Search results for "behavioral"
showing 10 items of 3011 documents
Men with elevated testosterone levels show more affiliative behaviors during contact with women
2012
Testosterone (T) is thought to play a key role in male–male competition and courtship in many vertebrates, but its precise effects are unclear. We explored whether courtship behaviour in humans is modulated and preceded by changes in T. Pairs of healthy male students first competed in a non-physical contest in which their T levels became elevated. Each participant then had a short, informal interaction with either an unfamiliar man or woman. The sex of the stimulus person did not affect the participants' behaviour overall. However, in interactions with women, those men who had experienced a greater T increase during the contest subsequently showed more interest in the woman, engaged in more…
Differential impact of continuous theta-burst stimulation over left and right DLPFC on planning
2011
Most neuroimaging studies on planning report bilateral activations of the dorsolateral prefron- tal cortex (dlPFC). Recently, these concurrent activations of left and right dlPFC have been shown to dou- ble dissociate with different cognitive demands imposed by the planning task: Higher demands on the extraction of task-relevant information led to stronger activation in left dlPFC, whereas higher demands on the integration of interdependent information into a coherent action sequence entailed stronger activa- tion of right dlPFC. Here, we used continuous theta-burst stimulation (cTBS) to investigate the supposed causal structure-function mapping underlying this double dissociation. Two grou…
Frontal hypoactivation and alterations in the reward-system during humor processing in patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders
2018
Humor is a ubiquitous human ability with important implications for both social and emotional functioning. Patients with neuropsychiatric disorders, such as schizophrenia, experience difficulties in the comprehension and appreciation of humor. However, the specific neural mechanisms underlying these deficits are unknown. In the current study, we sought to elucidate the neural correlates of humor processing in patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders (SSD). Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) was used in thirty-one patients with SSD and a control group, performing a humor processing paradigm. Both regional brain activation and parametric modulation of brain responses via subje…
Hemispheric cerebellar rTMS to treat drug-resistant epilepsy: case reports.
2005
Electrical stimulation of the cerebellar cortex by implanted electrodes has been shown to ameliorate refractory epilepsy. We investigated the potential therapeutic role of high-frequency cerebellar rTMS in patients affected by refractory epilepsy due to single or multiple foci. Six patients, three with single and three with multiple epileptic foci, underwent 20 rTMS sessions. Each session was given daily, excluding weekends, and consisted of two trains of 50 stimuli (5 Hz frequency and 90% motor threshold intensity), separated by 50s interval. rTMS was delivered through a focal coil (2 cm below and lateral to the inion) bilaterally in patients with multiple foci (two trains for hemisphere: …
Increased facilitation of the primary motor cortex following 1 Hz repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation of the contralateral cerebellum in nor…
2005
Connections between the cerebellum and the contralateral motor cortex are dense and important, but their physiological significance is difficult to measure in humans. We have studied a group of 10 healthy subjects to test whether a modulation of the excitability of the left cerebellum can affect the excitability of the contralateral motor cortex. We used repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) at 1 Hz frequency to transiently depress the excitability of the left cerebellar cortex and paired-pulse TMS testing of intracortical inhibition (ICI) and intracortical facilitation (ICF) to probe the excitability of cortico-cortical connections in the right motor cortex. The cortical sile…
Role of the cerebellum in time perception: A TMS study in normal subjects
2007
The aim of this study was to investigate the role of the cerebellum in a temporal-discrimination task without movement production in healthy subjects. Ten healthy subjects underwent a time-perception task with somatosensory stimuli. Two pairs of electrical stimuli: the first considered the reference pair (rp) with a standard interval of 400 ms and the second, the test pair (tp), with variable intervals ranging from 300 to 500 ms, were applied by surface electrodes on the right forearm. Subjects were instructed to compare time intervals of rp and tp and to estimate whether the tp interval was shorter than, equal to, or longer than that of rp. The task was performed in baseline and after 1 Hz…
Neural responses to emotional stimuli in comorbid borderline personality disorder and bipolar depression
2010
"\"Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a severe clinical condition characterised by different maladaptive traits such as impulsivity and affective lability. Mood and emotion dysregulation are core features of affective disorders. Indeed patients affected by mood disorder (MD) have a significantly higher prevalence of comorbid BPD, resulting in more unstable mood and poorer response to medication. Blood oxygen level-dependent functional magnetic resonance imaging has been used to investigate the neural correlates of emotional face processing. Images for each subject were entered into an analysis of variance (ANOVA) dividing participants into three groups (MD, MD + BPD, Controls). MD + B…
High opiate receptor binding potential in the human lateral pain system
2005
To determine how opiate receptor distribution is co-localized with the distribution of nociceptive areas in the human brain, eleven male healthy volunteers underwent one PET scan with the subtype-nonselective opioidergic radioligand [(18)F]fluoroethyl-diprenorphine under resting conditions. The binding potential (BP), a parameter for the regional cerebral opioid receptor availability, was computed using the occipital cortex as reference region. The following regions of interest (ROIs) were defined on individual MR images: thalamus, sensory motor strip (SI/MI area), frontal operculum, parietal operculum, anterior insular cortex, posterior insular cortex, anterior cingulate cortex (ACC; peri-…
Cognitive functioning after medial frontal lobe damage including the anterior cingulate cortex: A preliminary investigation
2006
Two patients with medial frontal lobe damage involving the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) performed a range of cognitive tasks, including tests of executive function and anterior attention. Both patients lesions extended beyond the ACC, therefore caution needs to be exerted in ascribing observed deficits to the ACC alone. Patient performance was compared with age and education matched healthy controls. Both patients showed intact intellectual, memory, and language abilities. No clear-cut abnormalities were noted in visuoperceptual functions. Speed of information processing was mildly reduced only in Patient 2 (bilateral ACC lesion). The patients demonstrated weak or impaired performance on…
Clock genes beyond the clock: CLOCK genotype biases neural correlates of moral valence decision in depressed patients
2007
Gene polymorphisms in the mammalian biological clock system influence individual rhythms. A single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) in the 3' flanking region of CLOCK (3111 T/C; rs1801260) influenced diurnal preference in healthy humans and caused sleep phase delay and insomnia in patients affected by bipolar disorder. Genes of the biological clock are expressed in many brain structures other than in the 'master clock' suprachiasmatic nuclei. These areas, such as cingulate cortex, are involved in the control of many human behaviors. Clock genes could then bias 'nonclock' functions such as information processing and decision making. Thirty inpatients affected by a major depressive episode under…