Introduction. Studies stress the importance of emotions in conflict, describing how they influence any mediation process. Resolving conflicts requires emotional abilities and it usually implies emotional learning. One of the main objectives of this paper is to better understand the role of emotions in mediation processes: how they impact this process and what emotional aspects are developed through them. A review of the theoretical framework of mediation related to this specific issue and the results of an emplirical study based on the emotional experience of mediation processes are presented. Method. An ad hoc questionnaire was created in order to assess perceived emotional learning gains after a mediation process. For this purpose, a total of 46 teachers mediators, 33 peer mediators and 23 mediated students participated in the study (n=102). Results. The questionnaire allowed to study the level of perceived learning gain in two differentiated dimensions: emotional awareness and emotional regulation. All groups (teacher mediators, peer mediators and mediated students) perceived a high level of emotional learning, indicanting the effectiveness of the mediation process. No differences in perceived emotional learning gains were found among groups (p=.56). However, although learning improvements were perceived in both dimensions, the level of perceived learning gain in emotional regulation was significantly higher than that perceived in of emotional awareness (p=.002). On the other hand, a shift from negative to positive emotions during the process of mediation was found in pupils mediated. Discussion and Conclusion. Mediation is a strategy that promotes emotional learning to all of those who take part in it. This study highlights the importance of mediation processes in developing emotional learning. Two main aspects of emotional learning, which were promoted by mediation, were identified in this study: emotional awareness and emotional regulation. It is considered that learning how to manage emotions should be present in any mediator's training course, since a stable resolution of conflicts depends on an adequated management of emotions.

Studies on animals and humans have demonstrated the importance of dopamine in modulating decision-making processes. In this work, we have tested dopaminergic modulation of economic decision-making and its neural correlates by administering either placebo or metoclopramide, a dopamine D2-receptor antagonist, to healthy subjects, during a functional MRI study. The decision-making task combined probability and time delay with a fixed monetary reward. For individual behavioral characterization, we used the Probability Time Trade-off (PTT) economic model, which integrates the traditional trade-offs of reward magnitude-time and reward magnitude-probability into a single measurement, thereby quantifying the subjective value of a delayed and probabilistic outcome. A regression analysis between BOLD signal and the PTT model index permitted to identify the neural substrate encoding the subjective reward-value. Behaviorally, medication reduced the rate of temporal discounting over probability, reflected in medicated subjects being more prone to postpone the reward in order to increase the outcome probability. In addition, medicated subjects showed less activity during the task in the postcentral gyrus as well as frontomedian areas, whereas there were no differences in the ventromedial orbitofrontal cortex (VMOFC) between groups when coding the subjective value. The present study demonstrates by means of behavior and imaging that dopamine modulation alters the probability-time trade-off in human economic decision-making.

Purpose: To elucidate differences in activity and connectivity during early learning due to the performing hand. Materials and Methods: Twenty right-handed subjects were recruited. The neural correlates of explicit visuospatial learning executed with the right, the left hand, and bimanually were investigated using functional magnetic resonance imaging. Connectivity analyses were carried out using the psychophysiological interactions model, considering right and left anterior putamen as index regions. Results: A common neural network was found for the three tasks during learning. Main activity increases were located in posterior cingulate cortex, supplementary motor area, parietal cortex, anterior putamen, and cerebellum (IVV), whereas activity decrements were observed in prefrontal regions. However, the left hand task showed a greater recruitment of left hippocampal areas when compared with the other tasks. In addition, enhanced connectivity between the right anterior putamen and motor cortical and cerebellar regions was found for the left hand when compared with the right hand task. Conclusion: An additional recruitment of brain regions and increased striato-cortical and striato-cerebellar functional connections is needed when early learning is performed with the nondominant hand. In addition, access to brain resources during learning may be directed by the dominant hand in the bimanual task. J. Magn. Reson. Imaging 2013;37:619631. (c) 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc

High-resolution isotropic three-dimensional reconstructions of human brain gray and white matter structures can be characterized to quantify aspects of their shape, volume and topological complexity. In particular, methods based on fractal analysis have been applied in neuroimaging studies to quantify the structural complexity of the brain in both healthy and impaired conditions. The usefulness of such measures for characterizing individual differences in brain structure critically depends on their within-subject reproducibility in order to allow the robust detection of between-subject differences. This study analyzes key analytic parameters of three fractal-based methods that rely on the box-counting algorithm with the aim to maximize within-subject reproducibility of the fractal characterizations of different brain objects, including the pial surface, the cortical ribbon volume, the white matter volume and the gray matter/white matter boundary. Two separate datasets originating from different imaging centers were analyzed, comprising 50 subjects with three and 24 subjects with four successive scanning sessions per subject, respectively. The reproducibility of fractal measures was statistically assessed by computing their intra-class correlations. Results reveal differences between different fractal estimators and allow the identification of several parameters that are critical for high reproducibility. Highest reproducibility with intra-class correlations in the range of 0.9-0.95 is achieved with the correlation dimension. Further analyses of the fractal dimensions of parcellated cortical and subcortical gray matter regions suggest robustly estimated and region-specific patterns of individual variability. These results are valuable for defining appropriate parameter configurations when studying changes in fractal descriptors of human brain structure, for instance in studies of neurological diseases that do not allow repeated measurements or for disease-course longitudinal studies.

Alterations in cerebral perfusion and metabolism in Parkinson's disease have been assessed in several studies, using nuclear imaging techniques and more recently magnetic resonance imaging. However, to date there is no consensus in the literature regarding the extent and the magnitude of these alterations. In this work, arterial spin labeled perfusion MRI was employed to quantify absolute cerebral blood flow in a group of early-to-moderate Parkinson's disease patients and age-matched healthy controls. Perfusion comparisons between the two groups showed that Parkinson's disease is characterized by wide-spread cortical hypoperfusion. Subcortically, hypoperfusion was also found in the caudate nucleus. This pattern of hypoperfusion could be related to cognitive dysfunctions that have been previously observed even at the disease early stages. The present results were obtained by means of whole brain voxel-wise comparisons of absolute perfusion values, using statistical parametric mapping, thus avoiding the potentially biased global mean normalization procedure. In addition, this work demonstrates that between-group comparison of relative perfusion values after global mean normalization, introduced artifactual relative perfusion increases, where absolute perfusion was in fact preserved. This has implications for perfusion studies of other brain disorders. (C) 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Egocentric tactile perception is crucial for skilled hand motor control. In order to better understand the brain functional underpinnings related to this basic sensorial perception, we performed a tactile perception functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiment with two aims. The first aim consisted of characterizing the neural substrate of two types of egocentric tactile discrimination: the spatial localization (SLD) and simultaneity succession discrimination (SSD) in both hands to define hemispheric dominance for these tasks. The second goal consisted of characterizing the brain activation related to the spatial attentional load, the functional changes and their connectivity patterns induced by the psychometric performance (PP) during SLD. We used fMRI in 25 right-handed volunteers, applying pairs of sinusoidal vibratory stimuli on eight different positions in the palmar surface of both hands. Subjects were required either to identify the stimulus location with respect to an imaginary midline (SLD), to discriminate the simultaneity or succession of a stimuli pair (SSD) or to simply respond to stimulus detection. We found a fronto-parietal network for SLD and frontal network for SSD. During SLD we identified right hemispheric dominance with increased BOLD activation and functional interaction of the right supramarginal gyrus with contralateral intra-parietal sulcus for right and left hand independently. Brain activity correlated to spatial attentional load was found in bilateral structures of intra-parietal sulcus, precuneus extended to superior parietal lobule, pre-supplementary motor area, frontal eye fields and anterior insulae for both hands. We suggest that the right supramarginal gyrus and its interaction with intra-parietal lobule may play a pivotal role in the phenomenon of tactile neglect in right fronto-parietal lesions.

Decision making can be regarded as the outcome of cognitive processes leading to the selection of a course of action among several alternatives. Borrowing a central measurement from information theory, Shannon entropy, we quantified the uncertainties produced by decisions of participants within an economic decision task under different configurations of reward probability and time. These descriptors were used to obtain blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) signal correlates of uncertainty and two clusters codifying the Shannon entropy of task configurations were identified: a large cluster including parts of the right middle cingulate cortex (MCC) and left and right pre-supplementary motor areas (pre-SMA) and a small cluster at the left anterior thalamus. Subsequent functional connectivity analyses using the psycho-physiological interactions model identified areas involved in the functional integration of uncertainty. Results indicate that clusters mostly located at frontal and temporal cortices experienced an increased connectivity with the right MCC and left and right pre-SMA as the uncertainty was higher. Furthermore, pre-SMA was also functionally connected to a rich set of areas, most of them associative areas located at occipital and parietal lobes. This study provides a map of the human brain segregation and integration (i.e., neural substrate and functional connectivity respectively) of the uncertainty associated to an economic decision making paradigm.