搜索结果：Behavioural processes

Behavioural medicine, at the intersection of behavioural science and medicine, aims to understand how behaviour influences health and to design interventions for better quality of life. Focusing on the interplay between behaviours, psychological processes, and biological factors, the field applies behavioural principles to prevent, diagnose, and treat medical conditions. Its key components include application of psychosocial and behavioural paradigms for the analysis of health promotion, disease prevention, and adherence to medical treatment. In public health, behavioural medicine plays a pivotal role by contributing to initiatives promoting healthy behaviours, identifying risk factors, and addressing social determinants of health. Despite its potential to contribute to this field, behavioural medicine has limitations, including the complexity of human behaviour and challenges in sustaining long-term behaviour change. In modern era medicine, focus is on evidence-based practice. In this context, N-of-1 trials, or single-subject trials, introduce a personalized approach to behavioural medicine research. The logic for the focus on individual patients is that 'each person is unique'. These trials focus on individual patients, systematically implementing and evaluating behavioural interventions over multiple cycles. By randomizing and blinding interventions, collecting repeated measures of outcomes, and prioritizing patient-centred outcomes, N-of-1 trials offer a nuanced understanding of how specific interventions impact individual health. While literature on N-of-1 trials in behavioural medicine is limited, they hold promise in tailoring interventions to individuals, addressing the diverse and dynamic nature of human behaviour in health contexts.

Widening participation has expanded access to higher education, yet disparities in retention and completion among mature students persist, indicating limits in existing structural and engagement-based explanations. This study addresses this gap by developing Behavioural Alignment Theory (BAT), a framework that conceptualises persistence as an emergent outcome of alignment between motivational regulation, expectancy recalibration and instructional architecture. Using a conceptual integration and theoretical mapping methodology, the article synthesises Self-Determination Theory, Expectancy-Value Theory and Cognitive Load Theory, grounded in foundational and contemporary literature on mature and widening access students. The analysis shows that persistence is shaped through dynamic interaction between institutional design and behavioural processes. Evidence indicates that misalignment across these domains can destabilise engagement, while coherent alignment supports sustained participation under conditions of role complexity and constraint. The study concludes that persistence is not reducible to individual attributes or isolated institutional factors, but emerges from system-level interaction between psychological processes and institutional conditions. The contribution of BAT lies not in the invention of new constructs, but in providing a mechanism-explicit mid-range integrative framework that specifies how established constructs interact within institutional settings to shape persistence or withdrawal.

Regular physical activity is associated with improved mental health, yet its role following mass trauma-and the differential contributions of motivational versus behavioural components-remains insufficiently understood. Drawing on stress-buffering and self-determination frameworks, this study examined whether value-based motivation for fitness and weekly vigorous physical activity are differentially associated with well-being as a function of trauma-exposure severity. A cross-sectional design was used with three groups (N = 306): survivors of the October 7, 2023 Nova music-festival attack (direct exposure; n = 74), university students assessed in 2024 (vicarious exposure; n = 82), and students assessed in 2022 (pre-event, non-exposed; n = 150). Measures included value fitness commitment (VFC), weekly vigorous physical activity (WPA), subjective happiness, somatic complaints, and PTSD symptoms (directly exposed group only). Group differences were examined using ANOVA/MANOVA. Associations and moderation effects were tested with correlation analyses and Hayes' PROCESS models controlling for age and family status. Directly exposed participants reported lower subjective happiness and higher somatic complaints than comparison groups. WPA was associated with fewer somatic complaints in the full sample and with lower PTSD symptom severity among directly exposed participants. VFC was associated with greater subjective happiness and fewer somatic complaints among directly exposed participants. Moderation analyses showed that the inverse association between VFC and somatic complaints was significant only in the directly exposed group, whereas WPA-well-being associations were not moderated by exposure level. Both motivational and behavioural physical-activity indices were linked to better well-being following trauma, but through partially distinct and context-dependent pathways. Value-based fitness commitment functioned as a protective resource specifically under conditions of severe trauma, consistent with stress-buffering and psychological-flexibility models, whereas actual vigorous activity showed a more general association with reduced somatic distress and PTSD symptoms. Low-cost, scalable physical-activity-related interventions that target both engagement and motivational processes may support post-trauma recovery.

Ocean acidification (OA), driven by increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂), is a major component of global ocean change with widespread implications for marine organisms. Sharks (elasmobranchs) are often assumed to be relatively resilient to OA due to their distinctive physiology, including strong acid-base regulation and urea-based osmoconformation. However, empirical evidence evaluating this assumption remains limited and fragmented. This review synthesizes current knowledge on the physiological, behavioural, and sensory responses of sharks to OA within a comparative framework that incorporates insights from teleost fishes. A systematic literature search following PRISMA guidelines identified studies examining OA effects across shark species and life stages. Available evidence indicates that sharks generally maintain extracellular acid-base balance under elevated CO₂, demonstrating effective physiological buffering. However, this compensation is not without cost. Energetic trade-offs, reduced aerobic scope under multi-stressor conditions, and alterations in metabolic and oxidative responses have been reported. Behavioural and sensory-mediated processes, particularly olfactory-driven foraging, appear more sensitive to OA, with impairments emerging even in the absence of obvious physiological failure. Responses are highly species-specific and often amplified by co-occurring stressors such as warming. Despite these findings, current data are strongly biased toward small, benthic species, with limited representation of pelagic taxa and long-term responses. Sharks cannot be considered uniformly resilient to OA; rather, their responses are context-dependent, energetically constrained, and potentially consequential at population and ecosystem levels. Future research integrating long-term, multi-stressor, and mechanistic approaches will be critical for improving predictions of shark responses under ongoing ocean change.

Developing policies and services to address health inequalities occurs within highly complex, political environments, and the literature points to an underutilisation of research. This ineffective mobilisation of evidence is a result of challenges emerging from both research and practice organisations. In response, many interventions have been funded to enhance "research activity" in public health decision-making, but we lack a holistic understanding of what characterises research activity in these settings. Addressing this gap, we explored behavioural and motivational dimensions that are viewed as comprising research activity in public health practice. We undertook seven semi-structured interviews with researchers embedded in local government settings in England. As change agents holding dual affiliations with research and practice organisations, embedded researchers are ideally placed to develop comparative insights on the processes through which research activity is manifested in these contexts and to identify disparities inhibiting the flow of research evidence into practice. We found that research activity is manifested through a variety of behaviours relating to accessing, conducting, and contributing to research, and evidence use. Motivational dimensions underlying engagement with research institutions include concerns around capability, capacity, and local value. Many of these concerns stem partly from narrow conceptualisations of the term "research" which are held by academics and decision-makers alike. Interventions seeking to enhance research activity in public health decision-making could benefit from flexibility in their language and application to build cross-organisational understanding of pressures and priorities and to account for variation in research capacity, interest, and skillsets.

Ontogeny refers to the gradual changes in behaviour and physiological processes that occur across the lifespan of an organism, which are associated with significant changes in sensory, emotional and social systems. In this study, the changes that occur in object recognition memory, exploratory activity and anxiety-like behaviour were studied in 6-, 12- and 24-month-old rats as a result of their normal developmental and/or ageing process, with the help of two behavioural testing paradigms, such as the novel object recognition test (NORT) and open field test (OFT). Animals were randomly assigned to three experimental groups: Group 1: 6-month-old-representing early adulthood, a stage characterised by peak physiological and cognitive function. Group 2: 12-month-old-representing middle-aged, a transitional phase with potential early signs of age-related changes. Group 3: 24-month-old-representing late adulthood and early ageing, a period associated with progressive neurobiological and behavioural alterations. The NORT and OFT were carried out using the Panlab-SMART automated behavioural video tracking system. Results demonstrate that recognition memory was only mildly decreased in middle-aged animals, and remained mostly intact throughout adulthood and in aged animals. Anxiety-like behaviour did not show significant differences across age groups. In contrast, rearing and exploratory activity declined with age, suggesting the behavioural changes are more reflective of exploratory and locomotor behaviours. Stretching and other risk-assessment behaviours did not change as the age progressed. When combined, these results imply that exploratory and locomotor behaviours are more susceptible to ageing, compared to recognition memory and anxiety-like behaviours. The results also highlight the importance of using multiple behavioural assays to holistically unravel emotionality changes across various age groups in rats. Further research is needed to understand better the molecular, cellular and neurobiological mechanisms driving these behavioural trajectories in rats.

Neurocutaneous syndromes (NCS), including neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1), tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC), and Sturge-Weber syndrome (SWS), are rare neurodevelopmental disorders frequently associated with epilepsy, cognitive impairment, and behavioural difficulties. Although caused by different genetic alterations, these disorders share biological mechanisms that influence brain development, neuronal connectivity, and network excitability. Beyond being a common neurological manifestation, epilepsy is increasingly recognized as an important factor influencing cognitive and behavioural outcomes in neurocutaneous syndromes. This narrative review summarizes current evidence on the relationship between epilepsy, cognitive dysfunction, and behavioural manifestations in major neurocutaneous syndromes. Attention is given to epileptogenic mechanisms, shared molecular pathways, and factors influencing long-term neurodevelopmental outcomes. Epilepsy is consistently associated with cognitive and behavioural outcomes in neurocutaneous syndromes, particularly in disorders characterized by early-onset and treatment-resistant seizures. Early seizure onset, poor seizure control, and persistent network dysfunction have been associated with intellectual disability, executive dysfunction, attention deficits, autism spectrum features, and impaired adaptive functioning. In TSC and SWS, epilepsy burden is strongly associated with cognitive outcome, particularly in interaction with underlying structural, vascular, and molecular abnormalities. In neurofibromatosis type 1, cognitive and behavioural difficulties are more often related to altered neuronal connectivity and dysregulated signalling pathways, although epilepsy may further contribute to neurodevelopmental impairment in a subset of patients. Despite their distinct genetic origins, these disorders converge on dysregulated RAS/MAPK, PI3K/AKT/mTOR, and Gαq-mediated signalling pathways that influence both epileptogenesis and brain development. Despite their distinct genetic origins, major neurocutaneous syndromes converge on common pathways linking epilepsy, network dysfunction, and neurodevelopmental impairment. Understanding how these processes interact may facilitate earlier intervention and more accurate prognostic assessment, ultimately improving long-term outcomes for affected children.

This pre-registered study investigated approach and avoidance processes in chronic pain using tasks that index active avoidance tendencies and behavioural suppression. Chronic pain patients and healthy controls completed an approach-avoidance task involving pain-related, medication-related, and neutral images, alongside a cued go/no-go Pavlovian Bias task using monetary rewards and punishments. Relative to controls, individuals with chronic pain showed an exaggerated approach bias towards medication-related images, despite not explicitly rating these images as more pleasant. Unexpectedly, we did not find evidence of greater active avoidance responses to pain-related images in the chronic pain group. Instead the pattern of results was in the opposite direction to that hypothesised, despite these images being rated as more painful and unpleasant. In the Pavlovian Bias task, chronic pain patients showed exaggerated behavioural suppression in the presence of cues signalling potential monetary loss, which interfered with instrumental responding. This pattern was not explained by general learning deficits or altered reward sensitivity. Together, the findings provide preliminary evidence that chronic pain may be characterised by altered responding to motivationally-salient cues, although replication in larger samples is required. Our results are consistent with the possibility that active avoidance of pain-related cues may emerge over longer timescales and involve more cognitive, volitional processes. These results highlight behavioural suppression as a sensitive and behaviourally-relevant analogue of avoidance behaviour in chronic pain.

Severe and enduring psychiatric illness is a major cause of long-term disability and reduced life expectancy. Within this group, treatment-resistant depression (TRD) remains a substantial therapeutic challenge. Ablative neurosurgery, defined here as anterior cingulotomy (ACING) which creates bilateral lesions in the dorsal cingulum bundle, and anterior capsulotomy (ACAPS) which creates bilateral lesions in the anterior thalamic radiation, can produce sustained clinical response in carefully selected patients, but the underlying mechanisms are not well understood. Here, we examined whether prior neurosurgical treatment is associated with differences in behavioural and neural processes implicated in TRD. Sixty-two participants completed a probabilistic reward-loss learning task during event-related fMRI: patients with a history of neurosurgical treatment, non-surgical TRD patients, and healthy controls. Behaviour was modelled using hierarchical Bayesian reinforcement learning drift-diffusion models, enabling decomposition of value learning, prediction-error updating, evidence accumulation, and non-decision processes. TRD was associated with impaired value discrimination, blunted reward prediction-error signals, increased loss-related responses, and slowed response dynamics. Behavioural accuracy and learning were preserved across groups, but reaction time analyses revealed graded slowing. Relative to non-surgical TRD, the surgical group showed differences in value-related processing but not in response slowing. Within the surgical cohort, clinical responders showed more efficient evidence accumulation and more normal value representation, whereas non-responders exhibited persistent abnormalities in reward valuation and a 'pessimistic' prediction-error profile. Neuroimaging analyses showed corresponding differences in reward- and loss-related circuits. Responders demonstrated increased reward prediction-error signalling in dorsal anterior cingulate cortex and enhanced reward-value signals in lateral orbitofrontal cortex, whereas non-responders showed persistent blunting of subcortical reward prediction-error responses associated with greater symptom severity. These findings suggest that clinical improvement following neurosurgical treatment is associated with relative normalisation of valuation-related neurophysiology, rather than changes in response slowing. More broadly, they highlight valuation processes as a key component of severe TRD and a potential target for future therapeutic interventions.

Linking individual movements to population-level distributions remains a central challenge in ecology. Animal distributions arise from interdependent movement decisions across spatiotemporal scales. However, most studies focus on a single scale or treat them in isolation, constraining our ability to uncover the mechanisms shaping landscape-level patterns. We evaluated whether hierarchical foraging decisions operating across nested scales can be recovered from movement data alone. Specifically, we tested whether multi-state step-selection functions (HMM-SSFs) can identify scale-dependent behavioural organization arising from mechanistic decision rules. We developed a model in which agents exploit resource sites grouped into camps within home ranges. Movement decisions were governed by energetic gains and the costs of travel, missed opportunities, and predation risk. We fitted HMM-SSFs to simulated movements to infer behavioural states and transitions. HMM-SSFs accurately identified latent behavioural states corresponding to within-site resource exploitation, within-camp movements, and between-camp relocations. Transitions among states responded to spatial variation in resources and risk. States emerged from model inference without being imposed a priori. The recovered behavioural hierarchy aligned with predictions from foraging theory. These results demonstrate that hierarchical decision-making leaves identifiable signatures in movement trajectories. We demonstrate that multiscale processes can be inferred from movement data within a unified framework. Although results may be noisier for field observations than for simulations, complementary field methods can help mitigate this limitation by informing both the analysis and its interpretation. This approach therefore provides a valuable foundation for linking behaviour across scales in dynamic environments. The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10980-026-02378-z.

Behaviour change theories have substantially advanced understanding of the mechanisms through which behaviours are initiated, maintained, and sustained. However, less attention has been directed towards the temporal conditions under which these mechanisms are able to operate consistently in everyday life. This conceptual paper explores whether differences in temporal conditions may contribute to the variability frequently observed in behaviour change interventions. The paper proposes a complementary framework centred on the concepts of tempo, interval, and behavioural consolidation. Rather than introducing an alternative behaviour change theory, the framework considers how environments differ in the temporal conditions they create for behavioural processes to unfold. It suggests that these conditions may influence the extent to which existing behaviour change mechanisms are able to operate effectively over time. The framework is illustrated through conceptual applications to food environments, learning environments, sleep, and clinical prevention, demonstrating how temporal conditions may provide an additional perspective across behavioural, cognitive, physiological, and professional domains. By making temporal conditions explicit, this perspective complements existing behaviour change models and generates new questions for prevention research and practice. Rather than asking only how behaviour changes, it encourages consideration of whether the temporal conditions required for behavioural consolidation are present in the first place.

Numerous large-scale epidemiological studies investigating the trajectory of brain function after ischaemic stroke have presented data suggesting, on average, a persistent, accelerated decline in cognitive domains, including language, after accounting for the immediate impact of the stroke. We sought to further examine this trend, speculating that the average persistent decline may be a reflection of two subgroups with vastly different prognoses: (i) a minority experiencing decline secondary to neurodegenerative processes such as vascular dementia and Alzheimer's disease and (ii) a majority without marked progressive brain atrophy who typically see improvement. Our team thus investigated atrophy's association with language recovery, hypothesizing that declining naming performance in the year after left hemisphere ischaemic stroke would be correlated to atrophy of the contralesional hemisphere. We postulated that volume loss within the lesioned hemisphere would be less informative due to separate confounding processes related to the stroke itself, such as Wallerian degeneration and encephalomalacia. Participants [n = 72; M (SD) age = 60 (11)] in a longitudinal cohort study of language following left hemisphere ischaemic stroke were included if they completed an MRI both acutely and chronically (either 6 or 12 months post-stroke). Naming performance was assessed using the Boston Naming Test; stroke volumes were extracted from acute imaging; and atrophy was measured as the monthly per cent change in hemispheric volume from baseline to chronic scan for each individual. Pearson's correlations were calculated to determine the relationship between lesion volume and atrophy along with atrophy and change in Boston Naming Test score. Lesion volume negatively correlated with the monthly per cent change in volume of the left (ipsilesional) hemisphere (r = -0.48; P < 0.0001) but did not correlate with rate of right (contralesional) hemisphere volume loss. While there was no clear relationship between atrophy of the left hemisphere and language recovery, we found that volume changes of greater negative magnitude within the right hemisphere (increased atrophy) were associated with worse functional recovery of language (r = 0.38; P = 0.0025). By showing that atrophy of the right hemisphere was not significantly impacted by left hemisphere lesion size, we suggest that accelerated volume loss in the non-lesioned hemisphere after stroke may be indicative of a separate pathology. We then support this claim with behavioural data showing that greater rates of volume loss within the non-lesioned hemisphere were associated with poorer naming recovery. Together, these findings imply that contralesional atrophy after stroke may have negative implications for recovery and could serve as a useful imaging signature for separate neurodegenerative processes.

Habits are central to daily life but remain difficult to study in the lab. Outcome Devaluation is often considered a "gold standard" paradigm for habit measurement; yet human studies have produced mixed evidence: many fail to show the overtraining effects on devaluation sensitivity expected from a robust habit index. An alternative measure involves remapping stimuli to new responses rather than devaluing outcomes. Crucially, this procedure limits preparation time to reveal habits that may otherwise be masked by goal-directed processes. Although promising, it remains unclear whether these tasks assess the same behavioural phenomenon. To address this, we compared Outcome Devaluation and Response Remapping under matched preparation-time constraints after 6 days of training. Response Remapping showed the expected pattern: expression of the pretrained (putatively "habitual") response was greatest at 200-500 ms and weakened as preparation time increased. In Outcome Devaluation, raw responses to devalued outcomes increased with preparation time, driven by a time-dependent withholding bias. Once controlled for, devalued responses decreased with preparation time. Crucially, this effect was larger in Remapping. Moreover, task comprehension problems may limit interpretation of the Devaluation task. These findings suggest that paradigms engage partially distinct processes-response inhibition versus automatic action selection-with one requiring inhibition of a learned response and the other relying on fast, automatic actions. Our findings reveal that behaviour on these tasks is sensitive to task structure, underscore the need to consider distinct cognitive and motivational factors driving action selection, and highlight that what researchers call "habits" is influenced by multiple processes.

Health systems interventions are increasingly designed to address complex challenges in quality, safety, access, and equity. Yet many fail to achieve sustained impact, often due to misalignment between intervention mechanisms, organisational context, and broader system dynamics. Although theory is widely promoted to strengthen intervention design, frameworks from behavioural science, implementation science, and systems thinking are frequently applied in isolation, limiting their collective explanatory and practical value. This focused narrative review adopts a design-first perspective-defined as the prospective use of theory to inform intervention development rather than its retrospective use to explain outcomes, to synthesise and compare key theoretical approaches used to inform the development of complex health system interventions. Drawing on a narrative synthesis of 46 review articles (33 identified through database searching and 13 through citation chasing of foundational sources) published between 2010 and 2026, we examine how behavioural science, implementation science theories and frameworks, and systems thinking approaches contribute complementary insights across the micro- (individual/interpersonal), meso- (team/organisational) and macro- (system/policy) levels of complexity. We argue that effective intervention development requires a layered design architecture that explicitly aligns micro-level behavioural mechanisms, meso-level organisational and implementation processes, and macro-level system dynamics. We also argue that the boundaries between these traditions are increasingly fluid, and that hybrid frameworks and the integration of design thinking with implementation and systems science, represent a particularly fertile area for advancing intervention design. By integrating these traditions, we propose a pluralistic and structured approach to intervention design that strengthens causal clarity while accommodating adaptation and contextual variability. Advancing such integrative practice is essential for improving the effectiveness, scalability, and sustainability of health system interventions.

Missed Nursing Care is a persistent global problem associated with adverse patient outcomes. The Fundamentals of Care Framework provides a conceptual structure for delivering person-centred, high-quality nursing care. However, limited empirical evidence exists on how the Framework can be systematically integrated into routine clinical practice through structured implementation strategies. To evaluate the effect of an implementation strategy for integrating the Fundamentals of Care Framework into clinical practice on staff perceptions of capability, opportunity, and motivation to deliver fundamental nursing care. An exploratory single-group pre-post study was conducted using paired questionnaire data collected before and after implementation of a structured, theory-informed implementation strategy designed to support integration of the Fundamentals of Care Framework into daily nursing practice. Nurses' perceived behavioural determinants were assessed using a questionnaire informed by the Capability, Opportunity, Motivation-Behaviour model. Analyses focused on within-person change and estimation of directional trends. Given the exploratory nature and limited sample size, emphasis was placed on descriptive statistics and confidence intervals rather than hypothesis testing. Pre- and post-implementation data from the same individuals (paired data) suggested small and variable changes across behavioural domains following implementation. Directional trends indicated increases in perceived capability and opportunity, while motivation appeared relatively stable over time. Confidence intervals were wide, reflecting limited statistical power and uncertainty around effect estimates. This pre-post evaluation provides early insights into the integration of the Fundamentals of Care Framework using a structured implementation strategy. While definitive conclusions regarding effectiveness cannot be drawn, the findings illustrate how behavioural determinants may respond differently during integration processes and highlight the challenges of evaluating complex nursing interventions in real-world clinical settings.

School-based interventions can improve adolescent health outcomes and tackle the growing burden of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in low-and-middle-income countries (LMICs). Results to date are variable, partly due to lack of cultural adaptation of Westernised models and limited focus on implementation processes. The aim of the ISOBAR project is to develop, implement, and test a school-based intervention to address the emergence of mental and physical (i.e., nutritional, physical inactivity) health problems in LMICs. The three-stage intervention comprises (1) assessment for mental and physical health problems, (2) universal health literacy, and (3) indicated counselling. The ISOBAR multi-site project comprises three phases: (1)&#xa0;pre-intervention (co-development and cultural adaptation of the intervention); (2) implementation of the intervention; and (3) post-intervention evaluation. The intervention will be delivered using a staggered roll-out design to introduce the intervention sequentially to three schools per site (nine in total) in Chennai, Gujarat (India), and Ibadan (Nigeria). Each school will receive the intervention by the end of the study period. Local teams will recruit 200 adolescents per school (Total n=1, 800). All adolescents (in intervention and control conditions) will be assessed for mental health/behavioural problems and nutritional/weight problems at baseline. Adolescents in the intervention school will receive the universal health literacy intervention (main cohort), and those adolescents reaching pre-determined thresholds on mental health and/or nutritional indices (sub-cohort) will be referred to school-based counselling support. A suite of assessments will be conducted throughout the study period including: (1)&#xa0;intervention effectiveness (e.g., impact on help-seeking, weight, and mental health and behavioural outcomes); (2) implementation processes (e.g., facilitators and barriers) and outcomes (e.g., acceptability, appropriateness, sustainability); and (3) cost-effectiveness. The study was approved by the University of Warwick's Biomedical and Scientific Research Ethics Committee (BSREC 36/23-24) and the institutional ethics committees of all participating sites. Research findings will be disseminated through peer reviewed scientific publications, public announcements in local communities, policy briefings, print and online media, and institutional and professional social media accounts and websites.

Action observation (AO) provides sensory evidence that can engage predictive motor coding, yet how visual uncertainty shapes this process across behaviour and corticospinal excitability (CSE) remains unclear. We combined a behavioural timing task with AO-TMS across two experiments. In Experiment 1 (n = 56), uncertainty was manipulated parametrically through movement naturalness, partial blackout and shape congruence in goal-directed action videos, while participants produced time-locked responses to a defined target event. Precision was indexed by absolute response-time error. In Experiment 2 (n = 20), single-pulse TMS was delivered over left M1 during grasp and release phases of AO scenes selected from an independent cohort. FDI MEPs indexed CSE, with strict pre-EMG screening. Behaviourally, reduced naturalness, added occlusion and incongruent shapes each degraded temporal precision. Neurophysiologically, AO elicited a reliable overall facilitation of CSE relative to baseline, whereas condition-specific modulations associated with uncertainty were small and did not survive multiple-comparison correction. These results indicate that while perceptual uncertainty robustly affects behavioural prediction, corresponding changes in motor resonance are comparatively subtle under the present design. The study provides a reproducible AO-TMS protocol and controlled stimulus set that can support future high-powered tests of how uncertainty shapes predictive motor processes.

Physical activity (PA) has been associated with improvements in inhibitory control in children, including those with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). However, the relative contribution of different PA types, particularly those differing in cognitive engagement, remains unclear. This study examined behavioural and electrophysiological indicators of interference control in children with and without ADHD following three conditions: PA with alternating cognitive engagement, PA without cognitive engagement, and a cognitively engaging control condition. Forty-three children, 20 with ADHD and 23 without ADHD, completed all sessions in a randomized crossover design. Interference control was assessed using a Flanker task while electroencephalography was recorded. Reaction time, accuracy, and interference effects were analysed at baseline and after each condition, with post-condition sessions separated by one week. N2 and P3 amplitudes were examined as electrophysiological indices of conflict monitoring and attentional allocation, respectively. The interference effect was reduced after the cognitively engaging control condition and PA without cognitive engagement relative to baseline, although no condition produced overall changes in reaction time or accuracy. EEG analyses showed larger N2 amplitudes after PA without cognitive engagement and reduced P3 amplitudes after the cognitively engaging control condition and PA without cognitive engagement compared with baseline. Overall, PA without cognitive engagement and the cognitively engaging control condition elicited acute modulations of behavioural and neural markers of interference control, irrespective of ADHD status. These findings suggest that brief PA bouts may modulate ERP indices related to executive-function processes in children, although the functional significance of reduced P3 amplitude remains uncertain when behavioural effects are limited.

Plural autisms offer one important way of organising the massive heterogeneity that is currently included under the singular diagnostic label of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Characterised exclusively by behavioural criteria related to social communication skills and restricted or repetitive patterns of symptoms, the observable diversity in presentations and developmental trajectories partially explains the lack of universally applicable biomarkers and answers about underlying biology. One particularly important area potentially pertinent to several manifestations of the plural autisms is a connection to the immune system, whether noted across differing patterns of immune functions or following immune challenge in the context of inflammatory processes exerting an effect on developmental processes and behaviour. Utilising a narrative review, we highlight various research analysing a role for immune functions in the context of the heterogeneous autisms stretching across under-, over- and autoimmune processes. Current evidence for immune system involvement in various autisms carries considerable limitations, and studies are often based on small sample sizes, focusing on selective clinical subgroups, and using case-based observations. Notwithstanding the available evidence, substantial and more detailed further studies are required in relation to immune-related screening, building also on the currently limited evidence on the potential usefulness of personalised immune-affecting interventions following appropriate screening and identification of pertinent immune-related issues.