| 1. |
- Perini, Irene, et al.
(författare)
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Mutation Carriers with Reduced C-Afferent Density Reveal Cortical Dynamics of Pain-Action Relationship during Acute Pain
- 2020
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Ingår i: Cerebral Cortex. - : Oxford University Press. - 1047-3211 .- 1460-2199. ; 30:9, s. 4858-4870
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The evidence that action shapes perception has become widely accepted, for example, in the domain of vision. However, the manner in which action-relevant factors might influence the neural dynamics of acute pain processing has remained underexplored, particularly the functional roles of anterior insula (AI) and midanterior cingulate cortex (mid-ACC), which are frequently implicated in acute pain. To address this, we examined a unique group of heterozygous carriers of the rare R221W mutation on the nerve growth factor (NGF) gene. R221W carriers show a congenitally reduced density of C-nociceptor afferent nerves in the periphery, but can nonetheless distinguish between painful and nonpainful stimulations. Despite this, carriers display a tendency to underreact to acute pain behaviorally, thus exposing a potential functional gap in the pain-action relationship and allowing closer investigation of how the brain integrates pain and action information. Heterozygous R221W carriers and matched controls performed a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) task designed to dissociate stimulus type (painful or innocuous) from current behavioral relevance (relevant or irrelevant), by instructing participants to either press or refrain from pressing a button during thermal stimulation. Carriers subjective pain thresholds did not differ from controls, but the carrier group showed decreased task accuracy. Hemodynamic activation in AI covaried with task performance, revealing a functional role in pain-action integration with increased responses for task-relevant painful stimulation ("signal," requiring button-press execution) over task-irrelevant stimulation ("noise," requiring button-press suppression). As predicted, mid-ACC activation was associated with action execution regardless of pain. Functional connectivity between AI and mid-ACC increased as a function of reported urge to withdraw from the stimulus, suggesting a joint role for these regions in motivated action during pain. The carrier group showed greater activation of primary sensorimotor cortices-but not the AI and mid-ACC regions-during pain and action, suggesting compensatory processing. These findings indicate a critical role for the AI-mid-ACC axis in supporting a flexible, adaptive action selection during pain, alongside the accompanying subjective experience of an urge to escape the pain.
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| 2. |
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| 3. |
- van Ettinger-Veenstra, Helene, 1982-, et al.
(författare)
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Language deficits in Epilepsy, an fMRI study
- 2012
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Cognitive functions in people with epilepsy are affected by focality, number of generalized seizures, side effects of antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) or the underlying disease (Kwan, 2001). Newly diagnosed patients have cognitive deficits even before starting on AEDs. Performance declines already in the first year after diagnosis and the impairment continues in the following years (Taylor, 2010; Baker, 2011). In mesial temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) the hippocampal damage seems to be progressive and accompanied by thinning of neocortex (Briellmann, 2002; Bernhardt, 2009). Widespread structural and functional abnormalities in left TLE can affect more distant networks (Bonilha, 2009); a damage pattern also seen in right TLE (Karunanayaka, 2011).
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| 4. |
- van Ettinger-Veenstra, Helene, 1982-, et al.
(författare)
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Laterality shifts in neural activation coupled to language ability
- 2013
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Annan publikation (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The right-hemispheric homologues to Broca’s and Wernicke’s area play an important, but currently poorly understood role in language ability. In the current study, we tested 27 healthy adults for their language ability. We acquired functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data when the participants performed a sentence reading and a word fluency task. The fMRI data were used to calculate a measure of brain laterality – the laterality index – in the inferior frontal gyrus, the superior and middle temporal gyrus, and the angular gyrus. These laterality measurements were correlated with performance scores on language tasks administered prior to fMRI. We expected to see that high performance was characterized by a more efficient, i.e. decreased, neural activation pattern in typical language areas. Furthermore, we expected to see activation in additional, right-hemispheric brain regions in high performing subjects as a sign of neural adaptability.High performance in a test measuring subtle language deficits (BeSS test) was related to increased activation in the right middle temporal gyrus when the participants were reading sentences. Thus, semantic ability correlated negatively with laterality in the temporal lobe, but not in the frontal lobe. For increased verbal fluency ability, we did observe a decreased left-hemispheric dominance in the inferior frontal gyrus when the participants were generating words. Increased task demands in the word generation task were not related to brain activation, but in the sentence reading task, the bilateral inferior frontal gyrus did exhibit an increase in activation when the sentences increased in difficulty. This result was independent of individual language ability. Increased brain activation at increased difficulty of a language task is interpreted as a sign that the brain recruits additional resources upon higher demands. The negative correlation between language ability and laterality in the in right-hemispheric middle temporal gyrus indicates a higher degree of neural adaptability in the temporal lobes of high skilled individuals.
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| 5. |
- van Ettinger-Veenstra, Helene M, 1982-, et al.
(författare)
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Neuroimaging of decoding and language comprehension in young very low birth weight (VLBW) adolescents : Indications for compensatory mechanisms
- 2017
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Ingår i: PLOS ONE. - San Francisco, United States : Public Library of Science. - 1932-6203. ; 12:10
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In preterm children with very low birth weight (VLBW amp;lt;= 1500 g), reading problems are often observed. Reading comprehension is dependent on word decoding and language comprehension. We investigated neural activation-within brain regions important for reading-related to components of reading comprehension in young VLBW adolescents in direct comparison to normal birth weight (NBW) term-born peers, with the use of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). We hypothesized that the decoding mechanisms will be affected by VLBW, and expect to see increased neural activity for VLBW which may be modulated by task performance and cognitive ability. The study investigated 13 (11 included in fMRI) young adolescents (ages 12 to 14 years) born preterm with VLBW and in 13 NBW controls (ages 12-14 years) for performance on the Block Design and Vocabulary subtests of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children; and for semantic, orthographic, and phonological processing during an fMRI paradigm. The VLBW group showed increased phonological activation in left inferior frontal gyrus, decreased orthographic activation in right supramarginal gyrus, and decreased semantic activation in left inferior frontal gyrus. Block Design was related to altered right-hemispheric activation, and VLBW showed lower WISC Block Design scores. Left angular gyrus showed activation increase specific for VLBW with high accuracy on the semantic test. Young VLBW adolescents showed no accuracy and reaction time performance differences on our fMRI language tasks, but they did exhibit altered neural activation during these tasks. This altered activation for VLBW was observed as increased activation during phonological decoding, and as mainly decreased activation during orthographic and semantic processing. Correlations of neural activation with accuracy on the semantic fMRI task and with decreased WISC Block Design performance were specific for the VLBW group. Together, results suggest compensatory mechanisms by recruiting additional brain regions upon altered neural development of decoding for VLBW.
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| 6. |
- van Ettinger-Veenstra, Helene, 1982-
(författare)
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Mind your Language, All Right? Performance-dependent neural patterns of language
- 2013
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The main aim of this dissertation was to investigate the difference in neural language patternsrelated to language ability in healthy adults. The focus lies on unraveling the contributions of theright‐hemispheric homologues to Broca’s area in the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and Wernicke’s areain the posterior temporal and inferior parietal lobes. The functions of these regions are far from fullyunderstood at present. Two study populations consisting of healthy adults and a small group ofpeople with generalized epilepsy were investigated. Individual performance scores in tests oflanguage ability were correlated with brain activation obtained with functional magnetic resonanceimaging during semantic and word fluency tasks. Performance‐dependent differences were expectedin the left‐hemispheric Broca’s and Wernicke’s area and in their right‐hemispheric counterparts.PAPER I revealed a shift in laterality towards right‐hemispheric IFG and posterior temporal lobeactivation, related to high semantic performance. The whole‐brain analysis results of PAPER IIrevealed numerous candidate regions for language ability modulation. PAPER II also confirmed thefinding of PAPER I, by showing several performance‐dependent regions in the right‐hemispheric IFGand the posterior temporal lobe.In PAPER III, a new study population of healthy adults was tested.Again, the right posterior temporal lobe was related to high semantic performance. A decrease in lefthemisphericIFG activation could be linked to high word fluency ability. In addition, task difficultywas modulated. Increased task complexity showed to correlate positively with bilateral IFGactivation.Lastly, PAPER IV investigated anti‐correlated regions. These regions are commonly knownas the default mode network (DMN) and are normally suppressed during cognitive tasks. It wasfound that people with generalized epilepsy had an inadequate suppression of regions in the DMN,and showed poorer performance in a complex language test. The results point to neural adaptabilityin the IFG and temporal lobe. Decreased left‐lateralization of the IFG and increased rightlateralizationof the posterior temporal lobe are proposed as characteristics of individuals with highlanguage ability.
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| 7. |
- van Ettinger-Veenstra, Helene, 1982-, et al.
(författare)
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Right-hemispheric cortical contributions to language ability in healthy adults
- 2012
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Ingår i: Brain and Language. - : Elsevier. - 0093-934X .- 1090-2155. ; 120:3, s. 395-400
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In this study we investigated the correlation between individual linguistic ability based on performance levels and their engagement of typical and atypical language areas in the brain. Eighteen healthy subjects between 21 and 64 years participated in language ability tests, and subsequent functional MRI scans measuring brain activity in response to a sentence completion and a word fluency task. Performance in both reading and high-level language tests correlated positively with increased right-hemispheric activation in the inferior frontal gyrus (specifically Brodmann area 47), the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), and the medial temporal gyrus (Brodmann area 21). In contrast, we found a negative correlation between performance and left-hemispheric DLPFC activation. Our findings indicate that the right lateral frontal and right temporal regions positively modulate aspects of language ability.
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