No abstract

Verbal irony conveys various emotional messages, from criticism to humor, that differ from the meaning of the actual words. To understand irony, we need conceptual knowledge of irony in addition to an understanding of context. We investigated the neural mechanism of irony comprehension, focusing on two overlooked issues: conceptual knowledge and emotional response. We studied 35 healthy subjects who underwent functional MRI. During the scan, the subject examined first-person-view stories describing verbal interactions, some of which included irony directed toward the subject. After MRI, the subject viewed the stories again and rated the degree of irony, humor, and negative emotion evoked by the statements. We identified several key findings about irony comprehension: (1) the right anterior superior temporal gyrus may be responsible for representing social conceptual knowledge of irony, (2) activation in the medial prefrontal cortex and the right anterior inferior temporal gyrus might underlie the understanding of context, (3) modulation of activity in the right amygdala, hippocampus, and parahippocampal gyrus is associated with the degree of irony perceived, and (4) modulation of activity in the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex varies with the degree of humor perceived. Our results clarified the differential contributions of the neural loci of irony comprehension, enriching our understanding of pragmatic language communication from a social behavior point of view.

Background. Increasing proportion of the elderly in the driving population raises the importance of assuring their safety. We explored the effects of three different types of cognitive training on the cognitive function, brain structure, and driving safety of the elderly. Methods. Thirty-seven healthy elderly daily drivers were randomly assigned to one of three training groups: Group V trained in a vehicle with a newly developed onboard cognitive training program, Group P trained with a similar program but on a personal computer, and Group C trained to solve a crossword puzzle. Before and after the 8-week training period, they underwent neuropsychological tests, structural brain magnetic resonance imaging, and driving safety tests. Results. For cognitive function, only Group V showed significant improvements in processing speed and working memory. For driving safety, Group V showed significant improvements both in the driving aptitude test and in the on-road evaluations. Group P showed no significant improvements in either test, and Group C showed significant improvements in the driving aptitude but not in the on-road evaluations. Conclusion. The results support the effectiveness of the onboard training program in enhancing the elderly's abilities to drive safely and the potential advantages of a multimodal training approach.

Objective: To evaluate cognitive function impairment in patients with anorexia nervosa (AN) of either the restricting (ANR) or binge-eating/purging (ANBP) subtype.Method: We administered the Japanese version of the MATRICS Consensus Cognitive Battery to 22 patients with ANR, 18 patients with ANBP, and 69 healthy control subjects. Our participants were selected from among the patients at the Kobe University Hospital and community residents.Results: Compared to the healthy controls, the ANR group had significantly lower visual learning and social cognition scores, and the ANBP group had significantly lower processing speed, attention/vigilance, visual learning, reasoning/problem-solving, and social cognition scores. Compared to the ANR group, the ANBP group had significantly lower attention/vigilance scores.Discussion: The AN subtypes differed in cognitive function impairments. Participants with ANBP, which is associated with higher mortality rates than ANR, exhibited greater impairment severities, especially in the attention/vigilance domain, confirming the presence of impairments in continuous concentration. This may relate to the impulsivity, an ANBP characteristic reported in the personality research. Future studies can further clarify the cognitive impairments of each subtype by addressing the subtype cognitive functions and personality characteristics.

Self-face recognition in the mirror is considered to involve multiple processes that integrate 2 perceptual cues: temporal contingency of the visual feedback on one's action (contingency cue) and matching with self-face representation in long-term memory (figurative cue). The aim of this study was to examine the neural bases of these processes by manipulating 2 perceptual cues using a “virtual mirror” system. This system allowed online dynamic presentations of real-time and delayed self- or other facial actions. Perception-level processes were identified as responses to only a single perceptual cue. The effect of the contingency cue was identified in the cuneus. The regions sensitive to the figurative cue were subdivided by the response to a static self-face, which was identified in the right temporal, parietal, and frontal regions, but not in the bilateral occipitoparietal regions. Semantic- or integration-level processes, including amodal self-representation and belief validation, which allow modality-independent self-recognition and the resolution of potential conflicts between perceptual cues, respectively, were identified in distinct regions in the right frontal and insular cortices. The results are supportive of the multicomponent notion of self-recognition and suggest a critical role for contingency detection in the co-emergence of self-recognition and empathy in infants.