Plastic reorganization of the topological asymmetry of hemispheric white matter networks induced by congenital visual experience deprivation.

Congenital blindness offers a unique opportunity to investigate human brain plasticity. The influence of congenital visual loss on the asymmetry of the structural network remains poorly understood. To address this question, we recruited 21 participants with congenital blindness (CB) and 21 age-matched sighted controls (SCs).

Spatiotemporal Neural Network for Sublexical Information Processing: An Intracranial SEEG Study.

Words offer a unique opportunity to separate the processing mechanisms of object subcomponents from those of the whole object, because the phonological or semantic information provided by the word subcomponents (i.e., sublexical information) can conflict with that provided by the whole word (i.

White matter network underlying semantic processing: evidence from stroke patients.

The hub-and-spoke theory of semantic representation fractionates the neural underpinning of semantic knowledge into two essential components: the sensorimotor modality-specific regions and a crucially important semantic hub region. Our previous study in patients with semantic dementia has found that the hub region is located in the left fusiform gyrus. However, because this region is located within the brain damage in patients with semantic dementia, it is not clear whether the semantic deficit is caused by structural damage to the hub region itself or by its disconnection from other brain regions.

Mechanisms underlying category learning in the human ventral occipito-temporal cortex.

The human ventral occipito-temporal cortex (VOTC) has evolved into specialized regions that process specific categories, such as words, tools, and animals. The formation of these areas is driven by bottom-up visual and top-down nonvisual experiences. However, the specific mechanisms through which top-down nonvisual experiences modulate category-specific regions in the VOTC are still unknown.

Distinct parallel activation and interaction between dorsal and ventral pathways during phonological and semantic processing: A cTBS-fMRI study.

Successful visual word recognition requires the integration of phonological and semantic information, which is supported by the dorsal and ventral pathways in the brain. However, the functional specialization or interaction of these pathways during phonological and semantic processing remains unclear. Previous research has been limited by its dependence on correlational functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) results or causal validation using patient populations, which are susceptible to confounds such as plasticity and lesion characteristics.

Hemispheric lateralization of language processing: insights from network-based symptom mapping and patient subgroups.

The hemispheric laterality of language processing has become a hot topic in modern neuroscience. Although most previous studies have reported left-lateralized language processing, other studies found it to be bilateral. A previous neurocomputational model has proposed a unified framework to explain that the above discrepancy might be from healthy and patient individuals.

Developmental plasticity of the structural network of the occipital cortex in congenital blindness.

The occipital cortex is the visual processing center in the mammalian brain. An unanswered scientific question pertains to the impact of congenital visual deprivation on the development of various profiles within the occipital network. To address this issue, we recruited 30 congenitally blind participants (8 children and 22 adults) as well as 31 sighted participants (10 children and 21 adults).

Functional connectome through the human life span.

The lifespan growth of the functional connectome remains unknown. Here, we assemble task-free functional and structural magnetic resonance imaging data from 33,250 individuals aged 32 postmenstrual weeks to 80 years from 132 global sites. We report critical inflection points in the nonlinear growth curves of the global mean and variance of the connectome, peaking in the late fourth and late third decades of life, respectively.

Chinese character unitization enhances item memory in addition to associative memory: Evidence from ERP and TFR.

While the effect of unitization on associative memory has been established, its effect on item memory remains debated. This study aimed to investigate the influence of unitization on item memory using Chinese characters to manipulate unitization and recording scalp EEG to elucidate the underlying neural mechanisms. In the learning phase, participants were asked to determine whether the character pairs presented could form a Chinese compound character.

Cognitive Training Effect and Imaging Evidence.

Cognitive intervention is a specific form of non-pharmacological intervention used to combat cognitive dysfunction. In this chapter, behavioral and neuroimaging studies about cognitive interventions are introduced. Regarding intervention studies, the form of intervention and the effects of the interventions have been systematically sorted out.

Functional and structural network changes related with cognition in semantic dementia longitudinally.

Longitudinal changes in the white matter/functional brain networks of semantic dementia (SD), as well as their relations with cognition remain unclear. Using a graph-theoretic method, we examined the neuroimaging (T1, diffusion tensor imaging, functional MRI) network properties and cognitive performance in processing semantic knowledge of general and six modalities (i.e.

The influence of visual deprivation on the development of the thalamocortical network: Evidence from congenitally blind children and adults.

The thalamus is heavily involved in relaying sensory signals to the cerebral cortex. A relevant issue is how the deprivation of congenital visual sensory information modulates the development of the thalamocortical network. The answer is unclear because previous studies on this topic did not investigate network development, structure-function combinations, and cognition-related behaviors in the same study.

Association between Changes in White Matter Microstructure and Cognitive Impairment in White Matter Lesions.

This study investigated the characteristics of cognitive impairment in patients with white matter lesions (WMLs) caused by cerebral small vessel disease and the corresponding changes in WM microstructures. Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) data of 50 patients with WMLs and 37 healthy controls were collected. Patients were divided into vascular cognitive impairment non-dementia and vascular dementia groups.

The Neural Basis of Semantic Prediction in Sentence Comprehension.

Although prediction plays an important role in language comprehension, its precise neural basis remains unclear. This fMRI study investigated whether and how semantic-category-specific and common cerebral areas are recruited in predictive semantic processing during sentence comprehension. We manipulated the semantic constraint of sentence contexts, upon which a tool-related, a building-related, or no specific category of noun is highly predictable.

White matter network of oral word reading identified by network-based lesion-symptom mapping.

Oral word reading is supported by a neural subnetwork that includes gray matter regions and white matter tracts connected by the regions. Traditional methods typically determine the reading-relevant focal gray matter regions or white matter tracts rather than the reading-relevant global subnetwork. The present study developed a network-based lesion-symptom mapping (NLSM) method to identify the reading-relevant global white matter subnetwork in 84 brain-damaged patients.

Early Top-Down Modulation in Visual Word Form Processing: Evidence From an Intracranial SEEG Study.

Visual word recognition, at a minimum, involves the processing of word form and lexical information. Opinions diverge on the spatiotemporal distribution of and interaction between the two types of information. Feedforward theory argues that they are processed sequentially, whereas interactive theory advocates that lexical information is processed fast and modulates early word form processing.

Domain-specific functional coupling between dorsal and ventral systems during action perception.

Visual perception of actions and objects has been shown to activate different cortical systems: action perception system spanning more dorsally, across parietal, frontal, and dorsal temporal regions; object perception relying more strongly the ventral occipitotemporal cortex (VOTC). Compared to the well-established object-domain structure (e.g.

Characteristics of Non-linguistic Cognitive Impairment in Post-stroke Aphasia Patients.

Non-linguistic cognitive training has been suggested to improve the communication skills of patients with post-stroke aphasia (PSA). However, the association between language and non-linguistic cognitive functions is not fully understood. In this study, we used the Loewenstein Occupational Therapy Cognitive Assessment (LOTCA) to evaluate the characteristics of non-linguistic cognitive impairments in Chinese PSA patients.

Altered Granger Causal Connectivity of Resting-State Neural Networks in Patients With Leukoaraiosis-Associated Cognitive Impairment-A Cross-Sectional Study.

The purpose of this study was to provide an imaging reference for the measurement of disease progression, as well as to reveal the pathogenesis of leukoaraiosis (LA). Eighty-seven subjects were divided into three groups: LA patients with vascular dementia (LA-VaD) (20 subjects: 14 female, 6 male), LA patients with vascular cognitive impairment nondementia (LA-VCIND) (32 subjects: 14 male, 18 female), and normal controls (NC) (35 subjects: 14 male, 21 female). A multivariate Granger causality analysis (mGCA) was applied to the resting-state networks (RSNs) to evaluate the possible effective connectivity within the resting-state networks retrieved by independent component analysis (ICA) from resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) data.

White matter networks dissociate semantic control from semantic knowledge representations: Evidence from voxel-based lesion-symptom mapping.

Although semantic system is composed of two distinctive processes (i.e., semantic knowledge and semantic control), it remains unknown in which way these two processes dissociate from each other.

A unified neurocognitive model of semantics language social behaviour and face recognition in semantic dementia.

The anterior temporal lobes (ATL) have become a key brain region of interest in cognitive neuroscience founded upon neuropsychological investigations of semantic dementia (SD). The purposes of this investigation are to generate a single unified model that captures the known cognitive-behavioural variations in SD and map these to the patients' distribution of frontotemporal atrophy. Here we show that the degree of generalised semantic impairment is related to the patients' total, bilateral ATL atrophy.

Linguistic experience acquisition for novel stimuli selectively activates the neural network of the visual word form area.

The human ventral visual cortex is functionally organized into different domains that sensitively respond to different categories, such as words and objects. There is heated debate over what principle constrains the locations of those domains. Taking the visual word form area (VWFA) as an example, we tested whether the word preference in this area originates from the bottom-up processes related to word shape (the shape hypothesis) or top-down connectivity of higher-order language regions (the connectivity hypothesis).