The present study characterizes the neural correlates of noun and verb imageability and addresses the question of whether components of the neural network supporting word recognition can be separately modified by variations in grammatical class and imageability. We examined the effect of imageability on BOLD signal during single-word comprehension…

This qualitative study investigated written discourse in the form of personal letters written by ten people with aphasia following stroke and ten people with cognitive-language disorder as a consequence of traumatic brain injury, and compared their performance with 15 non brain-damaged writers. Personal letters perform the dual function of…

Although interest in the language sciences was previously focused on newly created sentences, more recently much attention has turned to the importance of formulaic expressions in normal and disordered communication. Also referred to as formulaic expressions and made up of speech formulas, idioms, expletives, serial and memorized speech, slang,…

This study investigated the ability of color and motion to elicit and maintain visual attention in a sample of children with cortical visual impairment (CVI). It found that colorful and moving objects may be used to engage children with CVI, increase their motivation to use their residual vision, and promote visual learning.

This paper engages with questions of logic and its politics to explore how those of us in early childhood education can become critical consumers of "brain research". The research truths we use to construct classroom practices decide the meanings of our actions, thoughts and feelings and our interactions with children. Following Foucault (1980), I…

The influence of neurological and demographic variables on neuropsychological test performance was examined in 100 9- to 16-year-old children with traumatic brain injury (TBI). Regression analyses were conducted to determine the relative contributions of coma, neuroimaging findings, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and gender to variance in…

Testing homogeneity of correlations with Fisher's Z is inappropriate when correlations are themselves correlated. Suppose measurements of brain activation and performance are taken before and during a verbal memory task. Of interest are changes in activity gradients in specific regions, R1, R2, R3, and performance, V. The "correlated correlations"…

According to the Royal National Institute for the Deaf, between eight and nine million people suffer from some form of deafness or loss of hearing. Modern technology, however, together with the work of audiologists such as Karen Shepherd, enables many adults and children to recover near-normal levels of hearing, even when they have suffered some…

Background: The current study examined the neuro-cognitive network of visual word rhyming judgment in 14 children with dyslexia and 14 age-matched control children (8- to 14-year-olds) using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Methods: In order to manipulate the difficulty of mapping orthography to phonology, we used conflicting and…

A fawn at the edge of the woods watches for signs of threat. Any sudden movement is likely to startle and send the fawn darting into the woods. If, however, you don't approach and be still the fawn may ever so cautiously move a step closer.

Background: Intact emotion processing is critical for normal emotional development. Recent advances in neuroimaging have facilitated the examination of brain development, and have allowed for the exploration of the relationships between the development of emotion processing abilities, and that of associated neural systems. Methods: A literature…

While the central nervous system (CNS) is generally thought of as an immunopriviledged site, immune-mediated CNS white matter damage can occur in both the perinatal period and in adults, and can result in severe and persistent neurological deficits. Periventricular leukomalacia (PVL) is an inflammatory white matter disease of premature infants…

Since the identification of the FMR1 gene basic research has been focused on the molecular characterization of the FMR1 gene product, the fragile X mental retardation protein (FMRP). Recent developments in fragile X research have provided new insights and knowledge about the physiological function of FMRP in the cell and the nerve cell in…

Fragile X syndrome is the most common heritable form of mental retardation caused by loss-of-function mutations in the "FMR1" gene. The "FMR1" gene encodes an RNA-binding protein that associates with translating ribosomes and acts as a negative translational regulator. Recent work in "Drosophila melanogaster" has shown that the fly homolog of…

Neuronal and nonneuronal plasticity are both affected by environmental and experiential factors. Remodeling of existing neurons induced by such factors has been observed throughout the brain, and includes alterations in dendritic field dimensions, synaptogenesis, and synaptic morphology. The brain loci affected by these plastic neuronal changes…