The main purpose of the present study was to investigate how proper and common nouns are represented in the brain independent of memory retrieval processes. Participants were instructed to perform a lexical decision task while dense-array EEG was continuously recorded. Both ERP components (namely N400 and P300) and swLORETA suggested that proper name processing engaged a more widespread neural network and required more cognitive resources than common noun processing. Overall, our results come down in favor of the hypothesis that specific effects of proper vs. common noun processing exist, and they suggest a possible neuro-functional segregation of proper vs. common noun processing. The difference in proper and common noun processing seems to emerge at the level of storage or representation of lexical knowledge, and it may crucially depend on their semantic characteristics.

The perception of tools vs. other objects has been shown to activate the left premotor and somatosensory cortex, which represents object affordance associated with tool manipulability (Proverbio, Adorni, & D'Aniello, 2011). The question of whether hemispheric asymmetry depends on right hand use or is linked to a hemispheric functional specialization for fine-grained precision movement is unclear. Thus, in this paper, ERPs were recorded from 128 sites in response to the visual presentation of bidimensional (2D) pictures depicting unimanual (e.g., a hammer) and bimanual (e.g., a handlebar) tools (Study 1). Central N2 and prefrontal N400 components were much larger for bimanual than unimanual tools (over the left hemisphere for N400). SwLORETAs performed for both components showed at first the activation of the left parietal cortex (BA39) and then of the right homologous (BA40) one, for both grips but stronger for the bimanual coordination. At all times and for both grips, the left premotor cortex (BA6) was involved in coding action affordance, while only unimanual tools activated the left postcentral gyrus (BA3). In Study 2, unimanual tools were presented with an orientation congruent (standard) or incongruent to their interaction with the right hand (rotated), to manipulate affordance's quality. Standard objects elicited much larger ERP responses (namely: N1, N2, N400) than rotated tools (over the left hemisphere for N400). At the earliest stage (190-270 ms) the significant intracranial sources were of visual nature (mainly the contralateral precuneus). Regions representing motor information were not involved. Rotated tools induced a smaller activation in the STS and parahippocampal regions (possibly coding affordable biological motion and the spatial aspects of hand/object interaction), whereas rotated tools activated to a greater extent the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPF, BA9). In the later time window standard objects activated the left BA6 and the right BA40 more than rotated objects. Overall, these data suggest that viewing tools automatically activates mental representations associated with their manipulation. The left premotor cortex was found to be involved with any kind of object and grip, as early as 200 ms post-stimulus, thus supporting the hypothesis of a LH asymmetry in the neural representation of grasping, within this region. The right supramarginal gyrus was also found to be crucially involved later in time.

It has been suggested that the variability among studies in the onset of lexical effects may be due to a series of methodological differences. In this study we investigated the role of orthographic familiarity, phonological legality and number of orthographic neighbours of words in determining the onset of word/non-word discriminative responses.

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of morbidity and mortality globally. Promoting healthy behaviors throughout life is an essential prevention tool. This study investigated the associations among lifestyle profiles (including diet, alcohol consumption, physical activity, cigarette smoking, and cardiovascular screening), sociodemographic factors (gender, age, education, and family history of CVDs), and psychological factors (sense of coherence and dispositional optimism). In total, 676 healthy adults (mean age = 35 years; range = 19-57; 46% male) participated in an online survey. Lifestyle profiles were identified through cluster analysis, and a multinomial logistic regression was then performed to explore their association with sociodemographic and psychological variables. Results show that men were more likely than women to belong to the lifestyle profile with the highest amount of physical activity (OR = 2.40; p < 0.001) and the greatest attention to cardiovascular screening (OR = 2.09; p < 0.01). Lower dispositional optimism was associated with the profile paying the greatest attention to cardiovascular screening (OR = 0.67; p < 0.05). Sense of coherence, in terms of lower comprehensibility (OR = 0.67; p < 0.05) and higher manageability (OR = 1.43; p < 0.05), was associated with the lifestyle profile characterized by an unhealthy diet, sedentary lifestyle, and nonsmoking. This study shed light on factors associated with different co-occurring health-related behaviors that should be considered in planning effective communication strategies promoting adherence to health claims.

It is well known that viewing graspable tools (but not other objects) activates motor-related brain regions, but the time course of affordance processing has remained relatively unexplored. In this study, EEG was continuously recorded from 128 scalp sites in 15 right-handed university students while they received stimuli in the form of 150 pictures of familiar non-tool objects and 150 pictures of manipulable tools, matched for size, luminance and perceptual familiarity. To select the 300 images for the study, a wider set of preliminary stimuli was screened for motoric content by 20 judges using a 3-point scale (0=absent; 2=strong); pictures that scored below 1.5 or above 0.6 were excluded from the tool and non-tool categories, respectively. Tools and non-tools were presented in random order, interspersed with 25 photos of live plants. Each slide was presented for 1000 ms, with an interval ranging from 1500 to 1900 ms. The task consisted of responding to the photos of plants while ignoring the other stimuli. Both an anterior negativity (210-270 ms) and a centroparietal P300 (550-600 ms) were larger in response to tools than objects, particularly in the left hemisphere. swLORETA inverse solution identified the occipito-temporal cortex (BA19 and BA37) as the most significant source of activity (in the 210-270-ms time window) for both types of visual objects and the left postcentral gyrus (BA3) and the left and right premotor cortex (BA6) as the most significant source of activity for tools only. These data hint at an automatic access to motoric object properties even under conditions in which attention is devoted to other stimulus categories.

The aim of the study was to investigate the effect of both word age of acquisition (AoA) and frequency of occurrence on the timing and topographical distribution of ERP components. The processing of early- versus late-acquired words was compared with that of high-frequency versus low-frequency words. Participants were asked to perform an orthographic task while EEG was recorded from 128 sites. RTs showed an effect of both word AoA and lexical frequency. ERPs revealed a neuro-functional dissociation between AoA and frequency effects in early word processing. AoA modulated the amplitude of left occipito-temporal selection-negativity, suggesting an effect of AoA on early orthographic and lexical access and revealing the crucial role of AoA in determining how words are neurally represented in the ventral pathway. Lexical frequency modulated the amplitude of left anterior negativity, providing evidence for the involvement of the left inferior frontal cortex in the processing of low-frequency words.

Recent findings have demonstrated that women might be more reactive than men to viewing painful stimuli (vicarious response to pain), and therefore more empathic [Han, S., Fan, Y., & Mao, L. (2008). Gender difference in empathy for pain: An electrophysiological investigation. Brain Research, 1196, 85-93]. We investigated whether the two sexes differed in their cerebral responses to affective pictures portraying humans in different positive or negative contexts compared to natural or urban scenarios. 440 IAPS slides were presented to 24 Italian students (12 women and 12 men). Half the pictures displayed humans while the remaining scenes lacked visible persons. ERPs were recorded from 128 electrodes and swLORETA (standardized weighted Low-Resolution Electromagnetic Tomography) source reconstruction was performed. Occipital P115 was greater in response to persons than to scenes and was affected by the emotional valence of the human pictures. This suggests that processing of biologically relevant stimuli is prioritized. Orbitofrontal N2 was greater in response to positive than negative human pictures in women but not in men, and not to scenes. A late positivity (LP) to suffering humans far exceeded the response to negative scenes in women but not in men. In both sexes, the contrast suffering-minus-happy humans revealed a difference in the activation of the occipito/temporal, right occipital (BA19), bilateral parahippocampal, left dorsal prefrontal cortex (DPFC) and left amygdala. However, increased right amygdala and right frontal area activities were observed only in women. The humans-minus-scenes contrast revealed a difference in the activation of the middle occipital gyrus (MOG) in men, and of the left inferior parietal (BA40), left superior temporal gyrus (STG, BA38) and right cingulate (BA31) in women (270-290 ms). These data indicate a sex-related difference in the brain response to humans, possibly supporting human empathy.

It is known that early sensory deprivation modifies brain functional structure and connectivity. The aim of the present study was to investigate the neuro-functional organization of reading in a patient with profound congenital unilateral deafness. Using event-related potentials (ERPs), we compared cortical networks supporting the processing of written words in patient RA (completely deaf in the right ear since birth) and in a group of control volunteers. We found that congenital unilateral hearing deprivation modifies neural mechanisms of word reading. Indeed, while written word processing was left-lateralized in controls, we found a strong right lateralization of the fusiform and inferior occipital gyri activation in RA. This finding goes in the same direction of recent proposals that the ventral occipito-temporal activity in word reading seem to lateralize to the same hemisphere as the one involved in spoken language processing.

It is known that early music learning (playing of an instrument) modifies functional brain structure (both white and gray matter) and connectivity, especially callosal transfer, motor control/coordination and auditory processing. We compared visual processing of notes and words in 15 professional musicians and 15 controls by recording their synchronized bioelectrical activity (ERPs) in response to words and notes. We found that musical training in childhood (from age ~8 years) modifies neural mechanisms of word reading, whatever the genetic predisposition, which was unknown. While letter processing was strongly left-lateralized in controls, the fusiform (BA37) and inferior occipital gyri (BA18) were activated in both hemispheres in musicians for both word and music processing. The evidence that the neural mechanism of letter processing differed in musicians and controls (being absolutely bilateral in musicians) suggests that musical expertise modifies the neural mechanisms of letter reading.

One of the most debated issues in the cognitive neuroscience of language is whether distinct semantic domains are differentially represented in the brain. Clinical studies described several anomic dissociations with no clear neuroanatomical correlate. Neuroimaging studies have shown that memory retrieval is more demanding for proper than common nouns in that the former are purely arbitrary referential expressions. In this study a semantic relatedness paradigm was devised to investigate neural processing of proper and common nouns.

The recent neuroimaging literature gives conflicting evidence about whether the left fusiform gyrus (FG) might recognize words as unitary visual objects. The sensitivity of the left FG to word frequency might provide a neural basis for the orthographic input lexicon theorized by reading models [Patterson, K., Marshall, J. C., & Coltheart, M. (1985). Surface dyslexia: Cognitive and neuropsychological studies of phonological reading. London: Lawrence Erlbaum]. The goal of this study was to investigate the time course and neural correlates of word processing in right-handed readers engaged in an orthographic decision task. Three hundred and twenty Italian words of high and low written frequency and 320 non-derived legal pseudo-words were presented for 250ms in the central visual field. ERPs were recorded from 128 scalp sites in 10 Italian University students. Behavioural data showed a word superiority effect, with faster RTs to words than pseudo-words. Left occipito/temporal N2 (240ms) was greater to high-frequency than low-frequency words and pseudo-words. According to the swLORETA inverse solution, the underlying neural source of this effect was located in the left fusiform gyrus of the occipital lobe (X=-29, Y=-66, Z=-10, BA19) and the right superior temporal gyrus (X=51, Y=6, Z=-5, BA22), which are probably involved in word recognition and semantic representation, respectively. Later frontal ERP components, LPN (300-350) and P3 (400-500), also showed strong lexical sensitivity, thus suggesting implicit semantic processes. The results shed some light on the possible neural substrate of visual reading disabilities such as developmental surface dyslexia or pure alexia.

The specific role of the two cerebral hemispheres in processing idiomatic language is highly debated. While some studies show the involvement of the left inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG), other data support the crucial role of right-hemispheric regions, and particularly of the middle/superior temporal area. Time-course and neural bases of literal vs. idiomatic language processing were compared. Fifteen volunteers silently read 360 idiomatic and literal Italian sentences and decided whether they were semantically related or unrelated to a following target word, while their EEGs were recorded from 128 electrodes. Word length, abstractness and frequency of use, sentence comprehensibility, familiarity and cloze probability were matched across classes.

Despite widespread hearing problems among older adults, only a minority of them use hearing aids. The decision to rely on hearing aids is influenced by several psychosocial factors, which may include attitudes influenced by significant others, particularly caregivers and health professionals. The language used by professionals when approaching this topic is particularly important. The purpose of this study was to deepen the role played by different communication styles in the area of hearing impairment by analysing the impact of language-medical versus everyday-used in the doctor-patient interaction on attitudes and behavioural intentions in a sample of potential caregivers of older adults. 209 Italian volunteers aged between 19 and 60 completed an online experimental study. The results suggested that, when interacting with doctors, exposure to a language that includes medical words promotes negative attitudes towards hearing loss. Nevertheless, medical language induces positive attitudes towards hearing aids and encourages people to adopt them when needed as well as recommending them to relatives and friends. Overall, the use of formal, medical language in doctor-patient communication, despite sounding less reassuring, is more effective in persuading people with hearing loss to rely on hearing aids.

The capacity to deceive others is a complex mental skill that requires the ability to suppress truthful information. The polygraph is widely used in countries such as the USA to detect deception. However, little is known about the effects of emotional processes (such as the fear of being found guilty despite being innocent) on the physiological responses that are used to detect lies. The aim of this study was to investigate the time course and neural correlates of untruthful behavior by analyzing electrocortical indexes in response to visually presented neutral and affective questions. Affective questions included sexual, shameful or disgusting topics. A total of 296 questions that were inherently true or false were presented to 25 subjects while ERPs were recorded from 128 scalp sites. Subjects were asked to lie on half of the questions and to answer truthfully on the remaining half. Behavioral and ERP responses indicated an increased need for executive control functions, namely working memory, inhibition and task switching processes, during deceptive responses. Deceptive responses also elicited a more negative N400 over the prefrontal areas and a smaller late positivity (LP 550-750 ms) over the prefrontal and frontal areas. However, a reduction in LP amplitude was also elicited by truthful affective responses. The failure to observe a difference in LP responses across conditions likely results from emotional interference. A swLORETA inverse solution was computed on the N400 amplitude (300-400 ms) for the dishonest - honest contrast. These results showed the activation of the superior, medial, middle and inferior frontal gyri (BA9, 11, 47) and the anterior cingulate cortex during deceptive responses. Our results conclude that the N400 amplitude is a reliable neural marker of deception.

There is fMRI evidence that women are neurally predisposed to process infant laughter and crying. Other findings show that women might be more empathic and sensitive than men to emotional facial expressions. However, no gender difference in the brain responses to persons and unanimated scenes has hitherto been demonstrated.

The number of Italian citizens unaware of their risk of cardiovascular disease it is still very high.