Hemispheric Differences in Auditory Perception Are Similar to Those Found in Visual Perception

In a pitch discrimination task, subjects were faster and more accurate in judging low-frequency sounds when these stimuli were presented to the left ear, compared with the right ear. In contrast, a right-ear advantage was found with high-frequency sounds. The effect was in terms of relative frequency and not absolute frequency, suggesting that the effect arises from postsensory mechanisms. A simitar laterality effect has been reported in visual perception with stimuli varying in spatial frequency. These multimodal laterality effects may reflect a general computational difference between the two cerebral hemispheres, with the left hemisphere biased for processing high-frequency information and the right hemisphere biased for processing low-frequency information.

Timing in Eyeblink Classical Conditioning and Timed-Interval Tapping

The cerebellum is implicated in interval timing for diverse tasks including eyeblink classical conditioning (EBCC) and repetitive tapping. We examined performance on both tasks across identical intervals ranging from 325 to 550 ms. In five weekly sessions, 23 participants used a different interval each week, both as the target for tapping and as the delay interval in EBCC. Changes in variability as a function of the tapping or delay interval were assessed using regression analyses. The slope for repetitive tapping was comparable to two measures of temporal acuity in EBCC, onset and peak latency of the conditioned response. Each of 80 additional participants was assessed in one session at one of four tapping and delay intervals. Results were similar to those observed in the repeated measures group. These findings provide further evidence that EBCC and repetitive tapping utilize common mechanisms for representing temporal information.

Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation Does Not Influence the Speed-Accuracy Tradeoff in Perceptual Decision-making: Evidence from Three Independent Studies

In perceptual decision-making tasks, people balance the speed and accuracy with which they make their decisions by modulating a response threshold. Neuroimaging studies suggest that this speed-accuracy tradeoff is implemented in a corticobasal ganglia network that includes an important contribution from the pre-SMA. To test this hypothesis, we used anodal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to modulate neural activity in pre-SMA while participants performed a simple perceptual decision-making task. Participants viewed a pattern of moving dots and judged the direction of the global motion. In separate trials, they were cued to either respond quickly or accurately. We used the diffusion decision model to estimate the response threshold parameter, comparing conditions in which participants received sham or anodal tDCS. In three independent experiments, we failed to observe an influence of tDCS on the response threshold. Additional, exploratory analyses showed no influence of tDCS on the duration of nondecision processes or on the efficiency of information processing. Taken together, these findings provide a cautionary note, either concerning the causal role of pre-SMA in decision-making or on the utility of tDCS for modifying response caution in decision-making tasks.

Cerebellar contributions to motor control and language comprehension: searching for common computational principles

The past 25 years have seen the functional domain of the cerebellum extend beyond the realm of motor control, with considerable discussion of how this subcortical structure contributes to cognitive domains including attention, memory, and language. Drawing on evidence from neuroanatomy, physiology, neuropsychology, and computational work, sophisticated models have been developed to describe cerebellar function in sensorimotor control and learning. In contrast, mechanistic accounts of how the cerebellum contributes to cognition have remained elusive. Inspired by the homogeneous cerebellar microanatomy and a desire for parsimony, many researchers have sought to extend mechanistic ideas from motor control to cognition. One influential hypothesis centers on the idea that the cerebellum implements internal models, representations of the context-specific dynamics of an agent's interactions with the environment, enabling predictive control. We briefly review cerebellar anatomy and physiology, to review the internal model hypothesis as applied in the motor domain, before turning to extensions of these ideas in the linguistic domain, focusing on speech perception and semantic processing. While recent findings are consistent with this computational generalization, they also raise challenging questions regarding the nature of cerebellar learning, and may thus inspire revisions of our views on the role of the cerebellum in sensorimotor control.

Taxonomies of Timing: Where Does the Cerebellum Fit In?

Recent models of interval timing have emphasized local, modality-specific processes or a core network centered on a cortico-thalamic-striatal circuit, leaving the role of the cerebellum unclear. We examine this issue, using current taxonomies of timing as a guide to review the association of the cerebellum in motor and perceptual tasks in which timing information is explicit or implicit. Evidence from neuropsychological, neurophysiological, and neuroimaging studies indicates that the involvement of the cerebellum in timing is not restricted to any subdomain of this taxonomy. However, an emerging pattern is that tasks in which timing is done in cyclic continuous contexts do not rely on the cerebellum. In such scenarios, timing may be an emergent property of system dynamics, and especially oscillatory entrainment. The cerebellum may be necessary to time discrete intervals in the absence of continuous cyclic dynamics.

Impact of task-related changes in heart rate on estimation of hemodynamic response and model fit

The blood oxygen level dependent (BOLD) signal, as measured using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), is widely used as a proxy for changes in neural activity in the brain. Physiological variables such as heart rate (HR) and respiratory variation (RV) affect the BOLD signal in a way that may interfere with the estimation and detection of true task-related neural activity. This interference is of particular concern when these variables themselves show task-related modulations. We first establish that a simple movement task reliably induces a change in HR but not RV. In group data, the effect of HR on the BOLD response was larger and more widespread throughout the brain than were the effects of RV or phase regressors. The inclusion of HR regressors, but not RV or phase regressors, had a small but reliable effect on the estimated hemodynamic response function (HRF) in M1 and the cerebellum. We next asked whether the inclusion of a nested set of physiological regressors combining phase, RV, and HR significantly improved the model fit in individual participants' data sets. There was a significant improvement from HR correction in M1 for the greatest number of participants, followed by RV and phase correction. These improvements were more modest in the cerebellum. These results indicate that accounting for task-related modulation of physiological variables can improve the detection and estimation of true neural effects of interest.

Delayed feedback during sensorimotor learning selectively disrupts adaptation but not strategy use

In sensorimotor adaptation tasks, feedback delays can cause significant reductions in the rate of learning. This constraint is puzzling given that many skilled behaviors have inherently long delays (e.g., hitting a golf ball). One difference in these task domains is that adaptation is primarily driven by error-based feedback, whereas skilled performance may also rely to a large extent on outcome-based feedback. This difference suggests that error- and outcome-based feedback may engage different learning processes, and these processes may be associated with different temporal constraints. We tested this hypothesis in a visuomotor adaptation task. Error feedback was indicated by the terminal position of a cursor, while outcome feedback was indicated by points. In separate groups of participants, the two feedback signals were presented immediately at the end of the movement, after a delay, or with just the error feedback delayed. Participants learned to counter the rotation in a similar manner regardless of feedback delay. However, the aftereffect, an indicator of implicit motor adaptation, was attenuated with delayed error feedback, consistent with the hypothesis that a different learning process supports performance under delay. We tested this by employing a task that dissociates the contribution of explicit strategies and implicit adaptation. We find that explicit aiming strategies contribute to the majority of the learning curve, regardless of delay; however, implicit learning, measured over the course of learning and by aftereffects, was significantly attenuated with delayed error-based feedback. These experiments offer new insight into the temporal constraints associated with different motor learning processes.

Comparison of the two cerebral hemispheres in inhibitory processes operative during movement preparation

Neuroimaging and neuropsychological studies suggest that in right-handed individuals, the left hemisphere plays a dominant role in praxis, relative to the right hemisphere. However hemispheric asymmetries assessed with transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) has not shown consistent differences in corticospinal (CS) excitability of the two hemispheres during movements. In the current study, we systematically explored hemispheric asymmetries in inhibitory processes that are manifest during movement preparation and initiation. Single-pulse TMS was applied over the left or right primary motor cortex (M1LEFT and M1RIGHT, respectively) to elicit motor-evoked potentials (MEPs) in the contralateral hand while participants performed a two-choice reaction time task requiring a cued movement of the left or right index finger. In Experiments 1 and 2, TMS probes were obtained during a delay period following the presentation of the preparatory cue that provided partial or full information about the required response. MEPs were suppressed relative to baseline regardless of whether they were elicited in a cued or uncued hand. Importantly, the magnitude of these inhibitory changes in CS excitability was similar when TMS was applied over M1LEFT or M1RIGHT, irrespective of the amount of information carried by the preparatory cue. In Experiment 3, there was no preparatory cue and TMS was applied at various time points after the imperative signal. When CS excitability was probed in the cued effector, MEPs were initially inhibited and then rose across the reaction time interval. This function was similar for M1LEFT and M1RIGHT TMS. When CS excitability was probed in the uncued effector, MEPs remained inhibited throughout the RT interval. However, MEPs in right FDI became more inhibited during selection and initiation of a left hand movement, whereas MEPs in left FDI remained relatively invariant across RT interval for the right hand. In addition to these task-specific effects, there was a global difference in CS excitability across experiments between the two hemispheres. When the intensity of stimulation was set to 115% of the resting threshold, MEPs were larger when the TMS probe was applied over the M1LEFT than over M1RIGHT. In summary, while the latter result suggests that M1LEFT is more excitable than M1RIGHT, the recruitment of preparatory inhibitory mechanisms is similar within the two cerebral hemispheres.

Efficacy of Anodal Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation is Related to Sensitivity to Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation

BACKGROUND

Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) has become an important non-invasive brain stimulation tool for basic human brain physiology and cognitive neuroscience, with potential applications in cognitive and motor rehabilitation. To date, tDCS studies have employed a fixed stimulation level, without considering the impact of individual anatomy and physiology on the efficacy of the stimulation. This approach contrasts with the standard procedure for transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) where stimulation levels are usually tailored on an individual basis.

OBJECTIVE/HYPOTHESIS

The present study tests whether the efficacy of tDCS-induced changes in corticospinal excitability varies as a function of individual differences in sensitivity to TMS.

METHODS

We performed an archival review to examine the relationship between the TMS intensity required to induce 1 mV motor-evoked potentials (MEPs) and the efficacy of (fixed-intensity) tDCS over the primary motor cortex (M1). For the latter, we examined tDCS-induced changes in corticospinal excitability, operationalized by comparing MEPs before and after anodal or cathodal tDCS. For comparison, we performed a similar analysis on data sets in which MEPs had been obtained before and after paired associative stimulation (PAS), a non-invasive brain stimulation technique in which the stimulation intensity is adjusted on an individual basis.

RESULTS

MEPs were enhanced following anodal tDCS. This effect was larger in participants more sensitive to TMS as compared to those less sensitive to TMS, with sensitivity defined as the TMS intensity required to produce MEPs amplitudes of the size of 1 mV. While MEPs were attenuated following cathodal tDCS, the magnitude of this attenuation was not related to TMS sensitivity nor was there a relationship between TMS sensitivity and responsiveness to PAS.

CONCLUSION

Accounting for variation in individual sensitivity to non-invasive brain stimulation may enhance the utility of tDCS as a tool for understanding brain-behavior interactions and as a method for clinical interventions.

Influence of Delay Period Duration on Inhibitory Processes for Response Preparation

In this study, we examined the dynamics of inhibitory preparatory processes, using a delayed response task in which a cue signaled a left or right index finger (Experiment 1) or hand (Experiment 2) movement in advance of an imperative signal. In Experiment 1, we varied the duration of the delay period (200, 500, and 900 ms). When transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) was applied 100 ms before the imperative, motor evoked potentials (MEPs) elicited in the first dorsal interosseous were strongly inhibited. For delays of 500 ms or longer, this inhibition was greater when the targeted muscle was selected compared with when it was not selected. In contrast, the magnitude of inhibition just after the cue was inversely related to the duration of the delay period, and the difference between the selected and nonselected conditions was attenuated. In Experiment 2, TMS and peripheral nerve stimulation procedures were used during a 300-ms delay period. MEPs in the flexor carpi radialis for both selected and nonselected conditions were inhibited, but without any change in the H-reflex. Taken together, these results reveal the dual influence of temporal constraints associated with anticipation and urgency on inhibitory processes recruited during response preparation.

Consensus paper: the role of the cerebellum in perceptual processes

Various lines of evidence accumulated over the past 30 years indicate that the cerebellum, long recognized as essential for motor control, also has considerable influence on perceptual processes. In this paper, we bring together experts from psychology and neuroscience, with the aim of providing a succinct but comprehensive overview of key findings related to the involvement of the cerebellum in sensory perception. The contributions cover such topics as anatomical and functional connectivity, evolutionary and comparative perspectives, visual and auditory processing, biological motion perception, nociception, self-motion, timing, predictive processing, and perceptual sequencing. While no single explanation has yet emerged concerning the role of the cerebellum in perceptual processes, this consensus paper summarizes the impressive empirical evidence on this problem and highlights diversities as well as commonalities between existing hypotheses. In addition to work with healthy individuals and patients with cerebellar disorders, it is also apparent that several neurological conditions in which perceptual disturbances occur, including autism and schizophrenia, are associated with cerebellar pathology. A better understanding of the involvement of the cerebellum in perceptual processes will thus likely be important for identifying and treating perceptual deficits that may at present go unnoticed and untreated. This paper provides a useful framework for further debate and empirical investigations into the influence of the cerebellum on sensory perception.

Inhibition during response preparation is sensitive to response complexity

Motor system excitability is transiently suppressed during the preparation of movement. This preparatory inhibition is hypothesized to facilitate response selection and initiation. Given that demands on selection and initiation processes increase with movement complexity, we hypothesized that complexity would influence preparatory inhibition. To test this hypothesis, we probed corticospinal excitability during a delayed-response task in which participants were cued to prepare right- or left-hand movements of varying complexity. Single-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation was applied over right primary motor cortex to elicit motor evoked potentials (MEPs) from the first dorsal interosseous (FDI) of the left hand. MEP suppression was greater during the preparation of responses involving coordination of the FDI and adductor digiti minimi relative to easier responses involving only the FDI, independent of which hand was cued to respond. In contrast, this increased inhibition was absent when the complex responses required sequential movements of the two muscles. Moreover, complexity did not influence the level of inhibition when the response hand was fixed for the trial block, regardless of whether the complex responses were performed simultaneously or sequentially. These results suggest that preparatory inhibition contributes to response selection, possibly by suppressing extraneous movements when responses involve the simultaneous coordination of multiple effectors.

Selective inhibition of a multicomponent response can be achieved without cost

Behavioral flexibility frequently requires the ability to modify an on-going action. In some situations, optimal performance requires modifying some components of an on-going action without interrupting other components of that action. This form of control has been studied with the selective stop-signal task, in which participants are instructed to abort only one movement of a multicomponent response. Previous studies have shown a transient disruption of the nonaborted component, suggesting limitations in our ability to use selective inhibition. This cost has been attributed to a structural limitation associated with the recruitment of a cortico-basal ganglia pathway that allows for the rapid inhibition of action but operates in a relatively generic manner. Using a model-based approach, we demonstrate that, with a modest amount of training and highly compatible stimulus-response mappings, people can perform a selective-stop task without any cost on the nonaborted component. Prior reports of behavioral costs in selective-stop tasks reflect, at least in part, a sampling bias in the method commonly used to estimate such costs. These results suggest that inhibition can be selectively controlled and present a challenge for models of inhibitory control that posit the operation of generic processes.

Dissociating the influence of response selection and task anticipation on corticospinal suppression during response preparation

Motor behavior requires selecting between potential actions. The role of inhibition in response selection has frequently been examined in tasks in which participants are engaged in some advance preparation prior to the presentation of an imperative signal. Under such conditions, inhibition could be related to processes associated with response selection, or to more general inhibitory processes that are engaged in high states of anticipation. In Experiment 1, we manipulated the degree of anticipatory preparation. Participants performed a choice reaction time task that required choosing between a movement of the left or right index finger, and used transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to elicit motor evoked potentials (MEPs) in the left hand agonist. In high anticipation blocks, a non-informative cue (e.g., fixation marker) preceded the imperative; in low anticipation blocks, there was no cue and participants were required to divide their attention between two tasks to further reduce anticipation. MEPs were substantially reduced before the imperative signal in high anticipation blocks. In contrast, in low anticipation blocks, MEPs remained unchanged before the imperative signal but showed a marked suppression right after the onset of the imperative. This effect occurred regardless of whether the imperative had signalled a left or right hand response. After this initial inhibition, left MEPs increased when the left hand was selected and remained suppressed when the right hand was selected. We obtained similar results in Experiment 2 except that the persistent left MEP suppression when the left hand was not selected was attenuated when the alternative response involved a non-homologous effector (right foot). These results indicate that, even in the absence of an anticipatory period, inhibitory mechanisms are engaged during response selection, possibly to prevent the occurrence of premature and inappropriate responses during a competitive selection process.

Cerebellar and prefrontal cortex contributions to adaptation, strategies, and reinforcement learning

Traditionally, motor learning has been studied as an implicit learning process, one in which movement errors are used to improve performance in a continuous, gradual manner. The cerebellum figures prominently in this literature given well-established ideas about the role of this system in error-based learning and the production of automatized skills. Recent developments have brought into focus the relevance of multiple learning mechanisms for sensorimotor learning. These include processes involving repetition, reinforcement learning, and strategy utilization. We examine these developments, considering their implications for understanding cerebellar function and how this structure interacts with other neural systems to support motor learning. Converging lines of evidence from behavioral, computational, and neuropsychological studies suggest a fundamental distinction between processes that use error information to improve action execution or action selection. While the cerebellum is clearly linked to the former, its role in the latter remains an open question.

Generic inhibition of the selected movement and constrained inhibition of nonselected movements during response preparation

Previous studies have identified two inhibitory mechanisms that operate during action selection and preparation. One mechanism, competition resolution, is manifest in the inhibition of the nonselected response and attributed to competition between candidate actions. The second mechanism, impulse control, is manifest in the inhibition of the selected response and is presumably invoked to prevent premature response. To identify constraints on the operation of these two inhibitory mechanisms, we manipulated the effectors used for the response alternatives, measuring changes in corticospinal excitability with motor-evoked potentials to TMS. Inhibition of the selected response (impulse control) was independent of the task context, consistent with a model in which this form of inhibition is automatically triggered as part of response preparation. In contrast, inhibition of the nonselected response (competition resolution) was context-dependent. Inhibition of the nonselected response was observed when the response alternatives involved movements of the upper limbs but was absent when one response alternative involved an upper limb and the other involved a lower limb. Interestingly, competition resolution for pairs of upper limbs did not require homologous effectors, observed when a left index finger response was pitted with either a nonhomologous right index finger movement or a right arm movement. These results argue against models in which competition resolution is viewed as a generic or fully flexible process, as well as models based on strong anatomical constraints. Rather, they are consistent with models in which inhibition for action selection is constrained by the similarity between the potential responses, perhaps reflecting an experience-dependent mechanism sensitive to the past history of competitive interactions.

Timing functions of the cerebellum

This study investigated the effects of different types of neurological deficits on timing functions. The performance of Parkinson, cerebellar, cortical, and peripheral neuropathy patients was compared to age-matched control subjects on two separate measures of timing functions. The first task involved the production of timed intervals in which the subjects attempted to maintain a simple rhythm. The second task measured the subjects' perceptual ability to discriminate between small differences in the duration of two intervals. The primacy of the cerebellum in timing functions was demonstrated by the finding that these were the only patients who showed a deficit in both the production and perception of timing tasks. The cerebellar group was found to have increased variability in performing rhythmic tapping and they were less accurate than the other groups in making perceptual discriminations regarding small differences in duration. Critically, this perceptual deficit appears to be specific to the perception of time since the cerebellar patients were unaffected in a control task measuring the perception of loudness. It is argued that the operation of a timing mechanism can be conceptualized as an isolable component of the motor control system. Furthermore, the results suggest that the domain of the cerebellar timing process is not limited to the motor system, but is employed by other perceptual and cognitive systems when temporally predictive computations are needed.

Impaired velocity perception in patients with lesions of the cerebellum

In three psychophysical experiments, cerebellar patients were impaired in making perceptual judgments of the velocity of moving stimuli. Performance was normal when the judgment concerned the position of the stimuli (Experiment 1). The dissociation between the velocity and position tasks suggests the cerebellar group was selectively impaired in velocity perception. EOG data were obtained in Experiments 2 and 3 to assess whether the deficit was oculomotor in origin. Perceptual errors were not correlated with the occurrence of intrusive eye movements. These results provide a novel demonstration of the role of the cerebellum in perceptual functions that require precise timing.

Context-dependent generalization

The pattern of generalization following motor learning can provide a probe on the neural mechanisms underlying learning. For example, the breadth of generalization to untrained regions of space after visuomotor adaptation to targets in a restricted region of space has been attributed to the directional tuning properties of neurons in the motor system. Building on this idea, the effect of different types of perturbations on generalization (e.g., rotation vs. visual translation) have been attributed to the selection of differentially tuned populations. Overlooked in this discussion is consideration of how the context of the training environment may constrain generalization. Here, we explore the role of context by having participants learn a visuomotor rotation or a translational shift in two different contexts, one in which the array of targets were presented in a circular arrangement and the other in which they were presented in a rectilinear arrangement. The perturbation and environments were either consistent (e.g., rotation with circular arrangement) or inconsistent (e.g., rotation with rectilinear arrangement). The pattern of generalization across the workspace was much more dependent on the context of the environment than on the perturbation, with broad generalization for the rectilinear arrangement for both types of perturbations. Moreover, the generalization pattern for this context was evident, even when the perturbation was introduced in a gradual manner, precluding the use of an explicit strategy. We describe how current models of generalization might be modified to incorporate these results, building on the idea that context provides a strong bias for how the motor system infers the nature of the visuomotor perturbation and, in turn, how this information influences the pattern of generalization.

Individuals with cerebellar degeneration show similar adaptation deficits with large and small visuomotor errors

The cerebellum has long been recognized to play an important role in motor adaptation. Individuals with cerebellar ataxia exhibit impaired learning in visuomotor adaptation tasks such as prism adaptation and force field learning. Both types of tasks involve the adjustment of an internal model to compensate for an external perturbation. This updating process is error driven, with the error signal based on the difference between anticipated and actual sensory information. This process may entail a credit assignment problem, with a distinction made between error arising from faulty representation of the environment and error arising from noise in the controller. We hypothesized that people with ataxia may perform poorly at visuomotor adaptation because they attribute a greater proportion of their error to their motor control difficulties. We tested this hypothesis using a computational model based on a Kalman filter. We imposed a 20-deg visuomotor rotation in either a single large step or in a series of smaller 5-deg steps. The ataxic group exhibited a comparable deficit in both conditions. The computational analyses indicate that the patients' deficit cannot be accounted for simply by their increased motor variability. Rather, the patients' deficit in learning may be related to difficulty in estimating the instability in the environment or variability in their motor system.

Feedback-dependent generalization

Generalization provides a window into the representational changes that occur during motor learning. Neural network models have been integral in revealing how the neural representation constrains the extent of generalization. Specifically, two key features are thought to define the pattern of generalization. First, generalization is constrained by the properties of the underlying neural units; with directionally tuned units, the extent of generalization is limited by the width of the tuning functions. Second, error signals are used to update a sensorimotor map to align the desired and actual output, with a gradient-descent learning rule ensuring that the error produces changes in those units responsible for the error. In prior studies, task-specific effects in generalization have been attributed to differences in neural tuning functions. Here we ask whether differences in generalization functions may arise from task-specific error signals. We systematically varied visual error information in a visuomotor adaptation task and found that this manipulation led to qualitative differences in generalization. A neural network model suggests that these differences are the result of error feedback processing operating on a homogeneous and invariant set of tuning functions. Consistent with novel predictions derived from the model, increasing the number of training directions led to specific distortions of the generalization function. Taken together, the behavioral and modeling results offer a parsimonious account of generalization that is based on the utilization of feedback information to update a sensorimotor map with stable tuning functions.

Prefrontal control during a semantic decision task that involves idiom comprehension: a transcranial direct current stimulation study

Language processing and comprehension can be understood in terms of both linguistic and non-linguistic processes. To make a decision regarding the meaning of complex linguistic inputs such as idiomatic expressions, one has to perform multiple complex cognitive operations such as prediction, selection and inhibition. In the current study, we used transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to test the hypotheses that (I) a prefrontal cognitive control network is involved in directing decisions required for the comprehension of idioms, and (II) that this prefrontal control may be biased by motivational mechanisms. Participants were randomly allocated to one of two stimulation groups (LH anodal/RH cathodal or RH anodal/LH Cathodal). Over a one-week interval, participants were tested twice, completing a semantic decision task after either receiving active or sham stimulation. The semantic decision task required participants to judge the relatedness of an idiom and a target word, with the idiom being predictable or not. The target word was either figuratively related, literally related, or unrelated to the idiom. Each participant also completed a trait motivation questionnaire and a control task. After DC stimulation, a general deceleration in reaction times to targets was found. In addition, the results indicate that the neural enhancement of a left lateralized prefrontal network improved performance when participants had to make decisions to figurative targets of highly predictable idioms, whereas the neural enhancement of the opposite network improved participants' performance to literal targets of unpredictable idioms. These effects were more pronounced in individuals rated as being most sensitive to reward likelihood. The results are discussed in terms of cognitive control over semantic processing.

Consensus paper: roles of the cerebellum in motor control--the diversity of ideas on cerebellar involvement in movement

Considerable progress has been made in developing models of cerebellar function in sensorimotor control, as well as in identifying key problems that are the focus of current investigation. In this consensus paper, we discuss the literature on the role of the cerebellar circuitry in motor control, bringing together a range of different viewpoints. The following topics are covered: oculomotor control, classical conditioning (evidence in animals and in humans), cerebellar control of motor speech, control of grip forces, control of voluntary limb movements, timing, sensorimotor synchronization, control of corticomotor excitability, control of movement-related sensory data acquisition, cerebro-cerebellar interaction in visuokinesthetic perception of hand movement, functional neuroimaging studies, and magnetoencephalographic mapping of cortico-cerebellar dynamics. While the field has yet to reach a consensus on the precise role played by the cerebellum in movement control, the literature has witnessed the emergence of broad proposals that address cerebellar function at multiple levels of analysis. This paper highlights the diversity of current opinion, providing a framework for debate and discussion on the role of this quintessential vertebrate structure.