Cortex RSS feed: Current Issue. CORTEX is an international journal devoted to the study of cognition and of the relationship between the nervous system and mental processes, particularly as these are reflected in the behaviour of patients with acquired brain lesions, normal volunteers, children with typical and atypical development, and in the activation of brain regions and systems as recorded by functional neuroimaging techniques. It was founded in 1964 by Ennio De Renzi.http://www.cortexjournal.net/?rss=yesElsevier Inc.en © 2010 Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Cortex0010-9452465May 2010 © 2010 Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. healthpermissions@elsevier.comhttp://www.cortexjournal.net/article/PIIS0010945210000869/abstract?rss=yesCover Figure10.1016/S0010-9452(10)00086-9Cortex 46, 5 (2010)2010-05-01Cortex2010-05-01465S0010-9452(10)X0004-1e1e1http://www.cortexjournal.net/article/PIIS0010945210000870/abstract?rss=yesEditorial Board/Title Page10.1016/S0010-9452(10)00087-0Cortex 46, 5 (2010)2010-05-01Cortex2010-05-01465S0010-9452(10)X0004-1iihttp://www.cortexjournal.net/article/PIIS0010945210000894/abstract?rss=yesContents10.1016/S0010-9452(10)00089-4Cortex 46, 5 (2010)2010-05-01Cortex2010-05-01465S0010-9452(10)X0004-1iiiivhttp://www.cortexjournal.net/article/PIIS0010945208002918/abstract?rss=yes‘Those who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them’George Santayana In part 1 of this sequence of editorials, noted that Lashley and Clark found few if any ‘hair sharp’ or ‘abrupt’ borders between classical architectonic areas and, moreover, when they independently parcellated the isocortex of Ateles the spider monkey their architectonic maps turned out to be significantly different. Nevertheless in spite of these severe criticisms total scepticism is unwarranted. Different regions of the cortex do differ systematically from each other. The line of Gennari, so evident in area 17, the primary visual cortex, is only the most obvious example. Indeed and all dispute Lashley and Clark's scepticism, writing that it was exaggerated (e.g., : p.118). Brodmann's areas have achieved almost canonical status in brain science. If nothing else, they provide a useful nomenclature to describe different parts of the cortex.Does history repeat itself? Cortical columns: 2. From cytoarchitectonics to columnsChristopher U.M. Smith10.1016/j.cortex.2008.12.003Cortex 46, 5 (2010)2009-01-13Cortex2009-01-13465S0010-9452(10)X0004-1Editorials591592http://www.cortexjournal.net/article/PIIS0010945210000274/abstract?rss=yesIn writing scientific papers, we quote papers and list references for several reasons. We want to acknowledge previous authors, we want to support our argument with previous literature, and we want to frame our arguments within an existing body of knowledge. References serve the purpose of allowing readers to find the sources that we quote, and read the originals. When we list a journal paper, we typically provide the surname of the author(s) and their initials, the title of the article, the journal, the volume number, and the page numbers of the article. This is true for the most common referencing systems, such as APA, Harvard or Vancouver; and has applied also to Cortex.Please add the journal issue number to Cortex referencesSergio Della Sala, Jordan Grafman10.1016/j.cortex.2010.01.003Cortex 46, 5 (2010)2010-02-08Cortex2010-02-08465S0010-9452(10)X0004-1Editorials593594http://www.cortexjournal.net/article/PIIS0010945209001488/abstract?rss=yesAbstract: In a meta-analysis of 135 studies involving 6000 patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and 6057 healthy controls, we examined the relative degree of semantic and phonemic fluency impairment in AD patients. The effect size for semantic fluency (d=2.10: 95%CI 2.22–1.97) was significantly larger than for both phonemic fluency (d=1.46: 95%CI 1.56–1.36) and picture naming (d=1.54: 95%CI 1.66–1.40). In meta-regression analyses we found that studies with greater proportions of female patients and less severe dementia both led to better phonemic fluency; while perhaps surprisingly, increased patient education led to worse semantic fluency. Critically, in 50 studies measuring both semantic and phonemic fluency, the effect size for the semantic–phonemic discrepancy scores did not differ between AD patients and controls; and was unrelated to any of the moderator variables. The latter findings indicate that the semantic–phonemic fluency discrepancy measure often reported as an important distinguishing characteristic of AD patients may be an exaggerated normal tendency.‘Normal’ semantic–phonemic fluency discrepancy in Alzheimer's disease? A meta-analytic studyKeith R. Laws, Amy Duncan, Tim M. Gale10.1016/j.cortex.2009.04.009Cortex 46, 5 (2010)2009-06-29Cortex2009-06-29465S0010-9452(10)X0004-1Review595601http://www.cortexjournal.net/article/PIIS0010945209001853/abstract?rss=yesAbstract: Asymmetry in performance and an association with non-lateralized attention are often mentioned as two important aspects of the clinical manifestation of visuospatial neglect. Both these aspects were investigated in 21 left (LH) and 24 right hemisphere (RH) stroke patients and in 20 healthy subjects. The letter and star cancellation subtests of the Behavioural Inattention Task (BIT) and a computerized visual reaction time task (CVRT) with stimuli presented either left, central or right in extrapersonal space were administered. In LH patients, the calculation of BIT asymmetry scores allowed a better distinction between patients with and without neglect than raw omission scores. However, in RH patients, raw and asymmetry scores led to similar classifications. In the CVRT, raw and asymmetry scores for the number of omissions also produced identical classifications. Thus, the computation of asymmetry scores for omissions did not substantially refine the diagnosis of neglect. On the other hand, more patients were classified as neglect patients by using CVRT reaction time (RT) asymmetry scores than by using BIT or CVRT omission scores. Ipsilesional RT's were chosen as a measure of general, non-lateralized attention. The ipsilesional RT's of the LH and RH patients did not differ from the healthy subjects' lateral RT's. However, within the RH group, patients with both RT asymmetries and BIT scores above cut-off level showed longer ipsilesional RT's than patients with defective RT asymmetries but normal BIT scores. This supports the idea of an interaction between lateralized and non-lateralized attentional components in neglect, in which the presence of general attentional deficits exacerbates the severity of neglect symptoms. RT tasks may contribute to the detection of asymmetries in visuospatial attention in patients with subclinical neglect symptoms, who might compensate for their lateralized deficit in paper-and-pencil tasks employing intact general attention.Visuospatial asymmetry and non-spatial attention in subacute stroke patients with and without neglectMarlies E. van Kessel, Ilse J.W. van Nes, Wiebo H. Brouwer, Alexander C.H. Geurts, Luciano Fasotti10.1016/j.cortex.2009.06.004Cortex 46, 5 (2010)2009-07-10Cortex2009-07-10465S0010-9452(10)X0004-1Research Reports602612http://www.cortexjournal.net/article/PIIS0010945209001841/abstract?rss=yesAbstract: In the current study, we investigated the processing of ungrammatical sentences containing morphosyntactic and verb-argument structure violations in an fMRI paradigm. In the morphosyntactic condition, participants listened to German perfect tense sentences with morphosyntactic violations which were neither related to finiteness nor to agreement but which were based on a syntactic feature mismatch between two verbal elements. When compared to correct sentences, morphosyntactically ungrammatical sentences elicited an increase in brain activity in the left middle to posterior superior temporal gyrus (STG). In the verb-argument structure condition, sentences were either correct or contained an intransitive verb with an unlicensed direct object. Ungrammatical sentences of this type elicited brain activations in the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) (BA 44). Thus, we found evidence for different brain activity patterns as a function of violation type. The left posterior STG, an area known to support lexical–syntactic integration was strongly implicated in morphosyntactic processing whereas the left dorsal IFG (BA 44) was seen to be involved in the processing of verb-argument structure. Our results suggest that lexical, syntactic and semantic features of verbal stimuli interact in a complex fashion during language comprehension.Neural correlates of morphosyntactic and verb-argument structure processing: An EfMRI studyTim Raettig, Stefan Frisch, Angela D. Friederici, Sonja A. Kotz10.1016/j.cortex.2009.06.003Cortex 46, 5 (2010)2009-08-07Cortex2009-08-07465S0010-9452(10)X0004-1Research Reports613620http://www.cortexjournal.net/article/PIIS0010945209001634/abstract?rss=yesAbstract: Differences in the processing mechanisms underlying visual feature and conjunction search are still under debate, one problem being a common emphasis on performance measures (speed and accuracy) which do not necessarily provide insights to the underlying processing principles. Here, eye movements and pupil dilation were used to investigate sampling strategy and processing load during performance of a conjunction and two feature-search tasks, with younger (18–27 years) and healthy older (61–83 years) age groups compared for evidence of differential age-related changes. The tasks involved equivalent processing time per item, were controlled in terms of target–distractor similarity, and did not allow perceptual grouping. Close matching of the key tasks was confirmed by patterns of fixation duration and an equal number of saccades required to find a target. Moreover, moment-to-moment pupillary dilation was indistinguishable across the tasks for both age groups, suggesting that all required the same total amount of effort or resources.Despite matching, subtle differences in eye movement patterns occurred between tasks: the conjunction task required more saccades to reach a target-absent decision and involved shorter saccade amplitudes than the feature tasks. General age-related changes were manifested in an increased number of saccades and longer fixation durations in older than younger participants. In addition, older people showed disproportionately longer and more variable fixation durations for the conjunction task specifically. These results suggest a fundamental difference between conjunction and feature search: accurate target identification in the conjunction context requires more conservative eye movement patterns, with these further adjusted in healthy ageing. The data also highlight the independence of eye movement and pupillometry measures and stress the importance of saccades and strategy for understanding the processing mechanisms driving different types of visual search.New insights into feature and conjunction search: I. Evidence from pupil size, eye movements and ageingGillian Porter, Andrea Tales, Tom Troscianko, Gordon Wilcock, Judy Haworth, Ute Leonards10.1016/j.cortex.2009.04.013Cortex 46, 5 (2010)2009-07-10Cortex2009-07-10465S0010-9452(10)X0004-1Research Reports621636http://www.cortexjournal.net/article/PIIS0010945209001646/abstract?rss=yesAbstract: Deficits in inefficient visual search task performance in Alzheimer's disease (AD) have been linked both to a general depletion of attentional resources and to a specific difficulty in performing conjunction discriminations. It has been difficult to examine the latter proposal because the uniqueness of conjunction search as compared to other visual search tasks has remained a matter of debate. We explored both these claims by measuring pupil dilation, as a measure of resource application, while patients with AD performed a conjunction search task and two single-feature search tasks of similar difficulty in healthy individuals. Maximum pupil dilation in the AD group was greater during performance of the conjunction than the feature search tasks, although pupil response was indistinguishable for the three tasks in healthy controls. This, together with patients' false positive errors for the conjunction task, indicates an AD-specific deficit impacting upon the ability to combine information on multiple dimensions. In addition, maximum pupil dilation was no less for patients than the control group during task performance, which tends to oppose the concept of general resource depletion in AD. However, eye movement patterns in the patient group indicated that they were less able than controls to use organised strategies to assist with task performance. The data are therefore in keeping with a loss of access to resource-saving strategies, rather than a loss of resources per se, in AD. Moreover they demonstrate an additional processing mechanism in performing conjunction search compared with inefficient single-feature search.New insights into feature and conjunction search: II. Evidence from Alzheimer's diseaseGillian Porter, Ute Leonards, Gordon Wilcock, Judy Haworth, Tom Troscianko, Andrea Tales10.1016/j.cortex.2009.04.014Cortex 46, 5 (2010)2009-07-13Cortex2009-07-13465S0010-9452(10)X0004-1Research Reports637649http://www.cortexjournal.net/article/PIIS0010945209001476/abstract?rss=yesAbstract: Paraneoplastic limbic encephalitis (PNLE) affects limbic portions of the brain associated with recognition of social signals of emotions. Yet it is not known whether this perceptual ability is impaired in individuals with PNLE. We therefore conducted a single case study to explore possible impairments in recognising facially, vocally and bodily expressed emotions, using standardised emotion recognition tests. Facial expression recognition was tested with two forced-choice emotion-labelling tasks using static faces with either prototypical or morphed blends of basic emotions. Recognition of vocally and bodily expressed emotions was also tested with forced-choice labelling tasks, one based on prosodic cues, the other on whole-body movement cues. We found a deficit in fear and disgust recognition from both face and voice, while recognition of bodily expressed emotions was unaffected. These findings are consistent with data from previous studies demonstrating critical roles for certain brain regions – particularly the amygdala and insular cortex – in processing facially and vocally displayed basic emotions, and furthermore, suggest that recognition of bodily expressed emotions may not depend on neural structures involved in facial and vocal emotion recognition. Impaired facial and vocal emotion recognition may form a further neuropsychological marker of limbic encephalitis, in addition to the already well-described mnestic deficits.Disgust and fear recognition in paraneoplastic limbic encephalitisReiner Sprengelmeyer, Anthony P. Atkinson, Anke Sprengelmeyer, Johanna Mair-Walther, Christian Jacobi, Brigitte Wildemann, Winand H. Dittrich, Werner Hacke10.1016/j.cortex.2009.04.007Cortex 46, 5 (2010)2009-06-08Cortex2009-06-08465S0010-9452(10)X0004-1Research Reports650657http://www.cortexjournal.net/article/PIIS0010945209001555/abstract?rss=yesAbstract: Alexithymia is considered a dimensional personality trait that refers to a cluster of deficits in the recognition, differentiation, and verbalization of emotions. Research on the neurobiology of alexithymia has focused hitherto on impairments in the controlled processing of emotional information. In the present study automatic brain reactivity to facial emotion was investigated as a function of alexithymia (as assessed by the 20-Item Toronto Alexithymia Scale – TAS-20). During 3T fMRI scanning, pictures of sad, happy, and neutral facial expression masked by neutral faces were presented to 33 healthy women. A priori regions of interest in the whole brain analysis were cerebral structures that are known to be crucially involved in the emotion perception from the face. Independently from trait anxiety and depression TAS-20 alexithymia was negatively correlated with activation to masked sad and happy faces in several regions of interest (in particular, insula, superior temporal gyrus, middle occipital and parahippocampal gyrus). In addition, the TAS-20 score was negatively correlated with response of the left amygdala to masked sad faces. A reduced automatic reactivity of the amygdala and visual occipito-temporal areas could implicate less automated engagement in the encoding of emotional stimuli in high alexithymia. In addition, a low spontaneous insular and amygdalar responsivity in high alexithymia individuals could be related to an attenuation of basic emotional experiences which may contribute to problems in identifying and differentiating one's feelings.Individual differences in alexithymia and brain response to masked emotion facesMaraike Reker, Patricia Ohrmann, Astrid V. Rauch, Harald Kugel, Jochen Bauer, Udo Dannlowski, Volker Arolt, Walter Heindel, Thomas Suslow10.1016/j.cortex.2009.05.008Cortex 46, 5 (2010)2009-06-15Cortex2009-06-15465S0010-9452(10)X0004-1Research Reports658667http://www.cortexjournal.net/article/PIIS0010945209001464/abstract?rss=yesAbstract: Individuals with psychopathy show impaired emotional and social behavior, such as lack of emotional responsiveness to others and deficient empathy. However, there are controversies regarding these individuals theory of mind (ToM) abilities and the neuroanatomical basis of their aberrant social behavior. The present study tested the hypothesis that impairment in the emotional aspects of ToM (affective ToM) rather than general ToM abilities may account for the impaired social behavior observed in psychopathy and that this pattern of performance may be associated with orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) dysfunction.To assess the emotional and cognitive aspects of ToM we used a task that examines affective versus cognitive ToM processing in separate conditions. ToM abilities of criminal offender diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder with high psychopathy features were compared to that of participants with localized lesions in the OFC or dorsolateral, participants with non-frontal lesions, and healthy control subjects. Individuals with psychopathy and those with OFC lesions were impaired on the ‘affective ToM’ conditions but not in cognitive ToM conditions, compared to the control groups. It was concluded that the pattern of mentalizing impairments in psychopathy resembles remarkably that seen in participants with lesions of the frontal lobe, particularly with OFC damage, providing support for the notion of amygdala–OFC dysfunction in psychopathy.The role of the orbitofrontal cortex in affective theory of mind deficits in criminal offenders with psychopathic tendenciesSimone G. Shamay-Tsoory, Hagai Harari, Judith Aharon-Peretz, Yechiel Levkovitz10.1016/j.cortex.2009.04.008Cortex 46, 5 (2010)2009-06-08Cortex2009-06-08465S0010-9452(10)X0004-1Research Reports668677http://www.cortexjournal.net/article/PIIS0010945209002056/abstract?rss=yesAbstract: Following lesions to (usually) the right parietal lobe, patients may fail to report stimuli on their contralesional side if a stimulus is also presented ipsilesionally. The problem can be ameliorated if the stimuli form part of a common action (e.g., a bottle pouring into a glass), when the contralesional item may be brought to awareness. We examined whether this improved awareness depended on implied motion from one object to another. This was tested using pairs of stimuli in which one had implied motion towards or away from the other stimulus. The results showed that patients were more aware of the presence of two objects on trials when one object had implied motion towards the other, compared with when motion was directed away from the second object. This held when the implied motion was in the contralesional as well as when it was in the ipsilesional field. In a single case, this effect held even when the direction of motion could not be explicitly discriminated. The data suggest that motion was coded implicitly and that it helped to link objects together as a perceptual unit. Coding objects as a single perceptual unit reduces the spatial bias in selection that produces extinction.No direction home: Extinction is affected by implicit motionM. Jane Riddoch, Sarah Bodley Scott, Glyn W. Humphreys10.1016/j.cortex.2009.05.013Cortex 46, 5 (2010)2009-08-07Cortex2009-08-07465S0010-9452(10)X0004-1Notes678684http://www.cortexjournal.net/article/PIIS0010945209002068/abstract?rss=yesAbstract: Spatial neglect can be characterized by a “magnetic attraction” towards the right side of a visual stimulus array and a selection of stimuli from that hemispace. This study examined whether these distinctive characteristics in visuo-motor space are also evident in representational number space. Given that numbers are thought to be represented along a left-to-right oriented mental number line, an affinity for the spontaneous selection of larger numbers was anticipated for neglect patients. Contrary to this expectation, neglect patients (n=20) picked a similar range of numbers compared to controls (n=17) when generating a number between 1000 and 10 000 and when playing an imaginary lottery game. There was, however, a positive correlation between the biases for the imaginary lottery, number generation and a number bisection task – demonstrating that exploration asymmetries along the mental number line are consistent within individuals across tasks. Some of the patients selected smaller numbers in all of these tasks, confirming reports of dissociations between physical and numerical-representational forms of neglect. Conversely, only four (20%) of the patients could reliably be classified as demonstrating a neglect in number space. When filling out a physical lottery ticket, the neglect patients showed the expected bias towards picking numbers placed on the right-hand side of the ticket. These results demonstrate that the magnetic attraction towards the right side of mental representations is rather weak and that representational forms of neglect only occasionally co-exist with neglect in physical space.Lucky numbers: Spatial neglect affects physical, but not representational, choices in a Lotto taskTobias Loetscher, Michael E.R. Nicholls, John N. Towse, John L. Bradshaw, Peter Brugger10.1016/j.cortex.2009.06.010Cortex 46, 5 (2010)2009-07-27Cortex2009-07-27465S0010-9452(10)X0004-1Notes685690http://www.cortexjournal.net/article/PIIS0010945209002512/abstract?rss=yesAbstract: Despite electrostimulation studies of the white matter pathways, supporting the role of the inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus (IFOF) in semantic processing, little is known about the precise anatomical course of this fascicle, especially regarding its exact cortical terminations. Here, in the lights of these new functional data, we dissected 14 post-mortem human hemispheres using the Klingler fiber dissection technique, to study the IFOF fibers and to identify their actual cortical terminations in the parietal, occipital and temporal lobes. We identified two different components of the IFOF: (i) a superficial and dorsal subcomponent, which connects the frontal lobe with the superior parietal lobe and the posterior portion of the superior and middle occipital gyri, (ii) a deep and ventral subcomponent, which connects the frontal lobe with the posterior portion of the inferior occipital gyrus and the posterior temporo-basal area. Thus, our results are in line with the hypothesis of the functional role of the IFOF in the semantic system, by showing that it is mainly connected with two areas involved in semantics: the occipital associative extrastriate cortex and the temporo-basal region. Further combined anatomical (dissection and Diffusion Tensor Imaging) and functional (intraoperative subcortical stimulation) studies are needed, to clarify the exact participation of each IFOF subcomponent in semantic processing.Anatomic dissection of the inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus revisited in the lights of brain stimulation dataJuan Martino, Christian Brogna, Santiago G. Robles, Francesco Vergani, Hugues Duffau10.1016/j.cortex.2009.07.015Cortex 46, 5 (2010)2009-09-24Cortex2009-09-24465S0010-9452(10)X0004-1Clinical neuroanatomy691699http://www.cortexjournal.net/article/PIIS0010945209002524/abstract?rss=yesJohn Maynard Keynes, the economist, “preferred to be vaguely right to being precisely wrong” (). For the theory of , its strength, which is undoubtedly its precision, is also its weakness, for the theory allows precise calculations that undermine not only its application to sex differences in language lateralisation, but also its predecessor theory of sex differences in handedness (). To my eye, and perhaps also the two other (anonymous) reviewers of the paper, Jones and Martin's theory is precisely wrong. Having said that, science functions best in the public domain, rather than behind an editor’s closed doors, and others may disagree with my perceptions.Precisely wrong? The problems with the Jones and Martin genetic model of sex differences in handedness and language lateralisationI. Christopher McManus10.1016/j.cortex.2009.08.008Cortex 46, 5 (2010)2009-09-22Cortex2009-09-22465S0010-9452(10)X0004-1Commentary700702http://www.cortexjournal.net/article/PIIS0010945210000316/abstract?rss=yesCortex was founded in 1964 by Ennio De Renzi. As such it is one of the oldest journals of Neuropsychology, launched at the turning point in the history of the field (see ). According to the blurb presenting it, “Cortex is an international journal devoted to the study of cognition and of the relationship between the nervous system and mental processes, particularly as these are reflected in the behaviour of patients with acquired brain lesions, normal volunteers, children with typical and atypical development, and in the activation of brain regions and systems as recorded by functional neuroimaging techniques”. That is, Neuropsychology, as the composition of the term implies, is typically an interdisciplinary endeavour, which serves as a bridge between different levels of analysis and fills the gap between other disciplines, like the cognitive sciences and the neurosciences (). The nature of such a multidisciplinary, or better yet “super-disciplinary”, approach is well exemplified by in their description of aphasia research: “The interaction of speech pathology, neurology, psychology, computer science and linguistics has led to more elaborate research on remedial programmes and techniques. This converging of different disciplines has also led to an accumulation of data, approaches, techniques and scientific methods which constitute the field of endeavour known as aphasiology.” (p. 3).The multiple meanings of “neuro” in neuropsychologyRoberto Cubelli, Sergio Della Sala10.1016/j.cortex.2010.01.007Cortex 46, 5 (2010)2010-02-25Cortex2010-02-25465S0010-9452(10)X0004-1Discussion forum703711