WordNet-feelings: A linguistic categorisation of human feelings

In this article, we present the first in depth linguistic study of human feelings. While there has been substantial research on incorporating some affective categories into linguistic analysis (e.g. sentiment, and to a lesser extent, emotion), the more diverse category of human feelings has thus far not been investigated. We surveyed the extensive interdisciplinary literature around feelings to construct a working definition of what constitutes a feeling and propose 9 broad categories of feeling. We identified potential feeling words based on their pointwise mutual information with morphological variants of the word `feel' in the Google n-gram corpus, and present a manual annotation exercise where 317 WordNet senses of one hundred of these words were categorised as `not a feeling' or as one of the 9 proposed categories of feeling. We then proceeded to annotate 11386 WordNet senses of all these words to create WordNet-feelings, a new affective dataset that identifies 3664 word senses as feelings, and associates each of these with one of the 9 categories of feeling. WordNet-feelings can be used in conjunction with other datasets such as SentiWordNet that annotate word senses with complementary affective properties such as valence and intensity.Comment: 21 page

Visual Distraction: An Altered Aiming Spatial Response in Dementia

Background/Aims: Healthy individuals demonstrate leftward bias on visuospatial tasks such as line bisection, which has been attributed to right brain dominance. We investigated whether this asymmetry occurred in patients with probable dementia of the Alzheimer type (pAD) which is associated with neurodegenerative changes affecting temporoparietal regions. Methods: Subjects with pAD and matched controls performed a line bisection task in near and far space under conditions of no distraction, left-sided visual distraction and right-sided visual distraction. Results: Participants with pAD manifested different motor-preparatory ‘aiming’ spatial bias than matched controls. There were significantly greater rightward ‘aiming’ motor-intentional errors both without distraction and with right-sided distraction. Conclusion: ‘Aiming’ motor-preparatory brain activity may be induced by distraction in pAD subjects as compared to typical visual-motor function in controls

Variability in the Selection Patterns of Pronghorn: Are they Really Native Prairie Obligates?

In Canada, pronghorn (Antilocapra americana) are primarily considered a native prairie obligate because of their reliance on open grassland vegetation communities, although an assessment of local ecological knowledge suggests that pronghorn in Alberta select a variety of habitat from native prairie to cultivated lands. The primary objective of our study was to assess whether pronghorn in Alberta and Saskatchewan are native prairie obligates. Specifically, we addressed the following questions: 1) do individual pronghorn show similar selection patterns for native prairie and, therefore, support the notion that they are prairie obligates; 2) do pronghorn show consistent resource selection patterns at multiple scales (landscape and within-seasonal range); and 3) to what extent are selection patterns of pronghorn influenced by highways and roads. Within Alberta, we captured, collared, and monitored for one year individual female pronghorn in December 2003 (n = 24), March 2005 (n = 25), and March 2006 (n = 25). A detrended correspondence analysis of patterns of habitat selection revealed three distinct groups of pronghorn (r2 = 0.96, n = 55) that we labeled native, cultivated, and mixed, referring to the dominant land cover in their parturition ranges. We used logistic regression to model resource selection patterns of the three groups of pronghorn during the parturition and winter periods at the landscape and within-seasonal range scales. At the landscape scale, each group of pronghorn had top models consisting of the variables land cover, landform, distance to express highways, distance to arterial roads, and distance to collector roads for both periods. The native and mixed groups were less likely to use annual and perennial cropland than native prairie habitats, whereas the cultivated group was more likely to use annual and perennial cropland. At the within-seasonal range scale, the top models for each group in both seasons consisted of one or more road variables, but the top models exhibited poor model fit. Our results do not show a clear association for native prairie, which we would have expected if pronghorn were native prairie obligates, suggestive of plasticity in behavior. We acknowledge that patterns of habitat selection do not indicate habitat quality or fitness; therefore, to understand the individual- and population-level consequences of selecting sub-optimal habitats, such as agricultural landscapes, further research is needed

Apathy in frontotemporal dementia: Behavioral and neuroimaging correlates

Abstract. We investigated the occurrence of goal-directed motivational change in the form of apathy in patients with frontotemporal dementia (FTD), particularly those with behavioral variant social and executive deficits (bvFTD). Standardized behavioral inventory was employed to survey and compare apathy ratings from patients and caregivers. In cases of bvFTD, apathy ratings were further related to measures of social cognition, executive function, and atrophy on brain MRI. Results indicated that caregivers rated bvFTD patients as having significantly elevated apathy scores though patient self-ratings were normal. Caregiver and self-ratings of FTD samples with progressive nonfluent aphasia and semantic dementia did not differ from healthy controls and their informants. In the bvFTD sample, caregiver apathy scores were not correlated with general cognitive screening or depression scores, but were significantly correlated with social cognition and executive function measures. Voxel-based morphometry revealed that apathy ratings in bvFTD were related to prominent atrophy in the right caudate (including the ventral striatum), the right temporo-parietal junction, right posterior inferior and middle temporal gyri, and left frontal operculum-anterior insula region. Findings suggest that bvFTD is associated with a significant breakdown in goal-directed motivated behavior involving disruption of cortical-basal ganglia circuits that is also related to social and executive function deficits

Apathy in Frontotemporal Dementia: Behavioral and Neuroimaging Correlates

We investigated the occurrence of goal-directed motivational change in the form of apathy in patients with frontotemporal dementia (FTD), particularly those with behavioral variant social and executive deficits (bvFTD). Standardized behavioral inventory was employed to survey and compare apathy ratings from patients and caregivers. In cases of bvFTD, apathy ratings were further related to measures of social cognition, executive function, and atrophy on brain MRI. Results indicated that caregivers rated bvFTD patients as having significantly elevated apathy scores though patient self-ratings were normal. Caregiver and self-ratings of FTD samples with progressive nonfluent aphasia and semantic dementia did not differ from healthy controls and their informants. In the bvFTD sample, caregiver apathy scores were not correlated with general cognitive screening or depression scores, but were significantly correlated with social cognition and executive function measures. Voxel-based morphometry revealed that apathy ratings in bvFTD were related to prominent atrophy in the right caudate (including the ventral striatum), the right temporo-parietal junction, right posterior inferior and middle temporal gyri, and left frontal operculum- anterior insula region. Findings suggest that bvFTD is associated with a significant breakdown in goal-directed motivated behavior involving disruption of cortical-basal ganglia circuits that is also related to social and executive function deficits

Health knowledge among the millennial generation

The Millennial Generation, also known as Generation Y, is the demographic cohort following Generation X, and is generally regarded to be composed of those individuals born between 1980 and 2000. They are the first to grow up in an environment where health-related information is widely available by internet, TV and other electronic media, yet we know very little about the scope of their health knowledge. This study was undertaken to quantify two domains of clinically relevant health knowledge: factual content and ability to solve health related questions (application) in nine clinically related medical areas. Study subjects correctly answered, on average, 75% of health application questions but only 54% of health content questions. Since students were better able to correctly answer questions dealing with applications compared to those on factual content contemporary US high school students may not use traditional hierarchical learning models in acquisition of their health knowledge

Frontostriatal and Limbic Contributions to Cognitive Decline in Parkinson’s Disease

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: The circuitry underlying heterogenous cognitive profiles in Parkinson\u27s disease (PD) remains unclear. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether structural changes in frontostriatal and limbic pathways contribute to different cognitive trajectories in PD. METHODS: We obtained clinical and multimodal MRI data from 120 control and 122 PD subjects without dementia or severe motor disability. T1/T2-weighted images estimated volume, and diffusion imaging evaluated fractional anisotropy (FA) of frontostriatal (striatum and frontostriatal white matter [FSWM]) and limbic (hippocampus and fornix) structures. Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) gauged total and domain-specific (attention/executive and memory) cognitive function. Linear mixed-effects models were used to compare MRI and cognitive progression over 4.5 years between controls and PD and evaluate associations between baseline MRI and cognitive changes in PD. RESULTS: At baseline, control and PD groups were comparable, except PD participants had smaller striatal volume (p \u3c 0.001). Longitudinally, PD showed faster decline in hippocampal volume, FSWM FA, and fornix FA (ps \u3c .016), but not striatal volume (p = .218). Total and domain-specific MoCA scores declined faster in PD (ps \u3c .030). In PD, lower baseline hippocampal volume (p = .005) and fornix FA (p = .032), but not striatal volume (p = .662) or FSWM FA (p = .143), were associated with faster total MoCA decline. Baseline frontostriatal metrics of striatal volume and FSWM FA were associated with faster attention/executive decline (p \u3c .038), whereas lower baseline hippocampal volume was associated with faster memory decline (p = .005). CONCLUSION: In PD, frontostriatal structural metrics are associated with attention/executive tasks, whereas limbic changes correlated with faster global cognitive decline, particularly in memory tasks

The pattern of gray matter atrophy in Parkinson’s disease differs in cortical and subcortical regions

Cortical and subcortical gray matter (GM) atrophy may progress differently during the course of Parkinson's disease (PD). We delineated and compared the longitudinal pattern of these PD-related changes

Striatal shape in Parkinson's disease

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is marked pathologically by nigrostriatal dopaminergic terminal loss. Histopathological and in vivo labeling studies demonstrate that this loss occurs most extensively in the caudal putamen and caudate head. Previous structural studies have suggested reduced striatal volume and atrophy of the caudate head in PD subjects. The spatial distribution of atrophy in the putamen, however, has not been characterized. We aimed to delineate the specific locations of atrophy in both of these striatal structures. T1- and T2-weighted brain MR (3T) images were obtained from 40 PD and 40 control subjects having no dementia and similar age and gender distributions. Shape analysis was performed using doubly segmented regions of interest. Compared to controls, PD subjects had lower putamen (p=0.0003) and caudate (p=0.0003) volumes. Surface contraction magnitudes were greatest on the caudal putamen (p≤0.005) and head and dorsal body of the caudate (p≤0.005). This spatial distribution of striatal atrophy is consistent with the known pattern of dopamine depletion in PD and may reflect global consequences of known cellular remodeling phenomena

The neuroscience of social feelings:mechanisms of adaptive social functioning

Social feelings have conceptual and empirical connections with affect and emotion. In this review, we discuss how they relate to cognition, emotion, behavior and well-being. We examine the functional neuroanatomy and neurobiology of social feelings and their role in adaptive social functioning. Existing neuroscience literature is reviewed to identify concepts, methods and challenges that might be addressed by social feelings research. Specific topic areas highlight the influence and modulation of social feelings on interpersonal affiliation, parent-child attachments, moral sentiments, interpersonal stressors, and emotional communication. Brain regions involved in social feelings were confirmed by meta-analysis using the Neurosynth platform for large-scale, automated synthesis of functional magnetic resonance imaging data. Words that relate specifically to social feelings were identfied as potential research variables. Topical inquiries into social media behaviors, loneliness, trauma, and social sensitivity, especially with recent physical distancing for guarding public and personal health, underscored the increasing importance of social feelings for affective and second person neuroscience research with implications for brain development, physical and mental health, and lifelong adaptive functioning