Consistent with previous studies
the present results revealed that number and brightness estimation was associated with overlapping activation within right lateralized areas of the posterior IFS. In addition, the contrast between number and brightness estimation revealed that bilateral anterior regions of the IFS are specifically involved in the process of estimating the position of symbolic numbers onto a number line. Furthermore, we found a significant influence of landmark reference points (0, 50 and 100) on brain activation in the right IFS for number estimation only. No regions were found to be specifically associated with brightness estimation. The results of this study reveal that the estimation 5-Fluoracil cost of both CA3 cost numerical and non-numerical magnitude are associated with the engagement of a right lateralized
magnitude system, but that symbolic number estimation is associated with additional engagement of bilateral regions of the anterior IPS. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.”
“Psychotic symptoms have theoretically been linked to semantic memory impairments in patients with schizophrenia. Little is known of the effects of cannabis, the world’s most popular illicit drug, on semantic memory and whether they are linked to the psychotomimetic states elicited by the drug. Thirty-six cannabis users were tested whilst under the influence of cannabis. They were then tested again when not intoxicated and compared with 38 non-drug using controls. Semantic memory was assessed using a semantic priming task with a long and short stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) to differentiate unless automatic and controlled processing. Under the influence of cannabis, users showed increases in
both automatic semantic priming and schizotypal symptoms compared with controls. When abstinent, cannabis users exhibited hyper-priming at long SOAs. Cannabis users did not differ from controls in either trait schizotypy or state schizotypy when not intoxicated. Acute cannabis use increases schizotypyal symptoms and may increase automatic semantic priming in recreational users of this drug. When drug-free, cannabis users did not differ from controls in schizotypy but did show hyper-priming at the long SOA. The acute increase in automatic semantic priming may be one factor contributing to the psychotomimetic effects of cannabis. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.”
“Children with language-learning impairment (LLI) have consistently shown difficulty with tasks requiring precise, rapid auditory processing. Remediation based on neural plasticity assumes that the temporal precision of neural coding can be improved by intensive training protocols.