Neural Coding of Tactile Decisions in the Human Prefrontal Cortex

Pleger, Burkhard; Ruff, Christian C.; Blankenburg, Felix; Bestmann, Sven; Wiech, Katja; Stephan, Klaas Ε.; Capilla, Almudena; Friston, Karl J.; Dolan, Raymond J.

doi:10.1523/jneurosci.4275-06.2006

Cited by 107 publications

(82 citation statements)

References 49 publications

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“…Heekeren et al, 2004;Binder et al, 2004;Pleger et al, 2006). Activations scaling with discrimination difficulty were seen in sensory areas appropriate to the modality of the discrimination in these studies.…”

Section: Functional Imaging-based Approachesmentioning

confidence: 53%

“…In lieu of direct analyses of dynamics, comparisons across conditions based on qualitative predictions regarding the decision process have been conducted. Early fMRI studies relied on the assumption that the amplitude of the BOLD response in a decision making region should be greater for easy compared to hard discriminations because more evidence is available on such trials (Heekeren et al, 2004;Pleger et al, 2006). These studies have particularly highlighted the role of the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) which, unlike the effector-specific signals observed in monkeys, is activated independent of the particular sensory or motor requirements of the task (Heekeren et al, 2004;;Pleger et al, 2006).…”

Section: Functional Imaging-based Approachesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Early fMRI studies relied on the assumption that the amplitude of the BOLD response in a decision making region should be greater for easy compared to hard discriminations because more evidence is available on such trials (Heekeren et al, 2004;Pleger et al, 2006). These studies have particularly highlighted the role of the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) which, unlike the effector-specific signals observed in monkeys, is activated independent of the particular sensory or motor requirements of the task (Heekeren et al, 2004;;Pleger et al, 2006). However, the assumption that stronger evidence -and hence steeper accumulation -leads to greater BOLD activation is of uncertain validity, and the exact opposite prediction has been employed by other investigators (Liu and Pleskac, 2011).…”

Section: Functional Imaging-based Approachesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Furthermore, it has been noted that even if decision regions do activate in proportion with evidence strength, similar relationships to task difficulty can be expected of other, non-decision regions, such as those falling within the defaultmode network (Tosoni et al, 2008;Ho et al, 2009;Filimon et al, 2013). Consequently, a number of studies have applied alternative or additional criteria for classifying decision regions, such as earlier onset latency for stronger evidence (Ho et al, 2009), greater activation for correct versus incorrect trials or covariation with reaction time (Pleger et al, 2006;Binder et al, 2004), or significant effective connectivity with putative evidence regions (Filimon et al, 2013). Another innovative approach, designed to compensate for the poor temporal resolution of MRI, has been to use tasks in which the sensory evidence is gradually strengthened as the trial progresses and then to identify regions whose BOLD response scales with the evidence time course (Ploran et al, 2007;Ivanoff et al, 2008).…”

Section: Functional Imaging-based Approachesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The neural processes underlying perceptual decision making in humans: Recent progress and future directions

Kelly

O’Connell

2015

Journal of Physiology-Paris

112

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a b s t r a c tIn the last two decades, animal neurophysiology research has made great strides towards explaining how the brain can enable adaptive action in the face of noisy sensory information. In particular, this work has identified neural signals that perform the role of a 'decision variable' which integrates sensory information in favor of a particular outcome up to an action-triggering threshold, consistent with long-standing predictions from mathematical psychology. This has provoked an intensive search for similar neural processes at work in the human brain. In this paper we review the progress that has been made in tracing the dynamics of perceptual decision formation in humans using functional imaging and electrophysiology. We highlight some of the limitations that non-invasive recording techniques place on our ability to make definitive judgments regarding the role that specific signals play in decision making. Finally, we provide an overview of our own work in this area which has focussed on two perceptual tasks -intensity change detection and motion discrimination -performed under continuous-monitoring conditions, and highlight the insights gained thus far. We show that through simple paradigm design features such as avoiding sudden intensity transients at evidence onset, a neural instantiation of the theoretical decision variable can be directly traced in the form of a centro-parietal positivity (CPP) in the standard eventrelated potential (ERP). We recapitulate evidence for the domain-general nature of the CPP process, being divorced from the sensory and motor requirements of the task, and re-plot data of both tasks highlighting this aspect as well as its relationship to decision outcome and reaction time. We discuss the implications of these findings for mechanistically principled research on normal and abnormal decision making in humans.

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Section: Functional Imaging-based Approachesmentioning

confidence: 53%

Section: Functional Imaging-based Approachesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Functional Imaging-based Approachesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Functional Imaging-based Approachesmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

The neural processes underlying perceptual decision making in humans: Recent progress and future directions

Kelly

O’Connell

2015

Journal of Physiology-Paris

112

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“…Hence the classification of a sensation as painful is critical to ensure that protective responses can be initiated in time. Functional neuroimaging studies have begun to investigate the neural mechanisms underlying perceptual decisions in the visual (Heekeren et al, 2004), auditory (Binder et al, 2004;Kaiser et al, 2007) and somatosensory domain (Pleger et al, 2006;Preuschhof et al, 2006). In contrast, very little is known regarding the perceptual decision of a stimulus as painful.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Anterior Insula Integrates Information about Salience into Perceptual Decisions about Pain

Wiech¹,

Lin²,

Brodersen³

et al. 2010

J. Neurosci.

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405

302

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The decision as to whether a sensation is perceived as painful does not only depend on sensory input but also on the significance of the stimulus. Here, we show that the degree to which an impending stimulus is interpreted as threatening biases perceptual decisions about pain and that this bias toward pain manifests before stimulus encounter. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging we investigated the neural mechanisms underlying the influence of an experimental manipulation of threat on the perception of laser stimuli as painful. In a near-threshold pain detection paradigm, physically identical stimuli were applied under the participants' assumption that the stimulation is entirely safe (low threat) or potentially harmful (high threat). As hypothesized, significantly more stimuli were rated as painful in the high threat condition. This context-dependent classification of a stimulus as painful was predicted by the prestimulus signal level in the anterior insula, suggesting that this structure integrates information about the significance of a stimulus into the decision about pain. The anticipation of pain increased the prestimulus functional connectivity between the anterior insula and the midcingulate cortex (MCC), a region that was significantly more active during stimulation the more a participant was biased to rate the stimulation as painful under high threat. These findings provide evidence that the anterior insula and MCC as a "salience network" integrate information about the significance of an impending stimulation into perceptual decision-making in the context of pain.

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Individual optimal attentional strategy during implicit motor learning boosts frontoparietal neural processing efficiency: A functional near‐infrared spectroscopy study

2018

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IntroductionOptimal focus of attention is a crucial factor for improving motor learning. Most previous studies have shown that directing attention to movement outcome (external focus; EF) is more effective than directing attention to body movement itself (internal focus; IF). However, our recent studies demonstrated that the optimal attentional strategy in healthy and clinical populations varies depending on individual motor imagery ability. To explore the neurological basis underlying individual optimal attentional strategy during motor learning tasks, in the present study, we measured frontoparietal activities using functional near‐infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS).MethodsTwenty‐eight participants performed a visuomotor learning task requiring circular tracking. During the task, the participants were required to direct their attention internally or externally. The individual optimal attentional strategy was determined by comparing the after‐effect sizes between the IF and EF conditions.ResultsFifteen participants showed larger after‐effects under the EF condition (External‐dominant), whereas the others showed larger after‐effects under the IF condition (Internal‐dominant). Based on the differences in neural activities between Internal‐ and External‐dominant groups, we identified the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (Brodmann area 46) and right somatosensory association cortex (Brodmann area 7) as the neural bases associated with individual optimal attentional strategy during motor learning. Furthermore, we observed a significant negative correlation, that is, lower activity in these areas was associated with a larger after‐effect size under the optimal attentional strategy.ConclusionOur findings demonstrated that more efficient neural processing in the frontoparietal area under the individual optimal attentional strategy can accelerate motor learning.

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Neural Coding of Tactile Decisions in the Human Prefrontal Cortex

Cited by 107 publications

References 49 publications

The neural processes underlying perceptual decision making in humans: Recent progress and future directions

The neural processes underlying perceptual decision making in humans: Recent progress and future directions

Anterior Insula Integrates Information about Salience into Perceptual Decisions about Pain

Individual optimal attentional strategy during implicit motor learning boosts frontoparietal neural processing efficiency: A functional near‐infrared spectroscopy study

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