Current topics in behavioral neurosciences最新文献

Psychedelics are gaining attention for their potential as therapeutic adjuncts for the treatment of psychological disorders. Additionally, the recreational use of these substances has been rising for the past years. In the context of a comprehensive analysis of potential harms induced by these substances, concerns regarding the cognitive and neuropsychological impact of their use remain. This chapter explores the acute, subacute, and long-term neuropsychological consequences of psychedelic use. Studies show that neuropsychological performance, especially attention and working memory, is reduced under the influence of a psychedelic. While not harmful in itself, this effect poses potential risks when combined with high-risk environments, such as road traffic. While these acute impairments seem to disappear on the day after psychedelic use, there is limited evidence that some impairments in executive functioning can persist for up to 24 h. Thus, caution is not only warranted during psychedelic use but also for the following day. In contrast, psychedelics do not seem to induce persistent changes in neuropsychological performance through repeated use, indicating no direct neuropsychological harms. However, further research is required to clarify the differential effects of various psychedelic substances and to assess the impact of chronic use across different contexts.

Psychedelic experiences involving extreme feelings of horror, helplessness, and perceived threats can be traumatizing. Traumatic psychedelic experiences are a rare, extreme, and largely preventable form of challenging experience which can arise due to frightening psychedelic drug effects, unsafe settings, and emergence of pre-existing trauma. Some people recover quickly, but others develop prolonged anxiety, sleep disturbances, derealization, or other potentially trauma-related symptoms. This chapter discusses the causes, phenomenology, and potential outcomes of traumatic psychedelic experiences, as well as how to prevent them and minimize their negative impact.

This chapter explores the risks of guruism and cultic social dynamics in organisations that work with psychedelic drugs, which include therapist offices, clinics, research departments, retreat centres, training programmes, NGOs, underground ceremonies and new religious movements. It has been hypothesised, and argued by experienced practitioners, that psychedelics can increase suggestibility, amplify transference and facilitate an intense form of projective mechanisms in the recipients. They may thereby lead to ego-inflation and feelings of grandiosity and omnipotence in those giving the drugs and intensify cultic social dynamics in psychedelic communities - all of which can create conditions that make cases of harm and misconduct more likely to occur and go unreported. This chapter briefly introduces the terms 'guruism' and 'cultic social dynamics' and how these dynamics can lead to harm and abuse and then discusses how psychedelic drugs might amplify these processes, before outlining possible safeguards.

The development of animal models that demonstrate excessive levels of alcohol consumption has played an important role in advancing our knowledge about neurobiological underpinnings and environmental circumstances that engender such maladaptive behavior. The use of these preclinical models has also provided valuable opportunities for discovering new and novel therapeutic targets that may be useful in the treatment of alcohol use disorder (AUD). While no single model can fully capture the complexities of AUD, the goal is to develop animal models that closely approximate characteristics of heavy alcohol drinking in humans to enhance their translational value and utility. A variety of experimental approaches have been employed to produce the desired phenotype of interest-robust and reliable excessive levels of alcohol drinking. Here we provide an updated review of five animal models that are commonly used. The models entail procedural manipulations of scheduled access to alcohol (time of day, duration, frequency), periods of time when access to alcohol is withheld, and history of alcohol exposure. Specially, the models involve (a) scheduled access to alcohol, (b) scheduled periods of alcohol deprivation, (c) scheduled intermittent access to alcohol, (d) scheduled-induced polydipsia, and (e) chronic alcohol (dependence) and withdrawal experience. Each of the animal models possesses unique experimental features that engender excessive levels of alcohol consumption. Both advantages and disadvantages of each model are described along with discussion of future work to be considered in developing more optimal models. Ultimately, the validity and utility of these models will lie in their ability to aid in the discovery of new and novel potential therapeutic targets as well as serve as a platform to evaluate treatment strategies that effectively reduce excessive levels of alcohol consumption associated with AUD.

This review investigates the teratogenic impact of valproic acid (VPA) on brain development, focusing on dose-dependent and timing-related behavioural and neurological outcomes in rats and mice, with an emphasis on using it as a model for autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Single and multiple administration methods (e.g., oral gavage and intraperitoneal injections) across various rat and mouse strains consistently report behavioural alterations (i.e., altered social interaction and locomotor activity) and neuronal changes, particularly in the hippocampus and cerebellum. We underscore the importance of understanding dose-related changes and the critical role of VPA exposure in determining the long-term neurodevelopmental effects. While animal models provide valuable insights into the pre- and postnatal effects of drug exposure, this chapter also addresses the limitation of extrapolating such findings to humans given the face and construct validity of the model. Overall, this review emphasises VPA's utility in modelling ASD-like behaviours and the need for ongoing research to refine these models for better applicability to humans.

Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are commonly prescribed to treat maternal depression during pregnancy, yet their potential impact on foetal brain development remains a concern. Although maternal illness is a known confounder, growing evidence from both clinical and preclinical studies suggests that perinatal SSRI exposure may independently influence neurodevelopmental outcomes. This review draws on rodent studies to explore how developmental SSRI exposure affects the gut microbiome, maternal behaviour, myelination, and offspring social behaviour. Elevated serotonin levels caused by SSRIs can alter both brain development and the maternal gut microbiota, with possible long-term effects on offspring. Behaviourally, SSRI-exposed offspring often show reduced social play, altered social interactions, and sex-specific effects on aggression and sexual behaviour, in which males appear more sensitive to these effects than females. Maternal care is only modestly affected. Overall, developmental SSRI exposure in the absence of maternal illness can disrupt brain development and social behaviour in offspring, potentially through gut-brain axis mechanisms and altered myelination.

This chapter reviews some directions along which Craig's proposal of subjective time as emergent from interoceptive and bodily dynamics allows to frame recent findings on prospective and retrospective time processing. Behavioral and neuroimaging evidence from prospective timing studies demonstrates that an interoceptive-insular system may support the development of a primary representation of time in the context of large-scale networks involved in duration processing. Studies showing a tight link between episodic memory and interoceptive, emotional, and sensorimotor states further provide insights on processes supporting retrospective timing. These lines of evidence show that acknowledging its dependence on bodily states is most likely a crucial step toward a mechanistic understanding of time perception.

Interoception plays a critical role in emotion regulation and mental health during adolescence, a critical period marked by profound biological, cognitive, and emotional changes. Variability in interoceptive processing during adolescence is shaped by biological, hormonal, and psychosocial factors, with implications for both resilience and vulnerability to affective disorders such as anxiety, depression, disordered eating, and substance use. This chapter reviews the trajectory of interoceptive development in adolescence, emphasizing its role in shaping emotional and behavioral outcomes. Interventions aimed at improving interoceptive awareness, including mindfulness practices and body-awareness training, are also reviewed as promising strategies to support emotional resilience and mental well-being during this formative stage. Understanding the complexities of interoception in adolescence provides a foundation for advancing research and interventions that promote adaptive functioning and long-term mental health.

The use of animal models continues to be essential for carrying out research into clinical phenomena, including addiction. However, the complexity of the clinical condition inevitably means that even the best animal models are inadequate, and this may go some way to account for the apparent failures of discoveries from animal models, including the identification of potential novel therapies, to translate to the clinic. We argue here that it is overambitious and misguided in the first place to attempt to model complex, multifacetted human disorders such as addiction in animals, and especially in rodents, and that all too frequently "validity" of such models is limited to superficial similarities, referred to as "face validity", that reflect quite different underlying phenomena and biological processes from the clinical situation. Instead, a more profitable approach is to identify (a) well-defined intermediate human behavioural phenotypes that reflect defined, limited aspects of, or contributors to, the human clinical disorder, and (b) to develop animal models that are homologous with those discrete human behavioural phenotypes in terms of psychological processes, and underlying neurobiological mechanisms. Examples of past and continuing weaknesses and suggestions for more limited approaches that may allow better homology between the test animal and human condition are made.

With the advent of human neuroimaging, researchers were drawn to the idea that by better understanding the human brain, more effective mental health interventions could be developed. It has been more than 20 years since the first functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies were conducted to examine changes in brain activation with anxiety-related treatments and more than 60 studies have since been published in this vein. For the current review, we conduct a systematic review of this literature, focusing on adult studies using task-based fMRI to measure brain activation changes with pharmacologic or psychotherapy interventions for phobia, social anxiety disorder, panic disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, posttraumatic stress disorder, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Neuroscientific theories of anxiety-related disorders and their treatment have focused on prefrontal-insula-amygdala networks. Treatment-related decreases in amygdala and/or anterior insula activation were identified as the most consistent finding across disorders, with the most consistent results reported for specific phobia. Directionality of change and specific regions implicated in the prefrontal cortex were inconsistent across studies. The potential importance for probing other networks and processes as mechanisms of anxiety treatment was recognized, such as striatal regions underlying inhibitory learning or reward responsivity. Future treatment-fMRI research related to anxiety disorders would benefit from larger sample sizes, use of more nuanced computational approaches, and increased focus on replication. There is continued promise that fMRI research will enhance our understanding of how treatments work and inform the evolution of more effective or personalized mental health treatment.