A sharp image or a sharp knife: norms for the modality-exclusivity of 774 concept-property items

According to recent embodied cognition theories, mental concepts are represented by modality-specific sensory-motor systems. Much of the evidence for modality-specificity in conceptual processing comes from the property-verification task. When applying this and other tasks, it is important to select items based on their modality-exclusivity. We collected modality ratings for a set of 387 properties, each of which was paired with two different concepts, yielding a total of 774 concept-property items. For each item, participants rated the degree to which the property could be experienced through five perceptual modalities (vision, audition, touch, smell, and taste). Based on these ratings, we computed a measure of modality exclusivity, the degree to which a property is perceived exclusively through one sensory modality. In this paper, we briefly sketch the theoretical background of conceptual knowledge, discuss the use of the property-verification task in cognitive research, provide our norms and statistics, and validate the norms in a memory experiment. We conclude that our norms are important for researchers studying modality-specific effects in conceptual processing

Myostatin-like proteins regulate synaptic function and neuronal morphology

Growth factors of the TGFβ superfamily play key roles in regulating neuronal and muscle function. Myostatin (or GDF8) and GDF11 are potent negative regulators of skeletal muscle mass. However, expression of myostatin and its cognate receptors in other tissues, including brain and peripheral nerves, suggests a potential wider biological role. Here, we show that Myoglianin (MYO), the Drosophila homolog of myostatin and GDF11, regulates not only body weight and muscle size, but also inhibits neuromuscular synapse strength and composition in a Smad2-dependent manner. Both myostatin and GDF11 affected synapse formation in isolated rat cortical neuron cultures, suggesting an effect on synaptogenesis beyond neuromuscular junctions. We also show that MYO acts in vivo to inhibit synaptic transmission between neurons in the escape response neural circuit of adult flies. Thus, these anti-myogenic proteins act as important inhibitors of synapse function and neuronal growth