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Embodiment of action-related language into the motor system has been extensively documented. Yet the case of sensory words, especially referring to touch, remains overlooked. We investigated the influence of verbs denoting tactile sensations on tactile perception. In Experiment 1, participants detected tactile stimulations on their forearm, preceded by tactile or non-tactile verbs by one of three delays (170, 350, 500 ms) reflecting different word processing stages. Results revealed shorter reaction times to tactile stimulations following tactile than non-tactile verbs, irrespective of delay. To ensure that priming pertained to tactile, and not motor, verb properties, Experiment 2 compared the impact of tactile verbs to both action and non-tactile verbs, while stimulations were delivered on the index finger. No priming emerged following action verbs, therefore not supporting the motor-grounded interpretation. Facilitation by tactile verbs was however not observed, possibly owing to methodological changes. Experiment 3, identical to Experiment 2 except that stimulation was delivered to participants' forearm, replicated the priming effect. Importantly, tactile stimulations were detected faster after tactile than after both non-tactile and action verbs, indicating that verbs' tactile properties engaged resources shared with sensory perception. Our findings suggest that language conveying tactile information can activate somatosensory representations and subsequently promote tactile detection., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

The effects of the breakdown products of herbicides on aquatic species are largely unknown. In a recent study, we evaluated the effects of glyphosate on the mussel Mytilus galloprovincialis. This study was designed to evaluate for the first time the impact of aminomethylphosphonic acid (AMPA) - the main breakdown product of glyphosate - on cellular and biochemical parameters of the mussel Mytilus galloprovincialis. Bivalves were exposed for 7, 14 and 21 days to 1, 10 and 100 μg/L of AMPA and various biomarkers were measured in haemolymph (total haemocyte counts, haemocyte diameter and volume, haemolymph pH, haemocyte proliferation, haemolymph lactate dehydrogenase activity, haemocyte lysate lysozyme and acid phosphatase activities), as well as in gills and digestive gland (superoxide dismutase, catalase, glutathione S-transferase and acetylcholinesterase activities). AMPA concentrations in seawater samples from the experimental tanks were also measured in order to correlate the biomarker responses of mussels with their exposure to the actual concentrations of AMPA. The MANOVA analysis demonstrated that the experimental variables considered (exposure dose, exposure duration, and their interaction) affected significantly biomarker responses. Nevertheless, the two-way ANOVA analysis revealed significant effects of AMPA on most of the biomarkers measured. The overall results of this study demonstrated that AMPA can affect cellular and biochemical parameters in mussels, similarly to glyphosate., (Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

The most prevalent approach to activation localization in neuroimaging is to identify brain regions as contiguous supra-threshold clusters, check their significance using random field theory, and correct for the multiple clusters being tested. Besides recent criticism on the validity of the random field assumption, a spatial specificity paradox remains: the larger the detected cluster, the less we know about the location of activation within that cluster. This is because cluster inference implies "there exists at least one voxel with an evoked response in the cluster", and not that "all the voxels in the cluster have an evoked response". Inference on voxels within selected clusters is considered bad practice, due to the voxel-wise false positive rate inflation associated with this circular inference. Here, we propose a remedy to the spatial specificity paradox. By applying recent results from the multiple testing statistical literature, we are able to quantify the proportion of truly active voxels within selected clusters, an approach we call All-Resolutions Inference (ARI). If this proportion is high, the paradox vanishes. If it is low, we can further "drill down" from the cluster level to sub-regions, and even to individual voxels, in order to pinpoint the origin of the activation. In fact, ARI allows inference on the proportion of activation in all voxel sets, no matter how large or small, however these have been selected, all from the same data. We use two fMRI datasets to demonstrate the non-triviality of the spatial specificity paradox, and its resolution using ARI. We verify that the endless circularity permitted by ARI does not render its estimates overly conservative using both simulation, and a data split., (Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

The Gulf of La Spezia (northern Tyrrhenian Sea, Italy) is a commercially important area both as a shipping port and for mussel farming. Recently, there has been increased concern over environmental disturbances caused by anthropogenic activities such as ship traffic and dredging and the effects they have on the health of farmed mussels. This paper reports the results of microbiological and histological analyses, as well as of measurement of several biomarkers which were performed to assess the health status of mussels (Mytilus galloprovincialis) from four rearing sites in the Gulf of La Spezia. Mussels were collected between October 2015 and September 2016 and histological analyses (including gonadal maturation stage), as well as the presence of pathogenic bacteria (Vibrio splendidus clade, V. aestuarianus and V. harveyi), viruses (Herpes virus and ostreid Herpes virus 1) and protozoa (Marteilia spp., in the summer season only) were carried out on a monthly basis. Conversely, biomarker responses in haemocyte/haemolymph (total haemocyte count, haemocyte diameter and volume, lysozyme and lactate dehydrogenase activities in cell-free haemolymph, and micronuclei frequency) and in gills and digestive gland (cortisol-like steroids and lipid peroxidation levels), were evaluated bimonthly. Microbiological data indicated that mussels contain a reservoir of potentially pathogenic bacteria, viruses and protozoa that in certain environmental conditions may cause a weakening of the immune system of animals leading to mortality episodes. The percentage of parasites detected in the mussels was generally low (9.6% for Steinhausia mytilovum, that is 17 samples out of 177 examined females; 3.4% for Proctoeces maculatus; 0.9% for Mytilicola intestinalis and 2% for ciliated protozoa), while symbiont loads were higher (31% for Eugymnanthea inquilina and Urastoma cyprinae). Interestingly, a previously undescribed haplosporidian was detected in a single mussel sample (0.2%) and was confirmed by in situ hybridization. Cells morphologically similar to Perkinsus sp. trophozoites were observed in 0.7% of the mussels analysed; however, infection with Perkinsus spp. could neither be confirmed by ISH nor by PCR. Different pathological aspects, such as host defence responses and regressive/progressive changes were detected in the gills, digestive glands, gonads and mantle. Only one single case of disseminated neoplasia (0.2%) was observed. As for the biomarker evaluation, the MANOVA analysis revealed the statistically significant effect that the variable "sampling site" had on the biological parameter measured, thus suggesting that the multibiomarker approach was able to differentiate the rearing sites., (Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

At present, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is one of the most useful methods of studying cognitive processes in the human brain in vivo, both for basic science and clinical goals. Although neuroscience studies often rely on group analysis, clinical applications must investigate single subjects (patients) only. Particularly for the latter, issues regarding the reliability of fMRI readings remain to be resolved. To determine the ability of intra-run variability (IRV) weighting to consistently detect active voxels, we first acquired fMRI data from a sample of healthy subjects, each of whom performed 4 runs (4 blocks each) of self-paced finger-tapping. Each subject's data was analyzed using single-run general linear model (GLM), and each block was then analyzed separately to calculate the IRV weighting. Results show that integrating IRV information into standard single-subject GLM activation maps significantly improved the reliability (p=0.007) of the single-subject fMRI data. This suggests that taking IRV into account can help identify the most constant and relevant neuronal activity at the single-subject level., (Copyright © 2015. Published by Elsevier Inc.)

Numerous studies have demonstrated that environmental parameters affect bivalve immunomarkers. In the present study, we tested the hypothesis that clams (Venerupis philippinarum) collected in sites with different environmental conditions respond differently to experimental contaminant exposure. Clams were collected at two sites within the Lagoon of Venice that are influenced differently by both anthropogenic impact and natural conditions: Marghera, which is characterised by relatively high contamination levels and restricted clam fishing, and Chioggia, which is inside a licensed clam culture area that is characterised by lower contamination levels. Total haemocyte count, haemocyte diameter and volume, lysozyme activity in both haemocyte lysate and cell-free haemolymph, superoxide dismutase and catalase activities in gills and digestive glands were measured at time 0 (clam sampling time), after 7 days of acclimation in the laboratory and after 1, 3 and 7 days of copper exposure. Interestingly, statistical analyses (three-way ANOVA and Canonical Correlation Analysis) revealed persistent differences in the biological responses of clams from the two sampling sites before and after copper exposure. Conversely, the influence of copper on cellular and biochemical parameters was negligible. Overall, the results obtained indicated that animals with a different ecological history respond differently to experimental contaminant exposure. In addition, this study suggested that immunomarkers and other biomarkers might be used to determine the origin of fishing products., (Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)