Behavioral and Brain Functions最新文献

Background: Unlike the emphasis on negative results of video games such as the impulsive engagement in video games, cognitive training studies in individuals with cognitive deficits showed that characteristics of video game elements were helpful to train cognitive functions. Thus, this study aimed to have a more balanced view toward the video game playing by reviewing genres of commercial video games and the association of video games with cognitive functions and modulating factors. Literatures were searched with search terms (e.g. genres of video games, cognitive training) on database and Google scholar.

Results: video games, of which purpose is players' entertainment, were found to be positively associated with cognitive functions (e.g. attention, problem solving skills) despite some discrepancy between studies. However, the enhancement of cognitive functions through video gaming was limited to the task or performance requiring the same cognitive functions. Moreover, as several factors (e.g. age, gender) were identified to modulate cognitive enhancement, the individual difference in the association between video game playing and cognitive function was found.

Conclusion: Commercial video games are suggested to have the potential for cognitive function enhancement. As understanding the association between video gaming and cognitive function in a more balanced view is essential to evaluate the potential outcomes of commercial video games that more people reported to engage, this review contributes to provide more objective evidence for commercial video gaming.

Background: A sex-difference in susceptibility to chronic pain is well-known. Although recent studies have begun to reveal the sex-dependent mechanisms of nerve injury-induced pain sensitization, sex differences in the affective and cognitive brain dysfunctions associated with chronic pain have not been investigated. Therefore, we tested whether chronic pain leads to affective and cognitive disorders in a mouse neuropathic pain model and whether those disorders are sexually dimorphic.

Methods: Chronic neuropathic pain was induced in male and female mice by L5 spinal nerve transection (SNT) injury. Pain sensitivity was measured with the von Frey test. Affective behaviors such as depression and anxiety were assessed by the forced swim, tail suspension, and open field tests. Cognitive brain function was assessed with the Morris water maze and the novel object location and novel object recognition tests.

Results: Mechanical allodynia was induced and maintained for up to 8 weeks after SNT in both male and female mice. Depressive- and anxiety-like behaviors were observed 8 weeks post-SNT injury regardless of sex. Chronic pain-induced cognitive deficits measured with the Morris water maze and novel object location test were seen only in male mice, not in female mice.

Conclusions: Chronic neuropathic pain is accompanied by anxiety- and depressive-like behaviors in a mouse model regardless of sex, and male mice are more vulnerable than female mice to chronic pain-associated cognitive deficits.

Background: Age-dependent alterations of hormonal states have been considered to be involved in age related decline of cognitive abilities. Most of the studies in animal models are based on hormonal substitution in adrenal- and/or gonadectomized rodents or infusion of steroid hormones in intact rats. Moreover, the manipulations have been done timely, closely related to test procedures, thus reflecting short-term hormonal mechanisms in the regulation of learning and memory. Here we studied whether more general states of steroid and thyroid hormone profiles, independent from acute experiences, may possibly reflect long-term learning capacity. A large cohort of aged (17-18 months) intact male rats were tested in a spatial hole-board learning task and a subset of inferior and superior learners was included into the analysis. Young male adult rats (16 weeks of age) were also tested. Four to 8 weeks after testing blood plasma samples were taken and hormone concentrations of a variety of steroid hormones were measured by gas chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry or radioimmunoassay (17β-estradiol, thyroid hormones).

Results: Aged good learners were similar to young rats in the behavioral task. Aged poor learners but not good learners showed higher levels of triiodothyronine (T3) as compared to young rats. Aged good learners had higher levels of thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) than aged poor learning and young rats. Both aged good and poor learners showed significantly reduced levels of testosterone (T), 4-androstenedione (4A), androstanediol-3α,17β (AD), dihydrotestosterone (DHT), 17-hydroxyprogesterone (17OHP), higher levels of progesterone (Prog) and similar levels of 17β-estradiol (E2) as compared to young rats. The learning, but not the memory indices of all rats were significantly and positively correlated with levels of dihydrotestosterone, androstanediol-3α,17β and thyroxine (T4), when the impacts of age and cognitive division were eliminated by partial correlation analyses.

Conclusion: The correlation of hormone concentrations of individuals with individual behavior revealed a possible specific role of these androgen and thyroid hormones in a state of general preparedness to learn.

Background: Bisphenol A (BPA), a major endocrine disruptor and a xenobiotic compound is used abundantly in the production of polycarbonate plastics and epoxy resins. Human exposure to this compound is primarily via its leaching from the protective internal epoxy resin coatings of containers into the food and beverages. In addition, the plastics used in dental prostheses and sealants also contain considerable amount of BPA and have a high risk of human exposure. Since it is a well-known endocrine disruptor and closely mimics the molecular structure of human estrogen thereby impairing learning and memory. Withania somnifera (Ws), commonly known as Ashwagandha is known for its varied therapeutic uses in Ayurvedic system of medicine. The present study was undertaken to demonstrate the impairment induced by BPA on the spatial learning, working memory and its alleviation by Ws in Swiss albino mice. The study was conducted on thirty Swiss albino mice, randomly distributed among three groups: control, BPA and BPA + Ws. The behavioral recovery after treatment with Ws was investigated using the Y-maize and Morris water maize test. Whereas, for the estimation of recovery of NMDA receptor which is related to learning and memory in hippocampus region by western blot and immunohistochemistry. Furthermore, the oxidative stress and antioxidant level was assessed by biochemical tests like MDA, SOD and catalase.

Results: The study revealed that administration of Ws alleviated the behavioral deficits induced by BPA. Alongside, Ws treatment reinstated the number of NMDA receptors in hippocampus region and showed anti-oxidative property while ameliorating the endogenous anti-oxidant level in the brain.

Conclusion: These findings suggest that Ws significantly ameliorates the level of BPA intoxicated oxidative stress thereby potentially treating cognitive dysfunction which acts as the primary symptom in a number of neurodegenerative diseases.

Background: Dexterous tool use is considered to be underpinned by model-based control relying on acquired internal models of tools. In particular, this is the case in situations where available sensory feedback regarding the consequences of tool use is restricted. In the present study, we conducted an fMRI study to identify cerebellar involvement in model-based estimation of tool-use consequences using tracking tasks with different levels of visual feedback.

Methods: Twenty healthy right-handed adults participated in this study. These participants tracked a moving target on a screen with a cursor controlled by a joystick using their right hand during fMRI scanning. For each trial, the level of visual feedback for cursor position was randomly selected from three task conditions, namely, Precise, Obscure, and No conditions.

Results: A conjunction analysis across all task conditions found extensive activation of the right cerebellum, covering the anterior lobe (lobule V) and inferior posterior lobe (lobule VIII). Also, contrasts among the three task conditions revealed additional significant activation of the left superior posterior lobe (Crus I) in the No compared to the Precise condition. Furthermore, a post hoc psychophysiological interaction analysis revealed conditional modulation of functional coupling between the right, but not the left, cerebellar region and right frontoparietal regions that are involved in self-body perception.

Conclusions: Our data show that the left Crus I is the only region that was more active in a condition where no visual feedback for cursor position was available. This suggests that the left Crus I region plays a role in model-based estimation of tool-use consequences based on an acquired internal model of tools.

Our understanding of the networks of genes and protein functions involved in Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD) remains incomplete, as do the mechanisms by which these networks lead to AUD phenotypes. The fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster) is an efficient model for functional and mechanistic characterization of the genes involved in alcohol behavior. The fly offers many advantages as a model organism for investigating the molecular and cellular mechanisms of alcohol-related behaviors, and for understanding the underlying neural circuitry driving behaviors, such as locomotor stimulation, sedation, tolerance, and appetitive (reward) learning and memory. Fly researchers are able to use an extensive variety of tools for functional characterization of gene products. To understand how the fly can guide our understanding of AUD in the era of Big Data we will explore these tools, and review some of the gene networks identified in the fly through their use, including chromatin-remodeling, glial, cellular stress, and innate immunity genes. These networks hold great potential as translational drug targets, making it prudent to conduct further research into how these gene mechanisms are involved in alcohol behavior.

Language has the power to shape cognition, behavior, and even the form and function of the brain. Technological and scientific developments have recently yielded an increasingly diverse set of tools with which to study the way language changes neural structures and processes. Here, we review research investigating the consequences of multilingualism as revealed by brain imaging. A key feature of multilingual cognition is that two or more languages can become activated at the same time, requiring mechanisms to control interference. Consequently, extensive experience managing multiple languages can influence cognitive processes as well as their neural correlates. We begin with a brief discussion of how bilinguals activate language, and of the brain regions implicated in resolving language conflict. We then review evidence for the pervasive impact of bilingual experience on the function and structure of neural networks that support linguistic and non-linguistic cognitive control, speech processing and production, and language learning. We conclude that even seemingly distinct effects of language on cognitive operations likely arise from interdependent functions, and that future work directly exploring the interactions between multiple levels of processing could offer a more comprehensive view of how language molds the mind.

Motor cortex stimulation (MCS) is an effective therapy for refractory neuropathic pain. MCS increases the nociceptive threshold in healthy rats via endogenous opioids, inhibiting thalamic nuclei and activating the periaqueductal gray. It remains unclear how the motor cortex induces top-down modulation of pain in the absence of persistent pain. Here, we investigated the main nuclei involved in the descending analgesic pathways and the spinal nociceptive neurons in rats that underwent one session of MCS and were evaluated with the paw pressure nociceptive test. The pattern of neuronal activation in the dorsal raphe nucleus (DRN), nucleus raphe magnus (NRM), locus coeruleus (LC), and dorsal horn of the spinal cord (DHSC) was assessed by immunoreactivity (IR) for Egr-1 (a marker of activated neuronal nuclei). IR for serotonin (5HT) in the DRN and NRM, tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) in the LC, and substance P (SP) and enkephalin (ENK) in the DHSC was also evaluated. MCS increased the nociceptive threshold of the animals; this increase was accompanied by activation of the NRM, while DRN activation was unchanged. However, cortical stimulation induced an increase in 5HT-IR in both serotonergic nuclei. MCS did not change the activation pattern or TH-IR in the LC, and it inhibited neuronal activation in the DHSC without altering SP or ENK-IR. Taken together, our results suggest that MCS induces the activation of serotonergic nuclei as well as the inhibition of spinal neurons, and such effects may contribute to the elevation of the nociceptive threshold in healthy rats. These results allow a better understanding of the circuitry involved in the antinociceptive top-down effect induced by MCS under basal conditions, reinforcing the role of primary motor cortex in pain control.