Self-appraisal decisions evoke dissociated dorsal-ventral aMPFC networks

The anterior medial prefrontal cortex (aMPFC) is consistently active during personally salient decisions, yet the differential contributory processes of this region along the dorsal-ventral axis are less understood. Using a self-appraisal decision-making task and functional magnetic resonance imaging, we demonstrated task-dependent connectivity of ventral aMPFC with amygdala, insula, and nucleus accumbens, and dorsal aMPFC connectivity with dorsolateral PFC and bilateral hippocampus. These aMPFC networks appear to subserve distinct contributory processes inherent to self-appraisal decisions, specifically a dorsally mediated cognitive and a ventrally mediated affective/self-relevance network. © 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved

Reality = Relevance? Insights from Spontaneous Modulations of the Brain's Default Network when Telling Apart Reality from Fiction

BACKGROUND: Although human beings regularly experience fictional worlds through activities such as reading novels and watching movies, little is known about what mechanisms underlie our implicit knowledge of the distinction between reality and fiction. The first neuroimaging study to address this issue revealed that the mere exposure to contexts involving real entities compared to fictional characters led to engagement of regions in the anterior medial prefrontal and posterior cingulate cortices (amPFC, PCC). As these core regions of the brain's default network are involved during self-referential processing and autobiographical memory retrieval, it was hypothesized that real entities may be conceptually coded as being more personally relevant to us than fictional characters. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: In the present functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, we directly test the hypothesis that entity-associated personal relevance is the critical factor underlying the differential engagement of these brain regions by comparing the brain's response when processing contexts involving family or friends (high relevance), famous people (medium relevance), or fictional characters (low relevance). In line with predictions, a gradient pattern of activation was observed such that higher entity-associated personal relevance was associated with stronger activation in the amPFC and the PCC. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: The results of the study have several important implications. Firstly, they provide informed grounds for characterizing the dynamics of reality-fiction distinction. Secondly, they provide further insights into the functions of the amPFC and the PCC. Thirdly, in view of the current debate related to the functional relevance and specificity of brain's default network, they reveal a novel approach by which the functions of this network can be further explored

COMMENTARIES Thinking about the Self from a Social Cognitive Neuroscience Perspective

In this paper Kashima et al. develop an interesting model of self that attempts to simulate several psychological processes critical to an amalgamated James-Mead theoretical conceptualization of self. More specifically, the authors use a connectionist framework to model temporal, cultural and social aspects of self which may give rise to the enculturated stream of consciousness which is seen the essential experience of self in such a model. This approach is important as so much of behavioral research has focused on the self as known, in relatively static form, in contrast to the dynamic aspects of the self that unfold in each moment and as a function of context. Simple associative and declarative models of self-representations are not well equipped to handle these nonlinear dynamics

Relevance to self: A brief review and framework of neural systems underlying appraisal

We argue that many similar findings observed in cognitive, affective, and social neuroimaging research may compose larger processes central to generating self-relevance. In support of this, recent findings from these research domains were reviewed to identify common systemic activation patterns. Superimposition of these patterns revealed evidence for large-scale supramodal processes, which are argued to mediate appraisal of self-relevant content irrespective of specific stimulus types (e.g. words, pictures) and task domains (e.g. induction of reward, fear, pain, etc.). Furthermore, we distinguish between two top-down sub-systems involved in appraisal of self-relevance, one that orients pre-attentive biasing information (e.g. anticipatory or mnemonic) to salient or explicitly self-relevant phenomena, and another that engages introspective processes (e.g. self-reflection, evaluation, recollection) either in conjunction with or independent of the former system. Based on aggregate patterns of activation derived from the reviewed studies, processes in a ventral medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC)-subcortical network appear to track with the former pathway, and processes in a dorsal MPFC-cortical-subcortical network with the latter. As a whole, the purpose of this framework is to re-conceive the functionality of these systems in terms of supramodal processes that more directly reflect the influences of relevance to the self. © 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Neuroscience in marketing : an FMRI-Based Perspective on brands

Doutoramento em GestãoAlthough somewhat outdated, the American Marketing Association definition of brand still is largely accepted. In this case, brands are signs for product differentiation. The present research, instead, finds brands and their logos as meaningful signs that belong to the human communicative lexicon. Logos are ideograms, i.e. graphic representations that convey meanings. These meanings are transferred from one mind to other minds through brands, establishing communication between humans, and which is also used to self-monitoring in a self-reflexive process, i.e., reading the reactions of others to the ideographic messages once sent to them. Brands are intimately connected to meta-representational processes, whether they are seen as the repository of human attributes, whether themselves are perceived as interlocutors, in a quasi-human level. It also finds that the human emotion system is used to perceive, interpret, and classify brands. Founding in the neuro-based model of emotions developed by Damásio, the present research reveals that brands systematically recruits the emotion system when stimulate brains, which leads to posit that brands are felt in order to be perceived. It is also largely relying in the brain structures that support emotion processing, but also based in other regions that support self-relatedness processing, that is trained an artificial neural network that yields predictions of subjects' choices at a level much higher than mere chance. This procedure allows a coarse but promising consumers' "mind reading".Apesar de algo ultrapassada, a definição de marca da American Marketing Association ainda é largamente aceite. Assim, as marcas são sinais usados na diferenciação de produtos. A investigação presente, pelo contrário, sugere que as marcas e os seus logotipos são sinais com significado que pertencem ao léxico comunicativo humano. Os logotipos são ideogramas, i.e. representações gráficas que transmitem significados. Tais significados transferem-se de uma mente para outra através das marcas, estabelecendo uma comunicação entre humanos, e que também é usada na auto-monitorização num processo auto-reflexivo, i.e. lendo as reacções que os outros têm às mensagens ideográficas que lhes foram enviadas. As marcas estão intimamente ligadas aos processos meta-representacionais, seja por elas serem consideradas um repositório de atributos humanos, seja por elas próprias serem consideradas como interlocutores, a um nível quase-humano. Este estudo também constata que o sistema emocional humano é usado para perceber, interpretar, e classificar as marcas. Baseado no modelo neuronal das emoções de Damásio, verifica-se que as marcas recrutam sistematicamente o sistema das emoções sempre que elas estimulam um cérebro, o que leva a avançar que as marcas são sentidas de forma a serem percebidas. É com base em estruturas cerebrais que sustentam o processamento das emoções, mas também com base em outras regiões ligadas a processamentos da auto-reflexão, que é treinada uma rede neuronal artificial, da qual resultam previsões das escolhas dos sujeitos participantes, as quais estão a um nível muito superior ao mero acaso. Este procedimento permite uma "leitura da mente" algo grosseira, mas muito promissora

Midlife managerial experience is linked to late life hippocampal morphology and function

An active cognitive lifestyle has been suggested to have a protective role in the long-term maintenance of cognition. Amongst healthy older adults, more managerial or supervisory experiences in midlife are linked to a slower hippocampal atrophy rate in late life. Yet whether similar links exist in individuals with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) is not known, nor whether these differences have any functional implications. 68 volunteers from the Sydney SMART Trial, diagnosed with non-amnestic MCI, were divided into high and low managerial experience (HME/LME) during their working life. All participants underwent neuropsychological testing, structural and resting-state functional MRI. Group comparisons were performed on hippocampal volume, morphology, hippocampal seed-based functional connectivity, memory and executive function and self-ratings of memory proficiency. HME was linked to better memory function (p = 0.024), mediated by larger hippocampal volume (p = 0.025). More specifically, deformation analysis found HME had relatively more volume in the CA1 sub-region of the hippocampus (p  <  0.05). Paradoxically, this group rated their memory proficiency worse (p = 0.004), a result correlated with diminished functional connectivity between the right hippocampus and right prefrontal cortex (p  <  0.001). Finally, hierarchical regression modelling substantiated this double dissociation

From Default Mode Network to the Basal Configuration: Sex Differences in the Resting-State Brain Connectivity as a Function of Age and Their Clinical Correlates

Connectomics is a framework that models brain structure and function interconnectivity as a network, rather than narrowly focusing on select regions-of-interest. MRI-derived connectomes can be structural, usually based on diffusion-weighted MR imaging, or functional, usually formed by examining fMRI blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) signal correlations. Recently, we developed a novel method for assessing the hierarchical modularity of functional brain networks—the probability associated community estimation (PACE). PACE uniquely permits a dual formulation, thus yielding equivalent connectome modular structure regardless of whether positive or negative edges are considered. This method was rigorously validated using the 1,000 functional connectomes project data set (F1000, RRID:SCR_005361) (1) and the Human Connectome Project (HCP, RRID:SCR_006942) (2, 3) and we reported novel sex differences in resting-state connectivity not previously reported. (4) This study further examines sex differences in regard to hierarchical modularity as a function of age and clinical correlates, with findings supporting a basal configuration framework as a more nuanced and dynamic way of conceptualizing the resting-state connectome that is modulated by both age and sex. Our results showed that differences in connectivity between men and women in the 22–25 age range were not significantly different. However, these same non-significant differences attained significance in both the 26–30 age group (p = 0.003) and the 31–35 age group (p &lt; 0.001). At the most global level, areas of diverging sex difference include parts of the prefrontal cortex and the temporal lobe, amygdala, hippocampus, inferior parietal lobule, posterior cingulate, and precuneus. Further, we identified statistically different self-reported summary scores of inattention, hyperactivity, and anxiety problems between men and women. These self-reports additionally divergently interact with age and the basal configuration between sexes

Brain Activity in Self- and Value-Related Regions in Response to Online Antismoking Messages Predicts Behavior Change

In this study, we combined approaches from media psychology and neuroscience to ask whether brain activity in response to online antismoking messages can predict smoking behavior change. In particular, we examined activity in subregions of the medial prefrontal cortex linked to self- and value-related processing, to test whether these neurocognitive processes play a role in message-consistent behavior change. We observed significant relationships between activity in both brain regions of interest and behavior change (such that higher activity predicted a larger reduction in smoking). Furthermore, activity in these brain regions predicted variance independent of traditional, theory-driven self-report metrics such as intention, self-efficacy, and risk perceptions. We propose that valuation is an additional cognitive process that should be investigated further as we search for a mechanistic explanation of the relationship between brain activity and media effects relevant to health behavior change