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ABSTRACT: To detect that a conversational turn is intended to be ironic is a difficult challenge in everyday language comprehension. Most authors suggested a theory of mind deficit is crucial for irony comprehension deficits in psychiatric disorders like schizophrenia; however, the underlying pathophysiology and neurobiology are unknown and recent research highlights the possible role of language comprehension abnormalities. Fifteen female right-handed subjects completed personality testing as well as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and neuropsychology. Subjects were recruited from the general population. No subject had a lifetime history of relevant psychiatric disorder; however, subjects differed in their score on the German version of the schizotypal personality questionnaire (SPQ). During fMRI scans, the subjects silently read 44 short text vignettes that ended in either an ironic or a literal statement. Imaging was performed using a 3 T Siemens scanner. The influence of schizotypy on brain activation was investigated by using an SPM5 regression analysis with the SPQ total score and the SPQ cognitive-perceptual score as regressors. Reading ironic in contrast to literal sentences activated a bilateral network including left medial prefrontal and left inferior parietal gyri. During reading of ironic sentences, brain activation in the middle temporal gyrus of both hemispheres showed a significant negative association with the SPQ total score and the SPQ cognitive-perceptual score. Significant positive correlation with the SPQ total score was present in the left inferior frontal gyrus. We conclude schizotypal personality traits are associated with a dysfunctional lateral temporal language rather than a theory of mind network.
Brain and Language 04/2010; 113(1):1-12. · 3.12 Impact Factor
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B Wild
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ABSTRACT: In recent years, a number of studies have been published on cerebral activation induced by funny stimuli. This article provides an overview on the structures involved and findings concerning the neuropsychological faculties necessary for joke comprehension, e.g., working memory and mental flexibility. On the other hand, there are also many aspects of humor, like joke production, that are not neuropsychologically well studied; an overview of current knowledge will be given. In addition, there is little research on the effect of aging on the different aspects of cerebral humor processing.
Zeitschrift für Gerontologie + Geriatrie 12/2009; 43(1):31-5. · 0.61 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: The interrelationships among humor, smiling, and grinning have fascinated philosophers for millennia and neurologists for over a century. A functional dissociation between emotional facial expressions and those under voluntary control was suggested decades ago. Recent functional imaging studies, however, have been somewhat at odds with older studies with respect to the role of the right frontal cortex in the perception of humor.
Blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) activity was measured in 13 subjects during the presentation of "funny" vs "nonfunny" versions of essentially the same cartoons and compared with BOLD activity associated with "merely grinning" at similar nonfunny cartoons via fMRI.
Humor perception was correlated with BOLD activity in the left temporo-occipitoparietal junction and left prefrontal cortex and humor-associated smiling (recorded with an MR-compatible video camera) with bilateral activity in the basal temporal lobes. Unexpectedly, both conditions were also accompanied by a decrease in BOLD activity in the right orbitofrontal cortex. Voluntary "grinning" in the absence of humorous stimuli was accompanied by bilateral activity in the facial motor regions.
These results confirm the clinically derived hypothesis of separate cortical regions responsible for the production of emotionally driven vs voluntary facial expressions. The right orbitofrontal decrease reconciles inconsistencies between clinical and functional imaging findings and may reflect a disinhibition of facial emotional expression.
Neurology 04/2006; 66(6):887-93. · 8.31 Impact Factor
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European Journal of Anaesthesiology 09/2002; 19(8):616. · 2.23 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: Drug monitoring in psychiatry usually serves psychoactive drug plasma concentration measurement. Anticholinergic properties offer a faster approach to monitoring pharmacodynamic intraindividual effects of the drug by measuring their effects on heart rate variability (HRV), which is sympathetically and parasympathetically controlled via cholinergic synapses. The plasma concentrations of the atypical antipsychotics clozapine and olanzapine correlated with parameters of HRV in 59 patients suffering from schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder. HRV during 4 minutes at rest was extracted from the ECG trace of a routine digital EEG registration in addition to blood sampling for plasma concentration measurement (HPLC method). We calculated sympathetically and parasympathetically controlled heart frequency bands (low, medium and high frequency) and other HRV parameters, coefficient of variation (CV), and root mean square of successive differences (RMSSD). All HRV parameters were significantly more impaired in clozapine patients (n = 33, mean clozapine plasma concentration 331 +/- 294 ng/ml) than in olanzapine patients (n = 26, mean olanzapine plasma concentration 42 +/- 32 ng/ml) and demonstrated 1.7 - 4.8 times the cardiac anticholinergic properties of clozapine in vivo. 14 out of 14 patients with a CV beyond 3.2 % had clozapine plasma concentrations below the proposed optimal therapeutic concentration of 350 ng/ml. All HRV parameters were inversely and significantly correlated with the clozapine plasma concentrations (such as lgCV: r = - 0.73, p < 0.001) and, to a lesser extent, with the olanzapine plasma concentrations (lgCV r = - 0.44, p < 0.05). These results underline the potential clinical value of HRV parameter extraction from routine ECGs in predicting plasma concentrations and objective individual neurocardiac effects of drugs with anticholinergic properties.
Pharmacopsychiatry 05/2002; 35(3):96-100. · 2.07 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: In human interactions, frequently one individual becomes 'infected' with emotions displayed by his or her partner. We tested the predictions by Hatfield et al. (1992) (Primitive emotional contagion. Review of Personal and Social Psychology 14, 151-177) that the automatic, mostly unconscious component of this process, called 'primitive emotional contagion', is repeatable and fast, that stronger facial expressions of the sender evoke stronger emotions in the viewer and that women are more susceptible to emotional contagion than men. We presented photos from the Pictures of Facial Affect (Ekman and Friesen, 1976). (Pictures of Facial Affect. Consulting Psychologists Press, Palo Alto) on a PC varying the affective content (happy and sad), the expressive strength and the duration of presentation. After each photo, subjects rated the strength of experienced happiness, sadness, anger, disgust, surprise, fear and pleasure. Feelings of happiness or sadness were significantly, specifically and repeatedly evoked in the viewer - even with presentations lasting only 500 ms. Stronger expressions evoked more emotion. The gender of the viewer had weak effects. We hypothesize that this fast and repeatable reaction is likely to have a 'prewired' neural basis. We propose that the induction of emotional processes within a subject by the perception of emotionally expressive faces is a powerful instrument in the detection of emotional states in others and as the basis for one's own reactions. Detailed knowledge of emotional reactions to faces is also valuable as a basis for psychiatric studies of disorders in affect and/or communication and in studies using functional imaging (fMRI or PET) where faces are increasingly used as stimuli.
Psychiatry Research 07/2001; 102(2):109-24. · 2.52 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: The direct observation and simultaneous recording of subject behavior, e.g. facial movements, during MR imaging is necessary for a variety of functional imaging studies involving phenomena such as emotions, humor, mood, etc. Such observation is also valuable for the monitoring of very ill or young patients. We describe a color video camera and light system which works within the functioning scanner. The camera acquires high resolution video sequences during conventional T(1)-weighted and functional T(2)*-weighted imaging. When fixed to the head coil artefacts during the MRI-acquisition were insignificant. The video allows observation of the face detailed enough to permit FACS scoring of facial expressions. We therefore propose that it can be applied for a wide variety of studies needing visual feedback of subject behavior.
Magnetic Resonance Imaging 10/2000; 18(7):893-6. · 1.99 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: Several articles have described the electromyographic (EMG) patterns underlying cerebellar hypermetria. However, the description of the EMG associated with hypermetria is not consistent between studies. It is hypothesized that the reason for this concerns the criteria used to define and describe the antagonist latency. Several studies on neurologically normal individuals have shown that there are two components to the antagonist EMG: an early component and a late component. However, many studies have identified only one component and have not defined whether it was the early or late component. A reanalysis of one published data set that had previously identified only one antagonist component was performed. The reanalysis suggests that hypermetria can be caused by an absence of an early antagonist EMG component, a delayed late component, or both. In addition, a new measure is suggested that allows this hypothesis to be further evaluated.
Movement Disorders 08/1997; 12(4):604-7. · 4.51 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: Slowness of goal-directed movements is a frequent symptom following cerebellar lesions. So far it has not been demonstrated whether this slowness represents compensation for impaired braking which is a feature of cerebellar dysfunction with the consequence of hypermetria, or whether it is an independent part of cerebellar movement disorder. To resolve this question we tested 18 cerebellar patients in a paradigm where they not only had to perform fast goal-directed wrist flexion movements (amplitudes 5 degrees and 30 degrees) but also wrist flexion movements as fast and large as possible without particular target. In normals antagonist activity is minimal in large movements without target. Although subjects were clinically only mildly affected they regularly showed a 'slowness of movement' resulting from a reduction of peak acceleration. This in turn was due to the reduced generation of agonist activity. Peak velocity was not significantly decreased because the acceleration phase was adequately prolonged. Since these changes were most pronounced in the 'fast' movements without target the compensation hypothesis should be discarded. The reduction of acceleration must at least partially be due to a genuine cerebellar deficiency in the fast generation of agonist activity.
Brain Research 04/1996; 713(1-2):186-91. · 2.73 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: It has recently been proposed that the ataxia in ataxic hemiparesis is a clumsiness common to all patients with hemiparesis and not indicative of any involvement of corticopontocerebellar or cerebellocortical pathways. In disagreement with this view, we report here that a patient with ataxic hemiparesis, following a lesion of the corona radiata, showed the disorders in kinematic and electromyographic (EMG) parameters of goal-directed movements that have recently been demonstrated to be characteristic of patients with cerebellar lesions. This suggests involvement of corticopontocerebellar or cerebellocortical pathways in ataxic hemiparesis.
Movement Disorders 08/1993; 8(3):363-6. · 4.51 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: 1. The objective was to investigate in cerebellar patients with dysmetria the kinematic and electromyographic (EMG) characteristics of large and small movements at the elbow, wrist, and finger and thereby to determine the nature of cerebellar dysmetria at distal as well as proximal joints. Flexions were made as fast as possible by moving relatively heavy manipulanda for each joint to the same end position through 5, 30, and 60 degrees. 2. In normal subjects flexions at all joints were accompanied by similar triphasic EMG activity. Movements of increasing amplitude were made with increasing movement durations and increasing durations and magnitudes of initial agonist EMG activity. Antagonist activity often appeared to have two components: one coactive with the initial agonist burst but starting later, the other reaching its peak at about peak velocity. 3. Cerebellar patients with dysmetria showed hypermetria followed by tremor at all three joints when movements were made with the manipulanda. Hypermetria was most marked for aimed movements of small amplitude (5 degrees) at all joints. 4. A characteristic of cerebellar disordered movements, which could be present at all amplitudes and all joints, was an asymmetry with decreased peak accelerations and increased peak decelerations compared to normal movements. Both the asymmetry and the hypermetria for small amplitude movements could be used clinically as sensitive indicators of cerebellar dysfunction. 5. The EMG abnormalities accompanying hypermetria and asymmetry were a more gradual buildup and a prolongation of agonist activity and delayed onset of antagonist activity.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Journal of Neurophysiology 04/1991; 65(3):563-71. · 3.32 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: Having a good “sense of humor” is an important personality characteristic that significantly influences social communication and may represent an important coping strategy. To take things “with humor” does not only represent a state characteristic but also a personality trait that can reliably be assessed with questionnaires like the “state–trait–cheerfulness–inventory” (STCI) by Ruch [Ruch et al., Assessing the “humorous temperament”: construction of the facet and standard trait forms of the state–trait–cheerfulness–inventory—STCI, Humor 9 (1996) 303–339]. Substantial inter-individual differences among study subjects are a key feature of almost all functional magnetic resonance imaging studies on higher cognitive functions. Usually, they are considered as “statistical noise” and are not recommended for the data analysis, although they can have a high intra-individual stability. However, a number of recent fMRI studies found robust correlations between inter-individual differences in BOLD response and personality traits such as extraversion. The aim of this pilot exploratory study was to localise regions where the BOLD response was predicted by “humor personality” scores. 10 healthy male subjects viewed funny or non-funny versions of Gary Larson cartoons while BOLD response was measured with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Data were collected from the whole brain (28 slices, slice thickness 4 mm, 1 mm gap, TR = 3 s). SPM 99 software was used. A simple regression analysis with the sub-score cheerfulness from the STCI was applied. Higher cheerfulness in the STCI predicted brain activation in the right inferior parietal lobule (Tal X, Y, Z: 45, −77, 29), but not in limbic and prefrontal brain areas. We conclude that neural correlates of cheerfulness are correlated with BOLD response in lateral cortical rather than limbic brain areas. Likely the activated region is important for a readiness or tendency to be amused, whereas the regions previously shown to be activated in humor appreciation studies are related to the understanding of the joke and the emotional reaction.
