Diversity of aphantasia revealed by multiple assessments of visual imagery, multisensory imagery, and cognitive style.

Aphantasia-a condition wherein individuals have a reduced or absent construction of voluntary visual imagery-is diagnosed using either the Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire (VVIQ) or self-identification. However, a significant discrepancy exists between the proportions of aphantasia in the populations assessed using these two criteria. It is unclear why the reported proportions differ excessively and what percentage of people cannot form visual imagery.

Cultural Differences in Susceptibility to the End of History Illusion.

The End of History Illusion (EoHI) is the tendency to report that a greater amount of change occurred in the past than is predicted to occur in the future. We investigated if cultural differences exist in the magnitude of the EoHI for self-reported life satisfaction and personality traits. We found an effect of culture such that the difference between reported past and predicted future change was greater for U.

The role of culture on the link between worldviews on nature and psychological health during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Worldviews about human's relationship with the natural world play an important role in psychological health. However, very little is currently known regarding the way worldviews about nature are linked with psychological health during a severe natural disaster and how this link may differ according to cultural context. In this study, we measured individual differences in worldviews about nature and psychological health during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic within two different cultural contexts (Japan and United States).

Numerical Processing and Executive Functioning in Early Versus Middle Childhood: A Japanese Sample.

Many previous studies have investigated developmental differences in numerical processing by manipulating numerical distance and physical size in a number sequence. While it has been theorized that children's maturity level in executive functioning affects their numerical processing, the interaction between numerical processing and executive functioning through development remains unclear. We divided 60 Japanese school children, aged 8-12 years, into three age-related groups (second graders, fourth graders, and sixth graders) and had them perform physical and numerical comparison Stroop tasks.

Sex differences in neurophysiological responses are modulated by attentional aspects of impulse control.

The amplitudes of the N2 and P3 components of event-related potentials (ERPs) may be influenced by personality traits such as impulsivity, and male/female differences may also have an effect. However, few studies have assessed the interaction between personality traits and the sex of the subject in these components. Therefore, in this study we evaluated sex differences in the amplitudes of the N2 and P3 ERP components during a continuous performance task, and their relation to impulse control.

Functional connectivity with the anterior cingulate is associated with extraversion during the emotional Stroop task.

Previous research has investigated the association of personality traits with brain activation in response to emotional stimuli. Our current research efforts are directed at understanding the temporal dynamics of networks of structures associated with particular personality traits, and gain insights into the functional contributions of more narrowly defined trait-facets that comprise these personality traits. To begin this process, we conducted a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study using an emotional attention task (emotional Stroop paradigm) and addressed the question whether individual differences in extraversion and its lower-level facets were associated with differences in activation, and in functional connectivity, of the anterior cingulate (AC) cortex.

Emotional conflict and neuroticism: personality-dependent activation in the amygdala and subgenual anterior cingulate.

The amygdala and subgenual anterior cingulate (AC) have been associated with anxiety and mood disorders, for which trait neuroticism is a risk factor. Prior work has not related individual differences in amygdala or subgenual AC activation with neuroticism. Functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to investigate changes in blood oxygen level-dependent signal within the amygdala and subgenual AC associated with trait neuroticism in a nonclinical sample of 36 volunteers during an emotional conflict task.

Construction of robust ruthenium(salen)(CO) complexes and asymmetric aziridination with nitrene precursors in the form of azide compounds that bear easily removable N-sulfonyl groups.

We synthesized new Ru(salen)(CO) complexes of high durability and achieved aziridination with good to excellent enantioselectivity by using azide compounds that contain an easily removable N-sulfonyl group, such as the 2-(trimethylsilyl)ethanesulfonyl group, as a nitrene precursor. Aziridination of less-reactive alpha,beta-unsaturated esters (and amides) proceeded with excellent enantioselectivities, from which it is inferred that an electrophilic species is the active species of this reaction. The present asymmetric aziridination provides a useful tool for introducing optically active nonprotected amine groups.

Neural correlates of epigenesis.

The effect of life stress on depression is moderated by a repeat length variation in the transcriptional control region of the serotonin transporter gene, which renders carriers of the short variant vulnerable for depression. We investigated the underlying neural mechanisms of these epigenetic processes in individuals with no history of psychopathology by using multimodal magnetic resonance-based imaging (functional, perfusion, and structural), genotyping, and self-reported life stress and rumination. Based on functional MRI and perfusion data, we found support for a model by which life stress interacts with the effect of serotonin transporter genotype on amygdala and hippocampal resting activation, two regions involved in depression and stress.

Interference produced by emotional conflict associated with anterior cingulate activation.

The anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) is involved in cognition and emotion. In the classic Stroop task, presentation of stimuli that are in response conflict with one another produces activation in the caudal ACC. In the emotional Stroop task, presentation of emotionally salient stimuli produces activation in the rostral ACC.

Effects of monetary reward and punishment on stimulus-preceding negativity.

This study examined the effects of emotional valence on stimulus-preceding negativity (SPN) using reward and fine. A time estimation task under reward, punishment, combined, and control conditions was performed. Participants were rewarded for accurate responses in the reward condition, and were fined for incorrect estimations in the punishment condition.

Activation of insular cortex and subcortical regions related to feedback stimuli in a time estimation task: an fMRI study.

We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate brain activity related to motivational function of informative feedback stimuli in a time estimation task. In that task, subjects pressed a button as a response 3 s after a cue stimulus; a visual feedback stimulus was presented 2 s after the response. In a true feedback condition, subjects received true information (informative feedback) about their time-estimation performance.

Amygdala gray matter concentration is associated with extraversion and neuroticism.

Using high-resolution magnetic resonance imaging and voxel-based morphometry in 41 healthy individuals, this study evaluated the association between the personality traits of extraversion and neuroticism, on the one hand, and individual differences in localized brain volume and gray matter concentration, on the other, with a special focus on the amygdala. Extraversion was positively correlated with gray matter concentration in the left amygdala, whereas neuroticism was negatively correlated with gray matter concentration in the right amygdala. Given that neuroticism is a risk factor for depression, our finding offers one explanation as to why prior structural imaging studies of depressed patients (which did not control for personality) produced conflicting findings.

Variance maps as a novel tool for localizing regions of interest in imaging studies of individual differences.

Cognitive neuroimaging studies of individual differences seek to reveal brain mechanisms of cognition by associating intersubject variability in brain activation with other variables of interest, such as sex, personality trait, or mood state. The choice of a priori regions of interest (ROIs) raises problems, because the selection criterion is typically consistent activation across prior studies, suggesting little intersubject variability. Here, we introduce a novel approach for selecting regions that are defined on the basis of their variance characteristics, rather than on the basis of their location or because of theoretical expectations.

Beyond affect: a role for genetic variation of the serotonin transporter in neural activation during a cognitive attention task.

Prior work has highlighted the role of genetic variation within the repetitive sequence in the transcriptional control region of the serotonin (5-HT) transporter gene (5-HTT, SLC6A4) in modulating amygdala and prefrontal activation to negative emotional stimuli. However, these studies have not explicitly tested the assumption that the control condition (neutral baseline) does not itself produce changes in activation as a function of 5-HTT genotype. Using a fixation baseline condition, we show that variation in 5-HTT genotype is associated with differential activation to negative, positive, and neutral stimuli in limbic, striatal, and cortical regions.

Different mechanisms involved in interhemispheric transfer of visuomotor information.

Twenty-one subjects underwent event-related fMRI while carrying out a simple visuomotor task in which they responded to stimuli flashed either onto the right visual field, onto the left visual field, or onto both visual fields at once. The aim of this study was to clarify areas of brain activity associated with crossed-uncrossed differences (CUD) and to investigate differences of the brain activity between CUD and redundancy gain. An intriguing brain activation related to CUD was found in the genu of the corpus callosum (CC).

A double dissociation between mood states and personality traits in the anterior cingulate.

Neuroticism and extraversion are personality traits associated with negative and positive mood states, respectively, confounding trait and state factors that may affect brain responses to emotional stimuli. The authors dissociated these factors using fMRI and the emotional Stroop attention task: Anterior cingulate (AC) response to positive stimuli varied as a function of personality trait, but not mood state, whereas AC response to negative stimuli varied as a function of mood state, but not personality trait. Negative mood, but not personality trait, also increased the functional connectivity between AC and other regions.

Simultaneous confirmatory factor analysis of the wechsler memory scale - revised for two standardization samples: a comparison of groups from Japan and the United States.

We employed a simultaneous confirmatory factor analysis to assess the hypothesized three-factor structure of the Wechsler Memory Scale - Revised (i.e., Attention/Concentration, Immediate Memory, Delayed Recall factors) in samples from Japan and the United States.

Design of a robust Ru(salen) complex: aziridination with improved turnover number using N-arylsulfonyl azides as precursors.

A new robust fluorinated (OC)Ru(salen) complex was designed on the basis of an X-ray structure of its parent complex to show improved turnover numbers (up to 878) and enantioselectivities (up to 99%) in aziridination reactions using p-toluenesulfonyl (Ts) or p-nitrobenzenesulfonyl (Ns) azide as the nitrene precursor; the latter is synthetically advantageous since the Ns group is N-protecting and can be removed under mild conditions.

Neural correlates of phoneme-to-grapheme conversion.

In writing to dictation, one mode of language processing is based on the knowledge of how to convert speech sounds to the corresponding letters, namely, phoneme-to-grapheme conversion (phonological mode). Little is known about the neural substrates of the phoneme-to-grapheme conversion. Our study aims to clarify the neural substrates of phoneme-to-grapheme conversion in writing to dictation using functional magnetic resonance imaging.