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Mashup Score: 2
Superagers are elderly individuals with the memory ability of people 30 years younger and provide evidence that age-related cognitive decline is not inevitable. In a sample of 64 superagers (mean age 81.9; 59% women) and 55 typical older adults (mean age 82.4; 64% women) from the Vallecas Project, we studied, cross-sectionally and longitudinally over 5 years with yearly follow-ups, the global cerebral white matter status as well as region-specific white matter microstructure assessment derived from diffusivity measures. Superagers and typical older adults showed no difference in global white matter health (total white matter volume, Fazekas score, and lesions volume) cross-sectionally or longitudinally. However, analyses of diffusion parameters revealed better white matter microstructure in superagers than in typical older adults. Cross-sectional differences showed higher fractional anisotropy (FA) in superagers mostly in frontal fibres and lower mean diffusivity (MD) in most white mat
Source: www.jneurosci.orgCategories: General Medicine News, NeurologyTweet
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Mashup Score: 11This Week in The Journal - 3 day(s) ago
Tyler Godat, Kendall Kohout, Keith Parkins, Qiang Yang, Juliette E. McGregor et al. (see article [e1738232024][1]) How the retina processes color is not fully understood. Retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) provide visual information to the brain, but how they combine the three types of cone
Source: www.jneurosci.orgCategories: General Medicine News, NeurologyTweet
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Mashup Score: 12Spontaneous α Brain Dynamics Track the Episodic “When” - 3 day(s) ago
Across species, neurons track time over the course of seconds to minutes, which may feed the sense of time passing. Here, we asked whether neural signatures of time-tracking could be found in humans. Participants stayed quietly awake for a few minutes while being recorded with magnetoencephalography (MEG). They were unaware they would be asked how long the recording lasted (retrospective time) or instructed beforehand to estimate how long it will last (prospective timing). At rest, rhythmic brain activity is nonstationary and displays bursts of activity in the alpha range (α: 7–14 Hz). When participants were not instructed to attend to time, the relative duration of α bursts linearly predicted individuals’ retrospective estimates of how long their quiet wakefulness lasted. The relative duration of α bursts was a better predictor than α power or burst amplitude. No other rhythmic or arrhythmic activity predicted retrospective duration. However, when participants timed prospectively, the
Source: www.jneurosci.orgCategories: General Medicine News, NeurologyTweet
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Mashup Score: 4
Humans need social closeness to prosper. There is evidence that empathy can induce social closeness. However, it remains unclear how empathy-related social closeness is formed and how stable it is as time passes. We applied an acquisition-extinction paradigm combined with computational modelling and fMRI, to investigate the formation and stability of empathy-related social closeness. Female participants observed painful stimulation of another person with high probability (acquisition) and low probability (extinction), and rated their closeness to that person. The results of two independent studies showed increased social closeness in the acquisition block that resisted extinction in the extinction block. Providing insights into underlying mechanisms, reinforcement learning modelling revealed that the formation of social closeness is based on a learning signal (prediction error) generated from observing another’s pain, whereas maintaining social closeness is based on a learning signal g
Source: www.jneurosci.orgCategories: General Medicine News, NeurologyTweet
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Mashup Score: 21
Superagers are elderly individuals with the memory ability of people 30 years younger and provide evidence that age-related cognitive decline is not inevitable. In a sample of 64 superagers (mean age 81.9; 59% women) and 55 typical older adults (mean age 82.4; 64% women) from the Vallecas Project, we studied, cross-sectionally and longitudinally over 5 years with yearly follow-ups, the global cerebral white matter status as well as region-specific white matter microstructure assessment derived from diffusivity measures. Superagers and typical older adults showed no difference in global white matter health (total white matter volume, Fazekas score, and lesions volume) cross-sectionally or longitudinally. However, analyses of diffusion parameters revealed better white matter microstructure in superagers than in typical older adults. Cross-sectional differences showed higher fractional anisotropy (FA) in superagers mostly in frontal fibres and lower mean diffusivity (MD) in most white mat
Source: www.jneurosci.orgCategories: General Medicine News, NeurologyTweet
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Mashup Score: 5
The conformational state of DNA fine-tunes the transcriptional rate and abundance of RNA. Here, we report that G-quadruplex DNA (G4-DNA) accumulates in neurons, in an experience-dependent manner, and that this is required for the transient silencing and activation of genes that are critically involved in learning and memory in male C57/BL6 mice. In addition, site-specific resolution of G4-DNA by dCas9-mediated deposition of the helicase DHX36 impairs fear extinction memory. Dynamic DNA structure states therefore represent a key molecular mechanism underlying memory consolidation. One-Sentence Summary: G4-DNA is a molecular switch that enables the temporal regulation of the gene expression underlying the formation of fear extinction memory.
Source: www.jneurosci.orgCategories: General Medicine News, NeurologyTweet
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Mashup Score: 7
Excessive oscillatory activity across basal ganglia (BG) nuclei in the β frequencies (12–30 Hz) is a hallmark of Parkinson’s disease (PD). While the link between oscillations and symptoms remains debated, exaggerated β oscillations constitute an important biomarker for therapeutic effectiveness in PD. The neuronal mechanisms of β -oscillation generation however remain unknown. Many existing models rely on a central role of the subthalamic nucleus (STN) or cortical inputs to BG. Contrarily, neural recordings and optogenetic manipulations in normal and parkinsonian rats recently highlighted the central role of the external pallidum (GPe) in abnormal β oscillations, while showing that the integrity of STN or motor cortex is not required. Here, we evaluate the mechanisms for the generation of abnormal β oscillations in a BG network model where neuronal and synaptic time constants, connectivity, and firing rate distributions are strongly constrained by experimental data. Guided by a mean-fi
Source: www.jneurosci.orgCategories: General Medicine News, NeurologyTweet
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Mashup Score: 10Cone-Opponent Ganglion Cells in the Primate Fovea Tuned to Non-Cardinal Color Directions - 18 day(s) ago
A long-standing question in vision science is how the three cone photoreceptor types – long (L), medium (M) and short (S) wavelength sensitive – combine to generate our perception of color. Hue perception can be described along two opponent axes: red-green and blue-yellow. Psychophysical measurements of color appearance indicate that the cone inputs to the red-green and blue-yellow opponent axes are M vs. L+S and L vs. M+S, respectively. However, the “cardinal directions of color space” revealed by psychophysical measurements of color detection thresholds following adaptation are L vs. M and S vs. L+M. These cardinal directions match the most common cone-opponent retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) in the primate retina. Accordingly, the cone opponency necessary for color appearance is thought to be established in cortex. However, small populations with the appropriate M vs. L+S and L vs. M+S cone-opponency have been reported in large surveys of cone inputs to primate RGCs and their projecti
Source: www.jneurosci.orgCategories: General Medicine News, NeurologyTweet
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Mashup Score: 4
From deciding which meal to prepare for our guests to trading-off the pro-environmental effects of climate protection measures against their economic costs, we often must consider the consequences of our actions for the well-being of others (welfare). Vexingly, the tastes and views of others can vary widely. To maximize welfare according to the utilitarian philosophical tradition, decision makers facing conflicting preferences of others should choose the option that maximizes the sum of subjective value (utility) of the entire group. This notion requires comparing intensities of preferences across individuals. However, it remains unclear whether such comparisons are possible at all, and (if they are possible) how they might be implemented in the brain. Here, we show that female and male participants can both learn the preferences of others by observing their choices, and represent these preferences on a common scale to make utilitarian welfare decisions. On the neural level, multivaria
Source: www.jneurosci.orgCategories: General Medicine News, NeurologyTweet
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Mashup Score: 9This Week in The Journal - 24 day(s) ago
Mirjam Studler, Lorena R. R. Gianotti, Janek Lobmaier, Angelina Maric, and Daria Knoch (see article [e0885232024][1]) Prosocial behaviors such as cooperativeness, helpfulness, and altruism are beneficial to society. Sleep deprivation studies suggest that lack of sleep makes us less helpful and
Source: www.jneurosci.orgCategories: General Medicine News, NeurologyTweet
New in #JNeurosci: @MartaGarop et al. @The_Strange_Lab @Fund_CIEN compared the brains of elders who don't experience cognitive decline with those who do & found brain white matter structural differences. https://t.co/E06YPz8yKF https://t.co/LstCCD7ncf