The human cerebellum is essential for modulating perceptual sensitivity based on temporal expectations

A functional benefit of attention is to proactively enhance perceptual sensitivity in space and time. Although attentional orienting has traditionally been associated with cortico-thalamic networks, recent evidence has shown that individuals with cerebellar degeneration (CD) show a reduced reaction time benefit from cues that enable temporal anticipation. The present study examined whether the cerebellum contributes to the proactive attentional modulation in time of perceptual sensitivity. We tested CD participants on a non-speeded, challenging perceptual discrimination task, asking if they benefit from temporal cues. Strikingly, the CD group showed no duration-specific perceptual sensitivity benefit when cued by repeated but aperiodic presentation of the target interval. In contrast, they performed similar to controls when cued by a rhythmic stream. This dissociation further specifies the functional domain of the cerebellum and establishes its role in the attentional adjustment of perceptual sensitivity in time in addition to its well-documented role in motor timing.

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The human cerebellum is essential for modulating perceptual sensitivity based on temporal expectations

10.1101/2021.01.15.426903 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Assaf Breska ◽

Richard B. Ivry

Keyword(s):

Motor Preparation ◽

Cerebellar Degeneration ◽

Functional Domain ◽

Attentional Orienting ◽

Perceptual Discrimination ◽

Perceptual Sensitivity ◽

Target Interval ◽

Temporal Cues ◽

Functional Benefit ◽

Human Cerebellum

AbstractA functional benefit of attention is to proactively enhance perceptual sensitivity in space and time. Although attentional orienting has traditionally been associated with cortico-thalamic networks, recent evidence has shown that individuals with cerebellar degeneration (CD) show a reduced reaction time benefit from cues that enable temporal anticipation. While this deficit may reflect impairment in anticipatory motor preparation, it could also arise from cerebellar contribution to attentional modulation in time of perceptual sensitivity. To examine this, we tested CD participants on a non-speeded, challenging perceptual discrimination task, asking if they benefit from temporal cues. Strikingly, the CD group showed no duration-specific perceptual sensitivity benefit when cued by repeated but aperiodic presentation of the target interval. In contrast, they performed similar to controls when cued by a rhythmic stream. This dissociation further specifies the functional domain of the cerebellum and establishes its role in the attentional adjustment of perceptual sensitivity in time.

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Investigating the flexibility of attentional orienting in multiple modalities: Are spatial and temporal cues used in the context of spatiotemporal probabilities?

Visual Cognition ◽

10.1080/13506285.2021.1873211 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 29 (2) ◽

pp. 105-117

Author(s):

Colin S. Flowers ◽

Roman Palitsky ◽

Daniel Sullivan ◽

Mary A. Peterson

Keyword(s):

Attentional Orienting ◽

Multiple Modalities ◽

Temporal Cues

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Double dissociation of single-interval and rhythmic temporal prediction in cerebellar degeneration and Parkinson’s disease

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ◽

10.1073/pnas.1810596115 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 115 (48) ◽

pp. 12283-12288 ◽

Cited By ~ 36

Author(s):

Assaf Breska ◽

Richard B. Ivry

Keyword(s):

Parkinson’S Disease ◽

Parkinson's Disease ◽

Basal Ganglia ◽

Cerebellar Degeneration ◽

Common Mechanism ◽

Attentional Orienting ◽

Subcortical Structures ◽

Double Dissociation ◽

Temporal Prediction ◽

Single Interval

Predicting the timing of upcoming events is critical for successful interaction in a dynamic world, and is recognized as a key computation for attentional orienting. Temporal predictions can be formed when recent events define a rhythmic structure, as well as in aperiodic streams or even in isolation, when a specified interval is known from previous exposure. However, whether predictions in these two contexts are mediated by a common mechanism, or by distinct, context-dependent mechanisms, is highly controversial. Moreover, although the basal ganglia and cerebellum have been linked to temporal processing, the role of these subcortical structures in temporal orienting of attention is unclear. To address these issues, we tested individuals with cerebellar degeneration or Parkinson’s disease, with the latter serving as a model of basal ganglia dysfunction, on temporal prediction tasks in the subsecond range. The participants performed a visual detection task in which the onset of the target was predictable, based on either a rhythmic stream of stimuli, or a single interval, specified by two events that occurred within an aperiodic stream. Patients with cerebellar degeneration showed no benefit from single-interval cuing but preserved benefit from rhythm cuing, whereas patients with Parkinson’s disease showed no benefit from rhythm cuing but preserved benefit from single-interval cuing. This double dissociation provides causal evidence for functionally nonoverlapping mechanisms of rhythm- and interval-based temporal prediction for attentional orienting, and establishes the separable contributions of the cerebellum and basal ganglia to these functions, suggesting a mechanistic specialization across timing domains.

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Action Fluency Facilitates Perceptual Discrimination

Psychological Science ◽

10.1177/0956797619859361 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 30 (10) ◽

pp. 1434-1448

Author(s):

Jianfei Guo ◽

Joo-Hyun Song

Keyword(s):

Perception And Action ◽

Early Stage ◽

Discrimination Performance ◽

Reciprocal Relation ◽

Perceptual Discrimination ◽

Change Detection Task ◽

Perceptual Sensitivity ◽

Factors Associated ◽

Orientation Change ◽

Dual Task Paradigm

Perception and action interact in nearly every moment of daily life. Previous studies have demonstrated not only that perceptual input shapes action but also that various factors associated with action—including individual abilities and biomechanical costs—influence perceptual decisions. However, it is unknown how action fluency affects the sensitivity of early-stage visual perception, such as orientation. To address this question, we used a dual-task paradigm: Participants prepared an action (e.g., grasping), while concurrently performing an orientation-change-detection task. We demonstrated that as actions became more fluent (e.g., as grasping errors decreased), perceptual-discrimination performance also improved. Importantly, we found that grasping training prior to discrimination enhanced subsequent perceptual sensitivity, supporting the notion of a reciprocal relation between perception and action.

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Inhibition of Return, but Not Facilitation, Disappears Under Vigilance Decrease Due to Sleep Deprivation

Experimental Psychology (formerly Zeitschrift für Experimentelle Psychologie) ◽

10.1027/1618-3169/a000229 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 61 (2) ◽

pp. 99-109 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Diana Martella ◽

Andrea Marotta ◽

Luis J. Fuentes ◽

Maria Casagrande

Keyword(s):

Sleep Deprivation ◽

Inhibition Of Return ◽

Target Location ◽

Reaction Times ◽

Attentional Orienting ◽

Target Interval ◽

Facilitation Effect ◽

Peripheral Cues ◽

Endogenous Component ◽

Phasic Alerting

In this study, we assessed whether unspecific attention processes signaled by general reaction times (RTs), as well as specific facilitatory (validity or facilitation effect) and inhibitory (inhibition of return, IOR) effects involved in the attentional orienting network, are affected by low vigilance due to both circadian factors and sleep deprivation (SD). Eighteen male participants performed a cuing task in which peripheral cues were nonpredictive about the target location and the cue-target interval varied at three levels: 200 ms, 800 ms, and 1,100 ms. Facilitation with the shortest and IOR with the longest cue-target intervals were observed in the baseline session, thus replicating previous related studies. Under SD condition, RTs were generally slower, indicating a reduction in the participants’ arousal level. The inclusion of a phasic alerting tone in several trials partially compensated for the reduction in tonic alertness, but not with the longest cue-target interval. With regard to orienting, whereas the facilitation effect due to reflexive shifts of attention was preserved with sleep loss, the IOR was not observed. These results suggest that the decrease of vigilance produced by SD affects both the compensatory effects of phasic alerting and the endogenous component involved in disengaging attention from the cued location, a requisite for the IOR effect being observed.

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Single-nucleus transcriptomic analyses reveal microglial activation underlying cerebellar degeneration in Ataxia Telangiectasia

10.1101/2021.09.09.459619 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Jenny Lai ◽

Junho Kim ◽

Ailsa M. Jeffries ◽

Allie Tolles ◽

Thomas W. Chittenden ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Ataxia Telangiectasia ◽

Microglial Activation ◽

Granule Cells ◽

Ion Homeostasis ◽

Genetic Mutation ◽

Cerebellar Degeneration ◽

Loss Of Function ◽

Neuron Death ◽

Human Cerebellum ◽

Single Nucleus

AbstractWhile ATM loss-of-function has long been identified as the genetic cause of Ataxia Telangiectasia (AT), how this genetic mutation leads to selective and progressive cerebellar degeneration of Purkinje and granule cells remains unknown. We performed single-nucleus RNA-sequencing of the human cerebellum and prefrontal cortex from individuals with AT and matched unaffected controls to identify AT-associated transcriptomic changes in a cell-type- and brain-region-specific manner. We provide the largest single-nucleus transcriptomic atlas of the adult human cerebellum to-date (126,356 nuclei), identify upregulation of apoptotic and ER stress pathways in Purkinje and granule neurons, and uncover strong downregulation of calcium ion homeostasis genes in Purkinje neurons. Our analysis reveals prominent inflammation of microglia in AT cerebellum with transcriptional signatures similar to aging and neurodegenerative microglia, and suggests that microglia activation precedes Purkinje and granule neuron death in disease progression. Our data implicates a novel role of microglial activation underlying cerebellar degeneration in AT.

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Motor origin of temporal predictions in auditory attention

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ◽

10.1073/pnas.1705373114 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 114 (42) ◽

pp. E8913-E8921 ◽

Cited By ~ 101

Author(s):

Benjamin Morillon ◽

Sylvain Baillet

Keyword(s):

Sensory Processing ◽

Motor System ◽

Auditory Information ◽

Rhythmic Movements ◽

Temporal Cues ◽

Functional Benefit ◽

Action And Perception ◽

Selection Of

In behavior, action and perception are inherently interdependent. However, the actual mechanistic contributions of the motor system to sensory processing are unknown. We present neurophysiological evidence that the motor system is involved in predictive timing, a brain function that aligns temporal fluctuations of attention with the timing of events in a task-relevant stream, thus facilitating sensory selection and optimizing behavior. In a magnetoencephalography experiment involving auditory temporal attention, participants had to disentangle two streams of sound on the unique basis of endogenous temporal cues. We show that temporal predictions are encoded by interdependent delta and beta neural oscillations originating from the left sensorimotor cortex, and directed toward auditory regions. We also found that overt rhythmic movements improved the quality of temporal predictions and sharpened the temporal selection of relevant auditory information. This latter behavioral and functional benefit was associated with increased signaling of temporal predictions in right-lateralized frontoparietal associative regions. In sum, this study points at a covert form of auditory active sensing. Our results emphasize the key role of motor brain areas in providing contextual temporal information to sensory regions, driving perceptual and behavioral selection.

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Effect of Emotions in a Lexical Decision Task

Swiss Journal of Psychology ◽

10.1024/1421-0185/a000193 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 76 (2) ◽

pp. 71-79 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Hélène Maire ◽

Renaud Brochard ◽

Jean-Luc Kop ◽

Vivien Dioux ◽

Daniel Zagar

Keyword(s):

Lexical Decision ◽

Lexical Decision Task ◽

Emotional State ◽

Control Group ◽

Decision Task ◽

Attentional Orienting ◽

Emotional States ◽

Sequence Effect ◽

Emotion Induction ◽

Before And After

Abstract. This study measured the effect of emotional states on lexical decision task performance and investigated which underlying components (physiological, attentional orienting, executive, lexical, and/or strategic) are affected. We did this by assessing participants’ performance on a lexical decision task, which they completed before and after an emotional state induction task. The sequence effect, usually produced when participants repeat a task, was significantly smaller in participants who had received one of the three emotion inductions (happiness, sadness, embarrassment) than in control group participants (neutral induction). Using the diffusion model ( Ratcliff, 1978 ) to resolve the data into meaningful parameters that correspond to specific psychological components, we found that emotion induction only modulated the parameter reflecting the physiological and/or attentional orienting components, whereas the executive, lexical, and strategic components were not altered. These results suggest that emotional states have an impact on the low-level mechanisms underlying mental chronometric tasks.

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