The Top 25 Social Science & Human Behavior Articles of 2023

Top Articles

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  Anxious individuals shift emotion control from lateral frontal pole to dorsolateral prefrontal cortex

  Why anxious individuals fail to control emotional behaviour is not well understood. Here, the authors show that highly anxious individuals have a more excitable lateral frontopolar cortex, and fail to recruit this region during emotional action control.

  • Bob Bramson
  • Sjoerd Meijer
  • Karin Roelofs

  ArticleOpen Access12 Aug 2023 Nature Communications
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  Emergence of the cortical encoding of phonetic features in the first year of life

  To understand speech, our brains have to learn the different types of sounds that constitute words, including syllables, stress patterns and smaller sound elements, such as phonetic categories. Here, the authors provide evidence that at 7 months, the infant brain learns reliably to detect invariant phonetic categories.

  • Giovanni M. Di Liberto
  • Adam Attaheri
  • Usha Goswami

  ArticleOpen Access1 Dec 2023 Nature Communications
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  Exposure to the Russian Internet Research Agency foreign influence campaign on Twitter in the 2016 US election and its relationship to attitudes and voting behavior

  Here, using longitudinal survey and Twitter data, the authors examine the relationship between exposure to Russian Internet Research Agency activities on Twitter and voting behavior and attitudes in the 2016 US election.

  • Gregory Eady
  • Tom Paskhalis
  • Joshua A. Tucker

  ArticleOpen Access9 Jan 2023 Nature Communications
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  A canonical trajectory of executive function maturation from adolescence to adulthood

  Goal-directed cognition (executive function) is thought to develop through adolescence. Here, the authors find evidence across multiple datasets and measures that executive function develops until 18–20 years old.

  • Brenden Tervo-Clemmens
  • Finnegan J. Calabro
  • Beatriz Luna

  ArticleOpen Access30 Oct 2023 Nature Communications
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  Learning how network structure shapes decision-making for bio-inspired computing

  Better understanding of a trade-off between the speed and accuracy of decision-making is relevant for mapping biological intelligence to machines. The authors introduce a brain-inspired learning algorithm to uncover dependencies in individual fMRI networks with features of neural activity and predict inter-individual differences in decision-making.

  • Michael Schirner
  • Gustavo Deco
  • Petra Ritter

  ArticleOpen Access23 May 2023 Nature Communications
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  The genomic history of the indigenous people of the Canary Islands

  Here, the authors use paleogenomic data from the indigenous people of the Canary Islands to shed light on the Prehistory of North Africa, and on how insularity and resources availability shaped the genetic composition of this isolated population.

  • Javier G. Serrano
  • Alejandra C. Ordóñez
  • Rosa Fregel

  ArticleOpen Access15 Aug 2023 Nature Communications
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  Genomic portrait and relatedness patterns of the Iron Age Log Coffin culture in northwestern Thailand

  Large log coffins placed on stilts in natural caves characterize the Iron Age of northwestern Thailand. Here, the authors conduct archaeogenetic analyses of 33 individuals, identifying a large, well-connected community, where genetic relatedness played a significant role in the mortuary ritual.

  • Selina Carlhoff
  • Wibhu Kutanan
  • Johannes Krause

  ArticleOpen Access22 Dec 2023 Nature Communications
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  Demographics and risk of isolation due to sea level rise in the United States

  Risk of isolation is expected to disproportionately affect racial minority populations in the U.S. as sea level rise increases. Communities with more renters, older adults, and lower-income populations will also be impacted.

  • Kelsea Best
  • Qian He
  • Tom Logan

  ArticleOpen Access30 Nov 2023 Nature Communications
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  Improved human greenspace exposure equality during 21^st century urbanization

  A study of 1,028 global cities from 2000-2018 shows increased human exposure to greenspace, reducing greenspace inequality. Notably, cities in the Global South improved nearly four times faster than those in the Global North. These insights can guide city greening strategies.

  • Shengbiao Wu
  • Bin Chen
  • Peng Gong

  ArticleOpen Access13 Oct 2023 Nature Communications
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  Neural and computational underpinnings of biased confidence in human reinforcement learning

  The mechanism of confidence formation in learning remains poorly understood. Here, the authors show that both dorsal and ventral prefrontal networks encode confidence, but only the ventral network incorporates the valence-induced bias.

  • Chih-Chung Ting
  • Nahuel Salem-Garcia
  • Maël Lebreton

  ArticleOpen Access28 Oct 2023 Nature Communications
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  Subjective signal strength distinguishes reality from imagination

  How humans distinguish perception from mental imagery is not well understood. Here, the authors show that reality judgements are based on the intensity of a mixture of imagined and real signals.

  • Nadine Dijkstra
  • Stephen M. Fleming

  ArticleOpen Access23 Mar 2023 Nature Communications
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  State-level macro-economic factors moderate the association of low income with brain structure and mental health in U.S. children

  Lower income is associated with smaller hippocampal volume and mental health problems. Here, the authors show that this association is weaker in areas of the United States that are less expensive or that have a stronger social safety net.

  • David G. Weissman
  • Mark L. Hatzenbuehler
  • Katie A. McLaughlin

  ArticleOpen Access2 May 2023 Nature Communications
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  Cortical glutamate and GABA are related to compulsive behaviour in individuals with obsessive compulsive disorder and healthy controls

  The neurochemical basis of compulsive behaviour is not well understood. Here, the authors show that levels of glutamate and GABA in the supplementary motor area and anterior cingulate cortex relate to compulsive behaviour in healthy controls and individuals with OCD.

  • Marjan Biria
  • Paula Banca
  • Trevor W. Robbins

  ArticleOpen Access27 Jun 2023 Nature Communications
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  Neural circuit selective for fast but not slow dopamine increases in drug reward

  The faster a drug enters the brain, the greater its addictive potential. Using simultaneous PET-fMRI in humans, here the authors report a neural circuit responding to fast but not slow dopamine increases from intravenous versus oral methylphenidate delivery.

  • Peter Manza
  • Dardo Tomasi
  • Nora D. Volkow

  ArticleOpen Access8 Nov 2023 Nature Communications
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  Ketamine’s acute effects on negative brain states are mediated through distinct altered states of consciousness in humans

  The neural mechanisms underlying ketamine-induced altered states of consciousness are not well understood. Here, the authors show that depersonalization and dissociative amnesia related to ketamine have opposing effects on the activity of the right anterior insula in response to social threat.

  • Laura M. Hack
  • Xue Zhang
  • Leanne M. Williams

  ArticleOpen Access19 Oct 2023 Nature Communications
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  Patrilocality and hunter-gatherer-related ancestry of populations in East-Central Europe during the Middle Bronze Age

  By analysing 91 Bronze Age genomes from East-Central Europe, the authors discovered that Middle Bronze Age populations were formed by an admixture event involving hunter-gatherers and that the social structure of resulting population was primarily patrilocal.

  • Maciej Chyleński
  • Przemysław Makarowicz
  • Helena Malmström

  ArticleOpen Access1 Aug 2023 Nature Communications
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  Personalized functional brain network topography is associated with individual differences in youth cognition

  Individual differences in cognitive abilities during childhood are associated with important outcomes in adolescence. Here, the authors show associations between youth cognition and individual-specific patterns of cortical brain network organization.

  • Arielle S. Keller
  • Adam R. Pines
  • Theodore D. Satterthwaite

  ArticleOpen Access18 Dec 2023 Nature Communications
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  Behavioral representational similarity analysis reveals how episodic learning is influenced by and reshapes semantic memory

  Pre-existing semantic knowledge provides an organizational structure for episodic memories. Here, the authors show that episodic learning systematically shapes this semantic space depending on how learners engage with material and the strength of prior associations.

  • Catherine R. Walsh
  • Jesse Rissman

  ArticleOpen Access20 Nov 2023 Nature Communications
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  Transcranial focused ultrasound-mediated neurochemical and functional connectivity changes in deep cortical regions in humans

  The neural mechanisms underlying transcranial ultrasound stimulation (TUS) in humans are not well understood. Here, the authors show that theta-burst stimulation reduces gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) levels in the posterior cingulate cortex, as well as increasing functional connectivity in the anterior and posterior cingulate cortex.

  • Siti N. Yaakub
  • Tristan A. White
  • Elsa F. Fouragnan

  ArticleOpen Access1 Sep 2023 Nature Communications
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  Association between vmPFC gray matter volume and smoking initiation in adolescents

  The relationship between brain development and smoking behaviour is not well understood. Here, the authors show an association between volume of the left ventromedial prefrontal cortex and smoking initiation in adolescents.

  • Shitong Xiang
  • Tianye Jia
  • IMAGEN Consortium

  ArticleOpen Access15 Aug 2023 Nature Communications
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  Costs and health benefits of the rural energy transition to carbon neutrality in China

  Electric cooking and air-to-air heat pump adoption in China advances carbon neutrality and the rural energy transition, with the transformation costs offset by monetized health benefits in most provinces.

  • Teng Ma
  • Silu Zhang
  • Yang Xie

  ArticleOpen Access29 Sep 2023 Nature Communications

• Challenges in developing Geroscience trials

  Geroscience is becoming a major hope for preventing age-related diseases and loss of function by targeting biological mechanisms of aging. This article reports a discussion of a research Task Force on the challenges posed by the clinical research in Geroscience so that future gerotherapeutic clinical trials can be conducted successfully.

  • Yves Rolland
  • Felipe Sierra
  • the G.C.T-TF group

  Review ArticleOpen Access19 Aug 2023 Nature Communications
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  Asymmetric coding of reward prediction errors in human insula and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex

  It is unclear how dorsomedial prefrontal cortex and insula represent reward prediction errors. Here, the authors analyze human intracranial data to reveal spatially mixed, asymmetric coding of valence-specific and unsigned reward prediction errors, with insula leading dorsomedial prefrontal cortex.

  • Colin W. Hoy
  • David R. Quiroga-Martinez
  • Robert T. Knight

  ArticleOpen Access21 Dec 2023 Nature Communications
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  Opposing brain signatures of sleep in task-based and resting-state conditions

  The associations between sleep, depression and brain activity are not well understood. Here, the authors show patterns of brain activity associated with insomnia and depression resemble those found in people who sleep less, but only under cognitive load. At rest, these activation patterns are hyperconnected and resemble those found in longer sleepers.

  • Mohamed Abdelhack
  • Peter Zhukovsky
  • Daniel Felsky

  ArticleOpen Access1 Dec 2023 Nature Communications
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  Abstract representations emerge naturally in neural networks trained to perform multiple tasks

  How animals learn to generalize from one context to another remains unresolved. Here, the authors show that the abstract representations that are thought to underlie this form of generalization emerge naturally in neural networks trained to perform multiple tasks.

  • W. Jeffrey Johnston
  • Stefano Fusi

  ArticleOpen Access23 Feb 2023 Nature Communications