Brain mechanisms of mental processing:from evoked and spontaneous brain activities to enactive brain activity

Within the context of the computer metaphor,evoked brain activity acts as a primary carrier for the brain mechanisms of mental processing.However,many studies have found that evoked brain activity is not the major part of brain activity.Instead,spontaneous brain activity exhibits greater intensity and coevolves with evoked brain activity through continuous interaction.Spontaneous and evoked brain activities are similar but not identical.They are not separate parts,but always dynamically interact with each other.Therefore,the enactive cognition theory further states that the brain is characterized by unified and active patterns of activity.The brain adjusts its activity pattern by minimizing the error between expectation and stimulation,adapting to the ever-changing environment.Therefore,the dynamic regulation of brain activity in response to task situations is the core brain mechanism of mental processing.Beyond the evoked brain activity and spontaneous brain activity,the enactive brain activity provides a novel framework to completely describe brain activities during mental processing.It is necessary for upcoming researchers to introduce innovative indicators and paradigms for investigating enactive brain activity during mental processing.

The brain compensatory mechanisms and Alzheimer's disease progression:a new protective strategy

Compensatory/adaptive mechanisms in the brain are hy- pothesized to be involved in its protection from the Alz- heimer＇s disease （AD） progression. These mechanisms are activated by malfunctioning of various brain systems： anti- oxidant, neurotrophic, neurotransmitter, immune, and oth- ers. Detailed analysis of compensatory^adaptive capabilities of these systems might be a start point for further discovery and development of perspective approaches for early diag- nostics and treatment of AD and associated neurodegenera- tive disorders.

Mechanism Interpretation of the Biological Brain Cooling and Its Inspiration on Bionic Engineering

The brain is one of the most important organs in a biological body which can only work in a relatively stable temperature range. However, many environmental factors in biosphere would cause cerebral temperature fluctuations. To sustain and regulate the brain temperature, many mechanisms of biological brain cooling have been evolved, including Selective Brain Cooling （SBC）, cooling through surface water evaporation, respiration, behavior response and using special anatomical ap- pendages. This article is dedicated to present a summarization and systematic interpretation on brain cooling strategies devel- oped in animals by classifying and comparatively analyzing each typical biological brain cooling mechanism from the per- spective of bio-heat transfer. Meanwhile, inspirations from such cooling in nature were proposed for developing advanced bionic engineering technologies especially with two focuses on therapeutic hypothermia and computer chip cooling areas. It is expected that many innovations can be achieved along this way to find out new cooling methodologies for a wide variety of industrial applications which will be highly efficient, energy saving, flexible or even intelligent.

Neuroprotection induced by NMDA preconditioning as a strategy to understand brain tolerance mechanism

Excitotoxicity refers to toxicity caused by abnormal concentrations of glutamate in the synaptic cleft that may lead to neuronal death. Since its description, the phenomenon of glutamatergic excitotoxicity has been implicated in the physiopathology of a wide range of neurological and psychiatric disorders, from acute brain damage such as traumatic brain injury, ischemia as well as chronic condi- tions like epilepsy, depression and neurodegenerative pathologies such as Huntington＇s, Parkinson＇s and Alzheimer＇s diseases. Exces- sive stimulation of glutamatergic receptors, mainly N-methyl-D-as- partate （NMDA） receptors （NMDAR）, can have numerous adverse effects on the cell viability, including increased nitric oxide release （NO）, activation of proteases, increased production of reactive oxygen （ROS） and nitrogen （RNS） species and massive influx of calcium ions （Ca2＋）, resulting in cell death. Thus, the use of strategies that modulate the excitotoxic cell damage represents a perspective for the treatment of diseases such as Parkinson＇s and Alzheimer＇s diseases, ischemia, traumatic brain injury （TBI） and seizures.

Crop Leaf Disease Recognition Network Based on Brain Parallel Interaction Mechanism

In the actual complex environment,the recognition accuracy of crop leaf disease is often not high.Inspired by the brain parallel interaction mechanism,a two-stream parallel interactive convolutional neural network(TSPI-CNN)is proposed to improve the recognition accuracy.TSPI-CNN includes a two-stream parallel network(TSP-Net)and a parallel interactive network(PI-Net).TSP-Net simulates the ventral and dorsal stream.PI-Net simulates the interaction between two pathways in the process of human brain visual information transmission.A large number of experiments shows that the proposed TSPI-CNN performs well on MK-D2,PlantVillage,Apple-3 leaf,and Cassava leaf datasets.Furthermore,the effect of numbers of interactions on the recognition performance of TSPI-CNN is discussed.The experimental results show that as the number of interactions increases,the recognition accuracy of the network also increases.Finally,the network is visualized to show the working mechanism of the network and provide enlightenment for future research.

Brain Systems Underlying Fundamental Motivations of Human Social Conformity

From birth to adulthood,we often align our behaviors,attitudes,and opinions with a majority,a phenomenon known as social conformity.A seminal framework has proposed that conformity behaviors are mainly driven by three fundamental motives:a desire to gain more information to be accurate,to obtain social approval from others,and to maintain a favorable self-concept.Despite extensive interest in neuroimaging investigation of social conformity,the relationship between brain systems and these fundamental motivations has yet to be established.Here,we reviewed brain imaging findings of social conformity with a componential framework,aiming to reveal the neuropsychological substrates underlying different conformity motivations.First,information-seeking engages the evaluation of social information,information integration,and modification of task-related activity,corresponding to brain networks implicated in reward,cognitive control,and tasks at hand.Second,social acceptance involves the anticipation of social acceptance or rejection and mental state attribution,mediated by networks of reward,punishment,and mentalizing.Third,self-enhancement entails the excessive representation of positive self-related information and suppression of negative self-related information,ingroup favoritism and/or outgroup derogation,and elaborated mentalizing processes to the ingroup,supported by brain systems of reward,punishment,and mentalizing.Therefore,recent brain imaging studies have provided important insights into the fundamental motivations of social conformity in terms of component processes and brain mechanisms.

Visualizing the Knowledge Domain of Humor Processing: A Scientometric Review(2000-2016)

The scientific literature of humor processing between 2000 and 2016 was reviewed by means of scientometric methods. The clustered and visualized document co-citation network of the humor processing knowledge domain was analyzed in terms of common topics and content of co-cited references. Emerging trends of humor processing were detected through reference citation bursts. The combined dataset of 816 bibliographic records and 42,687 references was compiled through a basic topic search. In order to ensure adequate coverage of the field, the search was expanded to include literature that referenced literature found in the initial basic topic search. Results produced a document co-citation network of humor processing with ten clusters, which showed that social cognition and fMRI study both served as important foundations for work in this knowledge domain. Personality studies in humor processing as well as research about the right hemisphere＇s role in humor processing also received considerable attention. These key areas of study accounted for 4 clusters. The remaining six clusters included studies on sexual selection, figurative language, prejudice, facial expression, sleep deprivation and infant humor perception associated with the knowledge domain. In this study, burst detection in references revealed topics of high interest to researchers as well as emerging trends in humor processing research.

Neuroaesthetics: a narrative review of neuroimaging techniques

As a new discipline,neuroaesthetics has developed rapidly to become an important branch of neuroscience.The study of neuroaesthetics is of great significance to understanding the mechanisms underlying human aesthetics.In this review,we briefly define neuroaesthetics,and then review the current state of aesthetics research with a focus on single-modal and multi-modal neuroimaging technologies using the visual and auditory modalities.Finally,we summarize current challenges and trends in the field.