Primary vision segregates information along 2 main dimensions: orientation and spatial frequency (SF). An important question is how this primary visual information is integrated to support high-level representations. It is generally assumed that the information carried by different SF is combined following a coarse-to-fine sequence. We directly addressed this assumption by investigating how the network of face-preferring cortical regions processes distinct SF over time. Face stimuli were flashed during 75, 150, or 300 ms and masked. They were filtered to preserve low SF (LSF), middle SF (MSF), or high SF (HSF). Most face-preferring regions robustly responded to coarse LSF, face information in early stages of visual processing (i.e., until 75 ms of exposure duration). LSF processing decayed as a function of exposure duration (mostly until 150 ms). In contrast, the processing of fine HSF, face information became more robust over time in the bilateral fusiform face regions and in the right occipital face area. The present evidence suggests the coarse-to-fine strategy as a plausible modus operandi in high-level visual cortex.

BackgroundClassic galactosemia is an autosomal recessive disorder due to galactose‐1‐phosphate uridyltransferase (GALT) deficiency. Newborn screening and early treatment do not completely prevent tremor, speech deficits, and diminished IQ in both sexes and premature ovarian insufficiency (POI) in women. Data on how individuals with galactosemia fare as adults will improve our ability to predict disease progression.MethodsThirty‐three adults (mean age = 32.6 ± 11.7 years; range = 18–59) with classic galactosemia, confirmed by genotype and undetectable GALT enzyme activity, were evaluated. Analyses assessed associations among age, genotype, clinical features and laboratory measures.ResultsThe sample included 17 men and 16 women. Subjects exhibited cataracts (21%), low bone density (24%), tremor (46%), ataxia (15%), dysarthria (24%), and apraxia of speech (9%). Subjects reported depression (39%) and anxiety (67%). Mean full scale IQ was 88 ± 20, (range = 55–122). All subjects followed a dairy‐free diet and 75–80% reported low intake of calcium and vitamin D. Mean height, weight and body mass were within established norms. All female subjects had been diagnosed with POI. One woman and two men had had children. Logistic regression analyses revealed no associations between age, genotype or gender with IQ, tremor, ataxia, dysarthria, apraxia of speech or anxiety. Each 10‐ year increment of age was associated with a twofold increase in odds of depression.ConclusionsTaken together, these data do not support the hypothesis that galactosemia is a progressive neurodegenerative disease. However, greater attention to depression, anxiety, and social relationships may relieve the impact of this disorder in adults.

The findings provide the first neuroscientific support for the hypothesis that threatening health information causes more efficient disengagement among those for whom the health threat is self-relevant.

In event-related potential (ERPs) studies, emotional stimuli usually elicit an enhanced late positive potential (LPP), which is assumed to reflect motivated attention. However, whether a stimulus elicits emotional responses may depend on the individual's state, such as experiencing romantic love. It has been suggested that stimuli that are related to someone's beloved will elicit increased attention in that infatuated individual. In this study, participants who were in love viewed faces of their beloved, their friend, and of an unknown, beautiful person. The friend was included to control for familiarity, and the unknown person for perceived beauty. As expected, the LPP was larger in response to the face of the beloved than to the other two emotionally significant faces. Interpreting the LPP as reflecting motivated attention, this implies that romantic love is accompanied by increased attention for the face of one's beloved.

Bilinguals derive the same semantic concepts from equivalent, but acoustically different, words in their first and second languages. The neural mechanisms underlying the representation of language-independent concepts in the brain remain unclear. Here, we measured fMRI in human bilingual listeners and reveal that response patterns to individual spoken nouns in one language (e.g., "horse" in English) accurately predict the response patterns to equivalent nouns in the other language (e.g., "paard" in Dutch). Stimuli were four monosyllabic words in both languages, all from the category of "animal" nouns. For each word, pronunciations from three different speakers were included, allowing the investigation of speaker-independent representations of individual words. We used multivariate classifiers and a searchlight method to map the informative fMRI response patterns that enable decoding spoken words within languages (withinlanguage discrimination) and across languages (across-language generalization). Response patterns discriminative of spoken words within language were distributed in multiple cortical regions, reflecting the complexity of the neural networks recruited during speech and language processing. Response patterns discriminative of spoken words across language were limited to localized clusters in the left anterior temporal lobe, the left angular gyrus and the posterior bank of the left postcentral gyrus, the right posterior superior temporal sulcus/superior temporal gyrus, the right medial anterior temporal lobe, the right anterior insula, and bilateral occipital cortex. These results corroborate the existence of "hub" regions organizing semantic-conceptual knowledge in abstract form at the fine-grained level of within semantic category discriminations.