Cerebellar transcranial direct current stimulation modulates verbal working memory.

BACKGROUND: Neuroimaging studies show cerebellar activations in a wide range of cognitive tasks and patients with cerebellar lesions often present cognitive deficits suggesting a cerebellar role in higher-order cognition. OBJECTIVE: We used cathodal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), known to inhibit neuronal excitability, over the cerebellum to investigate if cathodal tDCS impairs verbal working memory, an important higher-order cognitive faculty. METHOD: We tested verbal working memory as measured by forward and backward digit spans in 40 healthy young participants before and after applying cathodal tDCS (2 mA, stimulation duration 25 min) to the right cerebellum using a randomized, sham-controlled, double-blind, cross-over design. In addition, we tested the effect of cerebellar tDCS on word reading, finger tapping and a visually cued sensorimotor task. RESULTS: In line with lower digit spans in patients with cerebellar lesions, cerebellar tDCS reduced forward digit spans and blocked the practice dependent increase in backward digit spans. No effects of tDCS on word reading, finger tapping or the visually cued sensorimotor task were found. CONCLUSION: Our results support the view that the cerebellum contributes to verbal working memory as measured by forward and backward digit spans. Moreover, the induction of reversible "virtual cerebellar lesions" in healthy individuals by means of tDCS may improve our understanding of the mechanistic basis of verbal working memory deficits in patients with cerebellar lesions.

Aproximació a l'ensenyament de la gramàtica des de la lingüística cognitiva : el cas dels verbs inacusatius

Aquest treball explora les possibilitats de basar l'ensenyament de la gramàtica en les aportacions teòriques de la lingüística cognitiva, concretament en la teoria de prototipus, i se centra en el cas concret dels verbs inacusatius. N'ofereix una anàlisi del comportament i acaba amb una proposta d'activitats pràctiques per a treballar-los a l'aula des dels pressupòsits teòrics assenyalats.

Estat de la qüestió de l'estudi de l'aspecte lèxic : una proposta cognitiva de classficació d'esdeveniments

Peer-reviewed

Mètodes empírics en lingüística cognitiva

Peer-reviewed

Evolución de los derivados verbales con prefijo a- y en-: del latín al español clásico

Esta investigación en curso se centra en el análisis de los verbos con prefijo a- y en- en la historia del español. En la primera parte de esta investigación se ha elaborado un estado de la cuestión sobre la prefijación verbal con ad-, ab- e in- en latín. En la segunda parte se estudian las tendencias evolutivas de los derivados verbales en a- y en- en español medieval y clásico, a partir del análisis de los verbos de mayor frecuencia de uso que siguen estos esquemas en el corpus textual de Davies

Safety-seeking behaviours and verbal auditory hallucinations in schizophrenia.

Verbal auditory hallucinations can have a strong impact on the social and professional functioning of individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia. The safety-seeking behaviours used to reduce the threat associated with voices play a significant role in explaining the functional consequences of auditory hallucinations. Nevertheless, these safety-seeking behaviours have been little studied. Twenty-eight patients with schizophrenia and verbal auditory hallucinations were recruited for this study. Hallucinations were evaluated using the Psychotic Symptom Rating Scale and the Belief About Voice Questionnaire and safety behaviours using a modified version of the Safety Behaviour Questionnaire. Our results show that the vast majority of patients relies on safety behaviours to reduce the threat associated with voices. This reliance on safety behaviours is mostly explained by beliefs about origin of voices the omnipotence attributed to hallucinations and the behavioural and emotional reactions to the voices. Safety-seeking behaviours play an important role in maintaining dysfunctional beliefs with respect to voices. They should be better targeted within the cognitive and behavioural therapies for auditory hallucinations.

La neologia semàntica verbal en el català actual : Anàlisi d'un corpus de dades procedents de la premsa

Estudi de la neologia semàntica verbal en català a partir d'un corpus de dades format per neologismes semàntics verbals apareguts en la premsa escrita en català durant els anys 2010 i 2011. Relació entre la neologia semàntica i la metàfora com a recurs cognitiu.

La traducción de Who moved my cheese al chino y al español: algunas diferencias sintácticas entre el chino y el español

Este trabajo se dedica a analizar algunas diferencias entre la lengua española y la china desde una perspectiva gramatical. Este trabajo se centra en mostrar que el español es una lengua flexiva, mientras que el chino no tiene flexión adjetival ni verbal, y en enseñar las diferencias en el orden de palabras entre los dos sistemas. La comparación lingüística consta de tres partes: clases de palabras, determinantes y orden de palabras. Todo ello se realiza analizando el libro Quién se ha llevado mi queso, una narración corta escrita en inglés y editada tanto en chino como en español

Attention, memory and verbal learning and their relation to schizotypal traits in unaffected parents of schizophrenic patients

The main objective of this ex post facto study is to compare the differencesin cognitive functions and their relation to schizotypal personality traits between agroup of unaffected parents of schizophrenic patients and a control group. A total of 52unaffected biological parents of schizophrenic patients and 52 unaffected parents ofunaffected subjects were assessed in measures of attention (Continuous PerformanceTest- Identical Pairs Version, CPT-IP), memory and verbal learning (California VerbalLearning Test, CVLT) as well as schizotypal personality traits (Oxford-Liverpool Inventoryof Feelings and Experiences, O-LIFE). The parents of the patients with schizophreniadiffer from the parents of the control group in omission errors on the ContinuousPerformance Test- Identical Pairs, on a measure of recall and on two contrast measuresof the California Verbal Learning Test. The associations between neuropsychologicalvariables and schizotpyal traits are of a low magnitude. There is no defined pattern ofthe relationship between cognitive measures and schizotypal traits

Emphatic Polarity from Latin to Romance

This paper offers an analysis of some emphatic polarity constructions in Spanish and Catalan from a diachronic and comparative perspective. We focus on the syntactic processes involved in the verbalization of this polarity, in both its positive and negative expression. Our main proposal is that the markers used in Spanish and Catalan (as well as other Romance languages) to reinforce polarity have acquired their status as the consequence of a focalization process. It will be argued that these elements have undergone leftward movement from their base-generated hierarchically low position to a prominent position in the left periphery of the sentence (see Rizzi 1997) and subsequently experienced a progressive bleaching of their original value (which is related to a verbal denotation) to end up being reanalyzed / grammaticalized as polarity markers

Influências do comportamento comunicativo não-verbal do docente em sala de aula: visão dos docentes de enfermagem

Na interação professor-aluno, o professor tem um importante papel e seu bom desempenho depende da consciência e habilidade que tenha na comunicação. Este trabalho teve como objetivo verificar junto aos docentes de Enfermagem, o conhecimento e a importância atribuída aos sinais não-verbais na sua interação em sala de aula. É um estudo exploratório, na linha qualitativa e foram entrevistados 25 docentes da EEUSP, de outubro a dezembro de 1999. Dentre os achados, pudemos verificar que são considerados facilitadores da interação: algumas características do professor, características do aluno, a regularidade de contato, o tipo de conteúdo exposto e a própria comunicação.