Action viewing and language in adolescents with autism spectrum disorder.

The mirror neuron system consists of fronto-parietal regions and responds to both goal-directed action execution and observation. The broader action observation network is specifically involved in observation of actions and is thought to play a role in understanding the goals of the motor act, the intention of others, empathy, and language. Many, but not all, studies have found mirror neuron system or action observation network dysfunction in autism spectrum disorder.

Limb Apraxia: a Disorder of Learned Skilled Movement.

Purpose Of Review: This chapter focuses on limb apraxia, a cognitive-motor disorder of learned skilled movement, and the nature of the spatiotemporal errors that disrupt movement sequences.

Recent Findings: A cognitive model that attempts to reconcile conceptual and preparatory aspects of the motor program with perceptual and kinematic features will be discussed. An update on the localization of the praxis network will be provided.

Frontal lesions predict response to prism adaptation treatment in spatial neglect: A randomised controlled study.

Spatial neglect commonly follows right hemisphere stroke. It is defined as impaired contralesional stimulus detection, response, or action, causing functional disability. While prism adaptation treatment is highly promising to promote functional recovery of spatial neglect, not all individuals respond.

Atypical PT anatomy in children with autism spectrum disorder with expressive language deficits.

Deficits in communication are a core feature of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), however, structural language abilities are highly variable, ranging from minimally verbal to superior linguistic skills. Differences in the anatomy of cortical language regions, including anterior and posterior areas, have been found in ASD. It remains unclear, however, if anatomical differences distinguish individuals with impaired expressive language from those without such deficits.

Unilateral repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation differentially affects younger and older adults completing a verbal working memory task.

Functional neuroimaging studies have found that lateralization of activity in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) is reduced with aging. In the present study, repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) was used to disrupt dlPFC activity in order to test the relationship of dlPFC laterality and age in verbal working memory (WM). Young (n=36) and older (n=35) subjects received 1Hz-rTMS (sham or active) to left or right dlPFC and WM performance was assessed pre- and post-stimulation via the n-back task.