The Predictive Nature of Individual Differences in Early Associative Learning and Emerging Social Behavior

Across the first year of life, infants achieve remarkable success in their ability to interact in the social world. The hierarchical nature of circuit and skill development predicts that the emergence of social behaviors may depend upon an infant's early abilities to detect contingencies, particularly socially-relevant associations. Here, we examined whether individual differences in the rate of associative learning at one month of age is an enduring predictor of social, imitative, and discriminative behaviors measured across the human infant's first year. One-month learning rate was predictive of social behaviors at 5, 9, and 12 months of age as well as face-evoked discriminative neural activity at 9 months of age. Learning was not related to general cognitive abilities. These results underscore the importance of early contingency learning and suggest the presence of a basic mechanism underlying the ontogeny of social behaviors

Cortico-cerebellar functional connectivity and sequencing of movements in schizophrenia

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Abnormal execution of several movements in a sequence is a frequent finding in schizophrenia. Successful performance of such motor acts requires correct integration of cortico-subcortical processes, particularly those related to cerebellar functions. Abnormal connectivity between cortical and cerebellar regions with resulting cognitive dysmetria has been proposed as the core dysfunction behind many signs and symptoms of schizophrenia. The aim of the present study was to assess if these proposed abnormalities in connectivity are a unifying feature of schizophrenia, or, rather, reflect a specific symptom domain of a heterogeneous disease. We predicted that abnormal functional connectivity between the motor cortex and cerebellum would be linked with abnormal performance of movement sequencing.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We examined 24 schizophrenia patients (SCH) and 24 age-, sex-, and handedness-matched healthy controls (HC) using fMRI during a modified finger-tapping task. The ability to perform movement sequencing was tested using the Neurological Evaluation Scale (NES). The subjects were categorized into two groups, with (SQ+) and without (SQ-) movement sequencing abnormalities, according to the NES-SQ score. The effects of diagnosis and movement sequencing abnormalities on the functional connectivity parameters between the motor cortex and cerebellum (MC-CRBL) and the supplementary motor cortex and cerebellum (SMA-CRBL) activated during the motor task were analyzed.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We found no effect of diagnosis on the functional connectivity measures. There was, however, a significant effect on the SQ group: SQ + patients showed a lower level of MC-CRBL connectivity than SQ- patients and healthy controls. Moreover, the level of MC-CRBL and SMA-CRBL negatively correlated with the magnitude of NES-SQ abnormalities, but with no other NES domain.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Abnormal cortico-cerebellar functional connectivity during the execution of a motor task is linked with movement sequencing abnormalities in schizophrenia, but not with the diagnosis of schizophrenia per se. It seems that specific patterns of inter-regional connectivity are linked with corresponding signs and symptoms of clinically heterogeneous conditions such as schizophrenia.</p

The potential interaction between time perception and gaming: a narrative review

Compromised time control is a variable of interest among disordered gamers because time spent on videogames can directly affect individuals’ lives. Although time perception appears to be closely associated with this phenomenon, previous studies have not systematically found a relationship between time perception and gaming. Therefore, the purpose of this narrative review is to explore how gaming disorder may be associated with time perception. It has been found that gamers exhibit a stronger attentional focus as well as an improved working memory compared with non-gamers. However, gamers (and especially disordered gamers) exhibit a stronger reaction to gaming cues which—coupled with an altered emotion regulation observed among disordered gamers—could directly affect their time perception. Finally, “'flow states”' direct most of the attentional resources to the ongoing activity, leading to a lack of resources allocated to the time perception. Therefore, entering a flow state will result in an altered time perception, most likely an underestimation of duration. The paper concludes that the time loss effect observed among disordered gamers can be explained via enhanced emotional reactivity (facilitated by impaired emotion regulation)

Effect of Lateralization on Motor and Mental Speed in Bipolar Disorder

Effect of lateralization on motor and mental speed in bipolar disorder Objective: The correspondence between the motor and mood regulation systems may shed light on the physiopathology of mood disorders. Handedness is a reliable proxy measure for cerebral lateralization for right handed subjects. In this study we have investigated the effects of lateralization on cognitive performance as well as motor and mental speed in bipolar disorder. Methods: Sixty-eight euthymic bipolar patients (mean age: 33.66 +/- 6.38, 33 female), and 65 healthy subjects (mean age: 33.65+7.11, 27 females) were enrolled. Participants with medical or psychiatric comorbidities were excluded. The Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MOCA), finger-tapping, peg-board test, Adult Memory and Information Processing battery (AMIPB), Edinburgh Handedness Inventory and reaction time tests were the measures utilized in our study. Results: The groups were similar in terms of age, gender and education. The bipolar patients were more lateralized than the controls (p=0.027), whereas eye and foot lateralization did not differ between the groups. The patients performed poorer than the controls on the MOCA (p=0.049), peg-board (right and left, p<0.001), finger-tapping (right p<0.001; left p=0.002), AMIPB (motor and A subtest, p<0.001 for both) and the visual and auditory (p<0.001 for both) reaction time tests. The degree of lateralization was correlated with the speed of processing in the bipolar group, but not in the control group. Conclusion: Right handed patients with bipolar disorder are more lateralized than healthy subjects and lateralization provides an advantage for processing speed in bipolar patients. This finding may indicate a relationship between lateralizing physiopathology and slowed interhemispheric communication and thus, an increase in lateralization might be a compensatory mechanism to use less interhemispheric communication in bipolar disorder