With Motor imagery (MI), movements are mentally rehearsed without overt actions; this procedure has been adopted in motor rehabilitation, primarily in brain-damaged patients. Here we rather tested the clinical potentials of MI in... more
With Motor imagery (MI), movements are mentally rehearsed without overt actions; this procedure has been adopted in motor rehabilitation, primarily in brain-damaged patients. Here we rather tested the clinical potentials of MI in purely orthopaedic patients who, by definition, should maximally benefit of mental exercises because of their intact brain. To this end we studied the recovery of gait after total knee arthroplasty and evaluated whether MI combined with physiotherapy could speed up the recovery of gait and even limit the occurrence of future falls. We studied 48 patients at the beginning and by the end of the post-surgery residential rehabilitation program: half of them completed a specific MI training supported by computerized visual stimulation (experimental group); the other half performed a non-motoric cognitive training (control group). All patients also had standard physiotherapy. By the end of the rehabilitation, the experimental group showed a better recovery of gai...
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Since the recruitment process, Italian Mafias impose on their members a strict code of conduct. These rigid rules regulate their private and public behavior, implying a total adhesion to the group’s values. Such juridical and social... more
Since the recruitment process, Italian Mafias impose on their members a strict code of conduct. These rigid rules regulate their private and public behavior, implying a total adhesion to the group’s values. Such juridical and social aspects substantially distinguish organized crime (OC) from ordinary crime. It is still unknown whether these two categories of offenders also show distinctive cognitive traits. Here we investigated the frontal lobe cognitive functions of 50 OC prisoners from the Mafia and 50 non-OC prisoners based on the performance of 50 non-prisoner controls. We found that OC members were more likely to show pathological risk-propensity than non-OC prisoners. We interpret this finding as the result of the internal dynamics of Mafia groups. OC is a worldwide threat, and the identification of cognitive traits behind criminal behavior will help in devising focused prevention policies.
Research Interests: Psychology and Medicine
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What mechanisms distinguish interactive from non-interactive actions? To answer this question we tested participants while they took turns playing music with a virtual partner: in the interactive joint action condition, the participants... more
What mechanisms distinguish interactive from non-interactive actions? To answer this question we tested participants while they took turns playing music with a virtual partner: in the interactive joint action condition, the participants played a melody together with their partner by grasping (C note) or pressing (G note) a cube-shaped instrument, alternating in playing one note each. In the non-interactive control condition, players' behavior was not guided by a shared melody, so that the partner's actions and notes were irrelevant to the participant. In both conditions, the participant's and partner's actions were physically congruent (e.g., grasp-grasp) or incongruent (e.g., grasp-point), and the partner's association between actions and notes was coherent with the participant's or reversed. Performance in the non-interactive condition was only affected by physical incongruence, whereas joint action was only affected when the partner's action-note assoc...
Research Interests: Psychology and Medicine
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Search by Subject Search using Medical Subject Headings (< b> MeSH</b>), a controlled vocabulary for indexing life sciences content.< br/> Note that some records do not... more
Search by Subject Search using Medical Subject Headings (< b> MeSH</b>), a controlled vocabulary for indexing life sciences content.< br/> Note that some records do not have MeSH. These include Patents and the latest PubMed and PubMed Central records.
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The existence of multiple solutions in clustering, and in hierarchical clustering in particular, is often ignored in practical applications. However, this is a non-trivial problem, as different data orderings can result in different... more
The existence of multiple solutions in clustering, and in hierarchical clustering in particular, is often ignored in practical applications. However, this is a non-trivial problem, as different data orderings can result in different cluster sets that, in turns, may lead to different interpretations of the same data. The method presented here offers a solution to this issue. It is based on the definition of an equivalence relation over dendrograms that allows developing all and only the significantly different dendrograms for the same dataset, thus reducing the computational complexity to polynomial from the exponential obtained when all possible dendrograms are considered. Experimental results in the neuroimaging and bioinformatics domains show the effectiveness of the proposed method.
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Although it is widely accepted that nouns and verbs are functionally independent linguistic entities, it is less clear whether their processing recruits different brain areas. This issue is particularly relevant for those theories of... more
Although it is widely accepted that nouns and verbs are functionally independent linguistic entities, it is less clear whether their processing recruits different brain areas. This issue is particularly relevant for those theories of lexical semantics (and, more in general, of cognition) that suggest the embodiment of abstract concepts, i.e., based strongly on perceptual and motoric representations. This paper presents a formal meta-analysis of the neuroimaging evidence on noun and verb processing in order to address this dichotomy more effectively at the anatomical level. We used a hierarchical clustering algorithm that grouped fMRI/PET activation peaks solely on the basis of spatial proximity. Cluster specificity for grammatical class was then tested on the basis of the noun-verb distribution of the activation peaks included in each cluster. Thirty-two clusters were identified: three were associated with nouns across different tasks (in the right inferior temporal gyrus, the left ...
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Research Interests: Logic, Decision Making, Heuristics, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Executive Function, and 15 moreDeduction, Problem Solving, Humans, Cerebral Cortex, Reasoning, Female, Neuroimage, Male, Cognitive Process, Logical Form, Adult, Best Paper Award, Large Scale, Psychology and Cognitive Sciences, and Medical and Health Sciences
Research Interests: Computer Science, Logic, Neuroimaging, Deductive reasoning, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, and 15 moreMedicine, Neuroimmunology, Everyday Life, Brain, Humans, Formal Logic, Female, Neuroimage, Male, Frontal Cortex, Mental processes, Adult, Parietal Lobe, photic stimulation, and Medical and Health Sciences
Research Interests: Psychology, Aphasia, Positron Emission Tomography, Medicine, Right Hemisphere Functions, and 15 moreBrain, Humans, Glucose Metabolism, Female, Male, Aged, Middle Aged, Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography, Analysis of Variance, Left Hemisphere, Cerebrovascular Disorders, Right Handed, Functional Laterality, Psychology and Cognitive Sciences, and Medical and Health Sciences
Human amnesia is a clinical syndrome exhibiting the failure to recall past events and to learn new information. Its “pure” form, characterized by a selective impairment of long-term memory without any disorder of general intelligence or... more
Human amnesia is a clinical syndrome exhibiting the failure to recall past events and to learn new information. Its “pure” form, characterized by a selective impairment of long-term memory without any disorder of general intelligence or other cognitive functions, has been associated with lesions localized within Papez's circuit and some connected areas. Thus, amnesia could be due to a functional disconnection between components of this or other neural structures involved in long-term learning and retention. To test this hypothesis, we measured regional cerebral metabolism with 2-[18F]fluoro-2-deoxy-d-glucose ([18F]FDG) and positron emission tomography (PET) in 11 patients with “pure” amnesia. A significant bilateral reduction in metabolism in a number of interconnected cerebral regions (hippocampal formation, thalamus, cingulate gyrus, and frontal basal cortex) was found in the amnesic patients in comparison with normal controls. The metabolic impairment did not correspond to al...
Research Interests: Human Memory, Medicine, Memory, Hippocampus, Humans, and 15 moreGlucose, Brain Circulation, Female, Amnesia, Male, Clinical Sciences, Middle Aged, Cerebral, Adult, Cognitive Function, Long Term Memory, General Intelligence, Hippocampal formation, Magnetic resonance image, and Cardiovascular medicine and haematology
Research Interests: Neuroscience, Psychology, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Positron Emission Tomography, Medicine, and 15 moreHuman, Brain Mapping, Brain, Humans, Corpus Callosum, Cerebral Cortex, Male, Reaction Time, Adult, Reference Values, Functional Laterality, Psychomotor Performance, commissure, Psychology and Cognitive Sciences, and Medical and Health Sciences
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Research Interests: Psychology, Cognitive Science, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Cognitive Neuropsychology, Cognitive Neuroscience, and 15 moreMedicine, Cognitive, Brain Mapping, Humans, Cerebral Cortex, Comprehension, Female, Male, Noun, Interaction Analysis, Picture Naming, Adult, Analysis of Variance, Neurosciences, and photic stimulation
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We explored the neuropsychological and neuromorphometrical differences between probable Alzheimer's disease patients showing a good or a bad response to nine months treatment with donepezil. Before treatment, the neuropsychological... more
We explored the neuropsychological and neuromorphometrical differences between probable Alzheimer's disease patients showing a good or a bad response to nine months treatment with donepezil. Before treatment, the neuropsychological profile of the two patient groups was perfectly matched. By the ninth month after treatment, theBAD-respondersshowed a decline of the MMSE score together with a progressive impairment of executive functions. A voxel-based morphometry investigation (VBM), at the time of the second neuropsychological assessment, showed that theBAD-respondershad larger grey and white matter atrophies involving the substantia innominata of Meynert bilaterally, the ventral part of caudate nuclei and the left uncinate fasciculus, brain areas belonging to the cholinergic pathways. A more widespread degeneration of the central cholinergic pathways may explain the lack of donepezil efficacy in those patients not responding to a treatment that operates on the grounds that some ...
Research Interests: Neuroscience, Cognitive Science, Neuropsychology, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Brain, and 15 moreHumans, Female, Male, Behavioural, Cholinesterase inhibitors, Donepezil, Clinical Sciences, Aged, Atrophy, Biological markers, Nucleus Basalis, Alzheimer Disease, Neurosciences, Neuropsychological Tests, and Indans
Cognitive skills are the emergent property of distributed neural networks. The distributed nature of these networks does not necessarily imply a lack of specialization of the individual brain structures involved. However, it remains... more
Cognitive skills are the emergent property of distributed neural networks. The distributed nature of these networks does not necessarily imply a lack of specialization of the individual brain structures involved. However, it remains questionable whether discrete aspects of high-level behavior might be the result of localized brain activity of individual nodes within such networks. The phonological loop of working memory, with its simplicity, seems ideally suited for testing this possibility. Central to the development of the phonological loop model has been the description of patients with focal lesions and specific deficits. As much as the detailed description of their behavior has served to refine the phonological loop model, a classical anatomoclinical correlation approach with such cases falls short in telling whether the observed behavior is based on the functions of a neural system resembling that seen in normal subjects challenged with phonological loop tasks or whether diffe...
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In 2000 Baddeley proposed the existence of a new component of working memory, the episodic buffer, which should contribute to the on-line maintenance of integrated memory traces. The author assumed that this component should be critical... more
In 2000 Baddeley proposed the existence of a new component of working memory, the episodic buffer, which should contribute to the on-line maintenance of integrated memory traces. The author assumed that this component should be critical for immediate recall of a short story that exceeds the capacity of the phonological store. Accordingly, patients with Alzheimer’s dementia (AD) should suffer of a deficit of the episodic buffer when immediate recall of a short story is impossible. On the other hand, the episodic buffer should be somewhat preserved in such patients when some IR can occur (Baddeley and Wilson, 2002). We adopted this logic for a voxel-based morphometry study. We compared the distribution of grey-matter density of two such groups of AD patients with a group of age-matched controls. We found that both AD groups had a significant atrophy of the left mid-hippocampus; on the other hand, the anterior part of the hippocampus was significantly more atrophic in patients who were...
Research Interests: Cognitive Science, Economics, Dementia, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Hippocampus, and 15 moreBrain, Humans, Female, Male, Behavioural, Clinical Sciences, Aged, Atrophy, Short Term Memory, Memory Disorders, Voxel, Neurosciences, Functional Laterality, Severity of Illness Index, and Neuropsychological Tests
Research Interests: Perception, Positron Emission Tomography, Brain, Humans, Female, and 12 moreMale, Pain Perception, Heart, Left Ventricular Dysfunction, Aged, Middle Aged, Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography, Coronary heart disease, Neuronal Activity, Angina pectoris, Regional Cerebral Blood Flow, and Chest Pain
Research Interests: Physiology, Auditory Perception, Speech perception, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Writing, and 15 morePET, Color Perception, Temporal Lobe, Brain, Humans, Hemodynamics, Cerebral Cortex, Female, Male, Somatosensory Cortex, Middle Aged, Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography, Adult, Positron, and Functional Laterality
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The cerebral representation of space depends on the integration of many different sensory inputs. The vestibular system provides one such input and its dysfunction can cause profound spatial disorientation. Using positron emission... more
The cerebral representation of space depends on the integration of many different sensory inputs. The vestibular system provides one such input and its dysfunction can cause profound spatial disorientation. Using positron emission tomography (PET), we measured regional cerebral perfusion with various vestibular stimulations to map central vestibular projections and to investigate the cerebral basis of spatial disorientation. We showed that the temporoparietal cortex, the insula, the putamen, and the anterior cingulate cortex are the cerebral projections of the vestibular system in man and that the spatial disorientation caused by unilateral vestibular stimulation is associated with their asymmetric activation.
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Research Interests: Psychology, Cognitive Science, Attention, Reading, Color Perception, and 16 moreHabituation, Humans, System, Male, Cortex, Reaction Time, Selection, Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography, Adult, Parietal Lobe, Time Factors, Neuropsychologia, Cerebral Blood Flow, Neurosciences, Frontal Lobe, and Functional Laterality
We investigated cerebral activity in six normal volunteers using PET to explore the hypothesis that the right hemisphere has a specific role in the interpretation of figurative aspects of language such as metaphors. We also mapped the... more
We investigated cerebral activity in six normal volunteers using PET to explore the hypothesis that the right hemisphere has a specific role in the interpretation of figurative aspects of language such as metaphors. We also mapped the anatomical structures involved in sentence comprehension. During regional cerebral blood flow measurement subjects were asked to perform three different linguistic tasks: (i) metaphorical comprehension; (ii) literal comprehension of sentences; and (iii) a lexical-decision task. We found that comprehension of sentences compared with the lexical-decision task, induced extensive activation in several regions of the left hemisphere, including the prefrontal and basal frontal cortex, the middle and inferior temporal gyri and temporal pole, the parietal cortex and the precuneus. Comprehension of metaphors was associated with similar activations in the left hemisphere, but in addition, a number of sites were activated in the right hemisphere: the prefrontal cortex, the middle temporal gyrus, the precuneus and the posterior cingulate. We conclude that the interpretation of language involves widespread distributed systems bilaterally with the right hemisphere having a special role in the appreciation of metaphors.
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Lack of awareness of touch associated with brain damage may transiently recover after stimulation of the vestibular system. We used positron emission tomographic regional cerebral blood flow measurements to study the neurophysiological... more
Lack of awareness of touch associated with brain damage may transiently recover after stimulation of the vestibular system. We used positron emission tomographic regional cerebral blood flow measurements to study the neurophysiological effect of vestibular stimulation on touch imperception in a subject with a right brain lesion. We tested the hypothesis that the vestibular system aids conscious tactile perception by introducing a bias in the neural system subserving body representation. We show that in normal subjects touch and vestibular signals share projections to the putamen, insula, somatosensory area II, premotor cortex and supramarginal gyrus. In our patient a subset of these regions (right putamen and insula) was spared by the lesion and was maximally active when touch and vestibular stimulations were combined. These results support the suggestion that our phenomenological consciousness is associated with activation in circumscribed brain areas specific to the particular sensation of which we are aware.
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Research Interests: Psychology, Cognitive Science, Right Hemisphere Functions, Brain, Humans, and 12 moreFemale, Male, Aged, Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography, Neuropsychologia, Brain Chemistry, Cerebrovascular Disorders, Neurosciences, Cognition disorders, Brain Diseases, Functional Laterality, and Psychomotor Performance
Research Interests: Multiple sclerosis, Aphasia, Epilepsy, Adolescent, Positron Emission Tomography, and 23 moreSpecific Language Impairment, Energy Metabolism, Brain Mapping, Developmental Coordination Disorder, Brain, Humans, Blood Glucose, Case Study, Female, Neuroimage, Male, Aged, Middle Aged, High Resolution, Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography, Adult, Disease Progression, Reference Values, Alzheimer Disease, Rapid Assessment, Clinical Application, Region of Interest, and Brain Diseases
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We assessed the effects of age of acquisition and language exposure on the cerebral correlates of lexical retrieval in high-proficient, early-acquisition bilinguals. Functional MRI was used to study Spanish–Catalan bilinguals who acquired... more
We assessed the effects of age of acquisition and language exposure on the cerebral correlates of lexical retrieval in high-proficient, early-acquisition bilinguals. Functional MRI was used to study Spanish–Catalan bilinguals who acquired either Spanish or Catalan as a first language in the first years of life. Subjects were exposed to the second language at 3 years of age, and have used both languages in daily life since then. Subjects had a comparable level of proficiency in the comprehension of both languages. Lexical retrieval with the verbal fluency task resulted in the well-established pattern of left hemispheric activation centered on the inferior frontal region. The effect of age of acquisition was assessed by dividing the subjects into two groups, on the basis of the language acquired first (Catalan-born or Spanish-born bilinguals). Functional comparisons indicated that less extensive brain activation was associated with lexical retrieval in the language acquired earlier in life. The two groups were also different in language usage/exposure, as assessed with a specific questionnaire; in particular, the exposure to the second language (Spanish) was less intensive in the case of Catalans. This was reflected in a significant interaction, indicating a more extensive activation in Catalans during production in Spanish. Overall, these results indicate that, during a production task, both age of acquisition and language exposure affect the pattern of brain activation in bilinguals, even if both languages are acquired early and with a comparable level of proficiency. Hum. Brain Mapping 19:170–182, 2003. © 2003 Wiley-Liss, Inc.
Research Interests: Cognitive Science, Language Acquisition, Multilingualism, Speech perception, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, and 21 moreInteraction, Language Development, Language, Comparative Study, Bilingualism, Brain Mapping, Brain, Humans, Age, Verbal Fluency, Questionnaire, Functional Imaging, Male, Human Brain, Adult, Age of Acquisition, Functional Neuroimaging, Age Factors, Human Brain Mapping, Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Imaging, and Neurosciences
Research Interests: Vibration, Space perception, Brain Mapping, Proprioception, Brain, and 13 moreHumans, Cerebral Cortex, Neuroimage, Male, Reference Frame, Sensory Coding, Muscle mechanics, Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography, Adult, Postural Balance, Neck Muscles, Functional Laterality, and Psychomotor Performance
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The neural correlates of recovery of unilateral neglect (ULN), as well as of other consequences of focal brain damage, are largely unknown. Functional neuroimaging methods (in particular, positron emission tomography [PET]) can be applied... more
The neural correlates of recovery of unilateral neglect (ULN), as well as of other consequences of focal brain damage, are largely unknown. Functional neuroimaging methods (in particular, positron emission tomography [PET]) can be applied to the in vivo study of recovery mechanisms in neurologic patients. To evaluate the functional cerebral correlates of recovery from ULN in patients with right-sided lesions, with the use of a PET activation paradigm. Study of 3 patients with cerebrovascular lesions that involved corticosubcortical (patient 1) or subcortical (patients 2 and 3) areas of the right hemisphere. Unilateral neglect was tested twice, before and after completion of a 2-month rehabilitation program, after which all 3 patients showed considerable improvement. Similarly, 2 PET examinations were performed, before and after recovery, during the performance of a visuospatial task requiring the patients to detect and respond to visual targets moving on a computer screen from the right to the left visual hemifield (experimental condition). The cerebral activation was compared with a baseline task in which subjects responded to a black dot flashing in a fixed position of the right hemifield. The brain areas activated by the performance of the visuospatial task before and after recovery were compared. In all 3 patients, the regions notably more active after recovery were almost exclusively found in right-sided cortical areas and largely overlapped with those observed in a group of 4 normal subjects performing the same task. Other areas, which have been shown to be involved in attentional and oculomotor tasks in other PET studies, were also activated in patients with ULN. The behavioral recovery of ULN in these patients with predominantly subcortical lesions is mainly associated with cerebral activations in cortical regions similar to those observed in normal subjects. There is some evidence of functional reorganization in individual subjects, which involves other areas related to space representation and exploration.
Research Interests: Cognitive Science, Archives, Right Hemisphere Functions, Humans, Male, and 14 moreBrain Ischemia, Clinical Sciences, Aged, Middle Aged, Spatial Behavior, Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography, Unilateral Neglect, Functional Neuroimaging, Neurosciences, Brain Damage, Cognition disorders, Case Control Studies, Functional Laterality, and Neuropsychological Tests
Functional imaging of the presynaptic dopaminergic activity using single-photon emission tomography (SPET) and iodine-123 labelled 2-β-carboxymethoxy-3-β-(4-iodophenyl)tropane ([123I]β-CIT) is important for the assessment of disease... more
Functional imaging of the presynaptic dopaminergic activity using single-photon emission tomography (SPET) and iodine-123 labelled 2-β-carboxymethoxy-3-β-(4-iodophenyl)tropane ([123I]β-CIT) is important for the assessment of disease severity and progression in patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD). However, its capability to discriminate between different extrapyramidal disorders has not yet been assessed. The aim of this study was to evaluate the possibility of differentiating patients with PD and with progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) by means of this method. The distribution of [123I]β-CIT in the basal ganglia was assessed in six normal subjects, 13 petients with PD and five patients with PSP in whom the disease was mild. SPET images were obtained 24±2 h after i.v. injection of the tracer using a brain-dedicated system (CERASPECT). MR and SPET images were co-registered in four normal subjects and used to define a standard set of 16 circular regions of interest (ROIs) on the slice showing the highest striatal activity. The basal ganglia ROIs corresponded to (1) the head of caudate, (2) a region of transition between the head of caudate and the anterior putamen, (3) the anterior putamen and (4) the posterior putamen. A ratio of specific to non-displaceable striatal uptake was calculated normalising the activity of the basal ganglia ROIs to that of the occipital cortex (V3′′). ANOVA revealed a global reduction of V3′′ in all ROIs of PD and PSP patients compared with normal controls (P<0.0001). A Mann-Whitney U test showed that the difference between PD and PSP patients was statistically significant for the caudate region only (Z value: 2.6; P<0.01). By subtracting V3′′ caudate values from those of the putamen, differentiation from PSP was possible in 10/13 PD patients. In conclusion, analysis of [123I]β-CIT distribution in discrete striatal areas provides information on the relative caudate-putamen damage, with different values being obtained in patients clinically diagnosed as having either PD or PSP.
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A new head holder for the fixation and repositioning of the patient head in PET, CT, and MR scanners has been designed and tested. With this device, a bidimensional correlation between functional and anatomical brain images can also be... more
A new head holder for the fixation and repositioning of the patient head in PET, CT, and MR scanners has been designed and tested. With this device, a bidimensional correlation between functional and anatomical brain images can also be obtained. Head fixation and repositioning are achieved using the patient&#39;s dental morphology as an anatomical reference. With a dentistic material, a mold of the patient&#39;s teeth is obtained in a few minutes. The molding substance rests on a plastic support, fixed to the head holder. Each time the patient undergoes a new study, his/her personal mold is used, ensuring accurate head repositioning. External markers fixed on the head holder (made visible in lateral PET and CT projection images, midsaggital MR images, and also on the axial images) make it possible to record and recognize the angular orientation and the position of the brain in the three-dimensional space, to correlate images of the same patient obtained with different neuroimaging modalities, and to accurately reposition patients for follow-up studies. The head holder was tested on several subjects. Fixation and repositioning accuracy of within 2.5 mm were achieved in the three-dimensional space. Orientation accuracy was 1 degree.
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We investigated cerebral activity in six normal volunteers using PET to explore the hypothesis that the right hemisphere has a specific role in the interpretation of figurative aspects of language such as metaphors. We also mapped the... more
We investigated cerebral activity in six normal volunteers using PET to explore the hypothesis that the right hemisphere has a specific role in the interpretation of figurative aspects of language such as metaphors. We also mapped the anatomical structures involved in sentence comprehension. During regional cerebral blood flow measurement subjects were asked to perform three different linguistic tasks: (i) metaphorical comprehension; (ii) literal comprehension of sentences; and (iii) a lexical-decision task. We found that comprehension of sentences compared with the lexical-decision task, induced extensive activation in several regions of the left hemisphere, including the prefrontal and basal frontal cortex, the middle and inferior temporal gyri and temporal pole, the parietal cortex and the precuneus. Comprehension of metaphors was associated with similar activations in the left hemisphere, but in addition, a number of sites were activated in the right hemisphere: the prefrontal cortex, the middle temporal gyrus, the precuneus and the posterior cingulate. We conclude that the interpretation of language involves widespread distributed systems bilaterally with the right hemisphere having a special role in the appreciation of metaphors.