NeuroImage
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Anatomical, clinical and imaging findings suggest that the cerebellum is engaged in cognitive and affective functions as well as motor control. Evidence from converging modalities also indicates that there is a functional topography in the human cerebellum for overt control of movement vs. higher functions, such that the cerebellum can be divided into zones depending on connectivity with sensorimotor vs. multimodal association cortices. Using functional MRI, we show that regions active during overt movement differ from those involved in higher-level language, spatial processing and working memory tasks. ⋯ The cerebellar functional topography identified in this study reflects the involvement of different cerebro-cerebellar circuits depending on the demands of the task being performed: overt movement activated sensorimotor cortices along with contralateral cerebellar lobules IV-V and VIII, whereas more cognitively demanding tasks engaged prefrontal and parietal cortices along with cerebellar lobules VI and VII. These findings provide further support for a cerebellar role in both motor and cognitive tasks, and better establish the existence of functional subregions in the cerebellum. Future studies are needed to determine the exact contribution of the cerebellum - and different cerebro-cerebellar circuits - to task performance.
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Emotions are complex events recruiting distributed cortical and subcortical cerebral structures, where the functional integration dynamics within the involved neural circuits in relation to the nature of the different emotions are still unknown. Using fMRI, we measured the neural responses elicited by films representing basic emotions (fear, disgust, sadness, happiness). The amygdala and the associative cortex were conjointly activated by all basic emotions. ⋯ Such findings informed the definition of three effective connectivity models, testing for the functional integration of visual cortex and amygdala, as regions processing all emotions, with domain-specific regions, namely: i) for fear, the frontoparietal system involved in preparing adaptive motor responses; ii) for disgust, the somatosensory system, reflecting protective responses against contaminating stimuli; iii) for happiness: medial prefrontal and temporoparietal cortices involved in understanding joyful interactions. Consistently with these domain-specific models, the results of the effective connectivity analysis indicate that the amygdala is involved in distinct functional integration effects with cortical networks processing sensorimotor, somatosensory, or cognitive aspects of basic emotions. The resulting effective connectivity networks may serve to regulate motor and cognitive behavior based on the quality of the induced emotional experience.
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Magnetization transfer (MT) reflects the exchange of magnetization between protons bound to macromolecules, such as lipids and proteins, and protons in free liquid, and thus might be an early marker for subtle and undetermined pathologic changes in tissue. Detailed analysis of the entire MT phenomenon, however, commonly requires extensive data acquisition and scanning time, and hence is only of limited clinical interest. Therefore, in practice, magnetization transfer effects are commonly confined into a simple ratio measure, the so-called magnetization transfer ratio (MTR), calculated from a MT-weighted and a non-MT-weighted image. ⋯ Structures with highly similar MTR-values, such as the crus cerebri and the anterior commissure in the WM, or the pallidum and the amygdala in the GM, however, were also found that showed significant differences in most quantitative parameters. This observation was confirmed from simulations revealing that the overall effect on MTR from an increase (decrease) in relaxation times may be counterbalanced with a decrease (increase) in MT parameters. These findings corroborate the expectation that qMT is superior to MTR imaging, especially for the evaluation and assessment of pathologic or physiological changes in healthy and pathologic brain tissue.
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Prior studies have documented a range of brain changes that occur as a result of healthy aging as well as neural alterations due to profound dysregulation in vascular health such as extreme hypertension, cerebrovascular disease and stroke. In contrast, little information exists about the more transitionary state between the normal and abnormal physiology that contributes to vascular disease and cognitive decline. Specifically, little information exists with regard to the influence of systemic vascular physiology on brain tissue structure in older individuals with low risk for cerebrovascular disease and with no evidence of cognitive impairment. ⋯ Associations between MABP and white matter integrity followed spatial patterns resembling those often attributed to the effects of chronological age, suggesting that systemic cerebrovascular health may play a role in neural tissue degeneration classically ascribed to aging. These results demonstrate the importance of the consideration of vascular physiology in studies of cognitive and neural aging, and that this significance extends to even the normotensive and medically controlled population. These data additionally suggest that optimal management of blood pressure may require consideration of the more subtle influence of vascular health on neural health in addition to the primary goal of prevention of a major cerebrovascular event.
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Group decisions and even aggregation of multiple opinions lead to greater decision accuracy, a phenomenon known as collective wisdom. Little is known about the neural basis of collective wisdom and whether its benefits arise in late decision stages or in early sensory coding. Here, we use electroencephalography and multi-brain computing with twenty humans making perceptual decisions to show that combining neural activity across brains increases decision accuracy paralleling the improvements shown by aggregating the observers' opinions. ⋯ Estimation of the potential for the collective to execute fast decisions by combining information across numerous brains, a strategy prevalent in many animals, shows large time-savings. Together, the findings suggest that for perceptual decisions the neural activity supporting collective wisdom and decisions arises in early sensory stages and that many properties of collective cognition are explainable by the neural coding of information across multiple brains. Finally, our methods highlight the potential of multi-brain computing as a technique to rapidly and in parallel gather increased information about the environment as well as to access collective perceptual/cognitive choices and mental states.