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BackgroundThere is a growing housing crisis in rural America with homelessness growing in addition to a growing number of substandard homes due to an inability to afford the costs of repair and maintenance. The goal of the current study was to assess the housing concerns in rural Alabama Black Belt communities which are often understudied and the relationship between housing quality and respiratory health.MethodsA semi-random sampling of five Black Belt counties was conducted to obtain a sample of 253 rural households. The survey was designed to obtain information regarding household income, housing status including a list of safety concerns and respiratory health. A χ2 analysis was performed to examine the effect of housing type and income on prevalence of respiratory illness and safety home concerns (e.g., roofing, windows/doors, floors, mold/mildew).ResultsThe majority of households surveyed had an annual income below $15,000 and owned their homes with over half of the homes being manufactured homes. Lower income was associated with increased prevalence of asthma [χ2(2, N = 237) = 7.75, p = 0.021], while living in a manufactured home was associated with increased risk of allergies [χ2(1, N = 251) = 7.88, p = 0.005]. Additionally, poor windows and doors [χ2(1, N = 253) = 3.8, p = 0.05] was associated with higher prevalence of asthma.ConclusionsThe results confirm and expand previous results and demonstrate the relationship between quality housing and allergy and asthma prevalence in rural areas with an abundance of aging manufactured homes.

BackgroundRural communities have a disproportionately high level of childhood obesity along with high rates of food insecurity.ObjectivesTo assess the eating habits of youth in predominantly African American rural communities and assess the association between proximity to a grocery store and eating habits as well as how the COVID-19 pandemic may have impacted eating habits.Methods203 youth and parents completed a 16-item survey. Analyses were performed to assess the effect of having a neighborhood grocery store as well as to compare responses between youth and parents.ResultsHaving a neighborhood grocery store was associated with increased consumption of vegetables (F(1,122) = 41.56) and fruits (F(1,121) = 65.05), decreased consumption of chips (F(1,125) = 79.51) and a smaller percentage of overweight youth (χ2(1,125) = 5.03). Parents underestimated the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on youth eating habits (χ2 (1,198) = 17.88).ConclusionProximity to a grocery store significantly associated with eating habits and weight in the rural communities examined. Given the steady decrease in the number rural grocery stores over the past decade it is important to consider how to improve access to healthy foods in these communities.

IntroductionRepetitive head impacts (RHI) have been suggested to increase the risk of developing a neurodegenerative disease, and many of these individuals develop a preceding mental health diagnosis. Given the lack of studies among amateur athletes, this study aimed to examine mental health outcomes in middle-aged amateur athletes who have been exposed to RHI through contact sport participation.MethodsThis is a single site, cohort study involving former amateur athletes aged between 30 and 60 with at least 10 years of organized contact or non-contact sport participation. All participants completed demographic and mental health questionnaires. Mental health outcomes included symptoms related to depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD), and aggression. Self-reported data on mental health diagnoses and associated prescription were elicited and used to estimate odds ratios (OR).ResultsData from 41 contact athletes and 22 age/sex-matched non-contact athletes were available for analysis. The contact group exhibited a 2.25-fold higher likelihood of being diagnosed with mental health disorders and 1.29-fold higher likelihood of using associated medications compared to the non-contact group. The contact group reported significantly higher PTSD-related symptoms [4.61 (0.03,9.2), p=0.05] compared to the non-contact control group. While not statistically significant, the contact group showed increased depressive [2.37 (0.05, 4.79), p=0.07] and ADHD symptoms [4.53 (0.51, 9.57), p=0.08] compared to controls. In a secondary analysis, a distinct trend emerged within the contact group, revealing pronounced elevations in mental health symptoms among individuals with lower socioeconomic status (

IntroductionThis clinical trial aimed to determine the influence of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) on neuro-ophthalmologic function and brain-derived blood biomarkers following acute subconcussive head impacts.MethodsThe present trial consisted of age- and sex-matched samples with a ratio of 1:1 between two groups with a total sample size of 60 adults (age ± SD; 20.0 ± 1.8 years). Soccer players diagnosed with and medicated daily for ADHD were assigned into an ADHD group (n = 30). Soccer players without ADHD were assigned into a non-ADHD group (n = 30). Participants performed 10 soccer headers with a soccer ball projected at a velocity of 25mph. King-Devick test (KDT), near point of convergence (NPC), and serum levels of NF-L, tau, GFAP, and UCH-L1 were assessed at baseline (pre-heading) and at 2 h and 24 h post-heading.ResultsThere were no statistically significant group-by-time interactions in outcome measures. However, at baseline, the ADHD group exhibited lower neuro-ophthalmologic functions compared to the non-ADHD group (NPC: p = 0.019; KDT: p = 0.018), and persisted at 2 h-post (NPC: p = 0.007; KDT: p = 0.014) and 24 h-post heading (NPC: p = 0.001). NPC significantly worsened over time in both groups compared to baseline [ADHD: 2 h-post, 1.23 cm, 95%CI:(0.77, 1.69), p

Summary: Cannabis use has become popular among athletes, many of whom are exposed to repetitive subconcussive head impacts. We aimed to test whether chronic cannabis use would be neuroprotective or exacerbating against acute subconcussive head impacts. This trial included 43 adult soccer players (Cannabis group using cannabis at least once a week for the past 6 months, n = 24; non-cannabis control group, n = 19). Twenty soccer headings, induced by our controlled heading model, significantly impaired ocular-motor function, but the degrees of impairments were less in the cannabis group compared to controls. The control group significantly increased its serum S100B level after heading, whereas no change was observed in the cannabis group. There was no group difference in serum neurofilament light levels at any time point. Our data suggest that chronic cannabis use may be associated with an enhancement of oculomotor functional resiliency and suppression of the neuroinflammatory response following 20 soccer headings.

The current study examines the relationship between the presence of autistic traits and anxiety and mood disorders in young adults from different racial groups. A representative sample from a predominately white university (2,791 non-Hispanic White (NHW) and 185 Black students) completed the broad autism phenotype questionnaire (BAPQ), a measure of depression (Patient Health Questionnaire, PHQ-9), and anxiety (Generalized Anxiety Disorder, GAD-7). Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) was used to perform two multiple regression analyses to determine the association between race, BAPQ score and anxiety and depression symptoms. The current study found a stronger association between autistic traits had depression and anxiety symptoms in Black participants than did NHW participants. These findings underscore the association between autistic traits and anxiety and depression in Black communities, and the need for further studies on this topic area. Additionally, it highlights the importance of improving access to mental health care for this population.

Background and objectiveThere are overwhelming health disparities in the Deep South. It is important to include the voice of communities affected by these disparities when developing interventions. The goal of the current study was to develop an academic community engaged partnership to strengthen the ability to address priority health concerns of rural African American communities with a focus on health literacy and health advocacy.MethodsA community-based participatory research approach was used to administer a 15-item community health survey in five rural communities led by African American mayors in Alabama (N = 752). The survey assessed the health concerns and the potential behaviors that may be associated with those health concerns.ResultsThe five communities demonstrated similarities as well as differences in both the health concerns endorsed and the potential health behaviors that may contribute to those concerns. All five communities identified cardiovascular disease as a health concern with three endorsing mental health issues and 2 dental health. With respect to behaviors, all five communities identified either unhealthy eating/exercise and substance use as concerns with one community identifying racism as a risky behavior affecting health.ConclusionThe results presented replicate CBPR studies demonstrating that communities are important sources of information about local health priorities and concerns.

IntroductionConcussive events and other brain injuries are known to reduce cognitive inhibition, a key aspect of cognition that supports ones' behaviors and impacts regulation of mood or affect. Our primary objective is to investigate how induction of negative affect (such as frustration) impacts cognitive inhibition and the dynamic process by which youth athletes modulate responses. Secondary objective is to address the lack of Black representation in the scientific literature that promotes brain health and investigates pediatric sports-related brain injury. In particular, neuroscience studies predominantly include White participants despite broad racial representation in sport, in part due to technological hurdles and other obstacles that challenge research access for Black participants.MethodsUsing electroencephalography (EEG), we evaluate the dynamic brain processes associated with cognitive inhibition in the context of frustration induction in adolescent athletes during pre-season conditioning (i.e., prior to contact; N = 23) and a subset during post-season (n = 17).ResultsThe N2 component was sensitive to frustration induction (decreased N2 amplitude, slower N2 latency), although effects were less robust at postseason. Trial-by-trial changes indicated a steady decrease of the N2 amplitude during the frustration block during the preseason visit, suggesting that affective interference had a dynamic effect on cognitive inhibition. Lastly, exploratory analyses provide preliminary evidence that frustration induction was less effective for athletes with a previous history of concussion or migraines (trending result) yet more effective for athletes endorsing a history with mental health disorders.DiscussionWe emphasize the urgent need to improve representation in cognitive neuroscience, particularly as it pertains to brain health. Importantly, we provide detailed guides to our methodological framework and practical suggestions to improve representative participation in studies utilizing high-density mobile EEG.

ObjectiveThe current study examined the impact of the use of hormonal birth control, cannabis (CB), and alcohol on depression symptoms.Study DesignSurvey data from 3,320 college-aged women collected over a 2-year period. Depression symptoms were assessed using the PHQ-9.ResultsIndividuals taking hormonal birth control (N = 998; age = 19.1 ± 1.6 years) had lower overall depression scores than did those not taking birth control (N = 2,322; age = 19.1 ± 1.8 years) with 15.2% of those not taking hormonal birth control had depressive symptoms while 12.1% of those in the birth control group had depressive symptoms. Additionally, those taking hormonal birth control had higher scores on the alcohol and CB use assessment. A between-subjects ANOVA with depression score as the dependent variable found significant effects hormonal birth control use, CB and alcohol use, as well as a significant interaction between CB use and hormonal birth control use.ConclusionsWhile there are some limitations (e.g., the between subjects design makes it such that there may be uncontrolled differences between groups), the results suggest that hormonal birth control use may help to reduce depressive symptoms.ImplicationsMore studies examining the impact of hormonal birth control and substance use on depression are required. The results suggest a potential interaction between CB and hormonal birth control use on depression symptoms that is not observed for alcohol. This implies that alcohol and CB may be linked to depression via different mechanisms.

Taurine is an essential amino acid. It has been shown to be neuroprotective including protecting against the neurotoxic effects of glutamate. The goal of the current study was to examine the relationship between CB use and taurine measured in brain using magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS), and peripherally from a urine sample. Two experiments are presented. The first is a reanalysis of published data that examined taurine and glutamate in the dorsal anterior cingulate of a CB user group and non-user group using MRS. The second experiment, in a separate CB user group, used metabolomics analysis to measure taurine levels in urine. Because body composition has been associated with the pharmacokinetics of cannabis and taurine levels, a moderation model was examined with body composition included as the covariate. The MRS study found taurine levels were correlated with glutamate in both groups and taurine was correlated with frequency of CB use in the CB user group. The moderation model demonstrated significant effects of CB use and BMI; the interaction was marginally significant with lower BMI individuals showing a positive relationship between CB use and taurine. A similar finding was observed for the urine analysis. Both CB use and weight, as well as the interaction were significant. In this case, individuals with higher weight showed an association between CB use and taurine levels. This study shows the feasibility and potential importance of examining the relationship between taurine and CB use as it may shed light on a mechanism that underlies the neuroprotective effects of CB.

Complex problem solving is a high level cognitive task of the human brain, which has been studied over the last decade. Tower of London (TOL) is a game that has been widely used to study complex problem solving. In this paper, we aim to explore the underlying cognitive network structure among anatomical regions of complex problem solving and its subtasks, namely planning and execution. A new computational model for estimating a brain network at each time instant of fMRI recordings is proposed. The suggested method models the brain network as an Artificial Neural Network, where the weights correspond to the relationships among the brain anatomic regions. The first step of the model is preprocessing that manages to decrease the spatial redundancy while increasing the temporal resolution of the fMRI recordings. Then, dynamic brain networks are estimated using the preprocessed fMRI signal to train the Artificial Neural Network. The properties of the estimated brain networks are studied in order to identify regions of interest, such as hubs and subgroups of densely connected brain regions. The representation power of the suggested brain network is shown by decoding the planning and execution subtasks of complex problem solving. Our findings are consistent with the previous results of experimental psychology. Furthermore, it is observed that there are more hubs during the planning phase compared to the execution phase, and the clusters are more strongly connected during planning compared to execution.

Scientific research aims to bring forward innovative ideas and constantly challenges existing knowledge structures and stereotypes. However, women, ethnic and cultural minorities, as well as individuals with disabilities, are systematically discriminated against or even excluded from promotions, publications, and general visibility. A more diverse workforce is more productive, and thus discrimination has a negative impact on science and the wider society, as well as on the education, careers, and well-being of individuals who are discriminated against. Moreover, the lack of diversity at scientific gatherings can lead to micro-aggressions or harassment, making such meetings unpleasant, or even unsafe environments for early career and underrepresented scientists.At the Organization for Human Brain Mapping (OHBM), we recognized the need for promoting underrepresented scientists and creating diverse role models in the field of neuroimaging. To foster this, the OHBM has created a Diversity and Inclusivity Committee (DIC). In this article, we review the composition and activities of the DIC that have promoted diversity within OHBM, in order to inspire other organizations to implement similar initiatives.Activities of the committee over the past four years have included (a) creating a code of conduct, (b) providing diversity and inclusivity education for OHBM members, (c) organizing interviews and symposia on diversity issues, and (d) organizing family-friendly activities and providing childcare grants during the OHBM annual meetings.We strongly believe that these activities have brought positive change within the wider OHBM community, improving inclusivity and fostering diversity while promoting rigorous, ground-breaking science. These positive changes could not have been so rapidly implemented without the enthusiastic support from the leadership, including OHBM Council and Program Committee, and the OHBM Special Interest Groups (SIGs), namely the Open Science, Student and Postdoc, and Brain-Art SIGs. Nevertheless, there remains ample room for improvement, in all areas, and even more so in the area of targeted attempts to increase inclusivity for women, individuals with disabilities, members of the LGBTQ+ community, racial/ethnic minorities, and individuals of lower socioeconomic status or from low and middle-income countries.Here, we present an overview of the DIC's composition, its activities, future directions and challenges. Our goal is to share our experiences with a wider audience to provide information to other organizations and institutions wishing to implement similar comprehensive diversity initiatives. We propose that scientific organizations can push the boundaries of scientific progress only by moving beyond existing power structures and by integrating principles of equity and inclusivity in their core values.

Goal-directed spatial decision making video games combine spatial mapping, memory, and reward; all of which can involve hippocampal excitation through suppression of an inhibitory neurotransmitter, γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA). In this study, GABA was measured before and after 30 min of video game play within a voxel around the hippocampus. It was predicted that all participants would experience a decrease in GABA during gaming as a result of in-game rewards; and, those who were most competitive with the goal-directed spatial decision making game would display lower hippocampal GABA concentrations after gaming. Those who were not competitive, because they were too skilled or not skilled enough, would demonstrate higher hippocampal GABA concentrations after gaming. While there were no significant differences in hippocampal GABA before and after gaming for gamers and non-gamers alike, there was a significant quadratic regression between performance on a spatial working memory task and post-gaming hippocampal GABA concentrations.

With the increase in use of cannabis and its shifting legal status in the United States, cannabis use has become an important research focus. While studies of other drug populations have shown marked increases in risky decision-making, the literature on cannabis users is not as clear. The current study examined the performance of 17 cannabis users and 14 non-users on the Balloon Analog Risk Task (BART) using behavioral, fMRI and effective connectivity methods. Significant attenuation was found in a functional pathway projecting from the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) to the nucleus accumbens (NAc) in cannabis users compared to non-using controls as well as decreases in risk-taking behaviors. These findings suggest that cannabis users may process and evaluate risks and rewards differently than non-users.

While neuroimaging and blood biomarker have been two of the most active areas of research in the neurotrauma community, these fields rarely intersect to delineate subconcussive brain injury. The aim of the study was to examine the association between diffusion MRI techniques [diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and neurite orientation/dispersion density imaging (NODDI)] and brain-injury blood biomarker levels [tau, neurofilament-light (NfL), glial-fibrillary-acidic-protein (GFAP)] in high-school football players at their baseline, aiming to detect cumulative neuronal damage from prior seasons. Twenty-five football players were enrolled in the study. MRI measures and blood samples were obtained during preseason data collection. The whole-brain, tract-based spatial statistics was conducted for six diffusion metrics: fractional anisotropy (FA), mean diffusivity (MD), axial/radial diffusivity (AD, RD), neurite density index (NDI), and orientation dispersion index (ODI). Five players were ineligible for MRIs, and three serum samples were excluded due to hemolysis, resulting in 17 completed set of diffusion metrics and blood biomarker levels for association analysis. Our permutation-based regression model revealed that serum tau levels were significantly associated with MD and NDI in various axonal tracts; specifically, elevated serum tau levels correlated to elevated MD (p = 0.0044) and reduced NDI (p = 0.016) in the corpus callosum and surrounding white matter tracts (e.g., longitudinal fasciculus). Additionally, there was a negative association between NfL and ODI in the focal area of the longitudinal fasciculus. Our data suggest that high school football players may develop axonal microstructural abnormality in the corpus callosum and surrounding white matter tracts, such as longitudinal fasciculus. A future study is warranted to determine the longitudinal multimodal relationship in response to repetitive exposure to sports-related head impacts.

Currently there are ~6 million Americans who are affected by dementia. Verbal fluency tasks have been commonly and frequently utilized to document the disease progression in many forms of dementia. Verb fluency has been found to display substantial potential to detect and monitor the cognitive declines of individuals with dementia who have fronto-striatal involvement. The neural substrates underlying verb fluency task performance, however, have remained unclear so far, especially in individuals with dementia. Therefore, in the current study, brain activation patterns of seven individuals with dementia and nine healthy older adults were investigated using functional MRI. The participants performed in the scanner an overt, subject-paced verb fluency task, representative of fluency tasks used in clinical settings. The brain activation patterns during the verb fluency task were compared between the two groups, and a correlational analysis was conducted to determine the neural correlates of verb fluency performance. The results suggest that compared to healthy older adults, individuals with dementia demonstrated poorer verb fluency performance and showed higher activation in specific neural regions, such as the bilateral frontal lobe. In addition, the correlational analysis revealed that poorer verb fluency performance lead to increased activation in certain cortical and subcortical areas, including left hippocampus and right supramarginal gyrus. The current findings are consistent with previous neurophysiological findings related to semantic (noun) fluency performance in older adults and individuals with dementia and add to the empirical evidence that supports the role of the frontal lobe and hippocampus in verb retrieval and search. Declines in verb fluency performance cannot only be used as a cognitive marker, but also represent neuropathological changes due to the neurodegenerative disease.

Even though mathematics is considered one of the most abstract domains of human cognition, recent work on embodiment of mathematics has shown that we make sense of mathematical concepts by using insights and skills acquired through bodily activity. Fingers play a significant role in many of these bodily interactions. Finger-based interactions provide the preliminary access to foundational mathematical constructs, such as one-to-one correspondence and whole-part relations in early development. In addition, children across cultures use their fingers to count and do simple arithmetic. There is also some evidence for an association between children’s ability to individuate fingers (finger gnosis) and mathematics ability. Paralleling these behavioral findings, there is accumulating evidence for overlapping neural correlates and functional associations between fingers and number processing. In this paper, we synthesize mathematics education and neurocognitive research on the relevance of fingers for early mathematics development. We delve into issues such as how the early multimodal (tactile, motor, visuospatial) experiences with fingers might be the gateway for later numerical skills, how finger gnosis, finger counting habits, and numerical abilities are associated at the behavioral and neural levels, and implications for mathematics education. We argue that, taken together, the two bodies of research can better inform how different finger skills support the development of numerical competencies, and we provide a road map for future interdisciplinary research that can yield to development of diagnostic tools and interventions for preschool and primary grade classrooms.

The impact of fingers on numerical cognition has received a great deal of attention recently. One sub-set of these studies focus on the relation between finger gnosis (also called finger sense or finger gnosia), the ability to identify and individuate fingers, and mathematical development. Studies in this subdomain have reported mixed findings so far. While some studies reported that finger gnosis correlates with or predicts mathematics abilities in younger children, others failed to replicate these results. The current study explores the relationship between finger gnosis and two arithmetic operations—addition and subtraction. Twenty-four second to third graders participated in this fMRI study. Finger sense scores were negatively correlated with brain activation measured during both addition and subtraction. Three clusters, in the left fusiform, and left and right precuneus were found to negatively correlate with finger gnosis both during addition and subtraction. Activation in a cluster in the left inferior parietal lobule (IPL) was found to negatively correlate with finger gnosis only for addition, even though this cluster was active both during addition and subtraction. These results suggest that the arithmetic fact retrieval may be linked to finger gnosis at the neural level, both for addition and subtraction, even when behavioral correlations are not observed. However, the nature of this link may be different for addition compared to subtraction, given that left IPL activation correlated with finger gnosis only for addition. Together the results reported appear to support the hypothesis that fingers provide a scaffold for arithmetic competency for both arithmetic operations.

With the legalization of recreational cannabis (CB) the characterization of how it may impact brain chemistry is essential. Magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) was used to examine neurometabolite concentrations in the dorsal anterior cingulate (dACC) in chronic CB users (N = 26; 10 females) and controls (N = 24; 10 females). The concentrations of glutamate (Glu), total creatine (tCr), choline (Cho), total N-acetylaspartate (tNAA), and myo-inositol (mI) were estimated using LCModel. The ANCOVAs failed to show significant differences between controls and CB users. Regression analyses were then performed on the CB group to model each neurometabolite to determine its relationship to monthly CB use, sex, the interaction between CB use and sex. tCr was found to be predicted by both monthly CB use and sex. While the regression model was not significant the relationship between monthly CB use and Glu appears to be modulated by sex with the effect of monthly use (dose) being stronger in males. tNAA failed to show an effect of CB use but did reveal an effect of sex with females showing larger tNAA levels. Although the results presented are preliminary due to the small sample size they do guide future research. The results presented provide direction for further studies as they suggest that dose may significantly influence the observance of CB effects and that those effects may be modulated by sex. Studies with significantly larger sample sizes designed specifically to examine individuals with varying usage as well as sex effects are necessary.

Morphological brain changes as a consequence of new learning have been widely established. Learning a second language (L2) is one such experience that can lead to rapid structural neural changes. However, still relatively little is known about how levels of proficiency in the L2 and the age at which the L2 is learned influence brain neuroplasticity. The goal of this study is to provide novel evidence for the effect of bilingualism on white matter structure in relatively proficient but late L2 learners who acquired the second language after early childhood. Overall, the results demonstrate a significant effect on white matter fractional anisotropy (FA) as a function of L2 learning. Higher FA values were found in a broad white matter network including the anterior thalamic radiation (ATR), the inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus (IFOF), the Uncinate Fasciculus (UF), and the inferior longitudinal fasciculus (ILF). Moreover, FA values were correlated with age of L2 acquisition, suggesting that learning an L2, even past childhood, induces neural changes. Finally, these results provide some initial evidence that variability in the age of L2 acquisition has important consequences for neural plasticity.

Brain parcellation divides the brain’s spatial domain into small regions, which are represented by nodes within the network analysis framework. While template-based parcellations are widely used, the parcels on the template do not necessarily match individual’s functional nodes. A new method is developed to overcome the inconsistent network analysis results by by-passing the difficulties of parcellating the brain into functionally meaningful areas. First, roughly equal-sized parcellations are obtained. Second, these random parcellations are applied to individual subjects multiple times and a pseudo-bootstrap (PBS) of the network is obtained for statistical inferences. It was found that the variation of mean global network metrics from PBS sampling is smaller compared with inter-subject variation or within-subject variation between two diffusion MRI scans. Using the mean global network metrics from PBS sampling, the intra-class correlation is always higher than the average obtained from using a single random parcellation. As one application, the PBS method was tested on the Human Connectome Project resting state dataset to identify individuals across scan sessions based on the mean functional connectivity (FC)—a trivial network property that has little information about the connectivity between nodes. An accuracy rate of ∼90% was achieved by simply finding the maximum correlation of mean FC of PBS samples between two scan sessions.

In our day to day conversations there are often times whenwe fail to notice syntactic errors. but why? in this study weconducted both a behavioral and an fMri study to address thisquestion. The results showed that participants were more likelyto fail to detect a morphosyntactic violation if the sentenceconstituents were semantically related to each other than if theywere unrelated. in addition, the related anomalous sentenceselicited stronger activation of the left inferior frontal gyrus. Threeseparate clusters of activation were observed encompassing ba44, ba 45/46 and one at the junction of the inferior frontal andprecentral sulci. While previous work has demonstrated thatsemantics information such as plausibility and world knowledgedoes not have a significant impact on comprehension, it doesaffect anomaly detection. one theory of language processing thatfit the results is “good enough” theory which suggests that we failto generate a complete representation of the input, particularlywhen the input describes plausible and/or familiar events.

Previous studies have found that block play, board games and puzzles result in better spatial ability. This study focused on examining the differential impact of structured block play and board games on spatial processing. Two groups of eight year olds were studied. One group participated in a five session block play training paradigm and the second group had a similar training protocol but played a word/spelling board game. A mental rotation task was assessed before and after training. The mental rotation task was performed during fMRI to observe the neural changes associated with the two play protocols. Only the block play group showed effects of training for both behavioral measures and fMRI measured brain activation. Behaviorally, the block play group showed improvements in both reaction time and accuracy. Additionally, the block play group showed increased involvement of regions that have been linked to spatial working memory and spatial processing after training. The board game group showed non-significant improvements in mental rotation performance, likely related to practice effects, and no training related brain activation differences. While the current study is preliminary, it does suggest that different spatial play activities have differential impacts on spatial processing with structured block play but not board games showing a significant impact on mental rotation performance.

This study uses fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) to investigate the brain activity in a set of cortical areas in the task of main idea identification, when the topic sentence was presented in first versus in last position in a three-sentence paragraph. The participants were eight right-handed undergraduate students from Carnegie Mellon University, six male and 2 female, all native speakers of English. Each participant read twelve paragraphs, six in which the topic sentence was paragraph initial and six in which it was paragraph final, and each paragraph was presented word by word in the center of a screen, inside the scanner. The major finding of the current study is the differential response observed in the left and right hemispheres as to the location of the topic sentence within the paragraph. The left temporal region showed greater activation when the topic sentence was in final position than in initial position. The right temporal region, on the other hand, was affected only by sentence type, showing a greater response to topic sentences than support sentences, regardless of their location within the paragraph.Este estudo utiliza a ressonância magnética funcional para investigar a atividade cerebral em áreas corticais durante a execução da tarefa de extração de idéias principais, quando a idéia principal é apresentada no início ou ao final de um parágrafo com três orações. Os participantes da pesquisa foram oito alunos de graduação da Universidade de Carnegie Mellon, todos destros, falantes nativos do inglês. Cada participante leu doze parágrafos, seis com a idéia principal no início e seis com a idéia principal no final do parágrafo, e cada parágrafo foi apresentado palavra por palavra, no centro de uma tela, dentro do aparelho de ressonância magnética. O maior achado do presente estudo refere-se à resposta diferenciada observada nos hemisférios direito e esquerdo. A região temporal esquerda mostrou maior atividade cerebral quando a idéia principal era apresentada em posição final do que em posição inicial. A região temporal direita, por sua vez, só foi afetada pelo tipo de oração, mostrando uma maior atividade durante o processamento da idéia principal do que das idéias secundárias, independente da sua posição no parágrafo, inicial ou final.

Developmental dyslexia is a complex and heterogeneous disorder characterized by unexpected difficulty in learning to read. Although it is considered to be biologically based, the degree of variation has made the nature and locus of dyslexia difficult to ascertain. Hypotheses regarding the cause have ranged from low-level perceptual deficits to higher order cognitive deficits, such as phonological processing and visual-spatial attention. We applied the capacity coefficient, a measure obtained from a mathematical cognitive model of response times to measure how efficiently participants processed different classes of stimuli. The capacity coefficient was used to test the extent to which individuals with dyslexia can be distinguished from normal reading individuals based on their ability to take advantage of word, pronounceable nonword, consonant sequence or unfamiliar context when categorizing character strings. Within subject variability of the capacity coefficient across character string types was fairly regular across normal reading adults and consistent with a previous study of word perception with the capacity coefficient - words and pseudowords were processed at supercapacity and unfamiliar characters strings at limited-capacity. Two distinct patterns were observed in individuals with dyslexia. One group had a profile similar to the normal reading adults while the other group showed very little variation in capacity across conditions. It is possible that these individuals used a similar strategy for all four conditions and were able to generalize this strategy when processing unfamiliar characters. This difference across dyslexia groups may be used to identify sub-types of the disorder and suggest significant differences in word level processing among these subtypes. Therefore, this approach may be useful in further delineating among types of dyslexia, which in turn may lead to better understanding of the etiologies of dyslexia.