Pascal Belin

Thomas Ethofer

Salvatore Campanella

This book follows a successful symposium organized in June 2009 at the Human Brain Mapping conference. The topic is at the crossroads of two domains of increasing importance and appeal in the neuroimaging/neuroscience community: multi-modal integration, and social neuroscience. Most of our social interactions involve combining information from both the face and voice of other persons: speech information, but also crucial nonverbal information on the person’s identity and affective state. The cerebral bases of the multimodal integration of speech have been intensively investigated; by contrast only few studies have focused on nonverbal aspects of face-voice integration. This work highlights recent advances in investigations of the behavioral and cerebral bases of face-voice multimodal integration in the context of person perception, focusing on the integration of affective and identity information. Several research domains are brought together. Behavioral and neuroimaging work in normal adult humans included are presented alongside evidence from other domains to provide complementary perspectives: studies in human children for a developmental perspective, studies in non-human primates for an evolutionary perspective, and studies in human clinical populations for a clinical perspective. Several research domains are brought together. Behavioral and neuroimaging work in normal adult humans included are presented alongside evidence from other domains to provide complementary perspectives: studies in human children for a developmental perspective, studies in non-human primates for an evolutionary perspective, and studies in human clinical populations for a clinical perspective. Several research domains are brought together. Behavioral and neuroimaging work in normal adult humans included are presented alongside evidence from other domains to provide complementary perspectives: studies in human children for a developmental perspective, studies in non-human primates for an evolutionary perspective, and studies in human clinical populations for a clinical perspective. Several research domains are brought together. Behavioral and neuroimaging work in normal adult humans included are presented alongside evidence from other domains to provide complementary perspectives: studies in human children for a developmental perspective, studies in non-human primates for an evolutionary perspective, and studies in human clinical populations for a clinical perspective.

Integrating Face and Voice in Person Perception

Pierre Maurage

A common feature of many psychopathological states (going from anxiety, depression to schizophrenia or addictions) is to show cognitive alterations. These cognitive deficits clearly impact on the onset of clinical symptoms. Therefore, recent studies showed that increasing cognitive skills have a positive effect on patients' quality of life, and decrease the severity of clinical symptoms. However, a main problem consists in the fact that some minor cognitive restrictions, even if not observable at the behavioral level, may induce a state of "vulnerability" that can, in some circumstances, lead the patients to relapse. For instance, in alcohol dependence, it is well-known that, despite detoxification cure, psychological intervention and medication, 50 to 90% of patients resume in alcohol consumption within 1 year post-detoxification cure. In this view, it could be really important to find biological markers for even minor cognitive alterations, that can help clinicians to identify which patients are more "at-risk" to relapse, in order to improve treatment through best suited medication and specialized programs of cognitive rehabilitation. In this topic, our aim is to illustrate how and why cognitive event-related potentials (ERPs) may help in different psychopathological populations to adapt the treatment of individual patients on the basis of their specific neuro-cognitive alterations.

Cognitive Event-Related Potentials in Psychopathology: New Experimental and Clinical Perspectives

Eduardo López-Caneda

Fernando Cadaveira

Binge drinking (BD) is a highly prevalent pattern in most Western countries characterized by the intake of large amounts of alcohol in a short time followed by periods of abstinence. This abusive form of alcohol consumption is a regular practice in around a third of European and American youths. The high prevalence of BD at this age is of particular concern since adolescence and youth are in a period of special vulnerability to neurotoxic effects of alcohol, mainly due to the structural and functional changes going on in the brain throughout this key developmental stage. Evidence gathered during the last decade from animal and human studies seems to point to multiple brain anomalies associated with BD. In this Research Topic, we have collated a compendium of articles that address multiple aspects of BD during adolescence and young adulthood such as identification, prevalence, gender differences and neurocognitive anomalies associated with this excessive alcohol consumption pattern. These articles collectively highlight the breadth of current research conducted in this field but also the need to join efforts to improve the screening of the BD pattern, the characterization of its consequences as well as the translation of knowledge acquired in the laboratory into clinical practice. We remain confident that this Research Topic will contribute significantly to the understanding of BD and its consequences and will further stimulate high-quality investigation in this relatively new research field.

Salvatore Campanella

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