Novelty detection and repetition suppression in a passive picture viewing task: A possible approach for the evaluation of neuropsychiatric disorders

Abstract

The applicability of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) or schizophrenia is frequently limited by cognitive impairment, which prevents the adequate execution of complex tasks. An experimental design that puts only minor demands on the patients' cognitive ability but engages disease-relevant brain structures would be of benefit. Novelty detection and repetition suppression are two basic components of memory that might be used to investigate specific brain areas under these conditions. Novelty detection has been related to hippocampal activation increases. Stimulus repetition related activation decreases (suppression) have been observed in the extrastriate cortex and have been related to perceptual priming. Both processes have been examined primarily in neuroimaging studies with complex cognitive tasks. We used event-related fMRI to investigate novelty- and repetition-related effects in an attended but passive picture-viewing task in healthy subjects. The differential activation, detected in the novel vs. repeated contrast, was located in the bilateral anterior hippocampus and in bilateral occipital and inferior-temporal areas. The hippocampal activation is of interest because medial temporal lobe lesions are key features in AD and schizophrenia. The repetition-related activation decreases in the extrastriate areas are of potential value in investigating the conflicting results regarding perceptual priming impairment in both disorders. Our results indicate that activation of disease-relevant brain regions under passive task conditions is possible. This might increase the utility of functional imaging in cognitively impaired patients.

Hippocampal networks habituate as novelty accumulates

“…Both rodent and human HPC lesions result in deficits in novelty-related behaviors (Ranganath and Rainer 2003) and human neuroimaging demonstrates engagement of these regions during novelty processing (Stern et al 1996;Gabrieli et al 1997;Jessen et al 2002;Kohler et al 2005;Bunzeck and Duzel 2006;Yassa and Stark 2008;Blackford et al 2010;Howard et al 2011). In our study, we found that novelty-related engagement of the HPC and surrounding cortical MTL was dynamic: MTL novelty responses were greater at the beginning of the experiment and slowly declined as individuals gained experience with novelty.…”

“…Evidence from humans, nonhuman primates, and rodents points to a specialized brain system for the detection of novelty, centered around the hippocampus (HPC) and medial temporal lobe (MTL) memory system (Ranganath and Rainer 2003). It is now well documented that the HPC and MTL respond robustly to novel stimuli (Gabrieli et al 1997;Jessen et al 2002;Kohler et al 2005;Bunzeck and Duzel 2006;Yassa and Stark 2008;Blackford et al 2010;Howard et al 2011). However, relatively little is known about how these responses are modulated by prior experience.…”

fMRI in alert, behaving monkeys: An adaptation of the human infant familiarization novelty preference procedure

“…Human functional neuroimaging studies have also implicated MTL structures, including the hippocampus, entorhinal cortex and the amygdala, in some aspects of novelty detection (Daselaar et al, 2004;c.f. Eichenbaum, 1999;Fischer et al, 2002;Fried et al, 1997;Grunwald et al, 1998;Henke et al, 1999;Hunkin et al, 2002;Jessen et al, 2002;Martin, 1999;Opitz et al, 1999;Strange and Dolan, 2001;Wright et al, 2003;Yamaguchi et al, 2004). In addition, a recent computational model of infant habituation (Sirois and Mareschal, 2004) includes the hippocampus and entorhinal cortex as critical functional units.…”

An fMRI study on memory discriminability for complex visual scenes

“…In cognitive tasks the involvement of these regions is usually associated with perceiving and manipulating visuospatial information and the deactivation of these regions is associated with perceptual priming [Cabeza and Nyberg, 2000]. A decrease in activity in occipito-temporal regions, including the fusiform gyrus, is a common finding amongst studies on perceptual priming of objects and visual scenes [e.g., Jessen et al, 2002] and it has even been observed for objects presented from different viewpoints or different exemplars of a same object [e.g., Vuilleumier et al, 2002]. Interestingly, those regions showed a decrease in activity in the encoding stage when the brain activity elicited by the presentation of the second related segment was compared with the brain activity elicited by the first segment , thus suggesting that a segment of a picture could prime the processing of another one.…”