Genome-wide analyses of individual differences in quantitatively assessed reading- and language-related skills in up to 34,000 people.

The use of spoken and written language is a fundamental human capacity. Individual differences in reading- and language-related skills are influenced by genetic variation, with twin-based heritability estimates of 30 to 80% depending on the trait. The genetic architecture is complex, heterogeneous, and multifactorial, but investigations of contributions of single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were thus far underpowered. We present a multicohort genome-wide association study (GWAS) of five traits assessed individually using psychometric measures (word reading, nonword reading, spelling, phoneme awareness, and nonword repetition) in samples of 13,633 to 33,959 participants aged 5 to 26 y. We identified genome-wide significant association with word reading (rs11208009, P = 1.098 × 10-8) at a locus that has not been associated with intelligence or educational attainment. All five reading-/language-related traits showed robust SNP heritability, accounting for 13 to 26% of trait variability. Genomic structural equation modeling revealed a shared genetic factor explaining most of the variation in word/nonword reading, spelling, and phoneme awareness, which only partially overlapped with genetic variation contributing to nonword repetition, intelligence, and educational attainment. A multivariate GWAS of word/nonword reading, spelling, and phoneme awareness maximized power for follow-up investigation. Genetic correlation analysis with neuroimaging traits identified an association with the surface area of the banks of the left superior temporal sulcus, a brain region linked to the processing of spoken and written language. Heritability was enriched for genomic elements regulating gene expression in the fetal brain and in chromosomal regions that are depleted of Neanderthal variants. Together, these results provide avenues for deciphering the biological underpinnings of uniquely human traits.

Functional connectivity of the hippocampus and its subfields in resting-state networks.

Many neuroimaging studies have shown that the hippocampus participates in a resting-state network called the default mode network. However, how the hippocampus connects to the default mode network, whether the hippocampus connects to other resting-state networks and how the different hippocampal subfields take part in resting-state networks remains poorly understood. Here, we examined these issues using the high spatial-resolution 7T resting-state fMRI dataset from the Human Connectome Project. We used data-driven techniques that relied on spatially-restricted Independent Component Analysis, Dual Regression and linear mixed-effect group-analyses based on participant-specific brain morphology. The results revealed two main activity hotspots inside the hippocampus. The first hotspot was located in an anterior location and was correlated with the somatomotor network. This network was subserved by co-activity in the CA1, CA3, CA4 and Dentate Gyrus fields. In addition, there was an activity hotspot that extended from middle to posterior locations along the hippocampal long-axis and correlated with the default mode network. This network reflected activity in the Subiculum, CA4 and Dentate Gyrus fields. These results show how different sections of the hippocampus participate in two known resting-state networks and how these two resting-state networks depend on different configurations of hippocampal subfield co-activity.

Prostitution Policies and Attitudes Toward Prostitutes.

The present study examined whether regulatory attitudes toward prostitution are related to agency attributed to prostitutes and moral outrage. A Spanish sample (N = 391, aged 18-53 years old) completed a questionnaire that included two separate parts. In the first part, participants answered a scale on regulatory attitudes toward prostitution; in the second part, after reading one of two scenarios, participants answered questions about agency and moral outrage. Results showed a different pattern in the link between regulatory attitudes and social perception when participants perceived prostitutes as victims of sexual slavery (Scenario 1) or as women who freely choose to sell sexual services (Scenario 2). This study provides empirical evidence of how some regulatory attitudes toward prostitution are linked to mind attributions and negative feelings toward sex workers, and how it depends on the type of prostitute who practices it. These findings contribute to our knowledge of attitudes toward prostitution, which could inform future policy-making.

Improving the signal detection accuracy of functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging.

A major drawback of functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) concerns the lack of detection accuracy of the measured signal. Although this limitation stems in part from the neuro-vascular nature of the fMRI signal, it also reflects particular methodological decisions in the fMRI data analysis pathway. Here we show that the signal detection accuracy of fMRI is affected by the specific way in which whole-brain volumes are created from individually acquired brain slices, and by the method of statistically extracting signals from the sampled data. To address these limitations, we propose a new framework for fMRI data analysis. The new framework creates whole-brain volumes from individual brain slices that are all acquired at the same point in time relative to a presented stimulus. These whole-brain volumes contain minimal temporal distortions, and are available at a high temporal resolution. In addition, statistical signal extraction occurred on the basis of a non-standard time point-by-time point approach. We evaluated the detection accuracy of the extracted signal in the standard and new framework with simulated and real-world fMRI data. The new slice-based data-analytic framework yields greatly improved signal detection accuracy of fMRI signals.

Tracking the Time Course of Competition During Word Production: Evidence for a Post-Retrieval Mechanism of Conflict Resolution.

Producing a word is often complicated by the fact that there are other words that share meaning with the intended word. The competition between words that arises in such a situation is a well-known phenomenon in the word production literature. An ongoing debate in a number of research domains has concerned the question of how competition between words is resolved. Here, we contributed to the debate by presenting evidence that indicates that resolving competition during word production involves a postretrieval mechanism of conflict resolution. Specifically, we tracked the time course of competition during word production using electroencephalography. In the experiment, participants named pictures in contexts that varied in the strength of competition. The electrophysiological data show that competition is associated with a late, frontally distributed component that arises between 500 and 750 ms after picture presentation. These data are interpreted in terms of a model of word production that relies on a mechanism of cognitive control.

Contribution of parents' adult attachment and separation attitudes to parent-adolescent conflict resolution.

This study examined the contribution to parent-adolescent conflict resolution of parental adult attachment styles and attitudes toward adolescent separation. Questionnaires were completed by 295 couples with early to late adolescent children. Structural equation models were used to test self and partner influences on conflict resolution for three attachment orientations: confidence (model A), anxiety (model B) and avoidance (model C). Model A showed self influences between parents' confidence orientation and negotiation and also via positive attitudes towards separation. Also, the fathers' use of negotiation was facilitated by the mothers' confidence orientation and vice versa, indicating partner influences as well. Model B showed self influences between parents' anxiety orientation and the use of dominance and withdrawal and also via negative attitudes towards separation. Model C showed self influences between parents' avoidance orientation and dominance and withdrawal, and a partner influence between fathers' avoidance and mothers' use of dominance. The results indicated that the parents' adult attachment system and the parenting system were related in the area of conflict resolution, and that self influences were stronger than partner influences.

Psychometric properties of the CEMA-A questionnaire: motives for lying.

Previous research on the motives for lying lacks factorial models that allow grouping of motives into specific categories. The objective of this study is to confirm the factorial structure of the questionnaire of motives for lying (CEMA-A). Participants were 1,722 adults residing in the Canary Islands (Spain) who completed the CEMA-A and the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ-R). The four-dimensional structure of the questionnaire was confirmed (χ2 = 1460.97, df = 325, p = 0.001; CFI = 0.94; TLI = 0.93; NFI = 0.93; NNFI = 0.93; RMSEA = 0.05, CI = 0.051-0.057; SRMR = 0.04). The four factors of the CEMA-A were Intrapersonal Motivation-Emotionality, Interpersonal Motivation-Sociability, Egoism/Hardness Motivation, and Malicious Motivation, with an internal consistency between 0.79 and 0.91. Invariance analyses confirmed the equivalence of the instrument for men and women. The CEMA-A factors positively correlated with Neuroticism and Psychoticism, and negatively with Dissimulation. Extraversion was not related to any of the factors, and only displayed a low negative correlation with Intrapersonal Motivation-Emotionality. Analysis of variance showed that men scored higher in Egoism/Hardness and Malicious Motivation. The CEMA-A has proven capable of apprehending the motives for lying and has adequate psychometric criteria for use in various populations.

Reduction in Epigenetic Age Acceleration Is Related to Empathy in Mothers with Neglectful Caregiving.

DNA methylation clocks are used as molecular estimators of epigenetic age, but with little evidence in mothers and none in neglectful mothering. We investigated differences in epigenetic age acceleration (EAA) and the role of empathy using the PhenoAge clock. We collected saliva samples from mothers with extreme disregard for their child's needs (50 in the neglect group, NG) and mothers with non-neglectful caregiving (87 in the control group, CG). Mothers completed an empathy scale, along with questionnaires of their own childhood maltreatment, adverse life events and psychiatric disorders. Sociodemographic variables potentially affecting EAA were also measured. The ANCOVA solution showed a significant increase in EAA in the NG compared to the CG, after adjustment for maternal age, number of pregnancies, financial assistance, adverse events, childhood maltreatment and psychiatric disorder. The group interaction effects showed a reduction in EAA for greater empathic concern and for a higher education level both as positive factors, and an increment in EAA for mothers living in a two-parent family as a risk factor, all in the NG. Our findings open the search for protective factors of EAA associated with caregiver behavior to reduce health vulnerabilities and poor social functioning, especially for mothers at risk of maladaptive caregiving.

False discovery rate and permutation test: an evaluation in ERP data analysis.

Current analysis of event-related potentials (ERP) data is usually based on the a priori selection of channels and time windows of interest for studying the differences between experimental conditions in the spatio-temporal domain. In this work we put forward a new strategy designed for situations when there is not a priori information about 'when' and 'where' these differences appear in the spatio-temporal domain, simultaneously testing numerous hypotheses, which increase the risk of false positives. This issue is known as the problem of multiple comparisons and has been managed with methods that control the false discovery rate (FDR), such as permutation test and FDR methods. Although the former has been previously applied, to our knowledge, the FDR methods have not been introduced in the ERP data analysis. Here we compare the performance (on simulated and real data) of permutation test and two FDR methods (Benjamini and Hochberg (BH) and local-fdr, by Efron). All these methods have been shown to be valid for dealing with the problem of multiple comparisons in the ERP analysis, avoiding the ad hoc selection of channels and/or time windows. FDR methods are a good alternative to the common and computationally more expensive permutation test. The BH method for independent tests gave the best overall performance regarding the balance between type I and type II errors. The local-fdr method is preferable for high dimensional (multichannel) problems where most of the tests conform to the empirical null hypothesis. Differences among the methods according to assumptions, null distributions and dimensionality of the problem are also discussed.

Number processing skill trajectories in children with specific language impairment.

BACKGROUND: A number of contrasting hypotheses have been put forward concerning mathematical performance deficits in children with specific language impairment (SLI). However, debate as to the nature of this deficit continues. The present study analyzed whether the trajectories of SLI-children may be attributed to the use of symbolic vs. linguistic assessment tasks, or to a deficit in the magnitude system. METHOD: SLI-children (N=20) and typically achieving children (N=20) were monitored between kindergarten and first grade. Four tasks were designed, each with varying demands on language, symbolic, and domain-specific skills. RESULTS: The groups only differed in the trajectories of those numerical tasks involving high language demand. CONCLUSIONS: These findings indicate that SLI children present an early deficit in the development of numerical skills that require retrieval from long term memory and articulation of a phonological representation. Number skills involving greater language demand should be included as part of SLI early detection and intervention protocols.

Psychometric Properties of the Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire (SPQ) in a Mexican Population: Invariance Across Gender and Age.

BACKGROUND: The present study tested the factorial structure of the Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire (SPQ) in Mexican adults. Although this instrument has been validated in different cultural contexts, there are no studies to date that analyze its psychometric properties in a Mexican sample. METHOD: 307 adults completed the SPQ, seven participants were removed for being at high risk of psychosis. The final sample was made up of 300 participants (M = 34.58, SD = 13.77), of whom 62.8% were female. Raine's three-factor model and Stefanis et al.'s four-factor model were tested. RESULTS: The results indicated that both factor structures had a good fit to the data. However, the best evidence was for the three-factor solution. Configural, metric, and scalar invariance according to gender and age for the three-factor model was displayed. Further analyses showed women scored slightly higher in excessive social anxiety but this result was not statistically significant. Younger participants had higher scores on ideas of reference, excessive social anxiety, no close friends, and odd speech than the older group. CONCLUSIONS: These findings provide support for the use of the SPQ in the Mexican population.

Disentangling meaning in the brain: Left temporal involvement in agreement processing.

Sentence comprehension is successfully accomplished by means of a form-to-meaning mapping procedure that relies on the extraction of morphosyntactic information from the input and its mapping to higher-level semantic-discourse representations. In this study, we sought to determine whether neuroanatomically distinct brain regions are involved in the processing of different types of information contained in the propositional meaning of a sentence, namely person and number. While person information indexes the role that an individual has in discourse (i.e., the speaker, the addressee or the entity being talked about by speaker and addressee), number indicates its cardinality (i.e., a single entity vs a multitude of entities). An event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiment was run using agreement-Correct and Person- and Number-violated sentences in Spanish, to disentangle the processing mechanisms and neural substrates associated with the building of discourse and cardinality representations. The contrast between Person and Number Violations showed qualitative and quantitative differences. A greater response for person compared to number was found in the left middle temporal gyrus (LMTG). However, critically, a posterior-to-anterior functional gradient emerged within this region. While the posterior portion of the LMTG was sensitive to both Person and Number Violations, the anterior portion of this region showed selective response for Person Violations. These results confirm that the comprehension of the propositional meaning of a sentence results from a composite, feature-sensitive mechanism of form-to-meaning mapping in which the nodes of the language network are differentially involved.

Inferior fronto-temporo-occipital connectivity: a missing link between maltreated girls and neglectful mothers.

The neurobiological alterations resulting from adverse childhood experiences that subsequently may lead to neglectful mothering are poorly understood. Maternal neglect of an infant's basic needs is the most prevalent type of child maltreatment. We tested white matter alterations in neglectful mothers, the majority of whom had also suffered maltreatment in their childhood, and compared them to a matched control group. The two groups were discriminated by a structural brain connectivity pattern comprising inferior fronto-temporo-occipital connectivity, which constitutes a major portion of the face-processing network and was indexed by fewer streamlines in neglectful mothers. Mediation and regression analyses showed that fewer streamlines in the right inferior longitudinal fasciculus tract (ILF-R) predicted a poorer quality of mother-child emotional availability observed during cooperative play and that effect depended on the respective interactions with left and right inferior fronto-occipital fasciculi (IFO-R/L), with no significant impact of psychopathological and cognitive conditions. Volume alteration in ILF-R but not in IFO-L modulated the impact of having been maltreated on emotional availability. The findings suggest the altered inferior fronto-temporal-occipital connectivity, affecting emotional visual processing, as a possible common neurological substrate linking a history of childhood maltreatment with maternal neglect.

Lexical and phonological processing in visual word recognition by stuttering children: evidence from Spanish.

A number of studies have pointed out that stuttering-like disfluencies could be the result of failures in central and linguistic processing. The goal of the present paper is to analyze if stuttering implies deficits in the lexical and phonological processing in visual word recognition. This study compares the performance of 28 children with and without stuttering in a standard lexical decision task in a transparent orthography: Spanish. Word frequency and syllable frequency were manipulated in the experimental words. Stutterers were found to be considerably slower (in their correct responses) and produced more errors than the non- stutterers (χ(1) = 36.63, p < .001, η2 = .60). There was also a facilitation effect of syllable frequency, restricted to low frequency words and only in the stutterers group (t1(10) = 3.67, p < .005; t2(36) = 3.10, p < .001). These outcomes appear to suggest that the decoding process of stutterers exhibits a deficit in the interface between the phonological-syllabic level and the word level.