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  • Publication
    Patients recovering from COVID-19 who presented with anosmia during their acute episode have behavioral, functional, and structural brain alterations
    (2024) Kausel, Leonie; Figueroa-Vargas, Alejandra; Zamorano, Francisco; Stecher, Ximena; Aspé-Sánchez, Mauricio; Carvajal-Paredes, Patricio; Márquez-Rodríguez, Víctor; Martínez-Molina, María Paz; Román, Claudio; Soto-Fernández, Patricio; Valdebenito-Oyarzo, Gabriela; Manterola, Carla; Uribe-San-Martín, Reinaldo; Silva, Claudio; Henríquez-Ch, Rodrigo; Aboitiz, Francisco; Polania, Rafael; Guevara, Pamela; Muñoz-Venturelli, Paula; Soto-Icaza, Patricia; Billeke, Pablo
    Patients recovering from COVID-19 commonly exhibit cognitive and brain alterations, yet the specific neuropathological mechanisms and risk factors underlying these alterations remain elusive. Given the significant global incidence of COVID-19, identifying factors that can distinguish individuals at risk of developing brain alterations is crucial for prioritizing follow-up care. Here, we report findings from a sample of patients consisting of 73 adults with a mild to moderate SARS-CoV-2 infection without signs of respiratory failure and 27 with infections attributed to other agents and no history of COVID-19. The participants underwent cognitive screening, a decision-making task, and MRI evaluations. We assessed for the presence of anosmia and the requirement for hospitalization. Groups did not differ in age or cognitive performance. Patients who presented with anosmia exhibited more impulsive alternative changes after a shift in probabilities (r =  − 0.26, p = 0.001), while patients who required hospitalization showed more perseverative choices (r = 0.25, p = 0.003). Anosmia correlated with brain measures, including decreased functional activity during the decision-making task, thinning of cortical thickness in parietal regions, and loss of white matter integrity. Hence, anosmia could be a factor to be considered when identifying at-risk populations for follow-up
  • Publication
    Spanish version of Multidimensional Mentalizing Questionnaire (MMQ): Translation, adaptation and psychometric properties in a Chilean population
    (2024) ALDUNATE, NEREA; López-Silva, Pablo; Brotfeld, Cristian; Guerra, Ernesto; Kronmüller, Edmundo
    This paper presents the first translation and adaptation of the Multidimensional Mentalizing Questionnaire (MMQ) into Spanish for a native Spanish-speaking sample in Chile. The study examines the psychometric properties and internal consistency of the translated MMQ. The instrument undergoes modifications based on a confirmatory factor analysis of the original structure, resulting in the elimination of items with cross-loadings and improvement in model fit. The modified scale is then analyzed, demonstrating strong psychometric properties. Convergent evidence is assessed by correlating MMQ subscales with the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) and Empathy Quotient (EQ), while divergent evidence is assessed by correlating aggressive traits using the Buss-Perry Aggression Questionnaire (BPAQ). The study also explores gender differences and age. Results reveal positive correlations between good mentalizing and empathy, particularly cognitive empathy, supporting the significance of positive mentalization in empathy. Negative mentalization is associated with difficulties in perspective-taking and social skills, as well as aggressive traits. Gender differences in mentalizing capacities are observed, and negative aspects of mentalization decrease with age. The availability of the Spanish translation of the MMQ, the first self-reporting scale measuring mentalization adapted to Chilean population, contributes to research aiming to understand its relationship with other psychological phenomena in different cultural context and facilitating clinical interventions with different population groups. We therefore encourage further investigation into cultural, gender and age differences in mentalization.
  • Publication
    A mathematical model of semantic access in lexical and semantic decisions
    (2024) Chaigneau, Sergio E.; Marchant, Nicolás; Canessa, Enrique; ALDUNATE, NEREA
    In this work, we use a mathematical model of the property listing task dynamics and test its ability to predict processing time in semantic and lexical decision tasks. The study aims at exploring the temporal dynamics of semantic access in these tasks and showing that the mathematical model captures essential aspects of semantic access, beyond the original task for which it was developed. In two studies using the semantic and lexical decision tasks, we used the mathematical model’s coefficients to predict reaction times. Results showed that the model was able to predict processing time in both tasks, accounting for an independent portion of the total variance, relative to variance predicted by traditional psycholinguistic variables (i.e., frequency, familiarity, concreteness imageability). Overall, this study provides evidence of the mathematical model’s validity and generality, and offers insights regarding the characterization of concrete and abstract words.
  • Publication
    Emotional text messages affect the early processing of emoticons depending on their emotional congruence: evidence from the N170 and EPN event related potentials
    (2024) ALDUNATE, NEREA; López, Vladimir; Rojas‑Thomas, Felipe; Villena‑González, Mario; Palacios, Ismael; Artigas, Claudio; Rodríguez, Eugenio; Bosman, Conrado A.
    Emoticons have been considered pragmatic cues that enhance emotional expressivity during computer-mediated communication. Yet, it is unclear how emoticons are processed in ambiguous text-based communication due to incongruences between the emoticon's emotional valence and its context. In this study, we investigated the electrophysiological correlates of contextual influence on the early emotional processing of emoticons, during an emotional congruence judgment task. Participants were instructed to judge the congruence between a text message expressing an emotional situation (positive or negative), and a subsequent emoticon expressing positive or negative emotions. We analyzed early event-related potentials elicited by emoticons related to face processing (N170) and emotional salience in visual perception processing (Early Posterior Negativity, EPN). Our results show that accuracy and Reaction Times depend on the interaction between the emotional valence of the context and the emoticon. Negative emoticons elicited a larger N170, suggesting that the emotional information of the emoticon is integrated at the early stages of the perceptual process. During emoticon processing, a valence effect was observed with enhanced EPN amplitudes in occipital areas for emoticons representing negative valences. Moreover, we observed a congruence effect in parieto-temporal sites within the same time-window, with larger amplitudes for the congruent condition. We conclude that, similar to face processing, emoticons are processed differently according to their emotional content and the context in which they are embedded. A congruent context might enhance the emotional salience of the emoticon (and therefore, its emotional expression) during the early stages of their processing.
  • Publication
    The role of exogenous testosterone and social environment on the expression of sociosexuality and status-seeking behaviors in young Chilean men
    (2024) Polo Rodrigo, Pablo; Fajardo, Gabriela; Muñoz Reyes, José Antonio; Valenzuela-Martinez, Nohelia T.; Belinchón, Montserrat; Figueroa, Oriana; Fernández-Martínez, Ana; Deglín, Marcel; Pita, Miguel
    Testosterone plays an important role as a social hormone. Current evidence suggests that testosterone is posi tively related to sociosexuality increasing the psychological attitudes toward investing in short-term versus long term mating and promotes status-seeking behaviors both by dominance and prestige. In addition, the social environment may play an important role in the expression of mating effort through changes in sociosexuality and status-seeking behaviors. However, the causal relationships among the mentioned variables are still debated. We employed a double-blind, placebo-controlled within-individual design, in order to test and integrate the pro posed causal relationships between testosterone and social environment over short-term and long-term mating orientation and dominant and prestigious status-seeking behaviors in a sample of 95 young Chilean men. We did not find evidence that the administration of exogenous testosterone increased short-term or decreased long-term mating orientation as expected. Moreover, exogenous testosterone did not affect either aggressive or cooperative behavior failing to support the social status hypothesis. We also did not find any relationship between short or long-term mating orientation with status-seeking behaviors. Finally, we found support for the effect of social environment on sociosexual attitudes but not over status-seeking behaviors. Thus, men reported higher levels of short-term mating orientation in the presence of a woman compared to a man and no differences were found for long-term mating orientation. We argue that sociosexuality may be expressed flexibly, but contextual factors such as the presence of women seem more important than changes in testosterone levels.
  • Publication
    The effect of intergroup competition outcome on ingroup cooperation: insights from the male warrior hypothesis
    (2024) Belinchón, Montserrat; Polo Rodrigo, Pablo; Rodriguez-Sickert, Carlos; Figueroa, Oriana; Valenzuela-Martinez, Nohelia T.; Pavez, Paula; Muñoz Reyes, José Antonio
    Introduction: The Male Warrior Hypothesis (MWH) proposes that sex-specific elective pressures have promoted male cooperation with the ingroup members to outcompete rival groups. However, intergroup conflicts do not occur in isolation and the outcomes of previous competitions may influence group cooperativeness. Since this phenomenon is not well understood, we aimed to shed light on the effect of previous competition outcome on later cooperative behavior under intergroup conflicts. Based on the MWH, we hypothesized that repeated contests between groups could enhance ingroup cooperation, regardless of the outcome of the previous contest because status is at risk, but when competition is not present, participants would move to the symmetric equilibria. Methods: To test this hypothesis, we recruited 246 individuals organized in groups of 6 and measured cooperation using a threshold public good game over two rounds, manipulating the outcome in the first round to create groups of winners and losers. Results: Our results show that intergroup conflict scenarios promoted cooperation in both victory and defeat conditions, whereas, in the control scenario only losers increased their cooperation. Discussion: We argue that winners under the presence of an external threat may enhance in-group cooperation in order to assure their status; whereas, losers may be attempting to regain it.
  • Publication
    It's not the what but (also) the how: characterizing left-wing populism in political texts
    (2024) raveau, maria; Fernández, Miguel Angel; del Solar Zañartu, Maria Jose; Fuentes-Bravo, Claudio; Couyoumdjian, Juan Pablo
    Despite all the elasticity and even ambiguity surrounding the concept of populism, the existing paradigms converge in the recognition of a populist rhetoric. By using Natural Language Processing (NLP) tools we propose a set of linguistic and discursive markers to identify populist markers in Presidential speeches. The performance of these markers is subsequently tested against the Global Populism Database (GPD). We set-up a multinomial regression model to study the predictive power of these markers on the GPD populist score, focusing on left-wing populist leaders in Spanish-speaking countries in Latin America. We are thus able to characterize (left-wing) populism as a style of communication, as well as to understand what is behind this rhetoric. Our results show that ingroup and emotional content are more present in populist speeches. We also find a positive relation between populism and the use future tense and conditional connectors, which suggest an intention to manipulate the audience. These results have implications both for the current understanding of (left-wing) populist rhetoric and for the conceptualization of populism itself.
  • Publication
    The parietal cortex has a causal role in ambiguity computations in humans
    (2024) Valdebenito-Oyarzo, Gabriela; Martínez-Molina, María Paz; Soto-Icaza, Patricia; Zamorano, Francisco; Figueroa-Vargas, Alejandra; Larraín-Valenzuela, Josefina; Stecher, Ximena; Salinas, César; Bastin, Julien; Valero-Cabré, Antoni; Polania, Rafael
    Humans often face the challenge of making decisions between ambiguous options. The level of ambiguity in decision-making has been linked to activity in the parietal cortex, but its exact computational role remains elusive. To test the hypothesis that the parietal cortex plays a causal role in computing ambiguous probabilities, we conducted consecutive fMRI and TMS-EEG studies. We found that participants assigned unknown probabilities to objective probabilities, elevating the uncertainty of their decisions. Parietal cortex activity correlated with the objective degree of ambiguity and with a process that underestimates the uncertainty during decision-making. Conversely, the midcingulate cortex (MCC) encodes prediction errors and increases its connectivity with the parietal cortex during outcome processing. Disruption of the parietal activity increased the uncertainty evaluation of the options, decreasing cingulate cortex oscillations during outcome evaluation and lateral frontal oscillations related to value ambiguous probability. These results provide evidence for a causal role of the parietal cortex in computing uncertainty during ambiguous decisions made by humans.
  • Publication
    Oscillatory activity underlying cognitive performance in children and adolescents with autism: a systematic review
    (2024) Soto-Icaza, Patricia; Soto-Fernández, Patricio; Kausel, Leonie; Márquez-Rodríguez, Víctor; Carvajal-Paredes, Patricio; Martínez-Molina, María Paz; Figueroa-Vargas, Alejandra; Billeke, Pablo
    Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental condition that exhibits a widely heterogeneous range of social and cognitive symptoms. This feature has challenged a broad comprehension of this neurodevelopmental disorder and therapeutic efforts to address its difficulties. Current therapeutic strategies have focused primarily on treating behavioral symptoms rather than on brain psychophysiology. During the past years, the emergence of non-invasive brain stimulation techniques (NIBS) has opened alternatives to the design of potential combined treatments focused on the NEurophysiopathology of neuropsychiatric disorders like ASD. Such interventions require identifying the key brain mechanisms underlying the symptomatology and cognitive features. Evidence has shown alterations in oscillatory features of the neural ensembles associated with cognitive functions in ASD. In this line, we elaborated a systematic revision of the evidence of alterations in brain oscillations that underlie key cognitive processes that have been shown to be affected in ASD during childhood and adolescence, namely, social cognition, attention, working memory, inhibitory control, and cognitive flexibility. This knowledge could contribute to developing therapies based on NIBS to improve these processes in populations with ASD
  • Publication
    Theta and alpha oscillations may underlie improved attention and working memory in musically trained children
    (2024) Kausel, Leonie; Zamorano, Francisco; Billeke, Pablo; Sutherland, M.E.; Alliende, M. I.; Larrain-Valenzuela, J.; Soto-Icaza, Patricia; Aboitiz, F.
    Introduction: Attention and working memory are key cognitive functions that allow us to select and maintain information in our mind for a short time, being essential for our daily life and, in particular, for learning and academic performance. It has been shown that musical training can improve working memory performance, but it is still unclear if and how the neural mechanisms of working memory and particularly attention are implicated in this process. In this work, we aimed to identify the oscillatory signature of bimodal attention and working memory that contributes to improved working memory in musically trained children. Materials and methods: We recruited children with and without musical training and asked them to complete a bimodal (auditory/visual) attention and working memory task, whereas their brain activity was measured using electroencephalography. Behavioral, time–frequency, and source reconstruction analyses were made. Results: Results showed that, overall, musically trained children performed better on the task than children without musical training. When comparing musically trained children with children without musical training, we found modulations in the alpha band pre-stimuli onset and the beginning of stimuli onset in the frontal and parietal regions. These correlated with correct responses to the attended modality. Moreover, during the end phase of stimuli presentation, we found modulations correlating with correct responses independent of attention condition in the theta and alpha bands, in the left frontal and right parietal regions. Conclusions: These results suggest that musically trained children have improved neu ronal mechanisms for both attention allocation and memory encoding. Our results can be important for developing interventions for people with attention and working memory difficulties.
  • Publication
    A multimodal interface for speech perception: the role of the left superior temporal sulcus in social cognition and autism
    (2024) Kausel, Leonie; Michon, Maëva; Soto-Icaza, Patricia; Aboitiz, Francisco
    Multimodal integration is crucial for human interaction, in particular for social communication, which relies on integrating information from various sensory modalities. Recently a third visual pathway specialized in social perception was proposed, which includes the right superior temporal sulcus (STS) playing a key role in processing socially relevant cues and high-level social perception. Importantly, it has also recently been proposed that the left STS contributes to audiovisual integration of speech processing. In this article, we propose that brain areas along the right STS that support multimodal integration for social perception and cognition can be considered homologs to those in the left, language-dominant hemisphere, sustaining multimodal integration of speech and semantic concepts fundamental for social communication. Emphasizing the significance of the left STS in multimodal integration and associated processes such as multimodal attention to socially relevant stimuli, we underscore its potential relevance in comprehending neurodevelopmental conditions characterized by challenges in social communication such as autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Further research into this left lateral processing stream holds the promise of enhancing our understanding of social communication in both typical development and ASD, which may lead to more effective interventions that could improve the quality of life for individuals with atypical neurodevelopment.
  • Publication
    Country-level gender inequality is associated with structural differences in the brains of women and men
    (2023) Zugman, André; Alliende, Luz María; Medel, Vicente; Bethlehem, Richard A.I.; Seidlitz, Jakob; Ringlein, Grace; Arango, Celso; Arnatkevičiūtė, Aurina; Asmal, Laila; Bellgrove, Mark; Benegal, Vivek; Bernardo, Miquel; Billeke, Pablo; Bosch-Bayard, Jorge; Bressan, Rodrigo; Busatto, Geraldo F.; Castro, Mariana N.; Chaim-Avancini, Tiffany; Compte, Albert; Costanzi, Monise; Czepielewsk, Leticia; Dazzan, Paola; Fuente-Sandoval, Camilo de la; Forti, Marta Di; Díaz-Caneja, Covadonga M.; Díaz-Zuluaga, Ana María; Ples, Stefan Du; Duran, Fabio L. S.; Fittipaldi, Sol; Fornito, Alex; Freimer, Nelson B.; Gadelha, Ary; Gama, Clarissa S.; Garani, Ranjini; Garcia-Rizo, Clemente; Gonzalez Campo, Cecilia; Gonzalez-Valderrama, Alfonso; Guinjoan, Salvador; Holla, Bharath; Undurraga, Juan
    Gender inequality across the world has been associated with a higher risk to mental health problems and lower academic achievement in women compared to men. We also know that the brain is shaped by nurturing and adverse socio-environmental experiences. Therefore, unequal exposure to harsher conditions for women compared to men in gender-unequal countries might be reflected in differences in their brain structure, and this could be the neural mechanism partly explaining women's worse outcomes in gender-unequal countries. We examined this through a random-effects meta-analysis on cortical thickness and surface area differences between adult healthy men and women, including a meta-regression in which country-level gender inequality acted as an explanatory variable for the observed differences. A total of 139 samples from 29 different countries, totaling 7,876 MRI scans, were included. Thickness of the right hemisphere, and particularly the right caudal anterior cingulate, right medial orbitofrontal, and left lateral occipital cortex, presented no differences or even thicker regional cortices in women compared to men in gender-equal countries, reversing to thinner cortices in countries with greater gender inequality. These results point to the potentially hazardous effect of gender inequality on women's brains and provide initial evidence for neuroscience-informed policies for gender equality.
  • Publication
    Quantifying hierarchy and prestige in US ballet academies as social predictors of career success.
    (2023) Herrera-Guzmán, Yessica; Gates, Alexander J.; Candia Vallejos, Cristian; Barabási, Albert-László
    In the recent decade, we have seen major progress in quantifying the behaviors and the impact of scientists, resulting in a quantitative toolset capable of monitoring and predicting the career patterns of the profession. It is unclear, however, if this toolset applies to other creative domains beyond the sciences. In particular, while performance in the arts has long been difficult to quantify objectively, research suggests that professional networks and prestige of affiliations play a similar role to those observed in science, hence they can reveal patterns underlying successful careers. To test this hypothesis, here we focus on ballet, as it allows us to investigate in a quantitative fashion the interplay of individual performance, institutional prestige, and network effects. We analyze data on competition outcomes from 6363 ballet students affiliated with 1603 schools in the United States, who participated in the Youth America Grand Prix (YAGP) between 2000 and 2021. Through multiple logit models and matching experiments, we provide evidence that schools’ strategic network position bridging between communities captures social prestige and predicts the placement of students into jobs in ballet companies. This work reveals the importance of institutional prestige on career success in ballet and showcases the potential of network science approaches to provide quantitative viewpoints for the professional development of careers beyond science.
  • Publication
    The work, economic, and remittance stress and distress of the COVID-19 pandemic containment policies: The case of venezuelan migrants in Argentina and Chile.
    (2023) Real, Deisy Del; Crowhurst Pons, Felipe Ignacio; Olave, Lizeth
    According to the social stress process model, global crises are macro-level stressors that generate physiological stress and psychological distress. However, existing research has not identified immigrants’ COVID-19 containment policy stressors or examined the social stress of sending remittances amid crises. Drawing on in-depth longitudinal interviews with 46 Venezuelan immigrants— half before and half during the pandemic—in Chile and Argentina, we identified the COVID-19 containment policies’ stressors. We focused on Venezuelan immigrants because they constitute one of the largest internationally displaced populations, with most migrating within South America. We found that the governmental COVID-19 containment measures in both countries generated four stressors: employment loss, income loss, devaluation of employment status, and inability to send needed remittances. Moreover, sending remittances helped some migrants cope with concerns about loved ones in Venezuela. However, sending remittances became a social stressor when immigrants struggled to simultaneously sustain their livelihoods and send financial support to relatives experiencing hardships in Venezuela. For some immigrants, these adversities generated other stressors (e.g., housing instability) and symptoms of anxiety and depression. Broadly, for immigrants, the stressors of global crises transcend international borders and generate high stress, which strains their psychological well-being.
  • Publication
    Orcas remember what to copy: a deferred and interference‑resistant imitation study
    (2023) Zamorano-Abramson, José; Hernández‑Lloreda, Mª Victoria; Colmenares, Fernando; Call, Josep
    Response facilitation has often been portrayed as a “low level” category of social learning, because the demonstrator’s action, which is already in the observer’s repertoire, automatically triggers that same action, rather than induces the learning of a new action. One way to rule out response facilitation consists of introducing a delay between the demonstrator’s behavior and the observer’s response to let their possible efects wear of. However, this may not rule out “delayed response facilitation” in which the subject could be continuously “mentally rehearsing” the demonstrated actions during the waiting period. We used a do-as-the-other-did paradigm in two orcas to study whether they displayed cognitive control regarding their production of familiar actions by (1) introducing a delay ranging from 60 to 150 s between observing and producing the actions and (2) interspersing distractor (non-target) actions performed by the demonstrator and by the subjects during the delay period. These two manipulations were aimed at preventing the mental rehearsal of the observed actions during the delay period. Both orcas copied the model’s target actions on command after various delay periods, and crucially, despite the presence of distractor actions. These fndings suggest that orcas are capable of selectively retrieving a representation of an observed action to generate a delayed matching response. Moreover, these results lend further support to the proposal that the subjects’ performance relied not only on a mental representation of the specifc actions that were requested to copy, but also fexibly on the abstract and domain general rule requested by the specifc “copy command”. Our fndings strengthen the view that orcas and other cetaceans are capable of fexible and controlled social learning.
  • Publication
    Network anatomy in logopenic variant of primary progressive aphasia
    (2023) Mandelli, Maria Luisa; Lorca-Puls, Diego L.; Lukic, Sladjana; Montembeault, Maxime; Gajardo-Vidal, Andrea; Licata, Abigail; Scheffler, Aaron; Battistella, Giovanni; Grasso, Stephanie M.; Bogley, Rian; Ratnasiri, Buddhika M.; La Joie, Renaud; Mundada, Nidhi S.; Europa, Eduardo; Rabinovici, Gil; Miller, Bruce L.; Leon, Jessica De; Henry, Maya L.; Miller, Zachary; Gorno-Tempini, Maria Luisa
    The logopenic variant of primary progressive aphasia (lvPPA) is a neurodegenerative syndrome characterized linguistically by gradual loss of repetition and naming skills resulting from left posterior temporal and inferior parietal atrophy. Here, we sought to identify which specific cortical loci are initially targeted by the disease (epicenters) and investigate whether atrophy spreads through predetermined networks. First, we used cross-sectional structural MRI data from individuals with lvPPA to define putative disease epicenters using a surface-based approach paired with an anatomically fine-grained parcellation of the cortical surface (i.e., HCP-MMP1.0 atlas). Second, we combined cross-sectional functional MRI data from healthy controls and longitudinal structural MRI data from individuals with lvPPA to derive the epicenter-seeded resting-state networks most relevant to lvPPA symptomatology and ascertain whether functional connectivity in these networks predicts longitudinal atrophy spread in lvPPA. Our results show that two partially distinct brain networks anchored to the left anterior angular and posterior superior temporal gyri epicenters were preferentially associated with sentence repetition and naming skills in lvPPA. Critically, the strength of connectivity within these two networks in the neurologically-intact brain significantly predicted longitudinal atrophy progression in lvPPA. Taken together, our findings indicate that atrophy progression in lvPPA, starting from inferior parietal and temporoparietal junction regions, predominantly follows at least two partially nonoverlapping pathways, which may influence the heterogeneity in clinical presentation and prognosis.
  • Publication
    Evidence of the active participation of women in the intergroup conflict based on the use of aggression and cooperation
    (2023) Muñoz Reyes, José Antonio; Torrico-Bazoberry, Daniel; Polo Rodrigo, Pablo; Figueroa, Oriana; Guzmán-Lavín, Eugenio; Fajardo, Gabriela; Valenzuela-Martinez, Nohelia T.; Belinchón, Montserrat; Rodriguez-Sickert, Carlos; Pita, Miguel
    Intergroup conflict has been a persistent aspect of human societies since the emergence of our species. Various researchers have proposed that competition between groups has acted as a key selective force throughout human evolutionary history. Such intergroup competition for limited resources exacerbated the expression of intergroup aggression and intragroup cooperation. Furthermore, it would have a sexual dimorphism, with men demonstrating increased sensitivity to conflict threats—in order to maximize reproductive opportunities—, while women generally reject from active engagement in intergroup conflict. In the present study, we conducted behavioral experiments under controlled laboratory conditions to measure cooperation and aggression from using virtual games, specifically the Public Good Games and the Point Subtraction Aggression Paradigm, in a sample of 541 participants. We created control and experimental intergroup competition scenarios, where aggression and cooperation were necessary to increase monetary rewards. Our results shows that men modulate aggression and cooperation in the presence of intergroup conflict. In addition, our data also reveals that women cooperate more than men and display heightened levels of cooperation and aggression when confronted with intergroup conflict. These findings prompt a reevaluation of current functional theoretical models concerning the role of women in intergroup conflict and suggest that the dynamics of human aggression and cooperation may be more nuanced than previously believed.
  • Publication
    Educación intercultural en Chile: La experiencia inclusiva del taller «Palabras de unión»
    (2023) Pavez Soto, Iskra; Ortiz López, Juan; Alfaro Contreras, Carmen; Colomés, Sofía; Villegas, Pamela; Grandon, Nicolás; Acuña, Jeanette; Coloma, Camila; Gonzalez, Andrea
    El objetivo de este artículo es analizar la percepción que tienen las familias migrantes de origen haitiano, cuya lengua materna es el creole, sobre la experiencia de sus hijas e hijos en el taller ‘Palabras de Unión’ donde facilitaron el proceso de inmersión lingüística. Mediante una metodología cualitativa, se realizaron nueve entrevistas semiestructuradas a madres y padres, apoderados de un establecimiento público de enseñanza básica, ubicado en un barrio vulnerable de Santiago, Región Metropolitana, Chile. Los resultados reflejan que las familias migrantes valoran el apoyo recibido de parte del taller, especialmente las estrategias utilizadas por el equipo interdisciplinario conformado por profesores, fonoaudiólogos y personal docente. No obstante, se observa una alta demanda de parte de los apoderados por tener más oportunidades de comunicación con la escuela. Se reconoce que las nuevas tecnologías de la información funcionan como un canal accesible que puede facilitar la participación de toda la comunidad escolar.
  • Publication
    Degeneracy in the neurological model of auditory speech repetition
    (2023) Sajid, Noor; Gajardo-Vidal, Andrea; Ekert, Justyna O.; Lorca-Puls, Diego L.; Hope, Thomas M. H.; Green, David W.; Friston, Karl J.; Price, Cathy J.
    Both classic and contemporary models of auditory word repetition involve at least four left hemisphere regions: primary auditory cortex for processing sounds; pSTS (within Wernicke's area) for processing auditory images of speech; pOp (within Broca's area) for processing motor images of speech; and primary motor cortex for overt speech articulation. Previous functional-MRI (fMRI) studies confirm that auditory repetition activates these regions, in addition to many others. Crucially, however, contemporary models do not specify how regions interact and drive each other during auditory repetition. Here, we used dynamic causal modelling, to test the functional interplay among the four core brain regions during single auditory word and pseudoword repetition. Our analysis is grounded in the principle of degeneracy-i.e., many-to-one structure-function relationships-where multiple neural pathways can execute the same function. Contrary to expectation, we found that, for both word and pseudoword repetition, (i) the effective connectivity between pSTS and pOp was predominantly bidirectional and inhibitory; (ii) activity in the motor cortex could be driven by either pSTS or pOp; and (iii) the latter varied both within and between individuals. These results suggest that different neural pathways can support auditory speech repetition. This degeneracy may explain resilience to functional loss after brain damage.
  • Publication
    Facing the blue Anthropocene in Patagonia by empowering indigenous peoples’ action networks
    (2023) Araos, Francisco; Hidalgo, Carlos; Brañas, Francisco; Anbleyth-Evans, Jeremy; Diestre, Florencia; Yu Iwama, Allan
    Chilean Patagonia is a globally significant ecosystem for biodiversity, and simultaneously a global center for the aquaculture industry. Environmental crises have accelerated over the last decades with the installation of salmon farms, increasing impacts on indigenous livelihoods and the habitats of marine species. Indigenous Marine Areas (IMA) have confronted the effects of the blue Anthropocene in Chilean Patagonia, causing diverse indigenous communities to evolve mechanisms to enhance ocean health and sustainability. Based on an analysis of the main socio-spatial trends of IMA in Patagonia and their action networks in the Los Lagos Region, this study demonstrates the importance of a multiple agent network to mobilize the implementation of IMA. The study shows how indigenous people face the challenges of the UN Ocean Decade, enhancing the sustainability pathways of blue Patagonia.