Sense of body ownership in patients affected by functional motor symptoms (conversion disorder)

Background and aimPatients with functional neurological symptoms are commonly seen in neurological practice. Nevertheless their aetiopathology remains unclear. We have recently shown that patients affected by functional motor symptoms (FMS) present lower interoceptive awareness and higher alexithymia levels than healthy controls. Nevertheless sense of body ownership has never been studied in FMS patients.The aim of the present study was to systematically investigate the sense of body ownership, with the rubber hand illusion (RHI) paradigm, in patients with FMS and healthy controls.Materials and methodsWe included in the study 16 patients with FMS and 18 healthy controls (HC). Patients and HC were asked to complete the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) and the self-consciousness scale (self-objectification questionnaire). All participants underwent the RHI paradigm: illusionary experience was measured by self-report and by proprioceptive alteration.ResultsA Mann–Whitney U test performed revealed that FMS (median = 2.11) participants embodied the rubber hand to the same extent than HC participants (median = 2.0, Z = −0.86, p > 0.05, r = −0.15). The same test revealed no significant difference in the Proprioceptive Drift experience between FMS (median = 0.0) and HC participants (median = −0.5, Z = −0.96, p > 0.05, r = −0.16).ConclusionsOur study revealed that sense of body ownership is not impaired in patients affected by FMS. This, together with the results from our previous experiment (studying the interoceptive awareness), supports the hypothesis that interoceptive awareness and sense of body ownership may be dissociated in patients with FMS.     

The contribution of functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to the presurgical assessment of language function in children

Before performing neurosurgery, an exhaustive presurgical assessment is required, usually including an investigation of language cerebral lateralization. Among the available procedures, the intracarotid amobarbital test (IAT) was formerly the most widely used. However, this procedure has many limitations: it is invasive and potentially traumatic, especially for children. To overcome these limitations, neuroimaging techniques such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) have been used. Again, these methods are difficult to use with children, who must remain motionless during data acquisition. Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) is a noninvasive functional imaging technique that is easily applied to pediatric and cognitively limited patients. It has been used recently in epileptic children for presurgical assessment of expressive and receptive language brain lateralization. The aim of this review is to present the contribution of fNIRS to the presurgical assessment of language function in children with neurological diseases.     

A key role for experimental task performance: effects of math talent, gender and performance on the neural correlates of mental rotation

The neurophysiological mechanisms underlying superior cognitive performance are a research area of high interest. The majority of studies on the brain-performance relationship assessed the effects of capability-related group factors (e.g. talent, gender) on task-related brain activations while only few studies examined the effect of the inherent experimental task performance factor. In this functional MRI study, we combined both approaches and simultaneously assessed the effects of three relatively independent factors on the neurofunctional correlates of mental rotation in same-aged adolescents: math talent (gifted/controls: 17/17), gender (male/female: 16/18) and experimental task performance (median split on accuracy; high/low: 17/17). Better experimental task performance of mathematically gifted vs. control subjects and male vs. female subjects validated the selected paradigm. Activation of the inferior parietal lobule (IPL) was identified as a common effect of mathematical giftedness, gender and experimental task performance. However, multiple linear regression analyses (stepwise) indicated experimental task performance as the only predictor of parietal activations. In conclusion, increased activation of the IPL represents a positive neural correlate of mental rotation performance, irrespective of but consistent with the obtained neurocognitive and behavioral effects of math talent and gender. As experimental performance may strongly affect task-related activations this factor needs to be considered in capability-related group comparison studies on the brain-performance relationship.     

Menstrual cycle-related changes of functional cerebral asymmetries in fine motor coordination

Fluctuating sex hormone levels during the menstrual cycle have been shown to affect functional cerebral asymmetries in cognitive domains. These effects seem to result from the neuromodulatory properties of sex hormones and their metabolites on interhemispheric processing. The present study was carried out to investigate whether functional cerebral asymmetries in fine motor coordination as reflected by manual asymmetries are also susceptible to natural sex hormonal variations during the menstrual cycle. Sixteen right-handed women with a regular menstrual cycle performed a finger tapping paradigm consisting of two conditions (simple, sequential) during the low hormone menstrual phase and the high estrogen and progesterone luteal phase. To validate the luteal phase, saliva levels of free progesterone (P) were analysed using chemiluminescence assays. As expected, normally cycling women showed a substantial decrease in manual asymmetries in a more demanding sequential tapping condition involving four fingers compared with simple (repetitive) finger tapping. This reduction in the degree of dominant (right) hand manual asymmetries was evident during the luteal phase. During the menstrual phase, however, manual asymmetries were even reversed in direction, indicating a slight advantage in favour of the non-dominant (left) hand. These findings suggest that functional cerebral asymmetries in fine motor coordination are affected by sex hormonal changes during the menstrual cycle, probably via hormonal modulations of interhemispheric interaction.     

Endless Qualifications,Restless Consumption: The Governance of Novel Foods in Europe

Functional foods and foods derived from genetically modified organisms represent two forms of intervention in the design of foodstuffs that have given rise to distinct political and regulatory dynamics. In Europe, regulatory agencies have tried, unsuccessfully, to affix a definitive legal meaning to these categories of food artificiality. This incomplete process of legal disambiguation has gone hand in hand with the delegation of the responsibility for overseeing new products to consumers, who are asked to continuously consider and assess the qualities of foods when making their choices in the marketplace. In the case of genetically modified foods, we have witnessed strategies of avoidance premised on the consideration of genetic modification as a blemish on the conventional character of foodstuffs. Functional foods, on the other hand, are increasingly mobilized in practices of naturalistic enhancement. What both examples have in common is the open-ended character of their respective regulatory regimes, and the continuous prodding of consumers to involve themselves more intensely in the weighing of their food choices. The result is a particular mode of market activism that we describe as restless consumption.     

Determinants of the shape of emotion intensity profiles

It has been shown that variability in the shape of emotion intensity profiles can be described in terms of three functional features, namely steepness at onset, skewness and number of peaks. However, it remains unclear which factors account for variability in each of these features. In the present study participants were asked to report intensity profiles of positive and negative emotions on a daily basis. Information was further collected regarding potential determinants of the functional features of the intensity profiles at three levels: trait-, episode-, and moment-determinants. Regarding steepness at onset, it was found for positive and negative emotions that intensity profiles have an especially explosive start when the eliciting stimulus is important, when the stimulus is still present during the beginning of the episode, and, in case of positive emotions, when the participant is an extravert. Concerning skewness, it was found for positive and negative emotions that profiles reach their peak more often towards the end when the eliciting stimulus is important, when the stimulus is absent during the beginning of the episode but present towards the end, and, in case of negative emotions, when the stimulus is uncontrollable. Regarding the number of peaks, it was found that profiles more often have multiple peaks when the eliciting stimulus is absent during the middle of the emotional episode.     

White-matter microstructure and language lateralization in left-handers: A whole-brain MRI analysis

Most people are left-hemisphere dominant for language. However the neuroanatomy of language lateralization is not fully understood. By combining functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), we studied whether language lateralization is associated with cerebral white-matter (WM) microstructure. Sixteen healthy, left-handed women aged 20–25 were included in the study. Left-handers were targeted in order to increase the chances of involving subjects with atypical language lateralization. Language lateralization was determined by fMRI using a verbal fluency paradigm. Tract-based spatial statistics analysis of DTI data was applied to test for WM microstructural correlates of language lateralization across the whole brain. Fractional anisotropy and mean diffusivity were used as indicators of WM microstructural organization. Right-hemispheric language dominance was associated with reduced microstructural integrity of the left superior longitudinal fasciculus and left-sided parietal lobe WM. In left-handed women, reduced integrity of the left-sided language related tracts may be closely linked to the development of right hemispheric language dominance. Our results may offer new insights into language lateralization and structure–function relationships in human language system.     

A functional-cognitive framework for attitude research

In attitude research, behaviours are often used as proxies for attitudes and attitudinal processes. This practice is problematic because it conflates the behaviours that need to be explained (explanandum) with the mental constructs that are used to explain these behaviours (explanans). In the current chapter we propose a meta-theoretical framework that resolves this problem by distinguishing between two levels of analysis. According to the proposed framework, attitude research can be conceptualised as the scientific study of evaluation. Evaluation is defined not in terms of mental constructs but in terms of elements in the environment, more specifically, as the effect of stimuli on evaluative responses. From this perspective, attitude research provides answers to two questions: (1) Which elements in the environment moderate evaluation? (2) What mental processes and representations mediate evaluation? Research on the first question provides explanations of evaluative responses in terms of elements in the environment (functional level of analysis); research on the second question offers explanations of evaluation in terms of mental processes and representations (cognitive level of analysis). These two levels of analysis are mutually supportive, in that better explanations at one level lead to better explanations at the other level. However, their mutually supportive relation requires a clear distinction between the concepts of their explanans and explanandum, which are conflated if behaviours are treated as proxies for mental constructs. The value of this functional-cognitive framework is illustrated by applying it to four central questions of attitude research.     

Possibilities and limits of mind-reading: A neurophilosophical perspective

Access to other minds once presupposed other individuals’ expressions and narrations. Today, several methods have been developed which can measure brain states relevant for assessments of mental states without 1st person overt external behavior or speech. Functional magnetic resonance imaging and trace conditioning are used clinically to identify patterns of activity in the brain that suggest the presence of consciousness in people suffering from severe consciousness disorders and methods to communicate cerebrally with patients who are motorically unable to communicate. The techniques are also used non-clinically to access subjective awareness in adults and infants. In this article we inspect technical and theoretical limits on brain–machine interface access to other minds. We argue that these techniques hold promises of important medical breakthroughs, open up new vistas of communication, and of understanding the infant mind. Yet they also give rise to ethical concerns, notably misuse as a consequence of hypes and misinterpretations.     

Do temporal processes underlie left hemisphere dominance in speech perception?

It is not unusual to find it stated as a fact that the left hemisphere is specialized for the processing of rapid, or temporal aspects of sound, and that the dominance of the left hemisphere in the perception of speech can be a consequence of this specialization. In this review we explore the history of this claim and assess the weight of this assumption. We will demonstrate that instead of a supposed sensitivity of the left temporal lobe for the acoustic properties of speech, it is the right temporal lobe which shows a marked preference for certain properties of sounds, for example longer durations, or variations in pitch. We finish by outlining some alternative factors that contribute to the left lateralization of speech perception.