Individual differences in the neural dynamics of visual narrative comprehension: The effects of proficiency and age of acquisition.

Understanding visual narrative sequences, as found in comics, is known to recruit similar cognitive mechanisms to verbal language. As measured by event-related potentials (ERPs), these manifest as initial negativities (N400, LAN) and subsequent positivities (P600). While these components are thought to index discrete processing stages, they differentially arise across participants for any given stimulus.

Identifying neuroanatomical and behavioral features for autism spectrum disorder diagnosis in children using machine learning.

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder that can cause significant social, communication, and behavioral challenges. Diagnosis of ASD is complicated and there is an urgent need to identify ASD-associated biomarkers and features to help automate diagnostics and develop predictive ASD models. The present study adopts a novel evolutionary algorithm, the conjunctive clause evolutionary algorithm (CCEA), to select features most significant for distinguishing individuals with and without ASD, and is able to accommodate datasets having a small number of samples with a large number of feature measurements.

The time-locked neurodynamics of semantic processing in autism spectrum disorder: an EEG study.

Language processing is often an area of difficulty in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Semantic processing-the ability to add meaning to a stimulus-is thought to be especially affected in ASD. However, the neurological origin of these deficits, both structurally and temporally, have yet to be discovered.

Implicit Semantic Processing of Linguistic and Non-linguistic Stimuli in Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

While many individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) experience difficulties with language processing, non-linguistic semantic processing may be intact. We examined neural responses to an implicit semantic priming task by comparing N400 responses-an event-related potential related to semantic processing-in response to semantically related or unrelated pairs of words or pictures. Adults with ASD showed larger N400 responses than typically developing adults for pictures, but no group differences occurred for words.

Predictability modulates neurocognitive semantic processing of non-verbal narratives.

Predictability is known to modulate semantic processing in language, but it is unclear to what extent this applies for other modalities. Here we ask whether similar cognitive processes are at play in predicting upcoming events in a non-verbal visual narrative. Typically developing adults viewed comics sequences in which a target panel was highly predictable ("high cloze"), less predictable ("low cloze"), or incongruent with the preceding narrative context ("anomalous") during EEG recording.

Lack of awareness despite complex visual processing: Evidence from event-related potentials in a case of selective metamorphopsia.

Visual awareness is thought to result from integration of low- and high-level processing; instances of integration failure provide a crucial window into the cognitive and neural bases of awareness. We present neurophysiological evidence of complex cognitive processing in the absence of awareness, raising questions about the conditions necessary for visual awareness. We describe an individual with a neurodegenerative disease who exhibits impaired visual awareness for the digits 2 to 9, and stimuli presented in close proximity to these digits, due to perceptual distortion.

Dismantling the "Visual Ease Assumption:" A Review of Visual Narrative Processing in Clinical Populations.

Visual narratives, such as wordless picture books and picture sequences like comics, have a long history in clinical testing, research, and intervention settings. The widespread "Visual Ease Assumption" rests on the premise that visual narratives, given their non-linguistic nature, may alleviate processing difficulties in populations that struggle with language. In this paper, I review the evidence for and against this Visual Ease Assumption in three clinical populations in which language deficits are common or diagnostic: autism spectrum disorder (ASD), specific language impairment (SLI; now known as Developmental Language Disorder, DLD), and aphasia.

Implicit Measures of Receptive Vocabulary Knowledge in Individuals With Level 3 Autism.

Implicit measures of cognition are essential for assessing knowledge in people with Level 3 autism because such individuals are often unable to make reliable overt behavioral responses. In this study, we investigated whether three implicit measures-eye movement (EM) monitoring, pupillary dilation (PD), and event-related potentials (ERPs)-can be used to reliably estimate vocabulary knowledge in individuals with Level 3 autism. Five adults with Level 3 autism were tested in a repeated-measures design with two tasks.

Visual and linguistic narrative comprehension in autism spectrum disorders: Neural evidence for modality-independent impairments.

Individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have notable language difficulties, including with understanding narratives. However, most narrative comprehension studies have used written or spoken narratives, making it unclear whether narrative difficulties stem from language impairments or more global impairments in the kinds of general cognitive processes (such as understanding meaning and structural sequencing) that are involved in narrative comprehension. Using event-related potentials (ERPs), we directly compared semantic comprehension of linguistic narratives (short sentences) and visual narratives (comic panels) in adults with ASD and typically-developing (TD) adults.

A Semantic Priming Event-related Potential (ERP) Task to Study Lexico-semantic and Visuo-semantic Processing in Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have characteristic deficits in understanding the meaning of language, or semantic processing. However, some evidence indicates that semantic processing of non-linguistic stimuli is intact, suggesting that semantic deficits may be language-specific. To appropriately characterize semantic processing deficits in individuals with ASD, comparison of within-modality linguistic (e.

Linguistic and Non-Linguistic Semantic Processing in Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders: An ERP Study.

Individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) experience difficulties with language, particularly higher-level functions like semantic integration. Yet some studies indicate that semantic processing of non-linguistic stimuli is not impaired, suggesting a language-specific deficit in semantic processing. Using a semantic priming task, we compared event-related potentials (ERPs) in response to lexico-semantic processing (written words) and visuo-semantic processing (pictures) in adults with ASD and adults with typical development (TD).

The Functional Overlap of Executive Control and Language Processing in Bilinguals.

The need to control multiple languages is thought to require domain-general executive control (EC) in bilinguals such that the EC and language systems become interdependent. However, there has been no systematic investigation into how and where EC and language processes overlap in the bilingual brain. If the concurrent recruitment of EC during bilingual language processing is domain-general and extends to non-linguistic EC, we hypothesize that regions commonly involvement in language processing, linguistic EC, and non-linguistic EC may be selectively altered in bilinguals compared to monolinguals.

The concurrent use of three implicit measures (eye movements, pupillometry, and event-related potentials) to assess receptive vocabulary knowledge in normal adults.

Recent years have seen the advent and proliferation of the use of implicit techniques to study learning and cognition. One such application is the use of event-related potentials (ERPs) to assess receptive vocabulary knowledge. Other implicit assessment techniques that may be well-suited to other testing situations or to use with varied participant groups have not been used as widely to study receptive vocabulary knowledge.

The effect of script similarity on executive control in bilinguals.

The need for executive control (EC) during bilingual language processing is thought to enhance these abilities, conferring a "bilingual advantage" on EC tasks. Recently, the reliability and robustness of the bilingual advantage has been questioned, with many variables reportedly affecting the size and presence of the bilingual advantage. This study investigates one further variable that may affect bilingual EC abilities: the similarity of a bilingual's two languages.

Electrophysiological explorations of the bilingual advantage: evidence from a Stroop task.

Bilinguals have been shown to exhibit a performance advantage on executive control tasks, outperforming their monolingual counterparts. Although a wealth of research has investigated this 'bilingual advantage' behaviourally, electrophysiological correlates are lacking. Using EEG with a Stroop task that manipulated the stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) of word and colour presentation, the current study addressed two facets of the bilingual advantage.

Modulations of the executive control network by stimulus onset asynchrony in a Stroop task.

Background: Manipulating task difficulty is a useful way of elucidating the functional recruitment of the brain's executive control network. In a Stroop task, pre-exposing the irrelevant word using varying stimulus onset asynchronies ('negative' SOAs) modulates the amount of behavioural interference and facilitation, suggesting disparate mechanisms of cognitive processing in each SOA. The current study employed a Stroop task with three SOAs (-400, -200, 0 ms), using functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate for the first time the neural effects of SOA manipulation.

The timing and magnitude of Stroop interference and facilitation in monolinguals and bilinguals.

Executive control abilities and lexical access speed in Stroop performance were investigated in English monolinguals and two groups of bilinguals (English-Chinese and Chinese-English) in their first (L1) and second (L2) languages. Predictions were based on a bilingual cognitive advantage hypothesis, implicating cognitive control ability as the critical factor determining Stroop interference; and two bilingual lexical disadvantage hypotheses, focusing on lexical access speed. Importantly, each hypothesis predicts different response patterns in a Stroop task manipulating stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA).

Gastrin-releasing peptide acts via postsynaptic BB2 receptors to modulate inward rectifier K+ and TRPV1-like conductances in rat paraventricular thalamic neurons.

Gastrin-releasing peptide (GRP) is a bombesin-like peptide with a widespread distribution in mammalian CNS, where it has a role in food intake, circadian rhythm generation, fear memory, itch sensation and sexual behaviour. While it has been established that GRP predominantly excites neurons, details of the membrane mechanism involved in this action remain largely undefined. We used perforated patch clamp recording in acute brain slice preparations to investigate GRP-affected receptors and ionic conductances in neurons of the rat paraventricular thalamic nucleus (PVT).

Nicotine treatment of mild cognitive impairment: a 6-month double-blind pilot clinical trial.

Objective: To preliminarily assess the safety and efficacy of transdermal nicotine therapy on cognitive performance and clinical status in subjects with mild cognitive impairment (MCI).

Methods: Nonsmoking subjects with amnestic MCI were randomized to transdermal nicotine (15 mg per day or placebo) for 6 months. Primary outcome variables were attentional improvement assessed with Connors Continuous Performance Test (CPT), clinical improvement as measured by clinical global impression, and safety measures.

The Influence of Cross-Language Similarity on within- and between-Language Stroop Effects in Trilinguals.

This study investigated effects of cross-language similarity on within- and between-language Stroop interference and facilitation in three groups of trilinguals. Trilinguals were either proficient in three languages that use the same-script (alphabetic in German-English-Dutch trilinguals), two similar scripts and one different script (Chinese and alphabetic scripts in Chinese-English-Malay trilinguals), or three completely different scripts (Arabic, Chinese, and alphabetic in Uyghur-Chinese-English trilinguals). The results revealed a similar magnitude of within-language Stroop interference for the three groups, whereas between-language interference was modulated by cross-language similarity.

Electrophysiological measures of conflict detection and resolution in the Stroop task.

Conflict detection and resolution is crucial in a cognitive task like the Stroop task. Previous studies have identified an early negativity component (N(inc)) as a prominent marker of Stroop conflict in event-related potentials (ERPs). However, to what extent this ERP component reflects conflict detection and/or resolution is still unclear.

Electrophysiological, pharmacological and molecular profile of the transient outward rectifying conductance in rat sympathetic preganglionic neurons in vitro.

Transient outward rectifying conductances or A-like conductances in sympathetic preganglionic neurons (SPN) are prolonged, lasting for hundreds of milliseconds to seconds and are thought to play a key role in the regulation of SPN firing frequency. Here, a multidisciplinary electrophysiological, pharmacological and molecular single-cell rt-PCR approach was used to investigate the kinetics, pharmacological profile and putative K+ channel subunits underlying the transient outward rectifying conductance expressed in SPN. SPN expressed a 4-aminopyridine (4-AP) sensitive transient outward rectification with significantly longer decay kinetics than reported for many other central neurons.

Estrogen treatment impairs cognitive performance after psychosocial stress and monoamine depletion in postmenopausal women.

Objective: Recent studies have shown that women experience an acceleration of cognitive problems after menopause and that estrogen treatment can improve or at least maintain current levels of cognitive functioning in postmenopausal women. However, we have previously shown that the negative emotional effects of psychosocial stress are magnified in normal postmenopausal women after estrogen treatment. This study examined whether estradiol (E2) administration can modify cognitive performance after exposure to psychological stress and monoamine depletion.