The engagement of temporal attention in left spatial neglect.

Previous literature showed how left spatial neglect arises from an asymmetrical distribution of spatial attention. However, it was also suggested that left spatial neglect might be partially caused or at least worsened by non-spatial attention disorders of the right-lateralized stimulus-driven attentional fronto-parietal network. Here, we psychophysically tested the efficiency of temporal attentional engagement of foveal perception through meta-contrast (Experiment 1) and "attentional" masking (Experiment 2) tasks in patients with right-hemisphere stroke with left neglect (N+), without left neglect (N-) and matched healthy controls (C). In both experiments, N+ patients showed higher thresholds, not only than Cs, but also than N- patients. Temporal engagement was clinically impaired in all N+ patients and highly correlated with their typical inability to direct spatial attention towards stimuli on the left side. Our findings suggest that a temporal impairment of attentional engagement is a relevant deficit of left spatial neglect.

The SNARC effect: a preregistered study on the interaction of horizontal, vertical, and sagittal spatial-numerical associations.

Small numbers are processed faster through left-sided than right-sided responses, whereas large numbers are processed faster through right-sided than left-sided responses [i.e., the Spatial-Numerical Association of Response Codes (SNARC) effect]. This effect suggests that small numbers are mentally represented on the left side of space, whereas large numbers are mentally represented on the right side of space, along a mental number line. The SNARC effect has been widely investigated along the horizontal Cartesian axis (i.e., left-right). Aleotti et al. (Cognition 195:104111, 2020), however, have shown that the SNARC effect could also be observed along the vertical (i.e., small numbers-down side vs. large numbers-up side) and the sagittal axis (i.e., small numbers-near side vs. large numbers-far side). Here, we investigated whether the three Cartesian axes could interact to elicit the SNARC effect. Participants were asked to decide whether a centrally presented Arabic digit was odd or even. Responses were collected through an ad hoc-made response box on which the SNARC effect could be compatible for one, two, or three Cartesian axes. The results showed that the higher the number of SNARC-compatible Cartesian axes, the stronger the SNARC effect. We suggest that numbers are represented in a three-dimensional number space defined by interacting Cartesian axes.

Limited evidence for neuropsychological dysfunction in patients initially affected by severe COVID-19.

BACKGROUND: Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), resulting in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), has caused a pandemic. There is now considerable evidence that neuropsychological functions could be affected. We further tested this hypothesis on a sample of post COVID-19 patients, who, initially, had been severely affected. METHODS: We tested 22 post COVID-19 patients who, after the intensive care unit (all but one), were admitted to our rehabilitation unit to be treated for severe post COVID-19 sequelae. All patients were administered a comprehensive neuropsychological battery including measures assessing perceptual, attentive, mnestic, linguistic, and executive functions, and overall cognitive status. The patients were also administered rehabilitation measures including scales for investigating aerobic capacity/endurance deficits, dyspnea, and fatigue. RESULTS: Our findings revealed that evidence of neuropsychological disorders in post COVID-19 patients was very limited. Furthermore, COVID-19 severity and other relevant variables were not correlated with patients' scores on the neuropsychological tests. CONCLUSIONS: We suggest that the relation between COVID-19 and neuropsychological disorders is unclear. New studies and metanalyses are highly required to shed light on this highly complex issue.

Association between childhood asthma and history of assisted reproduction techniques: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Genetic and environmental factors during early development may influence lung growth and impact lung function. We performed a meta-analysis of epidemiological studies examining the association between conception history of assisted reproduction techniques (ART) and childhood asthma. We searched PubMed and Embase up to November 2020 for relevant observational studies and synthesized data data under a fixed or random effects model as appropriate. Heterogeneity was assessed using the I2 metric. We identified 13 individual studies including 3,226,386 participants. We did not observe a statistically significant association between ART and physician-diagnosed asthma (n = 9, random OR 1.16; 95% CI 0.94-1.43; I2 61%). We observed a statistically significant association between ART and prescription of asthma medications (n = 6, fixed OR 1.27; 95% CI 1.23-1.32; I2 0%). Wheezing was also associated with ART (n = 4, fixed OR 1.71; 95% CI 1.08-2.72; I2 0%). When we combined studies using any asthma definition, a statistically significant association was observed (random OR 1.19; 95% CI 1.05-1.34; I2 80%).Conclusion: The available observational evidence suggests that the risk of asthma is higher among children born after ART. The mechanism and potential sources of bias behind this association are under scrutiny, and further work is needed to establish causality. What is Known: • "Positive" epidemiological signals for the association between assisted reproduction techniques and asthma stemming from large studies were not replicated by subsequent research. • Any available research synthesis effort so far bears no quantitative aspect. What is New: • The available observational evidence suggests that the risk of asthma is higher among children born after ART. • The mechanism and potential sources of bias behind this association are under scrutiny.

Aphasia and Math: Deficits with Basic Number Comprehension and in Numerical Activities of Daily Living.

OBJECTIVE: In the present study, we explored numerical problems in individuals with aphasia. We investigate whether numerical deficits, usually accompanying aphasia, can be observed on number comprehension tasks that do not necessarily require an oral response. METHOD: Individuals with aphasia were classified into anterior, posterior, and global subgroups according to the lesion type. To investigate numerical cognition, we used a relatively recent tool, the Numerical Activities of Daily Living (NADL). RESULTS: The results showed that individuals with aphasia have problems with tasks of basic number comprehension as well as in most NADL. In the formal part of the NADL, anterior aphasic patients made comparatively more errors than the posterior aphasic patients. Global aphasic patients presented an invariably poor performance on almost all tasks. CONCLUSION: The results provide insight into how numerical deficits may impair an individual with aphasia in activities of daily living. This study is a preliminary attempt to start the validation process of the NADL for the Greek population.

Pitch height and brightness both contribute to elicit the SMARC effect: a replication study with expert musicians.

Pitch-height can be represented in a spatial format. Reaction times (RTs) to lower pitch-heights are faster when responses are executed in the lower side of space, whereas RTs to higher pitch-heights are faster when responses are executed in the upper side of space. This effect is called the Spatial-Music Association of Response Codes (SMARC) effect. We investigated how pitch-height and the brightness of a tone's timbre might contribute in eliciting the SMARC effect as a function of music expertise by comparing the results of 24 musicians with the results we gathered previously (Pitteri et al., 2017) with 24 non-musicians. Three experimental conditions were used: pitch-height varied, brightness varied; pitch-height varied, brightness fixed; pitch-height fixed, brightness varied. We found that the coherent modulation of both pitch-height and brightness elicited the strongest SMARC effect, independently of music expertise. These results add evidence to the hypothesis that the strongest SMARC effect does not belong to pitch-height or brightness, but to pitch-height and brightness together.

COVID-19 presenting with agraphia and conduction aphasia in a patient with left-hemisphere ischemic stroke.

COVID-19 following infection by SARS-CoV-2 can affect the brain causing confusion, depression, and dementia-like signs. Nonetheless, the presence of more specific neuropsychological signs because of COVID-19 remains unexplored. We report on LA, a patient who was affected by a left-hemisphere ischemic stroke, probably because of SARS-CoV-2. The patient showed a highly specific neuropsychological profile characterized by severe agraphia and some signs of conduction aphasia. All other cognitive and sensorimotor functions remained intact. We sustain that specific neuropsychological signs can be observed in patients with COVID-19. Therefore, in-depth and comprehensive neuropsychological assessment should be included to better explore and qualify the neuropsychological consequences of COVID-19. This is a new challenge for diagnosis and rehabilitation, with important consequences for the involved neuropsychological services.

Acquired neurogenic foreign accent syndrome after right-hemisphere lesion with left cerebellar diaschisis: A longitudinal study.

Patients affected by acquired neurogenic foreign accent syndrome (ANFAS) start speaking with a new accent that resembles that of a foreign language. ANFAS has been reported following left-hemisphere damage, but it is extremely rare after right-hemisphere damage. We described KKE, a right-hemisphere-damaged patient. His cognitive functions were largely intact and he was not aphasic. Nonetheless, KKE showed a marked foreing accent which was mainly judged as Slavic. Positron emission tomography revealed left cerebellar diaschisis, even if the cerebellum did not appear lesioned, on MRI scans. Remarkably, KKE still showed ANFAS three years after lesion onset. We propose that this very rare variant of ANFAS, after right-hemisphere lesion, can be due to the damage of a complex cerebral network involving supra- and infra-tentorial structures.

Numerical magnitude, rather than individual bias, explains spatial numerical association in newborn chicks.

We associate small numbers with the left and large numbers with the right side of space. Recent evidence from human newborns and non-human animals has challenged the primary role assigned to culture, in determining this spatial numerical association (SNA). Nevertheless, the effect of individual spatial biases has not been considered in previous research. Here, we tested the effect of numerical magnitude in SNA and we controlled for itablendividual biases. We trained 3-day-old chicks (Gallus gallus) on a given numerical magnitude (5). Then chicks could choose between two identical, left or right, stimuli both representing either 2, 8, or 5 elements. We computed the percentage of Left-sided Choice (LC). Numerical magnitude, but not individual lateral bias, explained LC: LC2 vs. 2>LC5 vs. 5>LC8 vs. 8. These findings suggest that SNA originates from pre-linguistic precursors, and pave the way to the investigation of the neural correlates of the number space association.

Most of the world modern-day languages are written from left to right ­ but what about numbers? As it turns out, the majority of people also represent numbers using a 'mental line', with smaller numbers on the left and larger numbers on the right. Some researchers argue that this phenomenon results from the way humans learn to read and write: in other words, that it is a by-product of culture, rather than an innate property of the brain. Recent evidence suggests that newborn infants, as well as certain species of monkeys and birds, also associate smaller numbers with the left and larger numbers with the right side of space. This raises the possibility that human mental number line may stem from an ability that evolved before language, in a common ancestor of humans and other animals. Yet, critics claim that findings in infants and non-human species result from a failure to account for individual biases in responding. To resolve this controversy, Rugani et al. trained three-day-old domestic chicks to approach a target board sporting five red squares. Chicks were then given the choice to approach two identical boards, which would both show two, five or eight red squares. Rugani et al. showed that when both boards had two red squares, the chicks tended to approach the left-hand board more often than the right. By contrast, when both boards had eight red squares, the birds approached the right-hand board more often than the left. Importantly, no left-right bias was observed when the number of red squared remained unchanged (five). These results also could not be explained by individual chicks favoring the left or right side. Instead, the findings suggest that even newborn animals tend to associate numbers with positions on a mental number line. Additional research is needed to determine the role of experience ­ or culture ­ in shaping this tendency, and future studies should also examine which brain regions support the association between number and space.

Numbers around Descartes: A preregistered study on the three-dimensional SNARC effect.

The Spatial-Numerical Association of Response Codes (SNARC) effect suggests that numbers are represented along a horizontal left-to-right oriented, mental number line, with small numbers on the left and large numbers on the right. Much less evidence exists for vertical (down-to-up) and sagittal (near-to-far) SNARC effects. This might be due to the employment of different experimental paradigms among studies and to the, sometimes, inexact definition of the vertical and sagittal axes. We investigated for the first time the SNARC effect along the horizontal, vertical, and sagittal axes, by means of a classic SNARC task. Our results suggest the presence of three equally-strong SNARC effects. Our findings can be considered as evidence in favor of a three-dimensional, mental representation of numbers, in the form of a mental number space, defined by Cartesian coordinates.

The importance of time limits in detecting signs of left visual peripersonal neglect: a multiple single-case, pilot study.

We developed a new visual search test to assess signs of left visual peripersonal neglect. Five right-hemisphere-damaged patients, 10 healthy controls, and 10 orthopedic controls were administered the test in four conditions: easy task (no distractors)/time-limited (45''), easy task (no distractors)/time-unlimited, difficult task (distractors)/time-limited (45''), difficult task (distractors)/time-unlimited. With respect to controls, most RHDP showed signs of left visual peripersonal neglect in the time-limited condition, but not in the time-unlimited condition, particularly on the difficult task. We suggest that the presence of appropriate time limits, in difficult visual search tasks, could considerably improve the diagnosis of left visual peripersonal neglect.

Increased Cognitive Load Reveals Unilateral Neglect and Altitudinal Extinction in Chronic Stroke.

OBJECTIVE: Neuropsychological studies suggest that the ability to compensate for the presence of spatial neglect highly depends on the attentional resources a patient can rely on. The present research aimed to study neglect in situations where attentional resources are limited due to multitasking. METHOD: We examined two patients more than 3 years after a right-hemispheric stroke. Both had received neuropsychological rehabilitation for left neglect and did not show any impairment in standard tests. We used a dual-task paradigm combining a peripheral target detection task with a central shape recognition task. Peripheral targets could appear in left/right positions but also in lower/upper positions. RESULTS: In patient #1, dual-task condition exacerbated left neglect and extinction. Patient #2 did not show any sign of neglect along the horizontal axis, but omitted half of the lower targets when they were presented simultaneously with upper targets under dual-task condition. This behavior reflects altitudinal extinction as the detection of single targets appearing either in upper or lower position was preserved. CONCLUSION: The present findings show that dual-tasking is a sensitive tool for the quantitative and qualitative assessment of spatial attention deficits, which are often overlooked by standard methods, especially in chronic stage. (JINS, 2019, 25, 644-653).

Can Implicit or Explicit Time Processing Impact Numerical Representation? Evidence From a Dual Task Paradigm.

Whether the human brain processes various types of magnitude, such as numbers and time, through a shared representation or whether there are different representations for each type of magnitude is still debated. Here, we investigated two aspects of number-time interaction: the effects of implicit and explicit processing of time on numbers and the bi-directional interaction between time and number processing. Thirty-two participants were randomly assigned into two experimental groups that performed, respectively, a Single task (number comparison, with implicit time processing) and a Dual task (number comparison as a primary task, with explicit time processing as a secondary task). Results showed that participants, only in the Dual task, were faster and more accurate when processing large numbers paired with long rather than short durations, whereas the opposite pattern was not evident for small numbers. Moreover, participants were more accurate when judging long durations after having processed large rather than small numbers, whereas the opposite pattern emerged for short durations. We propose that number processing influences time processing more than vice versa, suggesting that numbers and time might be at least partially independently represented. This finding can pave the way for investigating the hierarchical representation of space, numbers, and time.

A SMARC Effect for Loudness.

Various reports suggest that the pitch height of musical tones may be represented along a mental space, with lower pitch heights represented on the left or lower sectors and higher pitch heights represented on the right or upper sectors of the mental space. Given that in Western languages the loudness of tones is often addressed spatially, with loud sounds referred to as "high" and quiet sounds referred to as "low," here we investigated whether loudness might also have a spatial representation. Participants judged whether a tone was louder or quieter than a reference tone, by pressing two keys: one at the top and the other at the bottom of a response box. Participants were faster in a situation where they pressed the key at the top to report louder sounds, and the key at the bottom to report quieter sounds, than vice versa. This result supports the view that loudness, like other types of magnitudes, might be represented spatially.

Experimental Evidence From Newborn Chicks Enriches Our Knowledge on Human Spatial-Numerical Associations.

Núñez and Fias raised concerns on whether our results demonstrate a linear number-space mapping. Patro and Nuerk urge caution on the use of animal models to understand the origin (cultural vs. biological) of the orientation of spatial-numerical association. Here, we discuss why both objections are unfounded.

Naturally together: pitch-height and brightness as coupled factors for eliciting the SMARC effect in non-musicians.

Pitch-height is often labeled spatially (i.e., low or high) as a function of the fundamental frequency of the tone. This correspondence is highlighted by the so-called Spatial-Musical Association of Response Codes (SMARC) effect. However, the literature suggests that the brightness of the tone's timbre might contribute to this spatial association. We investigated the SMARC effect in a group of non-musicians by disentangling the role of pitch-height and the role of tone-brightness. In three experimental conditions, participants were asked to judge whether the tone they were listening to was (or was not) modulated in amplitude (i.e., vibrato). Participants were required to make their response in both the horizontal and the vertical axes. In a first condition, tones varied coherently in pitch (i.e., manipulation of the tone's F0) and brightness (i.e., manipulation of the tone's spectral centroid); in a second condition, pitch-height varied whereas brightness was fixed; in a third condition, pitch-height was fixed whereas brightness varied. We found the SMARC effect only in the first condition and only in the vertical axis. In contrast, we did not observe the effect in any of the remaining conditions. The present results suggest that, in non-musicians, the SMARC effect is not due to the manipulation of the pitch-height alone, but arises because of a coherent change of pitch-height and brightness; this effect emerges along the vertical axis only.