Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Adapting To Dynamic Stimulus-Response Values: Differential Contributions Of Inferior Frontal, Dorsomedial, And Dorsolateral Regions Of Prefrontal Cortex To Decision Making., Derek G V Mitchell, Qian Luo, Shelley B Avny, Tomasz Kasprzycki, Karanvir Gupta, Gang Chen, Elizabeth C Finger, R James R Blair

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

Dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC), dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC), and inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) have all been implicated in resolving decision conflict whether this conflict is generated by having to select between responses of similar value or by making selections following a reversal in reinforcement contingencies. However, work distinguishing their individual functional contributions remains preliminary. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to delineate the functional role of these systems with regard to both forms of decision conflict. Within dmPFC and dlPFC, blood oxygen level-dependent responses increased in response to decision conflict regardless of whether the conflict occurred in the context of …

An Examination Of Chimpanzee Use In Human Cancer Research, Jarrod Bailey

Laboratory Experiments Collection

Advocates of chimpanzee research claim the genetic similarity of humans and chimpanzees make them an indispensable research tool to combat human diseases. Given that cancer is a leading cause of human death worldwide, one might expect that if chimpanzees were needed for, or were productive in, cancer research, then they would have been widely used. This comprehensive literature analysis reveals that chimpanzees have scarcely been used in any form of cancer research, and that chimpanzee tumours are extremely rare and biologically different from human cancers. Often, chimpanzee citations described peripheral use of chimpanzee cells and genetic material in predominantly human …

Perirhinal Cortex Contributes To Accuracy In Recognition Memory And Perceptual Discriminations., Edward B O'Neil, Anthony D Cate, Stefan Köhler

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

The prevailing view of the medial temporal lobe (MTL) holds that its structures are dedicated to long-term declarative memory. Recent evidence challenges this position, suggesting that perirhinal cortex (PRc) in the MTL may also play a role in perceptual discriminations of stimuli with substantial visual feature overlap. Relevant neuropsychological findings in humans have been inconclusive, likely because studies have relied on patients with large and variable MTL lesions. Here, we conducted a functional magnetic resonance imaging study in healthy individuals to determine whether PRc shows a performance-related involvement in perceptual oddball judgments that is comparable to its established role in …

Defining Family: Naming, Orientation, And Redemption In The Case Of Terri Schiavo, M. Chad Mcbride, Karen L. Taas, Paige W. Toller

Communication Faculty Publications

This paper undertakes a detailed analysis of the Terri Schiavo case as it was covered in popular media. Drawing on Burkean theory, we argue a critical issue in the case was a struggle between Terri's parents and husband to be seen as the more legitimate family in order to determine the duration and extent of Terri 's medical care. We discuss how the private debate over Terri's health and the decision to remove her feeding tube entered into the public scenes of legal and political action. This shift to the public scene represented problems for the parties directly involved in …

To See Or Not To See: Prestimulus Α Phase Predicts Visual Awareness, Kyle E. Mathewson, Gabriele Gratton, Monica Fabiani, Diane M. Beck, Tony Ro

Publications and Research

We often fail to see something that at other times is readily detectable. Because the visual stimulus itself is unchanged, this variability in conscious awareness is likely related to changes in the brain. Here we show that the phase of EEG α rhythm measured over posterior brain regions can reliably predict both subsequent visual detection and stimulus-elicited cortical activation levels in a metacontrast masking paradigm. When a visual target presentation coincides with the trough of an α wave, cortical activation is suppressed as early as 100 ms after stimulus onset, and observers are less likely to detect the target. Thus, …

At Risk? Exploring The Relationship Between Hiv/Aids-Related Knowledge And Risky Sexual Behavior In Jamaica, Christine Chung

Award Winning Geography Papers

Using the 2004 Knowledge, Attitudes, Behaviour and Practices (KABP) national survey, this research investigates factors contributing to HIV/AIDS-related risky sexual behavior in Jamaica, using the theoretical underpinnings behind the concept of “risk” to elucidate the relative vulnerability of different demographic groups. In particular, how is risk defined and by whom, and how does this shape the risk environment for HIV/AIDS. The social construction of “risk” is explored as an act of translation of science, whose formalized and institutionalized meanings do not always match up to the individual’s perception of personal risk to HIV/AIDS. The disjunction between knowledge and actual behavioral …

From Traumatic Brain Injury To Posttraumatic Epilepsy: What Animal Models Tell Us About The Process And Treatment Options, Asla Pitkänen, Riikka J. Immonen, Olli H.J. Gröhn, Irina Kharatishvili

Biomedicine and Animal Models in Research Collection

A large number of animal models of traumatic brain injury (TBI) are already available for studies on mechanisms and experimental treatments of TBI. Immediate and early seizures have been described in many of these models with focal or mixed type (both gray and white matter damage) injury. Recent long-term video-electroencephalography (EEG) monitoring studies have demonstrated that TBI produced by lateral fluid-percussion injury in rats results in the development of late seizures, that is, epilepsy. These animals develop hippocampal alterations that are well described in status epilepticus–induced spontaneous seizure models and human posttraumatic epilepsy (PTE). In addition, these rats have damage …

Grasping And Lifting Different Materials, Gavin Buckingham, Jonathan S. Cant, Melvyn A. Goodale

Psychology Presentations

The material from which an object is made can determine how heavy it feels (Seashore, 1899). Interestingly, a metal block that has been adjusted to have the same size and mass as a polystyrene block will feel lighter than the polystyrene block. We recently showed that participants experiencing this material-weight illusion’ (MWI) do not apply forces that match their perceptual experience of heaviness ‐ just like in the size‐weight illusion ( Flanagan & Beltzner, 2000).

Our previous study showed that forces on early trials were scaled to each participant’s expectations of how much a particular block should weigh ‐ excessive …

A Dissociation Between Perception And Action In The Material‐Weight Illusion, Gavin Buckingham, Jonathan S. Cant, Kai-Ling C. Kao, Melvyn A. Goodale

Psychology Presentations

We examined what forces are applied to objects that elicit this illusion when they are lifted.We predicted that:

(1) Forces on early trials will scale to each participant’s expectations of how much a particular block will weigh ‐ excessive force will be applied to the metal block and insufficient force applied to the polystyrene block.

(2) Forces on later trials will scale to the real weight of each block ‐ identical levels of force applied to all the blocks.

(3) MWI will persist throughout ‐ polystyrene block will feel the heaviest, metal block will feel the lightest.

Aerobic Fitness And Cognitive Development: Event-Related Brain Potential And Task Performance Indices Of Executive Control In Preadolescent Children, Jason Themanson, Charles Hillman, Sarah Buck, Matthew Pontifex, Darla Castelli

Scholarship

The relationship between aerobic fitness and executive control was assessed in 38 higher- and lower-fit children (Mage = 9.4 years), grouped according to their performance on a field test of aerobic capacity. Participants performed a flanker task requiring variable amounts of executive control while event-related brain potential responses and task performance were assessed. Results indicated that higher-fit children performed more accurately across conditions of the flanker task and following commission errors when compared to lower-fit children, whereas no group differences were observed for reaction time. Neuroelectric data indicated that P3 amplitude was larger for higher- compared to lower-fit children across …

"The Natural History Of Truth: The Neurobiology Of Belief", Neil Greenberg

Faculty Publications and Other Works -- Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

The pursuit of truth is woven into the fabric of every organism*. Any estimate of how best to survive and thrive in the reality in which we are immersed requires a sense of self, of the world, and of their relationship to each other. I wish to explore the idea that this pursuit has at its heart two complementary modes of reality testing utilizing separate cerebral systems which deal, respectively with the correspondence of experience with the world and the coherence of the experience with previous experiences: “is it real” and “does it fit?” At multiple levels of the nervous …

Rescuing Baby Doe, Mary Crossley

Articles

The twenty-fifth anniversary of the Baby Doe Rules offers a valuable opportunity to reflect on how much has changed during the past two-and-one-half decades and how much has stayed the same, at least in situations when parents and physicians face the birth of an infant who comes into the world with its life in peril.

The most salient changes are the medical advances in the treatment of premature infants and the changes in social attitudes towards and legal protections for people with disabilities. The threshold at which a prematurely delivered infant is considered viable has advanced steadily earlier into pregnancy, …