Search results for "Spatial"
showing 10 items of 2121 documents
Structural hemispheric asymmetries underlie verbal Stroop performance
2017
Performance on tasks involving cognitive control such as the Stroop task is often associated with left lateralized brain activations. Based on this neuro-functional evidence, we tested whether leftward structural grey matter asymmetries would also predict inter-individual differences in combatting Stroop interference. To check for the specificity of the results, both a verbal Stroop task and a spatial one were administered to a total of 111 healthy young individuals, for whom T1-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) images were also acquired. Surface thickness and area estimations were calculated using FreeSurfer. Participants' hemispheres were registered to a symmetric template and Lat…
Increased Neural Activity in Mesostriatal Regions after Prefrontal Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation and L-DOPA Administration
2019
Dopamine dysfunction is associated with a wide range of neuropsychiatric disorders commonly treated pharmacologically or invasively. Recent studies provide evidence for a nonpharmacological and noninvasive alternative that allows similar manipulation of the dopaminergic system: transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS). In rodents, tDCS has been shown to increase neural activity in subcortical parts of the dopaminergic system, and recent studies in humans provide evidence that tDCS over prefrontal regions induces striatal dopamine release and affects reward-related behavior. Based on these findings, we used fMRI in healthy human participants and measured the fractional amplitude of low…
Spatial Inferences in Narrative Comprehension: the Role of Verbal and Spatial Working Memory
2016
During the comprehension of narrative texts, readers keep a mental representation of the location of protagonists and objects; a breach in spatial coherence is detected by longer online reading times (consistency effect). We addressed whether these spatial inferences involve verbal or spatial working memory in two experiments, combining the consistency paradigm with selective verbal and spatial working memory concurrent tasks. The first experiment found longer reading times with a concurrent spatial task under imagery instructions (t33 = 2.87, p =.021). The second experiment, under comprehension reading instructions, found effects of verbal interference on reading times and accuracy. With a…
Accommodative stimulus-response curves to low-pass filtered natural images
2018
To assess how the monocular steady-state accommodative stimulus-response curve is modified when viewing low-pass filtered natural images. Eighteen adult subjects participated in the study. The accommodative stimulus-response curve was objectively assessed by means of a Hartmann-Shack wavefront sensor. Measurements were taken at different accommodative demands. Target images were low-pass filtered versions of a natural image that were obtained applying different digital spatial filters that limited the spatial frequency content of the natural image. Cutoff spatial frequencies were set at 30, 21, and 15 cycles per degree (cy/deg). Mean data obtained for each target were fitted to linear model…
Effect of luminance on photopic visual acuity in the presence of laser speckle
1988
Visual acuity in coherent and incoherent light has been determined by using square-wave gratings of 100% contrast. Luminance was varied from 3 to 400 cd/m2. Coherent illumination resulted in a 40% loss of visual acuity. This is probably due to the masking effect of coherent spatial noise (speckle). However, the most interesting finding is the change in shape of the photopic visual-acuity-luminance function. With coherent illumination, the function is vertically displaced and of a different gradient. An increase in luminance produces a decrease in visual acuity. This indicates that the masking effect of the speckle is dependent on luminance. Two observers were used, and similar results were …
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…
Visuospatial learning is fostered in migraine: evidence by a neuropsychological study
2018
Cognitive profile in migraine patients still remains undefined. Contradictory evidence has been provided, with impairments in different cognitive domains, normal cognition, or even better performance compared to healthy controls (HC). The latter is of particular interest considering the evidence of glutamatergic upregulation in migraine, particularly in the visual cortex, and the role of the glutamatergic system in synaptic plasticity and learning. The aim of our study is to compare cognitive performance for visuospatial memory and learning (supraspan modality) between migraineurs without aura (MwoA) and HC. Twenty-one subjects suffering from MwoA and 21 HC were enrolled. Migraineurs during…
Visual inference of arm movement is constrained by motor representations
2015
International audience; Several studies support the idea that motion inference is strongly motor dependent. In the present study, we address the role of biomechanical constraints in motion prediction and how this implicit knowledge can interfere in a spatial prediction task. Right-handed (RHS) and left-handed subjects (LHS) had to estimate the final position of a horizontal arm movement in which the final part of the trajectory was hidden. Our study highlighted a direction effect: end point prediction accuracy was better to infer the final position of horizontal motion directed toward the median line of human body. This finding suggests that the spatial prediction of end point is mapped ont…
Spatial variability of muscle activity during human walking: The effects of different EMG normalization approaches
2015
Human leg muscles are often activated inhomogeneously, e.g. in standing. This may also occur in complex tasks like walking. Thus, bipolar surface electromyography (sEMG) may not accurately represent whole muscle activity. This study used 64-electrode high-density sEMG (HD-sEMG) to examine spatial variability of lateral gastrocnemius (LG) muscle activity during the stance phase of walking, maximal voluntary contractions (MVCs) and maximal M-waves, and determined the effects of different normalization approaches on spatial and inter-participant variability. Plantar flexion MVC, maximal electrically elicited M-waves and walking at self-selected speed were recorded in eight healthy males aged 2…
Spatial discrimination thresholds for pain and touch in human hairy skin
2001
The traditional concept that pain is poorly localized has been challenged by recent studies, where subjects were able to point to the stimulated spot on the skin with an accuracy of 10-20 mm. Pointing movements themselves, however, have errors of about 15 mm. To determine the limits of sensory performance of the nociceptive system independent of motor performance, point localization of heat pain (540 mJ punctate laser stimuli, 5 mm diameter), mechanical pain (256 mN punctate probe, 200 microm diameter), and touch (16 mN von Frey probe, 1.1 mm diameter) were tested in a two-alternative forced-choice paradigm in 12 healthy subjects. Stimuli were applied in randomized order to two parallel lin…