At Communications Biology, our Neuroscience Editorial Board Members provide us with a huge range of expertise and do an amazing job at identifying papers that really make a key contribution to their fields. In the last month or so, we’ve seen several papers that have helped to unravel the complexities of the human brain

• The complexity of the stream of consciousness

Handled by: Enzo Tagliazucchi

The mechanisms underlying consciousness have fascinated neuroscientists for a long time. Our resident consciousness expert, Professor Enzo Tagliazucchi handled a paper, which was published earlier this month from Coppola and colleagues. They developed a dynamical systems and phenomenology-based approach, which demonstrated that human consciousness is associated with faster, more unpredictable yet more constant transitions in dynamical connectivity. This work reveals an increased repertoire of possible states.

Credit: Coppola et al. 2022

• Neurocognitive analyses reveal that video game players exhibit enhanced implicit temporal processing

Handled by: Christian Beste

Playing video games obviously involves highly complex processing and the selection of responses. Our Board Member Professor Christian Beste, who uses several approaches to understand response selection in different contexts, handled a cross-sectional EEG study from Foerster et al, which came out in October. The study reveals that individuals who consistently play action video games exhibit improved performance in a reaction time task involving implicit time preparations, compared with participants who did not normally play video games

Credit: Foerster et al. 2022

• Neurocomputational mechanisms of affected beliefs

Handled by: Stefano Palminteri

Aside from the complexity of our thought processes, what arguably makes us human is our perception of the world - something that our board member Professor Stefano Palminteri knows all about. Last week, a paper from Müller-Pinzler and colleagues that he had handled was published. In this study, they analyse learning mechanisms, pupillometry, and fMRI data from healthy participants in a cognitive estimation task and in doing so, reveal neural dynamics related to how self-efficacy beliefs are formed, as well as how this process is impacted by emotions.

Credit: Müller-Pinzler et al. 2022

At Communications Biology, we enjoy showcasing the efforts of our talented Editorial Board as much as we enjoy promoting the work of our amazing authors. Over the next few months, we’ll continue to highlight some of our interesting neuroscience content!