scholarly journals Brain activity during moral judgement of action

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 67-81
Author(s):  
K.R. Arutyunova ◽  
I.M. Sozinova ◽  
Yu.I. Alexandrov
Keyword(s):  
Brain Activity ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Brain Structures ◽  
Interdisciplinary Studies ◽  
Moral Judgement ◽  
Individual Development ◽  
Functional Systems ◽  
History Of ◽  
Neurophysiological Mechanisms ◽  
The Brain

Interdisciplinary studies of cognitive and neurophysiological mechanisms of moral judgement often combine tools borrowed from philosophy, psychology and neuroscience. In this work, we review the studies of brain activity during moral judgement at different stages of individual development. Generally, it has been shown that moral judgement is accompanied by activations in brain areas related to emotion and social cognition; and these activations may vary across individuals of different age groups. We discuss these data from the positions of the system-evolutionary theory and compare our view with the domain-general approach to cognitive processes and brain activity underlying moral judgement. We suggest that moral judgement, as part of individual behaviour, is supported by activity of functional systems formed at different stages of individual development; therefore brain activity during moral judgement is accounted for by the specificity of distribution of neural elements of functional systems across the brain structures, which is determined by the history of an individual’s interactions with the environment.

scholarly journals Consciousness, decision making, and volition: freedom beyond chance and necessity

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans Liljenström
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Free Will ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Brain Structures ◽  
Complex Process ◽  
Neural Information ◽  
Neural Information Processing ◽  
Stochastic Population Model ◽  
The Brain

AbstractWhat is the role of consciousness in volition and decision-making? Are our actions fully determined by brain activity preceding our decisions to act, or can consciousness instead affect the brain activity leading to action? This has been much debated in philosophy, but also in science since the famous experiments by Libet in the 1980s, where the current most common interpretation is that conscious free will is an illusion. It seems that the brain knows, up to several seconds in advance what “you” decide to do. These studies have, however, been criticized, and alternative interpretations of the experiments can be given, some of which are discussed in this paper. In an attempt to elucidate the processes involved in decision-making (DM), as an essential part of volition, we have developed a computational model of relevant brain structures and their neurodynamics. While DM is a complex process, we have particularly focused on the amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) for its emotional, and the lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC) for its cognitive aspects. In this paper, we present a stochastic population model representing the neural information processing of DM. Simulation results seem to confirm the notion that if decisions have to be made fast, emotional processes and aspects dominate, while rational processes are more time consuming and may result in a delayed decision. Finally, some limitations of current science and computational modeling will be discussed, hinting at a future development of science, where consciousness and free will may add to chance and necessity as explanation for what happens in the world.

The Effect of Crystal Dependence on Brain Activity Related to the Perception of Pleasure Using fMRI

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ali Yoonessi ◽  
Seyed Amir Hossein Batouli ◽  
Iman Ahmadnezhad ◽  
Hamid Soltanian-zadeh
Keyword(s):  
Case Control Study ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Economic Status ◽  
Smoking History ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Human Society ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Control Study

Background: Addiction is currently one of the problems of human society. Drug abuse is one of the most important issues in the field of addiction. Methamphetamine (crystal) is one of the drugs that has been abused in recent decades. Methods: In this case-control study, 10 individuals aged 20 to 40 years old with at least 2 years of experience of methamphetamine consumption without any history of drug use or other stimulants from clients and drug withdrawal centers in Tehran City, and 10 healthy volunteers were selected. Age, social status, and economic status of addicts were included in the fMRI apparatus, and 90 selected pleasurable, non-pleasurable, and neutral images (IAPS) were displayed by the projector through an event-related method. The playback time of each photo was 3 s, and after this process, the person outside the device, without the time limit selected the enjoyable and unpleasant images. Results: The results showed that there was no significant difference between the groups in terms of age, alcohol use, and smoking history (P < 0.05). There was no significant difference in terms of the age at first use between members of the methamphetamine-dependent group. Also, the methamphetamine-dependent group showed more brain activity in their pre-center and post-center gyrus than the normal (control) group. Conclusions: According to the results obtained in this study, in general, it can be concluded that there are some areas in the brain of addicts that are activated when watching pleasant photos, while these areas are not active in the brains of normal people.

Activation of the Brainstem but not of the Hypothalamus in Hemicrania Continua without Autonomic Symptoms

Cephalalgia ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 29 (9) ◽  
pp. 974-979 ◽  
Author(s):  
P Irimia ◽  
J Arbi ◽  
E Prieto ◽  
R Fernández-Torrón ◽  
E Martínez-Vila
Keyword(s):  
Primary Headache ◽  
Brain Structures ◽  
Complete Response ◽  
Hemicrania Continua ◽  
Single Observation ◽  
Autonomic Symptoms ◽  
Positron Emission ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Brain ◽  
No Activation

A 64-year-old woman presented with a 6-month history of right-sided continuous headache, without autonomic symptoms and complete response to indomethacin. Clinical examination and structural brain imaging were normal. A diagnosis of hemicrania continua (HC) was made. We sought to determine the brain structures active during the pain in a patient who met all of the diagnostic criteria for HC with the exception of autonomic symptoms. A brain positron emission tomography study was performed during pain, and completely pain-free after indomethacin administration. Comparing the pain with pain-free states, the region of the dorsal pons was significantly activated. There was no activation in the hypothalamus, as previously reported in HC with autonomic symptoms. Although definitive conclusions can not be drawn from a single observation, the lack of autonomic symptoms along with the absence of hypothalamic activation suggests that the clinical presentation may predict the pattern of brain activation in primary headache syndromes.

scholarly journals CHANGES OF THE LOCAL FUNCTIONAL BRAIN ACTIVITY ASSOCIATED WITH SPEECH DISORDERS IN CHILDREN WITH EPILEPSY AND DEVELOPMENTAL DELAY (PET STUDY)

2019 ◽  
pp. 39-43
Author(s):  
Yu. G. Khomenko ◽  
G. V. Kataeva ◽  
V. I. Kolomiec
Keyword(s):  
Cerebral Metabolism ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Brain Structures ◽  
Speech Disorders ◽  
Speech Development ◽  
Metabolism Rate ◽  
Local Functional ◽  
Left And Right ◽  
Functional Brain Activity ◽  
The Brain

PET study of cerebral glucose metabolism was performed in 73 children with epilepsy and mental retardation. Expressive speech disorders were associated with decrease of cerebral metabolism rate of glucose (CMRglu) in the upper frontal gyrus, caudate nucleus and thalamus of the left and right hemispheres. In the group with combined expressive and impressive speech disorders the significant CMRglu reduction in the middle temporal and supramarginal gyrus of the left hemisphere was observed. The obtained results confirm that the brain structures associated with the executive functions and complex association processes have a great significance in the speech development.

scholarly journals Neurochemical mechanisms and pharmacology of ghrelins

2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-22
Author(s):  
Petr D. Shabanov ◽  
Andrei A. Lebedev ◽  
Eugenii R. Bychkov ◽  
Nikanor V. Lavrov ◽  
Vitalii I. Morozov
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
Molecular Forms ◽  
Pharmacological Agents ◽  
Ghrelin Receptor ◽  
Physiological Processes ◽  
History Of ◽  
Ghrelin Receptors ◽  
Neurophysiological Mechanisms ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
The Brain

The purpose of the review was to analyze the neurochemical and neurophysiological mechanisms of the ghrelin system and the role of ghrelin in body functions and behavior. The focus is on the participation of ghrelin in the mechanisms of reinforcement and the formation of addictive behavior. At the beginning of the review a history of the first works on the field of ghrelin and its receptor was described. Then, genetic control, molecular precursor of ghrelin, molecular forms of ghrelin and ghrelin receptor were represented. In particular, the distribution of the ghrelin receptor, ghrelin-producing cells in the brain and its participation in various physiological functions of the body were shown. The hypothalamic functions of ghrelin were discussed: energy balance, regulation of glucose metabolism, stimulation of eating behavior, regulation of hypophys-pituitary axis (HPA) system. The connection of ghrelin with the brain CRH system was demonstrated. In particular, activation of HPA was described as a possible mechanism through which ghrelin regulates a number of physiological processes. Extrahypothalamic action of ghrelin was shown on the basis of the mechanisms of reinforcement and addiction. On the basis of their own data and literary, it was concluded that action of alcohol and psychoactive drugs are reduced after the ghrelin receptors blockade. In particular, it has been demonstrated that alcoholization of mothers affects the activity of the ghrelin system during the prenatal and early postnatal periods of development in the offspring of rats. It was shown the participation of ghrelin in memory and learning. The further perspective of the study and practical application of ghrelin-based pharmacological agents was analyzed.

scholarly journals Insights into Early Word Comprehension: Tracking the Neural Representations of Word Semantics in Infants.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rohan Saha ◽  
Jennifer Campbell ◽  
Janet F. Werker ◽  
Alona Fyshe
Keyword(s):  
Brain Activity ◽  
Word Meaning ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Event Related Potential ◽  
Neural Representation ◽  
Machine Learning Techniques ◽  
Semantic Representations ◽  
Word Comprehension ◽  
Neural Representations ◽  
The Brain

Infants start developing rudimentary language skills and can start understanding simple words well before their first birthday. This development has also been shown primarily using Event Related Potential (ERP) techniques to find evidence of word comprehension in the infant brain. While these works validate the presence of semantic representations of words (word meaning) in infants, they do not tell us about the mental processes involved in the manifestation of these semantic representations or the content of the representations. To this end, we use a decoding approach where we employ machine learning techniques on Electroencephalography (EEG) data to predict the semantic representations of words found in the brain activity of infants. We perform multiple analyses to explore word semantic representations in two groups of infants (9-month-old and 12-month-old). Our analyses show significantly above chance decodability of overall word semantics, word animacy, and word phonetics. As we analyze brain activity, we observe that participants in both age groups show signs of word comprehension immediately after word onset, marked by our model's significantly above chance word prediction accuracy. We also observed strong neural representations of word phonetics in the brain data for both age groups, some likely correlated to word decoding accuracy and others not. Lastly, we discover that the neural representations of word semantics are similar in both infant age groups. Our results on word semantics, phonetics, and animacy decodability, give us insights into the evolution of neural representation of word meaning in infants.

Gene-culture interaction on human behavior and the brain

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shihui Han
Keyword(s):  
Human Behavior ◽  
Functional Organization ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Receptor Gene ◽  
Individual Development ◽  
Genetic Studies ◽  
Oxytocin Receptor Gene ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Self Reflection ◽  
The Brain

Chapter 7 reviews empirical findings that allow consideration of biological and environmental influences on human behavior from an evolutionary perspective (e.g., gene-culture coevolution) and from a perspective of individual development (e.g., gene-culture interaction). It also reviews imaging genetic studies that link genes with brain functional organization. It introduces a cultural neuroscience paradigm for investigating genetic influences on the coupling of brain activity and culture by presenting two studies that examined how serotonin transporter functional polymorphism and oxytocin receptor gene moderate the association between interdependence and brain activities involved in self-reflection and empathy. These studies illustrate a new approach to understanding the manner with which culture interacts with gene to shape human brain activity.

scholarly journals Analysis of task-based functional MRI data preprocessed with fMRIPrep

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oscar Esteban ◽  
Rastko Ciric ◽  
Karolina Finc ◽  
Ross Blair ◽  
Christopher J. Markiewicz ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Ad Hoc ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Imaging Data ◽  
Modeling And Analysis ◽  
Manual Intervention ◽  
Standard Tool ◽  
History Of ◽  
Brain Imaging Data ◽  
Many Sources ◽  
The Brain

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is a standard tool to investigate the neural correlates of cognition. fMRI noninvasively measures brain activity, allowing identification of patterns evoked by tasks performed during scanning. Despite the long history of this technique, the idiosyncrasies of each dataset have led to the use of ad-hoc preprocessing protocols customized for nearly every different study. This approach is time-consuming, error-prone, and unsuitable for combining datasets from many sources. Here we showcase fMRIPrep (http://fmriprep.org), a robust tool to prepare human fMRI data for statistical analysis. This software instrument addresses the reproducibility concerns of the established protocols for fMRI preprocessing. By leveraging the Brain Imaging Data Structure (BIDS) to standardize both the input datasets —MRI data as stored by the scanner— and the outputs —data ready for modeling and analysis—, fMRIPrep is capable of preprocessing a diversity of datasets without manual intervention. In support of the growing popularity of fMRIPrep, this protocol describes how to integrate the tool in a task-based fMRI investigation workflow.

Word Learning in 6-Month-Olds: Fast Encoding–Weak Retention

2011 ◽  
Vol 23 (11) ◽  
pp. 3228-3240 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manuela Friedrich ◽  
Angela D. Friederici
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Memory ◽  
Word Learning ◽  
Declarative Memory ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Brain Structures ◽  
Memory Formation ◽  
Fast Encoding ◽  
Frequent Exposure ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Lexical Mapping

There has been general consensus that initial word learning during early infancy is a slow and time-consuming process that requires very frequent exposure, whereas later in development, infants are able to quickly learn a novel word for a novel meaning. From the perspective of memory maturation, this shift in behavioral development might represent a shift from slow procedural to fast declarative memory formation. Alternatively, it might be caused by the maturation of specific brain structures within the declarative memory system that may support lexical mapping from the very first. Here, we used the neurophysiological method of ERPs to watch the brain activity of 6-month-old infants, when repeatedly presented with object–word pairs in a cross-modal learning paradigm. We report first evidence that infants as young as 6 months are able to associate objects and words after only very few exposures. A memory test 1 day later showed that infants did not fully forget this newly acquired knowledge, although the ERP effects indicated it to be less stable than immediately after encoding. The combined results suggest that already at 6 months the encoding process of word learning is based on fast declarative memory formation, but limitations in the consolidation of declarative memory diminish the long lasting effect in lexical-semantic memory at that age.

An overview of sleep medicine

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sudhansu Chokroverty ◽  
Sushanth Bhat
Keyword(s):  
Circadian Rhythms ◽  
Functional Neuroimaging ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Sleep Medicine ◽  
Cellular Level ◽  
Sleep Architecture ◽  
History Of ◽  
Function Of Sleep ◽  
And Function ◽  
The Brain

The importance of sleep is well recognized today, among both the academic and clinical communities. Advancements and refinement of functional neuroimaging have led to the ability to map various areas of the brain in different stages of sleep, and neurophysiological techniques have allowed researchers to study changes at the cellular level. However, there remain several unanswered fundamental questions about the nature and function of sleep. This chapter provides a brief overview of the history of sleep medicine and the latest theories about the function of sleep. Also discussed are sleep patterns across various age groups, circadian rhythms, sleep architecture, and the glymphatic system as it pertains to sleep.

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