Cortex最新文献

{"title":"The potential risks of opening the mind’s eye with psychedelic therapies","authors":"Roger Koenig-Robert ,&nbsp;Rebecca Keogh ,&nbsp;Joel Pearson","doi":"10.1016/j.cortex.2025.08.002","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cortex.2025.08.002","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Psychedelic therapy is on the rise, as its legalisation is ongoing in multiple countries. Here, we write a note of warning regarding recent reports that people with aphantasia (a blind mind’s eye) have acquired visual mental imagery after using psychedelics. While the prospect of gaining, or indeed increasing, visual mental imagery is appealing to many, strong mental imagery has been associated with a range of mental conditions. How ‘switching on’ visual imagery in people with aphantasia or increasing its strength in neurotypical individuals might impact mental health remains unknown. We advocate for increased awareness of this issue and its ethical implications, particularly regarding informed consent.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":10758,"journal":{"name":"Cortex","volume":"191 ","pages":"Pages 167-171"},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2025-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144889298","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Evidence for the efficacy of theta-burst stimulation above the angular gyrus for reducing mind wandering propensity: A successful pre-registered study","authors":"Andreas Alexandersen,&nbsp;Steffen Rygg Aasen,&nbsp;Gábor Csifcsák,&nbsp;Matthias Mittner","doi":"10.1016/j.cortex.2025.07.006","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cortex.2025.07.006","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Mind wandering (MW) is a common mental phenomenon where attention shifts spontaneously from an external task to internal trains of thought. Recent studies propose that non-invasive brain stimulation methods hold potential for influencing attentional shifts between on-task and MW states. Exploratory analysis from a recent repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) study reported that targeting the left angular gyrus (AG) with continuous theta-burst stimulation (cTBS) reduced MW compared to sham stimulation, without affecting executive performance (Drevland et al., 2025). The present study is a pre-registered, direct replication of the study by Drevland et al., but also expands their protocol by applying intermittent theta-burst stimulation (iTBS) targeting the same cortical area. Using a triple-blind crossover design, healthy participants completed four blocks of the Finger-Tapping Random Sequence Generation Task (FT-RSGT) in three sessions on separate days. Each session included three rounds of either real (cTBS or iTBS) or sham stimulation in an accelerated rTMS design. We successfully replicated the effect of cTBS in reducing MW propensity but failed to find the expected increase in MW post-iTBS. Furthermore, based on a joint analysis of the current data and that from Drevland et al., we found compelling evidence for cTBS being efficient both in reducing MW and improving executive performance. Our results provide evidence for the causal relationship between the left AG and shifts of attention during an executive task, highlighting the role of the default mode network in the generation and maintenance of MW episodes.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":10758,"journal":{"name":"Cortex","volume":"191 ","pages":"Pages 25-40"},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2025-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144781196","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Exploring touch-colour associations in achromatopsia: A case study","authors":"N. Vreugdenhil ,&nbsp;E.H.F. de Haan ,&nbsp;N. Root ,&nbsp;L.L. Becerra ,&nbsp;W. Brown ,&nbsp;K. Kapadia ,&nbsp;D.J. Lipomi ,&nbsp;R. Rouw","doi":"10.1016/j.cortex.2025.08.003","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cortex.2025.08.003","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Crossmodal correspondences – systematic mappings between stimulus attributes in different modalities – are ubiquitous in the general population. For example, high-pitched (<em>vs</em> low-pitched) sounds are commonly associated with elevated (<em>vs</em> low) positions in space, and rounded (<em>vs</em> angular) shapes tend to be linked to the term ‘Bouba’ (<em>vs</em> ‘Kiki’). There is still some debate about the role of immediate sensory experience versus conceptual colour understanding in crossmodal correspondences. In individuals with touch-colour synaesthesia – a rare condition in which colours are consciously experienced during haptic stimulation – associations are plausibly driven by sensory processes. However it is not known if touch-colour associations in non-synaesthetes also rely on sensory processes. Here, we tested the hypothesis that intact sensory (colour) processes are an optional, but not necessary, condition for crossmodal correspondences between touch and colour. We tested this hypothesis by comparing texture-colour associations in an achromatopsic observer, M.S., to those of matched controls. In a forced-choice task, M.S. (<em>N</em> = 1) reported associations between texture and colour that were very similar to control participants with typical colour vision (<em>N</em> = 17) when the response options were colour <em>terms</em> (words), but not when the response options were colour <em>patches</em> (hues). Our results indicate that typical (non-synaesthete) touch-colour associations can occur without sensory colour perception, suggesting that conceptual understanding of colour may be sufficient for touch–colour associations.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":10758,"journal":{"name":"Cortex","volume":"191 ","pages":"Pages 283-291"},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2025-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145008140","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Overnight residues of sensorimotor aftereffects and lack of visuospatial aftereffects following a single prism exposure in healthy subjects.","authors":"Or Mizrahi, Meytal Wilf, Smadar Ovadia-Caro","doi":"10.1016/j.cortex.2025.07.009","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cortex.2025.07.009","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Prism adaptation (PA) is a visuomotor adaptation paradigm resulting in transient sensorimotor shifts. Previous work shows PA can cause additional changes in higher-level visuospatial representations in healthy subjects. In patients with neglect symptoms, records of beneficial visuospatial aftereffects of PA form the basis for its usage as a potential rehabilitation strategy. However, results in both patients and healthy subjects are mixed, with recent studies failing to replicate effects of PA on visuospatial representations. Here, we applied a single session of either right or left PA in healthy subjects (N = 85). Sensorimotor, proprioceptive, and visuospatial biases were measured at baseline, immediately after, 30 minutes, and 24 hours after PA. We found that PA has immediate and robust sensorimotor and proprioceptive aftereffects, replicating previous findings. Crucially, we find that despite expected decay, significant residues of sensorimotor aftereffects can last up to 24 h after PA. In contrast, no short or long-term aftereffects were found on visuospatial attention as measured by the grayscale judgment task. This null result was stable when taking the initial bias of attention orientation into account. No relationship was found between the degree of sensorimotor or proprioceptive responsiveness and visuospatial responsiveness. Our results suggest the effects of PA on the sensorimotor system are less transient than previously thought and are still evident after a night of sleep. Importantly, taken together with recently published null results for the visuospatial effects of PA using other tasks, we suggest these effects might be less extensive than previously reported in healthy subjects.</p>","PeriodicalId":10758,"journal":{"name":"Cortex","volume":"191 ","pages":"90-104"},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2025-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144816027","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Altered effective connectivity in cortico-striatal pathways during sentence processing and oral motors in Parkinson’s disease","authors":"Ehsan Hemmati ,&nbsp;Mohammad-Reza Nazem-Zadeh ,&nbsp;Alireza Fallahi ,&nbsp;Zahra Vahabi ,&nbsp;Mohammad Taghi Joghataei ,&nbsp;Laila Alibiglou","doi":"10.1016/j.cortex.2025.06.019","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cortex.2025.06.019","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Previous studies have demonstrated that sentence processing can be impaired in individuals with Parkinson’s disease (PD). However, it remains unclear whether the neural mechanisms underlying language impairments in PD are like the motor symptoms and related to dysfunction observed in cortico-striatal pathways. On the other hand, traumatic brain injury (TBI) is recognized as a significant non-genetic risk factor for developing PD later in life. This study investigated the functional changes in cortico-striatal pathways that impact sentence comprehension and oral motor functions in individuals with PD. It compared PD patients with a history of TBI to those without. Twenty-four PD patients (12 with and 12 without TBI) along with 12 age- and sex-matched controls, underwent functional MRI (fMRI) and dynamic causal modeling. These assessments aimed to evaluate brain activity and effective connectivity during sentence comprehension and oral motor tasks. Significant disruptions were observed in both activated brain regions and effective connectivity within cortico-striatal pathways in PD patients (<em>p</em> &lt; .05). Those with TBI exhibited altered brain activity during canonical sentence comprehension when compared to those without TBI. The PD group without TBI displayed greater bidirectional connectivity between cortico-cortical and cortico-subcortical areas during oral motor tasks (<em>p</em> &lt; .05). These findings suggest that reduced effective connectivity in motor and language networks may contribute to language and motor impairments in individuals with PD. Utilizing fMRI to evaluate activated brain regions and effective connectivity within motor and language networks may help identify TBI patients who are at a higher risk of developing PD in the future.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":10758,"journal":{"name":"Cortex","volume":"191 ","pages":"Pages 41-54"},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2025-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144781109","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Neural dynamics of shifting visual attention between objects and locations in early visual cortex","authors":"S. Wehle,&nbsp;C. Gundlach,&nbsp;M.M. Müller","doi":"10.1016/j.cortex.2025.06.020","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cortex.2025.06.020","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Effects of location- and object-based attention on sensory processing have been mostly studied in isolation leaving the relations between them less well understood. In an EEG experiment, temporal dynamics of location- and object-based attention were investigated with a probabilistic spatial cueing task to test temporal differences between sensory enhancement of two locations in one object. Stimuli consisted of two vertical rectangles/bars filled with a random noise pattern. Each rectangle was superimposed by two flickering clouds of dots to elicit steady-state visual evoked potentials (SSVEPs) that tagged the two ends of each object. A central cue pointed either to one (single cue) or to two (double cue) task-relevant locations on the bar. Targets occurred with a much higher probability on the cued location, and with a lower probability on uncued locations. Uncued locations were equidistant to the cued location either on the same object (unattended same) or the different object (unattended different). We replicated the finding of longer reaction times for targets at the uncued object (uncued different) compared to the uncued location of the cued object (uncued same). SSVEP amplitudes were significantly modulated by spatial and object-based integration relative to the pre-cue baseline. Interestingly, results indicated (a) an earlier enhancement of SSVEP amplitudes and (b) a sustained higher SSVEP amplitude for the cued compared to the uncued location of the same object. These results are in line with previous studies suggesting that object integration involves sequential activation and sustained enhanced activation of the to-be-attended attribute after the integration process.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":10758,"journal":{"name":"Cortex","volume":"191 ","pages":"Pages 292-304"},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2025-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145010430","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Spatial sensorimotor mismatch increases the excitability of the primary somatosensory cortex: Insight from an EEG-virtual reality study","authors":"Matteo Girondini ,&nbsp;Tommaso Bertoni ,&nbsp;Massimo Montanaro ,&nbsp;Andrea Serino ,&nbsp;Alberto Gallace","doi":"10.1016/j.cortex.2025.07.010","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cortex.2025.07.010","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Under typical conditions, the somatosensory system maintains stable functionality. However, the somatosensory cortex can rapidly reorganize in response to sensory input changes, as demonstrated by studies on sensory deprivation and experience-dependent plasticity. Nevertheless, somatosensory plasticity related to unusual sensorimotor activation, such as spatial incongruence between motor commands and somatosensory feedback patterns during body–environment interactions, remains less investigated. This study aims to extend the evidence for functional reorganization of the somatosensory cortex by investigating the interdependency between motor and somatosensory activity during environmental interactions. We employed an innovative virtual reality (VR) paradigm to investigate the effects of spatial mismatch in sensorimotor loops, dissociating motor and somatosensory components in thespatial domain during sensorimotor interactions. Participants (<em>n</em> = 21) performed two experimental sessions composed of 10 minutes each, involving an interaction task in VR, whereby they interacted with a virtual object with their right hand and received either congruent (on the right hand) or incongruent (on their left ankle) sensory tactile feedback. To assess changes in somatosensory processing, we measured EEG-somatosensory evoked potentials elicited by right median nerve stimulation before and after the task. Our results evidenced increased excitability in the early component of somatosensory evoked potentials (P45) following the incongruent condition, with an opposite trend (decrease of excitability) on the congruent condition. These findings may suggest functional changes in the primary somatosensory cortex (SI), likely driven by the temporal coupling of neural activity from unrelated body parts during the task. However, attentional mechanisms may also contribute to this effect. While preliminary, these results open new avenues for investigating sensorimotor adaptation driven by repeated associative activity between motor and somatosensory cortices during active interactions.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":10758,"journal":{"name":"Cortex","volume":"191 ","pages":"Pages 154-166"},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2025-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144879886","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Functional connectivity changes in long-Covid patients with and without cognitive impairment.","authors":"Manuel Leitner, Daniela Pinter, Stefan Ropele, Marisa Koini","doi":"10.1016/j.cortex.2025.07.005","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cortex.2025.07.005","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Long-Covid is associated with cognitive deficits in memory, attention, or executive function. However, the associated cerebral structural and functional changes are insufficiently studied to date. We investigated 39 long-Covid patients with (n = 16) and without (n = 23) cognitive impairment. Impairment was defined by a pronounced deficit (-1.5 SD) in at least one cognitive domain including memory, attention, executive function, and verbal fluency. All participants underwent structural and functional resting-state magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). We assessed differences in resting-state networks (within and between networks) between both groups as well as structural differences in total gray matter and subcortical volumes. Both groups did not differ in demographic or disease-related characteristics. Patients with cognitive deficits showed higher functional connectivity (FC) between the default mode network (DMN) and parts of the posterior supramarginal gyrus, angular gyrus and posterior-occipital part of the middle temporal gyrus, compared to those cognitively unimpaired. In addition, inter-network analyses indicated a stronger connectivity between the visual and ventral stream network in those with cognitive impairment. We found no volumetric differences between the two groups. Our results indicate that altered FC with the DMN as well as a stronger connectivity between the visual and ventral stream network in cognitively impaired long-Covid patients are associated with worse cognitive performance and therefore suggests a maladaptive functional change.</p>","PeriodicalId":10758,"journal":{"name":"Cortex","volume":"191 ","pages":"74-89"},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2025-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144803832","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Rapid auditory and phonemic processing relies on the left planum temporale","authors":"Kelly C. Martin ,&nbsp;Andrew T. DeMarco ,&nbsp;Sara M. Dyslin ,&nbsp;Peter E. Turkeltaub","doi":"10.1016/j.cortex.2025.03.014","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cortex.2025.03.014","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>After initial bilateral acoustic processing of the speech signal, much of the subsequent language processing is left-lateralized, perhaps due to a left hemisphere (LH) advantage for rapidly unfolding components of speech. Here we investigated whether and where damage to the LH predicted impaired performance on judging the directionality of frequency modulated (FM) sweep stimuli that changed within short (25 msec) or longer (250 msec) temporal windows. Performance was significantly lower for stroke survivors (<em>n</em> = 50; 18 female) than controls (<em>n</em> = 61; 34 female) on FM Sweeps judgments, particularly on the short sweeps. Support vector regression lesion-symptom mapping revealed that part of the left planum temporale (PT) was related to worse performance on the short FM sweeps, controlling for performance on the long sweeps. We then investigated whether damage to this region related to diminished performance on stop consonant identification and pseudoword repetition, which theoretically depend on rapid auditory processing. Indeed, participants with PT lesions (PT lesion+, <em>n</em> = 24) performed worse than those without (PT lesion-, <em>n</em> = 26) on stop consonant identification and pseudoword repetition, controlling for lesion size and hearing ability. PT lesions impacted pseudoword repetition more than real word repetition, which is of interest because pseudowords rely solely on speech sound perception and sequencing, whereas words can also rely on lexical-semantic knowledge. We conclude that the left PT is a critical region for processing auditory information in short temporal windows, and it may also be an essential transfer point in auditory-to-linguistic processing.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":10758,"journal":{"name":"Cortex","volume":"191 ","pages":"Pages 12-24"},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2025-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144757581","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Reduced susceptibility to experimentally-induced complex visual hallucinations with age","authors":"Oris Shenyan ,&nbsp;Laura Haye ,&nbsp;Georgia A. Milne ,&nbsp;Matteo Lisi ,&nbsp;John A. Greenwood ,&nbsp;Jeremy I. Skipper ,&nbsp;Tessa M. Dekker","doi":"10.1016/j.cortex.2025.08.001","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cortex.2025.08.001","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Visual hallucinations occur across many clinical conditions, but can also be induced experimentally in healthy individuals, using high-frequency flicker (Ganzflicker) and sensory deprivation (Ganzfeld). It is unclear how hallucinatory proneness changes across the lifespan, with prior questionnaire-based studies showing mixed results. As factors such as multi-sensory acuity loss and relatively increased reliance on prior knowledge may increase as we age, and these are considered risk factors for hallucination proneness, we hypothesised that reported decreases in hallucinations might reflect underreporting due to stigma. We therefore sought to measure hallucination proneness in 44 healthy adults spanning the adult lifespan (younger age group; n = 22; age 19–39 years, mean 27.2 ± 5.5; older age group n = 22; age 59–79 years, mean 68.0 ± 5.8), quantifying the tendency to experience complex and simple hallucinations in an experimental environment designed to elicit hallucinations. We find that reports of complex hallucinations (those representing objects, scenes, etc) are lower in older adults than in younger adults, both in real time and retrospectively. None of our measured cognitive or sensory measures (visual acuity, contrast sensitivity, perceptual reorganisation, imagery vividness, memory inhibition, and suggestibility) mediate this relationship. We conclude that reduced complex hallucination proneness is likely to be a feature of typical ageing, and that experiencing hallucinations in older individuals may signal underlying pathology.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":10758,"journal":{"name":"Cortex","volume":"191 ","pages":"Pages 188-204"},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2025-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144913672","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}