Richard J. Binney

Bangor University · School of Psychology

Although there is an emerging consensus that the anterior temporal lobes (ATLs) are involved in semantic memory, it is currently unclear which specific parts of this region are implicated in semantic representation. Answers to this question are difficult to glean from the existing literature for 3 reasons: 1) lesions of relevant patient groups tend...

In recent years, multiple independent neuroscience investigations have implicated critical roles for the rostral temporal lobe in auditory and visual perception, language, and semantic memory. Although arising in the context of different cognitive functions, most of these suggest that there is a gradual convergence of sensory information in the tem...

Most leading models of socio-cognitive processing devote little discussion to the nature and neuroanatomical correlates of cognitive control mechanisms. Recently, it has been proposed that the regulation of social behaviours could rely on brain regions specialised in the controlled retrieval of semantic information, namely the anterior inferior fro...

A key challenge for neurobiological models of social cognition is to elucidate whether brain regions are specialised for that domain. In recent years, discussion surrounding the role of anterior temporal regions epitomises such debates; some argue the anterior temporal lobe (ATL) is part of a domain‐specific network for social processing, while oth...

It has been proposed that social experience plays an important role in the grounding of concepts, and socialness has been proffered as a fundamental organisational principle underpinning semantic representation in the human brain. However, the empirical support for these hypotheses is limited by inconsistencies in the way socialness has been define...

Unlabelled: The left inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG) has been ascribed key roles in numerous cognitive domains, including language, executive function and social cognition. However, its functional organisation, and how the specific areas implicated in these cognitive domains relate to each other, is unclear. Possibilities include that the LIFG under...

Running title: Impaired social behaviour in frontotemporal dementia Keywords: frontotemporal dementia, semantic dementia, social-semantic knowledge, social control, social behaviour, anterior temporal lobe, orbitofrontal cortex 2 Abbreviations: bvFTD = behavioural-variant frontotemporal dementia; SD = semantic dementia; ATL = anterior temporal lobe...

Abstract concepts, like justice and friendship, are central features of our daily lives. Traditionally, abstract concepts are distinguished from other concepts in that they cannot be directly experienced through the senses. As such, they pose a challenge for strongly embodied models of semantic representation that assume a central role for sensorim...

Currently, there is a lack of consensus on whether brain regions involved in social processing are specialised for that domain or subserve a more general underlying function 1–5. Moreover, the extent to which domain-general systems contribute to social cognition remains unclear. Recently, it has been proposed that the semantic system involved in ex...

The left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) has been associated with numerous cognitive domains, including executive control, language, semantics and social cognition. One possibility, therefore, is that IFG subregions will reveal multiple functional specialisations. However, the organisation of this region and the degree to which functional differentiat...

Given that aesthetic experiences typically involve extracting meaning from environment, we believe that semantic cognition research has much to offer the field of neuroaesthetics. In the current paper, we propose a generalised framework that is inspired by the semantic cognition literature and that treats aesthetic experience as just one example of...

Aesthetic judgments dominate much of daily life by guiding how we evaluate objects, people, and experiences in our environment. One key question that remains unanswered is the extent to which more specialised or largely general cognitive resources support aesthetic judgments. To investigate this question in the context of working memory, we examine...

It has been proposed that social experience plays an important role in the grounding of concepts, and socialness has been proffered as a fundamental organisational principle underpinning semantic representation in the human brain. However, the empirical support for these hypotheses is limited by inconsistencies in the way socialness has been define...

concepts, like justice and friendship, are a central feature of our daily lives. Traditionally, abstract concepts are distinguished from other concepts in that they cannot be directly experienced through the senses. As such, they pose a challenge for strongly embodied models of semantic representation that assume a central role for sensorimotor inf...

Aesthetic judgments dominate much of daily life by guiding how we evaluate objects, people, and experiences in our environment. One key question that remains unanswered is the extent to which more specialised or largely general cognitive resources support aesthetic judgments. To investigate this question in the context of executive resources, we ex...

The contribution and neural basis of cognitive control is under-specified in many prominent models of socio-cognitive processing. Important outstanding questions include whether there are multiple, distinguishable systems underpinning control and whether control is ubiquitously or selectively engaged across different social behaviours and task dema...

A key challenge for neurobiological models of social cognition is to elucidate whether brain regions are specialised for that domain. In recent years, discussion surrounding the role of the anterior temporal lobe (ATL) epitomises such debates; some argue it is part of a domain-specific network for social processing, while others claim it is a domai...

Resting-state network research is extremely influential, yet the functions of many networks remain unknown. Hypotheses implicating the default mode network (DMN) in episodic memory and social cognition are highly popular. Univariate analyses and meta-analyses of these functions show activation in similar regions to the DMN. However, this does not n...

To date, neuroaesthetics research has primarily framed aesthetic experiences as a special case of cognition. In the current paper, we argue that the dominance of this specialised approach needs rethinking. Instead, we propose a generalised framework that is inspired by the semantic cognition literature and that treats aesthetic experience as just o...

A core question for the cognitive sciences concerns how we flexibly interact with others and coordinate behaviour to achieve mutually beneficial outcomes. By modelling the cognitive processes underpinning neurotypical social interactions we may uncover clues as to the causes of social behavioural impairments that arise in the context of brain injur...

Research in social neuroscience has primarily focused on carving up cognition into distinct pieces, as a function of mental process, neural network or social behaviour, while the need for unifying models that span multiple social phenomena has been relatively neglected. Here we present a novel framework that treats social cognition as a case of sem...

Many neurobiological accounts of the human ability to make mental state attributions (or theory or mind; TOM) posit a central role of the temporoparietal junction (TPJ)1, despite evidence from neuropsychology2 and functional neuroimaging3 that further suggests an important contribution from the anterior temporal lobes (ATL). A parallel set of liter...

Processing a famous face involves a cascade of steps including detecting the presence of a face, recognizing it as familiar, accessing semantic/biographical information about the person, and finally, if required, production of the proper name. Decades of neuropsychological and neuroimaging studies have identified a network of occipital and temporal...

Research in social neuroscience has primarily focused on carving up cognition into distinct pieces, as a function of mental process, neural network or social behaviour, while the need for unifying models that span multiple social phenomena has been relatively neglected. Here we present a novel framework that treats social cognition as a case of sem...

Numerous neuroimaging studies have identified various brain networks using task-free analyses. While these networks undoubtedly support higher cognition, their precise functional characteristics are rarely probed directly. The frontal, temporal, and parietal lobes contain the majority of the tertiary association cortex, which are key substrates for...

One contribution of 23 to a theme issue 'Varieties of abstract concepts: development, use and representation in the brain'. The anterior temporal lobes (ATLs) play a key role in conceptual knowledge representation. The hub-and-spoke theory suggests that the contribution of the ATLs to semantic representation is (a) transmodal, i.e. integrating info...

Background: Patients with nonfluent/agrammatic variant primary progressive aphasia (nfvPPA) have more difficulty producing verbs than nouns, but the reason for this discrepancy remains unclear. One possibility is that it results from impaired access to motor programs integral to semantic representations of actions. Another is that the disruption af...

Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) was paired with eye tracking to elucidate contributions of frontal, temporoparietal and anterior temporal cortex to early visual search patterns during picture naming (e.g., rapid visual scanning to diagnostic semantic features). Neurotypical adults named line drawings of objects prior to and following...

In a verbal fluency task, a person is required to produce as many exemplars of a given category (e.g., 'animals', or words starting with 'f') as possible within a fixed duration. Successful verbal fluency performance relies both on the depth of search within semantic/phonological neighborhoods ('clustering') and the ability to flexibly disengage be...

Progressive supranuclear palsy syndrome (PSP-S) results from neurodegeneration within a network of brainstem, subcortical, frontal and parietal cortical brain regions. It is unclear how network dysfunction progresses and relates to longitudinal atrophy and clinical decline. In this study, we evaluated patients with PSP-S (n = 12) and healthy contro...

Introduction Longitudinal imaging of neurodegenerative disorders is a potentially powerful biomarker for use in clinical trials. In Alzheimer's disease, studies have demonstrated that empirically derived regions of interest (ROIs) can provide more reliable measurement of disease progression compared with anatomically defined ROIs. Methods We set o...

Objective: To examine the utility and reliability of volumetric MRI in measuring disease progression in the 4 repeat tauopathies, progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) and corticobasal syndrome (CBS), to support clinical development of new tau-directed therapeutic agents. Methods: Six- and 12-month changes in regional MRI volumes and PSP Rating S...

A growing body of recent convergent evidence indicates that the anterior temporal lobe (ATL) has connectivity-derived graded differences in semantic function: the ventrolateral region appears to be the transmodal, omni-category center-point of the hub whilst secondary contributions come from the peripheries of the hub in a manner that reflects thei...

Human higher cognition arises from the main tertiary association cortices including the frontal, temporal and parietal lobes. Many studies have suggested that cortical functions must be shaped or emerge from the pattern of underlying physical (white matter) connectivity. Despite the importance of this hypothesis, there has not been a large-scale an...

View largeDownload slide Neurodegeneration is hypothesized to follow large-scale networks through the trans-synaptic spread of toxic proteins from a syndrome-specific epicentre. Mandelli et al . report that the pattern of atrophy progression in the non-fluent variant of primary progressive aphasia reflects the strength of connectivity in the speec...

Natural languages are rife with words that describe feelings, introspective states, and social constructs (e.g., liberty, persuasion) that cannot be directly observed through the senses. Effective communication demands linguistic competence with such abstract words. In clinical neurological settings, abstract words are especially vulnerable to the...

Semantic variant primary progressive aphasia (svPPA) typically presents with left-hemisphere predominant rostral temporal lobe atrophy and the most significant complaints within the language domain. Less frequently, patients present with right-hemisphere predominant temporal atrophy coupled with marked impairments in processing of famous faces and...

Importance: We provide novel evidence of specific clinical and neuroimaging features that may help for the in vivo prediction of underlying pathology in patients with nonfluent/agrammatic primary progressive aphasia (nfvPPA) and progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) or corticobasal degeneration (CBD) proved by autopsy. Objective: To characterize...

Current research is investigating the potential utility of longitudinal measurement of brain structure as a marker of drug effect in clinical trials for neurodegenerative disease. Recent studies in Alzheimer's disease (AD) have shown that measurement of change in empirically derived regions of interest (ROIs) allows more reliable measurement of cha...

Significance Functional neuroimaging has established that most cognitive functions are supported by distributed neural networks. Hundreds of studies have investigated the semantic network (SN) and the default mode network (DMN) (neural deactivation when undertaking a variety of tasks). These stable networks are increasingly used as biomarkers in ne...

OBJECTIVE: To determine rates of regional brain atrophy in progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) and corticobasal degeneration (CBD) over 6 months and 1 year. BACKGROUND: Previous cross-sectional volumetric MRI studies of PSP have demonstrated profound brainstem and frontal cortical atrophy. CBD shows more widespread dorsal frontoparietal atrophy wi...

By developing and applying a method which combines fMRI and rTMS to explore semantic cognition, we identified both intrinsic (related to automatic changes in task/stimulus-related processing) and induced (i.e., associated with the effect of TMS) activation changes in the core, functionally-coupled network elements. Low-frequency rTMS applied to the...

Semantic cognition is underpinned by regions involved in representing conceptual knowledge and executive control areas that provide regulation of this information according to current task requirements. Using distortion-corrected fMRI, we investigated the contributions of these two systems to abstract and concrete word comprehension. We contrasted...

Surface dyslexia is one of the hallmark features of the semantic variant primary progressive aphasia (svPPA). Surface dyslexia is characterized as a selective impairment in reading words with exceptional spelling-to-sound correspondences (irregular words), where they are ‘over-generalized’ and pronounced as they are spelled (e.g., ‘sew’ pronounced...

In primary progressive aphasia (PPA), speech and language difficulties are caused by neurodegeneration of specific brain networks. In the nonfluent/agrammatic variant (nfvPPA), motor speech and grammatical deficits are associated with atrophy in a left fronto-insular-striatal network previously implicated in speech production. In vivo dissection of...

Wernicke's aphasia occurs after a stroke to classical language comprehension regions in the left temporoparietal cortex. Consequently, auditory-verbal comprehension is significantly impaired in Wernicke's aphasia but the capacity to comprehend visually presented materials (written words and pictures) is partially spared. This study used functional...

Primate studies have recently identified the dorsal stream as constituting multiple dissociable pathways associated with a range of specialized cognitive functions. To elucidate the nature and number of dorsal pathways in the human brain, the current study utilized in vivo probabilistic tractography to map the structural connectivity associated wit...

The human insula is a functionally complex yet poorly understood region of the cortex, implicated in a wide range of cognitive, motor, emotion and somatosensory activity. To elucidate the functional role of the insula, the current study used in vivo probabilistic tractography to map the structural connectivity of seven anatomically-defined insular...

Model-based residual bootstrapping applied to constrained spherical deconvolution analysis of HARDI provides probabilities of observing n fiber orientations in every voxel of the brain. We hypothesized that the distribution of these probabilities for each n within cortical and subcortical regions would reflect the varying underlying neural microstr...