GABA, glutamatergic dynamics and BOLD contrast assessed concurrently using functional MRS during a cognitive task.

A recurring issue in functional neuroimaging is how to link task-driven haemodynamic blood oxygen level dependent functional MRI (BOLD-fMRI) responses to underlying neurochemistry at the synaptic level. Glutamate and γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA), the major excitatory and inhibitory neurotransmitters respectively, are typically measured with MRS sequences separately from fMRI, in the absence of a task. The present study aims to resolve this disconnect, developing acquisition and processing techniques to simultaneously assess GABA, glutamate and glutamine (Glx) and BOLD in relation to a cognitive task, at 3 T. Healthy subjects (N = 81) performed a cognitive task (Eriksen flanker), which was presented visually in a task-OFF, task-ON block design, with individual event onset timing jittered with respect to the MRS readout. fMRS data were acquired from the medial anterior cingulate cortex during task performance, using an adapted MEGA-PRESS implementation incorporating unsuppressed water-reference signals at a regular interval. These allowed for continuous assessment of BOLD activation, through T2 *-related changes in water linewidth. BOLD-fMRI data were additionally acquired. A novel linear model was used to extract modelled metabolite spectra associated with discrete functional stimuli, building on well established processing and quantification tools. Behavioural outcomes from the flanker task, and activation patterns from the BOLD-fMRI sequence, were as expected from the literature. BOLD response assessed through fMRS showed a significant correlation with fMRI, specific to the fMRS-targeted region of interest; fMRS-assessed BOLD additionally correlated with lengthening of response time in the incongruent flanker condition. While no significant task-related changes were observed for GABA+, a significant increase in measured Glx levels (~8.8%) was found between task-OFF and task-ON periods. These findings verify the efficacy of our protocol and analysis pipelines for the simultaneous assessment of metabolite dynamics and BOLD. As well as establishing a robust basis for further work using these techniques, we also identify a number of clear directions for further refinement in future studies.

High levels of childhood trauma associated with changes in hippocampal functional activity and connectivity in young adults during novelty salience.

Childhood trauma (CT) has been linked to increased risk for psychosis. Moreover, CT has been linked to psychosis phenotypes such as impaired cognitive and sensory functions involved in the detection of novel sensory stimuli. Our objective was to investigate if CT was associated with changes in hippocampal and superior temporal gyrus functional activation and connectivity during a novelty detection task. Fifty-eight young adults were assigned to High-CT (n = 28) and Low-CT (n = 24) groups based on their scores on the childhood trauma questionnaire (CTQ) and underwent functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging during an auditory oddball task (AOT). Relative to the Low CT group, High CT participants showed reduced functional activation in the left hippocampus during the unpredictable tone condition of the AOT. Furthermore, in the High CT group, psychophysiological interaction analysis revealed hypoconnectivity between the hippocampus and temporal and medial regions. The present study indicates both altered hippocampal activation and hippocampal-temporal-prefrontal connectivity during novelty detection in individuals that experienced CT, similarly to that reported in psychosis risk populations. Early stressful experiences and environments may alter hippocampal function during salient events, mediating the relationship between childhood trauma and psychosis risk.

Comparison of seven modelling algorithms for γ-aminobutyric acid-edited proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy.

Edited MRS sequences are widely used for studying γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) in the human brain. Several algorithms are available for modelling these data, deriving metabolite concentration estimates through peak fitting or a linear combination of basis spectra. The present study compares seven such algorithms, using data obtained in a large multisite study. GABA-edited (GABA+, TE = 68 ms MEGA-PRESS) data from 222 subjects at 20 sites were processed via a standardised pipeline, before modelling with FSL-MRS, Gannet, AMARES, QUEST, LCModel, Osprey and Tarquin, using standardised vendor-specific basis sets (for GE, Philips and Siemens) where appropriate. After referencing metabolite estimates (to water or creatine), systematic differences in scale were observed between datasets acquired on different vendors' hardware, presenting across algorithms. Scale differences across algorithms were also observed. Using the correlation between metabolite estimates and voxel tissue fraction as a benchmark, most algorithms were found to be similarly effective in detecting differences in GABA+. An interclass correlation across all algorithms showed single-rater consistency for GABA+ estimates of around 0.38, indicating moderate agreement. Upon inclusion of a basis set component explicitly modelling the macromolecule signal underlying the observed 3.0 ppm GABA peaks, single-rater consistency improved to 0.44. Correlation between discrete pairs of algorithms varied, and was concerningly weak in some cases. Our findings highlight the need for consensus on appropriate modelling parameters across different algorithms, and for detailed reporting of the parameters adopted in individual studies to ensure reproducibility and meaningful comparison of outcomes between different studies.

Brain pathology and cognitive scores prior to onset of late-life depression.

OBJECTIVES: Understanding the biological changes that occur prior to onset of late-life depression (LLD) is key to its prevention. To investigate potential predictors of LLD, we assessed cognitive scores and neurodegenerative and vascular biomarkers in healthy older adults who later developed depression. METHODS: Longitudinal data from the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative of 241 cognitively unimpaired and non-depressed older adults aged 56-90 at baseline with at least 4 years of follow-up were included. Participants were classified based on whether they developed an incident depression (n = 96) or not (n = 145). Cognitive measures of memory, executive functioning, and language, and biomarkers proposed to be related to LLD: hippocampal volume, white matter hyperintensity volume (WMH), and cortical and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) amyloid beta levels, were compared between the incident depression and the never-depressed groups at four time points: at baseline, the visit prior to onset, at onset, and after the onset of depression. RESULTS: In the incident depression group, there was a mild decline in cognitive scores from baseline to the visit before depression onset compared with the never-depressed group. The cognitive differences between the groups became more marked after depression onset. Baseline cortical amyloid burden, CSF amyloid beta levels, and WMH were significant predictors of incident depression. Compared to the non-depressed group, hippocampal volume was not reduced before onset, but was reduced following depression. CONCLUSIONS: Amyloid pathology and WMH can predict future development of LLD in cognitively unimpaired individuals and may be involved in precipitating vulnerability for depression in older adults.

A multimodal study of the effects of tDCS on dorsolateral prefrontal and temporo-parietal areas during dichotic listening.

The underlying neural mechanisms of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), especially beyond the primary motor cortex, remain unclear. Several studies examined tDCS effects on either functional activity, neurotransmitters or behavior but few investigated those aspects together to reveal how the brain responds to tDCS. The objective is to elucidate the underlying mechanisms of tDCS using a multimodal approach that extends from behavioral to neurotransmitter levels of explanation. Thirty-two healthy participants performed an auditory dichotic listening task at two visits, one session with sham and one session with real tDCS (2 mA) while simultaneously undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The anode and cathode were placed over the left temporo-parietal cortex (TPC) and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, respectively. Before and after simultaneous dichotic listening/fMRI/tDCS, combined glutamate and glutamine (Glx) and myo-inositol levels were assessed in the stimulated areas. While fMRI and dichotic listening showed expected functional activity and behavioral effects, neither method demonstrated differences between real and sham stimulation. Glx only showed a statistical trend towards higher levels after real tDCS in both stimulated brain areas. There were no significant correlations between behavior and Glx. Despite a reasonable sample size, electrical field strength, and replication of behavioral and functional activity results, tDCS had little to no effect on dichotic listening, Glx, and functional activity. The study emphasizes that findings about the underlying neural mechanisms of the primary motor cortex cannot simply be generalized to other brain areas. Particularly, the TPC might be less sensitive to tDCS. Moreover, the study demonstrates the general feasibility of multimodal approaches.

Correlates of Hallucinatory Experiences in the General Population: An International Multisite Replication Study.

Hallucinatory experiences can occur in both clinical and nonclinical groups. However, in previous studies of the general population, investigations of the cognitive mechanisms underlying hallucinatory experiences have yielded inconsistent results. We ran a large-scale preregistered multisite study, in which general-population participants (N = 1,394 across 11 data-collection sites and online) completed assessments of hallucinatory experiences, a measure of adverse childhood experiences, and four tasks: source memory, dichotic listening, backward digit span, and auditory signal detection. We found that hallucinatory experiences were associated with a higher false-alarm rate on the signal detection task and a greater number of reported adverse childhood experiences but not with any of the other cognitive measures employed. These findings are an important step in improving reproducibility in hallucinations research and suggest that the replicability of some findings regarding cognition in clinical samples needs to be investigated.

Differential Effectiveness of Atypical Antipsychotics on Hallucinations: A Pragmatic Randomized Controlled Trial.

BACKGROUND: Most studies investigating antipsychotic effectiveness report either total psychopathology or symptom cluster findings. Studies focusing on a separate symptom, such as hallucinations, a hallmark symptom in schizophrenia, are scarce.Therefore, the current study aims to compare the antihallucinatory effectiveness of 3 pharmacologically different antipsychotics: olanzapine, amisulpride, and aripiprazole. METHODS: The present study is part of the Bergen-Stavanger-Innsbruck-Trondheim study, a 12-month prospective, randomized, pragmatic antipsychotic drug trial in active-phase schizophrenia spectrum disorders. The primary outcome of the present study was change of hallucinations as measured by item P3 (hallucinatory behavior) from the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale in the subgroup with hallucinations at baseline. Primary analyses were intention to treat. RESULTS: A total of 144 participants were included in the study, where 105 (72%) had a score of 3 or more on the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale P3 item at baseline, indicating the presence of hallucinations (HALL subgroup).In the HALL subgroup, a significantly less reduction of hallucinations was revealed for participants using olanzapine in weeks 12, 26, 39, and 52 when compared with amisulpride and in weeks 26 and 52 when compared with aripiprazole. In subanalyses for participants never exposed to antipsychotic drugs (antipsychotic-naive) and those who had used antipsychotics before entering the study, antihallucinatory differences were revealed only in the latter group. CONCLUSIONS: A differential antihallucinatory effect of the 3 study drugs was present. The inferior effect of olanzapine seems to be driven by the subgroup of participants exposed to antipsychotic treatment before entering the study.

In the twilight zone: An epidemiological study of sleep-related hallucinations.

BACKGROUND: Few studies have investigated hallucinations that occur at the onset/offset of sleep (called hypnagogic/hypnopompic hallucinations; HHHs), despite the fact that their prevalence in the general population is reported to be higher than the prevalence of daytime hallucinations. We utilized data from an epidemiological study to explore the prevalence of HHHs in various modalities. We also investigated phenomenological differences between sleep-related (HHHs) and daytime hallucinations in the auditory modality. We hypothesized that individuals with only HHHs would not differ from controls on a range of mental health and wellbeing measures, but that if they occur together with daytime hallucinations will pose a greater burden on the individual experiencing them. We also hypothesize that HHHs are qualitatively different (i.e. less severe) from daytime hallucinations. METHODS: This study utilized data from a cross-sectional epidemiological study on the prevalence of hallucinations in the Norwegian general population. The sample (n = 2533) was divided into a control group without hallucinations (n = 2303), a group only experiencing sleep-related hallucinations (n = 62), a group only experiencing daytime hallucinations (n = 57), and a group experiencing both sleep-related as well as daytime hallucinations (n = 111). Prevalence rates were calculated and groups were compared using analyses of variance and chi-square tests where applicable. RESULTS: The prevalence for HHHs in the auditory domain was found to be 6.8%, whereas 12.3% reported multimodal HHHs, and 32.2% indicated out-of-body experiences at the onset/offset of sleep. Group comparisons of hallucinations in the auditory modality showed that individuals that experienced only auditory HHHs scored significantly (p < 0.05) lower than those who also experienced daytime auditory hallucinations on a range of variables including mental health, anxiety, childhood happiness, and wellbeing. In addition, individuals with only auditory HHHs reported significantly (p < 0.05) less frequent hallucinations, less disturbing hallucinations, more neutral (in terms of content) hallucinations, hallucinations with less influence over their behavior, and less hallucination-related interference with social life compared to those individuals that experience daytime hallucinations. We also found that purely auditory HHHs had a significantly higher age of first onset of hallucinations than the purely daytime and the combined daytime and auditory HHHs groups (28.2 years>20.9 > 19.1). CONCLUSIONS: Sleep-related hallucinations are common experiences in the general population, with the auditory modality being the least common. They occur mostly in combination with daytime hallucinations. However, some individuals (2.4%) experience only (auditory) sleep-related hallucinations and this group can be seen as more closely related, on a range of health-related factors, to non-hallucinating individuals than individuals who experience daytime hallucinations. Finally, there is a clear need for more research in this field, and ideas for future studies are presented.

Mapping psychotic-like experiences: Results from an online survey.

Suggestions have been made that psychotic-like experiences (PLEs), such as hallucinatory and delusional experiences, exist on a continuum from healthy individuals to patients with a diagnosis of schizophrenia. We used the screening questions of the Questionnaire for Psychotic Experiences (QPE), an interview that captures the presence and phenomenology of various psychotic experiences separately, to assess PLEs in Norway. Based on data from an online survey in a sample of more than 1,400 participants, we demonstrated that the QPE screening questions show satisfactory psychometric properties. Participants with mental disorders reported more frequent lifetime and current hallucinatory experiences than participants without mental disorders. Childhood experiences were rather low and ranged from 0.7% to 5.2%. We further replicated findings that young age, illegal drug use, lower level of education, and having parents with a mental disorder are associated with higher endorsement rates of PLEs. Finally, a binomial regression revealed that the mere presence of PLEs does not discriminate between individuals with and without a mental disorder. Taken together, the findings of the present study support existing models that both hallucinations and delusions exist on a structural and phenomenological continuum. Moreover, we demonstrated that the QPE screening questions can be used by themselves as a complementary tool to the full QPE interview.

Behavioral measures of attention and cognitive control during a new auditory working memory paradigm.

Proactive control is the ability to manipulate and maintain goal-relevant information within working memory (WM), allowing individuals to selectively attend to important information while inhibiting irrelevant distractions. Deficits in proactive control may cause multiple cognitive impairments seen in schizophrenia. However, studies of cognitive control have largely relied on visual tasks, even though the functional deficits in schizophrenia are more frequent and severe in the auditory domain (i.e., hallucinations). Hence, we developed an auditory analogue of a visual ignore/suppress paradigm. Healthy adults (N = 40) listened to a series of four letters (600-ms stimulus onset asynchrony) presented alternately to each ear, followed by a 3.2-s maintenance interval and a probe. Participants were directed either to selectively ignore (I) the to-be-presented letters at one ear, to suppress (S) letters already presented to one ear, or to remember (R) all presented letters. The critical cue was provided either before (I) or after (S) the encoding series, or simultaneously with the probe (R). The probes were encoding items presented to either the attended/not suppressed ear ("valid") or the ignored/suppressed ear ("lure"), or were not presented ("control"). Replicating prior findings during visual ignore/suppress tasks, response sensitivity and latency revealed poorer performance for lure than for control trials, particularly during the suppress condition. Shorter suppress than remember latencies suggested a behavioral advantage when discarding encoded items from WM. The paradigm-related internal consistencies and 1-week test-retest reliabilities (n = 38) were good to excellent. Our findings validate these auditory WM tasks as a reliable manipulation of proactive control and set the stage for studies with schizophrenia patients who experience auditory hallucinations.

Prefrontal glutamate levels predict altered amygdala-prefrontal connectivity in traumatized youths.

BACKGROUND: Neurobiological models of stress and stress-related mental illness, including post-traumatic stress disorder, converge on the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex (PFC). While a surge of research has reported altered structural and functional connectivity between amygdala and the medial PFC following severe stress, few have addressed the underlying neurochemistry. METHODS: We combined resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging measures of amygdala connectivity with in vivo MR-spectroscopy (1H-MRS) measurements of glutamate in 26 survivors from the 2011 Norwegian terror attack and 34 control subjects. RESULTS: Traumatized youths showed altered amygdala-anterior midcingulate cortex (aMCC) and amygdala-ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) connectivity. Moreover, the trauma survivors exhibited reduced levels of glutamate in the vmPFC which fits with the previous findings of reduced levels of Glx (glutamate + glutamine) in the aMCC (Ousdal et al., 2017) and together suggest long-term impact of a traumatic experience on glutamatergic pathways. Importantly, local glutamatergic metabolite levels predicted the individual amygdala-aMCC and amygdala-vmPFC functional connectivity, and also mediated the observed group difference in amygdala-aMCC connectivity. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest that traumatic stress may influence amygdala-prefrontal neuronal connectivity through an effect on prefrontal glutamate and its compounds. Understanding the neurochemical underpinning of altered amygdala connectivity after trauma may ultimately lead to the discovery of new pharmacological agents which can prevent or treat stress-related mental illness.

Cognitive sex differences and hemispheric asymmetry: A critical review of 40 years of research.

According to a longstanding view, sex differences in cognitive abilities such as mental rotation or verbal memory arise from sex differences in hemispheric asymmetry: males are thought to be more lateralized than females which boosts their spatial but hampers their verbal skills. This idea sparked great interest and, even though it lost support in the 1990s, it is still put forward in contemporary (popular) scientific papers and textbooks. We aimed to provide a comprehensive review that summarizes the last 40 years of research. First, we confirm previous findings that the stronger hemispheric asymmetry in males is very small but robust. Second, we conclude that stronger hemispheric asymmetry, in general, does not enhance spatial and reduce verbal performance. Crucially, we carried out a systematic literature review showing that cognitive sex differences often emerge in the absence of sex differences in hemispheric asymmetry (and vice versa), implying the two phenomena are at least partly independent of each other. At present, there is insufficient data to conclude that sex differences in hemispheric asymmetry and cognitive performance are uncorrelated. However, we can conclude that sex differences in hemispheric asymmetry are certainly not the driving force behind sex differences in cognitive functioning.

Sex- and sex hormone-related variations in energy-metabolic frontal brain asymmetries: A magnetic resonance spectroscopy study.

Creatine is a key regulator of brain energy homeostasis, and well-balanced creatine metabolism is central in healthy brain functioning. Still, the variability of brain creatine metabolism is largely unattended in magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) research. In the human brain, marginal sex differences in creatine levels have been found in the prefrontal cortex. It is however not known to what degree these sex differences are stable or change with varying gonadal hormone levels. The current study therefore investigated creatine in the prefrontal cortex across the menstrual cycle. In addition, we explored cerebral asymmetries. Creatine, Choline (Cho), N-acetylaspartate (NAA), Myo inositol (mI), and glutamate + glutamine (Glx) were assessed three times in 15 women and 14 men using MRS. Women were tested in cycle phases of varying hormone levels (menstrual, follicular, and luteal phase). Prefrontal creatine was found to change across the menstrual cycle, in a hemisphere-specific manner. Women in the follicular phase showed increased left prefrontal creatine accompanied with reduced right prefrontal creatine, while this asymmetry was not present in the luteal phase. In men, the creatine levels remained stable across three testing sessions. In general, both men and women were found to have higher creatine levels in the left as compared to the right prefrontal cortex. Exploratory analyses of other metabolites showed similar asymmetries in NAA, Cho, and mI, while Cho also showed a menstrual cycle effect. This is the first time that sex hormone-related changes in creatine metabolism have been demonstrated in the human brain. These findings may have important methodological implications for MRS research, as it supports previous concerns against uncritical usage of creatine as a reference measure for other metabolites, assumed to be invariant across individuals and conditions.

A life in academia: My career in brief.

In this article I have summarized some of the main trends and topics of my research career, spanning a time period of 50 years, from its start as a master student at the Department of Psychology, University of Uppsala, Sweden to seeing the end of a long career, now at the University of Bergen, Norway. This journey has, apart from having been a journey across various disciplines and topics in experimental psychology, psychophysiology and neuropsychology, functional neuroimaging and cognitive neuroscience, also been a social class journey for me personally. I describe my academic career from my arrival as a young student at the University of Uppsala, Sweden in the late 1960s to my graduation as PhD in 1977 at the age of 29 years, brief postdoc period at the University of Pennsylvania, USA, and finally professor at the University of Bergen, Norway. The article focuses on my view of the research and research findings during these years, including studies of hemispheric asymmetry, dyslexia and language, dichotic listening, fMRI, and during the last years, studies of auditory hallucinations in schizophrenia. I have collaborated with numerous people, both nationally and internationally over the years, far too many to mention in a space-limited overview article. I apologize for this, and wish that I had time and space to mention all the fantastic colleagues and friends that I have met during my career. This article is what I recall of dates, places, encounters, etc., and any errors and misunderstandings are entirely due to my far from perfect memory, for which I also apologize.

Reading in dyslexia across literacy development: A longitudinal study of effective connectivity.

Dyslexia is a literacy disorder affecting the efficient acquisition of reading and writing skills. The disorder is neurobiological in origin. Due to its developmental nature, longitudinal studies of dyslexia are of essence. They are, however, relatively scarce. The present study took a longitudinal approach to cortical connectivity of brain imaging data in reading tasks in children with dyslexia and children with typical reading development. The participants were followed with repeated measurements through Pre-literacy (6 years old), Emergent Literacy (8 years old) and Literacy (12 years old) stages, using Dynamic Causal Modelling (DCM) when analysing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data. Even though there are a few longitudinal studies on effective connectivity in typical reading, to our knowledge, no studies have previously investigated these issues in relation to dyslexia. We set up a model of a brain reading network involving five cortical regions (inferior frontal gyrus, precentral gyrus, superior temporal gyrus, inferior parietal lobule, and occipito-temporal cortex). Using DCM, connectivity measures were calculated for each connection in the model. These measures were further analysed using factorial ANOVA. The results showed that the difference between groups centred on connections going to and from the inferior frontal gyrus (two connections) and the occipito-temporal cortex (three connections). For all five connections, the typical group showed stable or decreasing connectivity measures. The dyslexia group, on the other hand, showed a marked up-regulation (occipito-temporal connections) or down-regulation (inferior frontal gyrus connections) from 6 years to 8 years, followed by normalization from 8 years to 12 years. We interpret this as a delay in the dyslexia group in developing into the Pre-literacy and Emergent literacy stages. This delay could possibly be detrimental to literacy development. By age 12, there was no statistically significant difference in connectivity between the groups, but differences in literacy skills were still present, and were in fact larger than when measured at younger ages.

Within- and between-session reproducibility of GABA measurements with MR spectroscopy.

PURPOSE: The reproducibility of the MEGA-PRESS (MEshcher-GArwood Point RESolved Spectroscopy) MR spectroscopy sequence for the measurement of gamma- aminobutyric acid (GABA) is addressed, focusing on optimizing the number of repetitions at two voxel locations in the human brain and associated possibilities in analysis tools. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Two 20-min MEGA-PRESS acquisitions were run (echo time = 68 ms, repetition time = 1800 ms, repetitions = 328): one from a 21 mL volume in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and one from a 22 mL volume in the left Broca's area in 21 healthy male volunteers (age 32 years ± 6[SD]). Subjects were scanned twice with identical protocols, 1 week apart. Data were acquired on a 3 Tesla GE Discovery 750 scanner using a 32-channel head coil. Spectroscopy data were partitioned into shorter epochs, numerically equivalent to scans of progressively increasing duration, and compared both within and between sessions. Three different analysis schemes were applied: (1) Vendor prototype preprocessor, with quantification by LCModel. (2) Pure Gannet pipeline. (3) Preprocessing with Gannet, and quantification with LCModel. The coefficient of variation (CV) were calculated as a measure of reproducibility. RESULTS: Increasing the number of repetitions showed improvements for within- and between-session reproducibility up to around 218 repetitions. (CV ranging from 4 to 14%). Gannet combined with LCModel approach proved the best method. (CV = 4-5%). Measurements from the ACC area had higher CVs than the Broca area. (CV = 6-14% versus 4-7%). CONCLUSION: Measurement in the Broca area yields better reproducibility than the ACC. With appropriate acquisition times and preprocessing tools, measurements from the ACC area are also reliable. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: 1 Technical Efficacy: Stage 1 J. MAGN. RESON. IMAGING 2017;46:421-430.

Equity theory and fair inequality: a neuroeconomic study.

The present paper reports results from, to our knowledge, the first study designed to examine the neuronal responses to income inequality in situations in which individuals have made different contributions in terms of work effort. We conducted an experiment that included a prescanning phase in which the participants earned money by working, and a neuronal scanning phase in which we examined how the brain responded when the participants evaluated different distributions of their earnings. We provide causal evidence for the relative contribution of work effort being crucial for understanding the hemodynamic response in the brain to inequality. We found a significant hemodynamic response in the striatum to deviations from the distribution of income that was proportional to work effort, but found no effect of deviations from the equal distribution of income. We also observed a striking correlation between the hemodynamic response in the striatum and the self-reported evaluation of the income distributions. Our results provide, to our knowledge, the first set of neuronal evidence for equity theory and suggest that people distinguish between fair and unfair inequalities.

Opposite brain laterality in analogous auditory and visual tests.

Laterality for language processing can be assessed by auditory and visual tasks. Typically, a right ear/right visual half-field (VHF) advantage is observed, reflecting left-hemispheric lateralization for language. Historically, auditory tasks have shown more consistent and reliable results when compared to VHF tasks. While few studies have compared analogous tasks applied to both sensory modalities for the same participants, one such study by Voyer and Boudreau [(2003). Cross-modal correlation of auditory and visual language laterality tasks: a serendipitous finding. Brain Cogn, 53(2), 393-397] found opposite laterality for visual and auditory language tasks. We adapted an experimental paradigm based on a dichotic listening and VHF approach, and applied the combined language paradigm in two separate experiments, including fMRI in the second experiment to measure brain activation in addition to behavioural data. The first experiment showed a right-ear advantage for the auditory task, but a left half-field advantage for the visual task. The second experiment, confirmed the findings, with opposite laterality effects for the visual and auditory tasks. In conclusion, we replicate the finding by Voyer and Boudreau (2003) and support their interpretation that these visual and auditory language tasks measure different cognitive processes.

Reduced error signalling in medication-naive children with ADHD: associations with behavioural variability and post-error adaptations.

BACKGROUND: We examined the blood-oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) activation in brain regions that signal errors and their association with intraindividual behavioural variability and adaptation to errors in children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). METHODS: We acquired functional MRI data during a Flanker task in medication-naive children with ADHD and healthy controls aged 8-12 years and analyzed the data using independent component analysis. For components corresponding to performance monitoring networks, we compared activations across groups and conditions and correlated them with reaction times (RT). Additionally, we analyzed post-error adaptations in behaviour and motor component activations. RESULTS: We included 25 children with ADHD and 29 controls in our analysis. Children with ADHD displayed reduced activation to errors in cingulo-opercular regions and higher RT variability, but no differences of interference control. Larger BOLD amplitude to error trials significantly predicted reduced RT variability across all participants. Neither group showed evidence of post-error response slowing; however, post-error adaptation in motor networks was significantly reduced in children with ADHD. This adaptation was inversely related to activation of the right-lateralized ventral attention network (VAN) on error trials and to task-driven connectivity between the cingulo-opercular system and the VAN. LIMITATIONS: Our study was limited by the modest sample size and imperfect matching across groups. CONCLUSION: Our findings show a deficit in cingulo-opercular activation in children with ADHD that could relate to reduced signalling for errors. Moreover, the reduced orienting of the VAN signal may mediate deficient post-error motor adaptions. Pinpointing general performance monitoring problems to specific brain regions and operations in error processing may help to guide the targets of future treatments for ADHD.

Investigating heritability of laterality and cognitive control in speech perception.

Several studies analyzing the ontogenetic origin of cerebral lateralization provide evidences for a genetic foundation of handedness in humans that is modulated by environmental influences. Since other forms of behavioral lateralization are less investigated, it is unclear as to how far different functions display similar heritability. But deeper knowledge is necessary to understand if and how developmental coupling of different functions is based on a shared genetic background or on the impact of environmental influences. Here, we investigated the heritability of language lateralization assessed with the dichotic listening task, as well as the heritability of cognitive control processes modulating performance in this task. Overall, 103 families consisting of both parents and offspring were tested with the non-forced, as well as the forced-right and forced-left condition of the forced attention dichotic listening task, implemented in the iDichotic smartphone app, developed at the University of Bergen, Norway. The results indicate that the typical right ear advantage in the dichotic listening task shows weak and non-significant heritability (h2=0.003; p=0.98). In contrast, cognitive factors, like attention focus (forced right condition: h2=0.36; p<0.01; forced left condition: h2=0.28; p<0.05) and cognitive control (Gain forced right: h2=0.39; p<0.01; Gain forced left: h2=0.49; p<0.01) showed stronger and significant heritability. These findings indicate a variable dependence of different aspects of a cognitive function on heritability and implicate a major contribution of non-genetic influences to individual language lateralization.