Supplemental Material for Neural Representations of Awe: Distinguishing Common and Distinct Neural Mechanisms

Abstract Subjective experience can be influenced by top-down factors, such as expectations and stimulus relevance. Recently, it has been shown that expectations can enhance the likelihood that a stimulus is consciously reported, but the neural mechanisms supporting this enhancement are still unclear. We manipulated stimulus expectations within the attentional blink (AB) paradigm using letters and combined visual psychophysics with magnetoencephalographic (MEG) recordings to investigate whether prior expectations may enhance conscious access by sharpening stimulus-specific neural representations. We further explored how stimulus-specific neural activity patterns are affected by the factors expectation, stimulus relevance and conscious report. First, we show that valid expectations about the identity of an upcoming stimulus increase the likelihood that it is consciously reported. Second, using a series of multivariate decoding analyses, we show that the identity of letters presented in and out of the AB can be reliably decoded from MEG data. Third, we show that early sensory stimulus-specific neural representations are similar for reported and missed target letters in the AB task (active report required) and an oddball task in which the letter was clearly presented but its identity was task-irrelevant. However, later sustained and stable stimulus-specific representations were uniquely observed when target letters were consciously reported (decision-dependent signal). Fourth, we show that global pre-stimulus neural activity biased perceptual decisions for a ‘seen’ response. Fifth and last, no evidence was obtained for the sharpening of sensory representations by top-down expectations. We discuss these findings in light of emerging models of perception and conscious report highlighting the role of expectations and stimulus relevance.

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Excitatory TMS Boosts Memory Representations

10.1101/279547 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Wei-Chun Wang ◽

Erik A. Wing ◽

David L.K. Murphy ◽

Bruce M. Luber ◽

Sarah H. Lisanby ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Cognitive Enhancement ◽

Functional Neuroimaging ◽

Brain Activity ◽

Neural Mechanisms ◽

Temporal Memory ◽

Memory Functioning ◽

Neural Representations ◽

Memory Representations ◽

Science Investigations ◽

Univariate Analyses

AbstractBrain stimulation technologies have seen increasing application in basic science investigations, specifically towards the goal of improving memory functioning. However, proposals concerning the neural mechanisms underlying cognitive enhancement often rely on simplified notions of excitation and, most applications examining the effects of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) on functional neuroimaging measures have been limited to univariate analyses of brain activity. We present here analyses using representational similarity analysis (RSA) and encoding-retrieval similarity (ERS) analysis in order to quantify the effect of TMS on memory representations. To test whether an increase in local excitability in PFC can have measurable influences on upstream representations in earlier temporal memory regions, we compared 1Hz and 5Hz stimulation to the left dorsolateral PFC. We found that 10 minutes of 5Hz rTMS, relative to 1Hz, had multiple effects on neural representations: 1) greater RSA during both encoding and retrieval, 2) greater ERS across all items, and, critically, 3) increasing ERS in MTL with increasing univariate activity in DLPFC, and greater functional connectivity for hits than misses between these regions. These results provide the first evidence of rTMS enhancing semantic representations and strengthen the idea that rTMS may affect the reinstatement of previously experienced events in upstream regions.

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Decoding the neural mechanisms of human tool use

eLife ◽

10.7554/elife.00425 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 2 ◽

Cited By ~ 82

Author(s):

Jason P Gallivan ◽

D Adam McLean ◽

Kenneth F Valyear ◽

Jody C Culham

Keyword(s):

Tool Use ◽

Neural Mechanisms ◽

Primate Species ◽

Classification Methods ◽

Body Perception ◽

Sensorimotor Processing ◽

Neural Representations ◽

Frontoparietal Cortex ◽

Hierarchical Nature ◽

The Brain

Sophisticated tool use is a defining characteristic of the primate species but how is it supported by the brain, particularly the human brain? Here we show, using functional MRI and pattern classification methods, that tool use is subserved by multiple distributed action-centred neural representations that are both shared with and distinct from those of the hand. In areas of frontoparietal cortex we found a common representation for planned hand- and tool-related actions. In contrast, in parietal and occipitotemporal regions implicated in hand actions and body perception we found that coding remained selectively linked to upcoming actions of the hand whereas in parietal and occipitotemporal regions implicated in tool-related processing the coding remained selectively linked to upcoming actions of the tool. The highly specialized and hierarchical nature of this coding suggests that hand- and tool-related actions are represented separately at earlier levels of sensorimotor processing before becoming integrated in frontoparietal cortex.

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Separate representations of dynamics in rhythmic and discrete movements: evidence from motor learning

Journal of Neurophysiology ◽

10.1152/jn.00780.2010 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 105 (4) ◽

pp. 1722-1731 ◽

Cited By ~ 25

Author(s):

Ian S. Howard ◽

James N. Ingram ◽

Daniel M. Wolpert

Keyword(s):

Motor Learning ◽

Force Field ◽

Motor System ◽

Neural Mechanisms ◽

Control Mechanisms ◽

Discrete Movements ◽

Field Perturbation ◽

Movement Path ◽

Neural Representations ◽

Separate Control

Rhythmic and discrete arm movements occur ubiquitously in everyday life, and there is a debate as to whether these two classes of movements arise from the same or different underlying neural mechanisms. Here we examine interference in a motor-learning paradigm to test whether rhythmic and discrete movements employ at least partially separate neural representations. Subjects were required to make circular movements of their right hand while they were exposed to a velocity-dependent force field that perturbed the circularity of the movement path. The direction of the force-field perturbation reversed at the end of each block of 20 revolutions. When subjects made only rhythmic or only discrete circular movements, interference was observed when switching between the two opposing force fields. However, when subjects alternated between blocks of rhythmic and discrete movements, such that each was uniquely associated with one of the perturbation directions, interference was significantly reduced. Only in this case did subjects learn to corepresent the two opposing perturbations, suggesting that different neural resources were employed for the two movement types. Our results provide further evidence that rhythmic and discrete movements employ at least partially separate control mechanisms in the motor system.

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Cue Competition Affects Temporal Dynamics of Edge-assignment in Human Visual Cortex

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience ◽

10.1162/jocn.2010.21433 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 23 (3) ◽

pp. 631-644 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Joseph L. Brooks ◽

Stephen E. Palmer

Keyword(s):

Temporal Dynamics ◽

Neural Mechanisms ◽

Cue Competition ◽

Relative Depth ◽

Competition And Cooperation ◽

Neural Representations ◽

Winner Take All ◽

Take All ◽

Figural Assignment ◽

Ground Organization

Edge-assignment determines the perception of relative depth across an edge and the shape of the closer side. Many cues determine edge-assignment, but relatively little is known about the neural mechanisms involved in combining these cues. Here, we manipulated extremal edge and attention cues to bias edge-assignment such that these two cues either cooperated or competed. To index their neural representations, we flickered figure and ground regions at different frequencies and measured the corresponding steady-state visual-evoked potentials (SSVEPs). Figural regions had stronger SSVEP responses than ground regions, independent of whether they were attended or unattended. In addition, competition and cooperation between the two edge-assignment cues significantly affected the temporal dynamics of edge-assignment processes. The figural SSVEP response peaked earlier when the cues causing it cooperated than when they competed, but sustained edge-assignment effects were equivalent for cooperating and competing cues, consistent with a winner-take-all outcome. These results provide physiological evidence that figure–ground organization involves competitive processes that can affect the latency of figural assignment.

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Recruitment and disruption of value encoding during alcohol seeking

10.1101/513911 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

David Ottenheimer ◽

Karen Wang ◽

Alexandria Haimbaugh ◽

Patricia H. Janak ◽

Jocelyn M. Richard

Keyword(s):

Alcohol Exposure ◽

Neural Mechanisms ◽

Ventral Pallidum ◽

Neural Representations ◽

Evoked Activity ◽

Opposing Effects ◽

The Impact ◽

Decoding Accuracy ◽

Problem Alcohol ◽

Alcohol Seeking

AbstractA critical area of inquiry in the neurobiology of alcohol abuse is the neural mechanisms by which cues gain the ability to elicit alcohol use. We previously showed that cue-evoked activity in rat ventral pallidum (VP) robustly encodes the value of cues trained under both Pavlovian and instrumental contingencies, despite a stronger relationship between cue-evoked responses and behavioral latency after instrumental training. Here, we assessed VP neural representations of cue value in rats trained with a Pavlovian conditioned stimulus (CS+) that predicted alcohol delivery, and in rats trained with an instrumental discriminative stimulus (DS) that predicted alcohol availability if the rat entered the reward port during the cue. We also examined the impact of alcohol exposure itself on the integrity of this type of signaling in rats trained with sucrose. Decoding of cue value based on VP firing was blunted for an alcohol CS+ versus an alcohol DS, as well as in comparison to a sucrose DS or CS+. Further, homecage alcohol exposure had opposing effects on VP encoding of cue value for a sucrose DS versus a sucrose CS+, enhancing decoding accuracy for the DS and reducing decoding accuracy for the CS+. These findings suggest that problem alcohol seeking may result from biased engagement of specific reward-related processes via changes in VP signaling.

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Shared neural mechanisms of visual perception and imagery

10.31234/osf.io/d8fru ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Nadine Dijkstra ◽

Sander Erik Bosch ◽

Marcel van Gerven

Keyword(s):

Visual Perception ◽

Frontal Cortex ◽

Visual Imagery ◽

Visual Experience ◽

Neural Mechanisms ◽

Neural Processing ◽

Top Down ◽

Bottom Up ◽

Neural Representations

For decades, the extent to which visual imagery relies on similar neural mechanisms as visual perception has been a topic of debate. Here, we review recent neuroimaging studies comparing these two forms of visual experience. Their results suggest that there is large overlap in neural processing during perception and imagery: neural representations of imagined and perceived stimuli are similar in visual, parietal and frontal cortex. Furthermore, perception and imagery seem to rely on similar top-down connectivity. The most prominent difference is the absence of bottom-up processing during imagery. These findings fit well with the idea that imagery and perception rely on similar emulation or prediction processes.

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Action and Intention

Brain-Mind ◽

10.1093/oso/9780190678715.003.0009 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 180-200

Author(s):

Paul Thagard

Keyword(s):

Motor Control ◽

Cognitive Appraisal ◽

Action Selection ◽

Neural Mechanisms ◽

The Self ◽

Emotional Process ◽

Neural Representations ◽

Sensory Motor ◽

Relevant Situation ◽

Motor Representations

Actions results from the same neural mechanisms that explain sensation, imagery, concepts, rules, analogies, emotions, and consciousness. Neural representations govern motor operations such as walking and talking. Action selection, however, goes beyond simple associations of perception and motor control, because of deliberations in humans using beliefs, desires, and intentions. The basic neural mechanisms of representation, binding into semantic pointers, and competition among pointers function to produce actions. Intentions are semantic pointers that bind representations of the relevant situation, doing, evaluation, and self. Intentions are embodied in that representing the situation includes perceptions, doing the action includes motor representations, and performing the evaluation is an emotional process that includes physiology. But intentions can also be transbodied, when representations for the situation, cognitive appraisal, and the self are abstracted by recursive bindings that far surpass sensory-motor inputs.

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Mental models use common neural spatial structure for spatial and abstract content

Communications Biology ◽

10.1038/s42003-019-0740-8 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 3 (1) ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Katherine L. Alfred ◽

Andrew C. Connolly ◽

Joshua S. Cetron ◽

David J. M. Kraemer

Keyword(s):

Mental Models ◽

Neural Mechanisms ◽

Superior Parietal Lobule ◽

Frontoparietal Network ◽

Spatial Features ◽

Neural Representations ◽

Cognitive Framework ◽

Stimulus Content ◽

Anterior Prefrontal Cortex ◽

Abstract Content

AbstractMental models provide a cognitive framework allowing for spatially organizing information while reasoning about the world. However, transitive reasoning studies often rely on perception of stimuli that contain visible spatial features, allowing the possibility that associated neural representations are specific to inherently spatial content. Here, we test the hypothesis that neural representations of mental models generated through transitive reasoning rely on a frontoparietal network irrespective of the spatial nature of the stimulus content. Content within three models ranges from expressly visuospatial to abstract. All mental models participants generated were based on inferred relationships never directly observed. Here, using multivariate representational similarity analysis, we show that patterns representative of mental models were revealed in both superior parietal lobule and anterior prefrontal cortex and converged across stimulus types. These results support the conclusion that, independent of content, transitive reasoning using mental models relies on neural mechanisms associated with spatial cognition.

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Systems consolidation, transformation and reorganization: Multiple Trace Theory, Trace Transformation Theory and their Competitors

10.31234/osf.io/yxbrs ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Morris Moscovitch ◽

Asaf Gilboa

Keyword(s):

Neural Mechanisms ◽

Close Correspondence ◽

Transformation Theory ◽

Trace Theory ◽

Systems Consolidation ◽

Neural Representations ◽

Memory Change ◽

History Of ◽

Proper Perspective ◽

Multiple Trace Theory

We review the literature on systems consolidation by providing a brief history of the field to place the current research in proper perspective. We cover the literature on both humans and non-humans, which are highly related despite the differences in techniques and tasks that are used. We argue that understanding the interactions between hippocampus and neocortex (and other structures) that underlie systems consolidation, depend on appreciating the close correspondence between psychological and neural representations of memory, as postulated by Multiple Trace Theory and Trace Transformation Theory. We end by evaluating different theories of systems consolidation in light of the evidence we reviewed and suggest that the concept of systems consolidation, with its central concern with the time-limited role the hippocampus plays in memory, may have outlived its usefulness. We suggest replacing it with a program of research on the psychological processes and neural mechanisms that underlie changes in memory across the lifetime – a natural history of memory change.

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