Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience最新文献

Introduction: Exposure to blue-enriched light from electronic devices is an emergent disruptor of human sleep, especially at particular times of day. Further dissection of this phenomenon necessitates modeling in a tractable model organism.

Methods: Thus, we investigated the effects of light color on sleep in Drosophila melanogaster. We measured sleep in red-eyed Canton-S (CS) and white-eyed w ¹¹¹⁸ flies in baseline 12:12 light/dark conditions and experimental conditions with light-color (blue, red, or green) exposure for all 12 h of daylight or 3 h in the morning or evening.

Results: Blue light reduced daytime and nighttime sleep in CS but not in w ¹¹¹⁸, potentially indicating a role for the compound eye in blue light's effects on fruit fly sleep. Red light, especially in the evening, reduced sleep during exposure in both strains. Green light had minimal effects on sleep in CS flies, but evening exposure reduced sleep in w ¹¹¹⁸ flies, mimicking red light's effects.

Discussion: In conclusion, light's effects on sleep in D. melanogaster are dependent on wavelength and time-of-day. Future studies will aim to dissect these mechanisms genetically.

Introduction: Alcohol use disorder is a chronic disorder with significant limitations in pharmacological treatments, necessitating the exploration of non-pharmacological interventions.

Methods: We used a model of alcohol self-administration (10% v/v) to analyze behavioral, neurochemical, and signaling mechanisms.

Results: Our findings demonstrate that stimulation of the HT7 acupuncture point significantly decreased the frequency of active lever presses in rats self-administering alcohol (p < 0.05). Alcohol self-administration increased microglial activity and sigma 1 receptor expression in the habenula (Hb), while HT7 stimulation mitigated these effects, decreasing microglial activity and sigma 1 receptor levels (p < 0.05). Additionally, alcohol self-administration reduced brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) expression in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and increased tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) levels in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) (p < 0.05). HT7 stimulation reversed these alterations by increasing BDNF expression in the mPFC and decreasing TH levels in the VTA (p < 0.05). Further investigation revealed that BDNF microinjection into the mPFC inhibited sigma 1 receptor activity in the Hb, while microglial inhibition in the Hb decreased TH expression in the VTA (p < 0.05). The administration of the microglial inhibitor MINO to the Hb also reduced alcohol self-administration (p < 0.05).

Discussion: These results suggest that HT7 stimulation regulates the mPFC-Hb-VTA circuit, leading to decreased alcohol-seeking behavior. Our study demonstrates that HT7 acupuncture can modulate the mPFC-Hb-VTA circuit, providing a potential non-pharmacological treatment for alcohol-seeking behavior by influencing microglial activity, sigma 1 receptor expression, and TH levels. These findings contribute to a deeper understanding of the neural mechanisms underlying acupuncture's therapeutic effects on alcohol use disorder.

Introduction: According to reinforcement learning, humans adjust their behavior based on the difference between actual and anticipated outcomes (i.e., prediction error) with the main goal of maximizing rewards through their actions. Despite offering a strong theoretical framework to understand how we acquire motor skills, very few studies have investigated reinforcement learning predictions and its underlying mechanisms in motor skill acquisition.

Methods: In the present study, we explored a 134-person dataset consisting of learners' feedback-evoked brain activity (reward positivity; RewP) and motor accuracy during the practice phase and delayed retention test to investigate whether these variables interacted according to reinforcement learning predictions.

Results: Results showed a non-linear relationship between RewP and trial accuracy, which was moderated by the learners' performance level. Specifically, high-performing learners were more sensitive to violations in reward expectations compared to low-performing learners, likely because they developed a stronger representation of the skill and were able to rely on more stable outcome predictions. Furthermore, contrary to our prediction, the average RewP during acquisition did not predict performance on the delayed retention test.

Discussion: Together, these findings support the use of reinforcement learning models to understand short-term behavior adaptation and highlight the complexity of the motor skill consolidation process, which would benefit from a multi-mechanistic approach to further our understanding of this phenomenon.

Introduction: The study aimed to explore the key factors influencing emotional valence in rodents, focusing on the critical elements that distinguish the contagion processes of fear and pain.

Methods: Through a systematic review and meta-analysis, we examined behavioral outcomes of rodents exposed to painful or fearful catastrophes to see whether they are prosocial or antisocial through three-chamber test and dyadic social interaction paradigm.

Results: Fear contagion, particularly when witnessed, leads to social avoidance behavior, unaffected by sex difference but more pronounced with age. In contrast, pain contagion promotes social approach and caring/helping behaviors.

Discussion: The present study demonstrates that the emotional valence induced by pain contagion is quite different from fear contagion and this difference may result in different motivations and social behaviors, namely, social contagion of pain is likely to be more associated with prosocial behaviors, however, social contagion of fear is likely to be more associated with antisocial behaviors.

Systematic review registration: PROSPERO (CRD42024566326).

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fnbeh.2024.1327858.].

This functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study examined resting-state (RS) connectivity in adolescent and adult patients with anorexia nervosa (AN) using symptom provocation paradigms. Differential food reward mechanisms were investigated through separate assessments of responses to food images and low-caloric/high-caloric food consumption. Thirteen young (≤ 21 years) and seventeen adult (> 21 years) patients with AN and age-matched controls underwent two stimulus-driven fMRI sessions involving RS scans before and after the presentation of food-related stimuli and food consumption. Graph theory and machine learning were used for analyzing the fMRI and clinical data. Healthy controls (HCs) showed widespread developmental changes, while young participants with AN exhibited cerebellum differences for high-calorie food. Young individuals with AN displayed increased connectivity during the consumption of potato chips compared to zucchini, with no differences in adults with AN. Multiparametric machine learning accurately distinguished young individuals with AN from healthy controls based on RS connectivity following food visual stimulation ("anticipatory") and consumption ("consummatory"). This study highlights the differential food reward mechanisms and minimal developmental changes in RS connectivity from youth to adulthood in individuals with AN compared to healthy controls. Young individuals with AN demonstrated heightened reactivity to high-caloric foods, while adults showed decreased responsiveness, potentially due to desensitization. These findings shed light on aberrant eating behaviors in individuals with AN and contribute to our understanding of the chronicity of the disease.

Anxiety disorder is one of the most well-characterized behavioral disorders in individuals subjected to acute or chronic stress. However, few studies have demonstrated how different types of stressors can modulate the neurochemical alterations involved in the generation of anxiety. In this study, we hypothesize that subjects exposed to different aversive stimuli (mechanical, chemical, and spatial restriction) present varied intensities of anxiety-like responses associated with distinct patterns of gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) and glutamate release in the brain. Adult zebrafish, Danio rerio (n = 60), were randomly divided into four experimental groups; control, acute restraint stress (ARS), conspecific alarm substance (CAS), and chasing with net (CN). After the stress protocols, the animals were individually transferred to a novel tank diving test for behavioral analysis. Subsequently, their brains were collected and subjected to GABA and glutamate release assay for quantification by HPLC. Our behavioral results showed that all aversive stimuli were capable of inducing anxiety-like behavior. However, the impact of anxiogenic behavior was more prominent in the CN and CAS groups when compared to ARS. This phenomenon was evident in all analyzed behavioral parameters (time on top, freezing, mean speed, maximum speed, and erratic swimming). Our data also showed that all aversive stimuli significantly decreased GABA release compared to the control group. Only animals exposed to CN and CAS presented an increase in extracellular glutamate levels. Different acute stressors induced different levels of anxiety-like behavior in zebrafish as well as specific alterations in GABAergic and glutamatergic release in the brain. These results demonstrate the complexity of anxiety disorders, highlighting that both behavioral and neurochemical responses are highly context-dependent.

Changes in memory performance are one of the main symptoms of normal aging. The storage of similar experiences as different memories (ie. behavioral pattern separation), becomes less efficient as aging progresses. Studies have focused on hippocampus dependent spatial memories and their role in the aging related deficits in behavioral pattern separation (BPS) by targeting high similarity interference conditions. However, parahippocampal cortices such as the perirhinal cortex are also particularly vulnerable to aging. Middle age is thought to be the stage where mild mnemonic deficits begin to emerge. Therefore, a better understanding of the timing of the spatial and object domain memory impairment could shed light over how plasticity changes in the parahipocampal-hippocampal system affects mnemonic function in early aging. In the present work, we compared the performance of young and middle-aged rats in both spatial (spontaneous location recognition) and non-spatial (spontaneous object recognition) behavioral pattern separation tasks to understand the comparative progression of these deficits from early stages of aging. Moreover, we explored the impact of environmental enrichment (EE) as an intervention with important translational value. Although a bulk of studies have examined the contribution of EE for preventing age related memory decline in diverse cognitive domains, there is limited knowledge of how this intervention could specifically impact on BPS function in middle-aged animals. Here we evaluate the effects of EE as modulator of BPS, and its ability to revert the deficits caused by normal aging at early stages. We reveal a domain-dependent impairment in behavioral pattern separation in middle-aged rats, with spatial memories affected independently of the similarity of the experiences and object memories only affected when the stimuli are similar, an effect that could be linked to the higher interference seen in this group. Moreover, we found that EE significantly enhanced behavioral performance in middle-aged rats in the spatial and object domain, and this improvement is specific of the high similarity load condition. In conclusion, these results suggest that memory is differentially affected by aging in the object and spatial domains, but that BPS function is responsive to an EE intervention in a multidomain manner.

Objective: Individuals who can recognize emotions well are better able to identify and accept their feelings and manage them. This study examined the mediation of problem-focused coping in the pathway through which emotional clarity predicts higher life satisfaction and lower depression in older adults.

Methods: In total, 150 older adults (75 male and 75 female, aged 60-69 years, with a mean of 64.53 [SD = 2.49]) participated in a face-to-face survey, answering questions on emotional clarity, problem-focused coping, life satisfaction, and depression.

Results: Emotional clarity was associated with higher life satisfaction and lower depression in older adults. People who were aware of their emotions well were in better emotional condition. Mediation analysis revealed that problem-focused coping mediated the positive relationship between emotional clarity and life satisfaction and the negative relationship between emotional clarity and depression. Older adults who understand their own emotions tend to deal with emotional events in a problem-focused manner, leading to high life satisfaction and low depression.

Conclusion: This study identifies cognitive conditions for increasing life satisfaction and preventing depression in later life and offers suggestions for personal and social efforts to maintain mental health.

The effects of voluntary wheel-running exercise in different rodent models of depression remain unclear, and further research is needed to fully understand the mechanisms underlying these effects. Therefore, this systematic review aimed to evaluate the currently available findings on whether voluntary wheel-running exercise can alleviate depressive symptoms in five different rodent models of depression. The findings of the comprehensive meta-analysis imply that engaging in voluntary wheel-running exercise has a beneficial effect on alleviating depressive symptoms in rodent models that simulate depression. While further research is needed to fully understand the mechanisms and limitations of this intervention future research should aim to conduct larger. Well-designed studies that use standardized protocols and outcome measures. This would help to reduce heterogeneity between studies and improve the overall quality of the evidence base. Additionally, studies should explore the potential mechanisms of action of voluntary wheel-running exercise in treating depression, such as changes in neurotransmitter levels, neuroplasticity, and inflammation. The results suggest that it may hold promise as an adjunctive therapy for depression.