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Congenital Zika virus (ZIKV) exposure results in a spectrum of disease ranging from severe birth defects to delayed onset neurodevelopmental deficits. ZIKV-related neuropathogenesis, predictors of birth defects, and neurodevelopmental deficits are not well defined in people. Here we assess the methodological and statistical feasibility of a congenital ZIKV exposure macaque model for identifying infant neurobehavior and brain abnormalities that may underlie neurodevelopmental deficits. We inoculated five pregnant macaques with ZIKV and mock-inoculated one macaque in the first trimester. Following birth, growth, ocular structure/function, brain structure, hearing, histopathology, and neurobehavior were quantitatively assessed during the first week of life. We identified the typical pregnancy outcomes of congenital ZIKV infection, with fetal demise and placental abnormalities. We estimated sample sizes needed to define differences between groups and demonstrated that future studies quantifying brain region volumes, retinal structure, hearing, and visual pathway function require a sample size of 14 animals per group (14 ZIKV, 14 control) to detect statistically significant differences in at least half of the infant exam parameters. Establishing the parameters for future studies of neurodevelopmental outcomes following congenital ZIKV exposure in macaques is essential for robust and rigorous experimental design.

The current study used diffusion tensor imaging to examine patterns/degree of brain connectivity in 12 college-aged binge drinking (BD) and 12 moderate drinking individuals. Voxel-level and region-of-interest analyses revealed increased connectivity of the BD brain in the right corona radiata, right external capsule, and both the right and left cingulum. Also, fractional anisotropy and axial diffusivity values of these regions correlated with a number of drinking behaviors of the BD as well as both groups combined. It is hypothesized that increased connectivity in the BD may produce difficulties with regulatory control, contributing to their propensity to binge.

Mirror neurons (MNs) activate when performing an action and when an observer witnesses the same action performed by another individual. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and presentation of motion captured piano performances were used to identify differences in MN activation for musicians/non-musicians when viewing piano pieces played in a "Correct" mode (i.e., emphasis on technical correctness) or an "Enjoyment" mode (i.e., simply told to "enjoy" playing the piece). Results showed greater MN activation in a variety of brain regions for musicians, with these differences more pronounced in the "Enjoyment" mode. Our findings suggest that activation of MNs is not only initiated by the imagined action of an observed movement, but such activation is modulated by the level of musical expertise and knowledge of associated motor movements that the observer brings to the viewing situation. Enhanced MN activation in musicians may stem from imagining themselves actually playing the observed piece.

College-age binge drinking is considered a developmental disturbance that may give rise to unique treatment challenges. The present study used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during the completion of a spatial Stroop task to compare brain activation of 24 college-aged participants: 12 moderate drinkers (MoD) and 12 binge drinkers (BD). Overall, the BD showed a significant reduction in reaction time and accuracy in performing this task, while concurrently displaying less overall brain activation than moderate-drinking controls. In general, the BD showed decreased activity in regions related to rule discovery but hyperactivation in areas thought to mediate attention and response inhibition. Implications for treatment are discussed.

Emerging evidence from functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) brain activation studies associated with dietary behavior reveals significant interaction of biological and behavioral mechanisms in response to visualized food stimuli. Because food intake is influenced by neurosensory stimulation and memory cues, personalized food images may be useful in prompting appropriate affective responses to food intake, which may subsequently lead to healthier eating behaviors. The current study used a cross-sectional mixed methods approach to explore neural responses and self-perceptions of eating behavior during review of personalized food images. A sample of college students (N = 16; 9 females; M age = 21.44) used cell-phone cameras and an online dietary tracking website to collect and report three days of diet. Within 2–3 weeks of completing dietary tracking activity, participants underwent an fMRI scan while reviewing recorded personal images and text descriptions of their diet. They also responded to three questions related to memory for the food items and future eating intentions. Post-scan interviews explored how participants felt after reviewing personal food images and the possible impact that such review might have on future food choices. Whole brain analyses suggested, compared to a written dietary record, that the visualization of personal images of diet evoked greater brain activation in memory regions (e.g., superior frontal gyrus) along with mediating emotion (e.g., thalamus, putamen, anterior cingulate cortex), imagery and executive functions (e.g., inferior orbitofrontal gyrus, fusiform, and parietal lobe). This study offers preliminary support for the use of personal food images to strengthen dietary monitoring.

Decision making is a complex process that involves weighing the probabilities of alternative options that can be desirable, undesirable, or neutral. Such a process necessarily involves both emotional responses and cognitive processes (Damasio, Everitt, & Bishop, 1996; Li, Lu, D'Argembeau, Ng, & Bechara, 2010). Indeed, previous studies have found that decision-making performance is associated with both emotion (Bajaj, Lamichhane, Adhikari, & Dhamala, 2013; Choi, de Melo, Woo, & Gratch, 2012; Furl, Gallagher, & Averbeck, 2012; Mussel, Goritz, & Hewig, 2013) and cognition (e.g., working memory [WM]; Dretsch & Tipples, 2008; Kerr & Zelazo, 2004; Remijnse, Nielen, Uylings, & Veltman, 2005). Previous research has further distinguished two types of decision making based on the degree of uncertainty about the outcome: decisions under ambiguity are those without knowing the precise probability distribution of the possible outcomes, and decisions under risk are those with known outcome probabilities (Bechara, Damasio, Damasio, & Anderson, 1994, Bechara, Damasio, & Damasio, 2000; He et al., 2010; Stoltenberg & Vandever, 2010). The Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) has been widely used to assess decision making under both ambiguity and risk (Bechara et al., 1994, 2000; He et al., 2010). At the early stage of the IGT, players have little explicit knowledge about IGT alternatives, so they are making decisions under ambiguity. As the task progresses, players develop explicit knowledge of the risk profile across IGT alternatives, so they make decision knowing the risks (Brand, Recknor, Grabenhorst, & Bechara, 2007; Upton, Bishara, Ahn, & Stout, 2011).Musical training has been found to improve emotional processes such as emotion perception (Alluri et al., 2015) and understanding (Schellenberg & Mankarious, 2012), as well as cognitive processes such as WM (George & Coch, 2011; Hou et al., 2014). However, no study to date has examined whether musical training can influence decision-making ability. Given the positive effects of musical training on emotional and cognitive processes, the current study tested the hypothesis that musical training (especially early training) would be associated with better performance on the IGT. In addition, this study examined whether such effects were inde- pendent of training-related improvement in WM and/or emotion perception.Method and MaterialsParticipantsData for this study came from a larger project (e.g., Chen et al., 2013; Hou et al., 2014). Five hundred sixty-seven undergraduates at Beijing Normal University took the IGT test as well as other cognitive tests (see below for details). Based on their self-report (see below), 42 participants had early musical training (e.g., piano, keyboard, violin, and accordion) starting before the age of 7 years (11 males and 31 females; Table 1); 52 participants had late musical training (e.g., piano, keyboard, clarinet, and saxophone) starting after the age of 8 years (13 males and 39 females; see Table 1). From 473 participants who had no musical training, we selected 60 participants (12 males and 48 females; see Table 1) to match, roughly, the early and late musical training participants, in terms of age, gender, and IQ.MeasuresMusical training history. Participants were asked the age at which they started formal musical training, the types of musical instruments they used, and the number of years they had such formal training.The IGT. A computerized version of the IGT (Bechara et al., 2000; He et al., 2010) was used in the current study to assess decision making under ambiguity and risk (a screen shot is displayed in Figure 1). To motivate subjects, they were informed that the amount of their winning would be converted into real money. Participants were asked to select one card at a time (100 trials in total) from one of the four decks (labeled A, B, C, and D). As described in previous studies and the IGT manual (PAR, Inc, Lutz, FL), two of the decks were disadvantageous because they yielded high immediate gain but a greater loss in the long run (i. …

Objective: To examine whether exposure to curve versus sharp contours in the built healthcare setting produces systematic and identifiable patterns of amygdala activation and behavioral response in healthy adults. Background: Recent studies in cognitive neuroscience suggest that humans prefer objects with a curved contour compared with objects that have pointed features and a sharp-angled contour. An implicit perception of threat represented by sharp objects, in humans, was hypothesized to explain this bias. Method: The study adopted a within-subject experimental design, where 36 subjects (representing three age-groups and both sexes) were exposed to a randomized order of 312 real-life images (objects, interiors, exteriors, landscape, and a set of control images). Amygdala activation was simultaneously captured using functional magnetic resonance imaging technology. Subjects’ preference (like/dislike) data were also collected while in the scanner. Data were collected in 2013. Results: In case of images depicting landscape and healthcare objects, brain scans show significant higher amygdala activation associated with sharp contours. However, in relation to images depicting hospital interiors and exterior envelops, brain scans show significant higher amygdala activation associated with curve contours. These activations pertain to exposure during the precognitive stages of the subjects’ perception. Conclusion: Hospital forms do have systematic impact on fear response during precognitive stages of human perception. Whether this first impression colors the subsequent experience of an actual patient with real illness or injury is unknown.

(ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.)Decades of research have shown that individuals vary greatly in their ability to identify musical notes. On one extreme are individuals with absolute pitch (AP), who can label or identify individual musical notes with high accuracy and fast speed without the benefit of an external reference (Levitin, 1999; Parncutt & Levitin, 2001). Researchers have examined several factors that have potential influence on AP, including cognitive (e.g., memory), environmental (e.g., early musical training before or during a critical period of auditory development), and genetic factors (Chin, 2003; Drayna, Manichaikul, DeLange, Snieder, & Spector, 2001; Theusch, Basu, & Gitschier, 2009; Zatorre, 2003).In terms of cognitive functions, some studies have shown that AP musicians tend to perform better than non-AP musicians on select cognitive tasks. For example, Zatorre and Beckett (1989) found that AP musicians performed significantly better than non-AP musicians in delayed recall of note names with verbal or tonal interference. Studies have also shown that AP musicians have better long-term pitch memory than non-AP musicians (Levitin, 1999; Levitin & Rogers, 2005; Parncutt & Levitin, 2001). Recently, Hsieh and Saberi (2008) found that AP musicians were more likely than non-AP musicians to use strategies of semantic associative memory, such as linguistic, emotional, or spatial representations, to perform a pitch matching task. Interestingly, however, AP and non-AP musicians did not differ significantly in vocal pitch reproduction of isolated, randomly selected musical notes, perhaps because the pitch memory for vocal reproduction was accessible to both groups through procedural memory, rather than semantic memory (Hsieh & Saberi, 2008). Similarly, Benassi-Werke, Queiroz, Araujo, Bueno, and Oliveira (2012) found that AP musicians and professional musicians had a general advantage over amateur musicians in their memory span of tones, but not that of digits or pseudowords.AP musicians' advantage in selected cognitive functions has also been supported by brain imaging evidence. For example, structural neuroimaging studies showed that, compared with non-AP musicians and normal controls, AP musicians showed greater left cerebral asymmetry in the planum temporale (an area implicated in long-term pitch representation; Kane, Bleckley, Conway, & Engle, 2001; Schlaug, Jancke, Huang, & Steinmetz, 1995; Wilson, Lusher, Wan, Dudgeon, & Reutens, 2009). Moreover, the white matter of the left superior longitudinal fasciculus, which connects the temporal lobe for auditory processing with the frontal lobes for executive functions such as working memory (WM) and attention, was also larger in AP musicians than in non-AP musicians (Hagmann et al., 2006; Oechslin, Imfeld, Loenneker, Meyer, & Jancke, 2010). In sum, previous research has generally shown that AP is associated with selected cognitive functions as well as relevant brain functions and structures.Although previous research has focused on AP among musicians, recent research has shown that pitch identification (PI) ability is likely to be distributed on a continuum, with AP at its extreme upper end. According to Deutsch, Moore, and Dolson (1986), AP is a complex faculty that may exist in partial form. Indeed, AP has been divided into several subtypes, such as AP-1, -2, -3, and -4(Baharloo, Johnston, Service, Gitschier, & Freimer, 1998); high-AP, middle-AP, and low-AP (Itoh, Suwazono, Arao, Miyazaki, & Nakada, 2005); and weak AP or quasi- or pseudo-AP (Bermudez & Zatorre, 2009; Levitin, 2008; Miyazaki, 1989). To better understand the cognitive mechanisms involved in AP or PI in general, it would be informative to study nonmusicians. Thus far, only three studies have tried to assess AP or PI ability among nonmusicians. Ross, Olson, Marks, and Gore (2004) designed a nonmusical paradigm to identify AP possessors among nonmusicians. …

OBJECTIVE: Examine whether there are unique patterns of brain activation associated with exposure to photographic sky compositions (representing nature stimuli) as compared with other positive, negative, and neutral images. BACKGROUND: The positive impact of nature images on health outcomes traditionally has been measured using behavioral and physiological indicators. However, there is a lack of understanding of the underlying neural mechanism that explains this positive influence. METHODS: A combination of behavioral responses and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) technology was used to address research questions. Ten participants belonging to five age groups were subjected to short (25 seconds) exposures of 32 images while their brain activation was monitored via the BOLD response. In a separate run, participants were subjected to extended exposures (12 minutes) of a sky composition and an image of a traditional ceiling. RESULTS: The results show that the activation patterns produced by sky compositions and positive images were quite similar as compared to negative or neutral images. However, sky compositions also produced some unique areas of activation, including those associated with spatial cognition, the expanse of space, circadian rhythm, and perceived motion. In the extended exposure condition, sky compositions tended to activate regions associated with dreaming, while traditional ceiling images activated regions that are related to face processing and potentially visual hallucinations. CONCLUSIONS: Nature stimuli, with a combination of vegetation and sky, may produce unique beneficial effects not present in general positive stimuli.