Behavioral and Brain Functions最新文献

{"title":"Vicarious defeat stress (VDS) is not a simple substitute for chronic social defeat stress (CSDS): a comparative study on behavioral and molecular mechanisms in both stress-induced anxiety- and depression-like behaviors.","authors":"Xin-Ran Sun, Yu-Xin Chen, Xiang-Jun-Lin Zhang, Ning Jiang, Xin-Min Liu, Qi Chang, Rui-Le Pan","doi":"10.1186/s12993-026-00360-y","DOIUrl":"10.1186/s12993-026-00360-y","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Social stress is a fundamental environmental factor driving the pathophysiology of neuropsychiatric disorders. Chronic social defeat stress (CSDS) and vicarious defeat stress (VDS) are two widely used social stress paradigms, with VDS initially proposed as an alternative to CSDS. The present study integrated behavioral phenotypes, hippocampal proteomics, synaptic morphology, energy metabolism, neurotransmitter and tryptophan-kynurenine (TRP-KYN) metabolism, and inflammatory indicators to directly compare responses in adult male mice subjected to CSDS and VDS. Both CSDS and VDS mice showed significant social avoidance, reduced open-arm exploration in the elevated plus maze, prolonged feeding latency in the novelty-suppressed feeding test, and increased immobility in the tail suspension test. Meanwhile, reduced center-zone activity in the open field test, fewer transitions and shorter light-compartment time in the light/dark box test, and lower sucrose preference were observed only in CSDS mice. These findings indicate that CSDS produced more extensive and severe behavioral abnormalities. Hippocampal label-free quantitative proteomics identified 38 and 32 differentially expressed proteins in CSDS and VDS mice, respectively, with 11 shared between the two paradigms. Both paradigms caused ATP depletion, increased pro-inflammatory factors, elevated α-synuclein (α-Syn), and decreased postsynaptic density protein 95 (PSD95), with CSDS showing more severe changes. CSDS also upregulated inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) while suppressing transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β) and interleukin-10 (IL-10), whereas VDS increased IL-10 without significantly affecting iNOS or TGF-β. In TRP-KYN metabolism, CSDS increased 3-hydroxykynurenine (3-HK) and quinolinic acid (QA) while decreasing kynurenic acid (KA), whereas VDS did not significantly affect these downstream metabolites. Regarding neurotransmitters, CSDS reduced dopamine (DA), serotonin (5-HT), norepinephrine (NE) and glutamate (Glu), while VDS decreased NE and DA and γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA). Additionally, lactate was significantly increased in VDS mice, whereas CSDS mice showed a non-significant numerical decrease in hippocampal lactate. Collectively, VDS is a distinct stressor rather than a simple substitute for CSDS and has a milder overall impact than CSDS. This study provides guidance for selecting stress models that better align with specific biological questions in preclinical research on anxiety and depression disorders.</p>","PeriodicalId":8729,"journal":{"name":"Behavioral and Brain Functions","volume":"22 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2026-09-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13602550/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149029758","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Correction: Disruption of circadian rhythms and behavior in Drosophila melanogaster induced by Epstein-Barr virus: insights into viral infections and host physiology.","authors":"Georges Naim, Sabah Znait, Nour Sherri, Elias A Rahal, Margret Shirinian","doi":"10.1186/s12993-026-00364-8","DOIUrl":"10.1186/s12993-026-00364-8","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":8729,"journal":{"name":"Behavioral and Brain Functions","volume":"22 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2026-09-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13551763/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148904524","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Alterations in hippocampal calcineurin protein levels are associated with the impairing effects of nandrolone on dorsal and ventral hippocampus-dependent memory in rats.","authors":"Romina Salmani, Samad Alimohammadi, Fatemeh Zarei, Namdar Yousofvand, Farshad Moradpour","doi":"10.1186/s12993-026-00363-9","DOIUrl":"10.1186/s12993-026-00363-9","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Nandrolone decanoate (ND) exposure has been associated with impairments in hippocampal-dependent learning and memory, potentially involving alterations in intracellular calcium signaling and Calcineurin protein expression. Given the distinct functional contributions of the dorsal hippocampus (dHPC) and ventral hippocampus (vHPC) to cognitive and emotional processes, this study investigated whether ND-induced behavioral changes are associated with alterations in Calcineurin protein levels in these hippocampal subregions.</p><p><strong>Materials and methods: </strong>Twenty-seven male rats were randomly assigned to three groups (n = 9 per group) and received intraperitoneal injections of ND (5 or 15 mg/kg) or sesame oil as the vehicle control every third day for 22 days. Behavioral assessments included the Morris water maze (MWM) for spatial learning and memory, the open field test (OFT) for locomotor activity and anxiety-like behavior, and the passive avoidance test (PAT) for aversive memory. Following completion of behavioral testing, the animals were deeply anesthetized, and the brains were removed. The hippocampus was dissected from the right hemisphere and further separated into dorsal and ventral regions according to standard stereotaxic coordinates relative to Bregma. Tissue samples were homogenized, and Calcineurin protein levels in the dHPC and vHPC were quantified using a commercial ELISA kit according to the manufacturer's instructions.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>ND administration impaired both spatial and avoidance memory and was associated with increased Calcineurin protein levels in the dHPC and vHPC. These findings suggest an association between increased Calcineurin protein levels and Nandrolone-induced cognitive deficits in both hippocampal subregions. Additionally, Nandrolone did not significantly alter locomotor activity but reduced anxiety-like behavior in rats.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>These findings suggest that ND-associated learning and memory impairments are accompanied by alterations in Calcineurin protein levels in both the dHPC and vHPC. The region-dependent effects of ND on Calcineurin may contribute to the differential vulnerability of hippocampal subregions to ND exposure and provide further insight into the potential molecular mechanisms underlying the cognitive effects of anabolic-androgenic steroid exposure.</p>","PeriodicalId":8729,"journal":{"name":"Behavioral and Brain Functions","volume":"22 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2026-08-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13615635/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149057387","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Bilateral parietal tRNS improves processing speed on the paced auditory serial addition test (PASAT): behavioral and ERP evidence.","authors":"Jiahong Cui, Hongjun Chen, Xiaoshuang Wang, Fengyu Cong","doi":"10.1186/s12993-026-00357-7","DOIUrl":"10.1186/s12993-026-00357-7","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Objective: </strong>Cognitive control is essential for goal-directed behavior and is often impaired in neurological conditions. Transcranial random noise stimulation (tRNS) has shown potential for cognitive enhancement, but its electrophysiological mechanisms remain unclear. This study examined whether bilateral parietal tRNS modulates paced auditory serial addition test (PASAT) performance (reaction time and accuracy) and event-related potential (ERP) indices of cognitive control.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>In a randomized, double-blind, sham-controlled crossover study, 40 healthy adults received active high-frequency tRNS (100-640 Hz, 2 mA, 20 min) or sham stimulation over bilateral posterior parietal regions. PASAT performance (reaction time, accuracy) and EEG were recorded pre- and post-stimulation. ERP analyses focused on N200, P300, and late slow wave (LSW).</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Active tRNS significantly reduced reaction times compared to sham, with no stimulation-specific effect on accuracy. Neurophysiologically, active tRNS reduced frontal N200 negativity and increased frontal P300 amplitude. Additionally, reductions in reaction time were significantly associated with increases in frontal P300 amplitude.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>The findings suggest that a single session of bilateral parietal tRNS reduced response latency and was associated with changes in frontal ERP markers during a demanding cognitive task. These results provide preliminary electrophysiological evidence that parietal tRNS may influence task-related neural activity expressed at frontal sites, with ERPs serving as potential markers of stimulation-related changes in performance.</p>","PeriodicalId":8729,"journal":{"name":"Behavioral and Brain Functions","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2026-07-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13401318/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148497116","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Context-dependent reconfiguration of functional connectivity in posterior (VWFA-1) and anterior (VWFA-2) visual word form area under attentional and linguistic demands.","authors":"Joonwoo Kim, Solbin Lee, Jeahong Kim, Kichun Nam","doi":"10.1186/s12993-026-00356-8","DOIUrl":"10.1186/s12993-026-00356-8","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The visual word form area (VWFA) has been proposed to function as a multiplex hub integrating both attentional and linguistic processing, yet how its functionally distinct subregions dynamically reconfigure their network connectivity across cognitive contexts remains unclear. This study examined resting-state and task-evoked functional connectivity of two VWFA subregions-posterior VWFA-1 and anterior VWFA-2-with predefined attention and language network regions of interest in 20 healthy adults performing a visuospatial flanker task and a Korean lexical decision task. We hypothesized that the posterior-to-anterior anatomical gradient corresponds to an attention-to-language functional role differentiation, observable both in intrinsic connectivity and in task-dependent reconfiguration. At rest, the VWFA exhibited a posterior-to-anterior intrinsic gradient, with VWFA-1 preferentially coupled to the attention network and VWFA-2 to language regions. Across both tasks, task context differentially shifted attention-network connectivity between VWFA-1 and VWFA-2, broadly following the intrinsic gradient. The alignment was only partial, however, as during lexical decision it was the posterior VWFA-1 rather than the anterior VWFA-2 that increased its coupling with the language network. Behaviorally, attention connectivity predicted accuracy across tasks from both subregions equivalently rather than from the gradient itself, suggesting a shared attention-based mechanism rather than gradient-specific contributions. Together, these findings provide preliminary support for the view that intrinsic VWFA organization shapes task-specific routing of attention network interactions, while behavioral performance converges on a shared attention-based mechanism.</p>","PeriodicalId":8729,"journal":{"name":"Behavioral and Brain Functions","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2026-07-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13660086/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148468617","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Perceptual decision-making in the sound-induced flash illusion: a trial-level hierarchical Bayesian integration of EEG and behavior.","authors":"Haoping Yang, Dong Ding, Haibo Qin, Haofei Miao, Chao Wang, Yue Zang, Lizhong Chi, Bin Wu","doi":"10.1186/s12993-026-00344-y","DOIUrl":"10.1186/s12993-026-00344-y","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This study used the sound-induced flash illusion (SIFI) paradigm to investigate how sensory congruency, audiovisual rhythm configurations, and momentary neural states jointly shape perceptual decisions by integrating trial-level EEG and behavioral data within a hierarchical Bayesian regression framework. Thirty healthy adults performed six beep-flash conditions (B0F1, B0F2, B1F1, B1F2, B2F1, and B2F2), encompassing two visual-only baseline conditions, two audiovisually congruent conditions, and two incongruent audiovisual illusion conditions, while response accuracy and reaction time (RT) were recorded together with prestimulus occipital α-band power, auditory and visual N1 amplitudes, and the centro-parietal positivity (CPP) indexing evidence accumulation. We first characterized condition effects and EEG-behavior relationships using repeated-measures ANOVAs and correlations, and then jointly modeled accuracy (Bernoulli likelihood with logit link; effects reported as odds ratios) and RT (Student-t likelihood on logRT; effects interpreted as percentage change in median RT) using trial-level hierarchical Bayesian regression, with model generalizability assessed via Pareto-smoothed importance sampling leave-one-out (PSIS-LOO) cross-validation. Behaviorally, unimodal and congruent conditions yielded faster and more accurate responses, whereas incongruent conditions-particularly the \"2 beep-1 flash\" configuration-produced elevated illusion rates and markedly prolonged RTs, highlighting the role of causal structure and signal reliability in cross-modal weighting. Neurally, higher trial-level prestimulus α power was reliably associated with reduced odds of a correct response, consistent with lower cortical excitability and a more conservative decision criterion; larger auditory N1 amplitudes predicted faster responses; and CPP slope closely tracked RT in descriptive analyses, consistent with its interpretation as an accumulation-to-bound signal. Model comparisons indicated that experimental conditions accounted for most of the behavioral variance, whereas EEG covariates added limited and non-robust incremental out-of-sample predictive value under the present linear additive specification. Nevertheless, prestimulus α showed a stable negative association with accuracy, and auditory N1 showed a weaker association with response speed, indicating that these neural measures remain theoretically informative even though they did not materially improve overall model generalizability.</p>","PeriodicalId":8729,"journal":{"name":"Behavioral and Brain Functions","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2026-07-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13637232/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148418312","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Microglia-specific NLRP3 inhibition mitigates hippocampal neuroinflammation and cognitive deficits after hemorrhagic shock with resuscitation.","authors":"Ya-Mei Zhang, Meng-Yue Wang, Zhong-Yong Zhang, Xin-Yu Yang, Hong-Lian Duan, Jian-Kai Sun, Xiao-Yi Ma, Rong-Xin Song, Jing-Yu Hui, Dong-Xue Zhang, Li-Min Zhang, Hui-Tao Miao","doi":"10.1186/s12993-026-00354-w","DOIUrl":"10.1186/s12993-026-00354-w","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Cognitive dysfunction is a prevalent mental health problem following hemorrhagic shock with resuscitation (HSR). Our previous work indicated that neuroinflammation caused by nucleotide-binding oligomerization domain-like receptor protein 3 (NLRP3), which is modulated by glial cells, such as microglia, is potentially significant in developing emotional and cognitive dysfunction. However, little is known about the potential of microglial NLRP3 to treat HSR-induced cognitive dysfunction. Therefore, this study established an HSR rodent model to investigate whether microglial NLRP3 represents a potential therapeutic target for improving cognitive dysfunction after HSR.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>An HSR model was developed by inducing bleeding and retransfusion in mice. The Morris water maze and Novel object recognition tests were used for behavioral evaluation. To selectively knock out the NLRP3 inflammasome in microglia, the AAV‑CX3CR1‑Cre (pAAV‑CX3CR1‑NLS‑Cre‑P2A‑EGFP‑3xFLAG‑WPRE) virus was stereotaxically injected into the hippocampal CA1 region of male C57BL/6 mice with NLRP3^flox/flox. Immunofluorescence and local field potential recordings were used to assess pathological alterations at different intervals after injury.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Our findings indicated that the NLRP3 inhibitor MCC950 significantly reversed HSR-induced lower recognition index, increased escape latency, reduced platform crossings, decreased θ and γ power and θ-γ phase coupling, decreased intensity of PSD95 and Synaptophysin, increased number of Iba1⁺ cells, normalized soma size and total process length cell of Iba1, and increased colocalization of cleaved caspase-1 and interleukin-18 with Iba-1 in the CA1 area of the hippocampus. It also significantly alleviated the HSR-induced cognitive dysfunction. Moreover, we observed that HSR-induced cognitive dysfunction, neuroinflammation, and synaptic plasticity damage may be reversed by knocking out NLRP3 in the hippocampal CA1 microglia.</p><p><strong>Conclusion: </strong>Our study demonstrates that inhibition of microglia‑specific NLRP3 can mitigate cognitive impairment following HSR, identifying microglial NLRP3 as a promising therapeutic target. This effect may be associated with suppressing pyroptosis via the NLRP3 signaling pathway in microglia.</p>","PeriodicalId":8729,"journal":{"name":"Behavioral and Brain Functions","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2026-07-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13563706/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148418342","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Low-beta frequency band neurofeedback training: effects on attentional orientation, executive control, and underlying neural mechanisms.","authors":"Meng Zhang, Chengcheng Wei, Can Ding, Jiayi Zhao, Jiahe Sun, Liyue Lin, Yishu Chen, Min Li, Xiaokai Li, Ming-Yang Cheng, Jie Zhuang","doi":"10.1186/s12993-026-00351-z","DOIUrl":"10.1186/s12993-026-00351-z","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Neurofeedback Training (NFT) employs real-time feedback on brain activity to empower participants to self-regulate cognitive functions within specific brain regions. Understanding the neurophysiological correlates of NFT is critically important, as these remain largely unclear, especially regard to their neural underpinnings. This study aims to investigate whether and to what extent NFT enhances attentional orientation and executive control in healthy adults, and to explore the potential electrophysiological features associated with these behavioral changes. Participants were divided into two groups: the neurofeedback group (NF, n = 19), who received real-time EEG signal feedback from the F3 electrode with training in the beta1 band (15-18 Hz); and the sham group (sham, n = 18), who watched pre-recorded videos unrelated to brain activity. Both groups underwent pre- and post-intervention assessments, which encompassed attention tasks and EEG data collection. Behavioral results demonstrated that the NF group achieved improvements in attention performance compared to the sham group. These findings were corroborated by event-related potential (ERP) data: post-intervention, the NF group exhibited enhanced N1 amplitudes during attention-orienting tasks and increased N2 amplitudes during executive control tasks. Furthermore, the NF group showed a phased increase in beta1 power during training, reaching statistical significance by the third session, whereas the sham group remained stable. These findings suggest that NFT may, to some extent, modulate attention-related neural activity, thereby potentially contributing to the enhancement of attentional task performance in healthy adults.</p>","PeriodicalId":8729,"journal":{"name":"Behavioral and Brain Functions","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2026-07-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13602603/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148418365","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Local brain network alterations in prodromal and De Novo Parkinson's disease: basal ganglia functional connectivity mediates the association between regional homogeneity and motor manifestations.","authors":"Zhiying Guo, Jingzhe Li, Jianxia Xu, Yubing Chen, Danyan Rong, Yi Xing, Jingru Ren, Miao Yu, Weiguo Liu, Junjie Zheng","doi":"10.1186/s12993-026-00350-0","DOIUrl":"10.1186/s12993-026-00350-0","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background and objective: </strong>Recently, three motor phases of Parkinson's disease (PD) have been proposed (a silent period when nigrostriatal loss begins, a prodromal motor period with subtle focal manifestations, and clinical PD) accompanying the early loss of nigrostriatal dopaminergic pathways and the dysfunction of the basal ganglia (BG) loop, which produce vital network alterations that impact motor coordination. However, the relationships among local brain abnormalities, BG-based functional connectivity (FC) and motor performance in early PD remain unclear. Thus, our study aims to characterize local brain activity dysfunction and large-scale network disorganization, and further explore the potential neural pathway from local dysrhythmia to network-level dysfunction ultimately to clinical motor deficits.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>We enrolled 32 healthy controls (HC), 20 prodromal PD (pPD) patients without mild motor signs (pPD-NMMS), 42 pPD patients with MMS (pPD-MMS), and 58 de novo PD (dPD) patients. We calculated the regional homogeneity (ReHo) and FC values of BG subregions and differences among groups. Furthermore, correlation analyses between ReHo, FC values, and motor sub-scores were analyzed. Additionally, a mediation analysis was conducted to investigate the mediating function of FC-distinct brain regions between ReHo values and motor performance.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Compared with the other groups, pPD-NMMS patients had increased ReHo values in the right lingual gyrus (LING). However, the pPD-MMS group had increased FC values in the left globus pallidus (GP), the bilateral ventromedial putamen (vmPu) to sensorimotor regions, and the left vmPu, the left dorsal caudate (dCa) to visual cortex regions. Both ReHo values in the right LING and FC values of the left GP and the left vmPu were correlated with tremor scores. Eventually, mediation analyses revealed that FC values between the left GP and the right postcentral gyrus (PoCG), and between the left vmPu and the right inferior occipital gyrus (IOG) mediated the relationship between ReHo values in the right LING and tremor scores.</p><p><strong>Conclusion: </strong>Along with the transition from the prodromal to the manifested period and the development of motor signs, network alterations of BG loop may play an important mediating role between local alterations in occipital-related brain regions and tremor performance.</p>","PeriodicalId":8729,"journal":{"name":"Behavioral and Brain Functions","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2026-07-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13617803/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148395753","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Sex-specific neurological dysregulation may underpin distinctly different male and female behavioural phenotypes in a zebrafish model of autism spectrum disorder.","authors":"Lesha Pretorius, Tamera Moodley, Carine Smith","doi":"10.1186/s12993-026-00353-x","DOIUrl":"10.1186/s12993-026-00353-x","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Although distinctly different phenotypes of male and female autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have been long proposed, mechanistic insights are relatively lacking. Added complexities are that human ASD neurological data has been predominantly generated in males, while behavioural observations are influenced by social norms. Using a preclinical in vivo model of idiopathic ASD, the current study may contribute to our understanding of the differences between the male and female ASD phenotype.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>Briefly, ASD-like phenotype was induced in zebrafish embryos via valproate immersion. After confirmation of the larval phenotype, zebrafish were raised to adulthood to allow for sex-specific assessments. Adult behaviour was assessed in terms of anxiety (novel tank test), social interaction (social preference test) and aggression (mirror biting test). Behavioural data was interpreted in the context of whole brain proteome profiles obtained by untargeted proteomics. Differential protein expression analyses were performed using the Benjamini-Hochberg false discovery rate (significance at < 5%). In addition, main effects of ASD-like phenotype and sex were evaluated for specific neurotransmitter proteins.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Behavioural data generally illustrated convergence of sexes in the ASD-like groups. For example, ASD-like males demonstrated a similar but exaggerated anxiety-like outcome, while ASD-like females exhibited behavioural responses more like control and ASD-like males within the social preference assay. Current data do not support aggressive behaviour as a hallmark of ASD in this model. In terms of neurotransmission profiles, significant sex-specific dysregulation was observed within the glutamatergic, GABAergic and dopaminergic systems. For example, greater excitation/inhibition imbalance was exhibited in ASD-like males vs. ASD-like females. Due to low abundance, data on the serotonergic system is less conclusive.</p><p><strong>Conclusion: </strong>Despite similar behavioural profiles, distinct neurotransmitter mechanisms elucidated may potentially warrant the consideration of sex-specific therapeutic targets in the ASD context.</p>","PeriodicalId":8729,"journal":{"name":"Behavioral and Brain Functions","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2026-07-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13617892/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148389730","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}