All posts; Tags Include "Cognitive Neuroscience"
- September 11, 2008
- 04:28 PM
- 1,830 views
Do right motor cortex lesions cause verb processing impairments?
by Greg Hickok in Talking Brains
I'm still looking for compelling evidence that damage to the motor system affects verb processing. TMS data was not convincing, nor was ALS data (see previous posts). Now I'm looking at a lesion study by Neininger & Pulvermuller (2003, Word-category specific deficits after lesions in the right hemisphere. Neuropsychologia, 41:53-70), and I have to admit this is a reasonably impressive result -- but not exactly air tight. Twelve patients with right frontal lobe damage and left hemiparesis were........ Read more »
B Neininger. (2003) Word-category specific deficits after lesions in the right hemisphere. Neuropsychologia, 41(1), 53-70. DOI: 10.1016/S0028-3932(02)00126-4
- September 9, 2008
- 12:45 PM
- 2,008 views
TMS to motor cortex affects lexical decision to body-part related words - What does this tell us?
by Greg Hickok in Talking Brains
One of the most impressive demonstrations of the functional relevance of motor cortex to action-word processing comes from a TMS study by Friedemann Pulvermuller and colleagues (2005, European Journal of Neuroscience, 21:793-97). These researchers stimulated motor cortex for hand or leg areas while subjects performed a lexical decision task. TMS to hand areas led to faster reaction times to hand-related words (e.g., pick) than leg-related words (e.g., kick), whereas the reverse held for TMS to ........ Read more »
Friedemann Pulvermuller, Olaf Hauk, Vadim V. Nikulin, & Risto J. Ilmoniemi. (2005) Functional links between motor and language systems. European Journal of Neuroscience, 21(3), 793-797. DOI: 10.1111/j.1460-9568.2005.03900.x
- September 8, 2008
- 05:57 PM
- 1,607 views
Verb processing deficits in motor neuron disease (ALS/Lou Gehrig's disease)
by Greg Hickok in Talking Brains
Embodied cognition views of language processing hold that motor systems are central in processing linguistic forms that involve action-based information. This view predicts that damage to the motor system should produce deficits in processing verbs. There is plenty of evidence that patients with left frontal lobe damage can have deficits in naming actions. But this result does not mean that action knowledge has been disrupted (a typical interpretation of embodied cognition theorists). It........ Read more »
T. H. Bak, D. G. O'Donovan, J. H. Xuereb, S. Boniface, & J. R. Hodges. (2001) Selective impairment of verb processing associated with pathological changes in Brodmann areas 44 and 45 in the motor neurone disease-dementia-aphasia syndrome. Brain, 124(1), 103-120. DOI: 10.1093/brain/124.1.103
- September 7, 2008
- 11:33 AM
- 1,883 views
Learning Memory Lessons From Aplysia
by Amiya in Physiology physics woven fine
While you are reading this on your computer, there may be many distractions in the background. Your mom may be shouting at someone or your daughter may be receiving her piano lessons. But after you finished reading this, no memory trace of this background remains. They are not registered with your memory. We seem to ignore this 'negative memory' by a process called 'habituation'. We remember by consolidating memories by another process known as 'sensitization'. But what is this that we call memo........ Read more »
C. Bailey, & M Chen. (1983) Morphological basis of long-term habituation and sensitization in Aplysia. Science, 220(4592), 91-93. DOI: 10.1126/science.6828885
- September 6, 2008
- 10:32 PM
- 2,136 views
Pain & Paintings: Beholding Beauty Reduces Pain Perception and Laser Evoked Potentials
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
-Marcel Duchamp, Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2Neuroesthetics, a term coined by Semir Zeki, is "the attempt to use neuroscience to understand art and aesthetic behaviour" (as defined in an excellent overview by BRAINETHICS). Some would say the venture is anathema, that reductionistic explanations of the sublime are misguided at best and destructive at worst. Others hold that since all qualia emanate from the brain, a neuroscientific approach is the only true way to understand aest........ Read more »
M TOMMASO, M SARDARO, & P LIVREA. (2008) Aesthetic value of paintings affects pain thresholds☆. Consciousness and Cognition. DOI: 10.1016/j.concog.2008.07.002
- September 6, 2008
- 11:00 AM
- 1,653 views
The right side of fair play
by Ed Yong in Not Exactly Rocket Science
A stranger walks up to you and a friend and offers to give you both £100. As always, there is a catch - your friend must choose how to split the money between you. Accept his offer, and you both keep your respective shares; reject it, and you both come away empty-handed. Now imagine your friend offered you a single pound. What do you do? Most people would reject the offer to spite the friend. Even though you would financially better off if you accepted, you friend's proposal is unfair and rathe........ Read more »
D. Knoch, A. Pascual-Leone, K. Meyer, V. Treyer, & E. Fehr. (2006) Diminishing Reciprocal Fairness by Disrupting the Right Prefrontal Cortex. Science, 314(5800), 829-832. DOI: 10.1126/science.1129156
- September 1, 2008
- 01:15 AM
- 1,589 views
Who Can You Trust?
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
As a sequel to the "Trust Your Insula" theme from last time (i.e., Borderline … feels like I'm goin' to lose my mind), The Neurocritic has consulted the BrainMap database, which revealed that the anterior insula is activated in a wide variety of cognitive, perceptual, and motor tasks. But first, a recap.In their recent Science paper entitled The Rupture and Repair of Cooperation in Borderline Personality Disorder, King-Casas et al. (2008) examined how well individuals with borderline personali........ Read more »
B. King-Casas, C. Sharp, L. Lomax-Bream, T. Lohrenz, P. Fonagy, & P. R. Montague. (2008) The Rupture and Repair of Cooperation in Borderline Personality Disorder. Science, 321(5890), 806-810. DOI: 10.1126/science.1156902
- August 28, 2008
- 01:00 PM
- 1,706 views
Thoughts on Thatcher's Dementia
by Neural Outlaw in Neural Interface
Mo wrote a post over at Neurophilosophy regarding a report Baroness Thatcher's declining mental health. Here's the comment I made there while responding to a previous commenter's remark:"Polomint38's comment is especially poignant in light of a new article on ScienceDaily today: Even Without Dementia, Mental Skills Decline Years Before Death."It isn't very surprising that senior citizens generally experience decline anyway, it is interesting how this new longitudinal study shows how some skills ........ Read more »
V Thorvaldsson, S Hofer, S Berg, I Skoog, S Sacuiu, & B Johansson. (2008) Onset of terminal decline in cognitive abilities in individuals without dementia. Neurology. DOI: 10.1212/01.wnl.0000312379.02302.ba
- August 25, 2008
- 04:08 AM
- 2,102 views
Borderline … feels like I'm goin' to lose my mind
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
No, the 80s Madonna song isn't really about Borderline Personality Disorder. But a new study in Science (King-Casas et al., 2008) makes me feel like I'm goin' to lose my mind. Or more precisely, makes me exhibit two of nine DSM-IV-TR criteria:6. Affective instability due to a marked reactivity of mood (e.g., intense episodic dysphoria, irritability, or anxiety usually lasting a few hours and only rarely more than a few days). 8. Inappropriate anger or difficulty controlling anger (e.g., frequent........ Read more »
B King-Casas, C Sharp, L Lomax-Bream, T Lohrenz, P Fonagy, & P Montague. (2008) The Rupture and Repair of Cooperation in Borderline Personality Disorder. Science, 321(5890), 806-810. DOI: 10.1126/science.1156902
- August 21, 2008
- 12:44 PM
- 2,053 views
Mirror neurons, hubs, and puppet masters
by Greg Hickok in Talking Brains
Hubs are IN in cognitive neuroscience. Griffiths and Warren have their computational hub in the planum temporale, and Patterson et al. have their semantic hub in the anterior temporal lobe. Long before the hub we had the convergence zone of Antonio Damasio and the transmodal node of Marcel Mesulam which he described as an "epicenter" (I like that term -- sounds very important). Despite the variation in terminology, the basic idea behind all these proposals is similar: there are regions in ........ Read more »
Antonio Damasio, & Kaspar Meyer. (2008) Behind the looking-glass. Nature, 454(7201), 167-168. DOI: 10.1038/454167a
- August 8, 2008
- 12:00 AM
- 2,642 views
The updated dope on the mismapped mutation in the dopamine D2 receptor
by Sandra Porter in Discovering Biology in a Digital World
A few weeks ago, I wrote about a paper in Science(1) that I read on a connection between a mutation in the dopamine D2 receptor and the genetics of learning.
Only, it turned out that when I looked at the gene map... Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...... Read more »
T. A. Klein, J. Neumann, M. Reuter, J. Hennig, D. Y. von Cramon, & M. Ullsperger. (2007) Genetically Determined Differences in Learning from Errors. Science, 318(5856), 1642-1645. DOI: 10.1126/science.1145044
M. Lucht, & D. Rosskopf. (2008) Comment on "Genetically Determined Differences in Learning from Errors". Science, 321(5886), 200-200. DOI: 10.1126/science.1155372
T. A. Klein, M. Reuter, D. Y. von Cramon, & M. Ullsperger. (2008) Response to Comment on "Genetically Determined Differences in Learning from Errors". Science, 321(5886), 200-200. DOI: 10.1126/science.1156079
- June 27, 2008
- 07:46 PM
- 1,519 views
Mind Hacks: The fMRI smackdown cometh
by Steve Genco in Lucid Thoughts
Mind Hacks is a great and accessible blog on all things mind- and brain-related.
Yesterday Mind Hacks blogger Vaughan posted an excellent article called “The fMRI smackdown cometh” that describes in refreshingly clear prose some of the issues and challenges facing fMRI research. He notes that:
Numerous articles in hard hitting publications have questioned some common assumptions [...]... Read more »
Logothetis, N. (2008) What we can do and what we cannot do with fMRI. Nature, 453(7197), 869-878. DOI: 10.1038/nature06976
- June 19, 2008
- 12:00 AM
- 3,708 views
A receptor for dopamine and a mismapped mutation
by Sandra Porter in Discovering Biology in a Digital World
Orginal research showing that the TaqI mutation, described in numerous papers, does not map in the Dopamine D2 receptor gene, even though it is described that way in several articles.... Read more »
B.-Z. Yang, H. R. Kranzler, H. Zhao, J. R. Gruen, X. Luo, & J. Gelernter. (2007) Association of haplotypic variants in DRD2, ANKK1, TTC12 and NCAM1 to alcohol dependence in independent case control and family samples. Human Molecular Genetics, 16(23), 2844-2853. DOI: 10.1093/hmg/ddm240
- May 8, 2008
- 08:55 PM
- 2,298 views
Cat Crossing, My Sleep Position and Magnetoreception
by Arunn in nOnoScience (a.k.a. Unruled Notebook)
Are cats magnetoreceptive? How about humans? A detailed essay on these questions connecting with recent research.... Read more »
Carrubba, S., Frilot II, C., Chesson Jr, A., & Marino, A. (2007) Evidence of a nonlinear human magnetic sense. Neuroscience, 144(1), 356-367. DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroscience.2006.08.068
- December 18, 2007
- 04:44 PM
- 1,753 views
Learning from your horrible mistakes
by Noah Gray in Action Potential
Those with a particular genetic isoform of the D2 dopamine receptor will not learn as well from their mistakes.... Read more »
Klein, T., Neumann, J., Reuter, M., Hennig, J., von Cramon, D., & Ullsperger, M. (2007) Genetically Determined Differences in Learning from Errors. Science, 318(5856), 1642-1645. DOI: 10.1126/science.1145044
- December 4, 2007
- 04:02 PM
- 1,607 views
Antidepressants and caloric restriction, what's the connection?
by Noah Gray in Action Potential
Author found that an anti-depressant was able to extend lifespan.... Read more »
Petrascheck, M., Ye, X., & Buck, L. (2007) An antidepressant that extends lifespan in adult Caenorhabditis elegans. Nature, 450(7169), 553-556. DOI: 10.1038/nature05991
- November 28, 2007
- 02:11 PM
- 2,057 views
Cells reverting back to their youth
by Noah Gray in Action Potential
3 significant papers involving stem cell engineering came out at the same time and demanded attention.... Read more »
Takahashi, K., Tanabe, K., Ohnuki, M., Narita, M., Ichisaka, T., Tomoda, K., & Yamanaka, S. (2007) Induction of Pluripotent Stem Cells from Adult Human Fibroblasts by Defined Factors. Cell, 131(5), 861-872. DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2007.11.019
Yu, J., Vodyanik, M., Smuga-Otto, K., Antosiewicz-Bourget, J., Frane, J., Tian, S., Nie, J., Jonsdottir, G., Ruotti, V., Stewart, R.... (2007) Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell Lines Derived from Human Somatic Cells. Science, 318(5858), 1917-1920. DOI: 10.1126/science.1151526
Byrne, J., Pedersen, D., Clepper, L., Nelson, M., Sanger, W., Gokhale, S., Wolf, D., & Mitalipov, S. (2007) Producing primate embryonic stem cells by somatic cell nuclear transfer. Nature, 450(7169), 497-502. DOI: 10.1038/nature06357
- November 21, 2007
- 06:37 PM
- 1,550 views
Infants inherently interpret intentions?
by Noah Gray in Action Potential
Analyzing the social evaluation skills of pre-verbal infants.... Read more »
Hamlin, J., Wynn, K., & Bloom, P. (2007) Social evaluation by preverbal infants. Nature, 450(7169), 557-559. DOI: 10.1038/nature06288
- October 24, 2007
- 02:54 PM
- 2,021 views
Patience, fairness and getting the girl
by Noah Gray in Action Potential
Testing chimps in a head-to-head test of patience with humans.... Read more »
Rosati, A., Stevens, J., Hare, B., & Hauser, M. (2007) The Evolutionary Origins of Human Patience: Temporal Preferences in Chimpanzees, Bonobos, and Human Adults. Current Biology, 17(19), 1663-1668. DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2007.08.033
- October 17, 2007
- 03:27 AM
- 1,902 views
The neuroscience of beauty
by Steve Genco in Lucid Thoughts
What are some things perceived as beautiful and others not?
Neuroscience has a lot to say about this, and what it has to say is highly relevant to product design, packaging, and aesthetics.
In this post I’m only going to highlight one article written in 2004 by Rolf Reber, Norbert Schwartz, and Piotr Winkielman entitled “Processing Fluency [...]... Read more »
Reber R, Schwarz N, & Winkielman P. (2004) Processing fluency and aesthetic pleasure: is beauty in the perceiver's processing experience?. Personality and social psychology review : an official journal of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc, 8(4), 364-82. PMID: 15582859
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