Neurosciences Commons^™

Corrigendum: Saccade Latency Provides Evidence For Reduced Face Inversion Effects With Higher Autism Traits (Frontiers In Human Neuroscience, (2020), 13, 10.3389/Fnhum.2019.00470), Robin Laycock, Kylie Wood, Andrea Wright, Sheila G. Crewther, Melvyn A. Goodale

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

Copyright © 2020 Laycock, Wood, Wright, Crewther and Goodale. In the original article, there was a mistake in the published legend for Figure 2. The results for the high and low Autism Trait (AT) groups were mistakenly interchanged. The correct legend appears below. Figure 2. (A) Average saccade onset times (SOTs) to detect the photograph containing a face or a car in the upright and inverted tasks for high and low Autism Trait (AT) Groups. (B) Face and car inversion effects, calculated as the difference in mean SOTs between upright and inverted tasks for high and low AT Groups. Error …

Functional Reorganization During The Recovery Of Contralesional Target Selection Deficits After Prefrontal Cortex Lesions In Macaque Monkeys, Ramina Adam, Kevin Johnston, Ravi S. Menon, Stefan Everling

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

© 2019 The Authors Visual extinction has been characterized by the failure to respond to a visual stimulus in the contralesional hemifield when presented simultaneously with an ipsilesional stimulus (Corbetta and Shulman, 2011). Unilateral damage to the macaque frontoparietal cortex commonly leads to deficits in contralesional target selection that resemble visual extinction. Recently, we showed that macaque monkeys with unilateral lesions in the caudal prefrontal cortex (PFC) exhibited contralesional target selection deficits that recovered over 2–4 months (Adam et al., 2019). Here, we investigated the longitudinal changes in functional connectivity (FC) of the frontoparietal network after a small or large …

Neural Representations Of Phonology In Temporal Cortex Scaffold Longitudinal Reading Gains In 5- To 7-Year-Old Children, Jin Wang, Marc F. Joanisse, James R. Booth

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

© 2019 Elsevier Inc. The objective of this study was to investigate whether phonological processes measured through brain activation are crucial for the development of reading skill (i.e. scaffolding hypothesis) and/or whether learning to read words fine-tunes phonology in the brain (i.e. refinement hypothesis). We specifically looked at how different grain sizes in two brain regions implicated in phonological processing played a role in this bidirectional relation. According to the dual-stream model of speech processing and previous empirical studies, the posterior superior temporal gyrus (STG) appears to be a perceptual region associated with phonological representations, whereas the dorsal inferior frontal …

Striatum-Mediated Deficits In Stimulus-Response Learning And Decision-Making In Ocd, Nole M. Hiebert, Marc R. Lawrence, Hooman Ganjavi, Mark Watling, Adrian M. Owen, Ken N. Seergobin, Penny A. Macdonald

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

© Copyright © 2020 Hiebert, Lawrence, Ganjavi, Watling, Owen, Seergobin and MacDonald. Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) is a prevalent psychiatric disorder characterized by obsessions and compulsions. Studies investigating symptomatology and cognitive deficits in OCD frequently implicate the striatum. The aim of this study was to explore striatum-mediated cognitive deficits in patients with OCD as they complete a stimulus-response learning task previously shown to differentially rely on the dorsal (DS) and ventral striatum (VS). We hypothesized that patients with OCD will show both impaired decision-making and learning, coupled with reduced task-relevant activity in DS and VS, respectively, compared to healthy controls. …

Hippocampal Subfields Revealed Through Unfolding And Unsupervised Clustering Of Laminar And Morphological Features In 3d Bigbrain, J. Dekraker, J. C. Lau, K. M. Ferko, A. R. Khan, S. Köhler

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

© 2019 Elsevier Inc. The internal structure of the human hippocampus is challenging to map using histology or neuroimaging due to its complex archicortical folding. Here, we aimed to overcome this challenge using a unique combination of three methods. First, we leveraged a histological dataset with unprecedented 3D coverage, BigBrain. Second, we imposed a computational unfolding framework that respects the topological continuity of hippocampal subfields, which are traditionally defined by laminar composition. Third, we adapted neocortical parcellation techniques to map the hippocampus with respect to not only laminar but also morphological features. Unsupervised clustering of these features revealed subdivisions that …

Saccade Latency Provides Evidence For Reduced Face Inversion Effects With Higher Autism Traits, Robin Laycock, Kylie Wood, Andrea Wright, Sheila G. Crewther, Melvyn A. Goodale

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

© Copyright © 2020 Laycock, Wood, Wright, Crewther and Goodale. Individuals on the autism spectrum are reported to show impairments in the processing of social information, including aspects of eye-movements towards faces. Abnormalities in basic-level visual processing are also reported. In the current study, we sought to determine if the latency of saccades made towards social targets (faces) in a natural scene as opposed to inanimate targets (cars) would be related to sub-clinical autism traits (ATs) in individuals drawn from a neurotypical population. The effect of stimulus inversion was also examined given that difficulties with processing inverted faces are thought …

Comparison Of Resting-State Functional Connectivity In Marmosets With Tracer-Based Cellular Connectivity, Yuki Hori, David J. Schaeffer, Kyle M. Gilbert, Lauren K. Hayrynen, Justine C. Cléry, Joseph S. Gati, Ravi S. Menon, Stefan Everling

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

© 2019 Elsevier Inc. Resting-state functional MRI (RS-fMRI) is widely used to assess how strongly different brain areas are connected. However, this connection obtained by RS-fMRI, which is called functional connectivity (FC), simply refers to the correlation of blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) signals across time it has yet to be quantified how accurately FC reflects cellular connectivity (CC). In this study, we elucidated this relationship using RS-fMRI and quantitative tracer data in marmosets. In addition, we also elucidated the effects of distance between two brain regions on the relationship between FC and CC across seed region. To calculate FC, we …

Depressogenic Self-Schemas Are Associated With Smaller Regional Grey Matter Volume In Never-Depressed Preadolescents, Pan Liu, Matthew R.J. Vandemeer, Marc F. Joanisse, Deanna M. Barch, David J.A. Dozois, Elizabeth P. Hayden

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

© 2020 The Author(s) Self-referential processing (i.e., self-schemas that guide processing of self-descriptive information) emerges early in youth, with deeper encoding of negative self-descriptors and/or shallower encoding of positive self-descriptors causally linked to depression. However, the relationship between depressogenic self-schemas and brain structure is unclear. We investigated associations between self-schemas and regional grey matter volume (GMV) in 84 never-depressed preadolescents oversampled for depression risk based on maternal depression history. Self-schemas were assessed using a Self-Referent Encoding Task (SRET) and regional GMV was indexed via voxel-based morphometry analysis of structural magnetic resonance imaging data. Youths’ positive self-schemas were associated with greater …

Orbitofrontal Cortex Grey Matter Volume Is Related To Children's Depressive Symptoms, Matthew R.J. Vandermeer, Pan Liu, Ola Mohamed Ali, Andrew R. Daoust, Marc F. Joanisse, Deanna M. Barch, Elizabeth P. Hayden

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

© 2020 The Author(s) Adults with a history of depression show distinct patterns of grey matter volume (GMV) in frontal cortical (e.g., prefrontal cortex, orbitofrontal cortex) and limbic (e.g., anterior cingulate, amygdala, hippocampus, dorsal striatum) structures, regions relevant to the processing and regulation of reward, which is impaired in the context of depression. However, it is unclear whether these GMV associations with depression precede depressive disorder onset or whether GMV is related to early emerging symptoms or familial depression. To address these questions, we used voxel-based morphometry (VBM) to examine GMV in 85 community-dwelling children (M = 11.12 years, SD …

Language Dominance Modulates The Perception Of Spanish Approximants In Late Bilinguals, Martha Black, Marc F. Joanisse, Yasaman Rafat

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

© 2020 by the authors. The ability to discriminate phonetically similar first language (L1) and second language (L2) sounds has significant consequences for achieving target-like proficiency in second-language learners. This study examines the L2 perception of Spanish approximants [Β, δ, γ] in comparison with their voiced stop counterparts [b, d, g] by adult English-Spanish bilinguals. Of interest is how perceptual effects are modulated by factors related to language dominance, including proficiency, language history, attitudes, and L1/L2 use, as measured by the Bilingual Language Profile questionnaire. Perception of target phones was assessed in adult native Spanish speakers (n = 10) and …

Absorption And Enjoyment During Listening To Acoustically Masked Stories, Björn Herrmann, Ingrid S. Johnsrude

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

© The Author(s) 2020. Comprehension of speech masked by background sound requires increased cognitive processing, which makes listening effortful. Research in hearing has focused on such challenging listening experiences, in part because they are thought to contribute to social withdrawal in people with hearing impairment. Research has focused less on positive listening experiences, such as enjoyment, despite their potential importance in motivating effortful listening. Moreover, the artificial speech materials—such as disconnected, brief sentences—commonly used to investigate speech intelligibility and listening effort may be ill-suited to capture positive experiences when listening is challenging. Here, we investigate how listening to naturalistic spoken …

Speech Spoken By Familiar People Is More Resistant To Interference By Linguistically Similar Speech, Emma Holmes, Ingrid S. Johnsrude

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

© 2020 American Psychological Association. Understanding speech in adverse conditions is affected by experience-a familiar voice is substantially more intelligible than an unfamiliar voice when competing speech is present, even if the content of the speech (the words) are controlled. This familiar-voice benefit is observed consistently, but its underpinnings are unclear: Do familiar voices simply attract more attention, are they inherently more intelligible because they have predictable acoustic characteristics, or are they more intelligible in a mixture because they are more resistant to interference from other sounds? We recruited pairs of native English-speaking participants who were friends or romantic couples. …

Pupil Dilation Is Sensitive To Semantic Ambiguity And Acoustic Degradation, Mason Kadem, Björn Herrmann, Jennifer M. Rodd, Ingrid S. Johnsrude

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

© The Author(s) 2020. Speech comprehension is challenged by background noise, acoustic interference, and linguistic factors, such as the presence of words with more than one meaning (homonyms and homophones). Previous work suggests that homophony in spoken language increases cognitive demand. Here, we measured pupil dilation—a physiological index of cognitive demand—while listeners heard high-ambiguity sentences, containing words with more than one meaning, or well-matched low-ambiguity sentences without ambiguous words. This semantic-ambiguity manipulation was crossed with an acoustic manipulation in two experiments. In Experiment 1, sentences were masked with 30-talker babble at 0 and +6 dB signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), and in …

Social Symptoms Of Parkinson's Disease, Margaret T.M. Prenger, Racheal Madray, Kathryne Van Hedger, Mimma Anello, Penny A. Macdonald

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

© 2020 Margaret T. M. Prenger et al. Parkinson's disease (PD) is typically well recognized by its characteristic motor symptoms (e.g., bradykinesia, rigidity, and tremor). The cognitive symptoms of PD are increasingly being acknowledged by clinicians and researchers alike. However, PD also involves a host of emotional and communicative changes which can cause major disruptions to social functioning. These incude problems producing emotional facial expressions (i.e., facial masking) and emotional speech (i.e., dysarthria), as well as difficulties recognizing the verbal and nonverbal emotional cues of others. These social symptoms of PD can result in severe negative social consequences, including stigma, …

Deviant Cortical Sulcation Related To Schizophrenia And Cognitive Deficits In The Second Trimester, Michael Lloyd Mackinley, Priyadharshini Sabesan, Lena Palaniyappan

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

Aberrant cortical development, inferred from cortical folding, is linked to the risk of schizophrenia. Cortical folds develop in a time-locked fashion during fetal growth. We leveraged this temporal specificity of sulcation to investigate the timing of the prenatal insult linked to schizophrenia and the cognitive impairment seen in this illness. Anatomical MRI scans from 68 patients with schizophrenia and 72 controls were used to evaluate the sulcal depth of five major invariable primary sulci representing lobar development (calcarine sulcus, superior temporal sulcus, superior frontal sulcus, intraparietal sulcus and inferior frontal sulcus) with formation representing the distinct developmental periods. A repeated-measure …

Will "Social Distancing" Lead To Future "Research Distancing": A Reflection On Covid-19 Impacts On Alzheimer's Disease Research, Shoshana H. Bardach, Allison K. Gibson, Elizabeth K. Rhodus, Gregory A. Jicha

Sanders-Brown Center on Aging Faculty Publications

Coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) has dramatically altered everyday life, including the field of Alzheimer's disease (AD) research. This perspective article explores some of the ways in which COVID-19 has already impacted the field, anticipates some of the long-lasting effects, and explores strategies for addressing current and future needs. Areas of impact include study integrity, regulatory and industry issues, and participant engagement. Proposed strategies for addressing these challenges include analytic methods to deal with large degrees of missing data and development of patient-centered, user-friendly, remote data collection tools and assessments. We also highlight the importance of maintaining participant well-being as a …

Spatial Memory And Executive Functioning In The Goto-Kakizaki Rat Model Of Diabetes, Lorielle Dietze

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Type 2 diabetes mellitus is a disease that adversely affects cognitive function in areas extending to memory and executive functioning. The Goto-Kakizaki (GK) rat provides a model of type 2 diabetes that can illustrate the mechanisms by which this disease works. The present study compared hyperglycaemic GK rats and age-matched Wistar rats in the Morris water maze to assess spatial memory, and in a perceptual attentional set-shifting task to assess putative prefrontal-dependent executive functioning. Results showed there was no difference in path length during training trials, however, GK and Wistar rats differed in the path length travelled in the target …

Measuring The Effects Of Lobinaline-N-Bioxide (419) On Alcohol Consumption, Nicotine Locomotor Sensitization, And Conditioned Place Preference In Mice And Rats, Cocanut M. Suhail

Theses and Dissertations--Medical Sciences

Objective: Novel drug 419 was examined to see the effect it has in vivo mice and rats on alcohol consumption, nicotine locomotor sensitization, and conditioned place preference (CPP) models regarding behavioral tests on dopamine transporter activity.

Methods: Mice and rats were used to see how they react to the drug 419 and control vehicle, in each of the models. The animals were assessed to pre- and post- drug administration of novel drug 419. We examined each model to see the association between how drug 419 will help with treating drug abuse.

Results: We found that in alcohol consumption model the …

Mechanisms Of Value-Biased Prioritization In Fast Sensorimotor Decision Making, Kivilcim Afacan-Seref

Dissertations and Theses

In dynamic environments, split-second sensorimotor decisions must be prioritized according to potential payoffs to maximize overall rewards. The impact of relative value on deliberative perceptual judgments has been examined extensively, but relatively little is known about value-biasing mechanisms in the common situation where physical evidence is strong but the time to act is severely limited. This research examines the behavioral and electrophysiological indices of how value biases split-second perceptual decisions and the possible mechanisms underlying the process. In prominent decision models, a noisy but statistically stationary representation of sensory evidence is integrated over time to an action-triggering bound, and value-biases …

Hippocampal Cholinergic Function And Exploratory Behavior Throughout Development In A Genetic Mouse Model Of Alzheimer’S Disease, Ashley Andrea Blackwell

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Dementia of the Alzheimer’s type is the most common form of dementia, affecting millions of people worldwide. Specific genetic mutations increase Alzheimer’s disease-related neuropathology and cognitive impairments. Deficits are observed in spatial orientation throughout the progression of Alzheimer’s disease, including wandering behavior or becoming lost in a familiar environment. Dementia of the Alzheimer’s type patients also exhibit disruptions in radial optic flow, which underlies self-movement cue processing. Currently, no treatments exist for Alzheimer’s disease. Genetic mouse models of Alzheimer’s disease have been developed to investigate the disease onset and progression and, further, to evaluate potential therapies and behavioral assessments. As …

Words Have A Weight: Language As A Source Of Inner Grounding And Flexibility In Abstract Concepts, Guy Dove, Laura Barca, Luca Tummolini, Anna M. Borghi

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

The role played by language in our cognitive lives is a topic at the centre of contemporary debates in cognitive (neuro)science. In this paper we illustrate and compare two theories that offer embodied explanations of this role: the WAT (Words As social Tools) and the LENS (Language is an Embodied Neuroenhancement and Scaffold) theories. WAT and LENS differ from other current proposals because they connect the impact of the neurologically realized language system on our cognition to the ways in which language shapes our interaction with the physical and social environment. Examining these theories together, their tenets and supporting evidence, …

Investigating The Behavioral Effects Of Juvenile Stress In The Prairie Vole Model, Marigny C. Normann

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Early life stress during the juvenile period, such as emotional neglect, interpersonal difficulties, or other forms of non-violent maltreatment can have consequences into adulthood. Specifically, the negative effects include increased risk of psychiatric or physical illnesses, social deficits, and maladaptive behavioral responses to stress. Since these effects have far-reaching implications that can negatively alter later behavior and physiology, the present study assessed the effects of early life social stress on later social and affective behaviors in a social rodent species – the prairie vole. The prairie vole displays behavioral, cardiovascular, and neuroendocrine responses to social stress similar to those of …

The Role Of Medial Septum Cholinergic Function In Processing Self-Movement Cues To Maintain Spatial Orientation, Jenna Rae Osterlund

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Wandering is the most life-threatening and commonly reported symptom of Alzheimer’s Disease (AD), a neurodegenerative disorder characterized by an inability to maintain spatial orientation. The often deadly consequences of wandering are projected to rise in the coming decades due to the advancing aged population. These upcoming challenges necessitate a more comprehensive understanding of the neurobiology of spatial orientation in order to evaluate novel therapeutic techniques for symptoms such as wandering. The inability to maintain spatial orientation in AD may be due to the pathological degeneration of the hippocampal cholinergic system. This neurological system is conserved across species for its function …

Ultrafast Two-Photon Imaging Of A High-Gain Voltage Indicator In Awake Behaving Mice, Vincent Villette, Mariya Chavarha, Ivan K Dimov, Jonathan Bradley, Lagnajeet Pradhan, Benjamin Mathieu, Stephen W Evans, Simon Chamberland, Dongqing Shi, Renzhi Yang, Benjamin B Kim, Annick Ayon, Abdelali Jalil, François St-Pierre, Mark J Schnitzer, Guoqiang Bi, Katalin Toth, Jun Ding, Stéphane Dieudonné, Michael Z Lin

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Optical interrogation of voltage in deep brain locations with cellular resolution would be immensely useful for understanding how neuronal circuits process information. Here, we report ASAP3, a genetically encoded voltage indicator with 51% fluorescence modulation by physiological voltages, submillisecond activation kinetics, and full responsivity under two-photon excitation. We also introduce an ultrafast local volume excitation (ULoVE) method for kilohertz-rate two-photon sampling in vivo with increased stability and sensitivity. Combining a soma-targeted ASAP3 variant and ULoVE, we show single-trial tracking of spikes and subthreshold events for minutes in deep locations, with subcellular resolution and with repeated sampling over days. In 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 …

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 …