scholarly journals The impact of the digital revolution on human brain and behavior: where do we stand?

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 101-111
Keyword(s):  
Human Brain ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Digital Revolution ◽  
Internet Gaming ◽  
Neuroscience Research ◽  
Brain And Behavior ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
The Impact

This overview will outline the current results of neuroscience research on the possible effects of digital media use on the human brain, cognition, and behavior. This is of importance due to the significant amount of time that individuals spend using digital media. Despite several positive aspects of digital media, which include the capability to effortlessly communicate with peers, even over a long distance, and their being used as training tools for students and the elderly, detrimental effects on our brains and minds have also been suggested. Neurological consequences have been observed related to internet/gaming addiction, language development, and processing of emotional signals. However, given that much of the neuroscientific research conducted up to now relies solely on self-reported parameters to assess social media usage, it is argued that neuroscientists need to include datasets with higher precision in terms of what is done on screens, for how long, and at what age.

scholarly journals Prenatal Developmental Origins of Future Psychopathology: Mechanisms and Pathways

2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 317-344 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine Monk ◽  
Claudia Lugo-Candelas ◽  
Caroline Trumpff
Keyword(s):  
Maternal Distress ◽  
Developmental Origins ◽  
Neurodevelopmental Outcomes ◽  
Fetal Origins ◽  
Behavior Development ◽  
Increased Risk ◽  
Health And Disease ◽  
Brain And Behavior ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
The Impact

The developmental origins of health and disease hypothesis applied to neurodevelopmental outcomes asserts that the fetal origins of future development are relevant to mental health. There is a third pathway for the familial inheritance of risk for psychiatric illness beyond shared genes and the quality of parental care: the impact of pregnant women's distress—defined broadly to include perceived stress, life events, depression, and anxiety—on fetal and infant brain–behavior development. We discuss epidemiological and observational clinical data demonstrating that maternal distress is associated with children's increased risk for psychopathology: For example, high maternal anxiety is associated with a twofold increase in the risk of probable mental disorder in children. We review several biological systems hypothesized to be mechanisms by which maternal distress affects fetal and child brain and behavior development, as well as the clinical implications of studies of the developmental origins of health and disease that focus on maternal distress. Development and parenting begin before birth.

scholarly journals “Neurocovid”: An Analysis of the Impact of Covid-19 on the Older Adults. Evolving Psychological and Neuropsychological Understanding

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Palermo
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Nervous System ◽  
Adverse Effects ◽  
Human Brain ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
Cognitive Frailty ◽  
Daily Routines ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Brain

When SARS-CoV-2 began to spread, older adults experienced disproportionately greater adverse effects from the pandemic, including exacerbation of pre-existing physical and cognitive frailty conditions. More severe complications, higher mortality, and concerns about disruptions to their daily routines and access to care. Knowledge about the impact of COVID-19 on the brain is rapidly accumulating and this is reflected in the increasing use of the term “neurocovid”. Co-involvement of the central and peripheral nervous system had already been observed in SARS patients, but COVID-19 seems to invade it with greater affinity than other coronaviruses. This chapter provides an overview of the expanding understanding of the multiple ways in which COVID-19 affects the human brain, discuss the likelihood of long-term sequelae of neurocovid, and their implications for cognitive functions and behaviors in the elderly.

scholarly journals Gonadal steroids, brain, and behavior: role of context

2002 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 123-137 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Mood Disorders ◽  
Steroid Hormones ◽  
Differential Susceptibility ◽  
Reproductive Function ◽  
Gonadal Steroids ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Reproductive Endocrine ◽  
Brain And Behavior ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
The Impact

The nature and extent of the impact of gender and reproductive function on mood has been the subject of speculation and controversy for centuries. Over the past 50 years, however, it has become increasingly clear that not only is the brain a major target of reproductive steroid hormones, but additionally, the steroid hormones, as neuroregulators, create a context thai influences a broad range of brain activities; ie, neural actions and resultant behaviors are markedly different in the presence and absence of gonadal steroids. In turn, the actions of gonadal steroids are themselves context-dependent. Thus, even where it can be demonstrated thai gonadal steroids trigger mood disorders, the triggers are normal levels of gonadal steroids (to be contrasted with the mood disturbances accompanying endocrinopathies), and the mood disorders appear only in a subset of susceptible individuals. The context specificity and differential susceptibility to affective dysregulation seen in women with reproductive endocrine-related mood disorders are undoubtedly important underlying characteristics of a wide range of psychiatric disorders in which the triggers have not yet been identified. Consequently, reproductive endocrine-related mood disorders offer unparalleled promise for the identification of those contextual variables that permit biological stimuli to differentially translate into depression in individuals at risk.

scholarly journals Opportunities and limitations of genetically modified nonhuman primate models for neuroscience research

2020 ◽  
Vol 117 (39) ◽  
pp. 24022-24031 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guoping Feng ◽  
Frances E. Jensen ◽  
Henry T. Greely ◽  
Hideyuki Okano ◽  
Stefan Treue ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Human Brain ◽  
Psychiatric Disorders ◽  
Nonhuman Primate ◽  
Genetically Modified ◽  
Brain Disorders ◽  
Neuroscience Research ◽  
Circuit Formation ◽  
The Impact

The recently developed new genome-editing technologies, such as the CRISPR/Cas system, have opened the door for generating genetically modified nonhuman primate (NHP) models for basic neuroscience and brain disorders research. The complex circuit formation and experience-dependent refinement of the human brain are very difficult to model in vitro, and thus require use of in vivo whole-animal models. For many neurodevelopmental and psychiatric disorders, abnormal circuit formation and refinement might be at the center of their pathophysiology. Importantly, many of the critical circuits and regional cell populations implicated in higher human cognitive function and in many psychiatric disorders are not present in lower mammalian brains, while these analogous areas are replicated in NHP brains. Indeed, neuropsychiatric disorders represent a tremendous health and economic burden globally. The emerging field of genetically modified NHP models has the potential to transform our study of higher brain function and dramatically facilitate the development of effective treatment for human brain disorders. In this paper, we discuss the importance of developing such models, the infrastructure and training needed to maximize the impact of such models, and ethical standards required for using these models.

scholarly journals Asymmetric Compression of Representational Space for Object Animacy Categorization under Degraded Viewing Conditions

2017 ◽  
Vol 29 (12) ◽  
pp. 1995-2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tijl Grootswagers ◽  
J. Brendan Ritchie ◽  
Susan G. Wardle ◽  
Andrew Heathcote ◽  
Thomas A. Carlson
Keyword(s):  
Human Brain ◽  
Time Course ◽  
Reaction Times ◽  
Choice Response ◽  
Neural Activation ◽  
Decision Boundary ◽  
Activation Patterns ◽  
Categorization Task ◽  
Brain And Behavior ◽  
And Behavior

Animacy is a robust organizing principle among object category representations in the human brain. Using multivariate pattern analysis methods, it has been shown that distance to the decision boundary of a classifier trained to discriminate neural activation patterns for animate and inanimate objects correlates with observer RTs for the same animacy categorization task [Ritchie, J. B., Tovar, D. A., & Carlson, T. A. Emerging object representations in the visual system predict reaction times for categorization. PLoS Computational Biology, 11, e1004316, 2015; Carlson, T. A., Ritchie, J. B., Kriegeskorte, N., Durvasula, S., & Ma, J. Reaction time for object categorization is predicted by representational distance. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 26, 132–142, 2014]. Using MEG decoding, we tested if the same relationship holds when a stimulus manipulation (degradation) increases task difficulty, which we predicted would systematically decrease the distance of activation patterns from the decision boundary and increase RTs. In addition, we tested whether distance to the classifier boundary correlates with drift rates in the linear ballistic accumulator [Brown, S. D., & Heathcote, A. The simplest complete model of choice response time: Linear ballistic accumulation. Cognitive Psychology, 57, 153–178, 2008]. We found that distance to the classifier boundary correlated with RT, accuracy, and drift rates in an animacy categorization task. Split by animacy, the correlations between brain and behavior were sustained longer over the time course for animate than for inanimate stimuli. Interestingly, when examining the distance to the classifier boundary during the peak correlation between brain and behavior, we found that only degraded versions of animate, but not inanimate, objects had systematically shifted toward the classifier decision boundary as predicted. Our results support an asymmetry in the representation of animate and inanimate object categories in the human brain.

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