Morphological and behavioral analysis of Slc35f1-deficient mice revealed no neurodevelopmental phenotype
AbstractSLC35F1 is a member of the sugar-like carrier (SLC) superfamily that is expressed in the mammalian brain. Malfunction of SLC35F1 in humans is associated with neurodevelopmental disorders. To get insight into the possible roles of Slc35f1 in the brain, we generated Slc35f1-deficient mice. The Slc35f1-deficient mice are viable and survive into adulthood, which allowed examining adult Slc35f1-deficient mice on the anatomical as well as behavioral level. In humans, mutation in the SLC35F1 gene can induce a Rett syndrome-like phenotype accompanied by intellectual disability (Fede et al. Am J Med Genet A 185:2238 –2240...
Source: Anatomy and Embryology - March 23, 2023 Category: Anatomy Source Type: research
The elusive metric of lesion load
AbstractOne of the widely used metrics in lesion-symptom mapping is lesion load that codes the amount of damage to a given brain region of interest. Lesion load aims to reduce the complex 3D lesion information into a feature that can reflect both site of damage, defined by the location of the region of interest, and size of damage within that region of interest. Basically, the process of estimation of lesion load converts a voxel-based lesion map into a region-based lesion map, with regions defined as atlas-based or data-driven spatial patterns. Here, after examining current definitions of lesion load, four methodological ...
Source: Anatomy and Embryology - March 22, 2023 Category: Anatomy Source Type: research
Brain areas activated during visual learning in the cichlid fish Pseudotropheus zebra
AbstractThe neural correlates of most cognitive functions in fish are unknown. This project aimed to identify brain regions involved in visual learning in the cichlid fishPseudotropheus zebra. The expression of the protein pS6 was measured in 19 brain areas and compared between groups of individuals subjected to four different behavioral contexts (control, avoidance, trained, and novelty groups). Control group individuals were sacrificed with minimal interactions. Fish in the avoidance group were chased with a net for an hour, after which they were sacrificed. Individuals in the trained group received daily training sessio...
Source: Anatomy and Embryology - March 15, 2023 Category: Anatomy Source Type: research
The angular gyrus serves as an interface between the non-lexical reading network and the semantic system: evidence from dynamic causal modeling
In this study, we tested different predictions of cortical interactions that derived from computational models for reading using dynamic causal modeling. Morse code was used as a model for non-lexical decoding followed by a lexical-decision during a functional magnetic resonance examination. Our results suggest that individual letters are first converted into phonemes within the left supramarginal gyrus, followed by a phoneme assembly to reconstruct word phonology, involving the left inferior frontal cortex. To allow the identification and comprehension of known words, the inferior frontal cortex then interacts with the se...
Source: Anatomy and Embryology - March 11, 2023 Category: Anatomy Source Type: research
Mapping the primate thalamus: systematic approach to analyze the distribution of subcortical neuromodulatory afferents
AbstractNeuromodulatory afferents to thalamic nuclei are key for information transmission and thus play critical roles in sensory, motor, and limbic processes. Over the course of the last decades, diverse attempts have been made to map and describe subcortical neuromodulatory afferents to the primate thalamus, including axons using acetylcholine, serotonin, dopamine, noradrenaline, adrenaline, and histamine. Our group has been actively involved in this endeavor. The published descriptions on neuromodulatory afferents to the primate thalamus have been made in different laboratories and are not fully comparable due to method...
Source: Anatomy and Embryology - March 8, 2023 Category: Anatomy Source Type: research
Corpus callosum organization and its implication to core and co-occurring symptoms of Autism Spectrum Disorder
AbstractAutism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is characterized by social interaction and communication deficits, repetitive behavior and often by co-occurring conditions such as language and non-verbal IQ development delays. Previous studies reported that those behavioral abnormalities can be associated with corpus callosum organization. However, little is known about the specific differences in white matter structure of the corpus callosum parts in children with ASD and TD peers and their relationships to core and co-occurring symptoms of ASD. The aim of the study was to investigate the volumetric and microstructural characteris...
Source: Anatomy and Embryology - March 3, 2023 Category: Anatomy Source Type: research
In mice and humans, brain microvascular contractility matures postnatally
AbstractAlthough great efforts to characterize the embryonic phase of brain microvascular system development have been made, its postnatal maturation has barely been described. Here, we compared the molecular and functional properties of brain vascular cells on postnatal day (P)5 vs. P15, via a transcriptomic analysis of purified mouse cortical microvessels (MVs) and the identification of vascular-cell-type-specific or -preferentially expressed transcripts. We found that endothelial cells (EC), vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMC) and fibroblasts (FB) follow specific molecular maturation programs over this time period. Focu...
Source: Anatomy and Embryology - February 21, 2023 Category: Anatomy Source Type: research
Hominoid-specific sulcal variability is related to face perception ability
AbstractThe relationship among brain structure, brain function, and behavior is of major interest in neuroscience, evolutionary biology, and psychology. This relationship is especially intriguing when considering hominoid-specific brain structures because they cannot be studied in widely examined models in neuroscience such as mice, marmosets, and macaques. The fusiform gyrus (FG) is a hominoid-specific structure critical for face processing that is abnormal in individuals with developmental prosopagnosia (DPs) —individuals who have severe deficits recognizing the faces of familiar people in the absence of brain damage. ...
Source: Anatomy and Embryology - February 14, 2023 Category: Anatomy Source Type: research
Beyond BMI: cardiometabolic measures as predictors of impulsivity and white matter changes in adolescents
AbstractObesity is characterized by cardiometabolic and neurocognitive changes. However, how these two factors relate to each other in this population is unknown. We tested the association that cardiometabolic measures may have with impulse behaviors and white matter microstructure in adolescents with and without an excess weight. One hundred and eight adolescents (43 normal-weight and 65 overweight/obesity; 11 –19 years old) were medically and psychologically (Temperament Character Inventory Revised, Three-Factor Eating Questionnaire-R18, Conners’ Continuous Performance Test-II, Stroop Color and Word Test, Wisconsin ...
Source: Anatomy and Embryology - February 13, 2023 Category: Anatomy Source Type: research
Cross-modality comparison between structural and metabolic networks in individual brain based on the Jensen-Shannon divergence method: a healthy Chinese population study
AbstractThe study aimed to investigate the consistency and diversity between metabolic and structural brain networks at individual level constructed with divergence-based method in healthy Chinese population. The18F-FDG PET and T1-weighted images of brain were collected from 209 healthy participants. The Jensen-Shannon divergence (JSD) was used to calculate metabolic or structural connectivities between any pair of brain regions and then individual brain networks were constructed. The global and regional topological properties of both networks were analyzed with graph theoretical analysis. Regional properties including nod...
Source: Anatomy and Embryology - February 7, 2023 Category: Anatomy Source Type: research
Dopaminergic innervation at the central nucleus of the amygdala reveals distinct topographically segregated regions
AbstractThe central nucleus of the amygdala (CeA) is involved in the expression of fear and anxiety disorders. Anatomically, it is divided into medial (CeM), lateral (CeL), and capsular (CeC) divisions. The CeA is densely innervated by dopaminergic projections that originate in the ventral periaqueductal gray/dorsal raphe (vPAG/DR) and the ventral tegmental area (VTA). However, whether dopamine (DA) exerts a homogenous control over the CeA or differentially regulates the various CeA subdivisions is still unknown. Here, we performed a neuroanatomical analysis of the mouse CeA and found that DAergic innervations from the PAG...
Source: Anatomy and Embryology - February 3, 2023 Category: Anatomy Source Type: research
Comparing models of information transfer in the structural brain network and their relationship to functional connectivity: diffusion versus shortest path routing
We examined the extent to which each of these models can account for the structure –function relationship of interest using graph theory measures that are exclusively based on each model. This analysis was performed on multiple parcellations of the Human Connectome Project using multiple approaches, which all converged on the same finding. We found that the diffusion model accou nts for much more variance in functional connectivity than the shortest path routing model, suggesting that the diffusion model is better suited to describing the structure–function relationship in the human brain at the macroscale. (Source: An...
Source: Anatomy and Embryology - February 1, 2023 Category: Anatomy Source Type: research
Evolving characterization of the human hyperdirect pathway
AbstractThe hyperdirect pathway (HDP) represents the main glutamatergic input to the subthalamic nucleus (STN), through which the motor and prefrontal cerebral cortex can modulate basal ganglia activity. Further, direct activation of the motor HDP is thought to be an important component of therapeutic deep brain stimulation (DBS), mediating the disruption of pathological oscillations. Alternatively, unintended recruitment of the prefrontal HDP may partly explain some cognitive side effects of DBS therapy. Previous work describing the HDP has focused on non-human primate (NHP) histological pathway tracings, diffusion-weight...
Source: Anatomy and Embryology - January 28, 2023 Category: Anatomy Source Type: research
Intrinsic hippocampal connectivity is associated with individual differences in retrospective duration processing
AbstractThe estimation of incidentally encoded durations of time intervals (retrospective duration processing) is thought to rely on the retrieval of contextual information associated with a sequence of events, automatically encoded in medial temporal lobe regions. “Time cells” have been described in the hippocampus (HC), encoding the temporal progression of events and their duration. However, whether the HC supports explicit retrospective duration judgments in humans, and which neural dynamics are involved, is still poorly understood. Here we used resting -state fMRI to test the relation between variations in intrinsi...
Source: Anatomy and Embryology - January 25, 2023 Category: Anatomy Source Type: research
Mapping myelin in white matter with T1-weighted/T2-weighted maps: discrepancy with histology and other myelin MRI measures
We report a discrepancy between T1w/T2w myelin maps of the human corpus callosum and the histology and analyse the putative causes behind such discrepancy. T1w/T2w does not positively correlate with Luxol Fast Blue (LFB)-Optical Density but shows a weak to moderate, yet significant, negative correlation. On the contrary, MWF is strongly and positively correlated with LFB, whereas T1w/T2w and MWF maps are weakly negatively correlated. The discrepancy between T1w/T2w MRI maps, MWF and histological myelin maps suggests caution in using T1w/T2w as a white matter mapping method at the callosal level. While T1w/T2w imaging may c...
Source: Anatomy and Embryology - January 24, 2023 Category: Anatomy Source Type: research
