Background: Research demonstrates a relationship between faulty visual attention and poorer social cognition in schizophrenia. One potential explanatory model suggests abnormal neuromodulation in specific neural networks may result in reduced attention to socially important cues, leading to poorer understanding of another's emotional state or intentions.
Objective: The current study experimentally manipulated neural networks using tDCS to examine this potential causal mechanism. The primary aim was to determine whether stimulation to the right temporoparietal junction (rTPJ) improves visual attention, and secondary aims were to determine whether 1) stimulation improves social cognitive performance and 2) visual attention moderates this improved performance.
Method: Using a double-blind crossover design, 69 individuals with schizophrenia underwent both active and sham stimulation to either the rTPJ of the ventral attention network (n = 36) or the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex of the social brain network (dmPFC; n = 33). Following stimulation, participants completed tasks assessing emotion recognition and mentalizing. Concurrent eye tracking assessed visual attention, measuring proportion of time spent attending to areas of interest.
Results: For emotion recognition, stimulation failed to impact either visual attention or social cognitive task accuracy. Similarly, neurostimulation failed to affect visual attention on the mentalizing task. However, exploratory analyses demonstrated that mentalizing accuracy significantly improved after stimulation to the active comparator, dmPFC, with no improvement after stimulation to rTPJ.
Conclusion: Results demonstrate limited effect of a single stimulation session on visual attention and emotion recognition accuracy but provide initial support for an alternate neural mechanism for mentalizing, highlighting the importance of executive functions over visual attention.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2021.107880 | DOI Listing |
Understanding how ecological communities assemble in relation to natural and human-induced environmental changes is critical, particularly for communities of pollinators that deliver essential ecosystem services. Despite widespread attention to interactions between functional traits and community responses to environmental changes, the importance of sensory traits has received little attention. To address this, we asked whether visual traits of bumblebee communities varied at large geographical scales along a habitat gradient of increased tree cover.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMass Spectrom (Tokyo)
December 2024
Department of Biotechnology, Graduate School of Engineering, Osaka University, 2-1 Yamadaoka, Suita, Osaka 565-0871, Japan.
Many previous studies have reported various phospholipids and elements that affect sake production; however, it seems to be challenging to investigate individual types in each rice variety due to their high diversity, not to mention their distribution patterns. Since its introduction, mass spectrometry imaging (MSI) has gained attention in various fields as a simple compound visualization technique. The current study highlights the progress of powerful MSI in comprehensively analyzing phospholipids and minerals in brown rice for sake production.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Cerebral ischemia or stroke is the second leading cause of death in the world, and most surviving patients suffer from long-term physical and cognitive disabilities, which create many social and economic problems for them and society. Visual attention impairment is a common cognitive complication among patients with cerebral ischemia, especially in the Middle Cerebral Artery (MCA). One way to improve attention in these patients is cognitive rehabilitation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCureus
November 2024
Department of Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology, Faculty of Rehabilitation, Kawasaki University of Medical Welfare, Kurashiki, JPN.
Dysgraphia often goes unnoticed in schools, leading to delayed academic development and diminished self-esteem for affected students. This case report provides keyboarding instruction to a nine-year-old Japanese boy diagnosed with dysgraphia and observes its impact on his writing performance, including speed, accuracy, and composition, and mental burden. The patient was diagnosed with dysgraphia and refusal to write at school.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCureus
November 2024
Department of Radiology, Kyorin University, Faculty of Medicine, Tokyo, JPN.
Menkes disease is an X-linked recessive genetically inherited metabolic disease caused by an ATP7A gene abnormality that gives rise to impaired copper absorption. Copper deficiency causes symptoms such as characteristic abnormalities in the hair and vascular disorders. Brain MRI findings include a high-signal intensity in the temporal lobe white matter on T2-weighted images and delayed myelination.
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