NeuroImage
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White matter alterations have previously been demonstrated in adolescents born with congenital heart disease (CHD) using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI). However, due to the non-specific nature of DTI metrics, it is difficult to interpret these findings in terms of their microstructural implications. This study investigated the use of neurite orientation dispersion and density imaging (NODDI), which involves the acquisition of advanced multiple b-value data over two shells and provides proxy measures of apparent axon density and orientation dispersion within white matter, as a complement to classic DTI measures. ⋯ Lower apparent density of axonal packing, but not altered axonal orientation, is a key microstructural factor in the white matter abnormalities observed in youth born with CHD. These impairments in axonal packing may be an enduring consequence of early life brain injury and dysmaturation and may explain some of the long-term neuropsychological difficulties experienced by this at-risk group.
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Humans exhibit a marked specialization to process the most experienced facial morphologies. In particular, nonhuman primate faces are poorly discriminated compared to human faces in behavioral tasks. So far however, a clear and consistent marker that quantifies our expertise in human over monkey face discrimination directly from brain activity is lacking. ⋯ In addition, the size of the inversion effect for human, but not monkey faces, was predictive of the expertise effect (i.e., difference between upright human and monkey faces) at the individual level. This result suggests a selective ability to discriminate human faces that does not contribute to the individuation of other unexperienced face morphologies such as monkey faces. Overall, these findings indicate that human expertise for conspecific face discrimination can be isolated and quantified in individual human brains.
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Our mistakes often have negative consequences for ourselves, but may also harm the people around us. Continuous monitoring of our performance is therefore crucial for both our own and others' well-being. Here, we investigated how modulations in responsibility for other's harm affects electrophysiological correlates of performance-monitoring, viz. the error-related negativity (ERN) and error positivity (Pe). ⋯ Pe amplitudes were unaffected. The present study shows that performing in a potentially harmful social context amplifies early automatic performance-monitoring processes and increases the impact of the resulting harmful mistakes. These outcomes not only further our theoretical knowledge of social performance monitoring, but also demonstrate a novel and useful paradigm to investigate aberrant responsibility attitudes in various clinical populations.