34,251 research outputs found
Perspectives on the Neuroscience of Cognition and Consciousness
The origin and current use of the concepts of computation, representation and information in Neuroscience are examined and conceptual flaws are identified which vitiate their usefulness for addressing problems of the neural basis of Cognition and Consciousness. In contrast, a convergence of views is presented to support the characterization of the Nervous System as a complex dynamical system operating in the metastable regime, and capable of evolving to configurations and transitions in phase space with potential relevance for Cognition and Consciousness
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Electrophysiological evidence for changes in attentional orienting and selection in functional somatic symptoms
Neurophysiology Objective: We investigated changes in attention mechanisms in people who report a high number of somatic symptoms which cannot be associated with a physical cause. Method: Based on scores on the Somatoform Disorder Questionnaire (SDQ-20; Nijenhuis et al., 1996) we compared two non-clinical groups, one with high symptoms on the SDQ-20 and a control group with low or no symptoms. We recorded EEG whilst participants performed an exogenous tactile attention task where they had to discriminate between tactile targets following a tactile cue to the same or opposite hand. Results: The neural marker of attentional orienting to the body, the Late Somatosensory Negativity (LSN), was diminished in the high symptoms group and attentional modulation of touch processing was prolonged at mid and enhanced at later latency stages in this group. Conclusion: These results confirm that attentional processes are altered in people with somatic symptoms, even in a non-clinical group. Furthermore, the observed pattern fits explanations of changes in prior beliefs or expectations leading to diminished amplitudes of the marker of attentional orienting to the body (i.e. the LSN) and enhanced attentional gain of touch processing. Significance: This study shows that high somatic symptoms are associated with neurocognitive attention changes
Acetylcholine neuromodulation in normal and abnormal learning and memory: vigilance control in waking, sleep, autism, amnesia, and Alzheimer's disease
This article provides a unified mechanistic neural explanation of how learning, recognition, and cognition break down during Alzheimer's disease, medial temporal amnesia, and autism. It also clarifies whey there are often sleep disturbances during these disorders. A key mechanism is how acetylcholine modules vigilance control in cortical layer
Cortical region interactions and the functional role of apical dendrites
The basal and distal apical dendrites of pyramidal cells occupy distinct
cortical layers and are targeted by axons originating in different cortical
regions. Hence, apical and basal dendrites receive information from distinct
sources. Physiological evidence suggests that this anatomically observed
segregation of input sources may have functional significance. This possibility
has been explored in various connectionist models that employ neurons with
functionally distinct apical and basal compartments. A neuron in which separate
sets of inputs can be integrated independently has the potential to operate in a
variety of ways which are not possible for the conventional model of a neuron in
which all inputs are treated equally. This article thus considers how
functionally distinct apical and basal dendrites can contribute to the
information processing capacities of single neurons and, in particular, how
information from different cortical regions could have disparate affects on
neural activity and learning
A role for recurrent processing in object completion: neurophysiological, psychophysical and computational"evidence
Recognition of objects from partial information presents a significant
challenge for theories of vision because it requires spatial integration and
extrapolation from prior knowledge. We combined neurophysiological recordings
in human cortex with psychophysical measurements and computational modeling to
investigate the mechanisms involved in object completion. We recorded
intracranial field potentials from 1,699 electrodes in 18 epilepsy patients to
measure the timing and selectivity of responses along human visual cortex to
whole and partial objects. Responses along the ventral visual stream remained
selective despite showing only 9-25% of the object. However, these visually
selective signals emerged ~100 ms later for partial versus whole objects. The
processing delays were particularly pronounced in higher visual areas within
the ventral stream, suggesting the involvement of additional recurrent
processing. In separate psychophysics experiments, disrupting this recurrent
computation with a backward mask at ~75ms significantly impaired recognition of
partial, but not whole, objects. Additionally, computational modeling shows
that the performance of a purely bottom-up architecture is impaired by heavy
occlusion and that this effect can be partially rescued via the incorporation
of top-down connections. These results provide spatiotemporal constraints on
theories of object recognition that involve recurrent processing to recognize
objects from partial information
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