Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience | New and Recent Articles

BackgroundThis paper addresses a critical challenge in developing practical EEG-based brain-computer interfaces (BCIs): enhancing cross-subject generalization by mitigating individual differences in brain signals. How can we effectively leverage data from existing subjects to improve performance for a new user with minimal subject-specific calibration?MethodsWe systematically compare and optimize…

IntroductionVolatile anesthetics, such as isoflurane, generate a state of unconsciousness and analgesia across the animal kingdom and are widely used in clinical settings. Yet, anesthetic mechanisms are poorly understood: the volatile anesthetics are so profligate in their potential effects that it has proven difficult to determine which actions are most causal at the systems level.MethodsTo test…

ObjectiveThe aim of this study is to investigate whether treadmill exercise alleviates motor dysfunction in a mouse model of Parkinson’s disease (PD) by modulating the excitability of striatal medium spiny neurons expressing dopamine type 2 receptors (D2-MSNs).MethodsA unilateral 6-hydroxydopamine (6-OHDA) injection was performed in the right striatum of D2-Cre mice to establish a hemi-lesioned P…

ObjectivesThe interplay between emotion and memory is a central topic in cognitive neuroscience, with open questions about the underlying neuronal mechanisms. This article aims to study the effects of order and intensity of emotional information on associative memory encoding. To this aim, we employ dynamic causal modeling to model the dynamic network composed of the hippocampus, amygdala, and or…

IntroductionUnderstanding how artificial neural networks (ANNs) can capture biologically meaningful dynamics is a central challenge in systems neuroscience. In this work, we investigate whether spiking neural networks (SNNs) can function not only as machine-learning tools but also as biologically inspired computational analogs and tractable testbeds for studying pathological neural dynamics.Metho…

IntroductionAffective disorders (ADs) are characterized by profound emotional processing deficits involving disrupted neural network activity and connectivity, particularly within the default mode network and fronto-temporal circuits, with abnormalities in theta and alpha oscillatory patterns. While current treatments primarily target mood symptoms, emotional processing impairments often persist …

BackgroundHuman conversation involves moment-to-moment reciprocal adjustments between interlocutors, expressed through both emotional cues and autonomic physiology.ObjectivesTo quantify how physiological synchrony continuously builds and subsides between debate partners during speaker-listener turn-taking, and to test whether the direction of this coupling (speaker-leading vs listener-leading) is…

Binocular vision requires that the brain integrate input from both eyes to form a unified percept. Small interocular differences support depth perception (stereopsis), while larger disparities can cause diplopia or binocular rivalry. The neural mechanisms by which early visual circuits process concordant versus conflicting binocular signals remain incompletely understood. Here, we used visually e…

IntroductionPostoperative cognitive decline, at least transiently, is considered a prevalent and significant complication in elderly patients undergoing surgery. If the mechanisms that underlie it impact brain function intraoperatively, an effective intraoperative marker of brain dysfunction would be useful. However, to date, there is no consensus marker for this aim. We have developed an EEG-bas…

IntroductionUnilateral cerebral palsy (UCP) results from early brain injury, leading to motor impairments primarily affecting one upper limb. Action Observation Therapy (AOT), which engages the mirror neuron system to enhance motor function, represents a promising rehabilitative approach. However, its efficacy in UCP has been inconsistent across studies, possibly due to methodological differences…

BackgroundUnconscious/implicit processes are increasingly conceptualized as biologically instantiated, multisystem regulatory functions rather than purely psychological constructs. This review examines whether an integrative framework linking psychoneuroimmuneendocrine (PINE) regulation, epigenetic mechanisms, and principles of morphogenetic organization can help organize evidence relevant to “un…

Valence detection in complex environment is critical for natural behaviors like foraging. Previous studies have explored valence processing in brain regions like lateral horn (LH) and mushroom body (MB) using simple synthetic stimuli in Drosophila. However, the neural basis for valence detection of natural objects in complex contexts remains unclear. Here, by brain-wide connectome analysis, we id…

Learning disabilities in children are exhibited through difficulties in reading and writing due to lack of cognitive skills. It is generally diagnosed by analyzing the behavior and processing capacity of children by understanding their academic candidature. This can also be evidenced by capturing and analyzing their working memory patterns in the brain that show the effectiveness of therapeutic i…

Recent interdisciplinary research has raised interest in whether non-classical physical principles may impose fundamental constraints on how neural information can be observed, extracted, or decoded. While conventional neuroscience models neural signaling primarily through classical electrochemical processes, a growing body of theoretical literature has speculated that quantum-mechanical concepts…

Brain function is not simply the sum of individual neuronal activities, but rather emerges from functional neural circuits comprising thousands to millions of neurons with specific topological structures and dynamic properties. Investigating the functions and information-processing architectures of these neural circuits is essential for understanding how the brain performs “computation” and “oper…

PurposeElectrooculography (EOG) provides a noninvasive measure of eye movements linked to affective processing, yet it is mainly used for artifact correction of electroencephalography (EEG) signals rather than analyzed as a physiological signal in its own right. EEG–EOG coupling has therefore not been well-established. This study aimed to determine whether emotion-specific changes in arousal and …

Pyramidal cells in the dorsal hippocampus (dCA1) are excitatory neurons modulated by environmental cues. While a population of dCA1 cells encodes spatial location, other groups are activated by reward probability and encounters. Since “rewards” are predicted at “locations,” we sought to determine how spatiotemporal coding patterns in the dCA1 resolve contextual preference and subsequent change in…