scholarly journals Selective memory retrieval of auditory what and auditory where involves the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex

2016 ◽  
Vol 113 (7) ◽  
pp. 1919-1924 ◽  
Author(s):  
Penelope Kostopoulos ◽  
Michael Petrides

There is evidence from the visual, verbal, and tactile memory domains that the midventrolateral prefrontal cortex plays a critical role in the top–down modulation of activity within posterior cortical areas for the selective retrieval of specific aspects of a memorized experience, a functional process often referred to as active controlled retrieval. In the present functional neuroimaging study, we explore the neural bases of active retrieval for auditory nonverbal information, about which almost nothing is known. Human participants were scanned with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in a task in which they were presented with short melodies from different locations in a simulated virtual acoustic environment within the scanner and were then instructed to retrieve selectively either the particular melody presented or its location. There were significant activity increases specifically within the midventrolateral prefrontal region during the selective retrieval of nonverbal auditory information. During the selective retrieval of information from auditory memory, the right midventrolateral prefrontal region increased its interaction with the auditory temporal region and the inferior parietal lobule in the right hemisphere. These findings provide evidence that the midventrolateral prefrontal cortical region interacts with specific posterior cortical areas in the human cerebral cortex for the selective retrieval of object and location features of an auditory memory experience.

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hirotaka Iwaki ◽  
Masaki Sonoda ◽  
Shin-ichiro Osawa ◽  
Brian H. Silverstein ◽  
Takumi Mitsuhashi ◽  
...  

AbstractThe left prefrontal cortex is essential for verbal communication. It remains uncertain at what timing, to what extent, and what type of phrase initiates left-hemispheric dominant prefrontal activation during comprehension of spoken sentences. We clarified this issue by measuring event-related high-gamma activity during a task to respond to three-phrase questions configured in different orders. Questions beginning with a wh-interrogative deactivated the left posterior prefrontal cortex right after the 1st phrase offset and the anterior prefrontal cortex after the 2nd phrase offset. Left prefrontal high-gamma activity augmented subsequently and maximized around the 3rd phrase offset. Conversely, questions starting with a concrete phrase deactivated the right orbitofrontal region and then activated the left posterior prefrontal cortex after the 1st phrase offset. Regardless of sentence types, high-gamma activity emerged earlier, by one phrase, in the left posterior prefrontal than anterior prefrontal region. Sentences beginning with a wh-interrogative may initially deactivate the left prefrontal cortex to prioritize the bottom-up processing of upcoming auditory information. A concrete phrase may obliterate the inhibitory function of the right orbitofrontal region and facilitate top-down lexical prediction by the left prefrontal cortex. The left anterior prefrontal regions may be recruited for semantic integration of multiple concrete phrases.


1985 ◽  
Vol 53 (5) ◽  
pp. 1219-1243 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. E. Roland ◽  
L. Friberg

These experiments were undertaken to demonstrate that pure mental activity, thinking, increases the cerebral blood flow and that different types of thinking increase the regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) in different cortical areas. As a first approach, thinking was defined as brain work in the form of operations on internal information, done by an awake subject. The rCBF was measured in 254 cortical regions in 11 subjects with the intracarotid 133Xe injection technique. In normal man, changes in the regional cortical metabolic rate of O2 leads to proportional changes in rCBF. One control study was taken with the subjects at rest. Then the rCBF was measured during three different simple algorithm tasks, each consisting of retrieval of a specific memory followed by a simple operation on the retrieved information. Once started, the information processing went on in the brain without any communication with the outside world. In 50-3 thinking, the subjects started with 50 and then, in their minds only, continuously subtracted 3 from the result. In jingle thinking the subjects internally jumped every second word in a nine-word circular jingle. In route-finding thinking the subjects imagined that they started at their front door and then walked alternatively to the left or the right each time they reached a corner. The rCBF increased only in homotypical cortical areas during thinking. The areas in the superior prefrontal cortex increased their rCBF equivalently during the three types of thinking. In the remaining parts of the prefrontal cortex there were multifocal increases of rCBF. The localizations and intensities of these rCBF increases depended on the type of internal operation occurring. The rCBF increased bilaterally in the angular cortex during 50-3 thinking. The rCBF increased in the right midtemporal cortex exclusively during jingle thinking. The intermediate and remote visual association areas, the superior occipital, posterior inferior temporal, and posterior superior parietal cortex, increased their rCBF exclusively during route-finding thinking. We observed no decreases in rCBF. All rCBF increases extended over a few square centimeters of the cortex. The activation of the superior prefrontal cortex was attributed to the organization of thinking. The activation of the angular cortex in 50-3 thinking was attributed to the retrieval of the numerical memory and memory for subtractions. The activation of the right midtemporal cortex was attributed to the retrieval of the nonverbal auditory memory.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)


2015 ◽  
Vol 282 (1801) ◽  
pp. 20142555 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine Chapados ◽  
Michael Petrides

The prefrontal cortex appears to contribute to the mnemonic retrieval of the context within which stimuli are experienced, but only under certain conditions that remain to be clarified. Patients with lesions to the frontal cortex, the temporal lobe and neurologically intact individuals were tested for context memory retrieval when verbal stimuli (words) had been experienced across multiple (unstable context condition) or unique (stable context condition) contexts; basic recognition memory of these words-in-contexts was also tested. Patients with lesions to the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC) were impaired on context retrieval only when the words had been seen in multiple contexts, demonstrating that this prefrontal region is critical for active retrieval processing necessary to disambiguate memory items embedded across multiple contexts. Patients with lesions to the left dorsomedial prefrontal region were impaired on both context retrieval conditions, regardless of the stability of the stimulus-to-context associations. Conversely, prefrontal lesions sparing the ventrolateral and dorsomedial regions did not impair context retrieval. Only patients with temporal lobe excisions were impaired on basic recognition memory. The results demonstrate a basic contribution of the left dorsomedial frontal region to mnemonic context retrieval, with the VLPFC engaged, selectively, when contextual relations are unstable and require disambiguation.


Neurology ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 90 (12) ◽  
pp. e1077-e1084 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guillaume Herbet ◽  
Sylvie Moritz-Gasser ◽  
Hugues Duffau

ObjectiveTo identify the prefrontal cortical structures causally involved in verbal and nonverbal semantic cognition in both cerebral hemispheres.MethodsWe retrospectively screened the intraoperative brain mapping data of 584 patients who underwent neurosurgery for neoplastic tumor under local anesthesia with direct cortical electrostimulation. Patients were included if they were right-handed, recently diagnosed with a diffuse low-grade glioma, and had a positive language mapping for verbal (naming task) and nonverbal (visual semantic association task) semantic cognition in the prefrontal cortex (n = 49). Among these, 30 were tested intraoperatively with both the naming and the semantic association tasks, while 19 were tested with the naming task only. Subsequently, each semantic site (n = 85) was plotted individually onto a common stereotaxic space for detailed analyses.ResultsThe cortical sites associated with verbal semantic disturbances (n = 45) were distributed in the pars opercularis (n = 14) and pars triangularis (n = 19) of the left inferior frontal gyrus, and left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC, n = 12); only 2 sites were observed in the right dlPFC. In contrast, all but one cortical site associated with nonverbal semantic disturbances were observed in the left dorsolateral cortex (n = 8). In the right hemisphere, the same disturbances were found in the dlPFC (n = 14) and pars opercularis (n = 2).ConclusionThe present study demonstrated the critical role of the dlPFC in the semantic network, and indicated its specific and bilateral involvement in nonverbal semantic cognition in right-handers.


2020 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuzhao Yao ◽  
Xiuqin Jia ◽  
Jun Luo ◽  
Feiyan Chen ◽  
Peipeng Liang

Numerical inductive reasoning has been considered as one of the most important higher cognitive functions of the human brain. Importantly, previous behavioral studies have consistently reported that one critical component of numerical inductive reasoning is checking, which often occurs when a discrepant element is discovered, and reprocessing is needed to determine whether the discrepancy is an error of the original series. However, less is known about the neural mechanism underlying the checking process. Given that the checking effect involves cognitive control processes, such as the incongruent resolution, that are linked to the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), this study hypothesizes that the right DLPFC may play a specific role in the checking process. To test the hypothesis, this study utilized the transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), a non-invasive brain stimulation method that could modulate cortical excitability, and examined whether and how the stimulation of the right DLPFC via tDCS could modulate the checking effect during a number-series completion problem task. Ninety healthy participants were allocated to one of the anodal, cathodal, and sham groups. Subjects were required to verify whether number sequences formed rule-based series, and checking effect was assessed by the difference in performance between invalid and valid conditions. It was found that significantly longer response times (RTs) were exhibited in invalid condition compared with valid condition in groups of anodal, cathodal, and sham tDCS. Furthermore, the anodal tDCS significantly shortened the checking effect than those of the cathodal and sham groups, whereas no significantly prolonged checking effect was detected in the cathodal group. The current findings indicated that anodal tDCS affected the process of checking, which suggested that the right DLPFC might play a critical role in the checking process of numerical inductive reasoning by inhibiting incongruent response.


Author(s):  
Leandro F. Vendruscolo ◽  
George F. Koob

Alcohol use disorder is a chronically relapsing disorder that involves (1) compulsivity to seek and take alcohol, (2) difficulty in limiting alcohol intake, and (3) emergence of a negative emotional state (e.g., dysphoria, anxiety, irritability) in the absence of alcohol. Alcohol addiction encompasses a three-stage cycle that becomes more intense as alcohol use progresses: binge/intoxication, withdrawal/negative affect, and preoccupation/anticipation. These stages engage neuroadaptations in brain circuits that involve the basal ganglia (reward hypofunction), extended amygdala (stress sensitization), and prefrontal cortex (executive function disorder). This chapter discusses key neuroadaptations in the hypothalamic and extrahypothalamic stress systems and the critical role of glucocorticoid receptors. These neuroadaptations contribute to negative emotional states that powerfully drive compulsive alcohol drinking and seeking. These changes in association with a disruption of prefrontal cortex function that lead to cognitive deficits and poor decision making contribute to the chronic relapsing nature of alcohol dependence.


Author(s):  
Xinxin Sun ◽  
Wenkui Jin

AbstractRehabilitation robots are becoming an important means of assisted living for the elderly, and the appearance of rehabilitation robots directly affects the willingness of the elderly to interact with the robots. Much of the current research on robot appearance preferences relies solely on subjective evaluations, which are relatively cheap, but do not reach deep into the brain to get an accurate grasp of how humans respond to robot appearance. Using electroencephalogram signal and questionnaire survey, we studied the preference of the elderly for abstract and figurative robots. The experimental materials are derived from the pictures of 10 robots in the market. The electroencephalogram signal are collected by BrainVision Recorder and processed by BrainVision Analyzer, as well as SPSS statistical analysis. Experiment shows that the peak of figurative robot pictures is higher and the fluctuation is more intense from 350 ms to 600 ms in the central region and the right half of parietal region. While the peak of abstract robot pictures is higher and the fluctuation is more intense in the prefrontal region, and the difference between abstract robot and figurative robot is not obvious in the occipital region. Based on the electroencephalogram signal and experimental results, it provides the possibility for objective preference evaluation of the elderly to the robot designed features.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Shreyas M. Suryanarayana ◽  
Juan Pérez-Fernández ◽  
Brita Robertson ◽  
Sten Grillner

The forebrain plays a critical role in a broad range of neural processes encompassing sensory integration and initiation/selection of behaviour. The forebrain functions through an interaction between different cortical areas, the thalamus, the basal ganglia with the dopamine system, and the habenulae. The ambition here is to compare the mammalian forebrain with that of the lamprey representing the oldest now living group of vertebrates, by a review of earlier studies. We show that the lamprey dorsal pallium has a motor, a somatosensory, and a visual area with retinotopic representation. The lamprey pallium was previously thought to be largely olfactory. There is also a detailed similarity between the lamprey and mammals with regard to other forebrain structures like the basal ganglia in which the general organisation, connectivity, transmitters and their receptors, neuropeptides, and expression of ion channels are virtually identical. These initially unexpected results allow for the possibility that many aspects of the basic design of the vertebrate forebrain had evolved before the lamprey diverged from the evolutionary line leading to mammals. Based on a detailed comparison between the mammalian forebrain and that of the lamprey and with due consideration of data from other vertebrate groups, we propose a compelling account of a pan-vertebrate schema for basic forebrain structures, suggesting a common ancestry of over half a billion years of vertebrate evolution.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 483
Author(s):  
Tatsunori Watanabe ◽  
Nami Kubo ◽  
Xiaoxiao Chen ◽  
Keisuke Yunoki ◽  
Takuya Matsumoto ◽  
...  

The purpose of this pilot study was to investigate whether transcranial static magnetic field stimulation (tSMS), which can modulate cortical excitability, would influence inhibitory control function when applied over the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC). Young healthy adults (n = 8, mean age ± SD = 24.4 ± 4.1, six females) received the following stimulations for 30 min on different days: (1) tSMS over the left DLPFC, (2) tSMS over the right DLPFC, and (3) sham stimulation over either the left or right DLPFC. The participants performed a Go/NoGo task before, immediately after, and 10 min after the stimulation. They were instructed to extend the right wrist in response to target stimuli. We recorded the electromyogram from the right wrist extensor muscles and analyzed erroneous responses (false alarm and missed target detection) and reaction times. As a result, 50% of the participants made erroneous responses, and there were five erroneous responses in total (0.003%). A series of statistical analyses revealed that tSMS did not affect the reaction time. These preliminary findings suggest the possibility that tSMS over the DLPFC is incapable of modulating inhibitory control and/or that the cognitive load imposed in this study was insufficient to detect the effect.


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