scholarly journals Spatiotemporally distinct neural mechanisms underlie our reactions to and comparison between value-based options

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Frömer ◽  
A. Shenhav
Keyword(s):  
Neural Activity ◽  
Consumer Goods ◽  
Neural Correlates ◽  
Neural Mechanisms ◽  
Response Patterns ◽  
Related Activity

AbstractPrevious research suggests that people evaluate options in at least two ways: (1) appraising their overall value and (2) choosing between them. Here we test whether these processes are temporally dissociable, with appraisal-related processes tied to the time one’s options appear and choice-related processes tied to the time a decision is made. We recorded EEG while participants individually rated and subsequently made choices between consumer goods. As predicted, we found appraisal-related neural activity locked to the onset of the stimuli and choice-related activity locked to (and preceding) the response. Patterns of appraisal- and choice-related activity were further associated with distinct topographical profiles. Using a novel neural index of one’s certainty about a given item’s value, we also provide evidence that choices and choice-related activity were further modulated by this option-specific value certainty. Taken together, our results support the hypothesis that spatiotemporally distinct mechanisms underlie appraisal and choice, suggesting that commonly observed neural correlates of choice value may reflect either or both of these processes.

scholarly journals Neural correlates of beauty retouching to enhance attractiveness of self-depictions in women

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chisa Ota ◽  
Tamami Nakano
Keyword(s):  
Magnetic Resonance Imaging ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Neural Activity ◽  
Facial Attractiveness ◽  
Neural Correlates ◽  
Neural Mechanisms ◽  
Functional Magnetic Resonance ◽  
Resonance Imaging ◽  
Amygdala Activity ◽  
Increased Activity

AbstractBeauty filters, while often employed for retouching photos to appear more attractive on social media, when used in excess cause images to give a distorted impression. The neural mechanisms underlying this change in facial attractiveness according to beauty retouching level remain unknown. The present study used functional magnetic resonance imaging in women as they viewed photos of their own face or unknown faces that had been retouched at three levels: no, mild, and extreme. The activity in the nucleus accumbens (NA) exhibited a positive correlation with facial attractiveness, whereas amygdala activity showed a negative correlation with attractiveness. Even though the participants rated others’ faces as more attractive than their own, the NA showed increased activity only for their mildly retouched own face and the amygdala exhibited greater activation in the others’ faces condition than the own face condition. Moreover, amygdala activity was greater for extremely retouched faces than for unretouched or mildly retouched faces for both conditions. Frontotemporal and cortical midline areas showed greater activation for one’s own than others’ faces, but such self-related activation was absent when extremely retouched. These results suggest that neural activity dynamically switches between the NA and amygdala according to perceived attractiveness of one’s face.

scholarly journals Enhancing GABAergic Tone in the Rostral Nucleus of the Solitary Tract Reconfigures Sensorimotor Neural Activity

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua D. Sammons ◽  
Caroline E. Bass ◽  
Jonathan D. Victor ◽  
Patricia M. Di Lorenzo
Keyword(s):  
Neural Activity ◽  
Inhibitory Activity ◽  
Nucleus Tractus Solitarius ◽  
Artificial Saliva ◽  
Experimental Chamber ◽  
Response Patterns ◽  
Related Activity ◽  
Electrophysiological Recordings ◽  
Rostral Nucleus ◽  
The Relationship

ABSTRACTRecent work has shown that most cells in the rostral, gustatory portion of the nucleus tractus solitarius (rNTS) in awake, freely licking rats show lick-related firing. However, the relationship between taste-related and lick-related activity in rNTS remains unclear. Here, we tested if GABA-derived inhibitory activity regulates the balance of lick- and taste-driven neuronal activity. Combinatorial viral tools were used to restrict expression of ChR2-EYFP to GAD1+ GABAergic neurons. Viral infusions were bilateral in rNTS. 2-4wks later, an optical fiber attached to 8-16 drivable microwires was implanted into the rNTS. After recovery, water-deprived rats were presented with taste stimuli in an experimental chamber. Trials were 5 consecutive taste licks [NaCl, KCl, NH4Cl, sucrose, MSG/IMP, citric acid, quinine, or artificial saliva (AS)] separated by 5 AS licks on a VR5 schedule. Each taste lick triggered a 1s train of laser light (25Hz; 473nm; 8-10mW) in a random half of the trials. In all, 113 cells were recorded in the rNTS, 50 responded to one or more taste stimuli without GABA enhancement. Selective changes in response magnitude (spike count) within cells shifted across unit patterns but preserved inter-stimulus relationships. Cells where enhanced GABAergic tone increased lick coherence conveyed more information distinguishing basic taste qualities and different salts than other cells. In addition, GABA activation significantly amplified the amount of information that discriminated palatable vs. unpalatable tastants. By dynamically regulating lick coherence and remodeling the across-unit response patterns to taste, enhancing GABAergic tone in rNTS reconfigures the neural activity reflecting sensation and movement.Significance StatementThe rostral nucleus tractus solitarius (rNTS) is the first structure in the central gustatory pathway. Electrophysiological recordings from the rNTS in awake, freely-licking animals show that cells in this area have lick- as well as taste-related activity, but the relationship between these characteristics is not well understood. Here, we showed evidence that GABA activation can dynamically regulate both of these two properties in rNTS cells to enhance the information conveyed, especially about palatable vs. unpalatable tastants. These data provide insights into the role of inhibitory activity in the rNTS.

scholarly journals Spatiotemporal neural correlates of brain-computer interface learning

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marie-Constance Corsi ◽  
Mario Chavez ◽  
Denis Schwartz ◽  
Nathalie George ◽  
Laurent Hugueville ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Skill Acquisition ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Good Control ◽  
Neural Correlates ◽  
Neural Mechanisms ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Related Activity ◽  
Computer Interfaces ◽  
Neural Processes ◽  
Communication Control

AbstractBrain-computer interfaces have been largely developed to allow communication, control, and neurofeedback in human beings. Despite their great potential, BCIs perform inconsistently across individuals. Moreover, the neural processes activated by training that enable humans to achieve good control remain poorly understood. In this study, we show that BCI skill acquisition is paralleled by a progressive reinforcement of task-related activity and by the reduction of connectivity between regions beyond those primarily targeted during the experiments. Notably, these patterns of activity and connectivity reflect growing automaticity and predict future BCI performance. Altogether, our findings provide new insights in the neural mechanisms underlying BCI learning, which have implications for the use of this technology in a broad range of real-life applications.

Neural Correlates of the Automatic and Goal-Driven Biases in Orienting Spatial Attention

2004 ◽  
Vol 92 (3) ◽  
pp. 1728-1737 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jillian H. Fecteau ◽  
Andrew H. Bell ◽  
Douglas P. Munoz
Keyword(s):  
Superior Colliculus ◽  
Spatial Attention ◽  
Neural Activity ◽  
Inhibition Of Return ◽  
Neural Correlates ◽  
Behavioral Pattern ◽  
Visual Object ◽  
Related Activity ◽  
Superior Colliculi ◽  
New Locations

How do stimuli in the environment interact with the goals of observers? We addressed this question by showing that the relevance of an abruptly appearing visual object (cue) changes how observers orient attention toward a subsequent object (target) and how this target is represented in the activity of neurons in the superior colliculus. Initially after the appearance of the cue, attention is driven to its locus. This capture of attention is followed by a second bias in orienting attention, where observers preferentially orient to new locations in the visual scene—an effect called inhibition of return. In the superior colliculus, these two automatic biases in orienting attention were associated with changes in neural activity linked to the appearance of the target—relatively stronger activity linked to the capture of attention and weaker activity linked to inhibition of return. This behavioral pattern changes when the cue predicts the upcoming location of the target—the benefit associated with the capture of attention is enhanced and inhibition of return is reduced. These goal-driven changes in behavior were associated with an increase in pretarget- and target-related activity. Taken together, the goals of observers modify stimulus-driven changes in neural activity with both signals represented in the salience maps of the superior colliculi.

scholarly journals Neural correlates of the contents of visual awareness in humans

2007 ◽  
Vol 362 (1481) ◽  
pp. 877-886 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geraint Rees
Keyword(s):  
Neural Activity ◽  
Brain Area ◽  
Visual Awareness ◽  
Sufficient Conditions ◽  
Neural Correlates ◽  
Neural Mechanisms ◽  
Great Promise ◽  
Visual Areas ◽  
Frontal Activity ◽  
Necessary And Sufficient

The immediacy and directness of our subjective visual experience belies the complexity of the neural mechanisms involved, which remain incompletely understood. This review focuses on how the subjective contents of human visual awareness are encoded in neural activity. Empirical evidence to date suggests that no single brain area is both necessary and sufficient for consciousness. Instead, necessary and sufficient conditions appear to involve both activation of a distributed representation of the visual scene in primary visual cortex and ventral visual areas, plus parietal and frontal activity. The key empirical focus is now on characterizing qualitative differences in the type of neural activity in these areas underlying conscious and unconscious processing. To this end, recent progress in developing novel approaches to accurately decoding the contents of consciousness from brief samples of neural activity show great promise.

scholarly journals Neural correlates of winning and losing fights in poison frog tadpoles

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eva K Fischer ◽  
Harmony Alvarez ◽  
Katherine M Lagerstrom ◽  
Jordan E McKinney ◽  
Randi Petrillo ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Neural Activity ◽  
Preoptic Area ◽  
Neural Correlates ◽  
Neural Mechanisms ◽  
Arginine Vasotocin ◽  
Water Volume ◽  
Neural Activation ◽  
Neural Basis ◽  
Poison Frog ◽  
Frog Tadpoles

ABSTRACTAggressive competition for resources among juveniles is documented in many species, but the neural mechanisms regulating this behavior in young animals are poorly understood. In poison frogs, increased parental care is associated with decreased water volume of tadpole pools, resource limitation, and aggression. Indeed, the tadpoles of many poison frog species will attack, kill, and cannibalize other tadpoles. We examined the neural basis of conspecific aggression in Dyeing poison frog (Dendrobates tinctorius) tadpoles by comparing individuals that won aggressive encounters, lost aggressive encounters, or did not engage in a fight. We first compared patterns of generalized neural activity using immunohistochemical detection of phosphorylated ribosomes (pS6) as a proxy for neural activation associated with behavior. We found increased neural activity in the medial pallium and preoptic area of loser tadpoles, suggesting the amphibian homologs of the mammalian hippocampus and preoptic area may facilitate loser-associated behaviors. Nonapeptides (arginine vasotocin and mesotocin) and dopamine have been linked to aggression in other vertebrates and are located in the preoptic area. We next examined neural activity specifically in nonapeptide- and tyrosine-hydroxylase-positive cells using double-label immunohistochemistry. We found increased neural activity specifically in the preoptic area nonapeptide neurons of winners, whereas we found no differences in activity of dopaminergic cells among behavioral groups. Our findings suggest the neural correlates of aggression in poison frog tadpoles are similar to neural mechanisms mediating aggression in adults and juveniles of other vertebrate taxa.

scholarly journals Neural Correlates of Metamemory: A Comparison of Feeling-of-Knowing and Retrospective Confidence Judgments

2009 ◽  
Vol 21 (9) ◽  
pp. 1751-1765 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth F. Chua ◽  
Daniel L. Schacter ◽  
Reisa A. Sperling
Keyword(s):  
Neural Activity ◽  
Visual Processing ◽  
Memory Retrieval ◽  
Medial Temporal Lobe ◽  
Neural Correlates ◽  
Neural Mechanisms ◽  
Multiple Forms ◽  
Functional Roles ◽  
Feeling Of Knowing ◽  
Metamemory Monitoring

Metamemory refers to knowledge and monitoring of one's own memory. Metamemory monitoring can be done prospectively with respect to subsequent memory retrieval or retrospectively with respect to previous memory retrieval. In this study, we used fMRI to compare neural activity during prospective feeling-of-knowing and retrospective confidence tasks in order to examine common and distinct mechanisms supporting multiple forms of metamemory monitoring. Both metamemory tasks, compared to non-metamemory tasks, were associated with greater activity in medial prefrontal, medial parietal, and lateral parietal regions, which have previously been implicated in internally directed cognition. Furthermore, compared to non-metamemory tasks, metamemory tasks were associated with less activity in occipital regions, and in lateral inferior frontal and dorsal medial prefrontal regions, which have previously shown involvement in visual processing and stimulus-oriented attention, respectively. Thus, neural activity related to metamemory is characterized by both a shift toward internally directed cognition and away from externally directed cognition. Several regions demonstrated differences in neural activity between feeling-of-knowing and confidence tasks, including fusiform, medial temporal lobe, and medial parietal regions; furthermore, these regions also showed interaction effects between task and the subjective metamemory rating, suggesting that they are sensitive to the information monitored in each particular task. These findings demonstrate both common and distinct neural mechanisms supporting metamemory processes and also serve to elucidate the functional roles of previously characterized brain networks.

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 Correlates of Syntactic Processing in Two-Year-Olds

2005 ◽  
Vol 17 (10) ◽  
pp. 1667-1678 ◽  
Author(s):  
Regine Oberecker ◽  
Manuela Friedrich ◽  
Angela D. Friederici
Keyword(s):  
Sentence Processing ◽  
Phrase Structure ◽  
Neural Correlates ◽  
Neural Mechanisms ◽  
Syntactic Processing ◽  
Early Language ◽  
Late Positivity ◽  
Early Language Development ◽  
First Pass ◽  
Anterior Negativity

Event-related brain potential (ERP) studies of sentence processing in adults have shown that phrase-structure violations are associated with two ERP components: an early left anterior negativity (ELAN) and a late, centro-parietal positivity (P600). Although the ELAN reflects highly automatic first-pass sentence parsing, the P600 has been interpreted to reflect later, more controlled processes. The present ERP study investigates the processing of phrase-structure violations in children below three years of age. Both children (mean age of 2.8 years) and adults passively listened to short active sentences that were either correct or syntactically incorrect. Adults displayed an ELAN that was followed by a P600 to the syntactic violation. Children also demonstrated a biphasic ERP pattern consisting of an early left hemispheric negativity and a late positivity. Both components, however, started later and persisted longer than those observed in adults. The left lateralization of the children's negativity suggests that this component can be interpreted as a child-specific precursor to the ELAN observed in adults. The appearance of the early negativity indicates that the neural mechanisms of syntactic parsing are present, in principle, during early language development.

scholarly journals Can binocular rivalry reveal neural correlates of consciousness?

2014 ◽  
Vol 369 (1641) ◽  
pp. 20130211 ◽  
Author(s):  
Randolph Blake ◽  
Jan Brascamp ◽  
David J. Heeger
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Binocular Rivalry ◽  
Neural Activity ◽  
Neural Correlates ◽  
Causal Link ◽  
Neural Dynamics ◽  
Perceptual Decision Making ◽  
Neural Correlate ◽  
Neural Correlates Of Consciousness ◽  
Neural Correlate Of Consciousness

This essay critically examines the extent to which binocular rivalry can provide important clues about the neural correlates of conscious visual perception. Our ideas are presented within the framework of four questions about the use of rivalry for this purpose: (i) what constitutes an adequate comparison condition for gauging rivalry's impact on awareness, (ii) how can one distinguish abolished awareness from inattention, (iii) when one obtains unequivocal evidence for a causal link between a fluctuating measure of neural activity and fluctuating perceptual states during rivalry, will it generalize to other stimulus conditions and perceptual phenomena and (iv) does such evidence necessarily indicate that this neural activity constitutes a neural correlate of consciousness? While arriving at sceptical answers to these four questions, the essay nonetheless offers some ideas about how a more nuanced utilization of binocular rivalry may still provide fundamental insights about neural dynamics, and glimpses of at least some of the ingredients comprising neural correlates of consciousness, including those involved in perceptual decision-making.

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