Oscillatory dynamics underlying noun and verb production in highly proficient bilinguals

[EN] Words representing objects (nouns) and words representing actions (verbs) are essential components of speech across languages. While there is evidence regarding the organizational principles governing neural representation of nouns and verbs in monolingual speakers, little is known about how this knowledge is represented in the bilingual brain. To address this gap, we recorded neuromagnetic signals while highly proficient Spanish-Basque bilinguals performed a picture-naming task and tracked the brain oscillatory dynamics underlying this process. We found theta (4-8 Hz) power increases and alpha-beta (8-25 Hz) power decreases irrespectively of the category and language at use in a time window classically associated to the controlled retrieval of lexico-semantic information. When comparing nouns and verbs within each language, we found theta power increases for verbs as compared to nouns in bilateral visual cortices and cognitive control areas including the left SMA and right middle temporal gyrus. In addition, stronger alpha-beta power decreases were observed for nouns as compared to verbs in visual cortices and semantic-related regions such as the left anterior temporal lobe and right premotor cortex. No differences were observed between categories across languages. Overall, our results suggest that noun and verb processing recruit partially different networks during speech production but that these category-based representations are similarly processed in the bilingual brain.This research was supported by the Basque Government through the BERC 2022-2025 program and by the Spanish State Research Agency through BCBL Severo Ochoa excellence accreditation CEX2020-001010-S, by the Ikerbasque Foundation, by a Juan de la Cierva Fellowship to LA (IJCI-2017-31373) and by the Plan Nacional RTI2018-096216-A-I00 (MEGLIOMA) to LA and RTI2018-093547-B-I00 (LangConn) to MC and IQ both funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness

MULTIMAP: Multilingual picture naming test for mapping eloquent areas during awake surgeries

Published online: 8 September 2020Picture naming tasks are currently the gold standard for identifying and preserving language-related areas during awake brain surgery. With multilingual populations increasing worldwide, patients frequently need to be tested in more than one language. There is still no reliable testing instrument, as the available batteries have been developed for specific languages. Heterogeneity in the selection criteria for stimuli leads to differences, for example, in the size, color, image quality, and even names associated with pictures, making direct cross-linguistic comparisons difficult. Here we present MULTIMAP, a new multilingual picture naming test for mapping eloquent areas during awake brain surgery. Recognizing that the distinction between nouns and verbs is necessary for detailed and precise language mapping, MULTIMAP consists of a database of 218 standardized color pictures representing both objects and actions. These images have been tested for name agreement with speakers of Spanish, Basque, Catalan, Italian, French, English, German, Mandarin Chinese, and Arabic, and have been controlled for relevant linguistic features in cross-language combinations. The MULTIMAP test for objects and verbs represents an alternative to the Oral Denomination 80 (DO 80) monolingual pictorial set currently used in language mapping, providing an open-source, standardized set of up-to-date pictures, where relevant linguistic variables across several languages have been taken into account in picture creation and selection.Funded by Severo Ochoa (SEV-2015-049); the European Research Council (ERC-2011-ADG-295362), and MINECO (RTI2018- 093547-B-I00)

Oscillatory and Structural Signatures of Language Plasticity in Brain Tumor Patients: a Longitudinal Study

Recent evidence suggests that damage to the language network triggers its functional reorganization. Yet, the spectro-temporal fingerprints of this plastic rearrangement and its relation to anatomical changes is less well understood. Here, we combined magnetoencephalographic recordings with a proxy measure of white matter to investigate oscillatory activity supporting language plasticity and its relation to structural reshaping. First, cortical dynamics were acquired in a group of healthy controls during object and action naming. Results showed segregated beta (13-28 Hz) power decreases in left ventral and dorsal pathways, in a time-window associated to lexico-semantic processing (similar to 250-500 ms). Six patients with left tumors invading either ventral or dorsal regions performed the same naming task before and 3 months after surgery for tumor resection. When longitudinally comparing patients' responses we found beta compensation mimicking the category-based segregation showed by controls, with ventral and dorsal damage leading to selective compensation for object and action naming, respectively. At the structural level, all patients showed preoperative changes in white matter tracts possibly linked to plasticity triggered by tumor growth. Furthermore, in some patients, structural changes were also evident after surgery and showed associations with longitudinal changes in beta power lateralization toward the contralesional hemisphere. Overall, our findings support the existence of anatomo-functional dependencies in language reorganization and highlight the potential role of oscillatory markers in tracking longitudinal plasticity in brain tumor patients. By doing so, they provide valuable information for mapping preoperative and postoperative neural reshaping and plan surgical strategies to preserve language function and patient's quality of lifeBasque Government, Grant/Award Number: BERC 2018-2021; Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, Grant/Award Number: RTI2018-096216-A-I00 (MEGLIOMA) and RTI2018-093547-B-I00 (LangConn); Spanish State Research Agency, Grant/Award Number: SEV-2015-0490 and IJCI-2017-3137

Growth of Transition-Metal Dichalcogenides by Solvent Evaporation Technique

Due to their physical properties and potential applications in energy conversion and storage, transition-metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) have garnered substantial interest in recent years. Among this class of materials, TMDs based on molybdenum, tungsten, sulfur, and selenium are particularly attractive due to their semiconducting properties and the availability of bottom-up synthesis techniques. Here we report a method which yields high-quality crystals of transition-metal diselenide and ditelluride compounds (PtTe2, PdTe2, NiTe2, TaTe2, TiTe2, RuTe2, PtSe2, PdSe2, NbSe2, TiSe2, VSe2, ReSe2) from their solid solutions, via vapor deposition from a metal-saturated chalcogen melt. Additionally, we show the synthesis of rare-earth-metal polychalcogenides and NbS2 crystals using the aforementioned process. Most of the crystals obtained have a layered CdI2 structure. We have investigated the physical properties of selected crystals and compared them to state of the art findings reported in the literature. Remarkably, the charge density wave transition in 1T-TiSe2 and 2H-NbSe2 crystals is well-defined at TCDW ≈ 200 and 33 K, respectively. Angle-resolved photoelectron spectroscopy and electron diffraction are used to directly access the electronic and crystal structures of PtTe2 single crystals and yield state of the art measurements. © 2020 American Chemical Society.M.A.-H. acknowledges support from the VR starting grant 2018-05339 and KL1824/6. The crystal growth experiments were supported by the Russian Science Foundation, Project 19-12-00414. The work has been supported by the program 211 of the Russian Federation Government agreements 02.A03.21.0006 and 02.A03.21.0011, by the Russian Government Program of Competitive Growth of Kazan Federal University. We acknowledge MAX IV Laboratory for time on Beamline Bloch under Proposal 20190335. Research conducted at MAX IV, a Swedish national user facility, is supported by the Swedish Research council under contract 2018-07152 the Swedish Governmental Agency for Innovation Systems under contract 2018-04969, and Formas under contract 2019-02496. We acknowledge ARPES experiment support from Craig Polley (MAX IV), Maciej Dendzik (KTH) Antonija Grubisic-Cabo (KTH) and Oscar Tjernberg (KTH). H.R., D.P. and G.J.M. acknowledge the Swedish Research Council (2018-06465, 2018-04330) and the Swedish Energy Agency (P43549-1) for financial support

Object detection in thermal imagery for crowd density estimation

This work represents a research on deep-learning based approaches for object detection for the purpose of crowd density estimation. Specifically, thermal imagery which allows to preserve personal identity was used to train a deep learning object detection system. The ultimate objective of this work is to provide the client company with the tool which would facilitate better understanding of how various office, meeting, common and work spaces are being used across the campus, optimize crowd flows and drive down maintenance costs. Theoretical background related to both, traditional computer vision and novel deep-learning methods for object detection was studied and outlined in this work. Based on the outcomes of such comparison, the most promising method was implemented into production. Extensive empirical evidence obtained through extensive testing of the proposed solution demonstrated that the model exhibits high accuracy, great generalization capabilities and robustness against various perturbations in input images. It was concluded that provided solution satisfies both, accuracy and inference time requirements and therefore qualified to be deployed into production. Finally, possible directions for further development were outlined. Improved performance can be achieved by alternating backbone network architecture and expanding the training data set

Decarbonization as a Priority for Sustainable Development of Energy Industry Enterprises

The article is devoted to the analysis of the features of the functioning of domestic enterprises in the process of decarbonization of the energy industry. The study identified key areas for ensuring the sustainable development of domestic enterprises in the context of the implementation of the provisions of international agreements. The expediency of a qualitative transition to ecological raw materials to ensure inclusive development and compliance with the principles of corporate social responsibility by all domestic enterprises of the energy industry, and especially those that pose the greatest threat to the environment - thermal power plants, was emphasized. The characteristics of an innovative technology for reducing carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere by its accumulation from a generation source with its subsequent storage and useful use are presented. It has been proven that the introduction of innovative production and management practices will allow initiating a gradual transition of the domestic economy from industrial to circular, as well as ensuring the construction of energy companies of the future with long-term competitive advantages based on the principles of energy independence and energy efficiency, progressive decarbonization and sustainable development. Emphasis is placed on the decisive importance of the innovative direction of development of the economy as a whole and the business processes of modern enterprises in the energy industry to increase their competitive advantages

Behavioral and oscillatory signatures of switch costs in highly proficient bilinguals

Abstract Bilinguals with a high proficiency in their first (L1) and second language (L2) often show comparable reaction times when switching from their L1 to L2 and vice-versa (“symmetrical switch costs”). However, the neurophysiological signatures supporting this effect are not well understood. Here, we ran two separate experiments and assessed behavioral and MEG responses in highly proficient Spanish-Basque bilinguals while they overtly name pictures in a mixed-language context. In the behavioral experiment, bilinguals were slower when naming items in switch relative to non-switch trials, and this switch cost was comparable for both languages (symmetrical). The MEG experiment mimicked the behavioral one, with switch trials showing more desynchronization than non-switch trials across languages (symmetric neural cost) in the alpha band (8–13 Hz). Source-localization revealed the engagement of right parietal and premotor areas, which have been linked to language selection and inhibitory control; and of the left anterior temporal lobe (ATL), a cross-linguistic region housing conceptual knowledge that generalizes across languages. Our results suggest that highly proficient bilinguals implement a language-independent mechanism, supported by alpha oscillations, which is involved in cue-based language selection and facilitates conceptually-driven lexical access in the ATL, possibly by inhibiting non-target lexical items or disinhibiting target ones

Calcium Export from Neurons and Multi-Kinase Signaling Cascades Contribute to Ouabain Neuroprotection in Hyperhomocysteinemia

Pathological homocysteine (HCY) accumulation in the human plasma, known as hyperhomocysteinemia, exacerbates neurodegenerative diseases because, in the brain, this amino acid acts as a persistent N-methyl-d-aspartate receptor agonist. We studied the effects of 0.1–1 nM ouabain on intracellular Ca2+ signaling, mitochondrial inner membrane voltage (φmit), and cell viability in primary cultures of rat cortical neurons in glutamate and HCY neurotoxic insults. In addition, apoptosis-related protein expression and the involvement of some kinases in ouabain-mediated effects were evaluated. In short insults, HCY was less potent than glutamate as a neurotoxic agent and induced a 20% loss of φmit, whereas glutamate caused a 70% decrease of this value. Subnanomolar ouabain exhibited immediate and postponed neuroprotective effects on neurons. (1) Ouabain rapidly reduced the Ca2+ overload of neurons and loss of φmit evoked by glutamate and HCY that rescued neurons in short insults. (2) In prolonged 24 h excitotoxic insults, ouabain prevented neuronal apoptosis, triggering proteinkinase A and proteinkinase C dependent intracellular neuroprotective cascades for HCY, but not for glutamate. We, therefore, demonstrated here the role of PKC and PKA involving pathways in neuronal survival caused by ouabain in hyperhomocysteinemia, which suggests existence of different appropriate pharmacological treatment for hyperhomocysteinemia and glutamate excitotoxicity

Neural dynamics supporting longitudinal plasticity of action naming across languages: MEG evidence from bilingual brain tumor patients

Available online 25 January 2023Previous evidence suggests that distinct ventral and dorsal streams respectively underpin the semantic processing of object and action knowledge. Recently, we found that brain tumor patients with dorsal gliomas in frontoparietal hubs show a selective longitudinal compensation (post-vs. pre-surgery) during the retrieval of lexicosemantic information about actions (but not objects), indexed by power increases in beta rhythms (13–28 Hz). Here, we move one-step further and ask whether a similar organizational principle also stands across the different languages a bilingual speaks. To test this hypothesis, we combined a picture-naming task with MEG recordings and evaluated highly proficient Spanish-Basque bilinguals undergoing surgery for tumor resection in left frontoparietal regions. We assessed patients before and three months after surgery. At the behavioral level, we observed a similar performance across sessions irrespectively of the language at use, suggesting overall successful function preservation. At the oscillatory level, we found longitudinal selective power increases in beta for action naming in Spanish and Basque. Nevertheless, tumor resection triggered a differential reorganization of the L1 and the L2, with the latter one additionally recruiting the right hemisphere. Overall, our results provide evidence for (i) the specific involvement of frontoparietal regions in the semantic retrieval/representation of action knowledge across languages; (ii) a key role of beta oscillations as a signature of language compensation and (iii) the existence of divergent plasticity trajectories in L1 and L2 after surgery. By doing so, they provide new insights into the spectro-temporal dynamics supporting postoperative recovery in the bilingual brain.BERC 2022–2025 program and by the Spanish State Research Agency through BCBL Severo Ochoa excellence accreditation CEX 2020- 001010-S, by the Ikerbasque Foundation, the Fundaci´on Científica AECC (FCAECC) through the project PROYE20005CARR and by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation through the Plan Nacional RTI 2018-096216-A-I00 (MEGLIOMA) and PID 2021-123575OB-I00 (SCANCER) to LA, RTI 2018-093547-B-I00 (LangConn) to MC and IQ, and RTI 2018-096311-B-I00 to NM (TrainSynchro)