THE MIND AND BRAIN SCHOLAR AS A HITCH-HIKER IN POST-GUTENBERG GALAXY: PUBLISHING AT 2000 AND BEYOND

Electronic journal (e-journal) publishing has started to change the ways we think about publish-ing. However, many scholars and scientists in the mind and brain sciences are still ignorant of the new possibilities and on-going debates. This paper will provide a summary of the issues in-volved, give an update of the current discussion, and supply practical information on issues re-lated to e- journal publishing and self-archiving relevant for the mind and brain sciences. Issues such as differences between traditional and e-journal publishing, open archive initiatives, world-wide conventions, quality control, costs involved in e-journal publishing, and copyright questions will be addressed. Practical hints on how to self-archive, how to submit to the e-journal Psycolo-quy, how to create an open research archive, and where to find information relevant to e-publishing will be supplied

Discourse studies in neurologically impaired populations: A quest for action

Organism and environment are in a state of constant interaction, and discourse is vie-wed as one form of manifestation of this interaction. Through the study of discourse in-sights can be gained into those components that bring about mental events. Verbal structure, communication of beliefs and action/interaction are highly interactive dimensi-ons of discourse. Taking this perspective as a framework, the findings of discourse stu-dies with particular emphasis on right-hemisphere brain damaged individuals are discussed. Neurolinguistic studies of discourse can be divided into four categories: (1) studies that focus primarily at providing a detailed description of the structural and inter-actional abilities of brain-damaged individuals, (2) studies that are mainly concerned with investigating the processing aspects of discourse, (3) studies that investigate the influ-ence of cognitive systems such as attention or memory on discourse processing, and (4) studies that try to relate discourse processing mechanisms to underlying biological sub-strates or neurophysiological mechanisms. A quest is made for future research to base discourse studies on well-defined processing theories, to include different processing components and levels, and to systematically investigate the impact of facets of cogniti-ve systems on such processing. Established methodological approaches should be complemented by electrophysiological procedures (such as the event related potentials technique), or functional imaging techniques (such as fMRI) to tackle relationships bet-ween discourse processing mechanisms, cognitive systems and underlying biological mechanisms. Consideration of the influence of biochemical processes (such as asym-metries of neurotransmitters, endocrine functions or influence of pharmacological agents) on component processes may add to our insights

Losing the error related negativity (ERN): an indicator for willed action

When people make errors in a discrimination task, a negative-going waveform can be observed in scalp-recorded EEG that has been coined the error-related negativity (ERN). We hypothesized that the ERN only occurs with slips, that is unwilled action errors, but not if an error is committed willingly and intentionally. We investigated the occurrence of the ERN in a choice reaction time task that has been shown to produce an ERN and in an error simulation task where subjects had to fake errors while the EEG was recorded. We observed a loss of the ERN when errors were committed in willed actions but not in unwilled actions thus supporting the idea that the production of the ERN is tied to slips in unwilled actions but not mistakes in willed actions

Neuropragmatics in the 21st century

One of the great challenges of the new millennium is the continuing search of how the mind works. Although a relatively young field, the study of neuropragmatics can greatly contribute to this search by its interdisciplinary nature, the possibility to be applied to different research meth-ods and by the opportunity to study its nature by taking vastly different perspectives

The study of the regenesis of mind in the 21st century

The enigma of consciousness and the brain-mind relationship will - most likely - be unveiled in the 21st century through the new technologies developed at the end of the 20th century and new technologies yet to come. The new technologies will be used to tackle the problem from evolu-tionary, developmental, normal and pathological brain functioning. A major contribution, how-ever, will surface when investigating a particular perspective of pathological brain functioning - a perspective that has not received any attention in the past: the investigation of the re-emergence of mind out of prolonged coma and coma like states

Error detection and the Error-related ERP in patients with lesions involving the anterior cingulate and adjacent regions

Evidence indicates that the anterior cingulate region generates what appears to be a specific electrophysiological marker for the monitoring of error responses. When an auditory or visual stimulus is presented in such a way that the subject is likely to make an error, averaged encephalography (EEG) trials to erroneous responses consistently show a negative-going waveform which has been coined the error-related negativity (ERN). We examined ERNs in patients with a ruptured aneurysm of the anterior communicating artery (AACA), who are particularly prone to showing damage in the anterior cingulate and adjacent regions, and frequently display a variety of behavioral and cognitive disturbances such as disorientation, confabulation, apathy, unawareness of deficit, and problems of attention, control and monitoring. We found that these patients generally did not produce an ERN in comparison to healthy control participants suggesting that the anterior cingulate is essential for the ERN response. However, the patients' error rates were comparable to that of the controls and they showed a dissociation between overt error awareness and ERN production, suggesting that the ERN does not simply represent an error detection signal

Genetically engineered minipigs model the major clinical features of human neurofibromatosis type 1.

Neurofibromatosis Type 1 (NF1) is a genetic disease caused by mutations in Neurofibromin 1 (NF1). NF1 patients present with a variety of clinical manifestations and are predisposed to cancer development. Many NF1 animal models have been developed, yet none display the spectrum of disease seen in patients and the translational impact of these models has been limited. We describe a minipig model that exhibits clinical hallmarks of NF1, including café au lait macules, neurofibromas, and optic pathway glioma. Spontaneous loss of heterozygosity is observed in this model, a phenomenon also described in NF1 patients. Oral administration of a mitogen-activated protein kinase/extracellular signal-regulated kinase inhibitor suppresses Ras signaling. To our knowledge, this model provides an unprecedented opportunity to study the complex biology and natural history of NF1 and could prove indispensable for development of imaging methods, biomarkers, and evaluation of safety and efficacy of NF1-targeted therapies

Current status and recommendations for biomarkers and biobanking in neurofibromatosis

Objective: Clinically validated biomarkers for neurofibromatosis 1 (NF1), neurofibromatosis 2 (NF2), and schwannomatosis (SWN) have not been identified to date. The biomarker working group’s goals are to (1) define biomarker needs in NF1, NF2, and SWN; (2) summarize existing data on biomarkers in NF1, NF2, and SWN; (3) outline recommendations for sample collection and biomarker development; and (4) standardize sample collection and methodology protocols where possible to promote comparison between studies by publishing standard operating procedures (SOPs). Methods: The biomarker group reviewed published data on biomarkers in NF1, NF2, and SWN and on biobanking efforts outside these diseases via literature search, defined the need for biomarkers in NF, and developed recommendations in a series of consensus meetings. Results: We describe existing biomarkers in NF and report consensus recommendations for SOP and a minimal clinical dataset to accompany samples derived from patients with NF1, NF2, and SWN in decentralized biobanks. Conclusions: These recommendations are intended to provide clinicians and researchers with a common set of guidelines to collect and store biospecimens and for establishment of biobanks for NF1, NF2, and SWN

An On-Line Interview with Noam Chomsky: On the Nature of Pragmatics and Related Issues

The authors and editor of the special issue of Brain and Language: Pragmatics: Theoretical and Clinical Issues as well as the editor of Brain and Language framed some questions which were sent to and readily discussed by Noam Chomsky via e-mail