Frontiers in Human Neuroscience | New and Recent Articles

ObjectivesStroke is characterized by high morbidity and high disability rate, and is the main cause of long-term disability. To evaluate the efficacy of intermittent theta burst stimulation (iTBS) on patients with lower limb motor dysfunction after stroke through functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) and the Fugl-Meyer Assessment of Lower Extremity Motor Function Scale, and analyze the ac…

Socially meaningful symbolic cues are common in everyday visual environments, yet the timing with which they diverge from neutral objects during neural processing remains unclear. This study examined the temporal dynamics of one culturally meaningful class of symbolic cues, national-symbol icons, using event-related potentials (ERPs). Thirty-four Chinese university students completed a within-sub…

BackgroundSleep deprivation impairs core cognitive functions, such as working memory. Previous studies focused on global working memory performance, and direct comparisons of how different cognitive enhancers mitigate sleep deprivation-induced deficits in object working memory remain limited, particularly regarding the underlying neurophysiological mechanisms. This study compared the counteractiv…

Speech production difficulties in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are heterogeneous and are not uniformly characterized by articulatory impairment across the spectrum. However, some autistic subgroups, particularly minimally verbal children, children with low expressive-language ability, and those with suspected co-occurring speech-motor difficulties, may show atypical vowel-acoustic patterns. Bec…

Transcranial magnetic stimulation combined with electroencephalography (TMS-EEG) has emerged as a promising noninvasive approach for probing cortical reactivity and network dynamics with millisecond temporal resolution, with growing relevance for mechanistic and clinical neuroscience. However, despite rapid expansion of the field, TMS-EEG findings remain difficult to interpret because of substant…

BackgroundThe brain coordinates behavior across timescales spanning milliseconds to days through cross-frequency coupling (CFC)—the mechanism by which slow oscillations modulate the amplitude and timing of faster oscillations, creating a hierarchical temporal architecture. Existing frameworks have typically addressed oscillations within narrow frequency ranges, leaving cross-timescale coordinatio…

This study analyzes neural and behavioral events occurring before, during, and after the emergence of a pain quale and the consciousness of that pain to examine the causal efficacy of the quale and consciousness. It finds that events occurring before or concurrently with the emergence of the quale are neither caused nor influenced by the quale or consciousness. Events occurring afterward may also…

IntroductionHeat stress (HS) can progress to heat stroke, a life-threatening condition. Aquaporin-4 (AQP4) has been implicated in HS-induced brain injury, but its role in heat acclimation (HA)-mediated protection remains unclear. This study investigated whether HA ameliorates HS-induced brain damage through AQP4.Methods9L/lacZ cells were randomly assigned to four groups: Control (37 °C, 5% CO₂), …

Stuttering affects approximately 1% of adults. Therapies based on imitation offer only modest benefits when individuals observe external models. Neurobiological research reveals a key asymmetry: some studies suggest self-face recognition activates ventral tegmental area (VTA) reward circuits more strongly than observing others’ faces, and positron emission tomography (PET) research shows increase…

BackgroundCognitive impairment is frequent in post-COVID-19 syndrome (PCS). The understanding of the pathogenesis is still limited. Key factors such as neuroinflammation, neurovascular dysfunction, and disruption of cellular energy metabolism have been identified. There are no evidence-based treatments targeting the pathologic mechanisms of cognitive impairment associated with PCS available to da…

Multisensory integration differences have been reported in individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), yet little is known about how these traits may jointly influence multisensory processing. Given the high comorbidity between ASD and ADHD, examining their individual and combined effects is critical for understanding sensory integration in…

IntroductionBreast cancer brain metastases (BCBMs) represent a severe neurological complication affecting 10–20% of patients with metastatic breast cancer, with significant implications for treatment planning and prognosis. Accurate determination of hormone receptor (HR) status is critical for guiding personalized therapeutic strategies. However, traditional biopsy-based assessment is invasive, c…

Working memory (WM) is a core cognitive function that is both mechanistically tractable and clinically relevant, making it a prime target for noninvasive neuromodulation. However, transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) studies targeting the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) have yielded variable WM outcomes, possibly because single-site protocols fail to engage the distributed network dynam…

Background/aimsTranscranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) has emerged as a promising intervention in both rehabilitation and cognitive enhancement, yet its effects remain inconsistent across studies. This variability has raised questions about the underlying mechanisms influencing tDCS efficacy.MethodsIn this review, we address the issue of the inconsistent effect of tDCS on motor and cogniti…

BackgroundDepression is common among elective lumbar spine surgery candidates and is associated with worse postoperative outcomes. Home-based transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) has demonstrated safety and feasibility, with evidence of antidepressant effects in remote randomized and open-label studies of major depressive disorder (MDD). Whether this approach can be feasibly and accepta…

IntroductionPeripheral nerve conduction parameters vary between individuals and may reflect differences in peripheral neurophysiological function. This exploratory observational study examined whether ulnar nerve conduction measures and reaction time were associated with academic indicators among male medical students. The study was designed to provide preliminary evidence regarding possible asso…

This study developed a novel, fully reproducible EEG-based framework for binary emotion recognition that combines phase-space reconstruction with Poincaré sections to capture the nonlinear dynamics of brain activity during prototypical emotional states. The method was applied to the publicly available AMIGOS dataset. EEG recordings from 33 participants were downsampled to 128 Hz, bandpass-filtere…