Brain Sciences, Volume 14, Issue 1

Facial movements are crucial for social and emotional interaction and well-being. Reduced facial expressions (i.e., hypomimia) is a common feature in patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) and previous studies linked this manifestation to both...

Whereas traditional histology and light microscopy require multiple steps of formalin fixation, paraffin embedding, and sectioning to generate images for pathologic diagnosis, Microscopy using Ultraviolet Surface Excitation (MUSE) operates through UV...

It is still a matter of debate whether developmental prosopagnosia is a disorder selective to faces or whether object recognition is also affected. In a previous study, based on a small sample of developmental prosopagnosics (DPs; N = 10), we found i...

Biomarkers are observations that provide information about the risk of certain conditions (predictive) or their underlying mechanisms (explanatory) [...]

Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is acknowledged for its non-invasive modulation of neuronal activity in psychiatric disorders. However, its application in insomnia research yields varied outcomes depending on different tDCS types and p...

Individuals with internalizing conditions such as depression or anxiety are at risk of sleep difficulties. Social–ecological models of sleep health propose factors at the individual (e.g., mental health) and neighborhood (e.g., crime risk) leve...

The current literature globally highlights the efficacy of Clozapine in several psychiatric disorders all over the world, with an FDA indication for reducing the risk of repeated suicidal behavior in patients with schizophrenia or schizoaffective dis...

Lithium remains an effective option in the treatment of bipolar disorder (BD). Thus, we aim to characterize the pharmaco-epidemiological patterns of lithium use internationally over time and elucidate clinical correlates associated with BD using a sc...

The dual-process theory of thought rests on the co-existence of two different thinking modalities: a quick, automatic, and associative process opposed to a slow, thoughtful, and deliberative process. The increasing interest in determining the neural...

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a multifactorial disease, with genetic and environmental factors contributing to the disease onset. Classically, PD is a movement disorder characterized by the loss of dopaminergic neurons in the nigrostriatal pathwa...

Single sided deafness (SSD) is characterized by significant sensorineural hearing loss, severe or profound, in only one ear. SSD adversely affects various aspects of auditory perception, including causing impairment in sound localization, difficultie...

Looming motion interacts with threatening emotional cues in the initial stages of visual processing. However, the underlying neural networks are unclear. The current study investigated if the interactive effect of threat elicited by angry and looming...

Sleep state misperception (SSM) is a common issue in insomnia disorder (ID), causing a discrepancy between objective and subjective sleep/wake time estimation and increased daytime impairments. In this context, the hyperarousal theory assumes that su...

There are approximately 24 million cases of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) worldwide, and the number of cases is expected to increase four-fold by 2050. AD is a neurodegenerative disease that leads to severe dementia in most patients. There are sever...

Tinnitus is a prevalent hearing-loss deficit manifested as a phantom (internally generated by the brain) sound that is heard as a high-frequency tone in the majority of afflicted persons. Chronic tinnitus is debilitating, leading to distress, sleep d...

Post-acute COVID-19 syndrome (PCS) is highly prevalent. Critically ill patients requiring intensive care unit (ICU) admission are at a higher risk of developing PCS. The mechanisms underlying PCS are still under investigation and may involve microvas...

Quantum computing and supercomputing are two distinct approaches that can be used to solve complex computational problems [...]

Locked-in syndrome (LIS) is a rare and challenging condition that results in tetraplegia and cranial nerve paralysis while maintaining consciousness and variable cognitive function. Once acute management is completed, it is important to work with the...

Aging often leads to awareness decline and psychological stress. Meditation, a method of modulating consciousness, may help individuals improve overall awareness and increase emotional resilience toward stress. This study explored the potential influ...

Glioblastoma (GBM) is the most aggressive and treatment-resistant brain tumor. In the GBM microenvironment, interaction with microglia is associated with the dysregulation of cytokines, chemokines, and miRNAs, contributing to angiogenesis, proliferat...

Glioblastoma is highly proliferative and invasive. However, the regulatory cytokine networks that promote glioblastoma cell proliferation and invasion into other areas of the brain are not fully defined. In the present study, we define a critical rol...

Calcium and iron are essential elements that regulate many important processes of eukaryotic cells. Failure to maintain homeostasis of calcium and iron causes cell dysfunction or even death. PD (Parkinson’s disease) is the second most common ne...

Cranial electrotherapy stimulation (CES) delivers low-intensity electrical currents to the brain to treat anxiety, depression, and pain. Though CES is considered safe and cost-effective, little is known about side effects emerging across different co...

The predictive coding theory is currently widely accepted as the theoretical basis of perception and chronic perceptual disorders are explained as the maladaptive compensation of the brain to a prediction error. Although this gives us a general frame...

Migraine is a burdensome neurological disorder that still lacks clear and easily accessible diagnostic biomarkers. Furthermore, a straightforward pathway is hard to find for migraineurs’ management, so the search for response predictors has bec...

Children and adolescents with externalizing problems show physiological hypo-reactivity toward affective stimuli, which may relate to their disruptive, antisocial, and thrill-seeking behaviors. This study examines differences in explicit and implicit...

This paper proposes the “calm contact” technique: an imaginative scenario where someone is in gentle contact with a loved one where the essence of the experience is to enjoy safety and calmness in peaceful social contact. The theoretical...

Glioblastoma (GBM) is a primary malignant tumor of the central nervous system responsible for the most deaths among patients with primary brain tumors. Current therapies for GBM are not effective, with the average survival of GBM patients after diagn...

Maintaining standing balance is essential for people to engage in productive activities in daily life. However, the process of interaction between the cortex and the muscles during balance regulation is understudied. Four balance paradigms of differe...

There is a growing awareness of the significance of using minimum clinically important differences (MCIDs) in stroke research. An MCID is the smallest change in an outcome measure that is considered clinically meaningful. This review is the first to...

Chronic cough in children and adolescents can be troublesome both to the patient and the whole family. The most common causes of chronic cough in children are protracted bacterial bronchitis and bronchial asthma. However, differential diagnostic work...

Background: Previous investigations on healthy humans showed conflicting evidence regarding the impact of mood on working memory performance. A systematic investigation of how mood affects apathy levels in healthy participants is currently missing. M...

The prediction of stroke outcome is challenging due to the high inter-individual variability in stroke patients. We recently suggested the adaptation of the concept of brain reserve (BR) to improve the prediction of stroke outcome. This concept was i...

The widespread use of mobile devices and laptops has replaced traditional paper-based learning and the question of how the brain efficiency of digital tablet-based learning differs from that of paper-based learning remains unclear. The purpose of thi...

The vestibular system plays a fundamental role in body orientation, posture control, and spatial and body motion perception, as well as in gaze and eye movements. We aimed to review the current knowledge regarding the location of the cortical and sub...

Beta frequency oscillations originating from the primary motor cortex increase in amplitude following the initiation of voluntary movement, a process termed beta rebound. The strength of beta rebound has been reported to predict the recovery of motor...

Cutting-edge brain imaging techniques, particularly positron emission tomography with Fluorodeoxyglucose (PET/FDG), are being used in conjunction with Artificial Intelligence (AI) to shed light on the neurological symptoms associated with Long COVID....

Background: Dynamic technological development and its enormous impact on modern societies are posing new challenges for 21st-century neuroscience. A special place is occupied by technologies based on virtual reality (VR). VR tools have already played...

Epilepsy represents a condition in which abnormal neuronal discharges or the hyperexcitability of neurons occur with synchronicity, presenting a significant public health challenge. Prognostic factors, such as etiology, electroencephalogram (EEG) abn...

Executive functions are related to the control of cognition, emotion, and behavior. They are essential to lifelong outcomes, including school performance. Naturalistic interventions embedded in children’s daily activities and environments have...

A precise neuropsychological assessment is of the utmost importance for neurosurgical patients undergoing the surgical excision of cerebral lesions. The assessment of mathematical abilities is usually limited to arithmetical operations while other fu...

Concussion may affect sport performance capabilities related to the visual perception of environmental events, rapid decision-making, and the generation of effective movement responses. Immersive virtual reality (VR) offers a means to quantify, and p...

Neuralgic amyotrophy, also called Parsonage–Turner syndrome, in its classic presentation is a brachial plexopathy or a multifocal neuropathy, involving mainly motor nerves of the upper limb with a monophasic course. Recently, a new radiological...

(1) Background: Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) appears to alleviate chronic pain via a brain-down mechanism. Although several review studies have examined the effects of tDCS on patients with chronic pain, no systematic review or meta...

Motor memories can be strengthened through online practice and offline consolidation. Offline consolidation involves the stabilization of memory traces in post-practice periods. Following initial consolidation of a motor memory, subsequent practice o...

Due to similar manifestations, some authors have proposed a potential correlation between autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD). This link has long been recognized and debated, with some authors arguing that the...

Alterations in the various neuropeptide systems in the mesocorticolimbic circuitry have been implicated in negative effects associated with drug withdrawal. The corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF) and α-melanocyte-stimulating hormone are two p...

In population-based cohort studies, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is vital for examining brain structure and function. Advanced MRI techniques, such as diffusion-weighted MRI (dMRI) and resting-state functional MRI (rs-fMRI), provide insights into...

Divergent thinking (DT) is widely considered an essential cognitive dimension of creativity, which involves goal-oriented processes, including working memory (WM), which allows for retrieving and loading of information into the attentional stream and...

Due to the widespread involvement of distributed collaboration triggered by COVID-19, it has become a new trend that has continued into the post-pandemic era. This study investigated collective performance within two collaborative environments (co-lo...