Cerebral cortexPub Date : 2025-07-01DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhaf192
Emma Megla, Deepasri Prasad, Wilma A Bainbridge
{"title":"The neural underpinnings of aphantasia: a case study of identical twins.","authors":"Emma Megla, Deepasri Prasad, Wilma A Bainbridge","doi":"10.1093/cercor/bhaf192","DOIUrl":"10.1093/cercor/bhaf192","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Aphantasia is a condition characterized by reduced voluntary mental imagery. As this lack of mental imagery disrupts visual memory, understanding the nature of this condition can provide important insight into memory, perception, and imagery. Here, we leveraged the power of case studies to better characterize this condition by running a pair of identical twins, one with aphantasia and one without, through mental imagery tasks in a functional magnetic resonance imaging scanner. We identified objective, neural measures of aphantasia, finding less visual information in their memories, which may be due to lower connectivity between frontoparietal and occipitotemporal lobes of the brain. However, despite this difference, we surprisingly found more visual information in the aphantasic twin's memory than anticipated, suggesting that aphantasia is a spectrum rather than a discrete condition.</p>","PeriodicalId":9715,"journal":{"name":"Cerebral cortex","volume":"35 7","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144689024","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Cerebral cortexPub Date : 2025-07-01DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhaf191
Siying Li, Jean-Claude Dreher, Edmund Derrington, Haoke Li, Chen Qu
{"title":"Neurocomputational mechanisms underlying how social status affects learning of trust behavior.","authors":"Siying Li, Jean-Claude Dreher, Edmund Derrington, Haoke Li, Chen Qu","doi":"10.1093/cercor/bhaf191","DOIUrl":"10.1093/cercor/bhaf191","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Social status, as a prominent social characteristic, exerts a significant influence on various aspects of life. However, there is only limited behavioral and neural evidence regarding the relationship between social status and the construction of trust. In this study, we used computational modeling and functional magnetic resonance imaging to unveil the trajectory of trust-related processing by using a repeated trust game. Human participants assumed the role of trustor and engaged in interactions with fictitious partners (trustees) who varied in social status. Participants were more inclined to trust Superiors than Inferiors and gradually modified their trust decisions based on their partners' reciprocity. Furthermore, we unveiled the neurocomputational mechanisms of two cognitive processes: (i) prior-based static modulation supported by the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), amygdala, and their neural coupling, and (ii) the reward network engaged in feedback-based dynamic modulation. We also found that prior bias in the social value of social status can reduce the reliance on the feedback-based dynamic modulation rooted in the vmPFC and ventral striatum. The present findings enhance the understanding of the neural representations of how social status modulates trust-related processing and trustworthiness updating.</p>","PeriodicalId":9715,"journal":{"name":"Cerebral cortex","volume":"35 7","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144673937","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Cerebral cortexPub Date : 2025-07-01DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhaf187
Cobie Victoria Potesta, Madeleine Sandra Cargile, Andrea Yan, Sarah Xiong, Robert L Macdonald, Martin J Gallagher, Chengwen Zhou
{"title":"Preoptic area influences sleep-related seizures in a genetic epilepsy mouse model.","authors":"Cobie Victoria Potesta, Madeleine Sandra Cargile, Andrea Yan, Sarah Xiong, Robert L Macdonald, Martin J Gallagher, Chengwen Zhou","doi":"10.1093/cercor/bhaf187","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/cercor/bhaf187","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>In patients with refractory epilepsy, states of sleep and wakefulness affect the expression of seizures. However, the mechanism by which subcortical sleep circuitry affects seizures is unknown. Here, using Gabrg2Q390X knock-in (KI) genetic epileptic mouse model, we found that during sleep, subcortical preoptic area (POA) neurons were active in het Gabrg2Q390X KI mice and their activity preceded or/and coincided with epileptic (poly)spike-wave discharges. Optogenetic manipulating the POA activity altered sleep/wake periods in wild-type (wt) and the het Gabrg2Q390X KI mice. Most importantly, short-period optogenetic activation of epileptic cortical neurons alone did not effectively trigger seizures in the het Gabrg2Q390X KI mice, while optogenetic activation of the POA nucleus slightly influenced spontaneous epileptic activity in the het Gabrg2Q390X KI mice. In contrast, coordinated optogenetic activation/suppression of the subcortical POA nucleus with the optogenetic activation of epileptic cortical neurons effectively enhanced or suppressed epileptic activity in the het Gabrg2Q390X KI mice, indicating that the subcortical POA activation exacerbates seizures in the het Gabrg2Q390X KI mice. In addition, suppression of the subcortical POA nucleus decreased myoclonic jerks in the Gabrg2Q390X KI mice. Overall, this study reveals a circuit-based mechanism of sleep-preferential seizures in one genetic epilepsy model with implications for refractory epilepsy.</p>","PeriodicalId":9715,"journal":{"name":"Cerebral cortex","volume":"35 7","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144689023","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Cerebral cortexPub Date : 2025-07-01DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhaf186
Yang Yu, Rou-Min Wang, Yi Dong, Xi-Ze Jia, Zhi-Ying Wu
{"title":"Neuroimaging correlates of genetics in patients with Wilson's disease.","authors":"Yang Yu, Rou-Min Wang, Yi Dong, Xi-Ze Jia, Zhi-Ying Wu","doi":"10.1093/cercor/bhaf186","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/cercor/bhaf186","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Wilson's disease is an inherited disorder of copper metabolism. Despite significant advancements in neuroimaging studies, prior research into the pathological mechanism of Wilson's disease has ignored the crucial impact of mutation on the disease. This study examined brain imaging in relation to mutation in patients with Wilson's disease. A total of 57 Wilson's disease patients and 25 healthy controls were recruited in the current research. Patients were classified as having either the p.R778L or the p.P992L mutation (N = 43) or other mutations (N = 14). Utilizing the amplitude of low-frequency fluctuations, fractional amplitude of low-frequency fluctuations, and voxel-based morphology, the brain function and structure of Wilson's disease were explored. Compared to healthy controls, Wilson's disease patients with the p.R778L or p.P992L mutation showed greater atrophy in the bilateral putamen, caudate, globus pallidus, thalamus, amygdala, insula, and hippocampus. And these patients showed altered spontaneous neural activity in many more brain regions than healthy controls in three frequency bands. Significant correlation was found between altered brain volume and Unified Wilson's Disease Rating Scale neurological subscale scores. These findings reveal the functional and structural characteristics of Wilson's disease and emphasize the importance of exploring the neuroimaging correlation of genetic mutations in Wilson's disease.</p>","PeriodicalId":9715,"journal":{"name":"Cerebral cortex","volume":"35 7","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144697736","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Cerebral cortexPub Date : 2025-07-01DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhaf181
Qin Li, Jari L O Kurkela, Kaisa Lohvansuu, Jarmo A Hämäläinen, Xueqiao Li, Weiyong Xu, Piia Astikainen
{"title":"Dynamic changes in electrical brain activity during passive learning of foreign speech sound discrimination.","authors":"Qin Li, Jari L O Kurkela, Kaisa Lohvansuu, Jarmo A Hämäläinen, Xueqiao Li, Weiyong Xu, Piia Astikainen","doi":"10.1093/cercor/bhaf181","DOIUrl":"10.1093/cercor/bhaf181","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Previous brain research on phonetic learning of foreign speech sounds has focused on learning outcomes, mostly neglecting the dynamical neural changes during learning. In the present study, Finnish-speaking participants listened passively to a repeated presentation of vowel /a/ with infrequent changes in Mandarin tone for 2 h per day for 4 consecutive days while their brain activity was recorded using electroencephalography. While our previous study has reported the brain activity changes from test recordings conducted before and after the sound exposure, we here analyzed the data recorded during the exposure. We investigated learning dynamics across daily exposure sessions using event-related potentials and multivariate pattern analysis and within sessions using a sliding average across trials. Both mismatch negativity and P3a-markers of change detection and preattentive attention shifts-exhibited learning-related changes in both the event-related potential analysis and multivariate pattern analysis. Changes in multivariate pattern analysis were evident after the first 2-h training session, while event-related potential-based effects emerged later. During the daily exposure sessions, the mismatch negativity amplitude gradually decreased over the first 3 d, whereas the P3a amplitude exhibited an opposite trend, showing a significant increase, and only on day 1. These findings demonstrate dynamic neural changes driven by passive exposure and pave the way for investigating learning processes across multiple levels of analysis, including event-related potential, single-trial dynamics, and machine learning-based methods.</p>","PeriodicalId":9715,"journal":{"name":"Cerebral cortex","volume":"35 7","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12262118/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144641909","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Cerebral cortexPub Date : 2025-07-01DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhaf170
Zeyi Shi, Beiming Yang, Zexi Zhou, Claudia M Haase, Yang Qu
{"title":"Prefrontal activity to negative emotions moderates the longitudinal links between parents and youth's internalizing symptoms.","authors":"Zeyi Shi, Beiming Yang, Zexi Zhou, Claudia M Haase, Yang Qu","doi":"10.1093/cercor/bhaf170","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/cercor/bhaf170","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Parents' internalizing symptoms, such as anxiety and depression, may contribute to similar symptoms in their youth. However, these associations vary, as youth with better emotion regulation may be more protected from negative parental influence. Yet, it remains unclear how youth's neural correlates of emotion regulation, particularly in prefrontal regions-such as dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC), lateral orbitofrontal cortex (lOFC), and medial orbitofrontal cortex (mOFC)-play a role in these associations. To address this gap, this study used two-wave longitudinal data that spanned 2 yr from the nationwide Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development study including 7,932 youth (Mage = 9.96 yr, SD = 7.52; 49% females) and their parents. Results revealed significant longitudinal associations between parents' and youth's internalizing symptoms over 2 yr. Moreover, youth's dlPFC, lOFC, and mOFC activity to negative emotions moderated these links. Youth with higher activity in these regions showed weaker parent-youth associations in internalizing symptoms over time. This study provides robust evidence that dlPFC, lOFC, and mOFC serve as neurobiological protective factors in the longitudinal links between parents and youth's internalizing symptoms. Findings inform interventions targeting youth's neural development in emotion regulation to promote emotional adjustment in families where parents face mental health challenges.</p>","PeriodicalId":9715,"journal":{"name":"Cerebral cortex","volume":"35 7","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144641914","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Cerebral cortexPub Date : 2025-07-01DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhaf178
Zhiying Shen, Wai Hon Lee, Jacob A Eastman, Michaela R Frenzel, Alex I Wiesman, Tony W Wilson, Elizabeth A Walker, Ryan W McCreery, Elizabeth Heinrichs-Graham
{"title":"Alterations in cortical 40-Hz auditory steady-state response dynamics in children with mild-to-severe hearing loss are related to hearing aid use.","authors":"Zhiying Shen, Wai Hon Lee, Jacob A Eastman, Michaela R Frenzel, Alex I Wiesman, Tony W Wilson, Elizabeth A Walker, Ryan W McCreery, Elizabeth Heinrichs-Graham","doi":"10.1093/cercor/bhaf178","DOIUrl":"10.1093/cercor/bhaf178","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Children who are hard-of-hearing (CHH) show greater variability in language and academic outcomes than children with normal hearing (CNH) throughout development, despite early detection and intervention. Nonetheless, our understanding of the neural mechanisms underlying sensory and cognitive processing in CHH remains incomplete. The 40-Hz cortical auditory steady-state response (ASSR) has been widely used as a marker of auditory system integrity and shown to relate to cognition. Thus, the current study sought to determine the impact of mild-to-severe hearing loss on cortical ASSR dynamics. Thirty-seven participants ages 7-15 years old heard a broadband click train stimulus presented at 40 Hz binaurally during magnetoencephalography (MEG). Peak sources in the bilateral primary auditory cortices were identified, and the power envelope of the 40 Hz ASSR was extracted as a function of time and submitted to linear mixed modeling. We found a significant three-way interaction, suggesting that CHH exhibit altered ASSR dynamics between hemispheres compared to CNH. Moreover, hearing aid use was significantly correlated with left hemisphere ASSR power in CHH. These data underscore the importance of consistent auditory access in CHH and provide preliminary evidence that neuroimaging may hold promise in determining the mechanisms underlying behavioral variability in this population.</p>","PeriodicalId":9715,"journal":{"name":"Cerebral cortex","volume":"35 7","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12265889/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144641907","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Linking gray matter structure to trust in mild cognitive impairment: a voxel-based morphometry study.","authors":"Yiqi Chen, Hao He, Yiyang Ding, Wuhai Tao, Qing Guan, Frank Krueger","doi":"10.1093/cercor/bhaf140","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/cercor/bhaf140","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Older adults with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) exhibit a reduction in trust propensity (TP), which is correlated with heightened affective sensitivity to betrayal. However, the mediating role of this affective component in declining TP in MCI and the influence of structural brain alterations on reduced TP via affect warrant further investigation. We conducted multiple mediation analyses to assess whether differences in TP between MCI and normal healthy controls (NHCs) were mediated by affect, motivation, executive function, and social cognition. Whole-brain mediation analyses identified neural substrates and moderated mediation analyses examined whether structural brain changes influenced TP via affect differently between the two groups. Our results revealed a significant mediating effect of affect on the group difference in TP. Atrophy within the thalamus and anterior insula (AI) in the MCI group was found to contribute to their diminished TP. Furthermore, moderated mediation analysis showed that the influence of the thalamus and AI on TP was mediated by affect within the MCI group but not NHCs. These findings suggest that reduced TP in MCI is primarily driven by the increased sensitivity to betrayal, which is underpinned by structural alterations within salience network regions rather than alterations in other trust-related cognitive domains.</p>","PeriodicalId":9715,"journal":{"name":"Cerebral cortex","volume":"35 7","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144552442","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Cerebral cortexPub Date : 2025-07-01DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhaf156
Ryan Joseph Slaby, Maria Arioli, Marco Tettamanti, Zaira Cattaneo
{"title":"Neural correlates of negative aesthetic evaluations in visual art: a neuroimaging meta-analysis.","authors":"Ryan Joseph Slaby, Maria Arioli, Marco Tettamanti, Zaira Cattaneo","doi":"10.1093/cercor/bhaf156","DOIUrl":"10.1093/cercor/bhaf156","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Neuroaesthetics has focused on investigating positive aesthetic evaluations while neglecting negative aesthetic evaluations. The employment of domain-general neural systems may engender hedonic valuation across an affective space of (dis)pleasure towards artistic and non-artistic stimuli. Hence, we conducted a meta-analysis assessing neural correlates associated with negative aesthetic evaluations towards visual artwork (NAE) and with viewing or evaluating negative non-artistic images from the International Affective Picture System (N-IAPS). Literature search screenings found 16 studies and 16 experiments for the NAE and 46 studies and 47 experiments for the N-IAPS. GingerALE software employed activation likelihood estimation analyses to specify neural correlates within and between NAE and N-IAPS. Meta-analytic results from the NAE solely revealed the right fusiform gyrus encroaching the anterior cerebellum, while activations across frontal, occipital, temporal and subcortical areas were revealed for the N-IAPS. A commonality between the NAE and N-IAPS was revealed within the right fusiform gyrus. These results suggest that the domain-general neural systems are at play across negative visual affective experiences, yet the context of stimulus engagement, such as aesthetic, may modulate how these neural systems are employed. Given the scarcity of results, future research in neuroaesthetics must expand from positive aesthetic evaluations to ascertain neural correlates within negative aesthetic evaluations.</p>","PeriodicalId":9715,"journal":{"name":"Cerebral cortex","volume":"35 7","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12235005/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144583204","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Cerebral cortexPub Date : 2025-07-01DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhaf177
Mingxue Zhan, Huibin Jia
{"title":"The influence of moral characteristics on social pain empathy: evidence from event-related potential and eye-tracking techniques.","authors":"Mingxue Zhan, Huibin Jia","doi":"10.1093/cercor/bhaf177","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/cercor/bhaf177","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Previous studies have revealed that the moral level of targets can influence individuals' empathic responses toward them. Here, we investigated the visual attention patterns and neural mechanisms related to how moral characteristics modulate individuals' empathic responses to social pain via a word-priming social exclusion empathy task in which participants needed to judge whether the target persons with a high or low moral level were excluded or not in social situations. We found that for ERPs, when participants viewed neutral images, a significantly more negative N1 component was evoked in low-moral priming condition and a significantly more positive P3 component was evoked in high-moral priming condition. Regarding eye-tracking metrics, when participants viewed social exclusion images, the fixation time-related metrics under high-moral priming condition were significantly longer than those under low-moral priming condition. We speculate that this may be related to the expected conflict experienced by the participants when they saw high-moral individuals being socially excluded. This expected conflict may have caused attentional avoidance in that situation, which may be related to the relatively lower emotional arousal. This attentional avoidance during the early stage of visual processing resulted in significantly more cognitive resources being invested and longer fixation time-related metrics.</p>","PeriodicalId":9715,"journal":{"name":"Cerebral cortex","volume":"35 7","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144583206","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}