No abstract

The aim of this study is to evaluate the data from a participant in a reading study who had a diagnosis of Meares-Irlen syndrome/visual stress (MISViS). MISViS is characterised by visual distortions and somatic issues, which are remediated using coloured filters. The authors present a case study providing descriptive neurobiological comparisons of MISViS versus a control group. The study involved eleven English language speakers who participated in behavioural and neuroimaging versions of a language experiment with varied proportions of regular and exception words. Behavioural measures included accuracy and response times. Neuroimaging was conducted using a 1.5T Siemens Sonata MRI. The MISViS participant's data were removed from the overall experiment and analysed as a case study. Impulse response functions (IRFs) and percentage of active voxels were extracted from four regions of interest: BAs 17, 18, 19, and the postcentral gyrus (PG) and two control regions (BA6 and left BA45). The results indicated that significant differences existed between the control group and the MISViS participant for IRF intensity in two regions (BA6 and PG) and percentage of active voxels in four regions (BA17, BA19, PG, and BA6). No significant differences occurred in left BA45 for either variable of interest. No significant differences were found for behavioural measures. In conclusion, our findings offer one of the first neurobiological descriptions of differences in IRF intensity and percentage of active voxels in visual and somatosensory cortex during a language experiment for a participant with MISViS in the absence of migraine compared to controls.

The ability to gauge social interactions is crucial in the assessment of others' intentions. Factors such as facial expressions and body language affect our decisions in personal and professional life alike (1). These "friend or foe" judgements are often based on first impressions, which in turn may affect our decisions to "approach or avoid". Previous studies investigating the neural correlates of social cognition tended to use static facial stimuli (2). Here, we illustrate an experimental design in which whole-body animated characters were used in conjunction with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) recordings. Fifteen participants were presented with short movie-clips of guest-host interactions in a business setting, while fMRI data were recorded; at the end of each movie, participants also provided ratings of the host behaviour. This design mimics more closely real-life situations, and hence may contribute to better understanding of the neural mechanisms of social interactions in healthy behaviour, and to gaining insight into possible causes of deficits in social behaviour in such clinical conditions as social anxiety and autism (3).

There has been considerable functional neuroimaging support for a dual-pathway neuroanatomical model of reading that distinguishes between a ventral whole-word or lexical stream and a dorsal sub-word or sublexical stream. The relative contribution of these two streams while participants read aloud familiar stimuli, however, still remains unclear. This study investigated the relative involvement of the dorsal and ventral streams during reading of highly familiar stimuli by manipulating the proportion of regular words (REGs; stimuli that can be correctly processed by both ventral and dorsal streams) and exception words (EXCs; stimuli that can only be correctly processed by the ventral stream). The behavioural evidence supported modulation of lexical and sublexical pathway contributions. Specifically, when 75% of the words were REGs, both lexical and sublexical information were utilized, as evidenced by the fast reaction times and increased errors for EXCs. In contrast, when 75% of the words were EXCs, participants minimized sublexical processing, as evidenced by fast reaction times and decreased errors for EXCs. Neuroanatomical evidence provided further support, such that reading a REG-predominant list induced recruitment of both ventral and dorsal stream regions, while reading an EXC-predominant list induced recruitment of the ventral stream and the additional employment of a phonological lexical check (via BA6) as response modulation. These results support parallel operation of the dorsal and ventral stream and provide evidence that the extent to which each stream contributes to reading can be modulated 10

The ability to gauge social interactions is crucial in the assessment of others' intentions. Factors such as facial expressions and body language affect our decisions in personal and professional life alike 1 . These "friend or foe" judgements are often based on first impressions, which in turn may affect our decisions to "approach or avoid". Previous studies investigating the neural correlates of social cognition tended to use static facial stimuli 2 . Here, we illustrate an experimental design in which whole-body animated characters were used in conjunction with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) recordings. Fifteen participants were presented with short movie-clips of guest-host interactions in a business setting, while fMRI data were recorded; at the end of each movie, participants also provided ratings of the host behaviour. This design mimics more closely real-life situations, and hence may contribute to better understanding of the neural mechanisms of social interactions in healthy behaviour, and to gaining insight into possible causes of deficits in social behaviour in such clinical conditions as social anxiety and autism 3 .