Odorants as Natural Reward: Behavioral Evidence and Underlying Circuitry of Odorant Attraction from Mice to Humans

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maellie Midroit ◽  
Laura Chalençon ◽  
Nicolas Renier ◽  
Adriana Milton ◽  
Marc Thevenet ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Natural Reward ◽  
Behavioral Evidence

Engaging regularly with fiction influences connectivity in cortical areas for language and mentalizing

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roel M. Willems ◽  
Franziska Hartung
Keyword(s):  
Functional Connectivity ◽  
Time Course ◽  
Language Skills ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Brain Areas ◽  
Daily Lives ◽  
Cortical Areas ◽  
Social Abilities ◽  
Behavioral Evidence ◽  
Amount Of Reading

Behavioral evidence suggests that engaging with fiction is positively correlated with social abilities. The rationale behind this link is that engaging with fictional narratives offers a ‘training modus’ for mentalizing and empathizing. We investigated the influence of the amount of reading that participants report doing in their daily lives, on connections between brain areas while they listened to literary narratives. Participants (N=57) listened to two literary narratives while brain activation was measured with fMRI. We computed time-course correlations between brain regions, and compared the correlation values from listening to narratives to listening to reversed speech. The between-region correlations were then related to the amount of fiction that participants read in their daily lives. Our results show that amount of fiction reading is related to functional connectivity in areas known to be involved in language and mentalizing. This suggests that reading fiction influences social cognition as well as language skills.

scholarly journals Behavioral effects of continuous theta-burst stimulation in macaque parietal cortex

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lara Merken ◽  
Marco Davare ◽  
Peter Janssen ◽  
Maria C. Romero
Keyword(s):  
Parietal Cortex ◽  
High Intensity ◽  
Theta Burst Stimulation ◽  
Burst Stimulation ◽  
Primate Model ◽  
Power Grip ◽  
Fitts Law ◽  
Behavioral Evidence ◽  
Theta Burst ◽  
Continuous Theta Burst Stimulation

AbstractThe neural mechanisms underlying the effects of continuous Theta-Burst Stimulation (cTBS) in humans are poorly understood. Animal studies can clarify the effects of cTBS on individual neurons, but behavioral evidence is necessary to demonstrate the validity of the animal model. We investigated the behavioral effect of cTBS applied over parietal cortex in rhesus monkeys performing a visually-guided grasping task with two differently sized objects, which required either a power grip or a pad-to-side grip. We used Fitts’ law, predicting shorter grasping times (GT) for large compared to small objects, to investigate cTBS effects on two different grip types. cTBS induced long-lasting object-specific and dose-dependent changes in GT that remained present for up to two hours. High-intensity cTBS increased GTs for a power grip, but shortened GTs for a pad-to-side grip. Thus, high-intensity stimulation strongly reduced the natural GT difference between objects (i.e. the Fitts’ law effect). In contrast, low-intensity cTBS induced the opposite effects on GT. Modifying the coil orientation from the standard 45-degree to a 30-degree angle induced opposite cTBS effects on GT. These findings represent behavioral evidence for the validity of the nonhuman primate model to study the neural underpinnings of non-invasive brain stimulation.

scholarly journals No Evidence of Perceptual Pseudoneglect in Alexithymia

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 376
Author(s):  
Carmelo Mario Vicario ◽  
Gabriella Martino ◽  
Alex Marcuzzo ◽  
Giuseppe Craparo
Keyword(s):  
Right Hemisphere ◽  
Line Bisection ◽  
Mental Condition ◽  
Bisection Task ◽  
Rightward Shift ◽  
Behavioral Evidence ◽  
And Performance ◽  
The Right ◽  
Line Bisection Task ◽  
Tas 20

Neuroscience research links alexithymia, the difficulty in identifying and describing feelings and emotions, with left hemisphere dominance and/or right hemisphere deficit. To provide behavioral evidence for this neuroscientific hypothesis, we explored the relationship between alexithymia and performance in a line bisection task, a standard method for evaluating visuospatial processing in relation to right hemisphere functioning. We enrolled 222 healthy participants who completed a version of the 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20), which measures alexithymia, and were asked to mark (bisect) the center of a 10-cm horizontal segment. The results document a significant rightward shift in the center of the line in participants with borderline and manifest alexithymia compared with non-alexithymic individuals. The higher the TAS-20 score, the greater the rightward shift in the line bisection task. This finding supports the right hemisphere deficit hypothesis in alexithymia and suggests that visuospatial abnormalities may be an important component of this mental condition.

scholarly journals Corroborating behavioral evidence for the interplay of representational richness and semantic control in semantic word processing

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Bechtold ◽  
Christian Bellebaum ◽  
Paul Hoffman ◽  
Marta Ghio
Keyword(s):  
Word Processing ◽  
Context Effects ◽  
Reaction Times ◽  
Abstract Word ◽  
Judgment Task ◽  
Healthy Adults ◽  
Control Mechanisms ◽  
Contextual Cues ◽  
Semantic Judgment ◽  
Behavioral Evidence

AbstractThis study aimed to replicate and validate concreteness and context effects on semantic word processing. In Experiment 1, we replicated the behavioral findings of Hoffman et al. (Cortex 63,250–266, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2014.09.001, 2015) by applying their cueing paradigm with their original stimuli translated into German. We found concreteness and contextual cues to facilitate word processing in a semantic judgment task with 55 healthy adults. The two factors interacted in their effect on reaction times: abstract word processing profited more strongly from a contextual cue, while the concrete words’ processing advantage was reduced but still present. For accuracy, the descriptive pattern of results suggested an interaction, which was, however, not significant. In Experiment 2, we reformulated the contextual cues to avoid repetition of the to-be-processed word. In 83 healthy adults, the same pattern of results emerged, further validating the findings. Our corroborating evidence supports theories integrating representational richness and semantic control mechanisms as complementary mechanisms in semantic word processing.

scholarly journals The association of prefrontal cortex response during a natural reward cue-reactivity paradigm, anhedonia, and demoralization in persons maintained on methadone

2021 ◽  
Vol 113 ◽  
pp. 106673
Author(s):  
Andrew S. Huhn ◽  
Robert K. Brooner ◽  
Mary M. Sweeney ◽  
Denis Antoine ◽  
Alexis S. Hammond ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Cue Reactivity ◽  
Natural Reward
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