scholarly journals EEG frequency tagging reveals neural entrainment to people moving in synchrony

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emiel Cracco ◽  
Haeeun Lee ◽  
Goedele van Belle ◽  
Lisa Quenon ◽  
Patrick Haggard ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Biological Motion ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Motion Processing ◽  
Body Postures ◽  
Brain Responses ◽  
Biological Motion Perception ◽  
Hierarchical Levels ◽  
Orientation Experiment ◽  
Neural Entrainment ◽  
The Brain

AbstractHumans and other animals have evolved to act in groups, but how does the brain distinguish multiple people moving in group from multiple people moving independently? Across three experiments, we test whether biological motion perception depends on the spatiotemporal relationships among people moving together. In Experiment 1, we apply EEG frequency tagging to apparent biological motion and show that fluently ordered sequences of body postures drive brain activity at three hierarchical levels of biological motion processing: image, body sequence, and movement. We then show that movement-, but not body- or image-related brain responses are enhanced when observing four agents moving in synchrony. Neural entrainment was strongest for fluently moving synchronous groups (Experiment 2), displayed in upright orientation (Experiment 3). Our findings show that the brain preferentially entrains to the collective movement of human agents, deploying perceptual organization principles of synchrony and common fate for the purpose of social perception.

scholarly journals Biological Motion Perception, Brain Responses, and Schizotypal Personality Disorder

2016 ◽  
Vol 73 (3) ◽  
pp. 260 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ji-Won Hur ◽  
Randolph Blake ◽  
Kang Ik K. Cho ◽  
Jejoong Kim ◽  
So-Yeon Kim ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Personality Disorder ◽  
Motion Perception ◽  
Biological Motion ◽  
Schizotypal Personality Disorder ◽  
Schizotypal Personality ◽  
Brain Responses ◽  
Biological Motion Perception

scholarly journals Comparing Intersubject Correlation (ISC) Between Autism Spectrum Disorder and Typically Developed Groups to Better Understand Biological Motion Processing

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (Spring 2020) ◽  
Author(s):  
Elena Skaribas
Keyword(s):  
Autism Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Biological Motion ◽  
Right Hemisphere ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Motion Processing ◽  
Neuron Network ◽  
Specific Stimulus ◽  
Brain Responses ◽  
Neurological Differences

In this study, we addressed significant neurological differences between autistic and typically developed individuals, specifically when processing biological motion, using Intersubject correlation (ISC) analysis methods. ISC is a tool used to analyze functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data acquired under naturalistic stimuli. Using ISC, it is possible to pinpoint common brain responses within a group of individuals as they react to a specific stimulus. ISC is also used to highlight the different brain responses two different groups might have while experiencing the same stimulus. In this experiment, we used two subject groups, one group of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) individuals and one typically developed (TD) group of individuals. The participants in each group watched a ninety second clip of romantic ballet. A short clip of ballet dance was chosen as the stimulus because it had been used in past studies to specify brain responses associated with biological motion processing. Using a standard subject-wise permutation statistical test in the ISC Toolbox for analysis, we computed ISC difference maps between the ASD and TD groups. The findings suggested that during biological motion processing, lateralization of brain responses between the two groups differed; TD individuals had greater ISC in the right hemisphere while ASD individuals had greater ISC in the left hemisphere. Greater ISC in typically developed individuals was concentrated in the culmen of the cerebellum which is responsible for kinesthesia and coordination of movement and is also a component of the mirror neuron network that allows individuals to anticipate movement. These results were consistent with data from prior research that found that TD groups share more synchronized brain responses in the cerebellum, which characterizes higher prediction and anticipation of biological movement in TD groups than ASD groups. ISC within the autistic group was found in the temporal gyrus, which plays a neurological role in motion processing and has been seen to be activated in past comparative studies.

scholarly journals GPT-2’s activations predict the degree of semantic comprehension in the human brain

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charlotte Caucheteux ◽  
Alexandre Gramfort ◽  
Jean-Rémi King
Keyword(s):  
Brain Activity ◽  
Planum Temporale ◽  
Functional Magnetic Resonance ◽  
Resonance Imaging ◽  
Brain Responses ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Semantic Comprehension ◽  
Empirical Framework ◽  
Superior Frontal Cortex ◽  
Language Network

Language transformers, like GPT-2, have demonstrated remarkable abilities to process text, and now constitute the backbone of deep translation, summarization and dialogue algorithms. However, whether these models actually understand language is highly controversial. Here, we show that the representations of GPT-2 not only map onto the brain responses to spoken stories, but also predict the extent to which subjects understand the narratives. To this end, we analyze 101 subjects recorded with functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging while listening to 70 min of short stories. We then fit a linear model to predict brain activity from GPT-2 activations, and correlate this mapping with subjects’ comprehension scores as assessed for each story. The results show that GPT-2’s brain predictions significantly correlate with semantic comprehension. These effects are bilaterally distributed in the language network and peak with a correlation above 30% in the infero-frontal and medio-temporal gyri as well as in the superior frontal cortex, the planum temporale and the precuneus. Overall, this study provides an empirical framework to probe and dissect semantic comprehension in brains and deep learning algorithms.

scholarly journals Local and distributed cortical markers of effort expenditure during sustained goal pursuit

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lauren M. Patrick ◽  
Kevin M. Anderson ◽  
Avram J. Holmes
Keyword(s):  
Goal Attainment ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Goal Pursuit ◽  
Physical Effort ◽  
Course Of Action ◽  
Brain Responses ◽  
Subjective Valuation ◽  
Medial Pfc ◽  
Past Effort ◽  
The Brain

AbstractThe adaptive adjustment of behavior in pursuit of desired goals is critical for survival. To accomplish this complex feat, individuals must weigh the potential benefits of a given course of action against time, energy, and resource costs. Prior research in this domain has greatly advanced understanding of the cortico-striatal circuits that support the anticipation and receipt of desired outcomes, characterizing core aspects of subjective valuation at discrete points in time. However, motivated goal pursuit is not a static or cost neutral process and the brain mechanisms that underlie individual differences in the dynamic updating of effort expenditure across time remain unclear. Here, 38 healthy right-handed participants underwent functional MRI (fMRI) while completing a novel paradigm to examine their willingness to exert physical effort over a prolonged trial, either to obtain monetary rewards or avoid punishments. During sustained goal pursuit, medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) response scaled with trial-to-trial differences in effort expenditure as a function of both monetary condition and eventual task earnings. Multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA) searchlights were used to examine relations linking prior trial-level effort expenditure to subsequent brain responses to feedback. At reward feedback, whole-brain searchlights identified signals reflecting past effort expenditure in dorsal and ventral mPFC, encompassing broad swaths of frontoparietal and dorsal attention networks. These results suggest a core role for mPFC in scaling effort expenditure during sustained goal pursuit, with the subsequent tracking of effort costs following successful goal attainment extending to incorporate distributed brain networks that support executive functioning and externally oriented attention.Significance StatementHistorically, much of the research on subjective valuation has focused on discrete points in time. Here, we examine brain responses associated with willingness to exert physical effort during the sustained pursuit of desired goals. Our analyses reveal a distributed pattern of brain activity encompassing aspects of ventral mPFC that tracks with trial-level variability in effort expenditure. Indicating that the brain represents echoes of effort at the point of feedback, searchlight analyses revealed signals associated with past effort expenditure in broad swaths of dorsal and medial PFC. These data have important implications for the study of how the brain’s valuation mechanisms contend with the complexity of real-world dynamic environments with relevance for the study of behavior across health and disease.

Effects of TMS over Premotor and Superior Temporal Cortices on Biological Motion Perception

2012 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 896-904 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bianca Michelle van Kemenade ◽  
Neil Muggleton ◽  
Vincent Walsh ◽  
Ayse Pinar Saygin
Keyword(s):  
Motion Perception ◽  
Biological Motion ◽  
Premotor Cortex ◽  
Control Site ◽  
Object Motion ◽  
Motion Processing ◽  
False Alarms ◽  
Control Task ◽  
Biological Motion Perception ◽  
Point Light

Using MRI-guided off-line TMS, we targeted two areas implicated in biological motion processing: ventral premotor cortex (PMC) and posterior STS (pSTS), plus a control site (vertex). Participants performed a detection task on noise-masked point-light displays of human animations and scrambled versions of the same stimuli. Perceptual thresholds were determined individually. Performance was measured before and after 20 sec of continuous theta burst stimulation of PMC, pSTS, and control (each tested on different days). A matched nonbiological object motion task (detecting point-light displays of translating polygons) served as a further control. Data were analyzed within the signal detection framework. Sensitivity (d′) significantly decreased after TMS of PMC. There was a marginally significant decline in d′ after TMS of pSTS but not of control site. Criterion (response bias) was also significantly affected by TMS over PMC. Specifically, subjects made significantly more false alarms post-TMS of PMC. These effects were specific to biological motion and not found for the nonbiological control task. To summarize, we report that TMS over PMC reduces sensitivity to biological motion perception. Furthermore, pSTS and PMC may have distinct roles in biological motion processing as behavioral performance differs following TMS in each area. Only TMS over PMC led to a significant increase in false alarms, which was not found for other brain areas or for the control task. TMS of PMC may have interfered with refining judgments about biological motion perception, possibly because access to the perceiver's own motor representations was compromised.

Development of cortical responses to optic flow

2007 ◽  
Vol 24 (6) ◽  
pp. 845-856 ◽  
Author(s):  
RICK O. GILMORE ◽  
C. HOU ◽  
M.W. PETTET ◽  
A.M. NORCIA
Keyword(s):  
Optic Flow ◽  
Radial Flow ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Flow Patterns ◽  
Motion Processing ◽  
Uniform Motion ◽  
Brain Responses ◽  
Cortical Responses ◽  
Frequency Domains ◽  
Self Motion

Humans discriminate approaching objects from receding ones shortly after birth, and optic flow associated with self-motion may activate distinctive brain networks, including the human MT+ complex. We sought evidence for evoked brain activity that distinguished radial motion from other optic flow patterns, such as translation or rotation by recording steady-state visual evoked potentials (ssVEPs), in both adults and 4–6 month-old infants to direction-reversing optic flow patterns. In adults, radial flow evoked distinctive brain responses in both the time and frequency domains. Differences between expansion/contraction and both translation and rotation were especially strong in lateral channels (PO7 and PO8), and there was an asymmetry between responses to expansion and contraction. In contrast, infants' evoked response waveforms to all flow types were equivalent, and showed no evidence of the expansion/contraction asymmetry. Infants' responses were largest and most reliable for the translation patterns in which all dots moved in the same direction. This pattern of response is consistent with an account in which motion processing systems detecting locally uniform motion develop earlier than do systems specializing in complex, globally non-uniform patterns of motion, and with evidence suggesting that motion processing undergoes prolonged postnatal development.

scholarly journals Dynamics of Muslim consumers’ behavior toward Halal products

2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 689-708 ◽  
Author(s):  
Osama Sam Al-Kwifi ◽  
Allam Abu Farha ◽  
Zafar U. Ahmed
Keyword(s):  
Brain Activity ◽  
Research Model ◽  
Religious Perspective ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Emotional Sensitivity ◽  
Brain Responses ◽  
Consumer Segment ◽  
Unique Approach ◽  
Cooked Meat ◽  
The Brain

Purpose Since Islamic markets are growing substantially, there is an urgent need to gain a better understanding of how Muslim consumers perceive products from a religious perspective. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the brain responses of Muslim consumers to Halal and non-Halal products using a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) technology. Design/methodology/approach The research model is a simplified version of the theory of planned behavior. The initial experiment began by asking participants to divide a set of images into two groups: Halal and non-Halal products. The fMRI experiment uses a blocked design approach to capture brain activities resulting from presenting the two groups of images to participants, and to record the strength of their attitudes toward purchasing the products. Findings Across all participants, the level of brain activation in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex increased significantly when Halal images were presented to them. The same results emerged when the Halal images showed raw and cooked meat. The variations in the results may be due to the high emotional sensitivity of Muslim consumers to using religious products. Research limitations/implications This study uses a unique approach to monitor brain activity to confirm that consumers from specific market segments respond differently to market products based on their internal beliefs. Findings from this study provide evidence that marketing managers targeting Muslim markets should consider the sensitivity of presenting products in ways that reflect religious principles, in order to gain higher acceptance in this market segment. Originality/value Although the literature reports considerable research on Muslim consumers’ behavior, most of the previous studies utilize conventional data collection approaches to target broad segments of consumers by using traditional products. This paper is the first to track the reactions of the Muslim consumer segment to specific types of market products.

scholarly journals Brain function distinguishes female carriers and non-carriers of familial risk for autism

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam T. Eggebrecht ◽  
Ally Dworetsky ◽  
Zoë Hawks ◽  
Rebecca Coalson ◽  
Babatunde Adeyemo ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Biological Motion ◽  
Familial Risk ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Motion Processing ◽  
Female Ratio ◽  
Brain Responses ◽  
Passive Viewing ◽  
Point Light ◽  
Genetic Loading ◽  
Neural Signatures

Abstract Background Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is characterized by high population-level heritability and a three-to-one male-to-female ratio that occurs independent of sex linkage. Prior research in a mixed-sex pediatric sample identified neural signatures of familial risk elicited by passive viewing of point light motion displays, suggesting the possibility that both resilience and risk of autism might be associated with brain responses to biological motion. To confirm a relationship between these signatures and inherited risk of autism, we tested them in families enriched for genetic loading through undiagnosed (“carrier”) females. Methods Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we examined brain responses to passive viewing of point light displays—depicting biological versus non-biological motion—in a sample of undiagnosed adult females enriched for inherited susceptibility to ASD on the basis of affectation in their respective family pedigrees. Brain responses in carrier females were compared to responses in age-, SRS-, and IQ-matched non-carrier-females—i.e., females unrelated to individuals with ASD. We conducted a hypothesis-driven analysis focused on previously published regions of interest as well as exploratory, brain-wide analyses designed to characterize more fully the rich responses to this paradigm. Results We observed robust responses to biological motion. Notwithstanding, the 12 regions implicated by prior research did not exhibit the hypothesized interaction between group (carriers vs. controls) and point light displays (biological vs. non-biological motion). Exploratory, brain-wide analyses identified this interaction in three novel regions. Post hoc analyses additionally revealed significant variations in the time course of brain activation in 20 regions spanning occipital and temporal cortex, indicating group differences in response to point light displays (irrespective of the nature of motion) for exploration in future studies. Limitations We were unable to successfully eye-track all participants, which prevented us from being able to control for potential differences in eye gaze position. Conclusions These methods confirmed pronounced neural signatures that differentiate brain responses to biological and scrambled motion. Our sample of undiagnosed females enriched for family genetic loading enabled discovery of numerous contrasts between carriers and non-carriers of risk of ASD that may index variations in visual attention and motion processing related to genetic susceptibility and inform our understanding of mechanisms incurred by inherited liability for ASD.

scholarly journals Ventral aspect of the visual form pathway is not critical for the perception of biological motion

2015 ◽  
Vol 112 (4) ◽  
pp. E361-E370 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sharon Gilaie-Dotan ◽  
Ayse Pinar Saygin ◽  
Lauren J. Lorenzi ◽  
Geraint Rees ◽  
Marlene Behrmann
Keyword(s):  
Visual Cortex ◽  
Motion Perception ◽  
Biological Motion ◽  
Form Perception ◽  
Motion Processing ◽  
Extrastriate Body Area ◽  
Biological Motion Perception ◽  
Neurobiological Substrates ◽  
Cortical Regions ◽  
Point Light

Identifying the movements of those around us is fundamental for many daily activities, such as recognizing actions, detecting predators, and interacting with others socially. A key question concerns the neurobiological substrates underlying biological motion perception. Although the ventral “form” visual cortex is standardly activated by biologically moving stimuli, whether these activations are functionally critical for biological motion perception or are epiphenomenal remains unknown. To address this question, we examined whether focal damage to regions of the ventral visual cortex, resulting in significant deficits in form perception, adversely affects biological motion perception. Six patients with damage to the ventral cortex were tested with sensitive point-light display paradigms. All patients were able to recognize unmasked point-light displays and their perceptual thresholds were not significantly different from those of three different control groups, one of which comprised brain-damaged patients with spared ventral cortex (n > 50). Importantly, these six patients performed significantly better than patients with damage to regions critical for biological motion perception. To assess the necessary contribution of different regions in the ventral pathway to biological motion perception, we complement the behavioral findings with a fine-grained comparison between the lesion location and extent, and the cortical regions standardly implicated in biological motion processing. This analysis revealed that the ventral aspects of the form pathway (e.g., fusiform regions, ventral extrastriate body area) are not critical for biological motion perception. We hypothesize that the role of these ventral regions is to provide enhanced multiview/posture representations of the moving person rather than to represent biological motion perception per se.

scholarly journals Applying stochastic spike train theory for high-accuracy MEG/EEG

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Niels Trusbak Haumann ◽  
Minna Huotilainen ◽  
Peter Vuust ◽  
Elvira Brattico
Keyword(s):  
Neural Networks ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Component Analysis ◽  
High Accuracy ◽  
Spike Timing ◽  
Clinical Diagnostics ◽  
Evoked Response ◽  
Brain Responses ◽  
The Brain

AbstractThe accuracy of electroencephalography (EEG) and magnetoencephalography (MEG) is challenged by overlapping sources from within the brain. This lack of accuracy is a severe limitation to the possibilities and reliability of modern stimulation protocols in basic research and clinical diagnostics. As a solution, we here introduce a theory of stochastic neuronal spike timing probability densities for describing the large-scale spiking activity in neural networks, and a novel spike density component analysis (SCA) method for isolating specific neural sources. Three studies are conducted based on 564 cases of evoked responses to auditory stimuli from 94 human subjects each measured with 60 EEG electrodes and 306 MEG sensors. In the first study we show that the large-scale spike timing (but not non-encephalographic artifacts) in MEG/EEG waveforms can be modeled with Gaussian probability density functions with high accuracy (median 99.7%-99.9% variance explained), while gamma and sine functions fail describing the MEG and EEG waveforms. In the second study we confirm that SCA can isolate a specific evoked response of interest. Our findings indicate that the mismatch negativity (MMN) response is accurately isolated with SCA, while principal component analysis (PCA) fails supressing interference from overlapping brain activity, e.g. from P3a and alpha waves, and independent component analysis (ICA) distorts the evoked response. Finally, we confirm that SCA accurately reveals inter-individual variation in evoked brain responses, by replicating findings relating individual traits with MMN variations. The findings of this paper suggest that the commonly overlapping neural sources in single-subject or patient data can be more accurately separated by applying the introduced theory of large-scale spike timing and method of SCA in comparison to PCA and ICA.Significance statementElectroencephalography (EEG) and magnetoencelopraphy (MEG) are among the most applied non-invasive brain recording methods in humans. They are the only methods to measure brain function directly and in time resolutions smaller than seconds. However, in modern research and clinical diagnostics the brain responses of interest cannot be isolated, because of interfering signals of other ongoing brain activity. For the first time, we introduce a theory and method for mathematically describing and isolating overlapping brain signals, which are based on prior intracranial in vivo research on brain cells in monkey and human neural networks. Three studies mutually support our theory and suggest that a new level of accuracy in MEG/EEG can achieved by applying the procedures presented in this paper.

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