Prefrontal cortex: is the most anterior part of the frontal lobe in the human brain. The prefrontal cortex is critical for executive functions in humans, which includes decision making, planning, short-term memory retention, and speech production. The prefrontal cortex is thought to have developed and expanded more recently, in terms of evolution, and is larger in humans than it is in non-human primates. As such, the prefrontal cortex is thought to play a major role in the unique characteristics that make humans different from our primate ancestors.
Cortical circuits often receive multiple inputs from upstream populations with non-overlapping stimulus tuning. Both the feedforward and recurrent architectures of the receiving cortical lay...
Learning Objections: 1. To learn a new approach to understanding brain function by creating networks to perform tasks using machine learning. 2. To learn how how to probe these networks to d...
The dopamine D4 receptor (D4R) is enriched in the prefrontal cortex where it plays important roles in cognition, attention, decision making and executive function. Novel D4R-selective ligand...
Substantial evidence demonstrates that schizophrenia involves a dysregulated dopamine system, potentially driven by overactivity in the hippocampus. Postmortem studies of schizophrenia brains...
The size and burden of mental illness should ideally prompt a strategy of preemption and early intervention. On the neuroscientific side, this leads to the question of brain mechanisms of ris...
Humans have a remarkable ability to flexibly interact with the environment. A compelling demonstration of this cognitive flexibility is our ability to perform complex, yet previously un-pract...
In consciousness studies, a longstanding controversy concerns whether activity in the prefrontal cortical (PFC) region of the brain is necessary to evoke conscious experiences. Similarly, the...
How does a low-level sensory representation rise into conscious awareness? What determines whether higher-order cortical areas have access to the representational content in sensory regions?...
Specialized aggregations of extracellular matrix called perineuronal nets (PNNs) appear during juvenile stages of development and surround primarily fast-spiking, parvalbumin (PV)-containing...
Working memory ability matures late in life, in adolescence or early adulthood, and may be enhanced even in adulthood through cognitive training. The mechanisms through which working memory i...
The idea of schizophrenia typically conjures up images of people who hear voices, see visions and have delusional beliefs. However, clinicians have long recognized cognitive dysfunction as on...
Parkinson’s disease (PD) is characterized by the loss of dopamine and the disruption of brain circuits (basal ganglia and cortex) that are responsible for normal cognitive and motor per...
We are nearing three decades of research on the neural circuits of Pavlovian fear conditioning. The advent of new techniques such as genetic and optogenetic manipulations have greatly advance...
Drug addiction is a chronically relapsing disorder characterized by compulsive drug use despite catastrophic personal consequences (e.g., loss of family, job) and even when the substance is n...
Impulsivity can be defined as the tendency to act prematurely without foresight. Behavioural and neurobiological analysis of this construct, based on evidence from both animal and human studi...
Schizophrenia is a severe psychiatric disorder affecting 1% of the world’s population, leading to high human, social and economic burdens. Understanding how the interaction of gene and...
The dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC), orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), ventrolateral and ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vlPFC, vmPFC) and their connections with the basal ganglia play a ce...
The dopamine-containing neurons of the midbrain have been implicated in a broad array of psychiatric disorders, ranging from schizophrenia to drug abuse and depression. However, studies seem...
Cortical circuits often receive multiple inputs from upstream populations with non-overlapping stimulus tuning. Both the feedforward and recurrent architectures of the receiving cortical lay...
Learning Objections: 1. To learn a new approach to understanding brain function by creating networks to perform tasks using machine learning. 2. To learn how how to probe these networks to d...
The dopamine D4 receptor (D4R) is enriched in the prefrontal cortex where it plays important roles in cognition, attention, decision making and executive function. Novel D4R-selective ligand...
Substantial evidence demonstrates that schizophrenia involves a dysregulated dopamine system, potentially driven by overactivity in the hippocampus. Postmortem studies of schizophrenia brains...
The size and burden of mental illness should ideally prompt a strategy of preemption and early intervention. On the neuroscientific side, this leads to the question of brain mechanisms of ris...
Humans have a remarkable ability to flexibly interact with the environment. A compelling demonstration of this cognitive flexibility is our ability to perform complex, yet previously un-pract...
In consciousness studies, a longstanding controversy concerns whether activity in the prefrontal cortical (PFC) region of the brain is necessary to evoke conscious experiences. Similarly, the...
How does a low-level sensory representation rise into conscious awareness? What determines whether higher-order cortical areas have access to the representational content in sensory regions?...
Specialized aggregations of extracellular matrix called perineuronal nets (PNNs) appear during juvenile stages of development and surround primarily fast-spiking, parvalbumin (PV)-containing...
Working memory ability matures late in life, in adolescence or early adulthood, and may be enhanced even in adulthood through cognitive training. The mechanisms through which working memory i...
The idea of schizophrenia typically conjures up images of people who hear voices, see visions and have delusional beliefs. However, clinicians have long recognized cognitive dysfunction as on...
Parkinson’s disease (PD) is characterized by the loss of dopamine and the disruption of brain circuits (basal ganglia and cortex) that are responsible for normal cognitive and motor per...
We are nearing three decades of research on the neural circuits of Pavlovian fear conditioning. The advent of new techniques such as genetic and optogenetic manipulations have greatly advance...
Drug addiction is a chronically relapsing disorder characterized by compulsive drug use despite catastrophic personal consequences (e.g., loss of family, job) and even when the substance is n...
Impulsivity can be defined as the tendency to act prematurely without foresight. Behavioural and neurobiological analysis of this construct, based on evidence from both animal and human studi...
Schizophrenia is a severe psychiatric disorder affecting 1% of the world’s population, leading to high human, social and economic burdens. Understanding how the interaction of gene and...
The dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC), orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), ventrolateral and ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vlPFC, vmPFC) and their connections with the basal ganglia play a ce...
The dopamine-containing neurons of the midbrain have been implicated in a broad array of psychiatric disorders, ranging from schizophrenia to drug abuse and depression. However, studies seem...
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