Regulatory T cells restrict immunity and pathology in distal tissue sites following a localized infection.

Regulatory T cells (Tregs) are well-known to mediate peripheral tolerance at homeostasis, and there is a growing appreciation for their role in modulating infectious disease immunity. Following acute and chronic infections, Tregs can restrict pathogen-specific T cell responses to limit immunopathology. However, it is unclear if Tregs mediate control of pathology and immunity in distal tissue sites during localized infections.

Differences in rural and urban drivers' attitudes and beliefs about seat belts.

In the United States, a disproportionate number of motor vehicle crash fatalities occur in rural areas. While many factors likely contribute to the discrepancy between fatality rates in rural and urban areas, prior studies suggest that rural drivers may be more likely to engage in risky driving behaviors like seat belt non-use. Although having favorable attitudes or beliefs about seat belts increases the likelihood of wearing them, few studies have investigated the possibility that lower rates of seat belt use in rural areas may result from a greater prevalence of unfavorable seat belt attitudes and beliefs-one part of a distinct rural "traffic safety culture.

Bilateral functional connectivity at rest predicts apraxic symptoms after left hemisphere stroke.

Increasing evidence indicates that focal lesions following stroke cause alterations in connectivity among functional brain networks. Functional connectivity between hemispheres has been shown to be particularly critical for predicting stroke-related behavioral deficits and recovery of motor function and attention. Much less is known, however, about the relevance of interhemispheric functional connectivity for cognitive abilities like praxis that rely on strongly lateralized brain networks.

Corrigendum: The role of action representations in thematic object relations.

[This corrects the article on p. 140 in vol. 8, PMID: 24672461.

Shared and Distinct Neuroanatomic Regions Critical for Tool-related Action Production and Recognition: Evidence from 131 Left-hemisphere Stroke Patients.

The inferior frontal gyrus and inferior parietal lobe have been characterized as human homologues of the monkey "mirror neuron" system, critical for both action production (AP) and action recognition (AR). However, data from brain lesion patients with selective impairment on only one of these tasks provide evidence of neural and cognitive dissociations. We sought to clarify the relationship between AP and AR, and their critical neural substrates, by directly comparing performance of 131 chronic left-hemisphere stroke patients on both tasks--to our knowledge, the largest lesion-based experimental investigation of action cognition to date.

A distributed network critical for selecting among tool-directed actions.

Tools pose a challenge to the need to select actions appropriate for task goals and environmental constraints. For many tools (e.g.

Uncovering the architecture of action semantics.

Despite research suggesting that stored sensorimotor information about tool use is a component of the semantic representations of tools, little is known about the action features or organizing principles that underlie this knowledge. We used methods similar to those applied in other semantic domains to examine the "architecture" of action semantic knowledge. In Experiment 1, participants sorted photographs of tools into groups according to the similarity of their associated "use" actions and rated tools on dimensions related to action.

The specificity of action knowledge in sensory and motor systems.

Neuroimaging studies have found that sensorimotor systems are engaged when participants observe actions or comprehend action language. However, most of these studies have asked the binary question of whether action concepts are embodied or not, rather than whether sensory and motor areas of the brain contain graded amounts of information during putative action simulations. To address this question, we used repetition suppression (RS) functional magnetic resonance imaging to determine if functionally-localized motor movement and visual motion regions-of-interest (ROI) and two anatomical ROIs (inferior frontal gyrus, IFG; left posterior middle temporal gyrus, pMTG) were sensitive to changes in the exemplar (e.

The role of action representations in thematic object relations.

A number of studies have explored the role of associative/event-based (thematic) and categorical (taxonomic) relations in the organization of object representations. Recent evidence suggests that thematic information may be particularly important in determining relationships between manipulable artifacts. However, although sensorimotor information is on many accounts an important component of manipulable artifact representations, little is known about the role that action may play during the processing of semantic relationships (particularly thematic relationships) between multiple objects.

Action concepts in the brain: an activation likelihood estimation meta-analysis.

Many recent neuroimaging studies have investigated the representation of semantic memory for actions in the brain. We used activation likelihood estimation (ALE) meta-analyses to answer two outstanding questions about the neural basis of action concepts. First, on an "embodied" view of semantic memory, evidence to date is unclear regarding whether visual motion or motor systems are more consistently engaged by action concepts.

SOS! An algorithm and software for the stochastic optimization of stimuli.

The characteristics of the stimuli used in an experiment critically determine the theoretical questions the experiment can address. Yet there is relatively little methodological support for selecting optimal sets of items, and most researchers still carry out this process by hand. In this research, we present SOS, an algorithm and software package for the stochastic optimization of stimuli.

From novel to familiar: tuning the brain for metaphors.

Metaphors are fundamental to creative thought and expression. Newly coined metaphors regularly infiltrate our collective vocabulary and gradually become familiar, but it is unclear how this shift from novel to conventionalized meaning happens in the brain. We investigated the neural career of metaphors in a functional magnetic resonance imaging study using extensively normed new metaphors and simulated the ordinary, gradual experience of metaphor conventionalization by manipulating participants' exposure to these metaphors.

A bilateral frontoparietal network underlies visuospatial analogical reasoning.

Our ability to reason by analogy facilitates problem solving and allows us to communicate ideas efficiently. In this study, we examined the neural correlates of analogical reasoning and, more specifically, the contribution of rostrolateral prefrontal cortex (RLPFC) to reasoning. This area of the brain has been hypothesized to integrate relational information, as in analogy, or the outcomes of subgoals, as in multi-tasking and complex problem solving.

The functional neuroanatomy of actions.

Our current understanding of the neural basis of semantic memory is informed primarily by studies of concrete objects. However, conceptual knowledge encompasses many other, albeit less concrete, domains. This article reviews evidence from neuroimaging and patient studies that speaks to the neural basis of action concepts and the words that refer to them.