When attempting to concurrently perform two distinct cognitive tasks, the performance of either task is frequently compromised. This phenomenon is known as dual-task interference. Although multiple task features have been postulated to influence on dual-task interference, the primary determinant remains unclear. The determinant factor causing dual-task interference is an important issue to understand its mechanism and associated functions including switching tasks and planning task order. The present study investigated this issue using monkeys and three behavioral tasks requiring distinct cognitive processes (spatial working memory, SWM; working memory and long-term memory of objects, PA; object working memory, DMS) and manipulating task pair (SWM and PA or SWM and DMS), task order (fixed or randomized), and task difficulty (different delay lengths). The task introduced first showed better performance as compared with the task introduced second, suggesting the task order as an important factor. However, th...

Early psychosis (EP) is a critical period for psychotic disorders during which the brain undergoes rapid and significant functional and structural changes ( [Shinn et al., 2017][1]). The Human Connectome Project (HCP) is a global effort to map the human brain's connectivity in health and disease. Here we focus on HCP-EP subjects (i.e., those within 5 years of the initial psychotic episode) to determine macro- and microstructural alterations in EP (HCP-EP sample, n  = 179: EP, n  = 123, controls, n  = 56) and their association with clinical outcomes (i.e., symptoms severity) in HCP-EP. We carried out analyses of deformation-based morphometry (DBM), scalar indices from the diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), and tract-based spatial statistics (TBSS). Lastly, we conducted correlation analyses focused on the midbrain (DBM and DTI) to examine associations between its structure and clinical symptoms. Our results show that the midbrain displays robust alteration in its structure (DBM and DTI) in the voxel-based analy...

Alpha (8–12 Hz) oscillations and default mode network (DMN) activity dominate the brain's intrinsic activity in the temporal and spatial domains, respectively. They are thought to play crucial roles in the spatiotemporal organization of the complex brain system. Relatedly, both have been implicated, often concurrently, in diverse neuropsychiatric disorders, with accruing electroencephalogram (EEG)/magnetoencephalogram and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data linking these two neural activities both at rest and during key cognitive operations. Prominent theories and extant findings thus converge to suggest a mechanistic relationship between alpha oscillations and the DMN. Here, we leveraged simultaneous EEG–fMRI data acquired before and after alpha-frequency transcranial alternating current stimulation ( α -tACS) and observed that α -tACS tightened the dynamic coupling between spontaneous fluctuations in alpha power and DMN connectivity (especially, in the posterior DMN, between the posterior c...

The striatum is the primary input nucleus of the basal ganglia, integrating a dense plexus of inputs from the cerebral cortex and thalamus to regulate action selection and learning. Neuroanatomical mapping of the striatum and its subcompartments has been carried out extensively in rats and mice, nonhuman primates, and cats allowing comparative neuroanatomy studies to derive heuristics about striatal composition and function. Here, we systematically map corticostriatal topography from motor, somatosensory, auditory, and visual cortices as well as thalamostriatal parafascicular (PfN) inputs in the Mongolian gerbil. We also map a pathway reported in mice from medial vestibular nucleus to the PfN that could convey vestibular information to the striatum. Our findings align with those of similar studies in other rodents, indicating homologous neuroanatomical connectivity patterns within the corticostriatal projectome across Rodentia. We observed corticostriatal peaks of dense labeling for each input with a diffu...

Facial paralysis is characterized by an injury to the facial nerve, causing the loss of the functions of the structures that it innervates, as well as changes in the motor cortex. Current models have some limitations for the study of facial paralysis, such as movement restriction, the absence of studying awake animals in behavioral contexts, and the lack of a model that fully evaluates facial movements. The development of an algorithm capable of automatically inferring facial paralysis and overcoming the existing limitations is proposed in this work. In C57/BL6J mice, we produced both irreversible and reversible facial paralysis. Video recordings were made of the faces of paralyzed mice to develop an algorithm for detecting facial paralysis applied to mice, which allows us to predict the presence of reversible and irreversible facial paralysis automatically. At the same time, the algorithm was used to track facial movement during gustatory stimulation and extracellular electrophysiological recordings in th...

Impulsivity is often considered a risk factor for drug addiction; however, not all evidence supports this view. In the present study, we used a food reward delay-discounting task (DDT) to categorize rats as low-, middle-, and high-impulsive but failed to find any difference among these groups in the acquisition and maintenance of cocaine self-administration (SA), regardless of electrical footshock punishment. Additionally, there were no group differences in locomotor responses to acute cocaine in rats with or without a history of cocaine SA. Unexpectedly, chronic cocaine SA selectively increased impulsive choice in low-impulsive rats. Resting-state fMRI analysis revealed a positive correlation between impulsivity and cerebral blood volume in the midbrain, thalamus, and auditory cortex. Using these three regions as seeds, we observed a negative correlation between impulsivity and functional connectivity between the midbrain and frontal cortex, as well as between the thalamus and frontal cortex (including th...

Neuroinflammation has been widely recognized as the primary pathophysiological mechanism underlying ischemic white matter lesions (IWML) in chronic cerebral hypoperfusion (CCH). Adenosine A2A receptor (A2aR), an important adenosine receptor, exhibits a dual role in neuroinflammation by modulating both proinflammatory and anti-inflammatory responses. This study aimed to investigate the specific functions and mechanisms of A2aR in neuroinflammation. The findings revealed that A2aR initially exerted a proinflammatory role in the CCH model, transitioning to an anti-inflammatory role in later stages by regulating the phenotypic transformation of microglia. Further analyses using coimmunoprecipitation couple with mass spectrometry, in situ proximity ligation assay, AlphaFold protein structure prediction, [35S]GTPγS binding assay, and NanoBiT technology demonstrated that A2aR formed heteromers with mGluR5 during the early stage of CCH under high glutamate conditions, promoting the polarization of microglia toward...

Humans and nonhumans alike often make choices to gain information, even when the information cannot be used to change the outcome. Prior research has shown that the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) is important for evaluating options involving reward-predictive information. Here we studied the role of ACC in information choices using optical inhibition to evaluate the contribution of this region during specific epochs of decision-making. Rats could choose between an uninformative option followed by a cue that predicted reward 50% of the time versus a fully informative option that signaled outcomes with certainty but was rewarded only 20% of the time. Reward seeking during the informative S+ cue decreased following ACC inhibition, indicating a causal contribution of this region in supporting reward expectation to a cue signaling reward with certainty. Separately in a positive control experiment and in support of a known role for this region in sustaining high-effort behavior for preferred rewards, we observe...

Vestibular research is essential for understanding and treating disorders such as vertigo and Meniere's disease. The vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR) is a key method for assessing vestibular function and an essential tool for diagnosing vertigo. Traditionally, the VOR comprises angular VOR (aVOR) and translational VOR (tVOR), which originate from the vestibular semicircular canals (SCCs) and otolith organs, respectively. VOR consists of both fast-phase and slow-phase eye movements, which functionally interact to contribute to gaze control. However, to calculate the gain and phase parameters of the VOR, it is common practice to exclude fast-phase information superimposed on slow-phase eye movements. As a result, the information contained in the fast phase has not been fully utilized. OVAR is primarily used to evaluate otolith function, as there is no SCC input during its steady state. It is widely accepted that fast-phase nystagmus (FPN) during OVAR is generated by periodic otolith inputs via the central vesti...

How humans achieve such a high degree of prosocial behavior is a subject of considerable interest. Exploration of the neural foundations of human prosociality has garnered significant attention in recent decades. Nevertheless, the neural mechanisms underlying human prosociality remain to be elucidated. To address this knowledge gap, we analyzed multimodal brain imaging data and data from 15 economic games. The results revealed several significant associations between brain characteristics and prosocial behavior, including stronger interhemispheric connectivity and larger corpus callosum volume. Greater functional segregation and integration, alongside fewer myelin maps combined with a thicker cortex, were linked to prosocial behavior, particularly within the social brain regions. The current study demonstrates that these metrics serve as brain markers of human prosocial behavior and provides novel insights into the structural and functional brain basis of human prosocial behavior.