Because the brain’s language systems have no end organs for interacting directly with the external world, language systems work with sensory (ears or eyes) and motor (mouth and hands) systems, which are the only brain systems with direct links to external environment. Liberman contributed to understanding of how the language by ear (listening) and language by mouth (reading) systems work togeth...

More than 3 million species of insects live around the world in a variety of environments, and display a diversity of sophisticated behaviors adapted to these environments. Our research is aimed at understanding how the brain systems of insects process constantly changing environmental information and generate adaptive behaviors. Specifically, we are investigating how odor information is proces...

The present chapter suggests that while there is strong evidence that specific brain systems are preferentially biased toward processing gaze information, this specificity is not mirrored by the behavioral data as measured in highly controlled impoverished model tasks. In less controlled tasks, however, such as when observers are left free to look at whatever they want in complex natural scenes...

To date, the reliability of induction of a depressive-like state using chronic stress models is confronted by many methodological limitations. We believe that the modifications to the stress paradigm in mice proposed herein allow some of these limitations to be overcome. Here, we discuss a variant of the standard stress paradigm, which results in anhedonia. This anhedonic state was defined by a...

BACKGROUND: The role of the inferior parietal lobule (IPL) and superior temporal gyrus (STG) or subcortical pathways as possible anatomical correlates of spatial neglect is currently intensely discussed. Some of the conflicting results might have arisen because patients were examined in the acute stage of disease. METHODS: We examined the anatomical basis of spatial neglect in a sample of patie...

Background: In the growing body of literature on economic decision making, the main focus has typically been on explaining aggregate behavior, with little interest in individual differences despite considerable between-subject variability in decision responses. In this study, we were interested in asking to what degree individual differences in fundamental psychological processes can mediate ec...

Background: While there are many psychophysical reports of impaired magnocellular pathway function in developmental dyslexia (DD), few have investigated parietal function, the major projection of this pathway, in good and poor readers closely matched for nonverbal intelligence. In view of new feedforward-feedback theories of visual processing, impaired magnocellular function raises the question...

Background: Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is characterized by a pattern of inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity that is cross-situational, persistent, and produces social and academic impairment. Research has shown that reinforcement processes are altered in ADHD. The dynamic developmental theory has suggested that a steepened delay-of-reinforcement gradient and deficie...

Increased oxidative stress and mitochondrial dysfunction have been identified as common pathophysiological phenomena associated with neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's disease (AD), Parkinson's disease (PD) and Huntington's disease (HD). As the age-related decline in the production of melatonin may contribute to increased levels of oxidative stress in the elderly, the role of this ...

Sleep-wake cycling is controlled by the complex interplay between two brain systems, one which controls vigilance state, regulating the transition between sleep and wake, and the other circadian, which communicates time-of-day. Together, they align sleep appropriately with energetic need and the day-night cycle. Neural circuits connect brain stem sites that regulate vigilance state with the sup...