NeuroImage最新文献

Amblyopia is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by reduced visual acuity due to abnormal visual experience during critical periods. In adulthood, the diminished plasticity of the primary visual cortex (V1) presents a major barrier to effective treatment. Here, we investigate whether baicalin, a flavonoid derived from Scutellaria baicalensis, can restore ocular dominance plasticity (ODP) and promote functional recovery in a mouse model of adult amblyopia. Using intrinsic signal optical imaging and electrophysiological recording, we demonstrate that 10 mg/kg baicalin treatment reactivates ODP in adult mice, whereas 5mg/kg or Scutellaria water extract fails to do so. Furthermore, baicalin combined with reverse suturing in adult amblyopic mice restored both ocular dominance distribution and visual acuity to normal levels. Baicalin treatment reduced the expression of two major GABA synthetic enzymes (glutamate decarboxylase, GAD65/67) and perineuronal nets in V1, while administration of the GABA_A receptor agonist muscimol during the baicalin treatment blocked the rescued ODP. These findings suggested that a reduction in cortical inhibition might underlie the restoration of visual plasticity in adults. Our results suggest that baicalin may serve as a potential therapy for adult amblyopia.

Human neuroimaging studies indicate that the early visual cortex (EVC), including the primary visual cortex (V1), is involved in haptic exploration of objects, even when visual information is not available. However, it remains unknown whether the features of haptically explored objects, like size, are represented in the EVC. Here, we investigated whether we can use the activity pattern in the EVC and other task-relevant brain regions to decode stimulus size during haptic exploration, and whether this effect is due to visual imagery. Twenty-five right-handed participants haptically explored or imagined the size of three rings (small, medium, large) in a slow-event-related fMRI study. Participants were blindfolded during the training and fMRI sessions. Using multivariate pattern analysis, we found that V1 and the occipital pole (OP) showed accurate decoding of stimulus size during haptic exploration, but not imagery trials. This suggests that the activity patterns observed in the haptic condition cannot be explained by visual imagery. Frontal and parietal regions, as well as the multisensory lateral occipital tactile-visual area (LOtv), showed accurate size decoding during both haptic and imagery conditions, suggesting a flexible representation of stimulus size that adapts to task demands. In addition, stimulus size could be decoded across tasks in the anterior and posterior intraparietal sulcus (aIPS, pIPS), and dorsal premotor cortex (dPM). Psychophysiological interaction analysis indicated that V1 and OP showed stronger functional connectivity with ventral and dorsal visual stream areas during the haptic as compared to the imagery task. Overall, stimulus size information is similarly represented in frontal and parietal cortices across haptic exploration and imagery, but not in early visual areas, demonstrating that only regions specialized for haptic exploration and imagery support generalized size representations.

Attention is not monolithic; rather, it operates in multiple forms to facilitate efficient cognitive processing. In the auditory domain, attention enables the prioritization of relevant sounds in an auditory scene and can be either attracted by elements in the scene in a bottom-up fashion or directed towards features, objects, or the entire scene in a top-down fashion. How these modes of attention interact and whether their neural underpinnings are distinct remains unclear. In this work, we investigate the perceptual and neural correlates of different attentional modes in a controlled "cocktail party" paradigm, where listeners listen to the same stimuli and attend to either a spatial location (operationalized here as a feature-based auditory attribute), a speaker (object-based), or the entire scene (global or free-listening) while detecting deviations in pitch of a voice in the scene. Our findings indicate that object-based attention is more perceptually effective than feature-based or global attention. Furthermore, object-based and spatial-based attention engage distinct neural mechanisms and are differentially modulated by bottom-up salience. Notably, while bottom-up salience aids in the initial segregation of auditory objects, it plays a reduced role in object tracking once attention has been voluntarily allocated. In addition, decoding the stimulus envelope from the EEG data revealed a source-sampling scheme in the global attention mode that is not present in the object or spatial modes. Overall, the study shows that the perception of the same acoustic scene differs according to the listening task, guided by an interaction between top-down and bottom-up processes.

Trust is a cornerstone of human cooperation, yet it unfolds differently depending on who we interact with and under what circumstances. Understanding how the brain integrates social traits and contextual demands is key to explaining why we sometimes choose to trust-and sometimes refrain. Although prior studies have identified neural regions involved in trust, it remains unclear how dispositional factors, such as Social Value Orientation (SVO), interact with the strategic context of the decision. Few experiments have jointly manipulated both partner characteristics and game structure, limiting our understanding of how context-dependent trust is represented in the brain. This study examined how partner SVO and game context jointly shape trust behavior and its neural correlates. Thirty-one adults completed a multi-game fMRI paradigm, acting as trustors in the Trust Game (TG), which involves reciprocity, and the Tripled Dictator Game (TDG), assessing altruism. Partner SVOs ranged from aggressive to altruistic. Behaviorally, participants transferred more with prosocial partners, particularly in the TG, and this tendency was strongest among individuals who were themselves more prosocial, indicating that personal dispositions amplify sensitivity to cooperative partners in strategic contexts. Neurally, activity in the precuneus/posterior cingulate cortex increased with higher amount sent during the TG, and regions involved in social cognition, such as the right angular gyrus, reflected how the brain distinguishes cooperative from selfish partners depending on whether trust requires reciprocity. In conclusion, strategic context dynamically modulates both the behavioral expression and neural representation of trust, showing how social preferences and situational demands jointly guide prosocial decision-making.

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a prevalent and heterogeneous neurodevelopmental condition marked by atypical brain connectivity. Understanding ASD neural subtypes at the network level is critical for clarifying its neuroanatomical heterogeneity. Morphometric similarity networks (MSNs), derived from region-to-region similarity across multiple anatomical features, offer a powerful approach for capturing individual-level neural architecture. In this study, MSNs were estimated from seven anatomical features in 348 individuals with ASD and 452 typically developing (TD) controls. Across all ASD participants, the first principal component of MSN values was negatively correlated with social and communication severity. Three ASD subtypes with distinct MSN patterns were identified. Subtype-1, characterized by weaker morphometric similarity values in frontotemporal association regions compared to TD individuals, exhibited the most severe symptoms in social, communication and repetitive behaviors, and displayed hyperconnectivity between the salience and visual networks, and between language and visual networks. Subtype-2 showed greater values of morphometric similarities than TD and less severe social symptoms compared to subtype-1, along with hyperconnectivity between default and salience networks relative to TD. Subtype-3 displayed morphometric similarity values largely comparable to TD and the least severe symptoms out of the three subtypes. Transcriptomic analysis revealed that GABAergic parvalbumin and glutamatergic intratelencephalic-projecting neurons were key cell types differentiating subtypes. These findings suggest the existence of distinct ASD neuroanatomical subtypes defined by regional morphometric similarity, each linked to unique behavioral, functional, and transcriptomic profiles. Morphometric dissimilarity in association regions may serve as a neural signature for ASD subtypes characterized by more severe clinical manifestations.

Systematic investigations into the lateralized human brain have revealed a bivariate functional architecture that underpins distinct cognitive processes. This architecture manifests through inter- and intra-hemispheric lateralization, captured respectively by neural integration and segregation. In this study, we conducted a comprehensive evaluation of multiple quantitative laterality metrics in resting-state fMRI connectivity, using conceptual models to illustrate how inter- and intra-hemispheric correlations shape functional lateralization. We further highlight the critical influence of factors such as correlation sign, correlation coefficient distribution, and statistical thresholding methodology on the interpretation of functional connectivity-based laterality indices. Our findings show that, in our dataset, laterality metrics based on positive-only functional connectivity with a lenient connection-level threshold most consistently capture established relationships between functional brain lateralization and performance in language and visuospatial domains.

Non-ordinary states of consciousness (NOC) offer a way to examine how large-scale brain dynamics reorganize as experience changes. We studied a participant able to reliably enter a self-induced NOC state characterized by vivid imagery, altered bodily perception, and a sense of unity. Across 20 fMRI sessions, we measured functional connectivity in four conditions (Baseline, Transition, NOC, and Residual) and compared the results with a matched control group. During the Transition phase, connectivity became more variable, indicating a temporary destabilization of network organization. In the NOC state, inter-network connectivity decreased broadly, with visual cortex showing reduced coupling to auditory, sensorimotor, orbitofrontal, thalamic, and cerebellar regions, and the somatomotor-dorsal network disengaging from auditory and language cortices, paralleling the reported visual phenomena and changes in bodily experience. In contrast, frontoparietal and salience networks showed increased coupling with precuneus/posterior cingulate, multimodal temporal cortex, and cerebellar hubs, in agreement with subjective reports of sustained inward-directed attention and stable absorption. Entropy and complexity analyses revealed systematic shifts that tracked the experiential sequence and returned to baseline in the Residual condition. This single-case study brings together something uncommon: controlled experimentation, voluntary induction of NOC states, and rich phenomenological data. Taken together, these elements offer a strong foundation for neurophenomenological research and illustrate why pairing structured paradigms with lived experience is useful for understanding non-ordinary states of consciousness.

Background: Post-traumatic confusional state (PTCS) frequently occurs during the recovery from disorders of consciousness (DoC) following severe traumatic brain injury (TBI). Confusional symptoms span multiple domains influencing consciousness, including impairments in the access and integration of mental contents, distortions in perceptual and emotional experiences, vigilance fluctuations, and deficits in memory, orientation, and executive control. While the clinical presentation can be systematically characterized using the Confusion Assessment Protocol (CAP), the underlying neurophysiological mechanisms remain poorly understood. Specifically, slowing of both periodic and aperiodic EEG activity is a consistent finding across multiple alterations of consciousness.

Objective: We assessed whether recovery from PTCS involves a renormalization of EEG slowing.

Methods: We recorded resting-state EEG from subacute severe TBI patients at admission (T0), comparing patients with PTCS (N=22) to TBI Controls who had already emerged (N = 19). Patients with PTCS were longitudinally monitored using CAP, and a follow-up EEG (T1) was acquired after rehabilitation either upon recovery (N=19) or at discharge (N=3).

Results: Recovery from PTCS was marked by partial normalization of the spectral profile-as indexed by the spectral exponent, and peak frequency-converging toward the profile of TBI Controls. However, marginal persistent elevations in power, indexed by spectral offset and delta power, indicated residual abnormalities. Spectral features, particularly spectral exponent and offset, correlated with CAP and robustly discriminated the presence of PTCS (bivariate model ROC AUC = 0.894).

Conclusion: Results show that PTCS is marked by broadband EEG slowing affecting both periodic and aperiodic activity. Spectral reorganization over time provides insight into the mechanisms of recovery from PTCS and may inform rehabilitation pathways.

Introduction: The study of sex/gender (S/G) differences in neuroscience, particularly in emotional processing, has been hindered by methodological inconsistencies, often producing biased conclusions that overgeneralize brain differences between males and females. Moreover, many studies fail to consider how other sociodemographic factors interact with S/G to influence the brain. This study aims to address these gaps by investigating whether potential S/G effects in brain activation during emotion-evoking functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) tasks are influenced by those factors.

Methods: This meta-analysis followed Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines and was registered on PROSPERO. We searched for peer-reviewed studies on S/G differences in whole-brain activations during fMRI emotion-evoking tasks. Data analysis was conducted using Seed-based d Mapping with Permutation of Subject Images (SDM-PSI). Subgroup analyses were performed based on the type of tasks and on race, and meta-regressions assessed the impact of age, education, and hormonal contraceptive use on the main effects.

Results: 63 studies were included for the meta-analysis, comprising a total of 5,436 individuals from the general population (2,635 females). The main meta-analysis showed no significant S/G activation differences at the whole-brain level. Subgroup analyses, however, revealed significant S/G differences depending on the type of task and the race subgroup, while meta-regression analyses showed significant associations between S/G effects and education and hormonal contraceptive use, with notable shifts in activation patterns across these variables.

Discussion: Our findings highlight the need for more complex, intersectional models that consider the dynamic interplay of biological, psychological, and social factors in shaping S/G differences in brain function and mental health.