Sensory processing disorders (SPDs) can be described as difficulty detecting, modulating, interpreting, and/or responding to sensory experiences. Because SPDs occur in many individuals with autism spectrum disorder and in other populations with neurodevelopmental disorders, it is important to distinguish between typical and atypical functioning in sensory processes and to identify early phenotypic markers for developing SPDs. This review considers different methods for diagnosing SPDs to outline a multidisciplinary approach useful for developing valid diagnostic measures. In particular, the advantages and limitations of the most commonly used tools in assessment of SPDs, such as caregiver reports, clinical observation, and psychophysical and neuroimaging studies, will be reviewed. Innovative treatment methods such as neuromodulation techniques and virtual reality will also be suggested.

Fear extinction requires coordinated neural activity within the amygdala and medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC). Any behavior has a transcriptomic signature that is modified by environmental experiences, and specific genes are involved in functional plasticity and synaptic wiring during fear extinction. Here, we investigated the effects of optogenetic manipulations of prelimbic (PrL) pyramidal neurons and amygdala gene expression to analyze the specific transcriptional pathways associated to adaptive and maladaptive fear extinction. To this aim, transgenic mice were (or not) fear-conditioned and during the extinction phase they received optogenetic (or sham) stimulations over photo-activable PrL pyramidal neurons. At the end of behavioral testing, electrophysiological (neural cellular excitability and Excitatory Post-Synaptic Currents) and morphological (spinogenesis) correlates were evaluated in the PrL pyramidal neurons. Furthermore, transcriptomic cell-specific RNA-analyses (differential gene expression profiling and functional enrichment analyses) were performed in amygdala pyramidal neurons. Our results show that the optogenetic activation of PrL pyramidal neurons in fear-conditioned mice induces fear extinction deficits, reflected in an increase of cellular excitability, excitatory neurotransmission, and spinogenesis of PrL pyramidal neurons, and associated to strong modifications of the transcriptome of amygdala pyramidal neurons. Understanding the electrophysiological, morphological, and transcriptomic architecture of fear extinction may facilitate the comprehension of fear-related disorders.

Motor imagery (MI) describes a dynamic cognitive process where a movement is mentally simulated without taking place and holds potential as a means of stimulating motor learning and regaining motor skills. There is growing evidence that imagined and executed actions have common neural circuitry. Since MI counteracts cognitive and motor decline, a growing interest in MI-based mental exercise for older individuals has emerged. Here we review the last decade’s scientific literature on age-related changes in MI skills. Heterogeneity in the experimental protocols, as well as the use of populations with unrepresentative age, is making it challenging to draw unambiguous conclusions about MI skills preservation. Self-report and behavioural tasks have shown that some MI components are preserved, while others are impaired. Evidence from neuroimaging studies revealed that, during MI tasks, older individuals hyperactivate their sensorimotor and attentional networks. Some studies have argued that this represents a compensatory mechanism, others claim that this is a sign of cognitive decline. However, further studies are needed to establish whether MI could be used as a promotion factor to improve cognitive functioning and well-being in older people.

Curiosity benefits memory for target information and may also benefit memory for incidental information presented during curiosity states. However, it is not known whether incidental curiosity-enhanced memory depends on or is affected by the valence of the incidental information during curiosity states. Here, older and younger participants incidentally encoded unrelated face images (positive, negative, and neutral) while they anticipated answers to trivia questions. We found memory enhancements for answers to trivia questions and unrelated faces presented during high-curiosity compared with low-curiosity states in both younger and older adults. Interestingly, face valence did not modify memory for unrelated faces. This suggests processes associated with the elicitation of curiosity enhance memory for incidental information instead of valence.

Evidence has shown that imagining a complex action, like backward-walking, helps improve the execution of the gesture. Despite this, studies in sport psychology have provided heterogeneous results on the use of motor imagery (MI) to improve performance. We aimed to fill this gap by analyzing how sport experience influences backward-walking MI processes in a sample of young women (n = 41, mean age = 21 ± 2.2) divided into Active and Sedentary. All participants were allocated to two randomized mental chronometric tasks, in which they had first to imagine and then execute forward-walking (FW) and backward-walking (BW). The Isochrony Efficiency measured the difference between imagination and execution times in both conditions (FW and BW). Moreover, we analyzed the ability to vividly imagine FW and BW within various perspectives in both groups through the Vividness of Movement Imagery Questionnaire (VMIQ-2). Findings showed that active individuals performed better in the BW imagery task when compared to sedentary ones (F_1,39 = 4.98; p = 0.03*), while there were no differences between groups in the FW imagery task (F_1,39 = .10; p = 0.75). Further, VMIQ-2 had evidenced that the ability to imagine backward is influenced by perspective used. Specifically, the use of internal visual imagery (IVI) led to worse Isochrony Efficiency (t_32,25 = 2.16; p = 0.04*), while the use of kinesthetic imagery (KIN) led to better Isochrony Efficiency (t_32,25 = − 2.34; p = 0.03*). These results suggest a close relation between motor experience and complex motor imagery processes and open new insights for studying these mental processes.

Recent evidence has shown a relationship between physical exercise (PE) and cognitive functioning. However, it is unknown if unimodal and multimodal modalities of PE affect cognitive abilities in different ways. To fill this gap, we analyzed the effects of unimodal PE (running) and multimodal PE (Tai Chi) on specific cognitive abilities. A sample of 33 participants (mean age = 52.6 ± 7.2) divided into eleven runners, eleven Tai Chi practitioners, and eleven age-matched sedentary individuals were subjected to a neuropsychological tests battery to assess shifting and problem solving abilities (Rule Shift Cards, BADS-RS, and Key Search tasks), verbal fluency (semantic and phonemic verbal fluency tasks), verbal memory (Rey’s 15 words test), visuo-spatial working memory (Corsi test), and global cognitive functioning (clock-drawing test). The results showed significantly higher BADS-RS scores in runners and Tai Chi practitioners in comparison to the sedentary participants, thus evidencing improved shifting abilities for active individuals. Interestingly, post hoc analysis showed significantly higher span scores of Corsi test only in Tai Chi practitioners as compared to sedentary participants, suggesting how multimodal PE facilitates the visuo-spatial working memory processes. Although preliminary, our descriptive study indicates that the type of PE could modulate specific cognitive domains, even if the practice of motor activity favors a global cognitive improvement.