Is There a Causal Link between the Left Lateralization of Language and Other Brain Asymmetries? A Review of Data Gathered in Patients with Focal Brain Lesions

This review evaluated if the hypothesis of a causal link between the left lateralization of language and other brain asymmetries could be supported by a careful review of data gathered in patients with unilateral brain lesions. In a short introduction a distinction was made between brain activities that could: (a) benefit from the shaping influences of language (such as the capacity to solve non-verbal cognitive tasks and the increased levels of consciousness and of intentionality); (b) be incompatible with the properties and the shaping activities of language (e.g., the relations between language and the automatic orienting of visual-spatial attention or between cognition and emotion) and (c) be more represented on the right hemisphere due to competition for cortical space. The correspondence between predictions based on the theoretical impact of language on other brain functions and data obtained in patients with lesions of the right and left hemisphere was then assessed. The reviewed data suggest that different kinds of hemispheric asymmetries observed in patients with unilateral brain lesions could be subsumed by common mechanisms, more or less directly linked to the left lateralization of language.

Structured connectivity in the cerebellum enables noise-resilient pattern separation

The cerebellum is thought to detect and correct errors between intended and executed commands1-3 and is critical for social behaviors, cognition and emotion4-6. Computations for motor control must be performed quickly to correct errors in real time and should be sensitive to small differences between patterns for fine error correction while being resilient to noise7. Influential theories of cerebellar information processing have largely assumed random network connectivity, which increases the encoding capacity of the network's first layer8-13. However, maximizing encoding capacity reduces resiliency to noise7. To understand how neuronal circuits address this fundamental tradeoff, we mapped the feedforward connectivity in the mouse cerebellar cortex using automated large-scale transmission electron microscopy (EM) and convolutional neural network-based image segmentation. We found that both the input and output layers of the circuit exhibit redundant and selective connectivity motifs, which contrast with prevailing models. Numerical simulations suggest these redundant, non-random connectivity motifs increase discriminability of similar input patterns at a minimal cost to the network's overall encoding capacity. This work reveals how neuronal network structure can balance encoding capacity and redundancy, unveiling principles of biological network architecture with implications for artificial neural network design.

Inducing Amnesia for Unwanted Memories through Subliminal Reactivation

Traumatic memories contribute to psychological conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder and phobias. Treatment of these disorders may benefit from techniques that reduce the accessibility of unwanted memories and their impact on cognition and emotion. Procedures such as retrieval suppression, associative interference, and reconsolidation disruption, though effective in inducing forgetting, involve exposure to the traumatic event, which is aversive and carries risks to the patient. But is explicit awareness of traumatic content truly necessary for effective voluntary forgetting? Recently, intentionally suppressing (i.e., stopping) retrieval of a memory in response to a reminder has been shown to temporarily interrupt hippocampal function. Disrupting hippocampal function through retrieval suppression induces an amnesic shadow that impairs the encoding and stabilization of unrelated “innocent bystander” memories that are activated near in time to people’s effort to suppress retrieval. Building on this mechanism, we successfully disrupted retention of unpleasant memories by subliminally reactivating them within this amnesic shadow window (on 88 participants across two experiments). Following the characteristics of retrieval suppression, the amnesic shadow disrupted memory for the subliminally reactivated events and induced forgetting that generalized across retrieval cues. Critically, whereas unconscious forgetting occurred on these affective “innocent bystander” memories, the amnesic shadow itself was induced by conscious suppression of unrelated and benign neutral memories, avoiding direct conscious re-exposure of unwelcome content. Combining the amnesic shadow with subliminal reactivation may offer a new approach to forgetting trauma that bypasses the unpleasantness in conscious exposure to unwanted memories.

Nociceptive stimuli activate the hypothalamus-habenula circuit to inhibit the mesolimbic reward system

Nociceptive signals interact with various regions of the brain, including those involved in physical sensation, reward, cognition, and emotion. Emerging evidence points to a role of nociception in the modulation of the mesolimbic reward system. The mechanism by which nociception affects dopamine (DA) signaling and reward is unclear. The lateral hypothalamus (LH) and the lateral habenula (LHb) receive somatosensory inputs and are structurally connected with the mesolimbic DA system. Here we show that the LH-LHb pathway is necessary for nociceptive modulation of this system. Our extracellular single-unit recordings and head-mounted microendoscopic calcium imaging revealed that nociceptive stimulation by tail-pinch excited LHb and LH neurons, which was inhibited by chemical lesion of the LH. Tail-pinch decreased extracellular DA release in the nucleus accumbens ventrolateral shell, which was blocked by disruption of the LH. Furthermore, tail-pinch attenuated cocaine-induced locomotor activity, 50-kHz ultrasonic vocalizations and reinstatement of cocaine-seeking behavior, which was inhibited by chemogenetic silencing of the LH-LHb pathway. Our findings suggest that nociceptive stimulation recruits the LH-LHb pathway to inhibit mesolimbic DA system and drug reinstatement.

Enactive Emotion In Forensic Practice: The Application of Embodied Cognitive and Affective Science to Offender Rehabilitation Programs

<p>In recent years, affective science has seen a shift in the understanding of emotion and its relationship to cognition. No longer is cognition viewed as the only significant factor in determining emotional experience, and as fundamentally distinct from bodily feeling. Rather than a linear causal relationship between one and the other, the philosophy and cognitive science of Enactivism suggests that the cognitive and emotional elements of experience, along with the body and surrounding environment, are constitutive of each other, and continuously influence each other in a dynamic, multidirectional manner to produce the experience of emotional patterns (Colombetti & Thompson, 2008). However, despite these advances in emotion theory, current rehabilitation programs such as the Reasoning and Rehabilitation (R&R, Ross et al., 2016) program continue to understand cognition and emotion as functionally distinct components of experience, with deficits conceptualised in mainly cognitive terms, and targeted through Cognitive Skills, which largely neglect the emotional elements of experience. This thesis explores how an enactivist understanding of emotion can be applied to offender rehabilitation programs, with specific reference to the R&R program. It is concluded that R&R and similar programs would benefit significantly from revisions to conceptualisations of cognitive deficits, and in treatment components, which should integrate emotional and cognitive techniques.</p>

Enactive Emotion In Forensic Practice: The Application of Embodied Cognitive and Affective Science to Offender Rehabilitation Programs

<p>In recent years, affective science has seen a shift in the understanding of emotion and its relationship to cognition. No longer is cognition viewed as the only significant factor in determining emotional experience, and as fundamentally distinct from bodily feeling. Rather than a linear causal relationship between one and the other, the philosophy and cognitive science of Enactivism suggests that the cognitive and emotional elements of experience, along with the body and surrounding environment, are constitutive of each other, and continuously influence each other in a dynamic, multidirectional manner to produce the experience of emotional patterns (Colombetti & Thompson, 2008). However, despite these advances in emotion theory, current rehabilitation programs such as the Reasoning and Rehabilitation (R&R, Ross et al., 2016) program continue to understand cognition and emotion as functionally distinct components of experience, with deficits conceptualised in mainly cognitive terms, and targeted through Cognitive Skills, which largely neglect the emotional elements of experience. This thesis explores how an enactivist understanding of emotion can be applied to offender rehabilitation programs, with specific reference to the R&R program. It is concluded that R&R and similar programs would benefit significantly from revisions to conceptualisations of cognitive deficits, and in treatment components, which should integrate emotional and cognitive techniques.</p>