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This study compared the asymmetry of different features of brain electrical activity during the performance of a verbal task (word finding) and a spatial task (dot localization) that had been carefully matched on psychometric properties and accompanying motor activity. Nineteen right-handed subjects were tested. EEG was recorded from F3, F4, C3, C4, P3, and P4, referred to both CZ and computer-derived averaged-ears references, and Fourier transformed. Power in the delta, theta, alpha, and beta bands was computed. There were significant Task X Hemisphere effects in all bands for CZ-referenced data and for the alpha and beta bands for ears-referenced data. The effects were always either greater power suppression in the hemisphere putatively most engaged in task processing or greater power in the opposite hemisphere. Correlations between EEG and task performance indicated that CZ-referenced parietal alpha asymmetry accounted for the most variance in verbal task performance. Power within individual hemispheres or across hemispheres was unrelated to task performance. The findings indicate robust differences in asymmetrical brain physiology that are produced by well-matched verbal and spatial cognitive tasks.
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BACKGROUND: Studies using electroencephalogram (EEG) measures of activation asymmetry have reported differences in anterior asymmetry between depressed and nondepressed subjects. Several studies have suggested reciprocal relations between measures of anterior and posterior activation asymmetries. We hypothesized that depressed subjects would fail to show the normal activation of posterior right hemisphere regions in response to an appropriate cognitive challenge. METHODS: EEG activity was recorded from 11 depressed and 19 nondepressed subjects during the performance of psychometrically matched verbal (word finding) and spatial (dot localization) tasks. Band power was extracted from all epochs of artifact-free data and averaged within each condition. Task performance was also assessed. RESULTS: Depressed subjects showed a specific deficit in the performance of the spatial task, whereas no group differences were evident on verbal performance. In posterior scalp regions, nondepressed controls had a pattern of relative left-sided activation during the verbal task and relative right-sided activation during the spatial task. In contrast, depressed subjects failed to show activation in posterior right hemisphere regions during spatial task performance. CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that deficits in right posterior functioning underlie the observed impairments in spatial functioning among depressed subjects.
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<p>Professor George has ventured into a comparatively unchartered area seeking, as he does, to explore the art and concept of performance in Buddhism -- more specially in the context of Buddhist meditation and theatre. Spelling out the epistemology of performance in all its different connotations and definitional nuances, his study opens out an astonishingly vast panorama of the Buddhist theatrical practices in Sri Lanka, China, Japan, Nepal, Tibet . . . and goes on to demonstrate how, within this panorama, three kinds of theatrical practice can be identified, each corresponding to one of the three paths open to a Buddhist: the karma path, the Bodhisattva option, and enlightenment, and each representative of one of the three main cultures of Buddhism -- the Hinayana, Mahayana, Vajrayana. Supported by extensive endnotes and bibliographic references, Dr. George's book also carries a range of case studies of the art of performance in Buddhism, with definitive examples, among others, of the Sri Lankan Kandy dance and Karma drama, Tibetan Chams and Chod, and Japanese Noh.</p>

The anterior medial prefrontal (AMPFC) and retrosplenial (RSC) cortices are active during self-referential decision-making tasks such as when participants appraise traits and abilities, or current affect. Other appraisal tasks requiring an evaluative decision or mental representation, such as theory of mind and perspective-taking tasks, also involve these regions. In many instances, these types of decisions involve a subjective opinion or preference, but also a degree of ambiguity in the decision, rather than a strictly veridical response. However, this ambiguity is generally not controlled for in studies that examine self-referential decision-making. In this functional magnetic resonance imaging experiment with 17 healthy adults, we examined neural processes associated with subjective decision-making with and without an overt self-referential component. The task required subjective decisions about colors-regarding self-preference (internal subjective decision) or color similarity (external subjective decision) under conditions where there was no objectively correct response. Results indicated greater activation in the AMPFC, RSC, and caudate nucleus during internal subjective decision-making. The findings suggest that self-referential processing, rather than subjective judgments among ambiguous response alternatives, accounted for the AMPFC and RSC response.
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Functional neuroimaging research has demonstrated that retrieving information about object-associated colors activates the left fusiform gyrus in posterior temporal cortex. Although regions near the fusiform have previously been implicated in color perception, it remains unclear whether color knowledge retrieval actually activates the color perception system. Evidence to this effect would be particularly strong if color perception cortex was activated by color knowledge retrieval triggered strictly with linguistic stimuli. To address this question, subjects performed two tasks while undergoing fMRI. First, subjects performed a property verification task using only words to assess conceptual knowledge. On each trial, subjects verified whether a named color or motor property was true of a named object (e.g., TAXI-yellow, HAIR-combed). Next, subjects performed a color perception task. A region of the left fusiform gyrus that was highly responsive during color perception also showed greater activity for retrieving color than motor property knowledge. These data provide the first evidence for a direct overlap in the neural bases of color perception and stored information about object-associated color, and they significantly add to accumulating evidence that conceptual knowledge is grounded in the brain's modality-specific systems.
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To emote literally means to move or prepare for action. A large body of research indicates that flexor and extensor movements are conditionally associated with approach- and avoidance-related motivations. It has also been widely argued that approach and avoidant motivations are asymmetrically instantiated in the left and right hemispheres, respectively. Nevertheless, to date, these literatures remain largely separate. In the present investigation, flexor and extensor movements that were visuospatially contextualized as being directed toward the self and away from the self were observed to be asymmetrically represented in the "approach" and "avoidance" hemispheres. Moreover, this pattern of hemispheric specialization was manifested to a greater degree the higher participants' self-reported level of daily positive affect and the lower their self-reported level of dispositional anxiety. Collectively, these findings have direct implications for models of embodied emotional and perceptual processing, as well as for investigations of individual differences in emotional disposition.
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Regional modulation of the level of cortical neurotransmitters in the brain would serve as a new functional brain mapping technique to interrogate the neurochemical actions of the brain. We investigated the utility of the application of low-intensity, pulsed sonication of focused ultrasound (FUS) to the brain to modulate the extracellular level of dopamine (DA) and serotonin (5-HT). FUS was delivered to the thalamic areas of rats, and extracellular DA and 5-HT were sampled from the frontal lobe using the microdialysis technique. The concentration changes of the sampled DA and 5-HT were measured through high-performance liquid chromatography. We observed a significant increase of the extracellular concentrations of DA and 5-HT in the FUS-treated group as compared with those in the unsonicated group. Our results provide the first direct evidence that FUS sonication alters the level of extracellular concentration of these monoamine neurotransmitters and has a potential modulatory effect on their local release, uptake, or degradation. Our findings suggest that the pulsed application of FUS offers new perspectives for a possible noninvasive modulation of neurotransmitters and may have diagnostic as well as therapeutic implications for DA/5-HT-mediated neurological and psychiatric disorders. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Imaging Syst Technol, 21, 232–240, 2011
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The influence of approach and avoidance tendencies on affect, reasoning, and behavior has attracted substantial interest from researchers across various areas of psychology. Currently, frontal electroencephalographic (EEG) asymmetry in favor of left prefrontal regions is assumed to reflect the propensity to respond with approach-related tendencies. To test this hypothesis, we recorded resting EEG in 18 subjects, who separately performed a verbal memory task under three incentive conditions (neutral, reward, and punishment). Using a source-localization technique, we found that higher task-independent alpha2 (10.5-12 Hz) activity within left dorsolateral prefrontal and medial orbitofrontal regions was associated with stronger bias to respond to reward-related cues. Left prefrontal resting activity accounted for 54.8% of the variance in reward bias. These findings not only confirm that frontal EEG asymmetry modulates the propensity to engage in appetitively motivated behavior, but also provide anatomical details about the underlying brain systems.
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Recent years have seen an explosion of interest in using neural oscillations to characterize the mechanisms supporting cognition and emotion. Oftentimes, oscillatory activity is indexed by mean power density in predefined frequency bands. Some investigators use broad bands originally defined by prominent surface features of the spectrum. Others rely on narrower bands originally defined by spectral factor analysis (SFA). Presently, the robustness and sensitivity of these competing band definitions remains unclear. Here, a Monte Carlo-based SFA strategy was used to decompose the tonic ("resting" or "spontaneous") electroencephalogram (EEG) into five bands: delta (1-5Hz), alpha-low (6-9Hz), alpha-high (10-11Hz), beta (12-19Hz), and gamma (>21Hz). This pattern was consistent across SFA methods, artifact correction/rejection procedures, scalp regions, and samples. Subsequent analyses revealed that SFA failed to deliver enhanced sensitivity; narrow alpha sub-bands proved no more sensitive than the classical broadband to individual differences in temperament or mean differences in task-induced activation. Other analyses suggested that residual ocular and muscular artifact was the dominant source of activity during quiescence in the delta and gamma bands. This was observed following threshold-based artifact rejection or independent component analysis (ICA)-based artifact correction, indicating that such procedures do not necessarily confer adequate protection. Collectively, these findings highlight the limitations of several commonly used EEG procedures and underscore the necessity of routinely performing exploratory data analyses, particularly data visualization, prior to hypothesis testing. They also suggest the potential benefits of using techniques other than SFA for interrogating high-dimensional EEG datasets in the frequency or time-frequency (event-related spectral perturbation, event-related synchronization/desynchronization) domains.
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Two groups of 45 children each, whose ages ranged from 9 to 13 years, were assessed on a steadiness test, at the beginning and again at the end of a 10-day period during which one group received training in yoga, while the other group did not. The steadiness test required insertion of and holding for 15 sec. a metal stylus without touching the sides of holes of decreasing sizes in a metal plate. The contacts were counted as 'errors'. During the 10-day period, one group (the 'Yoga' group) received training in special physical postures (asanas), voluntary regulation of breathing (Pranayama), maintenance of silence, as well as visual focussing exercises (tratakas) and games to improve the attention span and memory. The other group (control) carried out their usual routine. After 10 days, the 'Yoga' group showed a significant (Wilcoxon's paired signed-ranks test) decrease in errors, whereas the 'control' group showed no change.
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Attention to internal body sensations is practiced in most meditation traditions. Many traditions state that this practice results in increased awareness of internal body sensations, but scientific studies evaluating this claim are lacking. We predicted that experienced meditators would display performance superior to that of nonmeditators on heartbeat detection, a standard noninvasive measure of resting interoceptive awareness. We compared two groups of meditators (Tibetan Buddhist and Kundalini) to an age- and body mass index-matched group of nonmeditators. Contrary to our prediction, we found no evidence that meditators were superior to nonmeditators in the heartbeat detection task, across several sessions and respiratory modulation conditions. Compared to nonmeditators, however, meditators consistently rated their interoceptive performance as superior and the difficulty of the task as easier. These results provide evidence against the notion that practicing attention to internal body sensations, a core feature of meditation, enhances the ability to sense the heartbeat at rest.
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Although there is much evidence demonstrating muscle tension changes during mental work, there are few data concerning muscle tension patterns during effortful attention to simple sensory stimuli. In the present study, sensory attention was evoked by a pitch discrimination task at three levels of difficulty, with a digit retention task administered for comparison. Twenty-four females each performed both tasks at all levels of difficulty, while the EKG, and the corrugator supercilii, frontalis, lip, jaw, chin, and forearm area EMG were recorded. As expected, heart rate decreased significantly with increasing difficulty of the pitch task. A pattern of facial EMG responses accompanied the pitch task, which included significant increases in corrugator and frontalis, and decreases in the jaw as a function of difficulty, and time within trials. The tension pattern observed during sensory intake is discussed in terms of its relation to emotional expressions and motor theories of attention.
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There is mounting evidence that prefrontal cortex (PFC) is activated during mnemonic operations such as working memory maintenance and also during response-related operations. In the current study, we examine the neural organization of mnemonic and response operations with respect to each other within PFC. Stimulus-evoked and sustained functional MRI activity was recorded during performance of a mental calculation task. The presence or absence of mnemonic and response demands was manipulated in a 2 x 2 factorial design with conditions requiring: (1) memory encoding and maintenance (M+); (2) response selection and execution (R+); (3) encoding, maintenance, and response execution (M+R+); (4) neither mnemonic nor response-related processes (M-R-). The first step of the analyses identified PFC voxels exhibiting differential activity during (M+) vs. (R+) trials. Within these voxels, we then examined activity during multiple phases of (M+R+) trials. Greater stimulus-evoked and sustained activity was observed within the anterior extent of dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (BA 46) during R+ vs. M+ trials. In contrast, greater activity was observed in the posterior extent of dorsolateral PFC during M+ vs. R+ trials. Importantly, both regions were activated during (M+R+) trials. Activity levels during all of these conditions exceeded levels observed during (M-R-) control trials. These results suggest that integrative functions of PFC that allow past information to guide future actions may emerge from communication between discrete subregions supporting mnemonic and response operations.
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<p>Abstract This article is an ethnography of the private performance of the five daily prayers of Islam among a group of middle class, educated women in Tehran. It goes beyond the public and formal spheres to explore religious experience in everyday life. What happens in a ritual when performed alone, without a public? I argue against the prevalent notion that repetition renders the formulas of rituals meaningless. Instead, over time, there is a proliferation of meanings emerging as a result of the undermining of the formality of the text by repetition. The ways in which creativity is exercised are analyzed in answer to the question of what makes one prayer session more satisfying than another—what is an efficacious salat? I argue that the length of time the prayers have been performed, the age of the reciter, and the literate practices of reading and debate are crucial in understanding how this ritual is brought to life by its practitioners.</p>
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Differences between dyslexics and controls in the unimanual and bimanual conditions of the peg placement section of the Purdue Pegboard Test were examined. Twenty-three disabled and twenty-three normal readers were studied. The groups were carefully screened on a neuropsychological battery. The disabled readers were comprised of a relatively homogeneous language-disordered subgroup exhibiting deficits in naming. Significant Group X Condition interactions were obtained for both raw and percentile scores and indicated that disabled readers performed worse than controls in the unimanual compared to bimanual conditions. The dyslexics performed particularly poorly compared with controls on the left hand condition. The implications of these data for hypotheses which argue for left hemisphere dysfunction, as well as those which posit interhemispheric transfer deficits in reading disabled children, are discussed.
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<p>This experiment was designed to test whether reading disabled boys differ from matched controls on behavioral measures of interhemispheric transfer time (IHTT). Specifically, we proposed that language-disordered reading disabled children who had deficits in naming would show either faster or slower IHTTs compared with controls. From an initial group of 118 right-handed males, we selected a group of 25 disabled and 25 normal readers, matched on age. All subjects had to obtain a full scale IQ of 90 or above, a PIQ score of 85 or above, and a scaled score of 7 or above on the Block Design Subtest of the WISC-R. After meeting additional criteria for group assignment, manual reaction time (RT) measures of IHTT were obtained in response to simple visual and tactile stimuli during two laboratory testing sessions. Half the trials were conducted with the hands in an uncrossed orientation and half with the hands crossed in order to examine the effects of spatial compatibility on estimates of IHTT. The results revealed no overall group differences in IHTT for any of the conditions. However, correlations between IHTT measures and indices of cognitive performance indicated that faster IHTTs were significantly correlated with poorer performance on measures of reading and language function in the dyslexic group. These data are discussed within the context of a model of interhemispheric transfer deficits in disabled readers.</p>
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Depression has been associated with dysfunctional executive functions and abnormal activity within the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), a region critically involved in action regulation. Prior research invites the possibility that executive deficits in depression may arise from abnormal responses to negative feedback or errors, but the underlying neural substrates remain unknown. We hypothesized that abnormal reactions to error would be associated with dysfunctional rostral ACC activity, a region previously implicated in error detection and evaluation of the emotional significance of events. To test this hypothesis, subjects with low and high Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) scores performed an Eriksen Flanker task. To assess whether tonic activity within the rostral ACC predicted post-error adjustments, 128-channel resting EEG data were collected before the task and analyzed with low-resolution electromagnetic tomography (LORETA) using a region-of-interest approach. High BDI subjects were uniquely characterized by significantly lower accuracy after incorrect than correct trials. Mirroring the behavioral findings, high BDI subjects had significantly reduced pretask gamma (36.5-44 Hz) current density within the affective (rostral; BA24, BA25, BA32) but not cognitive (dorsal; BA24', BA32') ACC subdivision. For low, but not high, BDI subjects pretask gamma within the affective ACC subdivision predicted post-error adjustments even after controlling for activity within the cognitive ACC subdivision. Abnormal responses to errors may thus arise due to lower activity within regions subserving affective and/or motivational responses to salient cues. Because rostral ACC regions have been implicated in treatment response in depression, our findings provide initial insight into putative mechanisms fostering treatment response.
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<p>Appropriate social problem solving constitutes a critical skill for individuals and may rely on processes important for self-generated thought (SGT). The aim of the current study was to investigate the link between SGT and social problem solving. Using the Means-End Problem Solving task (MEPS), we assessed participants' abilities to resolve daily social problems in terms of overall efficiency and number of relevant means they provided to reach the given solution. Participants also performed a non-demanding choice reaction time task (CRT) and a moderately-demanding working memory task (WM) as a context in which to measure their SGT (assessed via thought sampling). We found that although overall SGT was associated with lower MEPS efficiency, it was also associated with higher relevant means, perhaps because both depend on the capacity to generate cognition that is independent from the hear and now. The specific content of SGT did not differentially predict individual differences in social problem solving, suggesting that the relationship may depend on SGT regardless of its content. In addition, we also found that performance at the WM but not the CRT was linked to overall better MEPS performance, suggesting that individuals good at social processing are also distinguished by their capacity to constrain attention to an external task. Our results provide novel evidence that the capacity for SGT is implicated in the process by which solutions to social problems are generated, although optimal problem solving may be achieved by individuals who display a suitable balance between SGT and cognition derived from perceptual input.</p>
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Tactile communication, or physical touch, promotes cooperation between people, communicates distinct emotions, soothes in times of stress, and is used to make inferences of warmth and trust. Based on this conceptual analysis, we predicted that in group competition, physical touch would predict increases in both individual and group performance. In an ethological study, we coded the touch behavior of players from the National Basketball Association (NBA) during the 2008-2009 regular season. Consistent with hypotheses, early season touch predicted greater performance for individuals as well as teams later in the season. Additional analyses confirmed that touch predicted improved performance even after accounting for player status, preseason expectations, and early season performance. Moreover, coded cooperative behaviors between teammates explained the association between touch and team performance. Discussion focused on the contributions touch makes to cooperative groups and the potential implications for other group settings.
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Four experiments testing right-handed adult males examined interhemispheric transfer time (IHTT) estimation with visual evoked potentials (EPs) elicited in response to hemiretinal presentations of checkerboard-flash stimuli. Experiment 1 was a study of the relation between reaction time (RT) and EP measures of IHTT. EP measures provided more valid estimates than RT measures because more subjects showed IHTT in the direction of anatomical prediction. Experiment 2 showed that EPs derived from lateral occipital sites provided more valid and longer estimates of IHTT compared with EPs from medial occipital sites. Experiment 3 showed no difference between random versus blocked hemiretinal stimuli. Experiment 4 showed that IHTT derived with a linked-ears reference provided more valid estimates than IHTT derived with a mid-frontal reference and that small changes in stimulus eccentricity did not influence IHTT. The findings of these experiments indicate that noninvasive estimates of visual IHTT can be obtained in humans.
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