scholarly journals Neural correlates of winning and losing fights in poison frog tadpoles

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eva K Fischer ◽  
Harmony Alvarez ◽  
Katherine M Lagerstrom ◽  
Jordan E McKinney ◽  
Randi Petrillo ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Neural Activity ◽  
Preoptic Area ◽  
Neural Correlates ◽  
Neural Mechanisms ◽  
Arginine Vasotocin ◽  
Water Volume ◽  
Neural Activation ◽  
Neural Basis ◽  
Poison Frog ◽  
Frog Tadpoles

ABSTRACTAggressive competition for resources among juveniles is documented in many species, but the neural mechanisms regulating this behavior in young animals are poorly understood. In poison frogs, increased parental care is associated with decreased water volume of tadpole pools, resource limitation, and aggression. Indeed, the tadpoles of many poison frog species will attack, kill, and cannibalize other tadpoles. We examined the neural basis of conspecific aggression in Dyeing poison frog (Dendrobates tinctorius) tadpoles by comparing individuals that won aggressive encounters, lost aggressive encounters, or did not engage in a fight. We first compared patterns of generalized neural activity using immunohistochemical detection of phosphorylated ribosomes (pS6) as a proxy for neural activation associated with behavior. We found increased neural activity in the medial pallium and preoptic area of loser tadpoles, suggesting the amphibian homologs of the mammalian hippocampus and preoptic area may facilitate loser-associated behaviors. Nonapeptides (arginine vasotocin and mesotocin) and dopamine have been linked to aggression in other vertebrates and are located in the preoptic area. We next examined neural activity specifically in nonapeptide- and tyrosine-hydroxylase-positive cells using double-label immunohistochemistry. We found increased neural activity specifically in the preoptic area nonapeptide neurons of winners, whereas we found no differences in activity of dopaminergic cells among behavioral groups. Our findings suggest the neural correlates of aggression in poison frog tadpoles are similar to neural mechanisms mediating aggression in adults and juveniles of other vertebrate taxa.

scholarly journals Neural correlates of beauty retouching to enhance attractiveness of self-depictions in women

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chisa Ota ◽  
Tamami Nakano
Keyword(s):  
Magnetic Resonance Imaging ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Neural Activity ◽  
Facial Attractiveness ◽  
Neural Correlates ◽  
Neural Mechanisms ◽  
Functional Magnetic Resonance ◽  
Resonance Imaging ◽  
Amygdala Activity ◽  
Increased Activity

AbstractBeauty filters, while often employed for retouching photos to appear more attractive on social media, when used in excess cause images to give a distorted impression. The neural mechanisms underlying this change in facial attractiveness according to beauty retouching level remain unknown. The present study used functional magnetic resonance imaging in women as they viewed photos of their own face or unknown faces that had been retouched at three levels: no, mild, and extreme. The activity in the nucleus accumbens (NA) exhibited a positive correlation with facial attractiveness, whereas amygdala activity showed a negative correlation with attractiveness. Even though the participants rated others’ faces as more attractive than their own, the NA showed increased activity only for their mildly retouched own face and the amygdala exhibited greater activation in the others’ faces condition than the own face condition. Moreover, amygdala activity was greater for extremely retouched faces than for unretouched or mildly retouched faces for both conditions. Frontotemporal and cortical midline areas showed greater activation for one’s own than others’ faces, but such self-related activation was absent when extremely retouched. These results suggest that neural activity dynamically switches between the NA and amygdala according to perceived attractiveness of one’s face.

scholarly journals Neural Correlates of Theory of Mind Are Preserved in Young Women With Anorexia Nervosa

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Monica Leslie ◽  
Daniel Halls ◽  
Jenni Leppanen ◽  
Felicity Sedgewick ◽  
Katherine Smith ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Anorexia Nervosa ◽  
Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Social Interactions ◽  
Young Women ◽  
Inferior Frontal Gyrus ◽  
Reliability And Validity ◽  
Neural Correlates ◽  
Neural Activation ◽  
Neural Basis

People with anorexia nervosa (AN) commonly exhibit social difficulties, which may be related to problems with understanding the perspectives of others, commonly known as Theory of Mind (ToM) processing. However, there is a dearth of literature investigating the neural basis of these differences in ToM and at what age they emerge. This study aimed to test for differences in the neural correlates of ToM processes in young women with AN, and young women weight-restored (WR) from AN, as compared to healthy control participants (HC). Based on previous findings in AN, we hypothesized that young women with current or prior AN, as compared to HCs, would exhibit a reduced neural response in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), the inferior frontal gyrus, and the temporo-parietal junction (TPJ) whilst completing a ToM task. We recruited 73 young women with AN, 45 WR young women, and 70 young women without a history of AN to take part in the current study. Whilst undergoing a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scan, participants completed the Frith-Happé task, which is a commonly used measure of ToM with demonstrated reliability and validity in adult populations. In this task, participants viewed the movements of triangles, which depicted either action movements, simple interactions, or complex social interactions. Viewing trials with more complex social interactions in the Frith-Happé task was associated with increased brain activation in regions including the right TPJ, the bilateral mPFC, the cerebellum, and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. There were no group differences in neural activation in response to the ToM contrast. Overall, these results suggest that the neural basis of spontaneous mentalizing is preserved in most young women with AN.

Patterns of preoptic–hypothalamic neuronal activation and LH secretion in female sheep following the introduction and withdrawal of novel males

2019 ◽  
Vol 31 (11) ◽  
pp. 1674
Author(s):  
Penny A. R. Hawken ◽  
Jeremy T. Smith ◽  
Trina Jorre de St Jorre ◽  
Tammi Esmaili ◽  
Christopher J. Scott ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Neural Activity ◽  
Arcuate Nucleus ◽  
Preoptic Area ◽  
Ventromedial Nucleus ◽  
Neural Activation ◽  
Lamina Terminalis ◽  
Neuronal Activation ◽  
Neuroendocrine Response ◽  
Lh Secretion ◽  
Female Sheep

The neuroendocrine response of female sheep to a novel male involves neural activation in the hypothalamus. However, if males are removed, the gonadotrophic signal declines, so the neural activity is likely to change. We examined Fos-immunoreactive (IR) cells in hypothalamic tissues from seasonally anovulatory female sheep exposed to males for 2 or 6h, or for 2h followed by 4h isolation from males. Control females were killed in the absence of male exposure. Male introduction increased LH secretion in all females; male removal was associated with a reduction only in mean and basal LH concentrations. Females exposed to males for 2h had more Fos-IR cells in the arcuate nucleus (ARC), ventromedial nucleus of the hypothalamus (VMH) and organum vasculosum of the lamina terminalis (OVLT) than control females. Fos-IR cells in the preoptic area (POA) were only greater than in control females after 6h exposure to a male. Removal of males decreased the number of Fos-IR cells in the ARC, VMH and OVLT, but not in the POA. Thus, hypothalamic neural activation and LH secretion in female sheep are stimulated by males and decline after male removal. However, activation in the POA persists after removal and may explain the incomplete decline in the LH response.

scholarly journals Examining the Neural Basis of Congruent and Incongruent Configural Contexts during Associative Retrieval

2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (9) ◽  
pp. 1796-1812
Author(s):  
Courtney R. Gerver ◽  
Amy A. Overman ◽  
Harini J. Babu ◽  
Chloe E. Hultman ◽  
Nancy A. Dennis
Keyword(s):  
Information Transfer ◽  
Task Difficulty ◽  
Neural Mechanisms ◽  
Neural Activation ◽  
Neural Basis ◽  
Critical Determinant ◽  
Visual Cortices ◽  
Parietal Cortices ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Encoding And Retrieval

Disrupting the configural context, or relative organization and orientation of paired stimuli, between encoding and retrieval negatively impacts memory. Using univariate and multivariate fMRI analyses, we examined the effect of retaining and manipulating the configural context on neural mechanisms supporting associative retrieval. Behavioral results showed participants had significantly higher hit rates for recollecting pairs in a contextually congruent, versus incongruent, configuration. In addition, contextual congruency between memory phases was a critical determinant to characterizing both the magnitude and patterns of neural activation within visual and parietal cortices. Regions within visual cortices also exhibited higher correlations between patterns of activity at encoding and retrieval when configural context was congruent across memory phases than incongruent. Collectively, these findings shed light on how manipulating configural context between encoding and retrieval affects associative recognition, with changes in the configural context leading to reductions in information transfer and increases in task difficulty.

Neural Basis of Visual Distraction

2010 ◽  
Vol 22 (8) ◽  
pp. 1794-1807 ◽  
Author(s):  
So-Yeon Kim ◽  
Joseph B. Hopfinger
Keyword(s):  
Neural Activity ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Neural Mechanisms ◽  
Intraparietal Sulcus ◽  
Neural Basis ◽  
Luminance Change ◽  
Visual Distraction ◽  
Distractor Processing ◽  
Level Of Activity ◽  
New Evidence

The ability to maintain focus and avoid distraction by goal-irrelevant stimuli is critical for performing many tasks and may be a key deficit in attention-related problems. Recent studies have demonstrated that irrelevant stimuli that are consciously perceived may be filtered out on a neural level and not cause the distraction triggered by subliminal stimuli. However, in everyday situations, suprathreshold stimuli often do capture attention, but the neural mechanisms by which some stimuli rapidly and automatically trigger distraction remain unknown. Here, we investigated the neural basis of distraction by utilizing a particularly strong form of distractor: the abrupt appearance of a new object. Our results revealed a competitive relation between brain regions coding the locations of the target and the distractor, with distractor processing increasing and target processing decreasing, but only when the distractor was a new object; an equivalent luminance change to an existing object neither generated distraction nor affected target processing. Results also revealed changes in neural activity in intraparietal sulcus (IPS) and temporo-parietal junction (TPJ) that were unique to the new object distractor condition. The strongest relations between behavioral distraction and neural activity were observed in these parietal regions. Furthermore, participants who were less susceptible to distraction showed a more consistent, albeit more moderate, level of activity in IPS and TPJ. The present results thus provide new evidence regarding the neural mechanisms underlying distraction and resistance to it.

scholarly journals Hormonal and neural correlates of care in active versus observing poison frog parents

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eva K Fischer ◽  
Lauren A O'Connell
Keyword(s):  
Gene Expression ◽  
Parental Care ◽  
Neural Activity ◽  
Parental Behavior ◽  
Activity Patterns ◽  
Expression Patterns ◽  
Neural Correlates ◽  
Poison Frog ◽  
Hormone Levels ◽  
Brain Gene Expression

The occasional reversal of sex-typical behavior suggests that many of the neural circuits underlying behavior are conserved between males and females and can be activated in response to the appropriate social condition or stimulus. Most poison frog species (Family Dendrobatidae) exhibit male uniparental care, but flexible compensation has been observed in some species, where females will take over parental care duties when males disappear. We investigated hormonal and neural correlates of sex-typical and sex-reversed parental care in a typically male uniparental species, the Dyeing Poison Frog (Dendrobates tinctorius). We first characterized hormone levels and whole brain gene expression across parental care stages during sex-typical care. Surprisingly, hormonal changes and brain gene expression differences associated with active parental behavior in males were mirrored in their non-caregiving female partners. To further explore the disconnect between neuroendocrine patterns and behavior, we characterized hormone levels and neural activity patterns in females performing sex-reversed parental care. In contrast to hormone and gene expression patterns, we found that patterns of neural activity were linked to the active performance of parental behavior, with sex-reversed tadpole transporting females exhibiting neural activity patterns more similar to those of transporting males than non-caregiving females. We suggest that parallels in hormones and brain gene expression in active and observing parents are related to females ability to flexibly take over parental care in the absence of their male partners.

scholarly journals Consciousness as a Concrete Physical Phenomenon

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jussi Jylkkä ◽  
Henry Railo
Keyword(s):  
Neural Activity ◽  
Biological System ◽  
Causal Power ◽  
Physical Phenomenon ◽  
Conscious Experience ◽  
Neural Mechanisms ◽  
Neural Activation ◽  
Subjective Experiences ◽  
Standard Problem ◽  
Physical Phenomena

AbstractWhy any type of neural activation is associated with subjective, conscious experience is a fundamental unsolved question in neuroscience. To bridge the gap between neural activity and conscious experience, one seemingly must tie together two very different entities. The paradigmatic view in consciousness science is that subjective experiences are private and cannot be scientifically observed or described: science can only discover correlations between subjective experiences and their neural realizers, but never observe or describe the experiences themselves. We present a metatheory of consciousness that explains how subjective experiences are related to empirical observations and models, and why the two appear so different from each other. We argue that consciousness is a concrete physical process that causally interacts with other physical phenomena. This entails that consciousness can be empirically observed and characterized. The reason why subjective experiences and empirical observations and models of them appear so different is explained by what we call the observer-observed distinction. Empirical observations are always distinct from the observer, but a subject and her experiences constitute a single physical-biological system. We argue that once science has completely described 1) the constitutive neural mechanisms that are isomorphic with experiences, 2) the etiological mechanisms that experiences are based on, and 3) their causal power, then science has provided an exhaustive description of phenomenology. Our conclusion is that, if we accept this framework we call Naturalistic Monism, consciousness collapses into a standard problem of science.

scholarly journals Neural correlates of the contents of visual awareness in humans

2007 ◽  
Vol 362 (1481) ◽  
pp. 877-886 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geraint Rees
Keyword(s):  
Neural Activity ◽  
Brain Area ◽  
Visual Awareness ◽  
Sufficient Conditions ◽  
Neural Correlates ◽  
Neural Mechanisms ◽  
Great Promise ◽  
Visual Areas ◽  
Frontal Activity ◽  
Necessary And Sufficient

The immediacy and directness of our subjective visual experience belies the complexity of the neural mechanisms involved, which remain incompletely understood. This review focuses on how the subjective contents of human visual awareness are encoded in neural activity. Empirical evidence to date suggests that no single brain area is both necessary and sufficient for consciousness. Instead, necessary and sufficient conditions appear to involve both activation of a distributed representation of the visual scene in primary visual cortex and ventral visual areas, plus parietal and frontal activity. The key empirical focus is now on characterizing qualitative differences in the type of neural activity in these areas underlying conscious and unconscious processing. To this end, recent progress in developing novel approaches to accurately decoding the contents of consciousness from brief samples of neural activity show great promise.

scholarly journals Neural correlates of winning and losing fights in poison frog tadpoles

2020 ◽  
Vol 223 ◽  
pp. 112973 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eva K Fischer ◽  
Harmony Alvarez ◽  
Katherine M Lagerstrom ◽  
Jordan E McKinney ◽  
Randi Petrillo ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Neural Correlates ◽  
Poison Frog ◽  
Frog Tadpoles

Amygdala Input Promotes Spread of Excitatory Neural Activity From Perirhinal Cortex to the Entorhinal–Hippocampal Circuit

2003 ◽  
Vol 89 (4) ◽  
pp. 2176-2184 ◽  
Author(s):  
Riichi Kajiwara ◽  
Ichiro Takashima ◽  
Yuka Mimura ◽  
Menno P. Witter ◽  
Toshio Iijima
Keyword(s):  
Entorhinal Cortex ◽  
Neural Activity ◽  
Hippocampal Formation ◽  
Brain Slices ◽  
Sensory Information ◽  
Perirhinal Cortex ◽  
Amygdaloid Nucleus ◽  
Neural Activation ◽  
Neural Basis ◽  
Deep Layers

A number of sensory modalities most likely converge in the rat perirhinal cortex. The perirhinal cortex also interconnects with the amygdala, which plays an important role in various motivational and emotional behaviors. The neural pathway from the perirhinal cortex to the entorhinal cortex is considered one of the main paths into the entorhinal–hippocampal network, which has a crucial role in memory processes. To investigate the potential associative function of the perirhinal cortex with respect to sensory and motivational stimuli and the influence of the association on the perirhinal–entorhinal–hippocampal neurocircuit, we prepared rat brain slices including the perirhinal cortex, entorhinal cortex, hippocampal formation, and amygdala. We used an optical imaging technique with a voltage-sensitive dye to analyze 1) the spatial and functional distribution of inputs from the lateral nucleus of the amygdala to the perirhinal cortex; 2) the spread of neural activity in the perirhinal cortex after layers II/III stimulation, which mimics sensory input to the perirhinal cortex; and 3) the effect of associative inputs to the perirhinal cortex from both the lateral amygdaloid nucleus and layers II/III of the perirhinal cortex on the perirhinal–entorhinal–hippocampal neurocircuit. Following stimulation in the superficial layers of the perirhinal cortex, electrical activity only propagated into the entorhinal cortex when sufficient activation occurred in the deep layers of perirhinal area 35. We observed that single stimulation of either the perirhinal cortex or amygdala did not result in sufficient neural activation of the deep layers of areas 35 to provoke activity propagation into the entorhinal cortex. However, the deep layers of area 35 were depolarized much more strongly when the two stimuli were applied simultaneously, resulting in spreading activation in the entorhinal cortex. Our observations suggest that a functional neural basis for the association of higher-order sensory inputs and emotion-related inputs exists in the perirhinal cortex and that transfer of sensory information to the entorhinal–hippocampal circuitry might be affected by the association of that information with incoming information from the amygdala.

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