Based on clinical and functional imaging data, the left anterior insula has been assumed to support prearticulatory functions of speech motor control such as the ''programming'' of vocal tract gestures. In order to further elucidate this model, a recent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study of our group (Riecker, Ackermann,…

Mirror neurons, first described in the rostral part of monkey ventral premotor cortex (area F5), discharge both when the animal performs a goal-directed hand action and when it observes another individual performing the same or a similar action. More recently, in the same area mirror neurons responding to the observation of mouth actions have been…

Following up on an earlier positron emission tomography (PET) experiment (Indefrey et al., 2001), we used a scene description paradigm to investigate whether a posterior inferior frontal region subserving syntactic encoding for speaking is also involved in syntactic parsing during listening. In the language production part of the experiment,…

An adult of above normal intelligence, BL, underwent left hemispherectomy at age five, and subsequently graduated from college and has been regularly employed. Using standardized neuropsychological instruments, previous extensive testing had revealed optimal performance for a hemispherectomized subject. To probe communicative abilities in greater…

The split fovea theory proposes that visual word recognition of centrally presented words is mediated by the splitting of the foveal image, with letters to the left of fixation being projected to the right hemisphere (RH) and letters to the right of fixation being projected to the left hemisphere (LH). Two lexical decision experiments aimed to…

In the present study, using event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging, we investigated a group of participants on a grammaticality classification task after they had been exposed to well-formed consonant strings generated from an artificial regular grammar. We used an implicit acquisition paradigm in which the participants were exposed…

Although children with neurodevelopmental disorders frequently present with reduced short-term memory functioning, the relationship between perisylvian morphology and verbal short-term memory functioning has received limited attention. Thus, examining this relationship in children with neurodevelopmental disorders was the focus of this exploratory…

This study investigated the effects of familiarization and attention on event-related potential (ERP) correlates of recognition memory in infants. Infants 4.5, 6, or 7.5 months of age were either familiarized with 2 stimuli that were used during later testing or presented 2 stimuli that were not used later. Then, infants were presented with a…

We have carried out a global survey of age-related changes in mRNA levels in the 57BL/6NIA mouse hippocampus and found a difference in the hippocampal gene expression profile between 2-month-old young mice and 15-month-old middle-aged mice correlated with an age-related cognitive deficit in hippocampal-based explicit memory formation. Middle-aged…

Little is known about signaling mechanisms underlying temporal associative learning. Here, we show that mice with a targeted point mutation that prevents autophosphorylation of [alpha]CaMKII ([alpha]CaMKII[superscript T286A]) learn trace eyeblink conditioning normally. This forms a sharp contrast to the severely impaired spatial learning in the…

Recent research in cognitive neuroscience has yielded a more comprehensive understanding of brain function. Some of these diagnostic techniques include the event-related potential, which depicts brain electrical activity, and magnetic resonance imaging and positron emission tomography, which are particularly sensitive to the delineation of brain…

Neurophysiological evidence is described showing that some neurons in the macaque inferior temporal visual cortex have responses that are invariant with respect to the position, size and view of faces and objects, and that these neurons show rapid processing and rapid learning. Which face or object is present is encoded using a distributed…

Parenting behavior critically shapes human infants' current and future behavior. The parent-infant relationship provides infants with their first social experiences, forming templates of what they can expect from others and how to best meet others' expectations. In this review, we focus on the neurobiology of parenting behavior, including our own…

Recent brain mapping studies have provided new insights into the cortical systems that mediate human speech perception. Electrocortical stimulation mapping (ESM) is a brain mapping method that is used clinically to localize cortical functions in neurosurgical patients. Recent ESM studies have yielded new insights into the cortical systems that…

The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) poses constructivist ideas in its "Principles and Standards for School Mathematics" (2000). NCTM supports mathematics instruction that takes a developmental perspective; starts and builds on what children know; and leads children to construct relational understanding, problem-solving…