Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience最新文献

Introduction: This study investigated whether a single morning session of bright light exposure modulates alertness, cognition, mood, and EEG activity in well-rested and partially sleep-deprived adolescents.

Methods: Forty-seven subjects (15-21 years) were assigned to a well-rested (8 h sleep; 9 men, 15 women) or a sleep-deprived group (4 h sleep; 11 men, 12 women). All underwent 30 min of morning bright light exposure, with EEG, cognitive testing, and ratings of sleepiness and affect conducted pre- and post-intervention. Behavioral and electrophysiological changes were compared within and between groups. Associations between changes in EEG activity and behavioral outcomes were explored using correlation analyses.

Results: Bright light significantly reduced negative affect and improved Digit Span Forward task performance. No changes were observed in positive affect, subjective sleepiness, or Digit Span Backward scores. EEG analysis revealed decreased delta activity in the anterior cingulate cortex and increased beta activity in the right insula and fronto-parietal regions. Behavioral and EEG effects were similar across groups; however, only in the sleep-deprived group changes in beta activity significantly correlated with reduced negative affect.

Discussion: These results suggest that bright light may acutely enhance emotional state, cognitive performance, and cortical arousal in adolescents. The link between beta activity and affective improvement under sleep deprivation suggests a potential mechanism by which light supports emotional regulation.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fnbeh.2025.1564676.].

Zebrafish (Danio rerio) are commonly used to test the impact of pharmacological and toxicological compounds. Larval zebrafish are extensively used because of high throughput procedures allowing simultaneous behavioural measurement in 24-, 48-, or 96-well plates. Often solvents are used as a vehicle for poorly soluble or insoluble compounds, however, the impact of dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO), methanol, and ethanol after acute administration is not well characterized. Here we investigated the impact of 30-min exposures of DMSO, methanol, and ethanol (0.01%, 0.1%, and 1.0% vol/vol) on 5-day old larval zebrafish locomotion and startle responses. We found no effect of DMSO on distance moved and thigmotaxis in a spontaneous swimming test, and no effect on dark-, light-, or tap-startle responses compared to controls. Methanol and ethanol, both at 1.0% increased the distance moved, and ethanol decreased the dark startle response at 1.0%. Neither ethanol nor methanol had any impact on time in thigmotaxis zone, light- or tap-startle responses. Results from this study suggest that with acute exposure to experimental compounds requiring a solvent, the least impact on behaviour would occur with DMSO, followed by methanol, then ethanol.

Introduction: A growing body of evidence shows that paternal care has long-lasting impacts on the social behavior of offspring, both in humans and other mammalian biparental species. However, fatherhood has historically been understudied and the dynamics of parental care adjustments based on their partner's behavior remain unclear. This study investigates how individuals adjust parenting behavior based on their experience as part of a parenting dyad in the biparental prairie vole (Microtus ochrogaster).

Methods: We investigated how prairie voles learn to be parents by observing how their parental care effort changes over two consecutive litters. The first litter represents a naive context while the second litter represents an experienced context.

Results: On average, dyads provided 9% more care in the naive context than in the experienced context. Experienced mothers, as a group, tended to reduce care significantly, while experienced fathers did not. By comparing the correlation between mother and father care in the naive versus experienced contexts, we found that parental care became more negatively correlated following experience. Finally, we investigated whether the difference in the amount of care provided by each parent in the dyad in the naive context drives the observed changes in experienced parental behavior, and found that these differences significantly predict the likelihood of reducing or increasing parental care effort in the experienced context for both the male and female partner.

Conclusion: Our results indicate that individual care behavior is adjusted based on the parenting effort of the dyadic partner. When only group-wise analyses are conducted, it appears that only mothers reduce care based on experience. However, through a dyadic-based analysis, we find that a larger difference in care between the two parents in the naive context corresponds to greater shifts in care by both parents in the experienced context. In sum, two patterns emerge in experienced parents that appear to improve parental care efficiency: (1) parents take on a more compensatory pattern of caregiving over time and (2) are able to adapt to initial differences in care such that investments in care become more balanced between mothers and fathers over time.

Introduction: Neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) provide life-saving care for preterm and sick neonates, but many medical procedures are painful and stress-inducing. Even a routine NICU procedure, such as the "heel lancing" blood-draw procedure, is an acutely painful, repetitive manipulation that has lasting negative impacts on pain perception and anxiety responses. The intersection of nociception and negative affect occurs in a brain region called the central nucleus of the amygdala (CeA), and neurons expressing corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF) have been implicated in studies of both anxiety and pain.

Methods: Using a two-hit model of trauma-induced pain vulnerability-where repetitive needle prickings occur during the first week of life ("our NICU model"), followed by a second stressor (e.g., fear conditioning) during adolescence-our lab has observed a mechanical hypersensitivity in rats that endured our NICU model that manifests only after fear conditioning. We have also observed changes to expression and activation of CeA-CRF neurons after the NICU-like experience with an acute increase followed by a lasting reduction in the number of CRF cells in the right CeA of adolescent male rats. However, the relationship between these changes and the observed behavioral outcomes remains unclear, as does the function of the remaining CRF cell population. We hypothesize that the remaining population of CRF-expressing CeA neurons are functionally altered by early life pain and stress and primed to respond more readily, such that vulnerability to stress-induced hypersensitivity is increased.

Results: Through chemogenetic inhibition of the amygdala, or specifically CeA-CRF neurons, we demonstrate that development of stress-induced mechanical hypersensitivity after our NICU model is completely reversed through silencing the amygdala. Inhibiting only CeA-CRF neurons during fear conditioning led to a partial reversal of the hypersensitivity, suggesting that other populations of cells also play critical roles. Nevertheless, we demonstrate that the NICU-like experience results in a lasting hyperexcitability of CeA-CRF neurons during adolescence, confirming that this population is affected by the early life manipulations.

Discussion: In all, this study suggests that CeA-CRF neurons may have pro-nociceptive properties that are exacerbated by early life pain and result in maladaptive responding to subsequent traumatic events.

Introduction: Delayed rewards discounting describes the tendency to choose a smaller immediate rewards instead of a larger delayed rewards. Considering the central role of impulsivity in models accounting for criminal conduct in general and violent behavior, the relationship between delayed rewards discounting and crime is likely to be present. Thereby extending the reported association with the addictive behavior. However, it is unclear whether it should be treated as a risk or an etiological factor. Consequently, the current literature review aims to summarize the existing empirical research focused on this aspect of impulsive decision-making among those who have offended.

Methods: The review was performed in accordance with the 2021 Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. The literature search of the Web of Science, PubMed, and PsycINFO databases was conducted in February 2025.

Results: The initial search yielded 1,251 articles. After exclusion of 250 duplicates, 1,001 titles were screened for relevance, leading to 556 abstracts. After reading them, 162 full-text articles were inspected, leaving 25 articles included in the review.

Conclusion: This review demonstrates that although delayed rewards discounting is associated with general criminal conduct, the association with violence specifically is tenuous. Furthermore, several studies point out that influencing serotonergic functioning, behavioral modeling, or future representations have the potential to influence it. However, further detailed research is needed.

While it is known that chronic unpredictable stress and negative events adversely affect neurobiological outcomes, much less is known regarding the neurobiological impact of positive emotions such as chronic anticipation of appetitive events. From a translational perspective, an enhanced understanding of the impact of extended exposure to positive emotions may provide novel insights into effective non-pharmacological, behavior-based approaches to enhance mental resilience. Here, we investigate a novel rodent model of chronic Unpredictable Positive Event Response (UPER) training in male and female Long Evans rats to examine behavioral, neural, and endocrine effects of enhanced anticipation of positive events. Rats were exposed to either 3 weeks of daily, randomly administered, cued positive events (UPER training) or exposure to the same positive events administered at the same time (i.e., in a predictable manner) each day to control for anticipation (Enriched Control Training; ENR). Following UPER and ENR training, rats were assessed for cognitive bias, exploratory behaviors, and persistence in a Cognitive Bias Assessment paradigm, Novelty-Suppressed Feeding Task, and an Unattainable Puzzle Reward Task, respectively. In the Cognitive Bias Assessment, a trend for UPER-trained males to respond with an optimistic bias was observed. A main effect of training was observed in the Unattainable Puzzle Reward Task, with UPER-trained rats exhibiting reduced latency to interact with the novel object. A sex-dependent latency to consume a food reward in a Novelty-Suppressed Feeding Task was also seen. Focusing on fecal corticosterone metabolite (FCM) levels following anticipation-enhanced versus anticipation-minimized training, UPER-trained rats exhibited a trend for lower levels than ENR-trained rats. No c-fos activation differences were observed between the groups. Overall, these preliminary findings suggest that anticipation for positive events may have sex-specific effects on emotional responses to uncertain events. Accordingly, further research may determine relevance of this model in preclinical models of psychiatric diseases.

Background: Cognitive disorders span several diagnostic categories in psychiatry, but subjective cognitive complaints (SCC) remain underutilized in transdiagnostic assessments, particularly in Arab contexts. These difficulties can also be present in Affective disorder illnesses are assessed using neuropsychological tests. Self-assessments are useful for understanding difficulties from the user's perspective. The Subjective Scale to Investigate Cognition in Schizophrenia (SSTICS) is a rating scale designed to measure subjective cognitive complaints in persons with schizophrenia. This study explores the SSTIC-E, a culturally adapted tool, highlighting its cross-diagnostic relevance over simple psychometric validation.

Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted among 210 participants (126 patients, 84 controls) in the United Arab Emirates. Patients met ICD-10/DSM-5 criteria for schizophrenia spectrum disorders and affective disorders, in addition to other psychiatric disorders. The instruments included the SSTIC-E and the MoCA. Analysis focused on internal consistency, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), and transdiagnostic comparisons.

Results: Patients reported higher SSTIC-E scores than controls (mean = 34.06 vs. 22.55, p < 0.001). MoCA scores confirmed decreased objective performance in patients (mean = 22.71 vs. 27.19, p < 0.001). The SSTIC-E has excellent reliability (α = 0.89). No significant differences were observed in SCCs between the schizophrenia and affective disorder groups. CFA analysis confirmed a one-factor model with residual item correlations (CFI = 0.91, RMSEA = 0.058). Women reported higher SCC; age had no effect.

Discussion: The SSTIC-E demonstrates utility beyond diagnostic silos, providing a valuable and culturally relevant instrument for transdiagnostic psychiatric assessment in Arabic-speaking populations. Schizophrenia exhibited slightly higher SCC compared to patients with affective disorders, with a lack of clear association between subjective and objective cognition. SCC is common across psychiatric diagnoses in the United Arab Emirates, supporting a dimensional model of cognitive dysfunction. SSTIC-E reveals insights into the lived experiences of patients not captured by objective tests. Cultural and gender influences underscore the necessity of context-specific approaches.