Pub Date : 2026-01-20DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2026.121741
Navve Wasserman, Roman Beliy, Roy Urbach, Michal Irani
Combining Functional MRI (fMRI) data across different subjects and datasets is crucial for many neuroscience tasks. Relying solely on shared anatomy for brain-to-brain mapping is inadequate. Existing functional transformation methods thus depend on shared stimuli across subjects and fMRI datasets, which are often unavailable. In this paper, we propose an approach for computing functional brain-to-brain transformations without any shared data (stimuli), a feat not previously achieved in functional transformations. This presents exciting research prospects for merging and enriching diverse datasets, even when they involve distinct stimuli that were collected using different fMRI machines of varying resolutions (e.g., 3-Tesla and 7-Tesla). Our approach combines brain-to-brain transformation with Image-to-fMRI encoders, thus enabling to learn functional transformations on visual stimuli to which subjects were never exposed. Furthermore, we demonstrate the applicability of our method for improving Image-to-fMRI encoding of subjects scanned on older low-resolution 3T fMRI datasets, by using a new high-resolution 7T fMRI dataset (scanned on different subjects and different stimuli). Altogether, we provide a general framework for functional alignment across individuals and datasets without any shared stimuli, opening new possibilities for integrating and leveraging the diversity of many existing fMRI collections.
{"title":"Functional brain-to-brain transformation without shared stimuli","authors":"Navve Wasserman, Roman Beliy, Roy Urbach, Michal Irani","doi":"10.1016/j.neuroimage.2026.121741","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.neuroimage.2026.121741","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Combining Functional MRI (fMRI) data across different subjects and datasets is crucial for many neuroscience tasks. Relying solely on shared anatomy for brain-to-brain mapping is inadequate. Existing functional transformation methods thus depend on shared stimuli across subjects and fMRI datasets, which are often unavailable. In this paper, we propose an approach for computing functional brain-to-brain transformations without any shared data (stimuli), a feat not previously achieved in functional transformations. This presents exciting research prospects for merging and enriching diverse datasets, even when they involve distinct stimuli that were collected using different fMRI machines of varying resolutions (e.g., 3-Tesla and 7-Tesla). Our approach combines brain-to-brain transformation with Image-to-fMRI encoders, thus enabling to learn functional transformations on visual stimuli to which subjects were never exposed. Furthermore, we demonstrate the applicability of our method for improving Image-to-fMRI encoding of subjects scanned on older low-resolution 3T fMRI datasets, by using a new high-resolution 7T fMRI dataset (scanned on different subjects and different stimuli). Altogether, we provide a general framework for functional alignment across individuals and datasets without any shared stimuli, opening new possibilities for integrating and leveraging the diversity of many existing fMRI collections.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":19299,"journal":{"name":"NeuroImage","volume":"327 ","pages":"Article 121741"},"PeriodicalIF":4.5,"publicationDate":"2026-01-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146025370","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-01-20DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2026.121744
Xinjing Li , Xiaodan Zheng , Yuchunzi Wu , Hao Zhu , Yunying Shu , Ruiqi Tong , Xing Tian
Differentiating self-generated from externally induced sounds is crucial for survival. Predictions can be generated based on action-outcome contingency and suppress neural responses to sensory reafference for distinguishing the origin of stimuli. The action-outcome contingency can be flexible or relatively fixed (e.g., keypress could trigger various sounds vs. articulatory gestures generate corresponding speech sounds) and can be available during the entire course of action (including stages of intention, preparation and execution). Are motor-based predictions created equally based on different types of action-outcome contingency and during distinct stages of action? We conducted three EEG experiments to determine how motor preparation modulates auditory processing using a delayed keypress paradigm in which participants prepared to press a key to trigger a sound without knowing what key to press. In Experiment 1, keypress preparation showed overall enhanced N1 responses (∼100 ms), largest for syllables, but did not reveal any suppression effects. Experiment 2 replicated N1 enhancement and showed significant P2 suppression (∼200 ms) in response to auditory syllables, when participants were pianists who had extensive keypress-sound mapping experience. Experiment 3, when pianists were in their unfamiliar pairing of lab keys and familiar piano tones, again showed N1 enhancement, but the P2 suppression was absent. Together, these results suggest that preparatory motor prediction in an optional mapping can influence auditory processing in multiple directions and motivate a two-stage gain-to-attenuation hypothesis that may depend on the precision (reliability) of action-outcome associations.
{"title":"Motor-based prediction during preparation of hand movement modulates auditory processing in two distinct directions","authors":"Xinjing Li , Xiaodan Zheng , Yuchunzi Wu , Hao Zhu , Yunying Shu , Ruiqi Tong , Xing Tian","doi":"10.1016/j.neuroimage.2026.121744","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.neuroimage.2026.121744","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Differentiating self-generated from externally induced sounds is crucial for survival. Predictions can be generated based on action-outcome contingency and suppress neural responses to sensory reafference for distinguishing the origin of stimuli. The action-outcome contingency can be flexible or relatively fixed (e.g., keypress could trigger various sounds vs. articulatory gestures generate corresponding speech sounds) and can be available during the entire course of action (including stages of intention, preparation and execution). Are motor-based predictions created equally based on different types of action-outcome contingency and during distinct stages of action? We conducted three EEG experiments to determine how motor preparation modulates auditory processing using a delayed keypress paradigm in which participants prepared to press a key to trigger a sound without knowing what key to press. In Experiment 1, keypress preparation showed overall enhanced N1 responses (∼100 ms), largest for syllables, but did not reveal any suppression effects. Experiment 2 replicated N1 enhancement and showed significant P2 suppression (∼200 ms) in response to auditory syllables, when participants were pianists who had extensive keypress-sound mapping experience. Experiment 3, when pianists were in their unfamiliar pairing of lab keys and familiar piano tones, again showed N1 enhancement, but the P2 suppression was absent. Together, these results suggest that preparatory motor prediction in an optional mapping can influence auditory processing in multiple directions and motivate a two-stage gain-to-attenuation hypothesis that may depend on the precision (reliability) of action-outcome associations.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":19299,"journal":{"name":"NeuroImage","volume":"327 ","pages":"Article 121744"},"PeriodicalIF":4.5,"publicationDate":"2026-01-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146030078","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-01-19DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2026.121736
Paulina Maxim , Thackery I. Brown
Studies on spatial schemas have primarily derived from rodent literature examining the development of task representations in the animal’s brain. However, traditional models of schema in humans have largely (although not exclusively) been non-navigation-based, with theoretical frameworks not always aligning with data from rodent studies using navigational contexts. Both literatures support that schemas accelerate learning of novel associations when prior associations already exist. However, theories vary in how adversarial hippocampus and ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) functions are for schema memory (despite intimate anatomical connections). Critically, cognitive maps, as a simple form of schema, are used for planning and decision-making, not just learning. Extant literature suggests there may be different stages of goal-directed navigation that are more demanding on hippocampal mechanisms than others (since planning and online decisions may differentially tax inference from what has previously been learned about this and “similar” environments) and demands may differ further depending on how closely-aligned routes are with prior navigational experiences in the environment. Such alignment may also influence how dissociable hippocampal mechanisms are from mPFC correlates of performance. Using desktop virtual reality, fMRI, and targeted region of interest analyses, findings from 19 healthy young adults demonstrate 1) functional differences between anterior and posterior subdivisions of vmPFC (which have been previously tied to schema processing and navigation), with significant differences between these subregions in how they process navigation stages and explain individual differences in navigation behavior. 2) Representational analyses demonstrate broad agreement in coding between the hippocampus and posterior mPFC, while anterior mPFC may support navigation through more generalized levels of processing.
{"title":"Differential representations of spatial environments in mPFC and hippocampus underpinning flexible navigation","authors":"Paulina Maxim , Thackery I. Brown","doi":"10.1016/j.neuroimage.2026.121736","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.neuroimage.2026.121736","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Studies on spatial schemas have primarily derived from rodent literature examining the development of task representations in the animal’s brain. However, traditional models of schema in humans have largely (although not exclusively) been non-navigation-based, with theoretical frameworks not always aligning with data from rodent studies using navigational contexts. Both literatures support that schemas accelerate learning of novel associations when prior associations already exist. However, theories vary in how adversarial hippocampus and ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) functions are for schema memory (despite intimate anatomical connections). Critically, cognitive maps, as a simple form of schema, are used for planning and decision-making, not just learning. Extant literature suggests there may be different stages of goal-directed navigation that are more demanding on hippocampal mechanisms than others (since planning and online decisions may differentially tax inference from what has previously been learned about this and “similar” environments) and demands may differ further depending on how closely-aligned routes are with prior navigational experiences in the environment. Such alignment may also influence how dissociable hippocampal mechanisms are from mPFC correlates of performance. Using desktop virtual reality, fMRI, and targeted region of interest analyses, findings from 19 healthy young adults demonstrate 1) functional differences between anterior and posterior subdivisions of vmPFC (which have been previously tied to schema processing and navigation), with significant differences between these subregions in how they process navigation stages and explain individual differences in navigation behavior. 2) Representational analyses demonstrate broad agreement in coding between the hippocampus and posterior mPFC, while anterior mPFC may support navigation through more generalized levels of processing.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":19299,"journal":{"name":"NeuroImage","volume":"327 ","pages":"Article 121736"},"PeriodicalIF":4.5,"publicationDate":"2026-01-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146019097","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-01-16DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2026.121727
Eliana Monahhova , Alexandra Morozova , Dimitri Bredikhin , Julia Gorodnicheva , Amir Bekim , Anna Shestakova , Vasily Klucharev
Advances in deepfake technology raise concerns about disinformation spread. Novel deepfake technologies make it increasingly difficult to distinguish between real and fake media content. The current study investigated how speakers’ credibility, the participants’ traits and attitudes may influence the brain processing of audio deepfakes arguing for and against COVID-19 vaccination. We analyzed the electroencephalograms (EEGs) of 61 participants who supported or opposed COVID-19 vaccination. The participants were exposed to audio deepfakes portraying two speakers—a prominent medical doctor (pro-vaccine advocate) or a prominent COVID-19 dissident (anti-vaccine advocate)—making statements that were congruent or incongruent with their publicly known stances. Сritical words that contradicted the medical doctor's (pro-vaccine advocate) public opinion elicited a stronger delayed N400-like response with a latency of 500–750 ms compared to the critical words that matched his public opinion. We observed no similar effect for the critical words of the popular actress (anti-vaccine advocate). The speaker's credibility was significantly predicted by the amplitude of the N400 component to critical words that contradicted speakers’ public opinion, while participants’ intentions to share deepfakes were predicted by their neural responses to critical words that matched speakers’ public opinion. Our results do not only support previous behavioral findings that information is differently processed depending on source credibility but link them to the brain mechanisms of semantic processing of deepfakes.
{"title":"ERP correlates of semantic inconsistencies in deepfakes","authors":"Eliana Monahhova , Alexandra Morozova , Dimitri Bredikhin , Julia Gorodnicheva , Amir Bekim , Anna Shestakova , Vasily Klucharev","doi":"10.1016/j.neuroimage.2026.121727","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.neuroimage.2026.121727","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Advances in deepfake technology raise concerns about disinformation spread. Novel deepfake technologies make it increasingly difficult to distinguish between real and fake media content. The current study investigated how speakers’ credibility, the participants’ traits and attitudes may influence the brain processing of audio deepfakes arguing for and against COVID-19 vaccination. We analyzed the electroencephalograms (EEGs) of 61 participants who supported or opposed COVID-19 vaccination. The participants were exposed to audio deepfakes portraying two speakers—a prominent medical doctor (pro-vaccine advocate) or a prominent COVID-19 dissident (anti-vaccine advocate)—making statements that were congruent or incongruent with their publicly known stances. Сritical words that contradicted the medical doctor's (pro-vaccine advocate) public opinion elicited a stronger delayed N400-like response with a latency of 500–750 ms compared to the critical words that matched his public opinion. We observed no similar effect for the critical words of the popular actress (anti-vaccine advocate). The speaker's credibility was significantly predicted by the amplitude of the N400 component to critical words that contradicted speakers’ public opinion, while participants’ intentions to share deepfakes were predicted by their neural responses to critical words that matched speakers’ public opinion. Our results do not only support previous behavioral findings that information is differently processed depending on source credibility but link them to the brain mechanisms of semantic processing of deepfakes.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":19299,"journal":{"name":"NeuroImage","volume":"327 ","pages":"Article 121727"},"PeriodicalIF":4.5,"publicationDate":"2026-01-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145998564","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-01-16DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2026.121729
Ziyao Shang , Misha Kaandorp , Kelly Payette , Marina Fernandez Garcia , Roxane Licandro , Georg Langs , Jordina Aviles Verdera , Jana Hutter , Bjoern Menze , Gregor Kasprian , Meritxell Bach Cuadra , Andras Jakab
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has played a crucial role in fetal neurodevelopmental research. Structural annotations of MR images are an important step for quantitative analysis of the developing human brain, with Deep Learning providing an automated alternative for this otherwise tedious manual process. However, segmentation performances of Convolutional Neural Networks often suffer from domain shift, where the network fails when applied to subjects that deviate from the distribution with which it is trained on. In this work, we aim to train networks capable of automatically segmenting fetal brain MRIs with a wide range of domain shifts pertaining to differences in subject physiology and acquisition environments, in particular shape-based differences commonly observed in pathological cases. We introduce a novel data-driven train-time sampling strategy that seeks to fully exploit the diversity of a given training dataset to enhance the domain generalizability of the trained networks. We adapted our sampler, together with other existing data augmentation techniques, to the SynthSeg framework, a generator that utilizes domain randomization to generate diverse training data. We ran thorough experimentations and ablation studies on a wide range of training/testing data to test the validity of the approaches. Our networks achieved notable improvements in the segmentation quality on testing subjects with intense anatomical abnormalities (p < 1e-4), though at the cost of a slighter decrease in performance in cases with fewer abnormalities. Our work also lays the foundation for future works on creating and adapting data-driven sampling strategies for other training pipelines.
{"title":"Towards contrast- and pathology-agnostic clinical fetal brain MRI segmentation using SynthSeg","authors":"Ziyao Shang , Misha Kaandorp , Kelly Payette , Marina Fernandez Garcia , Roxane Licandro , Georg Langs , Jordina Aviles Verdera , Jana Hutter , Bjoern Menze , Gregor Kasprian , Meritxell Bach Cuadra , Andras Jakab","doi":"10.1016/j.neuroimage.2026.121729","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.neuroimage.2026.121729","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has played a crucial role in fetal neurodevelopmental research. Structural annotations of MR images are an important step for quantitative analysis of the developing human brain, with Deep Learning providing an automated alternative for this otherwise tedious manual process. However, segmentation performances of Convolutional Neural Networks often suffer from domain shift, where the network fails when applied to subjects that deviate from the distribution with which it is trained on. In this work, we aim to train networks capable of automatically segmenting fetal brain MRIs with a wide range of domain shifts pertaining to differences in subject physiology and acquisition environments, in particular shape-based differences commonly observed in pathological cases. We introduce a novel data-driven train-time sampling strategy that seeks to fully exploit the diversity of a given training dataset to enhance the domain generalizability of the trained networks. We adapted our sampler, together with other existing data augmentation techniques, to the SynthSeg framework, a generator that utilizes domain randomization to generate diverse training data. We ran thorough experimentations and ablation studies on a wide range of training/testing data to test the validity of the approaches. Our networks achieved notable improvements in the segmentation quality on testing subjects with intense anatomical abnormalities (<em>p</em> < 1e-4), though at the cost of a slighter decrease in performance in cases with fewer abnormalities. Our work also lays the foundation for future works on creating and adapting data-driven sampling strategies for other training pipelines.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":19299,"journal":{"name":"NeuroImage","volume":"327 ","pages":"Article 121729"},"PeriodicalIF":4.5,"publicationDate":"2026-01-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145998489","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-01-16DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2026.121694
Adilijiang Aihemaitiniyazi , Tiemin Li , Huawei Zhang , Da Wei , Pu Cai , Wei Wang , Guoming Luan , Yong Wang , Changqing Liu
Objective
Spinal cord stimulation (SCS) is an advanced neuromodulation technology in disorders of consciousness (DOC) field. However, research on the modulation effects and mechanisms of SCS is limited.
Method
We proposed a study design (SCS and sham) to study the short-term effects of 20 minutes’ SCS, in which resting state EEG and Coma Recovery Scale-Revised (CRS-R) were used to measure the changes in neural and behavioral activity caused by SCS. We used the Genuine Permutation Cross Mutual Information(G_PCMI) to analyze EEG data and study changes in cortical connectivity during SCS. Finally, all patients’ CRS-R results were obtained after 6 months’ SCS treatment.
Results
Short-term SCS (20 min) did not alter the patient's CRS-R score, but long-term SCS (6 months) can improve the CRS-R scores of all patients. EEG results show G_PCMI of the frontal and central brain regions significantly change before and after short-term SCS (p < 0.01) and PCMI of the F-P, F-O regions have significant differences before and after short-term SCS (p < 0.05). Besides, the G_PCMI changes in frontal, parietal, F-P and F-O regions show a significant positive correlation with CRS-R changes (r = 0.80, 0.66, 0.68 and 0.72; p < 0.05). However, the sham group showed no significant G_PCMI changes.
Conclusion
SCS can improve the awareness level of DOC patients. SCS improves cortical short- and long-distance connectivity of DOC patients may contribute the improvement of consciousness level.
{"title":"Spinal cord stimulation improves brain connectivity and consciousness level in patients with disorders of consciousness","authors":"Adilijiang Aihemaitiniyazi , Tiemin Li , Huawei Zhang , Da Wei , Pu Cai , Wei Wang , Guoming Luan , Yong Wang , Changqing Liu","doi":"10.1016/j.neuroimage.2026.121694","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.neuroimage.2026.121694","url":null,"abstract":"<div><h3>Objective</h3><div>Spinal cord stimulation (SCS) is an advanced neuromodulation technology in disorders of consciousness (DOC) field. However, research on the modulation effects and mechanisms of SCS is limited.</div></div><div><h3>Method</h3><div>We proposed a study design (SCS and sham) to study the short-term effects of 20 minutes’ SCS, in which resting state EEG and Coma Recovery Scale-Revised (CRS-R) were used to measure the changes in neural and behavioral activity caused by SCS. We used the Genuine Permutation Cross Mutual Information(G_PCMI) to analyze EEG data and study changes in cortical connectivity during SCS. Finally, all patients’ CRS-R results were obtained after 6 months’ SCS treatment.</div></div><div><h3>Results</h3><div>Short-term SCS (20 min) did not alter the patient's CRS-R score, but long-term SCS (6 months) can improve the CRS-R scores of all patients. EEG results show G_PCMI of the frontal and central brain regions significantly change before and after short-term SCS (<em>p</em> < 0.01) and PCMI of the F-P, F-O regions have significant differences before and after short-term SCS (<em>p</em> < 0.05). Besides, the G_PCMI changes in frontal, parietal, F-P and F-O regions show a significant positive correlation with CRS-R changes (<em>r</em> = 0.80, 0.66, 0.68 and 0.72; <em>p</em> < 0.05). However, the sham group showed no significant G_PCMI changes.</div></div><div><h3>Conclusion</h3><div>SCS can improve the awareness level of DOC patients. SCS improves cortical short- and long-distance connectivity of DOC patients may contribute the improvement of consciousness level.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":19299,"journal":{"name":"NeuroImage","volume":"327 ","pages":"Article 121694"},"PeriodicalIF":4.5,"publicationDate":"2026-01-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145998482","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-01-16DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2026.121733
Abdullah M. Alotaibi , Razan S. Orfali , Amal I. Alorainy , Manal H. Alosaimi , Mansour Alshanawani , Abdullah A. Alwtban , Richard Bentall , Georg Meyer
Hallucination proneness exists on a continuum in the general population; if common mechanisms span health and illness, white-matter features that distinguish patients from controls should also covary with subclinical proneness. In healthy adults (n = 68), we related Launay–Slade Hallucination Scale (LSHS) sub-scores to diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) metrics, fractional anisotropy (FA), mean (MD), axial (AD), and radial diffusivity (RD) using region-of-interest analyses of major association pathways and subject-specific arcuate fasciculus (AF) tractography with lateralization indices. Higher general proneness (LSHS-modified) was associated with lower AD in posterior association pathways right ILF (ρ = − 0.32, p = 0.0075), bilateral SLF (left: ρ = −0.32, p = 0.0072; right: ρ = − 0.24, p = 0.0481) and occipital lobe (ρ = −0.26, p = 0.0314), while RD showed no relationship with the visual sub-score. In AF tractography, left AF showed modest negative associations with MD (ρ = −0.25, p = 0.0399) and AD (ρ =−0.27, p = 0.0250), whereas FA, tract volume/length, and lateralization were not significantly related to LSHS scores; AF lateralization remained leftward on average. These results indicate that subclinical proneness tracks selective microstructural variation (lower AD/MD) in posterior visual–language pathways, whereas canonical AF features widely emphasized in patient studies (microstructure, tract size, leftward asymmetry) did not covary with proneness in health, suggesting those AF abnormalities may index broader psychosis vulnerability rather than the propensity to hallucinate per se.
{"title":"Microstructural white-matter correlates of hallucination proneness in healthy adults: Diffusion tensor metrics and arcuate fasciculus tract asymmetry","authors":"Abdullah M. Alotaibi , Razan S. Orfali , Amal I. Alorainy , Manal H. Alosaimi , Mansour Alshanawani , Abdullah A. Alwtban , Richard Bentall , Georg Meyer","doi":"10.1016/j.neuroimage.2026.121733","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.neuroimage.2026.121733","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Hallucination proneness exists on a continuum in the general population; if common mechanisms span health and illness, white-matter features that distinguish patients from controls should also covary with subclinical proneness. In healthy adults (<em>n</em> = 68), we related Launay–Slade Hallucination Scale (LSHS) sub-scores to diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) metrics, fractional anisotropy (FA), mean (MD), axial (AD), and radial diffusivity (RD) using region-of-interest analyses of major association pathways and subject-specific arcuate fasciculus (AF) tractography with lateralization indices. Higher general proneness (LSHS-modified) was associated with lower AD in posterior association pathways right ILF (ρ = − 0.32, <em>p</em> = 0.0075), bilateral SLF (left: ρ = −0.32, <em>p</em> = 0.0072; right: ρ = − 0.24, <em>p</em> = 0.0481) and occipital lobe (ρ = −0.26, <em>p</em> = 0.0314), while RD showed no relationship with the visual sub-score. In AF tractography, left AF showed modest negative associations with MD (ρ = −0.25, <em>p</em> = 0.0399) and AD (ρ =−0.27, <em>p</em> = 0.0250), whereas FA, tract volume/length, and lateralization were not significantly related to LSHS scores; AF lateralization remained leftward on average. These results indicate that subclinical proneness tracks selective microstructural variation (lower AD/MD) in posterior visual–language pathways, whereas canonical AF features widely emphasized in patient studies (microstructure, tract size, leftward asymmetry) did not covary with proneness in health, suggesting those AF abnormalities may index broader psychosis vulnerability rather than the propensity to hallucinate per se.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":19299,"journal":{"name":"NeuroImage","volume":"327 ","pages":"Article 121733"},"PeriodicalIF":4.5,"publicationDate":"2026-01-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145998521","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-01-16DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2026.121734
Alna Reem Al Latheef , Vera Flasbeck , Georg Juckel
Emotions play a fundamental role in shaping human cognition and behavior, profoundly affecting the way we perceive, evaluate, and respond to our environment. Although extensive research has examined how the brain processes visual emotional stimuli, less is known about neural mechanisms related to emotional imagination and the processing of varying emotional and cognitive states. This study aims to address this gap by looking into brain activity using Electroencephalography (EEG) in response to emotional auditory inputs. Thirty-one healthy participants listened to neutral, positive, negative, and abstract spoken words and were instructed to imagine or feel these conditions while their brain activity was recorded. Event-Related Potentials (ERP) and Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) analyses were used to examine immediate and frequency-based neural responses. Our findings show that instructions to feel negative emotional words caused increased mean amplitudes, particularly in fronto-central areas, during the 250–350 ms timeframe compared to neutral conditions. For the 450–700 ms timeframe, negative emotions elicited stronger mean amplitudes than abstract stimuli over parietal electrodes. The FFT analysis showed increased beta and alpha power during negative emotional processing, while gamma, theta, and delta waves were not significantly affected by task condition. Overall, the results indicate that emotional words engage distinct neural processes during imagination. Notably, negative stimuli elicited more pronounced activity, which could be interpreted as enhanced cognitive-affective elaboration associated with internally generated imagery. The study provides new insight into how emotional states influence brain function in the context of internally generated emotional imagery.
{"title":"Neurophysiological profiling of emotional and cognitive states in healthy individuals","authors":"Alna Reem Al Latheef , Vera Flasbeck , Georg Juckel","doi":"10.1016/j.neuroimage.2026.121734","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.neuroimage.2026.121734","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Emotions play a fundamental role in shaping human cognition and behavior, profoundly affecting the way we perceive, evaluate, and respond to our environment. Although extensive research has examined how the brain processes visual emotional stimuli, less is known about neural mechanisms related to emotional imagination and the processing of varying emotional and cognitive states. This study aims to address this gap by looking into brain activity using Electroencephalography (EEG) in response to emotional auditory inputs. Thirty-one healthy participants listened to neutral, positive, negative, and abstract spoken words and were instructed to imagine or feel these conditions while their brain activity was recorded. Event-Related Potentials (ERP) and Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) analyses were used to examine immediate and frequency-based neural responses. Our findings show that instructions to feel negative emotional words caused increased mean amplitudes, particularly in fronto-central areas, during the 250–350 ms timeframe compared to neutral conditions. For the 450–700 ms timeframe, negative emotions elicited stronger mean amplitudes than abstract stimuli over parietal electrodes. The FFT analysis showed increased beta and alpha power during negative emotional processing, while gamma, theta, and delta waves were not significantly affected by task condition. Overall, the results indicate that emotional words engage distinct neural processes during imagination. Notably, negative stimuli elicited more pronounced activity, which could be interpreted as enhanced cognitive-affective elaboration associated with internally generated imagery. The study provides new insight into how emotional states influence brain function in the context of internally generated emotional imagery.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":19299,"journal":{"name":"NeuroImage","volume":"327 ","pages":"Article 121734"},"PeriodicalIF":4.5,"publicationDate":"2026-01-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145998536","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-01-16DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2026.121726
Jingya Cao , Yuzhu Qu , Li Chen , Tianyu Liu , Jing Guo , Zilei Tian , Chongkai Luo , Yulai Gong , Zhenfang Lin , Xin Yang , Pengfei Zhang , Wei Lin , Tao Yin , Fang Zeng
This study aims to investigate the similarities and differences in the topological organization of prefrontal-sensorimotor cortical network (PFC-SMC) induced by traditional tonifying and reducing manipulations of acupuncture (TRMs), including the tonifying, reducing, and even tonifying-reducing manipulations. Thirty-five healthy participants underwent all three types of TRMs while functional near-infrared spectroscopy data were recorded. To characterize the network properties, graph-theoretical analysis was applied to calculate topological metrics at both global and nodal levels. Based on these metrics, k-means++ clustering analysis was subsequently performed to assess the representational and discriminative capacity of the derived features across different acupuncture manipulation. The results revealed that all three acupuncture manipulations perserved the typical small-world properties of the PFC-SMC network (p < 0.05, false discovery rate [FDR] corrected). However, further comparison showed that both the even tonifying-reducing manipulation and the reducing manipulation elicited significantly higher clustering coefficient and network efficiency than the tonifying manipulation (pFDR < 0.05). At the nodal level, the tonifying manipulation showed lower nodal betweenness centrality and nodal degree centrality than the other two acupuncture manipulations (pFDR < 0.05). Notably, these topological properties enabled reliable differentiation among the three TRMs, as confirmed by the clustering analysis. These findings highlight that different acupuncture manipulations exert distinct modulatory effects on the brain functional network, providing visualized evidence for facilitating the understanding and clinical application of TRMs.
{"title":"The regulations on topological organization of prefrontal-sensorimotor cortical network elicited by tonifying and reducing manipulations of acupuncture: A graph theory analysis study based on fNIRS","authors":"Jingya Cao , Yuzhu Qu , Li Chen , Tianyu Liu , Jing Guo , Zilei Tian , Chongkai Luo , Yulai Gong , Zhenfang Lin , Xin Yang , Pengfei Zhang , Wei Lin , Tao Yin , Fang Zeng","doi":"10.1016/j.neuroimage.2026.121726","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.neuroimage.2026.121726","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study aims to investigate the similarities and differences in the topological organization of prefrontal-sensorimotor cortical network (PFC-SMC) induced by traditional tonifying and reducing manipulations of acupuncture (TRMs), including the tonifying, reducing, and even tonifying-reducing manipulations. Thirty-five healthy participants underwent all three types of TRMs while functional near-infrared spectroscopy data were recorded. To characterize the network properties, graph-theoretical analysis was applied to calculate topological metrics at both global and nodal levels. Based on these metrics, <em>k</em>-means++ clustering analysis was subsequently performed to assess the representational and discriminative capacity of the derived features across different acupuncture manipulation. The results revealed that all three acupuncture manipulations perserved the typical small-world properties of the PFC-SMC network (<em>p</em> < 0.05, false discovery rate [FDR] corrected). However, further comparison showed that both the even tonifying-reducing manipulation and the reducing manipulation elicited significantly higher clustering coefficient and network efficiency than the tonifying manipulation (<em>p<sub>FDR</sub></em> < 0.05). At the nodal level, the tonifying manipulation showed lower nodal betweenness centrality and nodal degree centrality than the other two acupuncture manipulations (<em>p<sub>FDR</sub></em> < 0.05). Notably, these topological properties enabled reliable differentiation among the three TRMs, as confirmed by the clustering analysis. These findings highlight that different acupuncture manipulations exert distinct modulatory effects on the brain functional network, providing visualized evidence for facilitating the understanding and clinical application of TRMs.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":19299,"journal":{"name":"NeuroImage","volume":"327 ","pages":"Article 121726"},"PeriodicalIF":4.5,"publicationDate":"2026-01-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145998509","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-01-16DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2026.121732
Nam Trinh , Laurence Dricot , Pierre Vassiliadis , Quentin Dessain , Julie Duque , Tomas Ward , Gerard Derosiere
From rodents to humans, animals constantly face a central question: is the reward worth the effort? Effort and reward sensitivity in such situations vary substantially across individuals and ultimately shape goal-directed behavior. Yet, the neuroanatomical basis underlying this variability across individuals remain unclear. Here, we combined computational modeling of effort and reward sensitivity during decision-making with whole-brain diffusion MRI in 45 healthy participants to identify white matter substrates of individual effort and reward sensitivity. A data-driven, cluster-based analysis of fractional anisotropy and mean diffusivity revealed 12 clusters: five linked to effort sensitivity, all within tracts connected to major frontal valuation nodes (e.g., supplementary motor area [SMA], dorsal anterior cingulate cortex [dACC], orbitofrontal cortex [OFC]), and seven linked to reward sensitivity, spanning frontal valuation, fronto-parietal, and sensorimotor networks. The strongest associations involved two SMA-connected clusters, one shared across effort and reward sensitivity and another consistent across both microstructural metrics. Critically, microstructural features from the five effort-related and seven reward-related clusters reliably predicted graded individual differences in effort and reward sensitivity in out-of-sample, multi-class machine learning analyses, respectively, whereas randomly sampled clusters did not. SMA-connected tracts were the dominant predictors in these decoding analyses, with additional contributions from fronto-parietal and sensorimotor pathways for reward sensitivity. These findings reveal a distributed microstructure correlates underlying inter-individual differences in effort and reward sensitivity, with SMA pathways emerging as central hubs. They demonstrate that localized white matter microstructure can robustly predict these individual differences, offering a framework to forecast the impact of lesions or interventions on goal-directed behavior, including apathy and impulsivity.
{"title":"White matter microstructure predicts effort and reward sensitivity","authors":"Nam Trinh , Laurence Dricot , Pierre Vassiliadis , Quentin Dessain , Julie Duque , Tomas Ward , Gerard Derosiere","doi":"10.1016/j.neuroimage.2026.121732","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.neuroimage.2026.121732","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>From rodents to humans, animals constantly face a central question: is the reward worth the effort? Effort and reward sensitivity in such situations vary substantially across individuals and ultimately shape goal-directed behavior. Yet, the neuroanatomical basis underlying this variability across individuals remain unclear. Here, we combined computational modeling of effort and reward sensitivity during decision-making with whole-brain diffusion MRI in 45 healthy participants to identify white matter substrates of individual effort and reward sensitivity. A data-driven, cluster-based analysis of fractional anisotropy and mean diffusivity revealed 12 clusters: five linked to effort sensitivity, all within tracts connected to major frontal valuation nodes (e.g., supplementary motor area [SMA], dorsal anterior cingulate cortex [dACC], orbitofrontal cortex [OFC]), and seven linked to reward sensitivity, spanning frontal valuation, fronto-parietal, and sensorimotor networks. The strongest associations involved two SMA-connected clusters, one shared across effort and reward sensitivity and another consistent across both microstructural metrics. Critically, microstructural features from the five effort-related and seven reward-related clusters reliably predicted graded individual differences in effort and reward sensitivity in out-of-sample, multi-class machine learning analyses, respectively, whereas randomly sampled clusters did not. SMA-connected tracts were the dominant predictors in these decoding analyses, with additional contributions from fronto-parietal and sensorimotor pathways for reward sensitivity. These findings reveal a distributed microstructure correlates underlying inter-individual differences in effort and reward sensitivity, with SMA pathways emerging as central hubs. They demonstrate that localized white matter microstructure can robustly predict these individual differences, offering a framework to forecast the impact of lesions or interventions on goal-directed behavior, including apathy and impulsivity.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":19299,"journal":{"name":"NeuroImage","volume":"327 ","pages":"Article 121732"},"PeriodicalIF":4.5,"publicationDate":"2026-01-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145998611","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}