Reduction in the expression or function of [alpha]5-subunit-containing GABA[subscript A] receptors ([alpha]5GABA[subscript A]Rs) leads to improvement in several hippocampus-dependent memory domains. However, studies thus far mostly lack anatomical specificity in terms of neuronal circuits and populations. We demonstrate that mice with a selective…

Clinical evidence has shown that physical exercise during pregnancy may alter brain development and improve cognitive function of offspring. However, the mechanisms through which maternal exercise might promote such effects are not well understood. The present study examined levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and absolute cell…

The effect of the visual hemifield to which spatial attention was oriented on the activities of the posterior parietal and occipital visual cortices was examined using functional near-infrared spectroscopy in order to investigate the neural substrates of voluntary visuospatial attention. Our brain imaging data support the theory put forth in a…

Transcription of genes required for long-term memory not only involves transcription factors, but also enzymatic protein complexes that modify chromatin structure. Chromatin-modifying enzymes, such as the histone acetyltransferase (HAT) CREB (cyclic-AMP response element binding) binding protein (CBP), are pivotal for the transcriptional regulation…

Inhibition is a core executive function reliant on the frontal lobes that shows protracted maturation through to adulthood. We investigated the spatiotemporal characteristics of response inhibition during a visual go/no-go task in 14 teenagers and 14 adults using magnetoencephalography (MEG) and a contrast between two no-go experimental conditions…

We studied the role of the frontal lobes in orienting spatial attention and inhibiting attentional capture by goal-irrelevant stimuli, using a spatial cueing method in patients with frontotemporal dementia (FTD). Two blocks of trials were presented, one with non-predictive cues and the other with counter-predictive cues. FTD patients showed a…

The present study aims to investigate and compare the behavioral performance and event-related potentials (ERPs) measures in children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD) and typically developing (TD) children when performing the visuospatial attention task with reflexive orienting. Thirty children with DCD and 30 TD children were…

Interhemispheric competition between homologous areas in the human brain is believed to be involved in a wide variety of human behaviors from motor activity to visual perception and particularly attention. For example, patients with lesions in the posterior parietal cortex are unable to selectively track objects in the contralesional side of…

The purpose of this study was to investigate and compare the mechanisms of brain activity, as revealed by a combination of the visuospatial attention shifting paradigm and event-related potentials (ERP) in children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD) and typically developing children. Twenty-eight DCD children and 26 typically…

Nonreinforced retrieval can cause extinction and/or reconsolidation, two processes that affect subsequent retrieval in opposite ways. Using the Morris water maze task we show that, in the rat, repeated nonreinforced expression of spatial memory causes extinction, which is unaffected by inhibition of protein synthesis within the CA1 region of the…