Neuroscience
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About 7.5million adults in Germany cannot read and write properly despite attending school for several years. They are considered to be functional illiterates. Since the ability to read and write is crucial for being employed and socially accepted, we developed a literacy training to overcome these deficits. ⋯ Moreover, the increase was positively correlated with reading and writing skills. The findings suggest that poor literacy skills are associated with several structural abnormalities in reading-related brain areas. In addition, we showed that while literacy skills of functional illiterates improved after training, the structural differences to controls disappeared.
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Structural connectome measurement combined with diffusion magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and tractography allows generation of a whole-brain connectome. However, current cortical structural connectivity (SC) measurements have not been well combined with the vertex-wise multi-subjects statistical analysis. The aim of this study was to examine the feasibility of using group comparison vertex-wise analysis for cortical SC measurement. ⋯ This study demonstrated the feasibility of vertex-wise group comparison for evaluating cortical fiber connectivity density. The FiCD method has good intra- and inter-individual reproducibility, and accurately reflects the affected cortical regions in post-stroke patients. This method may be helpful for neuroscience research.
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Cortico-cortical connectivity has become a major focus of neuroscience in the last decade but most of the connectivity studies focused on intrahemispheric circuits. Little has been reported about information acquired and processed in the premotor cortex and its functional connection with its homotopic counterpart in the opposite hemisphere via the corpus callosum. In non-human primates (macaques) lateralization is not well documented and its exact role is still unknown. ⋯ Our method consisted of identifying the connections with all the homo- and heterotopic cortical areas located in the contralateral hemisphere. The results showed that PMd and PMv receive multiple low-density labeled inputs from the opposite heterotopic prefrontal, parietal, motor, insular and temporal regions. Such unexpected collection of transcallosal inputs from heterotopic areas suggests that the premotor areas communicate with other modalities through long distance low-density networks which could have important implications in the understanding of sensorimotor and multimodal integration.
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Age-related declines in long- and short-term memory show relationships to decreases in N-methyl-d-aspartate (NMDA) receptor expression, which may involve inflammation. This study was designed to determine effects of an anti-inflammatory drug, ibuprofen, on cognitive function and NMDA receptor expression across aging. Male C57BL/6 mice (ages 5, 14, 20, and 26months) were fed ibuprofen (375ppm) in NIH31 diet or diet alone for 6weeks prior to testing. ⋯ Ibuprofen did not alter expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines IL-1β and TNFα, but did reduce the area of reactive astrocyte immunostaining in frontal cortex of aged mice. Enhancement in executive function showed a relationship to increased GluN1-3 mRNA and decreased gliosis. These findings suggest that inflammation may play a role in executive function declines in aged animals, but other effects of ibuprofen on NMDA receptors appeared to be unrelated to aging or inflammation.