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Abstract Background Headache disorders are among the most prevalent neurological disorders worldwide. However, whether groups differing in socioeconomic position (SEP) are disproportionately affected by headache disorders has not yet been adequately clarified. Our aim was to analyse (1) the headache prevalence by socioeconomic position (SEP) and (2) the attack frequency by SEP in a German population-based adult sample. Methods Cross-sectional data from a random general population were used. The sample included N = 2,189 participants aged ≥ 18 years. SEP was measured using net equivalised income (NEI) and education. A binary logistic regression model tested the effect of SEP in predicting the prevalence of headache in general. Ordinal logistic regressions were modeled to predict the effect of SEP on the likelihood of attack frequency. Attack frequency was categorized in low frequency episodic headache (LFEH: 0–3 days per month), moderate frequency episodic headache (MFEH: 4–14 days per month) and chronic headache (CH: ≥ 15 days per month). Results Of the 2,189 participants, 891 reported headache in the last six months. Neither income nor education was associated with headache prevalence. However, significant differences between income groups were found for attack frequency. Compared to participants with NEI > 150%, those with NEI

IntroductionDespite having sufficient formal education, a large group of people cannot complete everyday tasks like reading, writing, or making basic calculations. Regarding reading, millions of people are not able to understand more complex texts despite the ability to read simple words or sentences; they have low literacy skills. Even though this problem has been known for decades, the causes and predictors of their poor reading comprehension skills are not fully explored. Socioeconomic, sociodemographic, and reading-related (i.e., linguistic) factors, especially of English-speaking participants and thus users of an opaque orthography, were often assessed. The goal of this study was to examine which linguistic, domain-general, or numerical factors predict substandard complex text reading as the core symptom of low literacy skills in adulthood.MethodsTo this end, we assessed a group of German-speaking participants—users of a transparent orthography—who are at risk for complex text reading deficits.ResultsThe results indicated that linguistic variables (reduced word/pseudoword reading, weaker oral semantic and grammatical comprehension), working memory, and age predicted lower performance in text comprehension. This model explained 73% of the total variance, indicating that most of the deficits in complex text reading can be explained by a group of basic underlying linguistic and domain-general factors.DiscussionWe conclude that interventions for adults with low literacy skills and others at risk for complex text reading deficits should address word/pseudoword reading and focus on both written and oral comprehension.

Abstract Humans spontaneously take the perspective of others when encoding spatial information in a scene, especially with agentive action cues present. This functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) study explored how action observation influences implicit spatial perspective-taking (SPT) by adapting a left–right spatial judgment task to investigate whether transformation strategies underlying altercentric SPT can be predicted on the basis of cortical activation. Strategies associated with two opposing neurocognitive accounts (embodied versus disembodied) and their proposed neural correlates (human mirror neuron system; hMNS versus cognitive control network; CCN) are hypothesized. Exploratory analyses with 117 subjects uncover an interplay between perspective-taking and post-hoc factor, consistency of selection, in regions alluding to involvement of the CCN. Descriptively, inconsistent altercentric SPT elicited greater activation than consistent altercentric SPT and/or inconsistent egocentric SPT in the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and left motor cortex (MC), but not the inferior parietal lobules (IPL). Despite the presence of grasping cues, spontaneous embodied strategies were not evident during implicit altercentric SPT. Instead, neural trends in the inconsistent subgroups (22 subjects; 13 altercentric; 9 egocentric) suggest that inconsistency in selection modulates the decision-making process and plausibly taps on deliberate and effortful disembodied strategies driven by the CCN. Implications for future research are discussed.

Abstract Background Triptans are effective for many migraine patients, but some do not experience adequate efficacy and tolerability. The European Headache Federation (EHF) has proposed that patients with lack of efficacy and/or tolerability of ≥ 2 triptans (‘triptan resistance’) could be considered eligible for treatment with the novel medications from the ditan and gepant groups. There is little data on the frequency of ‘triptan resistance’. Methods We used patient self-report data from the German Migraine and Headache Society (DMKG) Headache Registry to assess triptan response and triptan efficacy and/or tolerability failure. Results A total of 2284 adult migraine patients (females: 85.4%, age: 39.4 ± 12.8 years) were included. 42.5% (n = 970) had failed ≥ 1 triptan, 13.1% (n = 300) had failed ≥ 2 triptans (meeting the EHF definition of ‘triptan resistance’), and 3.9% (n = 88) had failed ≥ 3 triptans. Compared to triptan responders (current use, no failure, n = 597), triptan non-responders had significantly more severe migraine (higher frequency (p

Abstract Backgound Headache disorders are not only among the most prevalent, they are also among the most disabling disorders worldwide. This paper investigates the association between headache impact on daily life and the socioeconomic status (SES) of headache sufferers. Methods Data stem from a random general population sample in Germany. Respondents who reported having headache for at least a year and were aged ≥ 18 years were included in the study. A standardized questionnaire addressing headache and headache treatment was filled in during the face-to-face survey. The impact of headache on daily life was measured using the German version of the Headache Impact Test (HIT-6). Results Higher headache impact was found in low and medium SES compared to high SES. After adjustment for sociodemographics, headache-related factors (analgesic use, headache duration, headache frequency, migraine diagnosis), depressive symptoms, physical inactivity and obesity, an increased odds ratio of having higher headache impact in low SES compared to high SES was found: OR = 1.83, 95% CI [1.43, 2.23], p = .014. When the interactions "SES*obesity", "SES*depressive symptoms", and "SES*physical inactivity" were added, the results showed a significant interaction effect of “SES*obesity”. Obese persons with low SES were 3.64 times more likely to have higher headache impact than non-obese persons with low SES. No significant differences between obese and non-obese persons were found in the medium and high SES groups. Conclusions SES is an important factor that should not be neglected in headache awareness campaigns and headache treatment. Longitudinal studies are needed in the future to investigate whether lifestyle interventions, such as weight reduction, can help to reduce headache impact in people in lower SES.

Abstract Introduction Chronic headache due to the overuse of medication for the treatment of migraine attacks has a prevalence of 0.5–2.0%. This guideline provides guidance for the management of medication overuse (MO) and medication overuse headache (MOH). Recommendations Treatment of headache due to overuse of analgesics or specific migraine medications involves several stages. Patients with medication overuse (MO) or medication overuse headache (MOH) should be educated about the relationship between frequent use of symptomatic headache medication and the transition from episodic to chronic migraine (chronification), with the aim of reducing and limiting the use of acute medication. In a second step, migraine prophylaxis should be initiated in patients with migraine and overuse of analgesics or specific migraine drugs. Topiramate, onabotulinumtoxinA and the monoclonal antibodies against CGRP or the CGRP-receptor are effective in patients with chronic migraine and medication overuse. In patients with tension-type headache, prophylaxis is performed with amitriptyline. Drug prophylaxis should be supplemented by non-drug interventions. For patients in whom education and prophylactic medication are not effective, pausing acute medication is recommended. This treatment can be performed in an outpatient, day hospital or inpatient setting. Patients with headache due to overuse of opioids should undergo inpatient withdrawal. The success rate of the stepped treatment approach is 50–70% after 6 to 12 months. A high relapse rate is observed in patients with opioid overuse. Tricyclic antidepressants, neuroleptics (antiemetics) and the administration of steroids are recommended for the treatment of withdrawal symptoms or headaches during the medication pause. Consistent patient education and further close monitoring reduce the risk of relapse.

Abstract We aimed to investigate stress-reactive rumination in response to social stress and its association with social anxiety and trait rumination. From previous investigations we know that people with a certain vulnerability to rumination show increased stress-reactive rumination. However, up to date the possible influence of social anxiety on this relationship is still unclear. Therefore, we reanalyzed the data of two of our previous studies assessing healthy low and high trait ruminators and depressed patients performing the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST). We measured cortical oxygenation using functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) as well as different behavioral outcome measures (subjective stress levels, negative affect, state rumination). On a behavioral level, we found an influence of both, social anxiety and trait rumination, on state rumination, even when correcting for the other factor, respectively, implying two potentially independent factors of influence. On a neural level, we observed reduced activation in brain regions of the cognitive control network (CCN) for higher social anxiety and trait rumination, which might be a result of reduced cognitive and attentional control. Results indicate a specific role of social anxiety, at least on a behavioral level, and therefore implicate a crucial factor to be considered in the treatment of depression.

(1) Cognitive impairments such as working memory (WM) deficits are amongst the most common dysfunctions characterizing bipolar disorder (BD) patients, severely contributing to functional impairment. We aimed to investigate WM performance and associated brain activation during the acute phase of BD and to observe changes in the same patients during remission. (2) Frontal brain activation was recorded using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) during n-back task conditions (one-back, two-back and three-back) in BD patients in their acute depressive (n = 32) and remitted (n = 15) phases as well as in healthy controls (n = 30). (3) Comparison of BD patients during their acute phase with controls showed a trend (p = 0.08) towards lower dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) activation. In the remitted phase, BD patients showed lower dlPFC and ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (vlPFC) activation (p = 0.02) compared to controls. No difference in dlPFC and vlPFC activation between BD patients’ phases was found. (4) Our results showed decreased working memory performance in BD patients during the working memory task in the acute phase of disease. Working memory performance improved in the remitted phase of the disease but was still particularly attenuated for the more demanding conditions.

Abstract Background Headache sufferers in need of professional health care often do not utilize the care available, and factors influencing headache-specific physician consultation are not yet understood. Objectives of this study are (1) to assess self-reported headache-specific physician consultations and (2) to identify headache-related and sociodemographic predictors. Methods Data of a random sample of the general population in Germany aged ≥14 years were analyzed (N = 2461). A multivariate binary logistic regression was conducted to identify a parsimonious model to predict physician consultation. Results 50.7% of the participants with headache reported at least one headache-specific physician consultation during lifetime. Of these, 53.6% had seen one, 26.1% two, and 20.3% more than two physicians because of their headaches. The odds of physician consultation increased with the number of headache days per month (HDM) [(reference HDM

Recent research has emphasized rumination as an important maintaining factor in various mental disorders. However, operationalization and therefore induction of rumination in experimental settings poses a major challenge in terms of ecological validity. As stress seems to play a key role in everyday situations eliciting rumination, we conducted two stress paradigms while assessing behavioral and neurophysiological measures.Aiming to replicate previous findings on induced rumination by means of the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) and comparing them to physiological (pain) stress, a clinical sample of patients with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD; n = 22) and healthy controls (HC; n = 23) was recruited. Cortical blood oxygenation was assessed during the stress paradigms using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). Further, we used ecological momentary assessment (EMA) of stress, rumination and mood to be able to correlate ruminative responses during induced stress and everyday rumination.Our results showed that social stress but not physiological stress induced depressive rumination in MDD but not in HC. Further, rumination reactivity in response to social stress but not to physiological stress was significantly associated with rumination reactivity in everyday life as assessed with EMA. With respect to cortical oxygenation, MDD subjects showed hypoactivity in the Cognitive Control Network during the TSST, which mediated the differences between MDD and HC in post-stress rumination.Our findings emphasize the role of negative social triggers in depressive rumination and validate the TSST as an induction method for depressive rumination. The results inform future developments in psychotherapeutic treatment for depressive rumination.

Auditory verbal hallucinations (AVH) are a characteristic symptom of psychosis. An influential cognitive model accounting for the mechanisms in the generation of AVHs describes a defective monitoring of inner speech, leading to the misidentification of internally generated thoughts as externally generated events. In this study, we utilized an inner speech paradigm during a simultaneous measurement with functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), in order to replicate the findings of neural correlates of inner speech and auditory verbal imagery (AVI) in healthy subjects, reported in earlier studies, and to provide the first validation of the paradigm for fNIRS measurements. To this end, 20 healthy subjects were required to generate and silently recite first and second person sentences in their own voice (inner speech) and imagine the same sentences in a different, alien voice (AVI). Furthermore, questionnaires were deployed to assess the predisposition to acoustic hallucinations and schizotypal traits to investigate their connection to activation patterns associated with inner speech and monitoring processes. The results showed that both methods, fNIRS and fMRI, exhibited congruent activations in key brain areas, claimed to be associated with monitoring processes, indicating that the paradigm seems to be applicable using fNIRS alone. Furthermore, the results showed similar brain areas activated during inner speech and monitoring processes to those from earlier studies. However, our results indicate that the activations were dependent more on the sentence form and less on the imaging condition, showing more active brain areas associated with second person sentences. Integration of the sentence construction into the model of inner speech and deficient monitoring processes as the basis for the formation of AVHs should be considered in further studies. Furthermore, negative correlations between questionnaires' scores and activations in precentral gyrus and premotor cortex indicate a relationship of schizotypal characteristics and a deficient activation pattern.

Abstract Background Migraine is a highly prevalent and disabling neurological disorder which is commonly linked with a broad range of psychiatric comorbidities, especially among subjects with migraine with aura or chronic migraine. Defining the exact nature of the association between migraine and psychiatric disorders and bringing out the pathophysiological mechanisms underlying the comorbidity with psychiatric conditions are relevant issues in the clinical practice. Methods A systematic review of the most relevant studies about migraine and psychiatric comorbidity was performed using “PubMed”, “Scopus”, and “ScienceDirect” electronic databases from 1 January 1998 to 15 July 2018. Overall, 178 studies met our inclusion criteria and were included in the current review. Results According to the most relevant findings of our overview, the associations with psychiatric comorbidities are complex, with a bidirectional association of major depression and panic disorder with migraine. Importantly, optimizing the pharmacological and non-pharmacological treatment of either migraine or its psychiatric comorbidities might help clinicians to attenuate the burden of both these conditions. Conclusions The available data highlight the need for a comprehensive evaluation of psychiatric disorders in migraine in order to promote an integrated model of care and carefully address the burden and psychosocial impairment related to psychiatric comorbidities in migraine.

Previous research repeatedly found basic numerical abilities (e.g., magnitude understanding, arithmetic fact knowledge, etc.) to predict young students' current and later arithmetic achievement as assessed by achievement tests – even when controlling for the influence of domain-general abilities (e.g., intelligence, working memory). However, to the best of our knowledge, previous studies hardly addressed this issue in secondary school students. Additionally, they primarily assessed basic numerical abilities in a between-task approach (i.e., using different tasks for different abilities). Finally, their relevance for real-life academic outcomes such as mathematics grades has only rarely been investigated. The present study therefore pursued an approach using one and the same task (i.e., a within-task approach) to reduce confounding effects driven by between-task differences. In particular, we evaluated the relevance of i) number magnitude understanding, ii) arithmetic fact knowledge, and iii) conceptual and procedural knowledge for the mathematics grades of 81 students aged between ten and thirteen (i.e., in Grades 5 and 6) employing the number bisection task. Results indicated that number magnitude understanding, arithmetic fact knowledge, and conceptual and procedural knowledge contributed to explaining mathematics grades even when controlling for domain-general cognitive abilities. Methodological and practical implications of the results are discussed.

Most children use their fingers when learning to count and calculate. These sensorimotor experiences were argued to underlie reported behavioral associations of finger gnosis and counting with mathematical skills. On the neural level, associations were assumed to originate from overlapping neural representations of fingers and numbers. This study explored whether finger-based training in children would lead to specific neural activation in the sensorimotor cortex, associated with finger movements, as well as the parietal cortex, associated with number processing, during mental arithmetic. Following finger-based training during the first year of school, trained children showed finger-related arithmetic effects accompanied by activation in the sensorimotor cortex potentially associated with implicit finger movements. This indicates embodied finger-based numerical representations after training. Results for differences in neural activation between trained children and a control group in the IPS were less conclusive. This study provides the first evidence for training-induced sensorimotor plasticity in brain development potentially driven by the explicit use of fingers for initial arithmetic, supporting an embodied perspective on the representation of numbers.

Abstract Background Arithmetic processing in adults is known to rely on a frontal-parietal network. However, neurocognitive research focusing on the neural and behavioral correlates of arithmetic development has been scarce, even though the acquisition of arithmetic skills is accompanied by changes within the fronto-parietal network of the developing brain. Furthermore, experimental procedures are typically adjusted to constraints of functional magnetic resonance imaging, which may not reflect natural settings in which children and adolescents actually perform arithmetic. Therefore, we investigated the longitudinal neurocognitive development of processes involved in performing the four basic arithmetic operations in 19 adolescents. By using functional near-infrared spectroscopy, we were able to use an ecologically valid task, i.e., a written production paradigm. Results A common pattern of activation in the bilateral fronto-parietal network for arithmetic processing was found for all basic arithmetic operations. Moreover, evidence was obtained for decreasing activation during subtraction over the course of 1 year in middle and inferior frontal gyri, and increased activation during addition and multiplication in angular and middle temporal gyri. In the self-paced block design, parietal activation in multiplication and left angular and temporal activation in addition were observed to be higher for simple than for complex blocks, reflecting an inverse effect of arithmetic complexity. Conclusions In general, the findings suggest that the brain network for arithmetic processing is already established in 12–14 year-old adolescents, but still undergoes developmental changes.

Background: A relevant proportion of patients with panic disorder (PD) does not improve even though they receive state of the art treatment for anxiety disorders such as cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT). At the same time, it is known, that from a neurobiological point of view, PD patients are often characterised by prefrontal hypoactivation. Intermittent Theta Burst Stimulation (iTBS) is a non-invasive type of neurostimulation which can modulate cortical activity and thus has the potential to normalise prefrontal hypoactivity found in PD. We therefore aimed at investigating the effects of iTBS as an innovative add-on to CBT in the treatment for PD. Methods: In this double-blind, bicentric study, 44 PD patients, randomised to sham or verum stimulation, received 15 sessions of iTBS over the left prefrontal cortex (PFC) in addition to 9weeks of group CBT. Cortical activity during a cognitive as well as an emotional (Emotional Stroop) paradigm was assessed both at baseline and post-iTBS treatment using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) and compared to healthy controls. Results: In this manuscript we only report the results of the emotional paradigm; for the results of the cognitive paradigm please refer to Deppermann et al. (2014).During the Emotional Stroop test, PD patients showed significantly reduced activation to panic-related compared to neutral stimuli for the left PFC at baseline. Bilateral prefrontal activation for panic-related stimuli significantly increased after verum iTBS only. Clinical ratings significantly improved during CBT and remained stable at follow-up. However, no clinical differences between the verum- and sham-stimulated group were identified, except for a more stable reduction of agoraphobic avoidance during follow-up in the verum iTBS group. Limitations: Limitations include insufficient blinding, the missing control for possible state-dependent iTBS effects, and the timing of iTBS application during CBT. Conclusion: Prefrontal hypoactivity in PD patients was normalised by add-on iTBS. Clinical improvement of anxiety symptoms was not affected by iTBS. Keywords: Panic disorder, Functional near-infrared spectroscopy, Cognitive-behavioural therapy, Intermittent Theta Burst Stimulation, Emotion regulation

Background: Reliable population-based data on the prevalence and characteristics of primary headache across the lifespan are essential. However, robust data are lacking.Methods: We utilized questionnaire data from a random general population sample in Germany, that comprised 2,478 participants aged ≥14 years. A standardized questionnaire addressing headache and headache treatment was filled in during the face-to-face survey.Results: The 6-month prevalence of self-reported headache in the total sample amounted to 39.0% (known diagnosis of migraine 7.2%; tension-type headache 12.4%; another diagnosis or unknown diagnosis 23.4%). Age-specific prevalence rates were 37.9% (14–34 years), 44.6% (35–54 years), 38.5% (55–74 years), and 26.9% (≥75 years). Compared to age group 14–34, participants aged 35–54 were more (OR = 1.29, 95%-CI 1.05–1.60, p = 0.018) and those aged ≥75 were less (OR = 0.55, 95%-CI 0.40–0.76, p < 0.001) likely to have any headache. Of the participants with headache, 79.5% reported headache on 14 days per month. The frequency of headache did not differ significantly between age groups in men [χ(3, N = 384)2 = 1.45, p > 0.05], but in women [χ(3, N = 651)2 = 21.57, p < 0.001]: women aged ≥75 years were over-represented in the group reporting 4–14 headache days per month. The analgesic use (days per month) differed significantly between age groups among participants with headache on 14 days per month: 1.8 (14–34 years), 2.5 (35–54 years), 3.2 (55–74 years), and 3.4 (≥75 years), respectively 7.9 (14–34 years), 11.4 (35–54 years), 18.4 (55–74 years), and 22.8 (≥75 years).Conclusions: In general, the prevalence of headache decreases with age. However, older women suffer from more frequent attacks and older participants take analgesics on more days per month than younger participants. This might put them at risk of medication overuse which may lead to medication overuse headache. More research is needed to understand these specifics in headache frequency and treatment behavior in older people.

Some individuals experience more difficulties with math than others, in particular when arithmetic problems get more complex. Math ability, on one hand, and arithmetic complexity, on the other hand, seem to partly share neural underpinnings. This study addresses the question of whether this leads to an interaction of math ability and arithmetic complexity for multiplication and division on behavioral and neural levels. Previously screened individuals with high and low math ability solved multiplication and division problems in a written production paradigm while brain activation was assessed by combined functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) and electroencephalography (EEG). Arithmetic complexity was manipulated by using single-digit operands for simple multiplication problems and operands between 2 and 19 for complex multiplication problems and the corresponding division problems. On the behavioral level, individuals with low math ability needed more time for calculation, especially for complex arithmetic. On the neural level, fNIRS results revealed that these individuals showed less activation in the left supramarginal gyrus (SMG), superior temporal gyrus (STG) and inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) than individuals with high math ability when solving complex compared to simple arithmetic. This reflects the greater use of arithmetic fact retrieval and also the more efficient processing of arithmetic complexity by individuals with high math ability. Oscillatory EEG analysis generally revealed theta and alpha desynchronization with increasing arithmetic complexity but showed no interaction with math ability. Because of the discovered interaction for behavior and brain activation, we conclude that the consideration of individual differences is essential when investigating the neurocognitive processing of arithmetic.

Math anxiety impairs academic achievements in mathematics. According to the processing efficiency theory (PET), the adverse effect is the result of reduced processing capacity in working memory (WM). However, this relationship has been examined mostly with correlational designs. Therefore, using an intervention paradigm, we examined the effects of math anxiety on math learning. Twenty-five 5th graders underwent seven training sessions of multiplication over the course of 2 weeks. Children were faster and made fewer errors in solving trained problems than untrained problems after learning. By testing the relationship between math anxiety, WM, and math learning, we found that if children have little or no math anxiety, enough WM resources are left for math learning, so learning is not impeded. If they have high math anxiety and high visuospatial WM, some WM resources are needed to deal with math anxiety but learning is still supported. However, if they have high math anxiety and low visuospatial WM capacity, math learning is significantly impaired. These children have less capacity to learn new math content as cognitive resources are diverted to deal with their math anxiety. We conclude that math anxiety not only hinders children’s performance in the present but potentially has long-lasting consequences, because it impairs not only math performance but also math learning. This intervention study partially supports the PET because only the combination of high math anxiety and low WM capacity seems critical for hindering math learning. Moreover, an adverse effect of math anxiety was observed on performance effectiveness (response accuracy) but not processing efficiency (response time).

Neuroimaging has undergone enormous progress during the last two and a half decades. The combination of neuroscientific methods and educational practice has become a focus of interdisciplinary research in order to answer more applied questions. In this realm, conditions that hamper learning success and have deleterious effects in the population – such as learning disorders (LD) – could especially profit from neuroimaging findings. At the moment, however, there is an ongoing debate about how far neuroscientific research can go to inform the practical work in educational settings. Here, we put forward a theoretical translational framework as a method of conducting neuroimaging and bridging it to education, with a main focus on dyscalculia and dyslexia. Our work seeks to represent a theoretical but mainly empirical guide on the benefits of neuroimaging, which can help people working with different aspects of LD, who need to act collaboratively to reach the full potential of neuroimaging. We provide possible ideas regarding how neuroimaging can inform LD at different levels within our multidirectional framework, i.e., mechanisms, diagnosis/prognosis, training/intervention, and community/education. In addition, we discuss methodological, conceptual, and structural limitations that need to be addressed by future research.

In this review, we aim to highlight the application of functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) as a useful neuroimaging technique for the investigation of cognitive development. We focus on brain activation changes during the development of mathematics and language skills in schoolchildren. We discuss how technical limitations of common neuroimaging techniques such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) have resulted in our limited understanding of neural changes during development, while fNIRS would be a suitable and child-friendly method to examine cognitive development. Moreover, this technique enables us to go to schools to collect large samples of data from children in ecologically valid settings. Furthermore, we report findings of fNIRS studies in the fields of mathematics and language, followed by a discussion of the outlook of fNIRS in these fields. We suggest fNIRS as an additional technique to track brain activation changes in the field of educational neuroscience.

Based on neurofeedback (NF) training as a neurocognitive treatment in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), we designed a randomized, controlled functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) NF intervention embedded in an immersive virtual reality classroom in which participants learned to control overhead lighting with their dorsolateral prefrontal brain activation. We tested the efficacy of the intervention on healthy adults displaying high impulsivity as a sub-clinical population sharing common features with ADHD. Twenty participants, 10 in an experimental and 10 in a shoulder muscle-based electromyography control group, underwent eight training sessions across 2 weeks. Training was bookended by a pre- and post-test including go/no-go, n-back, and stop-signal tasks (SST). Results indicated a significant reduction in commission errors on the no-go task with a simultaneous increase in prefrontal oxygenated hemoglobin concentration for the experimental group, but not for the control group. Furthermore, the ability of the subjects to gain control over the feedback parameter correlated strongly with the reduction in commission errors for the experimental, but not for the control group, indicating the potential importance of learning feedback control in moderating behavioral outcomes. In addition, participants of the fNIRS group showed a reduction in reaction time variability on the SST. Results indicate a clear effect of our NF intervention in reducing impulsive behavior possibly via a strengthening of frontal lobe functioning. Virtual reality additions to conventional NF may be one way to improve the ecological validity and symptom-relevance of the training situation, hence positively affecting transfer of acquired skills to real life.

Formally, availability of education for children has increased around the world over the last decades. However, despite having a successful formal education career, adults can become functional illiterates. Functional illiteracy means that a person cannot use reading, writing and calculation skills for his/her own and the community’s development. Functional illiteracy has considerable negative effects not only on personal development, but also in economic and social terms. Although functional illiteracy has been highly publicized in mass media in the recent years, there is limited scientific knowledge about the people termed functional illiterates; definition, assessment and differential diagnoses with respect to related numerical and linguistic impairments are rarely studied and controversial.The first goal of our review is to give a comprehensive overview of the research on functional illiteracy by describing gaps in knowledge within the field and to outline and address the basic questions concerning who can be considered as functional illiterates: (1) Do they possess basic skills? (2) In which abilities do they have the largest deficits? (3) Are numerical and linguistic deficits related? (4) What is the fundamental reason for their difficulties? (5) Are there main differences between functional illiterates, illiterates and dyslexics? We will see that despite partial evidence, there is still much research needed to answer these questions.Secondly, we emphasize the timeliness for a new and more precise definition that results in uniform sampling, better diagnosis, conclusion and intervention. We propose the following working definition as the result of the review: functional illiteracy is the incapability to understand complex texts despite adequate schooling, age, language skills, elementary reading skills and IQ. These inabilities must also not be fully explained by sensory, domain-general cognitive, neurological or mental disorders.In sum, we suggest that functional illiteracy must be more thoroughly understood and assessed from a theoretical, empirical and diagnostic perspective.

OBJECTIVE:Food stimuli are omnipresent and naturally primary reinforcing stimuli. One explanation for the intake of high amounts of food in binge eating disorder (BED) is a deviant valuation process. Valuation of food stimuli is supposed to influence approach or avoidance behaviour towards food. Focusing on self-reported and indirect (facial electromyography) valuation process, motivational aspects in the processing of food stimuli were investigated. METHODS:We compared an overweight sample with BED (BED+) with an overweight sample without BED (BED-) and with normal weight controls (NWC) regarding their self-reported and indirect (via facial electromyography) valuation of food versus non-food stimuli. RESULTS:Regarding the self-reported valuation, the BED+ sample showed a significantly stronger food-bias compared to the BED- sample, as food stimuli were rated as significantly more positive than the non-food stimuli in the BED+ sample. This self-reported valuation pattern could not be displayed in the indirect valuation. Food stimuli evoked negative indirect valuation in all groups. The BED+ sample showed the plainest approach-avoidance conflict marked by a diverging self-reported (positive) and indirect (negative) valuation of food stimuli. CONCLUSIONS:BED+ showed a deviant self-reported valuation of food as compared to BED-. The valuation process of the BED+ sample seems to be characterized by a motivational ambivalence. This ambivalence should be subject of further studies and may be of potential use for therapeutic interventions.

The Behavioral Inhibition System (BIS) as defined within the Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory (RST) modulates reactions to stimuli indicating aversive events. Gray's trait Anxiety determines the extent to which stimuli activate the BIS. While studies have identified the amygdala-septo-hippocampal circuit as the key-neural substrate of this system in recent years and measures of resting-state dynamics such as randomness and local synchronization of spontaneous BOLD fluctuations have recently been linked to personality traits, the relation between resting-state dynamics and the BIS remains unexplored. In the present study, we thus examined the local synchronization of spontaneous fMRI BOLD fluctuations as measured by Regional Homogeneity (ReHo) in the hippocampus and the amygdala in twenty-seven healthy subjects. Correlation analyses showed that Gray's trait Anxiety was significantly associated with mean ReHo in both the amygdala and the hippocampus. Specifically, Gray's trait Anxiety explained 23% and 17% of resting-state ReHo variance in the left amygdala and the left hippocampus, respectively. In summary, we found individual differences in Gray's trait Anxiety to be associated with ReHo in areas previously associated with BIS functioning. Specifically, higher ReHo in resting-state neural dynamics corresponded to lower sensitivity to punishment scores both in the amygdala and the hippocampus. These findings corroborate and extend recent findings relating resting-state dynamics and personality while providing first evidence linking properties of resting-state fluctuations to Gray's BIS.

INTRODUCTION: There is mounting evidence for the influence of emotional content on working memory performance. This is particularly important in light of the emotion processing that needs to take place when emotional content interferes with executive functions. In this study, we used emotional words of different valence but with similar arousal levels in an n-back task. METHODS: We examined the effects on activation in the prefrontal cortex by means of functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) and on the late positive potential (LPP). FNIRS and LPP data were examined in 30 healthy subjects. RESULTS: BEHAVIORAL RESULTS SHOW AN INFLUENCE OF VALENCE ON THE ERROR RATE DEPENDING ON THE DIFFICULTY OF THE TASK: more errors were made when the valence was negative and the task difficult. Brain activation was dependent both on the difficulty of the task and on the valence: negative valence of a word diminished the increase in activation, whereas positive valence did not influence the increase in activation, while difficulty levels increased. The LPP also differentiated between the different valences, and in addition was influenced by the task difficulty, the more difficult the task, the less differentiation could be observed. CONCLUSIONS: Summarized, this study shows the influence of valence on a verbal working memory task. When a word contained a negative valence, the emotional content seemed to take precedence in contrast to words containing a positive valence. Working memory and emotion processing sites seemed to overlap and compete for resources even when words are carriers of the emotional content.

Recent studies as well as theoretical models of error processing assign fundamental importance to the brain's dopaminergic system. Research about how the electrophysiological correlates of error processing--the error-related negativity (ERN) and the error positivity (Pe)--are influenced by variations of common dopaminergic genes, however, is still relatively scarce. In the present study, we therefore investigated whether polymorphisms in the DAT1 gene and in the DRD4 gene, respectively, lead to interindividual differences in these error processing correlates. One hundred sixty participants completed a version of the Eriksen Flanker Task while a 26-channel EEG was recorded. The task was slightly modified in order to increase error rates. During data analysis, participants were split into two groups depending on their DAT1 and their DRD4 genotypes, respectively. ERN and Pe amplitudes after correct responses and after errors as well as difference amplitudes between errors and correct responses were analyzed. We found a differential effect of DAT1 genotype on the Pe difference amplitude but not on the ERN difference amplitude, while the reverse was true for DRD4 genotype. These findings are in line with predictions from theoretical models of dopaminergic transmission in the brain. They furthermore tie results from clinical investigations of disorders impacting on the dopamine system to genetic variations known to be at-risk genotypes.