1,720,974 research outputs found

    Le tecniche di indagine cerebrale

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    Le scienze cognitive del linguaggio indagano il modo specificamente umano in cui il linguaggio si connette con gli altri processi cognitivi. Il volume guida il lettore nei vari ambiti che costituiscono lo scenario della disciplina: dalla filosofia alla linguistica, dall'Intelligenza Artificiale alla psicologia, alla biologia fino alle patologie del linguaggio. Ne risulta una descrizione integrata del fenomeno linguistico che fa riferimento sia alla riflessione sull'evoluzione della capacità umana di parlare, sia alle più recenti scoperte scientifiche

    Stimulus-driven modulation of motor-evoked potentials during observation of others' pain.

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    Empathy may allow interindividual sharing not only of emotions (e.g., joy, sadness, disgust) but also of sensations (e.g., touch, itching, pain). Although empathy for pain may rely upon both sensory and affective components of the pain experience, neuroimaging studies indicate that only the affective component of the pain matrix is involved in empathy for pain. By using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), we highlighted the sensorimotor side of empathy for pain by showing a clear motor inhibition during the mere observation of needles penetrating body parts of a human model. Here, we explored stimulus-specific and instruction-specific influences on this inhibition by manipulating task instructions (request to adopt first- or third-person perspective vs. passive observation) and painfulness of the experimental stimuli (presentation of videos of needles deeply penetrating or simply pinpricking a hand). We found a significant reduction in amplitudes of motor-evoked potentials (MEPs) specific to the muscle the subjects observed being penetrated that correlated with the intensity of the pain attributed to the model. Crucially, this motor inhibition was present during observation of penetrating but not of pinpricking needles. Moreover, no MEPs modulation contingent upon different task instructions was found. Results suggest that the motor inhibition elicited by the observation of 'flesh and bone' pain stimuli is more stimulus-driven than instruction-driven

    Left hemisphere dominance in reading the sensory qualities of others' pain?

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    Seeing or imagining others in pain may activate both the sensory and affective components of the neural network (pain matrix) that is activated during the personal experience of pain. Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), proved adept at highlighting the sensorimotor side of empathy for pain in studies where mere observation of needles penetrating body parts of a human model brought about a clear corticospinal motor inhibition. By using TMS, we investigated whether inferring the sensory properties of the pain of a model influenced the somatomotor system of an onlooker. Moreover, we tested the possible lateralization of the motor substrates underlying this reading process. We recorded motor-evoked potentials (MEPs) to left and right motor cortex stimulation during the observation of "flesh and bone" painful stimulations of right and left hands respectively. We found a significant reduction of onlookers' MEPs amplitudes specific to the muscle penetrated in the model. Subjective inferences about localization and intensity of the observed pain were associated with specific patterns of motor modulation with larger inhibitory effects following stimulation of the left motor cortex. Thus, results indicate that the mental simulation of the sensory qualities of others' pain may be lateralized to the left hemisphere

    Exploring social touch in autistic and non-autistic adults via a self-report body-painting task: The role of sex, social context and body area

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    : What is already known about the topic?At least in neurotypical individuals, social touch represents an important channel for emotional communication associated with social bonding and pain/anxiety modulation. Autistic adults report to avoid social touch more and to have different tactile sensitivity than their non-autistic comparisons.What this paper adds?Few studies specifically investigated social touch in autistic individuals, and none of them examined the role of participants' sex, social context in which social touch occurs, and specific body areas being touched. In our study, adult participants reported how pleasant, erogenous and appropriate they would consider touches delivered by another person over their entire body in intimate (date), friendly (dance class) and professional (physiotherapy-massage session) social contexts. Autistic adults reported social touch to be less pleasant, erogenous and appropriate specifically in intimate and friendly social contexts and in body areas typically touched in these situations. Importantly, autistic females seem more at risk to experience unpleasant social touch as, although they considered it more unpleasant than non-autistic females and autistic males, they did consider it similarly appropriate in professional social contexts where touch is normed to be socially appropriate.Implications for practice, research or policyOur results might improve awareness and understanding about autistic adults' different, and often more discomforting, experience of social touch and thus help consider and respect it during everyday social interactions. Our results might also benefit future research investigating, for instance, the neural underpinnings of social touch differences in autism or aiming at developing support for autistic individuals seeking help in the diverse spheres of social touch

    Self-identification with another person's face. The time relevant role of multimodal brain areas in the enfacement illusion

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    Illusory subjective experience of looking at one's own face while in fact looking at another person's face can surprisingly be induced by simple synchronized visuo-tactile stimulation of the two faces. Recently, Apps and colleagues (Cerebral Cortex, 2014) investigated for the first time the role of visual unimodal and temporo-parietal multimodal brain areas in the enfacement illusion, and suggested a model in which multisensory mechanisms are crucial to construct and update self-face representation
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