Psychology Commons^™

The Role Of Haptic Expectations In Reaching To Grasp: From Pantomime To Natural Grasps And Back Again, Robert L. Whitwell, Nathan J. Katz, Melvyn A. Goodale, James T. Enns

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

© Copyright © 2020 Whitwell, Katz, Goodale and Enns. When we reach to pick up an object, our actions are effortlessly informed by the object’s spatial information, the position of our limbs, stored knowledge of the object’s material properties, and what we want to do with the object. A substantial body of evidence suggests that grasps are under the control of “automatic, unconscious” sensorimotor modules housed in the “dorsal stream” of the posterior parietal cortex. Visual online feedback has a strong effect on the hand’s in-flight grasp aperture. Previous work of ours exploited this effect to show that grasps are …

Coexistence Of Perseveration And Apathy In The Tdp-43Q331k Knock-In Mouse Model Of Als–Ftd, Eosu Kim, Matthew A. White, Benjamin U. Phillips, Laura Lopez-Cruz, Hyunjeong Kim, Christopher J. Heath, Jong Eun Lee, Lisa M. Saksida, Jemeen Sreedharan, Timothy J. Bussey

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

© 2020, The Author(s). Perseveration and apathy are two of the most common behavioural and psychological symptoms of dementia (BPSDs) in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis–frontotemporal dementia (ALS–FTD). Availability of a validated and behaviourally characterised animal model is crucial for translational research into BPSD in the FTD context. We behaviourally evaluated the male TDP-43Q331K mouse, an ALS–FTD model with a human-equivalent mutation (TDP-43Q331K) knocked into the endogenous Tardbp gene. We utilised a panel of behavioural tasks delivered using the rodent touchscreen apparatus, including progressive ratio (PR), extinction and visual discrimination/reversal learning (VDR) assays to examine motivation, response inhibition and cognitive flexibility, respectively. …

Shared Functional Connectivity Between The Dorso-Medial And Dorso-Ventral Streams In Macaques, R. Stefan Greulich, Ramina Adam, Stefan Everling, Hansjörg Scherberger

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

© 2020, The Author(s). Manipulation of an object requires us to transport our hand towards the object (reach) and close our digits around that object (grasp). In current models, reach-related information is propagated in the dorso-medial stream from posterior parietal area V6A to medial intraparietal area, dorsal premotor cortex, and primary motor cortex. Grasp-related information is processed in the dorso-ventral stream from the anterior intraparietal area to ventral premotor cortex and the hand area of primary motor cortex. However, recent studies have cast doubt on the validity of this separation in separate processing streams. We investigated in 10 male rhesus …

Neural Responses And Perceptual Sensitivity To Sound Depend On Sound-Level Statistics, Björn Herrmann, Thomas Augereau, Ingrid S. Johnsrude

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

© 2020, The Author(s). Sensitivity to sound-level statistics is crucial for optimal perception, but research has focused mostly on neurophysiological recordings, whereas behavioral evidence is sparse. We use electroencephalography (EEG) and behavioral methods to investigate how sound-level statistics affect neural activity and the detection of near-threshold changes in sound amplitude. We presented noise bursts with sound levels drawn from distributions with either a low or a high modal sound level. One participant group listened to the stimulation while EEG was recorded (Experiment I). A second group performed a behavioral amplitude-modulation detection task (Experiment II). Neural activity depended on sound-level statistical …

Modeling An Auditory Stimulated Brain Under Altered States Of Consciousness Using The Generalized Ising Model, Sivayini Kandeepan, Jorge Rudas, Francisco Gomez, Bobby Stojanoski, Sree Ram Valluri, Adrian Mark Owen, Lorina Naci, Emily Sophia Nichols, Andrea Soddu

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

Propofol is a short-acting medication that results in decreased levels of consciousness and is used for general anesthesia. Although it is the most commonly used anesthetic in the world, much remains unknown about the mechanisms by which it induces a loss of consciousness. Characterizing anesthesia-induced alterations to brain network activity might provide a powerful framework for understanding the neural mechanisms of unconsciousness. The aim of this work was to model brain activity in healthy brains during various stages of consciousness, as induced by propofol, in the auditory paradigm. We used the generalized Ising model (GIM) to fit the empirical fMRI …

Face Selective Patches In Marmoset Frontal Cortex, David J. Schaeffer, Janahan Selvanayagam, Kevin D. Johnston, Ravi S. Menon, Winrich A. Freiwald, Stefan Everling

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

© 2020, The Author(s). In humans and macaque monkeys, socially relevant face processing is accomplished via a distributed functional network that includes specialized patches in frontal cortex. It is unclear whether a similar network exists in New World primates, who diverged ~35 million years from Old World primates. The common marmoset is a New World primate species ideally placed to address this question given their complex social repertoire. Here, we demonstrate the existence of a putative high-level face processing network in marmosets. Like Old World primates, marmosets show differential activation in anterior cingulate and lateral prefrontal cortices while they view …

Brain Metabolite Levels In Sedentary Women And Non-Contact Athletes Differ From Contact Athletes, Amy L. Schranz, Gregory A. Dekaban, Lisa Fischer, Kevin Blackney, Christy Barreira, Timothy J. Doherty, Douglas D. Fraser, Arthur Brown, Jeff Holmes, Ravi S. Menon, Robert Bartha

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

White matter tracts are known to be susceptible to injury following concussion. The objective of this study was to determine whether contact play in sport could alter white matter metabolite levels in female varsity athletes independent of changes induced by long-term exercise. Metabolite levels were measured by single voxel proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) in the prefrontal white matter at the beginning (In-Season) and end (Off-Season) of season in contact (N = 54, rugby players) and non-contact (N = 23, swimmers and rowers) varsity athletes. Sedentary women (N = 23) were scanned once, at a time equivalent to the Off-Season …

Structure Of Population Activity In Primary Motor Cortex For Single Finger Flexion And Extension, Spencer A. Arbuckle, Jeff Weiler, Eric A. Kirk, Charles L. Rice, Marc Schieber, J. Andrew Pruszynski, Naveed Ejaz, Jörn Diedrichsen

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

Copyright © 2020 the authors How is the primary motor cortex (M1) organized to control fine finger movements? We investigated the population activity in M1 for single finger flexion and extension, using 7T functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in female and male human participants and compared these results to the neural spiking patterns recorded in two male monkeys performing the identical task. fMRI activity patterns were distinct for movements of different fingers, but were quite similar for flexion and extension of the same finger. In contrast, spiking patterns in monkeys were quite distinct for both fingers and directions, which is …

Cortico-Subcortical Functional Connectivity Profiles Of Resting-State Networks In Marmosets And Humans, Yuki Hori, David J. Schaeffer, Atsushi Yoshida, Justine C. Cléry, Lauren K. Hayrynen, Joseph S. Gati, Ravi S. Menon, Stefan Everling

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

Copyright © 2020 the authors Understanding the similarity of cortico-subcortical networks topologies between humans and nonhuman primate species is critical to study the origin of network alternations underlying human neurologic and neuropsychiatric diseases. The New World common marmoset (Callithrix jacchus) has become popular as a nonhuman primate model for human brain function. Most marmoset connectomic research, however, has exclusively focused on cortical areas, with connectivity to subcortical networks less extensively explored. Here, we aimed to first isolate patterns of subcortical connectivity with cortical resting-state networks in awake marmosets using resting-state fMRI, then to compare these networks with those in humans …

Direct Visualization And Characterization Of The Human Zona Incerta And Surrounding Structures, Jonathan C. Lau, Yiming Xiao, Roy A.M. Haast, Greydon Gilmore, Kâmil Uludağ, Keith W. Macdougall, Ravi S. Menon, Andrew G. Parrent, Terry M. Peters, Ali R. Khan

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

The zona incerta (ZI) is a small gray matter region of the deep brain first identified in the 19th century, yet direct in vivo visualization and characterization has remained elusive. Noninvasive detection of the ZI and surrounding region could be critical to further our understanding of this widely connected but poorly understood deep brain region and could contribute to the development and optimization of neuromodulatory therapies. We demonstrate that high resolution (submillimetric) longitudinal (T1) relaxometry measurements at high magnetic field strength (7 T) can be used to delineate the ZI from surrounding white matter structures, specifically the fasciculus cerebellothalamicus, fields …

The Neural Basis Of Metacognitive Monitoring During Arithmetic In The Developing Brain, Elien Bellon, Wim Fias, Daniel Ansari, Bert De Smedt

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

In contrast to a substantial body of research on the neural basis of cognitive performance in several academic domains, less is known about how the brain generates metacognitive (MC) awareness of such performance. The existing work on the neurobiological underpinnings of metacognition has almost exclusively been done in adults and has largely focused on lower level cognitive processing domains, such as perceptual decision-making. Extending this body of evidence, we investigated MC monitoring by asking children to solve arithmetic problems, an educationally relevant higher-order process, while providing concurrent MC reports during fMRI acquisition. Results are reported on 50 primary school children …

Syllables In Sync Form A Link: Neural Phase-Locking Reflects Word Knowledge During Language Learning, Laura Batterink

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

Language is composed of small building blocks, which combine to form larger meaningful structures. To understand language, we must process, track, and concatenate these building blocks into larger linguistic units as speech unfolds over time. An influential idea is that phase-locking of neural oscillations across different levels of linguistic structure provides a mechanism for this process. Building on this framework, the goal of the current study was to determine whether neural phase-locking occurs more robustly to novel linguistic items that are successfully learned and encoded into memory, compared to items that are not learned. Participants listened to a continuous speech …

Decoding Motor Imagery And Action Planning In The Early Visual Cortex: Overlapping But Distinct Neural Mechanisms, Simona Monaco, Giulia Malfatti, Jody C. Culham, Luigi Cattaneo, Luca Turella

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

Recent evidence points to a role of the primary visual cortex that goes beyond visual processing into high-level cognitive and motor-related functions, including action planning, even in absence of feedforward visual information. It has been proposed that, at the neural level, motor imagery is a simulation based on motor representations, and neuroimaging studies have shown overlapping and shared activity patterns for motor imagery and action execution in frontal and parietal cortices. Yet, the role of the early visual cortex in motor imagery remains unclear. Here we used multivoxel pattern analyses on functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data to examine whether …

Pain In The Newborn Brain: A Neural Signature, Emma G. Duerden, Steven P. Miller

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

No abstract provided.

An Auditory-Perceptual And Pupillometric Study Of Vocal Strain And Listening Effort In Adductor Spasmodic Dysphonia, Mojgan Farahani, Vijay Parsa, Björn Herrmann, Mason Kadem, Ingrid Johnsrude, Philip C. Doyle

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

© 2020 by the authors. This study evaluated ratings of vocal strain and perceived listening effort by normal hearing participants while listening to speech samples produced by talkers with adductor spasmodic dysphonia (AdSD). In addition, objective listening effort was measured through concurrent pupillometry to determine whether listening to disordered voices changed arousal as a result of emotional state or cognitive load. Recordings of the second sentence of the "Rainbow Passage" produced by talkers with varying degrees of AdSD served as speech stimuli. Twenty naïve young adult listeners perceptually evaluated these stimuli on the dimensions of vocal strain and listening effort …

The Human Cerebellum Has Almost 80% Of The Surface Area Of The Neocortex, Martin I. Sereno, J. Rn Diedrichsen, Mohamed Tachrount, Guilherme Testa-Silva, Helen D Arceuil, Chris De Zeeuw

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

© 2020 National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved. The surface of the human cerebellar cortex is much more tightly folded than the cerebral cortex. It was computationally reconstructed for the first time to the level of all individual folia from multicontrast high-resolution postmortem MRI scans. Its total shrinkage-corrected surface area (1,590 cm2) was larger than expected or previously reported, equal to 78% of the total surface area of the human neocortex. The unfolded and flattened surface comprised a narrow strip 10 cm wide but almost 1 m long. By applying the same methods to the neocortex and cerebellum of …

Pupil Size Is Modulated By The Size Of Equal-Luminance Gratings, Jie Gao, Athena Ko, Yoshiko Yabe, Melvyn A. Goodale, Juan Chen

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

© 2020 The Authors. Pupil size changes with light. For this reason, researchers studying the effect of attention, contextual processing, and arousal on the pupillary response have matched the mean luminance of their stimuli across conditions to eliminate the contribution of differences in light levels. Here, we argue that the match of mean luminance is not enough. In Experiment 1, we presented a circular sinewave grating on a gray background for 2 seconds. The area of the grating could be 3°, 6°, or 9°. The mean luminance of each grating was equal to the luminance of the gray background, such …

Longitudinal Changes Of Brain Microstructure And Function In Nonconcussed Female Rugby Players, Kathryn Y. Manning, Jeffrey S. Brooks, James P. Dickey, Alexandra Harriss, Lisa Fischer, Tatiana Jevremovic, Kevin Blackney, Christy Barreira, Arthur Brown, Robert Bartha, Tim Doherty, Douglas Fraser, Jeff Holmes, Gregory A. Dekaban, Ravi S. Menon

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

ObjectiveTo longitudinally assess brain microstructure and function in female varsity athletes participating in contact and noncontact sports.MethodsConcussion-free female rugby players (n = 73) were compared to age-matched (ages 18-23) female swimmers and rowers (n = 31) during the in- and off-season. Diffusion and resting-state fMRI (rs-fMRI) measures were the primary outcomes. The Sports Concussion Assessment Tool and head impact accelerometers were used to monitor symptoms and impacts, respectively.ResultsWe found cross-sectional (contact vs noncontact) and longitudinal (in- vs off-season) changes in white matter diffusion measures and rs-fMRI network connectivity in concussion-free contact athletes relative to noncontact athletes. In particular, mean, axial, …

Looming And Receding Visual Networks In Awake Marmosets Investigated With Fmri, Justine C. Cléry, David J. Schaeffer, Yuki Hori, Kyle M. Gilbert, Lauren K. Hayrynen, Joseph S. Gati, Ravi S. Menon, Stefan Everling

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

© 2020 The Author(s) An object that is looming toward a subject or receding away contains important information for determining if this object is dangerous, beneficial or harmless. This information (motion, direction, identity, time-to-collision, size, velocity) is analyzed by the brain in order to execute the appropriate behavioral responses depending on the context: fleeing, freezing, grasping, eating, exploring. In the current study, we performed ultra-high-field functional MRI (fMRI) at 9.4T in awake marmosets to explore the patterns of brain activation elicited by visual stimuli looming toward or receding away from the monkey. We found that looming and receding visual stimuli …

The "Inferior Temporal Numeral Area" Distinguishes Numerals From Other Character Categories During Passive Viewing: A Representational Similarity Analysis, Darren J. Yeo, Courtney Pollack, Rebecca Merkley, Daniel Ansari, Gavin R. Price

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

A region in the posterior inferior temporal gyrus (pITG) is thought to be specialized for processing Arabic numerals, but fMRI studies that compared passive viewing of numerals to other character types (e.g., letters and novel characters) have not found evidence of numeral preference in the pITG. However, recent studies showed that the engagement of the pITG is modulated by attention and task contexts, suggesting that passive viewing paradigms may be ill-suited for examining numeral specialization in the pITG. It is possible, however, that even if the strengths of responses to different category types are similar, the distributed response patterns (i.e., …

Expanding The Search For Genetic Biomarkers Of Parkinson's Disease Into The Living Brain, Simon M. Benoit, Hu Xu, Susanne Schmid, Roumiana Alexandrova, Gaganjot Kaur, Bhooma Thiruvahindrapuram, Sergio L. Pereira, Mandar Jog, Matthew O. Hebb

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

Altered gene expression related to Parkinson's Disease (PD) has not been described in the living brain, yet this information may support novel discovery pertinent to disease pathophysiology and treatment. This study compared the transcriptome in brain biopsies obtained from living PD and Control patients. To evaluate the novelty of this data, a comprehensive literature review also compared differentially expressed gene (DEGs) identified in the current study with those reported in PD cadaveric brain and peripheral tissues. RNA was extracted from rapidly cryopreserved frontal lobe specimens collected from PD and Control patients undergoing neurosurgical procedures. RNA sequencing (RNA-Seq) was performed and …

Music As A Scaffold For Listening To Speech: Better Neural Phase-Locking To Song Than Speech, Christina M. Vanden Bosch Der Nederlanden, Marc F. Joanisse, Jessica A. Grahn

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

© 2020 The Authors Neural activity synchronizes with the rhythmic input of many environmental signals, but the capacity of neural activity to entrain to the slow rhythms of speech is particularly important for successful communication. Compared to speech, song has greater rhythmic regularity, a more stable fundamental frequency, discrete pitch movements, and a metrical structure, this may provide a temporal framework that helps listeners neurally track information better than the rhythmically irregular rhythms of speech. The current study used EEG to examine whether entrainment to the syllable rate of linguistic utterances, as indexed by cerebro-acoustic phase coherence, was greater when …

Maternal Immune Activation Alters Fetal Brain Development And Enhances Proliferation Of Neural Precursor Cells In Rats, Kelly J. Baines, Dendra M. Hillier, Faraj L. Haddad, Nagalingam Rajakumar, Susanne Schmid, Stephen J. Renaud

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

Maternal immune activation (MIA) caused by exposure to pathogens or inflammation during critical periods of neurodevelopment is a major risk factor for behavioral deficits and psychiatric illness in offspring. A spectrum of behavioral abnormalities can be recapitulated in rodents by inducing MIA using the viral mimetic, PolyI:C. Many studies have focused on long-term changes in brain structure and behavioral outcomes in offspring following maternal PolyI:C exposure, but acute changes in prenatal development are not well-characterized. Using RNA-Sequencing, we profiled acute transcriptomic changes in rat conceptuses (decidua along with nascent embryo and placenta) after maternal PolyI:C exposure during early gestation, which …

Diffusion Dispersion Imaging: Mapping Oscillating Gradient Spin-Echo Frequency Dependence In The Human Brain., Aidin Arbabi, Jason Kai, Ali R Khan, Corey A Baron

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

PURPOSE: Oscillating gradient spin-echo (OGSE) diffusion MRI provides information about the microstructure of biological tissues by means of the frequency dependence of the apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC). ADC dependence on OGSE frequency has been explored in numerous rodent studies, but applications in the human brain have been limited and have suffered from low contrast between different frequencies, long scan times, and a limited exploration of the nature of the ADC dependence on frequency.

THEORY AND METHODS: Multiple frequency OGSE acquisitions were acquired in healthy subjects at 7T to explore the power-law frequency dependence of ADC, the "diffusion dispersion." Furthermore, a …

What Explains The Relationship Between Spatial And Mathematical Skills? A Review Of Evidence From Brain And Behavior, Zachary Hawes, Daniel Ansari

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

There is an emerging consensus that spatial thinking plays a fundamental role in how people conceive, express, and perform mathematics. However, the underlying nature of this relationship remains elusive. Questions remain as to how, why, and under what conditions spatial skills and mathematics are linked. This review paper addresses this gap. Through a review and synthesis of research in psychology, neuroscience, and education, we examine plausible mechanistic accounts for the oft-reported close, and potentially causal, relations between spatial and mathematical thought. More specifically, this review targets candidate mechanisms that link spatial visualization skills and basic numerical competencies. The four explanatory …

Repetita Iuvant: Repetition Facilitates Online Planning Of Sequential Movements, Giacomo Ariani, Young Han Kwon, Jörn Diedrichsen

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

Copyright © 2020 the American Physiological Society. Beyond being essential for long-term motor-skill development, movement repetition has immediate benefits on performance, increasing speed and accuracy of a second execution. While repetition effects have been reported for single reaching movements, it has yet to be determined whether they also occur for movement sequences, and what aspects of sequence production are improved. We addressed these questions in two behavioral experiments using a discrete sequence production (DSP) task in which human volunteers had to perform short sequences of finger movements. In experiment 1, we presented participants with randomly varying sequences and manipulated 1) …

A Comes Before B, Like 1 Comes Before 2. Is The Parietal Cortex Sensitive To Ordinal Relationships In Both Numbers And Letters? An Fmri-Adaptation Study, Celia Goffin, Stephan E. Vogel, Michael Slipenkyj, Daniel Ansari

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

How are number symbols (e.g., Arabic digits) represented in the brain? Functional resonance imaging adaptation (fMRI-A) research has indicated that the intraparietal sulcus (IPS) exhibits a decrease in activation with the repeated presentation of the same number, that is followed by a rebound effect with the presentation of a new number. This rebound effect is modulated by the numerical ratio or difference between presented numbers. It has been suggested that this ratio-dependent rebound effect is reflective of a link between the symbolic numerical representation system and an approximate magnitude system. Experiment 1 used fMRI-A to investigate an alternative hypothesis: that …

Sensory Inflow Manipulation Induces Learning-Like Phenomena In Motor Behavior, Samuele Contemori, Cristina V. Dieni, Jacqueline A. Sullivan, Aldo Ferraresi, Chiara Occhigrossi, Francesco Calabrese, Vito E. Pettorossi, Andrea Biscarini, Roberto Panichi

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

© 2020, Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature. Purpose: Perceptual and goal-directed behaviors may be improved by repetitive sensory stimulations without practice-based training. Focal muscle vibration (f-MV) modulating the spatiotemporal properties of proprioceptive inflow is well-suited to investigate the effectiveness of sensory stimulation in influencing motor outcomes. Thus, in this study, we verified whether optimized f-MV stimulation patterns might affect motor control of upper limb movements. Methods: To answer this question, we vibrated the slightly tonically contracted anterior deltoid (AD), posterior deltoid (PD), and pectoralis major muscles in different combinations in forty healthy subjects at a frequency of 100 …

Basal Forebrain Volume Reliably Predicts The Cortical Spread Of Alzheimer's Degeneration, Sara Fernández-Cabello, Martin Kronbichler, Koene R.A. Van Dijk, James A. Goodman, R. Nathan Spreng, Taylor W. Schmitz

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

© The Author(s) (2020). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Guarantors of Brain. Alzheimer's disease neurodegeneration is thought to spread across anatomically and functionally connected brain regions. However, the precise sequence of spread remains ambiguous. The prevailing model used to guide in vivo human neuroimaging and non-human animal research assumes that Alzheimer's degeneration starts in the entorhinal cortices, before spreading to the temporoparietal cortex. Challenging this model, we previously provided evidence that in vivo markers of neurodegeneration within the nucleus basalis of Meynert (NbM), a subregion of the basal forebrain heavily populated by cortically projecting cholinergic neurons, …

Do Infants Have A Sense Of Numerosity? A P-Curve Analysis Of Infant Numerosity Discrimination Studies, Rachael E. Smyth, Daniel Ansari

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

Research demonstrating that infants discriminate between small (e.g., 1 vs. 3 dots) and large numerosities (e.g., 8 vs. 16 dots) is central to theories concerning the origins of human numerical abilities. To date, there has been no quantitative meta-analysis of the infant numerical competency data. Here, we quantitatively synthesize the evidential value of the available literature on infant numerosity discrimination using a meta-analytic tool called p-curve. In p-curve the distribution of available p-values is analyzed to determine whether the published literature examining particular hypotheses contains evidential value. p-curves demonstrated evidential value for the hypotheses that infants can discriminate between both …