Neural and Physiological Correlates of Prosocial Behavior: Temporoparietal Junction Activity in 3-Year-Old Children.

Although the development of prosocial behavior has been widely studied from the behavioral aspect, the neural mechanisms underlying prosocial behavior in the early stages of development remain unclear. Therefore, this study investigated the neural mechanisms underlying the emergence of prosocial behavior in 3-year-old children. Brain activity in the medial pFC and right TPJ (rTPJ) and facial expression activity, which are related to the ability to infer others' mental states (mentalizing), during the observation of prosocial and antisocial scenes were measured using functional near-infrared spectroscopy and electromyography, respectively. Subsequently, the children's helping and comforting behaviors toward an experimenter were assessed to examine prosocial behavioral tendencies. A correlation analysis revealed that the children who showed stronger activity levels in the rTPJ while observing prosocial scenes had more immediate helping behaviors toward others than those who did not show stronger response levels. Moreover, the amount of facial expression activity correlated with prosocial behavior, including both helping and comforting behaviors. These results suggest that the development of mentalizing ability and the social evaluation of others' actions, mediated by the rTPJ, contributes to the emergence of prosocial behavior.

A study on the reliability and validity of the Japanese version of the Scenario Test for people with chronic stroke-induced aphasia: A cross-sectional study.

BACKGROUND: The Scenario Test is recognised for its effectiveness in assessing the interactive aspects of functional communication in people with post-stroke aphasia (PWA). AIMS: To develop a Japanese version of the Scenario Test (Scenario Test-JP) and assess its reliability and validity. METHODS & PROCEDURES: Among 66 participants, we selected 61 individuals: 34 PWA and 27 healthy controls (HCs). We modified the Scenario Test-JP based on the UK version and subsequently evaluated its reliability (internal consistency, test-retest and intra-rater and inter-rater reliabilities) and validity (convergent and discriminant) by comparing PWA and HCs. OUTCOMES & RESULTS: The Scenario Test-JP showed strong reliability with a Cronbach's α of 0.93, test-retest reliability with an intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) of 0.97, intra-rater reliability with an ICC of 0.95-1.00, and inter-rater reliability with an ICC of 0.96. The validity of the test was confirmed with concurrent scores ranging from ρ = 0.37 to 0.76 (p < 0.05) and known-groups validity (p < 0.001, r = -0.56). CONCLUSIONS & IMPLICATIONS: The reliability and validity of the Scenario Test-JP align with those of the original Dutch version and the UK and Greek versions. Additionally, the assessment can now include extended alternative communication methods, such as digital devices, indicating the potential of the Scenario Test-JP for modern Japanese speech-language therapy. WHAT THIS PAPER ADDS: What is already known on the subject Interactive communication is a facet of functional communication and is crucial for evaluating engagement and participation of people with aphasia (PWA) in speech-language therapy. The Scenario Test provides valuable information for planning speech-language treatment strategies by assessing dialogic communication. What this study adds This study describes the development of the Scenario Test-JP for use with Japanese speakers and Japanese PWA, which is adapted from the Scenario Test UK version. This study evaluated the reliability and validity of this assessment tool and provided supporting evidence. What are the clinical implications of this work? The reliability and validity of the Scenario Test-JP were consistent with those of the Dutch, UK and Greek versions. The Scenario Test-JP contributes to speech-language therapy in Japan, where high-quality support for the activities and participation of PWA is required. PRACTITIONER POINTS: Insights from the Scenario Test The Scenario Test plays a crucial role in evaluating the functional communication skills of people with post-stroke aphasia (PWA). Enhancing functional communication has been linked to improved social engagement among PWA, which in turn influences their overall quality of life (QOL). Issues addressed by the Scenario Test The Scenario Test aids in delineating rehabilitation objectives for activities and participation among PWA, particularly concerning functional communication. The test facilitates tailored support for PWAs' interactive communication and forms the foundation for appropriate speech-language therapy interventions. Transformation of speech-language therapy (SLT) in Japan through the introduction of the Scenario Test-JP The integration of the Scenario Test-JP could enhance the SLT services provided to PWA in Japan. With Japan experiencing an unprecedented ageing population, the prevalence of social isolation and diminished QOL resulting from communication disorders like stroke-induced aphasia is expected to rise. Consequently, the SLT rehabilitation sector in Japan is actively seeking effective interventions to support functional communication among PWA. Hence, the adoption of the Scenario Test-JP is anticipated to streamline the evaluation of functional communication, facilitating the judicious selection and timely provision of assistance to PWA in SLT, including guidance on communication partner support and communication skill training.

Clinical Impact of Pretransplantation Physical Function on Transplantation after Allogeneic Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation in Older Adults.

Clinical research regarding the impact of pretransplantation physical function on transplantation outcomes in older adults remains limited. We retrospectively reviewed the charts of 150 consecutive patients age >55 years who underwent their first allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) at our center between 2010 and 2021. We evaluated the clinical impact of pretransplantation physical function, including hand grip strength (HGS), knee extension strength (KES), and distance covered in a 6-minute walk test (6MWT), along with other clinical factors, on transplantation outcomes such as overall survival (OS), nonrelapse mortality (NRM), and cumulative incidence of disease relapse (CIR). There was no difference in OS, NRM, or CIR among the 3 age groups studied (56 to 60 years, 61 to 65 years, and 66 to 70 years). With regard to physical function tests, we divided the study patients into 2 groups based on the median HGS, KES, and 6MWT values: higher physical function and lower physical function groups. Because there were significant differences in HGS and KES between male and female patients, sex-specific threshold values were used. In a univariate analysis, OS tended to be better in the higher physical function group compared with the lower physical function group (4-year OS, 42.0% versus 32.0% in HGS, P = .14; 44.8% versus 37.8% in KES, P = .17; 46.7% versus 30.5% in 6MWT, P = .099). NRM was significantly lower in the higher physical function group (4-year NRM, 25.5% versus 39.9% in HGS, P = .045; 17.7% versus 38.0% in KES, P = .005; 22.5% versus 43.4% in 6MWT, P = .033). There was no significant difference in CIR between the higher and lower physical function groups (4-year CIR, 34.6% versus 28.7% in HGS, P = .38; 38.5% versus 25.8% in KES, P = .20; 33.0% versus 27.0% in 6MWT, P = .42). In multivariate analysis, the higher KES group (hazard ratio [HR], .54; 95% confidence interval [CI], .32 to .90) was significantly associated with better OS, as were female sex (HR, .48; 95% CI, .26 to .89) and low/intermediate Disease Risk Index (HR, 3.59; 95% CI, 2.04 to 6.31). Higher KES (HR, .37; 95% CI, .17 to .83) and female sex (HR .36; 95% CI, .13 to .998) were significantly associated with a reduced risk of NRM. Higher HGS and higher 6MWT tended to be associated with a reduced risk of NRM, but this trend was not statistically significant. Pretransplantation physical function, particularly the strength of the lower extremities, but not chronological age, is associated with NRM and OS after allogeneic HCT in adults age >55 years.

Children benefit from gestures to understand degraded speech but to a lesser extent than adults.

The present study investigated to what extent children, compared to adults, benefit from gestures to disambiguate degraded speech by manipulating speech signals and manual modality. Dutch-speaking adults (N = 20) and 6- and 7-year-old children (N = 15) were presented with a series of video clips in which an actor produced a Dutch action verb with or without an accompanying iconic gesture. Participants were then asked to repeat what they had heard. The speech signal was either clear or altered into 4- or 8-band noise-vocoded speech. Children had more difficulty than adults in disambiguating degraded speech in the speech-only condition. However, when presented with both speech and gestures, children reached a comparable level of accuracy to that of adults in the degraded-speech-only condition. Furthermore, for adults, the enhancement of gestures was greater in the 4-band condition than in the 8-band condition, whereas children showed the opposite pattern. Gestures help children to disambiguate degraded speech, but children need more phonological information than adults to benefit from use of gestures. Children's multimodal language integration needs to further develop to adapt flexibly to challenging situations such as degraded speech, as tested in our study, or instances where speech is heard with environmental noise or through a face mask.

Gesture in the eye of the beholder: An eye-tracking study on factors determining the attention for gestures produced by people with aphasia.

Co-speech hand gestures are an ubiquitous form of nonverbal communication, which can express additional information that is not present in speech. Hand gestures may become more relevant when verbal production is impaired, as in speakers with post-stroke aphasia. In fact, speakers with aphasia produce more gestures than non-brain damaged speakers. Furthermore, there is evidence to suggest that speakers with aphasia produce gestures that convey information essential to understand their communication. In the present study, we addressed the question whether these gestures catch the attention of their addressees. Healthy volunteers (observers) watched short video clips while their eye movements were recorded. These video clips featured speakers with aphasia and non-brain damaged speakers describing two different scenarios (buying a sweater or having witnessed an accident). Our results show that hand gestures produced by speakers with aphasia are on average attended to longer than gestures produced by non-brain damaged speakers. This effect was significant even when we controlled for the longer duration of the gestural movements in speakers with aphasia. Further, the amount of information in speech was also correlated with gesture attention. That is gestures produced by speakers with less informative speech were attended to more frequently. In conclusion, our findings suggest that listeners reallocate their attention and focus more strongly on non-verbal information from co-speech gestures if speech comprehension becomes challenging due to the speaker's verbal production deficits. These findings support a communicative function of co-speech gestures and advocate for instructing people with aphasia to communicate things in the form of gestures that cannot be expressed verbally because interlocutors take notice of these gestures.

Genome-wide molecular phylogenetic analyses and mating experiments which reveal the evolutionary history and an intermediate stage of speciation of a giant water bug.

The intermediate stages of speciation are important for understanding the processes involved in the creation of biodiversity, and also comprise a number of interesting phenomena. However, difficulties are associated with dividing clear speciation stages because speciation is a continuous process. Therefore, the elucidation of speciation is an interesting and important task in evolutionary biology. We herein present an example of a species in an intermediate stage of speciation using the giant water bug Appasus japonicus (Heteroptera, Belostomatidae) that was investigated using mating experiments and phylogenetic analyses of the mtDNA COI (658 bp) and 16S rRNA (435 bp) regions, and nDNA SSR (13 loci) and its genome-wide SNPs (11,241 SNPs). The results of our phylogenetic analyses based on their mtDNA data set and the genome-wide SNPs data set strongly supported the paraphyly of the Japanese populations. Therefore, it is suggested that their ancestral lineage which being distributed in the Japanese Archipelago subsequently migrated to the Eurasian Continent (i.e., back-dispersal occurred). Furthermore, the results of the mating experiments suggested that among A. japonicus, even between closely related lineages, premating reproductive isolation has been established by the differentiation of copulatory organ morphologies. In contrast, premating reproductive isolation is not established in the absence of the differentiation of copulatory organ morphologies, even if genetic differentiation is prominent. These results suggested that their phylogenetic distance does not predict premating reproductive isolation. Furthermore, in the present study, we present a clear example of premating reproductive isolation driving speciation between closely related lineages.

An Approach to Aligning Categorical and Continuous Time Series for Studying the Dynamics of Complex Human Behavior.

An emerging perspective on human cognition and performance sees it as a kind of self-organizing phenomenon involving dynamic coordination across the body, brain and environment. Measuring this coordination faces a major challenge. Time series obtained from such cognitive, behavioral, and physiological coordination are often complicated in terms of non-stationarity and non-linearity, and in terms of continuous vs. categorical scales. Researchers have proposed several analytical tools and frameworks. One method designed to overcome these complexities is recurrence quantification analysis, developed in the study of non-linear dynamics. It has been applied in various domains, including linguistic (categorical) data or motion (continuous) data. However, most previous studies have applied recurrence methods individually to categorical or continuous data. To understand how complex coordination works, an integration of these types of behavior is needed. We aimed to integrate these methods to investigate the relationship between language (categorical) and motion (continuous) directly. To do so, we added temporal information (a time stamp) to categorical data (i.e., language), and applied joint recurrence analysis methods to visualize and quantify speech-motion coordination coupling during a rap performance. We illustrate how new dynamic methods may capture this coordination in a small case-study design on this expert rap performance. We describe a case study suggesting this kind of dynamic analysis holds promise, and end by discussing the theoretical implications of studying complex performances of this kind as a dynamic, coordinated phenomenon.

Lending a hand to storytelling: Gesture's effects on narrative comprehension moderated by task difficulty and cognitive ability.

Compelling evidence suggests observing iconic gestures benefits learning. While emerging evidence suggests typical iconic gestures benefit comprehension to a greater extent than atypical iconic gestures, it is unclear precisely when and for whom these gestures will be most helpful. The current study investigated factors that may moderate when and for whom gesture benefits narrative comprehension most, including the type of gesture, task difficulty, and individual differences in cognitive ability. Participants were shown a video narrative in which they observed either typical gestures (commonly produced gestures, highly semantically related to accompanying speech), atypical gestures (gestures that are seldom produced), or no gestures. The video narrative was either viewed with interference (background noise to increase task difficulty) or no interference (no background noise). To determine whether the effects of gesture observation and externally imposed task difficulty on narrative comprehension further depend on an individual's cognitive abilities, participants completed four measures of cognitive abilities (immediate and delayed non-verbal memory, attention, and intellectual ability). Observing typical gestures significantly benefitted narrative comprehension compared with atypical and no gestures combined, which did not differ significantly. Participants with below average and average levels of delayed non-verbal memory benefitted more from typical gestures than atypical or no gestures compared with those with an above average level of delayed non-verbal memory. However, this interaction was only significant when the task was difficult (i.e., with interference) but not when the task was simple (i.e., no interference). This finding suggests that the type of iconic gesture observed may affect gesture's beneficial effect on narrative comprehension, and that such gestures may be more beneficial in difficult tasks, but only for certain individuals.

Ontogeny of Cheliped Laterality and Mechanisms of Reversal of Handedness in the Durophagous Gazami Crab, Portunus trituberculatus.

The paired claws in Gazami crabs, Portunus trituberculatus, are bilaterally asymmetrical, and asymmetry is remarkable on the distal two segments of the first pereiopod, that is, the dactylus and propodus. Shells are exclusively cracked by use of the right chela, representing handedness. In Gazami crabs, handedness is reversed after autotomy of the right chela. Our study focused on the ontogeny of handedness and the mechanism of handedness reversal. Morphologically, asymmetry was first detected in megalopa larvae where the right propodus was significantly larger than the left, as was the canine at the base of the right dactylus. Presumably, the rate of chelagenesis differed between the left and right chelae. With these morphological features, the right chela functioned as a crusher. The crusher exerted a closing force two to three times that of the cutter. With loss of the right crusher, the left chela was bigger than the regenerated right chela and was converted to the crusher. In contrast, the performance of the regenerated right chela deteriorated compared to that of the original right crusher, and exertion of full closing force was inhibited by the more active left chela. Furthermore, crabs with two crusher chelae did not clearly show handedness. A decrease in size and performance of the regenerated right chela can be explained by a default program hypothesis. In conclusion, a difference in the chelagenesis rate results in bilateral asymmetry of the two chelipeds, and then handedness is generated by neural regulation in the thoracic ganglion innervating these claws. Since handedness is reversed after autotomy, the thoracic ganglion would not be lateralized in Gazami crabs. A default program hypothesis is proposed to explain the ontogeny of bilateral chela asymmetry and handedness reversal.

The First Establishment of "Hand-Pairing" Cross-Breeding Method for the Most Ancestral Wing Acquired Insect Group.

Insects are the most diverse organisms in the world and have been in existence since ca. 480 Ma; given this, they can provide profound insights into evolution. Among them, the order Ephemeroptera is one of the most basal clades of winged insects. This makes Ephemeroptera a significant key taxon in understanding the macro-evolution or the insect groundplan. In the development of biological evolutionary studies of this taxon, it is important to establish a technique for cross-breeding. Furthermore, the establishment of these techniques also makes a great contribution in the fields of micro-evolution. In a non-model taxon, the mayfly, subcultivation in the laboratory has been thus far considered impossible. With the exception of some parthenogenetic strains, it is extremely difficult to mate these insects in artificial environments. In this study, we established a successful artificial mating technique, i.e., a "hand-pairing" based cross-breeding method for mayflies. Furthermore, we also succeeded in clearly verifying by a genotyping method that the offspring reproduced by hand-pairing were in fact derived from the actual male and female which were used for hand-pairing. We established a reproductive experimental technique for hand-pairing of Dipteromimus tipuliformis and verified this technique by means genotyping. This technique could allow the artificial control of fertilization timing, and result in offspring which can be verified as to their status by means of genotyping. This achievement will be extremely important in the future for both the macro- and micro-evolutionary studies of insects.

The listener automatically uses spatial story representations from the speaker's cohesive gestures when processing subsequent sentences without gestures.

This study examined spatial story representations created by speaker's cohesive gestures. Participants were presented with three-sentence discourse with two protagonists. In the first and second sentences, gestures consistently located the two protagonists in the gesture space: one to the right and the other to the left. The third sentence (without gestures) referred to one of the protagonists, and the participants responded with one of the two keys to indicate the relevant protagonist. The response keys were either spatially congruent or incongruent with the gesturally established locations for the two participants. Though the cohesive gestures did not provide any clue for the correct response, they influenced performance: the reaction time in the congruent condition was faster than that in the incongruent condition. Thus, cohesive gestures automatically establish spatial story representations and the spatial story representations remain activated in a subsequent sentence without any gesture.

Communicative effectiveness of pantomime gesture in people with aphasia.

BACKGROUND: Human communication occurs through both verbal and visual/motoric modalities. Simultaneous conversational speech and gesture occurs across all cultures and age groups. When verbal communication is compromised, more of the communicative load can be transferred to the gesture modality. Although people with aphasia produce meaning-laden gestures, the communicative value of these has not been adequately investigated. AIMS: To investigate the communicative effectiveness of pantomime gesture produced spontaneously by individuals with aphasia during conversational discourse. METHODS & PROCEDURES: Sixty-seven undergraduate students wrote down the messages conveyed by 11 people with aphasia that produced pantomime while engaged in conversational discourse. Students were presented with a speech-only, a gesture-only and a combined speech and gesture condition and guessed messages in both a free description and a multiple-choice task. OUTCOMES & RESULTS: As hypothesized, listener comprehension was more accurate in the combined pantomime gesture and speech condition as compared with the gesture- or speech-only conditions. Participants achieved greater accuracy in the multiple-choice task as compared with the free-description task, but only in the gesture-only condition. The communicative effectiveness of the pantomime gestures increased as the fluency of the participants with aphasia decreased. CONCLUSIONS & IMPLICATIONS: These results indicate that when pantomime gesture was presented with aphasic speech, the combination had strong communicative effectiveness. Future studies could investigate how pantomimes can be integrated into interventions for people with aphasia, particularly emphasizing elicitation of pantomimes in as natural a context as possible and highlighting the opportunity for efficient message repair.

The Development of the Ability to Semantically Integrate Information in Speech and Iconic Gesture in Comprehension.

We examined whether children's ability to integrate speech and gesture follows the pattern of a broader developmental shift between 3- and 5-year-old children (Ramscar & Gitcho, 2007) regarding the ability to process two pieces of information simultaneously. In Experiment 1, 3-year-olds, 5-year-olds, and adults were presented with either an iconic gesture or a spoken sentence or a combination of the two on a computer screen, and they were instructed to select a photograph that best matched the message. The 3-year-olds did not integrate information in speech and gesture, but 5-year-olds and adults did. In Experiment 2, 3-year-old children were presented with the same speech and gesture as in Experiment 1 that were produced live by an experimenter. When presented live, 3-year-olds could integrate speech and gesture. We concluded that development of the integration ability is a part of the broader developmental shift; however, live-presentation facilitates the nascent integration ability in 3-year-olds.

The boule gene is essential for spermatogenesis of haploid insect male.

boule (bol), a member of the Deleted in Azoospermia (DAZ) gene family plays an important role in meiosis (reductional maturation divisions) in a spermatogenesis-specific manner in animals by regulating translation of the downstream cell division cycle 25 (cdc25) phosphatase mRNA. Orthologues of bol are conserved among animals and found in the genomes of hymenopteran insects, in which the general mode of reproduction is haplodiploidy: female is diploid and male is haploid. In this mode of reproduction, haploid males produce haploid sperm through non-reductional maturation divisions. The question thus arises of whether the bol gene actually functions during spermatogenesis in these haploid males. In this study, we identified two transcriptional isoforms of bol orthologue (Ar bol and Ar bol-2), and one cdc25 orthologue (Ar cdc25) in the hymenopteran sawfly, Athalia rosae. Ar bol was expressed exclusively in the testis when maturation divisions occurred, while Ar bol-2 was expressed ubiquitously. Knockdown of all bol transcripts (both Ar bol and Ar bol-2) resulted in a lack of mature sperm, whereas males with sole knockdown of Ar bol-2 were able to produce a small number of mature sperm. The cell cycle was arrested before maturation divisions in the testis in which all bol transcripts were knocked down, as revealed by flow cytometry. Although no mature sperm was produced, sperm elongation was partially observed when Ar cdc25 alone was knocked down. These results indicate that Ar bol is essential for the entry and progression of maturation divisions and sperm differentiation in haploid males.

The relationship of aphasia type and gesture production in people with aphasia.

PURPOSE: For many individuals with aphasia, gestures form a vital component of message transfer and are the target of speech-language pathology intervention. What remains unclear are the participant variables that predict successful outcomes from gesture treatments. The authors examined the gesture production of a large number of individuals with aphasia-in a consistent discourse sampling condition and with a detailed gesture coding system-to determine patterns of gesture production associated with specific types of aphasia. METHOD: The authors analyzed story retell samples from AphasiaBank (TalkBank, n.d.), gathered from 98 individuals with aphasia resulting from stroke and 64 typical controls. Twelve gesture types were coded. Descriptive statistics were used to describe the patterns of gesture production. Possible significant differences in production patterns according to aphasia type were examined using a series of chi-square, Fisher exact, and logistic regression statistics. RESULTS: A significantly higher proportion of individuals with aphasia gestured as compared to typical controls, and for many individuals with aphasia, this gesture was iconic and was capable of communicative load. Aphasia type impacted significantly on gesture type in specific identified patterns, detailed here. CONCLUSION: These type-specific patterns suggest the opportunity for gestures as targets of aphasia therapy.