scholarly journals The influence of the respiratory cycle on reaction times in sensory-cognitive paradigms

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle Johannknecht ◽  
Christoph Kayser
Keyword(s):  
Short Term Memory ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Reaction Times ◽  
Respiratory Cycle ◽  
Effect Sizes ◽  
Cognitive Tasks ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Electrophysiological Studies ◽  
Respiratory State ◽  
Cognitive Paradigms

Behavioural and electrophysiological studies point to widespread influence of the state of respiration on brain activity and cognitive performance. Still, the prevalence and relevance of such respiratory-behavioural relations in typical sensory-cognitive tasks remain unclear. We here used a battery of six tasks probing sensory detection, discrimination and short-term memory to address the questions of whether and by how much behaviour covaries with the respiratory cycle. Our results show that participants tended to align their respiratory cycle to the experimental paradigm. Furthermore, their reaction times, but not so much their response accuracy, consistently and significantly covaried with the respiratory cycle, and this effect was strongest when analyzed contingent on the respiratory state at participants' responses. The respective effect sizes where comparable to those seen in many typical neurocognitive experimental manipulations. These results support a prominent relation between respiration and sensory-cognitive function and suggest that sensation is intricately linked to rhythmic bodily or interoceptive functions.

scholarly journals Brain hemodynamic response in Examiner–Examinee dyads during spatial short-term memory task: an fNIRS study

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francesco Panico ◽  
Stefania De Marco ◽  
Laura Sagliano ◽  
Francesca D’Olimpio ◽  
Dario Grossi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Short Term Memory ◽  
Spatial Working Memory ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Memory Task ◽  
Neural Correlates ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Term Memory ◽  
The Real

AbstractThe Corsi Block-Tapping test (CBT) is a measure of spatial working memory (WM) in clinical practice, requiring an examinee to reproduce sequences of cubes tapped by an examiner. CBT implies complementary behaviors in the examiners and the examinees, as they have to attend a precise turn taking. Previous studies demonstrated that the Prefrontal Cortex (PFC) is activated during CBT, but scarce evidence is available on the neural correlates of CBT in the real setting. We assessed PFC activity in dyads of examiner–examinee participants while completing the real version of CBT, during conditions of increasing and exceeding workload. This procedure allowed to investigate whether brain activity in the dyads is coordinated. Results in the examinees showed that PFC activity was higher when the workload approached or reached participants’ spatial WM span, and lower during workload conditions that were largely below or above their span. Interestingly, findings in the examiners paralleled the ones in the examinees, as examiners’ brain activity increased and decreased in a similar way as the examinees’ one. In the examiners, higher left-hemisphere activity was observed suggesting the likely activation of non-spatial WM processes. Data support a bell-shaped relationship between cognitive load and brain activity, and provide original insights on the cognitive processes activated in the examiner during CBT.

Auditory comprehension and aging: Decline in syntactic processing

1991 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 433-452 ◽  
Author(s):  
Loraine K. Obler ◽  
Deborah Fein ◽  
Marjorie Nicholas ◽  
Martin L. Albert
Keyword(s):  
Short Term Memory ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Reaction Times ◽  
Syntactic Processing ◽  
Auditory Comprehension ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Mental Control ◽  
Syntactic Structures ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Neuropsychological Tasks

ABSTRACTComprehension of six syntactic structures was tested across four age groups. Each structure was presented with both plausible and implausible content. The contribution of cognitive nonlinguistic factors important for comprehension (attention, short-term memory, and mental control) was tested via standard neuropsychological tasks. Sixty-six women aged 30–79 were tested. Both errors and reaction times increased with age, especially for more complex syntactic types and implausible sentences. The neuropsychological factors tested contributed minimally to an age-related decline in comprehension, suggesting that the subtle breakdown seen in syntactic processing may be a language-specific impairment.

The Effects of Nicotine on Attention, Information Processing, and Short-Term Memory in Patients with Dementia of the Alzheimer Type

1989 ◽  
Vol 154 (6) ◽  
pp. 797-800 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara Sahakian ◽  
Gemma Jones ◽  
Raymond Levy ◽  
Jeffrey Gray ◽  
David Warburton
Keyword(s):  
Information Processing ◽  
Marked Improvement ◽  
Short Term Memory ◽  
Reaction Times ◽  
Critical Flicker Fusion ◽  
Alzheimer Type ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Term Memory ◽  
Flickering Light ◽  
Flicker Fusion

Nicotine in patients with dementia of the Alzheimer type (DAT) producted a significant and marked improvement in discriminative sensitivity and reaction times on a computerised test of attention and information processing. Nicotine also improved the ability of DAT patients to detect a flickering light in a critical flicker fusion test. These results suggest that nicotine may be acting on cortical mechanisms involved in visual perception and attention, and support the hypothesis that acetylcholine transmission modulates vigilance and discrimination. Nicotine may therefore be of some value in treating deficits in attention and information processing in DAT patients.

Contralateral cortical organisation of information in visual short-term memory: Evidence from lateralized brain activity during retrieval

2012 ◽  
Vol 50 (8) ◽  
pp. 1748-1758 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ulysse Fortier-Gauthier ◽  
Nicolas Moffat ◽  
Roberto Dell'Acqua ◽  
John J. McDonald ◽  
Pierre Jolicœur
Keyword(s):  
Short Term Memory ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Term Memory ◽  
Visual Short Term Memory

scholarly journals Understanding location- and feature-based processing along the human intraparietal sulcus

2016 ◽  
Vol 116 (3) ◽  
pp. 1488-1497 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine C. Bettencourt ◽  
Yaoda Xu
Keyword(s):  
Short Term Memory ◽  
Visual Cognition ◽  
Cognitive Tasks ◽  
Intraparietal Sulcus ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Object Individuation ◽  
Visual Short Term Memory ◽  
Feature Based ◽  
Partial Overlap

Based on different cognitive tasks and mapping methods, the human intraparietal sulcus (IPS) has been subdivided according to multiple different organizational schemes. The presence of topographically organized regions throughout IPS indicates a strong location-based processing in this brain region. However, visual short-term memory (VSTM) studies have shown that while a region in the inferior IPS region (inferior IPS) is involved in object individuation and selection based on location, a region in the superior IPS (superior IPS) primarily encodes and stores object featural information. Here, we determined the localization of these two VSTM IPS regions with respect to the topographic IPS regions in individual participants and the role of different IPS regions in location- and feature-based processing. Anatomically, inferior IPS showed an 85.2% overlap with topographic IPS regions, with the greatest overlap seen in V3A and V3B, and superior IPS showed a 73.6% overall overlap, with the greatest overlap seen in IPS0-2. Functionally, there appeared to be a partial overlap between IPS regions involved in location- and feature-based processing, with more inferior and medial regions showing a stronger location-based processing and more superior and lateral regions showing a stronger feature-based processing. Together, these results suggest that understanding the multiplex nature of IPS in visual cognition may not be reduced to examining the functions of the different IPS topographic regions, but rather, it can only be accomplished by understanding how regions identified by different tasks and methods may colocalize with each other.

Intermodal Perception of Temporal Order and Motor Skills: Effects of Age

1968 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 987-1000 ◽  
Author(s):  
Albert J. Dinnerstein ◽  
Phyllis Zlotogura
Keyword(s):  
Motor Skills ◽  
Temporal Order ◽  
Short Term Memory ◽  
Motor Task ◽  
Reaction Times ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Tactile Stimuli ◽  
Serial Reaction ◽  
Intermodal Perception ◽  
Perceptual Latency

Employing visual, auditory, and tactile stimuli, intermodal differences in perceptual latency were inferred by means of perception of temporal order (PTO) and by varieties of serial reaction times (RT) to the same stimuli. Skill at reading, peg board, tapping, and tracking was also determined for the same Ss. Mean intermodal differences in latency inferred from PTO were significantly different from those obtained from mean RTs. A correlation matrix showed that individual differences in visual, auditory and tactile latencies inferred from PTO were relatively independent of latencies inferred from RT. Consonant with previous studies, PTO scores correlated with reading rate and also with peg board speed. Taking age of Ss into account, the latter correlations were seen to be due exclusively to the presence of older Ss, who did show a correlation between PTO and RT. It was hypothesized that aged Ss show a decrease in perceptual “channel capacity” and a resulting overloading of short-term memory when faced with a complex perceptual and motor task.

scholarly journals Localization of brain activity during auditory verbal short-term memory derived from magnetic recordings

1991 ◽  
Vol 558 (2) ◽  
pp. 181-190 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arnold Starr ◽  
Rumyana Kristeva ◽  
Douglas Cheyne ◽  
Gerald Lindinger ◽  
Lu¨der Deecke
Keyword(s):  
Short Term Memory ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Term Memory

scholarly journals Sensory Recruitment in Visual Short-Term Memory: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Sensory Visual Cortex Interference Using Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Phivos Phylactou ◽  
Artemis Traikapi ◽  
Marietta Papadatou-Pastou ◽  
Nikos Konstantinou
Keyword(s):  
Visual Cortex ◽  
Visual Information ◽  
Short Term Memory ◽  
Meta Analysis ◽  
Maintenance Phase ◽  
Brain Network ◽  
Effect Sizes ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Term Memory ◽  
Meta Analyses

Visual short-term memory (VSTM) links perception with higher cognitive processes by maintaining visual information that is absent from the environment. Yet, it remains unclear if sensory visual cortex is a necessary component of the brain network that underlies short-term maintenance of visual information. Previous reviews remain inconclusive and open to interpretation. Here, we aimed to systematically identify and review studies that have investigated the role of the sensory visual cortex in VSTM using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), a method that allows exploration of causal relationships, and to quantitatively explore the effect of TMS interference on the sensory visual cortex during VSTM using meta-analytic methodology. Thirteen studies were identified and qualitatively reviewed. Out of those, seven studies provided sufficient statistical data for meta-analysis and yielded a total of 30 effect sizes, which were included in the meta-analyses. Two meta-analyses were conducted, one regarding the encoding phase of VSTM (19 effect sizes), and one regarding the maintenance phase of VSTM (11 effect sizes). The results from the systematic review and the two meta-analyses indicate that the sensory visual cortex is likely involved in both the encoding and maintenance phase of VSTM. In some cases, evidence did not show significant effects of TMS, however, this is suggested to be due to low memory load or low perceptual task demands. Overall, these findings support the idea that sensory visual areas are part of the brain network responsible for successfully maintaining information in short-term memory when no physical stimulus is present in the environment.

scholarly journals Quantifying differences between passive and task-evoked intrinsic functional connectivity in a large-scale brain simulation

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antonio Ulloa ◽  
Barry Horwitz
Keyword(s):  
Computational Model ◽  
Resting State ◽  
Short Term Memory ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Intrinsic Activity ◽  
Task Execution ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Visual Short Term Memory ◽  
And Task

AbstractEstablishing a connection between intrinsic and task-evoked brain activity is critical because it would provide a way to map task-related brain regions in patients unable to comply with such tasks. A crucial question within this realm is to what extent the execution of a cognitive task affects the intrinsic activity of brain regions not involved in the task. Computational models can be useful to answer this question because they allow us to distinguish task from non-task neural elements while giving us the effects of task execution on non-task regions of interest at the neuroimaging level. The quantification of those effects in a computational model would represent a step towards elucidating the intrinsic versus task-evoked connection. Here we used computational modeling and graph theoretical metrics to quantify changes in intrinsic functional brain connectivity due to task execution. We used our Large-Scale Neural Modeling framework to embed a computational model of visual short-term memory into an empirically derived connectome. We simulated a neuroimaging study consisting of ten subjects performing passive fixation (PF), passive viewing (PV) and delay match-to-sample (DMS) tasks. We used the simulated BOLD fMRI time-series to calculate functional connectivity (FC) matrices and used those matrices to compute several graph theoretical measures. After determining that the simulated graph theoretical measures were largely consistent with experiments, we were able to quantify the differences between the graph metrics of the PF condition and those of the PV and DMS conditions. Thus, we show that we can use graph theoretical methods applied to simulated brain networks to aid in the quantification of changes in intrinsic brain functional connectivity during task execution. Our results represent a step towards establishing a connection between intrinsic and task-related brain activity.Author SummaryStudies of resting-state conditions are popular in neuroimaging. Participants in resting-state studies are instructed to fixate on a neutral image or to close their eyes. This type of study has advantages over traditional task-based studies, including its ability to allow participation of those with difficulties performing tasks. Further, a resting-state neuroimaging study reveals intrinsic activity of participants’ brains. However, task-related brain activity may change this intrinsic activity, much as a stone thrown in a lake causes ripples on the water’s surface. Can we measure those activity changes? To answer that question, we merged a computational model of visual short-term memory (task regions) with an anatomical model incorporating major connections between brain regions (non-task regions). In a computational model, unlike real data, we know how different regions are connected and which regions are doing the task. First, we simulated neuronal and neuroimaging activity of both task and non-task regions during three conditions: passive fixation (baseline), passive viewing, and visual short-term memory. Then, applying graph theory to the simulated neuroimaging of non-task regions, we computed differences between the baseline and the other conditions. Our results show that we can measure changes in non-task regions due to brain activity changes in task-related regions.

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