The impact of body posture on intrinsic brain activity: The role of beta power at rest

1.AbstractTying the hands behind the back has detrimental effect of sensorimotor perceptual tasks. Here we provide evidence that beta band oscillatory activity in a resting state condition might have a crucial role in such detrimental effects. EEG activity in a resting state condition was measured from thirty participants in two different body posture conditions. In one condition participants were required to keep their hands freely resting on the table. In the other condition, participants were required to keep the hands tied behind their back. Increased beta power was observed in the left inferior frontal gyrus (l-IFG) during the tied hands condition compared to the free hands condition. A control study ruled out alternative explanations including muscle tension that might have affected the EEG data. Our findings provide new insight on how body postural manipulations impact on perceptual tasks and intrinsic brain activity.

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The role of intrinsic brain activity in visual processing

Frontiers in Physiology ◽

10.3389/conf.fphys.2013.25.00031 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 4 ◽

Author(s):

Blanchard Florence ◽

Gil De Sagredo Martin Raúl ◽

De Polavieja Gonzalo ◽

Juusola Mikko

Keyword(s):

Visual Processing ◽

Brain Activity ◽

Intrinsic Brain Activity

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Respiration-Driven Brain Oscillations in Emotional Cognition

Frontiers in Neural Circuits ◽

10.3389/fncir.2021.761812 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 15 ◽

Author(s):

Shani Folschweiller ◽

Jonas-Frederic Sauer

Keyword(s):

Cognitive Functions ◽

Brain Activity ◽

Large Body ◽

Emotional Behavior ◽

Cortical Circuits ◽

Brain Oscillations ◽

Higher Cognitive Functions ◽

The Impact ◽

Emotional Cognition

Respiration paces brain oscillations and the firing of individual neurons, revealing a profound impact of rhythmic breathing on brain activity. Intriguingly, respiration-driven entrainment of neural activity occurs in a variety of cortical areas, including those involved in higher cognitive functions such as associative neocortical regions and the hippocampus. Here we review recent findings of respiration-entrained brain activity with a particular focus on emotional cognition. We summarize studies from different brain areas involved in emotional behavior such as fear, despair, and motivation, and compile findings of respiration-driven activities across species. Furthermore, we discuss the proposed cellular and network mechanisms by which cortical circuits are entrained by respiration. The emerging synthesis from a large body of literature suggests that the impact of respiration on brain function is widespread across the brain and highly relevant for distinct cognitive functions. These intricate links between respiration and cognitive processes call for mechanistic studies of the role of rhythmic breathing as a timing signal for brain activity.

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Language and Math: What If We Have Two Separate Naming Systems?

Languages ◽

10.3390/languages4030068 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 4 (3) ◽

pp. 68

Author(s):

Alejandro Martínez

Keyword(s):

Switch Cost ◽

Brain Activity ◽

Spanish Speakers ◽

Brain Areas ◽

Exact Arithmetic ◽

Source Estimation ◽

Numerical Representations ◽

The Impact ◽

The Brain

The role of language in numerical processing has traditionally been restricted to counting and exact arithmetic. Nevertheless, the impact that each of a bilinguals’ languages may have in core numerical representations has not been questioned until recently. What if the language in which math has been first acquired (LLmath) had a bigger impact in our math processing? Based on previous studies on language switching we hypothesize that balanced bilinguals would behave like unbalanced bilinguals when switching between the two codes for math. In order to address this question, we measured the brain activity with magneto encephalography (MEG) and source estimation analyses of 12 balanced Basque-Spanish speakers performing a task in which participants were unconscious of the switches between the two codes. The results show an asymmetric switch cost between the two codes for math, and that the brain areas responsible for these switches are similar to those thought to belong to a general task switching mechanism. This implies that the dominances for math and language could run separately from the general language dominance.

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nalysis of Impact of Alcohol on Brain's Activity

10.36939/ir.202201121120 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

◽

Dharitri Tripathy

Keyword(s):

Open Source ◽

Programming Language ◽

Emotional Regulation ◽

Brain Activity ◽

Time Frequency ◽

Memory And Attention ◽

Non Invasive ◽

Monitoring Process ◽

Beta Power ◽

The Impact

Electroencephalography is an electrophysiological monitoring process to capture electrical activity on the scalp that has been shown to represent the macroscopic activity of the surface layer of the brain underneath. It is typically non-invasive, with the electrodes placed along the scalp. Computer programs in different programming language such as MATLAB, Python are used to simulate and study brain signals. This thesis focuses on utilizing Python, an open-source programming language to understand the impact of alcohol on one’s memory and attention and comparing them with non-alcoholic brain. To carry out this research, we are using open-source EEG data collected from alcoholic and non-alcoholic subjects subjected to visual stimuli. Experiments are carried out to observe spatial patterns related to both groups' brain activity and their association with different region of brain such as memory, attention, somatosensory, and emotional regulation regions. Besides the spatial pattern, we are also focusing to find source signals and their association with respect to attention region to understand the impact of alcohol on one’s attention function. Finally, the optimal sources based on optimal alpha and gamma rhythms are estimated. For these optimal source channels, we estimated time-frequency based spectrogram to understand the association of other band powers for both groups. Beta power activities from these spectrograms are analyzed for both groups to understand attention-deficit caused by alcohol consumption. By analyzing the results from the experiments can help us understand the impact of alcohol on one's brain's activity.

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Frequency-Dependent Amplitude Alterations of Resting-State Spontaneous Fluctuations in Late-Onset Depression

BioMed Research International ◽

10.1155/2015/505479 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 2015 ◽

pp. 1-9 ◽

Cited By ~ 14

Author(s):

Yingying Yue ◽

Xize Jia ◽

Zhenghua Hou ◽

Yufeng Zang ◽

Yonggui Yuan

Keyword(s):

Resting State ◽

Late Onset ◽

Brain Activity ◽

Low Frequency ◽

Anterior Lobe ◽

Posterior Lobe ◽

Frequency Bands ◽

Relationship Analysis ◽

Intrinsic Brain Activity ◽

The Impact

There is limited amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation (ALFF) of resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies in late-onset depression (LOD) but reported different results. This may be due to the impact of different frequency bands. In this study, we examined the ALFF in five different frequency bands (slow-6: 0–0.01 Hz; slow-5: 0.01–0.027 Hz; slow-4: 0.027–0.073 Hz; slow-3: 0.073–0.167 Hz, and slow-2: 0.167–0.25 Hz) within the whole brain during resting-state fMRI in 16 LOD patients and 16 normal control (NC) subjects. The ALFF of primary effect of disease was widely distributed over left cerebellum anterior lobe, left cerebellum posterior lobe, left middle orbitofrontal gyrus, left superior occipital, and right superior parietal, while the interaction effect of disease and frequency was distributed over right superior frontal gyrus. Further relationship analysis findings suggest these abnormal ALFF may relate to cognitive dysfunction of LOD. Therefore, our data show that LOD patients have widespread abnormalities in intrinsic brain activity, which is dependent on the frequency band, and suggest that future studies should take the frequency bands into account when measuring intrinsic brain activity.

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Emotional Reactivity to Visual Content as Revealed by ERP Component Clustering

Journal of Psychophysiology ◽

10.1027/0269-8803/a000145 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 29 (4) ◽

pp. 135-146 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Miroslaw Wyczesany ◽

Szczepan J. Grzybowski ◽

Jan Kaiser

Keyword(s):

Emotional Reactivity ◽

Brain Activity ◽

Affective State ◽

Occipital Lobe ◽

Stimulus Onset ◽

Emotional States ◽

Neural Basis ◽

Temporoparietal Junction ◽

The Right ◽

The Impact

Abstract. In the study, the neural basis of emotional reactivity was investigated. Reactivity was operationalized as the impact of emotional pictures on the self-reported ongoing affective state. It was used to divide the subjects into high- and low-responders groups. Independent sources of brain activity were identified, localized with the DIPFIT method, and clustered across subjects to analyse the visual evoked potentials to affective pictures. Four of the identified clusters revealed effects of reactivity. The earliest two started about 120 ms from the stimulus onset and were located in the occipital lobe and the right temporoparietal junction. Another two with a latency of 200 ms were found in the orbitofrontal and the right dorsolateral cortices. Additionally, differences in pre-stimulus alpha level over the visual cortex were observed between the groups. The attentional modulation of perceptual processes is proposed as an early source of emotional reactivity, which forms an automatic mechanism of affective control. The role of top-down processes in affective appraisal and, finally, the experience of ongoing emotional states is also discussed.

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Intergroup Threat and Outgroup Attitudes

Social Psychology ◽

10.1027/1864-9335/a000127 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 44 (5) ◽

pp. 311-319 ◽

Cited By ~ 12

Author(s):

Marco Brambilla ◽

David A. Butz

Keyword(s):

Gay Men ◽

Social Group ◽

Welfare Recipients ◽

Intergroup Attitudes ◽

Social Policies ◽

Intergroup Threat ◽

Economic Threat ◽

The Impact ◽

General Climate

Two studies examined the impact of macrolevel symbolic threat on intergroup attitudes. In Study 1 (N = 71), participants exposed to a macrosymbolic threat (vs. nonsymbolic threat and neutral topic) reported less support toward social policies concerning gay men, an outgroup whose stereotypes implies a threat to values, but not toward welfare recipients, a social group whose stereotypes do not imply a threat to values. Study 2 (N = 78) showed that, whereas macrolevel symbolic threat led to less favorable attitudes toward gay men, macroeconomic threat led to less favorable attitudes toward Asians, an outgroup whose stereotypes imply an economic threat. These findings are discussed in terms of their implications for understanding the role of a general climate of threat in shaping intergroup attitudes.

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