Brain and Cognition最新文献

{"title":"Aerobic walking exercise training boosts thalamic connectivity in MS patients with cognitive processing speed impairment.","authors":"Brian M Sandroff, Robert W Motl, Glenn R Wylie, Grace E Wells, Carly L A Wender, Mary Ann Picone, Krupa Pandey, John DeLuca, Gary R Cutter","doi":"10.1016/j.bandc.2025.106349","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.bandc.2025.106349","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Purpose: </strong>The current study involved a single-blind, randomized controlled trial on the effects of aerobic treadmill walking exercise training compared with an active control condition as an approach to modify thalamocortical resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC) as a neurobiological correlate of cognitive processing speed (CPS) impairment in 28 fully-ambulatory persons with multiple sclerosis (MS) who were pre-screened for impaired CPS.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>Participants completed baseline assessments of CPS and underwent resting-state fMRI to measure thalamocortical RSFC. Following baseline, participants were randomly assigned into either 12-weeks of supervised, aerobic treadmill walking exercise training or 12-weeks of stretching and range-of-motion activities (active control condition). After the 12-week study period, participants underwent follow-up assessments of CPS and thalamocortical RSFC using a treatment-blinded assessor.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Aerobic treadmill walking exercise training was associated with significantly increased RSFC between the thalamus and frontal/parietal regions relative to the active control condition. By comparison, the active control condition was associated with significantly increased RSFC between the thalamus and occipital regions relative to the treadmill condition.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>The current RCT provides critical information on underlying neurophysiological mechanisms of aerobic treadmill walking exercise training and stretching and range-of-motion activities among fully-ambulatory, but CPS impaired persons with MS. This is important for informing the design of aerobic exercise programs that selectively target thalamocortical RSFC as an approach to improve CPS in persons with MS. Such programs may be ripe for inclusion in a future mechanistic trial focusing on thalamocortical RSFC as a mediator of exercise effects on CPS in MS.</p>","PeriodicalId":55331,"journal":{"name":"Brain and Cognition","volume":"189 ","pages":"106349"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2025-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12381831/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144818360","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Unraveling the link between brain injury and enhanced artistic skills","authors":"Diego Iacono ,&nbsp;Gloria C. Feltis","doi":"10.1016/j.bandc.2025.106348","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.bandc.2025.106348","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Traumatic brain injury (TBI), whether from a single incident or repeated trauma, is a heterogeneous neurological condition known for its cognitive, motor, and behavioral effects. However, its potential to influence or even enhance artistic creativity remains a lesser-studied phenomenon. This review explores evidence suggesting that TBI can give rise to novel or intensified artistic abilities, drawing on case reports and neuroimaging studies.</div><div>We examine brain regions commonly involved in creative processes − including the prefrontal, parietal, temporal, and occipital cortices, as well as subcortical and limbic areas − and how TBI-related damage, such as diffuse axonal injury and focal contusions, may alter their function. Proposed mechanisms include cortical disinhibition and compensatory neuroplasticity, potentially unmasking latent creative capacities.</div><div>Neuroimaging findings, including fMRI and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), highlight altered connectivity in networks such as the default mode and executive control systems. Comparisons with conditions like frontotemporal dementia (FTD), which can also trigger emergent creativity, help distinguish trauma-induced reorganization from neurodegenerative changes.</div><div>Finally, we consider implications for neurorehabilitation, particularly the therapeutic use of art, and reflect on the ethical dimensions of post-TBI artistic transformation. Artistic expression is proposed as a marker of adaptive brain plasticity and identity reconstruction following injury.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":55331,"journal":{"name":"Brain and Cognition","volume":"189 ","pages":"Article 106348"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2025-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144867269","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"An error in our thinking: The sensory conflict hypothesis of combined action observation and motor imagery","authors":"Matthew W. Scott","doi":"10.1016/j.bandc.2025.106350","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.bandc.2025.106350","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The capacity to learn and adapt movement and skills through non-physical forms of practice provides benefits which extend across disciplines such as rehabilitation and<!--> <!-->sports. Two non-physical forms of practice are action observation (i.e., watching an action; AO) and motor imagery (i.e., cognitively simulating<!--> <!-->performing an action; MI). Researchers and practitioners now often adopt an integrated approach, where one observes an action while concurrently imagining the feeling of performing the action (termed congruent AOMI). Congruent AOMI results in greater corticomotor activity and improved behavioral outcomes compared to its independent counterparts. Despite existing theoretical frameworks seeking to explain these effects, empirical findings remain inconclusive. This article critically evaluates previous hypotheses before advancing an alternative – the Sensory Conflict Hypothesis (SCH). Situated in an internal modelling framework, the SCH proposes greater corticomotor activity and improved behavioral outcomes to be driven by the occurrence and reduction of sensory prediction errors, respectively. The SCH is further discussed in the context of differing actions during AOMI, where actions are associated in some form (coordinative AOMI) or differ in both action kinematics and goals (conflicting AOMI), with implications for cognitive engagement discussed. The SCH presents new, testable avenues of research to further understand<!--> <!-->the relationship between AO and MI, and how to optimize their integration.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":55331,"journal":{"name":"Brain and Cognition","volume":"189 ","pages":"Article 106350"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2025-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144860318","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The neural basis of cognitive processing: A review and a speculative architecture","authors":"Willem B. Verwey","doi":"10.1016/j.bandc.2025.106351","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.bandc.2025.106351","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The purpose of this article is to explore what cognitive research can reveal about the way in which the neural system processes information. To that end, a comprehensive review of cognitive/behavioral and neuroscience models and findings is presented along with ideas as to how the human neural system has evolved. The representation of information in short-term memory (STM) is ascribed to stable oscillatory patterns across hierarchically structured functional networks of neocortical areas. These oscillatory patterns are primarily shaped by information in long-term memory (LTM) that is stored in the synaptic connections between neurons and, consequently, between neural areas. It is argued for the first time that the non-sensory and non-motor information processing stages revealed by behavioral research involve the change of potentially brain-wide oscillatory patterns that follow the reconfiguring of temporary neural networks. These network configurations can be governed by hub areas in the perceptual cortices (serving stimulus identification), the hippocampus (declarative memory), and the basal ganglia and prefrontal cortex (motor behavior, STM, and information processing). These ideas are integrated into a tentative neural <em>Three-Level Systems</em> (TLS) architecture comprising evolutionarily older perceptual and motor systems that are linked by a flexible central processing system located in the evolutionarily more recent association cortex.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":55331,"journal":{"name":"Brain and Cognition","volume":"189 ","pages":"Article 106351"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2025-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144911511","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Neural correlates of rumination and social anxiety: Mediating role of vmPFC connectivity in resting-state fMRI","authors":"Li Geng ,&nbsp;Qiuyang Feng ,&nbsp;Xueyang Wang ,&nbsp;Yu Li ,&nbsp;Jiang Qiu","doi":"10.1016/j.bandc.2025.106352","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.bandc.2025.106352","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Rumination is closely associated with social anxiety and is considered a key cognitive factor in its onset and persistence. Both processes engage brain functions related to self-referential cognition and emotional regulation; however, the neural pathways linking rumination and social anxiety remain incompletely understood. Using resting-state neuroimaging data from 470 participants, we conducted voxel-based functional connectivity analysis focusing on the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), a key region implicated in self-referential processing and affective regulation. Results showed that functional connectivity between the anterior vmPFC and the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and the right superior frontal gyrus (SFG) was significantly associated with both rumination and social anxiety, and mediated their association. Notably, functional connectivity related to social anxiety was primarily observed in the anterior rather than the posterior vmPFC, suggesting that social anxiety may be closely linked to heightened sensitivity to social value and reward cues. This study reveals the central role of the vmPFC in integrating self-related cognition and emotion regulation, demonstrating how its functional connectivity mediates the influence of rumination on social anxiety, thereby deepening our understanding of the neural mechanisms underlying social anxiety.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":55331,"journal":{"name":"Brain and Cognition","volume":"189 ","pages":"Article 106352"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2025-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144921307","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Exploring facial expression processing with fast periodic visual stimulation and diverse stimuli","authors":"David Vandenheever ,&nbsp;Haleigh Davidson ,&nbsp;Jennifer Kemp ,&nbsp;Zack Murphy ,&nbsp;Autumn Kujawa ,&nbsp;Jingyi Shi ,&nbsp;Michael R. Nadorff ,&nbsp;Kayla Bates-Brantley ,&nbsp;MacKenzie Sidwell","doi":"10.1016/j.bandc.2025.106338","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.bandc.2025.106338","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Facial expression recognition is a fundamental aspect of human social interaction, enabling effective communication and emotional understanding. Fast Periodic Visual Stimulation (FPVS) paradigms have recently emerged as a powerful approach for studying facial expression processing. However, previous studies often utilized identical base stimuli, making it difficult to disentangle neural responses to low-level perceptual differences from those reflecting conceptual discrimination of emotion. By introducing variability in our stimuli, we aimed to overcome these limitations and investigate neural responses to facial expressions of anger, fear, happiness, and sadness. Using EEG, robust oddball responses were observed across participants at both individual and group levels, demonstrating the paradigm’s sensitivity even with brief recordings and limited post-processing. Significant neural responses were detected across key regions of interest, with the occipital and right occipito-temporal regions showing increased activity, consistent with previous studies investigating facial expression processing. This study highlights the effectiveness of the FPVS paradigm for examining emotional processing using naturalistic stimuli and provides a framework for future research into neural mechanisms underlying facial emotion recognition in diverse and pathological populations.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":55331,"journal":{"name":"Brain and Cognition","volume":"189 ","pages":"Article 106338"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2025-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144680777","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Microstate analysis in infancy: Examining infant brain at rest and during experimental tasks","authors":"Kara L. McDevitt,&nbsp;Maria A. Gartstein","doi":"10.1016/j.bandc.2025.106333","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.bandc.2025.106333","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Microstates are brief, stable states of spatial topography that are measured with electroencephalography (EEG) and thought to capture whole-brain activation patterns. EEG microstates have been associated with functional networks measured with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in adult populations. Microstate analysis offers a unique opportunity to measure brain activity, capturing whole-brain dynamics with superior temporal sensitivity as infants engage in cognitive and emotionally salient tasks. Additionally, comparison of microstates between infants and the adult literature provide insight into functional network emergence and development. The current study examined microstates in 61 infants (ages 6–12 months) utilized a wakeful resting task in addition to laboratory tasks designed to elicit cognitive and emotional responses. The EEG microstate topographies and parameters were compared within these tasks and across activities. It was hypothesized that microstates would be extracted from infant EEG data, with resting (or baseline) topographies providing replication of previous work (<span><span>Brown &amp; Gartstein, 2023</span></span>). It was hypothesized that the experimental tasks would produce four microstates similar in topography to the resting task, eliciting a calm/alert state, and that parameters would differ within and across tasks depending on the underlying functional networks needed to process information specific to each activity. Similar topographies were found across tasks and were consistent with the adult literature. Topographies and parameters differed in comparisons within and across tasks consistent with the associated functional networks. These findings point to the usefulness of microstate analysis in measuring emotional processing and cognition and how these emerge as a function of brain development.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":55331,"journal":{"name":"Brain and Cognition","volume":"188 ","pages":"Article 106333"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2025-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144500852","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Did increasing brain size place early humans at risk of extinction?","authors":"Jeffrey M. Stibel","doi":"10.1016/j.bandc.2025.106336","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.bandc.2025.106336","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Increasing brain size is a hallmark of human evolution. While a larger brain offers evolutionary advantages driven by social and cognitive adaptations, it also imposes considerable energetic, metabolic, and thermoregulatory costs. As a result, brain size may have biological limits that impose survival pressures during periods of extreme environmental change. Here, temporal trends in absolute brain size across the genus <em>Homo</em> are analyzed, with a focus on a marked slowdown in growth beginning around 300,000 years ago<strong>.</strong> The results suggest that strong directional selection for brain expansion in early <em>Homo</em> was followed by a shift toward stabilizing selection in later populations. Comparisons across glacial and interglacial periods indicate that the physiological costs of large brains may have become especially disadvantageous during warming interglacial periods in the last 100,000 years, potentially increasing extinction risk. This evolutionary shift coincides with the emergence of cognitive and cultural innovations—such as symbolic tools and language—that may have enabled cognitive offloading, reducing selective pressure for continued encephalization. Together, these findings support the hypothesis that stabilizing selection, mediated in part by behavioral and technological adaptations, buffered later <em>Homo</em> populations against the ecological and physiological costs associated with large brains.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":55331,"journal":{"name":"Brain and Cognition","volume":"188 ","pages":"Article 106336"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2025-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144623865","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Corrigendum to “Long-lasting pure topographical disorientation due to heading disorientation following left retrosplenial hemorrhage: A report of two cases” [Brain Cogn. 181 (2024) 106211]","authors":"Nobuko Kawakami ,&nbsp;Yuri Okada ,&nbsp;Keisuke Morihara ,&nbsp;Kazuto Katsuse ,&nbsp;Kazuo Kakinuma ,&nbsp;Shiho Matsubara ,&nbsp;Shigenori Kanno ,&nbsp;Kyoko Suzuki","doi":"10.1016/j.bandc.2025.106317","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.bandc.2025.106317","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":55331,"journal":{"name":"Brain and Cognition","volume":"188 ","pages":"Article 106317"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2025-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144250923","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The same label, different processes: What lies behind the term “mental simulation” in the embodied cognition literature?","authors":"Mara Stockner ,&nbsp;Giuliana Mazzoni ,&nbsp;Denis Perrin ,&nbsp;Francesco Ianì","doi":"10.1016/j.bandc.2025.106335","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.bandc.2025.106335","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Over recent decades, cognitive science has increasingly focused on the theory of “Embodied Cognition”<em>,</em> an “umbrella” term that encompasses several often non-converging approaches. A main construct underlying these approaches is the notion of “Mental Simulation”. This paper argues that mental simulation is far from being a unitary construct and proposes a taxonomy in which different types of mental simulations are placed on a continuum, making it possible to disentangle the complex nature of mental simulation. To support this taxonomy empirically, a series of studies are reviewed showing that mental simulation is a fundamental cognitive process, underlying several abilities (e.g., action observation, language comprehension, mental imagery). Although the same label is used in different domains, the literature review supports the necessity to distinguish mental simulations on at least two dimensions, namely <em>the process</em> and the <em>result</em> of this process. The process can be automatic or voluntary, fast or slow; the outcome can range from a mental representation to motor resonance. Our analysis underscores the importance of a nuanced understanding of the cognitive, phenomenological and neural aspects of mental simulation. This helps clarify the state of knowledge in this domain while the taxonomy provides future research with a solid conceptual ground.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":55331,"journal":{"name":"Brain and Cognition","volume":"188 ","pages":"Article 106335"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2025-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144571691","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}