The use of subliminal priming techniques together with MEG and beamformer analysis methods offer the potential to dissociate successive stages in the processing of words in the brain. MEG was used to measure cortical activity during subliminal priming of visual words. Four conditions between prime and targets were presented: direct repetition (e.g. HOUSE -> HOUSE), cross-case (e.g. house -> HOUSE), bigram (e.g. HUSE -> HOUSE) and unrelated (e.g. STAND -> HOUSE). Each of these conditions were presented with the letter strings in either the same or different absolute positions. Participants were instructed to maintain fixation and indicate by button press, whether the letter string they saw contained I or O. MEG data were collected from adult right-handed readers using a 151-channel CTF Omega system at Aston University. Data were sampled at 625 Hz with an antialiasing cut-off filter of 200 Hz. The MEG data were analyzed using Synthetic Aperture Magnetometry (SAM), which is an adaptive beamforming analysis te...

The dentate gyrus (DG) is among the few areas in the mammalian brain where production of new neurons continues in the adulthood. Although its functional significance is not completely understood, several lines of evidence suggest the role of DG neurogenesis in learning and memory. Considering that long-term potentiation (LTP) is a prime candidate for the process underlying hippocampal learning and memory, these studies raise the possibility that LTP and neurogenesis are linked together. Indeed, a previous study (Brain Res, 857:300-307, 2000) has shown that LTP induction in Mossy fiber projection to CA3, i.e., the efferent pathway of the DG, enhanced proliferation of progenitor cells in the DG. However, it is unknown whether LTP in the afferent pathway is associated with neurogenesis. We investigated this matter by inducing LTP in perforant path-DG synapses by theta burst stimulation in one hemisphere, and comparing newly generated progenitor (BrdU-positive) cells in the DG between two hemispheres. Compared...

The placebo effect is a phenomenon of importance in the clinical practice of medicine, and a prime example of cognitive-emotional influences on a number of physical processes. Dr. Benedetti will present work studying the placebo response in Parkinson patients at the single neuron level. Placebo administration induced a decrease of firing rate as well as the disappearance of bursting activity of subthalamic nucleus neurons. These neuronal changes were correlated with clinical assessments of decreased muscle rigidity. These data show that complex mental activities, like expectancies and beliefs, are capable of changing neuronal functioning which, in turn, induce clinical improvement. Dr. Mayberg will present data on the neural responses to placebo in clinical trials of antidepressants. In this study, placebo response was associated with a complex set of limbic and cortical metabolic changes that overlapped with those seen in responders treated with active fluoxetine. Dr. Wager will then present work on the n...

Several transcription factors have been identified as important mediators of mitochondrial biogenesis, which requires coordinated regulation of both the nuclear and mitochondrial genomes. Nuclear respiratory factor 1 (NRF-1) and 2 (NRF-2) activate transcription of several respiratory chain enzymes and are prime candidates for bigenomic coordinated regulation of cytochrome oxidase (COX) subunit genes derived from the two genomes. Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma coactivator 1 (PGC-1) is a known coactivator of NRF-1 and/or NRF-2-dependent transcription. Previously, we showed that increased neuronal activity via depolarizing stimulation induced an up-regulation of NRF-2 protein in vitro, whereas monocular deprivation caused a down-regulation of NRF-2 protein and mRNA in vivo. Both changes paralleled those of COX activity. We hypothesized that the expression of NRF-1, NRF-2, and PGC-1 genes are also regulated by neuronal activity. To test this hypothesis, primary cultured neurons were exposed t...

The development of animal models with construct, face, and predictive validity to accurately model human depression has been a major challenge. One proposed rodent model is the 5 d repeated forced swim stress (5d-RFSS) paradigm, which progressively increases floating during individual swim sessions. The onset and persistence of this floating behavior has been anthropomorphically characterized as a measure of depression. This interpretation has been under debate because a progressive increase in floating over time may reflect an adaptive learned behavioral response promoting survival, and not depression ([Molendijk and de Kloet, 2015][1]). To assess construct and face validity, we applied 5d-RFSS to C57BL/6J and BALB/cJ mice, two mouse strains commonly used in neuropsychiatric research, and measured a combination of emotional, homeostatic, and psychomotor symptoms indicative of a depressive-like state. We also compared the efficacy of 5d-RFSS and chronic social defeat stress (CSDS), a validated depression m...

Chronic low-grade inflammation and stress exposure are key contributing factors in the etiology and progression of many neuropsychiatric disorders. Dietary emulsifiers are commonly added to processed foods and are classified by the Food and Drug Adminis...

Corticotropin-releasing factor-positive (CRF+) neurons in the paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus (PVN) drive activity of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. The release of CRF from these cells initiates the neuroendocrine stress resp...

Cochlear implants (CIs) are auditory neuroprostheses that restore hearing to over 500,000 humans world-wide, including over 3,000 at our clinic at NYU since 1984. The CI restores hearing by bypassing damaged parts of the sensory transduction epithelium ...

Cocaine induces neuroadaptations in the prefrontal cortex that contribute to drug-seeking and relapse. Vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) causes the release of several neuromodulators, including BDNF, which modulate cortical plasticity, and this plasticity c...

The rapidly increasing prevalence of post-traumatic brain injury (TBI) long-term neurological sequelae is an alarming trend with profound societal consequences. While clinical observations have confirmed a link between the development of neurodegenerati...