scholarly journals How does the brain navigate knowledge of social relations? Testing for shared neural mechanisms for shifting attention in space and social knowledge

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Meng Du ◽  
Ruby Basyouni ◽  
Carolyn Parkinson
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Occipital Cortex ◽  
Neural Mechanisms ◽  
Social Knowledge ◽  
Response Patterns ◽  
Neural Basis ◽  
Abstract Knowledge ◽  
Attentional Shifts ◽  
Mental Operations ◽  
Shifting Attention

AbstractHow does the human brain support reasoning about social relations (e.g., social status, friendships)? Converging theories suggest that navigating knowledge of social relations may co-opt neural circuitry with evolutionarily older functions (e.g., shifting attention in space). Here, we analyzed multivoxel response patterns of fMRI data to examine the neural mechanisms for shifting attention in knowledge of a social hierarchy. The “directions” in which participants mentally navigated social knowledge were encoded in multivoxel patterns in superior parietal cortex, which also encoded directions of attentional shifts in space. Exploratory analyses implicated additional regions of posterior parietal and occipital cortex in encoding analogous mental operations in space and social knowledge. However, cross-domain analyses suggested that attentional shifts in space and social knowledge may be encoded in functionally independent response patterns. These results elucidate the neural basis for navigating abstract knowledge of social relations, and its connection to more basic mental operations.

scholarly journals Superimposed gratings induce diverse response patterns of gamma oscillations in primary visual cortex

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Bin Wang ◽  
Chuanliang Han ◽  
Tian Wang ◽  
Weifeng Dai ◽  
Yang Li ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Visual Cortex ◽  
Primary Visual Cortex ◽  
Field Potential ◽  
Gamma Oscillations ◽  
Neural Mechanisms ◽  
Model Parameters ◽  
Response Patterns ◽  
Region Difference ◽  
High Gamma ◽  
Spiking Activity

AbstractStimulus-dependence of gamma oscillations (GAMMA, 30–90 Hz) has not been fully understood, but it is important for revealing neural mechanisms and functions of GAMMA. Here, we recorded spiking activity (MUA) and the local field potential (LFP), driven by a variety of plaids (generated by two superimposed gratings orthogonal to each other and with different contrast combinations), in the primary visual cortex of anesthetized cats. We found two distinct narrow-band GAMMAs in the LFPs and a variety of response patterns to plaids. Similar to MUA, most response patterns showed that the second grating suppressed GAMMAs driven by the first one. However, there is only a weak site-by-site correlation between cross-orientation interactions in GAMMAs and those in MUAs. We developed a normalization model that could unify the response patterns of both GAMMAs and MUAs. Interestingly, compared with MUAs, the GAMMAs demonstrated a wider range of model parameters and more diverse response patterns to plaids. Further analysis revealed that normalization parameters for high GAMMA, but not those for low GAMMA, were significantly correlated with the discrepancy of spatial frequency between stimulus and sites’ preferences. Consistent with these findings, normalization parameters and diversity of high GAMMA exhibited a clear transition trend and region difference between area 17 to 18. Our results show that GAMMAs are also regulated in the form of normalization, but that the neural mechanisms for these normalizations might differ from those of spiking activity. Normalizations in different brain signals could be due to interactions of excitation and inhibitions at multiple stages in the visual system.

Neural Control of Swimming in Nudipleura Molluscs

2017 ◽  
pp. 438-450
Author(s):  
Paul S. Katz ◽  
Akira Sakurai
Keyword(s):  
Neural Control ◽  
Central Pattern Generators ◽  
Swimming Behavior ◽  
Neural Mechanisms ◽  
The Other ◽  
Neural Basis ◽  
Tritonia Diomedea ◽  
Pleurobranchaea Californica ◽  
Sea Slugs ◽  
Pattern Generators

This article compares the neural basis for swimming in sea slugs belonging to the Nudipleura clade of molluscs. There are two primary forms of swimming. One, dorsal/ventral (DV) body flexions, is typified by Tritonia diomedea and Pleurobranchaea californica. Although Tritonia and Pleurobranchaea evolved DV swimming independently, there are at least two homologous neurons in the central pattern generators (CPGs) underlying DV swimming in these species. Furthermore, both species have serotonergic neuromodulation of synaptic strength intrinsic to their CPGs. The other form of swimming is with alternating left/right (LR) body flexions. Melibe and Dendronotus belong to a clade of species that all swim with LR body flexions. Although the swimming behavior is homologous, their swim CPGs differ in both cellular composition and in the details of the neural mechanisms. Thus, similar behaviors have independently evolved through parallel use of homologous neurons, and homologous behaviors can be produced by different neural mechanisms.

Perception and Imagery

Brain-Mind ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 50-71
Author(s):  
Paul Thagard
Keyword(s):  
Neural Mechanisms ◽  
Neural Representation ◽  
Sensory Inputs ◽  
General Account ◽  
Binding Competition ◽  
Mental Operations

This chapter provides a general account of imagery that applies to both external senses such as vision and internal senses such as pain. It identifies five mental operations that occur in all kinds of imagery: intensification, focusing, combination, juxtaposition, and decomposition. Each of these operations results from neural mechanisms that are part of the Semantic Pointer Architecture, including storage, retrieval, neural representation, binding, competition, and transformation. There is abundant psychological and neural evidence that imagery is real and that the brain’s computations employ special patterns of neural representation that develop from sensory inputs. This development requires binding into semantic pointers that are susceptible to symbol-like manipulation that exploits the different sensory characters of visual, auditory, and other sorts of representation.

scholarly journals Neural Mechanisms of Reward Prediction Error in Autism Spectrum Disorder

2019 ◽  
Vol 2019 ◽  
pp. 1-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maya G. Mosner ◽  
R. Edward McLaurin ◽  
Jessica L. Kinard ◽  
Shabnam Hakimi ◽  
Jacob Parelman ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Prediction Error ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Neural Mechanisms ◽  
Reward Learning ◽  
Prediction Errors ◽  
Frontal Pole ◽  
Neural Basis ◽  
Reward Prediction ◽  
Behavioral Impairments ◽  
Adults With Asd

Few studies have explored neural mechanisms of reward learning in ASD despite evidence of behavioral impairments of predictive abilities in ASD. To investigate the neural correlates of reward prediction errors in ASD, 16 adults with ASD and 14 typically developing controls performed a prediction error task during fMRI scanning. Results revealed greater activation in the ASD group in the left paracingulate gyrus during signed prediction errors and the left insula and right frontal pole during thresholded unsigned prediction errors. Findings support atypical neural processing of reward prediction errors in ASD in frontostriatal regions critical for prediction coding and reward learning. Results provide a neural basis for impairments in reward learning that may contribute to traits common in ASD (e.g., intolerance of unpredictability).

HUMAN REFLEXIVE RESPONSE AND ITS OBJECTIVE FUNCTION REGARDING BALANCE RECOVERY FROM PERTURBATION DURING WALKING

2011 ◽  
Vol 11 (05) ◽  
pp. 1179-1198 ◽  
Author(s):  
YU YIKEMOTO ◽  
WENWEI YU ◽  
U. RAJENDRA ACHARYA
Keyword(s):  
Underlying Mechanism ◽  
Living Environment ◽  
Neural Mechanisms ◽  
Unified Theory ◽  
Response Patterns ◽  
Objective Functions ◽  
Balance Recovery ◽  
Uneven Terrain ◽  
Short Period ◽  
Evaluation Measure

Balance recovery from perturbation plays a crucial role in preventing people from falling during walking. Understanding the underlying mechanism of balance recovery during walking could not only bring new insights into the motor control field, but also benefit the development of walking assist systems for daily living environment, where perturbations to walking are frequently caused by slips, uneven terrain, slopes, obstacles, etc.It is evident that humans can cope with such perturbations, especially when the perturbations cannot be predicted or perceived in advance, by means of reflexes, which cause relatively fixed, unconscious muscular response patterns to perturbations within a short period of time ranging from several tens of ms to 200 ms. However, except for several hypotheses about the underlying neural mechanisms of the reflexes during walking, there is no widely accepted unified theory.In our previous study, a muscular-reflexive pattern was defined using muscle activity recorded during reflexive responses to slip perturbation. This is one important step toward the understanding of the underlying mechanism, since the pattern could serve as the quantitative target in pursuit of the underlying mechanism. We can speculate that this pattern is the optimal balance recovery behavior to human muscular-skeletal system, as a result of long evolution; however, before we use this target to guide our pursuit, we should first prove its optimality, while making clear the objective functions for balance recovery and the effect of morphological factors.Our approach includes (1) defining objective functions for balance recovery from a slip perturbation during walking; (2) using a bio-mimetic human walking simulator to perform evaluation according to the objective functions; (3) employing a genetic algorithm (GA) to search the optimal solutions, for different objective functions.Results showed that the muscular-reflexive pattern is optimal to the balance recovery from slip perturbation during walking, in terms of a hybrid evaluation measure (HEM), which takes both static and dynamic aspects of balance recovery into consideration.

scholarly journals Neural mechanisms underlying conscious and unconscious attentional shifts triggered by eye gaze

NeuroImage ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 124 ◽  
pp. 118-126 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wataru Sato ◽  
Takanori Kochiyama ◽  
Shota Uono ◽  
Motomi Toichi
Keyword(s):  
Eye Gaze ◽  
Neural Mechanisms ◽  
Attentional Shifts

Neural mechanisms of sneeze

1975 ◽  
Vol 229 (3) ◽  
pp. 770-776 ◽  
Author(s):  
HL Batsel ◽  
AJ Lines
Keyword(s):  
High Frequency ◽  
Neural Mechanisms ◽  
Nucleus Ambiguus ◽  
Respiratory Neurons ◽  
Similar Response ◽  
Response Patterns ◽  
Nerve Activity ◽  
Inspiratory Neurons ◽  
Expiratory Neurons ◽  
Stimulation Of

Sneezes were induced in anestized cats by repetitive stimulation of the ethmoidal nerve. Activity of bulbar respiratory neurons during sneezing was recorded extracellularly through tungsten microelectrodes. Most expiratory neurons could be locked onto the stimulus pulses so that they responded either throughout inspiration as well as expiration or so that they began responding at some time during inspiration. As inspiration approached termination, multiple spiking occurred, finally to result in high-frequency bursts which just preceded active expiration. A fraction of expiratory neurons were activated only in bursts. Latent expiratory neurons were recruited in sneezing. Inspiratory neurons near nucleus ambiguus and most of those near fasciculus solitarius displayed similar response patterns consisting of silent periods followed by delayed smooth activations. Temporal characteristics of the silent periods, "inhibitory gaps," suggested that they resulted from inhibition whose source was the expiratory neurons which were driven throughout inspriation. Some inspiratory neurons in the area of fasciculus solitarius failed to exhibit inhibitory gaps.

Social cognition, brain networks and schizophrenia

2004 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 391-400 ◽  
Author(s):  
K.-H. LEE ◽  
T. F. D. FARROW ◽  
S. A. SPENCE ◽  
P. W. R. WOODRUFF
Keyword(s):  
Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Social Cognition ◽  
Literature Review ◽  
Social Functioning ◽  
Frontal Lobe ◽  
Temporal Cortex ◽  
Neural Mechanisms ◽  
Neural Basis ◽  
Future Studies ◽  
Shed Light

Background. A better understanding of the neural basis of social cognition including mindreading (or theory of mind) and empathy might help to explain some deficits in social functioning in people with schizophrenia. Our aim was to review neuroimaging and neuropsychological studies on social cognition, as they may shed light on the neural mechanisms of social cognition and its dysfunction in patients with schizophrenia.Method. A selective literature review was undertaken.Results. Neuroimaging and neuropsychological studies suggest convergence upon specific networks for mindreading and empathy (the temporal cortex, amygdala and the prefrontal cortex). The frontal lobe is likely to play a central role in enabling social cognition, but mindreading and empathic abilities may require relatively different weighting of subcomponents within the same frontal-temporal social cognition network.Conclusions. Disturbances in social cognition may represent an abnormal interaction between frontal lobe and its functionally connected cortical and subcortical areas. Future studies should seek to explore the heterogeneity of social dysfunction within schizophrenia.

Interpersonal Perception of Skill Efficacy and Behavioral Control of Adolescents with Learning Disabilities: A Social Relations Approach

1996 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stan Scarpati ◽  
Thomas E. Malloy ◽  
Richard Fleming
Keyword(s):  
Learning Disabilities ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Behavioral Control ◽  
Interpersonal Perception ◽  
Self Control ◽  
Social Knowledge ◽  
Academic Learning ◽  
Social Relations Model ◽  
The Social ◽  
Analyze Data

A social relations approach was used to examine the way adolescents with learning disabilities (LD) rate their own and their peers' attributions toward skill efficacy and behavioral self-control in mainstream public school placements. LD students were analyzed while both viewers and active participants in the social context of academic learning. This approach is in contrast to paradigms where children are asked to report on their interpretations of factors that covary with the occurrence of a personal or situational event. The Social Relations Model was used to gather and analyze data in a round-robin fashion across perceivers and targets. Results indicated that LD students viewed themselves individually as less skilled than they viewed their LD peers as a group. This finding is contrary to data derived with typical populations of children and adults. The Social Relations Model is presented as a useful way to research how individuals with learning disabilities develop social knowledge while engaged with their peers and teachers in a natural learning environment.

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