rudyvdbrink/CitationDatabase huggingface dataset:
Factor solutions of the Social Phobia Scale (SPS) and the Social Interaction Anxiety Scale (SIAS) in a Swedish population.
Cognitive behaviour therapy, 2017

Culturally validated rating scales for social anxiety disorder (SAD) are of significant importance when screening for the disorder, as well as for evaluating treatment efficacy. This study examined construct validity and additional psychometric properties of two commonly used scales, the Social Phobia Scale and the Social Interaction Anxiety Scale, in a clinical SAD population (n = 180) and in a normal population (n = 614) in Sweden. Confirmatory factor analyses of previously reported factor solutions were tested but did not reveal acceptable fit. Exploratory factor analyses (EFA) of the joint structure of the scales in the total population yielded a two-factor model (performance anxiety and social interaction anxiety), whereas EFA in the clinical sample revealed a three-factor solution, a social interaction anxiety factor and two performance anxiety factors. The SPS and SIAS showed good to excellent internal consistency, and discriminated well between patients with SAD and a normal population sample. Both scales showed good convergent validity with an established measure of SAD, whereas the discriminant validity of symptoms of social anxiety and depression could not be confirmed. The optimal cut-off score for SPS and SIAS were 18 and 22 points, respectively. It is concluded that the factor structure and the additional psychometric properties of SPS and SIAS support the use of the scales for assessment in a Swedish population.
Evidence for spared attention to faces in 7-month-old infants after prenatal exposure to antiepileptic drugs.
Epilepsy & behavior : E&B, 2016

Prenatal antiepileptic drug (AED) exposure is associated with an increased risk of cognitive impairment and autism spectrum disorders detected mainly at the age of two to six years. We examined whether the developmental aberrations associated with prenatal AED exposure could be detected already in infancy and whether effects on visual attention can be observed at this early age.
Similarities between emotional dysregulation in adults suffering from ADHD and bipolar patients.
Journal of affective disorders, 2016

Emotional dysregulation in subjects with attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a topic of growing interest among clinicians and researchers. The present study aims at investigating components of emotional dysregulation in adults ADHD compared to subjects suffering from bipolar disorder (BD).
Conservation of preparatory neural events in monkey motor cortex regardless of how movement is initiated.
eLife, 2018

A time-consuming preparatory stage is hypothesized to precede voluntary movement. A putative neural substrate of motor preparation occurs when a delay separates instruction and execution cues. When readiness is sustained during the delay, sustained neural activity is observed in motor and premotor areas. Yet whether delay-period activity reflects an essential preparatory stage is controversial. In particular, it has remained ambiguous whether delay-period-like activity appears before non-delayed movements. To overcome that ambiguity, we leveraged a recently developed analysis method that parses population responses into putatively preparatory and movement-related components. We examined cortical responses when reaches were initiated after an imposed delay, at a self-chosen time, or reactively with low latency and no delay. Putatively preparatory events were conserved across all contexts. Our findings support the hypothesis that an appropriate preparatory state is consistently achieved before movement onset. However, our results reveal that this process can consume surprisingly little time.
Analgesic effects of cannabinoid receptor agonist WIN55,212-2 in the nucleus cuneiformis in animal models of acute and inflammatory pain in rats.
Brain research, 2011

Nucleus cuneiformis (NCF) along with periaqueductal gray (PAG) and rostral ventromedial medulla (RVM) is a part of descending system for pain modulation. Cannabinoids have analgesic effects on the PAG and RVM. This study investigates the possible role of cannabinoids in pain modulation in the NCF. Cannabinoid agonist, WIN55,212-2 (5, 10 and 20μg/0.3μl DMSO per side), and selective cannabinoid CB1 receptor antagonist, AM251(1, 5 and 10μg/0.3μl DMSO per side), were microinjected alone or in succession. As models of acute and inflammatory pain, tail-flick and formalin test were utilized to examine the effects of these drugs on pain modulation in 5min time blocks for 60min. Results of tail-flick and formalin tests demonstrated a dose-dependent analgesic effects for WIN55,212-2, with the most significant response at the dose of 20μg/side. The analgesic responses were more effective during the first 45-min period of the tail-flick test (P<0.001) and during the late phase (P<0.001) of formalin test, compared to the early phase (P<0.05). These analgesic effects were blocked in the presence of AM251 (1μg/0.3μl DMSO per side) in both tests. Administration of AM251 alone did not have any effect on nociceptive responses in either test. The cannabinoid-mediated analgesia demonstrated in this study suggests the presence of a cannabinoid-sensitive nociceptive modulatory system in the NCF.
Neurochemistry of neurons in the ventrolateral medulla activated by hypotension: Are the same neurons activated by glucoprivation?
The Journal of comparative neurology, 2017

Previous studies have demonstrated that a range of stimuli activate neurons, including catecholaminergic neurons, in the ventrolateral medulla. Not all catecholaminergic neurons are activated and other neurochemical content is largely unknown hence whether stimulus specific populations exist is unclear. Here we determine the neurochemistry (using in situ hybridization) of catecholaminergic and noncatecholaminergic neurons which express c-Fos immunoreactivity throughout the rostrocaudal extent of the ventrolateral medulla, in Sprague Dawley rats treated with hydralazine or saline. Distinct neuronal populations containing PPCART, PPPACAP, and PPNPY mRNAs, which were largely catecholaminergic, were activated by hydralazine but not saline. Both catecholaminergic and noncatecholaminergic neurons containing preprotachykinin and prepro-enkephalin (PPE) mRNAs were also activated, with the noncatecholaminergic population located in the rostral C1 region. Few GlyT2 neurons were activated. A subset of these data was then used to compare the neuronal populations activated by 2-deoxyglucose evoked glucoprivation (Brain Structure and Function (2015) 220:117). Hydralazine activated more neurons than 2-deoxyglucose but similar numbers of catecholaminergic neurons. Commonly activated populations expressing PPNPY and PPE mRNAs were defined. These likely include PPNPY expressing catecholaminergic neurons projecting to vasopressinergic and corticotrophin releasing factor neurons in the paraventricular nucleus, which when activated result in elevated plasma vasopressin and corticosterone. Stimulus specific neurons included noncatecholaminergic neurons and a few PPE positive catecholaminergic neuron but neurochemical codes were largely unidentified. Reasons for the lack of identification of stimulus specific neurons, readily detectable using electrophysiology in anaesthetized preparations and for which neural circuits can be defined, are discussed.
Computational neuroergonomics.
NeuroImage, 2012

Neuroergonomics merges neuroscience and ergonomics for the study of brain and behavior in natural and naturalistic settings. Together with the rapid development of neuroergonomics concepts, technologies, and related data, there is an urgent need to develop computational models of neuroergonomics that can help integrate and interpret empirical findings and make predictions for scientific research and practical application. This article discusses the relationship between computational neuroscience and computational neuroergonomics, and describes a queuing network based computational neuroergonomic architecture and its applications. These discussions illustrate the mission and challenges of computational neuroergonomics and future research needs.
Motivation to obtain preferred foods is enhanced by ghrelin in the ventral tegmental area.
Hormones and behavior, 2011

Ghrelin is an orexigenic peptide that acts within the central nervous system to stimulate appetite and food intake via the growth hormone secretagogue receptor (GHS-R). It has been hypothesized that ghrelin modulates food intake in part by stimulating reward pathways in the brain and potentially stimulating the intake of palatable foods. Here we examined the effects of chronic ghrelin administration in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) via osmotic minipumps on 1) ad libitum food intake and bodyweight; 2) macronutrient preference; and 3) motivation to obtain chocolate pellets. In the first study rats receiving ghrelin into the VTA showed a dose-dependent increase in the intake of regular chow, also resulting in increased body weight gain. A second study revealed that intra-VTA delivery of the ghrelin receptor antagonist [Lys-3]-GHRP-6 selectively reduced caloric intake of high-fat chow and reduced body weight gain relative to control and ghrelin treated rats. The third study demonstrated that food restricted rats worked harder for food pellets when infused with ghrelin than when infused with vehicle or ghrelin receptor antagonist treated rats. Finally, rats trained on an FR1 schedule but returned to ad libitum during ghrelin infusion, responded at 86% of baseline levels when they were not hungry, whereas saline infused rats responded at 36% of baseline. Together, these results suggest that ghrelin acts directly on the VTA to increase preference for and motivation to obtain highly-palatable food.
The GTPase Rab26 links synaptic vesicles to the autophagy pathway.
eLife, 2015

Small GTPases of the Rab family not only regulate target recognition in membrane traffic but also control other cellular functions such as cytoskeletal transport and autophagy. Here we show that Rab26 is specifically associated with clusters of synaptic vesicles in neurites. Overexpression of active but not of GDP-preferring Rab26 enhances vesicle clustering, which is particularly conspicuous for the EGFP-tagged variant, resulting in a massive accumulation of synaptic vesicles in neuronal somata without altering the distribution of other organelles. Both endogenous and induced clusters co-localize with autophagy-related proteins such as Atg16L1, LC3B and Rab33B but not with other organelles. Furthermore, Atg16L1 appears to be a direct effector of Rab26 and binds Rab26 in its GTP-bound form, albeit only with low affinity. We propose that Rab26 selectively directs synaptic and secretory vesicles into preautophagosomal structures, suggesting the presence of a novel pathway for degradation of synaptic vesicles.
A neurotoxic phosphoform of Elk-1 associates with inclusions from multiple neurodegenerative diseases.
PloS one, 2010

Neurodegenerative diseases are characterized by a number of features including the formation of inclusions, early synaptic degeneration and the selective loss of neurons. Molecules serving as links between these shared features have yet to be identified. Identifying candidates within the diseased microenvironment will open up novel avenues for therapeutic intervention. The transcription factor Elk-1 resides within multiple brain areas both in nuclear and extranuclear neuronal compartments. Interestingly, its de novo expression within a single dendrite initiates neuronal death. Given this novel regionalized function, we assessed whether extranuclear Elk-1 and/or phospho-Elk-1 (pElk-1) protein might be associated with a spectrum of human neurodegenerative disease cases including Lewy body Disease (e.g. Parkinson's), Alzheimer's disease, and Huntington's Disease. We first determined the importance of Elk-1 post-translational modifications on its ability to initiate regionalized cell death. We next screened human cases from three major neurodegenerative diseases to look for remarkable levels of Elk-1 and/or pElk-1 protein as well as their association with inclusions characteristic of these diseases. We compared our findings to age-matched control cases. We find that the ability of Elk-1 to initiate regionalized neuronal death depends on a specific phosphosite, T417. Furthermore, we find that T417(+) Elk-1 uniquely associates with several types of inclusions present in cases of human Lewy body Disease, Alzheimer's disease, and Huntington's Disease. These results suggest a molecular link between the presence of inclusions and neuronal loss that is shared across a spectrum of neurodegenerative disease.
Attention Matters: How Orchestrating Attention May Relate to Classroom Learning.
CBE life sciences education, 2020

Attention is thought to be the gateway between information and learning, yet there is much we do not understand about how students pay attention in the classroom. Leveraging ideas from cognitive neuroscience and psychology, we explore a framework for understanding attention in the classroom, organized along two key dimensions: internal/external attention and on-topic/off-topic attention. This framework helps us to build new theories for why active-learning strategies are effective teaching tools and how synchronized brain activity across students in a classroom may support learning. These ideas suggest new ways of thinking about how attention functions in the classroom and how different approaches to the same active-learning strategy may vary in how effectively they direct students' attention. We hypothesize that some teaching approaches are more effective than others because they leverage natural fluctuations in students' attention. We conclude by discussing implications for teaching and opportunities for future research.
Children perform extensive information gathering when it is not costly.
Cognition, 2021

Humans often face decisions where little is known about the choice options. Gathering information prior to making a choice is an important strategy to improve decision making under uncertainty. This is of particular importance during childhood and adolescence, when knowledge about the world is still limited. To examine how much information youths gather, we asked 107 children (8-9 years, N = 30), early (12-13 years, N = 41) and late adolescents (16-17 years, N = 36) to perform an information sampling task. We find that children gather significantly more information before making a decision compared to adolescents, but only if it does not come with explicit costs. Using computational modelling, we find that this is because children have reduced subjective costs for gathering information. Our findings thus demonstrate how children overcome their limited knowledge and neurocognitive constraints by deploying excessive information gathering, a developmental feature that could inform aberrant information gathering in psychiatric disorders.
Maternal micro-chimeric cells in the multiple sclerosis brain.
Multiple sclerosis and related disorders, 2020

Maternal microchimeric cells (MMC) pass across the placenta from a mother to her baby during pregnancy. MMC have been identified in healthy adults, but have been reported to be more frequent and at a higher concentration in individuals with autoimmune diseases. MMC in brain tissue from individuals with autoimmune neurological disease has never previously been explored. The present study aims to identify and quantify MMC in adult human brain from control and multiple sclerosis (MS) affected individuals using fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) with a probe for the X and Y chromosomes. Post mortem brain tissue from 6 male MS cases and 6 male control cases were examined. Female cells presumed to be MMC were identified in 5/6 MS cases and 6/6 control cases. Cell specific labeling identified female cells of neuronal and immune phenotype in both control and active MS lesion tissue. This study shows that female cells presumed to be MMC are a common phenomenon in adult human brain where they appear to have embedded into brain tissue with the ability to express tissue specific markers.
"Going to town": Large-scale norming and statistical analysis of 870 American English idioms.
Behavior research methods, 2017

An idiom is classically defined as a formulaic sequence whose meaning is comprised of more than the sum of its parts. For this reason, idioms pose a unique problem for models of sentence processing, as researchers must take into account how idioms vary and along what dimensions, as these factors can modulate the ease with which an idiomatic interpretation can be activated. In order to help ensure external validity and comparability across studies, idiom research benefits from the availability of publicly available resources reporting ratings from a large number of native speakers. Resources such as the one outlined in the current paper facilitate opportunities for consensus across studies on idiom processing and help to further our goals as a research community. To this end, descriptive norms were obtained for 870 American English idioms from 2,100 participants along five dimensions: familiarity, meaningfulness, literal plausibility, global decomposability, and predictability. Idiom familiarity and meaningfulness strongly correlated with one another, whereas familiarity and meaningfulness were positively correlated with both global decomposability and predictability. Correlations with previous norming studies are also discussed.
Kinetics of Human Mutant Tau Prion Formation in the Brains of 2 Transgenic Mouse Lines.
JAMA neurology, 2017

Accumulation of the protein tau is a defining characteristic of several neurodegenerative diseases. Thorough assessment of transgenic (Tg) mouse lines that replicate this process is critical for establishing the models used for testing anti-tau therapeutics in vivo.
Brain-to-brain coupling: a mechanism for creating and sharing a social world.
Trends in cognitive sciences, 2012

Cognition materializes in an interpersonal space. The emergence of complex behaviors requires the coordination of actions among individuals according to a shared set of rules. Despite the central role of other individuals in shaping one's mind, most cognitive studies focus on processes that occur within a single individual. We call for a shift from a single-brain to a multi-brain frame of reference. We argue that in many cases the neural processes in one brain are coupled to the neural processes in another brain via the transmission of a signal through the environment. Brain-to-brain coupling constrains and shapes the actions of each individual in a social network, leading to complex joint behaviors that could not have emerged in isolation.
TARDBP mutations in Parkinson's disease.
Parkinsonism & related disorders, 2013

Mutations of the TARDBP gene encoding TDP-43 protein have been shown to cause amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and have been reported to present with clinical heterogeneity including parkinsonism. In addition, TDP-43 pathology has been observed across a spectrum of neurodegenerative disorders, including Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease. Herein we report the presence of a TDP-43 mutation in a patient with a clinical diagnosis of Parkinson's disease. The TDP-43 p.N267S substitution has been previously implicated in both amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia. Our findings widen the phenotypic presentation for the TDP-43 p.N267S substitution and support a possible role for rare TDP-43 mutations presenting with Parkinson's disease.
Sex differences in DNA methylation may contribute to risk of PTSD and depression: a review of existing evidence.
Depression and anxiety, 2013

There are well-established sex differences in the prevalence of certain mental disorders. Work in animal models has provided us with an emerging understanding of the role that epigenetic factors play in establishing sex differences in the brain during development. Similarly, work in animal models, and a more limited but growing literature based on human studies, has demonstrated that DNA methylation (DNAm) changes occur in response to environmental stress, with some of these occurring in a sex-specific manner. In this review, we explore whether DNAm plays a role in contributing to the observed sex differences in prevalence of mental disorders in which stress contributes significantly to their etiologies, specifically posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression. We propose that investigating sex differences in DNAm among genes known to influence brain development may help to shed light on the sexually dimorphic risk for, or resilience to, developing PTSD and depression.
LF-rTMS ameliorates social dysfunction of FMR1
Biochemical and biophysical research communications, 2021

Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are a group of neurological disorders which affect approximately 1% of children around the world. Social dysfunction is one of the two core syndromes of ASD, and still lacks effective treatment. Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is a noninvasive and safe procedure that uses magnetic fields to modulate neural activity. Whether it were effective in modulating social function remains unclear. By using 3-chamber test, ultrasonic vocalization recording and Western-blotting, we demonstrated that FMR1 (fragile X mental retardation protein) mutant mice, a model of ASD, exhibited obvious defects in social preference and ultrasonic communication. In addition, we detected increase of p-Akt (S473) and p-GSK-3β (S9), and decrease of p-PSD-95 (T19) in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) of FMR1
An improved method for generating consistent soluble amyloid-beta oligomer preparations for in vitro neurotoxicity studies.
Journal of neuroscience methods, 2010

Soluble Abeta oligomers are recognized as playing a key role in Alzheimer's disease (AD) pathophysiology. Despite their significance, many investigators encounter difficulty generating reliable preparations for in vitro and in vivo experiments. Solutions of Abeta are often unstable and soluble conformer profiles inconsistent. In this study we describe detailed methods for preparing Abeta oligomers that are stable for several weeks and are enriched for low and high molecular weight oligomeric forms, including the 56-kDa form, a conformer implicated in AD-related cognitive impairment. We characterize their structural and functional properties using Western blot, dot blot, atomic force microscopy, Thioflavine T fluorescence, and primary neuronal culture toxicity assays. These synthetic preparations should prove valuable to many studying Abeta-mediated mechanisms underlying AD.