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Humans engagement in music rests on underlying elements such as the listeners’ cultural background and interest in music. These factors modulate how listeners anticipate musical events, a process inducing instantaneous neural responses as the music confronts these expectations. Measuring such neural correlates would represent a direct window into high-level brain processing. Here we recorded cortical signals as participants listened to Bach melodies. We assessed the relative contributions of acoustic versus melodic components of the music to the neural signal. Melodic features included information on pitch progressions and their tempo, which were extracted from a predictive model of musical structure based on Markov chains. We related the music to brain activity with temporal response functions demonstrating, for the first time, distinct cortical encoding of pitch and note-onset expectations during naturalistic music listening. This encoding was most pronounced at response latencies up to 350 ms, and in both planum temporale and Heschl’s gyrus.

Declarative verbal learning and memory are known to be lateralised to the dominant hemisphere and to be subserved by a network of structures, including those located in frontal and temporal regions. These structures support critical components of verbal memory, including working memory, encoding, and retrieval. Their relative functional importance in facilitating declarative verbal learning and memory, however, remains unclear. To investigate the different functional roles of these structures in subserving declarative verbal learning and memory performance by applying a more focal form of transcranial direct current stimulation, “High Definition tDCS” (HD-tDCS). Additionally, we sought to examine HD-tDCS effects and electrical field intensity distributions using computer modelling. HD-tDCS was administered to the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (LDLPFC), planum temporale (PT), and left medial temporal lobe (LMTL) to stimulate the hippocampus, during learning on a declarative verbal memory task. Sixteen healthy participants completed a single blind, intra-individual cross-over, sham-controlled study which used a Latin Square experimental design. Cognitive effects on working memory and sustained attention were additionally examined. HD-tDCS to the LDLPFC significantly improved the rate of verbal learning (p=0.03, η2=0.29) and speed of responding during working memory performance (p=0.02, η2=0.35), but not accuracy (p=0.12, η2=0.16). No effect of tDCS on verbal learning, retention, or retrieval was found for stimulation targeted to the LMTL or the PT. Secondary analyses revealed that LMTL stimulation resulted in increased recency (p=0.02, η2=0.31) and reduced mid-list learning effects (p=0.01, η2=0.39), suggesting an inhibitory effect on learning. HD-tDCS to the LDLPFC facilitates the rate of verbal learning and improved efficiency of working memory may underlie performance effects. This focal method of administrating tDCS has potential for probing and enhancing cognitive functioning. •Verbal memory functions were investigated using focal tDCS.•Focal left DLPFC stimulation improved rate of learning and working memory speed.•Focal planum temporale stimulation did not affect memory functioning.•Left medial temporal lobe stimulation increased recency learning effects.

Asymmetry between the left and right hemisphere is a key feature of brain organization. Hemispheric functional specialization underlies some of the most advanced human-defining cognitive operations, such as articulated language, perspective taking, or rapid detection of facial cues. Yet, genetic investigations into brain asymmetry have mostly relied on common variants, which typically exert small effects on brain-related phenotypes. Here, we leverage rare genomic deletions and duplications to study how genetic alterations reverberate in human brain and behavior. We designed a pattern-learning approach to dissect the impact of eight high-effect-size copy number variations (CNVs) on brain asymmetry in a multi-site cohort of 552 CNV carriers and 290 non-carriers. Isolated multivariate brain asymmetry patterns spotlighted regions typically thought to subserve lateralized functions, including language, hearing, as well as visual, face and word recognition. Planum temporale asymmetry emerged as especially susceptible to deletions and duplications of specific gene sets. Targeted analysis of common variants through genome-wide association study (GWAS) consolidated partly diverging genetic influences on the right versus left planum temporale structure. In conclusion, our gene-brain-behavior data fusion highlights the consequences of genetically controlled brain lateralization on uniquely human cognitive capacities. Asymmetry is a key organising principle of the brain. Here the authors leveraged rare genetic mutations to revisit structural brain asymmetry showing the planum temporale is susceptible to deletions & duplications of specific gene sets.

Subjective well-being is assumed to be distributed in the hedonic hotspots of subcortical and cortical structures. However, the precise neural correlates underlying this construct, especially how it is maintained during the resting state, are still largely unknown. Here, we explored the neural basis of subjective well-being by correlating the regional fractional amplitude of low frequency fluctuations (fALFF) with the self-reported subjective well-being of healthy individuals. Behaviorally, we demonstrated that subjective well-being contained two related but distinct components: cognitive and affective well-being. Neurally, we showed that the fALFF in the bilateral posterior superior temporal gyrus (pSTG), right posterior mid-cingulate cortex (pMCC), right thalamus, left postcentral gyrus (PCG), right lingual gyrus, and left planum temporale (PT) positively predicted cognitive well-being, whereas the fALFF in the bilateral superior frontal gyrus (SFG), right orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), and left inferior temporal gyrus (ITG) negatively predicted cognitive well-being. In contrast, only the fALFF in the right amygdala reliably predicted affective well-being. Furthermore, emotional intelligence partially mediated the effects of the right pSTG and thalamus on cognitive well-being, as well as the effect of the right amygdala on affective well-being. In summary, we provide the first evidence that spontaneous brain activity in multiple regions associated with sensation, social perception, cognition, and emotion contributes to cognitive well-being, whereas the spontaneous brain activity in only one emotion-related region contributes to affective well-being, suggesting that the spontaneous activity of the human brain reflect the efficiency of subjective well-being. •fALFF was used to explore the neural basis of subjective well-being.•Cognitive well-being correlated with the fALFF in multiple regions.•Affective well-being correlated with the fALFF in the right amygdala.•Emotional intelligence mediated the link between fALFF and cognitive well-being.•Emotional intelligence mediated the link between fALFF and affective well-being.

Misophonia, a disorder characterized by extreme aversion to certain sounds, affects 5%–20% of the general population, yet mechanisms are still largely unknown. Recent neuroimaging studies have reported abnormal functional connectivity of the anterior insula to various limbic, salience, and motor regions in smaller samples of misophonic individuals versus controls, suggesting potential differences in underlying attentional or emotional processes. These findings prompt questions about the insular connectivity profile in larger samples of adults, what patterns emerge when the samples span a wider range of misophonia severity, and how these patterns may or may not overlap with other co‐occurring disorders. To address these questions, we analyzed resting‐state functional magnetic resonance imaging data from the open Welsh Advanced Neuroimaging Database ( N = 162) comprising participants recruited from the general adult population and assessed for sensory sensitivity, anxiety, depression, and autistic traits. A misophonia severity score was derived from the sensory sensitivity data using a model trained on a second adult self‐report sample from Oklahoma ( N = 777). Using anterior insula as a seed for a whole‐brain seed‐to‐voxel connectivity analysis, the derived misophonia severity scores were found to be significantly related to connectivity from the insula to clusters overlapping the planum temporale, operculum, precentral gyrus, and supplementary motor area. Notably, this insular connectivity profile was unique to the anterior insula of the salience network and was not observed when dividing the sample into misophonia (patient) versus control groups, or when grouping participants as a function of anxiety, depression, or autistic traits. These results underline the importance of the salience‐network anterior insula in understanding misophonic aversion and provide tentative evidence of neurological differences between misophonia and anxiety, depression, and autism. This work aids in our understanding of neural mechanisms of misophonia and emphasizes the benefit of treating misophonia as a continuous spectrum disorder to better reflect the variability of symptoms in the real world.

•Auditory motion-sensitive regions respond to visual motion in the deaf.•Reorganized auditory cortex can discriminate between visual motion trajectories.•Part of the deaf auditory cortex shows preference for in-depth visual motion.•Deafness might lead to computational reallocation between auditory/visual regions. In early deaf individuals, the auditory deprived temporal brain regions become engaged in visual processing. In our study we tested further the hypothesis that intrinsic functional specialization guides the expression of cross-modal responses in the deprived auditory cortex. We used functional MRI to characterize the brain response to horizontal, radial and stochastic visual motion in early deaf and hearing individuals matched for the use of oral or sign language. Visual motion showed enhanced response in the ‘deaf’ mid-lateral planum temporale, a region selective to auditory motion as demonstrated by a separate auditory motion localizer in hearing people. Moreover, multivariate pattern analysis revealed that this reorganized temporal region showed enhanced decoding of motion categories in the deaf group, while visual motion-selective region hMT+/V5 showed reduced decoding when compared to hearing people. Dynamic Causal Modelling revealed that the ‘deaf’ motion-selective temporal region shows a specific increase of its functional interactions with hMT+/V5 and is now part of a large-scale visual motion selective network. In addition, we observed preferential responses to radial, compared to horizontal, visual motion in the ‘deaf’ right superior temporal cortex region that also show preferential response to approaching/receding sounds in the hearing brain. Overall, our results suggest that the early experience of auditory deprivation interacts with intrinsic constraints and triggers a large-scale reallocation of computational load between auditory and visual brain regions that typically support the multisensory processing of motion information.

The planum temporale ( PT ), a key language area, is specialized in the left hemisphere in prelinguistic infants and considered as a marker of the pre-wired language-ready brain. However, studies have reported a similar structural PT left-asymmetry not only in various adult non-human primates, but also in newborn baboons. Its shared functional links with language are not fully understood. Here we demonstrate using previously obtained MRI data that early detection of PT left-asymmetry among 27 newborn baboons ( Papio anubis , age range of 4 days to 2 months) predicts the future development of right-hand preference for communicative gestures but not for non-communicative actions. Specifically, only newborns with a larger left-than-right PT were more likely to develop a right-handed communication once juvenile, a contralateral brain-gesture link which is maintained in a group of 70 mature baboons. This finding suggests that early PT asymmetry may be a common inherited prewiring of the primate brain for the ontogeny of ancient lateralised properties shared between monkey gesture and human language. The planum temporale is a key structure in the human language network. Here the authors show that planum temporale asymmetry at birth in baboons predicts the development of communicative right-hand use, which suggests some common features in the wiring of communicative properties between species.

Research on sex differences in the brain is essential for a better understanding of how the brain develops and ages, and how neurological and psychiatric conditions can impact men and women differently. While numerous studies have focused on sex differences in brain structures, few have examined the characteristics of functional networks, particularly the language network. Although previous research suggests similar overall language performance across sexes, differences may still exist in the brain networks that underlie language processing. In addition, prior studies on sex differences in language have predominantly relied on task‐based fMRI, which may fail to capture subtle differences in underlying functional activity. In this study, we applied a machine learning approach to classify participants' sex based on resting‐state functional connectivity patterns of the language network in healthy young adults (270 men and 288 women; age: 22–36 years), and to identify the most predictive functional connectivity features. The classifier achieved 91.3% accuracy, with key discriminant features anchored to the left opercular part of the inferior frontal gyrus, the left planum temporale, and the left anterior middle temporal gyrus. These regions show distinctive connectivity patterns with heteromodal association cortices, including the occipital poles, angular gyrus, posterior cingulate gyrus, and intraparietal sulcus. Although there was an overlap between men and women, men displayed stronger functional connectivity values in these regions. These findings highlight sex‐related differences in functional connectivity patterns of the language network at rest, underscoring the importance of considering sex as a variable in future research on language and brain function. We classified the resting‐state functional connectivity patterns anchored to core regions of the language network in a large sample of healthy young adults. The results showed that these patterns contain information capable of predicting sex with an accuracy of 91.3% on the test set and 78.1% on the holdout set.

Parent-child transmission of suicidal behaviors has been extensively studied, but the investigation of a three-generation family suicide risk paradigm remains limited. In this study, we aimed to explore the behavioral and brain signatures of multi-generational family history of suicidal behaviors (FHoS) in preadolescents, utilizing a longitudinal design and the dataset from Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development SM Study (ABCD Study®), which comprised 4 years of data and includes a total of 9,653 preadolescents. Our findings revealed that multi-generational FHoS was significantly associated with an increased risk of problematic behaviors and suicidal behaviors (suicide ideation and suicide attempt) in offspring. Interestingly, the problematic behaviors were further identified as a mediator in the multi-generational transmission of suicidal behaviors. Additionally, we observed alterations in brain structure within superior temporal gyrus (STG), precentral/postcentral cortex, posterior parietal cortex (PPC), cingulate cortex (CC), and planum temporale (PT), as well as disrupted functional connectivity of default mode network (DMN), ventral attention network (VAN), dorsal attention network (DAN), fronto-parietal network (FPN), and cingulo-opercular network (CON) among preadolescents with FHoS. These results provide compelling longitudinal evidence at the population level, highlighting the associations between multi-generational FHoS and maladaptive behavioral and neurodevelopmental outcomes in offspring. These findings underscore the need for early preventive measures aimed at mitigating the familial transmission of suicide risk and reducing the global burden of deaths among children and adolescents.

•Vestibular system processes sensory inputs key to posture, gaze, and spatial memory.•Vestibular processing areas are well-mapped, but timing integration remains unclear.•Early vestibular processing involves parallel pathways, not a single primary cortex.•Dorsal and ventral streams aid vestibulo-motor integration and retention over time.•Vestibular system complexity links spatio-temporal dynamics to body awareness. Numerous functions rely on the activation of the vestibular system, resulting in widespread activation of cortical brain regions. However, although the topographical organization of vestibular processing is relatively well understood, the temporal dynamics of this information processing remain insufficiently explored. In this study, we conducted an in-depth analysis of intracerebral recordings from 107 patients (123 implanted hemispheres) to investigate the cortical response to acoustic and sound-induced vestibular stimuli (SVS), thus unveiling the spatiotemporal dynamics of vestibular processing. Our findings revealed the existence of distinct early components (phasic peak, 20–40 ms) localized in Heschl's area, planum temporale, retroinsula, posterior insular cortex, PFcm, parietal operculum, and structures above the Sylvian fissure. Moreover, we identified later, tonic components (peaking at 50–80 ms) characterized by an extended duration, returning to baseline between 200 and 300 ms. Remarkably, these latter components exclusively involved the perisylvian cortices. The findings demonstrated that the early stages of human otolithic vestibular information processing involve both parallel and hierarchical pathways distributed across the perisylvian and peri‑Rolandic regions, rather than being restricted to a single primary cortical area. Furthermore, two distinct streams reminiscent of the dorsal/ventral dichotomy with specific spatio-temporal characteristics were identified. Collectively, our study uncovers a complex and interconnected cortical network that underlies vestibular processing, shedding light on the temporal dynamics of this essential sensory system. These findings pave the way for a deeper understanding of the functional organization of the vestibular system and its implications for sensory perception and motor control. The vestibular system plays a crucial role in daily life by responding to various sensory inputs. We observed a complex and interconnected cortical network shedding light on its temporal dynamics. The results revealed that vestibular processing involves parallel and hierarchical pathways rather than a single primary cortex and a dorsal/ventral stream dichotomy was identified. [Display omitted]