Search results for "Motor"
showing 10 items of 3137 documents
Word order and Broca’s region: Evidence for a supra-syntactic perspective
2008
It has often been suggested that the role of Broca's region in sentence comprehension can be explained with reference to general cognitive mechanisms (e.g. working memory, cognitive control). However, the (language-related) basis for such proposals is often restricted to findings on English. Here, we argue that an extension of the database to other languages can shed new light on the types of mechanisms that an adequate account of Broca's region should be equipped to deal with. This becomes most readily apparent in the domain of word order variations, which we examined in German verb-final sentences using event-related fMRI. Our results showed that activation in the pars opercularis--a core…
Lexical competition is enhanced in the left hemisphere: Evidence from different types of orthographic neighbors
2007
Two divided visual field lexical decision experiments were conducted to examine the role of the cerebral hemispheres in orthographic neighborhood effects. In Experiment 1, we employed two types of words: words with many substitution neighbors (high-N) and words with few substitution neighbors (low-N). Results showed a facilitative effect of N in the left visual field (i.e., right hemisphere) and an inhibitory effect of N in the right visual field (left hemisphere). In Experiment 2, we examined whether the inhibitory effect of the higher frequency neighbors increases in the left hemisphere as compared to the right hemisphere. To go beyond the usual N-metrics, we selected words with (or witho…
Conscious knowledge and changes in performance in sequence learning: Evidence against dissociation.
1992
International audience; Two experiments examined the relation between explicit knowledge and motor performance on the serial reaction time task developed by Nissen and Bullemer (1987). Tests of free recall and recognition of sequence components revealed that reliable explicit knowledge was acquired after an amount of practice that was hardly sufficient to improve mean motor performance. In addition, reaction time improvement was limited to the ending trials of the 3- and 4-trial sequence components that Ss recalled or recognized. These results were replicated in Experiment 3, in which Ss were trained under attentional distraction in the task developed by Cohen, Ivry, and Keele (1990). Overa…
Effects of Acute Stress on Decision Making under Ambiguous and Risky Conditions in Healthy Young Men.
2016
AbstractAcute stress and decision making (DM) interact in life – although little is known about the role of ambiguity and risk in this interaction. The aim of this study is to clarify the effect of acute stress on DM under various conditions. Thirty-one young healthy men were randomly distributed into two groups: experimental and control. DM processes were evaluated before and after an experimental session. For the experimental group, the session consisted of an acute stress battery; and the protocol was similar for the control group but the instructions were designed to minimize acute stress. Cardiovascular variables were continuously recorded 30 minutes before the DM tasks and during the …
Inverse Effects of Midlife Occupational and Leisure Time Physical Activity on Mobility Limitation in Old Age-A 28-Year Prospective Follow-Up Study
2014
Objectives: To evaluate in a sample of initially middle-aged municipal employees whether leisure time (LPA) or occupational physical activity (OPA) was associated with mobility limitation (ML) in old age. Design: Prospective population-based follow-up. Setting: Municipalities in Finland. Participants: Public sector employees from the Finnish Longitudinal Study on Municipal Employees (FLAME) initially aged 44 to 58 (N = 5,200). Measurements: Baseline data were collected in 1981, including LPA (average exercise within previous year: inactive (no exercise), moderate (some form of exercise ?1 time per week), vigorous (brisk exercise ?1 time per week)) and OPA (usual activities at work within pr…
Reorganization of cortical motor area in prior polio patients
1999
Focal transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) was used to study the motor maps of upper limb muscles in 7 adult patients with a history of paralytic poliomyelitis. The aim of the study was to verify the potential for long-term cortical reorganization of a selective peripheral motor neuron lesion suffered early in life.Patient selection was based on the prevalent involvement of proximal muscles in only one of the upper limbs. Motor evoked potentials (MEPs) were recorded from deltoid and abductor pollicis brevis (APB) muscles. Each muscle map was characterized by area (no. of excitable positions), volume (the sum of MEP amplitudes at all scalp positions), maximal amplitude (the highest MEP re…
Immediate effects of active cranio-cervical flexion exercise versus passive mobilisation of the upper cervical spine on pain and performance on the c…
2014
This study compared the immediate effects of an assisted plus active cranio-cervical flexion exercise (exercise group) versus a passive mobilisation plus assisted cranio-cervical flexion (mobilisation group) on performance of the cranio-cervical flexion test (CCFT), cervical range of motion (ROM) and pain in patients with chronic neck pain. Eighteen volunteers with chronic idiopathic neck pain participated in the study and were randomised to one of the two intervention groups. Current level of pain, cervical ROM and pain perceived during movement, pressure pain threshold (PPT) and surface electromyography (EMG) during performance of the CCFT were measured before and immediately after the in…
Haptic information differentially interferes with visual analysis in reaching-grasping control and in perceptual processes.
1998
We used an interference paradigm in order to study integration between haptic and visual information in motor control and in perceptual analysis. Subjects either reached and grasped a visually presented sphere or matched its size with their left hand while manipulating with their right hand another sphere whose size could be smaller or greater. In four experiments haptic analysis of the manipulated sphere could be either automatically incorporated with or explicitly dissociated from visual analysis. In a fifth experiment reaching-grasping and matching were executed with the right hand, whereas manipulation was executed with the left hand. Manipulation with the right hand influenced finger s…
Mood-congruent bias and attention shifts in the different episodes of bipolar disorder
2013
An "affective" go/no-go task was used in the different episodes of bipolar patients (euthymic, depressed, and manic) to examine (1) the presence of a mood-congruent attentional bias; and (2) the patients' ability to inhibit and invert associations between stimuli and responses through blocks. A group of healthy individuals served as controls. Results revealed a mood-congruent attentional bias: patients in the manic episode processed positive information faster, whereas those in the depressive episode processed negative information faster. In contrast, neither euthymic patients nor healthy individuals showed any mood-congruent biases. Furthermore, there was a shift cost across blocks for hea…
Integration of cognitive allocentric information in visuospatial short-term memory through the hippocampus
2005
Visuospatial short-term memory relies on a widely distributed neocortical network: some areas support the encoding process of the visually acquired spatial information, whereas other ares are more involved in the active maintenance of the encoded information. Recently, in a pointing to remembered targets task, it has been shown in healthy subjects that, for memory delays of 5 s, spatial errors are affected also by cognitive allocentric information, i.e., covert spatial information derived from a pure mental representation. We tested the effect of a lesion of the hippocampus on the accuracy of pointing movements toward remembered targets, with memory delays falling in the 0.5-30 s range. The…