Decoding the nonconscious dynamics of thought generation

Much of economics, psychology and neuroscience have focused on thought dynamics and how they control our behavior, from individual moral choices to the irrationality of market dynamics. However, how much of our thoughts we actually control when we feel we make deliberate choices remains unknown. Here we show that the content of thoughts can be decoded from activity patterns as early as 11 seconds before individuals report having formed the volitional thought. Participants freely chose which of two differently oriented and colored gratings to think about. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and pattern classification methods, we consistently classified the contents of thoughts using activity patterns recorded before and after the thought was reported. We found that activity patterns were predictive as far as 11 seconds before the conscious thought, in visual, frontal and subcortical areas. These predictive patterns contained similar information to the responses evoked by unattended perceptual gratings and were evident in individual visual areas. Interestingly, neural information present before the decision was associated with the vividness of future thoughts, suggesting that preceding nonconscious sensory-like representations can impact the content and strength of future conscious thoughts. Our results suggest that thoughts and their strength can be biased by prior spontaneous nonconscious perception-like representations, advancing theories of free will and models of intrusive and repetitive thought production.

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Altered Functional Connectivity of the Primary Visual Cortex in Subjects with Amblyopia

Neural Plasticity ◽

10.1155/2013/612086 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 2013 ◽

pp. 1-8 ◽

Cited By ~ 32

Author(s):

Kun Ding ◽

Yong Liu ◽

Xiaohe Yan ◽

Xiaoming Lin ◽

Tianzi Jiang

Keyword(s):

Functional Connectivity ◽

Activity Patterns ◽

Brain Regions ◽

Visual Area ◽

Functional Magnetic Resonance ◽

Resonance Imaging ◽

Blurred Vision ◽

Visual Areas ◽

Connectivity Patterns ◽

The Brain

Amblyopia, which usually occurs during early childhood and results in poor or blurred vision, is a disorder of the visual system that is characterized by a deficiency in an otherwise physically normal eye or by a deficiency that is out of proportion with the structural or functional abnormalities of the eye. Our previous study demonstrated alterations in the spontaneous activity patterns of some brain regions in individuals with anisometropic amblyopia compared to subjects with normal vision. To date, it remains unknown whether patients with amblyopia show characteristic alterations in the functional connectivity patterns in the visual areas of the brain, particularly the primary visual area. In the present study, we investigated the differences in the functional connectivity of the primary visual area between individuals with amblyopia and normal-sighted subjects using resting functional magnetic resonance imaging. Our findings demonstrated that the cerebellum and the inferior parietal lobule showed altered functional connectivity with the primary visual area in individuals with amblyopia, and this finding provides further evidence for the disruption of the dorsal visual pathway in amblyopic subjects.

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A Role for Visual Areas in Physics Simulations

10.1101/2021.09.14.460312 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Aarit Ahuja ◽

Theresa M Desrochers ◽

David Sheinberg

Keyword(s):

Magnetic Resonance Imaging ◽

Computational Models ◽

Activity Patterns ◽

Brain Regions ◽

Functional Magnetic Resonance ◽

Resonance Imaging ◽

Sensory Representation ◽

Visual Areas ◽

The World ◽

Physical Interactions

To engage with the world, we must regularly make predictions about the outcomes of physical scenes. How do we make these predictions? Recent evidence points to simulation - the idea that we can introspectively manipulate rich, mental models of the world - as one possible explanation for how such predictions are accomplished. While theories based on simulation are supported by computational models, neuroscientific evidence for simulation is lacking and many important questions remain. For instance, do simulations simply entail a series of abstract computations? Or are they supported by sensory representations of the objects that comprise the scene being simulated? We posit the latter and suggest that the process of simulating a sequence of physical interactions is likely to evoke an imagery-like envisioning of those interactions. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we demonstrate that when participants predict how a ball will fall through an obstacle-filled display, motion-sensitive brain regions are activated. We further demonstrate that this activity, which occurs even though no motion is being sensed, resembles activity patterns that arise while participants perceive the ball's motion. This finding suggests that the process of simulating the ball's movement is accompanied by a sensory representation of this movement. These data thus demonstrate that mental simulations recreate sensory depictions of how a physical scene is likely to unfold.

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