Neuropsychiatric diseases are the leading cause of disability worldwide, affecting one in four people at some point in their lives.

How can individual development plans be used to develop individuality in students?

Explore this mix of resources on and stories about different types of outreach, all with key takeaways for your own event.

Goal-directed actions require transforming sensory information into motor plans defined across multiple parameters and reference frames. Substantial evidence supports the encoding of target direction in gaze- and body-centered coordinates within parietal and premotor regions. However, how the brain encodes the equally critical parameter of target distance remains less understood. Here, using Bayesian pattern component modeling of fMRI data during a delayed reach-to-target task, we dissociated the neural encoding of both target direction and the relative distances between target, gaze, and hand at early and late stages of motor planning. This approach revealed independent representations of direction and distance along the human dorsomedial reach pathway. During early planning, most premotor and superior parietal areas encoded a target’s distance in single or multiple reference frames and encoded its direction. In contrast, distance encoding was magnified in gaze- and body-centric reference frames during la...

Overexpression of the eukaryotic initiation factor 4E (eIF4E) gene has been associated with excessive stereotypic behaviors and reduced sociability, which manifest as autism-like social cognitive deficits. However, the precise mechanisms by which eIF4E overexpression induces insufficiently these autism-like behaviors and the specific brain regions implicated remain insufficiently understood . Oxytocin, a neurotransmitter known for its role in social behavior, has been proposed to modulate certain autism-related symptoms by influencing microglial function and attenuating neuroinflammation. Nonetheless , the contributions of the hippocampus and oxytocin in the content of eIF4E overexpression-induced autistic behaviors remain elucidated . To investigate this issue,esearchers utilized the three-chamber social interaction test, the open field test, and the Morris water maze to evaluate the social cognitive behaviors of the two groups of mice. Additionally, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), immunofluore...

Maintaining concentration on demanding cognitive tasks, such as vigilance (VG) and working memory (WM) tasks, is crucial for successful task completion. Previous research suggests that internal concentration maintenance fluctuates, potentially declining to sub-optimal states, which can influence trial-by-trial performance in these tasks. However, the timescale of such alertness maintenance, as indicated by slow changes in pupil diameter, has not been thoroughly investigated. This study explored whether "pupil trends"—which selectively signal sub-optimal tonic alertness maintenance at various timescales—negatively correlate with trial-by-trial performance in VG and WM tasks. Using the Psychomotor Vigilance Task (VG) and the Visual-Spatial 2-back Task (WM), we found that human pupil trends lasting over 10 seconds were significantly higher in trials with longer reaction times, indicating poorer performance, compared to shorter reaction time trials, which indicated better performance. The Attention Network Tes...

Starting a blog can help you distinguish your scientific approach, engage with fascinating individuals, give back to the public, enjoy creative challenges, and more. As this panel demonstrates, there is no one path you need to follow to begin writing online.

When you are hungry, the smell of a hearty meal is a cue for potential reward.

Can you always believe your eyes? How about your senses of sound, touch, and smell?

Dina Stroud, an administrator for Fisk-Vanderbilt Master’s to PhD Bridge Program, talks about her experience in biomedical research, and how her current role continues to help students and research.