Correlates of Auditory Decision-Making in Prefrontal, Auditory, and Basal Lateral Amygdala Cortical Areas.

Spatial selective listening and auditory choice underlie important processes including attending to a speaker at a cocktail party and knowing how (or whether) to respond. To examine task encoding and the relative timing of potential neural substrates underlying these behaviors, we developed a spatial selective detection paradigm for monkeys, and recorded activity in primary auditory cortex (AC), dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC), and the basolateral amygdala (BLA). A comparison of neural responses among these three areas showed that, as expected, AC encoded the side of the cue and target characteristics before dlPFC and BLA.

Frontal and Insular Input to the Dorsolateral Temporal Pole in Primates: Implications for Auditory Memory.

The temporal pole (TP) has been involved in multiple functions from emotional and social behavior, semantic processing, memory, language in humans and epilepsy surgery, to the fronto-temporal neurodegenerative disorder (semantic) dementia. However, the role of the TP subdivisions is still unclear, in part due to the lack of quantitative data about TP connectivity. This study focuses in the dorsolateral subdivision of the TP: area 38.

A Comparison of Auditory Oddball Responses in Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex, Basolateral Amygdala, and Auditory Cortex of Macaque.

The mismatch negativity (MMN) is an ERP component seen in response to unexpected "novel" stimuli, such as in an auditory oddball task. The MMN is of wide interest and application, but the neural responses that generate it are poorly understood. This is in part due to differences in design and focus between animal and human oddball paradigms.

Neocerebellar Crus I Abnormalities Associated with a Speech and Language Disorder Due to a Mutation in FOXP2.

Bilateral volume reduction in the caudate nucleus has been established as a prominent brain abnormality associated with a FOXP2 mutation in affected members of the 'KE family', who present with developmental orofacial and verbal dyspraxia in conjunction with pervasive language deficits. Despite the gene's early and prominent expression in the cerebellum and the evidence for reciprocal cerebellum-basal ganglia connectivity, very little is known about cerebellar abnormalities in affected KE members. Using cerebellum-specific voxel-based morphometry (VBM) and volumetry, we provide converging evidence from subsets of affected KE members scanned at three time points for grey matter (GM) volume reduction bilaterally in neocerebellar lobule VIIa Crus I compared with unaffected members and unrelated controls.

Three Episodes of Takotsubo Cardiomyopathy with Variant Ballooning Patterns in 2 Elderly Women.

Takotsubo cardiomyopathy can present with transient apical, midventricular, or basal left ventricular ballooning patterns. Reported recurrences of this cardiomyopathy are few. We present the cases of 2 elderly women who each had 3 episodes of takotsubo cardiomyopathy in various ballooning patterns.