alcohol directly affects astroglial cell function, including inflammation-related activity.  and it also affects microglial cell development and function in specific ways that interfere with microglial interactions with the immune system and with neurons. neuroinflammatory processes might be involved in alcohol-induced brain damage. alcohol use, misuse and getting used to it causes different ki...

Individual differences in cognitive abilities and skills can predict normatively superior and logically consistent judgments and decisions. The current experiment investigates the processes that mediate individual differences in risky choices. We assessed working memory span, numeracy, and cognitive impulsivity and conducted a protocol analysis to trace variations in conscious deliberative proc...

AIM Cognitive impairment is an important predictor of functional outcome in patients with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). However, the neurophysiology of ADHD-related cognitive impairments remains unclear. Event-related potentials (ERPs) represent the noninvasive measurement of neural correlates of cognitive function. Mismatch negativity (MMN) is an ERP component that is presum...

Increased impulsivity caused by addictive drugs is believed to contribute to the maintenance of addiction and has been linked to hypofunction within the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC). Recent data indicate that cocaine ‘‘self-administration’’ induces the transcription factor DFosB in the OFC that alters the effects of investigatoradministered cocaine on impulsivity. Here, using viral-mediated gene ...

Background: Smoking cessation increases several symptoms, some of which appear to be due to nicotine withdrawal. One possible feature of withdrawal is impulsivity. Impulsivity is not currently included as a symptom of nicotine withdrawal neither in the Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th Edition, Text Revision (DSM-IV-TR) nor in withdrawal scales. However, a related term, “impatience” i...

Increased impulsivity caused by addictive drugs is believed to contribute to the maintenance of addiction and has been linked to hypofunction within the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC). Recent data indicate that cocaine "self-administration" induces the transcription factor DeltaFosB in the OFC that alters the effects of investigator-administered cocaine on impulsivity. Here, using viral-mediated ge...

We review the contributions of biologically constrained computational models to our understanding of motor and cognitive deficits in Parkinson's disease (PD). The loss of dopaminergic neurons innervating the striatum in PD, and the well-established role of dopamine (DA) in reinforcement learning (RL), enable neural network models of the basal ganglia (BG) to derive concrete and testable predict...

OBJECTIVE Delusional disorder has been traditionally considered a psychotic syndrome that does not evolve to cognitive deterioration. However, to date, very little empirical research has been done to explore cognitive executive components and memory processes in Delusional Disorder patients. This study will investigate whether patients with delusional disorder are intact in both executive funct...

Previous data suggest that methylphenidate can have variable effects on different cognitive tasks both within and between individuals. This is thought to be underpinned by inverted U-shaped relationships between cognitive performance and dopaminergic activity in relatively separate fronto-striatal circuits and reflected by individual differences in trait impulsivity. Direct evidence for this is...

The ongoing bioethical debate on pharmacological cognitive enhancement (PCE) in healthy individuals is often legitimated by the assumption that PCE will widely spread and become desirable for the general public in the near future. This assumption was questioned as PCE is not equally save and effective in everyone. Additionally, it was supposed that the willingness to use PCE is strongly persona...