Vision matters for shape representation: Evidence from sculpturing and drawing in the blind.

Shape is a property that could be perceived by vision and touch, and is classically considered to be supramodal. While there is mounting evidence for the shared cognitive and neural representation space between visual and tactile shape, previous research tended to rely on dissimilarity structures between objects and had not examined the detailed properties of shape representation in the absence of vision. To address this gap, we conducted three explicit object shape knowledge production experiments with congenitally blind and sighted participants, who were asked to produce verbal features, 3D clay models, and 2D drawings of familiar objects with varying levels of tactile exposure, including tools, large nonmanipulable objects, and animals. We found that the absence of visual experience (i.e., in the blind group) led to stronger differences in animals than in tools and large objects, suggesting that direct tactile experience of objects is essential for shape representation when vision is unavailable. For tools with rich tactile/manipulation experiences, the blind produced overall good shapes comparable to the sighted, yet also showed intriguing differences. The blind group had more variations and a systematic bias in the geometric property of tools (making them stubbier than the sighted), indicating that visual experience contributes to aligning internal representations and calibrating overall object configurations, at least for tools. Taken together, the object shape representation reflects the intricate orchestration of vision, touch and language.

Pathological high intraocular pressure induces glial cell reactive proliferation contributing to neuroinflammation of the blood-retinal barrier via the NOX2/ET-1 axis-controlled ERK1/2 pathway.

BACKGROUND: NADPH oxidase (NOX), a primary source of endothelial reactive oxygen species (ROS), is considered a key event in disrupting the integrity of the blood-retinal barrier. Abnormalities in neurovascular-coupled immune signaling herald the loss of ganglion cells in glaucoma. Persistent microglia-driven inflammation and cellular innate immune system dysregulation often lead to deteriorating retinal degeneration. However, the crosstalk between NOX and the retinal immune environment remains unresolved. Here, we investigate the interaction between oxidative stress and neuroinflammation in glaucoma by genetic defects of NOX2 or its regulation via gp91ds-tat. METHODS: Ex vivo cultures of retinal explants from wildtype C57BL/6J and Nox2 -/- mice were subjected to normal and high hydrostatic pressure (Pressure 60 mmHg) for 24 h. In vivo, high intraocular pressure (H-IOP) was induced in C57BL/6J mice for two weeks. Both Pressure 60 mmHg retinas and H-IOP mice were treated with either gp91ds-tat (a NOX2-specific inhibitor). Proteomic analysis was performed on control, H-IOP, and treatment with gp91ds-tat retinas to identify differentially expressed proteins (DEPs). The study also evaluated various glaucoma phenotypes, including IOP, retinal ganglion cell (RGC) functionality, and optic nerve (ON) degeneration. The superoxide (O2-) levels assay, blood-retinal barrier degradation, gliosis, neuroinflammation, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), western blotting, and quantitative PCR were performed in this study. RESULTS: We found that NOX2-specific deletion or activity inhibition effectively attenuated retinal oxidative stress, immune dysregulation, the internal blood-retinal barrier (iBRB) injury, neurovascular unit (NVU) dysfunction, RGC loss, and ON axonal degeneration following H-IOP. Mechanistically, we unveiled for the first time that NOX2-dependent ROS-driven pro-inflammatory signaling, where NOX2/ROS induces endothelium-derived endothelin-1 (ET-1) overexpression, which activates the ERK1/2 signaling pathway and mediates the shift of microglia activation to a pro-inflammatory M1 phenotype, thereby triggering a neuroinflammatory outburst. CONCLUSIONS: Collectively, we demonstrate for the first time that NOX2 deletion or gp91ds-tat inhibition attenuates iBRB injury and NVU dysfunction to rescue glaucomatous RGC loss and ON axon degeneration, which is associated with inhibition of the ET-1/ERK1/2-transduced shift of microglial cell activation toward a pro-inflammatory M1 phenotype, highlighting NOX2 as a potential target for novel neuroprotective therapies in glaucoma management.

Neural correlates of an illusionary sense of agency caused by virtual reality.

Sense of agency (SoA) is the sensation that self-actions lead to ensuing perceptual consequences. The prospective mechanism emphasizes that SoA arises from motor prediction and its comparison with actual action outcomes, while the reconstructive mechanism stresses that SoA emerges from retrospective causal processing about the action outcomes. Consistent with the prospective mechanism, motor planning regions were identified by neuroimaging studies using the temporal binding (TB) effect, a behavioral measure often linked to implicit SoA. Yet, TB also occurs during passive observation of another's action, lending support to the reconstructive mechanism, but its neural correlates remain unexplored. Here, we employed virtual reality (VR) to modulate such observation-based SoA and examined it with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). After manipulating an avatar hand in VR, participants passively observed an avatar's "action" and showed a significant increase in TB. The binding effect was associated with the right angular gyrus and inferior parietal lobule, which are critical nodes for inferential and agency processing. These results suggest that the experience of controlling an avatar may potentiate inferential processing within the right inferior parietal cortex and give rise to the illusionary SoA without voluntary action.

The Association between Vascular Abnormalities and Glaucoma-What Comes First?

Glaucoma is a leading cause of irreversible blindness worldwide. While intraocular pressure (IOP) presents a major risk factor, the underlying pathophysiology still remains largely unclear. The correlation between vascular abnormalities and glaucoma has been deliberated for decades. Evidence for a role played by vascular factors in the pathogenesis of glaucomatous neurodegeneration has already been postulated. In addition, the fact that glaucoma causes both structural and functional changes to retinal blood vessels has been described. This review aims to investigate the published evidence concerning the relationship between vascular abnormalities and glaucoma, and to provide an overview of the "chicken or egg" dilemma in glaucoma. In this study, several biomarkers of glaucoma progression from a vascular perspective, including endothelin-1 (ET-1), nitric oxide, vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), and matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs), were identified and subsequently assessed for their potential as pharmacological intervention targets.

Decarboxylation of ß-boryl NHPI esters enables radical 1,2-boron shift for the assembly of versatile organoborons.

In recent years, numerous 1,2-R shift (R = aliphatic or aryl) based on tetracoordinate boron species have been well investigated. In the contrary, the corresponding radical migrations, especially 1,2-boryl radical shift for the construction of organoborons is still in its infancy. Given the paucity and significance of such strategies in boron chemistry, it is urgent to develop other efficient and alternative synthetic protocols to enrich these underdeveloped radical 1,2-boron migrations, before their fundamental potential applications could be fully explored at will. Herein, we have demonstrated a visible-light-induced photoredox neutral decarboxylative radical cross-coupling reaction, which undergoes a radical 1,2-boron shift to give a translocated C-radical for further capture of versatile radical acceptors. The mild reaction conditions, good functional-group tolerance, and broad ß-boryl NHPI esters scope as well as versatile radical acceptors make this protocol applicable in modification of bioactive molecules. It can be expected that this methodology will be a very useful tool and an alternative strategy for the construction of primary organoborons via a novel radical 1,2-boron shift mode.

Neural substrate underlying the learning of a passage with unfamiliar vocabulary and syntax.

Speech comprehension is a complex process involving multiple stages, such as decoding of phonetic units, recognizing words, and understanding sentences and passages. In this study, we identify cortical networks beyond basic phonetic processing using a novel passage learning paradigm. Participants learn to comprehend a story composed of syllables of their native language, but containing unfamiliar vocabulary and syntax. Three learning methods are employed, each resulting in some degree of learning within a 12-min learning session. Functional magnetic resonance imaging results reveal that, when listening to the same story, the classic temporal-frontal language network is significantly enhanced by learning. Critically, activation of the left anterior and posterior temporal lobe correlates with the learning outcome that is assessed behaviorally through, e.g. word recognition and passage comprehension tests. This study demonstrates that a brief learning session is sufficient to induce neural plasticity in the left temporal lobe, which underlies the transformation from phonetic units to the units of meaning, such as words and sentences.

Early language exposure affects neural mechanisms of semantic representations.

One signature of the human brain is its ability to derive knowledge from language inputs, in addition to nonlinguistic sensory channels such as vision and touch. How does human language experience modulate the mechanism by which semantic knowledge is stored in the human brain? We investigated this question using a unique human model with varying amounts and qualities of early language exposure: early deaf adults who were born to hearing parents and had reduced early exposure and delayed acquisition of any natural human language (speech or sign), with early deaf adults who acquired sign language from birth as the control group that matches on nonlinguistic sensory experiences. Neural responses in a semantic judgment task with 90 written words that were familiar to both groups were measured using fMRI. The deaf group with reduced early language exposure, compared with the deaf control group, showed reduced semantic sensitivity, in both multivariate pattern (semantic structure encoding) and univariate (abstractness effect) analyses, in the left dorsal anterior temporal lobe (dATL). These results provide positive, causal evidence that language experience drives the neural semantic representation in the dATL, highlighting the roles of language in forming human neural semantic structures beyond nonverbal sensory experiences.

Humans are the only known species where much of knowledge learning happens symbolically through language, in addition to information received directly from the senses. For example, humans can learn about the color of some rose flowers from the popular expression "roses are red" without needing to see any red roses ­ allowing them to accumulate knowledge beyond the constraints of their own senses. Recent work suggests that a region of the brain known as the dorsal anterior temporal lobe represents knowledge acquired from language instead of sensory experiences. However, these studies were based on volunteers deprived of sensory experiences rather than those with reduced language exposure. Therefore, it was not clear whether this brain structure represents knowledge derived specifically from language and the importance of language in shaping non-sensory knowledge. To address this question, Wang et al. studied the brain activity of deaf adult volunteers in a word meaning judgement task. Volunteers were either born deaf or lost their hearing as toddlers, and all primarily used Chinese Sign Language for communication. One group of volunteers had been exposed to sign language from birth, giving them similar exposure to language as hearing individuals. The other group had less exposure to language in their early years and only learned sign language later in childhood. The task included 90 written words that were familiar to the volunteers. They included a mixture of object words ­ related to material objects ­ such as "shoulder" and "hammer" and abstract words ­ which are not linked to physical objects ­ such as "cause" and "violence". The volunteers were shown each word in turn and asked to think about the word's meaning. Brain scans revealed that the left dorsal anterior temporal lobes of the volunteers with reduced early language exposure were less sensitive to the meaning of the words compared with those of the other volunteers. The findings demonstrate that the dorsal anterior temporal lobe specifically supports meaning derived from a person's experience of language as opposed to sensory experience, providing a new angle to understand the mechanism of knowledge representations. Increased understanding of how language supports knowledge will help to uncover the human-specific ways of representing and creating knowledge in the brain.

Boosting the Electrocatalytic Formic Acid Oxidation Activity via P-PdAuAg Quaternary Alloying.

Direct formic acid fuel cells (DFAFCs) are considered promising sustainable power sources due to their high energy density, nonflammability, and low fuel crossover. However, serious CO poisoning and activity attenuation of the anodic formic acid oxidation reaction (FAOR) greatly restrict the output and durability of DFAFCs. Inspired by the specific relationship between the composition, type, and property of alloys, in this work, we synthesize a series of hybrid substitutional/interstitial quaternary alloys P-PdAuAg by means of a novel polyphosphide route to address these issues. Due to the simultaneous interstitial P-doping and metal (Au, Ag, Pd) co-reduction, the P-PdAuAg quaternary alloy obtained is only 3 nm in diameter with abundant defects. It not only achieves a new high mass activity of 8.08 A mgPd-1 (6.78 A mgcatalyst-1) but also maintains high stability in the high potential range and harsh reaction conditions. Both the activity and anti-poisoning ability are far exceeding those of the currently reported FAOR catalysts. Detailed density functional theory (DFT) calculations reveal that the superb electrochemical performances originate from the shift of the d-band center of Pd as a result of the synergistic electronic/ligand effects between Pd, Au, Ag, and P. The introduction of interstitial P inhibits the occurrence of an indirect reaction pathway on Pd, while Au and Ag suppress the adsorption of CO and optimize the sequential dehydrogenation steps, leading to boosted reaction kinetics and CO tolerance. This work pioneered a facile way for the synthesis of Pd-based substitutional/interstitial hybrid alloys, providing a promising means of further improving the performance of alloying catalysts.

Gravity matters for the neural representations of action semantics.

The dynamic relationship between the neural representation of action word semantics and specific sensorimotor experience remains controversial. Here, we temporarily altered human subjects' sensorimotor experience in a 15-day head-down tilt bed rest setting, a ground-based analog of microgravity that disproportionally affects sensorimotor experiences of the lower limbs, and examined whether such effector-dependent activity deprivation specifically affected the neural processes of comprehending verbs of lower-limb actions (e.g. to kick) relative to upper-limb ones (e.g. to pinch). Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we compared the multivoxel neural patterns for such action words prior to and after bed rest. We found an effector-specific (lower vs. upper limb) experience modulation in subcortical sensorimotor-related and anterior temporal regions. The neural action semantic representations in other effector-specific verb semantic regions (e.g. left lateral posterior temporal cortex) and motor execution regions were robust against such experience alterations. These effector-specific, sensorimotor-experience-sensitive and experience-independent patterns of verb neural representation highlight the multidimensional and dynamic nature of semantic neural representation, and the broad influence of microgravity (hence gravity) environment on cognition.

Different computational relations in language are captured by distinct brain systems.

A critical way for humans to acquire information is through language, yet whether and how language experience drives specific neural semantic representations is still poorly understood. We considered statistical properties captured by 3 different computational principles of language (simple co-occurrence, network-(graph)-topological relations, and neural-network-vector-embedding relations) and tested the extent to which they can explain the neural patterns of semantic representations, measured by 2 functional magnetic resonance imaging experiments that shared common semantic processes. Distinct graph-topological word relations, and not simple co-occurrence or neural-network-vector-embedding relations, had unique explanatory power for the neural patterns in the anterior temporal lobe (capturing graph-common-neighbors), inferior frontal gyrus, and posterior middle/inferior temporal gyrus (capturing graph-shortest-path). These results were relatively specific to language: they were not explained by sensory-motor similarities and the same computational relations of visual objects (based on visual image database) showed effects in the visual cortex in the picture naming experiment. That is, different topological properties within language and the same topological computations (common-neighbors) for language and visual inputs are captured by different brain regions. These findings reveal the specific neural semantic representations along graph-topological properties of language, highlighting the information type-specific and statistical property-specific manner of semantic representations in the human brain.

Social and emotion dimensional organizations in the abstract semantic space: the neuropsychological evidence.

An essential aspect of human cognition is supported by a rich reservoir of abstract concepts without tangible external referents (e.g., "honor", "relationship", "direction"). While decades of research showed that the neural organization of conceptual knowledge referring to concrete words respects domains of evolutionary salience and sensorimotor attributes, the organization principles of abstract word meanings are poorly understood. Here, we provide neuropsychological evidence for a domain (sociality) and attribute (emotion) structure in abstract word processing. Testing 34 brain-damaged patients on a word-semantic judgment task, we observed double dissociations between social and nonsocial words and a single dissociation of sparing of emotional (relative to non-emotional) words. The lesion profiles of patients with specific dissociations suggest potential neural correlates positively or negatively associated with each dimension. These results unravel a general domain-attribute architecture of word meanings and highlight the roles of the social domain and the emotional attribute in the non-object semantic space.

Idiosyncratic Tower of Babel: Individual Differences in Word-Meaning Representation Increase as Word Abstractness Increases.

Humans primarily rely on language to communicate, on the basis of a shared understanding of the basic building blocks of communication: words. Do we mean the same things when we use the same words? Although cognitive neural research on semantics has revealed the common principles of word-meaning representation, the factors underlying the potential individual variations in word meanings are unknown. Here, we empirically characterized the intersubject consistency of 90 words across 20 adult subjects (10 female) using both behavioral measures (rating-based semantic-relationship patterns) and neuroimaging measures (word-evoked brain activity patterns). Across both the behavioral and neuroimaging experiments, we showed that the magnitude of individual disagreements on word meanings could be modeled on the basis of how much language or sensory experience is associated with a word and that this variation increases with word abstractness. Uncovering the cognitive and neural origins of word-meaning disagreements across individuals has implications for potential mechanisms to modulate such disagreements.

Topography of Visual Features in the Human Ventral Visual Pathway.

Visual object recognition in humans and nonhuman primates is achieved by the ventral visual pathway (ventral occipital-temporal cortex, VOTC), which shows a well-documented object domain structure. An on-going question is what type of information is processed in the higher-order VOTC that underlies such observations, with recent evidence suggesting effects of certain visual features. Combining computational vision models, fMRI experiment using a parametric-modulation approach, and natural image statistics of common objects, we depicted the neural distribution of a comprehensive set of visual features in the VOTC, identifying voxel sensitivities with specific feature sets across geometry/shape, Fourier power, and color. The visual feature combination pattern in the VOTC is significantly explained by their relationships to different types of response-action computation (fight-or-flight, navigation, and manipulation), as derived from behavioral ratings and natural image statistics. These results offer a comprehensive visual feature map in the VOTC and a plausible theoretical explanation as a mapping onto different types of downstream response-action systems.

Compatibility between Solubility and Enhanced Crystallinity of Benzotriazole-Based Small Molecular Acceptors with Less Bulky Alkyl Chains for Organic Solar Cells.

Optimizing the molecular structures of organic solar cell (OSC) materials and boosting the power conversion efficiencies are the eternal theme in the solar energy region. A series of fused benzotriazole (BTA)-based A-DA'D-A structures of nonfullerene acceptors (such as Y18) were developed for application in efficient OSCs, in which high quantum efficiencies and low voltage losses could be achieved because of the optimized electron-deficient core and specific molecular geometry. Here, based on the BTA core, the bulky alkyl chain on the BTA unit was further tailored to minimize the lateral alkyl chains and enhance the crystallinity while maintaining an adequate solubility. The resulting NFAs of BTA-C1, BTA-C5, and BTA-C6 are synthesized. Compared with the well-designed molecular Y18 (BTA-C8), we found that simply replacing the 2-ethylhexyl chain with a single methyl (BTA-C1) can easily improve the fill factor up to 77%, but its poor light absorption capacity and large domain size impeded further efficiency improvement. In particular, the BTA-C5, with a shortened branch alkyl chain of 2-methylbutyl, achieves suitable solubility and enhanced crystallinity. Significantly, owing to the balanced charge carrier mobility and suitable phase separation, the BTA-C5-based binary single-junction OSCs achieve a high efficiency of 17.11%, which is one of the top values in BTA-based OSCs.

Fluorination Enhances NIR-II Fluorescence of Polymer Dots for Quantitative Brain Tumor Imaging.

Here, we describe a fluorination strategy for semiconducting polymers for the development of highly bright second near-infrared region (NIR-II) probes. Tetrafluorination yielded a fluorescence QY of 3.2 % for the polymer dots (Pdots), over a 3-fold enhancement compared to non-fluorinated counterparts. The fluorescence enhancement was attributable to a nanoscale fluorous effect in the Pdots that maintained the molecular planarity and minimized the structure distortion between the excited state and ground state, thus reducing the nonradiative relaxations. By performing through-skull and through-scalp imaging of the brain vasculature of live mice, we quantitatively analyzed the vascular morphology of transgenic brain tumors in terms of the vessel lengths, vessel branches, and vessel symmetry, which showed statistically significant differences from the wild type animals. The bright NIR-II Pdots obtained through fluorination chemistry provide insightful information for precise diagnosis of the malignancy of the brain tumor.

Functional subdivisions in the anterior temporal lobes: a large scale meta-analytic investigation.

The anterior temporal lobe (ATL) is involved in a wide range of cognitive processes but its functional specialization remains unclear. In this review, we synthesize evidence from cytoarchitecture, anatomical and functional connectivity, and functional activation to elucidate how subregions in the ATL contribute to various cognitive processes. Two complementary meta-analyses were conducted. We first constructed a comprehensive functional preference profile for all subregions through large-scale neuroimaging meta-analysis, and then employed a coordinate-based activation likelihood estimation analysis to examine such functional preferences by input types. We identified two subregions in the dorsal aspect of the ATL (i.e., superior dorsal, inferior dorsal) and two other subregions (lateral, ventromedial) in the ventral aspect of the ATL, all have distinct anatomical and functional preferences. We proposed sensory, language, and socioemotion as the three dimensions that jointly capture the cognitive components cutting across the four ATL subregions: the superior dorsal ATL was associated with auditory sensory, language (phonological production aspects), and emotion; the inferior dorsal ATL with auditory sensory and language (phonological perception and production aspects); the lateral ATL with visual sensory, language (semantic and episodic aspects), and social processing; and the ventromedial ATL with visual sensory, episodic memory, and emotion. The various functions associated with the ATL can be clustered into subregions, which provides sourceful basis for testing hypothesis-driven cognitive framework.

Effect of Cr on the Mineral Structure and Composition of Cement Clinker and Its Solidification Behavior.

In order to reveal the solidification behavior of Cr in the cement clinker mineral phase, 29Si magic-angle spinning nuclear magnetic resonance, X-ray diffraction, and scanning electron microscopy with energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy techniques were used to analyze the morphology and composition of the cement clinker mineral phase doped with Cr. The results showed that the addition of Cr did not change the chemical environment of 29Si in the clinker mineral phase, and it was still an isolated silicon-oxygen tetrahedron. Cr affected the orientation of the silicon-oxygen tetrahedron and the coordination number of calcium, leading to the formation of defects in the crystal structure of the clinker mineral phase, by replacing Ca2+ into the mineral phase lattice to form a new mineral phase Ca3Cr2(SiO4)3. Cr acted as a stabilizer for the formation of ß-C2S in the clinker calcination. As the amount of Cr increased, the relative content of C3S decreased and the relative content of C2S increased. Further, Cr easily dissolved in C2S, while it was not found in C3S. This study is conducive to further research on the mechanism of heavy metal solidification in cement clinker. Furthermore, it is important to evaluate the environmental risk of heavy metals in the process of sludge disposal through cement kiln and promote the utilization of sludge resources and the sustainable development of the cement industry.

Quantitative analysis of retinal and choroidal microvascular parameters using optical coherence tomography angiography in children with nephrotic syndrome: a pilot study.

PURPOSE: To study the retinal and choroidal microvascular parameters in children with nephrotic syndrome (NS). METHODS: This is a cross-sectional study. Optical coherence tomography angiography was used to evaluate the changes of retinal and choroidal microvessels in patients with NS. Thirty NS children and 20 normal controls were included in this study. The macular vessel density (VD) of the superficial capillary plexus (SCP), deep capillary plexus (DCP), choroid capillary plexus (CCP), and foveal avascular zone (FAZ) area of the SCP and DCP was quantitatively calculated. Clinical data including serum protein, blood lipid, uric acid, urea, serum creatinine, urinary protein concentration, urinary creatinine, 24-h urine volume, 24-h urinary total protein, 24-h creatinine clearance rate, and urinary albumin to creatinine ratio were collected. RESULTS: The VDs of the DCP and CCP in children with NS were significantly lower than those in controls (59.35 ± 2.45 vs. 61.15 ± 1.53, p = 0.002, 66.34 ± 1.43 vs. 67.16 ± 1.23, p = 0.042, respectively). The VD of the SCP in children with NS had a tendency to decrease compared with that in controls, but there were no significant differences. There were also no significant differences in FAZ area between the two groups. The VD of the SCP was positively correlated with serum total protein (ρ = 0.446, p = 0.014), serum albumin (ρ = 0.431, p = 0.017), and 24-h urine volume (ρ = 0.389, p = 0.034) but negatively correlated with triglyceride (ρ = - 0.450, p = 0.013), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (ρ = -0.432, p = 0.017), urinary protein concentration (ρ = - 0.606, p < 0.001), and 24-h urinary total protein (ρ = - 0.517, p = 0.004). The VDs of the SCP, DCP, and CCP were negatively correlated with the urinary albumin to creatinine ratio (ρ = - 0.473, p = 0.008, ρ = - 0.438, p = 0.015, ρ = -0.467, p = 0.009, respectively). CONCLUSIONS: Retinal and choroidal VDs were decreased in children with NS and paralleled the severity of kidney disease. Optical coherence tomography angiography can be used as a noninvasive method for evaluating renal injury in patients with NS.

Close yet independent: Dissociation of social from valence and abstract semantic dimensions in the left anterior temporal lobe.

The anterior temporal lobe (ATL) is engaged in various types of semantic dimensions. One consistently reported dimension is social information, with abstract words describing social behaviors inducing stronger activations in the ATL than nonsocial words. One potential factor that has been systematically confounded in this finding is emotional valence, given that abstract social words tend to be associated with emotional feelings. We investigated which factors drove the ATL sensitivity using a 2 (social/nonsocial) × 2 (valenced/neutral) factorial design in an fMRI study with relatively high spatial resolutions. We found that sociality and valence were processed in different ATL regions without significant interactions: The social effect was found in the left anterior superior temporal sulcus (aSTS), whereas the valence effect activated small clusters in the bilateral temporal poles (TP). In the left ATL, the social- and valence-related clusters were distinct from another superior ATL area that exhibited a general "abstractness" effect with little modulation of sociality or valence. These subregions exhibited distinct whole-brain functional connectivity patterns during the resting state, with the social cluster functionally connected to the default mode network, the valence cluster connected to the adjacent temporal regions and amygdala, and the abstractness cluster connected to a distributed network including a set of language-related regions. These results of activation profiles and connectivity patterns together indicate that the way in which the left ATL supports semantic processing is highly fine-grained, with the neural substrate for social semantic effects dissociated from those for emotional valence and abstractness.

[The cognitive and neural bases of abstract concepts].

Words denoting abstract concepts constitute nearly half of human lexicon and serve as building blocks of the human culture. Since the advent of non-invasive neuroimaging techniques, great progress has been made in revealing the neurobiological foundation of concrete object and action concepts, yet it remains unclear how abstract concepts are stored and processed in the brain. Here we review recent development in this field, focusing on both theoretical perspectives and neuroimaging findings. We found that abstract concepts can be represented via linguistic and experiential information; the neural correlates of abstract concepts are partly in line with such a theoretical framework. Future studies are warranted to uncover the cognitive and neural mechanisms of language and experience in abstract word representation, which will help to deepen our understanding of general computational principles of the human conceptual system and to promote the development of the brain-like artificial intelligence.