Article
Individual and sex-related differences in pain and relief responsiveness are associated with differences in resting-state functional networks in healthy volunteers
Pain processing is associated with neural activity in a number of wide-spread brain regions. Here, we investigated whether functional connectivity at rest between these brain regions is associated with individual and sex-related differences in thermal pain and relief responsiveness. Twenty healthy volunteers (ten females) were scanned with functional magnetic resonance imaging in resting condition. Half an hour after scanning, we administered thermal pain on the back of their right hand, and collected pain and relief ratings in two separate runs of twelve stimulations each. Across the whole group, mean pain ratings were associated with decreased connectivity at rest between brain regions belonging to the default mode and the visual resting-state network. In men, pain measures correlated with increased connectivity within the visual resting-state network. In women instead, decreased connectivity between this network and parietal and prefrontal brain regions implicated in affective cognitive control were associated with both pain and relief ratings. Our findings indicate that the well documented individual variability and sex-differences in pain sensitivity may be explained, at least in part, by network dynamics at rest in these brain regions.
On the need to change the stereotypes embodied in school history textbooks. Write the history of gender symmetry.
The study of cerebral organization of usage of verbs and nouns was carried out by means of functional magnetic resonance imaging. The influence of strategy of word actualization (verbs and nouns extraction on paradigmatic and syntagmatic connections) and the level of automation of these processes on the pattern of cerebral cortex activation was shown.
Key characteristics of non-fluent (Broca, motor) aphasia are, among others, verb finding difficulties and effortful speech output. These characteristics are related to different levels of speech production (lexical retrieval and motor execution). This study was aimed at identifying normative brain activation related to verb production in healthy individuals, as well as patterns of its reorganization depending on the locus of the linguistic deficit in patients with non-fluent aphasia.
Investigations of the neural correlates of face recognition have typically used old/new paradigms where subjects learn to recognize new faces or identify famous faces. Familiar faces, however, include one's own face, partner's and parents' faces. Using event-related fMRI, we examined the neural correlates of these personally familiar faces. Ten participants were presented with photographs of own, partner, parents, famous and unfamiliar faces and responded to a distinct target. Whole brain, two regions of interest (fusiform gyrus and cingulate gyrus), and multiple linear regression analyses were conducted. Compared with baseline, all familiar faces activated the fusiform gyrus; own faces also activated occipital regions and the precuneus; partner faces activated similar areas, but in addition, the parahippocampal gyrus, middle superior temporal gyri and middle frontal gyrus. Compared with unfamiliar faces, only personally familiar faces activated the cingulate gyrus and the extent of activation varied with face category. Partner faces also activated the insula, amygdala and thalamus. Regions of interest analyses and laterality indices showed anatomical distinctions of processing the personally familiar faces within the fusiform and cingulate gyri. Famous faces were right lateralized whereas personally familiar faces, particularly partner and own faces, elicited bilateral activations. Regression analyses show experiential predictors modulated with neural activity related to own and partner faces. Thus, personally familiar faces activated the core visual areas and extended frontal regions, related to semantic and person knowledge and the extent and areas of activation varied with face type.
An increased propensity for risk taking is a hallmark of adolescent behavior with significant health and social consequences. Here, we elucidated cortical and subcortical regions associated with risky and risk-averse decisions and outcome evaluation using the Balloon Analog Risk Task in a large sample of adolescents (n=256, 56% female, age 14 ± 0.6), including the level of risk as a parametric modulator. We also identified sex differences in neural activity. Risky decisions engaged regions that are parts of the salience, dorsal attention, and frontoparietal networks, but only the insula was sensitive to increasing risks in parametric analyses. During risk-averse decisions, the same networks covaried with parametric levels of risk. The dorsal striatum was engaged by both risky and risk-averse decisions, but was not sensitive to escalating risk. Negative-outcome processing showed greater activations than positive-outcome processing. Insula, lateral orbitofrontal cortex, middle, rostral, and superior frontal areas, rostral and caudal anterior cingulate cortex were activated only by negative outcomes, with a subset of regions associated with negative outcomes showing greater activation in females. Taken together, these results suggest that safe decisions are predicted by more accurate neural representation of increasing risk levels, whereas reward-related processes play a relatively minor role.
Edition includes materials of the international scientific conference RAIZHI ( Russian Studies Association women's history ) , the venue of which was elected in 2010 Cherepovets State University (Cherepovets, Vologda region). Proceedings of the conference gives an insight into the ways of development and formation of the actual scientific field - women's and gender studies in the sciences of the past, the complexities and contradictions that arise in the framework of the scientific community , as well as women's social experiences and identities of women in traditional and contemporary contexts of the policy problem legal status of women , the family and marriage in the history and culture of the peoples of Eurasia , the tender as a category of political and educational discourse , including the discourse practices of its construction , the history of women's movement .
The distractive effects on attentional task performance in different paradigms are analyzed in this paper. I demonstrate how distractors may negatively affect (interference effect), positively (redundancy effect) or neutrally (null effect). Distractor effects described in literature are classified in accordance with their hypothetical source. The general rule of the theory is also introduced. It contains the formal prediction of the particular distractor effect, based on entropy and redundancy measures from the mathematical theory of communication (Shannon, 1948). Single- vs dual-process frameworks are considered for hypothetical mechanisms which underpin the distractor effects. Distractor profiles (DPs) are also introduced for the formalization and simple visualization of experimental data concerning the distractor effects. Typical shapes of DPs and their interpretations are discussed with examples from three frequently cited experiments. Finally, the paper introduces hierarchical hypothesis that states the level-fashion modulating interrelations between distractor effects of different classes.
This article describes the expierence of studying factors influencing the social well-being of educational migrants as mesured by means of a psychological well-being scale (A. Perrudet-Badoux, G.A. Mendelsohn, J.Chiche, 1988) previously adapted for Russian by M.V. Sokolova. A statistical analysis of the scale's reliability is performed. Trends in dynamics of subjective well-being are indentified on the basis the correlations analysis between the condbtbions of adaptation and its success rate, and potential mechanisms for developing subjective well-being among student migrants living in student hostels are described. Particular attention is paid to commuting as a factor of adaptation.