RESUMO

Language comprehension involves both sub-lexical (e.g., phonological) and lexical-semantic processing. We conducted a task using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to compare the processing of verbs in these two domains. Additionally, we examined the representation of concrete-motor and abstract-non-motor concepts by including two semantic categories of verbs: motor and mental. The findings indicate that sub-lexical processing during the reading of pseudo-verbs primarily involves the left dorsal stream of the perisylvian network, while lexical-semantic representation during the reading of verbs predominantly engages the ventral stream. According to the embodied or grounded cognition approach, modality-specific mechanisms (such as sensory-motor systems) and the well-established multimodal left perisylvian network contribute to the semantic representation of both concrete and abstract verbs. Our study identified the visual system as a preferential modality-specific system for abstract-mental verbs, which exhibited functional connectivity with the right crus I/lobule VI of the cerebellum. Taken together, these results confirm the dissociation between sub-lexical and lexical-semantic processing and provide neurobiological evidence of functional coupling between specific visual modality regions and the right cerebellum, forming a network that supports the semantic representation of abstract concepts. Further, the results shed light on the underlying mechanisms of semantic processing and contribute to our understanding of how the brain processes abstract concepts.

Assuntos

Cérebro , Semântica , Telencéfalo , Cerebelo/diagnóstico por imagem , Encéfalo

RESUMO

During a social evaluation, the right temporo-parietal junction (rTPJ) plays an important role according to its contribution in making inferences about the mental states of others. However, what is the neural response if rTPJ function is inhibited during a mentalizing task? In this study, participants played the Dictator Game with two confederates: one playing cooperation (C) and other playing non-cooperation (NC) role and then they were scanned during a mentalizing test. However, we inhibited rTPJ using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) after they played the game and before they were scanned. In this test, participants read negative (Neg) or positive (Pos) personal situations and then they watched confederate's pictures. Images from the TMS group were compared against controls with no TMS stimulation. After statistical comparison, we found a significantly higher activity in right and left visual association areas (BA 18) during the NCPos > NCNeg condition in the TMS group compared with the No-TMS group. Same visual association areas have been described before when participants are processing visual emotional information or when making a fast social categorization. This could reflect a neural mechanism of socio - emotional categorization that emerges after rTPJ inhibition.

RESUMO

In a therapeutic environment a proper regulation of the empathic response strengthens the patient-therapist relationship. Thus, it is important that psychotherapists constantly regulate their own perspective and emotions to better understand the other's affective state. We compared the empathic abilities of a group of 52 psychotherapists with a group of 92 non-psychotherapists and found psychometric differences. Psychotherapists showed greater scores in Fantasy and Perspective Taking, both cognitive empathy constructs, and lower scores in the use of expressive suppression, an emotional regulation strategy that hampers the empathic response, suggesting that psychotherapists exert top-down processes that influence their empathic response. In addition, the expected sex differences in empathic concern and expressive suppression were only present in the non-psychotherapist group. To see if such psychometric differences were related to a distinctive functional organization of brain networks, we contrasted the resting state functional connectivity of empathy-related brain regions between a group of 18 experienced psychotherapists and a group of 18 non-psychotherapists. Psychotherapists showed greater functional connectivity between the left anterior insula and the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, and less connectivity between rostral anterior cingulate cortex and the orbito prefrontal cortex. Both associations correlated with Perspective Taking scores. Considering that the psychometric differences between groups were in the cognitive domain and that the functional connectivity associations involve areas related to cognitive regulation processes, these results suggest a relationship between the functional brain organization of psychotherapists and the cognitive regulation of their empathic response.

Assuntos

Empatia , Psicoterapeutas , Encéfalo/diagnóstico por imagem , Encéfalo/fisiologia , Mapeamento Encefálico , Feminino , Humanos , Imageamento por Ressonância Magnética , Masculino

RESUMO

This paper shows the brain correlates of Cloninger's personality model during the presentation of social scenarios under positive or negative valence situations. Social scenarios were constructed when participants played the Dictator game with two confederates that had two opposites roles as the cooperator (Coop) and non-cooperator (NoCoop). Later the same day during a fMRI scanning session, participants read negative (Neg) and positive (Pos) situations that happened to confederates in the past. Participants were asked to think "how do you think those people felt during that situation?" A dissimilarity matrix between stimuli were obtained from fMRI results. Results shown that Harm Avoidance trait people make use of right middle frontal gyrus and left superior frontal gyrus to discriminate between Coop and NoCoop. Cooperation as a trait makes use of the right superior temporal gyrus and the right precuneus to discriminate between Coop and NoCoop in positive social scenarios. Finally, Self-directedness trait people make use of the right inferior parietal lobe to discriminate between Coop and NoCoop in negative social scenarios and the right precuneus to discriminate between Coop and Strangers. An intuitive link between discrimination findings and behavioral patterns of those personality traits is proposed.

RESUMO

Mentalizing is a fundamental aspect of social cognition that includes understanding the mental states of others. This process involves the participation of a well-defined set of brain regions. However, it is still unknown how different contextual situations, such as previous cooperative or non-cooperative interactions, can modulate the brain activity related to the inference of others' mental states. Hence, this study investigated whether a previous social interaction can modulate the neural mechanisms involved in a way to response to inferred mental states of cooperators and non-cooperators in positive vs. negative emotional situations. Participants first engaged in a Dictator game with cooperator and non-cooperator confederates. Then, in an fMRI setup, participants had to infer the mental states of the cooperator and non-cooperator confederates under positive and negative situations. Results showed that in addition to the mentalizing network, inferring mental states recruited occipital and cerebellar areas in the cooperative context. A differential pattern of activity that depended on the emotional valence of the situation was also detected, i.e., negative situations recruited prefrontal cortex (PFC) in both contexts, while temporal regions were recruited only for the non-cooperative context. Overall, these results suggest that our previous experiences with others modulate the brain activity related to the inferences we make about their mental states in specific emotional situations.