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Background:Visuo-perceptual and visuo-attentional disorders, such as global processing deficit and simultanagnosia, are not routinely investigated in prodromal forms of typical Alzheimer’s disease, as amnestic mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Objective:This study evaluated global processing abilities through Navon’s classical paradigm in individuals with amnestic MCI and investigated the related visuo-perceptual and attentional components involved in simultanagnosia. Methods:Sixteen consecutive patients with amnestic MCI (6 single-domain, 10 multiple-domain) and 16 matched controls were requested to identify global and local elements of hierarchical Navon letters, and to name large and small solid letters. Results:While correctly identifying solid letters, patients with multiple-domain amnestic MCI were less accurate in processing the global level of hierarchical stimuli compared to controls. Single-case analyses suggested that global processing may also be impaired in single-domain amnestic MCI. In addition, patients with pathological performance in the Navon task showed perceptual and/or visual focal attention deficits. Conclusions:Early dysfunction of holistic processing can be detected in amnestic MCI. Visuo-perceptual and/or visual focal attention mechanisms, which have been shown to be damaged in Posterior Cortical Atrophy patients with simultanagnosia, may be impaired in individuals with amnestic MCI. Investigation and identification of global processing deficits in MCI could contribute to early diagnosis and longitudinal monitoring of the disease.

Il cervello umano mantiene costantemente una rappresentazione mentale e implicita del proprio corpo nel tempo e nello spazio, utilizzata per processare stimoli sensoriali e interagire efficientemente con il mondo esterno. Attraverso il susseguirsi di interazioni caratterizzate da contingenza sensorimotorie (ovvero la presenza di eventi di diversa natura sensoriale nello stesso momento nel tempo) e regolarità statistiche (ripetizione di eventi sensoriali in relazione tra loro), il nostro cervello è in grado di costruire una rappresentazione corporea in grado di processare ed elaborare informazioni provenienti dall’ambiente esterno efficientemente e in maniera automatica. Tuttavia, studi recenti sembrano suggerire che tali meccanismi utilizzati per processare efficientemente informazioni sensoriali corporee dipendono dalla esperienza sensoriale che facciamo del nostro corpo durante lo sviluppo, e, allo stesso tempo possono essere alterati da nuove configurazioni di contingenza sensorimotoria durante l’interazione con l’ambiente esterno. La presente tesi di dottorato ha utilizzato un nuovo paradigma sperimentale sviluppato nella realtà virtuale (VR) per creare una disparità spaziale tra la parte del corpo coinvolta nell'interazione motoria e la parte del corpo che ha ricevuto il feedback somatosensoriale derivato dall'interazione. Il compito sensorimotorio richiedeva ai partecipanti di muovere, utilizzando un bastone controllato la mano destra, un cubo all’interno dell’ambiente virtuale, per una durata totale di 10 minuti. Il contatto tra il bastone e il cubo provocava un feedback tattile. Ogni partecipante ripeteva il compito sensorimotorio in due sessioni differenti, rispettivamente per la condizione spaziale congruente e condizione spaziale incongruente. Durante la condizione congruente, il contatto tra cubo e bastone provocava un feedback tattile sulla mano destra, quindi congruente rispetto all’effettore di movimento. Durante la condizione incongruente, il con, The human brain consistently maintains a mental and implicit representation of the body over time and space, utilized for processing sensory stimuli and interacting efficiently with the external world. In this context, through sensorimotor contingency and statistical regularities (i.e., the presence of sensory events co-occurring in a specific body part), our brain develops stable mechanisms to process sensory stimuli from the external environment efficiently. However, recent studies suggest that mechanisms used to process bodily sensory information efficiently depend on the sensory experience of our body during development and, simultaneously, can be altered by new configurations of sensorimotor contingencies during interaction with the external environment. To further disentangle this aspect, the present doctoral thesis used a new experimental paradigm developed in virtual reality (VR) to create a spatial mismatch between the body part involved in the motor interaction and the body part that received somatosensory feedback derived from the interaction. During the task, the participant interacted in the virtual environment with a stick controlled by the right hand, and the goal was to move a virtual cube according to the provided instructions (a total of 10 minutes of interaction). Each time the virtual stick touched the cube, the participant received a tactile stimulus. In the congruent condition, the participant received tactile feedback on the right hand. In the incongruent condition, the participant received tactile feedback on the left ankle (contralateral to the hand used for interaction). In separate sessions, the same participants performed the spatial misalignment condition (incongruent condition) or the spatial alignment condition (congruent condition, i.e., control), and the measurements were collected before and after the task. The presented studies aimed to investigate and explore, through psychophysical and neuroimaging techniques, how the human brain

Parkinson's Disease (PD) is associated with motor and non-motor symptoms. Among the latter are deficits in matching, identification, and recognition of emotional facial expressions. On one hand, this deficit has been attributed to a dysfunction in emotion processing. Another explanation (which does not exclude the former) links this deficit with reduced facial expressiveness in these patients, which prevents them from properly understanding or embodying emotions. To disentangle the specific contribution of emotion comprehension and that of facial expression processing in PD's observed deficit with emotions we performed two experiments on non-emotional facial expressions. In Experiment 1, a group of PD patients and a group of Healthy Controls (HC) underwent a task of non-emotional expression recognition in faces of different identity and a task of identity recognition in faces with different expression. No differences were observed between the two groups in accuracies. In Experiment 2, PD patients and Healthy Controls underwent a task where they had to recognize the identity of faces encoded through a non-emotional facial expression, through a rigid head movement, or as neutral. Again, no group differences were observed. In none of the two experiments hypomimia scores had a specific effect on expression processing. We conclude that in PD patients the observed impairment with emotional expressions is likely due to a specific deficit for emotions to a greater extent than for facial expressivity processing.

Psychophysical observations indicate that the spatial profile of visuospatial attention includes a central enhancement around the attentional focus, encircled by a narrow zone of reduced excitability in the immediate surround. This inhibitory ring optimally amplifies relevant target information, likely stemming from top-down frontoparietal recurrent activity modulating early visual cortex activations. However, the mechanisms through which neural suppression gives rise to the surrounding attenuation and any potential hemispheric specialization remain unclear. We used transcranial magnetic stimulation to evaluate the role of two regions of the dorsal attention network in the center-surround profile: the frontal eye field and the intraparietal sulcus. Participants performed a psychophysical task that mapped the entire spatial attentional profile, while transcranial magnetic stimulation was delivered either to intraparietal sulcus or frontal eye field on the right (Experiment 1) and left (Experiment 2) hemisphere. Results showed that stimulation of right frontal eye field and right intraparietal sulcus significantly changed the center-surround profile, by widening the inhibitory ring around the attentional focus. The stimulation on the left frontal eye field, but not left intraparietal sulcus, induced a general decrease in performance but did not alter the center-surround profile. Results point to a pivotal role of the right dorsal attention network in orchestrating inhibitory spatial mechanisms required to limit interference by surrounding distractors.

L'afasia, un disturbo comunicativo derivante da danni nelle aree cerebrali deputate al linguaggio, altera la capacità di espressione e/o di comprensione con conseguenze sulla qualità di vita. Sebbene la terapia logopedica sia il trattamento cardine dell’afasia, i meccanismi che ne determinano il successo sono solo parzialmente compresi. Infatti, nonostante i progressi nelle teorie linguistiche e terapeutiche, la variabilità dei risultati tra pazienti rimane una sfida significativa. Fattori come dimensione e posizione della lesione, presenza di deficit cognitivi concomitanti, influenzano il recupero, ma la loro esatta incidenza è ancora da definire. Rimane inoltre dibattuto se questo recupero sia dovuto alla formazione di nuove connessioni neurali, alla riattivazione di conoscenze linguistiche latenti o a una combinazione dei due. Benché i trattamenti attuali siano volti a facilitare l'accesso a competenze linguistiche preesistenti, l'acquisizione di nuovi contenuti linguistici potrebbe rappresentare una nuova frontiera terapeutica. In questo contesto, la tesi esplora il potenziale di apprendimento nell'afasia, con particolare attenzione all'apprendimento implicito. La ricerca si articola in quattro studi, nei quali i partecipanti sono stati esposti a non-parole e oggetti sconosciuti, con l'obiettivo di valutare la capacità di formare associazioni basate sulla co-occorrenza statistica, nel caso dell'apprendimento implicito, e attraverso l'istruzione diretta, nel caso di quello esplicito. La loro capacità di ritenzione è stata valutata nell’immediato e dopo una settimana. Considerando che lo studio su soggetti neurologicamente intatti può contribuire a perfezionare le teorie sulla riabilitazione del linguaggio, il secondo capitolo analizza i due tipi di apprendimento in soggetti sani in relazione a età e anni di istruzione. I risultati evidenziano prestazioni migliori nei partecipanti più giovani e minori discrepanze nell'apprendimento implicito, suggerendo, Aphasia is a communication disorder that arises from damage to the brain's language areas, affecting comprehension, expressive language, reading, and writing. This condition severely disrupts daily communication, leading to a reduced quality of life and limited social interactions. While speech and language therapy remains the primary treatment for aphasia, the mechanisms driving its success are not fully understood. Despite advancements in language processing theories and therapeutic interventions, variability in patient outcomes remains a challenge. Factors like lesion size, location, and co-existing cognitive deficits play roles, but their collective influence on recovery remains elusive. From a cognitive perspective, the source of language recovery—whether from new neural connections, reactivation of latent linguistic information, or a blend of both—is debated. Current treatments help patients access existing language skills, but some therapies tend to reintroduce known referents as new linguistic items to offer a therapeutic direction. Recent studies indicate that the ability to learn new words might be indeed pivotal for therapy outcomes in chronic aphasia patients. This thesis delves into novel word learning, emphasizing the potential of implicit learning, an unconscious knowledge acquisition method. The research covers four studies, all designed to compare implicit and explicit learning mechanisms. Participants were introduced to pseudowords and unfamiliar objects, aiming to discern their capacity to form associations through statistical co-occurrence in the implicit condition and through direct instruction in the explicit one. Their retention was assessed after a week. In Chapter 2, the first study begins by exploring the two learning mechanisms across various age groups and educational backgrounds, recognizing that insights from neurologically healthy individuals can enhance therapeutic approaches for aphasia. Younger participants demonstrated higher learn

Background: Corticobasal syndrome (CBS) is typically asymmetric. Case reports suggest that left-hemisphere CBS (lhCBS) is associated with major language impairment, and right-hemisphere CBS (rhCBS) is associated with major visuospatial deficits, but no group study has ever verified these observations. In our study, we enrolled 49 patients with CBS, classified them as lhCBS or rhCBS based on asymmetry of hypometabolism on brain FDG-PET and compared their cognitive and behavioural profiles. Methods: We defined asymmetry of hypometabolism upon visual inspection of qualitative PET images and confirmed it through paired comparison of left- and right-hemisphere FDG uptake values. The two groups were also matched for severity of hypometabolism within the more affected and more preserved hemispheres, to unravel differences in the cognitive profiles ascribable specifically to each hemisphere’s functional specializations. All patients were assessed for memory, language, executive and visuospatial deficits, apraxia, neglect, dyscalculia, agraphia and behavioural disturbances. Results: LhCBS (n. 26) and rhCBS (n. 23) patients did not differ for demographics, disease duration and severity of global cognitive impairment. The two cognitive profiles were largely overlapping, with two exceptions: Digit span forward was poorer in lhCBS, and visual neglect was more frequent in rhCBS. Conclusions: After balancing out patients for hemispheric hypometabolism, we did not confirm worse language or visuospatial deficits in, respectively, lhCBS and rhCBS. However, verbal short-term memory was more impaired in lhCBS, and spatial attention was more impaired in rhCBS. Both of these functions reflect the functional specialization of the left and right fronto-parietal pathways, i.e. of the main loci of neurodegeneration in CBS.

Background: The Northwestern Assessment of Verbs and Sentences (NAVS) assesses verb and sentence production and comprehension in aphasia. Results from the original English version and from its adaptation to German have shown that the NAVS is able to capture effects of verb-argument structure (VAS) complexity (i.e., lower accuracy for two- and three-argument vs. one-argument verbs) and syntactic complexity (i.e., lower accuracy for non-canonical vs. canonical sentences) in both agrammatic participants and individuals with fluent forms of aphasia. The NAVS has been recently adapted to Italian (NAVS-I) and tested on a group of healthy participants, with results showing longer reaction times to complex vs. simple verbs and sentences. Aims: The present study aimed to test the ability of NAVS-I to i) capture verb/sentence production and comprehension deficits in Italian-speaking individuals with agrammatism or with fluent aphasia, and ii) differentiate individuals with aphasia from healthy age-matched participants, with the overall goal to validate its use in clinical practice. Methods & Procedures: Forty-four healthy participants and 28 individuals with aphasia (10 with agrammatic speech production) were administered the NAVS-I, which includes tasks assessing production and comprehension of verbs requiring one, two or three arguments, as well as production and comprehension of canonical and non-canonical sentences. Outcomes & Results: On the Verb Naming Task (VNT), better production of one- (vs. two- and three-) argument verbs was found in the agrammatic group, whereas, verb production in the fluent group was solely predicted by word length and imageability. No effects of argument optionality (i.e., greater difficulty for optionally transitive verbs than for 1-argument verbs) were found. Sentence-level tasks found no differences between the agrammatic and the fluent group in production or comprehension of both canonical and non-canonical sentences; rather, senten

Tra le tecniche di stimolazione cerebrale non invasive (NIBS), la stimolazione transcranica a corrente continua (tDCS) e la stimolazione transcranica a corrente alternata (tACS) sono in grado di modulare l’eccitabilità e la plasticità corticale, inducendo una polarizzazione o depolarizzazione dei neuroni (Nitsche, Cohen, Wassermann, Priori, Lang, Antal, Paulus, Hummel, Boggio, Fregni, et al., 2008; Polanía et al., 2018) e la sincronizzazione delle oscillazioni cerebrali a diverse frequenze (Polanía et al., 2018; Vosskuhl et al., 2018). Ad oggi, nonostante la relativa facilità di applicazione e i risultati promettenti di tDCS e tACS in contesti sia sperimentali sia clinici, manca un consenso sui protocolli di stimolazione più efficaci. Pertanto, questa tesi ha l’intento di indagare le potenziali fonti di variabilità per consentire un perfezionamento dei protocolli di stimolazione al fine di ottenere effetti comportamentali più consistenti, sia a scopo clinico sia sperimentale. In particolare, gli studi presentati nella tesi hanno valutato sistematicamente gli effetti comportamentali dipendenti dalla polarità e dal momento di applicazione della tDCS, e gli effetti sia comportamentali sia neurofisiologici conseguenti all’applicazione di una stimolazione tACS bifocale cross-frequency. In particolare, il primo studio di questa tesi ha indagato l'effetto comportamentale dipendente dalla polarità della tDCS in partecipanti sani, conducendo due esperimenti randomizzati-controllati rispettivamente con tDCS anodica e catodica sulla corteccia parietale posteriore destra (rPPC) durante l'esecuzione di una versione modificata del Posner Cueing Task (Posner, 1980). I risultati hanno evidenziato che la comune assunzione dell’effetto polarità dipendente, anodica-eccitatoria e catodica-inibitoria (Nitsche & Paulus, 2000) non si traduce in modo semplicistico sul comportamento in effetti facilitatori della performance per l’anodica e peggiorativi per la catodica. Il secondo, Among the non-invasive brain stimulation techniques (NIBS), transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) and transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) can modulate cortical excitability and plasticity, respectively with sub-threshold induced polarization or depolarization of neurons (Nitsche, Cohen, Wassermann, Priori, Lang, Antal, Paulus, Hummel, Boggio, Fregni, et al., 2008; Polanía et al., 2018) and entraining brain oscillation at different frequencies (Polanía et al., 2018; Vosskuhl et al., 2018). To date, despite their relative ease of application and the promising findings in the use of tDCS and tACS in both experimental and clinical settings, there is a lack of consensus on the most efficient protocols of stimulation. Thus, the present study aims to address the open issues on this topic to allow a better refinement of stimulation protocols to obtain more consistent behavioural effects, both for clinical and research purposes. In particular, the studies presented in the dissertation systematically assessed the polarity-dependent and timing-dependent behavioural effects of tDCS, and the behavioural and neurophysiological effects of a novel cross-frequency tACS. The first main study of this dissertation investigated the polarity-dependence of tDCS behavioural effects in healthy participants running two sham-controlled experiments with anodal and cathodal tDCS respectively on the right posterior parietal cortex (rPPC) during the execution of a modified version of the Posner Cueing Task (Posner, 1980). The results highlighted that the assumption of anodal-excitation and cathodal-inhibition (Nitsche & Paulus, 2000) does not consistently translate into anodal-facilitatory and cathodal-inhibitory effects on behaviour. The second main study explored how different coupling of the tDCS-induced stimulation with the endogenous stimulation induced by a concurrent task execution affect the behaviour, for both polarities, in healthy participants. Two sham-contr

Nella quotidiano, siamo continuamente esposti a stimoli emotivi vari e complessi. Questi stimoli, raccolti ed elaborati nella nostra mente, danno origine alle nostre esperienze emotive soggettive. Da un punto di vista psicologico, l'osservazione e lo studio di come emergono queste esperienze emotive sono stati oggetto di ampi dibattiti. Tuttavia, nel corso della ricerca, tutte le principali teorie sulle emozioni sono partite da due componenti fondamentali: la mente e il corpo. Il peso relativo di queste due componenti è poi variato a seconda del quadro teorico specifico. Teorie moderne costruttiviste e embodied hanno riportato l’attenzione sull’importanza del corpo nei processi emotivi, suggerendo che il corpo è un elemento cruciale nell'emergere delle emozioni, sia per il suo ruolo di “primitivo psicologico di base” sia per il suo coinvolgimento attivo a livello neurale. Questa tesi di dottorato comprende quattro studi che indagano la relazione tra corpo-emozioni all'interno di una prospettiva costruttivista ed embodied. Abbiamo cercato di integrare questi due modelli documentando (1) se e in che misura le regioni cerebrali somatotopicamente organizzate sono attivamente coinvolte nell'esperienza emotiva (Studio 1) e (2) se questo coinvolgimento mostra una relazione causale e bidirezionale (Studio 2). Lo studio 1 ha indagato il contributo delle esperienze sensomotorie nella generazione di esperienze emotive utilizzando la fMRI durante un compito di richiamo emotivo. I risultati mostrano che la rievocazione di episodi emotivi attiva parti del sistema sensomotorio, favorendo così un'esperienza incarnata-costruttivista delle emozioni. Lo studio 2 ha dimostrato che il sistema somatosensoriale primario (S1) ha un ruolo causale nell’esperienza emotiva. Utilizzando la tACS su S1 a diverse frequenze, mentre i partecipanti valutavano stimoli emotivi, abbiamo scoperto che la modulazione di S1 influenza le valutazioni soggettive in funzione della frequenza applicata. Inoltr, We are continuously exposed to various and complex emotional stimuli. These stimuli, gathered and processed in our mind, give rise to our subjective emotional experiences. From a psychological point of view, the observation and study of how subjective emotional experiences emerge have been the subject of extensive debates. Nevertheless, throughout the course of research, all the major theories of emotions have started from two fundamental components: mind and body. The relative weight of these two components has then varied depending on the specific theoretical framework. Contemporary constructionist and embodied theories have brought the fundamental importance of the body back to attention. These theories suggest that the body is a crucial element in the emergence of emotions, both in terms of its role as basic psychological primitives and its active involvement at the neural level in the experience of emotions. This doctoral dissertation includes four studies investigating the relationship between body-emotion within a constructionist and embodied perspective. We sought to integrate these two theoretical models by documenting (1) whether and to what extent brain regions somatotopically organised are actively involved in the subjective emotion experiences (Study 1) and (2) whether this involvement has a causal relationship, thus highlighting the bi-directional interaction (Study 2). Study 1 investigated the contribution of sensorimotor experiences in generating subjective feelings of emotion using fMRI during an emotion recall task. Results showed that recalling emotional episodes activated parts of the sensorimotor system, thus favouring an embodied-constructionist experience of emotions. Study 2 showed that the somatosensory primary system (S1) also has a causal role in the feeling of emotions. Using tACS on S1 at different frequencies while participants rated emotional images, we have found that modulation of S1 influenced subjective ratings as a function of the

We often express our thoughts through words, but thinking goes well beyond language. Here we focus on an elementary but basic thinking process, disjunction elimination, elicited by elementary visual scenes deprived of linguistic content, describing its neural and oculomotor correlates. We track two main components of a nonverbal deductive process: the construction of a logical representation (A or B), and its simplification by deduction (not A, therefore B). We identify the network active in the two phases and show that in the latter, but not in the former, it overlaps with areas known to respond to verbal logical reasoning. Oculomotor markers consistently differentiate logical processing induced by the construction of a representation, its simplification by deductive inference, and its maintenance when inferences cannot be drawn. Our results reveal how integrative logical processes incorporate novel experience in the flow of thoughts induced by visual scenes.

Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic has forced significant changes in clinical practice. Psychologists and neuropsychologists had to modify their settings to assess patients’ abilities, switching from an in-person modality to a remote setting by using video calling platforms. Consequently, this change brought about the need for new normative data tailored to remote settings. Aim and methods: The study aimed to develop normative data for the online assessment of neuropsychological memory tests and to compare it with the published norms obtained in standard settings. Two hundred and four healthy Italian volunteers performed three verbal memory tests through the Google Meet platform: the Digit Span (Backward and Forward), the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning, and the Verbal Paired Associated Learning Test. Results: This research provides specific norms that consider the influence of demographic characteristics. Their comparison with published norms shows a medium to high agreement between systems. The present study provides a reference for the clinical use of neuropsychological instruments to assess verbal memory in a remote setting and offers specific recommendations.

In the original version of this article, some typos regarding the adjustment coefficients for raw MoCA-Visuo-spatial (MoCA-VS) and MoCA-Attention (MoCA-A) scores (Table 3) were present and have now been amended (amended MoCA-VS cell: age=35, education=8; amended MoCA-A cells: age=55, education=8; age=35, education=13). Moreover, some imprecisions regarding the discussion of the discrepancies between the present and previous normative studies have been amended (page 379, Discussion: "More specifically, ESs allotments here reported proved to be stricter than those of Santangelo et al.’s [1] with regard to MoCA-total, -VS, -EF and -A, whereas less strict with regard to MoCA-O and Conti et al.’s [2] total"). We are thankful to the Researcher that has drawn our attention on such elements. The updated Table 3 is below: (Table presented.) Adjustment grids according to age and education for MoCA total and subtest raw scores Sub-test Education Age 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70 75 80 85 90 95 Total 5 0.35 0.52 0.73 1 1.34 1.73 2.2 2.75 3.38 4.1 4.92 5.84 6.86 8 − 1.22 − 1.05 − 0.83 − 0.56 − 0.23 0.17 0.64 1.18 1.81 2.53 3.35 4.27 5.3 11 − 2.28 − 2.11 − 1.89 − 1.62 − 1.29 − 0.89 − 0.43 0.12 0.75 1.47 2.29 3.21 4.24 13 − 2.84 − 2.67 − 2.45 − 2.18 − 1.85 − 1.45 − 0.98 − 0.43 0.2 0.92 1.73 2.65 3.68 16 − 3.53 − 3.36 − 3.14 − 2.87 − 2.54 − 2.14 − 1.67 − 1.13 − 0.5 0.23 1.04 1.96 2.99 18 − 3.92 − 3.75 − 3.53 − 3.26 − 2.93 − 2.53 − 2.07 − 1.52 − 0.89 − 0.17 0.65 1.57 2.6 21 − 4.43 − 4.26 − 4.05 − 3.78 − 3.45 − 3.05 − 2.58 − 2.03 − 1.4 − 0.68 0.14 1.06 2.08 VS 5 − 0.06 0.13 0.2 0.28 0.37 0.47 0.57 0.69 0.81 0.93 1.07 1.21 8 − 0.3 − 0.24 − 0.18 − 0.1 − 0.02 0.07 0.17 0.27 0.38

The Semantic Association Test assesses several aspects of Semantic Memory (Categorical, Encyclopedic, Functional, and Visual Encyclopedic associations: CAs, EAs, FAs and VEAs), using a picture-to-picture matching paradigm. Normative data were collected from a group of 329 healthy participants (178 females) with mean 51.1 (range 20-90) years of age and mean 11.89 (range 5-19) years of education. Raw scores of healthy participants, pre-calculated correction factors for age and educational level, and Equivalent Scores are provided. The SAT was validated in a sample of 139 left brain-damaged persons with aphasia (PWA). Both groups (healthy participants and PWA) scored worse in the CA and EA conditions. The performance of the PWA group was overall defective, and global aphasics scored worse than persons with other types of aphasia. However, several PWA did not show impairments in the SAT. Dissociations were also found, with individual PWA showing defective performance confined to a single category. These results present the SAT as a tool that is useful to detect impairments of visual Semantic Memory, providing normative data from healthy participants and a validation study in PWA.

Motor interactions require observing and monitoring a partner’s performance as the interaction unfolds. Studies i n monkeys suggest that thi s form of soci al moni tori ng might be mediated by the activity of the ventral premotor cortex (vPMc), a critical brain region in action observation and motor planning. Our previous fMRI studies in humans showed that the left vPMc is indeed recruited during social monitoring, but its causal role is unexplored. In three experiments, we applied online anodal or cathodal transcra-nial direct current stimulation over the left lateral frontal cortex during a music-like interactive task to test the hypothesis that neuromodulation of the left vPMc affects participants’ performance when a partner violates the agent’s expectations. Participants pl ayed short musi cal sequences together with a virtual partner by playing one note each in turn-taking. In 50% of the trials, the partner violated the participant’s expectations by generating the correct note through an unexpected movement. During sham stimulation, the partner’s unexpected behavior led to a slowdown in the participant’s performance (observation-induced posterror slowing). A significant interaction with the stimulation type showed that cathodal and anodal transcranial direct current stimulation induced modulation of the observation-induced posterror slowing in opposite directions by reducing or enhancing it, respectively. Cath-odal stimulation significantly reduced the effect compared to sham stimulation. No effect of neuromodul ati on was found when the partner behaved as expected or when the observed violation occurred within a context that was perceptual l y matched but noni nt eracti ve i n nature. These results provide evidence for the critical causal role that the left vPMc might play in social monitoring during motor interactions, possibly through the interplay with other brain regions in the posterior medial frontal cortex.

We validated in the clinical setting a putative clinical marker for a biological diagnosis of primary progressive aphasia (PPA) due to amyloid previously identified in an autopsy cohort and including impaired (score & LE;4) digit span (DS) as index of phonological loop dysfunction and broadened criteria for logopenic PPA. In 29 PPA patients with an amyloid-positive (A+) biomarker and 28 PPA patients with an amyloidnegative (A-) biomarker, Receiver Operating Characteristics (ROC) curve analysis showed moderate specificity (71%) but insufficient sensitivity (41%) for the proposed marker. Specificity was particularly poor (58%) for the discrimination between A+ PPA and the A- subgroup with nonfluent PPA. DS may be compromised in both logopenic and nonfluent PPA, whose loci of neurodegeneration lie at the 2 ends of the left fronto-parieto-temporal system that underpins phonology. An Statistical Parametric Mapping (SPM) correlation analysis between DS score and metabolism on brain 18-fluoro-deoxy-glucose positron emission tomography also showed a major contribution of the left frontal cortex to impaired span.& COPY; 2023 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS)-evoked potentials (TEPs) are a promising proxy for measuring effective connectivity, that is, the directed transmission of physiological signals along cortico-cortical tracts, and for developing connectivity-based biomarkers. A crucial point is how stimulation parameters may affect TEPs, as they may contribute to the general variability of findings across studies. Here, we manipulated two TMS parameters (i.e. current direction and pulse waveform) while measuring (a) an early TEP component reflecting contralateral inhibition of motor areas, namely, M1-P15, as an operative model of interhemispheric cortico-cortical connectivity, and (b) motor-evoked potentials (MEP) for the corticospinal pathway. Our results showed that these two TMS parameters are crucial to evoke the M1-P15, influencing its amplitude, latency, and replicability. Specifically, (a) M1-P15 amplitude was strongly affected by current direction in monophasic stimulation; (b) M1-P15 latency was significantly modulated by current direction for monophasic and biphasic pulses. The replicability of M1-P15 was substantial for the same stimulation condition. At the same time, it was poor when stimulation parameters were changed, suggesting that these factors must be controlled to obtain stable single-subject measures. Finally, MEP latency was modulated by current direction, whereas non-statistically significant changes were evident for amplitude. Overall, our study highlights the importance of TMS parameters for early TEP responses recording and suggests controlling their impact in developing connectivity biomarkers from TEPs. Moreover, these results point out that the excitability of the corticospinal tract, which is commonly used as a reference to set TMS intensity, may not correspond to the excitability of cortico-cortical pathways.

Due to the multitasking nature of driving, drivers are physiologically distracted by both relevant and irrelevant environmental stimuli. The ability to select relevant stimuli and suppress irrelevant distractors during driving are two relevant factors for safety. There is a lot of evidence suggesting that the frontal eye field (FEF) plays an important role in target selection and distractors suppression, as well as in attentional mechanisms crucial for safety driving performance. Taking these two points into account, this study was designed to examine the effects of different transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) montages over right FEF to determine whether stimulation of FEF could improve attentional mechanisms in a simulated driving environment. Twenty-seven adult participants took part in the study. A specific driving simulator task was developed in which participants had to respond to brake light events of a preceding car in front of them while driving. The second distracting task consisted of road signs of countries and cities that appeared together with braking lights or alone. Participants were required to respond to one of the two categories with their right hand. These two tasks could be performed alone or in a combined condition. Each participant completed three sessions comparing the effects of different tDCS montages, i.e. conventional, focal 4*1 ring high-definition (HD-tDCS) and sham stimulations over the right FEF. Results indicated an overall better performance under the focal HD-tDCS condition. In particular, participants improved their performance both in braking light RTs and in the second distracting task. Taken together these results are interesting from a theoretical and methodological point of view, by demonstrating a direct effect of anodal focal HD-tDCS on FEF in attentional response during an ecological driving task.

In humans, motor resonance effects can be tracked by measuring the enhancement of corticospinal excitability by action observation. Uncovering factors driving motor resonance is crucial for optimizing action observation paradigms in experimental and clinical settings. In the present study, we deepen motor resonance properties for grasping movements. Thirty-five healthy subjects underwent an action observation task presenting right-hand grasping movements differing from their action goal. Single-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation was applied over the left primary motor cortex at 100, 200, or 300 ms from the onset of the visual stimulus depicting the action. Motor-evoked potentials were recorded from four muscles of the right hand and forearm. Results show a muscle-specific motor resonance effect at 200 ms after movement but selectively for observing a socially relevant grasp towards another human being. This effect correlates with observers’ emotional empathy scores, and it was followed by inhibition of motor resonance at 300 ms post-stimulus onset. No motor resonance facilitation emerged while observing intransitive hand movement or object grasping. This evidence highlights the social side of motor resonance and its dependency on temporal factors.

Pseudoneglect is a set of visuospatial biases that entails a behavioral advantage for stimuli appearing in the left hemifield compared to the right one. Although right hemisphere dominance for visuospatial processing has been invoked to explain this phenomenon, its neurophysiological mechanisms are still debated, and the role of intra- and inter-hemispheric connectivity is yet to be defined. The present study explored the possibility of modulating pseudoneglect in healthy participants through a cortico-cortical paired associative stimulation protocol (ccPAS): a non-invasive brain stimulation protocol that manipulates the interplay between brain regions through the repeated, time-locked coupling of two transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) pulses. In the first experiment, healthy participants underwent a frontal-to-parietal (FP) and a parietal-to-frontal (PF) ccPAS. In the FP protocol, the first TMS pulse targeted the right frontal eye field (FEF), and the second pulse the right inferior parietal lobule (IPL), two critical areas for visuospatial and attentional processing. In the PF condition, the order of the pulses was reversed. In both protocols, the inter-stimulus interval (ISI) was 10 ms. Before and after stimulation, pseudoneglect was assessed with a landmark task and a manual line bisection task. A second experiment controlled for ccPAS timing dependency by testing FP-ccPAS with a longer ISI of 100 ms. Results showed that after administering the FP-ccPAS with the ISI of 10 ms, participants’ leftward bias in the landmark task increased significantly, with no effects in the manual line bisection task. The other two protocols tested were ineffective. Our findings showed that ccPAS could be used to modulate pseudoneglect by exploiting frontal-to-parietal connectivity, possibly through increased top-down attentional control. FP-ccPAS could represent a promising tool to investigate connectivity properties within visuospatial and attentional networks in the healthy

The role of arm posture in the Uznadze haptic aftereffect is investigated: two identical test stimuli (i.e., spheres, TS) clenched simultaneously appear haptically different in size after hands have been adapted to two spheres (adapting stimuli, AS) differing in size: the hand adapted to a small AS feels TS bigger than the hand adapted to a big AS. In two experiments, participants evaluated the haptic impressions of two TS after adaptation by finding their match on a visual scale. In Experiment 1, all tasks were carried out with arms either uncrossed or crossed. In Experiment 2, only the matching task was performed with arms either uncrossed or crossed while adaptation was conducted by continuously changing arm posture from uncrossed to crossed and vice versa. The illusion occurred irrespectively of arm posture; however, its magnitude was smaller when adaptation was carried out in the classical condition of uncrossed arms. Results are discussed in light of two functional mechanisms: low-level somatotopic mapping (i.e., stimuli conformation) and high-level level factors (i.e., arm posture) that could modulate the haptic perception.

Executive Functions (EFs) have been identified as the ability to select and apply adaptive strategies for a broad spectrum of activities that imply goals formulation, planning and achievement. They have been studied in relation with several topics such as depression, attention deficits and hyperactivity disorders, in addition to the major field of brain lesions, the latter playing a key role in EFs assessment, due to the common adoption of the related neuropsychological tests. In truth, these tests can turn out highly structured and therefore not always respondent to everyday life situations that go beyond experimental settings. A different approach informs the Tinker Toy Test (TTT), devised by Lezak in 1982 moving from a kids’ building block toy. In particular, the TTT proved promising in predicting return to work for brain-damaged subjects. In our work, we explore latent structures analysis for assessing psychometric properties of the TTT test, in the framework of Item Response Theory (IRT), with respect to TTT scores from an Italian sample we had investigated previously. As a matter of fact, the latent variable approach has provided fruitful applications to validation itself, crucial for a battery of reliable, standardized and normed measures, the latter representing the perspective aim of our study.

In the human brain, paired associative stimulation (PAS), a non-invasive brain stimulation technique based on Hebbian learning principles, can be used to model motor resonance, the inner activation of an observer's motor system by action observation. Indeed, the newly developed mirror PAS (m-PAS) protocol, through the repeatedly pairing of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) pulses over the primary motor cortex (M1) and visual stimuli depicting index–finger movements, allows the emergence of a new, atypical pattern of cortico-spinal excitability. In the present study, we performed two experiments to explore (a) the debated hemispheric lateralization of the action-observation network and (b) the behavioral after-effects of m-PAS, particularly concerning a core function of the MNS: automatic imitation. In Experiment 1, healthy participants underwent two sessions of m-PAS, delivered over the right and left M1. Before and after each m-PAS session, motor resonance was assessed by recording motor-evoked potentials induced by single-pulse TMS applied to the right M1 while observing contralateral (left) and ipsilateral (right) index–finger movements or static hands. In Experiment 2, participants performed an imitative compatibility task before and after the m-PAS targeting the right M1. Results showed that only m-PAS targeting the right hemisphere, non-dominant in right-handed people, induced the emergence of motor resonance for the conditioned movement, absent before the stimulation. This effect is not present when m-PAS target the M1 of the left hemisphere. Importantly, the protocol also affects behavior, modulating automatic imitation in a strictly somatotopic fashion (i.e., influencing the imitation of the conditioned finger movement). Overall, this evidence shows that the m-PAS can be used to drive new associations between the perception of actions and their corresponding motor programs, measurable both at a neurophysiological and behavioral level. At least for sim

Growing evidence highlights the potential of innovative rehabilitative interventions such as cognitive remediation and neuromodulation, aimed at reducing relapses in Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD). Enhancing their effectiveness requires a thorough description of the neural correlates of cognitive alterations in AUD. Past related attempts, however, were limited by the focus on selected neuro-cognitive variables. We aimed to fill this gap by combining, in 22 AUD patients and 18 controls, an extensive neuro-cognitive evaluation and metrics of intrinsic connectivity as highlighted by resting-state brain activity. We addressed an inherent property of intrinsic activity such as intra-network coherence, the temporal correlation of the slow synchronous fluctuations within resting-state networks, representing an early biomarker of alterations in the functional brain architecture underlying cognitive functioning. AUD patients displayed executive impairments involving working-memory, attention and visuomotor speed, reflecting abnormal coherence of activity and grey matter atrophy within default mode, in addition to the attentional and the executive networks. The stronger relationship between fronto-lateral coherent activity and executive performance in patients than controls highlighted possible compensatory mechanisms counterbalancing the decreased functionality of networks driving the switch from automatic to controlled behavior. These results provide novel insights into AUD patients’ cognitive impairments, their neural bases, and possible targets of rehabilitative interventions.

Despite its widespread use to measure functional lateralization of language in healthy subjects, the neurocognitive bases of the visual field effect in lateralized reading are still debated. Crucially, the lack of knowledge on the nature of the visual field effect is accompanied by a lack of knowledge on the relative impact of psycholinguistic factors on its measurement, thus potentially casting doubts on its validity as a functional laterality measure. In this study, an eye-tracking-controlled tachistoscopic lateralized lexical decision task (Experiment 1) was administered to 60 right-handed and 60 left-handed volunteers and word length, orthographic neighborhood, word frequency, and imageability were manipulated. The magnitude of visual field effect was bigger in right-handed than in left-handed participants. Across the whole sample, a visual field-by-frequency interaction was observed, whereby a comparatively smaller effect of word frequency was detected in the left visual field/right hemisphere (LVF/RH) than in the right visual field/left hemisphere (RVF/LH). In a subsequent computational study (Experiment 2), efficient (LH) and inefficient (RH) activation of lexical orthographic nodes was modelled by means of the Naïve Discriminative Learning approach. Computational data simulated the effect of visual field and its interaction with frequency observed in the Experiment 1. Data suggest that the visual field effect can be biased by word frequency. Less distinctive connections between orthographic cues and lexical/semantic output units in the RH than in the LH can account for the emergence of the visual field effect and its interaction with word frequency.

The assessment of attention in neuropsychological patients could be performed with visual search tests. The Broken Rings enVision Search test (BReViS) here proposed represents a novel open access paper-and-pencil tool in which layout and crowding are varied among four cards. These manipulations allow the assessment of different components of attention: a selective component, the visuo-spatial orientation of attention, and the focal attention, involved in a crowding phenomenon. Our purpose was to determine the characteristics of the BReViS test, provide specific normative data, and assess these components across the lifespan. The test was administered to a sample of 550 participants aged between 20 and 79 years old and to a series of patients. Three indexes targeting different components of visuo-spatial attention (selective attention, strategic orientation of visual attention, focal attention) were obtained by combining execution times and accuracy together with the total errors. The results showed that age, education and gender influenced, in different combinations, the four indexes, for which specific norms were developed. Regression-based norms were provided in percentiles and equivalent scores. All patients showed pathological scores and specific patterns of attentional deficits. The BreViS test proved to be a free and easy valuable tool which can be used in the clinical environment to assess attentional deficits in neuropsychological patients.

Despite the ubiquitous interdependence between one's own decisions and others' welfare, and the controversial evidence on the behavioral effect of choosing for others, the neural bases of making decisions for another versus oneself remain unexplored. We investigated whether loss aversion (LA; the tendency to avoid losses over approaching equivalent gains) is modulated by (i) choosing for oneself, other individuals, or both; (ii) knowing or not knowing the other recipients; or (iii) an interaction between these factors. We used fMRI to assess the brain activations associated with choosing whether to accept or reject mixed gambles, either for oneself, for another player, or both, in 2 groups of 28 participants who had or had not briefly interacted with the other players before scanning. Participants displayed higher LA for choices involving their payoff compared with those affecting only the payoff of other, known, players. This "social" modulation of decision-making was found to engage the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex and its inhibitory connectivity to the middle cingulate cortex. This pattern might underpin decision-making for known others via self-other distinction processes associated with dorsomedial prefrontal areas, with this in turn promoting the inhibition of socially oriented responses through the downregulation of the midcingulate node of the empathy network.

La prosopagnosia è un disturbo diffuso sia nella sua forma congenita che acquisita. Tuttavia, non esistono ancora protocolli unitari per la sua riabilitazione. Di consequenza, nello studio 1 è stata svolta una revisione sistematica della letteratura per avere una panoramica sugli studi esistenti sulla riabilitazione dell’agnosia per gli oggetti e della prosopagnosia. I risultati riguardanti la prosopagnosia mostrano che trattamenti basati su un’elaborazione olistica dei volti sono più efficaci e vengono generalizzati a nuove prospettive dei volti. Tuttavia, esistono pochi articoli sull’argomento ed è necessario sviluppare nuovi studi. Questo potrebbe essere dovuto alla poca chiarezza sui meccanismi di elaborazione dei volti. Per questo motivo, abbiamo deciso di approfondirli. Innanzitutto, abbiamo indagato la relazione tra espressioni facciali e riconoscimento di identità. L’obiettivo dello studio 2 era quello di indagare se c’è una relazione tra le abilità di riconoscimento individuali e l’elaborazione di espressioni facciali. Gli attuali modelli di riconoscimento volti postulano che elaboriamo i volti tramite due sistemi separati in interazione: uno elabora le caratteristiche del volto e l’altro le espressioni facciali. Di conseguenza, nello studio 2 ci aspettavamo di osservare una facilitazione delle espressioni sul riconoscimento di identità. I risultati confermano che espressioni facciali dinamiche non emotive aiutano nel riconoscimento di identità, ma solamente in chi ha delle scarse abilità di riconoscimento volti. L’obiettivo dello studio 3 era quello di approfondire le basi neurali di questa relazione. Per farlo, abbiamo stimolato STS, preSMA e un’area Sham con la TMS mentre i partecipanti dovevano riconoscere volti codificati tramite espressioni facciali dinamiche non emotive, un movimento rigido o come neutri. I risultati ottenuti nella condizione sham replicano quelli ottenuti nello studio 2: espressioni facciali non emotive aiutano il riconosc, Prosopagnosia is a diffuse deficit both in its acquired and developmental forms. However, no unitary protocols for its rehabilitation have been developed yet. Thus, a systematic review of the literature on the topic (Study 1) has been performed to understand the state of the art of rehabilitation of object agnosia and prosopagnosia. Results regarding developmental and acquired prosopagnosia, reveal that treatments involving holistic perceptual processing of faces are the most effective and can be generalized to new views and perspectives of faces. However, few papers were obtained and new studies addressing the topic are required. This might be due to the scarce clarity about the mechanisms subserving face processing. Thus, we decided to deepen our understanding of the mechanisms subserving face recognition. First, we wanted to shed light on the relationship between facial expression and identity processing. The aim of study 2 was that of assessing whether there is a relation between individual face recognition abilities and facial expression processing. Indeed, according to models of face recognition, we recognize faces through two partially independent systems which process respectively, facial features and facial expressions. Based on that, we expected expressions, even when non-emotional to aid identity recognition. Results of study 2 showed that when the system used to elaborate facial identity is deficient, dynamic facial expressions, even when non-emotional, help recognition. Study 3 aimed at deepening our understanding of the neural bases subserving the relation between facial expression and identity processing. To do so, we stimulated STS, preSMA and a Sham area with repetitive TMS while administering a task of identity matching of faces encoded through non-emotional facial expressions, rigid head movement or as neutral. Results of the Sham condition replicate findings from study 2 confirming that expressions, even when non-emotional, aid recognition in poo

Il nostro corpo è percepito solitamente come un'entità unica attraverso la quale possiamo interagire con successo con l'ambiente esterno. Inoltre, il corpo è particolarmente speciale, poiché è sia l'oggetto che il soggetto di ogni esperienza. Infatti, attraverso i nostri sensi, possiamo agire e interagire nell'ambiente ma anche percepire noi stessi dall' "interno". Poiché la percezione e la conoscenza del nostro corpo provengono da diversi recettori e modalità sensoriali, numerosi aspetti sono coinvolti nella rappresentazione del corpo. Le rappresentazioni del corpo sono intrinsecamente multimodali. Ad esempio, il senso di ownership verso il proprio corpo, cioè la sensazione che il proprio corpo appartenga a se stessi, deriva dall’integrazione dei diversi segnali sensoriali che raggiungono le aree multimodali. Inoltre, le informazioni sensoriali vengono combinate per generare rappresentazioni corporee multiple: pesi diversi assegnati a diverse modalità sensoriali danno origine a rappresentazioni corporee distinte. Lo scambio tra sensi e rappresentazione corporea sembra essere bidirezionale. In effetti, la rappresentazione corporea avrebbe anche un ruolo nell'influenzare l'elaborazione delle informazioni provenienti da diverse modalità sensoriali. Pertanto, le rappresentazioni di diverse caratteristiche corporee, come la forma, le dimensioni, le proporzioni e la postura, possono derivare dall'integrazione di varie informazioni sensoriali. Allo stesso tempo, la rappresentazione corporea può essere il riferimento nell'elaborazione delle informazioni sensoriali, influenzando così la percezione del mondo esterno. La presente tesi di dottorato si propone di sottolineare questa relazione bidirezionale tra rappresentazione corporea ed elaborazione sensoriale: l'integrazione sensoriale può modificare la rappresentazione corporea e, allo stesso tempo, la rappresentazione corporea può influenzare l’elaborazione percettiva. In accordo, la prima parte della tesi si, Our body is generally perceived as a unique entity through which we can successfully interact with the external environment. Moreover, the body is particularly special as it can be considered both the object and subject of all experiences. Indeed, through our senses, we can act and interact in the environment but also perceive ourselves from the "inside." Since the perception and knowledge of our body come from different receptors and sensory modalities, numerous aspects are involved in representing our body. Body representation is intrinsically multimodal. Indeed, different sensory signals reach multimodal areas where the multisensory integration occurs to generate the sense of body ownership, i.e., the feeling that one's own body belongs to oneself. Furthermore, sensory information is combined to generate multiple body representations: different weights assigned to different sensory modalities originate distinct body representations. The exchange between senses and body representation seems to be bidirectional. Indeed, body representation would also play a role in influencing the information processing of different sensory modalities. Therefore, representations of different body features, such as shape, size, proportions, and posture, can result from integrating various sensory information. At the same time, the body representation can be the reference in processing sensory signals, thus influencing the perception of the external world. The present doctoral thesis aims to highlight this critical bidirectional relation between body representation and sensory processing: multisensory integration can modify body representation, and, simultaneously, body representation may influence perceptual phenomena. Accordingly, the first part of the thesis focuses on how the sensorimotor representation of one's own body in space and the representation of the space surrounding the body are constantly updated and modulated based on incoming sensory information (Study 1 and 2). Spe

Recentemente, la Realtà Virtuale (virtual reality, VR) è entrata nel campo della ricerca sulla valutazione neuropsicologica. L'impatto di questa tecnologia è attualmente discusso in letteratura, poiché viene considerata come possibile promotrice di un cambio di paradigma per lo sviluppo di nuovi test neuropsicologici. Pertanto, al fine di contribuire a questa discussione in corso, il presente lavoro ha molteplici scopi. In primo luogo, esamina lo stato dell'arte della tecnologia VR e della sua implementazione per lo sviluppo di nuovi strumenti di valutazione, presentando i vantaggi più importanti di questa adozione, le sfide e i potenziali effetti negativi da considerare. Successivamente, l'indagine principale si lega alla comprensione delle differenze tra due tipi di ambienti virtuali immersivi attualmente utilizzati per simulare compiti volti a una valutazione ecologica del funzionamento cognitivo: Model-Based VR e 360°-VR. Per fare ciò, sono stati condotti due esperimenti within-group che hanno confrontato misure relative alle prestazioni e alla user-experience durante l'esecuzione di varianti di attività VR immersive basate sui due tipi di ambienti virtuali sopra menzionati. Le prove raccolte hanno supportato lo sviluppo di un terzo studio, che descrive un test VR pilota presentato come primo esempio assoluto di un test di screening cognitivo multi-dominio basato sulla 360°-VR. È stata valutata la performance di questo nuovo test nel distinguere gli individui con deficit cognitivi dai controlli sani, con un'ulteriore attenzione allo studio dell'usabilità percepita e al possibile insorgenza di sintomi legati alla motion sickness. Infine, come possibile sviluppo futuro, viene presentato uno studio di fattibilità che descrive un'estensione del test che include un sistema avanzato per la raccolta dati, basato sull’eye-tracking e sulla speech recognition., Recently, virtual reality (VR) entered the field of neuropsychological assessment research. This technology’s impact is currently discussed in the literature, as it is considered a possible promoter of a paradigm shift for neuropsychological testing. Thus, in order to contribute to this ongoing discussion, the present work has multiple purposes. First, it looks at the state-of-the-art of VR technology and its implementation in developing novel assessment tools, presenting the most important benefits of this adoption and the challenges and potential side effects to consider. Then, the core investigation is related to understanding the differences between two kinds of immersive virtual environments currently used to simulate tasks aimed at an ecological assessment of cognitive functioning: Model-Based VR and 360°-VR. To do this, two within-group experiments were carried out to compare performance and user experience-related measures during the execution of immersive VR task variants based on the two abovementioned kinds of virtual environments. The collected evidence supported the development of a third study describing a pilot VR test presented as a first-time example of a multidomain cognitive screening test based on 360°-VR. The performance of this novel-developed test in distinguishing cognitively impaired individuals from unimpaired controls was assessed, with an additional focus on investigating perceived usability and the possible occurrence of simulation sickness. Finally, a feasibility study presenting an extension of the test, including advanced data collection, such as eye-tracking and speech recognition, is offered as a possible future upgrade.

Questo lavoro si pone l’obiettivo di indagare tre aspetti dell’esperienza musicale, andando dal neurale all’emotivo e dall’emotivo al cognitivo. Quando ascoltiamo un brano musicale una delle cose che notiamo è la voglia di muoverci a ritmo. Le teorie sull’entrainment lo descrivono come l’interazione tra processi ritmici indipendenti. La percezione del ritmo all’interno di uno stimolo acustico è associata all’emergere di una risposta periodica nel tracciato EEG. Nel primo studio proponiamo un nuovo metodo per l’analisi delle Auditory Steady State Response (ASSR, risposte uditive evocate) in uno stimolo musicale, allo scopo di studiare l’entrainment neurale e come questo si colleghi alle emozioni. Abbiamo confrontato un brano musicale con una successione di suoni regolare ed uno con una successione irregolare, e applicato delle analisi di beat tagging su un dataset M/EEG. Per rilevare il beat abbiamo raggruppato i suoni in coppie e in quattro. Abbiamo quindi raffrontato le valutazioni comportamentali con i valori di ASSR e Inter-Subject Coherence (ISC, coerenza tra soggetti), per studiarne la relazione. I risultati hanno mostrato che per il brano con successioni di suoni regolari, ma non per quello con successioni irregolari, l'ASSR e l’ISC mostravano picchi nelle stesse frequenze di comparsa dei suoni. Allo stesso modo, quando raggruppati, l’ASSR mostravano picchi corrispondenti alla metà e al quarto delle frequenze di comparsa dei suoni. Le correlazioni tra i dati neurali e quelli comportamentali ci hanno dato pochi risultati circa la loro relazione. Per questo motivo crediamo che la musica induca emozioni attraverso meccanismi complessi, dove l’entrainment è solo uno dei fattori in gioco. Successivamente è stato indagato come il contenuto emotivo della musica sia influenzato dalla percezione delle emozioni suscitate dai quadri. Abbiamo ipotizzato che emozioni incongruenti tra i due stimoli avrebbero inficiato la comprensione emotiva del quadro. I dati ERP dimo, Music is a complex stimulus that can induce different reactions and influence both our body and mind. This work aimed to shed light on three different aspects of musical experience, going from neural to emotional, and from emotional to cognitive. When listening to a musical piece, one thing we may notice is the impulse to move to the beat. Entrainment theory describes the process of interaction between independent rhythmical processes. The perception of a beat in a complex auditory signal was found to be related to the emergence of a sustained periodic response in the EEG spectrum. With the first study, we propose a new method for analysing Auditory Steady State Response (ASSR) in naturalistic music, aiming at investigating neural entrainment and its relationship with emotions. We compared musical stimuli with regular and irregular timed sound onset and applied beat tagging analysis on an M/EEG dataset. To access the beat, we grouped sound onsets by two or four. Behavioural evaluations of musical pieces were correlated with the ASSR and inter-subject coherence (ISC) values, to investigate their association. For the regular, but not the irregular onset piece, both EEG ASSR and ISC peaked at the same frequency as the sound onset frequency. When grouping sound onsets, EEG ASSR showed frequency peaks as the sound onset frequency divided by two and by four. Correlating the neural data and the behavioural measures we found little evidence of a close link between the two. Therefore, it can be said that our behavioural results go toward a more complex emotion induction mechanism, in which entrainment is one of the many processes for evoking emotions. The following step investigated how the emotional content of music affects the perception of emotions experienced during artwork perception. We hypothesized that emotionally incongruent music would negatively affect the comprehension of the emotional content of artworks. ERP data showed that N170 response to visual art was infl

Motor regions atrophy has been traditionally assumed to account for selective deficits of verb (V) vs. noun (N) processing in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) patients via action semantic impairment (Embodied Cognition Theory, ECT). Nonetheless, accounts pertaining to both motor region sensitivity to the morpho-phonological structure of Vs and executive functioning (EF) contribution (task difficulty) have not been evenly endorsed. This study aimed at assessing neurocognitive underpinnings of N and V processing in ALS patients. ALS patients were compared to healthy participants (HPs) on tasks evaluating N and V semantic and post-semantic processing. Effects of semantic motor content (actionality) of Ns and Vs and of argument structure complexity of Vs were assessed. EF measures were put into relation to language tasks in patients. Both groups performed worse in V than in N lexical retrieval. Patients had difficulties in retrieving low-actionality Vs, being also sensitive to both transitive Vs and those with 2 and 3 arguments. Patients differed form HPs on both object- and action-semantic measures. EF measures were highly related to patients’ V-retrieval performance. ECT-framed explanations for N > V discrepancies in ALS patients are inconsistent with the present results. Indeed, ALS patients showed semantic deficits that are not limited to the action domain and retrieved more easily high-actionality Vs. N > V discrepancies in ALS patients would thus reflect a magnification of a differential processing demand for Vs and Ns, which is likely intrinsic to the neurocognitive system. Nonetheless, ALS patients being sensitive to argument structure complexity of Vs might imply motor regions involvement in V post-semantic processing, possibly at the lemma level.

Neuropsychological testing aims to measure individuals' cognitive abilities (e.g. memory, attention), analysing their performance on specific behavioural tasks. Most neuropsychological tests are administered in the so-called ‘paper-and-pencil’ modality or via computerised protocols. The adequacy of these procedures has been recently questioned, with more specific concerns about their ecological validity, i.e. the relation between test scores observed in the laboratory setting and the actual everyday cognitive functioning. In developing more ecological tasks, researchers started to implement virtual reality (VR) technology as an administration technique focused on exposing individuals to simulated but realistic stimuli and environments, maintaining at the same time a controlled laboratory setting and collecting advanced measures of cognitive functioning. This systematic review aims to present how VR procedures for neuropsychological testing have been implemented in the last years. We initially explain the rationale for supporting VR as an advanced assessment tool, but we also discuss the challenges and risks that can limit the widespread implementation of this technology. Then, we systematised the large body of studies adopting VR for neuropsychological testing, describing the VR tools' distribution amongst different cognitive functions through a PRISMA-guided systematic review. The systematic review highlighted that only very few instruments are ready for clinical use, reporting psychometric proprieties (e.g. validity) and providing normative data. Most of the tools still need to be standardised on large cohorts of participants, having published only limited data on small samples up to now. Finally, we discussed the possible future directions of the VR neuropsychological test development linked to technological advances.

Background: The Aachen Aphasia Test (AAT) is still the main test in use for the evaluation of aphasic deficits in German-speaking individuals (Huber et al., 1983, 1984). The test has also been adapted to the Italian language (Luzzatti et al., 1996) and was administered to 384 people with aphasia (PWA) almost exclusively after left-hemisphere brain damage (plus 24 individuals with residual symptoms and 8 without aphasia) and 88 control individuals. The study of construct validity and reliability, as well as norm data, were based on those 343 PWA who passed the preliminary examination for applicability of the Token Test. Aims: Motivated by current calls for improving the quality of outcome measures in aphasiology, we re-analyzed the psychometric properties of the Italian version of the AAT (IT-AAT) in an enlarged participant sample, and, for key analyses, with more recent psychometric methods. The overall sample comprised 674 PWA (plus 89 individuals with left-brain damage, including 60 individuals with residual aphasic symptoms and 29 individuals without aphasia). The investigation of construct validity, reliability, and extended norm data was based on the subset of 598 PWA who passed the AAT Token Test inclusion criterion. Main Contributions: Assessment of construct validity, differential validity, and reliability aspects corroborated the earlier test properties. The extended norm data applied to the performance of an exemplary PWA yielded unanimous assignment to a Wernicke-type aphasia at initial assessment, which evolved, after speech-language therapy, to an impairment pattern consistent with conduction aphasia, characterized by disproportionately poorer performance in subtest Repetition than in subtest Comprehension. Significant improvement could be demonstrated for all subtests, which remained reliable even after taking into account the average expected increase in scores due to spontaneous recovery. Conclusions: The psychometric properties and the enlarged norm

In mammals, including humans, affective touch (AT) supports the establishment and maintenance of social connections and mitigates the effects of social conflict and ostracism. AT is used to describe slowly moving, low-forced mechanical stimulation that is frequently perceived as pleasant. In humans, AT has been addressed particularly for its role in promoting bonding and emotional regulation during early development; however, more recent studies have suggested that AT also preserves physical and emotional well-being in adulthood. Here, we investigated whether AT can buffer adults’ experience of negative emotions as reflected in their behavioral and physiological responses to emotionally arousing stimuli. Participants were stimulated on their forearms using AT or tapping (T) while they viewed a series of emotionally arousing and neutral images, and we measured their skin conductance response and their explicit rating of the images’ unpleasantness. We found that AT, but not T, reduced the arousal and perceived unpleasantness of the emotional stimuli but not the neutral ones, revealing the soothing role of AT in emotional contexts. The second aim of the study was to explore the possibility that AT might benefit some individuals more than others, according to their individual differences. To this aim, we assessed individuals’ empathy and sensory processing sensitivity, as well as their perception of AT itself. Results revealed that while empathy did not predict changes in emotional processing irrespective of tactile stimulation, individuals with higher sensitivity reported AT as less pleasant.We discuss the possible factors mediating the observed interindividual variability in AT perception.