Brain Sciences, Volume 2, Issue 4

Conscious and unconscious brain mechanisms, including cognition, emotions and language are considered in this review. The fundamental mechanisms of cognition include interactions between bottom-up and top-down signals. The modeling of these interacti...

There is ongoing debate about the contribution of explicit processes to incidental learning, particularly attention, working memory and control mechanisms. Studies generally measure explicit process contributions to incidental learning by comparing d...

Over the past decade, much progress has been made regarding our understanding of neurogenesis in both young and old animals and where it occurs throughout the lifespan, although the growth of new neurons declines with increasing age. In addition, phy...

Tor preventive measures are necessary to attenuate the increased economic and social burden of dementia. This review will focus on the potential for physical activity and exercise training to promote brain health and improve cognitive function via ne...

Aerobic exercise promotes rapid and profound alterations in the brain. Depending upon the pattern and duration of exercise, these changes in the brain may extend beyond traditional motor areas to regions and structures normally linked to learning, co...

Although data from both animals and humans suggests that adult cocaine use can have long term effects on behavior, it is unknown if prior cocaine use affects future maternal behavior in nulliparous females. In the current study, cocaine or saline was...

Cortical activity is thought to reflect the biomechanical properties of movement (e.g., force or velocity of movement), but fatigue and movement familiarity are important factors that require additional consideration in electrophysiological research....

Recent studies have shown that during unimanual motor tasks, aging adults show bilateral recruitment of primary motor cortex (M1), while younger adults show a suppression of the ipsilateral motor cortex. Additional work has indicated that increased...

Medications that target norepinephrine (NE) neurotransmission alter the behavioral effects of cocaine and may be beneficial for stimulant-use disorders. We showed previously that the short-acting, α1-adrenergic antagonist, prazosin, blocked drug-indu...

Differential neural development of structures associated with reward and control systems may underlie risky behavior in adolescence. The nucleus accumbens and orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) have been implicated in substance use behavior, although structu...

Exposure of mothers to chronic stressors during pregnancy or the postpartum period often leads to the development of depression, anxiety, or other related mood disorders. The adverse effects of mood disorders are often mediated through maternal behav...

Reinstatement of conditioned place preferences have been used to investigate physiological mechanisms mediating drug-seeking behavior in adolescent and adult rodents; however, it is still unclear how psychostimulant exposure during adolescence affect...

The effect of methamphetamine (MA) dependence on the structure of the human brain has not been extensively studied, especially in active users. Previous studies reported cortical deficits and striatal gains in grey matter (GM) volume of abstinent MA...

Whether or not affect can be unconscious remains controversial. Research claiming to demonstrate unconscious affect fails to establish clearly unconscious stimulus conditions. The few investigations that have established unconscious conditions fail t...

The role of neuronal plasticity in supporting the addictive state has generated much research and some conceptual theories. One such theory, the sensitization-homeostasis (SH) model, postulates that nicotine suppresses craving circuits, and this trig...

Caveolin is the principal protein of caveolae and has been implicated in the pathogenesis of cerebral ischemia. To investigate whether changed expression of caveolins has a pivotal role in focal cerebral ischemia, we induced middle cerebral artery oc...

Methamphetamine (MA) is a potent psychostimulant drug whose abuse has become a global epidemic in recent years. Firstly, this review article briefly discusses the epidemiology and clinical pharmacology of methamphetamine dependence. Secondly, the art...