Life Sciences Commons^™

Network-Level Mechanisms Underlying Effects Of Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (Tdcs) On Visuomotor Learning, Pejman Sehatpour, Clément Dondé, Matthew J. Hoptman, Johanna Kreither, Devin Adair, Elisa Dias, Blair Vail, Stephanie Rohrig, Gail Silipo, Javier Lopez-Calderon, Antigona Martinez, Daniel C. Javitt

Publications and Research

Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is a non-invasive brain stimulation approach in which low level currents are administered over the scalp to influence underlying brain function. Prevailing theories of tDCS focus on modulation of excitation-inhibition balance at the local stimulation location. However, network level effects are reported as well, and appear to depend upon differential underlying mechanisms. Here, we evaluated potential network-level effects of tDCS during the Serial Reaction Time Task (SRTT) using convergent EEG- and fMRI-based connectivity approaches. Motor learning manifested as a significant (p <.0001) shift from slow to fast responses and corresponded to a significant increase in beta-coherence (p <.0001) and fMRI connectivity (p <.01) particularly within the visual-motor pathway. Differential patterns of tDCS effect were observed within different parametric task versions, consistent with network models. Overall, these findings demonstrate objective physiological effects of tDCS at the network level that result in effective behavioral modulation when tDCS parameters are matched to network-level requirements of the underlying task.

Applications Of Non-Invasive Neuromodulation For The Management Of Disorders Related To Covid-19, Abrahão Fontes Baptista, Adriana Baltar, Alexandre Hideki Okano, Alexandre Moreira, Ana Carolina Pinheiro Campos, Ana Mércia Fernandes, André Russowsky Brunoni, Bashar W. Badran, Clarice Tanaka, Daniel Ciampi De Andrade, Daniel Gomes Da Silva Machado, Edgard Morya, Eduardo Trujillo, Jaiti K. Swami, Joan A. Camprodon, Katia Monte-Silva, Katia Nunes Sá, Isadora Nunes, Juliana Barbosa Goulardins, Marom Bikson, Pedro Sudbrack-Oliveira, Priscila De Carvalho, Rafael Jardim Duarte-Moreira, Rosana Lima Pagano, Samuel Katsuyuki Shinjo, Yossi Zana

Publications and Research

Background: Novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) morbidity is not restricted to the respiratory system, but also affects the nervous system. Non-invasive neuromodulation may be useful in the treatment of the disorders associated with COVID-19.

Objective: To describe the rationale and empirical basis of the use of non-invasive neuromodulation in the management of patients with COVID-10 and related disorders.

Methods: We summarize COVID-19 pathophysiology with emphasis of direct neuroinvasiveness, neuroimmune response and inflammation, autonomic balance and neurological, musculoskeletal and neuropsychiatric sequela. This supports the development of a framework for advancing applications of non-invasive neuromodulation in the management COVID-19 and related disorders.

Results: …

Multimodal Computational Modeling Of Visual Object Recognition Deficits But Intact Repetition Priming In Schizophrenia, Pejman Sehatpour, Anahita Bassir Nia, Devin Adair, Zhishun Wang, Heloise M. Debaun, Gail Silipo, Antigona Martinez, Daniel C. Javitt

Publications and Research

The term perceptual closure refers to the neural processes responsible for “filling-in” missing information in the visual image under highly adverse viewing conditions such as fog or camouflage. Here we used a closure task that required the participants to identify barely recognizable fragmented line-drawings of common objects. Patients with schizophrenia have been shown to perform poorly on this task. Following priming, controls and importantly patients can complete the line-drawings at greater levels of fragmentation behaviorally, suggesting an improvement in their ability to performthe task. Closure phenomena have been shown to involve a distributed network of cortical regions, notably the lateral …

Update On The Use Of Transcranial Electrical Brain Stimulation To Manage Acute And Chronic Covid-19 Symptoms, Giuseppina Pilloni, Marom Bikson, Bashar W. Badran, Mark S. George, Steven A. Kautz, Alexandre Hideki Okano, Abrahão Fontes Baptista, Leigh E. Charvet

Publications and Research

The coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) pandemic has resulted in the urgent need to develop and deploy treatment approaches that can minimize mortality and morbidity. As infection, resulting illness, and the often prolonged recovery period continue to be characterized, therapeutic roles for transcranial electrical stimulation (tES) have emerged as promising non-pharmacological interventions. tES techniques have established therapeutic potential for managing a range of conditions relevant to COVID-19 illness and recovery, and may further be relevant for the general management of increased mental health problems during this time. Furthermore, these tES techniques can be inexpensive, portable, and allow for trained self-administration. Here, …

Visual Corticocortical Inputs To Ferret Area 18, Reem Khalil, Moody Roberne Jensy Saint Louis, Shaima Alsuwaidi, Jonathan B. Levitt

Publications and Research

Visual cortical areas in the adult mammalian brain are linked by a network of interareal feedforward and feedback circuits. We investigated the topography of feedback projections to ferret (Mustela putorius furo) area 18 from extrastriate areas 19, 21, and Ssy. Our objective was to characterize the anatomical organization of the extrastriate feedback pool to area 18. We also wished to determine if feedback projections to area 18 share similar features as feedback projections to area 17. We injected the tracer cholera toxin B subunit (CTb) into area 18 of adult ferrets to visualize the distribution and pattern of retrogradely labeled …

Olfaction Modulates Inter-Subject Correlation Of Neural Responses, Paul Deguzman, Anshul Jain, Matthias H. Tabert, Lucas C. Parra

Publications and Research

Odors can be powerful stimulants. It is well-established that odors provide strong cues for recall of locations, people and events. The effects of specific scents on other cognitive functions are less well-established. We hypothesized that scents with different odor qualities will have a different effect on attention. To assess attention, we used Inter-Subject Correlation of the EEG because this metric is strongly modulated by attentional engagement with natural audiovisual stimuli.We predicted that scents known to be “energizing” would increase Inter-Subject Correlation during watching of videos as compared to “calming” scents. In a first experiment, we confirmed this for eucalyptol and …

Circuits With Broken Fibration Symmetries Perform Core Logic Computations In Biological Networks, Ian Leifer, Flaviano Morone, Saulo D. S. Reis, José S. Andrade Jr., Mariano Sigman, Hernán A. Makse

Publications and Research

We show that logic computational circuits in gene regulatory networks arise from a fibration symmetry breaking in the network structure. From this idea we implement a constructive procedure that reveals a hierarchy of genetic circuits, ubiquitous across species, that are surprising analogues to the emblematic circuits of solid-state electronics: starting from the transistor and progressing to ring oscillators, current-mirror circuits to toggle switches and flip-flops. These canonical variants serve fundamental operations of synchronization and clocks (in their symmetric states) and memory storage (in their broken symmetry states). These conclusions introduce a theoretically principled strategy to search for computational building blocks …

Functional Connectivity Of Eeg Is Subject-Specific, Associated With Phenotype, And Different From Fmri, Maximilian Nentwich, Lei Ai, Jens Madsen, Qawi K. Telesford, Stefan Haufe, Michael P. Milham, Lucas C. Parra

Publications and Research

A variety of psychiatric, behavioral and cognitive phenotypes have been linked to brain ‘’functional connectivity’’ -- the pattern of correlation observed between different brain regions. Most commonly assessed using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), here, we investigate the connectivity-phenotype associations with functional connectivity measured with electroencephalography (EEG), using phase-coupling. We analyzed data from the publicly available Healthy Brain Network Biobank. This database compiles a growing sample of children and adolescents, currently encompassing 1657 individuals. Among a variety of assessment instruments we focus on ten phenotypic and additional demographic measures that capture most of the variance in this sample. The largest …

Two Nights Of Recovery Sleep Restores Hippocampal Connectivity But Not Episodic Memory After Total Sleep Deprivation, Ya Chai, Zhuo Fang, Fan Nils Yang, Sihua Xu, Yao Deng, Andrew Raine, Jieqiong Wang, Meichen Yu, Mathias Basner, Namni Goel, Junghoon J. Kim, David A. Wolk, John A. Detre, David F. Dinges, Hengyi Rao

Publications and Research

Sleep deprivation significantly impairs a range of cognitive and brain function, particularly episodic memory and the underlying hippocampal function. However, it remains controversial whether one or two nights of recovery sleep following sleep deprivation fully restores brain and cognitive function. In this study, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and examined the effects of two consecutive nights (20-hour time-in-bed) of recovery sleep on resting-state hippocampal connectivity and episodic memory deficits following one night of total sleep deprivation (TSD) in 39 healthy adults in a controlled in-laboratory protocol. TSD significantly reduced memory performance in a scene recognition task, impaired hippocampal …

Can Transcranial Electrical Stimulation Motor Threshold Estimate Individualized Tdcs Doses Over The Prefrontal Cortex? Evidence From Reverse-Calculation Electric Field Modeling, Kevin A. Caulfield, Bashar W. Badran, Xingbao Li, Marom Bikson, Mark S. George

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Transcranial Electrical Stimulation Motor Threshold Can Estimate Individualized Tdcs Dosage From Reverse-Calculation Electric-Field Modeling, Kevin A. Caulfield, Bashar W. Badran, William H. Devries, Philipp M. Summers, Emma Kofmehl, Xingbao Li, Jeffrey J. Borckardt, Marom Bikson, Mark S. George

Publications and Research

Background

Unique amongst brain stimulation tools, transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) currently lacks an easy or widely implemented method for individualizing dosage.

Objective

We developed a method of reverse-calculating electric-field (E-field) models based on Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scans that can estimate individualized tDCS dose. We also evaluated an MRI-free method of individualizing tDCS dose by measuring transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) motor threshold (MT) and single pulse, suprathreshold transcranial electrical stimulation (TES) MT and regressing it against E-field modeling. Key assumptions of reverse-calculation E-field modeling, including the size of region of interest (ROI) analysis and the linearity of multiple E-field …

Transcutaneous Auricular Vagus Nerve Stimulation-Paired Rehabilitation For Oromotor Feeding Problems In Newborns: An Open-Label Pilot Study, Bashar W. Badran, Dorothea D. Jenkins, Daniel Cook, Sean Thompson, Morgan Darcy, William H. Devries, Georgia Mappin, Philipp Summers, Marom Bikson, Mark S. George

Publications and Research

Neonates born premature or who suffer brain injury at birth often have oral feeding dysfunction and do not meet oral intake requirements needed for discharge. Low oral intake volumes result in extended stays in the hospital (>2 months) and can lead to surgical implant and explant of a gastrostomy tube (G-tube). Prior work suggests pairing vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) with motor activity accelerates functional improvements after stroke, and transcutaneous auricular VNS (taVNS) has emerged as promising noninvasive form of VNS. Pairing taVNS with bottle-feeding rehabilitation may improve oromotor coordination and lead to improved oral intake volumes, ultimately avoiding the …

Carbon Dioxide Attracts Nesting Behavior In Captive African Naked Mole-Rats, Dan Mccloskey

Publications and Research

This dataset contains raw Radio Frequency Identification data for a 185 hour gas infusion study conducted in the TT-2 colony at the College of Staten Island in May-June 2019. The purpose of this experiment was to determine whether colony members would be attracted to a chamber with elevated carbon dioxide levels matching the highest values recorded in the typical colony nest. The results show a significant attraction to the CO2-infused chamber during and after the period of CO2 in=fusion, with the relocation of the colony nest to this site for the first time in the history of this colony. These …

Enhanced Tes And Tdcs Computational Models By Meninges Emulation, Jimmy Jiang, Dennis Q. Truong, Zeinab Esmaeilpour, Yu Huang, Bashar W. Badran, Marom Bikson

Publications and Research

Objective. Understanding how current reaches the brain during transcranial electrical stimulation (tES) underpins efforts to rationalize outcomes and optimize interventions. To this end, computational models of current flow relate applied dose to brain electric field. Conventional tES modeling considers distinct tissues like scalp, skull, cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), gray matter and white matter. The properties of highly conductive CSF are especially important. However, modeling the space between skull and brain as entirely CSF is not an accurate representation of anatomy. The space conventionally modeled as CSF is approximately half meninges (dura, arachnoid, and pia) with lower conductivity. However, the resolution …

Cis-Regulatory Analysis Of Onecut1 Expression In Fate-Restricted Retinal Progenitor Cells, Sruti Patoori, Nathalie Jean-Charles, Ariana Gopal, Sacha Sulaiman, Sneha Gopal, Brian Wang, Benjamin Souferi, Mark Emerson

Publications and Research

Background: The vertebrate retina consists of six major classes of neuronal cells. During development, these cells are generated from a pool of multipotent retinal progenitor cells (RPCs) that express the gene Vsx2. Fate-restricted RPCs have recently been identified, with limited mitotic potential and cell fate possibilities compared to multipotent RPCs. One population of fate-restricted RPCs, marked by activity of the regulatory element ThrbCRM1, gives rise to both cone photoreceptors and horizontal cells. These cells do not express Vsx2, but co-express the transcription factors (TFs) Onecut1 and Otx2, which bind to ThrbCRM1. The components of the gene regulatory networks that control …

Learning And Motivation For Rewards In Schizophrenia: Implications For Behavioral Rehabilitation, Victoria Martin, Alexandra Brereton, Jicheng Tang

Publications and Research

Purpose of review: Impaired reward processing and amotivation are well documented in schizophrenia. We aim to review the current state of neuroimaging and behavioral research addressing components of motivational deficits in this complex and impairing syndrome. Evidence will be integrated to inform the ongoing development of effective strategies for behavioral rehabilitation. Recent findings: While striatal dopamine and aberrant reward prediction errors have been connected to amotivation in schizophrenia, they are not sufficiently full explanations of reward processing impairments. Frontal dysfunction and associated cognitive control deficits also have evidenced involvement in atypical reward prediction, learning, and valuation. Ongoing work supports the …

Barrels Xxxii Meeting Report: Whiskers In The Windy City, Giuseppe Cataldo, Chia-Chien Chen, Alicia C. Barrientos, Joshua C. Brumberg

Publications and Research

The 32^nd Annual Barrels meeting was hosted at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, Illinois on October 17^th and 18^th, 2019. The annual meeting brings together researchers who utilize the rodent whisker-to-barrel system as a means to understand cortical function and development. This year’s meeting focused on social behaviors, development and cerebellar functions within the barrel system and beyond.

Polygenic Risk Score Analysis Revealed Shared Genetic Background In Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder And Narcolepsy, Nagahide Takahashi, Tomoko Nishimura, Taeko Harada, Akemi Okumura, Damee Choi, Toshiki Iwabuchi, Hitoshi Kuwabara, Shu Takagi, Yoko Nomura, Jeffrey H. Newcorn, Nori Takei, Kenji J. Tsuchiya

Publications and Research

Attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD) is a highly heritable neurodevelopmental disorder, and excessive daytime sleepiness is frequently observed in ADHD patients. Excessive daytime sleepiness is also a core symptom of narcolepsy and essential hypersomnia (EHS), which are also heritable conditions. Psychostimulants are effective for the symptomatic control of ADHD (primary recommended intervention) and the two sleep disorders (frequent off-label use). However, the common biological mechanism for these disorders has not been well understood. Using a previously collected genome-wide association study of narcolepsy and EHS, we calculated polygenic risk scores (PRS) for each individual. We investigated a possible genetic association between …

A Kinesin Adapter Directly Mediates Dendritic Mrna Localization During Neural Development In Mice, Hao Wu, Jing Zhou, Tianhui Zhu, Ivan Cohen, Jason Dictenberg

Publications and Research

Motor protein-based active transport is essential for mRNA localization and local translation in animal cells, yet how mRNA granules interact with motor proteins remains poorly understood. Using an unbiased yeast two–hybrid screen for interactions between murine RNA-binding proteins (RBPs) and motor proteins, here we identified protein interaction with APP tail-1 (PAT1) as a potential direct adapter between zipcode-binding protein 1 (ZBP1, a β-actin RBP) and the kinesin-I motor complex. The amino acid sequence of mouse PAT1 is similar to that of the kinesin light chain (KLC), and we found that PAT1 binds to KLC directly. Studying PAT1 in mouse …