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Goal-directed visual attention is a fundamental cognitive process that enables animals to selectively focus on specific regions of the visual field while filtering out irrelevant information. However, given the domain specificity of social behaviors, it remains unclear whether attention to faces versus nonfaces recruits different neurocognitive processes. In this study, we simultaneously recorded activity from temporal and frontal nodes of the attention network whilemacaques performed a goal-directed visual search task. V4 and inferotemporal (IT) visual category-selective units, selected during cue presentation, discriminated fixations on targets and distractors during the search but were differentially engaged by face and house targets. V4 and IT category-selective units also encoded fixation transitions and search dynamics. Comparedwith distractors, fixations on targets reduced spike--LFP coherence within the temporal cortex. Importantly, targetinduced desynchronization between the temporal and prefrontal cortices was only evident for face targets, suggesting that attention to faces differentially engaged the prefrontal cortex. We further revealed bidirectional theta influence between the temporal and prefrontal cortices using Granger causality, which was again disproportionate for faces. Finally, we showed that the search became more efficient with increasing target-induced desynchronization. Together, our results suggest domain specificity for attending to faces and an intricate interplay between visual attention and social processing neural networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim Methods Results Conclusion Methamphetamine use disorders (MUDs) cause widespread disruptions in metabolomic and immunologic processes, highlighting the need for new therapeutic approaches. The purpose of this study was to find molecular and neuroimaging biomarkers for methamphetamine addiction.In this study, we recruited 231 patients with MUD at varying stages of withdrawal and 40 healthy controls to quantify the blood levels of 52 molecules using enzyme‐linked immunosorbent assay.The overall molecular disruption caused by methamphetamine was inversely related to withdrawal time (P = 0.0008), with partial recovery observed after 1 year of follow‐up (P = 2.20 × 10−5). Molecules related to stress, immune activation, oxidative products, and cardiac injury were significantly elevated in all MUD groups, while antioxidation enzymes were downregulated. Additionally, the blood level of brain‐derived neurotrophic factor was significantly correlated with gray matter volumes in nine brain regions (fusiform gyrus, orbitofrontal cortex, temporal pole, caudate, cerebellum crus, and vermis, adjusted P < 0.05) among patients with MUD.These findings suggest that patients with MUD exhibit elevated levels of immune response, stress, and oxidative stress, which are associated with brain structural abnormalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Words offer a unique opportunity to separate the processing mechanisms of object subcomponents from those of the whole object, because the phonological or semantic information provided by the word subcomponents (i.e., sublexical information) can conflict with that provided by the whole word (i.e., lexical information). Previous studies have revealed some of the specific brain regions and temporal information involved in sublexical information processing. However, a comprehensive spatiotemporal neural network for sublexical processing remains to be fully elucidated due to the low temporal or spatial resolutions of previous neuroimaging studies. In this study, we recorded stereoelectroencephalography signals with high spatial and temporal resolutions from a large sample of 39 epilepsy patients (both sexes) during a Chinese character oral reading task. We explored the activated brain regions and their connectivity related to three sublexical effects: phonological regularity (whether the whole character's pronunciation aligns with its phonetic radical), phonological consistency (whether characters with the same phonetic radical share the same pronunciation), and semantic transparency (whether the whole character's meaning aligns with its semantic radical). The results revealed that sublexical effects existed in the inferior frontal gyrus, precentral and postcentral gyri, temporal lobe, and middle occipital gyrus. Additionally, connectivity from the middle occipital gyrus to the postcentral gyrus and from postcentral gyrus to the fusiform gyrus was associated with the sublexical effects. These findings provide valuable insights into the spatiotemporal dynamics of sublexical processing and object recognition in the brain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: This paper provides proof of concept that neurolinguistic research on human language syntax would benefit greatly by expanding its scope to include evolutionary considerations, as well as non-propositional functions of language, including naming/nicknaming and verbal aggression. In particular, an evolutionary approach can help circumvent the so-called granularity problem in studying the processing of syntax in the brain, that is, the apparent mismatch between the abstract postulates of syntax (e.g. Tense Phrase (TP), Determiner Phrase (DP), etc.) and the concrete units of neurobiology (neurons, axons, etc.). Methods: First, we decompose syntax into its evolutionary primitives, identifying one of the earliest stages as a simple, flat combination of just one verb and one noun. Next, we identify proxies ("living fossils") of such a stage in present-day languages, including compounds and small clauses, lacking at least some layers of structure, e.g. TPs and DPs. These proxies of ancestral language have been subjected to fMRI neuroimaging experiments. Results: We discuss the finding that less hierarchical small clauses, in contrast to full sentences with TPs and DPs, show reduced activation in the left Broca's area (BA) 44 and the right basal ganglia, consistent with the hypothesis that more recent, more elaborate syntax requires more connectivity in the Broca's-basal ganglia network, whose neuronal density has been significantly enhanced in recent evolution, implicating mutations in FOXP2 and other genes. We also discuss the finding that the processing of ancestral verb-noun compounds, which are typically used for (derogatory) naming and nicknaming, shows enhanced activation in the right fusiform gyrus area (BA 37), the area that is implicated in the processing of metaphoricity and imageability, but also in naming and face recognition, opening up an intriguing possibility that the enhanced face recognition in humans was facilitated by the early emergence of a simple syntactic strategy for naming. Discussion: The considerations in this paper are consistent with the hypothesis of a gradual gene-culture co-evolution of syntax and the brain, targeting cortico-striatal brain networks. It is also of note that a sound grounding in neurobiology of language should in turn inform syntactic theories themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Alcohol-related cues are known to influence craving levels, a hallmark of alcohol misuse. Binge drinking (BD), a pattern of heavy alcohol use, has been associated with cognitive and neurofunctional alterations, including alcohol attentional bias, memory impairments, as well as disrupted activity in prefrontal- and reward-related regions. However, literature is yet to explore how memories associated with alcohol-related cues are processed by BDs, and how the recall of this information may influence their reward processing. Aims: The present functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study aimed to investigate the neurofunctional signatures of BD during an associative memory task. Method: In all, 36 university students, 20 BDs and 16 alcohol abstainers, were asked to memorize neutral objects paired with either alcohol or non-alcohol-related contexts. Subsequently, neutral stimuli were presented, and participants were asked to classify them as being previously paired with alcohol- or non-alcohol-related contexts. Results: While behavioral performance was similar in both groups, during the recall of alcohol-related cues, BDs showed increased brain activation in two clusters including the thalamus, globus pallidus and dorsal striatum, and cerebellum and occipital fusiform gyrus, respectively. Conclusion: These findings suggest that BDs display augmented brain activity in areas responsible for mental imagery and reward processing when trying to recall alcohol-related cues, which might ultimately contribute to alcohol craving, even without being directly exposed to an alcohol-related context. These results highlight the importance of considering how alcohol-related contexts may influence alcohol-seeking behavior and, consequently, the maintenance or increase in alcohol use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cochlear implants (CIs) are the most successful neural prostheses, enabling individuals with severe to profound hearing loss to access sounds and understand speech. While CI has demonstrated success, speech perception outcomes vary largely among CI listeners, with significantly reduced performance in noise. This review paper summarizes prior findings on speech-evoked cortical activities in adult CI listeners using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to understand (a) speech-evoked cortical processing in CI listeners compared to normal-hearing (NH) individuals, (b) the relationship between these activities and behavioral speech recognition scores, (c) the extent to which current fNIRS-measured speech-evoked cortical activities in CI listeners account for their differences in speech perception, and (d) challenges in using fNIRS for CI research. Compared to NH listeners, CI listeners had diminished speech-evoked activation in the middle temporal gyrus (MTG) and in the superior temporal gyrus (STG), except one study reporting an opposite pattern for STG. NH listeners exhibited higher inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) activity when listening to CI-simulated speech compared to natural speech. Among CI listeners, higher speech recognition scores correlated with lower speech-evoked activation in the STG, higher activation in the left IFG and left fusiform gyrus, with mixed findings in the MTG. fNIRS shows promise for enhancing our understanding of cortical processing of speech in CI listeners, though findings are mixed. Challenges include test-retest reliability, managing noise, replicating natural conditions, optimizing montage design, and standardizing methods to establish a strong predictive relationship between fNIRS-based cortical activities and speech perception in CI listeners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Autism spectrum disorder ("autism") is a neurodevelopmental condition characterized by substantial behavioral and neuroanatomical heterogeneity. This poses significant challenges to understanding its neurobiological mechanisms and developing effective interventions. Identifying phenotypically more homogeneous subgroups and shifting the focus from average group differences to individuals is a promising approach to addressing heterogeneity. In the present study, we aimed to parse clinical and neuroanatomical heterogeneity in autism by combining clustering of clinical features with normative modeling based on neuroanatomical measures (cortical thickness [CT] and subcortical volume) within the Autism Brain Imaging Data Exchange data sets (N autism = 861, N nonautistic individuals [N NAI] = 886, age range = 5–64). First, model-based clustering was applied to autistic symptoms as measured by the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule to identify clinical subgroups of autism (N autism = 499). Next, we ran normative modeling on CT and subcortical parcellations (N autism = 690, N NAI = 744) and examined whether clinical subgrouping resulted in increased neurobiological homogeneity within the subgroups compared to the entire autism group by comparing their spatial overlap of neuroanatomical deviations. We further investigated whether the identified subgroups improved the accuracy of autism classification based on the neuroanatomical deviations using supervised machine learning with cross-validation. Results yielded two clinical subgroups primarily differing in restrictive and repetitive behaviors (RRBs). Both subgroups showed increased homogeneity in localized deviations with the high-RRB subgroup showing increased volume deviations in the cerebellum and the low-RRB subgroup showing decreased CT deviations predominantly in the postcentral gyrus and fusiform cortex. Nevertheless, substantial within-group heterogeneity remained highlighted by the lack of improvement of the classifier's performance when distinguishing between the subgroups and NAI. Future research should aim to further reduce heterogeneity incorporating additional neuroanatomical clustering in even larger samples. This will eventually pave the way for more tailored behavioral interventions and improving clinical outcomes. General Scientific Summary: Autism is characterized by pronounced behavioral and neurobiological heterogeneity. This study suggests that reducing this heterogeneity at the clinical level by employing subgrouping also results in more similar neuroanatomical profiles in the identified clinical subgroups. Although we could demonstrate that clinical subgrouping reduces neuroanatomical heterogeneity, simultaneously, there remained substantial heterogeneity potentially pointing toward multiple pathways resulting in high restrictive and repetitive behaviors and neurobiological subgroups with similar clinical phenotypes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Cognitive control is a prerequisite for successful, goal-oriented behavior. The dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) is assumed to be a key player in applying cognitive control; however, the neural mechanisms by which this process is accomplished are still unclear. Methods: To further address this question, an audiovisual Stroop task was used, comprising simultaneously presented pictures and spoken names of actors and politicians. Depending on the task block, participants had to indicate whether they saw the face or heard the name of a politician or an actor (visual vs. auditory blocks). In congruent trials, both stimuli (visual and auditory) belonged to the same response category (actor or politician); in incongruent trials, they belonged to different categories. During this task, activity in sensory target regions was measured via functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) and electroencephalography (EEG), respectively. Specifically, fNIRS was used to monitor activity levels within the auditory cortex, while the EEG-based eventrelated potential of the N170 was considered as a marker of FFA (fusiform face area) involvement. Additionally, we assessed the effects of inhibitory thetaburst stimulation--a specific protocol based on repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS)--over the right DLPFC. Non-invasive brain stimulation is one of the few means to draw causal conclusions in human neuroscience. In this case, rTMS was used to temporarily inhibit the right DLPFC as a presumed key player in solving Stroop conflicts in one of two measurement sessions; then, effects were examined on behavioral measures as well as neurophysiological signals reflecting task-related activity in the frontal lobes and sensory cortices. Results: The results indicate a central role of the DLPFC in the implementation of cognitive control in terms of a suppression of distracting sensory input in both the auditory cortex and visual system (FFA) in high-conflict situations. Behavioral data confirm a reduced Stroop effect following previous incongruent trials ("Gratton effect") that was only accomplished with an intact DLPFC (i.e., following placebo stimulation). Discussion: Because non-invasive brain stimulation is uniquely suited to causally test neuroscientific hypotheses in humans, these data give important insights into some of the mechanisms by which the DLPFC establishes conflict resolution across different sensory modalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: This study is aimed at evaluating gender differences in neural activity change response to the acupuncture on left Jianyu (LI 15) in healthy volunteers. Methods: Forty healthy volunteers (20 males and 20 females) received 20‐min acupuncture on left LI 15 and underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans before and after acupuncture. Amplitude of low‐frequency fluctuations (ALFF) in the 0.01–0.08 Hz range were determined for both scans. Paired t‐tests were performed on ALFF between two scans separately for the male and female groups to identify neural changes related to acupuncture. Results: After acupuncture, males showed significantly increased ALFF in the left cerebellum and right angular gyrus but decreased ALFF in the left precentral gyrus, left inferior occipital gyrus, and right fusiform gyrus. However, the ALFF change in females is almost negligible. Conclusions: Brain functional activity in response to acupuncture on left LI 15 is noticeably different between males and females. This is preliminary evidence that gender may be an important factor for optimal clinically personalized acupuncture therapy for poststroke shoulder pain in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Cognitive impairment in patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) is associated with brain structural damage. However, no prior studies have investigated the relationship between brain texture features and the cognitive function in ESRD patients. This study aimed to investigate changes in brain texture features in ESRD patients and their relationships with cognitive function using voxel-based 3D brain texture analysis (TA), and further predict individual cognitive-related brain damage in ESRD patients. Methods: Forty-seven ESRD patients and 45 control subjects underwent wholebrain high-resolution 3D T1-weighted imaging scans and neuropsychological assessments. The voxel-based 3D brain TA was performed to examine intergroup differences in brain texture features. Additionally, within the ESRD group, the relationships of altered texture features with neuropsychological function and clinical indicators were analyzed. Finally, receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was used to evaluate the predictive ability of brain texture features for cognitive-related brain damage in ESRD patients. Results: Compared to the control group, the ESRD group exhibited altered texture features in several brain regions, including the insula, temporal lobe, striatum, cerebellum, and fusiform gyrus (p < 0.05, Gaussian random-field correction). Some of these altered texture features were associated with scores from the Digit Symbol Substitution Test and the Trail Making Test Parts A (p < 0.05), and showed significant correlations with serum creatinine and calcium levels within the ESRD group (p < 0.05). Notably, ROC curve analysis revealed that the texture features in the right insula and left middle temporal gyrus could accurately predict cognitive-related brain damage in ESRD patients, with the area under the curve values exceeding 0.90. Conclusion: Aberrant brain texture features may be involved in the neuropathological mechanism of cognitive decline, and have high accuracy in predicting cognitive-related brain damage in ESRD patients. TA offers a novel neuroimaging marker to explore the neuropathological mechanisms of cognitive impairment in ESRD patients, and may be a valuable tool to predict cognitive decline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective Methods Results Interpretation Granger causal analysis (GCA) and amplitude of low‐frequency fluctuation (ALFF) are commonly used to evaluate functional alterations in brain disorders. By combining the GCA and ALFF, this study aimed to investigate the effective connectivity (EC) changes in patients with acute ischemic stroke (AIS) and anterior circulation occlusion after mechanical thrombectomy (MT).Resting‐state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs‐fMRI) data were collected from 43 AIS patients with anterior circulation occlusion within 1 week post‐MT and 37 healthy controls. ALFF and GCA were calculated for each participant. Patients were further divided into groups based on prognosis and perfusion levels. The differences in ALFF and EC were compared between AIS patients and healthy controls and between subgroups of patients. Pearson correlations between EC, ALFF values, and clinical characteristics of patients were calculated.Compared to healthy controls, post‐MT, AIS patients exhibited significant ALFF increases in the left precuneus and decreases in the left fusiform gyrus and right caudate. Increased EC from the contralesional lingual gyrus, contralesional putamen, ipsilesional thalamus, and contralesional thalamus to the contralesional caudate was obsrved, while decrease in EC were found for contralesional caudate to the ipsilesional thalamus and medial superior frontal gyrus. EC differences were particularly notable between perfusion groups, with significantly lower EC in the poorly perfused group. EC values were also positively correlated with National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) scores pre‐MT.In AIS patients, the caudate nucleus was central to the observed EC changes post‐MT, characterized by decreased outputs and increased inputs. These changes indicate functional remodeling within the cortico‐basal ganglia‐thalamic‐cortical pathway. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Infantile hydrocephalus considerably impacts neurodevelopment, warranting attention to potential long-term consequences on visuomotor functions. The current study investigated the impact of infantile hydrocephalus on functional connectivity within the posterior cortex. Fourteen patients, who were treated for infantile hydrocephalus, were matched for age and sex with 14 typically-developing controls. Both groups had a mean age of 9 years old. Resting-state functional MRI was used to conduct a functional connectivity analysis within the visuomotor integration network, including the inferior frontal occipital fasciculus, superior longitudinal fasciculus, and frontal aslant tract. Patients had reduced functional connectivity in visuomotor pathways compared to typically-developing children with notable impact on the left and right fusiform gyrus and precuneus. Children with infantile hydrocephalus also performed significantly lower in tasks involving visuomotor integration, visual processing, visuospatial skills, motor coordination, and fine motor manipulation. This study enhances our understanding of the multifaceted impact of infantile hydrocephalus on both neural connectivity and considering behavioral outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From a glimpse of a face, people form trait impressions that operate as facial stereotypes, which are largely inaccurate yet nevertheless drive social behavior. Behavioral studies have long pointed to dimensions of trustworthiness and dominance that are thought to underlie face impressions due to their evolutionarily adaptive nature. Using human neuroimaging (N = 26, 19 female, 7 male), we identify a two-dimensional representation of faces' inferred traits in the middle temporal gyrus (MTG), a region involved in domain-general conceptual processing including the activation of social concepts. The similarity of neural-response patterns for any given pair of faces in the bilateral MTG was predicted by their proximity in trustworthiness-dominance space, an effect that could not be explained by mere visual similarity. This MTG trait-space representation occurred automatically, was relatively invariant across participants, and did not depend on the explicit endorsement of face impressions (i.e., beliefs that face impressions are valid and accurate). In contrast, regions involved in high-level social reasoning (the bilateral temporoparietal junction and posterior superior temporal sulcus; TPJ-pSTS) and entity-specific social knowledge (the left anterior temporal lobe; ATL) also exhibited this trait-space representation but only among participants who explicitly endorsed forming these impressions. Together, the findings identify a two-dimensional neural representation of face impressions and suggest that multiple implicit and explicit mechanisms give rise to biases based on facial appearance. While the MTG implicitly represents a multidimensional trait space for faces, the TPJ-pSTS and ATL are involved in the explicit application of this trait space for social evaluation and behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Alzheimer's disease (AD), reports on the association between false recognition and brain structure have been inconsistent. In dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB), no such association has been reported. This study aimed to identify brain regions associated with false recognition in AD and DLB by analyzing regional gray matter volume (rGMV). We included 184 patients with AD and 60 patients with DLB. The number of false recognitions was assessed using the Alzheimer's Disease Assessment Scale' word recognition task. Brain regions associated with the number of false recognitions were examined by voxel-based morphometry analysis. The number of false recognitions significantly negatively correlated with rGMV in the bilateral hippocampus, left parahippocampal gyrus, bilateral amygdala, and bilateral entorhinal cortex in patients with AD (p < 0.05, family-wise error [FEW] corrected) and in the bilateral hippocampus, left parahippocampal gyrus, right inferior frontal gyrus, right middle frontal gyrus, right basal forebrain, right insula, left medial and lateral orbital gyri, and left fusiform in those with DLB (p < 0.05, FWE corrected). Bilateral hippocampus and left parahippocampal gyrus were associated with false recognition in both diseases. However, we found there were regions where the association between false recognition and rGMV differed from disease to disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Migraine is a common bi-directional comorbidity of epilepsy, indicating potential complex interactions between the two conditions. However, no previous studies have used brain morphology analysis to assess possible interactions between epilepsy and migraine. Voxel-based morphometry (VBM), surface-based morphometry (SBM), and structural covariance networks (SCNs) can be used to detect morphological changes with high accuracy. We recruited 30 individuals with epilepsy and comorbid migraine without aura (EM), along with 20 healthy controls (HC) and 30 epilepsy controls (EC) without migraine. We used VBM, SBM, and SCN analysis to compare differences in gray matter volume, cortical thickness, and global level and local level graph theory indexes between the EM, EC, and HC groups to investigate structural brain changes in the EM patients. VBM analysis showed that the EM group had gray matter atrophy in the right temporal pole compared with the HC group (p < 0.001, false discovery rate correction [FDR]). Furthermore, the headache duration in the EM group was negatively correlated with the gray matter volume of the right temporal pole (p < 0.05). SBM analysis showed cortical atrophy in the left insula, left posterior cingulate gyrus, left postcentral gyrus, left middle temporal gyrus, and left fusiform gyrus in the EM compared with the HC group (p < 0.001, family wise error correction). We found a positive correlation between headache frequency and the cortical thickness of the left middle temporal gyrus (p < 0.05). SCN analysis revealed no differences in global parameters between the three groups. The area under the curve (AUC) of the nodal betweenness centrality in the right postcentral gyrus was lower in the EM group compared with the HC group (p < 0.001, FDR correction), and the AUC of the nodal degree in the right fusiform gyrus was lower in the EM group compared with the EC group (p < 0.001, FDR correction). We found clear differences in brain structure in the EM patients compared with the HC group. Accordingly, migraine episodes may influence brain structure in epilepsy patients. Conversely, abnormal brain structure may be an important factor in the development of epilepsy with comorbid migraine without aura. Further studies are needed to investigate the role of brain structure in individuals with epilepsy and comorbid migraine without aura. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Insomnia is a common comorbidity symptom in major depressive disorder (MDD) patients. Abnormal brain activities have been observed in both MDD and insomnia patients, however, the central pathological mechanisms underlying the co-occurrence of insomnia in MDD patients are still unclear. This study aimed to explore the differences of spontaneous brain activity between MDD patients with and without insomnia, as well as patients with different level of insomnia. Methods: A total of 88 first-episode drug-naïve MDD patients including 44 with insomnia (22 with high insomnia and 22 with low insomnia) and 44 without insomnia, as well as 44 healthy controls (HC), were enrolled in this study. The level of depression and insomnia were evaluated by HAMD-17, adjusted HAMD-17 and its sleep disturbance subscale in all subjects. Resting-state functional and structural magnetic resonance imaging data were acquired from all participants and then were preprocessed by the software of DPASF. Regional homogeneity (ReHo) values of brain regions were calculated by the software of REST and were compared. Finally, receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were conducted to determine the values of abnormal brain regions for identifying MDD patients with insomnia and evaluating the severity of insomnia. Results: Analysis of variance showed that there were significant differences in ReHo values in the left middle frontal gyrus, left pallidum, right superior frontal gyrus, right medial superior frontal gyrus and right rectus gyrus among three groups. Compared with HC, MDD patients with insomnia showed increased ReHo values in the medial superior frontal gyrus, middle frontal gyrus, triangular inferior frontal gyrus, calcarine fissure and right medial superior frontal gyrus, medial orbital superior frontal gyrus, as well as decreased ReHo values in the left middle occipital gyrus, pallidum and right superior temporal gyrus, inferior temporal gyrus, middle cingulate gyrus, hippocampus, putamen. MDD patients without insomnia demonstrated increased ReHo values in the left middle frontal gyrus, orbital middle frontal gyrus, anterior cingulate gyrus and right triangular inferior frontal gyrus, as well as decreased ReHo values in the left rectus gyrus, postcentral gyrus and right rectus gyrus, fusiform gyrus, pallidum. In addition, MDD patients with insomnia had decreased ReHo values in the left insula when compared to those without insomnia. Moreover, MDD patients with high insomnia exhibited increased ReHo values in the right middle temporal gyrus, and decreased ReHo values in the left orbital superior frontal gyrus, lingual gyrus, right inferior parietal gyrus and postcentral gyrus compared to those with low insomnia. ROC analysis demonstrated that impaired brain region might be helpful for identifying MDD patients with insomnia and evaluating the severity of insomnia. Conclusion: These findings suggested that MDD patients with insomnia had wider abnormalities of brain activities in the prefrontal-limbic circuits including increased activities in the prefrontal cortex, which might be the compensatory mechanism underlying insomnia in MDD. In addition, decreased activity of left insula might be associated with the occurrence of insomnia in MDD patients and decreased activities of the frontal-parietal network might cause more serious insomnia related to MDD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To observe the features of brain regional homogeneity (ReHo) in children with different degrees of obesity aged 7-15 years by resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI). Methods: Resting-state fMRI data were collected from 35 cases obesity children (OB), 20 cases obesity children with metabolic syndrome (MS), and 24 cases healthy children (HC). The data were analyzed, and ReHo differences among the three groups were compared. Then the correlation between the different brain regions and clinical data was analyzed. Results: Compared with HC group, the ReHo values of right fusiform gyrus and left inferior temporal gyrus in OB group and MS group were higher. The ReHo values of right medial superior frontal gyrus and left dorsolateral superior frontal gyrus decreased. Compared with OB group, the ReHo value of left dorsolateral superior frontal gyrus in MS group was lower. The ReHo values of left dorsolateral superior frontal gyrus were negatively correlated with alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and aspartate aminotransferase (AST) (r=-0.350, P=0.009; r=-0.294, P=0.029). Conclusion: Obese children have abnormal functional activity in brain areas such as participating in feeding regulation and inhibitory control, and the abnormal activity in the left dorsolateral superior frontal gyrus is associated with the degree of obesity, which may provide imaging evidence for early intervention and treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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While patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) and bipolar disorder (BD) exhibited default mode network (DMN) dysfunction revealed by aberrant resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) patterns, previous findings have been inconsistent. Little is known about the similarities and differences in DMN rsFC between MDD and BD. A voxel-wise meta-analysis of seed-based DMN rsFC studies on MDD or BD was performed using the Seed-based d Mapping software with permutation of subject images (SDM-PSI). Aberrant DMN rsFC in both disorders was investigated separately, followed by conjunction and between-disorder comparison analyses. Functional decoding was performed to implicate the psychophysiological underpinnings of derived brain abnormalities. Thirty-four studies comparing 1316 MDD patients with 1327 HC, and 22 studies comparing 1059 BD patients with 1396 HC were included. Compared to HC, MDD patients exhibited DMN hyperconnectivity with frontolimbic systems, and hypoconnectivity with temporal lobe and posterior cingulate cortex. BD patients displayed increased DMN connectivity with bilateral precuneus, and reduced connectivity with prefrontal cortex and middle temporal gyrus. No common patterns of DMN rsFC abnormalities were observed between MDD and BD. Compared to BD, MDD patients showed DMN hyperconnectivity with triangular part of the left inferior frontal gyrus and left fusiform gyrus. Functional decoding found that patterns of DMN rsFC alteration between MDD and BD were primarily related to action and perception domains. Distinct DMN dysfunction patterns in MDD and BD enhance current understanding of the neural substrates of mood disorders and may provide a potential biomarker for differentiation. • Distinct patterns of functional connectivity alteration with default mode network occur in mood disorders. • Functional connectivity alterations in mood disorders primarily involve frontolimbic systems and default mode network. • Functional connectivity alterations in mood disorders are primarily related to action and perception domains. • Specific functional connectivity alterations are likely to correlate with depressive symptoms in both mood disorders. • Seed-based d Mapping with Permutation of Subject Images (SDM-PSI) analysis was used. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Subsyndromal symptomatic depression (SSD) is associated with an elevated risk of cognitive impairment in non-demented older adults. Given that hippocampal and middle temporal gyrus atrophy have been shown to cause SSD, our study aimed to investigate the effect of hippocampal volume on the association between SSD and cognitive impairment. 338 non-demented older adults from the ADNI (Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative) cohort who underwent cognitive assessments, questionnaires on depressive symptoms and MRI brain were studied. SSD group is defined as a score of 1–5 based on Geriatric Depression Scale scores. We conducted causal mediation analyses to investigate the effect of hippocampal volume on cognitive performance cross-sectionally. The SSD group displayed lower left and right hippocampal volume (p<0.01) than the non-SSD group. SSD was linked to poorer cognition and smaller hippocampal volume. We found that hippocampal volume partially mediated the effect of SSD on cognitive performance including the global cognition and the cognitive section of Alzheimer's Disease Assessment Scale, with mediation percentages ranging from 6.45 % to 30.46 %. In addition, we found that the thickness of the left middle temporal, right entorhinal and right fusiform gyrus, brain regions linked to AD, mediate the relationship between SSD and cognition with mediation percentages ranging from 8.67 % to 21.44 %. Our article didn't differentiate between mild cognitive impairment and normal population. The associations of SSD and cognitive impairment are linked to alterations in Alzheimer's Disease related brain regions. • SSD was related to cognitive decline in non-demented older adults. • SSD was significantly associated with atrophy of hippocampus in non-demented older adults. • The association of SSD and cognitive impairment was partially mediated by hippocampal atrophy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are used for the treatment of several conditions including anxiety disorders, but the basic neurobiology of serotonin function remains unclear. The amygdala and prefrontal cortex are strongly innervated by serotonergic projections and have been suggested to play an important role in anxiety expression. However, serotonergic function in behaviour and SSRI-mediated neurobiological changes remain incompletely understood. Aims: To investigate the neural correlates of subchronic antidepressant administration. Methods: We investigated whether the 2- to 3-week administration of a highly selective SSRI (escitalopram) would alter brain activation on a task robustly shown to recruit the bilateral amygdala and frontal cortices in a large healthy volunteer sample. Participants performed the task during a functional magnetic resonance imaging acquisition before (n = 96) and after subchronic escitalopram (n = 46, days of administration mean (SD) = 15.7 (2.70)) or placebo (n = 40 days of administration mean (SD) = 16.2 (2.90)) self-administration. Results: Compared to placebo, we found an elevation in right amygdala activation to the task after escitalopram administration without significant changes in mood. This effect was not seen in the left amygdala, the dorsomedial region of interest, the subgenual anterior cingulate cortex or the right fusiform area. There were no significant changes in connectivity between the dorsomedial cortex and amygdala or the subgenual anterior cingulate cortex after escitalopram administration. Conclusions: To date, this most highly powered study of subchronic SSRI administration indicates that, contrary to effects often seen in patients with anxiety disorders, subchronic SSRI treatment may increase amygdala activation in healthy controls. This finding highlights important gaps in our understanding of the functional role of serotonin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although previous studies have shown that repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) can ameliorate addictive behaviors and cravings, the underlying neural mechanisms remain unclear. This study aimed to investigate the effect of high‐frequency rTMS with the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (L‐DLPFC) as a target region on smoking addiction in nicotine‐dependent individuals by detecting the change of spontaneous brain activity in the reward circuitry. We recruited 17 nicotine‐dependence participants, who completed 10 sessions of 10 Hz rTMS over a 2‐week period and underwent evaluation of several dependence‐related scales, and resting‐state fMRI scan before and after the treatment. Functional connectivity (FC) analysis was conducted with reward‐related brain regions as seeds, including ventral tegmental area, bilateral nucleus accumbens (NAc), bilateral DLPFC, and bilateral amygdala. We found that, after the treatment, individuals showed reduced nicotine dependence, alleviated tobacco withdrawal symptoms, and diminished smoking cravings. The right NAc showed increased FC with right fusiform gyrus, inferior temporal gyrus (ITG), calcarine fissure and surrounding cortex, superior occipital gyrus (SOG), lingual gyrus, and bilateral cuneus. No significant FC changes were observed in other seed regions. Moreover, the changes in FC between the right NAc and the right ITG as well as SOG before and after rTMS were negatively correlated with changes in smoking scale scores. Our findings suggest that high‐frequency L‐DLPFC‐rTMS reduces nicotine dependence and improves tobacco withdrawal symptoms, and the dysfunctional connectivity in reward circuitry may be the underlying neural mechanism for nicotine addiction and its therapeutic target. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The primate including the human hippocampus implicated in episodic memory and navigation represents a spatial view, very different from the place representations in rodents. To understand this system in humans, and the computations performed, the pathway for this spatial view information to reach the hippocampus was analysed in humans. Whole-brain effective connectivity was measured with magnetoencephalography between 30 visual cortical regions and 150 other cortical regions using the HCP-MMP1 atlas in 21 participants while performing a 0-back scene memory task. In a ventromedial visual stream, V1–V4 connect to the ProStriate region where the retrosplenial scene area is located. The ProStriate region has connectivity to ventromedial visual regions VMV1–3 and VVC. These ventromedial regions connect to the medial parahippocampal region PHA1–3, which, with the VMV regions, include the parahippocampal scene area. The medial parahippocampal regions have effective connectivity to the entorhinal cortex, perirhinal cortex, and hippocampus. In contrast, when viewing faces, the effective connectivity was more through a ventrolateral visual cortical stream via the fusiform face cortex to the inferior temporal visual cortex regions TE2p and TE2a. A ventromedial visual cortical 'Where' stream to the hippocampus for spatial scenes was supported by diffusion topography in 171 HCP participants at 7 T. A ventromedial cortical 'Where' visual pathway in humans for spatial scenes is revealed with MEG. It is fundamental to episodic memory and navigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To investigate changes in brain network organization and possible neurobehavioral similarities to attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), we measured changes in brain resting-state functional connectivity (rs-fMRI) and cognitive domains in patients with resistance to thyroid hormone β (RTHβ) and compared them with those in healthy control subjects. In this prospective case-control study, twenty-one participants with genetically confirmed RTHβ were matched with 21 healthy controls. The Adult ADHD Self-Report Scale (ASRS-v1.1) and ADHD Rating Scale-IV were used to assess self-reported symptoms of ADHD. A voxel-wise and atlas-based approach was used to identify changes in the brain networks. The RTHβ group reported behavioral symptoms similar to those of ADHD. We found evidence of weaker network integration of the lingual and fusiform gyri in the RTHβ group, which was mainly driven by weaker connectivity to the bilateral insula and supplementary motor cortex. Functional connectivity between regions of the default mode network (angular gyrus/middle temporal gyrus) and regions of the cognitive control network (bilateral middle frontal gyrus) was increased in RTHβ patients compared to healthy controls. Increased connectivity between regions of the default mode network and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex is frequently reported in ADHD and is interpreted to be associated with deficits in attention. Our finding of weaker connectivity of the lingual gyrus to the bilateral insula (salience network) in RTHβ patients has also been reported previously in ADHD and may reflect decreased habituation to visual stimuli and increased distractibility. Overall, our observations support the notion of neuropsychological similarities between RTHβ and ADHD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emotion perception interacts with how we think and speak, including our concept of emotions. Body expression is an important way of emotion communication, but it is unknown whether and how its perception is modulated by conceptual knowledge. In this study, we employed representational similarity analysis and conducted three experiments combining semantic similarity, mouse‐tracking task, and one‐back behavioral task with electroencephalography and functional magnetic resonance imaging techniques, the results of which show that conceptual knowledge predicted the perceptual representation of body expressions. Further, this prediction effect occurred at approximately 170 ms post‐stimulus. The neural encoding of body expressions in the fusiform gyrus and lingual gyrus was impacted by emotion concept knowledge. Taken together, our results indicate that conceptual knowledge of emotion categories shapes the configural representation of body expressions in the ventral visual cortex, which offers compelling evidence for the constructed emotion theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines whether the brain is organized based on specialized mechanisms for processing specific types of stimuli or if it is organized around mechanisms that can be applied to different types of stimuli. The authors conducted a study using deep neural networks to investigate the face inversion effect, which is a difficulty in recognizing faces when they are upside-down. They found that similar inversion effects exist for other types of stimuli, but these effects do not extend to unseen stimuli. The results suggest that the face inversion effect may be due to specialized processing mechanisms rather than general processing mechanisms. The article also discusses the potential of deep learning as a computational model for understanding human vision and the need for further research on the development of processing systems in the brain. [Extracted from the article]

Depressive symptoms are highly prevalent, present in heterogeneous symptom patterns, and share diverse neurobiological underpinnings. Understanding the links between psychopathological symptoms and biological factors is critical in elucidating its etiology and persistence. We aimed to evaluate the utility of using symptom-brain network models to parse the heterogeneity of depressive complaints in a large adolescent sample. We used data from the third wave of the IMAGEN study, a multi-center panel cohort study involving 1317 adolescents (52.49 % female, mean ± SD age = 18.5 ± 0.7). Two network models were estimated: one including an overall depressive symptom severity sum score based on the Adolescent Depression Rating Scale (ADRS), and one incorporating individual ADRS item scores. Both networks included measures of cortical thickness in several regions (insula, cingulate, mOFC, fusiform gyrus) and hippocampal volume derived from neuroimaging. The network based on individual item scores revealed associations between cortical thickness measures and specific depressive complaints, obscured when using an aggregate depression severity score. Notably, the insula's cortical thickness showed negative associations with cognitive dysfunction (partial cor. = −0.15); the cingulate's cortical thickness showed negative associations with feelings of worthlessness (partial cor. = −0.10), and mOFC was negatively associated with anhedonia (partial cor. = −0.05). This cross-sectional study relied on the self-reported assessment of depression complaints and used a non-clinical sample with predominantly healthy participants (19 % with depression or sub-threshold depression). This study showcases the utility of network models in parsing heterogeneity in depressive complaints, linking individual complaints to specific neural substrates. We outline the next steps to integrate neurobiological and cognitive markers to unravel MDD's phenotypic heterogeneity. • We evaluated the utility of brain-symptom network models of depressive symptoms. • No brain-symptom associations in a network with depressive symptom severity score. • Individual depressive symptoms showed various connections with neural substrates. • Lower cortical thickness (insula, mOFC, cingulate) associated with symptoms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our ability to share memories constitutes a social foundation of our world. When exposed to another person'smemory, individuals canmentally reconstruct the events described, even if they were not present during the related events. However, the extent to which the neuronal connectivity patterns elicited by the mental reconstruction of an event mirror those present in the brains of individuals who experienced the original event remains unclear. Through two independent fMRI experiments, we explore the Functional Connectivity (FC) patterns at different timescales associated with these cognitive processes using the innovative Multiscale Functional Connectivity (MFC) technique. This study aims to shed light on how our brains construct mental representations of scenes in a movie compared to the verbal transmission of the same scenes. Our results demonstrated that the Default Mode Network (DMN) plays a crucial role in these experiments and exhibits unique FC patterns across different timescales, yet remarkably consistent among participants. In addition, we found significant connectivity patterns within the temporal cortex, including significant contributions of the temporal pole and the fusiform gyrus, which exhibited a pivotal role in cooperation with the DMN in both experiments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Faces can acquire emotional meaning by learning to associate individuals with specific behaviors. Here, we investigated emotional evaluation and brain activations toward faces of persons who had given negative or positive evaluations to others. Furthermore, we investigated how emotional evaluations and brain activation generalize to perceptually similar faces. Valence ratings indicated learning and generalization effects for both positive and negative faces. Brain activation, measured with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), showed significantly increased activation in the fusiform gyrus (FG) to negatively associated faces but not positively associated ones. Remarkably, brain activation in FG to faces to which emotional meaning (negative and positive) was successfully generalized was decreased compared to neutral faces. This suggests that the emotional relevance of faces is not simply associated with increased brain activation in visual areas. While, at least for negative conditions, faces paired with negative feedback behavior are related to potentiated brain responses, the opposite is seen for perceptually very similar faces despite generalized emotional responses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The perception and neural processing of sensory information are strongly influenced by prior expectations. The integration of prior and sensory information can manifest through distinct underlying mechanisms: focusing on unexpected input, denoted as prediction error (PE) processing, or amplifying anticipated information via sharpened representation. In this study, we employed computational modeling using deep neural networks combined with representational similarity analyses of fMRI data to investigate these two processes during face perception. Participants were cued to see face images, some generated by morphing two faces, leading to ambiguity in face identity. We show that expected faces were identified faster and perception of ambiguous faces was shifted towards priors. Multivariate analyses uncovered evidence for PE processing across and beyond the face-processing hierarchy from the occipital face area (OFA), via the fusiform face area, to the anterior temporal lobe, and suggest sharpened representations in the OFA. Our findings support the proposition that the brain represents faces grounded in prior expectations. Perception and neural processing of sensory information are influenced by prior expectations. Here the authors show investigate how prior expectations contribute to face processing in the brain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Prior research on the Noise Pareidolia Test (NPT) has demonstrated its clinical utility in detecting patients with mild cognitive impairment and dementia due to Lewy Body Disease (LBD). However, few studies to date have investigated the neuropsychological factors underlying pareidolia errors on the NPT across the clinical spectrum of LBD. Furthermore, to our knowledge, no research has examined the relationship between cortical thickness using MRI data and NPT subscores. As such, this study sought to explore the neuropsychological and neuroanatomical factors influencing performance on the NPT utilizing the National Alzheimer's Coordinating Center Lewy Body Dementia Module. Methods: Our sample included participants with normal cognition (NC; n = 56), LBD with mild cognitive impairment (LBD-MCI; n = 97), and LBD with dementia (LBD-Dementia; n = 94). Archival data from NACC were retrospectively analyzed for group differences in neuropsychological test scores and cognitive and psychiatric predictors of NPT scores. Clinicoradiological correlates between NPT subscores and a small subsample of the above LBD participants were also examined. Results: Analyses revealed significant differences in NPT scores among groups. Regression analysis demonstrated that dementia severity, attention, and visuospatial processing contributed approximately 24% of NPT performance in LBD groups. Clinicoradiological analysis suggests a potential contribution of the right fusiform gyrus, but not the inferior occipital gyrus, to NPT pareidolia error scores. Conclusions: Our findings highlight the interplay of attention and visuoperceptual functions in complex pareidolia in LBD. Further investigation is needed to refine the utility of NPT scores in clinical settings, including identifying patients at risk for visual illusions and hallucinations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Cushing's Disease (CD) is a rare clinical syndrome characterized by excessive secretion of adrenocorticotrophic hormone, leading to significant functional and structural brain alterations as observed in Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). While traditional statistical analysis has been widely employed to investigate these MRI changes in CD, it has lacked the ability to predict individual‐level outcomes. Purpose: To address this problem, this paper has proposed an interpretable machine learning (ML) framework, including model‐level assessment, feature‐level assessment, and biology‐level assessment to ensure a comprehensive analysis based on structural MRI of CD. Methods: The ML framework has effectively identified the changes in brain regions in the stage of model‐level assessment, verified the effectiveness of these altered brain regions to predict CD from normal controls in the stage of feature‐level assessment, and carried out a correlation analysis between altered brain regions and clinical symptoms in the stage of biology‐level assessment. Results: The experimental results of this study have demonstrated that the Insula, Fusiform gyrus, Superior frontal gyrus, Precuneus, and the opercular portion of the Inferior frontal gyrus of CD showed significant alterations in brain regions. Furthermore, our study has revealed significant correlations between clinical symptoms and the frontotemporal lobes, insulin, and olfactory cortex, which also have been confirmed by previous studies. Conclusions: The ML framework proposed in this study exhibits exceptional potential in uncovering the intricate pathophysiological mechanisms underlying CD, with potential applicability in diagnosing other diseases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Dysfunction in the autonomic nervous system is common throughout many functional gastrointestinal diseases (FGIDs) that have been historically difficult to treat. In recent years, transcutaneous vagal nerve stimulation (tVNS) has shown promise for improving FGID symptoms. However, the brain effects of tVNS remain unclear, which we investigated by neuroimaging meta‐analysis. Methods: A total of 157 studies were identified, 4 of which were appropriate for inclusion, encompassing 60 healthy human participants. Using activation likelihood analysis estimation, we statistically quantified functional brain activity changes across three domains: (1) tVNS vs. null stimulation, (2) tVNS vs. sham stimulation, and (3) sham stimulation vs. null stimulation. Key Results: tVNS significantly increased activity in the insula, anterior cingulate, inferior and superior frontal gyri, caudate and putamen, and reduced activity in the hippocampi, occipital fusiform gyri, temporal pole, and middle temporal gyri, when compared to null stimulation (all corrected p < 0.005). tVNS increased activity in the anterior cingulate gyrus, left thalamus, caudate, and paracingulate gyrus and reduced activity in right thalamus, posterior cingulate cortex, and temporal fusiform cortex, when compared to sham stimulation (all corrected p < 0.005). Sham stimulation significantly increased activity in the insula and reduced activity in the posterior cingulate and paracingulate gyrus (all corrected p < 0.001), when contrasted to null stimulation. Conclusions: Brain effects of tVNS localize to regions associated with both physiological autonomic regulation and regions whose activity is modulated across numerous FGIDs, which may provide a neural basis for efficacy of this treatment. Functional activity differences between sham and null stimulation illustrate the importance of robust control procedures for future trials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction Many studies have found sex differences in alterations of brain function in cigarette-smoking adults from the perspective of functional activity or connectivity. However, no studies have systematically found different alteration patterns in brain functional topology of cigarette-smoking men and women from three perspectives: nodal and network efficiency and modular connections. Aims and Methods Fifty-six tobacco use disorder (TUD) participants (25 women) and 66 non-TUD participants (28 women) underwent a resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging scan. The whole-brain functional networks were constructed, and a two-way analysis of covariance with false discovery rate correction (q  < 0.05) was performed to investigate whether men and women TUD participants had different alterations in the topological features at global, modular, and nodal levels. Results Compared to non-TUD participants, men but not women TUD participants showed significantly lower global efficiency (lower intermodular connections between the visual and executive control and between the visual and subcortical modules did not pass the correction) and significantly lower nodal global efficiency in the right superior occipital gyrus, bilateral fusiform gyrus, the right pallidum, right putamen, the bilateral paracentral lobule, the postcentral gyrus, and lower nodal local efficiency in the left paracentral lobule. Conclusions Men and women TUD participants have different topological properties of brain functional network, which may contribute to our understanding of neural mechanisms underlying sex differences in TUD. Implications Compared to non-TUD participants, we found men but not women TUD participants with significantly lower network metrics at global, modular, and nodal levels, which could improve our understanding of neural mechanisms underlying sex differences in TUD and lay a solid foundation for future sex-based TUD prevention and treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aberrant resting-state functional connectivity is a neuropathological feature of schizophrenia (SCZ). Prior investigations into functional connectivity abnormalities have primarily employed seed-based connectivity analysis, necessitating predefined seed locations. To address this limitation, a data-driven multivariate method known as connectome-wide association study (CWAS) has been proposed for exploring whole-brain functional connectivity. We conducted a CWAS analysis involving 46 patients with SCZ and 40 age- and sex-matched healthy controls. Multivariate distance matrix regression (MDMR) was utilized to identify key nodes in the brain. Subsequently, we conducted a follow-up seed-based connectivity analysis to elucidate specific connectivity patterns between regions of interest (ROIs). Additionally, we explored the spatial correlation between changes in functional connectivity and underlying molecular architectures by examining correlations between neurotransmitter/transporter distribution densities and functional connectivity. MDMR revealed the right medial frontal gyrus and the left calcarine sulcus as two key nodes. Follow-up analysis unveiled hypoconnectivity between the right medial frontal superior gyrus and the right fusiform gyrus, as well as hypoconnectivity between the left calcarine sulcus and the right lingual gyrus in SCZ. Notably, a significant association between functional connectivity strength and positive symptom severity was identified. Furthermore, altered functional connectivity patterns suggested potential dysfunctions in the dopamine, serotonin, and gamma-aminobutyric acid systems. This study elucidated reduced functional connectivity both within and between the medial frontal regions and the occipital cortex in patients with SCZ. Moreover, it indicated potential alterations in molecular architecture, thereby expanding current knowledge regarding neurobiological changes associated with SCZ. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Face recognition for surveillance remains a complex challenge due to the disparity between low-resolution (LR) face images captured by surveillance cameras and the typically high-resolution (HR) face images in databases. To address this cross-resolution face recognition problem, we propose a two-stage dual-resolution face network to learn more robust resolution-invariant representations. In the first stage, we pre-train the proposed dual-resolution face network using solely HR images. Our network utilizes a two-branch structure and introduces bilateral connections to fuse the high- and low-resolution features extracted by two branches, respectively. In the second stage, we introduce the triplet loss as the fine-tuning loss function and design a training strategy that combines the triplet loss with competence-based curriculum learning. According to the competence function, the pre-trained model can train first from easy sample sets and gradually progress to more challenging ones. Our method achieves a remarkable face verification accuracy of 99.25% on the native cross-quality dataset SCFace and 99.71% on the high-quality dataset LFW. Moreover, our method also enhances the face verification accuracy on the native low-quality dataset. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Functional neuroimaging has contributed substantially to understanding brain function but is dominated by group analyses that index only a fraction of the variation in these data. It is increasingly clear that parsing the underlying heterogeneity is crucial to understand individual differences and the impact of different task manipulations. We estimate large-scale (N = 7728) normative models of task-evoked activation during the Emotional Face Matching Task, which enables us to bind heterogeneous datasets to a common reference and dissect heterogeneity underlying group-level analyses. We apply this model to a heterogenous patient cohort, to map individual differences between patients with one or more mental health diagnoses relative to the reference cohort and determine multivariate associations with transdiagnostic symptom domains. For the face>shapes contrast, patients have a higher frequency of extreme deviations which are spatially heterogeneous. In contrast, normative models for faces>baseline have greater predictive value for individuals' transdiagnostic functioning. Taken together, we demonstrate that normative modelling of fMRI task-activation can be used to illustrate the influence of different task choices and map replicable individual differences, and we encourage its application to other neuroimaging tasks in future studies. Normative modelling of fMRI task-activation characterizes the influence of different task choices, and provides a method to map replicable individual differences and their multivariate associations with transdiagnostic symptom domains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Insula damage results in substantial impairments in facial emotion recognition. In particular, left hemispheric damage appears to be associated with poorer recognition of aversively rated facial expressions. Functional imaging can provide information on differences in the processing of these stimuli in patients with insula lesions when compared to healthy matched controls (HCs). We therefore investigated 17 patients with insula lesions in the chronic stage following stroke and 13 HCs using a passive-viewing task with pictures of facial expressions testing the blood oxygenation dependent (BOLD) effect in predefined regions of interest (ROIs). We expected a decrease in functional activation in an area modulating emotional response (left ventral striatum) but not in the facial recognition areas in the left inferior fusiform gyrus. Quantification of BOLD-response in ROIs but also voxel-based statistics confirmed this hypothesis. The voxel-based analysis demonstrated that the decrease in BOLD in the left ventral striatum was driven by left hemispheric damaged patients (n = 10). In our patient group, insula activation was strongly associated with the intensity rating of facial expressions. In conclusion, the combination of performance testing and functional imaging in patients following circumscribed brain damage is a challenging method for understanding emotion processing in the human brain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Depression is a common mental illness worldwide. Neuroimaging techniques, such as magnetic resonance imaging and functional magnetic resonance imaging, play an essential role in diagnosing and evaluating depression. This study is based on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-related research to explore the comparison of brain function and structure between patients with severe depression and normal individuals, and to conduct meta-analysis. Methods: We conducted searches in various databases such as PubMed, Web of Science, Embase, and Cochrane Library to obtain research data on comparing brain function and structure between patients with severe depression and healthy individuals. The search Keywords: included "Major Depressive Disorder", "Brain Function", "Brain Structure", "Depression", "MRI", and "Magnetic Resonance". The quality assessment was conducted using the bias risk assessment tool recommended by the Cochrane Collaborative Network. Literature was screened following the predetermined inclusion and exclusion criteria, and Anisotropic Effect-Size Seed-Based Differential Mapping (AES-SDM) was used for systematic meta-analysis. Regression analysis was performed on age, gender, disease duration, years of education, and treatment status. Results: After a thorough screening process, 10 documents were selected for subsequent analysis. These studies consisted of 477 study subjects, including 231 depression patients and 246 healthy individuals. The proportion of women was 36%-75%, and the disease duration was 3-60 months. The patients in 4 documents had first attacks, and the patients in the other 6 documents had multiple attacks. The baseline conditions of the 10 included documents were consistent and comparable. None of the studies reported blinding methods, and none of the results had incomplete data. The Regional homogeneity (ReHo) levels in the left precuneus (BA7), lentiform nucleus (BA48), and left prefrontal lobe (BA32) were significantly increased in the depression group, with voxel numbers of 358, 116, and 181, respectively. Conversely, the left postcentral gyrus (BA4), left cerebellar area (hemispheric lobule I, IV/V, lingual gyrus, fusiform gyrus), left fusiform gyrus (BA30), and right cingulate gyrus (BA23) were significantly reduced, with voxel numbers of 17, 50, and 124, respectively. Furthermore, regression analysis showed that gender, age, disease duration, years of education, and disease severity were potential influencing factors, and the disease duration demonstrated the most significant impact on the left cingulate gyrus (SDM = 2.777). Conclusion: There are significant differences in brain function and structure between patients with major depression and healthy individuals. Furthermore, our findings reveal a substantial correlation between the severity of depressive symptoms and brain function and structure indicators. These findings provide novel research directions and ideas for the diagnosis and treatment of depression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Face sketch synthesis (FSS) is considered an image-to-image translation problem, where a face sketch is generated from an input face photo. FSS plays a vital role in video/image surveillance-based law enforcement. In this paper, motivated by the recent success of generative adversarial networks (GAN), we consider conditional GAN (cGAN) to approach the problem of face sketch synthesis. However, despite the powerful cGAN model ability to generate fine textures, low-quality inputs characterized by the facial sketches drawn by artists cannot offer realistic and faithful details and have unknown degradation due to the drawing process, while high-quality references are inaccessible or even nonexistent. In this context, we propose an approach based on generative reference prior (GRP) to improve the synthesized face sketch perception. Our proposed model, which we call cGAN-GRP, leverages diverse and rich priors encapsulated in a pre-trained face GAN for generating highquality facial sketch synthesis. Extensive experiments on publicly available face databases using facial sketch recognition rate and image quality assessment metrics as criteria demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed model compared to several state-of-the-art methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior work suggests that differences in brain morphology and task-evoked neural activity may underlie extraordinary creative achievement. Here, we extend these findings by focusing on resting blood oxygen level–dependent (rsBOLD) functional connectivity differences between eminent creators from diverse fields of expertise and a "smart" comparison group of age- and education-matched non-eminent thinkers. Participants underwent rsBOLD imaging, along with a high-resolution structural brain scan, and completed a series of demographic and behavioral measures. The results revealed significant differences in rsBOLD connectivity between the eminent and noneminent thinkers. Eminent thinkers showed increased connectivity between (a) the right central operculum and the bilateral parietal operculum, right supramarginal gyrus, and left precentral gyrus; (b) the right precentral gyrus and the right postcentral gyrus; (c) the left parietal operculum and the right central operculum and the right sensorimotor cortex; and (d) the posterior cingulate gyrus and the right precentral gyrus. In contrast, they showed decreased connectivity between (a) the posterior cingulate gyrus and the left supracalcarine cortex and (b) between the left occipital fusiform gyrus and the left frontal operculum. These results suggest that extraordinary creativity may be associated with measurable differences in functional connectivity, particularly in areas that support creative functions. This study examined functional connectivity as measured by resting blood oxygen level–dependent MRI in individuals with exceptionally high creativity. Eminent creators from diverse fields were compared to an age- and education-matched control group. Eminence was assessed based on their Creative Achievement Questionnaire scores. Extraordinarily creative individuals showed increased functional connectivity between the left and right hemispheres and between frontoparietal and sensorimotor regions. These findings help elucidate the neurophysiological mechanisms of exceptionally high creativity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Picking up nuances of facial expression is a crucial part of frontline employee–guest interaction, yet little is known about its neurocognitive mechanism. We use a neuroimaging approach to explore the individual differences in cognitive processing style of front-of-house (FoH) employees by comparing their brain structures with those back-of-house (BoH). A voxel-based morphometry analysis of 63 senior hotel executives' brain images reveals that the grey matter volume in the occipital and fusiform face areas of FoH employees is greater than that of BoH employees and does not depend on the length of frontline experience. These regions have been implicated in facial expression recognition that is critical to the success in frontline roles. Our findings support the social brain hypothesis. To support sophisticated social cognition, resources are diverted to brain development associated with facial expression recognition. This development trajectory follows deferred adaptation, rather than conditional adaptation, proposed in developmental evolutionary psychology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To review scientific literature in which controlled cognitive tasks and recording of neurological activity are utilized to evaluate face recognition ability, considering the "other-race effect" (ORE). Methodology: Reflection article, whose methodology is based on a literature review; 15 studies were included for meta-synthesis. Results: It was found that subjective-recollection controlled cognitive tasks, electroencephalography technique, and event-related potentials predominate in face recognition research, considering the ORE. It was also found that oxytocin has no influence on face memory, and that difficulties in recognizing other-race blurred faces correlate with the activation of the fusiform face area (FFA). Conclusions: Neural processing of other-race faces requires more effort, evidenced by larger N250 amplitude, and it is related to N170 component. Furthermore, own-race face recognition is prolonged when these are inverted. of Other-race face processing may be increased by instruction, whereas anger does not improve other-race face memory. This review confirms that both neurophysiology and cultural factors play a crucial role in face recognition and suggests that ORE may be produced by the interaction between these factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Spatial normalization to a standardized brain template is a crucial step in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies. Brain templates made from sufficient sample size have low brain variability, improving the accuracy of spatial normalization. Using population-specific template improves accuracy of spatial normalization because brain morphology varies according to ethnicity and age. Methods: We constructed a brain template of normal Korean elderly (KNE200) using MRI scans 100 male and 100 female aged over 60 years old with normal cognition. We compared the deformation after spatial normalization of the KNE200 template to that of the KNE96, constructed from 96 cognitively normal elderly Koreans and to that of the brain template (OCF), constructed from 434 non-demented older Caucasians to examine the effect of sample size and ethnicity on the accuracy of brain template, respectively. We spatially normalized the MRI scans of elderly Koreans and quantified the amount of deformations associated with spatial normalization using the magnitude of displacement and volumetric changes of voxels. Results: The KNE200 yielded significantly less displacement and volumetric change in the parahippocampal gyrus, medial and posterior orbital gyrus, fusiform gyrus, gyrus rectus, cerebellum and vermis than the KNE96. The KNE200 also yielded much less displacement in the cerebellum, vermis, hippocampus, parahippocampal gyrus and thalamus and much less volumetric change in the cerebellum, vermis, hippocampus and parahippocampal gyrus than the OCF. Conclusion: KNE200 had the better accuracy than the KNE96 due to the larger sample size and was far accurate than the template constructed from elderly Caucasians in elderly Koreans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Visual hallucinations in Lewy body disease (LBD) can be differentiated based on phenomenology into minor phenomena (MVH) and complex hallucinations (CVH). MVH include a variety of phenomena, such as illusions, presence and passage hallucinations occurring at early stages of LBD. The neural mechanisms of visual hallucinations are largely unknown. The hodotopic model posits that the hallucination state is due to abnormal activity in specialized visual areas, that occurs in the context of wider network connectivity alterations and that phenomenology of VH, including content and temporal characteristics, may help identify brain regions underpinning these phenomena. Here we investigated both the topological and hodological neural basis of visual hallucinations integrating grey and white matter imaging analyses. We studied LBD patients with VH and age matched healthy controls (HC). VH were assessed using a North-East-Visual-Hallucinations-Interview that captures phenomenological detail. Then we applied voxel-based morphometry and tract based spatial statistics approaches to identify grey and white matter changes. First, we compared LBD patients and HC. We found a reduced grey matter volume and a widespread damage of white tracts in LBD compared to HC. Then we tested the association between CVH and MVH and grey and white matter indices. We found that CVH duration was associated with decreased grey matter volume in the fusiform gyrus suggesting that LBD neurodegeneration-related abnormal activity in this area is responsible for CVH. An unexpected finding was that MVH severity was associated with a greater integrity of white matter tracts, specifically those connecting dorsal, ventral attention networks and visual areas. Our results suggest that networks underlying MVH need to be partly intact and functional for MVH experiences to occur, while CVH occur when cortical areas are damaged. The findings support the hodotopic view and the hypothesis that MVH and CVH relate to different neural mechanisms, with wider implications for the treatment of these symptoms in a clinical context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Face-processing timing differences may underlie visual social attention differences between autistic and non-autistic people, and males and females. This study investigates the timing of the effects of neurotype and sex on face-processing, and their dependence on age. We analysed EEG data during upright and inverted photographs of faces from 492 participants from the Longitudinal European Autism Project (141 neurotypical males, 76 neurotypical females, 202 autistic males, 73 autistic females; age 6–30 years). We detected timings of sex/diagnosis effects on event-related potential amplitudes at the posterior–temporal channel P8 with Bootstrapped Cluster-based Permutation Analysis and conducted Growth Curve Analysis (GCA) to investigate the timecourse and dependence on age of neural signals. The periods of influence of neurotype and sex overlapped but differed in onset (respectively, 260 and 310 ms post-stimulus), with sex effects lasting longer. GCA revealed a smaller and later amplitude peak in autistic female children compared to non-autistic female children; this difference decreased in adolescence and was not significant in adulthood. No age-dependent neurotype difference was significant in males. These findings indicate that sex and neurotype influence longer latency face processing and implicates cognitive rather than perceptual processing. Sex may have more overarching effects than neurotype on configural face processing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People form impressions about others during daily social encounters and infer personality traits from others' behaviors. Such trait inference is thought to rely on two universal dimensions: competence and warmth. These two dimensions can be used to construct a 'social cognitive map' organizing massive information obtained from social encounters efficiently. Originating from spatial cognition, the neural codes supporting the representation and navigation of spatial cognitive maps have been widely studied. Recent studies suggest similar neural mechanism subserves the map-like architecture in social cognition as well. Here we investigated how spatial codes operate beyond the physical environment and support the representation and navigation of social cognitive map. We designed a social value space defined by two dimensions of competence and warmth. Behaviorally, participants were able to navigate to a learned location from random starting locations in this abstract social space. At the neural level, we identified the representation of distance in the precuneus, fusiform gyrus, and middle occipital gyrus. We also found partial evidence of grid-like representation patterns in the medial prefrontal cortex and entorhinal cortex. Moreover, the intensity of grid-like response scaled with the performance of navigating in social space and social avoidance trait scores. Our findings suggest a neurocognitive mechanism by which social information can be organized into a structured representation, namely cognitive map and its relevance to social well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Faces and bodies are processed in separate but adjacent regions in the primate visual cortex. Yet, the functional significance of dividing the whole person into areas dedicated to its face and body components and their neighboring locations remains unknown. Here we hypothesized that this separation and proximity together with a normalization mechanism generate clutter-tolerant representations of the face, body, and whole person when presented in complex multi-category scenes. To test this hypothesis, we conducted a fMRI study, presenting images of a person within a multi-category scene to human male and female participants and assessed the contribution of each component to the response to the scene. Our results revealed a clutter-tolerant representation of the whole person in areas selective for both faces and bodies, typically located at the border between the two category-selective regions. Regions exclusively selective for faces or bodies demonstrated clutter-tolerant representations of their preferred category, corroborating earlier findings. Thus, the adjacent locations of face- and body-selective areas enable a hardwired machinery for decluttering of the whole person, without the need for a dedicated population of person-selective neurons. This distinct yet proximal functional organization of category-selective brain regions enhances the representation of the socially significant whole person, along with its face and body components, within multi-category scenes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Object and scene perception are intertwined. When objects are expected to appear within a particular scene, they are detected and categorised with greater speed and accuracy. This study examined whether such context effects also moderate the perception of social objects such as faces. Female and male faces were embedded in scenes with a stereotypical female or male context. Semantic congruency of these scene contexts influenced the categorisation of faces (Experiment 1). These effects were bi-directional, such that face sex also affected scene categorisation (Experiment 2), suggesting concurrent automatic processing of both levels. In contrast, the more elementary task of face detection was not affected by semantic scene congruency (Experiment 3), even when scenes were previewed prior to face presentation (Experiment 4). This pattern of results indicates that semantic scene context can affect categorisation of faces. However, the earlier perceptual stage of detection appears to be encapsulated from the cognitive processes that give rise to this contextual interference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Language and social symptoms improve with age in some autistic toddlers, but not in others, and such outcome differences are not clearly predictable from clinical scores alone. Here we aim to identify early-age brain alterations in autism that are prognostic of future language ability. Leveraging 372 longitudinal structural MRI scans from 166 autistic toddlers and 109 typical toddlers and controlling for brain size, we find that, compared to typical toddlers, autistic toddlers show differentially larger or thicker temporal and fusiform regions; smaller or thinner inferior frontal lobe and midline structures; larger callosal subregion volume; and smaller cerebellum. Most differences are replicated in an independent cohort of 75 toddlers. These brain alterations improve accuracy for predicting language outcome at 6-month follow-up beyond intake clinical and demographic variables. Temporal, fusiform, and inferior frontal alterations are related to autism symptom severity and cognitive impairments at early intake ages. Among autistic toddlers, brain alterations in social, language and face processing areas enhance the prediction of the child's future language ability. Identifying prognostic early-age brain disruptions is crucial for autism. Here the authors show that social, language and face regions are disrupted in autistic toddlers, and anatomic measures of them improve accuracy in predicting future language ability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]