Based on the theoretical analysis of self-consciousness concepts, we hypothesized that the spatio-temporal pattern of functional connectivity within the default-mode network (DMN) should persist unchanged across a variety of different cognitive tasks or acts, thus being task-unrelated. This supposition is in contrast with current understanding…

Serotonin is a fundamental neuromodulator in both vertebrate and invertebrate nervous systems, with a suspected role in many human mental disorders. Yet, because of the complexity of serotonergic function, researchers have been unable to agree on a general theory. One function suggested for serotonin systems is the avoidance of threat. We propose…

One current conceptualization of attention subdivides it into functions of alerting, orienting, and executive control. Alerting describes the function of tonically maintaining the alert state and phasically responding to a warning signal. Automatic and voluntary orienting are involved in the selection of information among multiple sensory inputs.…

Adolescence is a developmental period that entails substantial changes in affective and incentive-seeking behavior relative to both childhood and adulthood, including a heightened propensity to engage in risky behaviors and experience persistent negative and labile mood states. This review discusses the emotional and incentive-driven behavioral…

Many authors have endorsed the hypothesis that previous emotional experiences may exert a covert influence on behavior, but some findings and replications of the original studies challenged this view. We investigated this topic by carrying out an experiment with the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT), where a dissociation procedure was adopted to…

Schizophrenia may be associated with a fundamental disturbance in the temporal coordination of information processing in the brain, leading to classic symptoms of schizophrenia such as thought disorder and disorganized and contextually inappropriate behavior. Despite the growing interest and centrality of time-dependent conceptualizations of the…

The relationship between two classes of retrieval process--retrieval orientation and retrieval effort--was investigated using electrophysiological (ERP) and behavioural measures. ERPs were recorded during retrieval phases of exclusion tasks in which participants focused on retrieval of either phonological or semantic associates that were generated…

Extinction of operantly conditioned responses, which provides a measure of the ability to adapt to changes in the reinforcement value of stimuli, has been linked to orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) in human and non-human animals. This article examines the feasibility of using extinction as a measure of the development of OFC function in preschool-age…

It has been suggested that neglect patients misrepresent the metric spatial relations along the horizontal axis (anisometry). The ''fabric'' of their internal spatial medium would be distorted in such a way that physically equal distances appear relatively shorter on the contralesional side (canonical anisometry). The case of GL, a 76-year-old…