This study examines by means of functional magnetic resonance imaging the neural mechanisms underlying adolescents’ risk decision-making in social contexts. We hypothesize that the social context could engage brain regions associated with social cognition processes and developmental changes are also expected. Sixty participants (adolescents: 17–18, and young adults: 21–22 years old) read narratives describing typical situations of decision-making in the presence of peers. They were asked to make choices in risky situations (e.g., taking or refusing a drug) or ambiguous situations (e.g., eating a hamburger or a hotdog). Risky as compared to ambiguous scenarios activated bilateral temporoparietal junction (TPJ), bilateral middle temporal gyrus (MTG), right medial prefrontal cortex, and the precuneus bilaterally; i.e., brain regions related to social cognition processes, such as self-reflection and theory of mind (ToM). In addition, brain structures related to cognitive control were active [right anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), bilateral orbitofrontal cortex], whereas no significant clusters were obtained in the reward system (ventral striatum). Choosing the dangerous option involved a further activation of control areas (ACC) and emotional and social cognition areas (temporal pole). Adolescents employed more neural resources than young adults in the right DLPFC and the right TPJ in risk situations. When choosing the dangerous option, young adults showed a further engagement in ToM related regions (bilateral MTG) and in motor control regions related to the planning of actions (pre-supplementary motor area). Finally, the right insula and the right superior temporal gyrus were more activated in women than in men, suggesting more emotional involvement and more intensive modeling of the others’ perspective in the risky conditions. These findings call for more comprehensive developmental accounts of decision-making in social contexts that incorporate the role of emotional and social cognition processes.

Some studies have reported that understanding concrete action-related words and sentences elicits activations of motor areas in the brain. The present fMRI study goes one step further by testing whether this is also the case for comprehension of nonfactual statements. Three linguistic structures were used (factuals, counterfactuals, and negations), referring either to actions or, as a control condition, to visual events. The results showed that action sentences elicited stronger activations than visual sentences in the SMA, extending to the primary motor area, as well as in regions generally associated with the planning and understanding of actions (left superior temporal gyrus, left and right supramarginal gyri). Also, we found stronger activations for action sentences than for visual sentences in the extrastriate body area, a region involved in the visual processing of human body movements. These action-related effects occurred not only in factuals but also in negations and counterfactuals, suggesting that brain regions involved in action understanding and planning are activated by default even when the actions are described as hypothetical or as not happening. Moreover, some of these regions overlapped with those activated during the observation of action videos, indicating that the act of understanding action language and that of observing real actions share neural networks. These results support the claim that embodied representations of linguistic meaning are important even in abstract linguistic contexts.

BackgroundAlthough cerebral palsy (CP) is usually defined as a group of permanent motor disorders due to non-progressive disturbances in the developing fetal or infant brain, recent research has shown that CP individuals are also characterized by altered somatosensory perception, increased pain and abnormal activation of cortical somatosensory areas. The present study was aimed to examine hemispheric differences on somatosensory brain processing in individuals with bilateral CP and lateralized motor impairments compared with healthy controls. Nine CP individuals with left-dominant motor impairments (LMI) (age range 5–28 yrs), nine CP individuals with right-dominant motor impairments (RMI) (age range 7–29 yrs), and 12 healthy controls (age range 5–30 yrs) participated in the study. Proprioception, touch and pain thresholds, as well as somatosensory evoked potentials (SEP) elicited by tactile stimulation of right and left lips and thumbs were compared.ResultsPain sensitivity was higher, and lip stimulation elicited greater beta power and more symmetrical SEP amplitudes in individuals with CP than in healthy controls. In addition, although there was no significant differences between individuals with RMI and LMI on pain or touch sensitivity, lip and thumb stimulation elicited smaller beta power and more symmetrical SEP amplitudes in individuals with LMI than with RMI.ConclusionsOur data revealed that brain processing of somatosensory stimulation was abnormal in CP individuals. Moreover, this processing was different depending if they presented right- or left-dominant motor impairments, suggesting that different mechanisms of sensorimotor reorganization should be involved in CP depending on dominant side of motor impairment.

el punto de vista del padre, de la madre y del adolescente en 295 familias biparentales. Se pretende comparar las estrategias y metas que se emplean durante su resolución y analizar el valor predictivo de las metas en la elección de las estrategias. Se seleccionaron seis estrategias y cuatro metas aplicadas a seis situaciones hipotéticas. Se observa un acercamiento activo y racional al conflicto, aunque las madres están más orientadas que los padres y los adolescentes a la negociación y hacer ver su postura, mientras que los adolescentes utilizan más las tácticas impositivas, de manejo de emociones negativas o bien ignoran el conflicto. La tríada presenta una gran coherencia en la estructura de metas y estrategias, más evidente en el padre que en la madre y el adolescente. Aparecen tendencias de edad que indican un declinar del control parental a los 16-17 años, no así del control de los adolescentes, mientras que disminuye a estas edades el uso de estrategias negociadoras por ambas partes. Palabras clave: Conflictos entre padres, madres y adolescentes, relaciones familiares, estrategias y metas en la resolución de conflictos, adolescencia.

The embodied cognition approach to linguistic meaning posits that action language understanding is grounded in sensory–motor systems. However, evidence that the human motor cortex is necessary for action language memory is meager. To address this issue, in two groups of healthy individuals, we perturbed the left primary motor cortex (M1) by means of either anodal or cathodal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), before participants had to memorize lists of manual action and attentional sentences. In each group, participants received sham and active tDCS in two separate sessions. Following anodal tDCS (a-tDCS), participants improved the recall of action sentences compared with sham tDCS. No similar effects were detected following cathodal tDCS (c-tDCS). Both a-tDCS and c-tDCS induced variable changes in motor excitability, as measured by motor-evoked potentials induced by transcranial magnetic stimulation. Remarkably, across groups, action-specific memory improvements were positively predicted by changes in motor excitability. We provide evidence that excitatory modulation of the motor cortex selectively improves performance in a task requiring comprehension and memory of action sentences. These findings indicate that M1 is necessary for accurate processing of linguistic meanings and thus provide causal evidence that high-order cognitive functions are grounded in the human motor system.