Search results for "Cognitive"

Basal Forebrain Mediates Motivational Recruitment of Attention by Reward-Associated Cues.

2018

The basal forebrain, composed of distributed nuclei, including substantia innominata (SI), nucleus basalis and nucleus of the diagonal band of Broca plays a crucial neuromodulatory role in the brain. In particular, its projections to the prefrontal cortex have been shown to be important in a wide variety of brain processes and functions, including attention, learning and memory, arousal, and decision-making. In the present study, we asked whether the basal forebrain is involved in recruitment of cognitive effort in response to reward-related cues. This interaction between motivation and cognition is critically impacted in psychiatric conditions such as schizophrenia. Using the Designer Rece…

Direct and Inverse Comorbidities Between Complex Disorders

2016

Comorbidity and multimorbidity, defined as the presence of more than one disease in individuals, have emerged as a major challenge in the last decade (Valderas et al., 2009). Indeed, researchers, health professionals, healthcare managers and policy makers, and patients and citizens are lagging behind considering the comorbidity scenario, as illustrated by the paucity of documentation concerning interventions in people with multiple conditions (Smith et al., 2012). There is a clear need to better understand disease-disease relationships, in order to better organize and provide care, but also to develop appropriate research models. We can first characterize direct multimorbidity (higher-than-…

2016

Introduction: cognitive deterioration and reductions of bone health coincide with increasing age. We examine the relationship between bone composition and plasma markers of bone remodelling with measures of cognitive performance in healthy adults. Methods: this cross-sectional study included 225 old (52% women, mean age: 74.4 ± 3.3 years) and 134 young (52% women, mean age: 23.4 ± 2.7 years) adult participants from the MyoAge project. Whole body bone mineral density was measured by dualenergy X-ray absorptiometry. Blood analyses included a panel of bone-related peptides (dickkopf-1, osteoprotegerin, osteocalcin (OC), osteopontin, sclerostin, parathyroid hormone and fibroblast growth factor …

Adverse Social Experiences in Adolescent Rats Result in Enduring Effects on Social Competence, Pain Sensitivity and Endocannabinoid Signaling

2016

Abstract: Social affiliation is essential for many species and gains significant importance during adolescence. Disturbances in social affiliation, in particular social rejection experiences during adolescence, affect an individual's well-being and are involved in the emergence of psychiatric disorders. The underlying mechanisms are still unknown, partly because of a lack of valid animal models. By using a novel animal model for social peer rejection, which compromises adolescent rats in their ability to appropriately engage in playful activities, here we report on persistent impairments in social behavior and dysregulations in the endocannabinoid (eCB) system. From postnatal day (pd) 21 to…

Autism Related Neuroligin-4 Knockout Impairs Intracortical Processing but not Sensory Inputs in Mouse Barrel Cortex

2016

Neuroligin-4 (Nlgn4) is a cell adhesion protein that regulates synapse organization and function. Mutations in human NLGN4 are among the causes of autism spectrum disorders. In mouse, Nlgn4 knockout (KO) perturbs GABAergic synaptic transmission and oscillatory activity in hippocampus, and causes social interaction deficits. The complex profile of cellular and circuit changes that are caused by Nlgn4-KO is still only partly understood. Using Nlgn4-KO mice, we found that Nlgn4-KO increases the power in the alpha frequency band of spontaneous network activity in the barrel cortex under urethane anesthesia in vivo. Nlgn4-KO did not affect single-whisker-induced local field potentials, but suppr…

Brain Distribution and Modulation of Neuronal Excitability by Indicaxanthin From Opuntia Ficus Indica Administered at Nutritionally-Relevant Amounts

2018

Several studies have recently investigated the role of nutraceuticals in complex pathophysiological processes such as oxidative damages, inflammatory conditions and excitotoxicity. In this regard, the effects of nutraceuticals on basic functions of neuronal cells, such as excitability, are still poorly investigated. For this reason, the possible modulation of neuronal excitability by phytochemicals (PhC) could represent an interesting field of research given that excitotoxicity phenomena are involved in neurodegenerative alterations leading, for example, to Alzheimer's disease. The present study was focused on indicaxanthin from Opuntia ficus indica, a bioactive betalain pigment, with a pro…

The Importance of Cerebellar Connectivity on Simulated Brain Dynamics

2020

The brain shows a complex multiscale organization that prevents a direct understanding of how structure, function and dynamics are correlated. To date, advances in neural modeling offer a unique opportunity for simulating global brain dynamics by embedding empirical data on different scales in a mathematical framework. The Virtual Brain (TVB) is an advanced data-driven model allowing to simulate brain dynamics starting from individual subjects' structural and functional connectivity obtained, for example, from magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The use of TVB has been limited so far to cerebral connectivity but here, for the first time, we have introduced cerebellar nodes and interconnecting…

Quantum clustering in non-spherical data distributions: Finding a suitable number of clusters

2017

Quantum Clustering (QC) provides an alternative approach to clustering algorithms, several of which are based on geometric relationships between data points. Instead, QC makes use of quantum mechanics concepts to find structures (clusters) in data sets by finding the minima of a quantum potential. The starting point of QC is a Parzen estimator with a fixed length scale, which significantly affects the final cluster allocation. This dependence on an adjustable parameter is common to other methods. We propose a framework to find suitable values of the length parameter σ by optimising twin measures of cluster separation and consistency for a given cluster number. This is an extension of the Se…

The NG2 Protein Is Not Required for Glutamatergic Neuron-NG2 Cell Synaptic Signaling.

2014

NG2 glial cells (as from now NG2 cells) are unique in receiving synaptic input from neurons. However, the components regulating formation and maintenance of these neuron–glia synapses remain elusive. The transmembrane protein NG2 has been considered a potential mediator of synapse formation and alpha-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-4-isoxazolepropionic acid receptor (AMPAR) clustering, because it contains 2 extracellular Laminin G/Neurexin/Sex Hormone-Binding Globulin domains, which in neurons are crucial for formation of transsynaptic neuroligin– neurexin complexes. NG2 is connected via Glutamate Receptor-Interacting Protein with GluA2/3-containing AMPARs, thereby possibly mediating receptor clus…

Synaptic Phospholipid Signaling Modulates Axon Outgrowth via Glutamate-dependent Ca2+-mediated Molecular Pathways.

2015

Abstract Altered synaptic bioactive lipid signaling has been recently shown to augment neuronal excitation in the hippocampus of adult animals by activation of presynaptic LPA2-receptors leading to increased presynaptic glutamate release. Here, we show that this results in higher postsynaptic Ca2+ levels and in premature onset of spontaneous neuronal activity in the developing entorhinal cortex. Interestingly, increased synchronized neuronal activity led to reduced axon growth velocity of entorhinal neurons which project via the perforant path to the hippocampus. This was due to Ca2+-dependent molecular signaling to the axon affecting stabilization of the actin cytoskeleton. The spontaneous…