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Mckeown B, Strawson WH, Zhang M, Turnbull A, Konu D, Karapanagiotidis T, Wang HT, Leech R, Xu T, Hardikar S, Bernhardt B, Margulies D, Jefferies E, Wammes J, Smallwood J. Experience sampling reveals the role that covert goal states play in task-relevant behavior. Sci Rep 2023; 13:21710. [PMID: 38066069 PMCID: PMC10709616 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-48857-0] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/26/2023] [Accepted: 11/30/2023] [Indexed: 12/18/2023] Open
Abstract
Cognitive neuroscience has gained insight into covert states using experience sampling. Traditionally, this approach has focused on off-task states. However, task-relevant states are also maintained via covert processes. Our study examined whether experience sampling can also provide insights into covert goal-relevant states that support task performance. To address this question, we developed a neural state space, using dimensions of brain function variation, that allows neural correlates of overt and covert states to be examined in a common analytic space. We use this to describe brain activity during task performance, its relation to covert states identified via experience sampling, and links between individual variation in overt and covert states and task performance. Our study established deliberate task focus was linked to faster target detection, and brain states underlying this experience-and target detection-were associated with activity patterns emphasizing the fronto-parietal network. In contrast, brain states underlying off-task experiences-and vigilance periods-were linked to activity patterns emphasizing the default mode network. Our study shows experience sampling can not only describe covert states that are unrelated to the task at hand, but can also be used to highlight the role fronto-parietal regions play in the maintenance of covert task-relevant states.
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Affiliation(s)
- Brontë Mckeown
- Psychology Department, Queen's University, Kingston, K7L 3N6, Canada.
| | - Will H Strawson
- Neuroscience, Brighton and Sussex Medical School, University of Sussex, Brighton, BN1 9RH, UK
| | - Meichao Zhang
- CAS Key Laboratory of Behavioural Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100101, China
| | - Adam Turnbull
- Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, 94305, USA
| | - Delali Konu
- Department of Psychology, Durham University, Durham, DH1 3LE, UK
| | | | - Hao-Ting Wang
- Centre de Recherche de l'institut Universitaire de Gériatrie de Montréal (CRIUGM), Montreal, QC, H3W 1W5, Canada
| | - Robert Leech
- Centre for Neuroimaging Science, King's College, London, SE5 8AF, UK
| | - Ting Xu
- Center for the Developing Brain, Child Mind Institute, New York, 10022, USA
| | - Samyogita Hardikar
- Department of Neurology, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, 04103, Leipzig, Germany
| | - Boris Bernhardt
- Montreal Neurological Institute, McGill University, Montreal, H3A 2B4, Canada
| | - Daniel Margulies
- Integrative Neuroscience and Cognition Center (UMR 8002, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) and Université de Paris, 75006, Paris, France
| | | | - Jeffrey Wammes
- Psychology Department, Queen's University, Kingston, K7L 3N6, Canada
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Cremona S, Joliot M, Mellet E. Cluster-based characterization of consistencies in individuals' thought profiles at rest in a cohort of 1779 French university students. CURRENT PSYCHOLOGY 2022. [DOI: 10.1007/s12144-022-04185-6] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/28/2022]
Abstract
AbstractIs ongoing conscious thought spontaneous and situation-related, or is it recurrent and dependent on psychological dispositions? The answer is critical for resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC) paradigms that seek to correlate neuroanatomical states with conscious mental states. The goal of the present study was to characterize individual resting state thought profiles (RSTPs) and identify the recurrent ones, i.e., that could both be predicted by personality traits and predict subsequent negative affective states. The 1779 participants had a mean age of 22.1 years, 71.8% were females, and 71.8% were undergraduates. We collected the form and content of their thoughts during a 15-min RSFC session with a computerized retrospective self-questionnaire (ReSQ 2.0). Subsamples of participants also completed online autoquestionnaires assessing their psychological maturity and trait negative affectivity (with a four-day gap on average, N = 1270) and subsequent depressive and anxious states (1.4 years later on average, N = 922). Based on the multiple correspondence and clustering analyses of the ReSQ 2.0 responses, we identified six RSTPs distinctive by their content scope, temporal orientation, empathetic concern, and emotional valence. Multivariate analyses revealed that the probability of experiencing five of the six RSTPs was predicted by trait negative affectivity interacting with psychological maturity. Among them, a negatively valenced RSTP also increased the likelihood of subsequent negative affective states, suggesting its stable and recurrent nature. Identifying recurrent RSTPs is helpful for the future understanding of RSTPs’ contribution to RSFC. Additionally, it will be relevant to test whether acting on psychological maturity can alter the relationship between ongoing conscious thought and negative affectivity.
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Geffen T, Smallwood J, Finke C, Olbrich S, Sjoerds Z, Schlagenhauf F. Functional connectivity alterations between default mode network and occipital cortex in patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Neuroimage Clin 2021; 33:102915. [PMID: 34933233 PMCID: PMC8688720 DOI: 10.1016/j.nicl.2021.102915] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/27/2021] [Revised: 11/06/2021] [Accepted: 12/12/2021] [Indexed: 01/26/2023]
Abstract
Altered brain network connectivity is a potential biomarker for obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). A meta-analysis of resting-state MRI studies by Gürsel et al. (2018) described altered functional connectivity in OCD patients within and between the default mode network (DMN), the salience network (SN), and the frontoparietal network (FPN), as well as evidence for aberrant fronto-striatal circuitry. Here, we tested the replicability of these meta-analytic rsfMRI findings by measuring functional connectivity during resting-state fMRI in a new sample of OCD patients (n = 24) and matched controls (n = 33). We performed seed-to-voxel analyses using 30 seed regions from the prior meta-analysis. OCD patients showed reduced functional connectivity between the SN and the DMN compared to controls, replicating previous findings. We did not observe significant group differences of functional connectivity within the DMN, SN, nor FPN. Additionally, we observed reduced connectivity between the visual network to both the DMN and SN in OCD patients, in particular reduced functional connectivity between lateral parietal seeds and the left inferior lateral occipital pole. Furthermore, the right lateral parietal seed (associated with the DMN) was more strongly correlated with a cluster in the right lateral occipital cortex and precuneus (a region partly overlapping with the Dorsal Attentional Network (DAN)) in patients. Importantly, this latter finding was positively correlated to OCD symptom severity. Overall, our study partly replicated prior meta-analytic findings, highlighting hypoconnectivity between SN and DMN as a potential biomarker for OCD. Furthermore, we identified changes between the SN and the DMN with the visual network. This suggests that abnormal connectivity between cortex regions associated with abstract functions (transmodal regions such as the DMN), and cortex regions associated with constrained neural processing (unimodal regions such as the visual cortex), may be important in OCD.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tal Geffen
- Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Germany.
| | | | - Carsten Finke
- Department of Neurology, Charité - Universitätsmedizin, Berlin, Germany; Humboldt-Universitaet zu Berlin, Berlin School of Mind and Brain, Berlin, Germany
| | - Sebastian Olbrich
- Department for Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, Psychiatric University Hospital Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
| | - Zsuzsika Sjoerds
- Cognitive Psychology Unit, Institute of Psychology, Leiden University, Leiden, the Netherlands; Leiden Institute for Brain & Cognition, Leiden University, Leiden, Netherlands
| | - Florian Schlagenhauf
- Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Germany; Max-Planck-Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany; Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience, Berlin, Germany
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The impact of social isolation and changes in work patterns on ongoing thought during the first COVID-19 lockdown in the United Kingdom. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2021; 118:2102565118. [PMID: 34599096 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2102565118] [Citation(s) in RCA: 19] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 08/25/2021] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic led to lockdowns in countries across the world, changing the lives of billions of people. The United Kingdom's first national lockdown, for example, restricted people's ability to socialize and work. The current study examined how changes to socializing and working during this lockdown impacted ongoing thought patterns in daily life. We compared the prevalence of thought patterns between two independent real-world, experience-sampling cohorts, collected before and during lockdown. In both samples, young (18 to 35 y) and older (55+ y) participants completed experience-sampling measures five times daily for 7 d. Dimension reduction was applied to these data to identify common "patterns of thought." Linear mixed modeling compared the prevalence of each thought pattern 1) before and during lockdown, 2) in different age groups, and 3) across different social and activity contexts. During lockdown, when people were alone, social thinking was reduced, but on the rare occasions when social interactions were possible, we observed a greater increase in social thinking than prelockdown. Furthermore, lockdown was associated with a reduction in future-directed problem solving, but this thought pattern was reinstated when individuals engaged in work. Therefore, our study suggests that the lockdown led to significant changes in ongoing thought patterns in daily life and that these changes were associated with changes to our daily routine that occurred during lockdown.
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Fazekas P, Nanay B, Pearson J. Offline perception: an introduction. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 2020; 376:20190686. [PMID: 33308069 DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2019.0686] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/11/2022] Open
Abstract
Experiences that are self-generated and independent of sensory stimulations permeate our whole life. This theme issue examines their similarities and differences, systematizes the literature from an integrative perspective, critically discusses state-of-the-art empirical findings and proposes new theoretical approaches. The aim of the theme issue is to foster interaction between the different disciplines and research directions involved and to explore the prospects of a unificatory account of offline perception in general. This article is part of the theme issue 'Offline perception: voluntary and spontaneous perceptual experiences without matching external stimulation'.
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Affiliation(s)
- Peter Fazekas
- Centre for Philosophical Psychology, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium.,Centre of Functionally Integrative Neuroscience, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark
| | - Bence Nanay
- Centre for Philosophical Psychology, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium.,Peterhouse, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
| | - Joel Pearson
- Department of Psychology, University of New South Wales, Kensington, New South Wales, UK
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