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This document is an editorial summary of the top cited papers in the field of Systems Neuroscience in 2022. The top ten papers cover a range of topics including tinnitus, obesity, and neuromodulation. The papers come from authors all over the world, representing diverse perspectives. Some notable findings include the lack of therapeutic benefit of a specific stimulation modality for tinnitus, the potential improvement of tinnitus treatment through an enriched acoustic environment, the impact of psychological and sociodemographic factors on tinnitus-related distress, the potential benefits of aerobic exercise for individuals with mild cognitive impairment, the importance of considering insular epilepsy during surgical planning, the functional changes in brain activity induced by hypnosis, the effects of transcranial alternating current stimulation on motor cortex oscillation and inhibition, the effects of transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation on autonomic responses, the neuroplastic capacity of different brain stimulation modalities, and the lack of association between obesity and executive functioning. These papers provide valuable insights into various aspects of Systems Neuroscience and are worth exploring for researchers and individuals interested in these topics. [Extracted from the article]

With advances in medical diagnostic technology, the healthy development of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is receiving more and more attention. In this article, the mediating effect of brain gray matter volume (GMV) between overweight/obesity and social communication (SC) was investigated through the analysis of the relationship between overweight/obesity and SC in autism spectrum disorder children. In total, 101 children with ASD aged 3–12 years were recruited from three special educational centers (Yangzhou, China). Overweight/obesity in children with ASD was indicated by their body mass index (BMI); the Social Responsiveness Scale, Second Edition (SRS-2) was used to assess their social interaction ability, and structural Magnetic Resonance Imaging (sMRI) was used to measure GMV. A mediation model was constructed using the Process plug-in to analyze the mediating effect of GMV between overweight/obesity and SC in children with ASD. The results revealed that: overweight/obesity positively correlated with SRS-2 total points (p = 0.01); gray matter volume in the left dorsolateral superior frontal gyrus (Frontal_Sup_L GMV) negatively correlated with SRS-2 total points (p = 0.001); and overweight/obesity negatively correlated with Frontal_Sup_L GMV (p = 0.001). The Frontal_Sup_L GMV played a partial mediating role in the relationship between overweight/obesity and SC, accounting for 36.6% of total effect values. These findings indicate the significant positive correlation between overweight/obesity and SC; GMV in the left dorsolateral superior frontal gyrus plays a mediating role in the relationship between overweight/obesity and SC. The study may provide new evidence toward comprehensively revealing the overweight/obesity and SC relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last decades, it has been proposed that executive functions may be particularly vulnerable to weight-related issues. However, evidence on the matter is mixed, especially when the effects of sociodemographic variables are weighted. Thus, the current study aimed at further examining the relationship between executive functions and obesity. To this aim, we compared treatment-seeking overweight, obese, and morbidly obese patients with normal-weight control participants. We examined general executive functioning (Frontal Assessment Battery–15) and different executive subdomains (e.g., inhibitory control, verbal fluency, and psychomotor speed) in a clinical sample including 208 outpatients with different degrees of BMI (52 overweight, BMI 25–30, M age = 34.38; 76 obese, BMI 30–40, M age = 38.00; 80 morbidly obese, BMI > 40, M age = 36.20). Ninety-six normal-weight subjects served as controls. No difference on executive scores was detected when obese patients were compared with over- or normal-weight subjects. Morbidly obese patients reported lower performance on executive scores than obese, overweight, and normal-weight subjects. Between-group difference emerged also when relevant covariates were taken into account. Our results support the view that morbid obesity is associated with lower executive performance, also considering the critical role exerted by sociodemographic (i.e., sex, age, and education) variables. Our results support the view that executive functioning should be accounted into the management of the obese patient because of non-negligible clinical relevance in diagnostic, therapeutic, and prognostic terms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Recent evidence suggests that a higher body weight may be linked to cognitive impairment in different domains involving executive/frontal functioning. However, challenging results are also available. Accordingly, our study was designed to verify whether (i) poor executive functions are related to a higher body weight and (ii) executive functioning could contribute to weight loss in treatment-seeking overweight and obese patients. Methods: We examined general executive functioning, inhibitory control, verbal fluency, and psychomotor speed in a sample including 104 overweight and obese patients. Forty-eight normal-weight subjects participated in the study as controls. Results: Univariate Analysis of Variance showed that obese patients obtained lower scores than overweight and normal-weight subjects in all executive measures, except for errors in the Stroop test. However, when sociodemographic variables entered the model as covariates, no between-group difference was detected. Furthermore, an adjusted multiple linear regression model highlighted no relationship between weight loss and executive scores at baseline. Conclusions: Our results provide further evidence for the lack of association between obesity and the executive domains investigated. Conflicting findings from previous literature may likely be due to the unchecked confounding effects exerted by sociodemographic variables and inclusion/exclusion criteria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Even though obese individuals often succeed with weight loss, long-term weight loss maintenance remains elusive. Dietary, lifestyle and psychosocial correlates of weight loss maintenance have been researched, yet the nature of maintenance is still poorly understood. Studying the neural processing of weight loss maintainers may provide a much-needed insight towards sustained obesity management. In this narrative review, we evaluate and critically discuss available evidence regarding the food-related neural responses of weight loss maintainers, as opposed to those of obese or lean persons. While research is still ongoing, available data indicate that following weight loss, maintainers exhibit persistent reward related feeling over food, similar to that of obese persons. However, unlike in obese persons, in maintainers, reward-related brain activity appears to be counteracted by subsequently heightened inhibition. These findings suggest that post-dieting, maintainers acquire a certain level of cognitive control which possibly protects them from weight regaining. The prefrontal cortex, as well as the limbic system, encompass key regions of interest for weight loss maintenance, and their contributions to long term successful weight loss should be further explored. Future possibilities and supportive theories are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The exposure to relevant social and/or historical events can increase the generation of false memories (FMs). The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is a calamity challenging health, political, and journalistic bodies, with media generating confusion that has facilitated the spread of fake news. In this respect, our study aims at investigating the relationships between memories (true memories, TMs vs. FMs) for COVID-19-related news and different individual variables (i.e., use of traditional and social media, COVID-19 perceived and objective knowledge, fear of the disease, depression and anxiety symptoms, reasoning skills, and coping mechanisms). One hundred and seventy-one university students (131 females) were surveyed. Overall, our results suggested that depression and anxiety symptoms, reasoning skills, and coping mechanisms did not affect the formation of FMs. Conversely, the fear of loved ones contracting the infection was found to be negatively associated with FMs. This finding might be due to an empathy/prosociality-based positive bias boosting memory abilities, also explained by the young age of participants. Furthermore, objective knowledge (i) predicted an increase in TMs and decrease in FMs and (ii) significantly mediated the relationships between the use of social media and development of both TMs and FMs. In particular, higher levels of objective knowledge strengthened the formation of TMs and decreased the development of FMs following use of social media. These results may lead to reconsidering the idea of social media as the main source of fake news. This claim is further supported by either the lack of substantial differences between the use of traditional and social media among participants reporting FMs or the positive association between use of social media and levels of objective knowledge. The knowledge about the topic rather than the type of source would make a difference in the process of memory formation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is widely acknowledged that obesity is a growing public clinical issue involving both physical and psychological well-being. Nevertheless, the relationship between psychological features and weight gain is still unclear. Although emotional eating (EE) and personality traits are considered significant predictors of eating disorders, their role in obesity without eating disorders (OB-wed) is far from proven. The present study aimed at investigating the cumulative effect of EE and personality traits on overeating behavior in a sample of 266 university students (169 female; mean age = 21.85, SD = 2.39) stratified based on their body mass index (BMI; normal weight, overweight, obese). They were enrolled during free screening days promoted by the Human Dietetic and Sport Service of a Southern Italian university. The results show a psychological pattern of increasing overeating behavior and lower Self-Directedness combined with higher Sadness and Anger. However, OB-wed subjects overate regardless of this emotional/personological configuration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transcranial magnetic stimulation, since its introduction in 1985, has brought important innovations to the study of cortical excitability as it is a non-invasive method and, therefore, can be used both in healthy and sick subjects. Since the introduction of this cortical stimulation technique, it has been possible to deepen the neurophysiological aspects of motor activation and control. In this narrative review, we want to provide a brief overview regarding TMS as a tool to investigate changes in cortex excitability in athletes and highlight how this tool can be used to investigate the acute and chronic responses of the motor cortex in sport science. The parameters that could be used for the evaluation of cortical excitability and the relative relationship with motor coordination and muscle fatigue, will be also analyzed. Repetitive physical training is generally considered as a principal strategy for acquiring a motor skill, and this process can elicit cortical motor representational changes referred to as use-dependent plasticity. In training settings, physical practice combined with the observation of target movements can enhance cortical excitability and facilitate the process of learning. The data to date suggest that TMS is a valid technique to investigate the changes in motor cortex excitability in trained and untrained subjects. Recently, interest in the possible ergogenic effect of non-invasive brain stimulation in sport is growing and therefore in the future it could be useful to conduct new experiments to evaluate the impact on learning and motor performance of these techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]