scholarly journals Internal modeling of upcoming speech: A causal role of the right posterior cerebellum in non-motor aspects of language production

Cortex ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 81 ◽  
pp. 203-214 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elin Runnqvist ◽  
Mireille Bonnard ◽  
Hanna S. Gauvin ◽  
Shahram Attarian ◽  
Agnès Trébuchon ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Language Production ◽  
Causal Role ◽  
The Right

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Evan Franklin
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Free Will ◽  
Human Agency ◽  
Causal Role ◽  
Central Question ◽  
Agent Causation ◽  
The Right

This chapter lays out the book’s central question: Assuming agency reductionism—that is, the thesis that the causal role of the agent in all agential activities is reducible to the causal role of states and events involving the agent—is it possible to construct a defensible model of libertarianism? It is explained that most think the answer is negative and this is because they think libertarians must embrace some form of agent-causation in order to address the problems of luck and enhanced control. The thesis of the book is that these philosophers are mistaken: it is possible to construct a libertarian model of free will and moral responsibility within an agency reductionist framework that silences that central objections to libertarianism by simply taking the best compatibilist model of freedom and adding indeterminism in the right junctures of human agency. A brief summary of the chapters to follow is given.

Disrupting the right pars opercularis with electrical stimulation frees the song: case report

2015 ◽  
Vol 123 (6) ◽  
pp. 1401-1404 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guillaume Herbet ◽  
Gilles Lafargue ◽  
Fabien Almairac ◽  
Sylvie Moritz-Gasser ◽  
François Bonnetblanc ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Language Production ◽  
Inferior Frontal Gyrus ◽  
Awake Surgery ◽  
Low Grade ◽  
Speech Impairment ◽  
First Case ◽  
Pars Opercularis ◽  
The Right

The authors report the first case of a strikingly unusual speech impairment evoked by intraoperative electrostimulation in a 36-year-old right-handed patient, a well-trained singer, who underwent awake surgery for a right fronto-temporo-insular low-grade glioma. Functionally disrupting the pars opercularis of the right inferior frontal gyrus led the patient to automatically switch from a speaking to a singing mode of language production. Given the central role of the right pars opercularis in the inhibitory control network, the authors propose that this finding may be interpreted as possible evidence for a competitive and independent neurocognitive subnetwork devoted to the melodically intoned articulation of words (normal language-based vs singing-based) in subjects with high expertise. From a more clinical perspective, such data may have implications for awake neurosurgery, especially to preserve the quality of life for singers.

Causal Role of the Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex in Belief Updating under Uncertainty

2020 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 184-200
Author(s):  
Stefan Schulreich ◽  
Lars Schwabe
Keyword(s):  
Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Causal Role ◽  
Uncertain Environments ◽  
Belief Updating ◽  
Frontoparietal Network ◽  
Dorsolateral Prefrontal ◽  
The Right ◽  
Normative Value

Abstract Adaptive performance in uncertain environments depends on the ability to continuously update internal beliefs about environmental states. Recent correlative evidence suggests that a frontoparietal network including the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) supports belief updating under uncertainty, but whether the dlPFC serves a “causal” role in this process is currently not clear. To elucidate its contribution, we leveraged transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) over the right dlPFC, while 91 participants performed an incentivized belief-updating task. Participants also underwent a psychosocial stress or control manipulation to investigate the role of stress, which is known to modulate dlPFC functioning. We observed enhanced monetary value updating after anodal tDCS when it was normatively expected from a Bayesian perspective. A model-based analysis indicates that this effect was driven by belief updating. However, we also observed enhanced non-normative value updating, which might have been driven instead by expectancy violation. Enhanced normative and non-normative value updating reflected increased vs. decreased Bayesian rationality, respectively. Furthermore, cortisol increases were associated with enhanced positive, but not with negative, value updating. The present study thereby sheds light on the causal role of the right dlPFC in the remarkable human ability to navigate uncertain environments by continuously updating prior knowledge following new evidence.

scholarly journals A causal role for the right frontal eye fields in value comparison

eLife ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian Krajbich ◽  
Andres Mitsumasu ◽  
Rafael Polania ◽  
Christian C Ruff ◽  
Ernst Fehr
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Visual Attention ◽  
Reaction Times ◽  
Underlying Mechanism ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Causal Role ◽  
Frontal Eye Field ◽  
Eye Field ◽  
The Right

Recent studies have suggested close functional links between overt visual attention and decision making. This suggests that the corresponding mechanisms may interface in brain regions known to be crucial for guiding visual attention – such as the frontal eye field (FEF). Here, we combined brain stimulation, eye tracking, and computational approaches to explore this possibility. We show that inhibitory transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) over the right FEF has a causal impact on decision making, reducing the effect of gaze dwell time on choice while also increasing reaction times. We computationally characterize this putative mechanism by using the attentional drift diffusion model (aDDM), which reveals that FEF inhibition reduces the relative discounting of the non-fixated option in the comparison process. Our findings establish an important causal role of the right FEF in choice, elucidate the underlying mechanism, and provide support for one of the key causal hypotheses associated with the aDDM.

Functionalism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Papineau
Keyword(s):  
Mental Representation ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Causal Structure ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Causal Role ◽  
Scientific Psychology ◽  
The Right ◽  
Common Sense Psychology

The term ‘functionalism’ means different things in many different disciplines from architectural theory to zoology. In contemporary philosophy of mind, however, it is uniformly understood to stand for the view that mental states should be explained in terms of causal roles. So, to take a simple example, a functionalist in the philosophy of mind would argue that pains are states which are normally caused by bodily damage, and tend in turn to cause avoidance behaviour. Functionalism is often introduced by an analogy between mental states and mechanical devices. Consider the notion of a carburettor, say. For something to be a carburettor it need not have any particular physical make-up. Carburettors can come in many different materials and shapes. What makes it a carburettor is simply that it plays the right causal role, namely that it mixes air with petrol in response to movements of the accelerator and choke. Similarly, argue functionalists, with the mind. The possession of mental states does not depend on the physical make-up of the brain; it depends only on its displaying the right causal structure. Since organisms with very different sorts of biological make-up, like octopuses and humans, can have states with the causal role of pain, say, it follows from functionalism that octopuses and humans can both be in pain. There exists a number of different subspecies of functionalism. One important division depends on how the relevant causal roles are determined. ‘Common-sense’ functionalists take them to be fixed by common-sense psychology; ‘scientific’ functionalists take them to be fixed by the discoveries of scientific psychology. So, for example, common-sense functionalists will hold that emotions play the causal role that common-sense psychology ascribes to emotions, while scientific psychologists will argue that scientific psychology identifies this causal role. Functionalism, of whatever subspecies, is open to a number of well-known criticisms. One central objection is that it cannot accommodate the conscious, qualitative aspect of mental life. Could not a machine share the causal structure of someone who was in pain, and thereby satisfy the functionalist qualification for pain, and yet have no conscious feelings? It might seem that functionalists can respond to this difficulty by being more stringent about the requirements involved in the causal role of a given human sensation. But there is a danger that functionalism will then lose much of its appeal. The original attraction of functionalism was that its ‘liberal’ specification of causal roles allowed that humans could share mental states with non-humans. This feature is likely to be lost if we switch to more ‘chauvinist’ specifications designed to explain why non-humans do not share our conscious life. Another objection to functionalism is that it cannot account for mental representation. Functionalism focuses on the way mental states enter into causal structure. But it is doubtful that mental representation can be explained in purely causal terms. Some philosophers argue that the issue of mental representation can be dealt with by adding some teleology to functionalism, that is by considering the biological purposes for which mental states have been designed, as well as their actual structure of causes and effects. However, once we do appeal to teleology in this way, it is not clear that we still need a functionalist account of representational states, for we can now simply identify such states in terms of their biological purposes, rather than their causal roles.

The Role of the Frontal and Parietal Cortex in Proactive and Reactive Inhibitory Control: A Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation Study

2016 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 177-186 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ying Cai ◽  
Siyao Li ◽  
Jing Liu ◽  
Dawei Li ◽  
Zifang Feng ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Inhibitory Control ◽  
Direct Current ◽  
Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation ◽  
Stop Signal ◽  
Causal Role ◽  
Stop Signal Task ◽  
Proactive Control ◽  
Reactive Control ◽  
The Right

Mounting evidence suggests that response inhibition involves both proactive and reactive inhibitory control, yet its underlying neural mechanisms remain elusive. In particular, the roles of the right inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and inferior parietal lobe (IPL) in proactive and reactive inhibitory control are still under debate. This study aimed at examining the causal role of the right IFG and IPL in proactive and reactive inhibitory control, using transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) and the stop signal task. Twenty-two participants completed three sessions of the stop signal task, under anodal tDCS in the right IFG, the right IPL, or the primary visual cortex (VC; 1.5 mA for 15 min), respectively. The VC stimulation served as the active control condition. The tDCS effect for each condition was calculated as the difference between pre- and post-tDCS performance. Proactive control was indexed by the RT increase for go trials (or preparatory cost), and reactive control by the stop signal RT. Compared to the VC stimulation, anodal stimulation of the right IFG, but not that of the IPL, facilitated both proactive and reactive control. However, the facilitation of reactive control was not mediated by the facilitation of proactive control. Furthermore, tDCS did not affect the intraindividual variability in go RT. These results suggest a causal role of the right IFG, but not the right IPL, in both reactive and proactive inhibitory control.

scholarly journals A Causal Role of the Right Superior Temporal Sulcus in Emotion Recognition From Biological Motion

Open Mind ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rochelle A. Basil ◽  
Margaret L. Westwater ◽  
Martin Wiener ◽  
James C. Thompson
Keyword(s):  
Emotion Recognition ◽  
Biological Motion ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Superior Temporal Sulcus ◽  
Causal Role ◽  
Global Motion ◽  
Body Movements ◽  
Accurate Identification ◽  
The Right

Understanding the emotions of others through nonverbal cues is critical for successful social interactions. The right posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS) is one brain region thought to be key in the recognition of the mental states of others based on body language and facial expression. In the present study, we temporarily disrupted functional activity of the right pSTS by using continuous, theta-burst transcranial magnetic stimulation (cTBS) to test the hypothesis that the right pSTS plays a causal role in emotion recognition from body movements. Participants ( N = 23) received cTBS to the right pSTS, which was individually localized using fMRI, and a vertex control site. Before and after cTBS, we tested participants’ ability to identify emotions from point-light displays (PLDs) of biological motion stimuli and a nonbiological global motion identification task. Results revealed that accurate identification of emotional states from biological motion was reduced following cTBS to the right pSTS, but accuracy was not impaired following vertex stimulation. Accuracy on the global motion task was unaffected by cTBS to either site. These results support the causal role of the right pSTS in decoding information about others’ emotional state from their body movements and gestures.

scholarly journals A causal role of the right superior temporal sulcus in emotion recognition from biological motion

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rochelle A. Basil ◽  
Margaret L. Westwater ◽  
Martin Wiener ◽  
James C. Thompson
Keyword(s):  
Emotion Recognition ◽  
Biological Motion ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Superior Temporal Sulcus ◽  
Causal Role ◽  
Emotional States ◽  
Global Motion ◽  
Body Movements ◽  
The Right

AbstractUnderstanding the emotions of others through nonverbal cues is critical for successful social interactions. The right posterior superior temporal sulcus (rpSTS) is one brain region thought to be key in the recognition of the mental states of others based on body language and facial expression. In the present study, we temporarily disrupted functional activity of the rpSTS by using continuous, theta-burst transcranial magnetic stimulation (cTBS) to test the hypothesis that the rpSTS plays a causal role in emotion recognition from body movements. Participants (N=23) received cTBS of the rpSTS, which was individually localized using fMRI, and a vertex control site. Before and after cTBS, we tested the ability of participants to identify emotions from point-light biological motion stimuli and a non-biological global motion identification task. Results revealed that the ability of participants to accurately identify emotional states from biological motion was reduced following cTBS stimulation to the rpSTS, but was unimpaired following vertex stimulation. Accuracy on the global motion tasks was unaffected by cTBS to either site. These results support the causal role of the rpSTS in decoding information about other’s emotional state from their body movements and gestures.

scholarly journals Causal role of the right temporoparietal junction in selfishness depends on the social context

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristin M. Brethel-Haurwitz ◽  
Desmond Oathes ◽  
Joe Kable
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Dictator Game ◽  
Causal Role ◽  
Temporoparietal Junction ◽  
The Social ◽  
Interaction Partners ◽  
Right Temporoparietal Junction ◽  
The Right ◽  
Social Decision Making

The right temporoparietal junction (rTPJ) is a hub of the mentalizing network, but its causal role in social decision-making remains an area of active investigation. While the rTPJ is critical in strategic interactions, it is unclear if it is necessary for general other-regard as indexed by generosity and inequity, or if its influence depends on social context, particularly the salience and identifiability of interaction partners. We examined the effects of inhibitory rTPJ transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) on Dictator Game behavior with an abstract minimally identified partner versus a salient physically present partner (n = 27). While rTPJ TMS did not affect overall other-regard, there was an interaction with social condition. Participants kept a greater share of resources when interacting with an abstract relative to salient partner under control conditions, but this differentiation was eliminated with rTPJ TMS. Thus, the causal role of the rTPJ in selfishness depends on social context.

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