The increasing number of long-term survivors of pediatric brain tumors requires us to incorporate the most recent knowledge derived from cognitive neuroscience into their oncological treatment. As the lesion itself, as well as each treatment, can cause specific neural damage, the long-term neurocognitive outcomes are highly complex and challenging to assess. The number of neurocognitive studies in this population grows exponentially worldwide, motivating modern neuroscience to provide guidance in follow-up before, during and after treatment. In this review, we provide an overview of structural and functional brain connectomes and their role in the neuropsychological outcomes of specific brain tumor types. Based on this information, we propose a theoretical neuroscientific framework to apply appropriate neuropsychological and imaging follow-up for future clinical care and rehabilitation trials.
Child ; Humans ; Brain/diagnostic imaging* ; Brain Neoplasms/complications* ; Cognitive Dysfunction ; Connectome ; Neurosciences

Background and Objective: Neuroanatomy is both terrifying to learn and problematic to teach, and the different methods of neuroanatomical education have their own strengths and weaknesses. In this cross-sectional study, we evaluated the perception of undergraduate medical students towards the combined use of plastinated and formalinpreserved brain specimen in their neuroanatomy course. Methods: A bridging program was designed for students whose medical education was interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic in order to reinforce the knowledge and understanding of anatomy that they acquired in a virtual environment. A total of 175 first year medical students participated in this learning activity, which included seven stations in neuroanatomy spread across two hours, and covered the anatomy of the circle of Willis, brainstem, cranial nerves, spinal cord, internal cerebrum, and external cerebrum. To evaluate short-term learning, the students were asked to take a quiz containing 10 multiple-choice questions before and after the learning activity. In addition, the students also answered a survey containing 11 Likert-type questions asking about their perception of the learningactivity. Results: Following the learning activity, mean test scores increased from 4.73 (SD 1.74) to 5.32 (SD 1.52; mean difference 0.59, p = 0.008). Majority of the students (mean 81%, range 43-93%) had a neutral or positive perception of plastinated brain specimen, and on factor analysis, plastinated brain specimen were found to be both practical and useful for learning neuroanatomy. However, the participants perceived plastinated brain specimen alone to be insufficient for learning neuroanatomy, and a multimodal approach to learning neuroanatomy is ideal. Conclusion Plastinated brain specimens were found to be an effective complement to formalin-preserved brain, and these should be used by medical schools when designing neuroanatomy learning activities for their students.
Neuroanatomy

Viruses are powerful tools for the study of modern neurosciences. Most of the research on the connection and function of neurons were done by using recombinant viruses, among which neurotropic herpesvirus is one of the most important tools. With the continuous development of genetic engineering and molecular biology techniques, several recombinant neurophilic herpesviruses have been engineered into different viral tools for neuroscience research. This review describes and discusses several common and widely used neurophilic herpesviruses as nerve conduction tracers, viral vectors for neurological diseases, and lytic viruses for neuro-oncology applications, which provides a reference for further exploring the function of neurophilic herpesviruses.
Herpesviridae/genetics* ; Neurosciences ; Genetic Vectors/genetics* ; Genetic Engineering ; Neurons

Recording the highly diverse and dynamic activities in large populations of neurons in behaving animals is crucial for a better understanding of how the brain works. To meet this challenge, extensive efforts have been devoted to developing functional fluorescent indicators and optical imaging techniques to optically monitor neural activity. Indeed, optical imaging potentially has extremely high throughput due to its non-invasive access to large brain regions and capability to sample neurons at high density, but the readout speed, such as the scanning speed in two-photon scanning microscopy, is often limited by various practical considerations. Among different imaging methods, light field microscopy features a highly parallelized 3D fluorescence imaging scheme and therefore promises a novel and faster strategy for functional imaging of neural activity. Here, we briefly review the working principles of various types of light field microscopes and their recent developments and applications in neuroscience studies. We also discuss strategies and considerations of optimizing light field microscopy for different experimental purposes, with illustrative examples in imaging zebrafish and mouse brains.
Animals ; Mice ; Microscopy/methods* ; Zebrafish ; Neurons/physiology* ; Brain/physiology* ; Neurosciences

The number of death from insulin overdose, including accidental poisoning, suicide and homicide, is increasing these years. The forensic diagnosis of death from insulin overdose is a tough task. Glucose is the main energy source of the brain. Therefore, hypoglycemic brain damage is considered to be the main reason of death from insulin overdose. Recently, research of hypoglycemic brain damage caused by insulin overdose is gradually being paid attention in the field of forensic medicine. This paper summarizes the neuropathologic changes, pathophysiologic process and potential neural molecular markers of hypoglycemic brain damage caused by insulin overdose in terms of forensic neuropathology, providing reference for the research and practice in forensic medicine related fields.
Brain ; Drug Overdose ; Humans ; Hypoglycemic Agents ; Insulin ; Neuropathology

OBJECTIVE: Dysphagia is a common consequence of stroke with a negative effect on the clinical outcome. Given these potential outcomes, it is important to identify the precursors to dysphagia after stroke. The aims of this study were to identify lesions associated with dysphagia after an ischemic supratentorial stroke using voxel-based lesion symptom mapping (VLSM) and compare the difference in the lesion pattern between the oral and pharyngeal phase dysphagia. METHODS: Stroke patients who met the following inclusion criteria were screened retrospectively between January 2012 and November 2014: a first-ever stroke, supratentorial lesion and who underwent brain MRI and functional dysphagia scale (FDS) from videofluoroscopic swallowing study (VFSS). Finally, the MRI data of 83 patients were analyzed. Statistical maps of the lesion contribution related to dysphagia were generated using VLSM. RESULTS: VLSM showed that FDS was associated with damage to the putamen, caudate, insula, frontal precentral gyrus, and inferior frontal gyrus. The lesions were distributed more widely in the left than right hemisphere. Lesions correlated with the FDS oral score were distributed mainly in the frontal lobe and insula. Otherwise, the associated lesion with the FDS pharyngeal score was mainly the basal ganglia. CONCLUSION: In these results, lesions that correlated with dysphagia were distributed more widely in the left hemisphere, reflecting the possibility of lateralization of the swallowing function. Oral phase dysphagia was associated with left frontal lobe and insula; the lesion correlated with the cognitive function or apraxia. On the other hand, VLSM revealed the lesions associated with pharyngeal dysphagia to be the basal ganglia, which is a structure that plays a role in the automatic motor control network.
Apraxias ; Basal Ganglia ; Brain ; Brain Mapping ; Cognition ; Deglutition ; Deglutition Disorders ; Frontal Lobe ; Hand ; Humans ; Magnetic Resonance Imaging ; Neuroanatomy ; Prefrontal Cortex ; Putamen ; Retrospective Studies ; Stroke

Suicide is a complex phenomenon resulting from interactions between individual vulnerabilities and socio-environmental factors. The current review primarily focuses on research into the serotonin system, hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, neurotrophic factors, lipid metabolism, and functional neuroimaging studies. It has been found that dysfunctions in the serotonin system, hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis abnormalities, and low brain-derived neurotrophic factor and cholesterol levels may be linked to suicide. Additionally, recent neuroimaging studies have suggested that structural and functional abnormalities in brain areas related to cognitive and emotional regulation may be associated with suicide. More research incorporating advanced methodological approaches may shed further light on the neurobiological basis of suicide.
Brain ; Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor ; Cholesterol ; Functional Neuroimaging ; Lipid Metabolism ; Nerve Growth Factors ; Neurobiology ; Neuroimaging ; Pituitary-Adrenal System ; Serotonin ; Suicide

Air pollution is a growing global health concern estimated to contribute to as many as 4.2 million premature deaths worldwide per year. So it poses the greatest environmental risk to human health. A strong and rapidly expanding body of evidence links ambient air pollution to respiratory and cardiovascular conditions that eventually may also affect cognition in the elderly. Among various ambient air pollutants, particulate matter (PM) has been implicated as a chronic source of neuroinflammation and reactive oxygen species that produce neuropathology resulting in neurodevelopmental disorders and neurodegenerative disease. The current review will briefly discuss the clinical features and underlying mechanism of PM induced cognitive dysfunction, more specifically, dementia.
Aged ; Air Pollution ; Alzheimer Disease ; Cognition ; Dementia ; Dust ; Global Health ; Humans ; Mortality, Premature ; Neurodegenerative Diseases ; Neurodevelopmental Disorders ; Neuropathology ; Particulate Matter ; Reactive Oxygen Species

The nineteenth century neuroscience studied the instinct of animal to understand the human mind. In particular, it has been found that the inheritance of unconscious behavior like instinct is mediated through ganglion chains, such as the spinal cord or sympathetic nervous system, which control unconscious reflexes. At the same time, the theory of Inheritance of Acquired Characteristics (hereafter ‘IAC’) widely known as Lamarck's evolutionary theory provided the theoretical frame on the origin of instinct and the heredity of action that the parental generation's habits were converted into the nature of the offspring generation. Contrary to conventional knowledge, this theory was not originally invented by Lamarck, and Darwin also did not discard this theory even after discovering the theory of natural selection in 1838 and maintained it throughout his intellectual life. Above all, in the field of epigenetics, the theory of ‘IAC’ has gained attention as a reliable scientific theory today. Darwin discovered crucial errors in the late 1830s that the Lamarck version's theory of ‘IAC’ did not adequately account for the principle of the inheritance of unconscious behavior like instinct. Lamarck's theory regarded habits as conscious and willful acts and saw that those habits are transmitted through the brain to control conscious actions. Lamarck's theory could not account for the complex and elaborate instincts of invertebrate animals, such as brainless ants. Contrary to Lamarck's view, Darwin established the new theory of ‘IAC’ that could be combined with contemporary neurological theory, which explains the heredity of unconscious behavior. Based on the knowledge of neurology, Darwin was able to translate the ‘principle of habit’ into a neurological term called ‘principle of reflex’. This article focuses on how Darwin join the theory of ‘IAC’ with nineteenth century neuroscience and how the neurological knowledge from the nineteenth century contributed to Darwin's overcoming of Lamarck's ‘IAC’. The significance of this study is to elucidate Darwin's notion of ‘IAC’ theory rather than natural selection theory as a principle of heredity of behavior. The theory of ‘IAC’ was able to account for the rapid variation of instincts in a relatively short period of time, unlike natural selection, which operates slowly in geological time spans of tens of millions of years. The nineteenth century neurological theory also provided neurological principles for ‘plasticity of instinct,’ empirically supporting the fact that all nervous systems responsible for reflexes respond sensitively to very fine stimuli. However, researchers of neo-Darwinian tendencies, such as Richard Dawkins and evolutionary psychologists advocating the ‘selfish gene’ hypothesis, which today claim to be Darwin's descendants, are characterized by human nature embedded in biological information, such as the brain and genes, so that it cannot change at all. This study aims to contribute to reconstructing the evolutionary discourse by illuminating Darwin's insights into the “plasticity of nature” that instincts can change relatively easily even at the level of invertebrates such as earthworms.
Animals ; Ants ; Brain ; Epigenomics ; Ganglion Cysts ; Heredity ; Human Characteristics ; Humans ; Instinct ; Invertebrates ; Nervous System ; Neurology ; Neurosciences ; Oligochaeta ; Parents ; Psychology ; Reflex ; Selection, Genetic ; Spinal Cord ; Sympathetic Nervous System ; Transcutaneous Electric Nerve Stimulation ; Wills

PURPOSE: A safe and efficacious antiplatelet drug is needed for patients with clopidogrel resistance who undergo neuroendovascular procedures. Ticagrelor is a new reversibly binding, oral, direct-acting P2Y receptor antagonist with no known resistance. We describe our clinical experience using ticagrelor for neuroendovascular procedures in Indian patients with clopidogrel resistance at the NH Institute of Neurosciences, Narayana Health City, Bangalore. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We retrospectively reviewed our endovascular procedure database for all patients with predefined clopidogrel resistance. Clopidogrel resistance was defined as P2Y12 inhibition <40%. Patients were administered ticagrelor along with aspirin prior to the procedure. RESULTS: Of 127 patients, 32 (25%) were non-responders to clopidogrel (22 [69%] males, 10 [31%] females; median age, 54 years [range, 20–75]). All patients were treated with a 180-mg loading dose of ticagrelor, followed by 90 mg twice daily. Twenty patients (63%) underwent endovascular intervention for intracranial aneurysm, two (6%) for dissecting aneurysms, nine (28%) for stenotic lesions, and one (3%) for carotico-cavernous fistula. No patient experienced any adverse effects related to the use of Ticagrelor in the postoperative period. CONCLUSION: Ticagrelor is an effective alternative to clopidogrel for use in conjunction with aspirin in patients with clopidogrel resistance. None of our patients had adverse effects from ticagrelor. Drug cost, twice-daily dosing, and risk of faster platelet aggregation activation after discontinuation should be taken into consideration prior to its use in such patients.
Aneurysm, Dissecting ; Aspirin ; Drug Costs ; Endovascular Procedures ; Female ; Fistula ; Humans ; Intracranial Aneurysm ; Male ; Neurosciences ; Platelet Aggregation ; Postoperative Period ; Retrospective Studies ; Stents