Single-cell proteomics: A treasure trove in neurobiology.

Single-cell analysis came to change the way we look at cell populations. RNA sequencing of single cells allowed us to appreciate the diversity of cell types in the human brain in an unprecedented manner and its power to reveal cell-type specific changes in cell populations has just begun to be explored. In this context, looking at the proteome of single cells promises to bring functional information and contribute to completing the picture. The potential of single cell proteome, in developing a better understanding of the intricate connections between the very diverse cell populations in the brain, is huge. Whereas early approaches to address single-cell proteome have identified hundreds of proteins, today, techniques combining isobaric labelling and LC-MS can lead to the identification of thousands of proteins. In this review, we describe methods which have been used to identify and quantify proteins from single cells and propose that the application of isobaric labeling and label-free quantitative proteomics approach for single-cell analysis is ready to provide useful information for the neurobiology field.

The nature of beauty: behavior, cognition, and neurobiology.

Beauty is commonly used to refer to positive evaluative appraisals that are uniquely human. Little is known, however, about what distinguishes beauty in terms of psychological function or neurobiological mechanisms. Our review describes recent empirical studies and synthesizes what behavioral, cognitive, and neuroscientific experiments have revealed about the nature of beauty. These findings suggest that beauty shares computational mechanisms with other forms of hedonic appraisal of sensory objects but is distinguished by specific conceptual expectations. Specifically, experiencing an object as pleasurable is a prerequisite for judging it to be beautiful; but to qualify as beautiful, an object must elicit especially high levels of pleasure and be matched to internal learned models of what counts as beautiful. We discuss how these empirical findings contradict several assumptions about beauty, including the notion that beauty is disinterested, and that it is specific to Homo sapiens.

Topics and trends in artificial intelligence assisted human brain research.

Artificial intelligence (AI) assisted human brain research is a dynamic interdisciplinary field with great interest, rich literature, and huge diversity. The diversity in research topics and technologies keeps increasing along with the tremendous growth in application scope of AI-assisted human brain research. A comprehensive understanding of this field is necessary to assess research efficacy, (re)allocate research resources, and conduct collaborations. This paper combines the structural topic modeling (STM) with the bibliometric analysis to automatically identify prominent research topics from the large-scale, unstructured text of AI-assisted human brain research publications in the past decade. Analyses on topical trends, correlations, and clusters reveal distinct developmental trends of these topics, promising research orientations, and diverse topical distributions in influential countries/regions and research institutes. These findings help better understand scientific and technological AI-assisted human brain research, provide insightful guidance for resource (re)allocation, and promote effective international collaborations.

Challenging the neurobiological link between number sense and symbolic numerical abilities.

A significant body of research links individual differences in symbolic numerical abilities, such as arithmetic, to number sense, the neurobiological system used to approximate and manipulate quantities without language or symbols. However, recent findings from cognitive neuroscience challenge this influential theory. Our current review presents an overview of evidence for the number sense account of symbolic numerical abilities and then reviews recent studies that challenge this account, organized around the following four assertions. (1) There is no number sense as traditionally conceived. (2) Neural substrates of number sense are more widely distributed than common consensus asserts, complicating the neurobiological evidence linking number sense to numerical abilities. (3) The most common measures of number sense are confounded by other cognitive demands, which drive key correlations. (4) Number sense and symbolic number systems (Arabic digits, number words, and so on) rely on distinct neural mechanisms and follow independent developmental trajectories. The review follows each assertion with comments on future directions that may bring resolution to these issues.

Theoretical models of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD): a perspective on future approaches

Obsessive-Compulsive disorder (OCD) is a common psychiatric condition that leads to significant impairment in everyday life. Advancements in neurobiological investigations contributed to a better understanding of pathophysiological mechanisms behind OCD, leading to the understanding that current models employed to conceptualize OCD are not adequate and might be a significant factor in precluding further advancements in how OCD is treated. In this paper, we will use OCD as a model to discuss the limitations of the current diagnostic systems in Psychiatry and to present the novel perspectives based on neurobiological findings that might lead to considerable advancements in treatments for OCD.

[Artificial Intelligence and Brain Science: the Present and the Future].

Artificial intelligence and brain science have kept a swinging relationship with opposing views: "Artificial realization of intelligence should be free from biological constraints" and "We should reverse-engineer the best existing implementation of intelligence." In this article, we first review today's achievements of artificial intelligence and its impacts on brain and life sciences. We then discuss how progresses in brain science can contribute to future developments in artificial intelligence.

Iron, Myelin, and the Brain: Neuroimaging Meets Neurobiology.

Although iron is crucial for neuronal functioning, many aspects of cerebral iron biology await clarification. The ability to quantify specific iron forms in the living brain would open new avenues for diagnosis, therapeutic monitoring, and understanding pathogenesis of diseases. A modality that allows assessment of brain tissue composition in vivo, in particular of iron deposits or myelin content on a submillimeter spatial scale, is magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Multimodal strategies combining MRI with complementary analytical techniques ex vivo have emerged, which may lead to improved specificity. Interdisciplinary collaborations will be key to advance beyond simple correlative analyses in the biological interpretation of MRI data and to gain deeper insights into key factors leading to iron accumulation and/or redistribution associated with neurodegeneration.

Transdiagnostic Approach to Olfactory Reference Syndrome: Neurobiological Considerations.

Olfactory reference syndrome (ORS) describes a constellation of emotional and behavioral symptoms that cause clinically significant distress or impairment arising from the false belief that one is emitting an offensive odor. Despite cases of ORS reported throughout the world over the last century, our knowledge and understanding of ORS remain relatively poor because of the limited literature-mostly case studies and series, but no clinical trials. ORS continues to pose significant diagnostic challenges within our current frameworks of categorizing mental disorders, including the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders and International Classification of Diseases. We review the ORS literature and discuss diagnostic parallels and challenges of placing ORS within specific categories. We also review the current research on the neurocircuitry of olfaction and of disorders with potential clinical relevance to patients presenting with ORS. While no primary neuroscientific research has specifically investigated ORS, an overlapping circuitry has been implicated in the neurobiology of obsessive-compulsive, trauma and stressor, and psychotic spectrum disorders, suggesting that the phenomenology of ORS can best be understood through a dimensional, rather than categorical, approach.

[The psychopathology of the Wernicke-Kleist-Leonhard School and its relevance for present-day psychiatry]. / Die Psychopathologie der Wernicke-Kleist-Leonhard Schule und ihre Bedeutung für die aktuelle Psychiatrie.

Historically, the Wernicke-Kleist-Leonhard School represents a countermovement to psychopathology as described by Karl Jaspers and Kurt Schneider. The School aimed to interlink psychopathological and neurobiological aspects. Starting from the model of different functional neuronal systems, each of which can be disturbed in the sense of a hypofunction, hyperfunction, or parafunction, it developed a comprehensive phenomenology of psychopathological symptoms and syndromes that finally culminated in Karl Leonhard's course descriptions. This school of thought can provide important impulses even today. Thus, on the one hand, the neurobiological models can serve as the basis for additional research projects and on the other hand, the psychopathological descriptions of disorders can perhaps also be interpreted in the sense of typological constructs that can contribute to pragmatic clinical decisionmaking.

Looking Ahead: The Importance of Views, Values, and Voices in Neuroethics-Now.

The body-to-head transplant (BHT) planned to be undertaken later this year at China's Harbin Medical University by neurosurgeons Sergio Canavero and Xiaoping Ren has attracted considerable attention and criticism. The intended operation gives rise to philosophical queries about the body-brain-mind relationship and nature of the subjective self; technical and ethical issues regarding the scientific soundness, safety, and futility of the procedure; the adequacy of prior research; and the relative merit, folly, and/or danger of forging new boundaries of what is biomedically possible. Moreover, that this procedure, which has been prohibited from being undertaken in other countries, has been sanctioned in China brings into stark relief ways that differing social and political values, philosophies, ethics, and laws can affect the scope and conduct of research. Irrespective of whether the BHT actually occurs, the debate it has generated reveals and reflects both the evermore international enterprise of brain science, and the need for neuroethical discourse to include and appreciate multicultural views, values, and voices.

Grounding the neurobiology of language in first principles: The necessity of non-language-centric explanations for language comprehension.

Recent decades have ushered in tremendous progress in understanding the neural basis of language. Most of our current knowledge on language and the brain, however, is derived from lab-based experiments that are far removed from everyday language use, and that are inspired by questions originating in linguistic and psycholinguistic contexts. In this paper we argue that in order to make progress, the field needs to shift its focus to understanding the neurobiology of naturalistic language comprehension. We present here a new conceptual framework for understanding the neurobiological organization of language comprehension. This framework is non-language-centered in the computational/neurobiological constructs it identifies, and focuses strongly on context. Our core arguments address three general issues: (i) the difficulty in extending language-centric explanations to discourse; (ii) the necessity of taking context as a serious topic of study, modeling it formally and acknowledging the limitations on external validity when studying language comprehension outside context; and (iii) the tenuous status of the language network as an explanatory construct. We argue that adopting this framework means that neurobiological studies of language will be less focused on identifying correlations between brain activity patterns and mechanisms postulated by psycholinguistic theories. Instead, they will be less self-referential and increasingly more inclined towards integration of language with other cognitive systems, ultimately doing more justice to the neurobiological organization of language and how it supports language as it is used in everyday life.

[Psychotherapy of Depression as Neurobiological Process - Evidence from Neuroimaging]. / Psychotherapie depressiver Störungen als neurobiologischer Prozess ­ Erkenntnisse aus der Hirnbildgebung.

Research on neurobiological effects of psychotherapy in depression facilitates the improvement of treatment strategies. The cortico-limbic dysregulation model serves as a framework for numerous studies on neurobiological changes in depression. In this model, depression is described as hypoactivation of dorsal cortical brain regions in conjunction with hyperactivation of ventral paralimbic regions. This assumption has been supported by various studies of structural and functional brain abnormalities in depression. However, also regions not included in the original cortico-limbic dysregulation model, such as the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, seem to play an important role in depression. Functional connectivity studies of depression have revealed an enhanced connectivity within the so-called default mode network which is involved in self-referential thinking. Studies also point to a normalization of limbic and cortical brain activity, especially in the anterior cingulate cortex, during psychotherapy. Some neurobiological markers like the activity of the anterior cingulate cortex, striatum and insula as well as hippocampal volume have been proposed to predict treatment response on a group-level. The activity of the anterior insula appears to be a candidate bio-marker for differential indication for psychotherapy or pharmacotherapy. The cortico-limbic dysregulation model and following research have inspired new forms of treatment for depression like deep brain stimulation of the subgenual anterior cingulate cortex, repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, neurofeedback and attention training.

Veinte años de neurodesarrollo / Twenty years of neurodevelopment

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