Biology subjects

Bruffaerts, R.

Publications and source records attributed to Bruffaerts, R..

3 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2026

The Effect of Neurodegeneration on Ultrasonic Vocalisations (USV) and Their Neuronal Substrates in Mice and Rats: A Systematic Review

This systematic review examines the effects of neurodegeneration in rats and mice on ultrasonic vocalisation (USV) production and its underlying neuronal substrates. Neurodegenerative diseases, such as Parkinsons, Alzheimers, and frontotemporal degeneration, significantly impair communication abilities in humans. Animal models, particularly rats and mice, are widely used to study the underlying mechanisms of these disorders. One important aspect of neurodegeneration is its impact on ultrasonic vocalisations in rodents. USVs play a crucial role in social interaction, mating, and distress signalling, making them valuable behavioural biomarkers for neurological dysfunction. This review aims to synthesise existing research on how neurodegeneration affects USV production and its neuronal substrates in rodent models. Understanding these changes can provide insights into disease progression and facilitate the development of early diagnostic tools and therapeutic strategies. Studying USV impairments in animal models may help identify biomarkers relevant to human speech deficits in neurodegenerative diseases. By bridging the gap between preclinical and clinical research, this review contributes to the growing field of neurobehavioral biomarkers, which could ultimately improve early diagnosis and intervention in human neurodegenerative conditions.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2023

Functional identification of language-responsive channels in individual participants in MEG investigations

Making meaningful inferences about the functional architecture of the language system requires the ability to refer to the same neural units across individuals and studies. Traditional brain imaging approaches align and average brains together in a common space. However, lateral frontal and temporal cortices, where the language system resides, is characterized by high structural and functional inter-individual variability, which reduces the sensitivity and functional resolution of group-averaging analyses. This issue is compounded by the fact that language areas lay in close proximity to regions of other large-scale networks with different functional profiles. A solution inspired by visual neuroscience is to identify language areas functionally in each individual brain using a localizer task (e.g., a language comprehension task). This approach has proven productive in fMRI, yielding a number of robust and replicable findings about the language system. Here, we extend this approach to MEG. Across two experiments (one in Dutch speakers, n=19; one in English speakers, n=23), we examined neural responses to the processing of sentences and a control condition (nonword sequences). In both the time and frequency domains, we demonstrated that the topography of neural responses to language is spatially stable within individuals but varies across individuals. Consequently, analyses that take this inter-individual variability into account are characterized by greater sensitivity, compared to the group-level analyses. In summary, similar to fMRI, functional identification within individuals yields benefits in MEG, thus opening the door to future investigations of language processing including questions where whole-brain coverage and temporal resolution are both critical.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2020

Shared heritability of face and brain shape distinct from cognitive traits

Evidence from both model organisms and clinical genetics suggests close coordination between the developing brain and face1-8, but it remains unknown whether this developmental link extends to genetic variation that drives normal-range diversity of face and brain shape. Here, we performed a multivariate genome-wide association study of cortical surface morphology in 19,644 European-ancestry individuals and identified 472 genomic loci influencing brain shape at multiple levels. We discovered a substantial overlap of these brain shape association signals with those linked to facial shape variation, with 76 common to both. These shared loci include transcription factors with cell-intrinsic roles in craniofacial development, as well as members of signaling pathways involved in brain-face crosstalk. Brain shape heritability is equivalently enriched near regulatory regions active in either brain organoids or in facial progenitor cells. However, brain shape association signals shared with face shape are distinct from those shared with behavioral-cognitive traits or neuropsychiatric disorder risk. Together, we uncover common genetic variants and candidate molecular players underlying brain-face interactions. We propose that early in embryogenesis, the face and the brain mutually shape each other through a combination of structural effects and paracrine signaling, but this interplay may have little impact on later brain development associated with cognitive function.

genetics↗