scholarly journals Bi-Hemispheric Engagement in the Retrieval of Autobiographical Episodes

2005 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 203-210 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marie M. P. Vandekerckhove ◽  
Hans J. Markowitsch ◽  
Markus Mertens ◽  
Friedrich G. Woermann

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to study the neural correlates of neutral, stressful, negative and positive autobiographical memories. The brain activity produced by these different kinds of episodic memory did not differ significantly, but a common pattern of activation for different kinds of autobiographical memory was revealed that included (1) largely bilateral portions of the medial and superior temporal lobes, hippocampus and parahippocampus, (2) portions of the ventral, medial, superior and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, (3) the anterior and posterior cingulate, including the retrosplenial, cortex, (4) the parietal cortex, and (5) portions of the cerebellum. The brain regions that were mainly activated constituted an interactive network of temporal and prefrontal areas associated with structures of the extended limbic system. The main bilateral activations with left-sided preponderance probably reflected reactivation of complex semantic and episodic self-related information representations that included previously experienced contexts. In conclusion, the earlier view of a strict left versus right prefrontal laterality in the retrieval of semantic as opposed to episodic autobiographical memory, may have to be modified by considering contextual variables such as task demands and subject variables. Consequently, autobiographical memory integration should be viewed as based on distributed bi-hemispheric neural networks supporting multi-modal, emotionally coloured components of personal episodes.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alberto Sobrado ◽  
Ana F. Palenciano ◽  
Carlos González-García ◽  
María Ruz

AbstractVerbal instructions allow fast and optimal implementation of novel behaviors. Previous research has shown that different control-related variables organize neural activity in frontoparietal regions during the preparation of novel instructed task sets. Little is known, however, about how such variables organize brain activity under different task demands. In this study, we assessed the impact of implementation and memorization demands in the neural representation of novel instructions. We combined functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) with an instruction-following paradigm to compare the effect of three relevant control-related variables (integration of dimensions, response complexity, and stimulus category) across demands, and to explore the degree of overlap between these. Our results reveal, first, that the implementation and memorization of novel instructions share common neural patterns in several brain regions. Importantly, they also suggest that the preparation to implement instructions results in a strengthened coding of relevant control-related information in frontoparietal areas compared to their mere memorization. Overall, our study shows how the content of novel instructions proactively shapes brain activity based on multiple dimensions and how these organizational patterns are strengthened during implementation demands.


2015 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 203-213 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan C. Ipser ◽  
Gregory G. Brown ◽  
Amanda Bischoff-Grethe ◽  
Colm G. Connolly ◽  
Ronald J. Ellis ◽  
...  

AbstractHIV-associated cognitive impairments are prevalent, and are consistent with injury to both frontal cortical and subcortical regions of the brain. The current study aimed to assess the association of HIV infection with functional connections within the frontostriatal network, circuitry hypothesized to be highly vulnerable to HIV infection. Fifteen HIV-positive and 15 demographically matched control participants underwent 6 min of resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (RS-fMRI). Multivariate group comparisons of age-adjusted estimates of connectivity within the frontostriatal network were derived from BOLD data for dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), dorsal caudate and mediodorsal thalamic regions of interest. Whole-brain comparisons of group differences in frontostriatal connectivity were conducted, as were pairwise tests of connectivity associations with measures of global cognitive functioning and clinical and immunological characteristics (nadir and current CD4 count, duration of HIV infection, plasma HIV RNA). HIV – associated reductions in connectivity were observed between the DLPFC and the dorsal caudate, particularly in younger participants (<50 years, N=9). Seropositive participants also demonstrated reductions in dorsal caudate connectivity to frontal and parietal brain regions previously demonstrated to be functionally connected to the DLPFC. Cognitive impairment, but none of the assessed clinical/immunological variables, was also associated with reduced frontostriatal connectivity. In conclusion, our data indicate that HIV is associated with attenuated intrinsic frontostriatal connectivity. Intrinsic connectivity of this network may therefore serve as a marker of the deleterious effects of HIV infection on the brain, possibly via HIV-associated dopaminergic abnormalities. These findings warrant independent replication in larger studies. (JINS, 2015, 21, 1–11)


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.


2019 ◽  
Vol 375 (1791) ◽  
pp. 20190304 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryan Calmus ◽  
Benjamin Wilson ◽  
Yukiko Kikuchi ◽  
Christopher I. Petkov

Understanding how the brain forms representations of structured information distributed in time is a challenging endeavour for the neuroscientific community, requiring computationally and neurobiologically informed approaches. The neural mechanisms for segmenting continuous streams of sensory input and establishing representations of dependencies remain largely unknown, as do the transformations and computations occurring between the brain regions involved in these aspects of sequence processing. We propose a blueprint for a neurobiologically informed and informing computational model of sequence processing (entitled: Vector-symbolic Sequencing of Binding INstantiating Dependencies, or VS-BIND). This model is designed to support the transformation of serially ordered elements in sensory sequences into structured representations of bound dependencies, readily operates on multiple timescales, and encodes or decodes sequences with respect to chunked items wherever dependencies occur in time. The model integrates established vector symbolic additive and conjunctive binding operators with neurobiologically plausible oscillatory dynamics, and is compatible with modern spiking neural network simulation methods. We show that the model is capable of simulating previous findings from structured sequence processing tasks that engage fronto-temporal regions, specifying mechanistic roles for regions such as prefrontal areas 44/45 and the frontal operculum during interactions with sensory representations in temporal cortex. Finally, we are able to make predictions based on the configuration of the model alone that underscore the importance of serial position information, which requires input from time-sensitive cells, known to reside in the hippocampus and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Towards mechanistic models of meaning composition’.


2004 ◽  
Vol 34 (4) ◽  
pp. 577-581 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. C. FLETCHER

From the outset, people have had high expectations of functional neuroimaging. Many will have been disappointed. After roughly a decade of widespread use, even an enthusiastic advocate must be diffident about the impact of the two most frequently used techniques – positron emission tomography (PET) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) – upon clinical psychiatry. Perhaps this disappointment arises from an unrealistic expectation of what these techniques are able to tell us about the workings of the normal and the disordered brain. Anyone who hoped for intricate and unambiguous region-to-function mapping was always going to be disappointed. This expectation presupposes, among other things, a thorough understanding of the cognitive functions that are to be mapped onto the brain regions. This understanding, however, while developing, is still rudimentary. Mapping disorder along comparable lines is even more complex since it demands two levels of understanding. The first is of the healthy region-to-function mapping, the second of the disordered region-to-function mapping, which immediately demands a consideration of the nature of the function in the disordered state. After all, someone with schizophrenia, when confronted with a psychological task, might tackle it in a very different way, in terms of the cognitive strategies used, from a healthy person confronted with the same task. The observation that brain activity differs across the two individuals would only be interpretable insofar as one thoroughly understood the processes that each individual invoked in response to the task demands.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marlieke T.R. van Kesteren ◽  
Paul Rignanese ◽  
Pierre G. Gianferrara ◽  
Lydia Krabbendam ◽  
Martijn Meeter

AbstractBuilding consistent knowledge schemas that organize information and guide future learning is of great importance in everyday life. Such knowledge building is suggested to occur through reinstatement of prior knowledge during new learning in stimulus-specific brain regions. This process is proposed to yield integration of new with old memories, supported by the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and medial temporal lobe (MTL). Possibly as a consequence, congruency of new information with prior knowledge is known to enhance subsequent memory. Yet, it is unknown how reactivation and congruency interact to optimize memory integration processes that lead to knowledge schemas. To investigate this question, we here used an adapted AB-AC inference paradigm in combination with functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI). Participants first studied an AB-association followed by an AC-association, so B (a scene) and C (an object) were indirectly linked through their common association with A (an unknown pseudoword). BC-associations were either congruent or incongruent with prior knowledge (e.g. a bathduck or a hammer in a bathroom), and participants were asked to report subjective reactivation strength for B while learning AC. Behaviorally, both the congruency and reactivation measures enhanced memory integration. In the brain, these behavioral effects related to univariate and multivariate parametric effects of congruency and reactivation on activity patterns in the MTL, mPFC, and Parahippocampal Place Area (PPA). Moreover, mPFC exhibited larger connectivity with the PPA for more congruent associations. These outcomes provide insights into the neural mechanisms underlying memory integration enhancement, which can be important for educational learning.Significance statementHow does our brain build knowledge through integrating information that is learned at different periods in time? This question is important in everyday learning situations such as educational settings. Using an inference paradigm, we here set out to investigate how congruency with, and active reactivation of previously learned information affects memory integration processes in the brain. Both these factors were found to relate to activity in memory-related regions such as the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and the hippocampus. Moreover, activity in the parahippocampal place area (PPA), assumed to reflect reinstatement of the previously learned associate, was found to predict subjective reactivation strength. These results show how we can moderate memory integration processes to enhance subsequent knowledge building.


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.


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