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Yang G, Jiang J. Cost-benefit Tradeoff Mediates the Rule- to Memory-based Processing Transition during Practice. BIORXIV : THE PREPRINT SERVER FOR BIOLOGY 2024:2024.02.13.580214. [PMID: 38405946 PMCID: PMC10888779 DOI: 10.1101/2024.02.13.580214] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 02/27/2024]
Abstract
Practice not only improves task performance, but also changes task execution from rule- to memory-based processing by incorporating experiences from practice. However, how and when this change occurs is unclear. We tested the hypothesis that strategy transition in task learning results from cost-benefit analysis. Participants learned two task sequences and were then queried about the task type at a cued sequence and position. Behavioral improvement with practice can be accounted for by a computational model implementing cost-benefit analysis. Model-predicted strategy transition points are related to behavioral slowing and changes in fMRI activation patterns in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Strategy transition is also related to increased pattern separation in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex. The cost-benefit analysis model outperforms alternative models (e.g., both strategies racing for being expressed in behavior) in accounting for empirical data. These findings support cost-benefit analysis as a mechanism of practice-induced strategy shift.
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Affiliation(s)
- Guochun Yang
- Cognitive Control Collaborative, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242, USA
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242, USA
| | - Jiefeng Jiang
- Cognitive Control Collaborative, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242, USA
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242, USA
- Iowa Neuroscience Institute, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242, USA
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2
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Nick Q, Gale DJ, Areshenkoff C, De Brouwer A, Nashed J, Wammes J, Zhu T, Flanagan R, Smallwood J, Gallivan J. Reconfigurations of cortical manifold structure during reward-based motor learning. eLife 2024; 12:RP91928. [PMID: 38916598 PMCID: PMC11198988 DOI: 10.7554/elife.91928] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/26/2024] Open
Abstract
Adaptive motor behavior depends on the coordinated activity of multiple neural systems distributed across the brain. While the role of sensorimotor cortex in motor learning has been well established, how higher-order brain systems interact with sensorimotor cortex to guide learning is less well understood. Using functional MRI, we examined human brain activity during a reward-based motor task where subjects learned to shape their hand trajectories through reinforcement feedback. We projected patterns of cortical and striatal functional connectivity onto a low-dimensional manifold space and examined how regions expanded and contracted along the manifold during learning. During early learning, we found that several sensorimotor areas in the dorsal attention network exhibited increased covariance with areas of the salience/ventral attention network and reduced covariance with areas of the default mode network (DMN). During late learning, these effects reversed, with sensorimotor areas now exhibiting increased covariance with DMN areas. However, areas in posteromedial cortex showed the opposite pattern across learning phases, with its connectivity suggesting a role in coordinating activity across different networks over time. Our results establish the neural changes that support reward-based motor learning and identify distinct transitions in the functional coupling of sensorimotor to transmodal cortex when adapting behavior.
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Affiliation(s)
- Qasem Nick
- Centre for Neuroscience Studies, Queen’s UniversityKingstonCanada
- Department of Psychology, Queen’s UniversityKingstonCanada
| | - Daniel J Gale
- Centre for Neuroscience Studies, Queen’s UniversityKingstonCanada
| | - Corson Areshenkoff
- Centre for Neuroscience Studies, Queen’s UniversityKingstonCanada
- Department of Psychology, Queen’s UniversityKingstonCanada
| | - Anouk De Brouwer
- Centre for Neuroscience Studies, Queen’s UniversityKingstonCanada
| | - Joseph Nashed
- Centre for Neuroscience Studies, Queen’s UniversityKingstonCanada
- Department of Medicine, Queen's UniversityKingstonCanada
| | - Jeffrey Wammes
- Centre for Neuroscience Studies, Queen’s UniversityKingstonCanada
- Department of Psychology, Queen’s UniversityKingstonCanada
| | - Tianyao Zhu
- Centre for Neuroscience Studies, Queen’s UniversityKingstonCanada
| | - Randy Flanagan
- Centre for Neuroscience Studies, Queen’s UniversityKingstonCanada
- Department of Psychology, Queen’s UniversityKingstonCanada
| | - Jonny Smallwood
- Centre for Neuroscience Studies, Queen’s UniversityKingstonCanada
- Department of Psychology, Queen’s UniversityKingstonCanada
| | - Jason Gallivan
- Centre for Neuroscience Studies, Queen’s UniversityKingstonCanada
- Department of Psychology, Queen’s UniversityKingstonCanada
- Department of Biomedical and Molecular Sciences, Queen’s UniversityKingstonCanada
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3
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Lee JY, Jung D, Royer S. Stochastic characterization of navigation strategies in an automated variant of the Barnes maze. eLife 2024; 12:RP88648. [PMID: 38899521 PMCID: PMC11189626 DOI: 10.7554/elife.88648] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/21/2024] Open
Abstract
Animals can use a repertoire of strategies to navigate in an environment, and it remains an intriguing question how these strategies are selected based on the nature and familiarity of environments. To investigate this question, we developed a fully automated variant of the Barnes maze, characterized by 24 vestibules distributed along the periphery of a circular arena, and monitored the trajectories of mice over 15 days as they learned to navigate towards a goal vestibule from a random start vestibule. We show that the patterns of vestibule visits can be reproduced by the combination of three stochastic processes reminiscent of random, serial, and spatial strategies. The processes randomly selected vestibules based on either uniform (random) or biased (serial and spatial) probability distributions. They closely matched experimental data across a range of statistical distributions characterizing the length, distribution, step size, direction, and stereotypy of vestibule sequences, revealing a shift from random to spatial and serial strategies over time, with a strategy switch occurring approximately every six vestibule visits. Our study provides a novel apparatus and analysis toolset for tracking the repertoire of navigation strategies and demonstrates that a set of stochastic processes can largely account for exploration patterns in the Barnes maze.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ju-Young Lee
- Center for Functional Connectomics, Brain Science Institute, Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST)SeoulRepublic of Korea
- Division of Bio-Medical Science and Technology, KIST School, Korea University of Science and Technology (UST)SeoulRepublic of Korea
| | - Dahee Jung
- Center for Functional Connectomics, Brain Science Institute, Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST)SeoulRepublic of Korea
| | - Sebastien Royer
- Center for Functional Connectomics, Brain Science Institute, Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST)SeoulRepublic of Korea
- Division of Bio-Medical Science and Technology, KIST School, Korea University of Science and Technology (UST)SeoulRepublic of Korea
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4
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Piet A, Ponvert N, Ollerenshaw D, Garrett M, Groblewski PA, Olsen S, Koch C, Arkhipov A. Behavioral strategy shapes activation of the Vip-Sst disinhibitory circuit in visual cortex. Neuron 2024; 112:1876-1890.e4. [PMID: 38447579 PMCID: PMC11156560 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuron.2024.02.008] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/31/2023] [Revised: 11/17/2023] [Accepted: 02/08/2024] [Indexed: 03/08/2024]
Abstract
In complex environments, animals can adopt diverse strategies to find rewards. How distinct strategies differentially engage brain circuits is not well understood. Here, we investigate this question, focusing on the cortical Vip-Sst disinhibitory circuit between vasoactive intestinal peptide-postive (Vip) interneurons and somatostatin-positive (Sst) interneurons. We characterize the behavioral strategies used by mice during a visual change detection task. Using a dynamic logistic regression model, we find that individual mice use mixtures of a visual comparison strategy and a statistical timing strategy. Separately, mice also have periods of task engagement and disengagement. Two-photon calcium imaging shows large strategy-dependent differences in neural activity in excitatory, Sst inhibitory, and Vip inhibitory cells in response to both image changes and image omissions. In contrast, task engagement has limited effects on neural population activity. We find that the diversity of neural correlates of strategy can be understood parsimoniously as the increased activation of the Vip-Sst disinhibitory circuit during the visual comparison strategy, which facilitates task-appropriate responses.
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Affiliation(s)
- Alex Piet
- Allen Institute, Mindscope Program, Seattle, WA, USA.
| | - Nick Ponvert
- Allen Institute, Mindscope Program, Seattle, WA, USA
| | | | | | | | - Shawn Olsen
- Allen Institute, Mindscope Program, Seattle, WA, USA
| | - Christof Koch
- Allen Institute, Mindscope Program, Seattle, WA, USA
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5
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Pezzulo G, D'Amato L, Mannella F, Priorelli M, Van de Maele T, Stoianov IP, Friston K. Neural representation in active inference: Using generative models to interact with-and understand-the lived world. Ann N Y Acad Sci 2024; 1534:45-68. [PMID: 38528782 DOI: 10.1111/nyas.15118] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 03/27/2024]
Abstract
This paper considers neural representation through the lens of active inference, a normative framework for understanding brain function. It delves into how living organisms employ generative models to minimize the discrepancy between predictions and observations (as scored with variational free energy). The ensuing analysis suggests that the brain learns generative models to navigate the world adaptively, not (or not solely) to understand it. Different living organisms may possess an array of generative models, spanning from those that support action-perception cycles to those that underwrite planning and imagination; namely, from explicit models that entail variables for predicting concurrent sensations, like objects, faces, or people-to action-oriented models that predict action outcomes. It then elucidates how generative models and belief dynamics might link to neural representation and the implications of different types of generative models for understanding an agent's cognitive capabilities in relation to its ecological niche. The paper concludes with open questions regarding the evolution of generative models and the development of advanced cognitive abilities-and the gradual transition from pragmatic to detached neural representations. The analysis on offer foregrounds the diverse roles that generative models play in cognitive processes and the evolution of neural representation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Giovanni Pezzulo
- Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies, National Research Council, Rome, Italy
| | - Leo D'Amato
- Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies, National Research Council, Rome, Italy
- Polytechnic University of Turin, Turin, Italy
| | - Francesco Mannella
- Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies, National Research Council, Rome, Italy
| | - Matteo Priorelli
- Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies, National Research Council, Padua, Italy
| | - Toon Van de Maele
- IDLab, Department of Information Technology, Ghent University - imec, Ghent, Belgium
| | - Ivilin Peev Stoianov
- Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies, National Research Council, Padua, Italy
| | - Karl Friston
- Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging, Queen Square Institute of Neurology, University College London, London, UK
- VERSES Research Lab, Los Angeles, California, USA
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6
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Proskurin M, Manakov M, Karpova A. ACC neural ensemble dynamics are structured by strategy prevalence. eLife 2023; 12:e84897. [PMID: 37991007 DOI: 10.7554/elife.84897] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/14/2022] [Accepted: 11/20/2023] [Indexed: 11/23/2023] Open
Abstract
Medial frontal cortical areas are thought to play a critical role in the brain's ability to flexibly deploy strategies that are effective in complex settings, yet the underlying circuit computations remain unclear. Here, by examining neural ensemble activity in male rats that sample different strategies in a self-guided search for latent task structure, we observe robust tracking during strategy execution of a summary statistic for that strategy in recent behavioral history by the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), especially by an area homologous to primate area 32D. Using the simplest summary statistic - strategy prevalence in the last 20 choices - we find that its encoding in the ACC during strategy execution is wide-scale, independent of reward delivery, and persists through a substantial ensemble reorganization that accompanies changes in global context. We further demonstrate that the tracking of reward by the ACC ensemble is also strategy-specific, but that reward prevalence is insufficient to explain the observed activity modulation during strategy execution. Our findings argue that ACC ensemble dynamics is structured by a summary statistic of recent behavioral choices, raising the possibility that ACC plays a role in estimating - through statistical learning - which actions promote the occurrence of events in the environment.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mikhail Proskurin
- Janelia Research Campus, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Ashburn, United States
- Department of Neuroscience, Johns Hopkins University Medical School, Baltimore, United States
| | - Maxim Manakov
- Janelia Research Campus, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Ashburn, United States
- Department of Neuroscience, Johns Hopkins University Medical School, Baltimore, United States
| | - Alla Karpova
- Janelia Research Campus, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Ashburn, United States
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7
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Horr NK, Mousavi B, Han K, Li A, Tang R. Human behavior in free search online shopping scenarios can be predicted from EEG activation using Hjorth parameters. Front Neurosci 2023; 17:1191213. [PMID: 38027474 PMCID: PMC10667477 DOI: 10.3389/fnins.2023.1191213] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/21/2023] [Accepted: 10/20/2023] [Indexed: 12/01/2023] Open
Abstract
The present work investigates whether and how decisions in real-world online shopping scenarios can be predicted based on brain activation. Potential customers were asked to search through product pages on e-commerce platforms and decide, which products to buy, while their EEG signal was recorded. Machine learning algorithms were then trained to distinguish between EEG activation when viewing products that are later bought or put into the shopping card as opposed to products that are later discarded. We find that Hjorth parameters extracted from the raw EEG can be used to predict purchase choices to a high level of accuracy. Above-chance predictions based on Hjorth parameters are achieved via different standard machine learning methods with random forest models showing the best performance of above 80% prediction accuracy in both 2-class (bought or put into card vs. not bought) and 3-class (bought vs. put into card vs. not bought) classification. While conventional EEG signal analysis commonly employs frequency domain features such as alpha or theta power and phase, Hjorth parameters use time domain signals, which can be calculated rapidly with little computational cost. Given the presented evidence that Hjorth parameters are suitable for the prediction of complex behaviors, their potential and remaining challenges for implementation in real-time applications are discussed.
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8
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Lu Y, Guo X, Weng X, Jiang H, Yan H, Shen X, Feng Z, Zhao X, Li L, Zheng L, Liu Z, Men W, Gao JH. Theta Signal Transfer from Parietal to Prefrontal Cortex Ignites Conscious Awareness of Implicit Knowledge during Sequence Learning. J Neurosci 2023; 43:6760-6778. [PMID: 37607820 PMCID: PMC10552945 DOI: 10.1523/jneurosci.2172-22.2023] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/10/2022] [Revised: 08/08/2023] [Accepted: 08/13/2023] [Indexed: 08/24/2023] Open
Abstract
Unconscious acquisition of sequence structure from experienced events can lead to explicit awareness of the pattern through extended practice. Although the implicit-to-explicit transition has been extensively studied in humans using the serial reaction time (SRT) task, the subtle neural activity supporting this transition remains unclear. Here, we investigated whether frequency-specific neural signal transfer contributes to this transition. A total of 208 participants (107 females) learned a sequence pattern through a multisession SRT task, allowing us to observe the transitions. Session-by-session measures of participants' awareness for sequence knowledge were conducted during the SRT task to identify the session when the transition occurred. By analyzing time course RT data using switchpoint modeling, we identified an increase in learning benefit specifically at the transition session. Electroencephalogram (EEG)/magnetoencephalogram (MEG) recordings revealed increased theta power in parietal (precuneus) regions one session before the transition (pretransition) and a prefrontal (superior frontal gyrus; SFG) one at the transition session. Phase transfer entropy (PTE) analysis confirmed that directional theta transfer from precuneus → SFG occurred at the pretransition session and its strength positively predicted learning improvement at the subsequent transition session. Furthermore, repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) modulated precuneus theta power and altered transfer strength from precuneus to SFG, resulting in changes in both transition rate and learning benefit at that specific point of transition. Our brain-stimulation evidence supports a role for parietal → prefrontal theta signal transfer in igniting conscious awareness of implicitly acquired knowledge.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT There exists a pervasive phenomenon wherein individuals unconsciously acquire sequence patterns from their environment, gradually becoming aware of the underlying regularities through repeated practice. While previous studies have established the robustness of this implicit-to-explicit transition in humans, the refined neural mechanisms facilitating conscious access to implicit knowledge remain poorly understood. Here, we demonstrate that prefrontal activity, known to be crucial for conscious awareness, is triggered by neural signal transfer originating from the posterior brain region, specifically the precuneus. By employing brain stimulation techniques, we establish a causal link between neural signal transfer and the occurrence of awareness. Our findings unveil a mechanism by which implicit knowledge becomes consciously accessible in human cognition.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yang Lu
- Fudan Institute on Ageing, Fudan University, Shanghai, China, 200433
- Ministry of education (MOE) Laboratory for National Development and Intelligent Governance, Fudan University, Shanghai, China, 200433
- School of Psychology and cognitive science, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China, 200062
| | - Xiuyan Guo
- Fudan Institute on Ageing, Fudan University, Shanghai, China, 200433
- Ministry of education (MOE) Laboratory for National Development and Intelligent Governance, Fudan University, Shanghai, China, 200433
| | - Xue Weng
- School of Psychology and cognitive science, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China, 200062
| | - Haoran Jiang
- Fudan Institute on Ageing, Fudan University, Shanghai, China, 200433
- Ministry of education (MOE) Laboratory for National Development and Intelligent Governance, Fudan University, Shanghai, China, 200433
| | - Huidan Yan
- School of Psychology and cognitive science, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China, 200062
| | - Xianting Shen
- Fudan Institute on Ageing, Fudan University, Shanghai, China, 200433
- Department of Psychology, Fudan University, Shanghai, China, 200433
| | - Zhengning Feng
- School of Psychology and cognitive science, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China, 200062
| | - Xinyue Zhao
- School of Psychology and cognitive science, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China, 200062
| | - Lin Li
- School of Psychology and cognitive science, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China, 200062
| | - Li Zheng
- Fudan Institute on Ageing, Fudan University, Shanghai, China, 200433
- Ministry of education (MOE) Laboratory for National Development and Intelligent Governance, Fudan University, Shanghai, China, 200433
| | - Zhiyuan Liu
- Shaanxi Key Laboratory of Behavior and Cognitive Neuroscience, School of Psychology, Shaanxi Normal University, Xi'an, China, 710062
| | - Weiwei Men
- Center for MRI Research, Academy for Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies, Peking University, Beijing, China, 100871
- Beijing City Key Laboratory for Medical Physics and Engineering, Institute of Heavy Ion Physics, School of Physics, Peking University, Beijing, China, 100871
| | - Jia-Hong Gao
- Beijing City Key Laboratory for Medical Physics and Engineering, Institute of Heavy Ion Physics, School of Physics, Peking University, Beijing, China, 100871
- Center for MRI Research and McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Peking University, Beijing, China, 100871
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9
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White SM, Morningstar MD, De Falco E, Linsenbardt DN, Ma B, Parks MA, Czachowski CL, Lapish CC. Flexible coding schemes in dorsomedial prefrontal cortex underlie decision-making during delay discounting. BIORXIV : THE PREPRINT SERVER FOR BIOLOGY 2023:2023.06.15.545101. [PMID: 37398190 PMCID: PMC10312702 DOI: 10.1101/2023.06.15.545101] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 07/04/2023]
Abstract
Determining how an agent decides between a small, immediate versus a larger, delayed reward has provided insight into the psychological and neural basis of decision-making. The tendency to excessively discount the value of delayed rewards is thought to reflect deficits in brain regions critical for impulse control such as the prefrontal cortex (PFC). This study tested the hypothesis that dorsomedial PFC (dmPFC) is critically involved in flexibly managing neural representations of strategies that limit impulsive choices. Optogenetic silencing of neurons in the rat dmPFC increased impulsive choices at an 8 sec, but not 4 sec, delay. Neural recordings from dmPFC ensembles revealed that, at the 8-sec delay, the encoding landscape transitions to reflect a deliberative-like process rather than the schema-like processes observed at the 4-sec delay. These findings show that changes in the encoding landscape reflect changes in task demands and that dmPFC is uniquely involved in decisions requiring deliberation.
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10
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Moneta N, Garvert MM, Heekeren HR, Schuck NW. Task state representations in vmPFC mediate relevant and irrelevant value signals and their behavioral influence. Nat Commun 2023; 14:3156. [PMID: 37258534 PMCID: PMC10232498 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-38709-w] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/15/2021] [Accepted: 05/09/2023] [Indexed: 06/02/2023] Open
Abstract
The ventromedial prefrontal-cortex (vmPFC) is known to contain expected value signals that inform our choices. But expected values even for the same stimulus can differ by task. In this study, we asked how the brain flexibly switches between such value representations in a task-dependent manner. Thirty-five participants alternated between tasks in which either stimulus color or motion predicted rewards. We show that multivariate vmPFC signals contain a rich representation that includes the current task state or context (motion/color), the associated expected value, and crucially, the irrelevant value of the alternative context. We also find that irrelevant value representations in vmPFC compete with relevant value signals, interact with task-state representations and relate to behavioral signs of value competition. Our results shed light on vmPFC's role in decision making, bridging between its role in mapping observations onto the task states of a mental map, and computing expected values for multiple states.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nir Moneta
- Max Planck Research Group NeuroCode, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, 14195, Berlin, Germany.
- Max Planck UCL Centre for Computational Psychiatry and Ageing Research, Berlin, 14195, Berlin, Germany.
- Einstein Center for Neurosciences Berlin, Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin, 10117, Berlin, Germany.
| | - Mona M Garvert
- Max Planck Research Group NeuroCode, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, 14195, Berlin, Germany
- Max Planck UCL Centre for Computational Psychiatry and Ageing Research, Berlin, 14195, Berlin, Germany
- Department of Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, 04103, Leipzig, Germany
| | - Hauke R Heekeren
- Einstein Center for Neurosciences Berlin, Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin, 10117, Berlin, Germany
- Department of Education and Psychology, Freie Universität Berlin, 14195, Berlin, Germany
- Institute of Psychology, Universität Hamburg, 20146, Hamburg, Germany
| | - Nicolas W Schuck
- Max Planck Research Group NeuroCode, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, 14195, Berlin, Germany.
- Max Planck UCL Centre for Computational Psychiatry and Ageing Research, Berlin, 14195, Berlin, Germany.
- Institute of Psychology, Universität Hamburg, 20146, Hamburg, Germany.
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11
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Seeing inferences: brain dynamics and oculomotor signatures of non-verbal deduction. Sci Rep 2023; 13:2341. [PMID: 36759690 PMCID: PMC9911777 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-29307-3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/02/2022] [Accepted: 02/02/2023] [Indexed: 02/11/2023] Open
Abstract
We often express our thoughts through words, but thinking goes well beyond language. Here we focus on an elementary but basic thinking process, disjunction elimination, elicited by elementary visual scenes deprived of linguistic content, describing its neural and oculomotor correlates. We track two main components of a nonverbal deductive process: the construction of a logical representation (A or B), and its simplification by deduction (not A, therefore B). We identify the network active in the two phases and show that in the latter, but not in the former, it overlaps with areas known to respond to verbal logical reasoning. Oculomotor markers consistently differentiate logical processing induced by the construction of a representation, its simplification by deductive inference, and its maintenance when inferences cannot be drawn. Our results reveal how integrative logical processes incorporate novel experience in the flow of thoughts induced by visual scenes.
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12
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De Martino B, Cortese A. Goals, usefulness and abstraction in value-based choice. Trends Cogn Sci 2023; 27:65-80. [PMID: 36446707 DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2022.11.001] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 10.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/23/2022] [Revised: 10/26/2022] [Accepted: 11/01/2022] [Indexed: 11/27/2022]
Abstract
Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar, while on the run, purportedly burned two million dollars in banknotes to keep his daughter warm. A stark reminder that, in life, circumstances and goals can quickly change, forcing us to reassess and modify our values on-the-fly. Studies in decision-making and neuroeconomics have often implicitly equated value to reward, emphasising the hedonic and automatic aspect of the value computation, while overlooking its functional (concept-like) nature. Here we outline the computational and biological principles that enable the brain to compute the usefulness of an option or action by creating abstractions that flexibly adapt to changing goals. We present different algorithmic architectures, comparing ideas from artificial intelligence (AI) and cognitive neuroscience with psychological theories and, when possible, drawing parallels.
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Affiliation(s)
- Benedetto De Martino
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London WC1N 3AZ, UK; Computational Neuroscience Laboratories, ATR Institute International, 619-0288 Kyoto, Japan.
| | - Aurelio Cortese
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London WC1N 3AZ, UK; Computational Neuroscience Laboratories, ATR Institute International, 619-0288 Kyoto, Japan.
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13
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Attanasi G, Egidi M, Manzoni E. Target-the-Two: a lab-in-the-field experiment on routinization. JOURNAL OF EVOLUTIONARY ECONOMICS 2022; 33:1-33. [PMID: 36471828 PMCID: PMC9713112 DOI: 10.1007/s00191-022-00795-2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 09/25/2022] [Indexed: 06/17/2023]
Abstract
The paper investigates the cognitive determinants of routinization and creativity by means of a lab-in-the-field experiment run at the 20th edition of a mass gathering festival in Italy ("La Notte della Taranta"). Subjects play repeatedly the puzzle version of the Target-The-Two game (32 hands). In hands 1-16, the strategy that is optimal given the card distribution is always the same and it is the easiest to be discovered. Conversely, in hands 17-32, subjects are exposed to games where the optimal contextual strategy may differ from the one with which they have been made familiar. We investigate whether and how, in hands 17-32, subjects remain routinized on the familiar strategy, or creatively choose a different one. We define as "experts" those subjects who played the optimal contextual strategy in the overwhelming majority of hands 1-16. In hands 17-32, we find several subjects playing the familiar strategy even when it is not the optimal one, regardless of whether they are experts or not. This shows that routinization is deep-rooted in the cognitive individual process. Furthermore, routinization pays off only for inexpert subjects: creative inexpert subjects are slower and they fail to find the optimal contextual strategy in several hands. Among expert subjects instead, creative subjects, although still slower, need less moves than routinized ones to find the optimal contextual strategy.
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Affiliation(s)
- Giuseppe Attanasi
- Department of Economics and Law, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy
- GREDEG, CNRS, Université Côte d’Azur, Valbonne, France
| | | | - Elena Manzoni
- Department of Economics, University of Bergamo, Bergamo, Italy
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14
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Gaschler R, Ditsche-Klein BE, Kriechbaumer M, Blech C, Wenke D. Using position rather than color at the traffic light - Covariation learning-based deviation from instructions in attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Front Psychol 2022; 13:967467. [PMID: 36160553 PMCID: PMC9490260 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.967467] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/14/2022] [Accepted: 08/17/2022] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Based on instructions people can form task representations that shield relevant from seemingly irrelevant information. It has been documented that instructions can tie people to a particular way of performing a task despite that in principle a more efficient way could be learned and used. Since task shielding can lead to persistence of inefficient variants of task performance, it is relevant to test whether individuals with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) - characterized by less task shielding - are more likely and quicker to escape a suboptimal instructed variant of performing a task. The paradigm used in this online study builds on the observation that in many environments different covarying features could be used to determine the appropriate response. For instance, as they approach a traffic light, drivers and pedestrians monitor the color (instructed stimulus feature) and/or the position of the signal (covarying stimulus feature, more efficient in case of reduced color sight). Similarly, we instructed participants to respond to the color of a stimulus without mentioning that color covaried with the position of the stimulus. In order to assess whether with practice participants would use the non-instructed feature position to an increasing extent, we compared reaction times and error rates for standard trials to trials in which color was either ambiguous or did not match the usual covariation. Results showed that the covariation learning task can be administered online to adult participants with and without ADHD. Performance differences suggested that with practice ADHD participants (n = 43 out of a total N = 245) might increase attention to non-instructed stimulus features. Yet, they used the non-instructed covarying stimulus feature to a similar extent as other participants. Together the results suggest that participants with ADHD do not lag behind in abandoning instructed task processing in favor of a learned alternative strategy.
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Affiliation(s)
- Robert Gaschler
- Department of Psychology, FernUniversität in Hagen, Hagen, Germany
| | | | | | - Christine Blech
- Department of Psychology, FernUniversität in Hagen, Hagen, Germany
| | - Dorit Wenke
- Department of Psychology, Private University of Applied Sciences, Göttingen, Germany
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15
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Ninomiya Y, Terai H, Miwa K. Differences in the distribution of attention to trained procedure between finders and non-finders of the alternative better procedure. Front Psychol 2022; 13:934029. [PMID: 36081729 PMCID: PMC9447375 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.934029] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/02/2022] [Accepted: 07/29/2022] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
The human ability to flexibly discover alternatives without fixating on a known solution supports a variety of human creative activities. Previous research has shown that people who discover an alternative procedure relax their attentional bias to information regarding the known solutions just prior to the discovery. This study examined whether the difference in the distribution of attention between the finders and non-finders of the alternative procedure is observed from the phase of solving the problem using the trained procedure. We evaluated the characteristics of the finders' distribution of attention in situations where problem solving using a trained procedure was successful. This aspect has been little examined in previous research. Our study obtained empirical evidence for the fact that, compared to non-finders, finders pay more attention to information unrelated to the trained procedure acquired through knowledge and experience, even time when using a trained procedure. We also confirmed that this difference does not exist from the beginning of the task, but emerges during repeated use of familiar procedures. These findings indicate that in order to find an alternative procedure, one should not only divert attention from a familiar procedure just before the discovery but also pay a certain amount of attention to information unrelated to the familiar procedure even when the familiar procedure is functioning well.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yuki Ninomiya
- Global Research Institute for Mobility in Society Institutes of Innovation for Future Society, Nagiya University, Nagoya, Japan
- *Correspondence: Yuki Ninomiya
| | - Hitoshi Terai
- Faculty of Humanity-Oriented Science and Engineering, Kindai University, Fukuoka, Japan
| | - Kazuhisa Miwa
- Graduate school of Informatics, Nagiya University, Nagoya, Japan
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16
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Leisman G, Melillo R. Front and center: Maturational dysregulation of frontal lobe functional neuroanatomic connections in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Front Neuroanat 2022; 16:936025. [PMID: 36081853 PMCID: PMC9446472 DOI: 10.3389/fnana.2022.936025] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/04/2022] [Accepted: 07/29/2022] [Indexed: 12/21/2022] Open
Abstract
Frontal lobe function may not universally explain all forms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) but the frontal lobe hypothesis described supports an internally consistent model for integrating the numerous behaviors associated with ADHD. The paper examines the developmental trajectories of frontal and prefrontal lobe development, framing ADHD as maturational dysregulation concluding that the cognitive, motor, and behavioral abilities of the presumptive majority of ADHD children may not primarily be disordered or dysfunctional but reflect maturational dysregulation that is inconsistent with the psychomotor and cognitive expectations for the child’s chronological and mental age. ADHD children demonstrate decreased activation of the right and middle prefrontal cortex. Prefrontal and frontal lobe regions have an exuberant network of shared pathways with the diencephalic region, also having a regulatory function in arousal as well as with the ascending reticular formation which has a capacity for response suppression to task-irrelevant stimuli. Prefrontal lesions oftentimes are associated with the regulatory breakdown of goal-directed activity and impulsivity. In conclusion, a presumptive majority of childhood ADHD may result from maturational dysregulation of the frontal lobes with effects on the direct, indirect and/or, hyperdirect pathways.
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Affiliation(s)
- Gerry Leisman
- Movement and Cognition Laboratory, Department of Physical Therapy, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel
- Department of Neurology, University of Medical Sciences of Havana, Havana, Cuba
- *Correspondence: Gerry Leisman,
| | - Robert Melillo
- Movement and Cognition Laboratory, Department of Physical Therapy, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel
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17
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Nour MM, Liu Y, Dolan RJ. Functional neuroimaging in psychiatry and the case for failing better. Neuron 2022; 110:2524-2544. [PMID: 35981525 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuron.2022.07.005] [Citation(s) in RCA: 27] [Impact Index Per Article: 13.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/03/2022] [Revised: 06/06/2022] [Accepted: 07/08/2022] [Indexed: 12/27/2022]
Abstract
Psychiatric disorders encompass complex aberrations of cognition and affect and are among the most debilitating and poorly understood of any medical condition. Current treatments rely primarily on interventions that target brain function (drugs) or learning processes (psychotherapy). A mechanistic understanding of how these interventions mediate their therapeutic effects remains elusive. From the early 1990s, non-invasive functional neuroimaging, coupled with parallel developments in the cognitive neurosciences, seemed to signal a new era of neurobiologically grounded diagnosis and treatment in psychiatry. Yet, despite three decades of intense neuroimaging research, we still lack a neurobiological account for any psychiatric condition. Likewise, functional neuroimaging plays no role in clinical decision making. Here, we offer a critical commentary on this impasse and suggest how the field might fare better and deliver impactful neurobiological insights.
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Affiliation(s)
- Matthew M Nour
- Max Planck University College London Centre for Computational Psychiatry and Ageing Research, London WC1B 5EH, UK; Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Neuroimaging, University College London, London WC1N 3AR, UK; Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford, Oxford OX3 7JX, UK.
| | - Yunzhe Liu
- Max Planck University College London Centre for Computational Psychiatry and Ageing Research, London WC1B 5EH, UK; State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning, IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China; Chinese Institute for Brain Research, Beijing 102206, China
| | - Raymond J Dolan
- Max Planck University College London Centre for Computational Psychiatry and Ageing Research, London WC1B 5EH, UK; Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Neuroimaging, University College London, London WC1N 3AR, UK; State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning, IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China.
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18
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Kuang C, Chen J, Chen J, Shi Y, Huang H, Jiao B, Lin Q, Rao Y, Liu W, Zhu Y, Mo L, Ma L, Lin J. Uncovering neural distinctions and commodities between two creativity subsets: A meta-analysis of fMRI studies in divergent thinking and insight using activation likelihood estimation. Hum Brain Mapp 2022; 43:4864-4885. [PMID: 35906880 PMCID: PMC9582370 DOI: 10.1002/hbm.26029] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/22/2022] [Revised: 07/12/2022] [Accepted: 07/15/2022] [Indexed: 11/21/2022] Open
Abstract
The dual‐process theory that two different systems of thought coexist in creative thinking has attracted considerable attention. In the field of creative thinking, divergent thinking (DT) is the ability to produce multiple solutions to open‐ended problems in a short time. It is mainly considered an associative and fast process. Meanwhile, insight, the new and unexpected comprehension of close‐ended problems, is frequently marked as a deliberate and time‐consuming thinking process requiring concentrated effort. Previous research has been dedicated to revealing their separate neural mechanisms, while few studies have compared their differences and similarities at the brain level. Therefore, the current study applied Activation Likelihood Estimation to decipher common and distinctive neural pathways that potentially underlie DT and insight. We selected 27 DT studies and 30 insight studies for retrospective meta‐analyses. Initially, two single analyses with follow‐up contrast and conjunction analyses were performed. The single analyses showed that DT mainly involved the inferior parietal lobe (IPL), cuneus, and middle frontal gyrus (MFG), while the precentral gyrus, inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), parahippocampal gyrus (PG), amygdala (AMG), and superior parietal lobe were engaged in insight. Compared to insight, DT mainly led to greater activation in the IPL, the crucial part of the default mode network. However, insight caused more significant activation in regions related to executive control functions and emotional responses, such as the IFG, MFG, PG, and AMG. Notably, the conjunction analysis detected no overlapped areas between DT and insight. These neural findings implicate that various neurocognitive circuits may support DT and insight.
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Affiliation(s)
- Changyi Kuang
- Department of Psychology, School of Public Health and Management, Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, Guangzhou, China
| | - Jun Chen
- Center for Studies of Psychological Application, Guangdong Key Laboratory of Mental Health and Cognitive Science, School of Psychology, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China
| | - Jiawen Chen
- Department of Psychology, School of Public Health and Management, Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, Guangzhou, China
| | - Yafei Shi
- Department of Psychology, School of Public Health and Management, Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, Guangzhou, China
| | - Huiyuan Huang
- Department of Psychology, School of Public Health and Management, Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, Guangzhou, China
| | - Bingqing Jiao
- Department of Psychology, School of Public Health and Management, Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, Guangzhou, China
| | - Qiwen Lin
- Department of Psychology, School of Public Health and Management, Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, Guangzhou, China
| | - Yuyang Rao
- Department of Psychology, School of Public Health and Management, Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, Guangzhou, China
| | - Wenting Liu
- Department of Psychology, School of Public Health and Management, Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, Guangzhou, China
| | - Yunpeng Zhu
- Department of Psychology, School of Public Health and Management, Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, Guangzhou, China
| | - Lei Mo
- Center for Studies of Psychological Application, Guangdong Key Laboratory of Mental Health and Cognitive Science, School of Psychology, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China
| | - Lijun Ma
- Department of Psychology, School of Public Health and Management, Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, Guangzhou, China
| | - Jiabao Lin
- Department of Psychology, School of Public Health and Management, Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, Guangzhou, China.,UMR 5229, Institut des Sciences Cognitives Marc Jeannerod, CNRS, Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, Lyon, France
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19
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Klein-Flügge MC, Bongioanni A, Rushworth MFS. Medial and orbital frontal cortex in decision-making and flexible behavior. Neuron 2022; 110:2743-2770. [PMID: 35705077 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuron.2022.05.022] [Citation(s) in RCA: 40] [Impact Index Per Article: 20.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/08/2022] [Revised: 05/17/2022] [Accepted: 05/19/2022] [Indexed: 11/15/2022]
Abstract
The medial frontal cortex and adjacent orbitofrontal cortex have been the focus of investigations of decision-making, behavioral flexibility, and social behavior. We review studies conducted in humans, macaques, and rodents and argue that several regions with different functional roles can be identified in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, perigenual anterior cingulate cortex, anterior medial frontal cortex, ventromedial prefrontal cortex, and medial and lateral parts of the orbitofrontal cortex. There is increasing evidence that the manner in which these areas represent the value of the environment and specific choices is different from subcortical brain regions and more complex than previously thought. Although activity in some regions reflects distributions of reward and opportunities across the environment, in other cases, activity reflects the structural relationships between features of the environment that animals can use to infer what decision to take even if they have not encountered identical opportunities in the past.
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Affiliation(s)
- Miriam C Klein-Flügge
- Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging (WIN), Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Tinsley Building, Mansfield Road, Oxford OX1 3TA, UK; Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging (WIN), Centre for Functional MRI of the Brain (FMRIB), University of Oxford, Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, Level 6, West Wing, John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford OX3 9DU, UK; Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford, Warneford Lane, Headington, Oxford OX3 7JX, UK.
| | - Alessandro Bongioanni
- Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging (WIN), Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Tinsley Building, Mansfield Road, Oxford OX1 3TA, UK
| | - Matthew F S Rushworth
- Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging (WIN), Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Tinsley Building, Mansfield Road, Oxford OX1 3TA, UK; Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging (WIN), Centre for Functional MRI of the Brain (FMRIB), University of Oxford, Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, Level 6, West Wing, John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford OX3 9DU, UK
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20
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Schuck NW, Li AX, Wenke D, Ay-Bryson DS, Loewe AT, Gaschler R, Shing YL. Spontaneous discovery of novel task solutions in children. PLoS One 2022; 17:e0266253. [PMID: 35639714 PMCID: PMC9154107 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0266253] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/22/2021] [Accepted: 03/16/2022] [Indexed: 12/12/2022] Open
Abstract
Children often perform worse than adults on tasks that require focused attention. While this is commonly regarded as a sign of incomplete cognitive development, a broader attentional focus could also endow children with the ability to find novel solutions to a given task. To test this idea, we investigated children’s ability to discover and use novel aspects of the environment that allowed them to improve their decision-making strategy. Participants were given a simple choice task in which the possibility of strategy improvement was neither mentioned by instructions nor encouraged by explicit error feedback. Among 47 children (8—10 years of age) who were instructed to perform the choice task across two experiments, 27.5% showed a full strategy change. This closely matched the proportion of adults who had the same insight (28.2% of n = 39). The amount of erroneous choices, working memory capacity and inhibitory control, in contrast, indicated substantial disadvantages of children in task execution and cognitive control. A task difficulty manipulation did not affect the results. The stark contrast between age-differences in different aspects of cognitive performance might offer a unique opportunity for educators in fostering learning in children.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nicolas W. Schuck
- Max Planck Research Group NeuroCode, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany
- Max Planck UCL Centre for Computational Psychiatry and Ageing Research, Berlin, Germany
- * E-mail:
| | - Amy X. Li
- School of Psychology, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
| | - Dorit Wenke
- PFH Private University of Applied Sciences, Göttingen, Germany
| | - Destina S. Ay-Bryson
- Department of Rehabilitation Sciences, Humboldt University of Berlin, Berlin, Germany
| | - Anika T. Loewe
- Max Planck Research Group NeuroCode, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany
- Max Planck UCL Centre for Computational Psychiatry and Ageing Research, Berlin, Germany
| | | | - Yee Lee Shing
- Institute of Psychology, Goethe University Frankfurt, Frankfurt, Germany
- Center for Lifespan Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany
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21
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Malhotra G, Dujmović M, Bowers JS. Feature blindness: A challenge for understanding and modelling visual object recognition. PLoS Comput Biol 2022; 18:e1009572. [PMID: 35560155 PMCID: PMC9132323 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1009572] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/19/2021] [Revised: 05/25/2022] [Accepted: 03/19/2022] [Indexed: 12/02/2022] Open
Abstract
Humans rely heavily on the shape of objects to recognise them. Recently, it has been argued that Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) can also show a shape-bias, provided their learning environment contains this bias. This has led to the proposal that CNNs provide good mechanistic models of shape-bias and, more generally, human visual processing. However, it is also possible that humans and CNNs show a shape-bias for very different reasons, namely, shape-bias in humans may be a consequence of architectural and cognitive constraints whereas CNNs show a shape-bias as a consequence of learning the statistics of the environment. We investigated this question by exploring shape-bias in humans and CNNs when they learn in a novel environment. We observed that, in this new environment, humans (i) focused on shape and overlooked many non-shape features, even when non-shape features were more diagnostic, (ii) learned based on only one out of multiple predictive features, and (iii) failed to learn when global features, such as shape, were absent. This behaviour contrasted with the predictions of a statistical inference model with no priors, showing the strong role that shape-bias plays in human feature selection. It also contrasted with CNNs that (i) preferred to categorise objects based on non-shape features, and (ii) increased reliance on these non-shape features as they became more predictive. This was the case even when the CNN was pre-trained to have a shape-bias and the convolutional backbone was frozen. These results suggest that shape-bias has a different source in humans and CNNs: while learning in CNNs is driven by the statistical properties of the environment, humans are highly constrained by their previous biases, which suggests that cognitive constraints play a key role in how humans learn to recognise novel objects. Any object consists of hundreds of visual features that can be used to recognise it. How do humans select which feature to use? Do we always choose features that are best at predicting the object? In a series of experiments using carefully designed stimuli, we find that humans frequently ignore many features that are clearly visible and highly predictive. This behaviour is statistically inefficient and we show that it contrasts with statistical inference models such as state-of-the-art neural networks. Unlike humans, these models learn to rely on the most predictive feature when trained on the same data. We argue that the reason underlying human behaviour may be a bias to look for features that are less hungry for cognitive resources and generalise better to novel instances. Models that incorporate cognitive constraints may not only allow us to better understand human vision but also help us develop machine learning models that are more robust to changes in incidental features of objects.
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Affiliation(s)
- Gaurav Malhotra
- School of Psychological Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol, United Kingdom
- * E-mail:
| | - Marin Dujmović
- School of Psychological Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol, United Kingdom
| | - Jeffrey S. Bowers
- School of Psychological Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol, United Kingdom
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22
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Naefgen C, Gaschler R. Trade-Off vs. Common Factor-Differentiating Resource-Based Explanations From Their Alternative. Front Psychol 2022; 13:774938. [PMID: 35360631 PMCID: PMC8962370 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.774938] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/13/2021] [Accepted: 02/14/2022] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Affiliation(s)
- Christoph Naefgen
- Abteilung Allgemeine Psychologie: Lernen, Motivation, Emotion, University of Hagen, Hagen, Germany
| | - Robert Gaschler
- Abteilung Allgemeine Psychologie: Lernen, Motivation, Emotion, University of Hagen, Hagen, Germany
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23
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Abstract
In human neuroscience, studies of cognition are rarely grounded in non-task-evoked, 'spontaneous' neural activity. Indeed, studies of spontaneous activity tend to focus predominantly on intrinsic neural patterns (for example, resting-state networks). Taking a 'representation-rich' approach bridges the gap between cognition and resting-state communities: this approach relies on decoding task-related representations from spontaneous neural activity, allowing quantification of the representational content and rich dynamics of such activity. For example, if we know the neural representation of an episodic memory, we can decode its subsequent replay during rest. We argue that such an approach advances cognitive research beyond a focus on immediate task demand and provides insight into the functional relevance of the intrinsic neural pattern (for example, the default mode network). This in turn enables a greater integration between human and animal neuroscience, facilitating experimental testing of theoretical accounts of intrinsic activity, and opening new avenues of research in psychiatry.
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24
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Uhrig S, Perkis A, Möller S, Svensson UP, Behne DM. Effects of Spatial Speech Presentation on Listener Response Strategy for Talker-Identification. Front Neurosci 2022; 15:730744. [PMID: 35153653 PMCID: PMC8831717 DOI: 10.3389/fnins.2021.730744] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/25/2021] [Accepted: 12/13/2021] [Indexed: 11/28/2022] Open
Abstract
This study investigates effects of spatial auditory cues on human listeners' response strategy for identifying two alternately active talkers (“turn-taking” listening scenario). Previous research has demonstrated subjective benefits of audio spatialization with regard to speech intelligibility and talker-identification effort. So far, the deliberate activation of specific perceptual and cognitive processes by listeners to optimize their task performance remained largely unexamined. Spoken sentences selected as stimuli were either clean or degraded due to background noise or bandpass filtering. Stimuli were presented via three horizontally positioned loudspeakers: In a non-spatial mode, both talkers were presented through a central loudspeaker; in a spatial mode, each talker was presented through the central or a talker-specific lateral loudspeaker. Participants identified talkers via speeded keypresses and afterwards provided subjective ratings (speech quality, speech intelligibility, voice similarity, talker-identification effort). In the spatial mode, presentations at lateral loudspeaker locations entailed quicker behavioral responses, which were significantly slower in comparison to a talker-localization task. Under clean speech, response times globally increased in the spatial vs. non-spatial mode (across all locations); these “response time switch costs,” presumably being caused by repeated switching of spatial auditory attention between different locations, diminished under degraded speech. No significant effects of spatialization on subjective ratings were found. The results suggested that when listeners could utilize task-relevant auditory cues about talker location, they continued to rely on voice recognition instead of localization of talker sound sources as primary response strategy. Besides, the presence of speech degradations may have led to increased cognitive control, which in turn compensated for incurring response time switch costs.
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Affiliation(s)
- Stefan Uhrig
- Department of Electronic Systems, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway
- Quality and Usability Lab, Technische Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany
- *Correspondence: Stefan Uhrig
| | - Andrew Perkis
- Department of Electronic Systems, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway
| | - Sebastian Möller
- Quality and Usability Lab, Technische Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany
- Speech and Language Technology, German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence, Berlin, Germany
| | - U. Peter Svensson
- Department of Electronic Systems, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway
| | - Dawn M. Behne
- Department of Psychology, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway
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25
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Soltani A, Koechlin E. Computational models of adaptive behavior and prefrontal cortex. Neuropsychopharmacology 2022; 47:58-71. [PMID: 34389808 PMCID: PMC8617006 DOI: 10.1038/s41386-021-01123-1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 18] [Impact Index Per Article: 9.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/10/2021] [Revised: 07/19/2021] [Accepted: 07/20/2021] [Indexed: 02/07/2023]
Abstract
The real world is uncertain, and while ever changing, it constantly presents itself in terms of new sets of behavioral options. To attain the flexibility required to tackle these challenges successfully, most mammalian brains are equipped with certain computational abilities that rely on the prefrontal cortex (PFC). By examining learning in terms of internal models associating stimuli, actions, and outcomes, we argue here that adaptive behavior relies on specific interactions between multiple systems including: (1) selective models learning stimulus-action associations through rewards; (2) predictive models learning stimulus- and/or action-outcome associations through statistical inferences anticipating behavioral outcomes; and (3) contextual models learning external cues associated with latent states of the environment. Critically, the PFC combines these internal models by forming task sets to drive behavior and, moreover, constantly evaluates the reliability of actor task sets in predicting external contingencies to switch between task sets or create new ones. We review different models of adaptive behavior to demonstrate how their components map onto this unifying framework and specific PFC regions. Finally, we discuss how our framework may help to better understand the neural computations and the cognitive architecture of PFC regions guiding adaptive behavior.
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Affiliation(s)
- Alireza Soltani
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, USA.
| | - Etienne Koechlin
- Institut National de la Sante et de la Recherche Medicale, Universite Pierre et Marie Curie, Ecole Normale Superieure, Paris, France.
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26
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Lustig C, Esser S, Haider H. The interplay between unexpected events and behavior in the development of explicit knowledge in implicit sequence learning. PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH 2021; 86:2225-2238. [PMID: 34951662 PMCID: PMC9470660 DOI: 10.1007/s00426-021-01630-2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/30/2021] [Accepted: 12/10/2021] [Indexed: 01/25/2023]
Abstract
Some studies in implicit learning investigate the mechanisms by which implicitly acquired knowledge (e.g., learning a sequence of responses) becomes consciously aware. It has been suggested that unexpected changes in the own behavior can trigger search processes, of which the outcome then becomes aware. A consistent empirical finding is that participants who develop explicit knowledge show a sudden decrease in reaction times, when responding to sequential events. This so called RT-drop might indicate the point of time when explicit knowledge occurs. We investigated whether an RT-drop is a precursor for the development of explicit knowledge or the consequence of explicit knowledge. To answer this question, we manipulated in a serial reaction time task the timing of long and short stimulus-onset asynchronies (SOA). For some participants, the different SOAs were presented in blocks of either long or short SOAs, while for others, the SOAs changed randomly. We expected the participants who were given a blocked presentation to express an RT-drop because of the predictable timing. In contrast, randomly changing SOAs should hamper the expression of an RT-drop. We found that more participants in the blocked-SOA condition than in the random-SOA condition showed an RT-drop. Furthermore, the amount of explicit knowledge did not differ between the two conditions. The findings suggest that the RT-drop does not seem to be a presupposition to develop explicit knowledge. Rather, it seems that the RT-drop indicates a behavioral strategy shift as a consequence of explicit knowledge.
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Affiliation(s)
- Clarissa Lustig
- Department of Psychology, University of Cologne, Richard-Strauss-Str. 2, 50931, Cologne, Germany.
| | - Sarah Esser
- Department of Psychology, University of Cologne, Richard-Strauss-Str. 2, 50931, Cologne, Germany
| | - Hilde Haider
- Department of Psychology, University of Cologne, Richard-Strauss-Str. 2, 50931, Cologne, Germany
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27
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Dissociable mechanisms of information sampling in prefrontal cortex and the dopaminergic system. Curr Opin Behav Sci 2021. [DOI: 10.1016/j.cobeha.2021.04.005] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/21/2022]
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28
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Esser S, Lustig C, Haider H. What triggers explicit awareness in implicit sequence learning? Implications from theories of consciousness. PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH 2021; 86:1442-1457. [PMID: 34586489 PMCID: PMC9177494 DOI: 10.1007/s00426-021-01594-3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/11/2020] [Accepted: 09/04/2021] [Indexed: 12/13/2022]
Abstract
This article aims to continue the debate on how explicit, conscious knowledge can arise in an implicit learning situation. We review hitherto existing theoretical views and evaluate their compatibility with two current, successful scientific concepts of consciousness: The Global Workspace Theory and Higher-Order Thought Theories. In this context, we introduce the Unexpected Event Hypothesis (Frensch et al., Attention and implicit learning, John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2003) in an elaborated form and discuss its advantage in explaining the emergence of conscious knowledge in an implicit learning situation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sarah Esser
- Department of General Psychology 1, University of Cologne, NRW, Cologne, Germany.
| | - Clarissa Lustig
- Department of General Psychology 1, University of Cologne, NRW, Cologne, Germany
| | - Hilde Haider
- Department of General Psychology 1, University of Cologne, NRW, Cologne, Germany
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29
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Learning and Representation of Hierarchical Concepts in Hippocampus and Prefrontal Cortex. J Neurosci 2021; 41:7675-7686. [PMID: 34330775 DOI: 10.1523/jneurosci.0657-21.2021] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/28/2021] [Revised: 07/02/2021] [Accepted: 07/08/2021] [Indexed: 11/21/2022] Open
Abstract
A key aspect of conceptual knowledge is that it can be flexibly applied at different levels of abstraction, implying a hierarchical organization. It is yet unclear how this hierarchical structure is acquired and represented in the brain. Here we investigate the computations underlying the acquisition and representation of the hierarchical structure of conceptual knowledge in the hippocampal-prefrontal system of 32 human participants (22 females). We assessed the hierarchical nature of learning during a novel tree-like categorization task via computational model comparisons. The winning model allowed to extract and quantify estimates for accumulation and updating of hierarchical compared with single-feature-based concepts from behavior. We find that mPFC tracks accumulation of hierarchical conceptual knowledge over time, and mPFC and hippocampus both support trial-to-trial updating. As a function of those learning parameters, mPFC and hippocampus further show connectivity changes to rostro-lateral PFC, which ultimately represented the hierarchical structure of the concept in the final stages of learning. Our results suggest that mPFC and hippocampus support the integration of accumulated evidence and instantaneous updates into hierarchical concept representations in rostro-lateral PFC.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT A hallmark of human cognition is the flexible use of conceptual knowledge at different levels of abstraction, ranging from a coarse category level to a fine-grained subcategory level. While previous work probed the representational geometry of long-term category knowledge, it is unclear how this hierarchical structure inherent to conceptual knowledge is acquired and represented. By combining a novel hierarchical concept learning task with computational modeling of categorization behavior and concurrent fMRI, we differentiate the roles of key concept learning regions in hippocampus and PFC in learning computations and the representation of a hierarchical category structure.
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30
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Wittkuhn L, Chien S, Hall-McMaster S, Schuck NW. Replay in minds and machines. Neurosci Biobehav Rev 2021; 129:367-388. [PMID: 34371078 DOI: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2021.08.002] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/22/2021] [Revised: 07/19/2021] [Accepted: 08/01/2021] [Indexed: 11/19/2022]
Abstract
Experience-related brain activity patterns reactivate during sleep, wakeful rest, and brief pauses from active behavior. In parallel, machine learning research has found that experience replay can lead to substantial performance improvements in artificial agents. Together, these lines of research suggest replay has a variety of computational benefits for decision-making and learning. Here, we provide an overview of putative computational functions of replay as suggested by machine learning and neuroscientific research. We show that replay can lead to faster learning, less forgetting, reorganization or augmentation of experiences, and support planning and generalization. In addition, we highlight the benefits of reactivating abstracted internal representations rather than veridical memories, and discuss how replay could provide a mechanism to build internal representations that improve learning and decision-making.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lennart Wittkuhn
- Max Planck Research Group NeuroCode, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Lentzeallee 94, D-14195 Berlin, Germany; Max Planck UCL Centre for Computational Psychiatry and Ageing Research, Lentzeallee 94, D-14195 Berlin, Germany.
| | - Samson Chien
- Max Planck Research Group NeuroCode, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Lentzeallee 94, D-14195 Berlin, Germany; Max Planck UCL Centre for Computational Psychiatry and Ageing Research, Lentzeallee 94, D-14195 Berlin, Germany
| | - Sam Hall-McMaster
- Max Planck Research Group NeuroCode, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Lentzeallee 94, D-14195 Berlin, Germany; Max Planck UCL Centre for Computational Psychiatry and Ageing Research, Lentzeallee 94, D-14195 Berlin, Germany
| | - Nicolas W Schuck
- Max Planck Research Group NeuroCode, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Lentzeallee 94, D-14195 Berlin, Germany; Max Planck UCL Centre for Computational Psychiatry and Ageing Research, Lentzeallee 94, D-14195 Berlin, Germany.
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31
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Tervo DGR, Kuleshova E, Manakov M, Proskurin M, Karlsson M, Lustig A, Behnam R, Karpova AY. The anterior cingulate cortex directs exploration of alternative strategies. Neuron 2021; 109:1876-1887.e6. [PMID: 33852896 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuron.2021.03.028] [Citation(s) in RCA: 25] [Impact Index Per Article: 8.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/21/2020] [Revised: 12/31/2020] [Accepted: 03/22/2021] [Indexed: 12/26/2022]
Abstract
The ability to adjust one's behavioral strategy in complex environments is at the core of cognition. Doing so efficiently requires monitoring the reliability of the ongoing strategy and, when appropriate, switching away from it to evaluate alternatives. Studies in humans and non-human primates have uncovered signals in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) that reflect the pressure to switch away from the ongoing strategy, whereas other ACC signals relate to the pursuit of alternatives. However, whether these signals underlie computations that actually underpin strategy switching or merely reflect tracking of related variables remains unclear. Here we provide causal evidence that the rodent ACC actively arbitrates between persisting with the ongoing behavioral strategy and temporarily switching away to re-evaluate alternatives. Furthermore, by individually perturbing distinct output pathways, we establish that the two associated computations-determining whether to switch strategy and committing to the pursuit of a specific alternative-are segregated in the ACC microcircuitry.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Elena Kuleshova
- Janelia Research Campus, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Ashburn, VA, USA; Institute of Higher Nervous Activity and Neurophysiology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia
| | - Maxim Manakov
- Janelia Research Campus, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Ashburn, VA, USA; Department of Neuroscience, Johns Hopkins University Medical School, Baltimore, MD, USA
| | - Mikhail Proskurin
- Janelia Research Campus, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Ashburn, VA, USA; Department of Neuroscience, Johns Hopkins University Medical School, Baltimore, MD, USA
| | - Mattias Karlsson
- Janelia Research Campus, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Ashburn, VA, USA; SpikeGadgets, San Francisco, CA, USA
| | - Andy Lustig
- Janelia Research Campus, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Ashburn, VA, USA
| | - Reza Behnam
- Janelia Research Campus, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Ashburn, VA, USA
| | - Alla Y Karpova
- Janelia Research Campus, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Ashburn, VA, USA.
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32
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Abstract
In 2005, the Moser group identified a new type of cell in the entorhinal cortex (ERC): the grid cell (Hafting, Nature, 436, 2005, pp. 801-806). A landmark series of studies from these investigators showed that grid cells support spatial navigation by encoding position, direction as well as distance information, and they subsequently found grid cells in pre- and para-subiculum areas adjacent to the ERC (Boccara, Nature Neuroscience, 13, 2010, pp. 987-994). Fast forward to 2010, when some clever investigators developed fMRI analysis methods to document grid-like responses in the human ERC (Doeller, Nature, 463, 2010, pp. 657-661). What was not at all expected was the co-identification of grid-like fMRI responses outside of the ERC, in particular, the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC). Here we provide a compact overview of the burgeoning literature on grid cells in both rodent and human species, while considering the intriguing question: what are grid-like responses doing in the OFC and vmPFC? (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).
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Affiliation(s)
- Clara U. Raithel
- Department of Neurology, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, 3400 Hamilton Walk, Stemmler Hall, Room G10, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA
- Department of Psychology, School of Arts and Sciences, University of Pennsylvania, 425 S. University Avenue, Stephen A. Levin Building, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, USA
| | - Jay A. Gottfried
- Department of Neurology, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, 3400 Hamilton Walk, Stemmler Hall, Room G10, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA
- Department of Psychology, School of Arts and Sciences, University of Pennsylvania, 425 S. University Avenue, Stephen A. Levin Building, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, USA
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33
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Patai EZ, Spiers HJ. The Versatile Wayfinder: Prefrontal Contributions to Spatial Navigation. Trends Cogn Sci 2021; 25:520-533. [PMID: 33752958 DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2021.02.010] [Citation(s) in RCA: 48] [Impact Index Per Article: 16.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/11/2020] [Revised: 02/22/2021] [Accepted: 02/23/2021] [Indexed: 12/15/2022]
Abstract
The prefrontal cortex (PFC) supports decision-making, goal tracking, and planning. Spatial navigation is a behavior that taxes these cognitive processes, yet the role of the PFC in models of navigation has been largely overlooked. In humans, activity in dorsolateral PFC (dlPFC) and ventrolateral PFC (vlPFC) during detours, reveal a role in inhibition and replanning. Dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) is implicated in planning and spontaneous internally-generated changes of route. Orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) integrates representations of the environment with the value of actions, providing a 'map' of possible decisions. In rodents, medial frontal areas interact with hippocampus during spatial decisions and switching between navigation strategies. In reviewing these advances, we provide a framework for how different prefrontal regions may contribute to different stages of navigation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Eva Zita Patai
- Centre for Neuroimaging Sciences, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience (IoPPN), King's College London, UK; Institute of Behavioural Neuroscience, Department of Experimental Psychology, Division of Psychology and Language sciences, University College London, UK.
| | - Hugo J Spiers
- Institute of Behavioural Neuroscience, Department of Experimental Psychology, Division of Psychology and Language sciences, University College London, UK.
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34
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Abstract
The central theme of this review is the dynamic interaction between information selection and learning. We pose a fundamental question about this interaction: How do we learn what features of our experiences are worth learning about? In humans, this process depends on attention and memory, two cognitive functions that together constrain representations of the world to features that are relevant for goal attainment. Recent evidence suggests that the representations shaped by attention and memory are themselves inferred from experience with each task. We review this evidence and place it in the context of work that has explicitly characterized representation learning as statistical inference. We discuss how inference can be scaled to real-world decisions by approximating beliefs based on a small number of experiences. Finally, we highlight some implications of this inference process for human decision-making in social environments.
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Affiliation(s)
- Angela Radulescu
- Department of Psychology, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA; .,Princeton Neuroscience Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA
| | - Yeon Soon Shin
- Princeton Neuroscience Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA
| | - Yael Niv
- Department of Psychology, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA; .,Princeton Neuroscience Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA
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35
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Coordinated Prefrontal State Transition Leads Extinction of Reward-Seeking Behaviors. J Neurosci 2021; 41:2406-2419. [PMID: 33531416 DOI: 10.1523/jneurosci.2588-20.2021] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/05/2020] [Revised: 12/16/2020] [Accepted: 01/17/2021] [Indexed: 11/21/2022] Open
Abstract
Extinction learning suppresses conditioned reward responses and is thus fundamental to adapt to changing environmental demands and to control excessive reward seeking. The medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) monitors and controls conditioned reward responses. Abrupt transitions in mPFC activity anticipate changes in conditioned responses to altered contingencies. It remains, however, unknown whether such transitions are driven by the extinction of old behavioral strategies or by the acquisition of new competing ones. Using in vivo multiple single-unit recordings of mPFC in male rats, we studied the relationship between single-unit and population dynamics during extinction learning, using alcohol as a positive reinforcer in an operant conditioning paradigm. To examine the fine temporal relation between neural activity and behavior, we developed a novel behavioral model that allowed us to identify the number, onset, and duration of extinction-learning episodes in the behavior of each animal. We found that single-unit responses to conditioned stimuli changed even under stable experimental conditions and behavior. However, when behavioral responses to task contingencies had to be updated, unit-specific modulations became coordinated across the whole population, pushing the network into a new stable attractor state. Thus, extinction learning is not associated with suppressed mPFC responses to conditioned stimuli, but is anticipated by single-unit coordination into population-wide transitions of the internal state of the animal.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT The ability to suppress conditioned behaviors when no longer beneficial is fundamental for the survival of any organism. While pharmacological and optogenetic interventions have shown a critical involvement of the mPFC in the suppression of conditioned responses, the neural dynamics underlying such a process are still largely unknown. Combining novel analysis tools to describe behavior, single-neuron response, and population activity, we found that widespread changes in neuronal firing temporally coordinate across the whole mPFC population in anticipation of behavioral extinction. This coordination leads to a global transition in the internal state of the network, driving extinction of conditioned behavior.
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36
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Kim J, Jeong B. Expecting social punishment facilitates control over a decision under uncertainty by recruiting medial prefrontal cortex. Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci 2020; 15:1260-1270. [PMID: 33104801 PMCID: PMC7745153 DOI: 10.1093/scan/nsaa145] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/23/2019] [Revised: 08/11/2020] [Accepted: 10/23/2020] [Indexed: 11/14/2022] Open
Abstract
In many decision-making situations, sub-optimal choices are increased by uncertainty. However, when wrong choices could lead to social punishment, such as blame, people might try to improve their performance by minimizing sub-optimal choices, which could be achieved by increasing the subjective cost of errors, thereby globally reducing decision noise or reducing an uncertainty-induced component of decision noise. In this functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, 46 participants performed a choice task in which the probability of a correct choice with a given cue and the conditional probability of blame feedback (by making an incorrect choice) changed continuously. By comparing computational models of behaviour, we found that participants optimized their performance by preferentially reducing a component of decision noise associated with uncertainty. Simultaneously, expecting blame significantly deteriorated participants' mood. Model-based fMRI analyses and dynamic causal modelling indicate that the optimization mechanism based on the expectation of being blamed would be controlled by a neural circuit centred on the right medial prefrontal cortex. These results show novel behavioural and neural mechanisms regarding how humans optimize uncertain decisions under the expectation of being blamed.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jaejoong Kim
- Graduate School of Medical Science and Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute for Science and Technology (KAIST), Daejeon, 34141, Korea
| | - Bumseok Jeong
- Graduate School of Medical Science and Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute for Science and Technology (KAIST), Daejeon, 34141, Korea.,KAIST Institute for Health Science and Technology and KI for Artificial Intelligence, KAIST, Daejeon, Korea
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37
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Abstract
Momentary feelings of confidence accompany many of our actions and decisions. In addition to such “local” feelings of confidence, we also construct “global” confidence estimates about our skills and abilities (global self-performance estimates or SPEs). Distorted SPEs may have a pervasive impact on motivation and self-evaluation, for instance affecting estimates of our competitiveness at work or in a sports team. Here, we found that components of a brain network previously implicated in the tracking of local confidence was additionally modulated by SPE level, whereas ventral striatum tracked SPEs irrespective of confidence. Our findings of a neurocognitive basis for global SPEs lay the groundwork for understanding how distorted SPEs arise in educational and clinical settings. Humans create metacognitive beliefs about their performance across many levels of abstraction—from local confidence in individual decisions to global estimates of our skills and abilities. Despite a rich literature on the neural basis of local confidence judgements, how global self-performance estimates (SPEs) are constructed remains unknown. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we scanned human subjects while they performed several short blocks of tasks and reported on which task they think they performed best, providing a behavioral proxy for global SPEs. In a frontoparietal network sensitive to fluctuations in local confidence, we found that activity within ventromedial prefrontal cortex and precuneus was additionally modulated by global SPEs. In contrast, activity in ventral striatum was associated with subjects’ global SPEs irrespective of fluctuations in local confidence, and predicted the extent to which global SPEs tracked objective task difficulty across individuals. Our findings reveal neural representations of global SPEs that go beyond the tracking of local confidence, and lay the groundwork for understanding how a formation of global self-beliefs may go awry in conditions characterized by distorted self-evaluation.
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38
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Abstract
One of the founding paradigms of machine learning is that a small number of variables is often sufficient to describe high-dimensional data. The minimum number of variables required is called the intrinsic dimension (ID) of the data. Contrary to common intuition, there are cases where the ID varies within the same data set. This fact has been highlighted in technical discussions, but seldom exploited to analyze large data sets and obtain insight into their structure. Here we develop a robust approach to discriminate regions with different local IDs and segment the points accordingly. Our approach is computationally efficient and can be proficiently used even on large data sets. We find that many real-world data sets contain regions with widely heterogeneous dimensions. These regions host points differing in core properties: folded versus unfolded configurations in a protein molecular dynamics trajectory, active versus non-active regions in brain imaging data, and firms with different financial risk in company balance sheets. A simple topological feature, the local ID, is thus sufficient to achieve an unsupervised segmentation of high-dimensional data, complementary to the one given by clustering algorithms.
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39
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Emmons E, Tunes-Chiuffa G, Choi J, Bruce RA, Weber MA, Kim Y, Narayanan NS. Temporal Learning Among Prefrontal and Striatal Ensembles. Cereb Cortex Commun 2020; 1:tgaa058. [PMID: 34296121 PMCID: PMC8152894 DOI: 10.1093/texcom/tgaa058] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/18/2020] [Revised: 08/18/2020] [Accepted: 08/21/2020] [Indexed: 01/22/2023] Open
Abstract
Behavioral flexibility requires the prefrontal cortex and striatum, but it is unclear if these structures play similar or distinct roles in adapting to novel circumstances. Here, we investigate neuronal ensembles in the medial frontal cortex (MFC) and the dorsomedial striatum (DMS) during one form of behavioral flexibility: learning a new temporal interval. We studied corticostriatal neuronal activity as rodents trained to respond after a 12-s fixed interval (FI12) learned to respond at a shorter 3-s fixed interval (FI3). On FI12 trials, we found that a key form of temporal processing—time-related ramping activity—decreased in the MFC but did not change in the DMS as animals learned to respond at a shorter interval. However, while MFC and DMS ramping was stable with successive days of two-interval performance, temporal decoding by DMS ensembles improved on FI3 trials. Finally, when comparing FI12 versus FI3 trials, we found that more DMS neurons than MFC neurons exhibited differential interval-related activity early in two-interval performance. These data suggest that the MFC and DMS play distinct roles during temporal learning and provide insight into corticostriatal circuits.
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Affiliation(s)
- Eric Emmons
- Department of Psychiatry, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06515, USA
| | | | - Jeeyu Choi
- School of Dentistry, Pusan National University, Yangsan 50612, Republic of Korea
| | - R Austin Bruce
- Department of Neurology, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242, USA
| | - Matthew A Weber
- Department of Neurology, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242, USA
| | - Youngcho Kim
- Department of Neurology, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242, USA
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40
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Allegra M, Seyed-Allaei S, Schuck NW, Amati D, Laio A, Reverberi C. Brain network dynamics during spontaneous strategy shifts and incremental task optimization. Neuroimage 2020; 217:116854. [PMID: 32334091 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2020.116854] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/28/2020] [Revised: 03/06/2020] [Accepted: 04/10/2020] [Indexed: 01/08/2023] Open
Abstract
With practice, humans improve their performance in a task by either optimizing a known strategy or discovering a novel, potentially more fruitful strategy. We investigated the neural processes underlying these two fundamental abilities by applying fMRI in a task with two possible alternative strategies. For analysis we combined time-resolved network analysis with Coherence Density Peak Clustering (Allegra et al., 2017), univariate GLM, and multivariate pattern classification. Converging evidence showed that the posterior portion of the default network, i.e. the precuneus and the angular gyrus bilaterally, has a central role in the optimization of the current strategy. These regions encoded the relevant spatial information, increased the strength of local connectivity as well as the long-distance connectivity with other relevant regions in the brain (e.g., visual cortex, dorsal attention network). The connectivity increase was proportional to performance optimization. By contrast, the anterior portion of the default network (i.e. medial prefrontal cortex) and the rostral portion of the fronto-parietal network were associated with new strategy discovery: an early increase of local and long-range connectivity centered on these regions was only observed in the subjects who would later shift to a new strategy. Overall, our findings shed light on the dynamic interactions between regions related to attention and with cognitive control, underlying the balance between strategy exploration and exploitation. Results suggest that the default network, far from being "shut-down" during task performance, has a pivotal role in the background exploration and monitoring of potential alternative courses of action.
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Affiliation(s)
- Michele Allegra
- Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati, Trieste, 34136, Trieste, Italy; Institut de Neurosciences de la Timone, Aix Marseille Université, UMR 7289 CNRS, 13005, Marseille, France.
| | - Shima Seyed-Allaei
- School of Cognitive Sciences, Institute for Research in Fundamental Sciences (IPM), P.O. Box 19395-5746, Tehran, Iran
| | - Nicolas W Schuck
- Max Planck Research Group NeuroCode, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, 14195, Berlin, Germany; Max Planck UCL Centre for Computational Psychiatry and Ageing Research, Berlin, Germany
| | - Daniele Amati
- Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati, Trieste, 34136, Trieste, Italy
| | - Alessandro Laio
- Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati, Trieste, 34136, Trieste, Italy; International Centre for Theoretical Physics, 34100, Trieste, Italy
| | - Carlo Reverberi
- Department of Psychology, Università Milano - Bicocca, Milan, Italy; NeuroMI - Milan Center for Neuroscience, Milan, Italy.
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41
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Günseli E, Aly M. Preparation for upcoming attentional states in the hippocampus and medial prefrontal cortex. eLife 2020; 9:e53191. [PMID: 32255423 PMCID: PMC7237206 DOI: 10.7554/elife.53191] [Citation(s) in RCA: 23] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/31/2019] [Accepted: 04/07/2020] [Indexed: 12/23/2022] Open
Abstract
Goal-directed attention is usually studied by providing individuals with explicit instructions on what they should attend to. But in daily life, we often use past experiences to guide our attentional states. Given the importance of memory for predicting upcoming events, we hypothesized that memory-guided attention is supported by neural preparation for anticipated attentional states. We examined preparatory coding in the human hippocampus and mPFC, two regions that are important for memory-guided behaviors, in two tasks: one where attention was guided by memory and another in which attention was explicitly instructed. Hippocampus and mPFC exhibited higher activity for memory-guided vs. explicitly instructed attention. Furthermore, representations in both regions contained information about upcoming attentional states. In the hippocampus, this preparation was stronger for memory-guided attention, and occurred alongside stronger coupling with visual cortex during attentional guidance. These results highlight the mechanisms by which memories are used to prepare for upcoming attentional goals.
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Affiliation(s)
- Eren Günseli
- Department of Psychology, Columbia UniversityNew YorkUnited States
- Department of Psychology, Sabanci UniversityIstanbulTurkey
| | - Mariam Aly
- Department of Psychology, Columbia UniversityNew YorkUnited States
- Affiliate Member, Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute, Columbia UniversityNew YorkUnited States
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42
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Löffler A, Haggard P, Bode S. Decoding Changes of Mind in Voluntary Action-Dynamics of Intentional Choice Representations. Cereb Cortex 2020; 30:1199-1212. [PMID: 31504263 DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhz160] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/11/2018] [Revised: 05/01/2019] [Accepted: 06/24/2019] [Indexed: 01/08/2023] Open
Abstract
Voluntary actions rely on appropriate flexibility of intentions. Usually, we should pursue our goals, but sometimes we should change goals if they become too costly to achieve. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we investigated the neural dynamics underlying the capacity to change one's mind based on new information after action onset. Multivariate pattern analyses revealed that in visual areas, neural representations of intentional choice between 2 visual stimuli were unchanged by additional decision-relevant information. However, in fronto-parietal cortex, representations changed dynamically as decisions evolved. Precuneus, angular gyrus, and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex encoded new externally cued rewards/costs that guided subsequent changes of mind. Activity in medial frontal cortex predicted changes of mind when participants detached from externally cued evidence, suggesting a role in endogenous decision updates. Finally, trials with changes of mind were associated with an increase in functional connectivity between fronto-parietal areas, allowing for integration of various endogenous and exogenous decision components to generate a distributed consensus about whether to pursue or abandon an initial intention. In conclusion, local and global dynamics of choice representations in fronto-parietal cortex allow agents to maintain the balance between adapting to changing environments versus pursuing internal goals.
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Affiliation(s)
- Anne Löffler
- Zuckerman Mind Brain Behaviour Institute, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, USA.,Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, 17 Queen Square, London WC1N 3AR, UK.,Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, VIC 3010, Australia
| | - Patrick Haggard
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, 17 Queen Square, London WC1N 3AR, UK
| | - Stefan Bode
- Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, VIC 3010, Australia.,Department of Psychology, University of Cologne, 50969 Cologne, Germany
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43
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Asher M, Rosa JG, Rainwater O, Duvick L, Bennyworth M, Lai RY, Kuo SH, Cvetanovic M. Cerebellar contribution to the cognitive alterations in SCA1: evidence from mouse models. Hum Mol Genet 2020; 29:117-131. [PMID: 31696233 PMCID: PMC8216071 DOI: 10.1093/hmg/ddz265] [Citation(s) in RCA: 20] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/25/2019] [Revised: 09/30/2019] [Accepted: 10/23/2019] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Spinocerebellar ataxia type 1 (SCA1) is a fatal neurodegenerative disease caused by abnormal expansion of glutamine (Q) encoding CAG repeats in the gene Ataxin-1 (ATXN1). Although motor and balance deficits are the core symptoms of SCA1, cognitive decline is also commonly observed in patients. While mutant ATXN1 is expressed throughout the brain, pathological findings reveal severe atrophy of cerebellar cortex in SCA1 patients. The cerebellum has recently been implicated in diverse cognitive functions, yet to what extent cerebellar neurodegeneration contributes to cognitive alterations in SCA1 remains poorly understood. Much of our understanding of the mechanisms underlying pathogenesis of motor symptoms in SCA1 comes from mouse models. Reasoning that mouse models could similarly offer important insights into the mechanisms of cognitive alterations in SCA1, we tested cognition in several mouse lines using Barnes maze and fear conditioning. We confirmed cognitive deficits in Atxn1154Q/2Q knock-in mice with brain-wide expression of mutant ATXN1 and in ATXN1 null mice. We found that shorter polyQ length and haploinsufficiency of ATXN1 do not cause significant cognitive deficits. Finally, ATXN1[82Q ] transgenic mice-with cerebellum limited expression of mutant ATXN1-demonstrated milder impairment in most aspects of cognition compared to Atxn1154Q/2Q mice, supporting the concept that cognitive deficits in SCA1 arise from a combination of cerebellar and extra-cerebellar dysfunctions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Melissa Asher
- Department of Neuroscience, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA
| | - Juao-Guilherme Rosa
- Department of Neuroscience, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA
| | - Orion Rainwater
- Institute for Translational Neuroscience, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA
| | - Lisa Duvick
- Institute for Translational Neuroscience, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA
| | - Michael Bennyworth
- Mouse Behavior Core, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, 55455 NY 10032-3784, USA
| | - Ruo-Yah Lai
- Department of Neurology, Columbia University, New York, NY 10032-3784, USA
| | - CRC-SCA
- Clinical Research Consortium for Spinocerebellar Ataxia (CRC-SCA)#
| | - Sheng-Han Kuo
- Department of Neurology, Columbia University, New York, NY 10032-3784, USA
| | - Marija Cvetanovic
- Department of Neuroscience, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA
- Mouse Behavior Core, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, 55455 NY 10032-3784, USA
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44
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Ruge H, Schäfer TA, Zwosta K, Mohr H, Wolfensteller U. Neural representation of newly instructed rule identities during early implementation trials. eLife 2019; 8:48293. [PMID: 31738167 PMCID: PMC6884394 DOI: 10.7554/elife.48293] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/08/2019] [Accepted: 11/16/2019] [Indexed: 01/06/2023] Open
Abstract
By following explicit instructions, humans instantaneously get the hang of tasks they have never performed before. We used a specially calibrated multivariate analysis technique to uncover the elusive representational states during the first few implementations of arbitrary rules such as ‘for coffee, press red button’ following their first-time instruction. Distributed activity patterns within the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC) indicated the presence of neural representations specific of individual stimulus-response (S-R) rule identities, preferentially for conditions requiring the memorization of instructed S-R rules for correct performance. Identity-specific representations were detectable starting from the first implementation trial and continued to be present across early implementation trials. The increasingly fluent application of novel rule representations was channelled through increasing cooperation between VLPFC and anterior striatum. These findings inform representational theories on how the prefrontal cortex supports behavioral flexibility specifically by enabling the ad-hoc coding of newly instructed individual rule identities during their first-time implementation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hannes Ruge
- Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Germany
| | - Theo Aj Schäfer
- Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Germany.,Max-Planck-Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany
| | | | - Holger Mohr
- Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Germany
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45
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Early stimulation of the left posterior parietal cortex promotes representation change in problem solving. Sci Rep 2019; 9:16523. [PMID: 31712574 PMCID: PMC6848477 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-019-52668-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/14/2019] [Accepted: 10/18/2019] [Indexed: 12/18/2022] Open
Abstract
When you suddenly understand how to solve a problem through an original and efficient strategy, you experience the so-called “Eureka” effect. The appearance of insight usually occurs after setting the problem aside for a brief period of time (i.e. incubation), thereby promoting unconscious and novel associations on problem-related representations leading to a new and efficient solving strategy. The left posterior parietal cortex (lPPC) has been showed to support insight in problem solving, when this region is activated during the initial representations of the task. The PPC is further activated during the next incubation period when the mind starts to wander. The aim of this study was to investigate whether stimulating the lPPC, either during the initial training on the problem or the incubation period, might enhance representation change in problem solving. To address this question, participants performed the Number Reduction Task (NRT, convergent problem-solving), while excitatory or sham (placebo) transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) was applied over the lPPC. The stimulation was delivered either during the initial problem representation or during the subsequent incubation period. Impressively, almost all participants (94%) with excitatory tDCS during the initial training gained representational change in problem solving, compared to only 39% in the incubation period and 33% in the sham groups. We conclude that the lPPC plays a role during the initial problem representation, which may be considerably strengthened by means of short brain stimulation.
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46
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Zavala B, Jang A, Trotta M, Lungu CI, Brown P, Zaghloul KA. Cognitive control involves theta power within trials and beta power across trials in the prefrontal-subthalamic network. Brain 2019; 141:3361-3376. [PMID: 30358821 DOI: 10.1093/brain/awy266] [Citation(s) in RCA: 59] [Impact Index Per Article: 11.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/24/2018] [Accepted: 09/12/2018] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
There is increasing evidence that the medial prefrontal cortex participates in conflict and feedback monitoring while the subthalamic nucleus adjusts actions. Yet how these two structures coordinate their activity during cognitive control remains poorly understood. We recorded from the human prefrontal cortex and the subthalamic nucleus simultaneously while participants (n = 22) performed a novel task involving high conflict trials, complete response inhibition trials, and trial-to-trial behavioural adaptations to conflict and errors. Overall, we found that within-trial adaptions to both conflict and complete response inhibition involved changes in the theta band while across-trial behavioural adaptations to both conflict and errors involved changes in the beta band (P < 0.05). Yet the role each region's theta and beta oscillations played during the task differed significantly between the two sites. Trials that involved either within-trial conflict or complete response inhibition were associated with increased theta phase synchrony between the medial prefrontal cortex and the subthalamic nucleus (P < 0.05). Despite increased synchrony, however, increases in prefrontal theta power were associated with response inhibition, while increases in subthalamic theta power were associated with response execution (P < 0.05). In the beta band, post-response increases in prefrontal beta power were suppressed when the completed trial contained either conflict or an erroneous response (P < 0.05). Subthalamic beta power, on the other hand, was only modified during the subsequent trial that followed a conflict or error trial. Notably, these adaptation trials exhibited slower response times (P < 0.05), suggesting that both brain regions contribute to across-trial adaptations but do so at different stages of the adaptation process. Taken together, our data shed light on the mechanisms underlying within-trial and across-trial cognitive control and how disruption of this network can negatively impact cognition. More broadly, however, our data also demonstrate that the specific role of a brain region, rather than the frequency being utilized, governs the behavioural correlates of oscillatory activity.
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Affiliation(s)
- Baltazar Zavala
- Surgical Neurology Branch, NINDS, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA
| | - Anthony Jang
- Surgical Neurology Branch, NINDS, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA
| | - Michael Trotta
- Surgical Neurology Branch, NINDS, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA
| | - Codrin I Lungu
- Division of Clinical Research, NINDS, National Institutes of Health, Rockville, MD, USA
| | - Peter Brown
- Medical Research Council Brain Network Dynamics Unit at the University of Oxford and Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurology, John Radcliffe Hospital, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
| | - Kareem A Zaghloul
- Surgical Neurology Branch, NINDS, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA
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47
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Schuck NW, Niv Y. Sequential replay of nonspatial task states in the human hippocampus. Science 2019; 364:eaaw5181. [PMID: 31249030 PMCID: PMC7241311 DOI: 10.1126/science.aaw5181] [Citation(s) in RCA: 117] [Impact Index Per Article: 23.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/31/2018] [Accepted: 04/26/2019] [Indexed: 12/25/2022]
Abstract
Sequential neural activity patterns related to spatial experiences are "replayed" in the hippocampus of rodents during rest. We investigated whether replay of nonspatial sequences can be detected noninvasively in the human hippocampus. Participants underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while resting after performing a decision-making task with sequential structure. Hippocampal fMRI patterns recorded at rest reflected sequentiality of previously experienced task states, with consecutive patterns corresponding to nearby states. Hippocampal sequentiality correlated with the fidelity of task representations recorded in the orbitofrontal cortex during decision-making, which were themselves related to better task performance. Our findings suggest that hippocampal replay may be important for building representations of complex, abstract tasks elsewhere in the brain and establish feasibility of investigating fast replay signals with fMRI.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nicolas W Schuck
- Max Planck Research Group NeuroCode, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Lentzeallee 94, 14195 Berlin, Germany.
- Max Planck University College London (UCL) Centre for Computational Psychiatry and Ageing Research, Berlin, Germany, and London, UK
- Princeton Neuroscience Institute and Department of Psychology, Princeton University, Washington Road, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA
| | - Yael Niv
- Princeton Neuroscience Institute and Department of Psychology, Princeton University, Washington Road, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA.
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48
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Fouragnan EF, Chau BKH, Folloni D, Kolling N, Verhagen L, Klein-Flügge M, Tankelevitch L, Papageorgiou GK, Aubry JF, Sallet J, Rushworth MFS. The macaque anterior cingulate cortex translates counterfactual choice value into actual behavioral change. Nat Neurosci 2019; 22:797-808. [PMID: 30988525 PMCID: PMC7116825 DOI: 10.1038/s41593-019-0375-6] [Citation(s) in RCA: 109] [Impact Index Per Article: 21.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/07/2018] [Accepted: 03/06/2019] [Indexed: 12/17/2022]
Abstract
The neural mechanisms mediating sensory-guided decision making have received considerable attention but animals often pursue behaviors for which there is currently no sensory evidence. Such behaviors are guided by internal representations of choice values that have to be maintained even when these choices are unavailable. We investigated how four macaque monkeys maintained representations of the value of counterfactual choices– choices that could not be taken at the current moment but which could be taken in the future. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we found two different patterns of activity co-varying with values of counterfactual choices in a circuit spanning hippocampus, anterior lateral prefrontal cortex, and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). ACC activity also reflected whether the internal value representations would be translated into actual behavioral change. To establish the causal importance of ACC for this translation process, we used a novel technique, Transcranial Focused Ultrasound Stimulation, to reversibly disrupt ACC activity.
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Affiliation(s)
- Elsa F Fouragnan
- School of Psychology, University of Plymouth, Plymouth, UK. .,Wellcome Integrative Neuroimaging, Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
| | - Bolton K H Chau
- Wellcome Integrative Neuroimaging, Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.,Department of Rehabilitation Sciences, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China
| | - Davide Folloni
- Wellcome Integrative Neuroimaging, Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
| | - Nils Kolling
- Wellcome Integrative Neuroimaging, Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
| | - Lennart Verhagen
- Wellcome Integrative Neuroimaging, Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
| | - Miriam Klein-Flügge
- Wellcome Integrative Neuroimaging, Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
| | - Lev Tankelevitch
- Wellcome Integrative Neuroimaging, Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
| | - Georgios K Papageorgiou
- Wellcome Integrative Neuroimaging, Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.,McGovern Institute for Brain Research and Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA
| | - Jean-Francois Aubry
- Physics for Medicine Paris, Inserm, ESPCI Paris, CNRS, PSL Research University, Paris, France
| | - Jerome Sallet
- Wellcome Integrative Neuroimaging, Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
| | - Matthew F S Rushworth
- Wellcome Integrative Neuroimaging, Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.,Wellcome Integrative Neuroimaging, Centre for Functional MRI of the Brain, Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, John Radcliffe Hospital, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
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49
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Nassar MR, McGuire JT, Ritz H, Kable JW. Dissociable Forms of Uncertainty-Driven Representational Change Across the Human Brain. J Neurosci 2019; 39:1688-1698. [PMID: 30523066 PMCID: PMC6391562 DOI: 10.1523/jneurosci.1713-18.2018] [Citation(s) in RCA: 27] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/07/2018] [Revised: 11/07/2018] [Accepted: 11/25/2018] [Indexed: 11/21/2022] Open
Abstract
Environmental change can lead decision makers to shift rapidly among different behavioral regimes. These behavioral shifts can be accompanied by rapid changes in the firing pattern of neural networks. However, it is unknown what the populations of neurons that participate in such "network reset" phenomena are representing. Here, we investigated the following: (1) whether and where rapid changes in multivariate activity patterns are observable with fMRI during periods of rapid behavioral change and (2) what types of representations give rise to these phenomena. We did so by examining fluctuations in multivoxel patterns of BOLD activity from male and female human subjects making sequential inferences about the state of a partially observable and discontinuously changing variable. We found that, within the context of this sequential inference task, the multivariate patterns of activity in a number of cortical regions contain representations that change more rapidly during periods of uncertainty following a change in behavioral context. In motor cortex, this phenomenon was indicative of discontinuous change in behavioral outputs, whereas in visual regions, the same basic phenomenon was evoked by tracking of salient environmental changes. In most other cortical regions, including dorsolateral prefrontal and anterior cingulate cortex, the phenomenon was most consistent with directly encoding the degree of uncertainty. However, in a few other regions, including orbitofrontal cortex, the phenomenon was best explained by representations of a shifting context that evolve more rapidly during periods of rapid learning. These representations may provide a dynamic substrate for learning that facilitates rapid disengagement from learned responses during periods of change.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Brain activity patterns tend to change more rapidly during periods of uncertainty and behavioral adjustment, yet the computational role of such rapid transitions is poorly understood. Here, we identify brain regions with fMRI BOLD activity patterns that change more rapidly during periods of behavioral adjustment and use computational modeling to attribute the phenomenon to specific causes. We demonstrate that the phenomenon emerges in different brain regions for different computational reasons, the most common being the representation of uncertainty itself, but that, in a selective subset of regions including orbitofrontal cortex, the phenomenon was best explained as a shifting latent state signal that may serve to control the degree to which recent temporal context affects ongoing expectations.
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Affiliation(s)
- Matthew R Nassar
- Department of Cognitive, Linguistic, and Psychological Sciences, Carney Institute for Brain Science, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island 02912,
| | - Joseph T McGuire
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts 02215, and
| | - Harrison Ritz
- Department of Cognitive, Linguistic, and Psychological Sciences, Carney Institute for Brain Science, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island 02912
| | - Joseph W Kable
- Department of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19143
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50
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Zhu R, Feng C, Zhang S, Mai X, Liu C. Differentiating guilt and shame in an interpersonal context with univariate activation and multivariate pattern analyses. Neuroimage 2019; 186:476-486. [DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2018.11.012] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/19/2017] [Revised: 10/15/2018] [Accepted: 11/09/2018] [Indexed: 01/02/2023] Open
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