Fluctuating asymmetry in brain structure and general intelligence in 73-Year-olds

SRC, MEB, JMW, IJD were supported by MRC grants MR/M013111/1 and MR/R024065/1. IJD is additionally supported by the Dementias Platform UK (MR/L015382/1), and he, SRC and SJR by the Age UK-funded Disconnected Mind project (http://www.disconnectedmind.ed.ac.uk). The work was done within the University of Edinburgh Centre for Cognitive Ageing and Cognitive Epidemiology; it was funded by the MRC and the BBSRC (MR/K026992/1) and supported SJR, IJD, and JMS. SRC, SJR, MEB and IJD were supported by a National Institutes of Health (NIH) research grant R01AG054628. JMW was supported by the Scottish Imaging Network: A Platform for Scientific Excellence (SINAPSE) collaboration (http://www.sinapse.ac.uk).Fluctuating body asymmetry is theorized to indicate developmental instability, and to have small positive associations with low socioeconomic status (SES). Previous studies have reported small negative associations between fluctuating body asymmetry and cognitive functioning, but relationships between fluctuating brain asymmetry and cognitive functioning remain unclear. The present study investigated the association between general intelligence (a latent factor derived from a factor analysis on 13 cognitive tests) and the fluctuating asymmetry of four structural measures of brain hemispheric asymmetry: cortical surface area, cortical volume, cortical thickness, and white matter fractional anisotropy. The sample comprised members of the Lothian Birth Cohort 1936 (LBC1936, N = 636, mean age = 72.9 years). Two methods were used to calculate structural hemispheric asymmetry: in the first method, regions contributed equally to the overall asymmetry score; in the second method, regions contributed proportionally to their size. When regions contributed equally, cortical thickness asymmetry was negatively associated with general intelligence (beta=-0.18,p <.001). There was no association between cortical thickness asymmetry and childhood SES, suggesting that other mechanisms are involved in the thickness asymmetry-intelligence association. Across all cortical metrics, asymmetry of regions identified by the parieto-frontal integration theory (P-FIT) was not more strongly associated with general intelligence than non-P-FIT asymmetry. When regions contributed proportionally, there were no associations between general intelligence and any of the asymmetry measures. The implications of these findings, and of different methods of calculating structural hemispheric asymmetry, are discussed.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

General and specific patterns of cortical gene expression as spatial correlates of complex cognitive functioning

We thank the participants of the three cohorts (UKB, Generation Scotland (STRADL) and LBC1936) for their participation and the research teams for their work in collecting, processing and giving access to these data for analysis. We are also thankful to the brain donors to the Allen Human Brain Atlas, BrainSpan Atlas and Human Brain Transcriptome Project, and to the people who collected and processed the data and made it openly available For the purpose of open access, the author has applied a CC-BY public copyright licence to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising from this submission.Peer reviewe

Support for UNRWA's survival

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) provides life-saving humanitarian aid for 5·4 million Palestine refugees now entering their eighth decade of statelessness and conflict. About a third of Palestine refugees still live in 58 recognised camps. UNRWA operates 702 schools and 144 health centres, some of which are affected by the ongoing humanitarian disasters in Syria and the Gaza Strip. It has dramatically reduced the prevalence of infectious diseases, mortality, and illiteracy. Its social services include rebuilding infrastructure and homes that have been destroyed by conflict and providing cash assistance and micro-finance loans for Palestinians whose rights are curtailed and who are denied the right of return to their homeland

Explicit and implicit processing of expectancy violations in language and music domains (thesis data)

Raw (.bdf) EEG data files collected for two experiments that investigated neural correlates of semantic, grammar and harmony expectancy violations. The EEG system was a Biosemi Active-Two amplifier system with 72 Ag/AgCI electrodes. A common mode sense active electrode was used as a reference electrode and a drive right leg passive electrode as a ground electrode. EEG was recorded at a sampling rate of 256 Hz. There were 64 scalp electrodes, four electrodes recorded electro-oculographic activity, and two electrodes were placed over the right and left mastoids

EEG correlates of metric violations in language and music domains (thesis data)

Raw (.bdf) EEG data files collected for an experiment that investigated neural correlates of metric violations in language and music domains. The EEG system was a Biosemi Active-Two amplifier system with 72 Ag/AgCI electrodes. A common mode sense active electrode was used as a reference electrode and a drive right leg passive electrode as a ground electrode. EEG was recorded at a sampling rate of 256 Hz. There were 64 scalp electrodes, four electrodes recorded electro-oculographic activity, and two electrodes were placed over the right and left mastoids

EEG correlates of simultaneous presentation of temporal and non-temporal expectancy violations (thesis data)

Raw (.bdf) EEG data files collected for two experiments that investigated EEG correlates of simultaneous presentation of temporal and non-temporal expectancy violations. One experiment combined metric expectancy violations with semantic and grammar expectancy violations (language domain). The other experiment combined metric expectancy violations with harmonic expectancy violations (music domain). The EEG system was a Biosemi Active-Two amplifier system with 72 Ag/AgCI electrodes. A common mode sense active electrode was used as a reference electrode and a drive right leg passive electrode as a ground electrode. EEG was recorded at a sampling rate of 256 Hz. There were 64 scalp electrodes, four electrodes recorded electro-oculographic activity, and two electrodes were placed over the right and left mastoids

Dinheiro, poder e sexo Money, power, and sex

A crença generalizada de que o dinheiro corrompe a intimidade bloqueia nossa capacidade de descrever e explicar como dinheiro, poder, e sexo, de fato, interagem. A crença oposta - de que o sexo funciona como uma mercadoria como qualquer outra - não é melhor para ajudar descrições e explicações. A intersecção de sexo, dinheiro e poder, de fato, gera confusão e conflito, mas isso ocorre precisamente porque os participantes estão simultaneamente negociando relações interpessoais delicadas e responsáveis e marcando diferenças entre essas relações e outras com as quais elas poderiam ser fácil e perigosamente confundidas. Na vida cotidiana, as pessoas lidam com essas dificuldades com um conjunto de práticas que poderíamos chamar de "Boas Combinações".<br>Widespread beliefs that money corrupts intimacy block our ability to describe and explain how money, power, and sex actually interact. The opposite belief - that sex operates like an ordinary market commodity - serves description and explanation no better. The intersection of sex, money, and power, does indeed generate confusion and conflict, but that is precisely because participants are simultaneously negotiating delicate, consequential, interpersonal relations and marking differences between those relations and others with which they could easily and dangerously be confused. In everyday social life, people deal with these difficulties by relying on a set of practices we can call good matches