Cortex最新文献

{"title":"Global functional connectivity of cognitive control networks predicts task-switching performance in older adults","authors":"Bryan Madero ,&nbsp;Matthew Sodoma ,&nbsp;Chris Oehler ,&nbsp;Vincent A. Magnotta ,&nbsp;Jeffrey D. Long ,&nbsp;Eliot Hazeltine ,&nbsp;Michelle W. Voss","doi":"10.1016/j.cortex.2026.01.002","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cortex.2026.01.002","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Older adults have difficulty switching between competing goals with increasing age due to declines in executive function (EF) and changes in brain network connectivity, including the Cognitive Control Network (CCN). Prior research shows that greater global functional connectivity (GFC) in the CCN supports cognitive flexibility. However, it is unclear whether CCN GFC is associated with task-switching in older adults. Task-switching performance relies on both switching and working memory. Mixing cost reflects the ability to maintain and coordinate multiple task rules in working memory and is sensitive to age-related declines in EF, whereas switching cost is more closely linked to age-related general slowing in processing speed. This study investigates how CCN GFC relates to task-switching performance in older adults using two task versions. Participants aged 55–80 years old performed the Separate and Overlap versions for behavioral analyses (n = 118). Six 8-min resting-state fMRI sessions were collected over two days for brain behavior analyses (n = 112). Whole grey-matter GFC was calculated, followed by average GFC extraction from the CCN, Default Mode Network (DMN), and Somatomotor Network (SMN). Results showed that older adults were slower and less accurate in the Overlap version. Greater CCN, DMN, and SMN GFC were associated with smaller mixing costs in the Overlap version. SMN GFC was linked to larger mixing costs and smaller switching costs in the Separate version. Our findings suggest that greater integration of the CCN, DMN, and SMN, as measured by GFC, is associated with better task-switch performance under increasing working memory demands.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":10758,"journal":{"name":"Cortex","volume":"196 ","pages":"Pages 90-100"},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146076136","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Literacy modulates engagement of the right inferior frontal gyrus in phonological processing of spoken language","authors":"Mariana P. Nucci ,&nbsp;Kelly Cotosck ,&nbsp;Katerina Lukasova ,&nbsp;Ricardo Nitrini ,&nbsp;Cheryl L. Grady ,&nbsp;Edson Amaro Jr. ,&nbsp;Jed A. Meltzer","doi":"10.1016/j.cortex.2025.12.007","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cortex.2025.12.007","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Neuroimaging studies comparing literate and illiterate participants have revealed how left-lateralized language and vision networks come to show selectivity for processing written words. However, learning to read may also change the brain's processing of spoken language. We recruited older adults from São Paulo, Brazil, who are classified as “functionally illiterate” from a lack of formal education. They were compared with both age-matched and younger highly educated adults to discern effects of both age and education. Participants completed a word-monitoring task in which they listened to an extended narrative and responded with a button press whenever they heard a specific target word. This task was performed in the native language Portuguese and in an unknown language, Japanese, along with a low-level baseline tone-detection task. We hypothesized that illiterate participants would be unable to perform the unknown language version due to undeveloped abilities to detect and extract phonological sequences from speech, related to phonological awareness skills developed by reading. This was confirmed, with unknown-language word monitoring performance selectively correlated with functional literacy. In functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a positive age effect revealed that literate older adults (N = 21) recruited sensorimotor networks to a larger degree than younger adults equated on education (N = 23), in both languages. A positive education effect specific to the unknown language revealed that illiterate older participants (N = 15) failed to recruit the right inferior frontal gyrus, homolog to Broca's area. These results suggest that the right inferior frontal gyrus (rIFG) plays a crucial role in explicit phonological analysis, an ability developed through years of formal education and literacy.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":10758,"journal":{"name":"Cortex","volume":"196 ","pages":"Pages 19-40"},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146015857","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Mapping the neural substrates of verbal and sign language: A single-case study using direct electrical stimulation","authors":"Ena Sukunda ,&nbsp;Katharina Faust ,&nbsp;Hasan Korkmaz ,&nbsp;Sajjad Muhammad ,&nbsp;Effrosyni Ntemou","doi":"10.1016/j.cortex.2025.12.010","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cortex.2025.12.010","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This case report investigates the cortical and subcortical representations of verbal and sign language in a bilingual patient who uses both spoken and signed modalities, assessed intraoperatively during awake surgery. Although spoken language is regularly mapped during awake craniotomies, other language modalities are rarely reported. We performed direct electrical stimulation (DES) during both spoken and sign language tasks in peritumoral regions of the left temporoparietal lobe. The language abilities of the patient were intraoperatively assessed using verbal object naming and sign recognition. Our findings demonstrate that cortical regions, such as the supramarginal gyrus, play a crucial role for both verbal and sign language. However, the specific sites within this region that elicit DES-positive responses differ between the two language modalities. Similarly, subcortical disconnections highlight the overlap between sign and verbal language, particularly in major language pathways, while also emphasizing the specialized role of motor pathways in sign language processing. Clinically, our results emphasize the importance of tailoring DES protocols for intraoperative mapping to individual patient needs, and theoretically, they enhance our understanding of the roles of the supramarginal gyrus and the corticospinal tract in language comprehension.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":10758,"journal":{"name":"Cortex","volume":"196 ","pages":"Pages 78-89"},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146076137","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Adaptation and normative data for the Comprehensive Aphasia Test in Catalan (CAT-CAT)","authors":"Io Salmons ,&nbsp;Helena Muntané-Sánchez","doi":"10.1016/j.cortex.2026.01.001","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cortex.2026.01.001","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Assessment tools for diagnosing aphasia in languages other than English are scarce, particularly for minority languages such as Catalan. The present study introduces the Catalan adaptation of the <em>Comprehensive Aphasia Test</em> (CAT-CAT), the first assessment tool of its kind in Catalan, which was developed with careful consideration of cultural and psycholinguistic factors. Additionally, the study provides normative data based on a sample of 110 Catalan-dominant speakers without language or speech disorders in order to establish the range of non-pathological performance and cut-off scores. We also examined the role of sociodemographic factors on language skills in multilingual speakers of a minority language, a topic often overlooked in the literature. Our findings show that subtests evaluating writing skills in Catalan-speaking individuals are less reliable than those assessing oral abilities, as many Catalan speakers have not received formal instruction in their mother tongue. This factor influences performance more than other variables, such as education level. Notably, language-mixing effects from Spanish were observed mainly in specific production subtests. These findings emphasize the need for language-specific adaptations and, therefore, the value of the CAT–CAT as a tool for both clinical and research purposes in aphasiology.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":10758,"journal":{"name":"Cortex","volume":"196 ","pages":"Pages 1-18"},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146015800","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Hemisphere-specific effects of mirror box-induced disownership on corticomotor excitability","authors":"Ryoki Sasaki ,&nbsp;Hana Watanabe ,&nbsp;Kenichi Sugawara","doi":"10.1016/j.cortex.2026.01.008","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cortex.2026.01.008","url":null,"abstract":"<div><h3>Background</h3><div>Body ownership refers to the feeling that the body belongs to oneself. This sense could be manipulated using the mirror box illusion (MBI), which modulates somatosensory processing. However, whether alterations in body ownership influence motor processing remains unclear. Therefore, we aimed to investigate the hemisphere-specific effects of altered body ownership on corticomotor excitability using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS).</div></div><div><h3>Methods</h3><div>Twenty healthy participants were enrolled. A mirror box was used to modulate the sense of body ownership. Participants observed the mirror reflection of either their right or left hand and tapped both index fingers either synchronously or asynchronously across a 15.2-cm gap for 60 sec. Their actual finger on the reflected side was obscured with a cardboard and cloth. Motor-evoked potentials (MEPs) were elicited from the first dorsal interosseous muscle of the hidden hand using TMS over the right or left primary motor cortex (M1). Changes in body ownership were assessed using the vividness of illusion (VI) and proprioceptive drift.</div></div><div><h3>Results</h3><div>MEP amplitudes increased after synchronous tapping compared with those after asynchronous tapping in the right hand (left M1 stimulation), with no such effect in the left hand. The VI score and proprioceptive drift were greater after synchronous tapping but did not differ between hands.</div></div><div><h3>Conclusion</h3><div>Participants perceived their hands as closer to the mirror than their actual position, regardless of side. Mirror box-induced disownership produced a hemisphere-specific modulation of corticomotor excitability, suggesting that altered body ownership influences motor output in a lateralized manner.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":10758,"journal":{"name":"Cortex","volume":"196 ","pages":"Pages 203-215"},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146185600","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Imagery modulates the pupillary response, but this does not reliably index differences in imagery vividness","authors":"Daniel Gardner,&nbsp;Blake W. Saurels,&nbsp;Derek Henry Arnold","doi":"10.1016/j.cortex.2025.11.018","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cortex.2025.11.018","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Most people report that they can imagine seeing things in their mind's eye. But there are large individual differences. A small proportion of people report that they can never visualise (aphantasics), and a similarly small proportion of people report that their imagined experiences are as realistic as seeing (hyperphantasics). The majority of people describe their visualisations as being moderately vivid. The ratings that inform imagery vividness analyses are subjective self-reports, but it has been suggested that imagery modulations of the pupillary response could be used as a physiological index of individual differences in imagery vividness. When we assessed this inter-relationship, we found that imagery can indeed modulate the pupillary response, with pupils becoming relatively more dilated if people imagine seeing dark, as opposed to bright scenes. However, imagery modulation of the pupillary response was not associated with individual differences in imagery vividness ratings. Overall, our data suggest that while imagery can modulate the pupillary response, this effect does not provide a reliable index of individual differences in imagery vividness ratings.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":10758,"journal":{"name":"Cortex","volume":"196 ","pages":"Pages 189-202"},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146149432","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"How prior motor states can shape perceptual decision bias: Insights from sensorimotor beta oscillations","authors":"Ningjing Cui ,&nbsp;Robert J. van Beers ,&nbsp;Jeroen B.J. Smeets ,&nbsp;Bernadette C.M. van Wijk","doi":"10.1016/j.cortex.2026.01.003","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cortex.2026.01.003","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Emerging evidence suggests that decision making is not a purely cognitive process preceding motor output but rather an embodied phenomenon in which the sensorimotor system actively shapes choice selection. Beta oscillations (13–30 Hz) over sensorimotor cortex are known to encode movement-related activity and have recently been shown to influence behaviour in perceptual decision-making tasks through lateralization of the post-movement rebound following response execution, biasing subsequent decisions toward the alternative response hand. This study investigated whether sensorimotor beta oscillations elicited by an isolated choice-unrelated motor action influence a subsequent perceptual decision. Twenty-nine healthy adults completed a two-stage task while 64-channel EEG was recorded. Each trial began with a left or right thumb button press, followed after a variable delay (.5, 1.2, or 3 sec) by a briefly presented visual grating requiring a decision response on its orientation via a second button press. Beta activity following the initial movement was related to subsequent decision bias at both the between-subject and the within-subject single-trial level: participants with stronger beta power lateralization during decision stimulus presentation exhibited stronger alternation bias, and stronger lateralized beta power in individual trials was associated with higher alternation probability, independent of the delay between the initial movement and the decision stimulus. These results suggest that beta activity may index individual susceptibility to decision bias, while also acting as a momentary neural signal influencing alternation behaviour. Within the framework of embodied decision-making, these findings support the influence of sensorimotor beta oscillations on the choice process.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":10758,"journal":{"name":"Cortex","volume":"196 ","pages":"Pages 117-136"},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146112654","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Using EEG to detect lapses in sustained attention to moving stimuli","authors":"Benjamin G. Lowe ,&nbsp;Alexandra Woolgar ,&nbsp;Sophie Smit ,&nbsp;Anina N. Rich","doi":"10.1016/j.cortex.2025.12.002","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cortex.2025.12.002","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Sustaining attention is effortful but crucial for daily life. Despite this, attentional lapses are common and can have fatal consequences (e.g., when driving). The spontaneous nature of these lapses makes studying their underlying phenomena elusive. As such, methods capable of determining when lapses have occurred may be fruitful research tools, with the potential to save lives if implemented within real-world settings. Here, we capitalised on a recent hierarchical classification method, which uses multivariate decoding to index how well human observers sustain their attention within a dynamic visual environment. We asked whether this method could be used to anticipate behavioural errors based on neural activity measured with electroencephalography (EEG, <em>N</em> = 25). We first decoded how long until a stimulus would reach a task-critical point within a Multiple Object Monitoring (MOM) task from multivariate patterns of EEG amplitudes. The extent to which we could decode this information depended on whether the stimulus was relevant for behaviour, and was lower before participants failed to detect (or ‘missed’) target stimuli relative to hits, presumably due to attentional lapses. We then exploited this drop in neural decodability to predict whether errors were about to occur on each trial. The results form a foundation for sensitive and specific methods to objectively detect errors in sustained attention tasks based on patterns of brain activity.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":10758,"journal":{"name":"Cortex","volume":"195 ","pages":"Pages 1-14"},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2026-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145839621","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The relationship between language disorder and thought disorder: Comparing micro- and macrostructure of spoken narratives of people with aphasia and people with schizophrenia","authors":"Vitor Zimmerer ,&nbsp;Andromachi Tsoukala ,&nbsp;Derya Çokal ,&nbsp;Gabriel Sevilla ,&nbsp;Maggie Douglas ,&nbsp;Will Jones ,&nbsp;I. Nicol Ferrier ,&nbsp;Douglas Turkington ,&nbsp;Stuart Watson ,&nbsp;Rosemary Varley ,&nbsp;Wolfram Hinzen","doi":"10.1016/j.cortex.2025.12.006","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cortex.2025.12.006","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Linguistic profiles in neurological and psychiatric conditions offer critical insights into the relationship between language and broader cognitive functions. People with aphasia (PwA) can display severe language production and comprehension difficulties, often alongside relatively preserved capacity in other domains. In contrast, people with schizophrenia (PwS) can present with disordered thoughts, delusions and hallucinations, accompanied by atypical language use. We examined microstructural (lexicon, syntax) and macrostructural (narrative) features of comic strip descriptions produced by PwA, PwS, and two respective control samples, using manual annotation and computerized tools. Both clinical groups diverged from controls at microstructural and macrostructural levels. However, PwA showed greater microstructural disruption, while PwS exhibited greater macrostructural impairment. Language production in PwA differed most from PwS in the much higher rate of morphosyntactic errors, more frequent intra-clausal pauses, and a greater reduction of grammatical complexity. In PwA, performance in non-verbal reasoning and semantics tests correlated with macrostructural, but not with microstructural measures. In PwS, non-verbal reasoning scores correlated with both micro- and macrostructural measures. These findings highlight distinct effects of more focal left perisylvian damage associated with aphasia, versus diffuse bihemispheric frontotemporal and parietal dysfunction associated with schizophrenia, on cognition and communication. We propose that verbal disruption with few morphosyntactic errors and intra-clausal pauses reflects broader cognitive dysfunction, whereas a high frequency of these features points to difficulties more specific to language production and comprehension.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":10758,"journal":{"name":"Cortex","volume":"195 ","pages":"Pages 81-95"},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2026-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145973598","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Anodal transcranial direct current stimulation over the right inferior frontal gyrus enhances inhibitory control, with modulation by individual differences in metacognition and delay discounting","authors":"Mattia Ferro ,&nbsp;Daniele Saccenti ,&nbsp;Andrea Stefano Moro ,&nbsp;Francesca Ceruti ,&nbsp;Paola de Bartolo ,&nbsp;Sandra Sassaroli ,&nbsp;Antonio Malgaroli ,&nbsp;Jacopo Lamanna","doi":"10.1016/j.cortex.2025.11.016","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cortex.2025.11.016","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Inhibitory control is a fundamental component of executive functioning, enabling the suppression of one's own cognitive and behavioral responses. Although inhibitory control exerts substantial effects on everyday life and clinical settings, its neural underpinnings and relationship with other higher-order cognitive functions remain poorly understood. The right inferior frontal gyrus (rIFG) has been proposed as a potential target for neuromodulation, given its putative role in the inhibition of premature or maladaptive motor responses. In this study, we applied transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) over the rIFG in thirty one healthy participants, each undergoing two experimental sessions—one with active stimulation and one with sham stimulation. Prior to stimulation, participants completed the Metacognitions Questionnaire-30 and a Monetary Intertemporal Choice Task (MICT) to assess delay discounting. During stimulation, subjects performed the Go/NoGo and the Stop-Signal tasks to evaluate inhibitory control. Following stimulation, they repeated the MICT. Our results show that anodal tDCS over the rIFG enhances inhibitory control compared to sham stimulation. Significant interaction effects on inhibitory control were also observed between tDCS protocol and baseline measures of metacognitive beliefs and delay discounting. Although rIFG stimulation did not steeply reduce delay discounting, significant time-by-protocol and metacognition-by-protocol interactions were detected. These findings not only suggest that tDCS effects on inhibitory control are affected by subjects' cognitive profiles but also pave the way for future research on the efficacy of tDCS in enhancing inhibitory control and reducing delay discounting in psychological conditions where these higher-order cognitive functions are impaired, such as mood disorders and substance addiction.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":10758,"journal":{"name":"Cortex","volume":"195 ","pages":"Pages 43-57"},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2026-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145922894","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}