Temporo-parietal and fronto-parietal lobe contributions to theory of mind and executive control: an fMRI study of verbal jokes

Age-related decline in Theory of Mind (ToM) may be due to waning executive control, which is necessary for resolving conflict when reasoning about others’ mental states. We assessed how older (OA; n=50) versus younger adults (YA; n=50) were affected by three theoretically relevant sources of conflict within ToM: competing Self-Other perspectives; competing cued locations and outcome knowledge. We examined which best accounted for age-related difficulty with ToM. Our data show unexpected similarity between age groups when representing a belief incongruent with one’s own. Individual differences in attention and motor response speed best explained the degree of conflict experienced through conflicting Self-Other perspectives. However, OAs were disproportionately affected by managing conflict between cued locations. Age and spatial working memory were most relevant for predicting the magnitude of conflict elicited by conflicting cued locations. We suggest that previous studies may have underestimated OA’s ToM proficiency by including unnecessary conflict in ToM tasks.

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Depressive Traits and Theory of Mind in Healthy Individuals: A Mediation Study

10.31237/osf.io/ndjcr ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Nicholas James Rowark

Keyword(s):

Theory Of Mind ◽

Executive Functions ◽

Executive Control ◽

Statistical Power ◽

Social Cognitive ◽

Clinical Sample ◽

Small Sample ◽

Future Research ◽

Healthy Individuals ◽

Prepotent Response

Depression has been associated with poor social cognitive functioning, including impaired performance on measures of theory of mind. However, the association between depression and theory of mind performance has been removed when controlling for differences in executive functioning, which is also impacted by depression. Among these executive functions, inhibition of prepotent response has been demonstrated as enabling success on theory of mind tests. In the context of these findings, the current investigation tested whether a relationship could be found between depressive traits and theory of mind in a non-clinical sample, and whether this relationship was mediated by differences in executive control of inhibition. Theory of mind was assessed in 31 healthy individuals using an audio-presented false-belief reasoning task, which also tested baseline performance in non-mental-state reasoning. Inhibition of prepotent response was assessed with interference measures on a Stroop colour-word task, and depressive traits were self-reported through the second version of the Beck Depression Inventory. Mediation analysis revealed that executive control of inhibition did not significantly mediate an indirect effect of depressive traits on theory of mind. It was interpreted that relationships previously found between major depression, executive and social-cognitive functions do not generalise beyond clinical boundaries. However, these findings are discussed in terms of the small sample size, limiting statistical power, and several methodological limitations. Future research should assess the relationship between depressive traits and theory of mind using alternative measures of mental representation, or include a neurocognitive battery assessing executive functions other than inhibition.

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Theory of Mind impairments in early course schizophrenia: An fMRI study

Journal of Psychiatric Research ◽

10.1016/j.jpsychires.2021.02.010 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 136 ◽

pp. 236-243

Author(s):

Rachal R. Hegde ◽

Synthia Guimond ◽

Deepthi Bannai ◽

Victor Zeng ◽

Shezal Padani ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Theory Of Mind ◽

Early Course ◽

Fmri Study

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Effects of ketamine on brain function during metacognition of episodic memory

Neuroscience of Consciousness ◽

10.1093/nc/niaa028 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 2021 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Mirko Lehmann ◽

Claudia Neumann ◽

Sven Wasserthal ◽

Johannes Schultz ◽

Achilles Delis ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Episodic Memory ◽

Parietal Lobe ◽

Memory Task ◽

Reaction Times ◽

Neural Correlates ◽

Double Blind ◽

Lingual Gyrus ◽

States Of Consciousness ◽

Fmri Study ◽

Confidence Ratings

Abstract Only little research has been conducted on the pharmacological underpinnings of metacognition. Here, we tested the modulatory effects of a single intravenous dose (100 ng/ml) of the N-methyl-D-aspartate-glutamate-receptor antagonist ketamine, a compound known to induce altered states of consciousness, on metacognition and its neural correlates. Fifty-three young, healthy adults completed two study phases of an episodic memory task involving both encoding and retrieval in a double-blind, placebo-controlled fMRI study. Trial-by-trial confidence ratings were collected during retrieval. Effects on the subjective state of consciousness were assessed using the 5D-ASC questionnaire. Confirming that the drug elicited a psychedelic state, there were effects of ketamine on all 5D-ASC scales. Acute ketamine administration during retrieval had deleterious effects on metacognitive sensitivity (meta-d′) and led to larger metacognitive bias, with retrieval performance (d′) and reaction times remaining unaffected. However, there was no ketamine effect on metacognitive efficiency (meta-d′/d′). Measures of the BOLD signal revealed that ketamine compared to placebo elicited higher activation of posterior cortical brain areas, including superior and inferior parietal lobe, calcarine gyrus, and lingual gyrus, albeit not specific to metacognitive confidence ratings. Ketamine administered during encoding did not significantly affect performance or brain activation. Overall, our findings suggest that ketamine impacts metacognition, leading to significantly larger metacognitive bias and deterioration of metacognitive sensitivity as well as unspecific activation increases in posterior hot zone areas of the neural correlates of consciousness.

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Distinguishing hypochondriasis and schizophrenia using regional homogeneity: a resting-state fMRI study and support vector machine analysis

Acta Neuropsychiatrica ◽

10.1017/neu.2021.9 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 1-29

Author(s):

Kangyu Jin ◽

Zhe Shen ◽

Guoxun Feng ◽

Zhiyong Zhao ◽

Jing Lu ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Cognitive Function ◽

Resting State ◽

Parietal Lobe ◽

Brain Activity ◽

Resting State Fmri ◽

Brain Regions ◽

Regional Homogeneity ◽

Middle Temporal Gyrus ◽

Support Vector ◽

Fmri Study

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.

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Investigating neural mechanisms that interface between self and others: An fMRI study on the theory of mind and empathy

Neuroscience Research ◽

10.1016/j.neures.2010.07.357 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 68 ◽

pp. e26-e27

Author(s):

Noriaki Yahata

Keyword(s):

Theory Of Mind ◽

Neural Mechanisms ◽

Fmri Study

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Automaticity and Reestablishment of Executive Control—An fMRI Study

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience ◽

10.1162/jocn.2006.18.8.1331 ◽

2006 ◽

Vol 18 (8) ◽

pp. 1331-1342 ◽

Cited By ~ 77

Author(s):

Andrea Kübler ◽

Veronica Dixon ◽

Hugh Garavan

Keyword(s):

Executive Control ◽

Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex ◽

Search Task ◽

Visual Search Task ◽

Cortical Activation ◽

Automatic Behavior ◽

Automatic Response ◽

Fmri Study ◽

Dorsolateral Prefrontal

The ability to exert control over automatic behavior is of particular importance as it allows us to interrupt our behavior when the automatic response is no longer adequate or even dangerous. However, despite the literature that exists on the effects of practice on brain activation, little is known about the neuroanatomy involved in reestablishing executive control over previously automatized behavior. We present a visual search task that enabled participants to automatize according to defined criteria within about 3 hr of practice and then required them to reassert control without changing the stimulus set. We found widespread cortical activation early in practice. Activation in all frontal areas and in the inferior parietal lobule decreased significantly with practice. Only selected prefrontal (Brodmann's areas [BAs] 9/46/8) and parietal areas (BAs 39/40) were specifically reactivated when executive control was required, underlining the crucial role of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in executive control to guide our behavior.

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Corticostriatothalamic reward prediction error signals and executive control in late-life depression

Psychological Medicine ◽

10.1017/s0033291714002517 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 45 (7) ◽

pp. 1413-1424 ◽

Cited By ~ 15

Author(s):

A. Y. Dombrovski ◽

K. Szanto ◽

L. Clark ◽

H. J. Aizenstein ◽

H. W. Chase ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Functional Connectivity ◽

Executive Control ◽

Late Life ◽

Vascular Lesions ◽

Contingency Learning ◽

Late Life Depression ◽

Vascular Depression ◽

Fmri Study ◽

Core Feature ◽

Control Functional

BackgroundAltered corticostriatothalamic encoding of reinforcement is a core feature of depression. Here we examine reinforcement learning in late-life depression in the theoretical framework of the vascular depression hypothesis. This hypothesis attributes the co-occurrence of late-life depression and poor executive control to prefrontal/cingulate disconnection by vascular lesions.MethodOur fMRI study compared 31 patients aged ⩾60 years with major depression to 16 controls. Using a computational model, we estimated neural and behavioral responses to reinforcement in an uncertain, changing environment (probabilistic reversal learning).ResultsPoor executive control and depression each explained distinct variance in corticostriatothalamic response to unexpected rewards. Depression, but not poor executive control, predicted disrupted functional connectivity between the striatum and prefrontal cortex. White-matter hyperintensities predicted diminished corticostriatothalamic responses to reinforcement, but did not mediate effects of depression or executive control. In two independent samples, poor executive control predicted a failure to persist with rewarded actions, an effect distinct from depressive oversensitivity to punishment. The findings were unchanged in a subsample of participants with vascular disease. Results were robust to effects of confounders including psychiatric comorbidities, physical illness, depressive severity, and psychotropic exposure.ConclusionsContrary to the predictions of the vascular depression hypothesis, altered encoding of rewards in late-life depression is dissociable from impaired contingency learning associated with poor executive control. Functional connectivity and behavioral analyses point to a disruption of ascending mesostriatocortical reward signals in late-life depression and a failure of cortical contingency encoding in elderly with poor executive control.

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Autistic traits are associated with the functional connectivity of between—but not within—attention systems in the general population

10.21203/rs.3.rs-61510/v2 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Sayaka Yoshimura ◽

Kei Kobayashi ◽

Tsukasa Ueno ◽

Takashi Miyagi ◽

Naoya Oishi ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Functional Connectivity ◽

General Population ◽

Executive Control ◽

Autistic Traits ◽

Autism Spectrum ◽

Autism Spectrum Quotient ◽

Functional Magnetic Resonance ◽

Fmri Study ◽

Trait Level ◽

Attention Systems

Abstract Background: Previous studies have demonstrated that individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) exhibit dysfunction in the three attention systems (i.e., alerting, orienting, and executive control) as well as atypical relationships among these systems. Additionally, other studies have reported that individuals with subclinical but high levels of autistic traits show similar attentional tendencies to those observed in ASD. Based on these findings, it was hypothesized that autistic traits would affect the functions and relationships of the three attention systems in a general population. Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was performed in 119 healthy adults to investigate relationships between autistic traits and within- and between-system functional connectivity (FC) among the three attention systems. Twenty-six regions of interest that were defined as components of the three attention systems by a previous task-based fMRI study were examined in terms of within- and between-system FC. We assessed autistic traits using the Autism-Spectrum Quotient.Results: Correlational analyses revealed that autistic traits were significantly correlated with between-system FC, but not with within-system FC. Conclusions: Our results imply that a high autistic trait level, even when subclinical, is associated with the way the three attention systems interact.

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