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Prefrontal Cortex and Cognitive-Emotional Functions

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A special issue of Brain Sciences (ISSN 2076-3425). This special issue belongs to the section "Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (20 December 2020) | Viewed by 8632

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Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Carmelo M Vicario

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Guest Editor

Cognitive Neuroscience Lab, Department of Cognitive Science, University of Messina, 98122 Messina, Italy
Interests: neuroscience; cognitive psychology; affective psychology; social neuroscience; clinical neuroscience
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Dr. Gabriella Martino

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Guest Editor

Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, AOU University Policlinic “Gaetano Martino”, University of Messina, Messina, Italy
Interests: clinical psychology; psychopathology; quality of life; psycho-immunology; depressive and anxiety symptoms and disorders and chronic illnesses
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The development of the prefrontal cortex has contributed enormously to the human civilization process, enabling us to gain a dominant role in the world. In this issue, we aim to provide a collection of high-quality theoretical/research articles providing new insights on the role of prefrontal cortex in cognitive and affective processing. We welcome multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary contributions. A non-exhaustive list of potential papers may include research involving the use of neurophysiological techniques in healthy humans, clinical populations, and animal models.

With regard to the format of papers, we will consider research articles, opinion/perspective articles, and review articles (narrative review, systematic review, meta-analysis).

Prof. Dr. Carmelo M Vicario
Dr. Gabriella Martino
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Brain Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2200 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

Prefrontal cortex
Emotion
Cognition
Neurophysiology
Neuropsychology
Neurobiology
Neuropharmacology
Neurogenetics
Social neuroscience
Cognitive neuroscience
Developmental neuroscience
Animal models
Clinical models
Lifespan research
Interdisciplinary approach

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

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21 pages, 1349 KiB

Open AccessArticle

NeuroDante: Poetry Mentally Engages More Experts but Moves More Non-Experts, and for Both the Cerebral Approach Tendency Goes Hand in Hand with the Cerebral Effort

by Giulia Cartocci, Dario Rossi, Enrica Modica, Anton Giulio Maglione, Ana C. Martinez Levy, Patrizia Cherubino, Paolo Canettieri, Mariella Combi, Roberto Rea, Luca Gatti and Fabio Babiloni

Brain Sci. 2021, 11(3), 281; https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci11030281 - 25 Feb 2021

Cited by 7 | Viewed by 3718

Abstract

Neuroaesthetics, the science studying the biological underpinnings of aesthetic experience, recently extended its area of investigation to literary art; this was the humus where neurocognitive poetics blossomed. Divina Commedia represents one of the most important, famous and studied poems worldwide. Poetry stimuli are characterized by elements (meter and rhyme) promoting the processing fluency, a core aspect of neuroaesthetics theories. In addition, given the evidence of different neurophysiological reactions between experts and non-experts in response to artistic stimuli, the aim of the present study was to investigate, in poetry, a different neurophysiological cognitive and emotional reaction between Literature (L) and Non-Literature (NL) students. A further aim was to investigate whether neurophysiological underpinnings would support explanation of behavioral data. Investigation methods employed: self-report assessments (recognition, appreciation, content recall) and neurophysiological indexes (approach/withdrawal (AW), cerebral effort (CE) and galvanic skin response (GSR)). The main behavioral results, according to fluency theories in aesthetics, suggested in the NL but not in the L group that the appreciation/liking went hand by hand with the self-declared recognition and with the content recall. The main neurophysiological results were: (i) higher galvanic skin response in NL, whilst higher CE values in L; (ii) a positive correlation between AW and CE indexes in both groups. The present results extended previous evidence relative to figurative art also to auditory poetry stimuli, suggesting an emotional attenuation “expertise-specific” showed by experts, but increased cognitive processing in response to the stimuli. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Prefrontal Cortex and Cognitive-Emotional Functions)

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9 pages, 1303 KiB

Open AccessCommunication

Does Periodontal Tactile Input Uniquely Increase Cerebral Blood Flow in the Prefrontal Cortex?

by Takaharu Goto, Nobuaki Higaki, Takahiro Kishimoto, Yoritoki Tomotake and Tetsuo Ichikawa

Brain Sci. 2020, 10(8), 482; https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci10080482 - 26 Jul 2020

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2117

Abstract

We previously studied the effect of peripheral sensory information from sensory periodontal ligament receptors on prefrontal cortex (PFC) activity. In the dental field, an alternative dental implant without periodontal sensation can be applied for missing teeth. In this study, we examine whether periodontal tactile input could increase cerebral blood flow (CBF) in the PFC against elderly patients with dental implants lacking periodontal tactile (implant group), elderly individuals with natural teeth (elderly group), and young individuals with natural teeth (young group). The experimental task of maintaining occlusal force as closed-loop stimulation was performed. Compared with the young group, the elderly group showed significantly lower CBF. Contrastingly, compared with the young group, the implant group showed significantly lower CBF. There were no significant differences between the elderly and implant groups. Regarding the mean occlusal force value, compared with the young group and the elderly group, the implant group had a numerically, but not significantly, larger occlusal force exceeding the directed range. In conclusion, the periodontal tactile input does not uniquely increase PFC activity. However, increased CBF in the PFC due to the periodontal tactile input in the posterior region requires existing attention behavior function in the PFC. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Prefrontal Cortex and Cognitive-Emotional Functions)

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Other

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6 pages, 853 KiB

Open AccessBrief Report

No Evidence of Perceptual Pseudoneglect in Alexithymia

by Carmelo Mario Vicario, Gabriella Martino, Alex Marcuzzo and Giuseppe Craparo

Brain Sci. 2021, 11(3), 376; https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci11030376 - 15 Mar 2021

Cited by 14 | Viewed by 2009

Abstract

Neuroscience research links alexithymia, the difficulty in identifying and describing feelings and emotions, with left hemisphere dominance and/or right hemisphere deficit. To provide behavioral evidence for this neuroscientific hypothesis, we explored the relationship between alexithymia and performance in a line bisection task, a standard method for evaluating visuospatial processing in relation to right hemisphere functioning. We enrolled 222 healthy participants who completed a version of the 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20), which measures alexithymia, and were asked to mark (bisect) the center of a 10-cm horizontal segment. The results document a significant rightward shift in the center of the line in participants with borderline and manifest alexithymia compared with non-alexithymic individuals. The higher the TAS-20 score, the greater the rightward shift in the line bisection task. This finding supports the right hemisphere deficit hypothesis in alexithymia and suggests that visuospatial abnormalities may be an important component of this mental condition. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Prefrontal Cortex and Cognitive-Emotional Functions)

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