Mass-forming intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma: treatment outcomes after curative-intent resection in an Australian tertiary referral hospital.

Background: Mass-forming intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (MF-ICC) is the second most common primary liver cancer and liver resection offers the best chance of possible cure. This study aimed to assess treatment outcomes and prognostic factors for long-term survival in patients who underwent curative-intent liver resection.

Methods: A retrospective analysis was conducted on prospectively collected data from patients with MF-ICC managed at the Royal North Shore/North Shore Private Hospital from January 1998 to October 2023.

Increased sensitivity to social hierarchy during social competition versus cooperation.

Social hierarchy is a typical feature of social organization. The ability to quickly recognize social hierarchy information is crucial for adapting to social contexts. Here, we adopted fast periodic visual stimulation with electroencephalography to assess the neural responses to social hierarchy during social competition and cooperation, respectively.

Alterations in Gray Matter Structural Networks in Amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment: A Source-Based Morphometry Study.

Background: Amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI), considered as the prodromal stage of Alzheimer's disease, is characterized by isolated memory impairment and cerebral gray matter volume (GMV) alterations. Previous structural MRI studies in aMCI have been mainly based on univariate statistics using voxel-based morphometry.

Objective: We investigated structural network differences between aMCI patients and cognitively normal older adults by using source-based morphometry, a multivariate approach that considers the relationship between voxels of various parts of the brain.

Testing the skill-based approach: Consolidation strategy impacts attentional blink performance.

Humans can learn simple new tasks very quickly. This ability suggests that people can reuse previously learned procedural knowledge when it applies to a new context. We have proposed a modeling approach based on this idea and used it to create a model of the attentional blink (AB).

Two faces of perceptual awareness during the attentional blink: Gradual and discrete.

In a series of experiments, the nature of perceptual awareness during the attentional blink was investigated. Previous work has considered the attentional blink as a discrete, all-or-none phenomenon, indicative of general access to conscious awareness. Using continuous report measures in combination with mixture modeling, the outcomes showed that perceptual awareness during the attentional blink can be a gradual phenomenon.

Training the attentional blink: subclinical depression decreases learning potential.

The attentional blink (AB) reflects a temporal restriction of selective attention and is generally regarded as a very robust phenomenon. However, previous studies have found large individual differences in AB performance, and under some training conditions the AB can be reduced significantly. One factor that may account for individual differences in AB magnitude is the ability to accurately time attention.

Widespread white matter aberration is associated with the severity of apathy in amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment: Tract-based spatial statistics analysis.

Apathy is recognized as a prevalent behavioral symptom of amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment (aMCI). In aMCI, apathy is associated with an increased risk and increases the risk of progression to Alzheimer's Disease (AD). Previous DTI study in aMCI showed that apathy has been associated with white matter alterations in the cingulum, middle and inferior longitudinal fasciculus, fornix, and uncinate fasciculus.

A Skill-Based Approach to Modeling the Attentional Blink.

People can often learn new tasks quickly. This is hard to explain with cognitive models because they either need extensive task-specific knowledge or a long training session. In this article, we try to solve this by proposing that task knowledge can be decomposed into skills.

Functional network topology associated with apathy in Alzheimer's disease.

Background: Apathy, a common neuropsychiatric (NPS) in patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer's disease (AD), is associated with structural and metabolic brain changes. However, functional connectivity changes across the brain in association with apathy remain unclear. In this study, graph theoretical measures of integration and segregation from resting state functional connectivity in MCI and AD patients with low depression scores, and healthy controls.

Beta-gamma oscillation reveals learning from unexpected reward in learners versus non-learners.

Beta-gamma oscillation has been demonstrated to be sensitive to unexpected reward feedback. However, it remains unclear whether beta-gamma activity manifests individual differences in reinforcement learning processing. Given that individuals differ largely in reinforcement learning tasks, we adapted the Friedland task and split subjects into two groups: learners who learned to choose the optimal card after training and non-learners who did not learn well.

Lower Choline and Myo-Inositol in Temporo-Parietal Cortex Is Associated With Apathy in Amnestic MCI.

Apathy is a common symptom in patients with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) and is associated with an increased risk of progression to Alzheimer's disease (AD). The neural substrates underlying apathy in aMCI may involve multiple brain regions, including the anterior cingulate cortex and the temporo-parietal region. Here we investigated neurometabolites in brain regions that may underlie apathy in aMCI patients using proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (H-MRS).

An Individual Differences Approach to Temporal Integration and Order Reversals in the Attentional Blink Task.

Background: The reduced ability to identify a second target when it is presented in close temporal succession of a first target is called the attentional blink (AB). Studies have shown large individual differences in AB task performance, where lower task performance has been associated with more reversed order reports of both targets if these were presented in direct succession. In order to study the suggestion that reversed order reports reflect loss of temporal information, in the current study, we investigated whether individuals with a larger AB have a higher tendency to temporally integrate both targets into one visual event by using an AB paradigm containing symbol target stimuli.

Association between Cognition and Serum Insulin-Like Growth Factor-1 in Middle-Aged & Older Men: An 8 Year Follow-Up Study.

Low levels of insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1), an essential neurotrophic factor, have been associated with worse cognitive function in older adults. However, few studies have assessed the prospective association of serum IGF-1 with cognitive function. We aimed to determine the association between serum IGF-1 on concurrent and prospective cognitive function in a population sample of men aged 40-80 years.

Individual Differences in Temporal Selective Attention as Reflected in Pupil Dilation.

Background: Attention is restricted for the second of two targets when it is presented within 200-500 ms of the first target. This attentional blink (AB) phenomenon allows one to study the dynamics of temporal selective attention by varying the interval between the two targets (T1 and T2). Whereas the AB has long been considered as a robust and universal cognitive limitation, several studies have demonstrated that AB task performance greatly differs between individuals, with some individuals showing no AB whatsoever.

Time to see the bigger picture: Individual differences in the attentional blink.

If two to-be-identified targets are presented in close temporal succession, identification for the second target is typically impaired. This attentional blink (AB) phenomenon has long been considered as a robust, universal cognitive limitation. However, more recent studies have demonstrated that AB task performance greatly differs between individuals, with some individuals even showing no AB in certain paradigms.

Normal cognitive conflict resolution in psychosis patients with and without schizophrenia.

Schizophrenia is thought to be associated with impairments of executive functions, among which conflict control functions play an important role. The available evidence, however, suggests that conflict control is intact in schizophrenia, despite being based on methods that have successfully unveiled conflict control problems in other disorders. Differences between schizophrenia patients and healthy controls in stimulus perception, selective attention, alertness, processing speed and reaction time variability may have been previously overlooked.

Musical minds: attentional blink reveals modality-specific restrictions.

Background: Formal musical training is known to have positive effects on attentional and executive functioning, processing speed, and working memory. Consequently, one may expect to find differences in the dynamics of temporal attention between musicians and non-musicians. Here we address the question whether that is indeed the case, and whether any beneficial effects of musical training on temporal attention are modality specific or generalize across sensory modalities.

Training-induced Changes in the Dynamics of Attention as Reflected in Pupil Dilation.

One of the major topics in attention literature is the attentional blink (AB), which demonstrates a limited ability to identify the second of two targets (T1 and T2) when presented in close temporal succession (200-500 msec). Given that the effect has been thought of as robust and resistant to training for over two decades, one of the most remarkable findings in recent years is that the AB can be eliminated after a 1-hr training with a color-salient T2. However, the underlying mechanism of the training effect as well as the AB itself is as of yet still poorly understood.

The nature of hemispheric specialization for prosody perception.

Recent evidence suggests a relative right-hemispheric specialization for emotional prosody perception, whereas linguistic prosody perception is under bilateral control. It is still unknown, however, how the hemispheric specialization for prosody perception might arise. Two main hypotheses have been put forward.

Distinct associations of insula and cingulate volume with the cognitive and affective dimensions of alexithymia.

Alexithymia ("no words for feelings") is a major risk factor for psychosomatic and psychiatric conditions characterized by affect dysregulation. The alexithymia personality construct comprises an affective dimension, the level of subjective emotional experience (emotionalizing and fantasizing), and a cognitive dimension, referring to the cognitive control of emotions (identifying, analyzing, and verbalizing feelings). These two dimensions may differentially put individuals at risk for psychopathology, but their specific neural bases have rarely been investigated.

Distinct temporal processing of task-irrelevant emotional facial expressions.

There is an ongoing debate concerning the extent to which emotional faces automatically attract attention. Using a single-target Rapid Serial Visual Presentation (RSVP) methodology, it has been found that presentation of task-irrelevant positive or negative emotionally salient stimuli (e.g.

Inflexible minds: impaired attention switching in recent-onset schizophrenia.

Impairment of sustained attention is assumed to be a core cognitive abnormality in schizophrenia. However, this seems inconsistent with a recent hypothesis that in schizophrenia the implementation of selection (i.e.

Word frequency and the attentional blink: the effects of target difficulty on retrieval and consolidation processes.

Background: When a second target (T2) is presented in close succession of a first target (T1) within a stream of non-targets, people often fail to detect T2-a deficit known as the attentional blink (AB). Two types of theories can be distinguished that have tried to account for this phenomenon. Whereas attentional-control theories suggest that protection of consolidation processes induces the AB, limited-resource theories claim that the AB is caused by a lack of resources.

Magnetic resonance spectroscopy in mild cognitive impairment: systematic review and meta-analysis.

Research using proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) can potentially elucidate metabolite changes representing early degeneration in Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI), an early stage of dementia. We integrated the published literature using meta-analysis to identify patterns of metabolite changes in MCI. 29 MRS studies (with a total of 607 MCI patients and 862 healthy controls) were classified according to brain regions.

Individual differences in the attentional blink: the temporal profile of blinkers and non-blinkers.

Background: When two targets are presented in close temporal succession, the majority of people frequently fail to report the second target. This phenomenon, known as the 'attentional blink' (AB), has been a major topic in attention research for the past twenty years because it is informative about the rate at which stimuli can be encoded into consciously accessible representations. An aspect of the AB that has long been ignored, however, is individual differences.