Adquisición del Lenguaje

PROYECTO DE INVESTIGACIÓN

• Referencia: SEJ 2007-67810/PSIC
• Investigador Principal: S. López Ornat
• Investigadores: C. Gallego, A. Karousou, Mª T. Schüller y P. Revilla
• Título: Actividad vocal prelingüística, comunicativa y no-comunicativa: sus funciones y su relación con el primer lenguaje.
• Resumen: El proyecto parte de investigación previa (Karousou 2003; Karousou & López Ornat 2005; López Ornat et al 2003; 2005) sobre la importancia evolutiva, las funciones y las formas de las vocalizaciones infantiles. Pretende someter a prueba, validar, detallar y profundizar aquellos resultados. Sus objetivos generales son dos: A) profundizar sobre la función evolutiva de la actividad vocal temprana (comunicativa & no-comunicativa) en el proceso de adquisición del lenguaje. B) validar el valor predictivo de la actividad vocal temprana (comunicativa & no-comunicativa) sobre el desarrollo del lenguaje. Se proponen dos estudios para el objetivo A, y uno para el objetivo B. 
  - Objetivo A / Estudio 1: Objetivo: Indagar si las diferencias de contexto (comunicativo vs no-comunicativo) se corresponden o no con diferencias en la función y/o en la forma de las ambos tipos de vocalizaciones. Caso de existir diferencias, indagar si éstas son relevantes a su función evolutiva, y cómo. 
  - Objetivo A / Estudio 2: Objetivo: contrastar, con un nuevo estudio longitudinal n=1 entre 10 y 24 meses, las hipótesis obtenidas en el Estudio 1 sobre comparación entre vocalizaciones comunicativas y no-comunicativas, y sobre la función evolutiva de las no-comunicativas. Asimismo, este nuevo estudio longitudinal permitirá someter a prueba los resultados obtenidos por el longitudinal de Karousou (2003).
  - Objetivo B / Estudio 3: Estudio 3: Objetivo: los niños prematuros tienen mayor riesgo de presentar complicaciones en su desarrollo comunicativo-lingüístico. Se pretende estudiar la actividad vocal prelingüística (comunicativa y no-comunicativa) de estos niños, su evolución y su posible relación con su desarrollo lingüístico posterior, comparándola con los datos normativos recogidos en la base de datos MCDI español: López Ornat et al 2005. Los datos comparativos producirán resultados sobre el valor predictivo de vocalizaciones en el desarrollo comunicativo-lingüístico posterior, y detallarán nueva evidencia sobre su procesamiento y/o evolución.

 

Ansiedad y Estrés

PUBLICACIONES:

Wood, C.M., Cano-Vindel, A., Iruarrizaga, I., Dongil Collado, E. y Salguero, M. (2010). Relaciones entre estrés, tabaco y trastorno de pánico. Ansiedad y Estrés, 15, 309-321.

Neuropsicología y neuroimagen

- Bajo R, Maestú F, Nevado A, Sancho M, Gutiérrez R, Campo P, Castellanos NP, Gil P, Moratti S, Pereda E, Del-Pozo F. (2010). Functional connectivity in mild cognitive impairment during a memory task: implications for the disconnection hypothesis. J Alzheimers Dis. 22(1):183-93.

 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20847450

Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) has been considered an intermediate state between healthy aging and dementia. The early damage in anatomical connectivity and progressive loss of synapses that characterize early Alzheimer"s disease suggest that MCI could also be a disconnection syndrome. Here, we compare the degree of synchronization of brain signals recorded with magnetoencephalography from patients (22) with MCI with that of healthy controls (19) during a memory task. Synchronization Likelihood, an index based on the theory of nonlinear dynamical systems, was used to measure functional connectivity. During the memory task patients showed higher interhemispheric synchronization than healthy controls between left and right -anterior temporo-frontal regions (in all studied frequency bands) and in posterior regions in the γ band. On the other hand, the connectivity pattern from healthy controls indicated two clusters of higher synchronization, one among left temporal sensors and another one among central channels. Both of them were found in all frequency bands. In the γ band, controls showed higher Synchronization Likelihood values than MCI patients between central-posterior and frontal-posterior channels and a high synchronization in posterior regions. The inter-hemispheric increased synchronization values could reflect a compensatory mechanism for the lack of efficiency of the memory networks in MCI patients. Therefore, these connectivity profiles support only partially the idea of MCI as a disconnection syndrome, as patients showed increased long distance inter-hemispheric connections but a decrease in antero-posterior functional connectivity.

 

- Maestu F, Baykova E, Ruiz JM, Montejo P, Montenegro M, Llanero M, Solesio E, Gil P, Yubero R, Paul N, Pozo F, Nevado A. (2011). Increased biomagnetic activity in healthy elderly with subjective memory complaints. Clin Neurophysiol. Mar;122(3):499-505. Epub 2010 Sep 9.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20826109

OBJECTIVE: Subjective memory complaints (SMCs) are frequently reported by elderly people with or without objective cognitive impairment (OMI) as assessed by neuropsychological tests. We investigate whether SMCs are associated with altered brain biomagnetic patterns even in the absence of OMI.
METHODS: We report spatio-temporal patterns of brain magnetic activity recorded with magnetoencephalography during a memory task in 51 elderly participants divided into the following groups: patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) with SMC and OMI, individuals with SMC but not OMI, and healthy controls without neither SMC nor OMI. Exclusion criteria for all three groups included a diagnosis of depression or any other psychiatric condition.
RESULTS: No statistically significant differences were found between MCI patients and participants with SMC. However, the SMC showed higher activation, between 200 and 900 ms after stimulus onset, than the control group in posterior ventral regions and in the dorsal pathway. MCI patients showed higher activation than the control group in the posterior part of the ventral pathway.
CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that similar physiological mechanisms may underlie SMC and MCI, which could be two stages in a cognitive continuum.
SIGNIFICANCE: MEG provide different neurophysiological profiles between SMC and control subjects.

 

- Fernando Maestu, Raquel Yubero, Stephan Moratti, Pablo Campo, Pedro Gil-Gregorio, Nuria Paul, Elena Solesio, Francisco Pozo and Angel Nevado (2011). Brain Activity Patterns in Stable and Progressive Mild Cognitive Impairment During Working Memory. Journal of Clinical Neurophysiology  Volume 28, Number 2.

It has been reported that mild cognitive impairment (MCI) patients, when compared with controls, show increased activity in different brain regions within the ventral pathway during memory tasks. A key question is whether this profile of increased activity could be useful to predict which patients will develop dementia. Herein, we present profiles of brain magnetic activity during a memory task recorded with magnetoencephalography from MCI patients (N=10), Alzheimer"s disease (AD) patients (N=10), and healthy volunteers (N=17). After 21⁄2 years of follow-up, five of the MCI patients developed AD. Patients who progressed to AD (PMCI) showed higher activity than those who remained stable (SMCI), AD patients and controls. This increased activity in PMCI patients involves regions within the ventral and dorsal pathways. In contrast, SMCI patients showed higher activation than controls only along the ventral pathway. This increase in both the ventral and dorsal pathways in PMCI patients may reflect a compensatory mechanism for the loss in efficiency in memory networks, which would be absent in AD patients as they showed lower activity levels than the rest of the groups.

Project Title: Integration of temporal information and Bayesian modelling in visual motion perception and in somatosensory stimulation in fibromyalgia. 
Duration: 2010-2012
Funding Body: Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación. Spain
Principal investigator: Angel Nevado
Investigators: David del Río.

Bayesian inference is emerging as one of the most successful principled frameworks to explain brain function accounting for a wide range of experimental results from anatomy, neurophysiology, neuroimaging and perception. This framework proposes that we optimally combine current sensory information and our prior knowledge or models of the environment, each weighted by their reliability, to infer what the functionally relevant ‘causes" of the sensory input are. The first aim of this project is investigate within this framework the neuronal representation of natural motion. Natural motion is very relevant biologically and thus associated with strong prior beliefs. The second goal is to employ the Bayesian formalism to investigate the integration of temporal information in sequences of somatosensory pulses in fibromyalgia patients. Fibromyalgia is a medical condition which can be very disabling with a prevalence of 2-4% in the general population and associated with pain sensitization. We will employ magnetoencephalography and electroencephalography for the above research. Source reconstruction and connectivity analysis will be performed. In addition, Bayesian modelling will be employed to identify active areas, latencies and interactions between areas.