Executive function in eating disorders: the role of state anxiety.

Objective: We examined the influence of depression and anxiety on executive function in individuals with a DSM-IV diagnosis of anorexia nervosa-restricting type, anorexia nervosa-binge-eating/purging type, bulimia nervosa, or eating disorder not otherwise specified.

Method: We assessed 106 women after their inpatient treatment in an eating disorders program. All participants were nutritionally stable at the time of testing.

Intensive instruction affects brain magnetic activity associated with oral word reading in children with persistent reading disabilities.

Fifteen children ages 7 to 9 years who had persistent reading difficulties despite adequate instruction were provided with intensive tutorial interventions. The interventions targeted deficient phonological processing and decoding skills for 8 weeks (2 hours per day) followed by an 8-week, 1-hour-per-day intervention that focused on the development of reading fluency skills. Spatiotemporal brain activation profiles were obtained at baseline and after each 8-week intervention program using magnetoencephalography during the performance of an oral sight-word reading task.

A comparison of functional MRI and magnetoencephalography for receptive language mapping.

We compared functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and magnetoencephalography (MEG) for the mapping of receptive language function. Participants performed the same language task in the two different imaging environments. MEG activation profiles showed prominent bilateral activity in superior temporal gyrus and left-lateralized activity in middle temporal gyrus.

Magnetoencephalographic studies of language reorganization after cerebral insult.

We review our experience with the application of magnetoencephalography (MEG) to the study of reorganization of the mechanisms supporting auditory language comprehension. In 3 studies, patient populations with cerebral insult of differing etiology, including epilepsy, surgical resection, and stroke, performed a running recognition task for spoken words while MEG data were collected using a whole-head magnetometer. Increased activation in the right hemisphere after left temporal lobectomy was associated with greater relative activation in that hemisphere preoperatively.

Magnetic source imaging studies of dyslexia interventions.

Rapidly accumulating evidence from functional brain imaging studies indicates that developmental reading disability is associated with a functional disruption of the brain circuits that normally develop to support reading-related processes. This article briefly overviews recent advances in methods that capture the anatomical outline and temporal (dynamic) features of regional brain activation during performance of reading tasks. One of these methods, magnetoencephalography (MEG) or magnetic sources imaging (MSI) is described in more detail in the context of investigations of changes in spatiotemporal patterns of brain activity associated with improvement in reading skills in response to various types of educational interventions.

Reproducibility of measures of neurophysiological activity in Wernicke's area: a magnetic source imaging study.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the reproducibility of estimates of neurophysiological activity obtained with Magnetic Source Imaging.

Methods: Split-half data sets were obtained from 14 healthy volunteers during performance of a continuous recognition task for spoken words. The concurrent validity of spatiotemporal activation maps obtained with this task has been previously verified through comparisons with the Wada test and electrocortical stimulation mapping.

Toward the substitution of invasive electroencephalography in epilepsy surgery.

The authors compared the localization accuracy of interictal magnetoencephalography (MEG) with ictal and interictal invasive video electroencephalography (VEEG) in identifying the epileptogenic zone in epilepsy surgery candidates. Forty-one patients, 29 with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) and 12 with extratemporal lobe epilepsy (ETLE), participated. Only patients with interictal changes during the MEG recordings were included.

Atypical language representation in patients with chronic seizure disorder and achievement deficits with magnetoencephalography.

Purpose: To characterize the relation between hemispheric asymmetries in language-specific brain activity and reading/spelling achievement by using magnetoencephalography (MEG).

Methods: Patients (n = 83) with medically intractable complex partial seizures of either left- or right-hemisphere origin were classified as having reading and/or spelling deficits (RS) or as not impaired (NI) by using standard achievement tests. All patients had undergone noninvasive functional mapping of receptive language cortex by using MEG as part of a preoperative seizure surgery evaluation.

Reliability and validity of functional neuroimaging techniques for identifying language-critical areas in children and adults.

Advances in neuroimaging technologies over the last 15 years have prompted their relatively widespread use in the study of brain mechanisms supporting language function in children and adults. We reviewed reliability and external validity studies of 3 of the most common functional imaging methods, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), magnetoencephalography (MEG), and positron emission tomography (PET). Although reliability and validity reports for fMRI are generally quite favorable, significant variability was found across studies with respect to methodology, preventing in some cases either the assessment of the reliability of individual datasets, or cross-study comparisons.