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Misselhorn J, Fiene M, Radecke JO, Engel AK, Schneider TR. Transcranial Alternating Current Stimulation over Frontal Eye Fields Mimics Attentional Modulation of Visual Processing. J Neurosci 2024; 44:e1510232024. [PMID: 38729759 PMCID: PMC11209665 DOI: 10.1523/jneurosci.1510-23.2024] [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: 08/07/2023] [Revised: 04/16/2024] [Accepted: 04/17/2024] [Indexed: 05/12/2024] Open
Abstract
Attentional control over sensory processing has been linked to neural alpha oscillations and related inhibition of cerebral cortex. Despite the wide consensus on the functional relevance of alpha oscillations for attention, precise neural mechanisms of how alpha oscillations shape perception and how this top-down modulation is implemented in cortical networks remain unclear. Here, we tested the hypothesis that alpha oscillations in frontal eye fields (FEFs) are causally involved in the top-down regulation of visual processing in humans (male and female). We applied sham-controlled, intermittent transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) over bilateral FEF at either 10 Hz (alpha) or 40 Hz (gamma) to manipulate attentional preparation in a visual discrimination task. Under each stimulation condition, we measured psychometric functions for contrast perception and introduced a novel linear mixed modeling approach for statistical control of neurosensory side effects of the electric stimulation. tACS at alpha frequency reduced the slope of the psychometric function, resulting in improved subthreshold and impaired superthreshold contrast perception. Side effects on the psychometric functions were complex and showed large interindividual variability. Controlling for the impact of side effects on the psychometric parameters by using covariates in the linear mixed model analysis reduced this variability and strengthened the perceptual effect. We propose that alpha tACS over FEF mimicked a state of endogenous attention by strengthening a fronto-occipitoparietal network in the alpha band. We speculate that this network modulation enhanced phasic gating in occipitoparietal cortex leading to increased variability of single-trial psychometric thresholds, measurable as a reduction of psychometric slope.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jonas Misselhorn
- Department of Neurophysiology and Pathophysiology, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg 20246, Germany
| | - Marina Fiene
- Department of Neurophysiology and Pathophysiology, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg 20246, Germany
| | - Jan-Ole Radecke
- Department of Neurophysiology and Pathophysiology, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg 20246, Germany
- Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University of Lübeck, Lübeck 23562, Germany
- Center of Brain, Behavior and Metabolism (CBBM), University of Lübeck, Lübeck 23562, Germany
| | - Andreas K Engel
- Department of Neurophysiology and Pathophysiology, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg 20246, Germany
| | - Till R Schneider
- Department of Neurophysiology and Pathophysiology, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg 20246, Germany
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2
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Thunberg C, Wiker T, Bundt C, Huster RJ. On the (un)reliability of common behavioral and electrophysiological measures from the stop signal task: Measures of inhibition lack stability over time. Cortex 2024; 175:81-105. [PMID: 38508968 DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2024.02.008] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/22/2023] [Revised: 10/31/2023] [Accepted: 02/12/2024] [Indexed: 03/22/2024]
Abstract
Response inhibition, the intentional stopping of planned or initiated actions, is often considered a key facet of control, impulsivity, and self-regulation. The stop signal task is argued to be the purest inhibition task we have, and it is thus central to much work investigating the role of inhibition in areas like development and psychopathology. Most of this work quantifies stopping behavior by calculating the stop signal reaction time as a measure of individual stopping latency. Individual difference studies aiming to investigate why and how stopping latencies differ between people often do this under the assumption that the stop signal reaction time indexes a stable, dispositional trait. However, empirical support for this assumption is lacking, as common measures of inhibition and control tend to show low test-retest reliability and thus appear unstable over time. The reasons for this could be methodological, where low stability is driven by measurement noise, or substantive, where low stability is driven by a larger influence of state-like and situational factors. To investigate this, we characterized the split-half and test-retest reliability of a range of common behavioral and electrophysiological measures derived from the stop signal task. Across three independent studies, different measurement modalities, and a systematic review of the literature, we found a pattern of low temporal stability for inhibition measures and higher stability for measures of manifest behavior and non-inhibitory processing. This pattern could not be explained by measurement noise and low internal consistency. Consequently, response inhibition appears to have mostly state-like and situational determinants, and there is little support for the validity of conceptualizing common inhibition measures as reflecting stable traits.
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Affiliation(s)
- Christina Thunberg
- Multimodal Imaging and Cognitive Control Lab, Department of Psychology, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway; Cognitive and Translational Neuroscience Cluster, Department of Psychology, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway.
| | - Thea Wiker
- Norwegian Centre for Mental Disorders Research, Institute of Clinical Medicine, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway; Research Center for Developmental Processes and Gradients in Mental Health, Department of Psychology, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway; Department of Psychiatric Research, Diakonhjemmet Hospital, Oslo, Norway
| | - Carsten Bundt
- Multimodal Imaging and Cognitive Control Lab, Department of Psychology, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway; Cognitive and Translational Neuroscience Cluster, Department of Psychology, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
| | - René J Huster
- Multimodal Imaging and Cognitive Control Lab, Department of Psychology, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway; Cognitive and Translational Neuroscience Cluster, Department of Psychology, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
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3
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Mækelæ MJ, Kreis IV, Pfuhl G. Teleological reasoning bias is predicted by pupil dynamics: Evidence for the extensive integration account of bias in reasoning. Psychophysiology 2024; 61:e14532. [PMID: 38282116 DOI: 10.1111/psyp.14532] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/13/2022] [Revised: 10/13/2023] [Accepted: 01/03/2024] [Indexed: 01/30/2024]
Abstract
Teleological reasoning is the tendency for humans to see purpose and intentionality in natural phenomena when there is none. In this study, we assess three competing theories on how bias in reasoning arises by examining performance on a teleological reasoning task while measuring pupil size and response times. We replicate that humans (N = 45) are prone to accept false teleological explanations. Further, we show that errors on the teleological reasoning task are associated with slower response times, smaller baseline pupil size, and larger pupil dilations. The results are in line with the single-process extensive integration account and directly oppose predictions from dual-processing accounts. Lastly, by modeling responses with a drift-diffusion model, we find that larger baseline pupil size is associated with lower decision threshold and higher drift rate, whereas larger pupil dilations are associated with higher decision threshold and lower drift rate. The results highlight the role of neural gain and the Locus Coeruleus-Norepinephrine system in modulating evidence integration and bias in reasoning. Thus, teleological reasoning and susceptibility to bias likely arise due to extensive processing rather than through fast and effortless processing.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Isabel V Kreis
- Department of Psychology, UiT The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø, Norway
- Institute of Clinical Medicine, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
| | - Gerit Pfuhl
- Department of Psychology, UiT The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø, Norway
- Department of Psychology, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway
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4
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de Amorim VP, Meira CM, Vickers JN. Pistol shooting performance under pressure: Longitudinal changes in gaze behavior of male and female Army cadets. Hum Mov Sci 2024; 95:103217. [PMID: 38636392 DOI: 10.1016/j.humov.2024.103217] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/15/2023] [Revised: 04/07/2024] [Accepted: 04/08/2024] [Indexed: 04/20/2024]
Abstract
We found evidence that Army cadets improved their gaze behavior and performance across time under high and low pressure in a shooting task. The purpose of the study was to determine if male and female cadets developed an optimal quiet eye (QE) onset, a longer QE duration, and decreased pupil diameter variability (PDV) over time under low (LP) and high pressure (HP) conditions. The study was carried out over four sessions, with intervals of 4.5 months. During each session, 16 men and 12 women, first-year cadets of The Brazilian Army Academy, performed ten pistol shots under counterbalanced LP and HP conditions. The cadets shot in the upright position and wore an eye-tracker. Shooting accuracy improved and did not differ for men and women in the LP condition, however during HP the women performed more poorly than the men in session 1 but improved to a level similar to the men in session 4. QE duration Pre (aiming) did not differ during LP, while during HP QE Post (execution) increased across the session for men and women. QE onset 2 (execution) occurred earlier for the men than women during LP, while during HP the women improved to a level similar to the men in sessions 3 and 4. PDV declined across sessions for men and women with the lowest values in sessions 3 and 4. The findings are discussed within social facilitation theory, which states the context of training affects the rate at which improvements in motor skills occur. The results show that women cadets can improve their shooting performance, quiet eye duration, quiet eye onset and pupil diameter variability to a level similar to men if three to four LP and HP training sessions are scheduled across approximately 12-18 months.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Cassio M Meira
- University of Sao Paulo, School of Arts, Sciences, and Humanities, Sao Paulo/SP, Brazil.
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5
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Papadopoulos L, Jo S, Zumwalt K, Wehr M, McCormick DA, Mazzucato L. Modulation of metastable ensemble dynamics explains optimal coding at moderate arousal in auditory cortex. BIORXIV : THE PREPRINT SERVER FOR BIOLOGY 2024:2024.04.04.588209. [PMID: 38617286 PMCID: PMC11014582 DOI: 10.1101/2024.04.04.588209] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 04/16/2024]
Abstract
Performance during perceptual decision-making exhibits an inverted-U relationship with arousal, but the underlying network mechanisms remain unclear. Here, we recorded from auditory cortex (A1) of behaving mice during passive tone presentation, while tracking arousal via pupillometry. We found that tone discriminability in A1 ensembles was optimal at intermediate arousal, revealing a population-level neural correlate of the inverted-U relationship. We explained this arousal-dependent coding using a spiking network model with a clustered architecture. Specifically, we show that optimal stimulus discriminability is achieved near a transition between a multi-attractor phase with metastable cluster dynamics (low arousal) and a single-attractor phase (high arousal). Additional signatures of this transition include arousal-induced reductions of overall neural variability and the extent of stimulus-induced variability quenching, which we observed in the empirical data. Altogether, this study elucidates computational principles underlying interactions between pupil-linked arousal, sensory processing, and neural variability, and suggests a role for phase transitions in explaining nonlinear modulations of cortical computations.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Suhyun Jo
- Institute of Neuroscience, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon
| | - Kevin Zumwalt
- Institute of Neuroscience, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon
| | - Michael Wehr
- Institute of Neuroscience, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon and Department of Psychology, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon
| | - David A McCormick
- Institute of Neuroscience, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon and Department of Biology, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon
| | - Luca Mazzucato
- Institute of Neuroscience, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon
- Department of Biology, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon
- Department of Mathematics, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon and Department of Physics, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon
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6
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Yonk AJ, Linares-García I, Pasternak L, Juliani SE, Gradwell MA, George AJ, Margolis DJ. Role of Posterior Medial Thalamus in the Modulation of Striatal Circuitry and Choice Behavior. BIORXIV : THE PREPRINT SERVER FOR BIOLOGY 2024:2024.03.21.586152. [PMID: 38585753 PMCID: PMC10996534 DOI: 10.1101/2024.03.21.586152] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 04/09/2024]
Abstract
The posterior medial (POm) thalamus is heavily interconnected with sensory and motor circuitry and is likely involved in behavioral modulation and sensorimotor integration. POm provides axonal projections to the dorsal striatum, a hotspot of sensorimotor processing, yet the role of POm-striatal projections has remained undetermined. Using optogenetics with slice electrophysiology, we found that POm provides robust synaptic input to direct and indirect pathway striatal spiny projection neurons (D1- and D2-SPNs, respectively) and parvalbumin-expressing fast spiking interneurons (PVs). During the performance of a whisker-based tactile discrimination task, POm-striatal projections displayed learning-related activation correlating with anticipatory, but not reward-related, pupil dilation. Inhibition of POm-striatal axons across learning caused slower reaction times and an increase in the number of training sessions for expert performance. Our data indicate that POm-striatal inputs provide a behaviorally relevant arousal-related signal, which may prime striatal circuitry for efficient integration of subsequent choice-related inputs.
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Affiliation(s)
- Alex J. Yonk
- Department of Cell Biology and Neuroscience, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, 604 Allison Road, Piscataway, NJ, 08854, USA
| | - Ivan Linares-García
- Department of Cell Biology and Neuroscience, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, 604 Allison Road, Piscataway, NJ, 08854, USA
| | - Logan Pasternak
- Department of Cell Biology and Neuroscience, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, 604 Allison Road, Piscataway, NJ, 08854, USA
| | - Sofia E. Juliani
- Department of Cell Biology and Neuroscience, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, 604 Allison Road, Piscataway, NJ, 08854, USA
| | - Mark A. Gradwell
- Department of Cell Biology and Neuroscience, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, 604 Allison Road, Piscataway, NJ, 08854, USA
| | - Arlene J. George
- Department of Cell Biology and Neuroscience, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, 604 Allison Road, Piscataway, NJ, 08854, USA
| | - David J. Margolis
- Department of Cell Biology and Neuroscience, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, 604 Allison Road, Piscataway, NJ, 08854, USA
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7
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Beerendonk L, Mejías JF, Nuiten SA, de Gee JW, Fahrenfort JJ, van Gaal S. A disinhibitory circuit mechanism explains a general principle of peak performance during mid-level arousal. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2024; 121:e2312898121. [PMID: 38277436 PMCID: PMC10835062 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2312898121] [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: 07/30/2023] [Accepted: 12/04/2023] [Indexed: 01/28/2024] Open
Abstract
Perceptual decision-making is highly dependent on the momentary arousal state of the brain, which fluctuates over time on a scale of hours, minutes, and even seconds. The textbook relationship between momentary arousal and task performance is captured by an inverted U-shape, as put forward in the Yerkes-Dodson law. This law suggests optimal performance at moderate levels of arousal and impaired performance at low or high arousal levels. However, despite its popularity, the evidence for this relationship in humans is mixed at best. Here, we use pupil-indexed arousal and performance data from various perceptual decision-making tasks to provide converging evidence for the inverted U-shaped relationship between spontaneous arousal fluctuations and performance across different decision types (discrimination, detection) and sensory modalities (visual, auditory). To further understand this relationship, we built a neurobiologically plausible mechanistic model and show that it is possible to reproduce our findings by incorporating two types of interneurons that are both modulated by an arousal signal. The model architecture produces two dynamical regimes under the influence of arousal: one regime in which performance increases with arousal and another regime in which performance decreases with arousal, together forming an inverted U-shaped arousal-performance relationship. We conclude that the inverted U-shaped arousal-performance relationship is a general and robust property of sensory processing. It might be brought about by the influence of arousal on two types of interneurons that together act as a disinhibitory pathway for the neural populations that encode the available sensory evidence used for the decision.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lola Beerendonk
- Research Priority Area Brain and Cognition, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam1001NK, The Netherlands
- Department of Psychology, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam1001NK, The Netherlands
| | - Jorge F. Mejías
- Research Priority Area Brain and Cognition, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam1001NK, The Netherlands
- Cognitive and Systems Neuroscience, Swammerdam Institute for Life Sciences, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam1098XH, The Netherlands
| | - Stijn A. Nuiten
- Research Priority Area Brain and Cognition, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam1001NK, The Netherlands
- Department of Psychology, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam1001NK, The Netherlands
- Universitäre Psychiatrische Kliniken Basel, Wilhelm Klein-Strasse 27, Basel4002, Switzerland
| | - Jan Willem de Gee
- Research Priority Area Brain and Cognition, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam1001NK, The Netherlands
- Cognitive and Systems Neuroscience, Swammerdam Institute for Life Sciences, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam1098XH, The Netherlands
| | - Johannes J. Fahrenfort
- Institute for Brain and Behavior Amsterdam, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam1081HV, The Netherlands
- Department of Applied and Experimental Psychology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam1081HV, The Netherlands
| | - Simon van Gaal
- Research Priority Area Brain and Cognition, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam1001NK, The Netherlands
- Department of Psychology, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam1001NK, The Netherlands
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8
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Francavilla B, Velletrani G, Chiaramonte C, Di Girolamo S, Giacomini PG. Assessing Cognitive Effort in Ménière's Disease: Pupillometry as a Novel Tool for Postural Control. J Int Adv Otol 2024; 20:69-75. [PMID: 38454292 PMCID: PMC10895865 DOI: 10.5152/iao.2024.231150] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/26/2023] [Accepted: 03/30/2023] [Indexed: 03/09/2024] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND This study aimed to investigate the utility of pupillometry as a measure of cognitive effort in individuals with Ménière's disease experiencing chronic postural destabilization. By integrating pupillometry with static posturography, we sought to gain deeper insights into the cognitive demands and arousal levels associated with postural control in this specific patient population. METHODS The study included 36 patients who met the diagnostic criteria for Ménière's disease and a control group comprising 36 healthy volunteers. We performed static posturography using a computerized static posturography platform to objectively assess postural imbalance. Additionally, pupillometry was recorded using infrared video-oculoscopy. Pupil dilation was measured before and after participants walked for 7 steps on-site with their vision obscured. RESULTS Baseline tonic pupil size showed no significant difference between healthy controls and Ménière's patients. However, after walking stimulation, Ménière's patients exhibited highly significant abnormal walking-induced pupil dilation. This suggests increased arousal in response to the challenging task of walking with closed eyes, linked to static upright stance imbalance as correlated with posturography parameters. CONCLUSION Pupillometry holds promise as an objective tool to assess cognitive effort and arousal during postural control in Ménière's disease. Implementing pupillometry in clinical practice could enhance the management of postural instability in these patients. Our findings contribute to the understanding of cognitive aspects in balance control and open new avenues for further investigations in vestibular dysfunction.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Gianluca Velletrani
- Department of Otorhinolaryngology, University of Rome Tor Vergata, Rome, Italy
| | - Carlo Chiaramonte
- Department of Biomedicine and Prevention, University of Rome Tor Vergata, Rome, Italy
| | - Stefano Di Girolamo
- Department of Otorhinolaryngology, University of Rome Tor Vergata, Rome, Italy
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9
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Esmaily J, Zabbah S, Ebrahimpour R, Bahrami B. Interpersonal alignment of neural evidence accumulation to social exchange of confidence. eLife 2023; 12:e83722. [PMID: 38128085 PMCID: PMC10746141 DOI: 10.7554/elife.83722] [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: 09/26/2022] [Accepted: 11/09/2023] [Indexed: 12/23/2023] Open
Abstract
Private, subjective beliefs about uncertainty have been found to have idiosyncratic computational and neural substrates yet, humans share such beliefs seamlessly and cooperate successfully. Bringing together decision making under uncertainty and interpersonal alignment in communication, in a discovery plus pre-registered replication design, we examined the neuro-computational basis of the relationship between privately held and socially shared uncertainty. Examining confidence-speed-accuracy trade-off in uncertainty-ridden perceptual decisions under social vs isolated context, we found that shared (i.e. reported confidence) and subjective (inferred from pupillometry) uncertainty dynamically followed social information. An attractor neural network model incorporating social information as top-down additive input captured the observed behavior and demonstrated the emergence of social alignment in virtual dyadic simulations. Electroencephalography showed that social exchange of confidence modulated the neural signature of perceptual evidence accumulation in the central parietal cortex. Our findings offer a neural population model for interpersonal alignment of shared beliefs.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jamal Esmaily
- Department of General Psychology and Education, Ludwig Maximillian UniversityMunichGermany
- Faculty of Computer Engineering, Shahid Rajaee Teacher Training UniversityTehranIslamic Republic of Iran
- Graduate School of Systemic Neurosciences, Ludwig Maximilian University MunichMunichGermany
| | - Sajjad Zabbah
- School of Cognitive Sciences, Institute for Research in Fundamental Sciences (IPM)TehranIslamic Republic of Iran
- Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging, University College LondonLondonUnited Kingdom
- Max Planck UCL Centre for Computational Psychiatry and Aging Research, University College LondonLondonUnited Kingdom
| | - Reza Ebrahimpour
- Institute for Convergent Science and Technology, Sharif University of TechnologyTehranIslamic Republic of Iran
| | - Bahador Bahrami
- Department of General Psychology and Education, Ludwig Maximillian UniversityMunichGermany
- Centre for Adaptive Rationality, Max Planck Institute for Human DevelopmentBerlinGermany
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10
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Mathôt S, Berberyan H, Büchel P, Ruuskanen V, Vilotijević A, Kruijne W. Effects of pupil size as manipulated through ipRGC activation on visual processing. Neuroimage 2023; 283:120420. [PMID: 37871758 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2023.120420] [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: 03/08/2023] [Revised: 10/19/2023] [Accepted: 10/21/2023] [Indexed: 10/25/2023] Open
Abstract
The size of the eyes' pupils determines how much light enters the eye and also how well this light is focused. Through this route, pupil size shapes the earliest stages of visual processing. Yet causal effects of pupil size on vision are poorly understood and rarely studied. Here we introduce a new way to manipulate pupil size, which relies on activation of intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells (ipRGCs) to induce sustained pupil constriction. We report the effects of both experimentally induced and spontaneous changes in pupil size on visual processing as measured through EEG. We compare these to the effects of stimulus intensity and covert visual attention, because previous studies have shown that these factors all have comparable effects on some common measures of early visual processing, such as detection performance and steady-state visual evoked potentials; yet it is still unclear whether these are superficial similarities, or rather whether they reflect similar underlying processes. Using a mix of neural-network decoding, ERP analyses, and time-frequency analyses, we find that induced pupil size, spontaneous pupil size, stimulus intensity, and covert visual attention all affect EEG responses, mainly over occipital and parietal electrodes, but-crucially-that they do so in qualitatively different ways. Induced and spontaneous pupil-size changes mainly modulate activity patterns (but not overall power or intertrial coherence) in the high-frequency beta range; this may reflect an effect of pupil size on oculomotor activity and/ or visual processing. In addition, spontaneous (but not induced) pupil size tends to correlate positively with intertrial coherence in the alpha band; this may reflect a non-causal relationship, mediated by arousal. Taken together, our findings suggest that pupil size has qualitatively different effects on visual processing from stimulus intensity and covert visual attention. This shows that pupil size as manipulated through ipRGC activation strongly affects visual processing, and provides concrete starting points for further study of this important yet understudied earliest stage of visual processing.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sebastiaan Mathôt
- Department of Psychology, University of Groningen, Grote Kruisstraat 2/1, Groningen 9712TS, the Netherlands.
| | | | - Philipp Büchel
- Department of Psychology, University of Groningen, Grote Kruisstraat 2/1, Groningen 9712TS, the Netherlands
| | - Veera Ruuskanen
- Department of Psychology, University of Groningen, Grote Kruisstraat 2/1, Groningen 9712TS, the Netherlands
| | - Ana Vilotijević
- Department of Psychology, University of Groningen, Grote Kruisstraat 2/1, Groningen 9712TS, the Netherlands
| | - Wouter Kruijne
- Department of Psychology, University of Groningen, Grote Kruisstraat 2/1, Groningen 9712TS, the Netherlands
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11
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Narasimhan S, Schriver BJ, Wang Q. Adaptive decision-making depends on pupil-linked arousal in rats performing tactile discrimination tasks. J Neurophysiol 2023; 130:1541-1551. [PMID: 37964751 PMCID: PMC11068411 DOI: 10.1152/jn.00309.2022] [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: 07/22/2022] [Revised: 11/08/2023] [Accepted: 11/09/2023] [Indexed: 11/16/2023] Open
Abstract
Perceptual decision-making is a dynamic cognitive process and is shaped by many factors, including behavioral state, reward contingency, and sensory environment. To understand the extent to which adaptive behavior in decision-making is dependent on pupil-linked arousal, we trained head-fixed rats to perform perceptual decision-making tasks and systematically manipulated the probability of Go and No-go stimuli while simultaneously measuring their pupil size in the tasks. Our data demonstrated that the animals adaptively modified their behavior in response to the changes in the sensory environment. The response probability to both Go and No-go stimuli decreased as the probability of the Go stimulus being presented decreased. Analyses within the signal detection theory framework showed that while the animals' perceptual sensitivity was invariant, their decision criterion increased as the probability of the Go stimulus decreased. Simulation results indicated that the adaptive increase in the decision criterion will increase possible water rewards during the task. Moreover, the adaptive decision-making is dependent on pupil-linked arousal as the increase in the decision criterion was the largest during low pupil-linked arousal periods. Taken together, our results demonstrated that the rats were able to adjust their decision-making to maximize rewards in the tasks, and that adaptive behavior in perceptual decision-making is dependent on pupil-linked arousal.NEW & NOTEWORTHY Perceptual decision-making is a dynamic cognitive process and is shaped by many factors. However, the extent to which changes in sensory environment result in adaptive decision-making remains poorly understood. Our data provided new experimental evidence demonstrating that the rats were able to adaptively modify their decision criterion to maximize water reward in response to changes in the statistics of the sensory environment. Furthermore, the adaptive decision-making is dependent on pupil-linked arousal.
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Affiliation(s)
- Shreya Narasimhan
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Columbia University, New York City, New York, United States
| | - Brian J Schriver
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Columbia University, New York City, New York, United States
| | - Qi Wang
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Columbia University, New York City, New York, United States
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12
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Nuiten SA, de Gee JW, Zantvoord JB, Fahrenfort JJ, van Gaal S. Catecholaminergic neuromodulation and selective attention jointly shape perceptual decision-making. eLife 2023; 12:RP87022. [PMID: 38038722 PMCID: PMC10691802 DOI: 10.7554/elife.87022] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/02/2023] Open
Abstract
Perceptual decisions about sensory input are influenced by fluctuations in ongoing neural activity, most prominently driven by attention and neuromodulator systems. It is currently unknown if neuromodulator activity and attention differentially modulate perceptual decision-making and/or whether neuromodulatory systems in fact control attentional processes. To investigate the effects of two distinct neuromodulatory systems and spatial attention on perceptual decisions, we pharmacologically elevated cholinergic (through donepezil) and catecholaminergic (through atomoxetine) levels in humans performing a visuo-spatial attention task, while we measured electroencephalography (EEG). Both attention and catecholaminergic enhancement improved decision-making at the behavioral and algorithmic level, as reflected in increased perceptual sensitivity and the modulation of the drift rate parameter derived from drift diffusion modeling. Univariate analyses of EEG data time-locked to the attentional cue, the target stimulus, and the motor response further revealed that attention and catecholaminergic enhancement both modulated pre-stimulus cortical excitability, cue- and stimulus-evoked sensory activity, as well as parietal evidence accumulation signals. Interestingly, we observed both similar, unique, and interactive effects of attention and catecholaminergic neuromodulation on these behavioral, algorithmic, and neural markers of the decision-making process. Thereby, this study reveals an intricate relationship between attentional and catecholaminergic systems and advances our understanding about how these systems jointly shape various stages of perceptual decision-making.
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Affiliation(s)
- Stijn A Nuiten
- Department of Psychology, University of AmsterdamAmsterdamNetherlands
- Amsterdam Brain & Cognition, University of AmsterdamAmsterdamNetherlands
- Department of Psychiatry (UPK), University of BaselBaselSwitzerland
| | - Jan Willem de Gee
- Amsterdam Brain & Cognition, University of AmsterdamAmsterdamNetherlands
- Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute, Texas Children’s HospitalHoustonUnited States
- Department of Neuroscience, Baylor College of MedicineHoustonUnited States
- Cognitive and Systems Neuroscience, Swammerdam Institute for Life Sciences, University of AmsterdamAmsterdamNetherlands
| | - Jasper B Zantvoord
- Department of Psychiatry, Amsterdam UMC location University of AmsterdamAmsterdamNetherlands
- Amsterdam NeuroscienceAmsterdamNetherlands
| | - Johannes J Fahrenfort
- Department of Psychology, University of AmsterdamAmsterdamNetherlands
- Amsterdam Brain & Cognition, University of AmsterdamAmsterdamNetherlands
- Institute for Brain and Behavior Amsterdam, Vrije Universiteit AmsterdamAmsterdamNetherlands
- Department of Experimental and Applied Psychology - Cognitive Psychology, Vrije Universiteit AmsterdamAmsterdamNetherlands
| | - Simon van Gaal
- Department of Psychology, University of AmsterdamAmsterdamNetherlands
- Amsterdam Brain & Cognition, University of AmsterdamAmsterdamNetherlands
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13
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Shourkeshti A, Marrocco G, Jurewicz K, Moore T, Ebitz RB. Pupil size predicts the onset of exploration in brain and behavior. BIORXIV : THE PREPRINT SERVER FOR BIOLOGY 2023:2023.05.24.541981. [PMID: 37292773 PMCID: PMC10245915 DOI: 10.1101/2023.05.24.541981] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/10/2023]
Abstract
In uncertain environments, intelligent decision-makers exploit actions that have been rewarding in the past, but also explore actions that could be even better. Several neuromodulatory systems are implicated in exploration, based, in part, on work linking exploration to pupil size-a peripheral correlate of neuromodulatory tone and index of arousal. However, pupil size could instead track variables that make exploration more likely, like volatility or reward, without directly predicting either exploration or its neural bases. Here, we simultaneously measured pupil size, exploration, and neural population activity in the prefrontal cortex while two rhesus macaques explored and exploited in a dynamic environment. We found that pupil size under constant luminance specifically predicted the onset of exploration, beyond what could be explained by reward history. Pupil size also predicted disorganized patterns of prefrontal neural activity at both the single neuron and population levels, even within periods of exploitation. Ultimately, our results support a model in which pupil-linked mechanisms promote the onset of exploration via driving the prefrontal cortex through a critical tipping point where prefrontal control dynamics become disorganized and exploratory decisions are possible.
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Affiliation(s)
- Akram Shourkeshti
- Department of Neurosciences, Université de Montréal, Montréal, QC, Canada
| | - Gabriel Marrocco
- Department of Neurosciences, Université de Montréal, Montréal, QC, Canada
| | - Katarzyna Jurewicz
- Department of Neurosciences, Université de Montréal, Montréal, QC, Canada
- Department of Physiology, McGill University, Montréal, QC, Canada
| | - Tirin Moore
- Department of Neurobiology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Chevy Chase, MD, USA
| | - R. Becket Ebitz
- Department of Neurosciences, Université de Montréal, Montréal, QC, Canada
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14
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Lempert KM, Carballeira C, Sehgal S, Kable JW. Pupillometric evidence for a temporal expectations-based account of persistence under temporal uncertainty. COGNITIVE, AFFECTIVE & BEHAVIORAL NEUROSCIENCE 2023:10.3758/s13415-023-01100-9. [PMID: 37081224 DOI: 10.3758/s13415-023-01100-9] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 03/31/2023] [Indexed: 04/22/2023]
Abstract
People often quit waiting for delayed rewards when the exact timing of those rewards is uncertain. This behavior often has been attributed to self-control failure. Another possibility is that quitting is the result of a rational decision-making process in the face of uncertainty, based on the decision-maker's expectations about the possible arrival times of the awaited reward. There are forms of temporal expectations (e.g., heavy-tailed) under which the expected time remaining until a reward arrives actually increases as time elapses. In those cases, the rational strategy is to quit waiting when the expected reward is no longer worth the expected time remaining. To arbitrate between the "limited self-control" and "temporal expectations" accounts of persistence, we measured pupil diameter during a persistence task, as a physiological marker of surprise (phasic responses) and effort (pre-decision diameter). Phasic pupil responses were elevated in response to reward receipt. Critically, the extent to which pupils dilated following rewards depended on the delay: people showed larger pupillary surprise responses the more delayed the reward was. This result suggests that people expect the reward less the longer they wait for it-a form of temporal expectations under which limiting persistence is rational. Moreover, predecision pupil diameter before quit events was not associated with how long the participant had been waiting, but rather, depended on how atypical the quit decision was compared with the participant's usual behavior. These data provide physiological evidence for a temporal expectations account of persistence under temporal uncertainty.
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Affiliation(s)
- Karolina M Lempert
- Department of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, USA
- Gordon F. Derner School of Psychology, Adelphi University, Garden City, NY, 11530, USA
| | - Caroline Carballeira
- Department of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, USA
| | - Sakshi Sehgal
- Department of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, USA
| | - Joseph W Kable
- Department of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, USA.
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15
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Lawlor J, Zagala A, Jamali S, Boubenec Y. Pupillary dynamics reflect the impact of temporal expectation on detection strategy. iScience 2023; 26:106000. [PMID: 36798438 PMCID: PMC9926307 DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2023.106000] [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: 03/15/2022] [Revised: 11/09/2022] [Accepted: 01/12/2023] [Indexed: 01/18/2023] Open
Abstract
Everyday life's perceptual decision-making is informed by experience. In particular, temporal expectation can ease the detection of relevant events in noisy sensory streams. Here, we investigated if humans can extract hidden temporal cues from the occurrences of probabilistic targets and utilize them to inform target detection in a complex acoustic stream. To understand what neural mechanisms implement temporal expectation influence on decision-making, we used pupillometry as a proxy for underlying neuromodulatory activity. We found that participants' detection strategy was influenced by the hidden temporal context and correlated with sound-evoked pupil dilation. A model of urgency fitted on false alarms predicted detection reaction time. Altogether, these findings suggest that temporal expectation informs decision-making and could be implemented through neuromodulatory-mediated urgency signals.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jennifer Lawlor
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA,Corresponding author
| | - Agnès Zagala
- International Laboratory for Brain, Music and Sound Research (BRAMS), Montreal, Canada
| | - Sara Jamali
- Institut Pasteur, INSERM, Institut de l’Audition, Paris, France
| | - Yves Boubenec
- Laboratoire des systèmes perceptifs, Département d’études cognitives, École normale supérieure, PSL University, CNRS, 75005 Paris, France
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16
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Relaño-Iborra H, Wendt D, Neagu MB, Kressner AA, Dau T, Bækgaard P. Baseline pupil size encodes task-related information and modulates the task-evoked response in a speech-in-noise task. Trends Hear 2022; 26:23312165221134003. [PMID: 36426573 PMCID: PMC9703509 DOI: 10.1177/23312165221134003] [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] [Indexed: 11/26/2022] Open
Abstract
Pupillometry data are commonly reported relative to a baseline value recorded in a controlled pre-task condition. In this study, the influence of the experimental design and the preparatory processing related to task difficulty on the baseline pupil size was investigated during a speech intelligibility in noise paradigm. Furthermore, the relationship between the baseline pupil size and the temporal dynamics of the pupil response was assessed. The analysis revealed strong effects of block presentation order, within-block sentence order and task difficulty on the baseline values. An interaction between signal-to-noise ratio and block order was found, indicating that baseline values reflect listener expectations arising from the order in which the different blocks were presented. Furthermore, the baseline pupil size was found to affect the slope, delay and curvature of the pupillary response as well as the peak pupil dilation. This suggests that baseline correction might be sufficient when reporting pupillometry results in terms of mean pupil dilation only, but not when a more complex characterization of the temporal dynamics of the response is considered. By clarifying which factors affect baseline pupil size and how baseline values interact with the task-evoked response, the results from the present study can contribute to a better interpretation of the pupillary response as a marker of cognitive processing.
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Affiliation(s)
- Helia Relaño-Iborra
- Cognitive Systems Section, Department of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science, Technical University of Denmark, 2800 Kgs, Lyngby, Denmark,Hearing Systems Section, Department of Health Technology, Technical University of Denmark, 2800 Kgs, Lyngby, Denmark,Helia Relaño-Iborra, Cognitive Systems Section, Department of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science, Technical University of Denmark, 2800 Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark.
| | - Dorothea Wendt
- Eriksholm Research Center, Oticon, 3070 Snekkersten, Denmark
| | - Mihaela Beatrice Neagu
- Hearing Systems Section, Department of Health Technology, Technical University of Denmark, 2800 Kgs, Lyngby, Denmark
| | - Abigail Anne Kressner
- Hearing Systems Section, Department of Health Technology, Technical University of Denmark, 2800 Kgs, Lyngby, Denmark,Copenhagen Hearing and Balance Center, Rigshospitalet, 2100, Copenhagen, Denmark
| | - Torsten Dau
- Hearing Systems Section, Department of Health Technology, Technical University of Denmark, 2800 Kgs, Lyngby, Denmark
| | - Per Bækgaard
- Cognitive Systems Section, Department of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science, Technical University of Denmark, 2800 Kgs, Lyngby, Denmark
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17
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Warda S, Simola J, Terhune DB. Pupillometry tracks errors in interval timing. Behav Neurosci 2022; 136:495-502. [PMID: 36222640 PMCID: PMC9552500 DOI: 10.1037/bne0000533] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/20/2022]
Abstract
Recent primate studies suggest a potential link between pupil size and subjectively elapsed duration. Here, we sought to investigate the relationship between pupil size and perceived duration in human participants performing two temporal bisection tasks in the subsecond and suprasecond interval ranges. In the subsecond task, pupil diameter was greater during stimulus processing when shorter intervals were overestimated but also during and after stimulus offset when longer intervals were underestimated. By contrast, in the suprasecond task, larger pupil diameter was observed only in the late stimulus offset phase prior to response prompts when longer intervals were underestimated. This pattern of results suggests that pupil diameter relates to an error monitoring mechanism in interval timing. These results are at odds with a direct relationship between pupil size and the perception of duration but suggest that pupillometric variation might play a key role in signifying errors related to temporal judgments.
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Affiliation(s)
- Shamini Warda
- Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay
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18
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Strauch C, Wang CA, Einhäuser W, Van der Stigchel S, Naber M. Pupillometry as an integrated readout of distinct attentional networks. Trends Neurosci 2022; 45:635-647. [PMID: 35662511 DOI: 10.1016/j.tins.2022.05.003] [Citation(s) in RCA: 46] [Impact Index Per Article: 23.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/14/2022] [Revised: 04/15/2022] [Accepted: 05/09/2022] [Indexed: 10/18/2022]
Abstract
The course of pupillary constriction and dilation provides an easy-to-access, inexpensive, and noninvasive readout of brain activity. We propose a new taxonomy of factors affecting the pupil and link these to associated neural underpinnings in an ascending hierarchy. In addition to two well-established low-level factors (light level and focal distance), we suggest two further intermediate-level factors, alerting and orienting, and a higher-level factor, executive functioning. Alerting, orienting, and executive functioning - including their respective underlying neural circuitries - overlap with the three principal attentional networks, making pupil size an integrated readout of distinct states of attention. As a now widespread technique, pupillometry is ready to provide meaningful applications and constitutes a viable part of the psychophysiological toolbox.
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Affiliation(s)
- Christoph Strauch
- Experimental Psychology, Helmholtz Institute, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
| | - Chin-An Wang
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, National Central University, Taoyuan City, Taiwan; Cognitive Intelligence and Precision Healthcare Center, National Central University, Taoyuan City, Taiwan
| | - Wolfgang Einhäuser
- Physics of Cognition Group, Chemnitz University of Technology, Chemnitz, Germany
| | | | - Marnix Naber
- Experimental Psychology, Helmholtz Institute, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands
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19
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Wang CA, White B, Munoz DP. Pupil-linked Arousal Signals in the Midbrain Superior Colliculus. J Cogn Neurosci 2022; 34:1340-1354. [PMID: 35579984 DOI: 10.1162/jocn_a_01863] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/04/2022]
Abstract
The orienting response evoked by the appearance of a salient stimulus is modulated by arousal; however, neural underpinnings for the interplay between orienting and arousal are not well understood. The superior colliculus (SC), causally involved in multiple components of the orienting response including gaze and attention shifts, receives not only multisensory and cognitive inputs but also arousal-regulated inputs from various cortical and subcortical structures. To investigate the impact of moment-by-moment fluctuations in arousal on orienting saccade responses, we used microstimulation of the monkey SC to trigger saccade responses, and we used pupil size and velocity to index the level of arousal at stimulation onset because these measures correlate with changes in brain states and locus coeruleus activity. Saccades induced by SC microstimulation correlated with prestimulation pupil velocity, with higher pupil velocities on trials without evoked saccades than with evoked saccades. In contrast, prestimulation absolute pupil size did not correlate with saccade behavior. However, pupil velocity correlated with evoked saccade latency and metrics. Together, our results demonstrated that small fluctuations in arousal, indexed by pupil velocity, can modulate the saccade response evoked by SC microstimulation in awake behaving monkeys.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Brian White
- Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada
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20
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Bond K, Dunovan K, Porter A, Rubin JE, Verstynen T. Dynamic decision policy reconfiguration under outcome uncertainty. eLife 2021; 10:e65540. [PMID: 34951589 PMCID: PMC8806193 DOI: 10.7554/elife.65540] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/07/2020] [Accepted: 12/23/2021] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
In uncertain or unstable environments, sometimes the best decision is to change your mind. To shed light on this flexibility, we evaluated how the underlying decision policy adapts when the most rewarding action changes. Human participants performed a dynamic two-armed bandit task that manipulated the certainty in relative reward (conflict) and the reliability of action-outcomes (volatility). Continuous estimates of conflict and volatility contributed to shifts in exploratory states by changing both the rate of evidence accumulation (drift rate) and the amount of evidence needed to make a decision (boundary height), respectively. At the trialwise level, following a switch in the optimal choice, the drift rate plummets and the boundary height weakly spikes, leading to a slow exploratory state. We find that the drift rate drives most of this response, with an unreliable contribution of boundary height across experiments. Surprisingly, we find no evidence that pupillary responses associated with decision policy changes. We conclude that humans show a stereotypical shift in their decision policies in response to environmental changes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Krista Bond
- Department of Psychology, Carnegie Mellon UniversityPittsburghUnited States
- Center for the Neural Basis of CognitionPittsburghUnited States
- Carnegie Mellon Neuroscience InstitutePittsburghUnited States
| | - Kyle Dunovan
- Department of Psychology, Carnegie Mellon UniversityPittsburghUnited States
| | - Alexis Porter
- Department of Psychology, Northwestern UniversityEvanstonUnited States
| | - Jonathan E Rubin
- Center for the Neural Basis of CognitionPittsburghUnited States
- Department of Mathematics, University of PittsburghPittsburghUnited States
| | - Timothy Verstynen
- Department of Psychology, Carnegie Mellon UniversityPittsburghUnited States
- Center for the Neural Basis of CognitionPittsburghUnited States
- Carnegie Mellon Neuroscience InstitutePittsburghUnited States
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Carnegie Mellon UniversityPittsburghUnited States
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21
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Longitudinal network model of the co-development of temperament, executive functioning, and psychopathology symptoms in youth with and without ADHD. Dev Psychopathol 2021; 33:1803-1820. [DOI: 10.1017/s0954579421000900] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/23/2022]
Abstract
AbstractAttention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a common, chronic, and impairing disorder, yet presentations of ADHD and clinical course are highly heterogeneous. Despite substantial research efforts, both (a) the secondary co-occurrence of ADHD and complicating additional clinical problems and (b) the developmental pathways leading toward or away from recovery through adolescence remain poorly understood. Resolving these requires accounting for transactional influences of a large number of features across development. Here, we applied a longitudinal cross-lagged panel network model to a multimodal, multilevel dataset in a well-characterized sample of 488 children (nADHD = 296) to test Research Domain Criteria initiative-inspired hypotheses about transdiagnostic risk. Network features included Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders symptoms, trait-based ratings of emotional functioning (temperament), and performance-based measures of cognition. Results confirmed that ADHD symptom domains, temperamental irritability, and working memory are independent transdiagnostic risk factors for psychopathology based on their direct associations with other features across time. ADHD symptoms and working memory each had direct, independent associations with depression. Results also demonstrated tightly linked co-development of ADHD symptoms and temperamental irritability, consistent with the possibility that this type of anger dysregulation is a core feature that is co-expressed as part of the ADHD phenotype for some children.
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22
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Martin CG, He BJ, Chang C. State-related neural influences on fMRI connectivity estimation. Neuroimage 2021; 244:118590. [PMID: 34560268 PMCID: PMC8815005 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2021.118590] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/17/2021] [Revised: 09/11/2021] [Accepted: 09/16/2021] [Indexed: 12/01/2022] Open
Abstract
The spatiotemporal structure of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) signals has provided a valuable window into the network underpinnings of human brain function and dysfunction. Although some cross-regional temporal correlation patterns (functional connectivity; FC) exhibit a high degree of stability across individuals and species, there is growing acknowledgment that measures of FC can exhibit marked changes over a range of temporal scales. Further, FC can covary with experimental task demands and ongoing neural processes linked to arousal, consciousness and perception, cognitive and affective state, and brain-body interactions. The increased recognition that such interrelated neural processes modulate FC measurements has raised both challenges and new opportunities in using FC to investigate brain function. Here, we review recent advances in the quantification of neural effects that shape fMRI FC and discuss the broad implications of these findings in the design and analysis of fMRI studies. We also discuss how a more complete understanding of the neural factors that shape FC measurements can resolve apparent inconsistencies in the literature and lead to more interpretable conclusions from fMRI studies.
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Affiliation(s)
- Caroline G Martin
- Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA
| | - Biyu J He
- Neuroscience Institute, New York University School of Medicine, New York, NY 10016, USA; Departments of Neurology, Neuroscience & Physiology, and Radiology, New York University School of Medicine, New York, NY 10016, USA
| | - Catie Chang
- Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA; Department of Biomedical Engineering, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA.
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23
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Wainstein G, Rojas-Líbano D, Medel V, Alnæs D, Kolskår KK, Endestad T, Laeng B, Ossandon T, Crossley N, Matar E, Shine JM. The ascending arousal system promotes optimal performance through mesoscale network integration in a visuospatial attentional task. Netw Neurosci 2021; 5:890-910. [PMID: 35024535 PMCID: PMC8746119 DOI: 10.1162/netn_a_00205] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/15/2021] [Accepted: 08/02/2021] [Indexed: 01/23/2023] Open
Abstract
Previous research has shown that the autonomic nervous system provides essential constraints over ongoing cognitive function. However, there is currently a relative lack of direct empirical evidence for how this interaction manifests in the brain at the macroscale level. Here, we examine the role of ascending arousal and attentional load on large-scale network dynamics by combining pupillometry, functional MRI, and graph theoretical analysis to analyze data from a visual motion-tracking task with a parametric load manipulation. We found that attentional load effects were observable in measures of pupil diameter and in a set of brain regions that parametrically modulated their BOLD activity and mesoscale network-level integration. In addition, the regional patterns of network reconfiguration were correlated with the spatial distribution of the α2a adrenergic receptor. Our results further solidify the relationship between ascending noradrenergic activity, large-scale network integration, and cognitive task performance.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Daniel Rojas-Líbano
- Centro de Neurociencia Humana y Neuropsicología, Facultad de Psicología, Universidad Diego Portales, Santiago, Chile
| | - Vicente Medel
- Brain and Mind Centre, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
- Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile
| | - Dag Alnæs
- NORMENT, Division of Mental Health and Addiction, University of Oslo, and Oslo University Hospital, Oslo, Norway
- Bjørnnes College, Oslo, Norway
| | - Knut K. Kolskår
- NORMENT, Division of Mental Health and Addiction, University of Oslo, and Oslo University Hospital, Oslo, Norway
- Department of Psychology, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
- Sunnaas Rehabilitation Hospital HT, Nesodden, Norway
| | - Tor Endestad
- Department of Psychology, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
- RITMO Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Rhythm, Time, and Motion, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
- Helgelandssykehuset Mosjøen, Helse Nord, Norway
| | - Bruno Laeng
- Department of Psychology, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
- RITMO Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Rhythm, Time, and Motion, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
| | - Tomas Ossandon
- Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile
- Institute for Biological and Medical Engineering, Schools of Engineering, Medicine and Biological Sciences, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile
| | - Nicolás Crossley
- Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile
| | - Elie Matar
- Brain and Mind Centre, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
| | - James M. Shine
- Brain and Mind Centre, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
- Centre for Complexity, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
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24
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Kurniawan IT, Grueschow M, Ruff CC. Anticipatory Energization Revealed by Pupil and Brain Activity Guides Human Effort-Based Decision Making. J Neurosci 2021; 41:6328-6342. [PMID: 34103359 PMCID: PMC8287989 DOI: 10.1523/jneurosci.3027-20.2021] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/01/2020] [Revised: 05/10/2021] [Accepted: 05/24/2021] [Indexed: 01/07/2023] Open
Abstract
An organism's fitness is determined by how it chooses to adapt to effort in response to challenges. Exertion of effort correlates with activity in dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) and noradrenergic pupil dilation, but little is known about the role of these neurophysiological processes for decisions about future efforts, they may provide anticipatory energization to help us accept the challenge or a cost representation that is weighted against the expected rewards. Here, we provide evidence for the former, by measuring pupil and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) brain responses while 52 human participants (29 females) chose whether to exert efforts to obtain rewards. Both pupil-dilation rate and dmPFC fMRI activity increased with anticipated effort level, and these increases differ depending on the choice outcome: they were stronger when participants chose to accept the challenge compared with when the challenge was declined. Crucially, the choice-dependent modulation of pupil and brain-activity effort representations were stronger in participants whose behavioral choices were more sensitive to effort. Our results identify a process involving the peripheral and central human nervous system that simulates the required energization before overt response, suggesting a role in guiding effort-based decisions.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT The brain's arousal system tracks the effort we engage in during strenuous activity. But much less is known about what role this effort signaling may play when we decide whether to exert effort in the future. Here, we characterize pupil-linked arousal and brain signals that guide decisions whether to engage in effort to gain money. During such choices, increases in brain activity and pupil dilation correlated with the effort involved in the chosen option, and these increases were stronger when people decided to accept the effort compared with when they rejected it. These results suggest that the brain arousal system guides decisions by energizing the organism for the prospective challenge.
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Affiliation(s)
- Irma T Kurniawan
- Zurich Center for Neuroeconomics, Department of Economics, University of Zurich, Zürich 8006, Switzerland
| | - Marcus Grueschow
- Zurich Center for Neuroeconomics, Department of Economics, University of Zurich, Zürich 8006, Switzerland
| | - Christian C Ruff
- Zurich Center for Neuroeconomics, Department of Economics, University of Zurich, Zürich 8006, Switzerland
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25
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Maier SU, Grueschow M. Pupil dilation predicts individual self-regulation success across domains. Sci Rep 2021; 11:14342. [PMID: 34253756 PMCID: PMC8275757 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-93121-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/10/2021] [Accepted: 06/14/2021] [Indexed: 02/06/2023] Open
Abstract
Multiple theories have proposed that increasing central arousal through the brain's locus coeruleus-norepinephrine system may facilitate cognitive control and memory. However, the role of the arousal system in emotion regulation is less well understood. Pupil diameter is a proxy to infer upon the central arousal state. We employed an emotion regulation paradigm with a combination of design features that allowed us to dissociate regulation from emotional arousal in the pupil diameter time course of 34 healthy adults. Pupil diameter increase during regulation predicted individual differences in emotion regulation success beyond task difficulty. Moreover, the extent of this individual regulatory arousal boost predicted performance in another self-control task, dietary health challenges. Participants who harnessed more regulation-associated arousal during emotion regulation were also more successful in choosing healthier foods. These results suggest that a common arousal-based facilitation mechanism may support an individual's self-control across domains.
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Affiliation(s)
- Silvia U Maier
- Zurich Center for Neuroeconomics, Department of Economics, University of Zurich, Bluemlisalpstrasse 10, 8006, Zurich, Switzerland.
- Neuroscience Center Zurich, University of Zurich, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
- Translational Neuromodeling Unit, Institute for Biomedical Engineering, University of Zurich and ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
| | - Marcus Grueschow
- Zurich Center for Neuroeconomics, Department of Economics, University of Zurich, Bluemlisalpstrasse 10, 8006, Zurich, Switzerland.
- Neuroscience Center Zurich, University of Zurich, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
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26
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Zandi B, Lode M, Herzog A, Sakas G, Khanh TQ. PupilEXT: Flexible Open-Source Platform for High-Resolution Pupillometry in Vision Research. Front Neurosci 2021; 15:676220. [PMID: 34220432 PMCID: PMC8249868 DOI: 10.3389/fnins.2021.676220] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/04/2021] [Accepted: 04/28/2021] [Indexed: 12/12/2022] Open
Abstract
The human pupil behavior has gained increased attention due to the discovery of the intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells and the afferent pupil control path's role as a biomarker for cognitive processes. Diameter changes in the range of 10-2 mm are of interest, requiring reliable and characterized measurement equipment to accurately detect neurocognitive effects on the pupil. Mostly commercial solutions are used as measurement devices in pupillometry which is associated with high investments. Moreover, commercial systems rely on closed software, restricting conclusions about the used pupil-tracking algorithms. Here, we developed an open-source pupillometry platform consisting of hardware and software competitive with high-end commercial stereo eye-tracking systems. Our goal was to make a professional remote pupil measurement pipeline for laboratory conditions accessible for everyone. This work's core outcome is an integrated cross-platform (macOS, Windows and Linux) pupillometry software called PupilEXT, featuring a user-friendly graphical interface covering the relevant requirements of professional pupil response research. We offer a selection of six state-of-the-art open-source pupil detection algorithms (Starburst, Swirski, ExCuSe, ElSe, PuRe and PuReST) to perform the pupil measurement. A developed 120-fps pupillometry demo system was able to achieve a calibration accuracy of 0.003 mm and an averaged temporal pupil measurement detection accuracy of 0.0059 mm in stereo mode. The PupilEXT software has extended features in pupil detection, measurement validation, image acquisition, data acquisition, offline pupil measurement, camera calibration, stereo vision, data visualization and system independence, all combined in a single open-source interface, available at https://github.com/openPupil/Open-PupilEXT.
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Affiliation(s)
- Babak Zandi
- Laboratory of Lighting Technology, Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology, Technical University of Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Germany
| | - Moritz Lode
- Laboratory of Lighting Technology, Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology, Technical University of Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Germany
| | - Alexander Herzog
- Laboratory of Lighting Technology, Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology, Technical University of Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Germany
| | - Georgios Sakas
- Interactive Graphic Systems, Department of Computer Science, Technical University of Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Germany
| | - Tran Quoc Khanh
- Laboratory of Lighting Technology, Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology, Technical University of Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Germany
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Hu X, Hisakata R, Kaneko H. Pupillary dilation elicited by attending to two disks with different luminance. J Vis 2021; 21:11. [PMID: 33481992 PMCID: PMC7838548 DOI: 10.1167/jov.21.1.11] [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] [Indexed: 11/24/2022] Open
Abstract
Pupils become smaller when people attend to a bright disk as compared to a dark disk. However, people can divide their attention into several distinct positions, which is referred to as divided attention, and pupillary responses under such conditions have not been investigated. In this study, we examined how pupils would respond when people attended to two disks presented at two distinct positions by conducting three experiments. We found that the pupillary response when attending to two disks with different luminance was larger than when attending to a single brighter disk and was comparable to that when attending to a single darker disk, whereas the pupillary response when attending to two disks with identical luminance was not larger than when attending to a single disk (irrespective of the disk luminance). Furthermore, we found that the magnitude of pupillary dilation was determined by the magnitude of the luminance difference between two disks. These results make a useful contribution to the literature on human pupillary responses.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xiaofei Hu
- Department of Information and Communications Engineering, School of Engineering, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Yokohama, Japan.,
| | - Rumi Hisakata
- Department of Information and Communications Engineering, School of Engineering, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Yokohama, Japan.,
| | - Hirohiko Kaneko
- Department of Information and Communications Engineering, School of Engineering, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Yokohama, Japan.,
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28
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de Gee JW, Correa CMC, Weaver M, Donner TH, van Gaal S. Pupil Dilation and the Slow Wave ERP Reflect Surprise about Choice Outcome Resulting from Intrinsic Variability in Decision Confidence. Cereb Cortex 2021; 31:3565-3578. [PMID: 33822917 PMCID: PMC8196307 DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhab032] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/19/2020] [Revised: 01/27/2021] [Accepted: 01/27/2021] [Indexed: 12/01/2022] Open
Abstract
Central to human and animal cognition is the ability to learn from feedback in order to optimize future rewards. Such a learning signal might be encoded and broadcasted by the brain's arousal systems, including the noradrenergic locus coeruleus. Pupil responses and the positive slow wave component of event-related potentials reflect rapid changes in the arousal level of the brain. Here, we ask whether and how these variables may reflect surprise: the mismatch between one's expectation about being correct and the outcome of a decision, when expectations fluctuate due to internal factors (e.g., engagement). We show that during an elementary decision task in the face of uncertainty both physiological markers of phasic arousal reflect surprise. We further show that pupil responses and slow wave event-related potential are unrelated to each other and that prediction error computations depend on feedback awareness. These results further advance our understanding of the role of central arousal systems in decision-making under uncertainty.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jan Willem de Gee
- Department of Psychology, Amsterdam Brain & Cognition (ABC), University of Amsterdam, Nieuwe Achtergracht 129-B, 1018WS, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
- Department of Neurophysiology and Pathophysiology, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Building N43, Martinistraße 52, 20246, Hamburg, Germany
- Department of Neuroscience, Baylor College of Medicine, 1 Baylor Plaza, Houston, TX 77030, USA
- Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute, Texas Children’s Hospital, 1250 Moursund St, Houston, TX 77030, USA
| | - Camile M C Correa
- Department of Psychology, Amsterdam Brain & Cognition (ABC), University of Amsterdam, Nieuwe Achtergracht 129-B, 1018WS, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
- Centre of Functionally Integrative Neuroscience, Aarhus University, 44 Nørrebrogade Building 1A, 8000 Aarhus, Denmark
| | - Matthew Weaver
- Department of Psychology, Amsterdam Brain & Cognition (ABC), University of Amsterdam, Nieuwe Achtergracht 129-B, 1018WS, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
| | - Tobias H Donner
- Department of Psychology, Amsterdam Brain & Cognition (ABC), University of Amsterdam, Nieuwe Achtergracht 129-B, 1018WS, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
- Department of Neurophysiology and Pathophysiology, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Building N43, Martinistraße 52, 20246, Hamburg, Germany
| | - Simon van Gaal
- Department of Psychology, Amsterdam Brain & Cognition (ABC), University of Amsterdam, Nieuwe Achtergracht 129-B, 1018WS, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
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29
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Grueschow M, Stenz N, Thörn H, Ehlert U, Breckwoldt J, Brodmann Maeder M, Exadaktylos AK, Bingisser R, Ruff CC, Kleim B. Real-world stress resilience is associated with the responsivity of the locus coeruleus. Nat Commun 2021; 12:2275. [PMID: 33859187 PMCID: PMC8050280 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-22509-1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 38] [Impact Index Per Article: 12.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/05/2019] [Accepted: 03/04/2021] [Indexed: 02/02/2023] Open
Abstract
Individuals may show different responses to stressful events. Here, we investigate the neurobiological basis of stress resilience, by showing that neural responsitivity of the noradrenergic locus coeruleus (LC-NE) and associated pupil responses are related to the subsequent change in measures of anxiety and depression in response to prolonged real-life stress. We acquired fMRI and pupillometry data during an emotional-conflict task in medical residents before they underwent stressful emergency-room internships known to be a risk factor for anxiety and depression. The LC-NE conflict response and its functional coupling with the amygdala was associated with stress-related symptom changes in response to the internship. A similar relationship was found for pupil-dilation, a potential marker of LC-NE firing. Our results provide insights into the noradrenergic basis of conflict generation, adaptation and stress resilience.
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Affiliation(s)
- Marcus Grueschow
- Zurich Center for Neuroeconomics (ZNE), Department of Economics, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
| | - Nico Stenz
- Division of Experimental Psychopathology and Psychotherapy, Dept of Psychology, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
- Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
| | - Hanna Thörn
- Division of Experimental Psychopathology and Psychotherapy, Dept of Psychology, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
- Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
- Division of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Dept of Psychology, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
| | - Ulrike Ehlert
- Division of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Dept of Psychology, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
| | - Jan Breckwoldt
- Medical School, Deanery, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
| | | | | | - Roland Bingisser
- Department of Emergency Medicine, University Hospital Basel, Basel, Switzerland
| | - Christian C Ruff
- Zurich Center for Neuroeconomics (ZNE), Department of Economics, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
| | - Birgit Kleim
- Division of Experimental Psychopathology and Psychotherapy, Dept of Psychology, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
- Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
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Chandler MC, McGowan AL, Brascamp JW, Pontifex MB. Phasic activity of the locus-coeruleus is not a mediator of the relationship between fitness and inhibition in college-aged adults. Int J Psychophysiol 2021; 165:1-7. [PMID: 33774078 DOI: 10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2021.03.007] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/23/2020] [Revised: 03/11/2021] [Accepted: 03/15/2021] [Indexed: 01/08/2023]
Abstract
Aerobic fitness is consistently and robustly associated with superior performance on assessments of cognitive control. One potential mechanism underlying this phenomenon is activation of the locus-coeruleus. Specifically, individuals with greater aerobic fitness may be better able to sustain engagement in a cognitively demanding task via a superior ability to meet the metabolic demands of this neural system. Accordingly, the present investigation examined 1) the relationship between aerobic fitness and phasic activation of the locus-coeruleus (indexed using pupillometry) and 2) the potential mediating influence of locus-coeruleus activity on the relationship between aerobic fitness and cognitive task performance. Participants performed an inhibition task while their pupillary responses were measured using an infrared eye tracker. A VO2max test was then performed to determine individuals' aerobic fitness levels. Consistent with previous research, higher levels of aerobic fitness were related to shorter reaction time. However, phasic activity of the locus-coeruleus did not mediate this relationship - nor did it relate to aerobic fitness level. These results suggest that aerobic fitness does not relate to differences in locus-coeruleus activity in the context of cognitive control in college-aged adults.
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Affiliation(s)
- Madison C Chandler
- Department of Kinesiology, Michigan State University, United States of America.
| | - Amanda L McGowan
- Department of Kinesiology, Michigan State University, United States of America
| | - Jan W Brascamp
- Department of Psychology, Michigan State University, United States of America
| | - Matthew B Pontifex
- Department of Kinesiology, Michigan State University, United States of America
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31
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Zandi B, Khanh TQ. Deep learning-based pupil model predicts time and spectral dependent light responses. Sci Rep 2021; 11:841. [PMID: 33436693 PMCID: PMC7803766 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-79908-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/20/2020] [Accepted: 12/11/2020] [Indexed: 01/29/2023] Open
Abstract
Although research has made significant findings in the neurophysiological process behind the pupillary light reflex, the temporal prediction of the pupil diameter triggered by polychromatic or chromatic stimulus spectra is still not possible. State of the art pupil models rested in estimating a static diameter at the equilibrium-state for spectra along the Planckian locus. Neither the temporal receptor-weighting nor the spectral-dependent adaptation behaviour of the afferent pupil control path is mapped in such functions. Here we propose a deep learning-driven concept of a pupil model, which reconstructs the pupil's time course either from photometric and colourimetric or receptor-based stimulus quantities. By merging feed-forward neural networks with a biomechanical differential equation, we predict the temporal pupil light response with a mean absolute error below 0.1 mm from polychromatic (2007 [Formula: see text] 1 K, 4983 [Formula: see text] 3 K, 10,138 [Formula: see text] 22 K) and chromatic spectra (450 nm, 530 nm, 610 nm, 660 nm) at 100.01 ± 0.25 cd/m2. This non-parametric and self-learning concept could open the door to a generalized description of the pupil behaviour.
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Affiliation(s)
- Babak Zandi
- Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology, Laboratory of Lighting Technology, Technical University of Darmstadt, 64289, Darmstadt, Germany.
| | - Tran Quoc Khanh
- Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology, Laboratory of Lighting Technology, Technical University of Darmstadt, 64289, Darmstadt, Germany
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32
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Liu Y, Narasimhan S, Schriver BJ, Wang Q. Perceptual Behavior Depends Differently on Pupil-Linked Arousal and Heartbeat Dynamics-Linked Arousal in Rats Performing Tactile Discrimination Tasks. Front Syst Neurosci 2021; 14:614248. [PMID: 33505252 PMCID: PMC7829454 DOI: 10.3389/fnsys.2020.614248] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/05/2020] [Accepted: 11/30/2020] [Indexed: 01/02/2023] Open
Abstract
Several physiology signals, including heart rate and pupil size, have been widely used as peripheral indices of arousal to evaluate the effects of arousal on brain functions. However, whether behavior depends differently on arousal indexed by these physiological signals remains unclear. We simultaneously recorded electrocardiogram (ECG) and pupil size in head-fixed rats performing tactile discrimination tasks. We found both heartbeat dynamics and pupil size co-varied with behavioral outcomes, indicating behavior was dependent upon arousal indexed by the two physiological signals. To estimate the potential difference between the effects of pupil-linked arousal and heart rate-linked arousal on behavior, we constructed a Bayesian decoder to predict animals' behavior from pupil size and heart rate prior to stimulus presentation. The performance of the decoder was significantly better when using both heart rate and pupil size as inputs than when using either of them alone, suggesting the effects of the two arousal systems on behavior are not completely redundant. Supporting this notion, we found that, on a substantial portion of trials correctly predicted by the heart rate-based decoder, the pupil size-based decoder failed to correctly predict animals' behavior. Taken together, these results suggest that pupil-linked and heart rate-linked arousal systems exert different influences on animals' behavior.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yuxiang Liu
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Columbia University, New York, NY, United States
| | - Shreya Narasimhan
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Columbia University, New York, NY, United States
| | - Brian J Schriver
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Columbia University, New York, NY, United States
| | - Qi Wang
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Columbia University, New York, NY, United States
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33
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Abstract
Pupil size is an easily accessible, noninvasive online indicator of various perceptual and cognitive processes. Pupil measurements have the potential to reveal continuous processing dynamics throughout an experimental trial, including anticipatory responses. However, the relatively sluggish (~2 s) response dynamics of pupil dilation make it challenging to connect changes in pupil size to events occurring close together in time. Researchers have used models to link changes in pupil size to specific trial events, but such methods have not been systematically evaluated. Here we developed and evaluated a general linear model (GLM) pipeline that estimates pupillary responses to multiple rapid events within an experimental trial. We evaluated the modeling approach using a sample dataset in which multiple sequential stimuli were presented within 2-s trials. We found: (1) Model fits improved when the pupil impulse response function (PuRF) was fit for each observer. PuRFs varied substantially across individuals but were consistent for each individual. (2) Model fits also improved when pupil responses were not assumed to occur simultaneously with their associated trial events, but could have non-zero latencies. For example, pupil responses could anticipate predictable trial events. (3) Parameter recovery confirmed the validity of the fitting procedures, and we quantified the reliability of the parameter estimates for our sample dataset. (4) A cognitive task manipulation modulated pupil response amplitude. We provide our pupil analysis pipeline as open-source software (Pupil Response Estimation Toolbox: PRET) to facilitate the estimation of pupil responses and the evaluation of the estimates in other datasets.
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34
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Saposnik G, Grueschow M, Oh J, Terzaghi MA, Kostyrko P, Vaidyanathan S, Nisenbaum R, Ruff CC, Tobler PN. Effect of an Educational Intervention on Therapeutic Inertia in Neurologists With Expertise in Multiple Sclerosis: A Randomized Clinical Trial. JAMA Netw Open 2020; 3:e2022227. [PMID: 33326024 PMCID: PMC7745101 DOI: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.22227] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 02/01/2023] Open
Abstract
IMPORTANCE Therapeutic inertia (TI) is the failure to escalate therapy when treatment goals are unmet and is associated with low tolerance to uncertainty and aversion to ambiguity in physician decision-making. Limited information is available on how physicians handle therapeutic decision-making in the context of uncertainty. OBJECTIVE To evaluate whether an educational intervention decreases TI by reducing autonomic arousal response (pupil dilation), a proxy measure of how physicians respond to uncertainty during treatment decisions. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS In this randomized clinical trial, 34 neurologists with expertise in multiple sclerosis (MS) practicing at 15 outpatient MS clinics in academic and community institutions from across Canada were enrolled. Participants were randomly assigned to receive an educational intervention that facilitates treatment decisions (active group) or to receive no exposure to the intervention (usual care [control group]) from December 2017 to March 2018. Participants listened to 20 audio-recorded simulated case scenarios as pupil responses were assessed by eye trackers. Autonomic arousal was assessed as pupil dilation in periods in which critical information was provided (first period [T1]: clinical data, second period [T2]: neurologic status, and third period [T3]: magnetic resonance imaging data). Data were analyzed from September 2018 to March 2020. INTERVENTIONS The traffic light system (TLS)-based educational intervention vs usual care (unexposed). The TLS (use of established associations between traffic light colors and actions to stop or proceed) assists participants in identifying factors associated with worse prognosis in MS care, thereby facilitating the treatment decision-making process by use of established associations between red, green, and yellow colors and risk levels, and actions (treatment decisions). MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES Pupil assessment was the primary autonomic outcome. To test the treatment effect of the educational intervention (TLS), difference-in-differences models (also called untreated control group design with pretest and posttest) were used. RESULTS Of 38 eligible participants, 34 (89.4%) neurologists completed the study. The mean (SD) age was 44.6 (11.6) years; 38.3% were female and 20 (58.8%) were MS specialists. Therapeutic inertia was present in 50.0% (17 of 34) of all participants and was associated with greater pupil dilation. For every additional SD of pupil dilation, the odds of TI increased by 51% for T1 (odds ratio, 1.51; 95% CI, 1.12-2.03), by 31% for T2 (odds ratio, 1.31; 95% CI, 1.08-1.59), and by 49% for T3 (odds ratio, 1.49; 95% CI, 1.13-1.97). The intervention significantly reduced TI (risk reduction, 31.5%; 95% CI, 16.1%-47.0%). Autonomic arousal responses mediated 29.0% of the effect of the educational intervention on TI. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE In this randomized clinical trial, the TLS intervention decreased TI as measured by pupil dilation, which suggests that individual autonomic arousal is an indicator of how physicians handle uncertainty when making live therapeutic decisions. Pupil response, a biomarker of TI, may eventually be useful in medical education. TRIAL REGISTRATION ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT03134794.
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Affiliation(s)
- Gustavo Saposnik
- Division of Neurology, Department of Medicine, St Michael’s Hospital, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
- Zurich Center for Neuroeconomics, Department of Economics, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
- Clinical Outcomes and Decision Neuroscience Unit, St Michael’s Hospital, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
- Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, St Michael’s Hospital, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
| | - Marcus Grueschow
- Zurich Center for Neuroeconomics, Department of Economics, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
| | - Jiwon Oh
- Division of Neurology, Department of Medicine, St Michael’s Hospital, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
| | - Maria A. Terzaghi
- Division of Neurology, Department of Medicine, St Michael’s Hospital, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
- Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, St Michael’s Hospital, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
| | - Pawel Kostyrko
- Division of Neurology, Department of Medicine, St Michael’s Hospital, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
| | - Shruthi Vaidyanathan
- Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, St Michael’s Hospital, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
| | - Rosane Nisenbaum
- Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, St Michael’s Hospital, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
- Applied Health Research Centre, Centre for Urban Health Solutions, St Michael’s Hospital, Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
| | - Christian C. Ruff
- Zurich Center for Neuroeconomics, Department of Economics, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
| | - Philippe N. Tobler
- Zurich Center for Neuroeconomics, Department of Economics, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
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35
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Task-related activity in human visual cortex. PLoS Biol 2020; 18:e3000921. [PMID: 33156829 PMCID: PMC7673548 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3000921] [Citation(s) in RCA: 15] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/28/2020] [Revised: 11/18/2020] [Accepted: 09/21/2020] [Indexed: 01/27/2023] Open
Abstract
The brain exhibits widespread endogenous responses in the absence of visual stimuli, even at the earliest stages of visual cortical processing. Such responses have been studied in monkeys using optical imaging with a limited field of view over visual cortex. Here, we used functional MRI (fMRI) in human participants to study the link between arousal and endogenous responses in visual cortex. The response that we observed was tightly entrained to task timing, was spatially extensive, and was independent of visual stimulation. We found that this response follows dynamics similar to that of pupil size and heart rate, suggesting that task-related activity is related to arousal. Finally, we found that higher reward increased response amplitude while decreasing its trial-to-trial variability (i.e., the noise). Computational simulations suggest that increased temporal precision underlies both of these observations. Our findings are consistent with optical imaging studies in monkeys and support the notion that arousal increases precision of neural activity. The brain exhibits widespread endogenous responses in the absence of visual stimuli, even at the earliest stages of visual cortical processing. This fMRI study characterizes a widespread hemodynamic response in early visual cortex that is not related to visual input but instead reflects a participant’s engagement in a task, is modulated by expected monetary reward, and may reflect neural quenching.
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36
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Ganea DA, Bexter A, Günther M, Gardères PM, Kampa BM, Haiss F. Pupillary Dilations of Mice Performing a Vibrotactile Discrimination Task Reflect Task Engagement and Response Confidence. Front Behav Neurosci 2020; 14:159. [PMID: 33088265 PMCID: PMC7494826 DOI: 10.3389/fnbeh.2020.00159] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/31/2020] [Accepted: 08/11/2020] [Indexed: 11/23/2022] Open
Abstract
Pupillometry, the measure of pupil size and reactivity, has been widely used to assess cognitive processes. Changes in pupil size have been shown to correlate with various behavioral states, both externally and internally induced such as locomotion, arousal, cortical state, and decision-making processes. Besides, these pupillary responses have also been linked to the activity of neuromodulatory systems that modulate attention and perception such as the noradrenergic and cholinergic systems. Due to the extent of processes the pupil reflects, we aimed at further resolving pupillary responses in the context of behavioral state and task performance while recording pupillary transients of mice performing a vibrotactile two-alternative forced-choice task (2-AFC). We show that before the presentation of task-relevant information, pre-stimulus, pupil size differentiates between states of disengagement from task performance vs. engagement. Also, when subjects have to attend to task stimuli to attain a reward, post-stimulus, pupillary dilations exhibit a difference between correct and error responses with this difference reflecting an internal decision variable. We hypothesize that this internal decision variable relates to response confidence, the internal perception of the confidence the subject has in its choice. As opposed to this, we show that in a condition of passive performance, when the stimulus has no more task relevance due to reward being provided automatically, pupillary dilations reflect the occurrence of stimulation and reward provision but not decisional variables as under active performance. Our results provide evidence that in addition to reflecting attentiveness under task performance rather than arousal per se, pupil dilations also reflect the confidence of the subject in his ensuing response. This confidence coding is overlaid within a more pronounced pupil dilation that reflects post-decision components that are related to the response itself but not to the decision. We also provide evidence as to how different behavioral states, imposed by task demands, modulate what the pupil is reflecting, presumably showing what the underlying cognitive network is coding for.
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Affiliation(s)
- Dan Alin Ganea
- IZKF, Medical Faculty, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany.,Institute of Neuropathology, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany.,Department of Ophthalmology, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany
| | - Alexander Bexter
- Department of Neurophysiology, Institute of Zoology, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany.,Research Training Group 2416 MultiSenses-MultiScales, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany
| | - Mathias Günther
- IZKF, Medical Faculty, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany.,Institute of Neuropathology, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany.,Department of Ophthalmology, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany
| | - Pierre-Marie Gardères
- IZKF, Medical Faculty, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany.,Institute of Neuropathology, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany.,Department of Ophthalmology, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany.,Unit of Neural Circuits Dynamics and Decision Making, Institut Pasteur, Paris, France
| | - Björn M Kampa
- Department of Neurophysiology, Institute of Zoology, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany.,Research Training Group 2416 MultiSenses-MultiScales, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany.,JARA-BRAIN Institute Molecular Neuroscience and Neuroimaging, Jülich Forschungszentrum, Jülich, Germany
| | - Florent Haiss
- IZKF, Medical Faculty, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany.,Institute of Neuropathology, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany.,Department of Ophthalmology, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany.,Unit of Neural Circuits Dynamics and Decision Making, Institut Pasteur, Paris, France
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37
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Hu X, Hisakata R, Kaneko H. Effects of stimulus size, eccentricity, luminance, and attention on pupillary light response examined by concentric stimulus. Vision Res 2020; 170:35-45. [PMID: 32244112 DOI: 10.1016/j.visres.2020.03.008] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/12/2020] [Revised: 03/18/2020] [Accepted: 03/18/2020] [Indexed: 12/17/2022]
Abstract
Previous studies show that the amplitude of pupillary light response (PLR) depends on the corneal flux density (CFD), which is the product of stimulus area by luminance. However, the contribution of CFD has been investigated only when the stimulus was centered on the fovea, whereas perceived luminance to pupillary response would reduce with stimulus eccentricity. Additionally, it has been shown recently that attentional state modulates pupillary response. In this study, we aimed to clarify the complete mechanisms of PLR by manipulating the stimulus size, eccentricity, luminance, and the participants' attentional states. We focused on four indices to examine PLR, that is, pupillary latency (PL), maximum constriction velocity (MCV), maximum constriction (MC), and mean pupil change (MPC). Results showed that PL was a function of CFD, whereas MCV, MC, and MPC were functions of both CFD and stimulus eccentricity. Furthermore, the magnitude of effect due to stimulus eccentricity for MCV and MC was different from that for MPC. These results provided new evidence that the different processing systems in PLR existed.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xiaofei Hu
- Department of Information and Communications Engineering, School of Engineering, Tokyo Institute of Technology, 4259-G2-3 Nagatsuta-Cho, Midori-Ku, Yokohama 226-8502, Japan.
| | - Rumi Hisakata
- Department of Information and Communications Engineering, School of Engineering, Tokyo Institute of Technology, 4259-G2-3 Nagatsuta-Cho, Midori-Ku, Yokohama 226-8502, Japan
| | - Hirohiko Kaneko
- Department of Information and Communications Engineering, School of Engineering, Tokyo Institute of Technology, 4259-G2-3 Nagatsuta-Cho, Midori-Ku, Yokohama 226-8502, Japan
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38
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Abstract
In our physical environment as well as in many experimental paradigms, we need to decide whether an occurring stimulus is relevant to us or not; further, stimuli have uneven probabilities to emerge. Both, decision making and the difference between rare and frequent stimuli (oddball effect) are described to affect pupil dilation. Surprisingly though, conjoint systematic pupillometric investigations into both factors are still rare. In two experiments, both factors as well as their interplay were investigated. Participants completed a sequential letter matching task. In this task, stimulus probability and letter matching (decision making) were manipulated independently. As dependent variables, pupil dilation and reaction time were assessed. Results suggest a clearly larger pupil dilation for target than for distractor letters, even when targets were frequent and distractors rare. When considering the data structure best, no main effect of stimulus probability was found, instead, oddball effects only emerged when stimuli were goal-relevant to participants. The results are discussed in the light of common theoretical concepts of decision making and stimulus probability. Finally, relating theories of each factor, we propose an integrated framework for effects of decision making and stimulus features on pupil dilation. We assume a sequential mechanism during which incoming stimuli are decided upon regarding their goal relevance and, about 200 ms later, relevant stimuli are appraised regarding their value.
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39
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Pais-Roldán P, Takahashi K, Sobczak F, Chen Y, Zhao X, Zeng H, Jiang Y, Yu X. Indexing brain state-dependent pupil dynamics with simultaneous fMRI and optical fiber calcium recording. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2020; 117:6875-6882. [PMID: 32139609 PMCID: PMC7104268 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1909937117] [Citation(s) in RCA: 39] [Impact Index Per Article: 9.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/21/2022] Open
Abstract
Pupillometry, a noninvasive measure of arousal, complements human functional MRI (fMRI) to detect periods of variable cognitive processing and identify networks that relate to particular attentional states. Even under anesthesia, pupil dynamics correlate with brain-state fluctuations, and extended dilations mark the transition to more arousable states. However, cross-scale neuronal activation patterns are seldom linked to brain state-dependent pupil dynamics. Here, we complemented resting-state fMRI in rats with cortical calcium recording (GCaMP-mediated) and pupillometry to tackle the linkage between brain-state changes and neural dynamics across different scales. This multimodal platform allowed us to identify a global brain network that covaried with pupil size, which served to generate an index indicative of the brain-state fluctuation during anesthesia. Besides, a specific correlation pattern was detected in the brainstem, at a location consistent with noradrenergic cell group 5 (A5), which appeared to be dependent on the coupling between different frequencies of cortical activity, possibly further indicating particular brain-state dynamics. The multimodal fMRI combining concurrent calcium recordings and pupillometry enables tracking brain state-dependent pupil dynamics and identifying unique cross-scale neuronal dynamic patterns under anesthesia.
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Affiliation(s)
- Patricia Pais-Roldán
- High-Field Magnetic Resonance Department, Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, 72076 Tuebingen, Germany
- Graduate Training Centre of Neuroscience, International Max Planck Research School, University of Tuebingen, 72074 Tuebingen, Germany
- Medical Imaging Physics, Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine, Forschungszentrum Juelich, 52425 Juelich, Germany
| | - Kengo Takahashi
- High-Field Magnetic Resonance Department, Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, 72076 Tuebingen, Germany
- Graduate Training Centre of Neuroscience, International Max Planck Research School, University of Tuebingen, 72074 Tuebingen, Germany
| | - Filip Sobczak
- High-Field Magnetic Resonance Department, Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, 72076 Tuebingen, Germany
- Graduate Training Centre of Neuroscience, International Max Planck Research School, University of Tuebingen, 72074 Tuebingen, Germany
| | - Yi Chen
- High-Field Magnetic Resonance Department, Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, 72076 Tuebingen, Germany
- Graduate Training Centre of Neuroscience, International Max Planck Research School, University of Tuebingen, 72074 Tuebingen, Germany
| | - Xiaoning Zhao
- High-Field Magnetic Resonance Department, Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, 72076 Tuebingen, Germany
| | - Hang Zeng
- High-Field Magnetic Resonance Department, Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, 72076 Tuebingen, Germany
- Graduate Training Centre of Neuroscience, International Max Planck Research School, University of Tuebingen, 72074 Tuebingen, Germany
| | - Yuanyuan Jiang
- High-Field Magnetic Resonance Department, Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, 72076 Tuebingen, Germany
- Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Charlestown, MA 02129
| | - Xin Yu
- High-Field Magnetic Resonance Department, Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, 72076 Tuebingen, Germany;
- Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Charlestown, MA 02129
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40
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Cohen Hoffing RA, Lauharatanahirun N, Forster DE, Garcia JO, Vettel JM, Thurman SM. Dissociable mappings of tonic and phasic pupillary features onto cognitive processes involved in mental arithmetic. PLoS One 2020; 15:e0230517. [PMID: 32203562 PMCID: PMC7089555 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0230517] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/07/2019] [Accepted: 03/02/2020] [Indexed: 12/02/2022] Open
Abstract
Pupil size modulations have been used for decades as a window into the mind, and several pupillary features have been implicated in a variety of cognitive processes. Thus, a general challenge facing the field of pupillometry has been understanding which pupil features should be most relevant for explaining behavior in a given task domain. In the present study, a longitudinal design was employed where participants completed 8 biweekly sessions of a classic mental arithmetic task for the purposes of teasing apart the relationships between tonic/phasic pupil features (baseline, peak amplitude, peak latency) and two task-related cognitive processes including mental processing load (indexed by math question difficulty) and decision making (indexed by response times). We used multi-level modeling to account for individual variation while identifying pupil-to-behavior relationships at the single-trial and between-session levels. We show a dissociation between phasic and tonic features with peak amplitude and latency (but not baseline) driven by ongoing task-related processing, whereas baseline was driven by state-level effects that changed over a longer time period (i.e. weeks). Finally, we report a dissociation between peak amplitude and latency whereby amplitude reflected surprise and processing load, and latency reflected decision making times.
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Affiliation(s)
- Russell A. Cohen Hoffing
- U.S. Combat Capabilities Development Command Army Research Laboratory, Human Research and Engineering Division, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, United States of America
- * E-mail:
| | - Nina Lauharatanahirun
- U.S. Combat Capabilities Development Command Army Research Laboratory, Human Research and Engineering Division, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, United States of America
- Annenberg School of Communication, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States of America
| | - Daniel E. Forster
- U.S. Combat Capabilities Development Command Army Research Laboratory, Human Research and Engineering Division, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, United States of America
| | - Javier O. Garcia
- U.S. Combat Capabilities Development Command Army Research Laboratory, Human Research and Engineering Division, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, United States of America
- Department of Bioengineering, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States of America
| | - Jean M. Vettel
- U.S. Combat Capabilities Development Command Army Research Laboratory, Human Research and Engineering Division, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, United States of America
- Department of Bioengineering, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States of America
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, California, United States of America
| | - Steven M. Thurman
- U.S. Combat Capabilities Development Command Army Research Laboratory, Human Research and Engineering Division, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, United States of America
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41
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Tricoche L, Ferrand-Verdejo J, Pélisson D, Meunier M. Peer Presence Effects on Eye Movements and Attentional Performance. Front Behav Neurosci 2020; 13:280. [PMID: 31969810 PMCID: PMC6960111 DOI: 10.3389/fnbeh.2019.00280] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/25/2019] [Accepted: 12/10/2019] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
"Social facilitation" refers to the enhancement or impairment of performance engendered by the mere presence of others. It has been demonstrated for a diversity of behaviors. This study assessed whether it also concerns attention and eye movements and if yes, which decision-making mechanisms it affects. Human volunteers were tested in three different tasks (saccades, visual search, and continuous performance) either alone or in the presence of a familiar peer. The results failed to reveal any significant peer influence on the visual search and continuous performance tasks. For saccades, by contrast, they showed a negative or positive peer influence depending on the complexity of the testing protocol. Pro-and anti-saccades were both inhibited when pseudorandomly mixed, and both facilitated when performed separately. Peer presence impaired or improved reaction times, i.e., the speed to initiate the saccade, as well as peak velocity, i.e., the driving force moving the eye toward the target. Effect sizes were large, with Cohen's d-values ranging for reaction times (RTs) from 0.50 to 0.95. Analyzing RT distributions using the LATER (Linear Approach to Threshold with Ergodic Rate) model revealed that social inhibition of pro- and anti-saccades in the complex protocol was associated with a significant increase in the rate of rise. The present demonstration that the simple presence of a familiar peer can inhibit or facilitate saccades depending on task difficulty strengthens a growing body of evidence showing social modulations of eye movements and attention processes. The present lack of effect on visual search and continuous performance tasks contrasts with peer presence effects reported earlier using similar tasks, and future studies are needed to determine whether it is due to an intermediate level of difficulty maximizing individual variability. Together with an earlier study of the social inhibition of anti-saccades also using the LATER model, which showed an increase of the threshold, the present increase of the rate of rise suggests that peer presence can influence both the top-down and bottom-up attention-related processes guiding the decision to move the eyes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Leslie Tricoche
- INSERM, U1028, CNRS, UMR5292, Lyon Neuroscience Research Center, ImpAct Team, University Lyon, Bron, France
| | - Johan Ferrand-Verdejo
- INSERM, U1028, CNRS, UMR5292, Lyon Neuroscience Research Center, ImpAct Team, University Lyon, Bron, France
| | - Denis Pélisson
- INSERM, U1028, CNRS, UMR5292, Lyon Neuroscience Research Center, ImpAct Team, University Lyon, Bron, France
| | - Martine Meunier
- INSERM, U1028, CNRS, UMR5292, Lyon Neuroscience Research Center, ImpAct Team, University Lyon, Bron, France
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42
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Mechanisms underlying gain modulation in the cortex. Nat Rev Neurosci 2020; 21:80-92. [PMID: 31911627 DOI: 10.1038/s41583-019-0253-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 120] [Impact Index Per Article: 30.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 11/25/2019] [Indexed: 01/19/2023]
Abstract
Cortical gain regulation allows neurons to respond adaptively to changing inputs. Neural gain is modulated by internal and external influences, including attentional and arousal states, motor activity and neuromodulatory input. These influences converge to a common set of mechanisms for gain modulation, including GABAergic inhibition, synaptically driven fluctuations in membrane potential, changes in cellular conductance and changes in other biophysical neural properties. Recent work has identified GABAergic interneurons as targets of neuromodulatory input and mediators of state-dependent gain modulation. Here, we review the engagement and effects of gain modulation in the cortex. We highlight key recent findings that link phenomenological observations of gain modulation to underlying cellular and circuit-level mechanisms. Finally, we place these cellular and circuit interactions in the larger context of their impact on perception and cognition.
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43
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Waschke L, Tune S, Obleser J. Local cortical desynchronization and pupil-linked arousal differentially shape brain states for optimal sensory performance. eLife 2019; 8:e51501. [PMID: 31820732 PMCID: PMC6946578 DOI: 10.7554/elife.51501] [Citation(s) in RCA: 53] [Impact Index Per Article: 10.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/30/2019] [Accepted: 12/08/2019] [Indexed: 12/20/2022] Open
Abstract
Instantaneous brain states have consequences for our sensation, perception, and behaviour. Fluctuations in arousal and neural desynchronization likely pose perceptually relevant states. However, their relationship and their relative impact on perception is unclear. We here show that, at the single-trial level in humans, local desynchronization in sensory cortex (expressed as time-series entropy) versus pupil-linked arousal differentially impact perceptual processing. While we recorded electroencephalography (EEG) and pupillometry data, stimuli of a demanding auditory discrimination task were presented into states of high or low desynchronization of auditory cortex via a real-time closed-loop setup. Desynchronization and arousal distinctly influenced stimulus-evoked activity and shaped behaviour displaying an inverted u-shaped relationship: States of intermediate desynchronization elicited minimal response bias and fastest responses, while states of intermediate arousal gave rise to highest response sensitivity. Our results speak to a model in which independent states of local desynchronization and global arousal jointly optimise sensory processing and performance.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Sarah Tune
- Department of PsychologyUniversity of LübeckLübeckGermany
| | - Jonas Obleser
- Department of PsychologyUniversity of LübeckLübeckGermany
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44
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Naber M, Murphy P. Pupillometric investigation into the speed-accuracy trade-off in a visuo-motor aiming task. Psychophysiology 2019; 57:e13499. [PMID: 31736089 PMCID: PMC7027463 DOI: 10.1111/psyp.13499] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/04/2019] [Revised: 09/25/2019] [Accepted: 10/22/2019] [Indexed: 12/22/2022]
Abstract
Convergent lines of evidence suggest that fluctuations in the size of the pupil may be associated with the trade‐off between the speed (adrenergic, sympathetic) and accuracy (cholinergic, parasympathetic) of behavior across a variety of task contexts. Here, we explored whether pupil size was related to this trade‐off during a visuospatial motor aiming task. Participants were shown visual targets at random locations on a screen and were instructed and incentivized to move a computer mouse‐controlled cursor to the center of the targets, either as fast as possible, as accurately as possible, or to strike a balance between the two. Behavioral results showed that these instructions led to typical speed‐accuracy trade‐off effects on movement reaction times and hit distances to target centers. Pupillometric analyses revealed that movements were faster and less accurate when participants had relatively large baseline pupil sizes, as measured before target onset. Furthermore, trial‐evoked pupil dilation was related specifically to a bias toward speed in the trade‐off and the speed of the ballistic and error‐correction phases of the motor responses such that larger pupils predicted shorter latencies and higher movement speeds. Pupil responses were also associated with performance in a manner that may reflect the combined influence of a number of factors, including the generation of dynamic urgency and an arousal response to negative feedback. Our results generally support a role for pupil‐linked arousal in regulating the trade‐off between speed and accuracy, while also highlighting how the trial‐related pupil response can exhibit multifaceted, temporally discrete associations with behavior. The eye’s pupil has been considered a “window into the soul” as its dynamics are related to a wide variety of cognitive processes. Here, we present convergent evidence that both slow, prestimulus fluctuations and fast, event‐related changes in pupil diameter are sensitive to a fundamental trade‐off between the speed and accuracy of visuo‐motor actions—an association that holds for both instructed and endogenous variation in this trade‐off. This finding complements a growing literature linking pupil size to adaptive, contextually appropriate changes in behavior.
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Affiliation(s)
- Marnix Naber
- Experimental Psychology, Helmholtz Institute, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands.,Vision Sciences Laboratory, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts
| | - Peter Murphy
- Section Computational Cognitive Neuroscience, Department of Neurophysiology and Pathophysiology, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany
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45
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Abstract
Pupil dilation is an effective indicator of cognitive and affective processes. Although several eyetracker systems on the market can provide effective solutions for pupil dilation measurement, there is a lack of tools for processing and analyzing the data provided by these systems. For this reason, we developed CHAP: open-source software written in MATLAB. This software provides a user-friendly graphical user interface for processing and analyzing pupillometry data. Our software creates uniform conventions for the preprocessing and analysis of pupillometry data and provides a quick and easy-to-use tool for researchers interested in pupillometry. To download CHAP or join our mailing list, please visit CHAP's website: http://in.bgu.ac.il/en/Labs/CNL/chap .
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46
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Abstract
In conditions of constant illumination, the eye pupil diameter indexes the modulation of arousal state and responds to a large breadth of cognitive processes, including mental effort, attention, surprise, decision processes, decision biases, value beliefs, uncertainty, volatility, exploitation/exploration trade-off, or learning rate. Here, I propose an information theoretic framework that has the potential to explain the ensemble of these findings as reflecting pupillary response to information processing. In short, updates of the brain’s internal model, quantified formally as the Kullback–Leibler (KL) divergence between prior and posterior beliefs, would be the common denominator to all these instances of pupillary dilation to cognition. I show that stimulus presentation leads to pupillary response that is proportional to the amount of information the stimulus carries about itself and to the quantity of information it provides about other task variables. In the context of decision making, pupil dilation in relation to uncertainty is explained by the wandering of the evidence accumulation process, leading to large summed KL divergences. Finally, pupillary response to mental effort and variations in tonic pupil size are also formalized in terms of information theory. On the basis of this framework, I compare pupillary data from past studies to simple information-theoretic simulations of task designs and show good correspondance with data across studies. The present framework has the potential to unify the large set of results reported on pupillary dilation to cognition and to provide a theory to guide future research.
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47
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Urai AE, de Gee JW, Tsetsos K, Donner TH. Choice history biases subsequent evidence accumulation. eLife 2019; 8:e46331. [PMID: 31264959 PMCID: PMC6606080 DOI: 10.7554/elife.46331] [Citation(s) in RCA: 83] [Impact Index Per Article: 16.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/28/2019] [Accepted: 06/11/2019] [Indexed: 12/23/2022] Open
Abstract
Perceptual choices depend not only on the current sensory input but also on the behavioral context, such as the history of one's own choices. Yet, it remains unknown how such history signals shape the dynamics of later decision formation. In models of decision formation, it is commonly assumed that choice history shifts the starting point of accumulation toward the bound reflecting the previous choice. We here present results that challenge this idea. We fit bounded-accumulation decision models to human perceptual choice data, and estimated bias parameters that depended on observers' previous choices. Across multiple task protocols and sensory modalities, individual history biases in overt behavior were consistently explained by a history-dependent change in the evidence accumulation, rather than in its starting point. Choice history signals thus seem to bias the interpretation of current sensory input, akin to shifting endogenous attention toward (or away from) the previously selected interpretation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Anne E Urai
- Department of Neurophysiology and PathophysiologyUniversity Medical Center Hamburg-EppendorfHamburgGermany
- Department of PsychologyUniversity of AmsterdamAmsterdamNetherlands
| | - Jan Willem de Gee
- Department of Neurophysiology and PathophysiologyUniversity Medical Center Hamburg-EppendorfHamburgGermany
- Department of PsychologyUniversity of AmsterdamAmsterdamNetherlands
| | - Konstantinos Tsetsos
- Department of Neurophysiology and PathophysiologyUniversity Medical Center Hamburg-EppendorfHamburgGermany
| | - Tobias H Donner
- Department of Neurophysiology and PathophysiologyUniversity Medical Center Hamburg-EppendorfHamburgGermany
- Department of PsychologyUniversity of AmsterdamAmsterdamNetherlands
- Amsterdam Brain and CognitionUniversity of AmsterdamAmsterdamNetherlands
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48
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Chatterjee D, Gavas RD, Chakravarty K, Sinha A, Lahiri U. Evaluating Age-Related Variations of Gaze Behavior for a Novel Digitized-Digit Symbol Substitution Test. J Eye Mov Res 2019; 12. [PMID: 33828717 PMCID: PMC7898007 DOI: 10.16910/jemr.12.1.5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/04/2023] Open
Abstract
Analysis of cognitive functioning from gaze behavior might serve as an early indicator of age related decline of cognitive functions. Standard psychological tests like the digit-symbol substitution test or the symbol-digit modalities test is used exclusively in this regard. In this paper, we have designed and developed a digitized version of the digit symbol substitution test. Three different versions have been designed in order to derive deeper insights of the user behavior. The test-retest validation of the versions reveals good correlation across sessions. Further, the difference in gaze behavior which might be used as an indicator of cognitive functions is tested for two different age groups (13 participants <30 years and 11 participants >40 years). It is seen that the designed digitized version along with the usage of physiological markers like eye tracking bestows additional information and is sensitive to age related factors which might be used for the assessment as well as for the training purpose in rehabilitation systems. Results show that the performance can be analyzed using gaze and pupillometric features in addition to the conventional test performance metrics. We derived an index to measure the performance related to visuo-spatial functioning on one of the designed versions of the test. Results of this index on the number of fixations for two age groups are found to be separated in a statistically significant (p<0.05) manner. The age related difference (p<0.05) is also evident in the pupillometric responses obtained.
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Affiliation(s)
- Debatri Chatterjee
- Embedded Systems and Robotics, TCS Research and Innovation, Kolkata, India
| | | | | | - Aniruddha Sinha
- Embedded Systems and Robotics, TCS Research and Innovation, Kolkata, India
| | - Uttama Lahiri
- Centre for Cognitive Science, IIT Gandhinagar, India
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49
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Regulation of evidence accumulation by pupil-linked arousal processes. Nat Hum Behav 2019; 3:636-645. [PMID: 31190022 DOI: 10.1038/s41562-019-0551-4] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/21/2018] [Accepted: 02/05/2019] [Indexed: 11/09/2022]
Abstract
Effective decision-making requires integrating evidence over time. For simple perceptual decisions, previous work suggests that humans and animals can integrate evidence over time, but not optimally. This suboptimality could arise from sources including neuronal noise, weighting evidence unequally over time (that is, the 'integration kernel'), previous trial effects and an overall bias. Here, using an auditory evidence accumulation task in humans, we report that people exhibit all four suboptimalities, some of which covary across the population. Pupillometry shows that only noise and the integration kernel are related to the change in pupil response. Moreover, these two different suboptimalities were related to different aspects of the pupil signal, with the individual differences in pupil response associated with individual differences in the integration kernel, while trial-by-trial fluctuations in pupil response were associated with trial-by-trial fluctuations in noise. These results suggest that different suboptimalities relate to distinct pupil-linked processes, possibly related to tonic and phasic norepinephrine activity.
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50
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Pupillometric indices of locus-coeruleus activation are not modulated following single bouts of exercise. Int J Psychophysiol 2019; 140:41-52. [DOI: 10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2019.04.004] [Citation(s) in RCA: 15] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/29/2019] [Revised: 04/01/2019] [Accepted: 04/09/2019] [Indexed: 01/11/2023]
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