Cognitive neuroscience articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    How diurnal primates develop exploration-navigation strategy and how the physiology of primate hippocampus is shaped in navigation are not fully understood. Here authors show that marmosets adapted their navigation strategies to their diurnal ecological niche. Notably, marmoset hippocampal neurons are specialized for encoding combinations of view, head direction and place, and that theta oscillations are triggered by rapid head-gaze movements.

    • Diego B. Piza
    • , Benjamin W. Corrigan
    •  & Julio Martinez-Trujillo

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Conversation is a primary means of social influence, but its effects on the brain aren’t well-understood. Here, the authors find evidence that people who are central in their social networks facilitate consensus-building conversations that align future brain activity.

    • Beau Sievers
    • , Christopher Welker
    •  & Thalia Wheatley

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Sleepwalking and related parasomnias are associated with partial awakenings out of non-rapid eye movement sleep. Here the authors show that when sleepwalkers have dream-like experiences during their episodes, they display brain activity patterns that resemble those previously described for dreams.

    • Jacinthe Cataldi
    • , Aurélie M. Stephan
    •  & Francesca Siclari

  • Article
    | Open Access

    How the position of conspecifics is represented in the brain is not fully understood. Here authors show that the position of conspecifics is represented relative to self-position in the hippocampus of female mice, which is modulated by context and identity and improved through learning.

    • Xiang Zhang
    • , Qichen Cao
    •  & Chenglin Miao

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Birdsong contains strings of syllables and is essential for their communication. Using a new song decoder to annotates song in a quasi-real-time manner, and rewarding specific syllable sequences, this study shows Bengalese finches can flexibly modify the content of their song in a goal-directed way.

    • Takuto Kawaji
    • , Mizuki Fujibayashi
    •  & Kentaro Abe

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The contribution of visual experience to the formation of cognitive maps in humans is not well understood. Here, the authors show using fMRI and an imagined navigation paradigm, that sighted people display hexagonal grid-like neural coding, while blind people show neural representations consistent with a square grid.

    • Federica Sigismondi
    • , Yangwen Xu
    •  & Roberto Bottini

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The neural basis of spatial localization is poorly understood. Here the authors showed that when planning a reach towards an object, neural coding in the frontoparietal network dynamically changes between allocentric and egocentric spatial reference frames where the transition is controlled by task demands.

    • Bahareh Taghizadeh
    • , Ole Fortmann
    •  & Alexander Gail

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The precise role that inferotemporal cortex plays in object recognition remains poorly understood. Here, the authors combine high-throughput behavioral optogenetics in non-human primates with machine learning to graphically capture perceptual events evoked by local stimulation in the high-level visual cortex.

    • Elia Shahbazi
    • , Timothy Ma
    •  & Arash Afraz

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Successful memorization could be decoded from brain activity. Here the authors decode human memory success from EEG recordings, suggesting memory is linked to context.

    • Yuxuan Li
    • , Jesse K. Pazdera
    •  & Michael J. Kahana

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Previous work has shown that natural cardiac rhythms modulate the perception and reaction to sensory cues through changes in associated neural signals. Here, the authors show that sensitivity to prediction errors during reward learning is related to the phase of the cardiac cycle.

    • Elsa F. Fouragnan
    • , Billy Hosking
    •  & Alejandra Sel

  • Article
    | Open Access

    How external stimuli capture our attention remains poorly understood. Here, the authors use a data-driven approach with human intracortical recordings to show that exogenous attention phenomena, such as inhibition of return, emerge at the intersection of visual and response signals across cortical gradients and timescales that shape the segregation of attentional events.

    • Tal Seidel Malkinson
    • , Dimitri J. Bayle
    •  & Paolo Bartolomeo

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The extent of cerebellar contributions to non-motor learning remains unclear. Here, authors identify a cortico-cerebellar circuit in primates that plays a causal role in reinforcement-based learning of visuomotor associations.

    • Naveen Sendhilnathan
    • , Andreea C. Bostan
    •  & Michael E. Goldberg

  • Comment
    | Open Access

    Growth chart studies of the human cerebellum, which is increasingly recognized as pivotal for cognitive development, are rare. Gaiser and colleagues utilized population-level neuroimaging to unveil cerebellar growth charts from childhood to adolescence, offering insights into brain development.

    • Zi-Xuan Zhou
    •  & Xi-Nian Zuo

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A consistent set of brain areas is engaged across diverse cognitive tasks. Here, the authors reveal a unifying latent brain state that predicts performance across seven tasks, linking a core control network to cognitive flexibility and adaptive behaviors.

    • Weidong Cai
    • , Jalil Taghia
    •  & Vinod Menon

  • Article
    | Open Access

    It is unclear how reward and risk are temporally organized in the human brain. Here, the authors demonstrate both sequential and parallel encoding of decision variables, and the role of anterior insula in reward- and risk-prediction error.

    • Vincent Man
    • , Jeffrey Cockburn
    •  & John P. O’Doherty

  • Article
    | Open Access

    “Visual performance might vary during natural behaviour such as walking. Here, the authors use wireless virtual reality to show that oscillations in performance on a visual detection task were systematically linked to the phase of the stride cycle.”

    • Matthew J. Davidson
    • , Frans A. J. Verstraten
    •  & David Alais

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The effects of data leakage on predictive models in neuroimaging studies are not well understood. Here, the authors show that data leakage via feature selection and repeated subjects drastically inflates prediction performance, whereas other forms of leakage have more minor effects.

    • Matthew Rosenblatt
    • , Link Tejavibulya
    •  & Dustin Scheinost

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The neural substrates of time perception are still unclear. Here, the authors show that as rats judged tactile stimuli, optogenetic manipulation of somatosensory cortex systematically altered perception of stimulus intensity and of duration, unveiling a multiplexed code.

    • Sebastian Reinartz
    • , Arash Fassihi
    •  & Mathew E. Diamond

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The medial entorhinal cortex (MEC) is hypothesized to function as a cognitive map for memory-guided navigation. Here, the authors demonstrate that the establishment of a spatially consistent MEC map across learning correlates with, and is necessary for, successful spatial memory.

    • Taylor J. Malone
    • , Nai-Wen Tien
    •  & Yi Gu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Whether visual illusions and mental imagery are similarly represented in visual cortex is not well understood. Here, the authors show that imagery content is mainly detectable in deep layers of V1, whereas illusory content is decodable mainly from superficial layers.

    • Johanna Bergmann
    • , Lucy S. Petro
    •  & Lars Muckli

  • Article
    | Open Access

    How speech sounds come to be understood as language remains unclear. Here, the authors find that brain responses to speech in part reflect abstraction of phonological units specific to the language being spoken, mediated through relationships between acoustic features.

    • Anna Mai
    • , Stephanie Riès
    •  & Timothy Q. Gentner

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The neurocognitive mechanisms underlying placebo effects of hunger suggestion are not well understood. Here, the authors show that activation and interaction of different areas of the prefrontal cortex are related to the effects of hunger suggestions on food choice and evaluation.

    • Iraj Khalid
    • , Belina Rodrigues
    •  & Liane Schmidt

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The neural dynamics of emotional memory consolidation are not well understood. Here, the authors analyse intracranial recordings from human participants after emotional memory encoding, showing that ripple-locked activity in the amygdala and hippocampus is predictive of subsequent memory.

    • Haoxin Zhang
    • , Ivan Skelin
    •  & Jack J. Lin

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The neural substrates of intra-individual variability are not well understood. Here, the authors show in macaque monkeys that response time variability is decreased by lesions to the anterior cingulate cortex and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, while it is increased by lesions to the posterior cingulate cortex and orbitofrontal cortex.

    • Farshad Alizadeh Mansouri
    • , Mark J. Buckley
    •  & Keiji Tanaka

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Reconstructing language dispersal patterns is important for understanding cultural spread and demic diffusion. Here, the authors use a computational approach based on velocity field estimation to infer the dispersal patterns of Indo-European, Sino-Tibetan, Bantu, and Arawak language families.

    • Sizhe Yang
    • , Xiaoru Sun
    •  & Menghan Zhang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Dopamine release in the brain is hypothesised to be related to unexpected changes in reward. Here, the authors combine PET and fMRI in humans to show individual differences in reward prediction error during a card guessing game are associated with dopamine receptor occupancy in the striatum.

    • Filip Grill
    • , Marc Guitart-Masip
    •  & Anna Rieckmann

  • Article
    | Open Access

    It is unclear how dorsomedial prefrontal cortex and insula represent reward prediction errors. Here, the authors analyze human intracranial data to reveal spatially mixed, asymmetric coding of valence-specific and unsigned reward prediction errors, with insula leading dorsomedial prefrontal cortex.

    • Colin W. Hoy
    • , David R. Quiroga-Martinez
    •  & Robert T. Knight

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The memory function of sleep relies on the coordination of slow oscillations and spindles. Here the authors show that respiration is associated with the emergence and interplay of these sleep rhythms, and that this coupling is linked to memory reactivation.

    • Thomas Schreiner
    • , Marit Petzka
    •  & Bernhard P. Staresina

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Serotonin 5-HT2A receptor signaling mechanisms associated with predicting psychedelic potential remain elusive. Using 5-HT2A-selective β-arrestin-biased ligands, here the authors show that a threshold level of 5-HT2A-Gq efficacy and not β-arrestin recruitment is associated with psychedelic potential.

    • Jason Wallach
    • , Andrew B. Cao
    •  & John D. McCorvy

  • Comment
    | Open Access

    Drawing on perspectives from West and Southern Africa, this Comment critically examines the current state of neuroscience progress in Africa, describing the unique landscape and ongoing challenges as embedded within wider socio-political realities. Distinct research opportunities in the African context are explored to include genetic and bio-diversity, multilingual and multicultural populations, life-course development, clinical neuroscience and neuropsychology, with applications to machine learning models, in light of complex post-colonial legacies that often impede research progress. Key determinants needed to accelerate African neuroscience are then discussed, as well as cautionary underpinnings that together create an equitable neuroscience framework.

    • Sahba Besharati
    •  & Rufus Akinyemi

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