Behavioral and fMRI evidence that cognitive ability modulates the effect of semantic context on speech intelligibility

Text cues facilitate the perception of spoken sentences to which they are semantically related (Zekveld, Rudner, et al., 2011). In this study, semantically related and unrelated cues preceding sentences evoked more activation in middle temporal gyrus (MTG) and inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) than nonword cues, regardless of acoustic quality (speech in noise or speech in quiet). Larger verbal working memory (WM) capacity (reading span) was associated with greater intelligibility benefit obtained from related cues, with less speech-related activation in the left superior temporal gyrus and left anterior IFG, and with more activation in right medial frontal cortex for related versus unrelated cues. Better ability to comprehend masked text was associated with greater ability to disregard unrelated cues, and with more activation in left angular gyrus (AG). We conclude that individual differences in cognitive abilities are related to activation in a speech-sensitive network including left MTG, IFG and AG during cued speech perception

Postmortem Changes in Myoglobin Content in Organs

Postmortem changes in myoglobin concentrations in blood and organs were investigated using an enzyme immunoassay by animal experiments in combination with immunohistochemical staining of human cases. Blood myoglobin concentrations were found to increase drastically within a very short time after death. Those in striated muscle, however, did not change by day 14 postmortem. Myoglobin content in the liver and kidney increased slightly by day 5 postmortem, and more obviously by day 7 or later. However, almost no change was observed by day 5 in the kidney when the renal artery and vein had been ligated just after death. In the thyroid gland and the lung, the myoglobin content markedly increased by day 7 postmortem, with the logarithmical values rising nearly linearly as the time after death passed. In the thyroid gland, concentrations reached the level of the striated muscle. The mechanisms of postmortem myoglobin increase in organs are thought to be direct diffusion from the striated muscle and/or distribution through the blood. To estimate the postmortem interval, the determination of myoglobin content in the thyroid gland or the lung appears to be useful

Preparatory Effects of Distractor Suppression: Evidence from Visual Cortex

Spatial selective attention is the mechanism that facilitates the selection of relevant information over irrelevant information in the visual field. The current study investigated whether foreknowledge of the presence or absence of distractors surrounding an impending target stimulus results in preparatory changes in visual cortex. We cued the location of the target and the presence or absence of distractors surrounding the target while changes in blood oxygen level dependent (BOLD) signals were measured. In line with prior work, we found that top-down spatial attention resulted in an increased contralateral BOLD response, evoked by the cue throughout early visual cortex (areas V1, V2 and V3). In addition, cues indicating distractor presence evoked a substantial increase in the magnitude of the BOLD signal in visual area V3, but not in V2 or V1. This study shows that prior knowledge concerning the presence of a distractor results in enhanced attentional modulation of visual cortex, in visual areas where neuronal receptive fields are large enough to encompass both targets and distractors. We interpret these findings as evidence that top-down attentional control processes include active preparatory suppression mechanisms for irrelevant, distracting information in the visual scene

Grabbing Your Ear: Rapid Auditory-Somatosensory Multisensory Interactions in Low-level Sensory Cortices Are Not Constrained by Stimulus Alignment

Multisensory interactions are observed in species from single-cell organisms to humans. Important early work was primarily carried out in the cat superior colliculus and a set of critical parameters for their occurrence were defined. Primary among these were temporal synchrony and spatial alignment of bisensory inputs. Here, we assessed whether spatial alignment was also a critical parameter for the temporally earliest multisensory interactions that are observed in lower-level sensory cortices of the human. While multisensory interactions in humans have been shown behaviorally for spatially disparate stimuli (e.g. the ventriloquist effect), it is not clear if such effects are due to early sensory level integration or later perceptual level processing. In the present study, we used psychophysical and electrophysiological indices to show that auditory-somatosensory interactions in humans occur via the same early sensory mechanism both when stimuli are in and out of spatial register. Subjects more rapidly detected multisensory than unisensory events. At just 50 ms post-stimulus, neural responses to the multisensory ‘whole' were greater than the summed responses from the constituent unisensory ‘parts'. For all spatial configurations, this effect followed from a modulation of the strength of brain responses, rather than the activation of regions specifically responsive to multisensory pairs. Using the local auto-regressive average source estimation, we localized the initial auditory-somatosensory interactions to auditory association areas contralateral to the side of somatosensory stimulation. Thus, multisensory interactions can occur across wide peripersonal spatial separations remarkably early in sensory processing and in cortical regions traditionally considered unisensor

Developmentally Sensitive Interaction Effects of Genes and the Social Environment on Total and Subcortical Brain Volumes

Contains fulltext : 167721.PDF (publisher's version ) (Open Access)Smaller total brain and subcortical volumes have been linked to psychopathology including attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Identifying mechanisms underlying these alterations, therefore, is of great importance. We investigated the role of gene-environment interactions (GxE) in interindividual variability of total gray matter (GM), caudate, and putamen volumes. Brain volumes were derived from structural magnetic resonance imaging scans in participants with (N = 312) and without ADHD (N = 437) from N = 402 families (age M = 17.00, SD = 3.60). GxE effects between DAT1, 5-HTT, and DRD4 and social environments (maternal expressed warmth and criticism; positive and deviant peer affiliation) as well as the possible moderating effect of age were examined using linear mixed modeling. We also tested whether findings depended on ADHD severity. Deviant peer affiliation was associated with lower caudate volume. Participants with low deviant peer affiliations had larger total GM volumes with increasing age. Likewise, developmentally sensitive GxE effects were found on total GM and putamen volume. For total GM, differential age effects were found for DAT1 9-repeat and HTTLPR L/L genotypes, depending on the amount of positive peer affiliation. For putamen volume, DRD4 7-repeat carriers and DAT1 10/10 homozygotes showed opposite age relations depending on positive peer affiliation and maternal criticism, respectively. All results were independent of ADHD severity. The presence of differential age-dependent GxE effects might explain the diverse and sometimes opposing results of environmental and genetic effects on brain volumes observed so far

Task-generic and task-specific connectivity modulations in the ADHD brain:an integrated analysis across multiple tasks

Contains fulltext : 231786.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access)Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is associated with altered functioning in multiple cognitive domains and neural networks. This paper offers an overarching biological perspective across these. We applied a novel strategy that extracts functional connectivity modulations in the brain across one (P(single)), two (P(mix)) or three (P(all)) cognitive tasks and compared the pattern of modulations between participants with ADHD (n-89), unaffected siblings (n = 93) and controls (n = 84; total N = 266; age range = 8-27 years). Participants with ADHD had significantly fewer P(all) connections (modulated regardless of task), but significantly more task-specific (P(single)) connectivity modulations than the other groups. The amplitude of these P(single) modulations was significantly higher in ADHD. Unaffected siblings showed a similar degree of P(all) connectivity modulation as controls but a similar degree of P(single) connectivity modulation as ADHD probands. P(all) connections were strongly reproducible at the individual level in controls, but showed marked heterogeneity in both participants with ADHD and unaffected siblings. The pattern of reduced task-generic and increased task-specific connectivity modulations in ADHD may be interpreted as reflecting a less efficient functional brain architecture due to a reduction in the ability to generalise processing pathways across multiple cognitive domains. The higher amplitude of unique task-specific connectivity modulations in ADHD may index a more "effortful" coping strategy. Unaffected siblings displayed a task connectivity profile in between that of controls and ADHD probands, supporting an endophenotype view. Our approach provides a new perspective on the core neural underpinnings of ADHD

Risk factors for comorbid oppositional defiant disorder in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder

Oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) is highly prevalent in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Individuals with both ADHD and ODD (ADHD + ODD) show a considerably worse prognosis compared with individuals with either ADHD or ODD. Therefore, identification of risk factors for ADHD + ODD is essential and may contribute to the development of (early) preventive interventions. Participants were matched for age, gender, and ADHD-subtype (diagnostic groups), and did not differ in IQ. Predictors included pre- and perinatal risk factors (pregnancy duration, birth weight, maternal smoking during pregnancy), transgenerational factors (parental ADHD; parental warmth and criticism in diagnostic groups), and postnatal risk factors (parental socioeconomic status [SES], adverse life events, deviant peer affiliation). Three models were assessed, investigating risk factors for ADHD-only versus controls (N = 86), ADHD + ODD versus controls (N = 86), and ADHD + ODD versus ADHD-only (N = 90). Adverse life events and parental ADHD were risk factors for both ADHD + ODD and ADHD-only, and more adverse life events were an even stronger risk factor for comorbid ODD compared with ADHD-only. For ADHD + ODD, but not ADHD-only, parental criticism, deviant peer affiliation, and parental SES acted as risk factors. Maternal smoking during pregnancy acted as minor risk factor for ADHD-only, while higher birth weight acted as minor risk factor for ADHD + ODD. No effects of age were present. Findings emphasise the importance of these factors in the development of comorbid ODD. The identified risk factors may prove to be essential in preventive interventions for comorbid ODD in ADHD, highlighting the need for parent-focused interventions to take these factors into account

Structural brain alterations and their association with cognitive function and symptoms in Attention-deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder families

Gray matter disruptions have been found consistently in Attention-deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). The organization of these alterations into brain structural networks remains largely unexplored. We investigated 508 participants (281 males) with ADHD (N = 210), their unaffected siblings (N = 108), individuals with subthreshold ADHD (N = 49), and unrelated healthy controls (N = 141) with an age range from 7 to 18 years old from 336 families in the Dutch NeuroIMAGE project. Source based morphometry was used to examine structural brain network alterations and their association with symptoms and cognitive performance. Two networks showed significant reductions in individuals with ADHD compared to unrelated healthy controls after False Discovery Rate correction. Component A, mainly located in bilateral Crus I, showed a ADHD/typically developing difference with subthreshold cases being intermediate between ADHD and typically developing controls. The unaffected siblings were similar to controls. After correcting for IQ and medication status, component A showed a negative correlation with inattention symptoms across the entire sample. Component B included a maximum cluster in the bilateral insula, where unaffected siblings, similar to individuals with ADHD, showed significantly reduced loadings compared to controls; but no relationship with individual symptoms or cognitive measures was found for component B. This multivariate approach suggests that areas reflecting genetic liability within ADHD are partly separate from those areas modulating symptom severity

Discrepancies of polygenic effects on symptom dimensions between adolescents and adults with ADHD

A significant proportion of individuals with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) show persistence into adulthood. The genetic and neural correlates of ADHD in adolescents versus adults remain poorly characterized. We investigated ADHD polygenic risk score (PRS) in relation to previously identified gray matter (GM) patterns, neurocognitive, and symptom findings in the same ADHD sample (462 adolescents & 422 adults from the NeuroIMAGE and IMpACT cohorts). Significant effects of ADHD PRS were found on hyperactivity and impulsivity symptoms in adolescents, hyperactivity symptom in adults, but not GM volume components. A distinct PRS effect between adolescents and adults on individual ADHD symptoms is suggested

Anxiety modulates the relation between attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder severity and working memory-related brain activity

Objectives: Individuals with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) often have heightened levels of anxiety, which has been associated with worse performance on working memory tasks. Knowledge of the neural pathways underlying the combined presence of ADHD and anxiety may aid in a better understanding of their co-occurrence. Therefore, we investigated how anxiety modulates the effect of ADHD severity on neural activity during a visuospatial working memory (VSWM) task.Methods: Neuroimaging data were available for 371 adolescents and young adults participating in the multicentre cohort study NeuroIMAGE (average age 17.1 years). We analysed the effects of ADHD severity, anxiety severity and their interaction on-task accuracy, and on neural activity associated with working memory (VSWM trials minus baseline), and memory load (high memory load trials minus low load trials).Results: Anxiety significantly modulated the relation between ADHD severity and neural activity in the cerebellum for the working memory contrast, and bilaterally in the striatum and thalamus for the memory load contrast.Conclusions: We found that ADHD with co-occurring anxiety is associated with lowered neural activity during a VSWM task in regions important for information gating. This fits well with previous theorising on ADHD with co-occurring anxiety, and illustrates the neurobiological heterogeneity of ADHD