Unconscious determinants of free decisions in the human brain

Soon, Chun Siong; Braß, Marcel; Heinze, Hans‐Jochen; Haynes, John­–Dylan

doi:10.1038/nn.2112

Cited by 1,298 publications

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“…4 Soon, Brass, Heinze, & Haynes, 2008;Soon, He, Bode, & Haynes, 2013). Intuitively one would think that free choices are mostly determined by our own intentions and internal goals.…”

Section: Accepted M Manuscriptmentioning

confidence: 99%

Influences of unconscious priming on voluntary actions: Role of the rostral cingulate zone

et al. 2016

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The ability to make voluntary, free choices is fundamental to what it means to be human. A key brain region that is involved in free choices is the rostral cingulate zone (RCZ), which is part of the medial frontal cortex. Previous research has shown that activity in this brain region can be modulated by bottom-up information while making free choices. The current study extends those findings, and shows, for the first time, that activation in the RCZ can also be modulated by subliminal information. We used a subliminal response priming paradigm to bias free and cued choices. We observed more activation in the RCZ when participants made a choice that went against the prime's suggestion, compared to when they chose according to the prime. This shows that the RCZ plays an important role in overcoming externally-triggered conflict between different response options, even when the stimuli triggering this conflict are not consciously perceived. Our results suggest that an important mechanism of endogenous action in the RCZ may therefore involve exerting an internally-generated action choice against conflicting influences, such as external sensory evidence. We further found that subliminal information also modulated activity in the anterior insula and the supramarginal gyrus.

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“…4 Soon, Brass, Heinze, & Haynes, 2008;Soon, He, Bode, & Haynes, 2013). Intuitively one would think that free choices are mostly determined by our own intentions and internal goals.…”

Section: Accepted M Manuscriptmentioning

confidence: 99%

Influences of unconscious priming on voluntary actions: Role of the rostral cingulate zone

et al. 2016

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“…This region is also activated in response to incidental information related to the self without explicit task demands or conscious will [58]. On the other hand, the precuneus is more particularly recruited during autobiographical memory retrieval tasks involving self-centered perspective and sensory imagery [14], as well as judgment of self-agency in actions [27] or free motor choices [87]. Finally, more lateral regions of right ventral prefrontal cortex have been linked with motor inhibition processes promoted by threat signals [79], consistent with a more general role in inhibitory control and avoidance in negative emotional contexts [32,40,41].…”

Section: Empirical Investigations Of Motor Conversion Disordersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Brain circuits implicated in psychogenic paralysis in conversion disorders and hypnosis

Vuilleumier¹

2014

Neurophysiologie Clinique/Clinical Neurophysiology

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Please cite this article in press as: Vuilleumier P. Brain circuits implicated in psychogenic paralysis in conversion disorders and hypnosis. REVIEW/MISE AU POINT Brain circuits implicated in psychogenic paralysis in conversion disorders and hypnosis Circuits cérébraux des paralysies psychogènes liées aux troubles de conversion et à l'hypnose P. Vuilleumier Laboratory for Behavioral Neurology and Imaging of Cognition (LABNIC), Department of Neuroscience (NEUFO), University Medical Center (CMU), 1, rue Micheli du Crest, 1205 Geneva, SwitzerlandReceived 27 December 2013; accepted 12 January 2014 KEYWORDSConversion; Hysteria; Hypnosis; Paralysis; Brain; Neuroimaging; Affect; Self; Precuneus; VMPFC Summary Conversion disorders are defined as neurological symptoms arising without organic damage to the nervous system, presumably in relation to various emotional stress factors, but the exact neural substrates of these symptoms and the mechanisms responsible for their production remain poorly understood. In the past 15 years, novel insights have been gained with the advent of functional neuroimaging studies in patients suffering from conversion disorders in both motor and non-motor (e.g. somatosensory, visual) domains. Several studies have also compared brain activation patterns in conversion to those observed during hypnosis, where similar functional losses can be evoked by suggestion. The current review summarizes these recent results and the main neurobiological hypotheses proposed to account for conversion symptoms, in particular motor deficits. An emerging model points to an important role of ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC), precuneus, and perhaps other limbic structures (including amygdala), all frequently found to be hyperactivated in conversion disorders in parallel to impaired recruitment of primary motor and/or sensory pathways at the cortical or subcortical (basal ganglia) level. These findings are only partly shared with hypnosis, where increases in precuneus predominate, together with activation of attentional control systems, but without any activation of VMPFC. Both VMPFC and precuneus are key regions for access to internal representations about the self, integrating information from memory and imagery with affective relevance (in VMPFC) and sensory or agency representations (in precuneus). It is therefore postulated that conversion deficits might result from an alteration of conscious sensorimotor functions and self-awareness under the influence of affective and sensory representations generated in these regions, which might promote certain patterns of behaviors in response to self-relevant emotional states. © 2014 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved. IntroductionConversion disorders have been known to physicians since ancient times and consist of neurological dysfunction that occurs in the absence of organic lesions within the nervous system, but is distinct from other major psychiatric symptoms such as psychosis or depression. Thus, patients may present with a paralysis of one or ...

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“…Another possible interpretation of these findings is that the number of cells in frontal areas in which these differences are realized may be few and insufficient to produce a measurable field. Furthermore, as reported by (Soon et al 2008) in an fMRI study, there was no increase in signal strength in frontal regions during a decision but rather, predictive information was encoded in differences in spatial patterns of fMRI measurements, and so the methods discussed in this study may be best suited for detecting differences in signal strength rather than fine spatial changes in neural activity.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 49%

“…Neuroimaging evidence suggests that motor behaviour is initiated in frontal cortices and that the sense of volition occurs after a corollary discharge in multiple brain areas (Hallett 2007), and points to a close relation between the activity in frontal and parietal cortices which can precede the outcome of a free decision by up to 10 s (Soon et al 2008). We did not find much contribution from frontal areas, which may be attributed to the almost ''mechanical'' task considered here, where symbols are designed to be very intuitive so that they can be directly interpreted without a large cognitive load.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This suggests that some part of an individual's brain already ''knows'' about the execution of a motor act before that information is consciously accessible and this observation has motivated increased interest in the study of free will and its physiological basis. Recent primate studies have suggested that the interaction between frontal and parietal cortices is fundamental for free choice and decision making (Pesaran et al 2008;Soon et al 2008). Parietal cortex has been implicated in movement intention and awareness (Desmurget and Sirigu 2009), and frontal cortices have been thought to play an important role in decision making and willful acts (Frith et al 1991;Ingvar 1994;Manes et al 2002;Pesaran et al 2008;Rushworth 2008).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Distinct dynamical patterns that distinguish willed and forced actions

et al. 2010

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The neural pathways for generating willed actions have been increasingly investigated since the famous pioneering work by Benjamin Libet on the nature of free will. To better understand what differentiates the brain states underlying willed and forced behaviours, we performed a study of chosen and forced actions over a binary choice scenario. Magnetoencephalography recordings were obtained from six subjects during a simple task in which the subject presses a button with the left or right finger in response to a cue that either (1) specifies the finger with which the button should be pressed or (2) instructs the subject to press a button with a finger of their own choosing. Three independent analyses were performed to investigate the dynamical patterns of neural activity supporting willed and forced behaviours during the preparatory period preceding a button press. Each analysis offered similar findings in the temporal and spatial domains and in particular, a high accuracy in the classification of single trials was obtained around 200 ms after cue presentation with an overall average of 82%. During this period, the majority of the discriminatory power comes from differential neural processes observed bilaterally in the parietal lobes, as well as some differences in occipital and temporal lobes, suggesting a contribution of these regions to willed and forced behaviours.

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Unconscious determinants of free decisions in the human brain

Cited by 1,298 publications

References 15 publications

Influences of unconscious priming on voluntary actions: Role of the rostral cingulate zone

Influences of unconscious priming on voluntary actions: Role of the rostral cingulate zone

Brain circuits implicated in psychogenic paralysis in conversion disorders and hypnosis

Distinct dynamical patterns that distinguish willed and forced actions

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