Trends in Neurosciences
November 1, 2024
Cecilia Anna Brunello, Cecilia Cannarozzo, Eero Castrén
29 citations
Antidepressant drugs promote neuronal plasticity, and activation of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) signaling through its receptor neuronal receptor tyrosine kinase 2 (NTRK2 or TRKB) is among the critical steps in this process. These mechanisms are shared by typical slow-acting antidepressants, fast-acting ketamine, and psychedelic compounds, although the cellular targets of each drug...
Trends in Neurosciences
October 1, 2024
Natalia Zaretskaya
2 citations
A recent study by Wu, Podvalny, and colleagues investigated how ongoing spontaneous brain activity interacts with sensory input and shapes conscious perception. It reports diverse effects of prestimulus activity in several key networks, revealing new roles of the prefrontal cortex and the default mode network in perception and consciousness.
Trends in Neurosciences
May 31, 2024
Andrea I. Luppi, Fernando E. Rosas, Pedro A. M. Mediano et al.
23 citations
Disentangling how cognitive functions emerge from the interplay of brain dynamics and network architecture is among the major challenges that neuroscientists face. Pharmacological and pathological perturbations of consciousness provide a lens to investigate these complex challenges. Here, we review how recent advances about consciousness and the brain's functional organisation have been driven...
Trends in Neurosciences
April 1, 2024
Célia Lacaux, Mélanie Strauss, Tristan A Bekinschtein et al.
Sleep is crucial for many vital functions and has been extensively studied. By contrast, the sleep-onset period (SOP), often portrayed as a mere prelude to sleep, has been largely overlooked and remains poorly characterized. Recent findings, however, have reignited interest in this transitional period and have shed light on its neural mechanisms, cognitive dynamics, and clinical implications....
Trends in Neurosciences
December 1, 2023
Jaan Aru, Matthew E Larkum, James M Shine
Interactions with large language models (LLMs) have led to the suggestion that these models may soon be conscious. From the perspective of neuroscience, this position is difficult to defend. For one, the inputs to LLMs lack the embodied, embedded information content characteristic of our sensory contact with the world around us. Secondly, the architectures of present-day artificial intelligence...
Trends in Neurosciences
September 1, 2021
Rufin Vanrullen, Ryota Kanai
Recent advances in deep learning have allowed artificial intelligence (AI) to reach near human-level performance in many sensory, perceptual, linguistic, and cognitive tasks. There is a growing need, however, for novel, brain-inspired cognitive architectures. The Global Workspace Theory (GWT) refers to a large-scale system integrating and distributing information among networks of specialized...
Trends in Neurosciences
December 21, 2020
Neil K. Savalia, Ling-Xiao Shao, Alex C. Kwan
110 citations
Pilot studies have hinted that serotonergic psychedelics such as psilocybin may relieve depression, and could possibly do so by promoting neural plasticity. Intriguingly, another psychotomimetic compound, ketamine, is a fast-acting antidepressant and induces synapse formation. The similarities in behavioral and neural effects have been puzzling because the compounds target distinct molecular...
Trends in Neurosciences
December 10, 2019
Tim Bayne, Anil K. Seth, Marcello Massimini
146 citations
Awareness may persist in fully disconnected cortical islands.We identify both natural and artificial examples of potential islands of awareness.Detecting islands of awareness poses difficult but often addressable challenges.The possibility of islands of awareness raises important ethical and legal issues.The discovery of islands of awareness would have important implications for debates about...
Trends in Neurosciences
April 1, 2009
Javier González-Maeso, Stuart C. Sealfon
Research on psychedelics such as lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) and dissociative drugs such as phencyclidine (PCP) and the symptoms, neurochemical abnormalities and treatment of schizophrenia have converged. The effects of hallucinogenic drugs resemble some of the core symptoms of schizophrenia. Some atypical antipsychotic drugs were identified by their high affinity for serotonin 5-HT(2A)...
Trends in Neurosciences
June 1, 2001
F R Sharp, M Tomitaka, M Bernaudin et al.
Non-competitive NMDA receptor antagonists, such as phencyclidine, ketamine and MK801, produce psychosis in humans. These drugs also produce injury to cingulate-retrosplenial cortex in adult rodents that can be prevented by GABA-receptor agonists and antipsychotics such as haloperidol and clozapine. MK801 injections into anterior thalamus reproduce limbic cortex injury, and GABA-receptor agonist...
Trends in Neurosciences
November 1, 1996
N Block
120 citations
There are two concepts of consciousness, access consciousness and phenomenal consciousness. But just as the concepts of water and H2O are different concepts of the same thing, so the two concepts of consciousness might come to the same thing in the brain. Some recent papers by Crick and Koch raise issues that suggest that these two concepts of consciousness might have different (though...