Why I tense up when you watch me: inferior parietal cortex mediates an audience’s influence on motor performance

The presence of an evaluative audience can alter skilled motor performance through changes in force output. To investigate how this is mediated within the brain, we emulated real-time social monitoring of participants’ performance of a fine grip task during functional magnetic resonance neuroimaging. We observed an increase in force output during social evaluation that was accompanied by focal reductions in activity within bilateral inferior parietal cortex. Moreover, deactivation of the left inferior parietal cortex predicted both inter- and intra-individual differences in socially-induced change in grip force. Social evaluation also enhanced activation within the posterior superior temporal sulcus, which conveys visual information about others’ actions to the inferior parietal cortex. Interestingly, functional connectivity between these two regions was attenuated by social evaluation. Our data suggest that social evaluation can vary force output through the altered engagement of inferior parietal cortex; a region implicated in sensorimotor integration necessary for object manipulation, and a component of the action-observation network which integrates and facilitates performance of observed actions. Social-evaluative situations may induce high-level representational incoherence between one’s own intentioned action and the perceived intention of others which, by uncoupling the dynamics of sensorimotor facilitation, could ultimately perturbe motor output

What does the amygdala contribute to social cognition?

The amygdala has received intense recent attention from neuroscientists investigating its function at the molecular, cellular, systems, cognitive, and clinical level. It clearly contributes to processing emotionally and socially relevant information, yet a unifying description and computational account have been lacking. The difficulty of tying together the various studies stems in part from the sheer diversity of approaches and species studied, in part from the amygdala's inherent heterogeneity in terms of its component nuclei, and in part because different investigators have simply been interested in different topics. Yet, a synthesis now seems close at hand in combining new results from social neuroscience with data from neuroeconomics and reward learning. The amygdala processes a psychological stimulus dimension related to saliency or relevance; mechanisms have been identified to link it to processing unpredictability; and insights from reward learning have situated it within a network of structures that include the prefrontal cortex and the ventral striatum in processing the current value of stimuli. These aspects help to clarify the amygdala's contributions to recognizing emotion from faces, to social behavior toward conspecifics, and to reward learning and instrumental behavior

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: A Theoretical Model of the Hyperarousal Subtype

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a frequent and distressing mental disorder, about which much remains to be learned. It is a heterogeneous disorder; the hyperarousal subtype (about 70% of occurrences and simply termed PTSD in this paper) is the topic of this article, but the dissociative subtype (about 30% of occurrences and likely involving quite different brain mechanisms) is outside its scope. A theoretical model is presented that integrates neuroscience data on diverse brain regions known to be involved in PTSD, and extensive psychiatric findings on the disorder. Specifically, the amygdala is a multifunctional brain region that is crucial to PTSD, and processes peritraumatic hyperarousal on grounded cognition principles to produce hyperarousal symptoms. Amygdala activity also modulates hippocampal function, which is supported by a large body of evidence, and likewise amygdala activity modulates several brainstem regions, visual cortex, rostral anterior cingulate cortex (rACC), and medial orbitofrontal cortex (mOFC), to produce diverse startle, visual, memory, numbing, anger, and recklessness symptoms. Additional brain regions process other aspects of peritraumatic responses to produce further symptoms. These contentions are supported by neuroimaging, neuropsychological, neuroanatomical, physiological, cognitive, and behavioral evidence. Collectively, the model offers an account of how responses at the time of trauma are transformed into an extensive array of the 20 PTSD symptoms that are specified in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th edition. It elucidates the neural mechanisms of a specific form of psychopathology, and accords with the Research Domain Criteria framewor

Die Rolle der Zielnähe und der investierten Anstrengung für den erwarteten Wert einer Handlung

In human neuroscientific research, there has been an increasing interest in how the brain computes the value of an anticipated outcome. However, evidence is still missing about which valuation related brain regions are modulated by the proximity to an expected goal and the previously invested effort to reach a goal. The aim of this dissertation is to investigate the effects of goal proximity and invested effort on valuation related regions in the human brain. We addressed this question in two fMRI studies by integrating a commonly used reward anticipation task in differential versions of a Multitrial Reward Schedule Paradigm. In both experiments, subjects had to perform consecutive reward anticipation tasks under two different reward contingencies: in the delayed condition, participants received a monetary reward only after successful completion of multiple consecutive trials. In the immediate condition, money was earned after every successful trial. In the first study, we could demonstrate that the rostral cingulate zone of the posterior medial frontal cortex signals action value contingent to goal proximity, thereby replicating neurophysiological findings about goal proximity signals in a homologous region in non-human primates. The findings of the second study imply that brain regions associated with general cognitive control processes are modulated by previous effort investment. Furthermore, we found the posterior lateral prefrontal cortex and the orbitofrontal cortex to be involved in coding for the effort-based context of a situation. In sum, these results extend the role of the human rostral cingulate zone in outcome evaluation to the continuous updating of action values over a course of action steps based on the proximity to the expected reward. Furthermore, we tentatively suggest that previous effort investment invokes processes under the control of the executive system, and that posterior lateral prefrontal cortex and the orbitofrontal cortex are involved in an effort-based context representation that can be used for outcome evaluation that is dependent on the characteristics of the current situation.Derzeit besteht im Bereich der Neurowissenschaften ein großes Interesse daran aufzuklären, auf welche Weise verschiedene Variablen die Wertigkeit eines erwarteten Handlungsziels beeinflussen bzw. welche Hirnregionen an der Repräsentation der Wertigkeit eines Handlungsziels beteiligt sind. Die meisten Untersuchungen beziehen sich dabei auf Einflussgrößen wie die erwartete Belohnungshöhe, die Wahrscheinlichkeit, mit der ein bestimmtes Ereignis eintritt, oder die Dauer bis zum Erhalt einer Belohnung. Bisher liegen jedoch kaum Untersuchungen vor bezüglich zweier anderer Variablen, die ebenfalls den erwarteten Wert eines Handlungsergebnisses beeinflussen. Das sind (a) die Nähe zu dem erwarteten Ziel und (b) die bisher investierte Anstrengung, um ein Ziel zu erreichen. Das Ziel der vorliegenden Dissertation ist zu untersuchen, wie die Nähe zum Ziel und die bisher investierte Anstrengung Gehirnregionen beeinflussen, die mit der Repräsentation von Wertigkeit im Zusammenhang stehen. Dazu führten wir zwei fMRT-Studien durch, in denen wir eine klassische Belohnungs-Antizipationsaufgabe in unterschiedliche Versionen eines „Multitrial Reward Schedule“ Paradigmas integriert haben. Das bedeutet, dass die Probanden Belohnungs-Antizipationsaufgaben unter zwei unterschiedlichen Belohnungskontingenzen bearbeiteten: In der verzögerten Bedingung erhielten die Probanden einen Geldbetrag nach der erfolgreichen Bearbeitung von mehreren aufeinanderfolgenden Aufgaben, in der direkten Bedingung dagegen nach jeder korrekt ausgeführten Aufgabe. In der ersten Studie konnte eine sukzessiv ansteigende Aktivität in Abhängigkeit zur Zielnähe in der rostralen cingulären Zone identifiziert werden. Das deutet darauf hin, dass dieses Areal den Wert einer Handlung in Abhängigkeit zur Nähe zum Ziel kodiert. Die Ergebnisse der zweiten Studie zeigten, dass die bisher investierte Anstrengung kortikale Regionen moduliert, die klassischerweise mit kognitiven Kontrollfunktionen in Zusammenhang gebracht werden. Außerdem repräsentierten der posteriore laterale präfrontale Cortex und der orbitofrontale Cortex den motivationalen Kontext eines Trials anhand des Risikos des Verlustes von bisher investierter Anstrengung. Insgesamt weisen diese Befunde darauf hin, dass die rostrale cinguläre Zone eine entscheidende Rolle spielt für die Kontrolle sequenzieller Handlungsstufen, die auf eine verzögerte Belohnung ausgerichtet sind. Diese Kontrollfunktion scheint auf der kontinuierlichen Aktualisierung des Wertes einer Handlungsstufe zu basieren, der von der aktuellen Zielnähe bestimmt wird. Die Befunde der zweiten Studie lassen darauf schließen, dass sich die bisher investierte Anstrengung zur Erreichung eines Handlungsziels auf die Bereitstellung von allgemeinen kognitiven Ressourcen auswirkt. Das Risiko des Verlustes von bisher investierter Anstrengung kann außerdem ein kontextuelles Merkmal der Situation darstellen, das als Bezugsrahmen für die Evaluation des erwarteten Wertes dienen kann

Event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging of reward-related brain circuitry in children and adolescents

BACKGROUND: Functional disturbances in reward-related brain systems are thought to play a role in the development of mood, impulse, and substance abuse disorders. Studies in non-human primates have identified brain regions, including the dorsal / ventral striatum and orbital-frontal cortex (OFC), in which neural activity is modulated by reward. Recent studies in adults have concurred with these findings by observing reward-contingent blood oxygen level dependant (BOLD) responses in these regions during functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI) paradigms. However no previous studies indicate whether comparable modulations of neural activity exist in the brain reward systems of children and adolescents. METHODS: We used event-related FMRI and a behavioral paradigm modeled on previous work in adults to study brain responses to monetary gains and losses in non-psychiatric children and adolescents as part of a program examining the neural substrates of anxiety and depression in youth. RESULTS: Regions and time-courses of reward-related activity were similar to those observed in adults with condition-dependent BOLD changes in the ventral striatum, lateral and medial OFC; specifically, these regions showed larger responses to positive than to negative feedback. CONCLUSIONS: These results provide further evidence for the value of event-related FMRI in examining reward systems of the brain, demonstrate the feasibility of this approach in children and adolescents, and establish a baseline from which to understand the pathophysiology of reward-related psychiatric disorders in youth

Touching moments: desire modulates the neural anticipation of active romantic caress

A romantic caress is a basic expression of affiliative behavior and a primary reinforcer. Given its inherent affective valence, its performance also would imply the prediction of reward values. For example, touching a person for whom one has strong passionate feelings likely is motivated by a strong desire for physical contact and associated with the anticipation of hedonic experiences. The present study aims at investigating how the anticipatory neural processes of active romantic caress are modulated by the intensity of the desire for affective contact as reflected by passionate feelings for the other. Functional magnetic resonance imaging scanning was performed in romantically involved partners using a paradigm that allowed to isolate the specific anticipatory representations of active romantic caress, compared with control caress, while testing for the relationship between neural activity and measures of feelings of passionate love for the other. The results demonstrated that right posterior insula activity in anticipation of romantic caress significantly co-varied with the intensity of desire for union with the other. This effect was independent of the sensory-affective properties of the performed touch, like its pleasantness. Furthermore, functional connectivity analysis showed that the same posterior insula cluster interacted with brain regions related to sensory-motor functions as well as to the processing and anticipation of reward. The findings provide insight on the neural substrate mediating between the desire for and the performance of romantic caress. In particular, we propose that anticipatory activity patterns in posterior insula may modulate subsequent sensory-affective processing of skin-to-skin contact

Nägemistaju automaatsete protsesside eksperimentaalne uurimine

Väitekirja elektrooniline versioon ei sisalda publikatsiooneVäitekiri keskendub nägemistaju protsesside eksperimentaalsele uurimisele, mis on suuremal või vähemal määral automaatsed. Uurimistöös on kasutatud erinevaid eksperimentaalseid katseparadigmasid ja katsestiimuleid ning nii käitumuslikke- kui ka ajukuvamismeetodeid. Esimesed kolm empiirilist uurimust käsitlevad liikumisinformatsiooni töötlust, mis on evolutsiooni käigus kujunenud üheks olulisemaks baasprotsessiks nägemistajus. Esmalt huvitas meid, kuidas avastatakse liikuva objekti suunamuutusi, kui samal ajal toimub ka taustal liikumine (Uurimus I). Nägemistaju uurijad on pikka aega arvanud, et liikumist arvutatakse alati mõne välise objekti või tausta suhtes. Meie uurimistulemused ei kinnitanud taolise suhtelise liikumise printsiibi paikapidavust ning toetavad pigem seisukohta, et eesmärkobjekti liikumisinformatsiooni töötlus on automaatne protsess, mis tuvastab silma põhjas toimuvaid nihkeid, ja taustal toimuv seda eriti ei mõjuta. Teise uurimuse tulemused (Uurimus II) näitasid, et nägemissüsteem töötleb väga edukalt ka seda liikumisinformatsiooni, millele vaatleja teadlikult tähelepanu ei pööra. See tähendab, et samal ajal, kui inimene on mõne tähelepanu hõlmava tegevusega ametis, suudab tema aju taustal toimuvaid sündmusi automaatselt registreerida. Igapäevaselt on inimese nägemisväljas alati palju erinevaid objekte, millel on erinevad omadused, mistõttu järgmiseks huvitas meid (Uurimus III), kuidas ühe tunnuse (antud juhul värvimuutuse) töötlemist mõjutab mõne teise tunnusega toimuv (antud juhul liikumiskiiruse) muutus. Näitasime, et objekti liikumine parandas sama objekti värvimuutuse avastamist, mis viitab, et nende kahe omaduse töötlemine ajus ei ole päris eraldiseisev protsess. Samuti tähendab taoline tulemus, et hoolimata ühele tunnusele keskendumisest ei suuda inimene ignoreerida teist tähelepanu tõmbavat tunnust (liikumine), mis viitab taas kord automaatsetele töötlusprotsessidele. Neljas uurimus keskendus emotsionaalsete näoväljenduste töötlusele, kuna need kannavad keskkonnas hakkamasaamiseks vajalikke sotsiaalseid signaale, mistõttu on alust arvata, et nende töötlus on kujunenud suuresti automaatseks protsessiks. Näitasime, et emotsiooni väljendavaid nägusid avastati kiiremini ja kergemini kui neutraalse ilmega nägusid ning et vihane nägu tõmbas rohkem tähelepanu kui rõõmus (Uurimus IV). Väitekirja viimane osa puudutab visuaalset lahknevusnegatiivsust (ingl Visual Mismatch Negativity ehk vMMN), mis näitab aju võimet avastada automaatselt erinevusi enda loodud mudelist ümbritseva keskkonna kohta. Selle automaatse erinevuse avastamise mehhanismi uurimisse andsid oma panuse nii Uurimus II kui Uurimus IV, mis mõlemad pakuvad välja tõendusi vMMN tekkimise kohta eri tingimustel ja katseparadigmades ning ka vajalikke metodoloogilisi täiendusi. Uurimus V on esimene kogu siiani ilmunud temaatilist teadustööd hõlmav ülevaateartikkel ja metaanalüüs visuaalsest lahknevusnegatiivsusest psühhiaatriliste ja neuroloogiliste haiguste korral, mis panustab oluliselt visuaalse lahknevusnegatiivsuse valdkonna arengusse.The research presented and discussed in the thesis is an experimental exploration of processes in visual perception, which all display a considerable amount of automaticity. These processes are targeted from different angles using different experimental paradigms and stimuli, and by measuring both behavioural and brain responses. In the first three empirical studies, the focus is on motion detection that is regarded one of the most basic processes shaped by evolution. Study I investigated how motion information of an object is processed in the presence of background motion. Although it is widely believed that no motion can be perceived without establishing a frame of reference with other objects or motion on the background, our results found no support for relative motion principle. This finding speaks in favour of a simple and automatic process of detecting motion, which is largely insensitive to the surrounding context. Study II shows that the visual system is built to automatically process motion information that is outside of our attentional focus. This means that even if we are concentrating on some task, our brain constantly monitors the surrounding environment. Study III addressed the question of what happens when multiple stimulus qualities (motion and colour) are present and varied, which is the everyday reality of our visual input. We showed that velocity facilitated the detection of colour changes, which suggests that processing motion and colour is not entirely isolated. These results also indicate that it is hard to ignore motion information, and processing it is rather automatically initiated. The fourth empirical study focusses on another example of visual input that is processed in a rather automatic way and carries high survival value – emotional expressions. In Study IV, participants detected emotional facial expressions faster and more easily compared with neutral facial expressions, with a tendency towards more automatic attention to angry faces. In addition, we investigated the emergence of visual mismatch negativity (vMMN) that is one of the most objective and efficient methods for analysing automatic processes in the brain. Study II and Study IV proposed several methodological gains for registering this automatic change-detection mechanism. Study V is an important contribution to the vMMN research field as it is the first comprehensive review and meta-analysis of the vMMN studies in psychiatric and neurological disorders

The cingulate cortex and limbic systems for emotion, action, and memory

Evidence is provided for a new conceptualization of the connectivity and functions of the cingulate cortex in emotion, action, and memory. The anterior cingulate cortex receives information from the orbitofrontal cortex about reward and non-reward outcomes. The posterior cingulate cortex receives spatial and action-related information from parietal cortical areas. It is argued that these inputs allow the cingulate cortex to perform action–outcome learning, with outputs from the midcingulate motor area to premotor areas. In addition, because the anterior cingulate cortex connects rewards to actions, it is involved in emotion; and because the posterior cingulate cortex has outputs to the hippocampal system, it is involved in memory. These apparently multiple different functions of the cingulate cortex are related to the place of this proisocortical limbic region in brain connectivity