scholarly journals Same Action, Different Meaning: Neural substrates of Semantic Goal Representation

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shahar Aberbach ◽  
Batel Buaron ◽  
Liad Mudrik ◽  
Roy Mukamel
Keyword(s):  
Predictive Coding ◽  
Neural Substrates ◽  
Neural Representation ◽  
Behavioral Measures ◽  
Lateral Occipital Complex ◽  
Left Hand ◽  
Motor Circuits ◽  
Sensory Motor ◽  
Sensory Consequence ◽  
Goal Representation

Accurate control over everyday goal-directed actions is mediated by sensory-motor predictions of intended consequences and their comparison with actual outcomes. Such online comparisons of the expected and re-afferent, immediate, sensory feedback are conceptualized as internal forward models. Current predictive coding theories describing such models typically address the processing of immediate sensory-motor goals, yet voluntary actions are also oriented towards long-term conceptual goals and intentions, for which the sensory consequence is sometimes absent or cannot be fully predicted. Thus, the neural mechanisms underlying actions with distal conceptual goals is far from being clear. Specifically, it is still unknown whether sensory-motor circuits also encode information regarding the global meaning of the action, detached from the immediate, movement-related goal. Therefore, using fMRI and behavioral measures, we examined identical actions (either right or left-hand button presses) performed for two different semantic intentions ('yes'/'no' response to questions regarding visual stimuli). Importantly, actions were devoid of differences in the immediate sensory outcome. Our findings revealed voxel patterns differentiating the two semantic goals in the frontoparietal cortex and visual pathways including the Lateral-occipital complex, in both hemispheres. Behavioral results suggest that the results cannot be explained by kinetic differences such as force. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first evidence showing that semantic meaning is embedded in the neural representation of actions independent of immediate sensory outcome and kinetic differences.

scholarly journals Differential neural representation of oral ethanol by central taste-sensitive neurons in ethanol-preferring and genetically heterogeneous rats

2011 ◽  
Vol 106 (6) ◽  
pp. 3145-3156 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian H. Lemon ◽  
David M. Wilson ◽  
Susan M. Brasser
Keyword(s):  
Neural Substrates ◽  
Sweet Taste ◽  
Neuronal Firing ◽  
Neural Representation ◽  
Ethanol Preference ◽  
Spike Density ◽  
Oral Responses ◽  
Electrophysiological Recordings ◽  
Oral Sensory ◽  
Line P

In randomly bred rats, orally applied ethanol stimulates neural substrates for appetitive sweet taste. To study associations between ethanol's oral sensory characteristics and genetically mediated ethanol preference, we made electrophysiological recordings of oral responses (spike density) by taste-sensitive nucleus tractus solitarii neurons in anesthetized selectively bred ethanol-preferring (P) rats and their genetically heterogeneous Wistar (W) control strain. Stimuli (25 total) included ethanol [3%, 5%, 10%, 15%, 25%, and 40% (vol/vol)], a sucrose series (0.01, 0.03, 0.1, 0.3, 0.5, and 1 M), and other sweet, salt, acidic, and bitter stimuli; 50 P and 39 W neurons were sampled. k-means clustering applied to the sucrose response series identified cells showing high (S1) or relatively low (S0) sensitivity to sucrose. A three-way factorial analysis revealed that activity to ethanol was influenced by a neuron's sensitivity to sucrose, ethanol concentration, and rat line ( P = 0.01). Ethanol produced concentration-dependent responses in S1 neurons that were larger than those in S0 cells. Although responses to ethanol by S1 cells did not differ between lines, neuronal firing rates to ethanol in S0 cells increased across concentration only in P rats. Correlation and multivariate analyses revealed that ethanol evoked responses in W neurons that were strongly and selectively associated with activity to sweet stimuli, whereas responses to ethanol by P neurons were not easily associated with activity to representative sweet, sodium salt, acidic, or bitter stimuli. These findings show differential central neural representation of oral ethanol between genetically heterogeneous rats and P rats genetically selected to prefer alcohol.

scholarly journals Positional Strategies for Connection Specificity and Synaptic Organization in Spinal Sensory-Motor Circuits

Neuron ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 102 (6) ◽  
pp. 1143-1156.e4 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nikolaos Balaskas ◽  
L.F. Abbott ◽  
Thomas M. Jessell ◽  
David Ng
Keyword(s):  
Synaptic Organization ◽  
Motor Circuits ◽  
Sensory Motor

scholarly journals Bridging the gap: global disparity processing in the human visual cortex

2012 ◽  
Vol 107 (9) ◽  
pp. 2421-2429 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benoit R. Cottereau ◽  
Suzanne P. McKee ◽  
Anthony M. Norcia
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Distribution ◽  
Population Level ◽  
Neural Substrates ◽  
Regions Of Interest ◽  
Inverse Technique ◽  
Lateral Occipital Complex ◽  
Reference Information ◽  
Depth Discrimination ◽  
Edge Detectors ◽  
Stereoscopic System

The human stereoscopic system is remarkable in its ability to utilize widely separated features as references to support fine depth discrimination. In a search for possible neural substrates of this ability, we recorded high-density EEG and used a distributed inverse technique to estimate population-level disparity responses in five regions of interest (ROIs): V1, V3A, hMT+, V4, and lateral occipital complex (LOC). The stimulus was a central modulating disk surrounded by a correlated “reference” annulus presented in the fixation plane. We varied a gap separating the disk from the annulus parametrically from 0 to 5.5° as a test of long-range disparity integration. In the V1, LOC, and hMT+ ROIs, the responses with gaps >0.5° were equal to those obtained in a control condition where the surround was composed of uncorrelated noise (no reference). By contrast, in the V4 and V3A ROIs, responses with gaps as large as 5.5° were still significantly higher than the control. As a test of the spatial distribution of the disparity reference information, we manipulated the properties of the stimulus by placing noise between the center and the surround or throughout the surround. The V3A ROI was particularly sensitive to disparity noise between the center and annulus regions, suggesting an important contribution of disparity edge detectors in this ROI.

scholarly journals Postprint: "Temporal matching between interoception and exteroception: electrophysiological responses in a heartbeat discrimination task"

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hirokata Fukushima
Keyword(s):  
Discrimination Task ◽  
Predictive Coding ◽  
Event Related Potential ◽  
Neural Responses ◽  
Cardiac Phase ◽  
Behavioral Measures ◽  
Electrophysiological Responses ◽  
Interoceptive Sensitivity ◽  
External Stimuli ◽  
Healthy Participants

Recent studies on interoception emphasize the importance of multisensory integration between interoception and exteroception. One of the methods frequently applied for assessing interoceptive sensitivity is the heartbeat discrimination task, where individuals judge whether the timing of external stimuli (e.g., tones) are synchronized to their own heartbeat. Despite its extensive use in research, the neural dynamics underlying the temporal matching between interoceptive and exteroceptive stimuli in this task have remained unclear. The present study used electroencephalography (EEG) to examine the neural responses of healthy participants who performed a heartbeat discrimination task. We analyzed the differences between EEG responses to tones, which were likely to be perceived as “heartbeat-synchronous” (200 ms delayed from the R-wave) or “heartbeat-asynchronous” (0 ms delayed). Possible associations of these neural differentiations with task performance were also investigated. Compared with the responses to heartbeat-asynchronous tones, heartbeat-synchronous tones caused a relative decrease in early gamma-band EEG response and an increase in later P2 event-related potential (ERP) amplitude. Condition differences in the EEG/ERP measures were not significantly correlated with the behavioral measures. The mechanisms underlying the observed neural responses and the possibility of electrophysiological measurement of interoceptive sensitivity are discussed in terms of two perspectives: the predictive coding framework and the cardiac-phase-dependent baroreceptor function.

scholarly journals Scanned optogenetic control of mammalian somatosensory input to map input-specific behavioral outputs

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ara Schorscher-Petcu ◽  
Flóra Takács ◽  
Liam E. Browne
Keyword(s):  
Action Potential ◽  
Stimulus Intensity ◽  
Behavioral Responses ◽  
Behavioral Measures ◽  
Optogenetic Stimulation ◽  
Somatosensory Input ◽  
Sensory Motor ◽  
Freely Behaving ◽  
Somatosensory Stimuli ◽  
Stimulation Of

AbstractSomatosensory stimuli guide and shape behavior, from immediate protective reflexes to longer-term learning and high-order processes related to pain and touch. However, somatosensory inputs are challenging to control in awake mammals due to the diversity and nature of contact stimuli. Application of cutaneous stimuli is currently limited to relatively imprecise methods as well as subjective behavioral measures. The strategy we present here overcomes these difficulties by achieving spatiotemporally precise, remote and dynamic optogenetic stimulation of skin by projecting light to a small defined area in freely-behaving mice. We mapped behavioral responses to specific nociceptive inputs and revealed a sparse code for stimulus intensity: using the first action potential, the number of activated nociceptors governs the timing and magnitude of rapid protective pain-related behavior. The strategy can be used to define specific behavioral repertoires, examine the timing and nature of reflexes, and dissect sensory, motor, cognitive and motivational processes guiding behavior.

scholarly journals Neural Underpinning of Japanese Particle Processing in Non-native Speakers

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chise Kasai ◽  
Motofumi Sumiya ◽  
Takahiko Koike ◽  
Takaaki Yoshimoto ◽  
Hideki Maki ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Inferior Frontal Gyrus ◽  
Predictive Coding ◽  
Primary Source ◽  
Verbal Working Memory ◽  
Forward Model ◽  
Neural Representation ◽  
Middle Temporal Gyrus ◽  
Active Inference

Abstract Grammar acquisition by non-native learners (L2) is typically less successful and may produce fundamentally different grammatical systems than that by native speakers (L1). The neural representation of grammatical processing between L1 and L2 speakers remains controversial. We hypothesized that working memory is the primary source of L1/L2 differences, and operationalized working memory is an active inference within the predictive coding account, which models grammatical processes as higher-level neuronal representations of cortical hierarchies, generating predictions (forward model) of lower-level representations. A functional MRI study was conducted with L1 Japanese speakers and highly proficient Japanese learners requiring oral production of grammatically correct Japanese particles. Selecting proper particles requires forward model-dependent active inference as their functions are highly context-dependent. As a control, participants read out a visually designated mora indicated by underlining. Particle selection by L1/L2 groups commonly activated the bilateral inferior frontal gyrus/insula, pre-supplementary motor area, left caudate, middle temporal gyrus, and right cerebellum, which constituted the core linguistic production system. In contrast, the left inferior frontal sulcus, known as the neural substrate of verbal working memory, showed more prominent activation in L2 than in L1. Thus, the active inference process causes L1/L2 differences even in highly proficient L2 learners.

scholarly journals Goal-Directed Planning for Habituated Agents by Active Inference Using a Variational Recurrent Neural Network

Entropy ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (5) ◽  
pp. 564
Author(s):  
Takazumi Matsumoto ◽  
Jun Tani
Keyword(s):  
Lower Bound ◽  
Latent Variables ◽  
Predictive Coding ◽  
Forward Model ◽  
Training Data ◽  
Active Inference ◽  
Model Framework ◽  
Model Learning ◽  
Proposed Model ◽  
Sensory Motor

It is crucial to ask how agents can achieve goals by generating action plans using only partial models of the world acquired through habituated sensory-motor experiences. Although many existing robotics studies use a forward model framework, there are generalization issues with high degrees of freedom. The current study shows that the predictive coding (PC) and active inference (AIF) frameworks, which employ a generative model, can develop better generalization by learning a prior distribution in a low dimensional latent state space representing probabilistic structures extracted from well habituated sensory-motor trajectories. In our proposed model, learning is carried out by inferring optimal latent variables as well as synaptic weights for maximizing the evidence lower bound, while goal-directed planning is accomplished by inferring latent variables for maximizing the estimated lower bound. Our proposed model was evaluated with both simple and complex robotic tasks in simulation, which demonstrated sufficient generalization in learning with limited training data by setting an intermediate value for a regularization coefficient. Furthermore, comparative simulation results show that the proposed model outperforms a conventional forward model in goal-directed planning, due to the learned prior confining the search of motor plans within the range of habituated trajectories.

scholarly journals Size Precedes View: Developmental Emergence of Invariant Object Representations in Lateral Occipital Complex

2015 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 474-491 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mayu Nishimura ◽  
K. Suzanne Scherf ◽  
Valentinos Zachariou ◽  
Michael J. Tarr ◽  
Marlene Behrmann
Keyword(s):  
Visual Processing ◽  
Internal Representation ◽  
Object Perception ◽  
Neural Representation ◽  
Object Representations ◽  
Object Identity ◽  
Sources Of Information ◽  
Diagnostic Features ◽  
Lateral Occipital Complex ◽  
Age Related

Although object perception involves encoding a wide variety of object properties (e.g., size, color, viewpoint), some properties are irrelevant for identifying the object. The key to successful object recognition is having an internal representation of the object identity that is insensitive to these properties while accurately representing important diagnostic features. Behavioral evidence indicates that the formation of these kinds of invariant object representations takes many years to develop. However, little research has investigated the developmental emergence of invariant object representations in the ventral visual processing stream, particularly in the lateral occipital complex (LOC) that is implicated in object processing in adults. Here, we used an fMR adaptation paradigm to evaluate age-related changes in the neural representation of objects within LOC across variations in size and viewpoint from childhood through early adulthood. We found a dissociation between the neural encoding of object size and object viewpoint within LOC: by age of 5–10 years, area LOC demonstrates adaptation across changes in size, but not viewpoint, suggesting that LOC responses are invariant to size variations, but that adaptation across changes in view is observed in LOC much later in development. Furthermore, activation in LOC was correlated with behavioral indicators of view invariance across the entire sample, such that greater adaptation was correlated with better recognition of objects across changes in viewpoint. We did not observe similar developmental differences within early visual cortex. These results indicate that LOC acquires the capacity to compute invariance specific to different sources of information at different time points over the course of development.

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