In most motor acts to achieve a behavioral goal requires coordination of posture and movement. In this paper, such coordination is studied by the example of human trunk bending in. the sagittal plane. Such movements are difficult to study because both components of this motor act (main - bending per se, and "accessory" - posture aimed on equilibrium. maintenance) involve massive movements of body segments, which complicates separation of these components. Their separation is based on the modem ideas about the special features of the posture component as compared with the main component. It is shown that the main and posture components correspond to the move- ments along eigenvectors of the dynamic equation. These movements are unique because they demonstrate at the same time "kinematic" as well as "dynamic" synergies. They were called there- fore "natural synergies". The coordination of natural synergies is investigated in human during standing on the wide and narrow supports. It is shown that the experimentally observed coordination is close to optimal, providing minimum movement of the center of pressure. This ensures the center of pressure Position keeping inside the support area that is necessary for equilibrium maintenance.

Receptor-like tyrosine kinase IRR (the insulin receptor-related receptor) can be activated by extra- cellular alkaline media. IRR is found in organs that come in contact with liquids of extremal pH, and also in specific cells of the nervous systems where its function is not known. In this study, we analyzed the phenotype of IRR knockout mice in a series of behavioral tests. In control experi- ments, null-mutation littermate mice were analyzed. In the "Social interaction" test, the knockout animals showed a reduced number of social contacts. No statistically significant differences in im- mobility time were revealed in the "Forced swim" test, yet the number of animals that showed pro- longed immobility time, was higher in the group of knockout mice. In the "Resident-intruder" test, wild-type mice demonstrated their typical aggressive behavior whereas 7 out of 16 knockout animals stayed inert and, in contrast, attacked by the intruder. The obtained data suggest that the IRR gene inactivation results in disturbances of the aggressive-defensive behavior typical of the parental mouse strain.

The review summarizes the data related to the potential of the real time fMRI biofeedback (the rt-fMRI), a novel technology implementing instructing patients to modify the neural activity in the certain brain regions related to the disordered function. The recent positive results were gained for a treatment of the post-stroke impairments, the Parkinson disease, the pain syndrome, the tinnitus, the alcohol and nicotine abuse, the major depression, and phobias of contamination and spiders. The intervention Was found to be less promising for schizophrenia and nearly ineffective for the criminal antisocial personality disorder. The reliability of the results is mostly poor due to suboptimal study designs, lack of the control groups, and insufficient sample sizes. The article deals with biological basis of the technology, its current applications and perspectives; and also its method- ologicdl and methodical problems.

The relationships between intelligence and indicators of attention systems functions, and recogni- tion of remembered verbal and figural stimuli, as well as the lateral characteristics of verbal memory in older age (64.5 ± 6.3 years, n = 83; 43 women) and in young group (22.0 ± 4.5 years,.n 133; 83 women) have been studied. It was found that the rate of information selection in conflict condi- tions is a. predictor of the level of intelligence, regardless of age. In old age a higher level of intelligence corresponds to shorter time of executive control system while in the young people accurate significant relations between intelligence and functions of attention systems are not found. In the analysis of memory, aging-independent a positive contribution to the intelligence have the words addressed to the left hemisphere; additionally in the young age the contribution of verbal memory when words addressing the right hemisphere, and in the elderly the retrieval of verbal and figural stimuli. Gender specificity in age-associated reorganization of attention and memory as predictors of intelligence was revealed, i.e. age-related changes were more pronounced in men.

Bus driving is a highly responsible profession. It requires constant engagement of attention and cog- nitive resources as well as vigilance and resistance to disruption of sleep- rhythms. There is ongoing research of genetic correlates of these individual characteristics. The aim of this study is to search for possible connections between single nucleotide polymorphisms and the history of road traffic accidents in professional bus driving. 299 professional drives working on rolling shifts with recorded history of traffic accidents took part in the study. Polymorphisms in circadian rhythm-, cognitive and emotional function-related genes were genotyped: CLOCK (rs 12649507), RORA (rs1159814), NPAS2 (rs4851377), NPSR1 (rs324981), PER3 (rs2640909), DRD3 (rs6280), SLC6A3 (rs6347), DBH(rs1611125). Significant associations for polymorphisms in CLOCK, NPSR1 and SLC6A3 with traffic crash parameters were found. We suppose that they are mediated by the difference in chronotype and sleep deprivation resistance for CLOCKand cognitive and emotional control for NPSRI and SLC6A3 polymorphisms.

The present study investigates the early stages of selection of meaningful and meaningless verbal-in- formation in an implicit and two explicit tasks by means of the parameters of latency and amplitude of P100 EP component in healthy subjects (n = 99) and in schizophrenia patients with the first psy- chotic episode (n = 102). The obtained results indicate the disturbance of passive perception of meaningful verbal information in psychotic patients. When the instruction is presented patients re- spond similar to norm. The decreased amplitude of P100 component during the,passive perception of words in patients may be related to the severity of hallucinatory behavior. The analysis of changes in the characteristics of the P100 wave in task with instruction as compared to passive perception in the norm revealed a shortening of the time window'of the processing of information regardless to its category and relevance. In schizophrenia patients this feature was found only when reading of the pseudo-words. The results indicate the disturbance of automated attraction of attention to the semantically significant content of the verbal stimulus in the patients' group. The study demonstrat- ed the association between P100 wave characteristics and behavioural responses.

The neurofeedback based on the motor areas fMRI signal may be a promising treatment for improving motor impairment in post-stroke conditions and Parkinson's disease. In the majority of the studies has been conducted using the 3 T MR machines, and the region of interest has been placed to the secondary motor areas. The current study attempted to perform an fMRI neurofeeback based on response of the right hand projection locus within primary motor cortex utilizing the 1.5 T MR scanner and using the optimal parameters for the named magnetic field strength. The subjects were 16 healthy participants who underwent a 30-minute imaging session comprised 1) individual func- tional localization of the region of interest (using the hand clinging task) and attempts to control its activity with 2) motor imagery and 3) any cognitive strategy chosen by participant. In both self-regulation conditions subjects activated G. precentralis, G. cinguli anterior, G. frontalis superior, G. parietalis inferior, and 6-th Brodman area. Activation maps for these two tasks didn't differ one from another significantly, and the involved area had only a few overlays with the region of interest map which signifies that training was unsucessful. The limitations of the study and factors influenc- ing the biofeedback efficacy negatively are discussed.

As a result of long-term bidirectional selection for aggressiveness towards human, tame and aggres- sive outbred gray rat lines were established. The objective of the current work was to compare play fighting during adolescence in tame, aggressive and unselected rats. It was shown that the selection for the absence of aggression towards human is associated with longer maintenance of some juvenile play features compared to unselected rats. Although, the time of play fighting during different stages of adolescence didn't differ in tame and unselected rats. The selection for enhancement of aggressiveness towards human didn't change the play behavior structure, but caused an increase of play behavior during middle stage of adolescence. It seems that the attenuation of aggression and longer maintenance of some juvenile play features in tame rats is part of fundamental behavioral reorganization during domestication, which is connected with neoteny.

Chronic social defeat stress (CSDS) leads to the development of mixed anxiety/depression-like state in male mice similar to those in humans. It has been shown that, under CSDS, the adult brain undergoes changes in the functioning neurotransmitter systems in different brain regions. In this experiment we are focused on the analysis of expression of genes encoding proteins related with the metabolism and receptors of serotonin, catecholamines, GABA and glutamate in the ventral teg- mental area which is important for regulation of motivations, emotions and is involved into mech- anisms of affective disorders. Mixed anxiety/depression-like state was generated in male mice by exposure to CSDS during 20 days. The collected samples of the ventral tegmental area were se-- quenced at JSC Genoanalytica,(http://genoanalytica.ru/, Moscow, Russia).'We found that genes, related with serotonin (Tph2, Maob, SIc6a4, Htr4, Htr1a) were upregulated but expression of Htr3a gene was downregulated in the ventral tegmental area of depressive mice in comparison with the control. Besides, upregulation of dopaminergic Th, Ddc, Slc6a3, Sic18a2, Drd2, and Maob genes was found while noradrenergic Dbh, Slc6a2, Adra2c, and Adra2a genes were downregulated. Ex- pression of GABAergic Gabral, Gabra2, Gabrg2, Gabrg], Gabrq, Gad], and Gad genes as well as glutamatergic Grial, Gria2, Grik2, Grm2, Grm5, and Slc 7a8 genes were increased under CSDS. Development of mixed anxiety/depression-like state under CSDS in male mice is accompanied by increased expression of genes coding the proteins participating in the metabolism and receptions of serotonergic, dopaminergic, glutamatergic and GABAergic systems. Expression of genes coding the adrenergic reception is decreased. It is supposed that Drd2 H Htr3a genes may play the key role in the synchronization of other genes of neurotransmitter systems.

This study investigated the energy-onset and motion-onset responses (N1, P2, cN 1 and cP2 components of the auditory evoked potential) elicited by moving sound stimuli in the passive and active listening conditions. In the passive conditions the subjects were distracted from auditory information; in active conditions they lo- calized the starting and final points of the stimulus trajectory. The sound movement to the left/right from the head midline was produced by linear-changes of the interaural time delay (ITD). The onset of motion was preceded by stationary sound located near the head midline. In the active conditions, the NI component was higher and the P2 component was higher and peaked later as compared to the passive listening. The early and later parts of the motion-onset response (cN 1 and cP2) also were larger in magnitude and peaked later during active listening. Both in active and passive conditions, cNI and cP2 amplitude exhibited increase and latency showed decrease when the stimulus velocity increased. Contralateral asymmetry was found only in the mo- tion-onset responses recorded from the left hemisphere.

It has been shown in the previously performed experiments that it is possible to "recognize" by the EEG data the type of thinking and to know what kind of task (spatial or verbal-logical) is solving currently. This article describes the application of this technology to the study of schizophrenia patients..We obtained data about the essential difficulty of such recognition in schizophrenia patients, correlation of these difficulties with the severity of negative symptoms. It is shown that the'difficulty of recognition is associated with higher variability of rhythmic EEG patterns, intrinsic for particular type of thinking.

The study is based on the analysis of event-related potentials (ERPs) accompanying processing referentially ambiguous pronouns under condition when disambiguation is necessary for effective task performance. Par- ticipants were asked to match the pronoun in the second sentence with its antecedent (the noun phrase it is related to) in the first sentence in two conditions: experimental (two possible antecedents) and control (only one possible antecedent). Processing referentially ambiguous pronouns as compared to the control condition elicited an Nref effect - a diffuse ERP deflection 300-400 ms poststimulus that was earlier observed in Dutch and Chinese. Moreover, in contrast to previous results, no P600 effect - late positivity associated with ac- ceptability judgment under condition of referential ambiguity - was found. Our data in comparison with re- sults of previous studies indicate that strategies in processing referentially ambiguous pronouns (acceptability judgment) are determined not only by experimental task but also by absence/presence of anomalous trials in the experimental materials.

At the process of learning in an 8-arm radial maze the impulsive animals found the reinforced arms and ate the pellets faster, than self-control and ambivalent rats. They committed less working memory errors at the cue memory task, though there was no difference in the rate of learning and a number of errors of reference memory in animals of different groups. During reversion learning at the change of reinforced arms on unre- inforced, and vice versa, the impulsive animals spent less time to enter into the reinforced arms compared to other groups. They had fewer errors of cue working and reference memory, but the rate of learning was the same as in other groups. The date obtained indicate that in the impulsive rats in comparison with the other groups of animals are stronger the general motor activity and better the working memory.

We studied the effect of chronic combined stress (model of experimental neurosis) on behavior of rats with different basal strategies of behavior in novelty conditions. Chronic stress resulted in decreases in the body weight and testosterone contents in the blood and neocortex in all animals. Animals with initially low orient- ing-exploratory response in the "open field" test did not exhibit substantial alterations of behavior during repeated testing in this test of the "dark-light chamber" test; however, the depression-like behavior was more expressed in the second forced swim test. Chronic combined stress did not significantly affect the behavior of this group of rats. Animals with initially high orienting-exploratory response in the "open field" test exhibited decreased locomotor and exploratory activity in the repeated "open field" tests. The decreases in the locomotor and exploratory activity were substantially less expressed in the repeated tests in these rats after chronic combined stress. The indices of depression-like behavior increased one month after the end of exposure to chronic combined stress. Our data demonstrate that different responses to novelty in the "open field" test do not allow predict with reasonable certainty the development of depression-like behavior after exposure to chronic combined stress.

The role of autophagy in cell survival and suppression of neurodegeneration was considered. We discussed its involvement in Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and Huntington's diseases connected with accumulation of amy- loid-β, α-synuclein, and huntingtin, respectively. Autophagy is reduced in these diseases and in aging as well to various extent. Elimination of accumulated toxic proteins and structures is performed by autophagy mech- anisms (chaperon-mediated autophagy, macroautophagy, selected autophagy) in an interaction with ubiqui- tin-proteasome system. In many cases activation of mTOR-dependent autophagy and mTOR-independent regulatory pathways lead to the therapeutic effect of inhibition of neurodegeneration in cell cultures and an- imal models. Some autophagy enhancers such as resveratrol, metformin, rilmenidine, lithium, and curcumin are tested now in clinical trials.

We explored the association of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and serotonin transporter genes with neurophysiological characteristics of the early stages of verbal information processing in the brain in the groups of patients with schizophrenia and schizophrenia spectrum disorders and healthy people. It has been shown that Val66Met and 5-HTTLPR polymorphisms are associated with P100 and N170 during the passive reading of single words written in Russian presented with different occurrence frequency. The healthy carriers of the ValVal genotype (BDN F Val66Met) allele or the SS (5-HTTLPR) genotype performed the task better compared to those with an Met or an L allele. The differences were significant in healthy people and observed as a trend in thepatients.

In recent years, a large amount of data was published about resting state networks (RSN), namely, continu- ously recorded brain activity in a state of quiet wakefulness. In particular, such states are reflected in the spa- tial maps of active regions of the brain, obtained by means of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). RSNs have stable and reproducible spatial structure over time in healthy subjects, but may differ substantially in clinical pathology. One of the important parameters of the brain activity is functional connectivity (FC) of individual elements within a network or between resting state networks. This review considers results of the studies focused at correlation of behavioral indicators and FC of brain areas activated during resting state. In addition, we describe data on reproducibility of RSN over time in healthy subjects, as well as data on changes in FC-of networks, depending on the individual experience.

Opiate reinforcement is considered as a stimulus inducing addiction, however underlying neurobiological mechanisms remain obscure. According to the literature, BDNF (brain-derived neurotrophic factor) in the lateral ventral tegmental area (VTA) could modulate morphine reinforcement, but the role of BDNF in the midline VTA has not been studied yet. The aim of the study was to investigate the effect of a single intra-mid- line VTA injection on the acquisition and expression of morphine conditioned place preference (CPP). CPP procedure was composed of eight conditioning sessions (one session per day): morphine (i.p., 10 mg/kg) and saline injections were paired to the compartments and counterbalanced.Recombinant human BDNF (0.75 ug) or phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) as a vehicle were injected once into the midline VTA one day before or after conditioning. According to the CPP test rats spent more time in the morphine-paired compartments a scompared to the saline-paired compartments (p < 0.05). After a single BDNF injection into the midline VTA be- fore conditioning, but not after conditioning, differences in time spent in morphine and saline-paired compartments did not reach significance (p > 0.05). Thus, taking into account limitations of the results, we sug- gest that BDNF in the midline VTA may block morphine reinforcement.

Changes of primary visual center evoked potentials in response to white light and optic nerve electric stimulation were investigated during retinal GABAb-receptors activation with baclofen in dark-adapted carp. It was found, that baclofen - induced b-wave ERG decreasing, was accompanied by a significant amplitude growing as in the evoked potential to light as in the evoked potential to electric nerve stimulation: It is proposed, that light evoked potential changes reflect the increasing of the third retinal neuron responses to light and/or tectal neuron responsiveness enhancement.

Elaboration of conditioned place preference (CPP) associated with own and foster pups, and maternal behavior were compared in females of WAG/Rij and Wistar rats. In addition, behavior of females in the open field, elevated plus-maze and forced swimming tests were investigated before pregnancy and after pup delivery. In has been found that females of WAG/Rij rats elaborate worse CPP task associated with both their own (WAG/Rij) and foster (Wistar) pups. Thus, the number of females that increase time spent in initially non-preferred compartment after its association with pups and the number of females that reach criterion of CPP elaboration in WAG/Rij rats were less than in Wistar controls. WAG/Rij females exhibited less maternal care in the place preference test both to their own and foster pups: less number of approaches to pups, pups carrying and the time spent in contact with pups non-associated with feeding. In WAG/Rij females compared with Wistar controls immobility time in the forced swimming test was higher both before pregnancy and after pup delivery indicating a stable depression-like state. Before pregnancy, statistically significant inter-strain differences in the anxiety level have not been revealed. After pup delivery, in WAG/Rij females anxiety level decreased but in Wistar females didn't substantially change. Results suggest that worse elaboration of CPP task and reduced maternal care in depressive WAG/Rij females are not associated with specific features of their own pups but are due to their depression-like state. Put into other words, pups for depressive mothers are less potent reinforcer than for "normal" (non-depressive) mothers.

EEG power changes in anaesthetized and conscious rats were studied (under repeated experiments) in wide frequency band (0.1-200 Hz) during cortical spreading depression wave (SD). In anaesthetized rats the decrease of EEG spectral power was shown through all diapasons under consideration. The most pronounced decay of the EEG power was marked in the 30-40 Hz band (27.3 ± 18.5, p = 2.46 x 10-(11)). In other frequency ranges the power decrease was less but its significance remained high. In conscious rats the simultaneous decay of the EEG power from 20 to 100 Hz range was also the most informative index of SD wave. The maximum power loss was found for band 30-40 Hz (11.2 ± 7.8, p = 2.55 x 10(-7)). It was shown that besides of EEG power decay the development of SD wave was characterized by the appearance of high frequency activity in front of SD and at the end of it. The increase of high-frequency activity in front of SD wave appeared in the ipsilateral hemisphere and moved along the cortex with the velocity of the SD wave itself. However the bursts of high frequency activity at the end of unilateral SD occurred simultaneously in both hemispheres and lasted 1.5-2.5 min. Findings contribute to detection of SD wave on basis of EEG spectral analysis.