Re-imagining fMRI for awake behaving infants

Abstract Thousands of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies have provided important insight into the human brain. However, only a handful of these studies tested infants while they were awake, because of the significant and unique methodological challenges involved. We report our efforts to address these challenges, with the goal of creating methods for awake infant fMRI that can reveal the inner workings of the developing, preverbal mind. We use these methods to collect and analyze two fMRI datasets obtained from infants during cognitive tasks, released publicly with this paper. In these datasets, we explore and evaluate data quantity and quality, task-evoked activity, and preprocessing decisions. We disseminate these methods by sharing two software packages that integrate infant-friendly cognitive tasks and eye-gaze monitoring with fMRI acquisition and analysis. These resources make fMRI a feasible and accessible technique for cognitive neuroscience in awake and behaving human infants.

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How to read a baby’s mind: Re-imagining fMRI for awake, behaving infants

10.1101/2020.02.11.944868 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

C. T. Ellis ◽

L. J. Skalaban ◽

T. S. Yates ◽

V. R. Bejjanki ◽

N. I. Córdova ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Cognitive Neuroscience ◽

Cognitive Tasks ◽

Functional Magnetic Resonance ◽

Resonance Imaging ◽

Human Infants ◽

The Past ◽

Software Packages ◽

Evoked Activity ◽

Behavioral Monitoring ◽

Insight Into

Thousands of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies have provided important insight into the human brain. However, only a handful of these studies tested infants while they were awake, because of the significant and unique methodological challenges involved. We report our efforts over the past five years to address these challenges, with the goal of creating methods for infant fMRI that can reveal the inner workings of the developing, preverbal mind. We use these methods to collect and analyze two fMRI datasets obtained from infants during cognitive tasks, released publicly with this paper. In these datasets, we explore data quantity and quality, task-evoked activity, and preprocessing decisions to derive and evaluate recommendations for infant fMRI. We disseminate these methods by sharing two software packages that integrate infant-friendly cognitive tasks and behavioral monitoring with fMRI acquisition and analysis. These resources make fMRI a feasible and accessible technique for cognitive neuroscience in human infants.

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The developmental cognitive neuroscience approach to the study of developmental disorders

Behavioral and Brain Sciences ◽

10.1017/s0140525x02420134 ◽

2002 ◽

Vol 25 (6) ◽

pp. 771-771 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Elise Temple

Keyword(s):

Magnetic Resonance Imaging ◽

Magnetic Resonance ◽

Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging ◽

Cognitive Neuroscience ◽

Developmental Disorders ◽

Functional Magnetic Resonance ◽

Resonance Imaging ◽

Imaging Studies ◽

Normal Cognition ◽

Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience

Functional magnetic resonance imaging studies of developmental disorders and normal cognition that include children are becoming increasingly common and represent part of a newly expanding field of developmental cognitive neuroscience. These studies have illustrated the importance of the process of development in understanding brain mechanisms underlying cognition and including children in the study of the etiology of developmental disorders.

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The Aha! Moment

Current Directions in Psychological Science ◽

10.1111/j.1467-8721.2009.01638.x ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 18 (4) ◽

pp. 210-216 ◽

Cited By ~ 164

Author(s):

John Kounios ◽

Mark Beeman

Keyword(s):

Magnetic Resonance Imaging ◽

Magnetic Resonance ◽

Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging ◽

Cognitive Neuroscience ◽

Neural Correlates ◽

Functional Magnetic Resonance ◽

Resonance Imaging ◽

Brain States ◽

Behavioral Methods ◽

Different Time Scales

A sudden comprehension that solves a problem, reinterprets a situation, explains a joke, or resolves an ambiguous percept is called an insight (i.e., the “Aha! moment”). Psychologists have studied insight using behavioral methods for nearly a century. Recently, the tools of cognitive neuroscience have been applied to this phenomenon. A series of studies have used electroencephalography (EEG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to study the neural correlates of the “Aha! moment” and its antecedents. Although the experience of insight is sudden and can seem disconnected from the immediately preceding thought, these studies show that insight is the culmination of a series of brain states and processes operating at different time scales. Elucidation of these precursors suggests interventional opportunities for the facilitation of insight.

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Dissociable Roles of the Superior Temporal Sulcus and the Intraparietal Sulcus in Joint Attention: A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience ◽

10.1162/jocn.2008.20008 ◽

2008 ◽

Vol 20 (1) ◽

pp. 108-119 ◽

Cited By ~ 60

Author(s):

Simone Materna ◽

Peter W. Dicke ◽

Peter Thier

Keyword(s):

Magnetic Resonance Imaging ◽

Magnetic Resonance ◽

Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging ◽

Joint Attention ◽

Eye Gaze ◽

Superior Temporal Sulcus ◽

Brain Regions ◽

Intraparietal Sulcus ◽

Functional Magnetic Resonance ◽

Resonance Imaging

Previous imaging work has shown that the superior temporal sulcus (STS) region and the intraparietal sulcus (IPS) are specifically activated during the passive observation of shifts in eye gaze [Pelphrey, K. A., Singerman, J. D., Allison, T., & McCarthy, G. Brain activation evoked by perception of gaze shifts: The influence of context. Neuropsychologia, 41, 156–170, 2003; Hoffman, E. A., & Haxby, J. V. Distinct representations of eye gaze and identity in the distributed human neural system for face perception. Nature Neuroscience, 3, 80–84, 2000; Puce, A., Allison, T., Bentin, S., Gore, J. C., & McCarthy, G. Temporal cortex activation in humans viewing eye and mouth movements. Journal of Neuroscience, 18, 2188–2199, 1998; Wicker, B., Michel, F., Henaff, M. A., & Decety, J. Brain regions involved in the perception of gaze: A PET study. Neuroimage, 8, 221–227, 1998]. Are the same brain regions also involved in extracting gaze direction in order to establish joint attention? In an event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging experiment, healthy human subjects actively followed the directional cue provided by the eyes of another person toward an object in space or, in the control condition, used a nondirectional symbolic cue to make an eye movement toward an object in space. Our results show that the posterior part of the STS region and the cuneus are specifically involved in extracting and using detailed directional information from the eyes of another person to redirect one's own gaze and establish joint attention. The IPS, on the other hand, seems to be involved in encoding spatial direction and mediating shifts of spatial attention independent of the type of cue that triggers this process.

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New FMRI Methods for the Study of Language

The Oxford Handbook of Psycholinguistics ◽

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198786825.013.42 ◽

2018 ◽

pp. 974-991

Author(s):

Roel M. Willems ◽

Marcel A. J. van Gerven

Keyword(s):

Magnetic Resonance Imaging ◽

Cognitive Neuroscience ◽

State Of The Art ◽

Fmri Data ◽

Functional Magnetic Resonance ◽

Resonance Imaging ◽

Analysis Techniques ◽

Important Message ◽

Language Research ◽

The Brain

The use of various techniques for measuring brain activation has led to a dramatic increase in knowledge about how the brain is involved in language. One of these techniques is functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). This chapter describes ways of analyzing data that take away some of the classical limitations of fMRI. One important message from the chapter is that improved analysis techniques allow for the use of more naturalistic and continuously presented stimuli like spoken narratives or movies, than was considered possible before. Part 1 describes how some traditional limitations of fMRI for language research can relatively easily be overcome. In part 2, state-of-the-art approaches for the analysis of fMRI data are examined. It is intended that the description of these techniques will be inspirational for those who want to perform cognitive neuroscience studies of language, most notably at the level of discourse.

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Pain and breathlessness: Salient, somatosensory and similar, but not the same

10.1101/2020.05.04.076174 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Olivia K. Harrison ◽

Anja Hayen ◽

Tor D. Wager ◽

Kyle T. S. Pattinson

Keyword(s):

Magnetic Resonance Imaging ◽

Healthy Subjects ◽

Pain Perception ◽

Brain Activity ◽

Anterior Cingulate ◽

Self Report ◽

Functional Magnetic Resonance ◽

Resonance Imaging ◽

Posterior Insula ◽

Insight Into

AbstractQuantifying pain currently relies upon subjective self-report. Alongside the inherent variability embedded within these metrics, added complications include the influence of ambiguous or prolonged noxious inputs, or in situations when communication may be compromised. As such, there is continued interest in the development of brain biomarkers of pain, such as in the form of neural ‘signatures’ of brain activity. However, issues pertaining to pain-related specificity remain, and by understanding the current limits of these signatures we can both progress their development and investigate the potentially generalizable properties of pain to other salient and/or somatomotor tasks. Here, we utilized two independent datasets to test one of the established Neural Pain Signatures (the NPS (Wager et al. 2013)). In Study 1, brain activity was measured using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in 40 healthy subjects during experimentally induced breathlessness, conditioned anticipation of breathlessness and a simple finger opposition task. In Study 2, brain activity was again measured during anticipation and breathlessness in 19 healthy subjects, as well as a modulation with the opioid remifentanil. We were able to identify significant NPS-related brain activity during anticipation and perception of breathlessness, as well as during finger opposition using the global NPS. Furthermore, localised NPS responses were found in early somatomotor regions, bilateral insula and dorsal anterior cingulate for breathlessness and finger opposition. In contrast, no conditions were able to activate the local signature in the dorsal posterior insula - thought to be critical for pain perception. These results provide properties of the present boundaries of the NPS, and offer insight into the overlap between breathlessness and somatomotor conditions with pain.

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I See What You Are Saying: Action as Cognition in fMRI Brain Mapping Practice

Journal of Cognition and Culture ◽

10.1163/1568537042484977 ◽

2004 ◽

Vol 4 (3-4) ◽

pp. 629-661 ◽

Cited By ~ 69

Author(s):

Morana Alač ◽

Edwin Hutchins

Keyword(s):

Magnetic Resonance Imaging ◽

Magnetic Resonance ◽

Cognitive Neuroscience ◽

Brain Mapping ◽

Material Structure ◽

Functional Magnetic Resonance ◽

Resonance Imaging ◽

Brain Images ◽

Brain Functions ◽

Micro Analysis

AbstractIn cognitive neuroscience, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is used to produce images of brain functions. These images play a central role in the practice of neuroscience. In this paper we are interested in how these brain images become understandable and meaningful for scientists. In order to explore this problem we observe how scientists use such semiotic resources as gesture, language, and material structure present in the socially and culturally constituted environment. A micro-analysis of video records of scientists interacting with each other and with fMRI images reveals action as cognition, that is, actions that constitute thinking for the scientists.

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