Predictive processing (PP) approaches to the mind are increasingly popular in the cognitive sciences. This surge of interest is accompanied by a proliferation of philosophical arguments, which seek to either extend or oppose various aspects of the emerging framework. In particular, the question of how to position predictive processing with respect to enactive and embodied cognition has become a topic of intense debate. While these arguments are certainly of valuable scientific and philosophical merit, they risk underestimating the variety of approaches gathered under the predictive label. Here, we first present a basic review of neuroscientific, cognitive, and philosophical approaches to PP, to illustrate how these range from solidly cognitivist applications—with a firm commitment to modular, internalistic mental representation—to more moderate views emphasizing the importance of ‘body-representations’, and finally to those which fit comfortably with radically enactive, embodied, and dynamic theories of mind. Any nascent predictive processing theory (e.g., of attention or consciousness) must take into account this continuum of views, and associated theoretical commitments. As a final point, we illustrate how the Free Energy Principle (FEP) attempts to dissolve tension between internalist and externalist accounts of cognition, by providing a formal synthetic account of how internal ‘representations’ arise from autopoietic self-organization. The FEP thus furnishes empirically productive process theories (e.g., predictive processing) by which to guide discovery through the formal modelling of the embodied mind.
Language control in the bilingual brain has remained in the limelight of research over the past decades. However, the mechanisms underlying bilingual language control may be more intricate than typically assumed due to the hierarchical nature of language. This study aimed to investigate the dynamics of bilingual language control at the phonetic level. Participants, who were speakers of Chinese, English and German, named the letters of the alphabet in English (L2) or German (L3) following an alternating language-switching paradigm. Two sets of letters were selected, differing in the phonological similarity of their pronunciation across the two languages, thereby allowing the exploration of cross-language phonological influences. Each participant completed two sessions of letter-naming tasks. In one session, seven phonologically similar letters were randomly repeated either in single-language blocks or in alternate-language blocks. In the other session, seven phonologically dissimilar letters were similarly manipulated. The results indicated local inhibition, reflected by switch costs and global inhibition, reflected by mixing costs. Reversed language dominance, another indicator of global inhibition, was not observed. However, there was a tendency for larger global inhibition to be applied to the more dominant language. Moreover, there was significantly faster naming for phonologically similar letters compared to dissimilar ones, suggesting a facilitation effect for both English and German, irrespective of whether letter naming occurred in single- or alternate-language blocks. These findings provided evidence for the role of inhibitory and facilitative mechanisms at the phonetic level, suggesting language-specific control in the bilingual brain and underscoring the complexity and dynamics of managing language control across multiple levels of processing.
Zhou Fang,1 Sijie An,1 Xixi Sun,1 Jialu Li,1 Jiajia Jiao,1 Yunfei Yin,1 Ling Wei,1,2 Kai Wang,1,2 Chengjuan Xie,1,2 Xingui Chen,1,3 Yubao Jiang1,2 1Department of Neurology, the First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University, Hefei, People’s Republic of China; 2Anhui Province Key Laboratory of Cognition and Neuropsychiatric Disorders, Hefei, People’s Republic of China; 3Department of Neurology, Yuexi County Hospital, Anqing, People’s Republic of ChinaCorrespondence: Xingui Chen, Department of Neurology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University, Hefei, Anhui, 230022, People’s Republic of China, Email chen_xin_gui@126.com Yubao Jiang, Department of Neurology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University, Hefei, Anhui, 230022, People’s Republic of China, Email jiangyubao1982@126.comObjective: Autoimmune encephalitis (AE) is a severe neurological disorder often associated with seizures, but the risk factors for seizures in AE remain unclear. This study aimed to compare the clinical features and laboratory results between AE patients with and without seizures, focusing on the potential role of peripheral blood (PB) eosinophil counts as a predictive biomarker for seizures.Methods: A retrospective cohort study was conducted on 106 AE patients admitted to the First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University. Patients were divided into two groups based on seizure presence: the seizure group (n=48) and the non-seizure group (n=58). A control group of 34 patients with AQP4-IgG-positive neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorder (NMOSD) was included. A control group of 34 patients with AQP4-IgG-positive neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorder (NMOSD), a demyelinating condition not typically associated with neuronal autoantibodies or seizures, was included for comparison. Clinical features and laboratory results were compared, with statistical analysis including univariate and multivariate logistic regression, as well as receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis.Results: The seizure group had significantly higher rates of prodromal symptoms, impaired consciousness, cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) protein (> 0.45g/L) and CSF glucose levels, blood-brain barrier (BBB) dysfunction, and PB eosinophil counts compared to the non-seizure and control groups (all P< 0.05). PB eosinophil counts were identified as an independent predictor of seizures.Conclusion: Specific clinical and laboratory features are closely associated with seizures in AE. Increased PB eosinophil counts may serve as a novel biomarker for seizure risk in AE patients.Keywords: autoimmune encephalitis, seizures, eosinophils, neuroinflammation
Tarcya L. G. Couto Patriota, Rodrigo Pinto Pedrosa
Objective Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a major public health problem of pandemic proportions. In-laboratory OSA diagnosis and continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) titration are insufficient, considering the number of patients affected. Finding alternative ways to diagnose and treat OSA is mandatory, especially in this era of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. The present study aims to describe an alternative in-home protocol to diagnose and treat OSA.
Various countries and US States have legalized cannabis, and the use of the psychoactive1 and non-psychoactive cannabinoids is steadily increasing. In this review, we have collated evidence from published non-clinical and clinical sources to evaluate the abuse, dependence and associated safety risks of the individual cannabinoids present in cannabis. As context, we also evaluated various synthetic cannabinoids. The evidence shows that delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol (Δ9-THC) and other psychoactive cannabinoids in cannabis have moderate reinforcing effects. Although they rapidly induce pharmacological tolerance, the withdrawal syndrome produced by the psychoactive cannabinoids in cannabis is of moderate severity and lasts from 2 to 6 days. The evidence overwhelmingly shows that non-psychoactive cannabinoids do not produce intoxicating, cognitive or rewarding properties in humans. There has been much speculation whether cannabidiol (CBD) influences the psychoactive and potentially harmful effects of Δ9-THC. Although most non-clinical and clinical investigations have shown that CBD does not attenuate the CNS effects of Δ9-THC or synthetic psychoactive cannabinoids, there is sufficient uncertainty to warrant further research. Based on the analysis, our assessment is cannabis has moderate levels of abuse and dependence risk. While the risks and harms are substantially lower than those posed by many illegal and legal substances of abuse, including tobacco and alcohol, they are far from negligible. In contrast, potent synthetic cannabinoid (CB1/CB2) receptor agonists are more reinforcing and highly intoxicating and pose a substantial risk for abuse and harm. 1 “Psychoactive” is defined as a substance that when taken or administered affects mental processes, e.g., perception, consciousness, cognition or mood and emotions.
Chiara Avancini, Luis F. Ciria, Clara Alameda
et al.
Abstract Physiological activation fluctuates throughout the day. Previous studies have shown that during periods of reduced activation, cognitive control remains resilient due to neural compensatory mechanisms. In this study, we investigate the effects of high physiological activation on both behavioural and neural markers of cognitive control. We hypothesize that while behavioural measures of cognitive control would remain intact during periods of high activation, there would be observable changes in neural correlates. In our electroencephalography study, we manipulate levels of physiological activation through physical exercise. Although we observe no significant impact on behavioural measures of cognitive conflict, both univariate and multivariate time-frequency markers prove unreliable under conditions of high activation. Moreover, we observe no modulation of whole-brain connectivity measures by physiological activation. We suggest that this dissociation between behavioural and neural measures indicates that the human cognitive control system remains resilient even at high activation, possibly due to underlying neural compensatory mechanisms.
Keith Strasbaugh, Shane Connelly, Jessica Johnston-Fisher
Research suggests that creative task performance may lead to either more positive or negative mood states depending on the type of creative thinking process engaged. While this literature establishes a relationship with mood states, the effects of creativity on specific discrete emotions (i.e., anger, anxiety) remain unexamined. Additionally, the extent to which discrete emotions that are incidental or integral to task context warrants consideration, as the nature of the emotions felt may affect the extent to which they are regulated through creative task performance. Two laboratory studies were conducted in which participants were randomly assigned to be induced with either incidental or integral state anger or state anxiety, and then either generated ideas (study one) or evaluated ideas (study two) prior to self-reporting their emotional states. Results indicated that while integral and incidental state anger are lessened after generating or evaluating ideas, the extent to which one feels anxiety is unaffected by performing either task. Implications of these findings provide new avenues for emotion regulation research and recommendations for utilizing creative processes to mitigate different types of state anger.
Objective The aim of this monocentric observational study is to assess whether sleep disorders can predict financial capacity in single-and multiple-domain aMCI (amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment), mild Alzheimer's Disease (AD), and healthy controls.
Bassam Chakar, Frédéric Senny, Laurent Cambron
et al.
Objective: In adults with sleep complaints, we assessed the software of automatic analysis of mandibular movements to identify sleep and wake states by confrontation with the polysomnography (PSG) and the actigraphy (ACTG).
Material and Methods: Simultaneous and synchronized in-lab PSG, ACTG, and JAWAC were carried out in 100 patients with a sleep complaint. Epoch by epoch analysis was realized to assess the ability to sleep-wake distinction. Sleep parameters as measured by the three devices were compared. These included three regularly reported parameters: total sleep time (TST), sleep onset latency (SOL), and wake after sleep onset (WASO). Also, two supplementary parameters, wake during sleep period (WDSP) and latency to arising (LTA) were added to measure separately the quiet wakefulness states.
Results: The epoch by epoch analysis showed that the JAWAC, as compared to ACTG, classified sleep and wake states with greater specificity, while the overall accuracy and sensitivity of the two devices were comparable. The sleep parameters analysis showed that for the JAWAC estimates, the differences in TST, SOL, and LTA values were not statistically significant. However, WDSP and subsequently WASO were slightly underestimated. In contrast, the dissimilarities between ACTG estimates and PSG measurements of all the above sleep parameters were statistically significant; TST was overestimated whilst SOL, LTA, WDSP, and WASO were underestimated.
Conclusion: This study indicated that, besides its ability to reliably estimate TST, the JAWAC based on mandibular movements’ analysis was able, in adults with sleep complaints, to overcome the important problem of the recognition of the state of quiet wakefulness.
Sleep spindles are thalamocortical oscillations with waxing-waning morphology, which comprise the key electroencephalographic (EEG) hallmark of stage 2 non-rapid eye movement sleep. The functional role of sleep spindles is not sufficiently clear, but there is a large body of literature that indicates the relationship between spindle activity and neural plasticity. Many of the spindle parameters (frequency, configuration, duration, density, and topography) vary significantly throughout life. However, the long duration, asynchrony and sharp morphology are the most distinctive characteristics of sleep spindles in infants. This unique infantile phenotype of sleep spindles typically changes after approximately one year of postnatal life in humans. Considering that EEG reflects brain electrochemical activity, there is evidence to suggest that substantial neurochemical events underlie these changes. In this paper, we hypothesize that the GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid) shift is a key event influencing the sleep spindle phenotype during infancy. We briefly review evidence for the relation between infantile sleep spindles and depolarizing GABA transmission occurring in the developing brain.
Caitlin A. Sisk, Victoria Interrante, Yuhong V. Jiang
Abstract When a visual search target frequently appears in one target-rich region of space, participants learn to search there first, resulting in faster reaction time when the target appears there than when it appears elsewhere. Most research on this location probability learning (LPL) effect uses 2-dimensional (2D) search environments that are distinct from real-world search contexts, and the few studies on LPL in 3-dimensional (3D) contexts include complex visual cues or foraging tasks and therefore may not tap into the same habit-like learning mechanism as 2D LPL. The present study aimed to establish a baseline evaluation of LPL in controlled 3D search environments using virtual reality. The use of a virtual 3D search environment allowed us to compare LPL for information within a participant’s initial field of view to LPL for information behind participants, outside of the initial field of view. Participants searched for a letter T on the ground among letter Ls in a large virtual space that was devoid of complex visual cues or landmarks. The T appeared in one target-rich quadrant of the floor space on half of the trials during the training phase. The target-rich quadrant appeared in front of half of the participants and behind the other half. LPL was considerably greater in the former condition than in the latter. This reveals an important constraint on LPL in real-world environments and indicates that consistent search patterns and consistent egocentric spatial coding are essential for this form of visual statistical learning in 3D environments.
Maíra Glória de Freitas Cardoso, Rodrigo Moreira Faleiro, Jonas Jardim de Paula
et al.
Patients with mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) may present cognitive deficits within the first 24 h after trauma, herein called “acute phase,” which in turn may lead to long-term functional impairment and decrease in quality of life. Few studies investigated cognition in mTBI patients during the acute phase. The objectives of this study were to investigate the cognitive profile of patients with mTBI during the acute phase, compared to controls and normative data, and whether loss of consciousness (LOC), previous TBI and level of education influence cognition at this stage. Fifty-three patients with mTBI (aged 19–64 years) and 28 healthy controls participated in the study. All patients were evaluated at bedside within 24 h post-injury. Demographic and clinical data were registered. Cognitive function was assessed with the Mini-mental state examination (MMSE), the Frontal Assessment Battery (FAB), Digit Span (working memory), and the Visual Memory Test/Brief Cognitive Battery (for episodic memory). The clinical sample was composed mainly by men (58.5%). The mean age was 39 years-old and 64.3% of the patients had more than 8 years of education. The most common causes of mTBI were fall from own height (28.3%), aggression (24.5%), and fall from variable heights (24.5%). Compared to controls, mTBI patients exhibited significantly worse performance on MMSE, FAB, naming, incidental memory, immediate memory, learning, and delayed recall. Compared to normative data, 26.4% of patients had reduced global cognition as measured by the MMSE. Episodic memory impairment (13.2%) was more frequent than executive dysfunction (9.4%). No significant differences were found in cognitive performance when comparing patients with or without LOC or those with or without history of previous TBI. Patients with lower educational level had higher rates of cognitive impairment (VMT naming−28.6 vs. 4.2%; VMT immediate memory−32 vs. 4.2%; VMT learning−39.3 vs. 4.2%, all p < 0.05). In sum, we found significant cognitive impairment in the acute phase of mTBI, which was not associated with LOC or history of TBI, but appeared more frequently in patients with lower educational level.
Lucas Kenzo Miyahara, Renato Stefanini, Vinicius Magalhães Suguri
et al.
Importance: Aesthetic rhinoplasty is the fifth surgical procedure most performed worldwide by
plastic surgeons. With the growing demand for rhinoplasty, there is an unmet need for research into
the profile of patients who seek aesthetic nasal surgery in an attempt to improve not only cosmetic
dissatisfactions, but also the manifestations of other, possibly interrelated disorders, especially sleep
disturbances. Objective: To evaluate the sleep quality and the risk of Obstructive Sleep Apnea in
patients referred for aesthetic rhinoplasty, as well as the association of these conditions with nasal
symptoms. Design: Cross-sectional study performed at the period of June/2016 to August/2017.
Setting: Department of Otolaryngology and Head and Neck Surgery - Universidade Federal de
São Paulo. Participants: Patients of both sexes, aged 18 to 65 years, who were referred for aesthetic
rhinoplasty. We evaluated 46 patients, two of whom were excluded because they were outside the
inclusion age criteria. Main Outcome(s) and Measure(s): Anterior rhinoscopy and the following
validated surveys were used. Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index; Epworth Sleepiness Scale; Nasal
Obstruction Symptom Evaluation scale; Berlin Questionnaire. The visual analog scale for snoring
was also used. Results: Of the 44 participants, 18 (41%) were males and 26 (59%) were females.
82% had poor sleep quality. 46% presented excessive daytime sleepiness. There was a high risk
for Obstructive Sleep Apnea in 27%. Regarding to nasal symptoms, the mean score in the Nasal
Obstructive Symptoms Evaluation was 66.25±25.38. When comparing the groups with good and
poor sleep quality, we observed a higher risk for Obstructive Sleep Apnea (p=0.05) in patients
with poor sleep quality. Patients at high risk for Obstructive Sleep Apnea had higher scores on the
Nasal Obstructive Symptoms Evaluation (p=0.001) and on the analogue snoring scale (p<0.001)
compared to patients at low risk. Conclusions: We observed a high occurrence of poor sleep
quality in participants. All participants who were at high risk for obstructive sleep apnea were also
classified as having poor sleep quality. An association was also observed between the presence of
high risk for obstructive sleep apnea and presence of nasal symptoms.