15 research outputs found
A neural signature of food semantics is associated with body-mass index
No full textVisual recognition of objects may rely on different features depending on the category to which they belong. Recognizing natural objects, such as fruits and plants, weighs more on their perceptual attributes, whereas recognizing man-made objects, such as tools or vehicles, weighs more upon the functions and actions they enable. Edible objects are perceptually rich but also prepared for specific functions, therefore it is unclear how perceptual and functional attributes affect their recognition. Two event-related potentials experiments investigated: (i) whether food categorization in the brain is differentially modulated by sensory and functional attributes, depending on whether the food is natural or transformed; (ii) whether these processes are modulated by participants' body mass index. In experiment 1, healthy normal-weight participants were presented with a sentence (prime) and a photograph of a food. Primes described either a sensory feature ('It tastes sweet') or a functional feature ('It is suitable for a wedding party') of the food, while photographs depicted either a natural (e.g., cherry) or a transformed food (e.g., pizza). Prime-feature pairs were either congruent or incongruent. This design aimed at modulating N400-like components elicited by semantic processing. In experiment 1, N400-like amplitude was significantly larger for transformed food than for natural food with sensory primes, and vice versa with functional primes. In experiment 2, underweight and obese women performed the same semantic task. We found that, while the N400-like component in obese participants was modulated by sensory-functional primes only for transformed food, the same modulation was found in underweight participants only for natural food. These findings suggest that the level of food transformation interacts with participants' body mass index in modulating food perception and the underlying brain processing
No fruits without color: Cross-modal priming and EEG reveal different roles for different features across semantic categories.
No full textCategory-specific impairments witnessed in patients with semantic deficits have broadly dissociated into natural and artificial kinds. However, how the category of food (more specifically, fruits and vegetables) fits into this distinction has been difficult to interpret, given a pattern of deficit that has inconsistently mapped onto either kind, despite its intuitive membership to the natural domain. The present study explores the effects of a manipulation of a visual sensory (i.e., color) or functional (i.e., orientation) feature on the consequential semantic processing of fruits and vegetables (and tools, by comparison), first at the behavioral and then at the neural level. The categorization of natural (i.e., fruits/vegetables) and artificial (i.e., utensils) entities was investigated via cross-modal priming. Reaction time analysis indicated a reduction in priming for color-modified natural entities and orientation-modified artificial entities. Standard event-related potentials (ERP) analysis was performed, in addition to linear classification. For natural entities, a N400 effect at central channel sites was observed for the color-modified condition compared relative to normal and orientation conditions, with this difference confirmed by classification analysis. Conversely, there was no significant difference between conditions for the artificial category in either analysis. These findings provide strong evidence that color is an integral property to the categorization of fruits/vegetables, thus substantiating the claim that feature-based processing guides as a function of semantic category
The FoodCast Research Image Database (FRIDa)
No full textIn recent years we have witnessed to an increasing interest in food processing and eating behaviors. This is probably due to several reasons. The biological relevance of food choices, the complexity of the food-rich environment in which we presently live (making food-intake regulation difficult), and the increasing health care cost due to illness associated with food (food hazards, food contamination, and aberrant food-intake). Despite the importance of the issues and the relevance of this research, comprehensive and validated databases of stimuli are rather limited, outdated, or not available for noncommercial purposes to independent researchers who aim at developing their own research program. The FoodCast Research Image Database (FRIDa) we present here is comprised of 877 images from eight different categories: natural-food (e.g., strawberry), transformed-food (e.g., French fries), rotten-food (e.g., moldy banana), natural-nonfood items (e.g., pinecone), artificial food-related objects (e.g., teacup), artificial objects (e.g., guitar), animals (e.g., camel), and scenes (e.g., airport). FRIDa has been validated on a sample of healthy participants (N=73) on standard variables (e.g., valence, familiarity etc.) as well as on other variables specifically related to food items (e.g., perceived calorie content); it also includes data on the visual features of the stimuli (e.g., brightness, high frequency power etc.). FRIDa is a well-controlled, flexible, validated, and freely available (http://foodcast.sissa.it/neuroscience/) tool for researchers in a wide range of academic fields and industry
Topological Data Analysis Predicts Longitudinal Behavioral Change of Fluid Reasoning in the RANN Cohort
No full textTopological Data Analysis Predicts Longitudinal Behavioral Change of Fluid Reasoning in the RANN Cohort
No full textTopological Data Analysis Predicts Longitudinal Behavioral Change of Fluid Reasoning in the RANN Cohort
No full textAdvances in the Systemic Therapy and Combined Modality Approaches for Head and Neck Cancer
No full textThis eBook is a collection of articles from a Frontiers Research Topic. Frontiers Research Topics are very popular trademarks of the Frontiers Journals Series: they are collections of at least ten articles, all centered on a particular subject. With their unique mix of varied contributions from Original Research to Review Articles, Frontiers Research Topics unify the most influential researchers, the latest key findings and historical advances in a hot research area! Find out more on how to host your own Frontiers Research Topic or contribute to one as an author by contacting the Frontiers Editorial Office: frontiersin.org/about/contac
Neural‐cognitive changes across the lifespan: Evidence from reference ability neural network (RANN)
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Corrigendum to “Vitamin D status in children with epilepsy treated with levetiracetam monotherapy” (Epilepsy Research (2018) 148 (116), (S0920121118304431) (10.1016/j.eplepsyres.2018.09.003))
No full textThe authors regret that one author (A. Prasouli) was not included in the authors list. The correct authors list and their affiliations are: Achilleas Attilakos MD a , Maria Tsirouda RN a , Argiris Dinopoulos MD a , Alexia Prasouli MD b , Anastasia Garoufi MD c a Third Department of Pediatrics, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, “Attikon” Hospital, Athens, Greece b Department of Social and Developmental Pediatrics, Institute of Child Health, Athens, Greece c Second Department of Pediatrics, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, “Panagiotis and Aglaia Kyriakou” Children's Hospital Athens, Greece The authors would like to apologize for any inconvenience caused. © 2018 Elsevier B.V
