MedWorm.com provides a medical RSS filtering service. Over 6000 RSS medical sources are combined and output via different filters. This feed contains the latest items from the 'Brain and Cognition' source. Wed, 08 Feb 2012 20:42:58 +0100 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5465380&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D22099150%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Ramon M, Rossion B Abstract In two behavioral experiments involving lateralized stimulus presentation, we tested whether one of the most commonly used measures of holistic face processing-the composite face effect-would be more pronounced for stimuli presented to the right as compared to the left hemisphere. In experiment 1, we investigated the composite face effect in a verbal identification task, similar to its original report (Young, Hellawell, & Hay, 1987). Aligning top and bottom halves of composite face stimuli led to performance decreases irrespective of hemifield, indicating holistic processing of comparable magnitude for inputs provided separately to either hemisphere. However, when matching of the same top parts was required in experiment 2, an alignment-depe... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5465380 Fri, 02 Dec 2011 14:12:39 +0100 5465380 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5465379&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D22099151%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Maslovat D, Carlsen AN, Franks IM Abstract We investigated the processes underlying stimulus-response compatibility by using a lateralized auditory stimulus in a simple and choice reaction time (RT) paradigm. Participants were asked to make either a left or right key lift in response to either a control (80dB) or startling (124dB) stimulus presented to either the left ear, right ear, or both ears. In the simple RT paradigm, we did not find a compatibility effect for either control or startle trials but did find a right-ear advantage which we attribute to anatomical asymmetry of auditory pathways. In the choice RT paradigm, we found compatibility effects for both startle and control trials as well a high incidence of error for contralateral stimulus-response mapping. We att... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5465379 Fri, 02 Dec 2011 14:12:30 +0100 5465379 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5465377&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D22122949%26dopt%3DAbstract CONCLUSIONS: Effectiveness of the repetition-lag procedure in Alzheimer's disease is discussed. PMID: 22122949 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher] (Source: Brain and Cognition) Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5465377 Sat, 26 Nov 2011 05:00:00 +0100 5465377 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5465378&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D22104172%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Wiese H, Kloth N, Güllmar D, Reichenbach JR, Schweinberger SR Abstract Efficient processing of unfamiliar faces typically involves their categorization (e.g., into old vs. young or male vs. female). However, age and gender categorization may pose different perceptual demands. In the present study, we employed functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to compare the activity evoked during age vs. gender categorization of unfamiliar faces. In different blocks, participants performed age and gender classifications for old or young unfamiliar faces (50% female respectively). Both tasks elicited activations in the bilateral fusiform gyri (fusiform face area, FFA) and bilateral inferior occipital gyri (occipital face area, OFA). Importantly, the same stimuli elicited enhance... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5465378 Sat, 19 Nov 2011 05:00:00 +0100 5465378 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5429180&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D22088775%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Zanolie K, Dantzig SV, Boot I, Wijnen J, Schubert TW, Giessner SR, Pecher D Abstract Thinking about the abstract concept power may automatically activate the spatial up-down image schema (powerful up; powerless down) and consequently direct spatial attention to the image schema-congruent location. Participants indicated whether a word represented a powerful or powerless person (e.g. 'king' or 'servant'). Following each decision, they identified a target at the top or bottom of the visual field. In Experiment 1 participants identified the target faster when their spatial position was congruent with the perceived power of the preceding word than when it was incongruent. In Experiment 2 ERPs showed a higher N1 amplitude for congruent spatial positions. These results support t... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5429180 Mon, 14 Nov 2011 05:00:00 +0100 5429180 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5429179&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D22088776%26dopt%3DAbstract In conclusion, increased activation of the IPL represents a positive neural correlate of mental rotation performance, irrespective of but consistent with the obtained neurocognitive and behavioral effects of math talent and gender. As experimental performance may strongly affect task-related activations this factor needs to be considered in capability-related group comparison studies on the brain-performance relationship. PMID: 22088776 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher] (Source: Brain and Cognition) Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5429179 Mon, 14 Nov 2011 05:00:00 +0100 5429179 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5429178&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D22088777%26dopt%3DAbstract This article presents an investigation of the relationship between lesioning and neuroimaging methods of assessing functional specialisation, using synthetic brain imaging (SBI) and lesioning of a connectionist network of past-tense formation. The model comprised two processing 'routes': one was a direct route between layers of input and output units, while the other, indirect, route featured an intermediate layer of processing units. Emergent specialisation within the network was assessed (1) by lesioning either the direct or indirect route and measuring past-tense performance for regular and irregular verbs, and (2) by measuring functional activation in each route when processing each verb type (SBI). SBI and lesioning approaches failed to converge when network activation was summed over... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5429178 Mon, 14 Nov 2011 05:00:00 +0100 5429178 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5429181&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D22083026%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: O'Toole L, Dennis TA Abstract Anxiety is characterized by exaggerated attention to threat. Several studies suggest that this threat bias plays a causal role in the development and maintenance of anxiety disorders. Furthermore, although the threat bias can be reduced in anxious individuals and induced in non-anxious individual, the attentional mechanisms underlying these changes remain unclear. To address this issue, 49 non-anxious adults were randomly assigned to either attentional training toward or training away from threat using a modified version of the dot probe task. Behavioral measures of attentional biases were also generated pre- and post-training using the dot probe task. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were generated to threat and non-threat face pairs and probe... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5429181 Sat, 12 Nov 2011 05:00:00 +0100 5429181 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5429182&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D22078133%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Mashour GA PMID: 22078133 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher] (Source: Brain and Cognition) Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5429182 Wed, 09 Nov 2011 05:00:00 +0100 5429182 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5429184&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D22070923%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Meguid NA, Fahim C, Sami R, Nashaat NH, Yoon U, Anwar M, El-Dessouky HM, Shahine EA, Ibrahim AS, Mancini-Marie A, Evans AC Abstract The aims of the present study are twofold: (1) to examine cortical morphology (CM) associated with alterations in cognition in fragile X syndrome (FXS); (2) to characterize the CM profile of FXS versus FXS with an autism diagnosis (FXS+Aut) as a preliminary attempt to further elucidate the behavioral distinctions between the two sub-groups. We used anatomical magnetic resonance imaging surface-based morphometry in 21 male children (FXS N=11 and age [2.27-13.3] matched controls [C] N=10). We found (1) increased whole hemispheric and lobar cortical volume, cortical thickness and cortical complexity bilaterally, yet insignificant changes in hemis... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5429184 Mon, 07 Nov 2011 05:00:00 +0100 5429184 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5429183&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D22070924%26dopt%3DAbstract In this study, we used event-related potentials (ERPs) to evaluate the contribution of surface color and color knowledge information in object identification. We constructed two color-object verification tasks - a surface and a knowledge verification task - using high color diagnostic objects; both typical and atypical color versions of the same object were presented. Continuous electroencephalogram was recorded from 26 subjects. A cluster randomization procedure was used to explore the differences between typical and atypical color objects in each task. In the color knowledge task, we found two significant clusters that were consistent with the N350 and late positive complex (LPC) effects. Atypical color objects elicited more negative ERPs compared to typical color objects. The color effe... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5429183 Mon, 07 Nov 2011 05:00:00 +0100 5429183 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5429185&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D22061174%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Propper RE, Brunyé TT, Christman SD, Januszewskia A Abstract Based on their specialized processing abilities, the left and right hemispheres of the brain may not contribute equally to recall of general world knowledge. US college students recalled the verbal names and spatial locations of the 50 US states while sustaining leftward or rightward unilateral gaze, a procedure that selectively activates the contralateral hemisphere. Compared to a no-unilateral gaze control, right gaze/left hemisphere activation resulted in better recall, demonstrating left hemisphere superiority in recall of general world knowledge and offering equivocal support for the hemispheric encoding asymmetry model of memory. Unilateral gaze- regardless of direction- improved recall of spatial, but not... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5429185 Sat, 05 Nov 2011 04:00:00 +0100 5429185 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5384180&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D22055622%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Kuo BC, Rotshtein P, Yeh YY Abstract We investigated the neural correlates of attentional modulation in the perceptual comparison process for detecting feature-binding changes in an event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiment. Participants performed a variant of a cued change detection task. They viewed a memory array, a spatial retro-cue, and later a probe array. Their task was to judge whether the cued item had changed between the two arrays. Change type was manipulated to be a color-location binding or a color feature change. The retro-cue onset time in the retention interval was manipulated to be early or late. As a consequence of strong inter-item competition, we found strong prefrontal activation for late cues when contrasting the binding-ch... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5384180 Wed, 02 Nov 2011 04:00:00 +0100 5384180 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5384181&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D22032805%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Calderón-Garcidueñas L, Engle R, Mora-Tiscareño A, Styner M, Gómez-Garza G, Zhu H, Jewells V, Torres-Jardón R, Romero L, Monroy-Acosta ME, Bryant C, González-González LO, Medina-Cortina H, D'Angiulli A Abstract Exposure to severe air pollution produces neuroinflammation and structural brain alterations in children. We tested whether patterns of brain growth, cognitive deficits and white matter hyperintensities (WMH) are associated with exposures to severe air pollution. Baseline and 1year follow-up measurements of global and regional brain MRI volumes, cognitive abilities (Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised, WISC-R), and serum inflammatory mediators were collected in 20 Mexico City (MC) children (10 with white matter hyperintensities, WMH(+), and 10 wi... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5384181 Tue, 25 Oct 2011 04:00:00 +0100 5384181 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5384182&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D22030268%26dopt%3DAbstract We examined such "ambiguous number" processing in two different contexts using a paired-comparison task, recording both behavioral responses and brain activity. Participants were either asked to think of all items as numbers and to choose the larger number, or were told to treat the comparators as events and to choose the later event. Behaviorally, all events showed a normal distance effect, establishing that they may be understood and compared in an ordinal sequence. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) demonstrated significant differences between years when treated as numbers versus as events. Dates in both contexts shared activity in parietal lobe regions previously implicated in number processing. Dates as numbers showed no extra-numeric activity, while dates thought of as even... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5384182 Mon, 24 Oct 2011 04:00:00 +0100 5384182 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5384183&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D22024246%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Herrington JD, Nymberg C, Schultz RT Abstract Numerous studies implicate superior temporal sulcus (STS) in the perception of human movement. More recent theories hold that STS is also involved in the understanding of human movement. However, almost no studies to date have associated STS function with observable variability in action understanding. The present study directly associated STS activity with performance on a challenging task requiring the interpretation of human movement. During functional MRI scanning, fourteen adults were asked to identify the direction (left or right) in which either a point-light walking figure or spinning wheel were moving. The task was made challenging by perturbing the dot trajectories to a level (determined via pretesting) where each par... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5384183 Sat, 22 Oct 2011 04:00:00 +0100 5384183 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5384184&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D22018515%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Vainio L Abstract Manual responses can be primed by viewing an image of a hand. The left-right identity of the viewed hand reflexively facilitates responses of the hand that corresponds to the identity. Previous research also suggests that when the response activation is triggered by an arrow, which is backward-masked and presented briefly, the activation manifests itself in the negative priming effect. The present study showed that response activation, which is produced by an identity of a briefly presented image of a hand, can be similarly associated with a negative priming effect. However, in contrast to the previously reported negative priming effects, the hand stimuli produced negative priming even when the hand was not backward-masked and did not contain task-relevan... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5384184 Thu, 20 Oct 2011 04:00:00 +0100 5384184 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5384186&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21986366%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Noreika V, Jylhänkangas L, Móró L, Valli K, Kaskinoro K, Aantaa R, Scheinin H, Revonsuo A Abstract Anesthetic-induced changes in the neural activity of the brain have been recently utilized as a research model to investigate the neural mechanisms of phenomenal consciousness. However, the anesthesiologic definition of consciousness as "responsiveness to the environment" seems to sidestep the possibility that an unresponsive individual may have subjective experiences. The aim of the present study was to analyze subjective reports in sessions where sedation and the loss of responsiveness were induced by dexmedetomidine, propofol, sevoflurane or xenon in a nonsurgical experimental setting. After regaining responsiveness, participants recalled subjective experiences in almos... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5384186 Sat, 08 Oct 2011 04:00:00 +0100 5384186 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5384185&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21986367%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Spotorno S, Faure S Abstract What accounts for the Right Hemisphere (RH) functional superiority in visual change detection? An original task which combines one-shot and divided visual field paradigms allowed us to direct change information initially to the RH or the Left Hemisphere (LH) by deleting, respectively, an object included in the left or right half of a scene presented centrally. We manipulated the perceptual salience and semantic relevance of the change as well as the duration of the Inter-Stimulus Interval (ISI) between the scenes in order to clarify the role of the RH in memory and attention processes, and to explore whether lengthening the ISI would enhance the contribution of the LH. When analyzing data collapsed over the two levels (high vs. low) of salience... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5384185 Sat, 08 Oct 2011 04:00:00 +0100 5384185 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5285206&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21962763%26dopt%3DAbstract We presented left and right-handed subjects with brief uniform grey visual stimuli in either the left or right visual hemifield. Consistent with the proposed asymmetry in attentional resources, right-handed subjects estimated right hemifield targets as having a higher contrast than physically identical stimuli presented in the left hemifield. Left-handed participants did not show a systematic rightward or leftward bias. However, the group of left-handed participants also took part in a dichotic listening experiment whose results showed that visual bias score correlated positively with ear-advantage in dichotic listening. Our results are consistent with the view that supramodal processing resources are biased towards the right hemispace, and that this bias is influenced by handedness. P... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5285206 Wed, 28 Sep 2011 04:00:00 +0100 5285206 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5285207&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21955370%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Polosan M, Baciu M, Cousin E, Perrone M, Pichat C, Bougerol T Abstract Social interaction requires the ability to infer another person's mental state (Theory of Mind, ToM) and also executive functions. This fMRI study aimed to identify the cerebral correlates activated by ToM during a specific social interaction, the human-human competition. In this framework, we tested a conflict resolution task (Stroop) adapted to a virtual situation of competition. The participants were instructed to play in order to win either against a human-like competitor (human-human competition) or against a non-human competitor (human-machine competition). Only the human-human competition requires ToM as this type of competition is performed under social interaction. We identified first the class... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5285207 Mon, 26 Sep 2011 04:00:00 +0100 5285207 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5269105&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21945238%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Callahan BL, Ueda K, Sakata D, Plamondon A, Murai T Abstract It is well-known that patients having sustained frontal-lobe traumatic brain injury (TBI) are severely impaired on tests of emotion recognition. Indeed, these patients have significant difficulty recognizing facial expressions of emotion, and such deficits are often associated with decreased social functioning and poor quality of life. As of yet, no studies have examined the response patterns which underlie facial emotion recognition impairment in TBI and which may lend clarity to the interpretation of deficits. Therefore, the present study aimed to characterize response patterns in facial emotion recognition in 14 patients with frontal TBI compared to 22 matched control subjects, using a task which required part... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5269105 Fri, 23 Sep 2011 04:00:00 +0100 5269105 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5269106&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21944865%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Wang MY, Kuo BC, Cheng SK Abstract Recognition of both faces and Chinese characters is commonly believed to rely on configural information. While faces typically exhibit behavioral and N170 inversion effects that differ from non-face stimuli (Rossion, Joyce, Cottrell, & Tarr, 2003), the current study examined whether a similar reliance on configural processing may result in similar inversion effects for faces and Chinese characters. Participants were engaged in an orientation judgment task (Experiment 1) and a one-back identity matching task (Experiment 2). Across two experiments, the N170 was delayed and enhanced in magnitude for upside-down faces and compound Chinese characters, compared to upright stimuli. The inversion effects for these two stimulus categories were... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5269106 Thu, 22 Sep 2011 04:00:00 +0100 5269106 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5269107&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21940093%26dopt%3DAbstract We examined the magnitude and timing of source activation underlying the N2-an ERP associated with inhibitory control-during a go/nogo task with a negative emotion induction component (loss of earned points). We estimated cortical activation for two regions of interest-a ventral prefrontal and a dorsomedial prefrontal region-for three 100-ms windows over the range of the N2 (200-500ms). Anxious aggressive children showed high ventral prefrontal activation in the early window; non-anxious aggressive children showed high ventral prefrontal activation in the late window, but only for the duration of the emotion induction; and normally-developing children showed low ventral prefrontal activation throughout. There were no group differences in dorsomedial prefrontal activation. These results sug... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5269107 Tue, 20 Sep 2011 04:00:00 +0100 5269107 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5235950&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21925782%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Macdonald M, Campbell K Abstract An infrequent physical increase in the intensity of an auditory stimulus relative to an already loud frequently occurring "standard" is processed differently than an equally perceptible physical decrease in intensity. This may be because a physical increment results in increased activation in two different systems, a transient and a change detector system (signalling detection of an increase in transient energy and a change from the past, respectively). By contrast, a decrease in intensity results in increased activation in only the change detector system. The major question asked by the present study was whether a psychological (rather than a physical) increment would continue to be processed differently than a psychological decrement when... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5235950 Fri, 16 Sep 2011 04:00:00 +0100 5235950 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5235951&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21924537%26dopt%3DAbstract In this study, we examined antisaccade performance in patients and relatives, and sought to establish whether antisaccade measures could differentiate between two patients clusters identified in the Western Australian Family Study of Schizophrenia with either pervasive cognitive deficits (CD) or cognitively spared (CS). Ninety-three patients (CD=47, CS=46), 99 relatives and 62 healthy controls carried out a standard antisaccade task. Results showed: (i) significantly greater error rate, and prolonged latencies to correct responses and self-correction saccades in patients compared with controls; (ii) high error rates in relatives of poorly performing patients; (iii) longer latencies of self-correction saccades in relatives compared to controls; and (iv) higher error rate and longer latencie... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5235951 Wed, 14 Sep 2011 04:00:00 +0100 5235951 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5235952&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21920656%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Stevenson H, Russell PN, Helton WS Abstract In the present experiment, we used search asymmetry to test whether the sustained attention to response task is a better measure of response inhibition or sustained attention. Participants performed feature present and feature absent target detection tasks using either a sustained attention to response task (SART; high Go low No-Go) or a traditionally formatted task (TFT; high No-Go low Go) response format. In addition to performance, we employed functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to measure lateral cerebral oxygenation levels and self-reports of Tense Arousal, Energetic Arousal, task related and unrelated thoughts occurring during the tasks. Detections were lower and reaction times longer in the feature absent search ... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5235952 Tue, 13 Sep 2011 04:00:00 +0100 5235952 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5223153&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21903319%26dopt%3DAbstract We presented objects that have a strong significance for action (pinching and grasping) and objects with no such significance. Two experimental tasks involved participants viewing objects presented on a computer screen. For the first task, they were instructed to respond rapidly to changes in background colour by using an apparatus mimicking precision and power grip responses. For the second task, they received stimulation of their primary motor cortex using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) while passively viewing the objects. Muscular responses (motor evoked potentials: MEPs) were recorded from two intrinsic hand muscles (associated with either a precision or power grip). The data showed an interaction between type of response (or muscle) and type of object, with both reaction time... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5223153 Tue, 06 Sep 2011 04:00:00 +0100 5223153 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5223159&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21889246%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Bonnefond A, Doignon-Camus N, Hoeft A, Dufour A Abstract We assessed the effects of time-on-task on cognitive control expressed by the CRN/Nc and the extent to which motivation modulates this relationship. We utilized two groups of participants, who were told that their performance would (evaluation condition) or would not (control condition) be evaluated online. Both groups performed a version of the Eriksen Flanker Task for 60min. We observed classical vigilance lowering, manifested by a progressive performance decline with time-on-task, in the control, but not in the evaluation, condition. In the latter, performance remained stable throughout the task. ERP analysis indicated the same interaction in our main component of interest, the CRN/Nc, whose amplitude decreased fr... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5223159 Wed, 31 Aug 2011 04:00:00 +0100 5223159 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5223158&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21889247%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Cornish KM, Savage R, Hocking DR, Hollis CP Abstract Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and reading disability (RD) frequently co-occur in the child population and therefore raise the possibility of shared genetic etiology. We used a quantitative trait loci (QTL) approach to assess the involvement of the dopamine transporter (DAT1) gene polymorphism in mediating reading disability and poor attention in a general population sample of primary school children aged 6-11years in the UK. The potential confounding effects of IQ and chronological age were also investigated. We found an independent association between the homozygous DAT1 10/10 repeat genotype and RD that was not accounted for by the level of ADHD symptoms. This finding suggests that the DAT1 gene polym... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5223158 Wed, 31 Aug 2011 04:00:00 +0100 5223158 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5223157&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21889248%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Foster PS, Yung RC, Branch KK, Stringer K, Ferguson BJ, Sullivan W, Drago V Abstract The dopaminergic system is implicated in depressive disorders and research has also shown that dopamine constricts lexical/semantic networks by reducing spreading activation. Hence, depression, which is linked to reductions of dopamine, may be associated with increased spreading activation. However, research has generally found no effects of depression on spreading activation, using semantic priming paradigms. We used a different paradigm to investigate the relationship between depression and spreading activation, one based on word frequencies. Our sample included 97 undergraduates who completed the BDI-II and the Controlled Oral Word Association test as well as the Animal Naming test. The... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5223157 Wed, 31 Aug 2011 04:00:00 +0100 5223157 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5223156&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21889249%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Rhodes SM, Riby DM, Fraser E, Campbell LE Abstract The present study investigated verbal and spatial working memory (WM) functioning in individuals with the neuro-developmental disorder Williams syndrome (WS) using WM component tasks. While there is strong evidence of WM impairments in WS, previous research has focused on short-term memory and has neglected assessment of executive components of WM. There is a particular lack of consensus concerning the profile of verbal WM functioning in WS. Here, WS participants were compared to typically developing participants matched for (1) verbal ability and (2) spatial ability (N=14 in each of the 3 groups). Individuals with WS were impaired on verbal WM tasks, both those involving short-term maintenance of information and executive... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5223156 Wed, 31 Aug 2011 04:00:00 +0100 5223156 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5223155&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21889250%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Stöckel T, Wang J Abstract Interlimb transfer of motor learning, indicating an improvement in performance with one limb following training with the other, often occurs asymmetrically (i.e., from non-dominant to dominant limb or vice versa, but not both). In the present study, we examined whether interlimb transfer of the same motor task could occur asymmetrically and in opposite directions (i.e., from right to left leg vs. left to right leg) depending on individuals' conception of the task. Two experimental conditions were tested: In a dynamic control condition, the process of learning was facilitated by providing the subjects with a type of information that forced them to focus on dynamic features of a given task (force impulse); and in a spatial control condition, it wa... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5223155 Wed, 31 Aug 2011 04:00:00 +0100 5223155 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5223154&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21889251%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Papp KV, Kaplan RF, Snyder PJ Abstract Huntington's disease (HD), an autosomal-dominant genetic disorder, has historically been viewed as a degenerative movement disorder but it also includes psychiatric symptoms and progressive cognitive decline. There has been a lack of consensus in the literature about whether or not cognitive signs can be detected in carriers before clinical (motor) onset of the disease, i.e., prodromal HD. However, recently validated mathematical formulas to estimate age of clinical onset, refined over the past 5-7years, have allowed researchers to overcome the methodological limitation of treating all prodromal carriers as a homogenous high-risk group (i.e., whether they may be 2 or 15years from diagnosis). Here we review 23 articles on the HD prodro... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5223154 Wed, 31 Aug 2011 04:00:00 +0100 5223154 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5223161&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21885176%26dopt%3DAbstract In this study, we examined attentional processing in 14 adults with WS (20-59years) and 17 typically developing controls (19-39years) using an attentional blink (AB) paradigm. The AB is the decreased ability to detect a second target when it is presented in close proximity to an initial target. Overall, adults with WS had an AB that was prolonged in duration, but no different in magnitude, compared with typically developing control participants. AB performance was not explained by IQ, working memory, or processing speed in either group. Thus, results suggest that the attention problems in WS are primarily due to general attentional disengagement difficulties rather than inappropriate attentional allocation. PMID: 21885176 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher] (Source: Brain and Cognition... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5223161 Tue, 30 Aug 2011 04:00:00 +0100 5223161 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5223160&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21885177%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Gabbard C, Caçola P, Bobbio T Abstract Theory suggests that imagined and executed movement planning relies on internal models for action. Using a chronometry paradigm to compare the movement duration of imagined and executed movements, we tested children aged 7-11years and adults on their ability to perform sequential finger movements. Underscoring this tactic was our desire to gain a better understanding of the age-related ability to create internal models for action requiring fine-motor movements. The task required number recognition and ordering and was presented in three levels of complexity. Results for movement duration indicated that 7-year-olds and adults were different from the other groups with no statistical distinction between 9- and 11-year-olds. Correlation ... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5223160 Tue, 30 Aug 2011 04:00:00 +0100 5223160 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5223162&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21880410%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Sevdalis V, Keller PE Abstract In this review article, we summarize the main findings from empirical studies that used dance-related forms of rhythmical full body movement as a research tool for investigating action understanding and social cognition. This work has proven to be informative about behavioral and brain mechanisms that mediate links between perceptual and motor processes invoked during the observation and execution of spatially-temporally coordinated action and interpersonal interaction. The review focuses specifically on processes related to (a) motor experience and expertise, (b) learning and memory, (c) action, intention, and emotion understanding, and (d) audio-visual synchrony and timing. Consideration is given to the relationship between research on danc... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5223162 Mon, 29 Aug 2011 04:00:00 +0100 5223162 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5180620&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21872380%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Norton DJ, McBain RK, Ongür D, Chen Y Abstract Schizophrenia patients exhibit perceptual and cognitive deficits, including in visual motion processing. Given that cognitive systems depend upon perceptual inputs, improving patients' perceptual abilities may be an effective means of cognitive intervention. In healthy people, motion perception can be enhanced through perceptual learning, but it is unknown whether this perceptual plasticity remains in schizophrenia patients. The present study examined the degree to which patients' performance on visual motion discrimination can be improved, using a perceptual learning procedure. While both schizophrenia patients and healthy controls showed decreased direction discrimination thresholds (improved performance) with training, the... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5180620 Wed, 24 Aug 2011 23:00:00 +0100 5180620 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5163565&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21855200%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Vaillancourt T, Duku E, Becker S, Schmidt LA, Nicol J, Muir C, Macmillan H Abstract The predictive relations of peer victimization, depressive symptoms, and salivary cortisol on memory in 168 children aged 12 at Time 1 (T1) were examined using a longitudinal design in which data were collected on four occasions over a 2-year period. Results indicated that: (1) peer victimization, depressive symptoms, and evening cortisol were stable over time, (2) peer victimization and elevated symptoms of depression were concurrently linked at each time, (3) T1 peer victimization predicted elevated symptoms of depression at T2 which in turn predicted lower cortisol levels at T3, and (4) controlling for earlier associations, T3 peer victimization, depressive symptoms, and higher morning a... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5163565 Wed, 17 Aug 2011 23:00:00 +0100 5163565 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5163564&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21855201%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Vaillancourt T, Sunderani S Abstract Salivary cortisol was examined in relation to indirect aggression and primary psychopathy (i.e., cold affect and interpersonal manipulation) and secondary psychopathy (i.e., criminal tendencies and erratic lifestyle) in a sample of 154 undergraduate students. Results revealed that although psychopathy and indirect aggression were strongly correlated, when statistically controlling for each of type of psychopathy, only primary psychopathy was related to indirect aggression. In women but not in men, lower cortisol was associated with higher levels of primary psychopathy and higher cortisol was associated with higher levels of secondary psychopathy. Cortisol was not related to indirect aggression. Results are discussed from both an evoluti... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5163564 Wed, 17 Aug 2011 23:00:00 +0100 5163564 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5163563&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21856063%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Michimata C, Saneyoshi A, Okubo M, Laeng B Abstract Participants made categorical or coordinate spatial judgments on the global or local elements of shapes. Stimuli were composed of a horizontal line and two dots. In the Categorical task, participants judged whether the line was above or below the dots. In the Coordinate task, they judged whether the line would fit between the dots. Stimuli were made hierarchical so that the global patterns composed of a "global line" made of local dots-and-line units, and "global dot" made of a single dots-and-line unit. The results indicated that the categorical task was better performed when participants attended to the local level of the hierarchical stimuli. On the other hand, the coordinate task was better performed when they attende... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5163563 Tue, 16 Aug 2011 23:00:00 +0100 5163563 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5163562&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21856064%26dopt%3DAbstract In this study, we examined maternal sensitivity of mothers of children with Down syndrome using home observations when their children were 2, 3, and 5years old, and relations with maternal reports and observations of overt aggression at school at age 5. Maternal sensitivity at ages 2 and 3years did not significantly predict child aggression at age 5, but low maternal sensitivity at age 5 was significantly related to overt aggression at both home and school. By replicating and extending earlier work, this study informs developmental theory and identifies an important maternal variable related to aggression in children with Down syndrome. PMID: 21856064 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher] (Source: Brain and Cognition) Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5163562 Tue, 16 Aug 2011 23:00:00 +0100 5163562 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5145031&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21843912%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Lustig C, Meck WH Abstract The perception of time is heavily influenced by attention and memory, both of which change over the lifespan. In the current study, children (8yrs), young adults (18-25yrs), and older adults (60-75yrs) were tested on a duration bisection procedure using 3 and 6-s auditory and visual signals as anchor durations. During test, participants were exposed to a range of intermediate durations, and the task was to indicate whether test durations were closer to the "short" or "long" anchor. All groups reproduced the classic finding that "sounds are judged longer than lights". This effect was greater for older adults and children than for young adults, but for different reasons. Replicating previous results, older adults made similar auditory judgments as ... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5145031 Fri, 12 Aug 2011 23:00:00 +0100 5145031 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5145032&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21840639%26dopt%3DAbstract In this study, we investigated how comprehension is affected by unnecessary information. The literature is mixed: some studies have found that extra information facilitates comprehension and others reported impairments. We used an attentional-cueing paradigm to assess how quickly participants could orient attention to an object upon hearing a referring expression, such as the red square. If there are two squares differing in color, then the modifier is required. However, if there is only one (red) square, then the modifier is unnecessary. We also recorded event-related potentials (ERPs) in order to investigate online processing. Reaction times were significantly longer for referring expressions that contained extra information, and ERPs revealed a centroparietal negativity (N400) that emer... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5145032 Thu, 11 Aug 2011 23:00:00 +0100 5145032 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5145034&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21839567%26dopt%3DAbstract This study provides evidence that the relationship between peer victimization and poor physical health may be explained by differences in neuroendocrine functioning. PMID: 21839567 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher] (Source: Brain and Cognition) Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5145034 Tue, 09 Aug 2011 23:00:00 +0100 5145034 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5145033&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21839568%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Holmes KJ, Lourenco SF Abstract Converging behavioral and neural evidence suggests that numerical representations are mentally organized in left-to-right orientation. Here we show that this format of spatial organization extends to emotional expression. In Experiment 1, right-side responses became increasingly faster as number (represented by Arabic numerals) or happiness (depicted in facial stimuli) increased, for judgments completely unrelated to magnitude. Additional experiments suggest that magnitude (i.e., more/less relations), not valence (i.e., positive/negative), underlies left-to-right orientation of emotional expression (Experiment 2), and that this orientation accommodates to the context-relevant emotion (e.g., happier faces are more rightward when judged on hap... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5145033 Tue, 09 Aug 2011 23:00:00 +0100 5145033 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5145036&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21835531%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Bidelman GM, Gandour JT, Krishnan A Abstract Behavioral and neurophysiological transfer effects from music experience to language processing are well-established but it is currently unclear whether or not linguistic expertise (e.g., speaking a tone language) benefits music-related processing and its perception. Here, we compare brainstem responses of English-speaking musicians/non-musicians and native speakers of Mandarin Chinese elicited by tuned and detuned musical chords, to determine if enhancements in subcortical processing translate to improvements in the perceptual discrimination of musical pitch. Relative to non-musicians, both musicians and Chinese had stronger brainstem representation of the defining pitches of musical sequences. In contrast, two behavioral pitch... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5145036 Mon, 08 Aug 2011 23:00:00 +0100 5145036 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5145035&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21835532%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Harris CD, Lindell AK Abstract People with autism show attenuated cerebral lateralisation for emotion processing. Given growing appreciation of the notion that autism represents a continuum, the present study aimed to determine whether atypical hemispheric lateralisation is evident in people with normal but above average levels of autism-like traits. One hundred and twenty-seven right-handed participants (M=43, F=84) completed the AQ questionnaire (Baron-Cohen, Wheelwright, Skinner, Martin, & Clubley, 2001), and then (a) posed for a photo expressing happiness, and (b) viewed pairs of left and right cheek poses, making a forced-choice decision indicating which image appeared happier (half the images were mirror-reversed to control for perceptual biases). Results indicat... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5145035 Mon, 08 Aug 2011 23:00:00 +0100 5145035 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5119361&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21821332%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Vaillancourt T, Schmidt LA PMID: 21821332 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher] (Source: Brain and Cognition) Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5119361 Thu, 04 Aug 2011 23:00:00 +0100 5119361 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5119362&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21820788%26dopt%3DAbstract In this study, P3 amplitude and latency were assessed from a community sample of 121 male adults using an auditory three-stimulus oddball task. Psychopathy was assessed using the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (Hare, 2003) while childhood physical maltreatment was assessed using the Conflict Tactic Scale (Straus, 1979). Results revealed that compared to normal controls, unsuccessful psychopaths showed reduced parietal P3 amplitudes to target stimuli and reported experienced more physical abuse in childhood. In contrast, successful psychopaths exhibited larger parietal P3 amplitude and shorter frontal P3 latency to irrelevant nontarget stimuli than unsuccessful psychopaths. This is the first report of electrophysiological processing differences between successful and unsuccessful psychopaths... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5119362 Wed, 03 Aug 2011 23:00:00 +0100 5119362 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5119363&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21807450%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Christman SD, Butler M The existence of handedness differences in the retrieval of episodic memories is well-documented, but virtually all have been obtained under conditions of intentional learning. Two experiments are reported that extend the presence of such handedness differences to memory retrieval under conditions of incidental learning. Experiment 1 used Craik and Tulving's (1975) classic levels-of-processing paradigm and obtained handedness differences under incidental and intentional conditions of deep processing, but not under conditions of shallow incidental processing. Experiment 2 looked at incidental memory for distracter items from a recognition memory task and again found a mixed-handed advantage. Results are discussed in terms of the relation between interhemi... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5119363 Fri, 29 Jul 2011 23:00:00 +0100 5119363 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5119364&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21798651%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Borella E, Chicherio C, Re AM, Sensini V, Cornoldi C It has been suggested that intraindividual variability (IIV) in neuropsychological tasks may be a specific characteristic of Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), but previous research has not thoroughly examined whether IIV also concerns academic performance or other types of developmental disabilities. The present study investigates the role of IIV in 15 children with ADHD without reading difficulties, 15 children with dyslexia without associated symptoms of ADHD, and 15 typically developing children (TDC) in a simple response time (SRT) task and in a skill more directly related with school learning-handwriting. Results show that children with ADHD and those with dyslexia have a greater IIV than the TDC in both ... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5119364 Mon, 25 Jul 2011 23:00:00 +0100 5119364 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5119366&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21794970%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Rellecke J, Palazova M, Sommer W, Schacht A The degree to which emotional aspects of stimuli are processed automatically is controversial. Here, we assessed the automatic elicitation of emotion-related brain potentials (ERPs) to positive, negative, and neutral words and facial expressions in an easy and superficial face-word discrimination task, for which the emotional valence was irrelevant. Both emotional words and facial expressions impacted ERPs already between 50 and 100ms after stimulus onset, possibly reflecting rapid relevance detection. Following this initial processing stage only emotionality in faces but not in words was associated with an early posterior negativity (EPN). Therefore, when emotion is irrelevant in a task which requires superficial stimulus analysis, ... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5119366 Sun, 24 Jul 2011 23:00:00 +0100 5119366 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5071454&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21783304%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Snihur AW, Hampson E Effects of sex and handedness on the production of spontaneous and click-evoked otoacoustic emissions (OAEs) were explored in a non-hearing impaired population (ages 17-25years). A sex difference in OAEs, either produced spontaneously (spontaneous OAEs or SOAEs) or in response to auditory stimuli (click-evoked OAEs or CEOAEs) has been reported in infants and children, but healthy young adults seldom have been the target of study. In the current data, a robust sexual dimorphism was confirmed, with women producing more numerous and stronger SOAEs, and CEOAEs with greater response amplitude compared to men. A right-ear advantage was found for the number of SOAEs produced and, in women, for SOAE power. Although handedness did not moderate the ear asymmetry in ... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5071454 Wed, 20 Jul 2011 23:00:00 +0100 5071454 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5071455&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21782309%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Jacobson SC, Blanchard M, Connolly CC, Cannon M, Garavan H The Trail-Making Test (TMT) is a widely used neuropsychological measure that assesses visuomotor abilities and cognitive flexibility. For the TMT-A condition participants are required to locate and connect numbers (i.e. 1-2-3…) while in the TMT-B condition participants perform the set-shifting task of locating and connecting numbers and letters (i.e. 1-A-2-B…). The TMT-B condition has shown impairments in many clinical populations, particularly schizophrenia patients, but the neurobiological underpinning of the task can be difficult to discern given pragmatic obstacles in adapting the task for neuroimaging. In a behavioural testing experiment we demonstrated a close correspondence between performance on the standar... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5071455 Tue, 19 Jul 2011 23:00:00 +0100 5071455 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5071456&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21775040%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Vanbellingen T, Kersten B, Bellion M, Temperli P, Baronti F, Müri R, Bohlhalter S A controversial concept suggests that impaired finger dexterity in Parkinson's disease may be related to limb kinetic apraxia that is not explained by elemental motor deficits such as bradykinesia. To explore the nature of dexterous difficulties, the aim of the present study was to assess the relationship of finger dexterity with ideomotor praxis function and parkinsonian symptoms. Twenty-five patients with Parkinson's disease participated in the study. Their left and right arms were tested independently. Testing was done in an OFF and ON state as defined by a modified version of the Movement Disorder Society-Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale (MDS-UPDRS). Finger dexterity was assessed by ... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5071456 Sun, 17 Jul 2011 23:00:00 +0100 5071456 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5071457&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21767899%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Yan X, Zhang J, Gong Q, Weng X With an increasing population living at a high altitude (HA), the impact of HA residence on human cognitive function has raised concerns. We recruited two groups of college students with one group born and grew up at HA until early adulthood and the control group born and grew up at near sea level (SL); the two groups were matched at age, gender ratio, educational level, the ancestral lines, and peripheral physiology (especially the hemoglobin concentration). A 2-back spatial working memory task was performed by each subject in the scanner while fMRI data were acquired. Compared to the SL control group, the HA group showed equal response accuracy, with more variance in reaction time and a larger average value. fMRI data indicated that both groups... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5071457 Fri, 15 Jul 2011 23:00:00 +0100 5071457 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5025235&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21723024%26dopt%3DAbstract The objective of this study investigated cognitive impairments and their correlations with fractional anisotropy (FA) and mean diffusivity (MD) in patients with neuromyelitis optica (NMO) without visible lesions on conventional brain MRI during acute relapse. Twenty one patients with NMO and 21 normal control subjects received several cognitive tests to assess cognitive function. Head diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) of all patients with NMO were collected with a 3-T MR system. Correlations of cognitive test scores and whole brain FA and MD were examined by voxel-based analysis. Region-of-interest analysis was applied to the significantly correlated regions which the most frequently appeared. We found that NMO patients without visible brain lesions had significantly impaired learning and mem... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5025235 Thu, 30 Jun 2011 23:00:00 +0100 5025235 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4976598&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21705130%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Tham WW, Stevenson RJ, Miller LA Olfactory attention may be important in generating odor-induced tastes - an arguably universal form of synesthesia - by ensuring that the taste concurrent is captured by the nose and olfaction, not by the mouth and gustation (oral-capture). To examine the role of olfactory attention in generating odor-induced tastes and oral capture we tested a small sample (n=4) of participants with likely impairments in olfactory attention - individuals with mediodorsal thalamic nucleus (MDNT) lesions. These participants were compared to two sets of controls on tests of olfactory attention, oral capture, odor and flavor perception, and control tasks. MDNT participants demonstrated impaired olfactory attention and enhanced oral capture. Greater oral capture wa... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4976598 Thu, 23 Jun 2011 23:00:00 +0100 4976598 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4976599&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21703748%26dopt%3DAbstract We report the case G.H. who developed the syndrome after infarction of the left arteria pericallosa. It has been suggested that the syndrome arises out of lacking inhibition from the dominant left hemisphere on the right hemisphere. Yet, in tests of spatial intelligence G.H. performed much better with his "anarchic" left hand than with his dominant right hand, similar to observations commonly reported in split-brain patients. Left-right manual choice responses and event-related EEG potentials to laterally presented stimuli were measured. Asymmetries were evident in G.H.'s behavior and EEG potentials, different from age-matched healthy participants (n=11). His right-hand responses were fast and unaffected by incompatibility with stimulus location, whereas his left-hand responses were variab... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4976599 Tue, 21 Jun 2011 23:00:00 +0100 4976599 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4976600&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21683500%26dopt%3DAbstract We report on two functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies, one employing prolonged presentations (2s) of threat-gaze pairs to allow for reflective processing (Study 1), and one employing severely restricted (33ms), backward masked presentations of threat-gaze pairs to isolate reflexive neural responding (Study 2). Our findings offer initial support for the conclusion that early, reflexive responses to threat are predominantly tuned to congruent threat-gaze pairings, whereas later reflective responses are predominantly tuned to ambiguous threat-gaze pairings. These findings highlight a distinct dual function in threat perception. PMID: 21683500 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher] (Source: Brain and Cognition) Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4976600 Tue, 14 Jun 2011 23:00:00 +0100 4976600 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4976601&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21664747%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Jarick M, Dixon MJ, Smilek D For number-form synaesthetes, digits occupy idiosyncratic spatial locations. Atypical to the mental number line that extends horizontally, the synaesthete (L) experiences the numbers 1-10 vertically. We used a spatial cueing task to demonstrate that L's attention could be automatically directed to locations within her number-space - being faster to detect targets appearing in synaesthetically cued locations. We sought to eliminate any influence of strategy on L's performance by: (a) shortening the cue-target onset to 150ms, (b) making the cues counterpredictive, and (c) instructing L to use an opposing strategy. If L's performance was attributable to intentionally using the cue to predict target location, these manipulations should eliminate any cu... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4976601 Wed, 08 Jun 2011 23:00:00 +0100 4976601 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4927707&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21658832%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Chiarello C, Halderman L, Welcome SE, Leonard CM In a recent critique Boles and Barth (2011) argue that their prior study investigating asymmetry/performance relationships (Boles, Barth, & Merrill, 2008) uncovered the "true" association (i.e., negative correlation) between lateralization of visual lexical processes and word recognition performance. They contend that our study reporting positive correlations of lexical asymmetry and reading performance (Chiarello et al., 2009) was flawed and hence inconclusive. In this response we address the two major objections raised by Boles and Barth (2011) regarding our selection of tasks and asymmetry measures. We conclude that the Boles and Barth principle of task purity is not relevant to the stated aims of our investigation, and t... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4927707 Mon, 06 Jun 2011 23:00:00 +0100 4927707 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4774688&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21458903%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Boles DB Socioeconomic status (SES), a variable combining income, education, and occupation, is correlated with a variety of social health outcomes including school dropout rates, early parenthood, delinquency, and mental illness. Several studies conducted in the 1970s and 1980s largely failed to report a relationship between SES and hemispheric asymmetry as measured by lateral differences in dichotic listening, tactile dot enumeration, and visual emotion and word recognition. However, none of the studies used asymmetry measures correcting for both ceiling and floor effects in accuracy, raising the question of whether lower and higher SES groups were comparable. Here the published data are reanalyzed using a laterality coefficient that corrects for such effects. The results ar... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4774688 Tue, 03 May 2011 03:31:34 +0100 4774688 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4774687&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21459502%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Rahman Q, Bakare M, Serinsu C Previous research has demonstrated a female advantage, albeit imperfectly, on tests of object location memory where object identity information is readily available. However, spatial and visual elements are often confounded in the experimental tasks used. Here spatial and visual memory performance was compared in 30 men and 30 women by presenting 12 abstract designs in a spatial array for recall and recognition (visual memory) and spatial location ("object" location memory). Object location memory was measured via a sensitive absolute displacement score defined as the distance in mms between the position assigned to the object during recall and the actual position it originally occupied. There were no sex differences in either the visual or spatia... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4774687 Tue, 03 May 2011 03:31:29 +0100 4774687 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4774686&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21463915%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Shin JC The ability to learn temporal patterns in sequenced actions was investigated in elementary-school age children. Temporal learning depends upon a process of integrating timing patterns with action sequences. Children ages 6-13 and young adults performed a serial response time task in which a response and a timing sequence were presented repeatedly in a phase-matched manner, allowing for integrative learning. The degree of integrative learning was measured as the slowing in performance that resulted when phase-shifting the sequences. Learning was similar for the children and adults on average but increased with age for the children. Executive function measured by Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) performance as well as a measure of response speed also improved with age.... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4774686 Tue, 03 May 2011 03:31:25 +0100 4774686 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4774670&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21463916%26dopt%3DAbstract This study investigated the effect of isoflavone aglycone (IA) on the learning and memory performance of senescence-accelerated mice, and explored its neural protective mechanism. Results showed that SAM-P/8 senescence-accelerated mice treated with IA performed significantly better in the Y-maze cognitive test than the no treatment control (P<0.05). The cortex AchE activity, serum SOD and GSH-Px activities were notably higher (P<0.05). MDA concentration and the β-secretase activity in the hippocampal tissue were both lower (P<0.05). Additionally, the number of hippocampal neurons was increased and cell morphology was significantly improved. Data suggested that IA could indirectly increase concentration of the cholinergic neural transmitter Ach through regulation of AchE, therefor... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4774670 Tue, 03 May 2011 03:31:22 +0100 4774670 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4774642&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21477908%26dopt%3DAbstract We report two experiments that aimed to study how real-time simulation is affected by simultaneous action execution under conditions of full, partial or no overlap between observed and executed actions. This overlap was analysed by comparing the body sides and the movement kinematics involved in the observed and the executed action. While performing actions, participants observed point-light (PL) actions that were interrupted by an occluder, followed by a test pose. The task was to judge whether the test pose depicted a continuation of the occluded action in the same depth angle. Using a paradigm proposed by Graf et al., we independently manipulated the duration of the occluder and the temporal advance of the test pose relative to occlusion onset (occluder time and pose time, respectively)... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4774642 Tue, 03 May 2011 03:31:10 +0100 4774642 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4774641&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21477909%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Balteş FR, Avram J, Miclea M, Miu AC Operatic music involves both singing and acting (as well as rich audiovisual background arising from the orchestra and elaborate scenery and costumes) that multiply the mechanisms by which emotions are induced in listeners. The present study investigated the effects of music, plot, and acting performance on emotions induced by opera. There were three experimental conditions: (1) participants listened to a musically complex and dramatically coherent excerpt from Tosca; (2) they read a summary of the plot and listened to the same musical excerpt again; and (3) they re-listened to music while they watched the subtitled film of this acting performance. In addition, a control condition was included, in which an independent sample of participant... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4774641 Tue, 03 May 2011 03:31:06 +0100 4774641 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4774640&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21477910%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Cain SW, Silva EJ, Chang AM, Ronda JM, Duffy JF The Stroop color-naming task is one of the most widely studied tasks involving the inhibition of a prepotent response, regarded as an executive function. Several studies have examined performance on versions of the Stroop task under conditions of acute sleep deprivation. Though these studies revealed effects on Stroop performance, the results often do not differentiate between general effects of sleep deprivation on performance and effects specifically on interference in the Stroop task. To examine the effect of prolonged wakefulness on performance on the Stroop task, we studied participants in a 40-h "constant routine" protocol during which they remained awake in constant conditions and performed a Stroop color-naming task every... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4774640 Tue, 03 May 2011 03:31:02 +0100 4774640 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4774639&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21477911%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Kremen WS, Mai T, Panizzon MS, Franz CE, Blankfeld HM, Xian H, Eisen SA, Tsuang MT, Lyons MJ Delayed alternation and object alternation are classic spatial and non-spatial delayed response tasks. We tested 632 middle-aged male veteran twins on variants of these tasks in order to compare test difficulty, measure their inter-correlation, test order effects, and estimate heritabilities (proportion of observed variance due to genetic influences). Non-spatial alternation (NSA), which may involve greater reliance on processing of subgoals, was significantly more difficult than spatial alternation (SA). Despite their similarities, NSA and SA scores were uncorrelated. NSA performance was worse when administered second; there was no SA order effect. NSA scores were modestly heritable (... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4774639 Tue, 03 May 2011 03:30:57 +0100 4774639 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4774638&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21481998%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Wiggett AJ, Hudson M, Tipper SP, Downing PE Observation of another person executing an action primes the same action in the observer's motor system. Recent evidence has shown that these priming effects are flexible, where training of new associations, such as making a foot response when viewing a moving hand, can reduce standard action priming effects (Gillmeister, Catmur, Liepelt, Brass, & Heyes, 2008). Previously, these effects were obtained after explicit learning tasks in which the trained action was cued by the content of a visual stimulus. Here we report similar learning processes in an implicit task in which the participant's action is self-selected, and subsequent visual effects are determined by the nature of that action. Importantly, we show that these learning p... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4774638 Tue, 03 May 2011 03:30:53 +0100 4774638 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4774637&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21481999%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Borg C, Leroy N, Favre E, Laurent B, Thomas-Antérion C The present study examines the prediction that emotion can facilitate short-term memory. Nevertheless, emotion also recruits attention to process information, thereby disrupting short-term memory when tasks involve high attentional resources. In this way, we aimed to determine whether there is a differential influence of emotional information on short-term memory in ageing and Alzheimer's disease (AD). Fourteen patients with mild AD, 14 healthy older participants (NC), and 14 younger adults (YA) performed two tasks. In the first task, involving visual short-term memory, participants were asked to remember a picture among four different pictures (negative or neutral) following a brief delay. The second task, a binding memo... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4774637 Tue, 03 May 2011 03:30:48 +0100 4774637 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4774634&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21492980%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Mercadillo RE, Díaz JL, Pasaye EH, Barrios FA Compassion is considered a moral emotion related to the perception of suffering in others, and resulting in a motivation to alleviate the afflicted party. We compared brain correlates of compassion-evoking images in women and men. BOLD functional images of 24 healthy volunteers (twelve women and twelve men; age=27±2.5 y.o.) were acquired in a 3T magnetic resonance scanner while subjects viewed pictures of human suffering previously verified to elicit compassion and indicated their compassionate experience by finger movements. Functional analysis revealed that while women manifested activation in areas involved in basic emotional, empathic, and moral processes, such as basal regions and cingulate and frontal cortices, activation i... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4774634 Tue, 03 May 2011 03:30:35 +0100 4774634 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4774610&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21524559%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Hahn C, Neuhaus AH, Pogun S, Dettling M, Kotz SA, Hahn E, Brüne M, Güntürkün O Schizophrenia has been associated with deficits in functional brain lateralization. According to some authors, the reduction of asymmetry could even promote this psychosis. At the same time, schizophrenia is accompanied by a high prevalence of nicotine dependency compared to any other population. This association is very interesting, because sex-dependent effects of smoking in auditory language asymmetries have been reported recently, and the verbal domain is also one major focus in cognitive deficit studies of schizophrenia. Thus, the altered laterality pattern in schizophrenia could, at least in part, result from secondary artefacts due to smoking rather than being a pure cause of the disease ... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4774610 Fri, 22 Apr 2011 23:00:00 +0100 4774610 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4774611&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21514027%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Jansari A, Rodway P, Goncalves S The valence hypothesis suggests that the right hemisphere is specialised for negative emotions and the left hemisphere is specialised for positive emotions (Silberman & Weingartner, 1986). It is unclear to what extent valence-specific effects in facial emotion perception depend upon the gender of the perceiver. To explore this question 46 participants completed a free view lateralised emotion perception task which involved judging which of two faces expressed a particular emotion. Eye fixations of 24 of the participants were recorded using an eye tracker. A significant valence-specific laterality effect was obtained, with positive emotions more accurately identified when presented to the right of centre, and negative emotions more accuratel... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4774611 Tue, 19 Apr 2011 23:00:00 +0100 4774611 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4774632&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21507541%26dopt%3DAbstract This study compared the event-related potentials elicited by single-digit addition and multiplication problems to examine the relationship between encoding and retrieval/calculation stages. Results showed that the operation effect appeared as early as the encoding of the first operand and continued to the retrieval/calculation stage: compared to addition, multiplication elicited larger negative potentials in the left anterior electrodes and larger positive potentials in the right posterior electrodes. The consistency of this operation effect across the first two stages of arithmetic processing suggests that encoding of arithmetic problems can be modulated by the nature of representation of the to-be-retrieved arithmetic facts, and thus these two stages are additive rather than interactive.... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4774632 Sun, 17 Apr 2011 23:00:00 +0100 4774632 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4774631&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21507542%26dopt%3DAbstract In conclusion, the results of the present study and those of previous studies suggest that the main problem in OCD might be difficulty activating the right frontoparietal networks during tasks that require cognitive control, which might result in the intrusiveness of obsessive thoughts. PMID: 21507542 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher] (Source: Brain and Cognition) Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4774631 Sun, 17 Apr 2011 23:00:00 +0100 4774631 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4774615&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21507543%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Hiscock M, Kinsbourne M Dichotic listening originally was a means of studying attention. Half a century ago Doreen Kimura parlayed the dichotic method into a noninvasive indicator of lateralized cerebral language representation. The ubiquitous right-ear advantage (REA) for verbal material was accepted as a concomitant of left-sided language lateralization and preferential conduction of right-ear messages to the left hemisphere. As evidence has accumulated over the past 50years showing the REA to be dynamic and modifiable, the concept of attention has become essential for interpreting the findings. Progress in understanding the role of attention has been manifested as a transition from efforts to document attention effects to efforts to characterize their mechanisms. We summari... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4774615 Sun, 17 Apr 2011 23:00:00 +0100 4774615 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4774612&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21507544%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: De Smet HJ, Engelborghs S, Paquier PF, De Deyn PP, Mariën P Apraxic agraphia is a writing disorder due to a loss or lack of access to motor engrams that program the movements necessary to produce letters. Clinical and functional neuroimaging studies have demonstrated that the neural network responsible for writing includes the superior parietal region and the dorsolateral and medial premotor cortex. Recent studies of two cases with atypical lesion localisations in the left thalamus and the right cerebellum support the hypothesis that the written language network is larger than previously assumed. The aim of this study is twofold: (1) to provide a survey of cases of apraxic agraphia published between 1973 and June 2010, and (2) to provide further evidence for a role of the cer... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4774612 Sun, 17 Apr 2011 23:00:00 +0100 4774612 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4774633&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21492981%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Carlsson G, Wiegand G, Stephani U Dichotic listening test (DL) is an important tool to disclose speech dominance in healthy subjects and in clinical cases. The aim of this study was to probe if focal epilepsy in children reveals a corresponding suppression of the ear reports contralateral to seizure onset site. Thus, 15 children and adolescents with clinically and electroencephalographically diagnosed focal epilepsy selected for left-hemisphere speech dominance without mental retardation were compared to matched controls according to age, gender, IQ and handedness. All children were assessed with DL for three times: Interictally (t(0)), postictally 5' (t(1)) and 1h (t(2)). At t(0), all groups revealed a right ear advantage (REA), indicating a left-hemisphere speech dominance. ... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4774633 Mon, 11 Apr 2011 23:00:00 +0100 4774633 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4774636&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21482000%26dopt%3DAbstract This report presents evidence for changes in dichotic listening asymmetries across the menstrual cycle, which replicate studies from our laboratory and others. Increases in the right ear advantage (REA) were present in women at phases of the menstrual cycle associated with higher levels of ovarian hormones. The data also revealed correlations between hormone levels and behavioural measures of asymmetry. For example, the pre-ovulatory surge in luteinising hormone (LH) was related to a decrease in left ear scores, which comprised a key part of the cycle related shift in asymmetry. Further analysis revealed a subgroup of women who had not reached postovulatory status by days 18-25 of the cycle, as verified by low progesterone levels. These women showed laterality profiles at days 18-25 that l... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4774636 Wed, 06 Apr 2011 23:00:00 +0100 4774636 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4774635&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21482001%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Gadea M, Espert R, Salvador A, Martí-Bonmatí L Dichotic Listening (DL) is a valuable tool to study emotional brain lateralization. Regarding the perception of sadness and anger through affective prosody, the main finding has been a left ear advantage (LEA) for the sad but contradictory data for the anger prosody. Regarding an induced mood in the laboratory, its consequences upon DL were a diminished right ear advantage (REA) for the induction of sadness and an increased REA for the induction of anger. The global results fit with the approach-withdrawal motivational model of emotional processing, pointing to sadness as a right hemisphere emotion but anger processed bilaterally or even in the left hemisphere, depending on the subject's preferred mode of expression. On the othe... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4774635 Wed, 06 Apr 2011 23:00:00 +0100 4774635 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4774643&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21474228%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Markevych V, Asbjørnsen AE, Lind O, Plante E, Cone B The present study investigated a possible connection between speech processing and cochlear function. Twenty-two subjects with age range from 18 to 39, balanced for gender with normal hearing and without any known neurological condition, were tested with the dichotic listening (DL) test, in which listeners were asked to identify CV-syllables in a nonforced, and also attention-right, and attention-left condition. Transient evoked otoacoustic emissions (TEOAEs) were recorded for both ears, with and without the presentation of contralateral broadband noise. The main finding was a strong negative correlation between language laterality as measured with the dichotic listening task and of the TEOAE responses. The findings support... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4774643 Mon, 04 Apr 2011 23:00:00 +0100 4774643 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4774658&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21470754%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Hugdahl K This year celebrates 50years of research in auditory laterality and hemispheric asymmetry, using a dichotic listening approach. The discovery of the "right ear advantage" in 1961 by Doreen Kimura to dichotic presentations of phonetic stimuli paved the way for new studies of how speech perception and related language processes are lateralized in the human brain. The articles in this special issue, celebrating the first 50years of dichotic listening research, reveal both the breadth and depth of current research, with contributions spanning from basic research to clinical applications, from behavioral studies to studies using advanced neuroimaging techniques, and with contributions from all over the world. It is my hope as Guest Editor that the next 50years will be as ... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4774658 Sun, 03 Apr 2011 23:00:00 +0100 4774658 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4670026&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21450383%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Andreau JM, Funahashi S The prefrontal cortex (PFC) is known to contribute to memory processes such as encoding representations into long-term-memory (LTM) and retrieving these representations from LTM. However, the details of the PFC's contribution to LTM processes are not well known. To examine the characteristics of the PFC's contribution to LTM processes, we analyzed single-neuron activity while monkeys performed a pair-association (PA) task using 12 pairs of complex visual images. Among 60 neurons with sample-period activity, 32% showed the strongest and second-strongest sample-period activities when a particular pair of stimuli was presented (pair selectivity). In addition, the mean latency of sample-period activity was 138ms in the PFC, which was longer than that observ... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4670026 Sun, 27 Mar 2011 23:00:00 +0100 4670026 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4670028&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21440971%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Williamson VJ, Cocchini G, Stewart L Congenital amusia manifests as a lifelong difficulty in making sense of musical sound. The extent to which this disorder is accompanied by deficits in visuo-spatial processing is an important question, bearing on the issue of whether pitch processing draws on supramodal spatial representations. The present study assessed different aspects of visuo-spatial processing with a range of tasks (Shepard-Metzler Mental Rotation, Corsi Blocks Task, Visual Patterns Test) in 14 amusics and matched controls. The absence of a group difference on any of these tasks fails to support a previous claim that the disorder is strongly related to deficits in spatial processing. However, a subgroup of amusics, with significantly elevated thresholds on a pitch dir... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4670028 Fri, 25 Mar 2011 00:00:00 +0100 4670028 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4670027&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21440972%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Maguire MJ, White J, Brier MR Throughout middle-childhood, inhibitory processes, which underlie many higher order cognitive tasks, are developing. Little is known about how inhibitory processes change as a task becomes conceptually more difficult during these important years. In adults, as Go/NoGo tasks become more difficult there is a systematic decrease in the P3NoGo response, indicating the use of effective inhibitory strategies (Maguire et al., 2009). This paper investigates the age at which children employ similar inhibitory strategies by studying behavioral and Event Related Potential (ERP) measures of response inhibition for three Go/NoGo tasks. Seventeen 7-8year-olds and twenty 10-11-year-olds completed three Go/NoGo tasks that differed in the level of categorization n... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4670027 Fri, 25 Mar 2011 00:00:00 +0100 4670027 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4670029&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21435770%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Conlon EG, Wright CM, Norris K, Chekaluk E The experiments conducted aimed to investigate whether reduced accuracy when counting stimuli presented in rapid temporal sequence in adults with dyslexia could be explained by a sensory processing deficit, a general slowing in processing speed or difficulties shifting attention between stimuli. To achieve these aims, the influence of the inter-stimulus interval (ISI), stimulus duration, and sequence length were evaluated in two experiments. In the first that used skilled readers only, significantly more errors were found with presentation of long sequences when the ISI or stimulus durations were short. Experiment 2 used a wider range of ISIs and stimulus durations. Compared to skilled readers, a group with dyslexia had reduced accura... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4670029 Tue, 22 Mar 2011 00:00:00 +0100 4670029 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4670032&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21429647%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Steggemann Y, Engbert K, Weigelt M Brain imaging studies provide strong evidence for the involvement of the human mirror system during the observation of complex movements, depending on the individual's motor expertise. Here, we ask the question whether motor expertise not only affects perception while observing movements, but also benefits perception while solving mental rotation tasks. Specifically, motor expertise should only influence the performance in mental body rotation tasks (MBRT) with left-right judgment, evoking a perspective transformation, whereas motor expertise should not affect the MBRT with same-different judgment, evoking an object-related transformation. Participants with and without motor expertise for rotational movements were tested in these two conditio... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4670032 Mon, 21 Mar 2011 00:00:00 +0100 4670032 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4670031&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21429648%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Obrzut JE, Mahoney EB Dichotic listening (DL) techniques have been used extensively as a non-invasive procedure to assess language lateralization among children with and without learning disabilities (LD), and with individuals who have other auditory system related brain disorders. Results of studies using DL have indicated that language is lateralized in children with LD and that the lateralized language asymmetries do not develop after age 6 nor are they affected by gender. Observed differences in lateralized language processes between control children and those with LD were found not due to delayed cerebral dominance, but rather to deficits in selective attention. In addition, attention factors have a greater influence on auditory processing of verbal than nonverbal stimuli... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4670031 Mon, 21 Mar 2011 00:00:00 +0100 4670031 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4670030&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21429649%26dopt%3DAbstract This article presents an overview of our studies in elderly and Alzheimer patients employing Kimura's dichotic digits paradigm as a measure for left hemispheric predominance for processing language stimuli. In addition to structural brain mechanisms, we demonstrated that attention modulates the direction and degree of ear asymmetry in dichotic listening. Elderly showed increasingly more difficulties focusing attention on the left ear (LE) with advancing age. Alzheimer patients showed severe deficits to allocate attention to the LE, which could result in a right ear advantage. These results may be attributed to a breakdown of the cortical attentional network which is mediated by frontal (inhibitory control of attention) and parietal regions (spatial attention and 'disengagement processes').... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4670030 Mon, 21 Mar 2011 00:00:00 +0100 4670030 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4670033&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21421284%26dopt%3DAbstract "Binaural rivalry": Dichotic listening as a tool for the investigation of the neural correlate of consciousness. Brain Cogn. 2011 Mar 19; Authors: Brancucci A, Tommasi L Since about two decades neuroscientists have systematically faced the problem of consciousness: the aim is to discover the neural activity specifically related to conscious perceptions, i.e. the biological properties of what philosophers call qualia. In this view, a neural correlate of consciousness (NCC) is a precise pattern of brain activity that specifically accompanies a particular conscious experience. Almost all studies aimed at investigating the NCC have been carried out in the visual system. One of the most promising paradigms is based on sensory stimuli which elicit bistable percepts, as they allow to ... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4670033 Sat, 19 Mar 2011 00:00:00 +0100 4670033 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4670034&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21420774%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Misteli M, Duschek S, Richter A, Grimm S, Rezk M, Kraehenmann R, Boeker H, Seifritz E, Schuepbach D Functional Transcranial Doppler sonography (fTCD) has been applied to assess peak mean cerebral blood flow velocity (MFV) with a high temporal resolution during cognitive activation. Yet, little attention has been devoted to gender-related alterations of MFV, including spectral analysis. In healthy subjects, fTCD was used to investigate a series of cerebral hemodynamic parameters in the middle cerebral arteries (MCA) during the Trail Making Tests (TMT), a means of selective attention and complex cognitive functioning. In females, there was a frequency peak at 0.375Hz in both MCA, and we observed a dynamic shift in hemispheric dominance during that condition. Further, after the s... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4670034 Fri, 18 Mar 2011 00:00:00 +0100 4670034 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4670035&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21420215%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Brodeur MB, Debruille JB, Renoult L, Prévost M, Dionne-Dostie E, Buchy L, Lepage M The present study was carried out to examine how the event-related potentials to fragmentation predict recognition success. Stimuli were abstract meaningless figures that were either complete or fragmented to various extents but still recoverable. Stimuli were first encoded as part of a symmetry discrimination task. In a subsequent recognition phase, encoded stimuli were presented complete along with never presented stimuli and participants performed an old/new discrimination task. Fragmentation stimuli elicited more negative ERPs than complete figures over the frontal, central and parietal areas between 180 and 260ms, and over the occipito-temporal areas between 220 and 340ms. Only this latter... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4670035 Thu, 17 Mar 2011 00:00:00 +0100 4670035 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4613179&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21411205%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Lejbak L, Crossley M, Vrbancic M Sex-related differences have been reported for performance and neural substrates on some working memory measures that carry a high cognitive load, including the popular n-back neuroimaging paradigm. Despite some evidence of a sex effect on the task, the influence of sex on performance represents a potential confound in neuroimaging research. The present study investigated sex-related differences in verbal, spatial, and common object versions of the high cognitive load "n-back" working memory task. Eighteen male and 18 female undergraduates completed all 3 versions of the task. A mixed ANOVA, with Sex (male and female) as the between-subjects factor and Condition (verbal, spatial, and object) as the within-subjects repeated measure revealed that... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4613179 Mon, 14 Mar 2011 00:00:00 +0100 4613179 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4613229&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21398014%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Hirnstein M The present study examined the relationship between individual differences in dichotic listening (DL) and the susceptibility to left-right confusion (LRC). Thirty-six men and 59 women completed a consonant-vowel DL test, a behavioral LRC task, and an LRC self-rating questionnaire. Significant negative correlations between overall DL accuracy and LRC rates in men (behavioral task) and self-ratings in women, indicated that the more participants struggled with left-right discrimination, the fewer DL syllables they reported correctly. However, there was no relationship between LRC and the typical right ear advantage. Thus, there is a sex- and task-dependent relationship between LRC and overall DL accuracy, but not between LRC and ear asymmetry. It is concluded that (a)... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4613229 Fri, 11 Mar 2011 00:00:00 +0100 4613229 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4613213&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21398015%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Falkenberg LE, Specht K, Westerhausen R A meaningful interaction with our environment relies on the ability to focus on relevant sensory input and to ignore irrelevant information, i.e. top-down control and attention processes are employed to select from competing stimuli following internal goals. In this, the demands for the recruitment of top-down control processes depend on the relative perceptual salience of the competing stimuli. In the present functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, we investigated the recruitment of top-down control processes in response to varying degrees of control demands in the auditory modality. For this purpose, we tested 20 male and 20 female subjects with a dichotic listening paradigm, in which the relative perceptual salience of two... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4613213 Fri, 11 Mar 2011 00:00:00 +0100 4613213 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4551885&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21371802%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Schreiber M, Pietschmann M, Kathmann N, Endrass T Previous studies on performance monitoring repeatedly found attenuated error-related negativities (Ne/ERN) in elderly, while findings for the correct-related negativity (Nc/CRN) are inconsistent. The present study aimed at clarifying inconsistent Nc/CRN results in elderly. Therefore, a refined design was employed to control for potential influences on the Nc/CRN, namely decision uncertainty and partial error processing. Further, we intended to study Nc/CRN variations with trial compatibility that were found in previous studies for younger but not for older adults. Results revealed increased Nc/CRN and decreased Ne/ERN amplitudes in older compared to younger adults. While the Ne/ERN was larger than the Nc/CRN in younger adults, ... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4551885 Tue, 01 Mar 2011 00:00:00 +0100 4551885 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4551884&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21371803%26dopt%3DAbstract We reported negative correlations between asymmetry and performance when both were measured using the same visual lexical tasks. Most recently, within-task negative correlations were also reported by Hirnstein, Leask, Rose, and Hausmann (2010). Here two major differences between studies are explored. Task purity refers to the influence of the same mental processes on both the asymmetry and performance measures, and is arguably maximal in studies measuring both within the same task. The other difference concerns the measurement of asymmetry. Linear corrections for ceiling and floor effects were used by Chiarello et al. and Hirnstein et al., while we used a more appropriate nonlinear one. Their results are difficult to interpret for those reasons. The operation of a third variable to which b... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4551884 Tue, 01 Mar 2011 00:00:00 +0100 4551884 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4427998&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21251744%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Zhou SS, Fan J, Lee TM, Wang CQ, Wang K Previous studies suggest that aging is associated with impairment of attention. However, it is not known whether this represents a global attentional deficit or relates to a specific attentional network. We used the attention network test to examine three groups of younger, middle-aged, and older participants with respect to the efficiency of three anatomically defined attentional networks: alerting network, orienting network, and executive control network. Age-related change was found to have the greatest effect on the executive network and the least effect on the alerting network as well as on overall mean response time. Impairment of the orienting network was found to be insignificant. Age-related deterioration of the prefrontal lobe,... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4427998 Wed, 02 Feb 2011 22:30:18 +0100 4427998 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4427996&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21272982%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Vervloed MP, Hendriks AW, van den Eijnde E Face processing development is negatively affected when infants have not been exposed to faces for some time because of congenital cataract blocking all vision (Le Grand, Mondloch, Maurer, & Brent, 2001). It is not clear, however, whether more subtle differences in face exposure may also have an influence. The present study looked at the effect of the mother's preferred side of holding an infant, on her adult child's face processing lateralisation. Adults with a mother who had a left-arm preference for holding infants were compared with adults with a mother who had a right-arm holding preference. All participants were right-handed and had been exclusively bottle-fed during infancy. The participants were presented with two chimeric... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4427996 Tue, 25 Jan 2011 00:00:00 +0100 4427996 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4427997&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21256656%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Hyde C, Wilson PH In a recent study, children with movement clumsiness (or Developmental Coordination Disorder-DCD) were shown to have difficulties making rapid online corrections when reaching, demonstrated by slower and less accurate movements to double-step targets (Hyde & Wilson, 2011). These results suggest that children with DCD have difficulty using predictive estimates of limb position when making rapid adjustments to movement, in-flight. However, chronometric data alone does not provide strong evidence for this hypothesis: it remains unclear whether early (and rapid) control parameters or post-correction stages of the movement trajectory are affected. Thus, the overarching aim of this study was to conduct a kinematic analysis of double-step reaching in order to is... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4427997 Thu, 20 Jan 2011 00:00:00 +0100 4427997 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4263008&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21146911%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Correa A, Miró E, Martínez MP, Sánchez AI, Lupiáñez J Cognitive deficits in fibromyalgia may be specifically related to controlled processes, such as those measured by working memory or executive function tasks. This hypothesis was tested here by measuring controlled temporal preparation (temporal orienting) during a response inhibition (go no-go) task. Temporal orienting effects (faster reaction times for targets appearing at temporally attended vs. unattended moments) and response inhibition were impaired in fibromyalgia compared to the control group. It is concluded that frontal networks underlying attentional control (temporal orienting and response inhibition) can be a dysfunctional neurocognitive mechanism in fibromyalgia. PMID: 21146911 [PubMed - as supplied by... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4263008 Fri, 10 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0100 4263008 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4263012&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21145643%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Mella N, Conty L, Pouthas V Time perception, crucial for adaptive behavior, has been shown to be altered by emotion. An arousal-dependent mechanism is proposed to account for such an effect. Yet, physiological measure of arousal related with emotional timing is still lacking. We addressed this question using skin conductance response (SCR) in an emotion regulation paradigm. Nineteen participants estimated durations of neutral and negative sounds by comparing them to a previously memorized duration. Instructions were given to attend either to temporal or to emotional stimulus features. Attending to emotion with negative sounds generated longer subjective duration and greater physiological arousal than attending to time. However, a shared-attention condition showed discrepancy b... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4263012 Wed, 08 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0100 4263012 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4263011&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21145644%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Bob P, Svetlak M Recent findings indicate that neural mechanisms of consciousness are related to integration of distributed neural assemblies. This neural integration is particularly vulnerable to past stressful experiences that can lead to disintegration and dissociation of consciousness. These findings suggest that dissociation could be described as a level of neural disintegration reflecting a number of independent processes by means of neural complexity. In the present study measurement of dissociation, traumatic stress symptoms and neural complexity calculated using nonlinear analysis of EEG [during rest conditions], and electrodermal activity (EDA) [during rest and Stroop task] were performed in 52 university students (mean age 24.1). Neural complexity has been described... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4263011 Wed, 08 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0100 4263011 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4263015&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21145155%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Treccani B, Umiltà C PMID: 21145155 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher] (Source: Brain and Cognition) Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4263015 Tue, 07 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0100 4263015 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4263014&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21145156%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Fischer MH, Shaki S PMID: 21145156 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher] (Source: Brain and Cognition) Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4263014 Tue, 07 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0100 4263014 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4263013&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21145157%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Papousek I, Murhammer D, Schulter G The study shows that changes in relative verbal vs. figural working memory and fluency performance from one session to a second session two to 3weeks apart covary with spontaneously occurring changes of cortical asymmetry in the lateral frontal and central cortex, measured by electroencephalography (EEG) in resting conditions before the execution of tasks. That is, it was examined whether the current state of cortical asymmetry predicts verbal vs. figural performance. The findings complete the circle from studies showing correlations between changes of EEG asymmetry in the lateral frontal cortex and changes of mood to studies showing correlations between changes of mood and changes of relative verbal vs. figural working memory and fluency pe... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4263013 Tue, 07 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0100 4263013 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4263019&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21134706%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Stephan MA, Meier B, Zaugg SW, Kaelin-Lang A It is still unclear, whether patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) are impaired in the incidental learning of different motor sequences in short succession, although such a deficit might greatly impact their daily life. The aim of this study was thus to clarify the relation between disease parameters of PD and incidental motor learning of two different sequences in short succession. Results revealed that the PD patients were able to acquire two sequences in short succession but needed more time than healthy subjects. However, both the severity of axial manifestations, as assessed on a subsection of the Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale III (UPDRS III) and the Hoehn and Yahr score, and the levodopa-equivalent dose (LED) were ... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4263019 Sat, 04 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0100 4263019 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4263018&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21134707%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Achim AM, Lefèbvre AA, Cellard C, Bouchard RH, Roy MA, Tremblay S Source recognition memory deficits have repeatedly been observed in people with schizophrenia (SZ), and have also recently been observed in their first-degree relatives. These deficits have been hypothesized to result, at least in part, from impairments in the conscious recollection process. Although other processes are clearly also affected in SZ, it has been proposed that impairments in the conscious recollection process could be a parsimonious explanation for the source memory deficits observed in their relatives. Here, we tested 25 patients with SZ and 34 of their non-affected parents, as well as two groups of matched healthy controls, on a short-term associative memory task that shares the characteristics ... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4263018 Sat, 04 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0100 4263018 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4263017&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21134708%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Rahman Q, Newland C, Smyth BM Prior research has demonstrated robust sex and sexual orientation-related differences in object location memory in humans. Here we show that this sexual variation may depend on the spatial position of target objects and the task-specific nature of the spatial array. We tested the recovery of object locations in three object arrays (object exchanges, object shifts, and novel objects) relative to veridical center (left compared to right side of the arrays) in a sample of 35 heterosexual men, 35 heterosexual women, and 35 homosexual men. Relative to heterosexual men, heterosexual women showed better location recovery in the right side of the array during object exchanges and homosexual men performed better in the right side during novel objects. Howe... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4263017 Sat, 04 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0100 4263017 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4263016&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21134709%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Stigchel SV, Imants P, Richard Ridderinkhof K To delineate the modulatory effects of induced positive affect on cognitive control, the current study investigated whether positive affect increases the ability to suppress a reflexive saccade in the antisaccade task. Results of the antisaccade task showed that participants made fewer erroneous prosaccades in the condition in which a positive mood was induced compared to the neutral condition (i.e. in which no emotional mood was induced). This improvement of oculomotor inhibition was restricted to saccades with an express latency. These results are in line with the idea that enhanced performance in the positive affect condition could be caused by increased dopaminergic neurotransmission the brain. PMID: 21134709 [PubMed - as s... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4263016 Sat, 04 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0100 4263016 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4263021&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21131120%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Wallez C, Vauclair J Asymmetries of emotional facial expressions in humans offer reliable indexes to infer brain lateralization and mostly revealed right hemisphere dominance. Studies concerned with oro-facial asymmetries in nonhuman primates largely showed a left-sided asymmetry in chimpanzees, marmosets and macaques. The presence of asymmetrical oro-facial productions was assessed in Olive baboons in order to determine the functional cerebral asymmetries. Two affiliative behaviors (lipsmack, copulation call) and two agonistic ones (screeching, eyebrow-raising) were recorded. For screeching, a strong and significant left hemimouth bias was found, but no significant bias was observed for the other behaviors. These results are discussed in the light of the available literature ... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4263021 Fri, 03 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0100 4263021 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4263020&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21131121%26dopt%3DAbstract This study applied volumetric analysis and voxel-based morphometry (VBM) of brain magnetic resonance (MR) images to assess whether correlations exist between global and regional gray/white matter volume and the cognitive functions of semantic memory and short-term memory, which are relatively well preserved with aging, using MR image data from 109 community-dwelling healthy elderly individuals. We used the Information and Digit Span subtests of the Wechsler Adult Intelligent Scale-Revised as measures of semantic memory and short-term memory, respectively. We found significant positive correlations between the gray matter ratio, the percentage of gray matter volume in the intracranial volume, and performance on the Digit Span subtest, and between the regional gray matter volumes of the bila... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4263020 Fri, 03 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0100 4263020 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4263022&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21130554%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Jacobs HI, Van Boxtel MP, Uylings HB, Gronenschild EH, Verhey FR, Jolles J Cortical grey matter atrophy patterns have been reported in healthy ageing and Alzheimer disease (AD), but less consistently in the parietal regions of the brain. We investigated cortical grey matter volume patterns in parietal areas. The grey matter of the somatosensory cortex, superior and inferior parietal lobule was measured in 75 older adults (38 cognitively stable and 37 individuals with cognitive decline after 3years). Dementia screening 6years after scanning resulted in nine AD cases from the cognitively stable (n=3) and cognitive decline group (n=6), who were assigned to a third group, the preclinical AD group. When regional differences in cortical volume in the parietal lobe areas were compare... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4263022 Thu, 02 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0100 4263022 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4232866&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21112683%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Page JW, Duhamel P, Crognale MA Recent neuroimaging research suggests that early visual processing circuits are activated similarly during visualization and perception but have not demonstrated that the cortical activity is similar in character. We found functional equivalency in cortical activity by recording evoked potentials while color and luminance patterns were viewed and while they were visualized with the eyes closed. Cortical responses were found to be different when imagining a color pattern vs. imagining a checkerboard luminance pattern, but the same when imagining a color pattern (or checkerboard pattern) vs. seeing the same pattern. This suggests that early visual processing stages may play a dynamic role in internal image generation, and further implies that visu... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4232866 Fri, 26 Nov 2010 00:00:00 +0100 4232866 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4232867&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21111522%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Liesefeld HR, Zimmer HD The time taken to decide whether a character is shown in its mirror or normal version has been shown to increase approximately linearly with the angular departure from an up-right position. Additionally, in some studies, decisions took longer for clockwise tilted characters than for counterclockwise tilted ones. Other studies do not report the latter effect. We argue that inconsistencies across studies are caused by variance in participants' strategies. The task employed here was specifically designed to bring these strategies and thereby the direction of rotation under experimental control. From the EEG recorded during the rotation period, we extracted an event-related slow potential whose amplitude is sensitive to the amount of mental rotation. In bot... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4232867 Wed, 24 Nov 2010 00:00:00 +0100 4232867 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4206381&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21095053%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Tharp IJ, Pickering AD Individual differences in psychophysiological function have been shown to influence the balance between flexibility and distractibility during attentional set-shifting [e.g., Dreisbach et al. (2005). Dopamine and cognitive control: The influence of spontaneous eyeblink rate and dopamine gene polymorphisms on perseveration and distractibility. Behavioral Neuroscience, 119(2), 483-490]. Here we replicate both the facilitatory and detrimental influence of spontaneous eyeblink rate upon switch costs across the two distinct conditions of a set-shifting task. We extend this by presenting additional, putatively dopamine related, individual differences that also influence attentional control. Whereas trait psychoticism showed a pattern of effects opposite to tha... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4206381 Sat, 20 Nov 2010 00:00:00 +0100 4206381 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4206409&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21094573%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: De Kleine E, Van der Lubbe RH Learning movement sequences is thought to develop from an initial controlled attentive phase to a more automatic inattentive phase. Furthermore, execution of sequences becomes faster with practice, which may result from changes at a general motor processing level rather than at an effector specific motor processing level. In the current study, we examined whether these changes are already present during preparation. Fixed series of six keypresses, either familiar or unfamiliar, had to be prepared and executed/withheld after a go/nogo signal. Reaction time results confirmed that familiar sequences were executed faster than unfamiliar sequences. Results derived from the electroencephalogram showed a decreased demand on general motor preparation and ... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4206409 Fri, 19 Nov 2010 00:00:00 +0100 4206409 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4206401&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21094574%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: de Boysson C, Belleville S, Phillips NA, Johns EK, Goupil D, Souchay C, Bouchard R, Chertkow H The primary goal of this study was to evaluate the false recognition phenomenon in persons with frontotemporal dementia (FTD) and those with Lewy-body disease (LBD). Patients with LBD (n=10) or FTD (n=15) and their corresponding controls (n=30) were subjected to the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm to induce false recognition. Patients were first presented with items semantically related to a nonpresented critical target. The critical target was later included in a word list shown to patients to assess level of recognition. Both groups of patients showed a reduced level of false recognition of the critical target when controlling for their overall level of false alarms. This r... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4206401 Fri, 19 Nov 2010 00:00:00 +0100 4206401 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4206390&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21094575%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Dujardin T, Etienne Y, Contentin C, Bernard C, Largy P, Mellier D, Lalonde R, Rebaï M Adults with phonological dyslexia and controls performed a lexical decision task while ERPs were recorded in the occipitotemporal pathway. Based on N170 durations, two subgroups were formed: dysl1 showing longer N170 durations and dysl2 showing normal N170 durations. While the dysl1 subgroup had poorer accuracy for infrequent words and pseudo-words, the dysl2 group responded more slowly than controls to pseudo-words. N170 amplitudes were larger in the left hemisphere for controls irrespective of items. In the dysl1 subgroup, N170 amplitudes were larger in the left hemisphere than the right for words but not for pseudo-words, a sign of hemispheric compensation, while in the dysl2 subgroup sig... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4206390 Fri, 19 Nov 2010 00:00:00 +0100 4206390 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4206418&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21093970%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Viard A, Chételat G, Lebreton K, Desgranges B, Landeau B, de La Sayette V, Eustache F, Piolino P Remembering the past and envisioning the future rely on episodic memory which enables mental time travel. Studies in young adults indicate that past and future thinking share common cognitive and neural underpinnings. No imaging data is yet available in healthy aged subjects. Using fMRI, we scanned older subjects while they remembered personal events (PP: last 12months) or envisioned future plans (FP: next 12months). Behaviorally, both time-periods were comparable in terms of visual search strategy, emotion, frequency of rehearsal and recency of the last evocation. However, PP were more episodic, engaged a higher state of autonoetic consciousness and mental visual images were clea... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4206418 Thu, 18 Nov 2010 00:00:00 +0100 4206418 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4174903&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21074925%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Nagai C, Inui T, Iwata M Williams syndrome (WS) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by severe impairment of visuospatial abilities. Figure-drawing abilities, which are thought to reflect visuospatial abilities, have yet to be fully investigated in WS. The purpose of the present study was to clarify whether drawing abilities differ between WS individuals and typically developing children (TD). We compared the performance of two groups of subjects (WS, mean age 16years; TD, 5-6years of age) using a fading-figure tracing task that requires subjects to trace a target figure that is gradually disappearing from a PC screen. Although the TD group exhibited clearly improved performance with long fading time, the WS group did not. Moreover, the TD group exhibited poor perfor... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4174903 Thu, 11 Nov 2010 00:00:00 +0100 4174903 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4160202&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21067852%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Eramudugolla R, Henderson R, Mattingley JB Integration of simultaneous auditory and visual information about an event can enhance our ability to detect that event. This is particularly evident in the perception of speech, where the articulatory gestures of the speaker's lips and face can significantly improve the listener's detection and identification of the message, especially when that message is presented in a noisy background. Speech is a particularly important example of multisensory integration because of its behavioural relevance to humans and also because brain regions have been identified that appear to be specifically tuned for auditory speech and lip gestures. Previous research has suggested that speech stimuli may have an advantage over other types of auditory sti... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4160202 Mon, 08 Nov 2010 00:00:00 +0100 4160202 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4160200&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21067853%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Coles CD, Goldstein FC, Lynch ME, Chen X, Kable JA, Johnson KC, Hu X The impact of prenatal alcohol exposure on memory and brain development was investigated in 92 African-American, young adults who were first identified in the prenatal period. Three groups (Control, n=26; Alcohol-related Neurodevelopmental Disorder, n=36; and Dysmorphic, n=30) were imaged using structural MRI with brain volume calculated for multiple regions of interest. Memory was measured using the Verbal Selective Reminding Memory Test and its nonverbal counterpart, the Nonverbal Selective Reminding Memory Test, which each yielding measures of learning and recall. For both Verbal and Nonverbal Recall and Slope, linear trends were observed demonstrating a spectrum of deficits associated with prenatal alcoho... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4160200 Mon, 08 Nov 2010 00:00:00 +0100 4160200 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4160204&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21055864%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Wass S The past few years have seen considerable interest in findings of abnormal brain connectivity in the autism spectrum disorders (ASD). We review recent work from neuroimaging and other sources, and argue that there is considerable convergent evidence suggesting that connectivity is disrupted in ASD. We point to evidence both of local over-connectivity and of long-distance under-connectivity, and describe some non-uniformities in this picture, most notably that disruptions appear more severe in later-developing cortical regions. We conclude by discussing a number of extant questions. Firstly, we consider whether aberrant connectivity should be seen as part of the primary pathogenesis of autism, or whether disrupted connectivity in ASD emerges over time. Secondly, we consi... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4160204 Wed, 03 Nov 2010 00:00:00 +0100 4160204 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4142580&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21051129%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Straube S, Fahle M Sometimes object detection as opposed to identification is sufficient to initiate the appropriate action. To explore the neural origin of behavioural differences between the two tasks, we combine psychophysical measurements and fMRI, specifically contrasting shape detection versus identification of a figure. This figure consisted of Gabor elements being oriented differently from those in the background. We equalized performance levels for detection and identification by adjusting orientation differences accordingly for each observer. Hence, stimulus saliency was constant for both tasks allowing a differentiation between the activations specific for detection versus identification processes. Identification yielded higher psychophysical thresholds, slower reac... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4142580 Tue, 02 Nov 2010 00:00:00 +0100 4142580 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4127118&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21041012%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Grenèche J, Krieger J, Bertrand F, Erhardt C, Maumy M, Tassi P Both working and immediate memories were assessed every 4h by specific short-term memory tasks over sustained wakefulness in 12 patients with obstructive sleep apnea and hypopnea syndrome (OSAHS) and 10 healthy controls. Results indicated that OSAHS patients exhibited lower working memory performances than controls on both backward digit span and complex Sternberg tasks. Speed and accuracy on Sternberg tasks were affected by memory load in both groups. However, immediate memory was not impaired in OSAHS patients. Diurnal and nocturnal SaO(2) were correlated with speed and accuracy high-speed memory scanning performance on Sternberg tasks in patients. These results suggest specific working memory deficits associate... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4127118 Sat, 30 Oct 2010 00:00:00 +0100 4127118 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4127119&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21035936%26dopt%3DAbstract We report two 'single trial' experiments in which a total of 640 participants were asked to imagine a person performing a manual action - either in a front or in a back view - and then to indicate the hand used by the imagined person during movement execution. In such a task, we assume the existence of two distinct biases: a perceptual-mnemonic bias due to subjects' visual experience of others' actions, encouraging them to imagine right-handed movements, and a motor bias due to subjects' experience of self-made actions, encouraging them to imagine movements performed with the same hand as their dominant hand. We hypothesized that a greater involvement of motor representations in the back view compared to the front view could result in an increased correspondence between one's own manual pr... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4127119 Thu, 28 Oct 2010 00:00:00 +0100 4127119 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4127120&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D21030130%26dopt%3DAbstract We examined whether 16 young adults (18-30years) and 16 older adults (50-80years) could voluntarily inhibit overflow. Participants performed a finger pressing task, exerting 50% of their maximal force. Overflow was concurrently recorded in the non-task hand. In the first condition, participants were not made aware of their motor overflow. Then participants, though informed of it, were asked to ignore their overflow. Finally, participants were requested to inhibit overflow with, and then without visual feedback, or vice versa. Overflow was exacerbated when older adults were unaware of it, and was reduced once they were informed. For young adults there was no significant difference between these conditions. Both Age Groups could significantly reduce overflow when so requested, independent of... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4127120 Tue, 26 Oct 2010 00:00:00 +0100 4127120 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4099196&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D20965635%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Luk G, Anderson JA, Craik FI, Grady C, Bialystok E To examine the effects of bilingualism on cognitive control, we studied monolingual and bilingual young adults performing a flanker task with functional MRI. The trial types of primary interest for this report were incongruent and no-go trials, representing interference suppression and response inhibition, respectively. Response times were similar between groups. Brain data were analyzed using partial least squares (PLS) to identify brain regions where activity covaried across conditions. Monolinguals and bilinguals activated different sets of brain regions for congruent and incongruent trials, but showed activation in the same regions for no-go trials. During the incongruent trials, monolinguals activated the left temporal po... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4099196 Mon, 18 Oct 2010 23:00:00 +0100 4099196 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4084406&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D20950919%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Bomba MD, Singhal A Previous dual-task research pairing complex visual tasks involving non-spatial cognitive processes during dichotic listening have shown effects on the late component (Ndl) of the negative difference selective attention waveform but no effects on the early (Nde) response suggesting that the Ndl, but not the Nde, is affected by non-spatial processing in a dual-task. Thus to further explore the nature of this dissociation and whether the Nd waveform is affected by spatial processing; fourteen adult participants performed auditory dichotic listening in conjunction with visuo-spatial memory in a cross-modal dual-task paradigm. The results showed that the visuo-spatial memory task decreased both the Nde and Ndl waveforms, and also attenuated P300 and increased it... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4084406 Tue, 12 Oct 2010 23:00:00 +0100 4084406 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4067573&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D20943304%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Walsh A, McDowall J, Grimshaw GM Vulnerability to depression and non-response to Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs) are associated with specific neurophysiological characteristics including greater right hemisphere (RH) relative to left hemisphere (LH) activity. The present study investigated the relationship between hemispheric specialization and processing of emotional words using a divided visual field paradigm administered to never-depressed and previously-depressed individuals, who were subdivided into SSRI responders and non-responders. SSRI responders and never-depressed participants were similar in their left hemispheric lateralization for evaluating emotional words. In contrast, SSRI non-responders showed a relative shift towards RH processing of negative... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4067573 Sun, 10 Oct 2010 23:00:00 +0100 4067573 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4067574&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D20934796%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Stafford LD, Brandaro N Recent research has looked at whether the expectancy of an emotion can account for subsequent valence specific laterality effects of prosodic emotion, though no research has examined this effect for facial emotion. In the study here (n=58), we investigated this issue using two tasks; an emotional face perception task and a novel word task that involved categorising positive and negative words. In the face perception task a valence specific laterality effect was found for surprise (positive) and anger (negative) faces in the control but not expectancy condition. Interestingly, lateralisation differed for face gender, revealing a left hemisphere advantage for male faces and a right hemisphere advantage for female faces. In the word task, an affective prim... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4067574 Thu, 07 Oct 2010 23:00:00 +0100 4067574 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4067575&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D20933317%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Buckingham G, Binsted G, Carey DP When both hands perform concurrent goal-directed reaches, they become yoked to one another. To investigate the direction of this coupling (i.e., which hand is yoked to which), the temporal dynamics of bimanual reaches were compared with equivalent-amplitude unimanual reaches. These reaches were to target pairs located on either the left or right sides of space; meaning that in the bimanual condition, one hand's contralateral (more difficult) reach accompanied by the other hand's ipsilateral (easier) reach. By comparing which hand's difficult reach was improved more by the presence of the other hand's easier ipsilateral reach, we were able to demonstrate asymmetries in the coupling. When the cost of bimanual reaching was controlled for the cont... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4067575 Tue, 05 Oct 2010 23:00:00 +0100 4067575 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4031910&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D20888109%26dopt%3DAbstract In this study we examined the effects of evolutionarily relevant (e.g. spiders and snakes) and irrelevant (e.g. knifes and syringes) threatening cues. Non-predictive threatening cues (in left or right visual field) were paired with non-threatening cues and were followed by neutral targets in the same or opposite location. The amplitude of the target P1 was increased in contralateral electrodes when the target followed in the same location as the threatening cues. This effect did not interact with evolutionary relevance. Both evolutionary relevant and evolutionary irrelevant threats led to increased P1 amplitude, although the effect was stronger for modern threats. We conclude that the threat-superiority effect is robust and largely independent of the type of threatening stimulus. PMID:... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4031910 Tue, 28 Sep 2010 23:00:00 +0100 4031910 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4031909&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D20888110%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Wraga M, Boyle HK, Flynn CM Previous research has shown that imagined perspective rotations elicit spatial and low-level cortical motor areas of the brain when participants rely on knowledge of their physical body, or body percept (Wraga, Flynn, Boyle, & Evans, 2010). The current study used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate whether recruitment of the body percept would activate low-level cortical motor areas of the brain within other classes of mental transformations. Participants performed imagined object and perspective rotations of three-dimensional Shephard-Metzler (1971) stimuli. For each task, participants used button presses serving as virtual pointers to locate a prescribed portion of the stimuli with respect to their "right" and "left." W... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4031909 Tue, 28 Sep 2010 23:00:00 +0100 4031909 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4018827&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D20875697%26dopt%3DAbstract This study demonstrated that the effects of age on episodic memory and ERP correlates of retrieval success are smaller in participants with high educational levels than those with lower levels. These findings provide support for the reserve hypothesis and highlight the need to consider individual differences when studying cognitive and cerebral changes in aging. PMID: 20875697 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher] (Source: Brain and Cognition) Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4018827 Fri, 24 Sep 2010 23:00:00 +0100 4018827 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4018829&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D20864240%26dopt%3DAbstract We examined NVPGs in tasks with long-term memory (LTM) and working memory (WM) requirements. Experiment 1 yielded significantly higher eye movement rate (EMR) in tasks requiring LTM search than in a WM task requiring maintenance of information. Experiment 2 manipulated accessibility of items in study-test episodic tasks using the levels of processing paradigm. EMR was high in episodic recall irrespective of item accessibility. Experiment 3 examined functional significance of saccades in LTM tasks. Voluntary saccadic suppression produced no evidence that saccades contribute to task performance. We discuss the apparent epiphenomenal nature of spontaneous saccades from an evolutionary perspective and outline a neuroanatomical model of the link between the saccadic and memory system. PMID:... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4018829 Mon, 20 Sep 2010 23:00:00 +0100 4018829 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4018828&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D20864241%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Bachmann V, Fischer MH, Landolt HP, Brugger P Little is known about the neuropsychological factors that contribute to individual differences in the asymmetric orientation along the mental number line. The present study documents healthy subjects' preference for small numbers over large numbers in a random number generation task. This preference, referred to as "small-number bias" (SNB), varied with prefrontal functional lateralization: it was larger in participants with over-proportionately better performance in design fluency compared to letter fluency than in participants with over-proportionately better performance in letter fluency when compared to design fluency. Asymmetries in learning and memory tasks (verbal vs. non-verbal) were not related to direction or size of the ... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4018828 Mon, 20 Sep 2010 23:00:00 +0100 4018828 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4018830&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D20851511%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Kuefner D, Jacques C, Prieto EA, Rossion B When the bottom halves of two faces differ, people's behavioral judgment of the identical top halves of those faces is impaired: they report that the top halves are different, and/or take more time than usual to provide a response. This behavioral measure is known as the composite face effect (CFE) and has traditionally been taken as evidence that faces are perceived holistically. Recently, however, it has been claimed that this effect is driven almost entirely by decisional, rather than perceptual, factors (Richler, Gauthier, Wenger, & Palmeri, 2008). To disentangle the contribution of perceptual and decisional brain processes, we aimed to obtain an event-related potential (ERP) measure of the CFE at a stage of face encoding (Jac... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4018830 Thu, 16 Sep 2010 23:00:00 +0100 4018830 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4018835&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D20846770%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Sylvain-Roy S, Bherer L, Belleville S Temporal preparation was assessed in 15 Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients, 20 persons with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and 28 healthy older adults. Participants completed a simple reaction time task in which the preparatory interval duration varied randomly within two blocks (short versus long temporal window). Results indicated that AD and MCI patients had difficulty preparing for the shortest preparatory interval of the short temporal window. AD and MCI patients also had difficulty maintaining an optimal level of preparation up to 5 s within the short temporal window. These results suggest that AD and MCI patients might show difficulty preparing for rapidly occurring events and maintaining preparation over time. This phenomenon shoul... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4018835 Mon, 13 Sep 2010 23:00:00 +0100 4018835 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4018834&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D20846771%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Gowen E, Bradshaw C, Galpin A, Lawrence A, Poliakoff E Observation of human actions influences the observer's own motor system, termed visuomotor priming, and is believed to be caused by automatic activation of mirror neurons. Evidence suggests that priming effects are larger for biological (human) as opposed to non-biological (object) stimuli and enhanced when viewing stimuli in mirror compared to anatomical orientation. However, there is conflicting evidence concerning the extent of differences between biological and non-biological stimuli, which may be due to stimulus related confounds. Over three experiments, we compared how visuomotor priming for biological and non-biological stimuli was affected over views, over time and when attention to the moving stimulus was manipula... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4018834 Mon, 13 Sep 2010 23:00:00 +0100 4018834 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4018833&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D20846772%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Ramsey R, Cumming J, Eastough D, Edwards MG It has been suggested that representing an action through observation and imagery share neural processes with action execution. In support of this view, motor-priming research has shown that observing an action can influence action initiation. However, there is little motor-priming research showing that imagining an action can modulate action initiation. The current study examined whether action imagery could prime subsequent execution of a reach and grasp action. Across two motion analysis tracking experiments, 40 participants grasped an object following congruent or incongruent action imagery. In Experiment 1, movement initiation was faster following congruent compared to incongruent imagery, demonstrating that imagery can prime th... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4018833 Mon, 13 Sep 2010 23:00:00 +0100 4018833 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4018832&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D20846773%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Gil-Gómez de Liaño B, Umiltà C, Stablum F, Tebaldi F, Cantagallo A A reduction in congruency effects under working memory (WM) load has been previously described using different attentional paradigms (e.g., Kim, Kim, & Chun, 2005; Smilek, Enns, Eastwood, & Merikle, 2006). One hypothesis is that different types of WM load have different effects on attentional selection, depending on whether a specific memory load demands resources in common with target or distractor processing. In particular, if information in WM is related to the distractors in the selective attention task, there is a reduction in distraction (Kim et al., 2005). However, although previous results seem to point to a decrease in interference under high WM load conditions (Kim et al., 2005), the ... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4018832 Mon, 13 Sep 2010 23:00:00 +0100 4018832 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4018831&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D20846774%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Kopec CD, Brody CD The perception and processing of temporal information are tasks the brain must continuously perform. These include measuring the duration of stimuli, storing duration information in memory, recalling such memories, and comparing two durations. How the brain accomplishes these tasks, however, is still open for debate. The temporal bisection task, which requires subjects to compare temporal stimuli to durations held in memory, is perfectly suited to address these questions. Here we perform a meta-analysis of human performance on the temporal bisection task collected from 148 experiments spread across 18 independent studies. With this expanded data set we are able to show that human performance on this task contains a number of significant peculiarities, which ... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4018831 Mon, 13 Sep 2010 23:00:00 +0100 4018831 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4018836&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D20832925%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Brunyé TT, Mahoney CR, Lieberman HR, Giles GE, Taylor HA Recent work suggests that a dose of 200-400mg caffeine can enhance both vigilance and the executive control of visual attention in individuals with low caffeine consumption profiles. The present study seeks to determine whether individuals with relatively high caffeine consumption profiles would show similar advantages. To this end, we examined the effects of four caffeine doses (0mg, 100mg, 200mg, 400mg) on low- and high-level visual attention in individuals with high consumption profiles (n=36), in a double-blind study using a repeated measures design. Results from the Attention Network Test indicated that caffeine enhanced both vigilance and the executive control of visual attention, but only at the highest adminis... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4018836 Wed, 08 Sep 2010 23:00:00 +0100 4018836 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4018837&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D20832157%26dopt%3DAbstract Authors: Ketelsen K, Welsh M The current study was designed to examine the possible existence of two limited-capacity pools of central executive resources: one each for verbal and visuospatial processing. Ninety-one college students (M age=19.0, SD=2.2) were administered a verbal working memory task that involved updating numbers in 2-, 3-, and 4-load conditions. The task was administered in both single task (no-interference condition) and dual-task (verbal interference and visuospatial interference conditions) formats. Findings indicated main effects for both memory load and type of interference, as well as, a load×interference interaction. Verbal interference led to a steeper increase in errors on the primary verbal working memory task; whereas, there was a smaller increase in err... Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4018837 Tue, 07 Sep 2010 23:00:00 +0100 4018837 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3959271&cid=s_34573_25_f&fid=34573&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Ftmpl%3DNoSidebarfile%26db%3DPubMed%26cmd%3DRetrieve%26list_uids%3D20817338%26dopt%3DAbstract This study confirms recent findings that high E2 interferes with latent inhibition and is the first to show this is based in the activational actions of hormones. PMID: 20817338 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher] (Source: Brain and Cognition) Brain and Cognition journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3959271 Wed, 01 Sep 2010 23:00:00 +0100 3959271