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Alcoholics had an accelerated heart rate, in an experiment with 20 alcoholics and 10 social drinkers, when they were told that they were going to be served alcohol. The heart rate remained elevated till actually drinking alcohol for severely dependent subjects whereas mildly dependent subjects' heart rate was dependent on the urge to drink. This physiological response will impact alcoholics ability to reduce addiction.

Analysis of autonomic cued responses to olfactory alcohol stimuli in 20 outpatient alcoholics and 20 social drinkers subjected to neutral, low- and high-potency odors revealed that alcohol cues are emotionally repulsive and evoke a protective reaction to inhibit further processing of the stimuli. Alcoholics reported higher skin conductance and greater heart rate acceleration responses to high-potency alcohol odor than social drinkers but the low potency odor failed to evolve any differences.

In this article, we review research in our laboratory from the last 25 to 30 years on the neuronal basis for laterality of speech perception focusing on the upper, posterior parts of the temporal lobes, and its functional and structural connections to other brain regions. We review both behavioral and brain imaging data, with a focus on dichotic listening experiments, and using a variety of imaging modalities. The data have come in most parts from healthy individuals and from studies on normally functioning brain, although we also review a few selected clinical examples. We first review and discuss the structural model for the explanation of the right-ear advantage (REA) and left hemisphere asymmetry for auditory language processing. A common theme across many studies have been our interest in the interaction between bottom-up, stimulus-driven, and top-down, instruction-driven, aspects of hemispheric asymmetry, and how perceptual factors interact with cognitive factors to shape asymmetry of auditory language information processing. In summary, our research have shown laterality for the initial processing of consonant–vowel syllables, first observed as a behavioral REA when subjects are required to report which syllable of a dichotic syllable-pair they perceive. In subsequent work we have corroborated the REA with brain imaging, and have shown that the REA is modulated through both bottom-up manipulations of stimulus properties, like sound intensity, and top-down manipulations of cognitive properties, like attention focus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The continuum model of psychosis has been extremely influential. It assumes that psychotic symptoms, such as auditory verbal hallucinations (AVH), are not limited to patients with psychosis but also occur in healthy, non-clinical individuals – suggesting similar mechanisms of origin. Recent debate surrounding this model has highlighted certain differences, as well as similarities, in the phenomenology of AVH in clinical and non-clinical populations. These findings imply that there may, in fact, be only partial overlap of the mechanism(s) involved in generating AVH in these groups. We review evidence of continuity or similarity, and dissimilarity, in cognitive, and related neural processes, underlying AVH in clinical and non-clinical samples. The results reveal some shared (intrusive cognitions, inhibitory deficits) and some distinct (aspects of source memory and cerebral lateralization) mechanisms in these groups. The evidence, therefore, supports both continuous and categorical models of positive psychotic symptoms. The review considers potential risks of uncritical acceptance of the continuum model and highlights some important methodological issues for future research. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The activation of dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) has been suggested to reflect the engagement of a control mechanism for top-down biasing of context processing in resource-demanding memory tasks. Here we tested the hypothesis that the dlPFC subserves a similar function also in attention and emotion tasks. 18 healthy young adults were tested in a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study where the demands for context processing were manipulated in three different cognitive domains: auditory attention, episodic retrieval, and emotion regulation. We found that the right dlPFC was jointly sensitive to increased cognitive demands in the attention and memory tasks. By contrast, increased demands in the emotion task (reappraisal) were associated with increased activity in ventromedial PFC along with decreased amygdala activity. Our findings of divergent prefrontal control networks for cognitive and emotional control extend previous separations of cognition and emotion in the anterior cingulate cortex. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The dichotic listening paradigm using verbal stimulus material typically yields a right ear advantage (REA) which indicates the left-hemisphere dominance for speech processing. Although this interpretation is widely accepted, the cerebral hemispheres also interact through the corpus callosum. Moreover, the two most influential theoretical models of dichotic listening, the structural and the attentional model, both refer to the functional integrity of the corpus callosum, when explaining the REA. However, the current review of the available data reveals several aspects that can not be explained by the dichotic listening models. For example, an individual''s ability to direct attention to either ear is mediated by callosal fibers. Consequently, the corpus callosum not only has to be considered as a channel for the automatic exchange of information between the cerebral hemispheres, it rather allows for a dynamic and flexible interaction in supporting both bottom-up and top-down stimulus processing. The review has also revealed how inter-individual variability in callosal fiber structure affects both bottom-up and top-down performance on the dichotic listening task. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The dichotic listening test is non-invasive behavioural technique to study brain lateralization and it has been shown, that its results can be systematically modulated by varying stimulation properties (bottom-up effects) or attentional instructions (top-down effects) of the testing procedure. The goal of the present study was to further investigate the bottom-up modulation, by examining the effect of differences in the right or left ear stimulus intensity on the ear advantage. For this purpose, interaural intensity difference were gradually varied in steps of 3dB from −21dB in favour of the left ear to +21dB in favour of the right ear, also including a no difference baseline condition. Thirty-three right-handed adult participants with normal hearing acuity were tested. The dichotic listening paradigm was based on consonant-vowel stimuli pairs. Only pairs with the same voicing (voice or non-voiced) of the consonant sound were used. The results showed: (a) a significant right ear advantage (REA) for interaural intensity differences from 21 to −3dB, (b) no ear advantage (NEA) for the −6dB difference, and (c) a significant left ear advantage (LEA) for differences form −9 to −21dB. It is concluded that the right ear advantage in dichotic listening to CV syllables withstands an interaural intensity difference of −9dB before yielding to a significant left ear advantage. This finding could have implications for theories of auditory laterality and hemispheric asymmetry for phonological processing. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The right-ear advantage (REA) is typically observed in verbal dichotic listening, indicating a left hemisphere superiority for speech processing. The REA could be thought of as a bottom–up, stimulus-driven laterality effect, caused by the preponderance of the contralateral neural fibers from the right ear to the auditory/speech processing areas in the left temporal lobe. The REA can, however, be modified by explicitly requiring the listeners to focus their attention alternatively on the left or right-ear stimuli, thus either countering or enhancing the bottom–up processes through top–down attentional control. In the present study, we manipulated the strength of the bottom–up REA by inducing an intensity difference between the right-ear and left-ear speech inputs in order to make the REA either weaker (left-ear input>right-ear input) or stronger (left-ear input

Abstract: The typical finding in dichotic listening with verbal stimuli is the right ear advantage (REA), indicating a left hemisphere processing superiority, thus making this an effective tool in studying hemispheric asymmetry. It has been shown that the amplitude of the REA can be modulated by instructions to direct attention to left or right side. The current study attempted to modulate the REA by changing the dichotic listening stimulus situation. In Experiment 1, a consonant vowel (CV) syllable prime was presented binaurally briefly before the dichotic stimuli (consisting of two CVs). The prime could be the same as either the left or right ear dichotic stimulus, or it could be a different stimulus. Participants were instructed to report the CV they heard best from the dichotic syllable pair. The traditional REA was found when the prime was different from both dichotic stimuli. When the prime matched the CV in the left half of the subsequent dichotic pair, the REA was increased, while if the prime matched the right half, the REA was reduced. In order to see at which perceptual stage the modulation takes place, in Experiment 2 the prime was visual, presented on a PC screen. The same effect was seen, although the modulation of the REA was weaker. We propose that the memory trace of the prime is a source of interference, and causes cognitive control of attention to inhibit recognition of stimuli similar to recent distractors. Based on previous studies we propose that this inhibition of attention is performed by prefrontal cortical areas. Similarities to the mechanisms involved in negative priming and implications for auditory laterality studies are pointed out. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Following the theoretical framework of coordinate and categorical principals for visuo-spatial processing, originally formulated by [Kosslyn, S. M. (1987). Seeing and imagining in the cerebral hemispheres: AQ computational approach. Psychological Review, 94, 148–175], we present data from an fMRI study on mental rotation, using the classic [Shepard, R. N., & Metzler, J. (1971). Mental rotation of three-dimensional objects. Science, 171, 701–703] task, comparing males and females. Subjects were presented with black-and-white drawings of 3-D shapes taken from the set of 3-D perspective drawings developed by [Shepard, R. N., & Metzler, J. (1971). Mental rotation of three-dimensional objects. Science, 171, 701–703], alternated with 2-D white bars as control stimuli. The drawings were presented pairwise, as black and white drawings against a black circular background. On half of the trials, the two 3-D shapes were congruent but portrayed with different orientation, in the other half the two shapes were incongruent. Analysis of response accuracy and reaction times did not reveal any significant differences between the sexes. However, clusters of significant neuronal activation were found in the superior parietal lobule (BA 7), more intensely over the right hemisphere, and bilaterally in the inferior frontal gyrus (BA 44/45). Males showed predominantly parietal activation, while the females, in addition, showed inferior frontal activation. We suggest that males may be biased towards a coordinate processing approach, and females biased towards a serial, categorical processing approach. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

We report on enhanced processing of speech sounds in congenitally and early blind individuals compared with normally seeing individuals. Two different consonant–vowel (CV) syllables were presented via headphones on each presentation. We used a dichotic listening (DL) procedure with pairwise presentations of CV syllables. The typical finding in this paradigm is a right ear advantage, indicating better processing of the CV-syllable stimuli in the left hemisphere. The dichotic listening procedure involved three different conditions, with instructions to pay attention to the right ear stimulus, the left ear stimulus or no specific instruction. The participants were 14 congenitally or early blind Finnish-speaking individuals that were compared with 129 normal seeing Finnish-speaking individuals. The blind participants reported overall significantly more correct syllables than seeing control subjects. When instructed to pay attention to the left ear stimulus and only report from the attended channel, they were again significantly better than the seeing control subjects. These findings indicate effects of hemispheric reorganization in blind individuals at both the sensory and cognitive levels of information processing in the auditory sensory modality. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In the present review, we summarize the most recent findings and current views about the structural and functional basis of human brain lateralization in the auditory modality. Main emphasis is given to hemodynamic and electromagnetic data of healthy adult participants with regard to music- vs. speech-sound encoding. Moreover, a selective set of behavioral dichotic-listening (DL) results and clinical findings (e.g., schizophrenia, dyslexia) are included. It is shown that human brain has a strong predisposition to process speech sounds in the left and music sounds in the right auditory cortex in the temporal lobe. Up to great extent, an auditory area located at the posterior end of the temporal lobe (called planum temporale [PT]) underlies this functional asymmetry. However, the predisposition is not bound to informational sound content but to rapid temporal information more common in speech than in music sounds. Finally, we obtain evidence for the vulnerability of the functional specialization of sound processing. These altered forms of lateralization may be caused by top-down and bottom-up effects inter- and intraindividually In other words, relatively small changes in acoustic sound features or in their familiarity may modify the degree in which the left vs. right auditory areas contribute to sound encoding. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In the present study, we investigated differences between dyslexic and normal reading children in asymmetry of the planum temporale area in the upper posterior part of the temporal lobe and dichotic listening performance to consonant–vowel syllables. The current study was an extension of previous studies in our laboratory on the same participants, now including also girls and left-handers. There were 20 boys and 3 girls in the dyslexic group and 19 boys and 4 girls in the normal reading group. The age of the participants was 10–12 years for both groups. The participants were screened from a population of 950 students in the fourth school grade in the greater Bergen district. The planum temporale area was measured in sagittal magnetic resonance (MR) images. Mean left and right area and asymmetry index were compared between the groups. Dichotic presentations of consonant–vowel syllables made it possible to separately probe left and right hemisphere phonological function, and to correlate this with planum temporale area. The results showed a significantly larger left than right planum temporale area for both groups. However, while the right planum temporale area was similar for the dyslexic and control groups, the left planum temporale was significantly (one-tailed t-test) smaller in the dyslexic group. Both groups also showed a significant right ear advantage to the consonant–vowel syllables in the dichotic listening test. The relation between planum temporale and dichotic listening asymmetry showed a significant correlation for the dyslexic group only, indicating a positive relation between brain structure and function in dyslexic children. The results are discussed in terms of important subject characteristics with regard to brain markers of dyslexia. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

: BackgroundWe compared performance on a dichotic listening (DL) task between schizophrenic, depressed, and healthy control subjects. A variant of the traditional DL paradigm was used in which the subjects were required to focus attention either on the left (forced-left condition) or right (forced-right condition) ear stimulus.: MethodsThe subjects were 51 patients with a DSM-IV diagnosis of schizophrenia, 49 patients with recurrent unipolar major depression, and 49 healthy control subjects. They were tested with a consonant–vowel syllables dichotic listening task under three attentional instructions.: ResultsThere was a significant overall right ear advantage during the nonforced condition, which increased dramatically during the forced-right condition and was eliminated during the forced-left condition. The depressed patients showed no signs of impairments compared with the healthy control group. Thus, they showed a right ear advantage during the nonforced and forced-right conditions, which was shifted to a left ear advantage during the forced left condition. The schizophrenic patients, however, were impaired on the forced-left condition compared with the healthy control and depressed subjects.: ConclusionsThe results are discussed in terms of separating attentional and inhibitory executive impairments in schizophrenia and depression, taking into consideration illness duration and information-processing demands. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In the present paper we report on speech perception in left (n=16) and right (n=10) frontal lobe nonaphasic patients compared with healthy controls (n=26). The patients were inpatients of the University Clinic of Neurology, Innsbruck, Austria, who participated in a prospective neuropsychological study dealing with several aspects of lateralized functioning. The patients were tested with dichotic presentations of consonant–vowel syllables, which allows for specific probing of speech perception in the left and right hemisphere, respectively. The task was to report which syllable they heard best on each trial, emphasizing single answers on each trial. There were 36 dichotic trials with pairs of CV syllables made up of the six stop consonants /p/, /t/, /k/, /b/, /d/, /g/, all paired with the vowel /a/. There were always two different syllables presented on each trial, one in each ear. The results showed significant differences between the left and right lesioned patients in their performance on the dichotic listening test. While the right lesioned patients and the control subjects had a normal and expected right ear advantage, the left lesioned patients performed almost at random with regard to the right and left ear stimulus. The right lesioned patients and the control group showed a right ear advantage of the same magnitude, although the overall performance was somewhat impaired in the right lesioned group compared to the healthy control group. The left lesioned patients showed no ear advantage at all, and particularly their right ear scores were impaired compared to both the control group and the right lesioned patient group. The results are discussed in terms of the role played by the left frontal cortex in speech perception and language asymmetry. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Few studies have investigated hallucinations that occur at the onset/offset of sleep (called hypnagogic/hypnopompic hallucinations; HHHs), despite the fact that their prevalence in the general population is reported to be higher than the prevalence of daytime hallucinations. We utilized data from an epidemiological study to explore the prevalence of HHHs in various modalities. We also investigated phenomenological differences between sleep-related (HHHs) and daytime hallucinations in the auditory modality. We hypothesized that individuals with only HHHs would not differ from controls on a range of mental health and wellbeing measures, but that if they occur together with daytime hallucinations will pose a greater burden on the individual experiencing them. We also hypothesize that HHHs are qualitatively different (i.e. less severe) from daytime hallucinations. This study utilized data from a cross-sectional epidemiological study on the prevalence of hallucinations in the Norwegian general population. The sample (n = 2533) was divided into a control group without hallucinations (n = 2303), a group only experiencing sleep-related hallucinations (n = 62), a group only experiencing daytime hallucinations (n = 57), and a group experiencing both sleep-related as well as daytime hallucinations (n = 111). Prevalence rates were calculated and groups were compared using analyses of variance and chi-square tests where applicable. The prevalence for HHHs in the auditory domain was found to be 6.8%, whereas 12.3% reported multimodal HHHs, and 32.2% indicated out-of-body experiences at the onset/offset of sleep. Group comparisons of hallucinations in the auditory modality showed that individuals that experienced only auditory HHHs scored significantly (p < 0.05) lower than those who also experienced daytime auditory hallucinations on a range of variables including mental health, anxiety, childhood happiness, and wellbeing. In addition, individuals with only auditory HHHs reported significantly (p < 0.05) less frequent hallucinations, less disturbing hallucinations, more neutral (in terms of content) hallucinations, hallucinations with less influence over their behavior, and less hallucination-related interference with social life compared to those individuals that experience daytime hallucinations. We also found that purely auditory HHHs had a significantly higher age of first onset of hallucinations than the purely daytime and the combined daytime and auditory HHHs groups (28.2 years>20.9 > 19.1). Sleep-related hallucinations are common experiences in the general population, with the auditory modality being the least common. They occur mostly in combination with daytime hallucinations. However, some individuals (2.4%) experience only (auditory) sleep-related hallucinations and this group can be seen as more closely related, on a range of health-related factors, to non-hallucinating individuals than individuals who experience daytime hallucinations. Finally, there is a clear need for more research in this field, and ideas for future studies are presented. • Sleep-related hallucinations are a common phenomenon in the general population and occur in several modalities. • Isolated sleep-related hallucinations are less severe than when they co-occur with daytime hallucinations. • Isolated sleep-related hallucinations have a later (in life) first-onset than daytime hallucinations. • Isolated sleep-related hallucinations may be attributed to different underlying mechanisms than daytime hallucinations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most people are right-handed and show left-hemispheric language lateralization, but a minority exhibits left-handedness and right-hemispheric language lateralization. This atypical laterality pattern is observed significantly more often in schizophrenia patients than in the general population, which led several authors to conclude that there is a genetic link between laterality and schizophrenia. It has even been suggested that a failure in the lateralization process, orchestrated by genes, could be the primary cause of schizophrenia. However, the molecular genetic evidence for a link between laterality and schizophrenia is weak. Recent genetic evidence indicates that schizophrenia is not a single disorder but a group of heritable disorders caused by different genotypic networks leading to distinct clinical symptoms. To uncover the link between schizophrenia and laterality we therefore suggest a paradigm shift where genetics are not mapped on schizophrenia as a whole but on discrete schizophrenia symptoms. In addition, we provide a critical evaluation of current theories on the genetic link between schizophrenia and brain asymmetry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]