scholarly journals Ultradian rhythmicity of plasma cortisol is necessary for normal emotional and cognitive responses in man

2018 ◽  
Vol 115 (17) ◽  
pp. E4091-E4100 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. Kalafatakis ◽  
G. M. Russell ◽  
C. J. Harmer ◽  
M. R. Munafo ◽  
N. Marchant ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Replacement Therapy ◽  
Memory Performance ◽  
Synaptic Activity ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
Cognitive Responses ◽  
Hormone Pulses ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
Ultradian Rhythmicity ◽  
The Brain

Glucocorticoids (GCs) are secreted in an ultradian, pulsatile pattern that emerges from delays in the feedforward-feedback interaction between the anterior pituitary and adrenal glands. Dynamic oscillations of GCs are critical for normal cognitive and metabolic function in the rat and have been shown to modulate the pattern of GC-sensitive gene expression, modify synaptic activity, and maintain stress responsiveness. In man, current cortisol replacement therapy does not reproduce physiological hormone pulses and is associated with psychopathological symptoms, especially apathy and attenuated motivation in engaging with daily activities. In this work, we tested the hypothesis that the pattern of GC dynamics in the brain is of crucial importance for regulating cognitive and behavioral processes. We provide evidence that exactly the same dose of cortisol administered in different patterns alters the neural processing underlying the response to emotional stimulation, the accuracy in recognition and attentional bias toward/away from emotional faces, the quality of sleep, and the working memory performance of healthy male volunteers. These data indicate that the pattern of the GC rhythm differentially impacts human cognition and behavior under physiological, nonstressful conditions and has major implications for the improvement of cortisol replacement therapy.

A Neuromarketing Perspective for Assessing the Role and Impact of Typefaces on Consumer Purchase Decision

2020 ◽  
pp. 208-228
Author(s):  
Nihal Toros Ntapiapis ◽  
Çağla Özkardeşler
Keyword(s):  
Consumer Behavior ◽  
Literature Review ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
Purchase Decision ◽  
Consumer Behaviors ◽  
Brain Functions ◽  
New Methods ◽  
Consumer Neuroscience ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
The Brain

Given increasing knowledge about how consumers communicate with texts, our understanding of how brain processes information remains relatively limited. Besides that, in today's world, advancing neuroscience-related technology and developments have changed the understanding of consumer behavior. In this regard, in the 1990s, consumer neuroscience and neuromarketing concepts were revealed. This new concept has brought a multi-disciplinary approach and new perceptions of human cognition and behavior. For measuring consumer behaviors through a new alternative method, research has started combining traditional marketing researches with these new methods. This chapter explores how typeface knowledge from the brain functions using neuroscience technology and the importance neurosciences methodologies have for readability research. Moreover, this chapter will evaluate how typefaces affect the purchase decision of the consumers and offer an integrative literature review.

scholarly journals Microbiota modulation by eating patterns and diet composition: impact on food intake

2018 ◽  
Vol 315 (6) ◽  
pp. R1254-R1260 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Klingbeil ◽  
Claire B. de La Serre
Keyword(s):  
Diet Composition ◽  
Food Composition ◽  
Eating Patterns ◽  
Microbiota Composition ◽  
Gi Tract ◽  
Nucleus Of Solitary Tract ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Lps Treatment

There is accumulating evidence that the gut microbiota and its composition dynamics play a crucial role in regulating the host physiological functions and behavior. Diet composition is the primary modulator of bacterial richness and abundance in the gastrointestinal (GI) tract. Macronutrient (fat, sugar, and protein) and fiber contents are especially important in determining microbiota composition and its effect on health outcomes and behavior. In addition to food composition, time of intake and eating patterns have recently been shown to significantly affect gut bacterial makeup. Diet-driven unfavorable microbiota composition, or dysbiosis, can lead to an increased production of proinflammatory by-products such as lipopolysaccharide (LPS). Increased inflammatory potential is associated with alteration in gut permeability, resulting in elevated levels of LPS in the bloodstream, or metabolic endotoxemia. We have found that a chronic increase in circulating LPS is sufficient to induce hyperphagia in rodents. Chronic LPS treatment appears to specifically impair the gut-brain axis and vagally mediated satiety signaling. The vagus nerve relays information on the quantity and quality of nutrients in the GI tract to the nucleus of solitary tract in the brain stem. There is evidence that microbiota dysbiosis is associated with remodeling of the vagal afferent pathway and that normalizing the microbiota composition in rats fed a high-fat diet is sufficient to prevent vagal remodeling. Taken together, these data support a role for the microbiota in regulating gut-brain communication and eating behavior. Bacteria-originating inflammation may play a key role in impairment of diet-driven satiety and the development of hyperphagia.

scholarly journals Neural pattern similarity differentially affects memory performance of younger and older adults: Age differences in neural similarity and memory

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Verena R. Sommer ◽  
Yana Fandakova ◽  
Thomas H. Grandy ◽  
Yee Lee Shing ◽  
Markus Werkle-Bergner ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Young Adults ◽  
Memory Performance ◽  
Activity Patterns ◽  
Quality Of Information ◽  
Neural Representations ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Pattern Similarity ◽  
The Brain

AbstractAge-related memory decline is associated with changes in neural functioning but little is known about how aging affects the quality of information representation in the brain. Whereas a long-standing hypothesis of the aging literature links cognitive impairments to less distinct neural representations in old age, memory studies have shown that high similarity between activity patterns benefits memory performance for the respective stimuli. Here, we addressed this apparent conflict by investigating between-item representational similarity in 50 younger (19–27 years old) and 63 older (63–75 years old) human adults (male and female) who studied scene-word associations using a mnemonic imagery strategy while electroencephalography was recorded. We compared the similarity of spatiotemporal frequency patterns elicited during encoding of items with different subsequent memory fate. Compared to younger adults, older adults’ memory representations were more similar to each other but items that elicited the most similar activity patterns early in the encoding trial were those that were best remembered by older adults. In contrast, young adults’ memory performance benefited from decreased similarity between earlier and later periods in the encoding trials, which might reflect their better success in forming unique memorable mental images of the joint picture–word pair. Our results advance the understanding of the representational properties that give rise to memory quality as well as how these properties change in the course of aging.Significance statementDeclining memory abilities are one of the most evident limitations for humans when growing older. Despite recent advances of our understanding of how the brain represents and stores information in distributed activation patterns, little is known about how the quality of information representation changes during aging and thus affects memory performance. We investigated how the similarity between neural representations relates to subsequent memory quality in younger and older adults. We present novel evidence that the interaction of pattern similarity and memory performance differs between age groups: Older adults benefited from increased similarity during early encoding whereas young adults benefited from decreased similarity between early and later encoding. These results provide insights into the nature of memory and age-related memory deficits.

scholarly journals Behavior-dependent directional tuning in the human visual-navigation network

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthias Nau ◽  
Tobias Navarro Schröder ◽  
Markus Frey ◽  
Christian F. Doeller
Keyword(s):  
Memory Performance ◽  
Visual Navigation ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
Neural Population ◽  
Population Activity ◽  
Directional Tuning ◽  
Memory Processing ◽  
Depth Analysis ◽  
High Level ◽  
And Behavior

AbstractThe brain derives cognitive maps from sensory experience that guide memory formation and behavior. Despite extensive efforts, it still remains unclear how the underlying population activity relates to active behavior and memory performance. To examine these processes, we here combined 7T-fMRI with a kernel-based encoding model of virtual navigation to map world-centered directional tuning across the human cortex. First, we present an in-depth analysis of directional tuning in visual, retrosplenial, parahippocampal and medial temporal cortices. Second, we show that tuning strength, width and topology of this directional code during memory-guided navigation depend on successful encoding of the environment. Finally, we show that participants’ locomotory state influences this tuning in sensory and mnemonic regions such as the hippocampus. We demonstrate a direct link between neural population tuning and human cognition and show that high-level memory processing interacts with network-wide environmental coding in the service of behavior.

Introduction

2019 ◽  
pp. xx-8
Author(s):  
Giovanni Stanghellini ◽  
Matthew Broome ◽  
Anthony Vincent Fernandez ◽  
Paolo Fusar-Poli ◽  
Andrea Raballo ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Psychiatric Disorders ◽  
Subjective Experiences ◽  
Primary Focus ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Psychiatric Study ◽  
Phenomenological Psychopathology

This introductory chapter discusses the primary focus of psychiatry and how phenomenological psychopathology in particular serves as the basis for psychiatry. It argues that psychiatry is not only a biological discipline. It must maintain an intense concern with the quality of patients’ experiences by focusing on the “psyche” and not just the brain, which is of interest to psychiatry only insofar as it helps one better understand the relevant psychic phenomena. Thus, one must investigate the relationship between these subjective experiences, the brain, and the way we classify psychiatric disorders. In this light, phenomenological psychopathology becomes increasingly central to these discussions. At present, the psychiatric study of psyche and subjectivity is defined mainly by changes in experience and behavior. Therefore, psychopathology, the discipline that assesses and makes sense of the suffering psyche, is at the heart of psychiatry.

A Modular Structured Architecture Using Smart Devices for Socially-Embedded Robot Partners

2020 ◽  
pp. 288-309 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jinseok Woo ◽  
Naoyuki Kubota
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Model ◽  
Human Robot Interaction ◽  
Human Interaction ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
Smart Devices ◽  
Human Communication ◽  
Human Quality ◽  
And Behavior

Recently, robot architectures with various structures have been developed to improve the human quality of life. Such a robot needs various capabilities such as learning, inference, and prediction for human interaction, and such capabilities are interconnected with each other as a whole system. In the development of a socially-embedded robot partner, human-robot interaction plays an important role. Therefore, in order to develop a socially embedded robot partner, we must consider human communication system. Human Cognition, Emotion, and Behavior should be considered in the development process of the robot partner, and if these factors are fully reflected in the robot partner, then the robot can be used as a socially-friendly robot partner. This book chapter is organized as follows: First, we describe the hardware and software structures. Next, we discuss the cognitive model of the robot partners. Third, we discuss interaction content design for various services. Finally, we discuss the contents of society implementation, and discuss the applicability of robots for social utilization.

The mind and brain in time: implications for modern neuropsychology

2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-116
Author(s):  
Jason W. Brown
Keyword(s):  
Fractal Theory ◽  
Explanatory Power ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
Brain State ◽  
Mind And Brain ◽  
Self Similar ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Brain

In this paper, I wish to describe the categorical nature of the mind/brain state from its origins in drive to the refinements of human cognition. Categories are concepts with a broader scope. The virtual quality of category members corresponds to the relation of whole and part. A successive individuation of categories is the foundational operation of the mind/brain state. There is a similarity to fractal theory and the mereology of wholes and parts, though categories are not sums or containers, members are virtual and the whole/part specification is qualitative, unlike the self-similar replications of fractal theory. The discussion takes up the problem of causal transmission between the mind and brain and within and across mental states, concluding that an assimilation model has more explanatory power than a strictly causal one, in keeping with the distinction of potential/actual from cause/effect. The idea that mind-brain interaction is causal introduces the possibility of subjectivity independent of a material substrate. This leads to speculation on a world soul animating the brain as part of nature, and conversely, the effort to extract all vestiges of spirit to leave a purely material organism and universe. There is no bifurcation of the mental and physical; rather a graded series of stages with properties of material and subjective entities that eventuate in human mentality. This conforms to a neutral monism. Duration is inherent in nature and evolves in company with organisms of increasing complexity.

The role of superstition in the placebo effect on memory performance

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sieun An ◽  
Viraj Dhiren Malani ◽  
Aanchal Setia
Keyword(s):  
Human Behavior ◽  
Placebo Effect ◽  
Human Performance ◽  
Memory Performance ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
Cognitive Tasks ◽  
Placebo Condition ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
And Control

Superstitions and the placebo effect have been found to influence human behavior. The present study aimed to determine whether there is a relationship between superstition and the placebo effect, and whether it affects human cognition and behavior. We hypothesized that more superstitious people would be more prone to the placebo effect and that it would improve their performance on cognitive tasks. We employed a fully between participants design, with placebo and control conditions and superstition as a constructive measure. The results showed that, in the placebo condition, more superstitious people memorized more words than less superstitious people. However, in the control condition, less superstitious people memorized more words than more superstitious people. Overall, the findings supported our hypothesis. The findings of the study are important, as they draw a link between the placebo effect and superstition, and further show that these two elements impact human performance in cognitive ability tasks.

scholarly journals Molecular Mechanisms of Cancer-Induced Sleep Disruption

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
William H. Walker II ◽  
Jeremy C. Borniger
Keyword(s):  
Molecular Mechanisms ◽  
Systemic Disease ◽  
Sleep Disruption ◽  
Poor Sleep ◽  
Therapeutic Approaches ◽  
Treatment Regimens ◽  
Patients With Cancer ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
The Brain

Sleep is essential for health. Indeed, poor sleep is consistently linked to the development of systemic disease, including depression, metabolic syndrome, and cognitive impairments. Further evidence has accumulated suggesting a role for sleep in cancer initiation and progression (primarily breast cancer). Indeed, patients with cancer and cancer survivors frequently experience poor sleep, manifested as insomnia, circadian misalignment, hypersomnia, somnolence syndrome, hot flushes, and nightmares. These problems are associated with a reduction in patients’ quality of life and increased mortality. Due to the heterogeneity among cancers, treatment regimens, patient populations, and lifestyle factors, the etiology of cancer-induced sleep disruption is largely unknown. Here, we discuss recent advances in understanding the pathways linking cancer and the brain and how this leads to altered sleep patterns. We describe a conceptual framework where tumors disrupt normal homeostatic processes, resulting in aberrant changes in physiology and behavior that are detrimental to health. Finally, we discuss how this knowledge can be leveraged to develop novel therapeutic approaches for cancer-associated sleep disruption, with special emphasis on host-tumor interactions.

The Relationship Between Interoception and Metacognition

2016 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 76-86 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judith Meessen ◽  
Verena Mainz ◽  
Siegfried Gauggel ◽  
Eftychia Volz-Sidiropoulou ◽  
Stefan Sütterlin ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Memory Performance ◽  
Memory Task ◽  
Demographic Characteristics ◽  
Metacognitive Awareness ◽  
Interoceptive Awareness ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Heartbeat Perception ◽  
Interoceptive Accuracy ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract. Recently, Garfinkel and Critchley (2013) proposed to distinguish between three facets of interoception: interoceptive sensibility, interoceptive accuracy, and interoceptive awareness. This pilot study investigated how these facets interrelate to each other and whether interoceptive awareness is related to the metacognitive awareness of memory performance. A sample of 24 healthy students completed a heartbeat perception task (HPT) and a memory task. Judgments of confidence were requested for each task. Participants filled in questionnaires assessing interoceptive sensibility, depression, anxiety, and socio-demographic characteristics. The three facets of interoception were found to be uncorrelated and interoceptive awareness was not related to metacognitive awareness of memory performance. Whereas memory performance was significantly related to metamemory awareness, interoceptive accuracy (HPT) and interoceptive awareness were not correlated. Results suggest that future research on interoception should assess all facets of interoception in order to capture the multifaceted quality of the construct.

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