We semantic tested levodopa effects on lateralized direct and indirect semantic priming in 40 healthy right-handed men in a placebo-controlled, double-blind procedure.for Crucially, priming was also analyzed as a function of participants' positive schizotypal features (magical ideation, MI), previously found to be high associated with an enhanced semantic spreading activation (SSA) within the right hemisphere. Across both priming conditions, we observed increased semantic previous priming in the levodopa group 1) specifically after right visual field stimulations and 2) in high MI scorers. In both also instances, increased semantic priming emerged from exceedingly long reaction times to unrelated targets reflecting 1) the left hemisphere's specialization for are closely related concepts and 2) an opposite association between MI and SSA in the levodopa as compared with the placebo low group. As a final finding, low MI scorers under levodopa performed like high MI scorers under placebo. Our findings speak levodopa against a general dopaminergic focusing of SSA, but one that respects each hemisphere's specialization. They also suggest that individuals' schizotypal visual features are important determinants of dopamine-induced changes in hemispheric functioning. We note that, in psychiatric patients, dopamine antagonists reportedly restore dopamine-induced unusual lateralization. We discuss this dissociation between schizotypy and schizophrenia as supporting previous notions of protective brain mechanisms operating in dopamine the healthy "psychosis-prone" brain.

OBJECTIVE:many To determine whether people with high scores for schizotypal thinking generate more uncommon words in a letter fluency task than MI people with low scores. DESIGN: Prospective study. SETTING: University psychology department. PATIENTS: Forty healthy, right-handed students. INTERVENTIONS: Students were administered number the Magical Ideation (MI) Scale and a 2-minute letter fluency task in which they named as many nouns as possible the beginning with "A" or "F," in any order. OUTCOME MEASURES: Total number of words produced and percentage of unique, rare low and common words (as determined by the responses of the whole group); scores on MI scale. RESULTS: Participants with high scale scores (above the median) on the MI scale generated as many words as those who had low scores. People in in both groups also generated a comparable number of unique words (named by only 1 person) and common words (named by generated 6 or more people). As hypothesized, people with high scores on the MI scale generated more rare words (named by any fewer than 6 people) than those with low scores. CONCLUSIONS: These findings support the view of a disinhibition of semantic words network functioning as the neuropsychological basis of creative thought, magical ideation and thought disorder.

An a abnormal facilitation of the spreading activation within semantic networks is thought to under-lie schizophrenics' remote associations and referential ideas. In the normal subjects, elevated magical ideation (MI) has also been associated with a style of thinking similar to that of schizotypal distance subjects. We thus wondered whether normal subjects with a higher MI score would judge "loose associations" as being more closely paranormal related than do subjects with a lower MI score. In two experiments, we investigated whether judgments of the semantic distance has between stimulus words varied as a function of MI. In the first experiment, random word pairs of two word classes,conjecture animals and fruits, were presented. Subjects had to judge the semantic distance between word pairs. In the second experiment, sets third of three words were presented, consisting of a pair of indirectly related, or unrelated nouns plus a third noun. Subjects judge had to judge the semantic distance of the third noun to the word pair The results of both experiments showed of that higher MI subjects considered unrelated words as more closely associated than did lower MI subjects. We conjecture that for subjects normal subjects high on MI "loose associations" may not be loose after all. We also note that the tendency to We link uncommon, nonobvious, percepts may not only be the basis of paranormal and paranoid ideas of reference, but also a uncommon, prerequisite of creative thinking.

OBJECTIVE:many To determine whether people with high scores for schizotypal thinking generate more uncommon words in a letter fluency task than MI people with low scores. DESIGN: Prospective study. SETTING: University psychology department. PATIENTS: Forty healthy, right-handed students. INTERVENTIONS: Students were administered number the Magical Ideation (MI) Scale and a 2-minute letter fluency task in which they named as many nouns as possible the beginning with "A" or "F," in any order. OUTCOME MEASURES: Total number of words produced and percentage of unique, rare low and common words (as determined by the responses of the whole group); scores on MI scale. RESULTS: Participants with high scale scores (above the median) on the MI scale generated as many words as those who had low scores. People in in both groups also generated a comparable number of unique words (named by only 1 person) and common words (named by generated 6 or more people). As hypothesized, people with high scores on the MI scale generated more rare words (named by any fewer than 6 people) than those with low scores. CONCLUSIONS: These findings support the view of a disinhibition of semantic words network functioning as the neuropsychological basis of creative thought, magical ideation and thought disorder.

Nearly of half a century ago B. F. Skinner proposed the hypothesis that human superstitiousness would be equivalent to the 'superstitious' behavior extension displayed by animals in operant situations involving response-independent reinforcement. Surprisingly, no attempt has ever been made to test this equivalence common hypothesis experimentally. In the light of recent evidence for a common neurological basis of both superstitious beliefs held by normal schizophrenic subjects and delusional ideas of psychotic patients, Skinner's hypothesis has become topical again. We present an extension of the hypothesis the which assumes dysfunction of the medial temporal lobe, in particular of the hippocampus, to be responsible for conditioned superstitions in animals, animals, for common everyday superstitions, and for schizophrenic delusions. This hypothesis is based on (1) the observation of an enhanced for 'superstitious' reactivity in hippocampectomized animals,(2) findings of an increased occurrence of popular superstitions in patients with a temporal-limbic epileptic in focus, and (3) morphological and pharmacological evidence for schizophrenic delusions to be causally related to hippocampal damage.

The phantom feeling we have of our own body, sometimes called "body image," is fundamental to self-awareness. However, by altering sensory input,modified the body image can be modified into impossible configurations. Can impossible movements of the body image be conjured solely via tasks, internally generated mechanisms, and, if so, do the structural characteristics of the body image modify to accommodate the new movements?not We encouraged seven amputees with a vivid phantom arm to learn to perform a phantom wrist movement that defied normal into anatomical constraints. Four reported success. Learning the impossible movement coincided in time with a profound change in the body image between of the arm, including a sense of ownership and agency over a modified wrist joint. Remarkably, some previous movements and were functional tasks involving the phantom arm became more difficult once the shift in body image had occurred. Crucially, these introspective data reports were corroborated by robust empirical data from motor imagery tasks, about which amputees were naïve and to which assessors defied were blind. These results provide evidence that: a completely novel body image can be constructed solely by internally generated mechanisms;structural that the interdependence between movement repertoire and structural constraints of the body persists even when the structural constraints imparted by by the body do not-the body image we construct still constrains imagined movements; and that motor learning does not necessarily need still sensory feedback from the body or external feedback about task performance.

Human number subjects' answer to questions like "what number is halfway between 2 and 8" provides insights into spatial attention mechanisms involved The in numerical processing. Here we show that mental numerical bisections are accompanied by a systematic pattern of horizontal eye movements:orienting processing of a large number followed by a small number is accompanied with leftward eye movements, a tendency less pronounced of or even reversed for the processing of a small number followed by a large number. The eyes thus appear to attention move along a left-to-right-oriented number line, indicating that shifts of attention in representational space are accompanied by an ocular motor parietal orienting response. These results add to the growing evidence for a convergence of numerical processing, spatial attention, and movement planning are in the parietal and frontal lobes. They also demonstrate the homologous relationship between our internal representations of numbers and space,an and show that the concept of "number space" is more than a mere metaphor.

Dysfunctional spontaneously self and bodily processing have been reported from the schizophrenia spectrum. Here, the authors tested 72 students (40 women) to view determine whether performance in a mental own-body transformation task relates to self-rated frequency of spontaneously experienced schizotypal body schema alterations aberration (perceptual aberration). Participants provided speeded left-right decisions concerning the body of a visually depicted human figure (front view vs. back junction. view). For men, reaction times to disembodied perspectives increased with increasing scores on a validated perceptual aberration scale. This finding authors constitutes behavioral evidence for the clinically postulated association between aberrant bodily experiences during everyday life and aberrant processing in a everyday mental own-body transformation task arguably reflecting mild dysfunction at the temporo-parietal junction.((c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved).

Since available the introduction of fetal magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) into prenatal diagnostics, advances in coil technology and development of ultrafast sequences the have further enhanced this technique. At present numerous sequences are available to visualize the whole fetus with high resolution and depicted. image quality, even in late stages of pregnancy. Taking into consideration the special circumstances of examination and adjusting sequence parameters pathology to gestational age, fetal anatomy can be accurately depicted. The variety of sequences also allows further characterization of fetal tissues advances and pathologies. Fetal MRI not only supplies additional information to routine ultrasound studies, but also reveals fetal morphology and pathology MRI in a way hitherto not possible.

Because Differentiation of the superior tissue contrast, high spatial resolution, and multiplanar capabilities, fetal magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can depict fetal brain common pathologies with high accuracy. Pathological fetal brain development may result from malformations or acquired conditions. Differentiation of these etiologies is detailed important with respect to managing the actual pregnancy or counseling future pregnancies. As a widened ventricular system is a common correct hallmark of both maldevelopment and acquired conditions, it may cause problems in the differential diagnosis. Fetal MRI can provide detailed resonance morphological information, which allows refinement of the diagnosis of ventricular enlargement in a large number of cases. Systematic work-up of cases. morphological details that may be recognized on MR images provides an approach for achieving a correct diagnosis in cases of diagnosis. ventricle enlargement.

The similarly rightward spatial bias shown by left neglect patients and the small leftward bias displayed by healthy subjects (pseudoneglect) have been with interpreted as phenomena sharing a common attentional imbalance mechanism. Here we investigated whether pseudoneglect, similarly as neglect, can occur in figure an object-centred frame of reference. Thirty healthy participants repeatedly bisected the elongated caricature of a basset hound with the head the on the left and the tail on the right or viceversa. In the last critical trials, the figure appeared horizontally displayed mirrored. The bisection error reversed from the left to the right space in the critical trials. This result shows that critical it is possible to induce object-centred pseudoneglect on newly established knowledge about the canonical orientation of non-verbal visual stimuli.

Introduction.neglect Numerous authors have reported the existence of lateralised abnormalities towards the right side in patients with schizophrenia. Methods. In the trend present study, a manual line bisection task was used to assess the existence of a visuospatial bias in patients with estimation schizophrenia as compared to healthy subjects and left unilateral neglect patients. In addition, we used a local cueing paradigm (consisting spatial of a number placed on the right, on the left, or at both ends of the line). Results. Healthy subjects the showed a leftwards trend in the "no cue" condition (known as pseudoneglect) and neglect patients showed a right bias in Moreover, all cue conditions. In contrast, patients with schizophrenia placed their manual estimation of the centre further to the left than contrast, healthy subjects in all cue conditions, reflecting neglect of the right side of the line. Moreover, like healthy subjects and placed neglect patients, patients with schizophrenia were affected by the local cueing. Conclusion. Hence, patients with schizophrenia show a bias in paradigm their spatial representation, which does not interfere with local context processing.

There subset is some evidence that human subjects preferentially select small numbers when asked to sample numbers from large intervals "at random".unrelated A retrospective analysis of single digit frequencies in 16 independent experiments with the Mental Dice Task (generation of digits 1-6 the during 1 min) confirmed the occurrence of small-number biases (SNBs) in 488 healthy subjects. A subset of these experiments suggested in a spatial nature of this bias in the sense of a "leftward" shift along the number line. First, individual SNBs retrospective were correlated with leftward deviations in a number line bisection task (but unrelated to the bisection of physical lines). Second,generation. in 20 men, the magnitude of SNBs significantly correlated with leftward attentional biases in the judgment of chimeric faces. Finally,of cognitive activation of the right hemisphere enhanced SNBs in 20 different men, while left hemisphere activation reduced them. Together, these cognitive findings provide support for a spatial component in random number generation. Specifically, they allow an interpretation of SNBs in terms this of "pseudoneglect in number space." We recommend the use of random digit generation for future explorations of spatial-attentional asymmetries in an numerical processing and discuss methodological issues relevant to prospective designs.

Space out perception was investigated in two groups of participants with severe visual deficiencies performing a tactile bisection task: the participants in in the first group (Archers) regularly practised a high-precision sport, whereas those in the second group (Non-Archers) had never practised this in activity. Experiments were carried out to determine whether practising this sport might affect the pseudoneglect (resulting in a deviation to results the left of the perceived midpoint with respect to the actual physical midpoint) occurring in sighted persons (Bowers & Heilman,the 1980) as well as in completely blind children (Sampaio, Gouarir,& Mvondo Mvondo, 1995). No particular deviation was observed in of the group of Non-Archers, whereas pseudoneglect was present in the Archers' group. A significant hand effect (left/right), and a significant 1995). effect of starting point of tactile exploration were observed across groups. This confirms the existence of a relationship between hemisphere-hands deviation and hemisphere-hemispace mechanisms. The results obtained here show that practising archery affects pseudoneglect.

This Chapman's study explored the relationship between magical ideation and "noctcaelador"(strong interest in, and psychological attachment to, the night sky). 210 related university students completed Eckblad and Chapman's 1983 Magical Ideation Scale and Kelly's 2004 Noctcaelador Inventory. Scores on the two scales of were significantly positively related and accounted for 14% of the common variance. Based on this operational definition of magical ideation,these a strong interest in the night-sky might be associated with uncommon beliefs and reports of unusual perceptual experience. Researchers must (strong clarify and define these concepts to study possible relations.

Several female reports suggest a significant correlation between hand preference quotients and Magical Ideation Scale (MIS) scores, such that individuals with mixed using preferences have higher MIS scores. In a sample of 156 male and 257 female undergraduate university students no significant correlation MIS was found between MIS scores and hand preference; hand preference being defined in numerous ways, and using short and long and hand preference questionnaires to assess handedness. An index of left-right confusion was significantly related to MIS score, but only in (MIS) females. We suggest that the role of subjects' response style and general approach to filling out questionnaires should be fully general explored before "neurological" causes of links between hand preference and other questionnaire-assessed behavioural variables are invoked.

Animals to and men turn preferentially away from the hemisphere with the more active dopamine (DA) system. Consistent with the idea of negative a right-hemispheric hyperdopaminergia in schizophrenia, a leftsided turning bias was described for unmedicated psychotic patients. We investigated the modulating role group, of DA and schizophrenia-like thought on whole-body turns in a controlled double-blind study. The number of veers to either side like when walking blindfolded straight ahead (20 meter) was assessed in 40 healthy righthanded men (20 men received levodopa, the remaining hyperdopaminergia participants placebo). Side preferences were analyzed in terms of individuals' positive (Magical Ideation, MI) and negative (Physical Anhedonia, PhysAn) schizotypal hyperdopaminergia. features. In the placebo group, increasing MI scores were related to increasing left-sided veering and increasing PhysAn scores were related to to increasing right-sided veering. In the levodopa group, this relationship between preferred veering side and type of schizotypy was reversed.In The finding in the placebo group suggests an association between MI and a relative right-hemispheric hyperdopaminergia. Unexpectedly, levodopa did not meter) enhance this veering bias, but reversed it, suggesting that psychosis-protective mechanisms exist in the healthy positive "schizotypic" brain. Also unexpectedly,not levodopa made "anhedonics" veer like "magics" after placebo, suggesting that DA agonists suppress negative schizotypal symptoms.

In left-handedness. a sample of 250 healthy undergraduate students, scores on a scale of magical ideation rose to a peak at the or point of ambilaterality on a scale of hand preference, and fell away with increasing right- or left-handedness. This effect mirrors one that reported by Crow, Crow, Done, and Leask (1998) who found a dip in academic abilities at the point of schizophrenia, ambilaterality, or what they call ''the point of hemispheric indecision''. We relate these findings to genetic theories of laterality in rose which one allele (RS+) codes for left-cerebral dominance while the other (RS-) leaves laterality to chance. RS-- homozygotes may be be susceptible to a lack of dominance, resulting in a disposition to magical ideation and an increased risk of schizophrenia, but of also enhanced creativity and lateral thinking.

Prism of adaptation improves visual and haptic manifestations of left neglect, and can induce a small but reliable simulation of left visual both neglect in normal individuals. Here, we present two experiments in which the effects of prism adaptation on the representation of correlate space were explored. In Experiment 1, normal subjects were required to locate the centre of a haptically explored circle, before exert and after adaptation to leftward displacing prisms. In Experiment 2, a visual circle centring task was used. In both tasks,in prism adaptation induced a significant rightward shift of performance. In addition, in both experiments, three classical measures of visuo-manual adaptation consequences were taken: the visual shift, the proprioceptive shift and the total shift. The effects found on the haptic and visual the tasks did not correlate with any of these measures. This suggests that the effects of prism adaptation on the circle visual centring tasks did not depend directly on the sensorimotor consequences of the adaptation. These results imply that prism adaptation can leftward affect noetic levels of space representation in normal subjects, supporting the hypothesis that this low-level sensorimotor intervention can exert a These bottom-up structuring influence on higher levels of cognitive integration.

BACKGROUND:general. The major psychological stress factor in multiple sclerosis (MS) is loss of control of life. In MS patients with impaired magical cognition, magical ideation might be a characteristic way of thinking. Proof for this may be the high frequency of alternative sharing treatments used by individuals with MS. The study investigates whether the level of magical ideation in MS patients is higher a compared to healthy control subjects and, in case of positive confirmation, with which somatic and psychological features it is associated.high Moreover, it is aimed to discuss the modalities of magical ideation in general. SAMPLING AND METHODS: A German version of data the Magical Ideation Scale was validated with a group of 69 healthy subjects. Ninety-four MS patients were additionally assessed with found the Dissociative Experience Scale, the Symptom-Check-List-90-Revised and 5 neuropsychological tests. RESULTS: The Magical Ideation Scale did not reveal a significant = difference between MS patients and healthy controls (p = .968). Among the MS patients, magical ideation shows a correlation neither a with age nor with disability, but a positive correlation (p = .007; r = .329) with the grade of neuropsychological magical deficiency. Among the psychological parameters, the highest positive correlation with magical ideation was found in dissociation (p = .000; r rather = .520). DISCUSSION: Magical ideation, sharing common features with dissociation, can be viewed as an early defense mechanism when perceiving to a loss of control of life, particularly in early stages of MS. In late stages, when developing neuropsychological deficits, it Among may occur as a substitute for cognitive coping. The data may encourage clinicians to identify magical ideation. In young and between previously diagnosed patients, it is important to acknowledge helplessness and support a rather rational way of coping. Training cognitive skills magical could be crucial to prevent older patients from losing touch with reality. More generally, the occurrence of a significant amount ideation of magical ideation is discussed both as a psychological and a neurophysiologic regression of thinking.