From basic perception deficits to facial affect recognition impairments in schizophrenia

While impaired facial emotion recognition and magnocellular deficits in visual perception are core features of schizophrenia, their relationship is still unclear. Our aim was to analyze the oscillatory background of these processes and to investigate the connection between the magnocellular pathway deficit and the abnormal facial affect processing. Thirty-nine subjects with schizophrenia and forty socially matched healthy controls subjects were enrolled. A 128 channel EEG was recorded in three experimental tasks: first, participants viewed magnocellular biased low-spatial frequency (LSF) and parvocellular biased high-spatial frequency (HSF) Gabor-patches, then faces and houses were presented and in the third task a facial affect recognition task was presented with happy, sad and neutral faces. Event-related theta (4-7 Hz) synchronization (ERS) (i.e. an increase in theta power) by magnocellular biased stimuli was decreased in patients relative to controls, while no similar differences were found between groups in the parvocellular biased condition. ERS was significantly lower in patients compared to healthy controls both in the face and in the emotion recognition task. Theta ERS to magnocellular biased stimuli, but not to parvocellular biased stimuli, were correlated with emotion recognition performance. These findings indicate a bottom up disruption of face perception and emotion recognition in schizophrenia

Komplex fejlesztési tervjavaslat kidolgozása a Balaton vízgyűjtő területére = Working out of a complex development plan for the drainage area of Lake Balaton

A kutatás zárókövetkeztetése volt, hogy a Balaton Régió problémái a fejlesztéseknél a megkésettségre és komplexitásnak, a térségi szemléletének a hiányára vezethetők vissza. Ehhez társult még a fejlesztés szükséges tőke hiánya és a fejlesztések össze- hangolatlansága. A feladatok közül a következőket emelhetjük ki: 1. Alapvető infrastrukturális hiányosságok pótlása. 2. A fejlesztéseknél a saját térségi (önkormányzati, vállalkozói) erőforrások mozgosí- tása és összehangolása. 3. Fejlesztési pályázatoknál az egyedi települési célokat kistérségi célokká kellene rendezni és azokra térségi szinten megoldást keresni. 4. A tervezés realitásának javítása érdekében meg kell teremteni a Balaton Régió folyamatosan aktualizált adatbázisát. 5. Rendezni kellene a térség közigazgatási helyzetét. 6. Javítani kell a szakágazatok együttműködési készségén és a fejlesztésért vállalt felelősségén. 7. Több figyelmet kell szentelni az elmaradott háttértelepülésekre. 8. Növelni kell az önkormányzatok területi felelősségvállalását. 9. Törekedni kell a térség speciális problémáit megoldó támogatások megszerzésére. | The final conclusion of the research was that the problems of the Balaton region derive from its backwardness in development, a lack of complexity and the regional approach. There are, however, other factors involved, such as the lack of capital needed for development and also a lack of harmonisation. Amongst the tasks to be undertaken we should highlight: 1. Making good the deficiencies in the infrastructure. 2. Mobilising and harmonising the region's own resources (of local govemment and enterprise) for development. 3. In development projects, reformulating the aims of individual settlements into thoese for the micro-region and handling these at regional level. 4. To improve the achievability level of planning a continuously up-dated database of the Balaton Region should be established. 5. The public administration situation of the region should be resolved. 6. Willingness to co-operate and responsibility for development must be improved. 7. More attention is needed for underdeveloped settlements in the hinterland. 8. Local authorities need to assume more regional responsibility. 9. Acquiring funds is the prime tool for solving the specific problems of the Region

Impaired mixed emotion processing in the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex in schizophrenia: an fMRI study

Background: Schizophrenia has a negative effect on the activity of the temporal and prefrontal cortices in the processing of emotional facial expressions. However no previous research focused on the evaluation of mixed emotions in schizophrenia, albeit they are frequently expressed in everyday situations and negative emotions are frequently expressed by mixed facial expressions. Methods: Altogether 37 subjects, 19 patients with schizophrenia and 18 healthy control subjects were enrolled in the study. The two study groups did not differ in age and education. The stimulus set consisted of 10 fearful (100%), 10 happy (100%), 10 mixed fear (70% fear and 30% happy) and 10 mixed happy facial expressions. During the fMRI acquisition pictures were presented in a randomized order and subjects had to categorize expressions by button press. Results: A decreased activation was found in the patient group during fear, mixed fear and mixed happy processing in the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC) and the right anterior insula (RAI) at voxel and cluster level after familywise error correction. No difference was found between study groups in activations to happy facial condition. Patients with schizophrenia did not show a differential activation between mixed happy and happy facial expression similar to controls in the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC). Conclusions: Patients with schizophrenia showed decreased functioning in right prefrontal regions responsible for salience signaling and valence evaluation during emotion recognition. Our results indicate that fear and mixed happy/fear processing are impaired in schizophrenia, while happy facial expression processing is relatively intact

Vészkorszak. Magyar művészettörténészek, magyar művészettörténet a vészkorszakban.

A "Magyar művészettörténészek, magyar művészettörténet a vészkorszakban" című konferencia anyaga. Az ELTE, 2014. novemberi Holokauszt megemlékezésének keretében elhangzott előadások forrásközlésekkel kiegészített szövegei az Enigma folyóiratban

Monitoring the early signs of cognitive decline in elderly by computer games: an MRI study

BACKGROUND: It is anticipated that current and future preventive therapies will likely be more effective in the early stages of dementia, when everyday functioning is not affected. Accordingly the early identification of people at risk is particularly important. In most cases, when subjects visit an expert and are examined using neuropsychological tests, the disease has already been developed. Contrary to this cognitive games are played by healthy, well functioning elderly people, subjects who should be monitored for early signs. Further advantages of cognitive games are their accessibility and their cost-effectiveness. PURPOSE: The aim of the investigation was to show that computer games can help to identify those who are at risk. In order to validate games analysis was completed which measured the correlations between results of the 'Find the Pairs' memory game and the volumes of the temporal brain regions previously found to be good predictors of later cognitive decline. PARTICIPANTS AND METHODS: 34 healthy elderly subjects were enrolled in the study. The volume of the cerebral structures was measured by MRI. Cortical reconstruction and volumetric segmentation were performed by Freesurfer. RESULTS: There was a correlation between the number of attempts and the time required to complete the memory game and the volume of the entorhinal cortex, the temporal pole, and the hippocampus. There was also a correlation between the results of the Paired Associates Learning (PAL) test and the memory game. CONCLUSIONS: The results gathered support the initial hypothesis that healthy elderly subjects achieving lower scores in the memory game have increased level of atrophy in the temporal brain structures and showed a decreased performance in the PAL test. Based on these results it can be concluded that memory games may be useful in early screening for cognitive decline

Posible alternancia del ciclo de reposo-actividad y comportamiento de vigilancia en macacos de cola de muñón macho periféricos (Macaca arctoides) en cautiverio exterior: un informe preliminar

En grupos de primates, la estructura social emerge como respuesta a las presiones del ambiente, la cual tiene un impacto importante sobre la detección de los depredadores, la ganancia en el alimento y la reproducción. A su vez, estas actividades se ven favorecidas por variables como las categorías de sexo y edad, lo que sugiere que en grupos socialmente establecidos de primates las actividades individuales dependen de la jerarquía social, el sexo y la edad. Lo anterior indica que el dominio es un factor que afecta la conducta. Con respecto a la noche, en especies diurnas, los arreglos y la distribución nocturnos de los miembros es una estrategia de antidepredación, que incrementa la identificación de los depredadores y la posibilidad de defensa en grupos extensos. El reconocimiento de una organización social en primates sugiere que durante el ciclo de reposo-actividad hay funciones asociadas con la vigilancia y que ésta probablemente se alterna entre sujetos. En este estudio examinamos las condiciones conductuales de reposoactividad de dos machos adultos periféricos de un grupo socialmente establecido de macacos cola de muñón (M. Arctoides). Cada sujeto fue monitoreado durante dos periodos continuos de 24 horas, para alcanzar un total de 96 horas de registro. Las condiciones de reposoactividad de ambos sujetos se agruparon en cuatro condiciones: Condición 1. Sujeto A reposo, sujeto B reposo; Condición 2. Sujeto A reposo, sujeto B activo; Condición 3. Sujeto A activo, sujeto B reposo; Condición 4. Sujeto A activo, sujeto B activo. Los valores obtenidos fueron comparados mediante una prueba de concordancia. Los resultados revelaron que los dos machos periféricos alternaron su ciclo de reposo-actividad. Esto es, cuando el sujeto A reposa, el sujeto B está activo. Los resultados se discuten en el sentido de que la alternancia de reposo-actividad es una adaptación natural, cuya función es cuidar al grupo de posibles ataques externos.Social structures emerge in primate groups mainly as a response to environmental pressures. Social structure impacts significantly on predator detection, food gathering and reproduction, and it is also an indicator of social condition and age and sex categories within the group. Differentiated activities which depend on social status, sex and age have been described in established social groups of primates. Dominance patterns influence the behavior of some species. It seems that the night-time spatial arrangement of members of a primate group is an anti-predation strategy, either by increasing detection and defensive capabilities in the case of large sleeping groups, or by emphasizing inconspicuousness in the case of more solitary sleepers. The persistence of social organization during rest-activity cycles in primate groups allows for the prediction that individuals in a group having the same monitoring needs may alternate their rest-activity condition to assure vigilance. In this study, we examined the rest and activity conditions of two peripheral individuals in an established social group of M. arctoides. Each subject was videorecorded twice for two continous periods of 24 hours each, totaling a videorecording of 96 hours. The rest and activity conditions observed in both subjects were grouped in the four possible conditions: Condition 1. Subject A resting, subject B resting; Condition 2. Subject A resting, subject B active; Condition 3. Subject A active, subject B resting; Condition 4. Subject A active, subject B active. These were compared with a concordance test. Results revealed that peripheral males alternated their rest-activity cycles. That is, while one subject was resting, the other remained active. The possibility that rest-activity alternation is an adaptation to maintain constant vigilance is discussed