Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Theodore P. Zanto, Vinith Johnson, Avery Ostrand, Adam Gazzaley
Summary: The study suggests that musical rhythm training improves short-term memory for nonmusical tasks, such as face recognition. EEG data shows that the training does not change neural activity related to sensory processing and selective attention, but it enhances neural activity associated with short-term memory encoding. The results indicate that musical rhythm training can enhance memory performance on nonmusical tasks by altering brain activity in specific regions.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
(2022)
Article
Neurosciences
Ying Cai, Jacqueline M. Fulvio, Jason Samaha, Bradley R. R. Postie
Summary: This study investigates the sensitivity of contralateral delay activity (CDA) to context-binding demands in visual working memory (VWM). The results of two experiments support that CDA tracks the number of object files engaged by VWM and establishes that it is not sensitive to context-binding demands.
Article
Neurosciences
Ya-Ting Chen, Freek van Ede, Bo-Cheng Kuo
Summary: This study investigates the neural basis of working memory capacity by exploiting the content dependence of memory materials. The results show that alpha oscillations track memory capacity in a content-specific manner, dependent not only on the number of items but also on their complexity.
JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE
(2022)
Article
Neurosciences
Pin-Hsuan Chen, Pei-Luen Patrick Rau
Summary: This study investigates the relationship between boredom and prospective memory, and finds that parietal oscillations and parietooccipital oscillations mediate this relationship. The default mode network and visual processing during boredom are also found to be related to prospective memory. These findings suggest the importance of attention management and visual information processing in coping with boredom.
FRONTIERS IN NEUROSCIENCE
(2022)
Article
Psychology, Biological
William X. Q. Ngiam, Kirsten C. S. Adam, Colin Quirk, Edward K. Vogel, Edward Awh
Summary: The study provides a comprehensive analysis on the statistical power required for reliable results with the contralateral delay activity (CDA). The number of trials and subjects needed is dependent on the effect size, with a difference in CDA amplitude requiring a substantially larger number of trials and subjects for reliable detection. Researchers are recommended to consider the estimated effect size when designing experiments to detect set-size differences in the CDA.
Article
Neurosciences
Eva Breitinger, Lena Pokorny, Lea Biermann, Tomasz A. Jarczok, Neil M. Dundon, Veit Roessner, Stephan Bender
Summary: This study found that blind participants outperformed sighted participants in a tactile short-term memory task, showing higher tCDA amplitudes over somatosensory areas, and differences in the interplay between frontal and somatosensory areas in this task.
Article
Neurosciences
Fang-Wen Chen, Chun-Hui Li, Bo-Cheng Kuo
Summary: This study investigated the effects of temporal expectations on neural responses and subsequent performance during the retention interval of working memory (WM). The results showed that smaller duration variability and predictable experimental tasks led to greater alpha-power attenuation over the left frontal and parietal regions during WM retention. Moreover, there was a positive relationship between alpha-power attenuation in the left posterior parietal regions and the variability difference in the response benefit. Overall, these findings suggest the importance of temporal expectations in WM maintenance.
Article
Psychology, Biological
Tobias Feldmann-Wustefeld
Summary: The change detection task is a widely used paradigm to examine visual working memory processes. The study proposes a novel change detection task in which both CDA and NSW can be measured at the same time. Results showed that CDA, NSW, and decoding accuracy predicted an individual's working memory capacity.
Article
Computer Science, Information Systems
Chunyu Liu, Yi Kang, Lingxi Zhang, Jiacai Zhang
Summary: Recent studies have found that short-time dynamic functional connectivity (FC) patterns have high accuracy in decoding visual categories, with the most stable patterns extracted within the 0-200 ms window after the stimulus onset.
IEEE JOURNAL OF BIOMEDICAL AND HEALTH INFORMATICS
(2021)
Article
Neurosciences
Orhan Soyuhos, Daniel Baldauf
Summary: Neuroimaging evidence suggests that the frontal eye field (FEF) and inferior frontal junction (IFJ) have distinct connectivity patterns that fit their respective functional roles in spatial and nonspatial top-down attention and working memory control. FEF has predominant functional coupling with spatiotopically organized regions in the dorsal visual stream, while IFJ has predominant functional connectivity with the ventral visual stream. These intrinsic connectivity fingerprints are congruent with each brain region's function.
EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE
(2023)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Jasper H. Fabius, Alessio Fracasso, Michele Deodato, David Melcher, Stefan Van der Stigchel
Summary: To distinguish eye movements from actual external motion of objects, the visual system is believed to anticipate the consequences of eye movements. This study used magnetoencephalography to investigate the timing and lateralization of visually evoked planar gradients before saccade onset. The results showed a widespread increase in residual planar gradients, indicating predictive pre-saccadic changes involving both the current and future receptive fields.
SCIENTIFIC REPORTS
(2023)
Article
Neurosciences
Xinping Deng, Jue Wang, Yufeng Zang, Yang Li, Wenjin Fu, Yanyan Su, Xiongying Chen, Boqi Du, Qi Dong, Chuansheng Chen, Jun Li
Summary: This study identified the crucial role of the parietal cortex in working memory storage and found that repeated parietal intermittent theta-burst stimulation (iTBS) can improve neural indicators of working memory. However, further optimization is needed to produce a behavioral effect.
HUMAN BRAIN MAPPING
(2022)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Marte Otten, Anil Seth, Yair Pinto
Summary: Perception can be influenced by our expectations, leading to perceptual illusions. Similarly, long-term memories can be shaped by our expectations, resulting in false memories. However, it is generally believed that short-term memories accurately reflect the perceptual information from just a few seconds ago. This study demonstrates that within this timeframe, participants transition from accurately reporting the sensory information to confidently reporting their expectations, indicating that expectations can reshape short-term memories.
Article
Neurosciences
Jacqueline M. Fulvio, Qing Yu, Bradley R. Postle
Summary: Working memory requires encoding stimulus identity and context. The posterior parietal cortex (PPC) plays a crucial role in controlling the representation of stimulus context in visual working memory (WM), showing sensitivity to context binding requirements and domain.
Article
Psychology, Biological
Yanzhang Chen, Sabrina Brigadoi, Arianna Schiano Lomoriello, Pierre Jolicoeur, Amour Simal, Shimin Fu, Valentina Baro, Roberto Dell'Acqua
Summary: This study investigated the performance of sustained posterior contralateral negativity (SPCN) on the lateral and vertical meridians, and found that on the vertical meridian, SPCN appeared as bilateral SPCNb. Additionally, the study revealed similarities and important differences between N2pcb and SPCNb in terms of parameters and topography, suggesting distinct neural sources.
Article
Geriatrics & Gerontology
Juho M. Strommer, Simon W. Davis, Richard N. Henson, Lorraine K. Tyler, Cam-Can, Karen L. Campbell
JOURNALS OF GERONTOLOGY SERIES A-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES AND MEDICAL SCIENCES
(2020)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Kathy Y. Liu, Rogier A. Kievit, Kamen A. Tsvetanov, Matthew J. Betts, Emrah Duezel, James B. Rowe, Robert Howard, Dorothea Haemmerer
NATURE COMMUNICATIONS
(2020)
Article
Neurosciences
Verity Smith, John Duncan, Daniel J. Mitchell
Summary: The study revealed that the default mode network (DMN) in the brain becomes more active during decision-making based on naturalistic contexts compared to symbolic cues. While anterior DMN regions are sensitive to the need for contextual control, posterior DMN regions are responsible for processing contextual content and showing stronger representation of the significance of the modulated sound.
JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE
(2021)
Article
Behavioral Sciences
Verity Smith, Clara Pinasco, Jascha Achterberg, Daniel J. Mitchell, Tilak Das, Maria Roca, John Duncan
Summary: Naturalistic tasks can capture cognitive deficits beyond those measured by fluid intelligence, suggesting that these deficits may not arise from specific control operations required by complex behavior.
Article
Neurosciences
Chiara Caldinelli, Rhodri Cusack
Summary: The fronto-parietal network (FPN) is considered crucial for cognitively demanding tasks, however, it is not necessarily the most flexible hub in the brain. It may only exhibit flexibility in specific task sets.
HUMAN BRAIN MAPPING
(2022)
Article
Behavioral Sciences
Elizabeth Musz, Rita Loiotile, Janice Chen, Rhodri Cusack, Marina Bedny
Summary: This study investigated the impact of life experiences on cortical function. In individuals who are born blind, the visual cortices can be recruited during nonvisual tasks. The study found that visual cortices have a latent capacity to respond to nonvisual information. This repurposing is particularly possible during the sensitive period of heightened plasticity in childhood.
Article
Psychology, Biological
Sinead O'Brien, Daniel J. Mitchell, John Duncan, Joni Holmes
Summary: The ability to segment complex problems into smaller parts is important for problem-solving and reasoning, both for adults and children.
QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Neurosciences
Mikiko Kadohisa, Makoto Kusunoki, Daniel J. Mitchell, Cheshta Bhatia, Mark J. Buckley, John Duncan
Summary: The ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (vlPFC), dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC), and temporal cortex (TE) all have an impact on visual decision-making. It seems that vlPFC plays a crucial role in various cognitive operations, similar to the domain-general regions of the human frontal lobe. Monkeys were trained to perform a task that involved learning, retrieval, and spatial selection of rewarded target objects. Neural activity recordings showed that vlPFC played a central role in each cognitive operation, coding strongly for each task feature, while dlPFC primarily coded for location and TE coded for current object identity. During target selection, the location information was communicated from vlPFC to dlPFC, followed by extensive mutual support. In vlPFC, stimulus identities were independently coded for different task operations. These findings highlight the importance of the inferior frontal convexity in controlling successive operations of a complex, multi-step task.
Article
Neurosciences
Selma Lugtmeijer, Linda Geerligs, Kamen A. Tsvetanov, Daniel J. Mitchell, Cam-CAN, Karen L. Campbell
Summary: Working memory declines throughout adulthood and the neural mechanisms underlying this decline are limited. This study used a lifespan cohort and a whole-brain approach to investigate age-related changes in working memory load-modulated functional connectivity. Results showed that functional connectivity strength decreased with increasing age throughout the cortex, but the relationship between connectivity and behavior was non-significant.
Article
Psychology, Mathematical
John Duncan, Emily Phillips, Daniel J. Mitchell, Peter J. Cooper, Lynne Murray
Summary: A study found that parent-child interaction may play an important role in intelligence development. The study recruited 162 parents and their 2-4-year-old children, and found that parental provision of cognitive structure to shape child behavior was associated with parental intelligence, education, and family income. Importantly, this behavior remained predictive of child intelligence even after considering these factors.
PSYCHONOMIC BULLETIN & REVIEW
(2023)
Article
Neurosciences
Katrin Karadachka, Moataz Assem, Daniel J. Mitchell, John Duncan, W. Pieter Medendorp, Rogier B. Mars
Summary: This study used diffusion MRI to investigate the white matter pathways connecting areas of the human Multiple Demand Network and found similar pathways in the macaque monkey. The results also showed that the connections within the Multiple Demand Network are more pronounced in the human brain compared with the macaque.
Article
Neurosciences
Anna Truzzi, Rhodri Cusack
Summary: In humans, different brain regions have distinct timescales of information integration, and these timescales are related to cognitive performance and clinical symptoms. It is still not clear how these timescales develop. This study used resting state fMRI to investigate the timescales in newborns and adults. The results showed that newborns have longer timescales compared to adults, especially in unimodal regions, suggesting that these timescales act as an inductive bias and develop with experience. This initial slow approach might help infants to create more regularized and holistic representations of inputs, favoring the development of abstract and contextual representations.
Correction
Linguistics
Lucy J. MacGregor, Rebecca A. Gilbert, Zuzanna Balewski, Daniel J. Mitchell, Sharon W. Erzinclioglu, Jennifer M. Rodd, John Duncan, Evelina Fedorenko, Matthew H. Davis
NEUROBIOLOGY OF LANGUAGE
(2023)
Article
Linguistics
Lucy J. MacGregor, Rebecca A. Gilbert, Zuzanna Balewski, Daniel J. Mitchell, Sharon W. Erzinclioglu, Jennifer M. Rodd, John Duncan, Evelina Fedorenko, Matthew H. Davis
Summary: The study investigated the role of domain-general multiple demand (MD) regions and domain-selective language regions in understanding language, finding that the MD network plays a key role in processing speech with acoustic degradation, while language regions are more involved in updating word meaning preferences.
NEUROBIOLOGY OF LANGUAGE
(2022)
Article
Gerontology
Meredith A. Shafto, Richard N. Henson, Fiona E. Matthews, Jason R. Taylor, Tina Emery, Sharon Erzinclioglu, Claire Hanley, James B. Rowe, Rhodri Cusack, Andrew J. Calder, William D. Marslen-Wilson, John Duncan, Tim Dalgleish, Carol Brayne, Lorraine K. Tyler
JOURNAL OF AGING AND HEALTH
(2020)