 5.8 ± 0.6 years at initial

Abstract Introduction Olfactory habituation results from prolonged exposure to an odor, leading to perceptual changes defined by several characteristics. To date, human habituation research has focused on orthonasal olfaction which is perceived externally while ignoring internal routes of odor perception related to flavor. In our study, we conducted two experiments to characterize retronasal olfactory

Experiments identify cortical layer specific effects during induced arousal from general anesthesia. In this issue of Neuron, Redinbaugh et al. (2020) find evidence that central lateral thalamic nucleus electrical stimulation reactivates the cortex by restoring deep-layer firing rates and modulating feedforward and feedback connectivity.

Forward genetic screen, typically performed in invertebrates or mammalian cell lines, has been instrumental in discovering genes essential for neural function. In this issue of Neuron, Wertz et al. (2020) demonstrate the first viral-mediated, genome-wide screen to identify neuroprotective genes in wild-type and Huntington’s disease (HD) mouse brains.

Defective nucleocytoplasmic transport contributes to C9-ALS/FTD, but an inventory of proteins that become redistributed has remained elusive. In this issue of Neuron, Ortega et al. (2020) catalog these redistributed proteins and pinpoint nonsense-mediated decay as a therapeutic target for C9-ALS/FTD.

How are head direction signals computed and maintained in neural circuits? In this issue of Neuron, Shiozaki et al. (2020) expand our understanding of the fly “compass” network, revealing context- and experience-dependent changes in the multiplexed encoding of head direction and steering maneuvers.

In this issue of Neuron, Morrens et al. (2020) show that stimulus-evoked dopamine responses are enhanced by novelty and increase the rate at which animals acquire conditioned responses. These results provide a candidate neural mechanism for latent inhibition and illustrate a new role of dopamine signals in learning.

Neurons in neocortical layer 1 (L1) are thought to regulate attentional processes through integration of long-range inputs and disinhibitory effects on the underlying cortex. A new study combines genetically targeted voltage imaging and optogenetics to elucidate the input-output transformations of the L1 network in the mouse somatosensory cortex, revealing unique features of sensory-evoked dynamics

The world faces a climate emergency. Here, we consider the actions that can be taken by neuroscientists to tackle climate change. We encourage neuroscientists to put emissions reductions at the center of their everyday professional activities.

Since the discovery of ocular dominance plasticity, neuroscientists have understood that changes in visual experience during a discrete developmental time, the critical period, trigger robust changes in the visual cortex. State-of-the-art tools used to probe connectivity with cell-type-specific resolution have expanded the understanding of circuit changes underlying experience-dependent plasticity

The habenula complex is appreciated as a critical regulator of motivated and pathological behavioral states via its output to midbrain nuclei. Despite this, transcriptional definition of cell populations that comprise both the medial habenular (MHb) and lateral habenular (LHb) subregions in mammals remain undefined. To resolve this, we performed single-cell transcriptional profiling and highly multiplexed

Transplantation of appropriate neuronal precursors after injury is a promising strategy to reconstruct cortical circuits, but the efficiency of these approaches remains limited. Here, we applied targeted apoptosis to selectively ablate layer II/III pyramidal neurons in the rat juvenile cerebral cortex and attempted to replace lost neurons with their appropriate embryonic precursors by transplantation

Aberrant metabolism is a key factor in many neurological disorders. The ability to measure such metabolic impairment could lead to improved detection of disease progression, and development and monitoring of new therapeutic approaches. Hyperpolarized 13C magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) is a developing imaging technique that enables non-invasive measurement of enzymatic activity in real time in

Background Impaired probabilistic reasoning and the jumping-to-conclusions reasoning bias (JTC) are hallmark features of schizophrenia (SCZ), yet the neuropharmacological basis of these deficits remain unclear. Here we test the hypothesis that glutamatergic neurotransmission specifically contributes to JTC and impaired probabilistic reasoning in SCZ. Methods 192 healthy participants received either

Dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) and hippocampus (HPC) are thought to play complementary roles in a spatial working memory and decision-making network, where spatial information from HPC informs representations in dmPFC, and contextual information from dmPFC biases how HPC recalls that information. We recorded simultaneously from neural ensembles in rodent dmPFC and HPC as rats performed a rule-switching

Attentional control processes help to prioritize the storage of information in visual working memory (VWM) by gating what enters the system and influencing how precisely this information is stored. However, the extent to which such prioritization occurs deliberately, opposed to incidentally, is poorly understood. In large part, this is because investigations of this matter have almost exclusively relied

Chromatic stimuli across a boundary of basic colour categories (BCCs; e.g. blue and green) are discriminated faster than colorimetrically equidistant colours within a given category. Russian has two BCCs for blue, sinij ‘dark blue’ and goluboj ‘light blue’. These language-specific BCCs were reported to enable native Russian speakers to discriminate cross-boundary dark and light blues faster than English

Scans without evidence of dopaminergic deficit (SWEDD) patients are often misdiagnosed with Parkinson’s disease (PD) but have normal dopamine transporter scans. We hypothesised that white matter tracts associated with motor and cognition functions may be affected differently by SWEDD and PD. Automatically annotated fibre clustering (AAFC) is a novel clustering method based on diffusion magnetic resonance

Acquired information is stabilized into long-term memory through a process known as consolidation. Though, after consolidation, when stored information is retrieved they can be again susceptible, allowing modification, updating and strengthening and to be re-stabilized they need a new process referred to as memory reconsolidation. However, the molecular mechanisms of recognition memory consolidation

Stimulus Type Effect on Phonological and Semantic errors (STEPS) occurs when a person, following brain damage, produces phonemic errors with non-number-words (e.g., lale for tale), but produces semantic errors with number-words (e.g., thirteen for forty-two). Despite the relative frequency of this phenomenon, it has received little scholarly attention thus far. To explain STEPS, the Building Blocks

The human genes for Interleukin 13 (IL-13) and its receptor alpha 1 (IL-13Rα1) are in chromosomal regions associated with Parkinson’s disease (PD). The interaction of IL-13 with its receptor increases the susceptibility of mouse dopaminergic neurons to oxidative stress. We identified two rare single SNPs in IL13 and IL13RA1 and measured their cytotoxic effects. rs148077750 is a missense leucine to

Biallelic variants in NPC1, a gene coding for a lysosomal transmembrane protein involved in cholesterol trafficking, may cause Niemann-Pick disease type C (NPC). A few cases of NPC1 variant carriers with Parkinson’s disease (PD) have been reported. In addition, pathological studies have demonstrated phosphorylated alpha-synuclein and Lewy pathology in brains of NPC patients. Therefore, we aimed to