Emotional text messages affect the early processing of emoticons depending on their emotional congruence: evidence from the N170 and EPN event related potentials.

Emoticons have been considered pragmatic cues that enhance emotional expressivity during computer-mediated communication. Yet, it is unclear how emoticons are processed in ambiguous text-based communication due to incongruences between the emoticon's emotional valence and its context. In this study, we investigated the electrophysiological correlates of contextual influence on the early emotional processing of emoticons, during an emotional congruence judgment task.

Executive Functions and Theory of Mind in Teachers and Non-Teachers.

Human teaching is a key behavior for the socialization of cultural knowledge. Previous studies suggest that human teaching behavior would support the development of executive and ToM skills, which in turn would refine the teaching behavior. Given this connection, it raises the question of whether subjects with professional training in teaching also have more efficient executive and ToM systems.

Assessing Spatial User Experience for Design Guidelines: A Comparative Study of Outpatient Waiting Rooms With Conventional Versus Modern Features.

Objectives: Identify waiting room design features that are most appreciated by outpatients and their companions in conventional and modern waiting rooms. Evaluate if end users evaluate the environment differently from experts and in what aspects. Provide evidence-based design guidelines that orient designers and healthcare managers.

Bi-Stable Perception: Self-Coordinating Brain Regions to Make-Up the Mind.

Bi-stable perception is a strong instance of cognitive self-organization, providing a research model for how 'the brain makes up its mind.' The complexity of perceptual bistability prevents a simple attribution of functions to areas, because many cognitive processes, recruiting multiple brain regions, are simultaneously involved. The functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) evidence suggests the activation of a large network of distant brain areas.

Increase in Beta Power Reflects Attentional Top-Down Modulation After Psychosocial Stress Induction.

Selective attention depends on goal-directed and stimulus-driven modulatory factors, each relayed by different brain rhythms. Under certain circumstances, stress-related states can change the balance between goal-directed and stimulus-driven factors. However, the neuronal mechanisms underlying these changes remain unclear.

Surgical Stabilization of Rib Fractures: Indications, Techniques, and Pitfalls.

Unlabelled: Rib fractures are a common thoracic injury that is encountered in 20% to 39% of patients with blunt chest trauma and is associated with substantial morbidity and mortality. Traditionally, the majority of patient with rib fractures have been managed nonoperatively. Recently, the utilization of surgical stabilization of rib fractures has increased considerably because the procedure has shown improved outcomes.

Brain-to-Brain Coupling in the Gamma-Band as a Marker of Shared Intentionality.

Cooperation and competition are two ways of social interaction keys to life in society. Recent EEG-based hyperscanning studies reveal that cooperative and competitive interactions induce an increase in interbrain coupling. However, whether this interbrain coupling effect is just a reflection of inter-subject motor coordination or can also signal the type of social interaction is unknown.

Synthesis of thieno[2,3-]-/[3,2-]quinolines and thieno[2,3-] quinolines by Brønsted acid mediated cycloisomerisation.

Several thieno[2,3-h]-/[3,2-h]- and [2,3-f]quinolines have been synthesised from 2,3-dihalogenated pyridines or -quinolines by site-selective Pd catalysed cross-coupling reactions and Brønsted acid mediated cycloisomerisations as the final key step. This newly developed synthetic strategy is used in a modular way to synthesize diverse regioisomeric derivatives, tolerates various functional groups, and proceeds with high selectivity, and the desired final products have been isolated in high overall yields.

Humor Improves Women's but Impairs Men's Iowa Gambling Task Performance.

The Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) is a popular method for examining real-life decision-making. Research has shown gender related differences in performance, in that men consistently outperform women. It has been suggested that these performance differences are related to decreased emotional control in women compared to men.

Beta Oscillations Distinguish Between Two Forms of Mental Imagery While Gamma and Theta Activity Reflects Auditory Attention.

Visual sensory processing of external events decreases when attention is internally oriented toward self-generated thoughts and also differences in attenuation have been shown depending on the thought's modality (visual or auditory thought). The present study aims to assess whether such modulations occurs also in auditory modality. In order to investigate auditory sensory modulations, we compared a passive listening condition with two conditions in which attention was internally oriented as a part of a task; a visual imagery condition and an inner speech condition.

Extracellular Matrix Applications in the Treatment of Open Fractures With Complex Wounds and Large Soft Tissue Defects.

Use of biologic scaffolds such as extracellular matrix (ECM) is a promising trend in the treatment of complex wounds in orthopedic trauma patients. In this clinical series we describe the technique of the successful application of porcine urinary bladder ECM products in the treatment of open fractures of the extremities with complex wounds and large soft tissue defects. The clinical outcomes demonstrated that even in challenging cases where local flap coverage of bone or neurovascular structures is not possible, sequential xenograft implantation allowed us to achieve a stable soft tissue envelope.

Pre-stimulus EEG oscillations correlate with perceptual alternation of speech forms.

Speech perception is often seen as a passive process guided by physical stimulus properties. However, ongoing brain dynamics could influence the subsequent perceptual organization of the speech, to an as yet unknown extent. To elucidate this issue, we analyzed EEG oscillatory activity before and immediately after the repetitive auditory presentation of words inducing the so-called verbal transformation effect (VTE), or spontaneous alternation of meanings due to its rapid repetition.

Data of ERPs and spectral alpha power when attention is engaged on visual or verbal/auditory imagery.

This article provides data from statistical analysis of event-related brain potentials (ERPs) and spectral power from 20 participants during three attentional conditions. Specifically, P1, N1 and P300 amplitude of ERP were compared when participant׳s attention was oriented to an external task, to a visual imagery and to an inner speech. The spectral power from alpha band was also compared in these three attentional conditions.

Orienting attention to visual or verbal/auditory imagery differentially impairs the processing of visual stimuli.

When attention is oriented toward inner thoughts, as spontaneously occurs during mind wandering, the processing of external information is attenuated. However, the potential effects of thought's content regarding sensory attenuation are still unknown. The present study aims to assess if the representational format of thoughts, such as visual imagery or inner speech, might differentially affect the sensory processing of external stimuli.

Ways of making-sense: Local gamma synchronization reveals differences between semantic processing induced by music and language.

Similar to linguistic stimuli, music can also prime the meaning of a subsequent word. However, it is so far unknown what is the brain dynamics underlying the semantic priming effect induced by music, and its relation to language. To elucidate these issues, we compare the brain oscillatory response to visual words that have been semantically primed either by a musical excerpt or by an auditory sentence.

Oscillations or Synchrony? Disruption of Neural Synchrony despite Enhanced Gamma Oscillations in a Model of Disrupted Perceptual Coherence.

It has been hypothesized that neural synchrony underlies perceptual coherence. The hypothesis of loss of central perceptual coherence has been proposed to be at the origin of abnormal cognition in autism spectrum disorders and Williams syndrome, a neurodevelopmental disorder linked with autism, and a clearcut model for impaired central coherence. We took advantage of this model of impaired holistic processing to test the hypothesis that loss of neural synchrony plays a separable role in visual integration using EEG and a set of experimental tasks requiring coherent integration of local elements leading to 3-D face perception.

The dual facet of gamma oscillations: separate visual and decision making circuits as revealed by simultaneous EEG/fMRI.

It remains an outstanding question whether gamma-band oscillations reflect unitary cognitive processes within the same task. EEG/MEG studies do lack the resolution or coverage to address the highly debated question whether single gamma activity patterns are linked with multiple cognitive modules or alternatively each pattern associates with a specific cognitive module, within the same coherent perceptual task. One way to disentangle these issues would be to provide direct identification of their sources, by combining different techniques.

To perceive or not perceive: the role of gamma-band activity in signaling object percepts.

The relation of gamma-band synchrony to holistic perception in which concerns the effects of sensory processing, high level perceptual gestalt formation, motor planning and response is still controversial. To provide a more direct link to emergent perceptual states we have used holistic EEG/ERP paradigms where the moment of perceptual "discovery" of a global pattern was variable. Using a rapid visual presentation of short-lived Mooney objects we found an increase of gamma-band activity locked to perceptual events.

TiN nanoparticles: small size-selected fabrication and their quantum size effect.

Size-selected TiN nanoclusters in the range of 4 to 20 nm have been produced by an ionized cluster beam, which combines a glow-discharge sputtering with an inert gas condensation technique. With this method, by controlling the experimental conditions, it was possible to produce nanoparticles with a high control in size. The size distribution of TiN nanoparticles was determined before deposition by mass spectroscopy and confirmed by atomic force microscopy.

Expectations change the signatures and timing of electrophysiological correlates of perceptual awareness.

Previous experience allows the brain to predict what comes next. How these expectations affect conscious experience is poorly understood. In particular, it is unknown whether and when expectations interact with sensory evidence in granting access to conscious perception, and how this is reflected electrophysiologically.

Ten years of Nature Reviews Neuroscience: insights from the highly cited.

To celebrate the first 10 years of Nature Reviews Neuroscience, we invited the authors of the most cited article of each year to look back on the state of their field of research at the time of publication and the impact their article has had, and to discuss the questions that might be answered in the next 10 years. This selection of highly cited articles provides interesting snapshots of the progress that has been made in diverse areas of neuroscience. They show the enormous influence of neuroimaging techniques and highlight concepts that have generated substantial interest in the past decade, such as neuroimmunology, social neuroscience and the 'network approach' to brain function.

Neural synchrony and the development of cortical networks.

Recent data indicate that the synchronisation of oscillatory activity is relevant for the development of cortical circuits as demonstrated by the involvement of neural synchrony in synaptic plasticity and changes in the frequency and synchronisation of neural oscillations during development. Analyses of resting-state and task-related neural synchrony indicate that gamma-oscillations emerge during early childhood and precise temporal coordination through neural synchrony continues to mature until early adulthood. The late maturation of neural synchrony is compatible with changes in the myelination of cortico-cortical connections and with late development of GABAergic neurotransmission.

Performance- and stimulus-dependent oscillations in monkey prefrontal cortex during short-term memory.

Short-term memory requires the coordination of sub-processes like encoding, retention, retrieval and comparison of stored material to subsequent input. Neuronal oscillations have an inherent time structure, can effectively coordinate synaptic integration of large neuron populations and could therefore organize and integrate distributed sub-processes in time and space. We observed field potential oscillations (14-95 Hz) in ventral prefrontal cortex of monkeys performing a visual memory task.

Cortical oscillatory activity is critical for working memory as revealed by deficits in early-onset schizophrenia.

Impairments in working memory (WM) are a core cognitive deficit in schizophrenia. Neurophysiological models suggest that deficits during WM maintenance in schizophrenia may be explained by abnormalities in the GABAergic system, which will lead to deficits in high-frequency oscillations. However, it is not yet clear which of the three WM phases (encoding, maintenance, retrieval) are affected by dysfunctional oscillatory activity.