Activity In Temporoparietal Junction Research Articles

Successful modulation of temporoparietal junction activity and stimulus-driven attention by fNIRS-based neurofeedback—A randomized controlled proof-of-concept study

Abstract The right temporoparietal junction (rTPJ) is a core hub in neural networks associated with reorienting of attention and social cognition. However, it remains unknown whether participants can learn to actively modulate their rTPJ activity via neurofeedback. Here, we explored the feasibility of functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS)-based neurofeedback in modulating rTPJ activity and its effect on rTPJ functions such as reorienting of attention and visual perspective taking. In a bidirectional regulation control group design, 50 healthy participants were reinforced to either up- or downregulate rTPJ activation over 4 days of training. Both groups showed an increase in rTPJ activity right from the beginning of the training but only the upregulation group maintained this effect, while the downregulation group showed a decline from the initial rTPJ activation. This suggests a learning effect in the downregulation exclusively, making it challenging to draw definitive conclusions about the effectiveness of rTPJ upregulation training. However, we observed group-specific effects on the behavioral level. We found a significant group x time interaction effect in the performance of the reorienting of attention task and group-specific changes, with decreased reaction times (RTs) in the upregulation group and increased RTs in the downregulation group across all conditions after the neurofeedback training. Those with low baseline performance showed greater improvements. In the perspective-taking task, however, only time effects were observed that were non-group-specific. These findings demonstrate that fNIRS-based neurofeedback is a feasible method to modulate rTPJ functions with preliminary evidence of neurophysiologically specific effects, thus paving the way for future applications of non-invasive rTPJ modulation in neuropsychiatric disorders.

Anodal tDCS over TPJ reduces bidding in Tullock contest: Implications for social decision-making

Contests, as economic, political, and social interactions, can stimulate high levels of effort, but they can also lead to inefficient expenditure of effort (overbidding), resulting in the wastage of social resources. Prior studies have indicated that the temporoparietal junction (TPJ) is associated with overbidding and speculating on the intentions of others during contests. This study aimed to investigate the neural mechanisms of the TPJ in overbidding and to examine changes in bidding behavior after modulating TPJ activity using transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS). The experiment randomly allocated participants into three groups, each receiving either anodal stimulation of the LTPJ/RTPJ or sham stimulation. Following the stimulation, the participants engaged in the Tullock rent-seeking game. Our results revealed that participants who received anodal stimulation of the LTPJ and RTPJ significantly reduced their bids compared to the sham group, possibly due to enhanced accuracy in guessing others' strategies or enhanced altruistic preferences. Moreover, our findings suggest that while both the LTPJ and RTPJ are associated with overbidding behavior, anodal tDCS targeting the RTPJ is more effective than stimulation of the LTPJ in decreasing overbidding. The aforementioned revelations offer proof of the neural mechanisms of the TPJ in overbidding and provide fresh substantiation for the neural mechanisms of social behavior.

Heterogeneity of social cognition between visual perspective-taking and theory of mind in the temporo-parietal junction

Visual perspective taking (VPT), particularly level 2 VPT (VPT2), which allows an individual to understand that the same object can be seen differently by others, is related to the theory of mind (ToM), because both functions require a decoupled representation from oneself. Although previous neuroimaging studies have shown that VPT2 and ToM activate the temporo-parietal junction (TPJ), it is unclear whether common neural substrates are involved in both functions. To clarify this point, we directly compared the TPJ activation patterns of individual participants performing VPT2 and ToM tasks using functional magnetic resonance imaging and within-subjects design. A whole-brain analysis revealed that VPT2 and ToM activated overlapping areas in the posterior part of the TPJ. In addition, we found that both the peak coordinates and activated regions for ToM were located significantly more anteriorly and dorsally within the bilateral TPJ than those measured during the VPT2 task. We further confirmed that these activated areas were spatially distinct from the nearby extrastriate body area (EBA), visual motion area (MT+), and the posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS) using independent localizer scans. Our findings revealed that VPT2 and ToM have gradient representations, indicating the functional heterogeneity of social cognition within the TPJ.

Altered temporoparietal junction activity during reflected self-evaluation in sub-clinical depression.

Negative self-schema is a core symptom of depression. According to social psychological theories, two types of self-evaluations play important roles in forming the negative self-view: direct self-evaluation (that is, evaluating the self directly through one's first-person perspective introspection) and reflected self-evaluation (which requires theory of mind (ToM) ability, and is evaluating the self through reflecting on a third person's perspective). Although many previous studies have investigated the processing of the direct self-evaluation in depression, few have extended research on the reflected self-evaluation. In the current study, functional magnetic resonance imaging scans were acquired in 26 dysphoric (individuals with elevated number of depressive symptoms) and 28 control participants during both direct and reflected self-evaluation tasks. Two regions of interest were defined within bilateral temporoparietal junctions (TPJs) because their significant role in ToM. Results showed that the dysphoric participants evaluated themselves more negatively than the control participants, regardless of whose perspective they were taking. More importantly, the enhanced TPJs' activations were observed in the control group during the reflected self-evaluation task versus the direct self-evaluation task, whereas no such difference was observed in the dysphoric participants. The results are interpreted in the framework of impaired ToM ability in sub-clinical depression. General Scientific Summary (GSS) Negative self-schema is one of the core symptoms of depression. This study suggests that the negative self-schema reflects not only in direct self-evaluation (i.e. evaluating the self via one's own introspection) but also in reflected self-evaluation (i.e. evaluating the self via others' perspective). Importantly, altered TPJ activity was found during a reflected self-evaluation task among individuals with depressive symptoms. These changes in brain function might be associated with impaired ToM ability in sub-clinical depression.

Anonymity in sharing morally salient news: the causal role of the temporoparietal junction.

Considering the crucial role of morality in shaping one's reputation, exploring factors that modulate people's decision to share morally salient news is important. Previous studies suggested that self-expression and socializing are 2 key factors for news-sharing behaviors, suggesting the key role of anonymity in such decisions. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), the present study focused on how anonymity modulates the sharing of morally salient information, as well as its neural mechanisms. Results showed that compared to moral news, people were more reluctant to share immoral news, especially when they share it with their real names shown. On the neural level, we found that this effect was associated with the activity of the left temporoparietal junction (TPJ), as well as its functional connection to its right counterpart. Dynamic causal modeling analysis revealed the moral valence of news and the anonymity of sharing modulated the effective connectivity between the left TPJ and the middle frontal gyrus as well as the medial frontal gyrus. There was no significant difference when sharing news anonymously. Further, a followed-up tDCS experiment supported the causal role of the left TPJ in this behavioral effect. Taken together, these results suggested that people concern more about social repercussion, when they share the news with their real-names shown, especially when sharing immoral news, and this effect is associated with stronger neural activation in the left TPJ, as well as changes in its functional connectivity with other brain regions.

A neural mechanism underlying predictive visual motion processing in patients with schizophrenia

Psychotic symptoms may be traced back to sensory sensitivity. Thereby, visual motion (VM) processing particularly has been suggested to be impaired in schizophrenia (SCZ). In healthy brains, VM underlies predictive processing within hierarchically structured systems. However, less is known about predictive VM processing in SCZ. Therefore, we performed fMRI during a VM paradigm with three conditions of varying predictability, i.e., Predictable-, Random-, and Arbitrary motion. The study sample comprised 17 SCZ patients and 23 healthy controls. We calculated general linear model (GLM) analysis to assess group differences in VM processing across motion conditions. Here, we identified significantly lower activity in right temporoparietal junction (TPJ) for SCZ patients. Therefore, right TPJ was set as seed for connectivity analyses. For patients, across conditions we identified increased connections to higher regions, namely medial prefrontal cortex, or paracingulate gyrus. Healthy subjects activated sensory regions as area V5, or superior parietal lobule. Reduced TPJ activity may reflect both a failure in the bottom-up flow of visual information and a decrease of signal processing as consequence of increased top-down input from frontal areas. In sum, these altered neural patterns provide a framework for future studies focusing on predictive VM processing to identify potential biomarkers of psychosis.

Aberrant Emotional Prosody Circuitry Predicts Social Communication Impairments in Children With Autism

BackgroundEmotional prosody provides acoustical cues that reflect a communication partner’s emotional state and is crucial for successful social interactions. Many children with autism have deficits in recognizing emotions from voices; however, the neural basis for these impairments is unknown. We examined brain circuit features underlying emotional prosody processing deficits and their relationship to clinical symptoms of autism. MethodsWe used an event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging task to measure neural activity and connectivity during processing of sad and happy emotional prosody and neutral speech in 22 children with autism and 21 matched control children (7–12 years old). We employed functional connectivity analyses to test competing theoretical accounts that attribute emotional prosody impairments to either sensory processing deficits in auditory cortex or theory of mind deficits instantiated in the temporoparietal junction (TPJ). ResultsChildren with autism showed specific behavioral impairments for recognizing emotions from voices. They also showed aberrant functional connectivity between voice-sensitive auditory cortex and the bilateral TPJ during emotional prosody processing. Neural activity in the bilateral TPJ during processing of both sad and happy emotional prosody stimuli was associated with social communication impairments in children with autism. In contrast, activity and decoding of emotional prosody in auditory cortex was comparable between autism and control groups and did not predict social communication impairments. ConclusionsOur findings support a social-cognitive deficit model of autism by identifying a role for TPJ dysfunction during emotional prosody processing. Our study underscores the importance of tuning in to vocal-emotional cues for building social connections in children with autism.

Empathy for others versus for one's child: Associations with mothers' brain activation during a social cognitive task and with their toddlers' functioning.

Caregivers who are higher in dispositional empathy tend to have children with better developmental outcomes; however, few studies have considered the role of child-directed (i.e., "parental") empathy, which may be relevant for the caregiver-child relationship. We hypothesized that mothers' parental empathy during their child's infancy will be a stronger predictor of their child's social-emotional functioning as a toddler than will mothers' dispositional empathy. We further explored whether parental and dispositional empathy have shared or distinct patterns of neural activation during a social-cognitive movie-watching task. In 118 mother-infant dyads, greater parental empathy assessed when infants were 6 months old was associated with more social-emotional competencies and fewer problems in the children 1 year later, even after adjusting for dispositional empathy. In contrast, dispositional empathy was not associated with child functioning when controlling for parental empathy. In a subset of 20 mothers, insula activation was positively associated with specific facets of both dispositional and parental empathy, whereas right temporoparietal junction activation was associated only with parental empathy. Thus, dispositional and parental empathy appear to be dissociable by both brain and behavioral metrics. Parental empathy may be a viable target for interventions, especially for toddlers at risk for developing social-emotional difficulties.

Enhancing Activity in the Right Temporoparietal Junction Modifies the Effect of a High CEO-to-Employee Pay Ratio on the Perceived Investment Potential in the Construction Industry.

As an increasing number of governments require the disclosure of companies’ compensation information, compensation management is becoming an important part of internal management in the construction industry. Although the literature has shown that disclosing a high CEO-to-employee pay ratio will cause various effects on the decision-making of a company’s potential investors, there is little evidence on the neural basis of such effects. Given that previous neuroscience studies have shown that the right temporoparietal junction (TPJ) is associated with altruistic behaviors, this study used transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to explore the role of the right TPJ in the effects of the CEO-to-employee pay ratio on potential investors’ perceived investment potential in the construction industry. The results show that enhancing activity in the right TPJ significantly reduced the perceived investment potential of female participants, especially those with no investment experience, when the company’s CEO-to-employee pay ratio is high compared to when the pay ratio is medium. This effect was not observed in male participants. The mechanisms underlying these effects of tDCS in the right TPJ on the perceived investment potential were also explored. The main contribution of this study lies in its pioneering exploration of the neural basis of investment decision-making regarding the CEO-to-employee pay ratio. Additionally, it reveals individual feature-based differences in the role of the TPJ in investment decision-making and its possible mechanisms.

The Role of the Temporoparietal Junction (TPJ) in the Patient/clinician Interaction During Evoked Pain Treatment – a Hyperscan EEG Study

The patient/clinician relationship is central in clinical therapies for chronic pain and has been linked with treatment efficacy. To assess the brain mechanisms underlying these psychosocial interactions, neurophysiological objective measures are still needed. A recent publication from our team applied functional MRI hyperscanning (synchronized neuroimaging) to demonstrate that patient/clinician brain concordance in the temporoparietal junction (TPJ) was up-regulated following a clinical interaction and this up-regulation was associated with analgesia in fibromyalgia patients. Here we propose a hyperscanning study where the patient/clinician brain response is evaluated using electroencephalography (EEG). This non-invasive neuroimaging technique allowed for an ecologically valid experimental setting with a realistic intervention as well as further characterization of TPJ dynamics in the brain-to-brain model during pain treatment. We recorded EEG simultaneously (28 dyads, 64 channels) from low-back pain patients and acupuncturists during a task with treatment and no-treatment trials in conjunction with evoked cuff pain. Using a liner-inverse approach, we reconstructed the electrical activity from 17 Regions of Interest. Statistical connectivity patterns were obtained by comparing Partial Directed Coherence estimated for treatment and no-treatment trials (α=0.05, FDR corrected) and their properties were summarized by computing the degree of each node (number of connections exchanged between brains involving a specific area). We found that TPJ was one of the dominant nodes connecting patient and clinician brain activity in Theta band. TPJ degree in the patients was significantly higher during treatment trials compared to no-treatment (p<0.01). Additionally, we found increased connectivity in clinicians' TPJ when evoked pain was being observed, but not treated. The key role of the TPJ in the patient/clinician interaction during pain treatment has now been demonstrated by both EEG and fMRI neuroimaging. Future studies will investigate how TPJ activity and concordance can predict]the quality of the patient/clinician interaction and clinical outcomes for a longitudinal treatment. Grant support from R33-AT009306.

Right temporoparietal junction encodes inferred visual knowledge of others

When people make inferences about other people's minds, called theory of mind (ToM), a cortical network becomes active. The right temporoparietal junction (TPJ) is one of the most consistently responsive nodes in that network. Here we used a pictorial, reaction-time, ToM task to study brain activity in the TPJ and other cortical areas. Subjects were asked to take the perspective of a cartoon character and judge its knowledge of a visual display in front of it. The right TPJ showed evidence of encoding information about the implied visual knowledge of the cartoon head. When the subject was led to believe that the head could see a visual change take place, activity in the right TPJ significantly reflected that change. When the head could apparently not see the same visual change take place, activity in the right TPJ no longer significantly reflected that change. The subject could see the change in all cases; the critical factor that affected TPJ activity was whether the subject was led to think the cartoon character could see the change. We also found that whether the beliefs attributed to the cartoon head were true or false did not significantly affect activity in the present paradigm. These results suggest that the right TPJ may play a role in modeling the contents of the minds of others, perhaps more than it participates in evaluating the truth or falsity of that content.

The posterior cerebellum and temporoparietal junction support explicit learning of social belief sequences.

This study tests the hypothesis that the posterior cerebellum is involved in social cognition by identifying and automatizing sequences of social actions. We applied a belief serial reaction time task (Belief SRT task), which requires mentalizing about two protagonists' beliefs about how many flowers they receive. The protagonists' beliefs could either be true or false depending on their orientation (true belief: oriented towards and directly observing the flowers; or false belief: oriented away and knowing only prior information about flowers). A Control SRT task was created by replacing protagonists and their beliefs with shapes and colors. Participants were explicitly told that there was a standard sequence related to the two protagonists' belief orientations (Belief SRT task) or the shapes' colors (Control SRT task). Both tasks included a Training phase where the standard sequence was repeated and a Test phase where this standard sequence was interrupted by random sequences. As hypothesized, compared with the Control SRT task, the Belief SRT task recruited the posterior cerebellar Crus II and the temporoparietal junction (TPJ) more. Faster response times were correlated with less Crus II activation and with more TPJ activation, suggesting that the Crus II supported automatizing the belief sequence while the TPJ supported inferring the protagonists' beliefs. Also as hypothesized, compared with an implicit version of the Belief SRT task (i.e., participants did not know about the existence of sequences; Ma, Pu, et al., 2021b), the cerebellar Crus I &II was engaged less during initial training and automatic application of the sequence, and the cortical TPJ was activated more in processing random sequences.

The role of right temporo-parietal junction in stimulus evaluation

A predominant model of the temporo-parietal junction (TPJ) claims that this region is critical for attentional orienting/reorienting toward an unexpected, but behaviorally significant stimulus. However, recent studies have suggested that the TPJ is also involved in the process of evaluating stimulus, especially matching between external sensory inputs and internal representations. While some studies provide evidence for the involvement of the TPJ in stimulus evaluation, the nature of the evaluative process mediated by the TPJ remains unclear. To address this issue, we tested whether the TPJ activation amplitude and its peak latency is proportional to the demand of the evaluative process. We found that when the amount of sensory evidence for the matching process was abundant, the TPJ was transiently activated. Importantly, the TPJ activation showed a greater and more sustained pattern while the sensory evidence was accumulating for a longer period of time. These findings suggest that the TPJ function is associated with the evaluative process of matching sensory inputs with internal representations, as well as attentional reorienting.

Testosterone reduces generosity through cortical and subcortical mechanisms

Recent evidence has linked testosterone, a major sex hormone, to selfishness in economic decision-making. Here, we aimed to investigate the neural mechanisms through which testosterone reduces generosity by combining functional MRI with pharmacological manipulation among healthy young males in a double-blind, placebo-controlled, between-subject design. After testosterone or placebo gel administration, participants performed a social discounting task in which they chose between selfish options (benefiting only the participant) and generous options (providing also some benefit to another person at a particular social distance). At the behavioral level, testosterone reduced generosity compared to the placebo. At the neural level (n = 60), the temporoparietal junction (TPJ) encoded the other-regarding value of the generous option during generous choices, and this effect was attenuated by testosterone, suggesting that testosterone reduced the consideration of other's welfare as underpinned by TPJ activity. Moreover, TPJ activity more strongly reflected individual differences in generosity in the placebo than the testosterone group. Furthermore, testosterone weakened the relation between the other-regarding value of generous decisions and connectivity between the TPJ and a region extending from the insula into the striatum. Together, these findings suggest that a network encompassing both cortical and subcortical components underpins the effects of testosterone on social preferences.

Large-scale brain networks underlying non-spatial attention updating: Towards understanding the function of the temporoparietal junction

The temporoparietal junction (TPJ) and related areas are activated when a target stimulus appears at unexpected locations in Posner's spatial-cueing paradigm, and also when deviant stimuli are presented within a series of standard events in oddball paradigms. This type of activation corresponds to the ventral attention network (VAN), for regions defined on the basis of the spatial task. However, involvement of the VAN in object-based updating of attention has rarely been examined. In the present study, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate brain responses to (i) invalid targets after category-cueing and (ii) neutrally cued targets deviating in category from the background series of pictures. Bilateral TPJ activation was observed in response to invalidly cued targets, as compared to neutrally cued targets. Reference to the main large-scale brain networks showed that peaks of this activation located in the angular gyrus and inferior parietal lobule belonged to the default mode (DMN) and fronto-parietal networks (FPN), respectively. We found that VAN regions were involved only for simple detection activity. We conclude that spatial and non-spatial reorienting of attention rely on different network underpinnings. Our data suggest that DMN and FPN activity may support the ability to disengage from contextually irrelevant information.

The functional brain networks that underlie visual working memory in the first two years of life

Visual working memory (VWM) is a central cognitive system used to compare views of the world and detect changes in the local environment. This system undergoes dramatic development in the first two years; however, we know relatively little about the functional organization of VWM at the level of the brain. Here, we used image-based functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to test four hypotheses about the spatial organization of the VWM network in early development. Four-month-olds, 1-year-olds, and 2-year-olds completed a VWM task while we recorded neural activity from 19 cortical regions-of-interest identified from a meta-analysis of the adult fMRI literature on VWM. Results showed significant task-specific functional activation near 6 of 19 ROIs, revealing spatial consistency in the brain regions activated in our study and brain regions identified to be part of the VWM network in adult fMRI studies. Working memory related activation was centered on bilateral anterior intraparietal sulcus (aIPS), left temporoparietal junction (TPJ), and left ventral occipital complex (VOC), while visual exploratory measures were associated with activation in right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, left TPJ, and bilateral IPS. Results show that a distributed brain network underlies functional changes in VWM in infancy, revealing new insights into the neural mechanisms that support infants’ improved ability to remember visual information and to detect changes in an on-going visual stream.

O5.3. IMPAIRED LEFT TEMPORAL-PARIETAL JUNCTION FMRI ACTIVITY DURING CATEGORY FLUENCY IN FIRST-EPISODE PSYCHOSIS

BackgroundLanguage impairments are a core feature of schizophrenia. Category fluency is severely impacted, even as early as the first-episode of psychosis (FEP). It remains unclear which brain regions in the early course of schizophrenia are dysfunctional during category fluency. Therefore, we investigated differences in fMRI bold activity during a category fluency task in FEP, with particular attention to left temporo-parietal junction (TPJ) and inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), areas critical to verbal fluency. Our hypothesis was that left TPJ would show overactivity in FEP due to functional dysconnectivity with IFG, thought to modulate TPJ activation.MethodsTwenty-seven FEP and 25 matched healthy controls (HC) completed an overt category fluency task (animal naming) from the MATRICS Consensus Cognitive Battery (MCCB), and a covert category fluency task while BOLD fMRI was acquired. The fMRI task had a total of 10 blocks (30s duration) with two alternating conditions: category and rest. At the beginning of the category condition, a category name (birds, breeds of dogs, fruits and vegetables, fish, flowers and trees) was displayed on the screen, and individuals were instructed to think of items within that category. At the beginning of the rest condition, individuals were instructed to silently repeat the word “rest” to themselves. To isolate the activity related to category exemplar generation, the rest condition and the category condition fMRI data were contrasted using SPM12. An uncorrected cluster-defining primary threshold of p<.001 was used at the voxel level, and an FWE correction was used at the cluster level to correct for multiple comparison.ResultsFEP (47.3±12.1) were significantly less fluent compared to HC (55.8±11.3) in the overt MCCB category fluency task (p =.017). In the fMRI covert fluency task, several regions were activated during the category condition (FWE p<.05), primarily including regions in the language network (IFG and TPJ). The left TPJ activation interacted between groups (pFWE-corr =.016). During the category task, HC deactivated left TPJ, whereas FEP did not.DiscussionFEP have impaired overt category fluency performance, and appear to have deficient deactivation in a region of the left TPJ language area during a category fluency task. TPJ is thought to communicate with Wernicke’s area to translate thoughts into words. Temporal language areas are also thought to be deactivated by IFG during verbal fluency tasks. This fMRI finding is consistent with dysconnectivity between IFG and TPJ during verbal fluency, although future work is needed to definitively address this possible network dysfunction.

Early interpersonal trauma reduces temporoparietal junction activity during spontaneous mentalising.

Experience of interpersonal trauma and violence alters self-other distinction and mentalising abilities (also known as theory of mind, or ToM), yet little is known about their neural correlates. This fMRI study assessed temporoparietal junction (TPJ) activation, an area strongly implicated in interpersonal processing, during spontaneous mentalising in 35 adult women with histories of childhood physical, sexual, and/or emotional abuse (childhood abuse; CA) and 31 women without such experiences (unaffected comparisons; UC). Participants watched movies during which an agent formed true or false beliefs about the location of a ball, while participants always knew the true location of the ball. As hypothesised, right TPJ activation was greater for UCs compared to CAs for false vs true belief conditions. In addition, CAs showed increased functional connectivity relative to UCs between the rTPJ and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex. Finally, the agent’s belief about the presence of the ball influenced participants’ responses (ToM index), but without group differences. These findings highlight that experiencing early interpersonal trauma can alter brain areas involved in the neural processing of ToM and perspective-taking during adulthood.

English spoken word segmentation activates the prefrontal cortex and temporo-parietal junction in Chinese ESL learners: A functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) study

A direct measure of spoken lexical processing based on neuroimaging technology would provide us useful information to understand the neural mechanisms underlying speech or auditory language processing. The neural mechanisms of spoken word segmentation for English as a second language (ESL) learners remain elusive. The present study, using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), addresses this issue by measuring hemodynamic responses in the temporo-parietal junction (TPJ) and the prefrontal cortex (PFC) in a word-spotting task, designed with two task conditions (easy vs. difficult). Thirty participants, divided into a high listening proficiency group (HLG) and a low listening proficiency group (LLG), were tested. Results revealed significantly less TPJ activation in the HLG than in the LLG. Further analyses supported this result by showing that activation in the TPJ was in a negative correlation with listening proficiency. This association appears to be related to the more efficient use of processing resources in a bottom-up fashion for accurate and efficient sensory representations in high proficient language learners. In contrast, cortical activation in the PFC increased with listening proficiency and was stronger in the difficult task condition than in the easy task condition, implying that recruitment of top-down cognitive control functions might play a role in word segmentation. Our results suggest that the combination of the functions mediated via bottom-up sensory input processing (demonstrated in the TPJ activation) and top-down cognitive processing (demonstrated in the PFC activation) are crucial for ESL listeners’ spoken word segmentation.

Brain imaging correlates of self- and other-reflection in schizophrenia.

An alteration in self/other differentiation has been proposed as a basis for several symptoms in schizophrenia, including delusions of reference and social functioning deficits. Dysfunction of the right temporo-parietal junction (TPJ), a region linked with social cognition, has been proposed as the basis of this alteration. However, imaging studies of self- and other-processing in schizophrenia have shown, so far, inconsistent results. Patients with schizophrenia and healthy controls underwent fMRI scanning while performing a task with three conditions: self-reflection, other-reflection and semantic processing. Both groups activated similar brain regions for self- and other-reflection compared to semantic processing, including the medial prefrontal cortex, the precuneus and the TPJ. Compared to healthy subjects, patients hyperactivated the left lateral frontal cortex during self- and other-reflection. In other-reflection, compared to self-reflection, patients failed to increase right TPJ activity. Altered activity in the right TPJ supports a disturbance in self/other differentiation in schizophrenia, which could be linked with psychotic symptoms and affect social functioning in patients. Hyperactivity of the lateral frontal cortex for self- and other-reflection suggests the presence of greater cognitive demand to perform the task in the patient group.