Context Matters: Situational Stress Impedes Functional Reorganization of Intrinsic Brain Connectivity during Problem-Solving

Abstract Extensive research has established a relationship between individual differences in brain activity in a resting state and individual differences in behavior. Conversely, when individuals are engaged in various tasks, certain task-evoked reorganization occurs in brain functional connectivity, which can consequently influence individuals’ performance as well. Here, we show that resting state and task-dependent state brain patterns interact as a function of contexts engendering stress. Findings revealed that when the resting state connectome was examined during performance, the relationship between connectome strength and performance only remained for participants under stress (who also performed worse than all other groups on the math task), suggesting that stress preserved brain patterns indicative of underperformance whereas non-stressed individuals spontaneously transitioned out of these patterns. Results imply that stress may impede the reorganization of a functional network in task-evoked brain states. This hypothesis was subsequently verified using graph theory measurements on a functional network, independent of behavior. For participants under stress, the functional network showed less topological alterations compared to non-stressed individuals during the transition from resting state to task-evoked state. Implications are discussed for network dynamics as a function of context.

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Context matters: Situational stress impedes functional reorganization of intrinsic brain connectivity during problem solving

10.1101/2020.05.26.117499 ◽

2020 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Mengting Liu ◽

Robert A. Backer ◽

Rachel C. Amey ◽

Eric E. Splan ◽

Adam Magerman ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Individual Differences ◽

Resting State ◽

Brain Connectivity ◽

Brain Activity ◽

Functional Reorganization ◽

Situational Stress ◽

And Performance ◽

Brain Functional Connectivity ◽

The Relationship ◽

Dependent State

AbstractExtensive research has established the relationship between individual differences in brain activity in a resting state and individual differences in behavior. Conversely, when individuals are engaged in various tasks, certain task-evoked reorganization occurs in brain functional connectivity, which consequently can influence individuals’ performance as well. Here, we show that resting state and task-dependent state brain patterns interact as a function of contexts engendering stress. Findings revealed that when the resting state connectome was examined during performance, the relationship between connectome strength and performance only remained for participants under stress (who also performed worse than all other groups on the math task), suggesting stress preserved brain patterns indicative of underperformance whereas non-stressed individuals spontaneously transitioned out of brain patterns indicative of underperformance. These findings were subsequentially replicated in an independent sample set. Implications are discussed for network dynamics as a function of context.

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Brain connectivity at rest predicts individual differences in normative activity during movie watching

10.1101/2021.01.06.425410 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

David C Gruskin ◽

Gaurav H Patel

Keyword(s):

Spatial Distribution ◽

Individual Differences ◽

Resting State ◽

Functional Organization ◽

Brain Connectivity ◽

Brain Activity ◽

Sensory Information ◽

Resting State Functional Connectivity ◽

Similar Region ◽

Human Connectome Project

When multiple individuals are exposed to the same sensory event, some are bound to have less typical experiences than others. These atypical experiences are underpinned by atypical stimulus-evoked brain activity, the extent of which is often indexed by intersubject correlation (ISC). Previous research has attributed individual differences in ISC to variation in trait-like behavioral phenotypes. Here, we extend this line of work by showing that an individual's degree and spatial distribution of ISC are closely related to their brain's intrinsic functional architecture. Using resting state and movie watching fMRI data from 176 Human Connectome Project participants, we reveal that resting state functional connectivity (RSFC) profiles can be used to predict cortex-wide ISC with considerable accuracy. Similar region-level analyses demonstrate that the amount of ISC a brain region exhibits during movie watching is associated with its connectivity to others at rest, and that the nature of these connectivity-activity relationships varies as a function of the region's role in sensory information processing. Finally, we show that an individual's unique spatial distribution of ISC, independent of its magnitude, is also related to their RSFC profile. These findings suggest that the brain's ability to process complex sensory information is tightly linked to its baseline functional organization and motivate a more comprehensive understanding of individual responses to naturalistic stimuli.

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Personality influences the neural responses to viewing facial expressions of emotion

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences ◽

10.1098/rstb.2010.0362 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 366 (1571) ◽

pp. 1684-1701 ◽

Cited By ~ 61

Author(s):

Andrew J. Calder ◽

Michael Ewbank ◽

Luca Passamonti

Keyword(s):

Individual Differences ◽

Brain Activity ◽

Brain Regions ◽

Neural Basis ◽

System A ◽

Amygdala Response ◽

Correlational Approach ◽

Facial Expressions Of Emotion ◽

And Performance ◽

The Relationship

Cognitive research has long been aware of the relationship between individual differences in personality and performance on behavioural tasks. However, within the field of cognitive neuroscience, the way in which such differences manifest at a neural level has received relatively little attention. We review recent research addressing the relationship between personality traits and the neural response to viewing facial signals of emotion. In one section, we discuss work demonstrating the relationship between anxiety and the amygdala response to facial signals of threat. A second section considers research showing that individual differences in reward drive (behavioural activation system), a trait linked to aggression, influence the neural responsivity and connectivity between brain regions implicated in aggression when viewing facial signals of anger. Finally, we address recent criticisms of the correlational approach to fMRI analyses and conclude that when used appropriately, analyses examining the relationship between personality and brain activity provide a useful tool for understanding the neural basis of facial expression processing and emotion processing in general.

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Characterizing Bilingual Effects on Cognition: The Search for Meaningful Individual Differences

Brain Sciences ◽

10.3390/brainsci11010081 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (1) ◽

pp. 81

Author(s):

Kristina C. Backer ◽

Heather Bortfeld

Keyword(s):

Individual Differences ◽

Cognitive Processes ◽

Language Background ◽

Bilingual Advantage ◽

The Past ◽

General Movement ◽

And Performance ◽

Task Irrelevant ◽

Analytical Approaches ◽

The Relationship

A debate over the past decade has focused on the so-called bilingual advantage—the idea that bilingual and multilingual individuals have enhanced domain-general executive functions, relative to monolinguals, due to competition-induced monitoring of both processing and representation from the task-irrelevant language(s). In this commentary, we consider a recent study by Pot, Keijzer, and de Bot (2018), which focused on the relationship between individual differences in language usage and performance on an executive function task among multilingual older adults. We discuss their approach and findings in light of a more general movement towards embracing complexity in this domain of research, including individuals’ sociocultural context and position in the lifespan. The field increasingly considers interactions between bilingualism/multilingualism and cognition, employing measures of language use well beyond the early dichotomous perspectives on language background. Moreover, new measures of bilingualism and analytical approaches are helping researchers interrogate the complexities of specific processing issues. Indeed, our review of the bilingualism/multilingualism literature confirms the increased appreciation researchers have for the range of factors—beyond whether someone speaks one, two, or more languages—that impact specific cognitive processes. Here, we highlight some of the most salient of these, and incorporate suggestions for a way forward that likewise encompasses neural perspectives on the topic.

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Sensory Processing Sensitivity Predicts Individual Differences in Resting-State Functional Connectivity Associated with Depth of Processing

Neuropsychobiology ◽

10.1159/000513527 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 1-15

Author(s):

Bianca P. Acevedo ◽

Tyler Santander ◽

Robert Marhenke ◽

Arthur Aron ◽

Elaine Aron

Keyword(s):

Individual Differences ◽

Cognitive Processing ◽

Sensory Processing ◽

Resting State ◽

Brain Connectivity ◽

Region Of Interest ◽

Central Feature ◽

Resting State Functional Connectivity ◽

Depth Of Processing ◽

Sensory Processing Sensitivity

Background: Sensory processing sensitivity (SPS) is a biologically based temperament trait associated with enhanced awareness and responsivity to environmental and social stimuli. Individuals with high SPS are more affected by their environments, which may result in overarousal, cognitive depletion, and fatigue. Method: We examined individual differences in resting-state (rs) brain connectivity (using functional MRI) as a function of SPS among a group of adults (M age = 66.13 ± 11.44 years) immediately after they completed a social affective “empathy” task. SPS was measured with the Highly Sensitive Person (HSP) Scale and correlated with rs brain connectivity. Results: Results showed enhanced rs brain connectivity within the ventral attention, dorsal attention, and limbic networks as a function of greater SPS. Region of interest analyses showed increased rs brain connectivity between the hippocampus and the precuneus (implicated in episodic memory); while weaker connectivity was shown between the amygdala and the periaqueductal gray (important for anxiety), and the hippocampus and insula (implicated in habitual cognitive processing). Conclusions: The present study showed that SPS is associated with rs brain connectivity implicated in attentional control, consolidation of memory, physiological homeostasis, and deliberative cognition. These results support theories proposing “depth of processing” as a central feature of SPS and highlight the neural processes underlying this cardinal feature of the trait.

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Error-related Persistence of Motor Activity in Resting-state Networks

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience ◽

10.1162/jocn_a_01323 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 30 (12) ◽

pp. 1883-1901 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Nicolò F. Bernardi ◽

Floris T. Van Vugt ◽

Ricardo Ruy Valle-Mena ◽

Shahabeddin Vahdat ◽

David J. Ostry

Keyword(s):

Motor Learning ◽

Resting State ◽

Brain Connectivity ◽

Brain Activity ◽

Brain Networks ◽

Neural Activation ◽

Resting State Functional Connectivity ◽

Movement Training ◽

Movement Error ◽

Human Participants

The relationship between neural activation during movement training and the plastic changes that survive beyond movement execution is not well understood. Here we ask whether the changes in resting-state functional connectivity observed following motor learning overlap with the brain networks that track movement error during training. Human participants learned to trace an arched trajectory using a computer mouse in an MRI scanner. Motor performance was quantified on each trial as the maximum distance from the prescribed arc. During learning, two brain networks were observed, one showing increased activations for larger movement error, comprising the cerebellum, parietal, visual, somatosensory, and cortical motor areas, and the other being more activated for movements with lower error, comprising the ventral putamen and the OFC. After learning, changes in brain connectivity at rest were found predominantly in areas that had shown increased activation for larger error during task, specifically the cerebellum and its connections with motor, visual, and somatosensory cortex. The findings indicate that, although both errors and accurate movements are important during the active stage of motor learning, the changes in brain activity observed at rest primarily reflect networks that process errors. This suggests that error-related networks are represented in the initial stages of motor memory formation.

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Resting-state brain activity can predict target-independent aptitude in fMRI-neurofeedback training

10.1101/2021.02.08.430334 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Takashi Nakano ◽

Masahiro Takamura ◽

Haruki Nishimura ◽

Maro Machizawa ◽

Naho Ichikawa ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Resting State ◽

Brain Connectivity ◽

Brain Activity ◽

Resting State Fmri ◽

Brain Regions ◽

Posterior Cingulate Cortex ◽

Fmri Data ◽

Independent Test ◽

The Individual ◽

The Brain

AbstractNeurofeedback (NF) aptitude, which refers to an individual’s ability to change its brain activity through NF training, has been reported to vary significantly from person to person. The prediction of individual NF aptitudes is critical in clinical NF applications. In the present study, we extracted the resting-state functional brain connectivity (FC) markers of NF aptitude independent of NF-targeting brain regions. We combined the data in fMRI-NF studies targeting four different brain regions at two independent sites (obtained from 59 healthy adults and six patients with major depressive disorder) to collect the resting-state fMRI data associated with aptitude scores in subsequent fMRI-NF training. We then trained the regression models to predict the individual NF aptitude scores from the resting-state fMRI data using a discovery dataset from one site and identified six resting-state FCs that predicted NF aptitude. Next we validated the prediction model using independent test data from another site. The result showed that the posterior cingulate cortex was the functional hub among the brain regions and formed predictive resting-state FCs, suggesting NF aptitude may be involved in the attentional mode-orientation modulation system’s characteristics in task-free resting-state brain activity.

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An fNIRS examination of executive function in bilingual young children

International Journal of Bilingualism ◽

10.1177/1367006920952881 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 136700692095288

Author(s):

Sha Xie ◽

Dandan Wu ◽

Jinfeng Yang ◽

Jiutong Luo ◽

Chunqi Chang ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Prefrontal Cortex ◽

Executive Function ◽

Group Membership ◽

Brain Activity ◽

Bilingual Children ◽

Behavioral Performance ◽

Immersion Program ◽

Prefrontal Region ◽

And Performance ◽

The Relationship

Aims: The present study aims to examine: (1) the relationship between young children’s bilingualism and their performance in the Dimensional Card Change Sort (DCCS) task; and (2) whether prefrontal activation was associated with children’s bilingualism and executive function. Methodology: Children performed three sessions of the DCCS and their brain activity during the task was measured using functional nearinfrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). Data and analysis: A sample of bilingual children ( N = 49) was recruited from a preschool with an English immersion program. We examined whether children’s performance in the DCCS was related to their bilingualism and whether the changes in oxygenated hemoglobin in the prefrontal regions were related to their bilingualism and performance in the DCCS. Findings/conclusions: Results showed that children’s English ability was significantly correlated with their behavioral performance in DCCS, and predicted children’s group membership (pass or perseverate). Furthermore, children in the pass group significantly activated the prefrontal cortex than those in the perseverate group, and activation in the prefrontal region was significantly correlated with children’s English ability. Originality: The current study first examined the effect of children’s bilingualism on their executive function and prefrontal activation.

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