The experimental factors included the congruency of request interpretation and the appropriateness of action selection. The results showed that brain regions including the right temporo-parieto-occipital (TPO) junction and the left

inferior parietal lobule (IPL) were more activated when the interpretation of the requested object differed between the egocentric and allocentric perspectives than when it was the same (the effect of incongruency for consistency). On the other hand, greater activation was found in the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) when the incongruency effect was compared only between the conditions of appropriate action selection (the interaction effect). These results suggest that both the TPO junction and IPL are involved in obtaining visual information from the allocentric perspective when visual information based on only the egocentric perspective is insufficient to interpret another person’s request. The right DLPFC is likely related to this process to override the interference of action selection based on the egocentric perspective. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.”
“Many studies of hemispatial neglect patients have indicated that spatial attention

processes operate similarly in visual space and number space. However, some studies have indicated a dissociation of processing between visual line bisection and mental number bisection. A number of investigations have suggested that schizophrenic patients show a mild right pseudo-neglect on visual line bisection tasks. The present study was designed to determine if a functional link exists between performance of visual line and number line bisection in schizophrenic patients. Groups of 40 schizophrenic patients and 40 controls performed each bisection task. In the visual line bisection task, schizophrenic patients showed a significant leftward bias relative to the healthy controls for 9 different line lengths. No significant difference in bias

was found between the 2 groups on the mental line bisection task. These results indicated that schizophrenic patients may exhibit attention deficit with respect to visual space but not number space, suggestive of the dissociation of processing between visual line bisection and mental number line bisection. These results provide more insight into the correlation between the visual line and number bisection tasks in schizophrenic patients. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.”
“Neuroimaging studies of individuals with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) have revealed altered patterns of activity in medial prefrontal brain regions, including the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), an area implicated in affect regulation. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) have been shown to effectively treat PTSD symptoms, but there remains a lack of functional neuroimaging research examining the effects of psychopharmacological treatment on brain function in PTSD.