Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience最新文献

{"title":"Effects of aquatic exercise on symptoms, behaviors, and motor function in children with autism spectrum disorder: a systematic review and meta-analysis.","authors":"Xianyang Xin, Yongqing Guo, Zhihao Qi, Qinzheng Liu, Longyan Liu, Xiang Ma","doi":"10.3389/fnbeh.2026.1927011","DOIUrl":"10.3389/fnbeh.2026.1927011","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Aquatic exercise combines structured physical activity, sensorimotor training, and social participation, and may be an acceptable adjunctive intervention for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, existing trials are limited by small samples, heterogeneous outcomes, and complex data structures.</p><p><strong>Objective: </strong>To evaluate the effects of aquatic exercise on ASD-related symptoms or behaviors, motor or physical function, autism severity, stereotyped behaviors, social function, and other outcomes in children with ASD.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>Controlled studies comparing structured aquatic exercise with passive or active controls were included. Hedges' g was calculated using post-intervention values, with positive values favoring aquatic exercise. Random-effects models were fitted using restricted maximum likelihood with Knapp-Hartung confidence intervals. For outcomes with only 2 studies, fixed-effect sensitivity analyses were also reported. Change-score analyses and sensitivity analyses using different pre-post correlation assumptions were performed. Multiple motor outcomes from the same study were combined within study.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Six studies involving 159 children were included for overall ASD-related symptoms or behaviors. Aquatic exercise showed a favorable effect compared with control conditions (<i>g</i> = 1.31, 95% CI 0.63-1.99, <i>p</i> = 0.004; <i>I</i> ² = 45.5%), and the result remained stable in leave-one-out and change-score sensitivity analyses. Four studies involving 119 children were included for broad motor or physical function. The pooled effect favored aquatic exercise but did not reach statistical significance and showed very high heterogeneity (<i>g</i> = 2.35, 95% CI -0.11 to 4.80, <i>p</i> = 0.056; <i>I</i> ² = 90.2%). After excluding the study with estimated data, the effect decreased to <i>g</i> = 1.60 (95% CI -0.71 to 3.91). CARS/CARS-2, stereotyped behaviors, and social function each included only 2 studies, with unstable model-based inferences. Subgroup analyses did not identify significant differences by control type, intervention duration, or training frequency.</p><p><strong>Conclusion: </strong>Aquatic exercise may improve overall ASD-related symptoms or behaviors in children with ASD. Evidence for motor function and other specific outcomes remains limited, heterogeneous, and exploratory.</p><p><strong>Systematic review registration: </strong>https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO/, identifier CRD420261436475.</p>","PeriodicalId":12368,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience","volume":"20 ","pages":"1927011"},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2026-08-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13506929/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148826654","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Discrete and differentiated encoding of distinct components of spatial experience occurs within the proximodistal subfields of the dorsoventral axis of the hippocampus.","authors":"Muxin Lin, Thu-Huong Hoang, Denise Manahan-Vaughan","doi":"10.3389/fnbeh.2026.1895371","DOIUrl":"10.3389/fnbeh.2026.1895371","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>A multitude of studies have confirmed the essential role of the hippocampus in the acquisition and updating of associative experience. In rodents, spatial memories are dependent on hippocampal information processing and encoding. The role of the dorsal hippocampal pole is well documented, but information about the roles of the intermediate and ventral hippocampus in spatial learning are few and often contradictory. Here, we used fluorescence <i>in situ</i> hybridization (FISH) to identify nuclear expression of the immediate early (IEG) gene, Homer1a, that was triggered by specific spatial learning events in hippocampal neurons of adult male rats. We compared IEG expression in the cornu ammonis (CA) and dentate gyrus (DG) along the proximodistal and dorsoventral hippocampal axis, triggered by novel learning about spatial constellations of large (macroscale), or partially concealed (microscale) objects within a familiar environment. We observed that the dorsal hippocampus predominates with regard to the neuronal encoding of both forms of spatial content information, whereby the distal CA1 (dCA1) and proximal CA3 (pCA3) preferentially encode microscale spatial location. The infrapyramidal blade of the DG, as well as pCA3, encode macroscale information. The intermediate CA shows increased IEG expression in dCA1 triggered by novel microscale information, but the DG of neither the intermediate, nor ventral, hippocampus encode macroscale information. The ventral hippocampus exhibits IEG expression patterns that are unique in comparison to the other two structures: here, both CA1 (proximal and distal) and pCA3 encode macroscale information. Taken together, these findings suggest that the intermediate and ventral hippocampus support spatial memory encoding, but may do so in support of differentiated and distinct aspects of associative learning.</p>","PeriodicalId":12368,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience","volume":"20 ","pages":"1895371"},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2026-08-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13493596/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148790225","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Effects of repetitive scanning ultrasound on the intraneuronal dendritic signalling of CA1 pyramidal neurons.","authors":"Bence Pelyvas, Ervin Wolf, Zita Kepes, Ervin Berenyi, Tamas Papp, Attila Somogyi","doi":"10.3389/fnbeh.2026.1871826","DOIUrl":"10.3389/fnbeh.2026.1871826","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Introduction: </strong>Neural development is regulated by several spatiotemporally changing factors, which are essential for enabling neurons to develop functional networks, during early developmental stages. Additionally, external physical stimuli, like scanning prenatal ultrasound (US) examination, may influence neural development. Aim of our study is to examine potential consequences of diagnostic level ultrasound exposure during the early phase of hippocampal CA1 neural network development by using computational models.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>Using <i>in silico</i> modelling, this study explores and compares multiple features of intraneuronal dendritic signal propagation in US-treated and control CA1 pyramidal neurons to look for possible alterations caused by US. We used morphological data of CA1 neurons based on previous morphometric datasets and built high-fidelity subthreshold passive and active segmental cable models of these neurons in the NEURON simulator. To simulate dendritic signalling either a current was injected or a synapse was activated at hundreds of dendritic points of model neurons, eliciting local postsynaptic potentials (PSPs), and multiple descriptors of dendritic impulse propagation between dendritic points and soma were computed.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Our computer models predict that diagnostic level US treatment does not induce changes in specific membrane resistance and capacitance of neuronal membrane. Correlative analyses of simulated dendritic impulse propagation in US treated (UT) and non-treated control neurons (NT) revealed minor differences in attenuations and delays of somatopetally propagating PSPs in the passive model, and these alterations became even less pronounced when hyperpolarization-activated cyclic nucleotide-gated (HCN) cation channels and A-type potassium (K_A) channels were inserted into the model. Synaptic input pattern recognition between UT and NT neurons showed no significant alterations.</p><p><strong>Discussion: </strong>We conclude that subthreshold somatopetal signalling properties of US-treated CA1 neuronal membranes remain predominantly at the level of non-treated cells. This conservation is due primarily to HCN channels, contributing to net membrane conductance at rest in an inhomogeneous manner over the somato-dendritic surface. The HCN channels balance the effects of US-induced morphological alterations on dendritic signalling. Conservation of signalling properties align with our independent prediction on the conservation of synaptic integration and input pattern recognition in UT neurons.</p>","PeriodicalId":12368,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience","volume":"20 ","pages":"1871826"},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2026-08-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13493503/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148790214","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Coping with stress produces differential systemic and brain corticosterone patterns in female rats.","authors":"Emily S Levy, Matthew G Frank, Steven F Maier, Michael V Baratta","doi":"10.3389/fnbeh.2026.1760267","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3389/fnbeh.2026.1760267","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Coping factors, such as perceived or actual behavioral control over some aspect of an adverse event, are associated with resilience and are often argued to help optimize or even dampen glucocorticoid responses to stressors. Interestingly, when coping responses (i.e., stressor controllability) are experimentally manipulated in animals, controllable and uncontrollable stressors produce identical peripheral glucocorticoid responses despite eliciting markedly different behavioral outcomes. However, these studies have been conducted exclusively in male rats. In the present study, we investigated corticosterone (CORT) levels in female rats using the same controllability parameters that have been shown to produce differences in behavioral outcomes. Replicating previous studies, both controllable [escapable shock (ES)] and uncontrollable [inescapable shock (IS)] stress produced equivalent elevations in CORT levels in male rats. In contrast, in female rats, IS produced a greater increase in CORT levels than ES. We further assessed in the same animals whether initial controllability alters the CORT response to a future challenge. In male rats, but not female rats, prior IS (Time 1) sensitized the CORT response to subsequent IS (Time 2), an effect blocked by prior ES. Finally, in a separate cohort, the female controllability difference in the acute plasma CORT response was not observed in medial prefrontal cortex or striatal regions. Prefrontal expression of 11β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase type 1, an enzyme that regulates local concentrations of CORT, was increased in female rats exposed to ES relative to those exposed to IS. These results support the growing evidence that stress-induced differences in peripheral CORT are not necessarily reflected in brain structures that support behavioral outcomes, potentially due to regulatory mechanisms at the local tissue level.</p>","PeriodicalId":12368,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience","volume":"20 ","pages":"1760267"},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2026-08-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13490164/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148790138","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Romantic love as regulatory co-option of maternal-bonding circuitry: a testable genetic account.","authors":"Thomas Felesina, Adam Bode","doi":"10.3389/fnbeh.2026.1797790","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3389/fnbeh.2026.1797790","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Romantic love lacks a mechanistic, testable evolutionary account. Prior work notes parallels with mother-infant bonding but leaves the genetic architecture and falsifiable predictions unspecified. We argue that romantic love evolved not through the evolution of new \"love genes,\" but by altering the regulation of existing genes: changing when, where, and under what physiological conditions these genes are active. This regulatory co-option framework generates several falsifiable predictions: (1) a shared genetic basis between maternal bonding and romantic love, (2) the involvement of non-coding, regulatory DNA regions in the brain, (3) a largely shared genetic architecture between the sexes, with differences in gene expression, and (4) genetic signals localized to specific brain circuits. We outline specific genomic and statistical methods to test these predictions, establishing clear criteria that would support or refute our hypothesis. This work shifts the study of romantic love's evolution from analogy to a program of empirical inquiry and hopes to shed light on how social monogamy entered the <i>Homo sapiens</i> lineage. Key challenges include the lack of high quality meta-analytic fMRI evidence of romantic love and the scarcity of detailed data from relevant human brain circuits.</p>","PeriodicalId":12368,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience","volume":"20 ","pages":"1797790"},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2026-08-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13478075/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148790173","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Effects of transcranial magnetic stimulation on spatial memory: a systematic review across animal and human studies.","authors":"Julia C Lobo, Alba Gutiérrez-Menéndez, Marta Mendez, Candela Zorzo","doi":"10.3389/fnbeh.2026.1901070","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3389/fnbeh.2026.1901070","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Introduction: </strong>Spatial memory relies on distributed hippocampal-cortical networks that are highly sensitive to modulation of excitability, connectivity, and synaptic plasticity. Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) has emerged as a promising tool to experimentally probe and therapeutically modulate these networks, although its effects on spatial memory remain heterogeneous.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>We conducted a PRISMA-guided systematic review synthesizing evidence from rodent and human studies examining the effects of TMS on spatial memory. A total of 35 studies (23 animal, 12 human) identified through searches of Scopus, Web of Science, and PubMed were included, encompassing a broad range of stimulation protocols, behavioral paradigms, and neurophysiological outcomes.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>In animal models, TMS consistently improved spatial learning and memory under pathological conditions, including neurodegenerative, vascular, stress-related, and injury models. These effects were associated with convergent mechanisms, including restoration of hippocampal long- term potentiation, modulation of neurotrophic signaling, reduced apoptosis and neuroinflammation, enhanced synaptic plasticity, and recovery of hippocampal network function. In contrast, findings in healthy animals were mixed and strongly dependent on stimulation parameters. Human findings were similarly variable. Improvements were observed in some clinical populations, whereas results in healthy individuals were inconsistent and task dependent. Neurophysiological evidence indicated modulation of oscillatory activity and hippocampal-cortical connectivity, although these changes did not always translate into measurable behavioral effects.</p><p><strong>Discussion: </strong>Overall, TMS effects on spatial memory appear to be strongly state-dependent, reflecting interactions between stimulation parameters and underlying circuit integrity. Further research should prioritize multimodal approaches integrating behavioral and neurophysiological measures, particularly in clinical populations, to improve mechanistic understanding and translational applicability.</p><p><strong>Systematic review registration: </strong>https://osf.io/, identifier 10.17605/OSF.IO/32VWN.</p>","PeriodicalId":12368,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience","volume":"20 ","pages":"1901070"},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2026-08-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13478119/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148790202","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Development of a deep learning-based grid walking test for assessing post-stroke motor function in mice.","authors":"Monika Maciag, Vardan T Karamyan","doi":"10.3389/fnbeh.2026.1873231","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3389/fnbeh.2026.1873231","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Stroke is a leading cause of death and disability, affecting over 15 million people each year. Developing effective therapies depends on accurate, scalable methods to assess sensorimotor recovery in preclinical models. Standard motor tests like grid walking and ladder tests rely on manual scoring, limiting objectivity and throughput. To address this, we compared a commercially available automated ladder test with a newly developed deep learning-based grid walking test using DeepLabCut (DLC) in a photothrombotic stroke model in mice. Our results show that the automated ladder test system failed to detect significant unilateral deficits in stroke animals. It did not capture the expected increase in missteps in the affected forepaw after stroke, even though motor cortex infarcts were confirmed histologically, and the functional impairment was apparent with manual scoring in the grid walking test. In contrast, our DLC-based grid walking model provided fully automated quantification of this widely used test. It achieved millimeter-scale tracking accuracy and detected a ∼3-fold increase in foot faults in stroke-affected mice compared to controls, clearly differentiating between affected and unaffected forepaws for at least 2 weeks post-stroke. These findings expose the limitations of the commercial automated ladder test and demonstrate that the DLC-based pose-estimation-assisted misstep quantification in grid-walk test provides greater sensitivity for detecting motor deficit.</p>","PeriodicalId":12368,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience","volume":"20 ","pages":"1873231"},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2026-08-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13478089/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148790164","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Aged rats have sex-dependent hypothermic effects but not spatial memory impairments following acute alcohol administration.","authors":"Douglas B Matthews, Megan Schroeder, Kennedy Korger, Olive Schrandt, Michael Tommarello, Katie Johnson, Ann Sobania, Pravesh Sharma","doi":"10.3389/fnbeh.2026.1904796","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3389/fnbeh.2026.1904796","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Introduction: </strong>The age of the world's population is continuing to increase, and older individuals are continuing to consume alcohol. Preclinical animal research has demonstrated that aged animals are significantly more sensitive to the effects of alcohol than younger animals and the effect of alcohol in aged animals is often sex dependent.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>The current project investigates if acute alcohol administration produces sex dependent effects in hypothermia and spatial memory impairments in aged female and aged male Sprague Dawley rats.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Acute alcohol administration produced sex dependent effects in that hypothermia in female rats was significantly greater following administration of 1.0 g/kg alcohol but not following 2.0 g/kg alcohol. However, spatial memory impairments were similar between aged female and aged male rats following a 1.0 g/kg alcohol challenge.</p><p><strong>Discussion: </strong>The current results demonstrate in aged animals that alcohol administration produces sex dependent effects in some tasks and highlight the importance of determining the impact of alcohol in older adults as well as younger subjects.</p>","PeriodicalId":12368,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience","volume":"20 ","pages":"1904796"},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2026-08-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13487800/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148790211","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Sex differences in memory impairments after traumatic brain injury: mechanisms and models.","authors":"Isabella K Robson, Clement Hamani","doi":"10.3389/fnbeh.2026.1874990","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3389/fnbeh.2026.1874990","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a major cause of long-term cognitive impairment, with deficits in episodic memory among the most common and disabling consequences. Although biological sex is increasingly recognized as an important determinant of TBI outcomes, its role in shaping post-injury memory impairment remains incompletely understood. Findings from both clinical and preclinical studies are often inconsistent, and sex is frequently underrepresented in experimental designs. Clinical studies generally indicate that women experience worse cognitive outcomes after TBI, including more severe and persistent memory deficits and greater affective burden. In contrast, preclinical findings are more variable, with sex differences emerging in a domain-specific and context-dependent manner. Early animal studies often reported no significant sex differences, particularly in spatial memory tasks. More recent work reveals that males tend to show earlier and more widespread spatial learning impairments and greater vulnerability to anterograde memory deficits, while females more commonly exhibit delayed but persistent deficits in memory consolidation and retention. These behavioral differences are accompanied by sex-specific mechanisms. Altogether, sex differences in memory outcomes following TBI are complex, context-dependent, and shaped by both biological and methodological factors. Greater incorporation of sex as a biological variable in both clinical and preclinical research is essential. Moving toward a precision medicine framework, accounting for sex as a variable in therapeutic target selection and trial design will be important for optimizing cognitive recovery after TBI.</p>","PeriodicalId":12368,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience","volume":"20 ","pages":"1874990"},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2026-07-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13473392/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148764348","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Clinical expertise shifts psychological distancing from effortful regulation to reduced engagement on internally oriented processing during multitasking.","authors":"Kelssy Hitomi Dos Santos Kawata, Shusaku Uruta, Airi Watanabe, Koki Ono, Shoichiro Amari, Hironori Nakatani, Kyosuke Nozawa, Mihoko Sasaka, Kimikazu Kashiwagi, Hiroshi Oyama","doi":"10.3389/fnbeh.2026.1811561","DOIUrl":"10.3389/fnbeh.2026.1811561","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Clinical decision-making often occurs under conditions of high cognitive load, emotional stress, and time pressure. Psychological distancing, an emotion-focused coping strategy involving the mental separation of oneself from emotionally stressful situations to reduce affective impact, supports affect regulation in such contexts; however, its neural implementation during realistic multitasking and the extent to which it is shaped by clinical expertise remain poorly understood.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>We investigated the neural correlates of psychological distancing during high-risk multitasking clinical scenarios in experienced nurses and nursing students. Participants first completed immersive virtual reality simulations of realistic clinical situations, followed by an auditory functional magnetic resonance imaging task derived from the same scenarios. Psychological distancing was assessed using a validated self-report measure, and brain-behavior associations were examined separately for experienced nurses and nursing students.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Although self-reported psychological distancing did not differ between groups, clear expertise-related neural differences were observed. In experienced nurses, higher distancing was associated with reduced activation in regions of the default mode network, including the angular gyrus, middle temporal gyrus, and precuneus, which are implicated in internally oriented cognitive and emotional processing. In contrast, nursing students exhibited increased activation restricted to the cerebellum, suggesting greater dependence on effortful and compensatory neural mechanisms during emotion regulation under multitasking demands.</p><p><strong>Conclusion: </strong>These findings provide evidence that clinical expertise may influence the neural implementation of psychological distancing, shifting it from effortful regulation toward reduced engagement of internally oriented processing, which may reflect a more automatized regulatory implementation. This neural process may support adaptive emotion regulation during decision-making under stress, highlighting a potential neurobehavioral mechanism through which expertise shapes performance in complex clinical environments.</p>","PeriodicalId":12368,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience","volume":"20 ","pages":"1811561"},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2026-07-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13462257/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148723805","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}