Procrastination, an irrational delay of intended action, leads to numerous adverse effects in many life domains, such as low academic performance, poor mental health, and financial distress. Previous studies have revealed a substantial negative correlation between emotional regulation and procrastination. However, the neural basis for the association between emotion regulation and procrastination remains unclear. Therefore, we employed the voxel-based morphometry (VBM) and resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC) methods to explore the neural substrates underlying how emotion regulation is responsible for procrastination (N = 243). In line with our hypothesis, the results showed a significant negative correlation between emotion regulation ability and procrastination. Additionally, the VBM analysis showed that emotion regulation ability was positively correlated with gray matter (GM) volumes in the right dorsal-lateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC). The mediation analysis revealed that emotion regulation ability mediated the relationship between the GM volumes of the right dlPFC and procrastination. Furthermore, the RSFC results indicated that right dlPFC-left insula functional connectivity was positively associated with emotion regulation ability. Emotion regulation ability further mediated the relationship between the right dlPFC-left insula functional connectivity and procrastination. The current findings suggest that the neural pathway related to cognitive control over aversive emotion may be responsible for the close relationship between emotion regulation and procrastination, which provides a novel perspective for explaining the tight association between emotion regulation and procrastination.

Regular physical activity is deemed beneficial to physical, cognitive, and emotional health. Walking may be an accessible means of meeting physical activity recommendations and improving cognition. However, exercise effects on cognition are often explored at shorter durations (30 min or less), with fewer studies exploring how cognition is impacted during longer bouts of exercise. 36 (7 women) civilians and active-duty soldiers completed a VO max test and two one-hour walks, one at and one below the ventilatory threshold (VT), on separate days. They completed the Go/No-Go and Task-Switching Tasks before, every 15 min during, and immediately after exercise, while wearing a near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) system to monitor prefrontal cortex (PFC) activity. Response speed during the Go/No-Go task was improved at VT compared to sub-VT at the expense of task accuracy. FP cortex was deactivated during exercise in the Task-Switching Task, potentially due to the increased competition for resources between the frontal cortex and movement related areas. As a result, exercise at or below VT may improve or impair cognitive performance and activation in executive function-related areas depending on the task type and exercise intensity level.

Cognitive reserve (CR) explains the varying trajectories of cognitive decline in healthy and pathological ageing. CR is often operationalized in terms of socio-behavioural proxies that modulate cognitive performance. Individuals with higher CR are known to maintain better cognitive functions, but evidence on the underlying brain activity remains scattered. Here we review CR studies using functional MRI in young, healthy and pathologically elderly individuals. We focus on the two potential neural mechanisms of CR, neural reserve (efficiency of brain networks) and neural compensation (recruitment of additional brain regions), and the effect of different proxies on them. The results suggest increased task-related activity in different cognitive domains with age and compensation in case of difficult task and pathology. The effects of proxies lead to increased neural reserve (reduced brain activity) in both older and younger individuals. Their relationship with compensation remains unclear, largely due to the lack of young adult samples, particularly in clinical studies. These findings underscore the critical role of lifelong engagement in mentally enriching activities for preserving cognitive function during aging. New studies are encouraged to refine the CR theoretical and empirical framework, particularly regarding the measurement of socio-behavioral proxies and their relationship with cognitive decline and neural underpinning.

Changes in neuronal inhibition have been implicated in age-related declines in sensorimotor performance. While indirect evidence suggests that inhibitory mechanisms are also involved in rhythm entrainment, this association has not been tested. Using magnetic resonance spectroscopy, we tested the association between dorsomedial frontal GABA+/H2O concentrations and musical rhythm production in healthy younger (n = 14; 18-35) and older (n = 12; 55-79) adults, hypothesizing that lower GABA+/H2O concentrations would be associated with increased timing error, particularly on more difficult exercises, and intra-individual variability (quantified via mean successive squared difference (MSSD)). Rhythm learning exercises were presented in order of complexity. Linear mixed effects modeling revealed GABA+/H2O-by-exercise number interaction (β = -0.59, p = 0.006) such that participants with lower GABA+/H2O showed greater performance decrement with increasing exercise difficulty. GABA+/H2O trended toward an inverse association with MSSD (β = -0.25, p = 0.089), such that higher GABA+/H2O was associated with lower variability in performance. Older age was associated with increased absolute timing error (β = 0.66, p < 0.001) and greater MSSD (β = 0.86, p = 0.012). However, there was no evidence for age group differences in GABA+/H2O-performance relationships. This finding suggests that GABAergic neuronal inhibition may be important in musical rhythm production across age groups.

Topographical disorientation is linked to lesions in the right hemisphere and typically resolves within a few months post-stroke. Persistent topographical disorientation is uncommon and frequently accompanied by impairments in visual memory, complicating the analysis of the underlying mechanisms. Herein, we report two cases of sustained pure topographical disorientation following cerebral hemorrhages in the left retrosplenial region. The patients exhibited disorientation in both familiar and unfamiliar settings, attributable to heading disorientation, a deficit in determining the directional relationship between one's current position and a target location or external frames. The patients struggled with reconstructing large-scale spatial frameworks and integrating new egocentric and allocentric perspectives upon changes in body orientation. There were no landmark agnosia, egocentric disorientation, or anterograde disorientation. Although mild verbal memory deficits were observed, no other cognitive impairments, including visual memory deficits, were detected. Our findings imply that lesions confined to the left retrosplenial region can induce enduring heading disorientation and suggest a significant role for this area in processing and integrating spatial information necessary for large-scale navigation. Clarifying the features of topographical disorientation will significantly impact the therapeutic approaches, enhancing the quality of life for affected patients by restoring their independence and mobility.

We reanalyzed data originally published by Berman and Friedman (1995), who recorded event related potentials (ERPs) while children and adults with low, medium, and high socioeconomic status (SES) detected oddball auditory targets (tones and consonant-vowel sequences) among distractors. The ERP differential measuring how much attention was allocated to the targets vs. distractors increased significantly with SES, independently of age. To explain these findings, we integrate the ear to the ground hypothesis and the socioenvironmental epigenetic stress approach. According to the ear to the ground hypothesis, frequent and prolonged environmental uncertainty and hazard induce low-SES children to learn adaptive over-vigilance, attending disproportionately to stimuli that are currently irrelevant but may quickly become relevant and thus require an immediate survival response. Socioenvironmental epigenetic stress refers to the bidirectional interaction between a stress-inducing environment and the impact and expression of transgenerational gene selections in low-SES contexts. Because low-SES individuals are historically under and misrepresented in research, the proposed framework contributes to increase our understanding of how socioeconomic and environmental conditions may affect neurocognitive development. This offers significant points of entry for future interventions and policies targeting macrosocial settings (i.e., education and the justice system) and microsocial ontogenetic settings (i.e., individuals and families).

In overt movement, internal models make predictions about the sensory consequences of a desired movement, generating the appropriate motor commands to achieve that movement. Using available sensory feedback, internal models are updated to allow for movement adaptation and in-turn better performance. Whether internal models are updated during motor imagery, the mental rehearsal of movement, is not well established. To investigate internal modelling during motor imagery, 66 participants were exposed to a leftwards prism shift while performing actual pointing movements (physical practice; PP), imagined pointing movements (motor imagery; MI), or no pointing movements (control). If motor imagery updates internal models, we hypothesized that aftereffects (pointing in the direction opposite the prism shift) would be observed in MI, like that of PP, and unlike that of control. After prism exposure, the magnitude of aftereffects was significant in PP (4.73° ± 1.56°), but not in MI (0.34° ± 0.96°) and control (0.34° ± 1.04°). Accordingly, PP differed significantly from MI and control. Our results show that motor imagery does not update internal models, suggesting that it is not a direct simulation of overt movement. Furthering our understanding of the mechanisms that underlie learning through motor imagery will lead to more effective applications of motor imagery.

Readers frequently encounter homographs (e.g., bank) whose resolution requires selection-suppression processes: selecting the contextually relevant meaning, while suppressing the irrelevant one. In two experiments, we investigated how these processes are modulated by the phonological status of the homograph (homographs with one vs. two possible pronunciations); and what is the involvement of the left inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG, including Broca's area) in these processes. To these ends, Experiment 1 utilized the context verification task with two types of Hebrew homographs: homophonic (e.g., bank) and heterophonic (e.g., tear). In the task, participants read sentences ending either with a homograph (e.g., bank) or an unambiguous word (e.g., shore). The sentences were biased towards the homograph's subordinate meaning (e.g., The fisherman sat on the bank/shore), and were followed by a target word related to the homograph's dominant meaning (e.g., MONEY). The participants were asked to judge whether the target was related to the overall meaning of the sentence. An ambiguity effect was observed for both types of homographs, reflecting interference from the irrelevant dominant meaning. However, this ambiguity effect was larger for heterophonic than for homophonic homographs, indicating that dominant meanings of heterophonic homographs are more difficult to suppress. Experiment 2 was identical, except that the procedure was coupled with transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) over the LIFG (including Broca's area). We found that stimulating the LIFG abolished the ambiguity effect, but only in the case of heterophonic homographs. Together, these findings highlight the distinction between phonological and semantic levels of selection-suppression processes, and the involvement of the LIFG in the phonological level of these processes.

Cognitive control involves flexibly configuring mental resources and adjusting behavior to achieve goal-directed actions. It is associated with the coordinated activity of brain networks, although it remains unclear how both structural and functional brain networks can predict cognitive control. Connectome-based predictive modeling (CPM) is a powerful tool for predicting cognitive control based on brain networks.

Development of attentional skills and inhibitory control rely on maturational changes in the brain across childhood and youth. However, both brain anatomy and different components of attention and inhibition show notable individual variation. Research on ADHD and inhibitory training and control have shown that variations in the thickness and surface area of particularly inferior cortical structures are associated with attentional control. However, the intricacies of how the development of inhibitory control is associated with the anatomical variations beyond the general age- and gender-dependent differences have not been resolved. Here, we sought to address these questions by quantifying the cortical thickness and surface area in frontal cortical regions and inhibitory control using the stop signal task performance in 6-14-year-old children. Our results showed that the thickness of the left medial orbitofrontal cortex and the surface area of the left caudal anterior cingulate were associated with the inhibitory performance, beyond the variance that could be explained by the subjects' age and gender. The results highlight the importance of factoring in anatomical variations when following attentional development and the importance of evaluating multiple anatomical measures when aiming to link the properties of cortical structures with variations in cognitive performance.

This study aims to explore the impact of smoking on intrinsic brain activity among high-altitude (HA) populations. Smoking is associated with various neural alterations, but it remains unclear whether smokers in HA environments exhibit specific neural characteristics.

Previous research has shown that, in both laboratory and real-world contexts, punishment sensitivity is associated with lower risk-taking propensity. The neural underpinnings of the association between punishment sensitivity and risk-taking, however, remain largely unknown. To address this issue, we implemented resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC) and voxel-based morphometry (VBM) methodologies to investigate the neural basis of their relationship in the current study (N=594). The behavioral results confirmed a negative association between punishment sensitivity and risk-taking propensity, which supports the hypothesis. The VBM results demonstrated a positive correlation between punishment sensitivity and gray matter volume in the right orbitofrontal cortex (ROFC). Furthermore, the results of the RSFC analysis revealed that the functional connectivity between ROFC and the right medial temporal gyrus (RMTG) was positively associated with punishment sensitivity. Notably, mediation analysis demonstrated that punishment sensitivity acted as a complete mediator in the influence of ROFC-RMTG functional connectivity on risk-taking. These findings suggest that ROFC-RMTG functional connectivity may be the neural basis underlying the effect of punishment sensitivity on risk-taking propensity, which provides a new perspective for understanding the relationship between punishment sensitivity and risk-taking propensity.

Stress is an increasingly dominating part of our daily lives and higher performance requirements at work or to ourselves influence the physiological reaction of our body. Elevated stress levels can be reliably identified through electroencephalogram (EEG) and heart rate (HR) measurements. In this study, we examined how an arithmetic stress-inducing task impacted EEG and HR, establishing meaningful correlations between behavioral data and physiological recordings. Thirty-one healthy participants (15 females, 16 males, aged 20 to 37) willingly participated. Under time pressure, participants completed arithmetic calculations and filled out stress questionnaires before and after the task. Linear mixed effects (LME) allowed us to generate topographical association maps showing significant relations between EEG features (delta, theta, alpha, beta, and gamma power) and factors such as task difficulty, error rate, response time, stress scores, and HR. With task difficulty, we observed left centroparietal and parieto-occipital theta power decreases, and alpha power increases. Furthermore, frontal alpha, delta and theta activity increased with error rate and relative response time, while parieto-temporo-occipital alpha power decreased. Practice effects on EEG power included increases in temporal, parietal, and parieto-occipital theta and alpha activity. HR was positively associated with frontal delta, theta and alpha power whereas frontal gamma power decreases. Significant alpha laterality scores were observed for all factors except task difficulty and relative response time, showing overall increases in left parietal regions. Significant frontal alpha asymmetries emerged with increases in error rate, sex, run number, and HR and occipital alpha asymmetries were also found with run number and HR. Additionally we explored practice effects and noted sex-related differences in EEG features, HR, and questionnaire scores. Overall, our study enhances the understanding of EEG/ECG-based mental stress detection, crucial for early interventions, personalized treatment and objective stress assessment towards the development of a neuroadaptive system.

Proprioceptive deficits have been shown to underlie motor problems in individuals with a probable developmental coordination disorder (pDCD). Behavioral studies have employed response times to passive limb movement to evaluate proprioceptive function in individuals with pDCD. However, the underlying neural mechanisms involved in the cortical processing of proprioceptive input and its corresponding motor response are unclear. To address this issue, this study aims to investigate neuropsychological and neurophysiological performances using event-related potentials (ERP) on proprioceptive-motor tasks in young adults with pDCD.

Masked word repetition (priming) increases "old" responses on an episodic recognition test, which has been attributed to more fluent target processing. Such results hinge on comparisons to a control prime that is "fluency-neutral". A common practice is to use unrelated word primes for this purpose when some evidence suggests that they actually decrease target word processing fluency (disfluency). ERP and behavioral measures were collected in three experiments that used non-letter symbols as a fluency-neutral control and match primes to increase processing fluency. Experiment 1 compared unrelated word primes and orthographically dissimilar nonword primes to determine whether these primes cause disfluency. Experiment 2 contrasted orthographically dissimilar and similar nonword primes. Experiment 3 examined semantically related primes to test theoretical predictions derived from Experiments 1 and 2. All three experiments provide evidence that the FN400 and N400 are distinct ERP components because many primes altered only one of the components. Relative to the control condition, match (Exps 1 & 2) and semantic primes selectively affected N400 amplitudes, whereas unrelated word primes and orthographically dissimilar nonword primes selectively affected FN400 amplitudes. The Unexpected Fluency Attribution model (Mecklinger & Bader, 2020) provides a framework for understanding the cognitive processes associated with each ERP component.

Chronic non-specific low back pain (NSCLBP) is linked to sensorimotor dysfunctions and altered motor planning, likely due to neuroplastic changes. Motor imagery (MI) and movement execution share neural pathways, but the relationship between imagined and executed movements in NSCLBP patients remains underexplored. This study aimed to assess the temporal congruence between imagined and executed movements in NSCLBP sufferers, with secondary goals of investigating group differences in movement chronometry, psychological well-being, and disability, as well as possible correlations among these factors. Fifty-six participants, including 28 NSCLBP patients and 28 asymptomatic subjects (AS), performed lumbar flexion and Timed Up and Go (TUG) tasks. NSCLBP patients showed significant temporal incongruence in both tasks, executing movements more slowly than imagined, whereas AS displayed incongruence only in the TUG task. NSCLBP patients also took longer to imagine and execute lumbar flexion movements compared to AS, with correlations observed between execution delays, higher disability, and greater fear of movement. The findings highlight a lack of temporal congruence in NSCLBP patients, especially in lumbar flexion, emphasizing the complex relationship between chronic pain, motor ability, and psychological factors. These results suggest that integrated treatment approaches addressing cognitive and emotional aspects are crucial for managing NSCLBP.

The current study investigated how the brain sets up expectations from stimulus regularities by evaluating the neural responses to expectations driven implicitly (by the stimuli themselves) and explicitly (by task demands). How the brain uses prior information to create expectations and what role attention plays in forming or holding predictions to efficiently respond to incoming sensory information is still debated. We presented temporal patterns of visual input while recording EEG under two different task conditions. When the patterns were task-relevant and pattern recognition was required to perform the button press task, three different event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were elicited, each reflecting a different aspect of pattern expectation. In contrast, when the patterns were task-irrelevant, none of the neural indicators of pattern recognition or pattern violation detection were observed to the same temporally structured sequences. Thus, results revealed a clear distinction between expectation and attention that was prompted by task requirements. These results provide complementary pieces of evidence that implicit exposure to a stimulus pattern may not be sufficient to drive neural effects of expectations that lead to predictive error responses. Task-driven attentional control can dissociate from stimulus-driven expectations, to effectively minimize distracting information and maximize attentional regulation.

Extensive behavioral and pedagogical studies emphasize the negative impact of foreign language reading anxiety on foreign language reading. This study investigated whether foreign language reading anxiety is correlated with dysregulation of attentional allocation while foreign language reading. We used event-related potential (ERP) indices as biomarkers to examine attention allocation between groups with high foreign language reading anxiety (HFLRA) and low foreign language reading anxiety (LFLRA) using a cue-target paradigm under conditions that posed high (valid condition) or low (invalid condition) expectations on target location. Behavioral results indicated that HFLRA individuals exhibited significantly lower accuracy compared to LFLRA individuals in both valid and invalid conditions. ERP analyses demonstrated that HFLRA individuals showed significant differences in attentional allocation compared to LFLRA individuals, as reflected by later N2 latency and stronger LPC amplitude, particularly in the invalid condition. Additionally, LFLRA individuals demonstrated a significant difference in N2 latency between valid and invalid conditions, which was not observed in HFLRA individuals. These findings suggest that HFLRA individuals experience inefficient attentional allocation during foreign language reading.

The Default Mode Network (DMN) is increasingly recognized as a key hub where cognitive and emotional processes converge, particularly through its role in integrating episodic memory and emotional experiences. The current mini-review highlights three distinct patterns of brain activity within the DMN associated with emotional processing. The first pattern indicates that, while the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) encodes the pleasantness of memories, other DMN regions support episodic content construction. The second pattern suggests the interaction between the DMN and regions outside of it, such as the amygdala and anterior insula, which contribute to the emotional significance of memories. The third pattern shows widespread activation across the DMN for both pleasant and unpleasant events, challenging the notion of a modular organization of cognition and emotion. The first two patterns appear to result from methodological choices in some studies, while a non-modular view of cognition and emotion in the DMN has recently emerged as the most plausible. These findings support the integration of cognitive and emotional processes within the DMN, suggesting that it plays a fundamental role in constructing coherent and emotionally charged narratives.

Patients with hemispatial neglect show multiple oculomotor deficits like delayed contralesional saccade latencies, hypometric saccade amplitudes, and impaired smooth pursuit. We aimed to investigate whether modulation of superior colliculus (SC) activity via monocular eye patching improves neglect patients' eye movements to the contralesional side of space. Thirteen neglect patients with left-hemispheric (LH) stroke, 22 neglect patients with right-hemispheric (RH) stroke, and 24 healthy controls completed a video-oculographic examination of horizontal smooth pursuit and reactive saccades twice, while the left or right eye was covered with an eye patch. Independent of the eye patch position, LH and RH patients showed enlarged saccade latencies toward contralesional stimuli. In addition, both during smooth pursuit and reactive saccades, RH patients made significantly fewer rightward saccades when the right than when the left eye was patched. Moreover, during reactive saccades, RH patients made significantly fewer right than left saccades, but only when the right eye was patched. These findings suggest that the ipsilesional eye patch modulated ipsilesional ocular performance in the RH group, presumably resulting from differences in SC activity. Yet, ipsilesional eye patching did not improve eye movements to the contralesional side of space, possibly due to the incomplete contralateral retinocollicular projection in humans.