Involvement of the cerebellum in the serial reaction time task (SRT) (Response to Janacsek et al.)

Baetens, Kris; Firouzi, Mahyar; Overwalle, Frank Van; Deroost, Natacha

doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2020.117114

Cited by 22 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…The dorsal premotor cortex possibly reflects selecting and updating appropriate responses according to the observed input and inferred true or false belief (Hardwick et al, 2013). Our current study also yielded activation in the caudate nucleus, pallidum, and putamen, which have been implicated in both implicit and explicit learning and fine-tuning of sequential information (Baetens et al, 2020;Janacsek et al, 2020). Previously, these areas have been linked to motor sequencing (Doyon et al, 2009) and perceptual sequencing (Turk-Browne et al, 2009).…”

Section: Explicit Belief Srt Tasksupporting

confidence: 64%

The posterior cerebellum and temporoparietal junction support explicit learning of social belief sequences

Haihambo

et al. 2021

Cogn Affect Behav Neurosci

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This study tests the hypothesis that the posterior cerebellum is involved in social cognition by identifying and automatizing sequences of social actions. We applied a belief serial reaction time task (Belief SRT task), which requires mentalizing about two protagonists' beliefs about how many flowers they receive. The protagonists' beliefs could either be true or false depending on their orientation (true belief: oriented towards and directly observing the flowers; or false belief: oriented away and knowing only prior information about flowers). A Control SRT task was created by replacing protagonists and their beliefs with shapes and colors. Participants were explicitly told that there was a standard sequence related to the two protagonists' belief orientations (Belief SRT task) or the shapes' colors (Control SRT task). Both tasks included a Training phase where the standard sequence was repeated and a Test phase where this standard sequence was interrupted by random sequences. As hypothesized, compared with the Control SRT task, the Belief SRT task recruited the posterior cerebellar Crus II and the temporoparietal junction (TPJ) more. Faster response times were correlated with less Crus II activation and with more TPJ activation, suggesting that the Crus II supported automatizing the belief sequence while the TPJ supported inferring the protagonists' beliefs. Also as hypothesized, compared with an implicit version of the Belief SRT task (i.e., participants did not know about the existence of sequences; Ma, Pu, et al., 2021b), the cerebellar Crus I &II was engaged less during initial training and automatic application of the sequence, and the cortical TPJ was activated more in processing random sequences.

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Section: Explicit Belief Srt Tasksupporting

confidence: 64%

The posterior cerebellum and temporoparietal junction support explicit learning of social belief sequences

Haihambo

et al. 2021

Cogn Affect Behav Neurosci

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“…In an initial Training phase, the Standard sequence, consisting of a fixed order of Protagonists (Smurfs/ shapes) and Orientations (beliefs/colors; Fig. 2B), was repeatedly presented, and so allowed implicit knowledge to develop (Baetens, Firouzi, Van Overwalle, & Deroost, 2020). This was followed by a Test phase, during which the Standard sequence was occasionally interrupted by blocks of Random sequences (Hardwick et al, 2013).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The posterior cerebellum supports implicit learning of social belief sequences

Heleven

et al. 2021

Cogn Affect Behav Neurosci

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Recent studies have documented the involvement of the posterior cerebellar Crus (I & II) in social mentalizing, when sequences play a critical role. We investigated for the first time implicit learning of belief sequences. We created a novel task in which true and false beliefs of other persons were alternated in an adapted serial reaction time (SRT) paradigm (Belief SRT task). Participants observed two protagonists whose beliefs concerning reality were manipulated, depending on their orientation toward the scene (true belief: directly observing the situation) or away from it (false belief: knowing only the prior situation). Unbeknownst to the participants, a fixed sequence related to the two protagonists' belief orientations was repeated throughout the task (Training phase); and to test the acquisition of this fixed sequence, it was occasionally interrupted by random sequences (Test phase). As a nonsocial control, the two protagonists and their orientations were replaced by two different shapes of different colors respectively (Control SRT task). As predicted, the posterior cerebellar Crus I & II were activated during the Belief SRT task and not in the Control SRT task. The Belief SRT task revealed that Crus I was activated during the initial learning of the fixed sequence (Training phase) and when this learned sequence was interrupted by random sequences (Test phase). Moreover, Crus II was activated during occasional reappearance of the learned sequence in the context of sequence violations (Test phase). Our results demonstrate the contribution of the posterior cerebellar Crus during implicit learning and predicting new belief sequences. Keywords Serial reaction time task . False belief . Social sequence learning . Cerebellum . Social cognition Highlights • The posterior cerebellum Crus (I & II) is engaged in implicit belief sequence learning. • The temporo-parietal junction also is activated to support implicit belief sequence learning. • The posterior cerebellum plays a sequence detection role in social domains.

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“…According to the sequence detection hypothesis of the cerebellum proposed by Leggio and Molinari [21], a central function of the cerebellum is to support sequence learning and memories supported by internal models, which underpins not only motor acquisition [22], but also non-motor mental processes involving event sequences. Put in the framework of predictive coding as dominant paradigm of brain functionality in neuroscience, the cerebellum can be conceived as a crucial coprocessor together with the cortex "especially in understanding the computational architecture of perception… action and choice behavior" [23].…”

Section: The Social Function Of the Posterior Cerebellummentioning

confidence: 99%

The Involvement of the Posterior Cerebellum in Reconstructing and Predicting Social Action Sequences

Overwalle

et al. 2021

Cerebellum

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Recent advances in social neuroscience have highlighted the critical role of the cerebellum and especially the posterior cerebellar Crus in social mentalizing (i.e., theory of mind). Research in the past 5 years has provided growing evidence supporting the view that the posterior cerebellum builds internal action models of our social interactions to predict how other people's actions will be executed, and what our most likely responses to these actions will be. This paper presents an overview of a series of fMRI experiments on novel tasks involving a combination of (a) the learning or generation of chronological sequences of social actions either in an explicit or implicit manner, which (b) require social mentalizing on another person's mental state such as goals, beliefs, and implied traits. Together, the results strongly confirm the central role of the posterior cerebellar Crus in identifying and automatizing action sequencing during social mentalizing, and in predicting future action sequences based on social mentalizing inferences about others. This research program has important implications: It provides for the first time (a) fruitful starting points for diagnosing and investigating social sequencing dysfunctions in a variety of mental disorders which have also been related to cerebellar dysfunctions, (b) provides the necessary tools for testing whether non-invasive neurostimulation targeting the posterior cerebellum has a causal effect on social functioning, and (c) whether these stimulation techniques and training programs guided by novel cerebellar social sequencing insights, can be exploited to increase posterior cerebellar plasticity in order to alleviate social impairments in mental disorders.

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Involvement of the cerebellum in the serial reaction time task (SRT) (Response to Janacsek et al.)

Cited by 22 publications

References 39 publications

The posterior cerebellum and temporoparietal junction support explicit learning of social belief sequences

The posterior cerebellum and temporoparietal junction support explicit learning of social belief sequences

The posterior cerebellum supports implicit learning of social belief sequences

The Involvement of the Posterior Cerebellum in Reconstructing and Predicting Social Action Sequences

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