Neuron
August 16, 2023
Dian Lyu, James Robert Stieger, Cindy Xin et al.
To probe the causal importance of the human posteromedial cortex (PMC) in processing the sense of self, we studied a rare cohort of nine patients with electrodes implanted bilaterally in the precuneus, posterior cingulate, and retrosplenial regions with a combination of neuroimaging, intracranial recordings, and direct cortical stimulations. In all participants, the stimulation of specific...
Neuron
May 10, 2023
Vinod Menon
832 citations
The discovery of the default mode network (DMN) has revolutionized our understanding of the workings of the human brain. Here, I review developments that led to the discovery of the DMN, offer a personal reflection, and consider how our ideas of DMN function have evolved over the past two decades. I summarize literature examining the role of the DMN in self-reference, social cognition, episodic...
Neuron
February 1, 2023
Nephi Stella
Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and its sibling, cannabidiol (CBD), are produced by the same Cannabis plant and have similar chemical structures but differ dramatically in their mechanisms of action and effects on brain functions. Both THC and CBD exhibit promising therapeutic properties; however, impairments and increased incidence of mental health diseases are associated with acute and chronic...
Neuron
January 20, 2023
Ceyda Sayalı, Frederick S. Barrett
40 citations
Anecdotal evidence has indicated that psychedelic substances may acutely enhance creative task performance, although empirical support for this claim is mixed at best. Clinical research has shown that psychedelics might have enduring effects on mood and well-being. However, there is no neurocognitive framework that ties acute changes in cognition to long-term effects in mood. In this review, we...
Neuron
October 5, 2022
Can Cao, Ximena Barros-Álvarez, Shicheng Zhang et al.
158 citations
Serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine [5-HT]) 5-HT2-family receptors represent essential targets for lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) and all other psychedelic drugs. Although the primary psychedelic drug effects are mediated by the 5-HT2A serotonin receptor (HTR2A), the 5-HT2B serotonin receptor (HTR2B) has been used as a model receptor to study the activation mechanisms of psychedelic drugs due to...
Neuron
July 1, 2022
Li Ma, Kenji Hashimoto
In this issue of Neuron, Lopez et al. report that KCNQ2 (potassium voltage-gated channel subfamily Q member 2) is essential for the sustained antidepressant-like effects of ketamine in glutamatergic neurons of the ventral hippocampus. This study implies that KCNQ2 activators can be novel antidepressants without the ketamine side effects.
Neuron
May 1, 2022
J. Lopez, M. Lücken, E. Brivio et al.
78 citations
A single sub-anesthetic dose of ketamine produces a rapid and sustained antidepressant response, yet the molecular mechanisms responsible for this remain unclear. Here, we identified cell-type-specific transcriptional signatures associated with a sustained ketamine response in mice. Most interestingly, we identified the Kcnq2 gene as an important downstream regulator of ketamine action in...
Neuron
July 16, 2021
Yitzhak Norman, Omri Raccah, Su Liu et al.
SUMMARY Hippocampal ripples are prominent synchronization events generated by hippocampal neuronal assemblies. To date, ripples have been primarily associated with navigational memory in rodents and shortterm episodic recollections in humans. Here, we uncover different profiles of ripple activity in the human hippocampus during the retrieval of recent and remote autobiographical events and...
Neuron
July 5, 2021
Ling-Xiao Shao, Clara Liao, Ian Gregg et al.
589 citations
Summary Psilocybin is a serotonergic psychedelic with untapped therapeutic potential. There are hints that the use of psychedelics can produce neural adaptations, although the extent and time scale of the impact in a mammalian brain are unknown. In this study, we used chronic two-photon microscopy to image longitudinally the apical dendritic spines of layer 5 pyramidal neurons in the mouse...
Neuron
December 1, 2020
Jennifer D. Whitesell, Adam Liska, Ludovico Coletta et al.
Summary The evolutionarily conserved default mode network (DMN) is a distributed set of brain regions coactivated during resting states that is vulnerable to brain disorders. How disease affects the DMN is unknown, but detailed anatomical descriptions could provide clues. Mice offer an opportunity to investigate structural connectivity of the DMN across spatial scales with cell-type resolution....
Neuron
March 1, 2020
George A. Mashour, Pieter R Roelfsema, Jean-Pierre Changeux et al.
We review the central tenets and neuroanatomical basis of the global neuronal workspace (GNW) hypothesis, which attempts to account for the main scientific observations regarding the elementary mechanisms of conscious processing in the human brain. The GNW hypothesis proposes that, in the conscious state, a non-linear network ignition associated with recurrent processing amplifies and sustains...
Neuron
January 22, 2020
Michelle J. Redinbaugh, Jessica M. Phillips, Niranjan A. Kambi et al.
preprint
SUMMARY: Functional MRI and electrophysiology studies suggest consciousness depends on large-scale thalamocortical and corticocortical interactions. However, it is unclear how neurons in different cortical layers and circuits contribute. We simultaneously recorded from central lateral thalamus (CL) and across layers of frontoparietal cortex in awake, sleeping and anesthetized macaques. We found...
Neuron
March 1, 2019
John H. Krystal, Chadi G. Abdallah, Gerard Sanacora et al.
443 citations
Ketamine is the first exemplar of a rapid-acting antidepressant with efficacy for treatment-resistant symptoms of mood disorders. Its discovery emerged from a reconceptualization of the biology of depression. Neurobiological insights into ketamine efficacy shed new light on the mechanisms underlying antidepressant efficacy. The rapid, profound, and sustainable antidepressant effects of ketamine...
Neuron
November 7, 2018
Bo Liang, Lifeng Zhang, Giovanni Barbera et al.
The medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) is important for social behavior, but the mechanisms by which mPFC neurons code real-time social exploration remain largely unknown. Here we utilized miniScopes to record calcium activities from hundreds of excitatory neurons in the mPFC while mice freely explored restrained social targets in the absence or presence of the psychedelic drug phencyclidine...
Neuron
June 6, 2018
Daesoo Kim, Eunji Cheong, Hee-Sup Shin
The N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (NMDAR) antagonist ketamine has been found to have rapid and long-lasting antidepressive effects. Two elegant studies from Hailan Hu's laboratory (Cui et al., 2018; Yang et al., 2018) showed that ketamine blocks burst firing of neurons in the lateral habenula (LHb), rapidly relieving symptoms of depression.
Neuron
December 8, 2016
J. Winawer, J. Parvizi
Summary Electrical brain stimulation (EBS) complements neural measurements by probing the causal relationship between brain and perception, cognition, and action. Many fundamental questions about EBS remain unanswered, including the spatial extent of cortex responsive to stimulation, and the relationship between the circuitry engaged by EBS and the types of neural responses elicited by sensory...
Neuron
December 7, 2016
Jean-Rémi King, Niccolo Pescetelli, Stanislas Dehaene
Recent evidence of unconscious working memory challenges the notion that only visible stimuli can be actively maintained over time. In the present study, we investigated the neural dynamics underlying the maintenance of variably visible stimuli using magnetoencephalography. Subjects had to detect and mentally maintain the orientation of a masked grating. We show that the stimulus is fully...
Neuron
August 5, 2015
Tsvetan Serchov, H. Clement, M. Schwarz et al.
SUMMARY Major depressive disorder is among the most commonly diagnosed disabling mental diseases. Several non-pharmacological treatments of depression upregulate adenosine concentration and/or adenosine A1 receptors (A1R) in the brain. To test whether enhanced A1R signaling mediates antidepressant effects, we generated a transgenic mouse with enhanced doxycycline-regulated A1R expression,...
Neuron
April 10, 2013
S. Schobel, Nashid H Chaudhury, Usman A. Khan et al.
SUMMARY The hippocampus in schizophrenia is characterized by both hypermetabolism and reduced size. It remains unknown whether these abnormalities are mechanistically linked. Here, in addressing these questions we used MRI tools that can map hippocampal metabolism and structure in patients and mouse models. In at-risk patients, hypermetabolism was found to begin in CA1 and spread to the...
Neuron
April 28, 2011
Silvio Ionta, Lukas Heydrich, Bigna Lenggenhager et al.
Self-consciousness has mostly been approached by philosophical enquiry and not by empirical neuroscientific study, leading to an overabundance of diverging theories and an absence of data-driven theories. Using robotic technology, we achieved specific bodily conflicts and induced predictable changes in a fundamental aspect of self-consciousness by altering where healthy subjects experienced...
Neuron
April 28, 2011
Salvatore M. Aglioti, Matteo Candidi
In this issue of Neuron, Ionta et al. (2011) combine behavioral and fMRI approaches with anatomical lesion data to show that illusory perception of one's own body from an external point of view or at a different physical location is linked to modulation of neural activity in the temporo-parietal-junction, a cortical region fundamental to body-consciousness.
Neuron
April 28, 2011
Stanislas Dehaene, Jean-Pierre Changeux
Recent experimental studies and theoretical models have begun to address the challenge of establishing a causal link between subjective conscious experience and measurable neuronal activity. The present review focuses on the well-delimited issue of how an external or internal piece of information goes beyond nonconscious processing and gains access to conscious processing, a transition...
Neuron
February 10, 2011
Patrick Haggard
In this issue of Neuron, Fried et al. report electrical recordings from single neurons in several areas of the human medial frontal lobe prior to voluntary movement. These data shed important new light on the neuronal mechanisms of human volition and on the hotly debated relation between consciousness and will.
Neuron
February 1, 2010
Cosimo Urgesi, Salvatore M. Aglioti, Miran Skrap et al.
220 citations
The predisposition of human beings toward spiritual feeling, thinking, and behaviors is measured by a supposedly stable personality trait called self-transcendence. Although a few neuroimaging studies suggest that neural activation of a large fronto-parieto-temporal network may underpin a variety of spiritual experiences, information on the causative link between such a network and spirituality...
Neuron
February 1, 2007
Javier González-Maeso, Noelia V Weisstaub, Mingming Zhou et al.
Hallucinogens, including mescaline, psilocybin, and lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), profoundly affect perception, cognition, and mood. All known drugs of this class are 5-HT(2A) receptor (2AR) agonists, yet closely related 2AR agonists such as lisuride lack comparable psychoactive properties. Why only certain 2AR agonists are hallucinogens and which neural circuits mediate their effects are...