Syntax Acquisition in Healthy Adults and Post-Stroke Individuals: The Intriguing Role of Grammatical Preference, Statistical Learning, and Education

Previous work has provided contrasting evidence on syntax acquisition. Syntax-internal factors, i.e., instinctive knowledge of the universals of grammar (UG) for finite-state grammar (FSG) and phrase-structure grammar (PSG) but also syntax-external factors such as language competence, working memory (WM) and demographic factors may affect syntax acquisition. This study employed an artificial grammar paradigm to identify which factors predicted syntax acquisition. Thirty-seven healthy individuals and forty-nine left-hemispheric stroke patients (fourteen with aphasia) read syllable sequences adhering to or violating FSG and PSG. They performed preference classifications followed by grammatical classifications (after training). Results showed the best classification accuracy for sequences adhering to UG, with performance predicted by syntactic competence and spatial WM. Classification of ungrammatical sequences improved after training and was predicted by verbal WM. Although accuracy on FSG was better than on PSG, generalization was fully possible only for PSG. Education was the best predictor of syntax acquisition, while aphasia and lesion volume were not predictors. This study shows a clear preference for UG, which is influenced by spatial and linguistic knowledge, but not by the presence of aphasia. Verbal WM supported the identification of rule violations. Moreover, the acquisition of FSG and PSG was related to partially different mechanisms, but both depended on education

German Language Adaptation of the NAVS (NAVS-G) and of the NAT (NAT-G): Testing Grammar in Aphasia

Grammar provides the framework for understanding and producing language. In aphasia, an acquired language disorder, grammatical deficits are diversified and widespread. However, the few assessments for testing grammar in the German language do not consider current linguistic, psycholinguistic, and functional imaging data, which have been shown to be crucial for effective treatment. This study developed German language versions of the Northwestern Assessment of Verbs and Sentences (NAVS-G) and the Northwestern Anagram Test (NAT-G) to examine comprehension and production of verbs, controlling for the number and optionality of verb arguments, and sentences with increasing syntactic complexity. The NAVS-G and NAT-G were tested in 27 healthy participants, 15 right hemispheric stroke patients without aphasia, and 15 stroke patients with mild to residual aphasia. Participants without aphasia showed near-perfect performance, with the exception of (object) relative sentences, where accuracy was associated with educational level. In each patient with aphasia, deficits in more than one subtest were observed. The within and between population-groups logistic mixed regression analyses identified significant impairments in processing syntactic complexity at the verb and sentence levels. These findings indicate that the NAVS-G and NAT-G have potential for testing grammatical competence in (German) stroke patients

Heteroaryl-Ethylenes as New Lead Compounds in the Fight against High Priority Bacterial Strains

The widespread use of antibiotics has led to a gradual increase in drug-resistant bacterial infections, which severely weakens the clinical efficacy of antibacterial therapies. In recent decades, stilbenes aroused great interest because of their high bioavailability, as well as their manifold biological activity. Our research efforts are focused on synthetic heteroaromatic stilbene derivatives as they represent a potentially new type of antibiotic with a wide antibacterial spectrum. Herein, a preliminary molecular modeling study and a versatile synthetic scheme allowed us to define eight heteroaromatic stilbene derivatives with potential antimicrobial activity. In order to evaluate our compound’s activity spectrum and antibacterial ability, minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) and minimum bactericidal concentration (MBC) tests have been performed on Gram-positive and Gram-negative ATCC strains. Compounds PB4, PB5, PB7, and PB8 showed the best values in terms of MIC and were also evaluated for MBC, which was found to be greater than MIC, confirming a bacteriostatic activity. For all compounds, we evaluated toxicity on colon-rectal adenocarcinoma cells tumor cells (CaCo2), once it was established that the whole selected set was more active than 5-Fluorouracil in reducing CaCo-2 cells viability. To the best of our knowledge, the biological assays have shown for these derivatives an excellent bacteriostatic activity, compared to similar molecular structures previously reported, thus paving the way for a new class of antibiotic compounds

Low Represented Mutation Clustering in SARS-CoV-2 B.1.1.7 Sublineage Group with Synonymous Mutations in the E Gene

Starting in 2019, the COVID-19 pandemic is a global threat that is difficult to monitor. SARS-CoV-2 is known to undergo frequent mutations, including SNPs and deletions, which seem to be transmitted together, forming clusters that define specific lineages. Reverse-Transcription quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR) has been used for SARS-CoV-2 diagnosis and is still considered the gold standard method. Our Eukaryotic Host Pathogens Interaction (EHPI) laboratory received six SARS-CoV-2-positive samples from a Sicilian private analysis laboratory, four of which showed a dropout of the E gene. Our sequencing data revealed the presence of a synonymous mutation (c.26415 C > T, TAC > TAT) in the E gene of all four samples showing the dropout in RT-qPCR. Interestingly, these samples also harbored three other mutations (S137L—Orf1ab; N439K—S gene; A156S—N gene), which had a very low diffusion rate worldwide. This combination suggested that these mutations may be linked to each other and more common in a specific area than in the rest of the world. Thus, we decided to analyze the 103 sequences in our internal database in order to confirm or disprove our “mutation cluster hypothesis”. Within our database, one sample showed the synonymous mutation (c.26415 C > T, TAC > TAT) in the E gene. This work underlines the importance of territorial epidemiological surveillance by means of NGS and the sequencing of samples with clinical and or technical particularities, e.g., post-vaccine infections or RT-qPCR amplification failures, to allow for the early identification of these SNPs. This approach may be an effective method to detect new mutational clusters and thus to predict new emerging SARS-CoV-2 lineages before they spread globally

La chimera alata e il suo doppio. Un’opportunità didattica per pensare la tecnica

The technological updating of the restoration didactics, as well as the upgrading of any other discipline, raises wide-ranging cultural issues. As Heidegger reminds us, in the case we consider the essence of the Technique as something not technical at all, it is advisable for us to be vigilant about the alleged neutrality of technological tools as well as about the claimed mastering of their usage, which is in fact indispensable nowadays. It is rather necessary to reflect about the radical shifts in the Technique, which switched from being mere “means" to an “end”. This has been widely marked by Philosophy, which nowadays profiles a scenery in which the undefined increasing of means deploys the goals that - through it - can be achieved. Thinking about the pitfalls underlying the “reversal of the subjectivity" that this same scenario involves, whereas it is the technique the one tool determining the way to gain experience, is even more necessary to fulfil our purposes. In the teaching experience, predisposition to wait for responses guaranteed from the optimization of technical procedures reverberates the sense of such "reversal". Such approach is an element that teachers often complain about considering the student approach. It is responsibility of the Didactics to acknowledge its scale and to identify useful strategies in order to assign centrality to the “who" and to promote the right order among the “why, what and how” to do things. In the recent Lab experience, the presence of a couple of winged chimeras has enabled a small but significant approach change: the expected responses have been switched into questions, to which the technique has been called in in order to provide appropriate answer

Ventral and dorsal pathways for language

Built on an analogy between the visual and auditory systems, the following dual stream model for language processing was suggested recently: a dorsal stream is involved in mapping sound to articulation, and a ventral stream in mapping sound to meaning. The goal of the study presented here was to test the neuroanatomical basis of this model. Combining functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) with a novel diffusion tensor imaging (DTI)-based tractography method we were able to identify the most probable anatomical pathways connecting brain regions activated during two prototypical language tasks. Sublexical repetition of speech is subserved by a dorsal pathway, connecting the superior temporal lobe and premotor cortices in the frontal lobe via the arcuate and superior longitudinal fascicle. In contrast, higher-level language comprehension is mediated by a ventral pathway connecting the middle temporal lobe and the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex via the extreme capsule. Thus, according to our findings, the function of the dorsal route, traditionally considered to be the major language pathway, is mainly restricted to sensory-motor mapping of sound to articulation, whereas linguistic processing of sound to meaning requires temporofrontal interaction transmitted via the ventral route