COGNITIVE FUNCTION ASSESSMENT IN YOUNG ADULT USING TRAIL MAKING AND STROOP TESTS

2016 ◽  
Vol 78 (7-5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Syazreen Hashim ◽  
Norlaili Mat Safri ◽  
Mohd Afzan Othman ◽  
Nor Aini Zakaria

Cortical network between brain regions is one of the topics that being investigated by brain researchers. Methods that are used to investigate brain developments of cognitive function include Partial Directed Coherence (PDC) and the power spectrum of the brain activity. The purposes of this study were to determine the cortico-cortical functional connectivity between brain regions using PDC and to investigate the power spectrum of brain activity while performing cognitive function assessments. Twenty healthy young adults, age between 20 to 30 years old, were asked to perform two tasks/tests; Trail Making Test (TMTA-alphabet, TMTA-number, TMTB-mixed alphabets and numerical) and Stroop Task. An electroencephalogram (EEG) machine was used to record the brain signals, and the data were analyzed using PDC and Fast Fourier Transform (FFT).Our findings showed that not only frontal area but temporal and occipital area also generates information and the information was sent to various scalp location. Theta frequency was significantly increased at frontal area while gamma and high-gamma frequency bands were significantly increased at centro-parieto-occipito-temporal regions. All of these areas are associated with cognitive function doing specific task.

Author(s):  
Kazutaka Ueda

A consumer’s emotional response to a product is influenced by cognitive processes, such as memories associated with use of the product and expectations of its performance. Here, we propose a cognitive neural model of Expectology, called PEAM (Prediction - Experience - Appraisal - Memory), as a novel tool that considers consumers’ emotional responses in order to aid in product design. The PEAM model divides cognitive processes associated with product use into 4 phases: prediction, experience, appraisal, and memory. We examined the spatiotemporal changes in brain activity associated with product evaluation and memory during the prediction phase, by obtaining electroencephalograms (EEGs). EEGs of 10 healthy participants with normal or corrected-to-normal vision were recorded while they viewed images of products as well as when they provided a preference rating for each product. Our results revealed significantly increased neural activity in the gamma frequency in the temporal areas, the brain regions where declarative memory is stored, and in the prefrontal area for products that were rated as preferable. Our data suggest that memory is used for product evaluation in the prediction phase. These findings also suggest that activity in these specific brain areas are reliable predictors for product evaluation.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-29
Author(s):  
Kangyu Jin ◽  
Zhe Shen ◽  
Guoxun Feng ◽  
Zhiyong Zhao ◽  
Jing Lu ◽  
...  

Abstract Objective: A few former studies suggested there are partial overlaps in abnormal brain structure and cognitive function between Hypochondriasis (HS) and schizophrenia (SZ). But their differences in brain activity and cognitive function were unclear. Methods: 21 HS patients, 23 SZ patients, and 24 healthy controls (HC) underwent Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) with the regional homogeneity analysis (ReHo), subsequently exploring the relationship between ReHo value and cognitive functions. The support vector machines (SVM) were used on effectiveness evaluation of ReHo for differentiating HS from SZ. Results: Compared with HC, HS showed significantly increased ReHo values in right middle temporal gyrus (MTG), left inferior parietal lobe (IPL) and right fusiform gyrus (FG), while SZ showed increased ReHo in left insula, decreased ReHo values in right paracentral lobule. Additionally, HS showed significantly higher ReHo values in FG, MTG and left paracentral lobule but lower in insula than SZ. The higher ReHo values in insula were associated with worse performance in MCCB in HS group. SVM analysis showed a combination of the ReHo values in insula and FG was able to satisfactorily distinguish the HS and SZ patients. Conclusion: our results suggested the altered default mode network (DMN), of which abnormal spontaneous neural activity occurs in multiple brain regions, might play a key role in the pathogenesis of HS, and the resting-state alterations of insula closely related to cognitive dysfunction in HS. Furthermore, the combination of the ReHo in FG and insula was a relatively ideal indicator to distinguish HS from SZ.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Takashi Nakano ◽  
Masahiro Takamura ◽  
Haruki Nishimura ◽  
Maro Machizawa ◽  
Naho Ichikawa ◽  
...  

AbstractNeurofeedback (NF) aptitude, which refers to an individual’s ability to change its brain activity through NF training, has been reported to vary significantly from person to person. The prediction of individual NF aptitudes is critical in clinical NF applications. In the present study, we extracted the resting-state functional brain connectivity (FC) markers of NF aptitude independent of NF-targeting brain regions. We combined the data in fMRI-NF studies targeting four different brain regions at two independent sites (obtained from 59 healthy adults and six patients with major depressive disorder) to collect the resting-state fMRI data associated with aptitude scores in subsequent fMRI-NF training. We then trained the regression models to predict the individual NF aptitude scores from the resting-state fMRI data using a discovery dataset from one site and identified six resting-state FCs that predicted NF aptitude. Next we validated the prediction model using independent test data from another site. The result showed that the posterior cingulate cortex was the functional hub among the brain regions and formed predictive resting-state FCs, suggesting NF aptitude may be involved in the attentional mode-orientation modulation system’s characteristics in task-free resting-state brain activity.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (12) ◽  
pp. 936
Author(s):  
Yujia Wu ◽  
Jingwen Ma ◽  
Lei Cai ◽  
Zengjian Wang ◽  
Miao Fan ◽  
...  

It is unclear whether the brain activity during phonological processing of second languages (L2) is similar to that of the first language (L1) in trilingual individuals, especially when the L1 is logographic, and the L2s are logographic and alphabetic, respectively. To explore this issue, this study examined brain activity during visual and auditory word rhyming tasks in Cantonese–Mandarin–English trilinguals. Thirty Chinese college students whose L1 was Cantonese and L2s were Mandarin and English were recruited. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was conducted while subjects performed visual and auditory word rhyming tasks in three languages (Cantonese, Mandarin, and English). The results revealed that in Cantonese–Mandarin–English trilinguals, whose L1 is logographic and the orthography of their L2 is the same as L1—i.e., Mandarin and Cantonese, which share the same set of Chinese characters—the brain regions for the phonological processing of L2 are different from those of L1; when the orthography of L2 is quite different from L1, i.e., English and Cantonese who belong to different writing systems, the brain regions for the phonological processing of L2 are similar to those of L1. A significant interaction effect was observed between language and modality in bilateral lingual gyri. Regions of interest (ROI) analysis at lingual gyri revealed greater activation of this region when using English than Cantonese and Mandarin in visual tasks.


Author(s):  
Ole Adrian Heggli ◽  
Ivana Konvalinka ◽  
Joana Cabral ◽  
Elvira Brattico ◽  
Morten L Kringelbach ◽  
...  

Abstract Interpersonal coordination is a core part of human interaction, and its underlying mechanisms have been extensively studied using social paradigms such as joint finger-tapping. Here, individual and dyadic differences have been found to yield a range of dyadic synchronization strategies, such as mutual adaptation, leading–leading, and leading–following behaviour, but the brain mechanisms that underlie these strategies remain poorly understood. To identify individual brain mechanisms underlying emergence of these minimal social interaction strategies, we contrasted EEG-recorded brain activity in two groups of musicians exhibiting the mutual adaptation and leading–leading strategies. We found that the individuals coordinating via mutual adaptation exhibited a more frequent occurrence of phase-locked activity within a transient action–perception-related brain network in the alpha range, as compared to the leading–leading group. Furthermore, we identified parietal and temporal brain regions that changed significantly in the directionality of their within-network information flow. Our results suggest that the stronger weight on extrinsic coupling observed in computational models of mutual adaptation as compared to leading–leading might be facilitated by a higher degree of action–perception network coupling in the brain.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luis M. Franco ◽  
Emre Yaksi

ABSTRACTOngoing neural activity has been observed across several brain regions and thought to reflect the internal state of the brain. Yet, it is not fully understood how ongoing brain activity interacts with sensory experience and shape sensory representations. Here, we show that projection neurons of the fruit fly antennal lobe exhibit spatiotemporally organized ongoing activity in the absence of odor stimulation. Upon repeated exposure to odors, we observe a gradual and long-lasting decrease in the amplitude and frequency of spontaneous calcium events, as well as a reorganization of correlations between olfactory glomeruli during ongoing activity. Accompanying these plastic changes, we find that repeated odor experience reduces trial-to-trial variability and enhances the specificity of odor representations. Our results reveal a previously undescribed experience-dependent plasticity of ongoing and sensory driven activity at peripheral levels of the fruit fly olfactory system.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adrián Ponce-Alvarez ◽  
Lynn Uhrig ◽  
Nikolas Deco ◽  
Camilo M. Signorelli ◽  
Morten L. Kringelbach ◽  
...  

AbstractThe study of states of arousal is key to understand the principles of consciousness. Yet, how different brain states emerge from the collective activity of brain regions remains unknown. Here, we studied the fMRI brain activity of monkeys during wakefulness and anesthesia-induced loss of consciousness. Using maximum entropy models, we derived collective, macroscopic properties that quantify the system’s capabilities to produce work, to contain information and to transmit it, and that indicate a phase transition from critical awake dynamics to supercritical anesthetized states. Moreover, information-theoretic measures identified those parameters that impacted the most the network dynamics. We found that changes in brain state and in state of consciousness primarily depended on changes in network couplings of insular, cingulate, and parietal cortices. Our findings suggest that the brain state transition underlying the loss of consciousness is predominantly driven by the uncoupling of specific brain regions from the rest of the network.


HortScience ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
Seon-Ok Kim ◽  
Ji-Eun Jeong ◽  
Yun-Ah Oh ◽  
Ha-Ram Kim ◽  
Sin-Ae Park

This study aimed to compare the brain activity and emotional states of elementary school students during horticultural and nonhorticultural activities. A total of 30 participants with a mean age of 11.4 ± 1.3 years were included. This experiment was conducted at Konkuk University campus in Korea. Participants performed horticultural activities such as harvesting, planting, sowing seeds, and mixing soil. Nonhorticultural activities included playing with a ball, solving math problems, watching animation videos, folding paper, and reading a book. The study had a crossover experimental design. Brain activity of the prefrontal lobes was measured by electroencephalography during each activity for 3 minutes. On completion of each activity, participants answered a subjective emotion questionnaire using the semantic differential method (SDM). Results showed that relative theta (RT) power spectrum was significantly lower in both prefrontal lobes of participants when engaged in harvesting and reading a book. The relative mid beta (RMB) power spectrum was significantly higher in both prefrontal lobes when participants engaged in harvesting and playing with a ball. The ratio of the RMB power spectrum to the RT power spectrum reflects concentration. This ratio increased during harvesting activity, indicating that children’s concentration also increased. The sensorimotor rhythm (SMR) from mid beta to theta (RSMT), another indicator of concentration, was significantly higher in the right prefrontal lobe during harvesting than during other activities. Furthermore, SDM results showed that the participants felt more natural and relaxed when performing horticultural activities than nonhorticultural activities. Horticultural activities may improve brain activity and psychological relaxation in children. Harvesting activity was most effective for improving children’s concentration compared with nonhorticultural activities.


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Frigyes Samuel Racz ◽  
Orestis Stylianou ◽  
Peter Mukli ◽  
Andras Eke

Abstract Functional connectivity of the brain fluctuates even in resting-state condition. It has been reported recently that fluctuations of global functional network topology and those of individual connections between brain regions expressed multifractal scaling. To expand on these findings, in this study we investigated if multifractality was indeed an inherent property of dynamic functional connectivity (DFC) on the regional level as well. Furthermore, we explored if local DFC showed region-specific differences in its multifractal and entropy-related features. DFC analyses were performed on 62-channel, resting-state electroencephalography recordings of twelve young, healthy subjects. Surrogate data testing verified the true multifractal nature of regional DFC that could be attributed to the presumed nonlinear nature of the underlying processes. Moreover, we found a characteristic spatial distribution of local connectivity dynamics, in that frontal and occipital regions showed stronger long-range correlation and higher degree of multifractality, whereas the highest values of entropy were found over the central and temporal regions. The revealed topology reflected well the underlying resting-state network organization of the brain. The presented results and the proposed analysis framework could improve our understanding on how resting-state brain activity is spatio-temporally organized and may provide potential biomarkers for future clinical research.


2001 ◽  
Vol 86 (2) ◽  
pp. 809-823 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dirk Jones ◽  
F. Gonzalez-Lima

Pavlovian conditioning effects on the brain were investigated by mapping rat brain activity with fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) autoradiography. The goal was to map the effects of the same tone after blocking or eliciting a conditioned emotional response (CER). In the tone-blocked group, previous learning about a light blocked a CER to the tone. In the tone-excitor group, the same pairings of tone with shock US resulted in a CER to the tone in the absence of previous learning about the light. A third group showed no CER after pseudorandom presentations of these stimuli. Brain systems involved in the various associative effects of Pavlovian conditioning were identified, and their functional significance was interpreted in light of previous FDG studies. Three conditioning effects were mapped: 1) blocking effects: FDG uptake was lower in medial prefrontal cortex and higher in spinal trigeminal and cuneate nuclei in the tone-blocked group relative to the tone-excitor group. 2) Contiguity effects: relative to pseudorandom controls, similar FDG uptake increases in the tone-blocked and -excitor groups were found in auditory regions (inferior colliculus and cortex), hippocampus (CA1), cerebellum, caudate putamen, and solitary nucleus. Contiguity effects may be due to tone-shock pairings common to the tone-blocked and -excitor groups rather than their different CER. And 3) excitatory effects: FDG uptake increases limited to the tone-excitor group occurred in a circuit linked to the CER, including insular and anterior cingulate cortex, vertical diagonal band nucleus, anterior hypothalamus, and caudoventral caudate putamen. This study provided the first large-scale map of brain regions underlying the Kamin blocking effect on conditioning. In particular, the results suggest that suppression of prefrontal activity and activation of unconditioned stimulus pathways are important neural substrates of the Kamin blocking effect.


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