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This paper reviews some controversies concerning the original and revised versions of the ‘hub-and-spoke’ model of conceptual representations and their implication for abstraction capacity levels. The ‘hub-and-spoke’ model, which is based on data gathered in patients with semantic dementia (SD), is the most authoritative model of conceptual knowledge. Patterson et al.’s ( Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 8(12), 976-987, 2007 ) classical version of this model maintained that conceptual representations are stored in a unitary ‘amodal’ format in the right and left anterior temporal lobes (ATLs), because in SD the semantic disorder cuts across modalities and categories. Several authors questioned the unitary nature of these representations. They showed that the semantic impairment is ‘multi-modal’only in the advanced stages of SD, when atrophy affects the ATLs bilaterally, but that impariments can be modality-specific in lateralised (early) stages of the disease. In these cases, SD mainly affects lexical-semantic knowledge when atrophy predominates on the left side and pictorial representations when atrophy prevails on the right side. Some aspects of the model (i.e. the importance of spokes, the multimodal format of representations and the graded convergence of modalities within the ATLs), which had already been outlined by Rogers et al. ( Psychological Review, 111(1), 205–235, 2004 ) in a computational model of SD, were strengthened by these results. The relevance of these theoretical problems and of empirical data concerning the neural substrate of concrete and abstract words is discussed critically. The conclusion of the review is that the highest levels of abstraction are due more to the structuring influence of language than to the format of representations.

Traditionally, in open surgery, right adrenalectomy is considered technically more demanding than its left-sided counterpart. This belief is supposed to be attributable mainly to different anatomic characteristics of the adrenal veins. Whether this opinion is also correct for laparoscopic adrenalectomy remains elusive. To compare the outcomes of left versus right laparoscopic adrenalectomy from an anterior approach. Retrospective statistical analysis of a prospectively compiled database of consecutive patients undergoing laparoscopic adrenalectomy in a single center with focus on potential differences in the left- versus right-sided procedure in terms of demographic parameters, tumor size, operating time, occurrence of serious intraoperative complications, conversion, length of hospital stay and re-operation rate. One hundred seventy-six patients underwent elective laparoscopic adrenalectomy - 80 left-sided (45.45%) and 96 right-sided (54.55%). No significant difference was found between the groups in terms of age (54.09 ±11.2 vs. 56.27 ±11.6; p = 0.2), tumor size (3.39 ±1.86 vs. 3.26 ±1.66; p = 0.64), operating time (71.84 ±22.33 vs. 72.06 ±30.99; p = 0.95), occurrence of serious intraoperative complications (7.5% vs. 10.4%; p = 0.5), conversion (1.25% vs. 1.04%; p = 0.9), length of hospital stay (4.52 ±1.30 vs. 4.37 ±1.91; p = 0.55) or reoperation rate (5% vs. 1%; p = 0.11). There was no mortality. No significant difference was found between the left and right laparoscopic adrenalectomy in terms of operating time, occurrence of serious intraoperative complications, conversion rate or postoperative outcome. Therefore, the opinion that the right-sided procedure is more difficult does not seem to be justified for laparoscopic adrenalectomy from the anterior approach.

Based on the previous findings, it has been assumed that in schizophrenia patients, eye dominance and cannabis use will affect negative symptoms and intermanual coordination (IMC), an index of interhemispheric communication. But eye dominance, specifically the clinical findings for it, has been neglected in schizophrenia research. We therefore investigated its effects in 52 right-handed (36 right-eyed and 16 left-eyed) and 51 left-handed (35 left-eyed and 16 right-eyed) schizophrenia in-patients without and with drug use. Eye dominance affected IMC in all schizophrenia patients. When comparing right- and left-handers, we found that this result was only significant in the right-handed patients and in the smaller subgroup without drug use. In the right-handers, left eye dominance—like left-handedness—was associated with higher values in IMC and less pronounced manifestation of negative symptoms, right eye dominance was not. Thus, left-eyed right-handers may be more closely related to left-handers than to right-handers. In accordance with the results from the literature, we suggest that these findings are due to better interhemispheric connections and less impairment of white matter structures, especially in right-hemispheric regions. Moreover, cannabis use was related to higher scores in IMC and less pronounced negative symptoms, but only in the right-eyed and not in the left-eyed right-handers or in the left-handers. Hence, differences in eye dominance and handedness may be partially responsible for different results in interhemispheric connections among cannabis users. In conclusion, both eye dominance and use of cannabis should be taken into account when assessing clinical symptoms in schizophrenia patients.

Sixty years ago political divisions in the United States ran even deeper than today's name-calling showdowns between the left and right. Back then, to call someone a communist was to threaten that person's career, family, freedom, and, sometimes, life itself. Hysteria about the \"red menace\" mushroomed as the Soviet Union tightened its grip on Eastern Europe, Mao Zedong rose to power in China, and the atomic arms race accelerated. Spy scandals fanned the flames, and headlines warned of sleeper cells in the nation's midst--just as it does today with the \"War on Terror.\" In his new book,The Fear Within, Scott Martelle takes dramatic aim at one pivotal moment of that era. On the afternoon of July 20, 1948, FBI agents began rounding up twelve men in New York City, Chicago, and Detroit whom the U.S. government believed posed a grave threat to the nation--the leadership of the Communist Party-USA. After a series of delays, eleven of the twelve \"top Reds\" went on trial in Manhattan's Foley Square in January 1949. The proceedings captivated the nation, but the trial quickly dissolved into farce. The eleven defendants were charged under the 1940 Smith Act with conspiring to teach the necessity of overthrowing the U.S. government based on their roles as party leaders and their distribution of books and pamphlets. In essence, they were on trial for their libraries and political beliefs, not for overt acts threatening national security. Despite the clear conflict with the First Amendment, the men were convicted and their appeals denied by the U.S. Supreme Court in a decision that gave the green light to federal persecution of Communist Party leaders--a decision the court effectively reversed six years later. But by then, the damage was done. So rancorous was the trial the presiding judge sentenced the defense attorneys to prison terms, too, chilling future defendants' access to qualified counsel. Martelle's story is a compelling look at how American society, both general and political, reacts to stress and, incongruously, clamps down in times of crisis on the very beliefs it holds dear: the freedoms of speech and political belief. At different points in our history, the executive branch, Congress, and the courts have subtly or more drastically eroded a pillar of American society for the politics of the moment. It is not surprising, then, thatThe Fear Withintakes on added resonance in today's environment of suspicion and the decline of civil rights under the U.S. Patriot Act.