The 40-Hz auditory steady-state response in bipolar disorder: A meta-analysis

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B

Neuroaesthetic research has focused on neural predictive processes involved in the encounter with art stimuli or the related evaluative judgements, and it has been mainly conducted unimodally. Here, with electroencephalography, magnetoencephalography and an affective priming protocol, we investigated whether and how the neural responses to non-representational aesthetic stimuli are top-down modulated by affective representational (i.e. semantically meaningful) predictions between audition and vision. Also, the neural chronometry of affect processing of these aesthetic stimuli was investigated. We hypothesized that the early affective components of crossmodal aesthetic responses are dependent on the affective and representational predictions formed in another sensory modality resulting in differentiated brain responses, and that audition and vision indicate different processing latencies for affect. The …

Neuropsychologia

The neural underpinnings of processing concrete and abstract semantics remain poorly understood. Previous fMRI studies have shown that multimodal and amodal neural networks respond differentially to different semantic types; importantly, abstract semantics activates more left-lateralized networks, as opposed to more bilateral activity for concrete words. Due to the lack of temporal resolution, these fMRI results do not allow to easily separate language- and task-specific brain responses and to disentangle early processing stages from later post-comprehension phenomena. To tackle this, we used magnetoencephalography (MEG), a time-resolved neuroimaging technique, in combination with a task-free oddball mismatch negativity (MMN) paradigm, an established approach to tracking early automatic activation of word-specific memory traces in the brain. We recorded the magnetic MMN responses in 30 healthy …

Scientific Reports

The existence of a consistent horizontal spatial-conceptual mapping for words denoting time is a well-established phenomenon. For example, words related to the past or future (e.g., yesterday/tomorrow) facilitate respective leftward/rightward attentional shifts and responses, suggesting the visual-spatial grounding of temporal semantics, at least in the native language (L1). To examine whether similar horizontal bias also accompanies access to time-related words in a second language (L2), we tested 53 Russian-English (Experiment 1) and 48 German-English (Experiment 2) bilinguals, who classified randomly presented L1 and L2 time-related words as past- or future-related using left or right response keys. The predicted spatial congruency effect was registered in all tested languages and, furthermore, was positively associated with higher L2 proficiency in Experiment 2. Our findings (1) support the notion of …

Bilingualism: Language and Cognition

This study investigates bilingualism-induced neuroplastic and cognitive-reserve effects in the Caudate Nucleus (CN), a structure believed to support both bilingual language control and domain-general executive functioning. We computed a generalized bilingualism index incorporating several dimensions of bilingual experience in a sample of bilingual young adults and tested whether this index would predict behavioral executive performance (measured using a Flanker task) and volumetric differences in the CN. Moreover, we investigated whether bilingualism mitigates the relationship between CN volume and executive performance, a sign of cognitive reserve. Our results indicate that bilingualism facilitates executive performance and induces an inverted U-shaped neuroplastic trajectory in bilateral CN, consistently with the view that structural increases are replaced by functional improvements as bilingual …

Neurobiology of Learning and Memory

Numerous studies have shown robust evidence of the right hemisphere’s involvement in language comprehension, for instance in the processing of intonation, grammar, prelexical processing stages, novel metaphor comprehension, etc. However, its role in lexicon acquisition remains obscure. We applied transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) over the right-hemispheric homologue of Wernicke’s area to assess its putative involvement in processing different types of novel semantics. After receiving 15 min of anodal, cathodal, or sham (placebo) tDCS, three groups of healthy participants learnt novel concrete and abstract words in the context of short stories. Learning outcomes were assessed using a battery of tests immediately after this contextual learning session and 24 h later. As a result, an inhibitory effect of cathodal and facilitatory effect of anodal tDCS were found for abstract word acquisition only. We …

Brain Research

Automatic parsing of syntactic information by the human brain is a well-established phenomenon, but its mechanisms remain poorly understood. Its best-known neurophysiological reflection is early left-anterior negativity (ELAN) ERP component with two alternative hypotheses for its origin: (1) error detection, or (2) morphosyntactic prediction/priming. To test these alternatives, we conducted two experiments using a non-attend passive design with visual distraction and recorded ERPs to spoken pronoun-verb phrases and the same critical verbs presented in isolation without pronouns. The results revealed an ELAN at ∼130-220 ms for pronoun-verb gender agreement violations, confirming a high degree of automaticity in early morphosyntactic parsing. Critically, the strongest ELAN was elicited by verbs outside phrasal context, which suggests that the typical ELAN pattern is underpinned by a reduction of ERP …

Cognitive Modelling of the Intra-Extra Dimensional Set Shift Task in Children at Familial High Risk of Schizophrenia or Bipolar Disorder — Aarhus University Skip to main navigation Skip to search Skip to main content Aarhus University Home Aarhus University Logo Help & FAQ English Dansk Home Profiles Research units Projects Research output Prizes Activities Courses Press/Media Search by expertise, name or affiliation Cognitive Modelling of the Intra-Extra Dimensional Set Shift Task in Children at Familial High Risk of Schizophrenia or Bipolar Disorder Arndis Simonsen * , Oskar Hougaard Jefsen, Nicoline Hemager, Ditte Lou Langhoff Gantriis, Birgitte Klee Burton, Ditte Ellersgaard, Kerstin Jessica Plessen, Anne AE Thorup, Jens Richardt Møllegaard Jepsen, Merete Nordentoft, Ole Mors, Aja Neergaard Greve, Riccardo Fusaroli * Corresponding author for this work Department of Clinical Medicine - Psychosis …

Bilingualism: Language and Cognition

To better explain various neurocognitive consequences of bilingualism, recent investigations have adopted continuous measures of bilingual experience, as opposed to binary bi/monolingual distinctions. However, few studies have considered whether bilingualism's effects on cognition are modulated by the linguistic distance (LD) between L1 and L2, and none of the existing studies has examined cognitive consequences of LD in aging populations. Here, we investigated the modulatory role of LD on the relationship between bilingualism, executive performance, and cognitive reserve (CR) in a sample of senior bilinguals. Our results show a dynamic trajectory of LD effects, with more distant language pairs exerting maximum effects at initial stages of bilingual experience – and closer language pairs at advanced stages. Bilingualism-related CR effects emerged only in the individuals with closer language pairs …

Neuroscience and Behavioral Physiology

The functioning of language as a communication system is described by a variety of linguistic theories which are not always consistent with each other and often do not rely on cognitive and/or neurobiological data. One of the most striking examples is the “null morpheme” proposed by the theory of universal grammar, which is a concept that has only an abstract meaning as it has no phonological implementation (for example, the null ending of nouns in some cases: cf. stol-∅ (tableNOM) vs. stol-a (tableGEN). With the aim of testing the processing of null morphemes by the brain, we conducted an EEG experiment in which subjects were presented with heard phrases with null (e.g., on kupil-∅) (he bought-∅) or marked (ona kupil-a) (she boughtFEM) verb endings, with correct and incorrect gender agreement between the pronoun and the verb (e.g., on kupil-∅ (he bought-∅) vs. *ona kupil-∅ (she bought-∅, where the …

Language and Cognition

We often refer to space when we talk about time. To support this, studies show that we tend to associate the past with the left and the future with the right, space. However, there is little research that compares the spatial mapping of individual time units within the same methodological framework. Here, we used the same line-bisection paradigm to study horizontal spatial biases in various individual time units (i.e., hours, days, and months). Fifty-four adults processed temporal words and indicated their location on a horizontal line representing a time interval via a mouse click. Each word corresponded to one of the three conditions: left, right, or central position on the line. Our results show a reaction-time facilitation effect for hour and day units in congruent conditions (e.g., left semantic bias + left position on the line). Also, processing hour units shifted the response coordinates in the direction of the presumed spatial bias …

Human Physiology

The primary motor cortex takes part in various stages of language learning accompanied by human motor activity. However, previous studies of causal relationships between the activation of the primary motor cortex (M1) and the efficiency of language tasks reveal contradictory results, likely due to different learning environments and specific movement patterns required by different experimental designs. The goal of this research was to comprehensively investigate the effect of rhythmic theta-burst magnetic stimulation (rTMS) of the primary motor cortex on the acquisition of new words while modulating the learning environment and the motor response during the learning process. Following rTMS of the primary motor cortex or control conditions (sham and active control rTMS), the subjects (n = 96) completed a novel word learning task, which involved associating visually presented objects with spoken word forms …

Biological psychiatry

BackgroundEducation is essential for socioeconomic security and long-term mental health; however, mental disorders are often detrimental to the educational trajectory. Genetic correlations between mental disorders and educational attainment do not always align with corresponding phenotypic associations, implying heterogeneity in the genetic overlap.MethodsWe unraveled this heterogeneity by investigating associations between polygenic risk scores for 6 mental disorders and fine-grained school outcomes: school grades in language and mathematics in ninth grade and high school, as well as educational attainment by age 25, using nationwide-representative data from established cohorts (N = 79,489).ResultsHigh polygenic liability of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder was associated with lower grades in language and mathematics, whereas high polygenic risk of anorexia nervosa or bipolar disorder was …

Capacity to quickly acquire new words and learn language makes us who we are—communicating human beings. With modern brain research methodologies, we can now uncover the neural mechanisms underlying this unique word learning skill. In this chapter, we specifically focus on electrophysiology of word learning, with a particular emphasis on the time course of the learning-related brain activity. We first briefly review a selection of electrophysiological responses traditionally linked to word comprehension and describe what types of processing they are considered to reflect. Then, we review studies on two distinct word acquisition strategies—implicit and explicit learning of novel words, and, finally, studies that examined learning of new morphological units. We conclude by making suggestions for further research.

Journal of Clinical Psychopharmacology

BackgroundBipolar disorder and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder are common comorbidities. Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder is commonly treated with stimulants (eg, methylphenidate), which, however, have been suggested to cause treatment-emergent mania in patients with bipolar disorder. Here, we assessed the risk of mania, depressive episodes, and psychiatric admissions after initiation of methylphenidate treatment in patients with bipolar disorder.MethodsUsing Danish health registries, we identified all individuals registered with a diagnosis of bipolar disorder from January 1, 2000, to January 1, 2018, who were treated with methylphenidate. We applied a 1-year mirror-image model to compare the occurrence of mania, depression, and psychiatric admissions in the period leading up to and after methylphenidate treatment initiation. We furthermore assessed the trend in these outcomes from 4 …

Neuropsychologia

Language is a key part of human cognition, essential for our well-being at all stages of our lives. Whereas many neurocognitive abilities decline with age, for language the picture is much less clear, and how exactly speech comprehension changes with ageing is still unknown. To investigate this, we employed magnetoencephalography (MEG) and recorded neuromagnetic brain responses to auditory linguistic stimuli in healthy participants of younger and older age using a passive task-free paradigm and a range of different linguistic stimulus contrasts, which enabled us to assess neural processing of spoken language at multiple levels (lexical, semantic, morphosyntactic). Using machine learning-based classification algorithms to scrutinise intertrial phase coherence of MEG responses in cortical source space, we found that patterns of oscillatory neural activity diverged between younger and older participants across …

Journal of Cognition

According to embodied theories (including embodied, embedded, extended, enacted, situated, and grounded approaches to cognition), language representation is intrinsically linked to our interactions with the world around us, which is reflected in specific brain signatures during language processing and learning. Moving on from the original rivalry of embodied vs. amodal theories, this consensus paper addresses a series of carefully selected questions that aim at determining when and how rather than whether motor and perceptual processes are involved in language processes. We cover a wide range of research areas, from the neurophysiological signatures of embodied semantics, eg, event-related potentials and fields as well as neural oscillations, to semantic processing and semantic priming effects on concrete and abstract words, to first and second language learning and, finally, the use of virtual reality for …

Neuroscience and Behavioral Physiology

The development of technology has led to significant advances in applied research methods in the cognitive sciences. Eye tracking (oculography) is among the methods available for studying human behavior and its underlying cerebral mechanisms and cognitive processes and is a method for recording and analyzing oculomotor activity in real time. This review addresses the use of eye tracking in cognitive research both separately and in combination with electroencephalography, i.e., analysis of event-related potentials (ERP). Eye tracking will also be discussed in terms of its use in language research, from the study of comprehension and sentence construction to second language studies and bilingualism. Finally, the review will consider the parallel recording of eye movements and ERP. The review will draw attention not only to the strengths of the eye tracking technique, but also to studies which we believe can …

Frontiers in Psychology

Previous studies in conversational pragmatics have showed that the information people share with others heavily depends on the confidence they have in the correctness of a candidate answer. At the same time, different social contexts prompt different incentive structures, which set a higher or lower confidence criterion to determine which potential answer to report. In this study, we investigated how the different incentive structures of several types of social contexts and how different levels of knowledge affect the amount of information we are willing to share. Participants answered easy, intermediate, and difficult general-knowledge questions and decided whether they would report or withhold their selected answer in different social contexts: formal vs. informal, that could be either constrained (a context that promotes providing only responses we are certain about) or loose (with an incentive structure that maximizes providing any type of answer). Overall, our results confirmed that social contexts are associated with different incentive structures which affects memory reporting strategies. We also found that the difficulty of the questions is an important factor in conversational pragmatics. Our results highlight the relevance of studying different incentive structures of social contexts to understand the underlying processes of conversational pragmatics, and stress the importance of considering metamemory theories of memory reporting.

ImportanceEvery third to sixth patient with medical diseases receives antidepressants, but regulatory trials typically exclude comorbid medical diseases. Meta-analyses of antidepressants have shown small to medium effect sizes, but generalizability to clinical settings is unclear, where medical comorbidity is highly prevalent.ObjectiveTo perform an umbrella systematic review of the meta-analytic evidence and meta-analysis of the efficacy and safety of antidepressant use in populations with medical diseases and comorbid depression.Data SourcesPubMed and EMBASE were searched from inception until March 31, 2023, for systematic reviews with or without meta-analyses of randomized clinical trials (RCTs) examining the efficacy and safety of antidepressants for treatment or prevention of comorbid depression in any medical disease.Study SelectionMeta-analyses of placebo- or active-controlled RCTs studying …

Scientific Reports

Neocortical structures of the left frontal lobe, middle frontal gyrus (MFG) in particular, have been suggested to be linked to the processing of punishing and unpleasant outcomes in decision tasks. To assess the role of left MFG (lMFG) in communicative decisions, we used repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) to inhibit its function during communicational exchanges under two types of social contexts: formal and informal. Three groups of participants received an offline 1-Hz inhibitory rTMS of lMFG, right MFG as an active control site, or lMFG sham/placebo TMS as a passive control condition. Participants’ task included answering difficult general-knowledge questions, rating their confidence in their answers’ correctness, and, finally, deciding if they would report or withhold these answers in formal and informal social contexts. There were significantly more reported than withheld answers in the informal …