Digital Commons Network^™

Prediction-Based Learning And Processing Of Event Knowledge., Ken Mcrae, Kevin S Brown, Jeffrey L Elman

Psychology Publications

Knowledge of common events is central to many aspects of cognition. Intuitively, it seems as though events are linear chains of the activities of which they are comprised. In line with this intuition, a number of theories of the temporal structure of event knowledge have posited mental representations (data structures) consisting of linear chains of activities. Competing theories focus on the hierarchical nature of event knowledge, with representations comprising ordered scenes, and chains of activities within those scenes. We present evidence that the temporal structure of events typically is not well-defined, but it is much richer and more variable both …

Perseverance, Faith And Stoicism: A Qualitative Study Of Medical Student Perspectives On Managing Fatigue, Taryn S Taylor, Alexandra L Raynard, Lorelei Lingard

Obstetrics & Gynaecology Publications

CONTEXT: Fatigue risk management (FRM) strategies offer a potential solution to the widespread problem of fatigued trainees in the clinical workplace. These strategies assume a shared perception that fatigue is hazardous. Despite the growing body of evidence suggesting that fatigue leads to burnout and medical errors, previous research suggests that residents perceive fatigue as a personal, surmountable burden rather than an occupational hazard. Before we can implement FRM, we need a better understanding of when and how such problematic notions of fatigue are adopted by medical trainees. Thus, we sought to explore how third-year medical students understand and manage the …

Are Specific Learning Disorders Truly Specific, And Are They Disorders?, Lien Peters, Daniel Ansari

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

© 2019 The Authors Specific learning disorders, such as dyslexia and dyscalculia, are frequently studied to inform our understanding of cognitive development, genetic mechanisms and brain function. In this Opinion Paper, we discuss limitations of this research approach, including the use of arbitrary criteria to select groups of children, heterogeneity within groups and overlap between domains of learning. By drawing on evidence from cognitive science, neuroscience and genetics, we propose an alternative, dimensional framework. We argue that we need to overcome the problems associated with a categorical approach by taking into account interacting factors at multiple levels of analysis that …

Altered Motor, Anxiety-Related And Attentional Task Performance At Baseline Associate With Multiple Gene Copies Of The Vesicular Acetylcholine Transporter And Related Protein Overexpression In Chat::Cre+ Rats, Craig P. Mantanona, Johan Alsiö, Joanna L. Elson, Beth M. Fisher, Jeffrey W. Dalley, Timothy Bussey, Ilse S. Pienaar

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

© 2019, The Author(s). Transgenic rodents expressing Cre recombinase cell specifically are used for exploring mechanisms regulating behavior, including those mediated by cholinergic signaling. However, it was recently reported that transgenic mice overexpressing a bacterial artificial chromosome containing choline acetyltransferase (ChAT) gene, for synthesizing the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, present with multiple vesicular acetylcholine transporter (VAChT) gene copies, resulting in altered cholinergic tone and accompanying behavioral abnormalities. Since ChAT::Cre+ rats, used increasingly for understanding the biological basis of CNS disorders, utilize the mouse ChAT promotor to control Cre recombinase expression, we assessed for similar genotypical and phenotypical differences in such rats compared …

A Macaque Connectome For Large-Scale Network Simulations In Thevirtualbrain, Kelly Shen, Gleb Bezgin, Michael Schirner, Petra Ritter, Stefan Everling, Anthony R. Mcintosh

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

© 2019, The Author(s). Models of large-scale brain networks that are informed by the underlying anatomical connectivity contribute to our understanding of the mapping between the structure of the brain and its dynamical function. Connectome-based modelling is a promising approach to a more comprehensive understanding of brain function across spatial and temporal scales, but it must be constrained by multi-scale empirical data from animal models. Here we describe the construction of a macaque (Macaca mulatta and Macaca fascicularis) connectome for whole-cortex simulations in TheVirtualBrain, an open-source simulation platform. We take advantage of available axonal tract-tracing datasets and enhance the existing …

Predator-Induced Fear Causes Ptsd-Like Changes In The Brains And Behaviour Of Wild Animals, Liana Y. Zanette, Emma C. Hobbs, Lauren E. Witterick, Scott A. Macdougall-Shackleton, Michael Clinchy

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

© 2019, The Author(s). Predator-induced fear is both, one of the most common stressors employed in animal model studies of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and a major focus of research in ecology. There has been a growing discourse between these disciplines but no direct empirical linkage. We endeavoured to provide this empirical linkage by conducting experiments drawing upon the strengths of both disciplines. Exposure to a natural cue of predator danger (predator vocalizations), had enduring effects of at least 7 days duration involving both, a heightened sensitivity to predator danger (indicative of an enduring memory of fear), and elevated neuronal …

Consciousness-Specific Dynamic Interactions Of Brain Integration And Functional Diversity, Andrea I. Luppi, Michael M. Craig, Ioannis Pappas, Paola Finoia, Guy B. Williams, Judith Allanson, John D. Pickard, Adrian M. Owen, Lorina Naci, David K. Menon, Emmanuel A. Stamatakis

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

Prominent theories of consciousness emphasise different aspects of neurobiology, such as the integration and diversity of information processing within the brain. Here, we combine graph theory and dynamic functional connectivity to compare resting-state functional MRI data from awake volunteers, propofol-anaesthetised volunteers, and patients with disorders of consciousness, in order to identify consciousness-specific patterns of brain function. We demonstrate that cortical networks are especially affected by loss of consciousness during temporal states of high integration, exhibiting reduced functional diversity and compromised informational capacity, whereas thalamo-cortical functional disconnections emerge during states of higher segregation. Spatially, posterior regions of the brain’s default mode …

Should It Stay Or Should It Go? Smartphone Dependency, Kira Foreman-Tran, Karina Schnurr, Ana C. Ruiz Pardo, John Paul Minda

Psychology Publications

As smartphones grow in use and popularity, it is important to understand the possible effects that varying levels of smartphone use may have on human cognition. Although smartphones provide many advantages for daily activities, one must also recognize the potential disadvantages. For example, smartphone use may lead to nomophobia, which is defined as the modern fear of not being able to access your smartphone or the internet (Yildirim & Correia, 2015). The present study used a pilot and main study to examine the effects smartphones have on human cognition. The pilot study was conducted to measure nomophobia, mobile phone involvement, …

Functional Localization Of The Frontal Eye Fields In The Common Marmoset Using Microstimulation, Janahan Selvanayagam, Kevin D. Johnston, David J. Schaeffer, Lauren K. Hayrynen, Stefan Everling

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

Copyright © 2019 the authors. The frontal eye field (FEF) is a critical region for the deployment of overt and covert spatial attention. Although investigations in the macaque continue to provide insight into the neural underpinnings of the FEF, due to its location within a sulcus, the macaque FEF is virtually inaccessible to electrophysiological techniques such as high-density and laminar recordings. With a largely lissencephalic cortex, the common marmoset (Callithrix jacchus) is a promising alternative primate model for studying FEF microcircuitry. Putative homologies have been established with the macaque FEF on the basis of cytoarchitecture and connectivity; however, physiological investigation …

Sign And Speech Share Partially Overlapping Conceptual Representations, Samuel Evans, Cathy J. Price, Jörn Diedrichsen, Eva Gutierrez-Sigut, Mairéad Macsweeney

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

© 2019 The Author(s) Conceptual knowledge is fundamental to human cognition. Yet, the extent to which it is influenced by language is unclear. Studies of semantic processing show that similar neural patterns are evoked by the same concepts presented in different modalities (e.g., spoken words and pictures or text) [1–3]. This suggests that conceptual representations are “modality independent.” However, an alternative possibility is that the similarity reflects retrieval of common spoken language representations. Indeed, in hearing spoken language users, text and spoken language are co-dependent [4, 5], and pictures are encoded via visual and verbal routes [6]. A parallel approach …

Framing The Incidence Of Psychotic Disorders: The Case For Context, Jordan Edwards, Rebecca Rodrigues, Kelly K. Anderson

Paediatrics Publications

No abstract provided.

Cognitive Change In Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy, Leanne Quigley, David J A Dozois, R Michael Bagby, Daniela S S Lobo, Lakshmi Ravindran, Lena C Quilty

Psychology Publications

BACKGROUND: Although cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) is a well-established treatment for adult depression, its efficacy and efficiency may be enhanced by better understanding its mechanism(s) of action. According to the theoretical model of CBT, symptom improvement occurs via reductions in maladaptive cognition. However, previous research has not established clear evidence for this cognitive mediation model.

METHODS: The present study investigated the cognitive mediation model of CBT in the context of a randomized controlled trial of CBT v. antidepressant medication (ADM) for adult depression. Participants with major depressive disorder were randomized to receive 16 weeks of CBT (n = 54) or ADM …

Variational Representational Similarity Analysis, Karl J. Friston, Jörn Diedrichsen, Emma Holmes, Peter Zeidman

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

© 2019 The Authors This technical note describes a variational or Bayesian implementation of representational similarity analysis (RSA) and pattern component modelling (PCM). It considers RSA and PCM as Bayesian model comparison procedures that assess the evidence for stimulus or condition-specific patterns of responses distributed over voxels or channels. On this view, one can use standard variational inference procedures to quantify the contributions of particular patterns to the data, by evaluating second-order parameters or hyperparameters. Crucially, this allows one to use parametric empirical Bayes (PEB) to infer which patterns are consistent among subjects. At the between-subject level, one can then …

Using Spatial Release From Masking To Estimate The Magnitude Of The Familiar-Voice Intelligibility Benefit, Ysabel Domingo, Emma Holmes, Ewan Macpherson, Ingrid S. Johnsrude

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

© 2019 Acoustical Society of America. The ability to segregate simultaneous speech streams is crucial for successful communication. Recent studies have demonstrated that participants can report 10%-20% more words spoken by naturally familiar (e.g., friends or spouses) than unfamiliar talkers in two-voice mixtures. This benefit is commensurate with one of the largest benefits to speech intelligibility currently known - that which is gained by spatially separating two talkers. However, because of differences in the methods of these previous studies, the relative benefits of spatial separation and voice familiarity are unclear. Here, the familiar-voice benefit and spatial release from masking are …

A Sound-Sensitive Source Of Alpha Oscillations In Human Non-Primary Auditory Cortex, Alexander J. Billig, Björn Herrmann, Ariane E. Rhone, Phillip E. Gander, Kirill V. Nourski, Beau F. Snoad, Christopher K. Kovach, Hiroto Kawasaki, Matthew A. Howard, Ingrid S. Johnsrude

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

Copyright © 2019 Billig, Herrmann et al. The functional organization of human auditory cortex can be probed by characterizing responses to various classes of sound at different anatomical locations. Along with histological studies this approach has revealed a primary field in posteromedial Heschl's gyrus (HG) with pronounced induced high-frequency (70-150 Hz) activity and short-latency responses that phase-lock to rapid transient sounds. Low-frequency neural oscillations are also relevant to stimulus processing and information flow, however, their distribution within auditory cortex has not been established. Alpha activity (7-14 Hz) in particular has been associated with processes that may differentially engage earlier versus …

An Accurate Registration Of The Bigbrain Dataset With The Mni Pd25 And Icbm152 Atlases., Yiming Xiao, Jonathan C Lau, Taylor Anderson, Jordan Dekraker, D Louis Collins, Terry Peters, Ali R Khan

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

Brain atlases that encompass detailed anatomical or physiological features are instrumental in the research and surgical planning of various neurological conditions. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has played important roles in neuro-image analysis while histological data remain crucial as a gold standard to guide and validate such analyses. With cellular-scale resolution, the BigBrain atlas offers 3D histology of a complete human brain, and is highly valuable to the research and clinical community. To bridge the insights at macro- and micro-levels, accurate mapping of BigBrain and established MRI brain atlases is necessary, but the existing registration is unsatisfactory. The described dataset includes …

A Framework For Evaluating Correspondence Between Brain Images Using Anatomical Fiducials., Jonathan C Lau, Andrew G Parrent, John Demarco, Geetika Gupta, Jason Kai, Olivia W Stanley, Tristan Kuehn, Patrick J Park, Kayla Ferko, Ali R Khan, Terry M Peters

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

Accurate spatial correspondence between template and subject images is a crucial step in neuroimaging studies and clinical applications like stereotactic neurosurgery. In the absence of a robust quantitative approach, we sought to propose and validate a set of point landmarks, anatomical fiducials (AFIDs), that could be quickly, accurately, and reliably placed on magnetic resonance images of the human brain. Using several publicly available brain templates and individual participant datasets, novice users could be trained to place a set of 32 AFIDs with millimetric accuracy. Furthermore, the utility of the AFIDs protocol is demonstrated for evaluating subject-to-template and template-to-template registration. Specifically, …

Teaching Children With Autism To Understand Metaphors, Gabrielle Lee, Sheng Xu, Huiling Zou, Lina Gilic, Michelle M. Lee

Education Publications

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of an instructional procedure on the acquisition and generalization of metaphorical understanding for children with autism spectrum disorder. Three students (two boys, one girl, 5-8 years old) participated but only two completed the study. A multiple-probe design across two behaviors and three participants was used. The metaphors were categorized by topography: metaphors involving physical features and metaphors involving abstract properties. The instruction consisted of intraverbal training using echoic prompts, picture prompts, and textual prompts. The results indicated that the instruction was effective in establishing metaphorical understanding of target metaphors. Generalized …

Stimulus-Locked Responses On Human Upper Limb Muscles And Corrective Reaches Are Preferentially Evoked By Low Spatial Frequencies, Rebecca A. Kozak, Philipp Kreyenmeier, Chao Gu, Kevin Johnston, Brian D. Corneil

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

© 2019 Kozak et al. In situations requiring immediate action, humans can generate visually-guided responses at remarkably short latencies. Here, to better understand the visual attributes that best evoke such rapid responses, we recorded upper limb muscle activity while participants performed visually-guided reaches towards Gabor patches composed of differing spatial frequencies (SFs). We studied reaches initiated from a stable posture (experiment 1, a static condition), or during on-line reach corrections to an abruptly displaced target (experiment 2, a dynamic condition). In both experiments, we detail the latency and prevalence of stimulus-locked responses (SLRs), which are brief bursts of EMG activity …

Thirty-Five Years Of Computerized Cognitive Assessment Of Aging — Where Are We Now?, Avital Sternin, Alistair Burns, Adrian M. Owen

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

Over the past 35 years, the proliferation of technology and the advent of the internet have resulted in many reliable and easy to administer batteries for assessing cognitive function. These approaches have great potential for affecting how the health care system monitors and screens for cognitive changes in the aging population. Here, we review these new technologies with a specific emphasis on what they offer over and above traditional ‘paper-and-pencil’ approaches to assessing cognitive function. Key advantages include fully automated administration and scoring, the interpretation of individual scores within the context of thousands of normative data points, the inclusion of …

Binding During Sequence Learning Does Not Alter Cortical Representations Of Individual Actions, Patrick Beukema, Jörn Diedrichsen, Timothy D. Verstynen

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

Copyright © 2019 the authors. As a sequence of movements is learned, serially ordered actions get bound together into sets to reduce computational complexity during planning and execution. Here, we investigated how actions become naturally bound over the course of learning and how this learning affects cortical representations of individual actions. Across 5 weeks of practice, neurologically healthy human subjects learned either a complex 32-item sequence of finger movements (trained group, n = 9; 3 female) or randomly ordered actions (control group, n = 9; 3 female). Over the course of practice, responses during sequence production in the trained group …

The Interrelated Nature Of Trauma: Exploring The Narratives Of Persons Living With A Family Member Who Has Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Emily Johnson

MA Research Paper

The study of the relationship between work-related post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and the family has commonly been approached from both a psychological and psychiatric perspective. Moreover, these studies have primarily focused on how PTSD impacts familial relationships from the perspective of the individual who has PTSD, while little attention has been placed on the viewpoint of family members. By using data obtained from Beyond Blue and Reddit, the current study aims to redress this gap by directly exploring the perceptions of family members living with an emergency service worker who has PTSD. A qualitative content analysis was conducted using …

Figuring Out How Verb-Particle Constructions Are Understood During L1 And L2 Reading, Mehrgol Tiv, Laura Gonnerman, Veronica Whitford, Deanna Friesen, Debra Jared, Debra Titone

Education Publications

The aim of this paper was to investigate first-language (L1) and second-language (L2) reading of verb particle constructions (VPCs) among English–French bilingual adults. VPCs, or phrasal verbs, are highly common collocations of a verb paired with a particle, such as eat up or chew out, that often convey a figurative meaning. VPCs vary in form (eat up the candy vs. eat the candy up) and in other factors, such as the semantic contribution of the constituent words to the overall meaning (semantic transparency) and frequency. Much like classic forms of idioms, VPCs are difficult for L2 users. Here, we present …

Cortical Beta Oscillations Are Associated With Motor Performance Following Visuomotor Learning, Svenja Espenhahn, Bernadette C.M. Van Wijk, Holly E. Rossiter, Archy O. De Berker, Nell D. Redman, Jane Rondina, Joern Diedrichsen, Nick S. Ward

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

© 2019 The Authors People vary in their capacity to learn and retain new motor skills. Although the relationship between neuronal oscillations in the beta frequency range (15–30 Hz) and motor behaviour is well established, the electrophysiological mechanisms underlying individual differences in motor learning are incompletely understood. Here, we investigated the degree to which measures of resting and movement-related beta power from sensorimotor cortex account for inter-individual differences in motor learning behaviour in the young and elderly. Twenty young (18–30 years) and twenty elderly (62–77 years) healthy adults were trained on a novel wrist flexion/extension tracking task and subsequently retested …

Glucocorticoids And “Stress” Are Not Synonymous, Scott Macdougall-Shackleton

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

Synopsis

Reference to glucocorticoids as “stress hormones” has been growing in prevalence in the literature, including in comparative and environmental endocrinology. Although glucocorticoids are elevated in response to a variety of stressors in vertebrate animals, the primary functions of glucocorticoids are not responding to stressors and they are only one component of complex suite of physiological and behavioral responses to stressors. Thus, the use of the short-hand phrase “stress hormone” can be misleading. Further, simply measuring glucocorticoids is not equivalent to measuring a stress response, nor is manipulating glucocorticoids equivalent to exposing an animal to a stressor. In this commentary …

Late Positive Complex In Event-Related Potentials Tracks Memory Signals When They Are Decision Relevant., Haopei Yang, Geoffrey Laforge, Bobby Stojanoski, Emily S Nichols, Ken Mcrae, Stefan Köhler

Psychology Publications

The Late Positive Complex (LPC) is an Event-Related Potential (ERP) consistently observed in recognition-memory paradigms. In the present study, we investigated whether the LPC tracks the strength of multiple types of memory signals, and whether it does so in a decision dependent manner. For this purpose, we employed judgements of cumulative lifetime exposure to object concepts, and judgements of cumulative recent exposure (i.e., frequency judgements) in a study-test paradigm. A comparison of ERP signatures in relation to degree of prior exposure across the two memory tasks and the study phase revealed that the LPC tracks both types of memory signals, …

Understanding The Neural Bases Of Implicit And Statistical Learning, Laura J. Batterink, Ken A. Paller, Paul J. Reber

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

© 2019 Cognitive Science Society, Inc. Both implicit learning and statistical learning focus on the ability of learners to pick up on patterns in the environment. It has been suggested that these two lines of research may be combined into a single construct of “implicit statistical learning.” However, by comparing the neural processes that give rise to implicit versus statistical learning, we may determine the extent to which these two learning paradigms do indeed describe the same core mechanisms. In this review, we describe current knowledge about neural mechanisms underlying both implicit learning and statistical learning, highlighting converging findings between …

Macaque Anterior Cingulate Cortex Deactivation Impairs Performance And Alters Lateral Prefrontal Oscillatory Activities In A Rule-Switching Task, Liya Ma, Jason L. Chan, Kevin Johnston, Stephen G. Lomber, Stefan Everling

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

© 2019 Ma et al. In primates, both the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) are key regions of the frontoparietal cognitive control network. To study the role of the dACC and its communication with the dlPFC in cognitive control, we recorded local field potentials (LFPs) from the dlPFC before and during the reversible deactivation of the dACC, in macaque monkeys engaging in uncued switches between 2 stimulus-response rules, namely prosaccade and antisaccade. Cryogenic dACC deactivation impaired response accuracy during maintenance of—but not the initial switching to—the cognitively demanding antisaccade rule, which coincided with a …

Dance As A Protective Measure Against The Cognitive And Physical Declines Associated With Aging: A Proposed Study, Sarah M. Schwanz, Jeffrey Holmes, Jessica Grahn

Western Research Forum

Background:

Dance is considered a multimodal activity in that it requires both physical and cognitive engagement. Combining physical activity with music may have a synergistic effect, enabling dance to enhance physical and cognitive functions more than music and physical activity alone. The positive changes attributed to dance training such as improved visuospatial and motor ability, high coordination, greater balance, and increased cognitive ability may also benefit individuals as they age.

Methods:

This proposed study will examine whether dance training has the potential to protect against age-related cognitive and physical decline by assessing the cognitive and physical domains that show decline …

An Empirical Examination Of Contemporary American Spiritualism And Mediumship At Lily Dale, New York, Diana Ali

Western Research Forum

American Spiritualism is an American religion that was born in 1848 in Hydesville, New York. Its central principles state that there is life after death and that mediums have the capability to communicate with discarnate beings. Mediums are persons who claim they can communicate with the dead. Today, Lily Dale, New York is the largest surviving community of American Spiritualism, with a population of mediums that host an annual festival that draws large crowds from around the world upwards of 20,000-30,000 visitors. The author of the present interdisciplinary study outlined a historical overview of American Spiritualism and conducted empirical research …