scholarly journals Grit and the brain: spontaneous activity of the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex mediates the relationship between the trait grit and academic performance

2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 452-460 ◽  
Author(s):  
Song Wang ◽  
Ming Zhou ◽  
Taolin Chen ◽  
Xun Yang ◽  
Guangxiang Chen ◽  
...  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sebastian Bobadilla-Suarez ◽  
Olivia Guest ◽  
Bradley C. Love

AbstractRecent work has considered the relationship between value and confidence in both behavior and neural representation. Here we evaluated whether the brain organizes value and confidence signals in a systematic fashion that reflects the overall desirability of options. If so, regions that respond to either increases or decreases in both value and confidence should be widespread. We strongly confirmed these predictions through a model-based fMRI analysis of a mixed gambles task that assessed subjective value (SV) and inverse decision entropy (iDE), which is related to confidence. Purported value areas more strongly signalled iDE than SV, underscoring how intertwined value and confidence are. A gradient tied to the desirability of actions transitioned from positive SV and iDE in ventromedial prefrontal cortex to negative SV and iDE in dorsal medial prefrontal cortex. This alignment of SV and iDE signals could support retrospective evaluation to guide learning and subsequent decisions.


2021 ◽  
pp. 118-142
Author(s):  
Kim E. Ruyle

“The Neuroscience of Learning Agility” explores the relationship between neurobiology and learning agility. It provides an overview of the organization of the brain, focusing on the roles of the limbic system and the prefrontal cortex and how these particular brain regions relate to personality, executive function, and the metacompetencies of emotional intelligence and learning agility. The neuroscience of learning is discussed, including the brain’s attention networks, neuroplasticity, and biological underpinnings of memory. An argument is posited that the brain’s perceptions of threats directly impacts one’s personality and, by extension, influences one’s level of learning agility. The chapter concludes by providing neuroscience-based suggestions for developing learning agility.


2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tristen K Inagaki ◽  
Sasha Brietzke ◽  
Meghan L Meyer

Abstract Humans give support, care, and assistance to others on a daily basis. However, the brain mechanisms that set such supportive behavior in motion are unknown. Based on previous findings demonstrating that activity in a portion of the brain’s default network—the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (DMPFC)—during brief rest primes social thinking and behavior, momentary fluctuations in this brain region at rest may prime supportive responding. To test this hypothesis, 26 participants underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while they alternated between deciding whether to give support to a close other in financial need, receive support for themselves, and make arbitrary decisions unrelated to support. Decisions were interleaved with brief periods of rest. Results showed that, within participants, spontaneous activity in the DMPFC during momentary periods of rest primed supportive-responding: greater activity in this region at the onset of a brief period of rest predicted, on a trial-by-trial basis, faster decisions to give support to the close other. Thus, activating the DMPFC as soon as our minds are free from external demands to attention may help individuals “default” to support-giving. Implications for understanding the prosocial functions of the resting brain are discussed.


Author(s):  
Salim Lahmiri

How diverse regions of the brain are coordinated to produce objective-directed decision is the essence of neuroeconomics. Indeed, the latter is a formal framework to describe the involvement of numerous brain regions including frontal, cingulate, parietal cortex, and striatum in economic and financial decision-making process. The purpose of this chapter is to explain the relationship between economic decision making and emotion on one hand, and the relationship between economic decision making and prefrontal cortex on the other hand.


2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sebastian Bobadilla-Suarez ◽  
Olivia Guest ◽  
Bradley C. Love

Abstract Recent work has considered the relationship between value and confidence in both behavioural and neural representation. Here we evaluated whether the brain organises value and confidence signals in a systematic fashion that reflects the overall desirability of options. If so, regions that respond to either increases or decreases in both value and confidence should be widespread. We strongly confirmed these predictions through a model-based fMRI analysis of a mixed gambles task that assessed subjective value (SV) and inverse decision entropy (iDE), which is related to confidence. Purported value areas more strongly signalled iDE than SV, underscoring how intertwined value and confidence are. A gradient tied to the desirability of actions transitioned from positive SV and iDE in ventromedial prefrontal cortex to negative SV and iDE in dorsal medial prefrontal cortex. This alignment of SV and iDE signals could support retrospective evaluation to guide learning and subsequent decisions.


2018 ◽  
pp. 466-476
Author(s):  
Salim Lahmiri

How diverse regions of the brain are coordinated to produce objective-directed decision is the essence of neuroeconomics. Indeed, the latter is a formal framework to describe the involvement of numerous brain regions including frontal, cingulate, parietal cortex, and striatum in economic and financial decision-making process. The purpose of this chapter is to explain the relationship between economic decision making and emotion on one hand, and the relationship between economic decision making and prefrontal cortex on the other hand.


Author(s):  
Georg Northoff

The brain and especially its spontaneous activity have been the subject of intense study in both neuroscience and philosophy (as for instance by Klein 2014). However, what exactly counts as spontaneous activity as well as its relationship with stimulus-induced or task-evoked activity remain matters of debate. I here focus on the second aspect, the relationship between spontaneous and stimulus-induced activity. I suggest two different models of their relationship, parallelism and interactionism. I weigh the empirical evidence for and against both models and tentatively suggest that it speaks in favour of interactionism wherein spontaneous and stimulus-induced activity are taken to be mutually dependent on each other and interact in a non-additive way. In addition to empirical evidence, I also discuss the non-additive interaction within the context of philosophy of science by referring to Giere’s distinction between model and fundamental principle. I suggest a particular coding strategy by the brain, e.g., difference-based coding, to underlie and make possible the interaction model – difference-based coding may therefore be regarded a fundamental principle. This complements the empirical findings I present by extrapolating some of the theoretical implications of the interactionist view.


2018 ◽  
Vol 115 (42) ◽  
pp. 10630-10635 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lynda C. Lin ◽  
Yang Qu ◽  
Eva H. Telzer

Emotions usually occur in a social context; yet little is known about how similar and dissimilar others influence our emotions. In the current study, we examined whether ingroup and outgroup members have differential influence on emotion processing at the behavioral and neural levels. To this end, we recruited 45 participants to rate a series of images displaying people engaged in different emotional contexts. Participants then underwent an fMRI scan where they viewed the same images along with information on how ingroup and outgroup members rated them, and they were asked to rate the images again. We found that participants shifted their emotions to be more in alignment with the ingroup over the outgroup, and that neural regions implicated in positive valuation [ventral striatum (VS) and ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC)], mentalizing [dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC), medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS), and temporal pole], as well as emotion processing and salience detection (amygdala and insula), linearly tracked this behavior such that the extent of neural activity in these regions paralleled changes in participants’ emotions. Results illustrate the powerful impact that ingroup members have on our emotions.


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