Rapid advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) have enabled text-to-speech (TTS) systems to produce voices increasingly indistinguishable from humans, posing significant societal risks, particularly through potential misuse in fraud and deception. To address this concern, this study combined behavioral assessments and neural measures using electroencephalography (EEG) to examine whether short-term perceptual training enhances people's ability to distinguish AI-generated from human speech. Thirty participants (of either sex) listened to sentences produced by human speakers and corresponding AI-generated clones, judging each sentence as either human or AI-generated before and after a brief (∼12 min) training session, during which voices were explicitly labeled as “human” or “AI.” Behaviorally, participants showed consistently poor discrimination before and after training, with only minimal improvement. However, neural analyses revealed substantial training-induced changes. Specifically, temporal response...

Rodent hippocampal power spectra comprise periodic and aperiodic components. The periodic components (brain rhythms) contain information about the behavioral or cognitive state of the animal. The aperiodic components are rarely studied, and their functionality is not well understood, though they have shown to be correlated with animal's age or the excitation–inhibition ratio of the brain region. To study these components in the mouse hippocampus, we modified the existing open-source FOOOF toolbox, which was originally optimized for EEG data. First, using simulated data, we show that our modifications decrease the error in assessment of the low frequency periodic components from 3 to 0.1%. Second, using tetrode electrophysiological signals from adult males, we compare the aperiodic activity within mice hippocampal subregions, CA1 and dentate gyrus (DG). Our optimization of FOOOF improved the aperiodic assessment errors by ∼50% and were critical in making the first assessment of the aperiodic components in t...

Charcot–Marie–Tooth disease (CMT) is an inherited peripheral neuropathy characterized by sensory dysfunction and muscle weakness, manifesting in the most distal limbs first and progressing more proximal. Over a hundred genes are currently linked to CMT with enrichment for activities in myelination, axon transport, and protein synthesis. Mutations in tRNA synthetases cause dominantly inherited forms of CMT, and animal models with CMT-linked mutations in these enzymes display defects in neuronal protein synthesis. Rescuing protein synthesis in CMT-mutant neurons could offer exciting therapeutic options beyond symptom management. To address this need, we expressed CMT-linked variants of tyrosyl-tRNA synthetase (YARS–CMT) in primary mouse sensory neurons derived from both male and female embryos and evaluated impacts on protein synthesis and cell viability. YARS–CMT expression reduced protein synthesis in these neurons prior to the onset of caspase-dependent axon degeneration and cell death. To determine how Y...

Forming a long-term memory requires changes in neuronal transcription. What happens, though, as the memory is forgotten? And how does the transcriptional state relate to the maintenance and recall of the long-term memory? To answer these questions, we have been systematically tracing the time course of transcriptional changes evoked by long-term sensitization in the marine mollusk Aplysia californica . Our approach captures transcriptional changes in neurons of known behavioral relevance using a within-subject design, delineating patterns of transcriptional change that are comprehensive and reproducible. We have previously reported that within 1 d of long-term sensitization training, there is a widespread transcriptional response involving robust changes in over 5% of tested transcripts (1,198 of ∼22 k; [Conte et al., 2017][1]). Within 1 week, however, memory strength fades, and nearly all transcriptional changes relapse to baseline ( [Perez et al., 2018][2]). Here we report microarray analysis ( N  = 16) ...

A possible mechanism of temporal lobe epilepsy is insufficient inhibition of hippocampal dentate granule cells. Precipitating injuries that kill interneurons in the dentate gyrus might result in fewer inhibitory synapses with granule cells. To test this hypothesis, previous studies evaluated numbers or densities of interneurons, γ-amino butyric acid (GABA)ergic boutons, and inhibitory synapses in tissue from human patients with temporal lobe epilepsy and rodent models. However, those studies have limitations. Some of those limitations can be addressed by a large animal model. Sea lions ( Zalophus californianus ) can develop temporal lobe epilepsy naturally. Like humans, epileptic sea lions exhibit bilateral or unilateral hippocampal sclerosis (neuron loss) with granule cell vulnerability, but sea lions permit optimal tissue preservation and sampling, and good control subjects. To label interneuron cell bodies and GABAergic synaptic boutons, sea lion hippocampal tissue from both sexes was processed with imm...

Science education is traditionally framed as a driver of scientific literacy and economic growth. However, emerging evidence suggests that it may also function as a contributor to public health by shaping brain health across the lifespan. In this invited commentary, I synthesize findings from human and animal studies to examine how enriched, inquiry-based educational experiences intersect with neural processes underlying cognitive development, stress regulation, executive function, and social-emotional well-being. This synthesis is guided by the principle of cognitive compassion, which emphasizes the design of learning environments that support both cognitive and emotional needs. Research on neuroplasticity, stress biology, and motivation indicates that learning contexts characterized by curiosity, emotional safety, and active engagement are associated with adaptive neural function and long-term cognitive resilience. Drawing on empirical literature and illustrative translational observations from education...

Harmonicity is a property of complex sounds such as vocalizations or music, but it remains unclear how harmonicity is processed in the auditory cortex (ACtx). Subregions of ACtx are thought to process harmonic stimuli differently. Selective responses to sound features in ACtx emerge hierarchically from primary ACtx (A1) L4 and secondary ACtx (A2) layer (L)2/3, which is believed to be the most responsive to harmonic sounds. Since harmonic stacks can range from 2 to >10 components, being more similar to naturalistic vocalizations, harmonic sensitivity might also arise hierarchically across layers and areas. We studied responses to harmonic stacks of 2–10 frequencies across A1 L4, A1 L2/3, and A2 L2/3 in adult male and female mice using in vivo two-photon microscopy. We found harmonic-sensitive neurons (HNs) responding only to harmonic stacks but not to individual frequencies in all areas at similar proportions. HNs showed highly nonlinear spectral integration of harmonic frequencies that decreased as the har...

Accurate time estimation is essential for optimizing our perception and actions. Previous neuroimaging and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) studies have suggested that the right inferior parietal lobule (IPL) and supplementary motor area (SMA) are involved in time perception. However, it remains inconclusive whether the activity in these regions is crucial for time perception, partly due to the possible spread of TMS effects across anatomically connected brain regions. Such a remote effect is less likely to happen with transcranial static magnetic stimulation (tSMS), as the static magnetic field is expected to modulate the firing threshold of neurons rather than directly triggering an action potential. In this study, we aimed to determine the causal relevance of local activities in the right IPL and the SMA for temporal processing using tSMS. Forty-eight human volunteers (26 males and 22 females) participated in the study. We measured duration discrimination thresholds, along with orientation discri...

The current treatment for drug-resistant epilepsy is surgical intervention, which relies on accurate identification of the seizure onset zone (SOZ) using intracranial electroencephalography (iEEG) data. iEEG analysis with computational epileptogenic zone identification algorithms (CEZIAs) is a promising step toward better SOZ localization and surgical outcomes. A key step in validation and adoption of CEZIAs is to allow for widespread shared development and validation of code and data. To achieve this, we developed an ecosystem of seizure localization methods that includes a straightforward analysis pipeline, standardized data formatting and storage, and completely documented and open-source code. The TableContainer package provides standardized storage of tabular data and serves as a foundational data structure for the ecosystem. Building on this, the Epoch package enables cropping, resampling, and visualization of iEEG data and provides publicly downloadable datasets for reproducibility. The public iEEG ...

Bridging integrator 1 ( BIN1 ) is one of the strongest genetic risk factors for Alzheimer’s disease (AD), yet its function in the brain and role in AD remain unclear. Neuronal BIN1 isoform levels are decreased in AD, and recent data show an important role of BIN1 in inhibitory neurons. Inhibitory neurons are key regulators of cognition and network excitability, with parvalbumin-expressing (PV) neurons as the most abundant subtype. We tested the hypothesis that loss of BIN1 from PV neurons contributes to AD-related cognitive dysfunction and network hyperexcitability. We generated a cell type–specific conditional knock-out mouse line, Bin1- pvKO, and examined mice of both sexes. These mice showed few behavioral differences when assessed with traditional or machine learning–based behavioral tests, with only a slight reduction in exploratory behavior in aged cohorts. Bin1- pvKO mice showed no significant differences in network excitability on measures of induced seizure susceptibility and spiking on cortical e...