Lexical-semantic knowledge is a core language component that undergoes prolonged development throughout childhood and is therefore highly amenable to developmental studies. Most previous lexical-semantic functional MRI (fMRI) studies have been limited to single-word or word-pair tasks, outside a sentence context. Our objective was to investigate the development of lexical-semantic language networks in typically developing children using a more ecological sentence-embedded semantic task that permitted performance monitoring while minimizing head movement by avoiding overt speech. Sixteen adults and 23 children completed two fMRI runs of an auditory lexical-semantic decision task with a button-press response, using reverse speech as control condition. Children and adults showed similar activation in bilateral temporal and left inferior frontal regions. Greater activation in adults than in children was seen in left inferior parietal, premotor, and inferior frontal regions, and in bilateral supplementary motor area (SMA). Specifically for semantically incongruous sentences, adults also showed greater activation than children in left inferior frontal cortex, possibly related to enhanced top-down control. Age-dependent activation increases in motor-related regions were shown to be unrelated to overt motor responses, but could be associated with covert speech accompanying semantic decision. Unlike previous studies, age-dependent differences were not detected in posterior sensory cortices (such as extrastriate cortex), nor in middle temporal gyrus.

Background: The multiple sclerosis (MS) community is highly interested in diet as a potential protective factor against disability, but empirical evidence remains limited. Objective: Evaluate associations between patient-reported Mediterranean diet alignment and objective disability in a real-world MS cohort. Methods: Data were analyzed from persons with MS, aged 18–65, who completed the Mediterranean Diet Adherence Screener (MEDAS), MS Functional Composite (MSFC; primary disability metric), and patient-reported outcomes (PROs; disability, gait disturbance, fatigue, anxiety, and depression) as part of our Comprehensive Annual Assessment Program. Multiple regression predicted MSFC (and PROs) with MEDAS after adjusting for demographic (age, sex, race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status) and health-related (body mass index (BMI), exercise, sleep disturbance, hypertension, diabetes, hyperlipidemia, and smoking) covariates. Results: Higher MEDAS independently predicted better outcomes across MSFC ( z-score, B = 0.10 (95% confidence interval (CI): 0.06, 0.13), β = 0.18, p < 0.001), MSFC components, and PROs in 563 consecutive patients. Each MEDAS point was associated with 15.0% lower risk for MSFC impairment (⩽ 5th percentile on ⩾ 2 tasks; odds ratio (OR) = 0.850; 95% CI: 0.779, 0.928). Higher MEDAS attenuated effects of progressive disease and longer disease duration on disability. Conclusion: With robust control for potential confounds, higher Mediterranean diet alignment predicted lower objective and patient-reported disability. Findings lay the necessary groundwork for longitudinal and interventional studies to guide clinical recommendations in MS.

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Being able to focus on a complex task and inhibit unwanted actions or interfering information (i.e., inhibitory control) are essential human cognitive abilities. However, it remains unknown the extent to which mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) may impact these critical functions. In this study, seventeen patients and age-matched healthy controls (HC) performed a variant of the Stroop task and attention-demanding 4-choice response tasks (4CRT) with identical stimuli but two contexts: one required only routine responses and the other with occasional response conflicts. The results showed that mTBI patients performed equally well as the HC when the 4CRT required only routine responses. However, when the task conditions included occasional response conflicts, mTBI patients with even a single concussion showed a significant slow-down in all responses and higher error rates relative to the HC. Results from event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (efMRI) revealed altered neural activity in the mTBI patients in the cerebellum-thalamo-cortical and the fronto-basal-ganglia networks regulating inhibitory control. These results suggest that even without apparent difficulties in performing complex attention-demanding but routine tasks, patients with mTBI may experience long-lasting deficits in regulating inhibitory control when situations call for rapid conflict resolutions.