Interactions between the anterior cingulate-insula network and the fronto-parietal network during perceptual decision-making

Abstract

Information processing in the human brain during cognitively demanding goal-directed tasks is thought to involve several large-scale brain networks, including the anterior cingulate-insula network (aCIN) and the fronto-parietal network (FPN). Recent functional MRI (fMRI) studies have provided clues that the aCIN initiates activity changes in the FPN. However, when and how often these networks interact remains largely unknown to date. Here, we systematically examined the oscillatory interactions between the aCIN and the FPN by using the spectral Granger causality analysis of reconstructed brain source signals from the scalp electroencephalography (EEG) recorded from human participants performing a face-house perceptual categorization task. We investigated how the aCIN and the FPN interact, what the temporal sequence of events in these nodes is, and what frequency bands of information flow bind these nodes in networks. We found that beta band (13-30Hz) and gamma (30-100Hz) bands of interactions are involved between the aCIN and the FPN during decision-making tasks. In gamma band, the aCIN initiated the Granger causal control over the FPN in 25-225 ms timeframe. In beta band, the FPN achieved a control over the aCIN in 225-425 ms timeframe. These band-specific time-dependent Granger causal controls of the aCIN and the FPN were retained for behaviorally harder decision-making tasks. These findings of times and frequencies of oscillatory interactions in the aCIN and FPN provide us new insights into the general neural mechanisms for sensory information-guided, goal-directed behaviors, including perceptual decision-making processes.

Racial Differences in Insular Connectivity and Thickness and Related Cognitive Impairment in Hypertension

“…Here we used Granger causality although other methods such as dynamic causal modeling, directed transfer function, and partial directed coherence provide the similar goals and results (Bajaj et al, 2016; Chand et al, 2016). The main benefits of using Granger causality are that it is a data-driven method and therefore computes the information flow based on the data itself at the nodes and networks level, relies on fewer assumptions about the underlying interactions, and does not need computationally intensive time/efforts as opposed to other methods such as dynamical causal modeling (Stephan et al, 2010; Chand and Dhamala, 2016b, 2017). Recent studies by our group and by other groups have successfully applied Granger causality to resting state and/or task fMRI data in both health and disease and have produced meaningful results in terms of information flow at the brain nodes and networks (Sridharan et al, 2008; Chiong et al, 2013; Liang et al, 2014; Bajaj et al, 2016; Chand and Dhamala, 2016a).…”

“…Literature suggests that the insula and anterior cingulate cortex—the key regions of salience network—respond as the racially biased brain regions (Cao et al, 2015), such as the greater activity of insula to faces of foreign races than faces of the same race of the subject (Lieberman et al, 2005; Liu et al, 2015). However, the difference in information flow—a measure from information theory that can be quantified using Granger Causality analysis (Dhamala et al, 2008b; Chand and Dhamala, 2017)—in these regions between the African–Americans and the Caucasian–Americans themselves has not been previously investigated. Previous investigations consistently report that the functional changes of brain regions (or networks) are associated with the underlying structural changes of those regions (or networks) with the progression of diseases (Xie et al, 2012; Menon, 2015).…”

“…Here, we seek to examine the difference in information flow using Granger causality (Dhamala et al, 2008b; Chand and Dhamala, 2017) at the default-mode, salience and central-executive nodes between the African–Americans and the Caucasian–Americans hypertensive cognitive impaired individuals. As the African–Americans have higher hypertension-associated cognitive symptomatology and mortality than the other racial groups (Redmond et al, 2011; Hajjar et al, 2016), we hypothesized that (1) the control signal of the insula of salience network over the default-mode and central-executive nodes is more impaired (more negative value) in the African–Americans than in the Caucasian–Americans.…”

Disrupted interactions among the hippocampal, dorsal attention, and central‐executive networks in amnestic mild cognitive impairment

“…The human brain is intrinsically organized into functionally specialized regions that construct several large‐scale networks, including the dorsal attention network (DAN), central‐executive network (CEN), default‐mode network (DMN), and hippocampal network (HCN) (Chand & Dhamala, ; Fox et al, ; Power et al, ; Raichle, ; Vincent, Kahn, Snyder, Raichle, & Buckner, ). The DAN—consisting of bilateral frontal eye fields, superior parietal lobules, and middle temporal cortices—is associated with externally directed cognition such as eye movement, hand‐eye coordination, and shift of spatial attention (Brissenden, Levin, Osher, Halko, & Somers, ; Gao & Lin, ; Vincent et al, ).…”

The Psychophysiology of Action: A Multidisciplinary Endeavor for Integrating Action and Cognition

“…Different models of the psychophysiology of movement have been studied in animals (Cisek and Kalaska, 2010) and humans (Wichary and Smolen, 2016) and can serve as a starting point for theory testing, integration, and development. Now, neuroscientific studies integrating different methodological challenges (Kyathanahally et al, 2017) target decision making (Chand and Dhamala, 2017; Muraskin et al, 2017), and find correlations of decision making and somatosensory networks (Harris and Lim, 2016), however, the aspect of movement or “real” (i.e., dynamic) action is still rarely taken into account. We return to this point when outlining current methodological developments.…”