Under the umbrella of the burgeoning neurotransdisciplines, scholars are using the principles and research methodologies of their primary and secondary fields to examine developments in neuroimaging, neuromodulation and psychopharmacology. The path for advanced scholarship at the intersection of law and neuroscience may clear if work across the disciplines is collected and reviewed and outstanding and debated issues are identified and clarified. In this article, I organize, examine and refine a narrow class of the burgeoning neurotransdiscipline scholarship; that is, scholarship (...) at the interface of law and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). (shrink)

Images come in many varieties, but for evidential purposes, photographs are privileged. Recent advances in neuroimaging provide us with a new type of image that is used as scientific evidence. Brain images are epistemically compelling, in part because they are liable to be viewed as akin to photographs of brain activity. Here I consider features of photography that underlie the evidential status we accord it, and argue that neuroimaging diverges from photography in ways that seriously undermine the photographic (...) analogy. While neuroimaging remains an important source of scientific evidence, proper interpretation of brain images is much more complex than it appears. ‡This work was supported in part by a grant from the Leslie Humanities Center at Dartmouth College. I thank John Kulvicki for helpful comments, and Kim Sterelny, for making it possible for me to spend some time at the ANU with a grant from the Australian Research Council. †To contact the author, please write to: Dartmouth College, Department of Philosophy, Hanover, NH 03755; e-mail: [email protected]. (shrink)

A growing number of scientists have become interested in the relation between cognitive processes and their biological basis. This growth in interest has led to the creation of a subfield within psychology called cognitive neuroscience, which has now spawned its own scientific journal, a conference, and several graduate programs around the United States. One reason for recent enthusiasm is the development of several methods that allow researchers to observe brain activity in healthy, awake subjects while they perform cognitive tasks. These (...) methods, which are referred to as neuroimaging techniques, provide a unique window into the function of the human brain. (shrink)

The application of neuroimaging technology to the study of the injured brain has transformed how neuroscientists understand disorders of consciousness, such as the vegetative and minimally conscious states, and deepened our understanding of mechanisms of recovery. This scientific progress, and its potential clinical translation, provides an opportunity for ethical reflection. It was against this scientific backdrop that we convened a conference of leading investigators in neuroimaging, disorders of consciousness and neuroethics. Our goal was to develop an ethical frame (...) to move these investigative techniques into mature clinical tools. This paper presents the recommendations and analysis of a Working Meeting on Ethics, Neuroimaging and Limited States of Consciousness held at Stanford University during June 2007. It represents an interdisciplinary approach to the challenges posed by the emerging use of neuroimaging technologies to describe and characterize disorders of consciousness. (shrink)

The application of neuroimaging technology to the study of the injured brain has transformed how neuroscientists understand disorders of consciousness, such as the vegetative and minimally conscious states, and deepened our understanding of mechanisms of recovery. This scientific progress, and its potential clinical translation, provides an opportunity for ethical reflection. It was against this scientific backdrop that we convened a conference of leading investigators in neuroimaging, disorders of consciousness and neuroethics. Our goal was to develop an ethical frame (...) to move these investigative techniques into mature clinical tools. This paper presents the recommendations and analysis of a Working Meeting on Ethics, Neuroimaging and Limited States of Consciousness held at Stanford University during June 2007. It represents an interdisciplinary approach to the challenges posed by the emerging use of neuroimaging technologies to describe and characterize disorders of consciousness. (shrink)

When does neuroimaging constitute a sufficiently developed technology to be put into use in the work of determining whether or not a defendant is guilty of crime? This question constitutes the starting point of the present paper. First, it is suggested that an overall answer is provided by what is referred to as the “ideal comparative view.” Secondly, it is—on the ground of this view—argued that the answer as to whether neuroimaging technology should be applied presupposes penal theoretical (...) considerations. Thirdly, it is argued that the retributivist theory of punishment is not well-suited for delivering the sort of theoretical guidance that is required for assessing the desirability of using neuroimaging in the work of the criminal court. (shrink)

The dual-track theory of moral reasoning has received considerable attention due to the neuroimaging work of Greene et al. Greene et al. claimed that certain kinds of moral dilemmas activated brain regions specific to emotional responses, while others activated areas specific to cognition. This appears to indicate a dissociation between different types of moral reasoning. I re-evaluate these claims of specificity in light of subsequent empirical work. I argue that none of the cortical areas identified by Greene et al. (...) are functionally specific: each is active in a wide variety of both cognitive and emotional tasks. I further argue that distinct activation across conditions is not strong evidence for dissociation. This undermines support for the dual-track hypothesis. I further argue that moral decision-making appears to activate a common network that underlies self-projection: the ability to imagine oneself from a variety of viewpoints in a variety of situations. I argue that the utilization of self-projection indicates a continuity between moral decision-making and other kinds of complex social deliberation. This may have normative consequences, but teasing them out will require careful attention to both empirical and philosophical concerns. (shrink)

This review covers experimental approaches to sound-symbolism—from infants to adults, and from Sapir’s foundational studies to twenty-first century product naming. It synthesizes recent behavioral, developmental, and neuroimaging work into a systematic overview of the cross-modal correspondences that underpin iconic links between form and meaning. It also identifies open questions and opportunities, showing how the future course of experimental iconicity research can benefit from an integrated interdisciplinary perspective. Combining insights from psychology and neuroscience with evidence from natural languages provides us (...) with opportunities for the experimental investigation of the role of sound-symbolism in language learning, language processing, and communication. The review finishes by describing how hypothesis-testing and model-building will help contribute to a cumulative science of sound-symbolism in human language. (shrink)

For over a century, scientists have sought to see through the protective shield of the human skull and into the living brain. Today, an array of technologies allows researchers and clinicians to create astonishingly detailed images of our brain's structure as well as colorful depictions of the electrical and physiological changes that occur within it when we see, hear, think and feel. These technologies—and the images they generate—are an increasingly important tool in medicine and science.Given the role that neuroimaging (...) technologies now play in biomedical research, both neuroscientists and nonexperts should aim to be as clear as possible about how neuroimages are made and what they can—and cannot—tell us. Add to this that neuroimages have begun to be used in courtrooms at both the determination of guilt and sentencing stages, that they are being employed by marketers to refine advertisements and develop new products, that they are being sold to consumers for the diagnosis of mental disorders and for the detection of lies, and that they are being employed in arguments about the nature (or absence) of powerful concepts like free will and personhood, and the need for citizens to have a basic understanding of how this technology works and what it can and cannot tell us becomes even more pressing. (shrink)

Neuroimaging technology is the most widely used tool to study human cognition. While originally a promising tool for mapping the content of cognitive theories onto the structures of the brain, recently developed tools for the analysis, handling and sharing of data have changed the theoretical landscape of cognitive neuroscience. Even with these advancements philosophical analyses of evidence in neuroimaging remain skeptical of the promise of neuroimaging technology. These views often treat the analysis techniques used to make sense (...) of data produced in a neuroimaging experiment as one, attributing the inferential limitations of analysis pipelines to the technology as a whole. Situated against the neuroscientists own critical assessment of their methods and the limitations of those methods, this skepticism appears based on a misunderstanding of the role data analysis techniques play in neuroimaging research. My project picks up here, examining how data analysis techniques, such as pattern classification analysis, are used to assess the evidential value of neuroimaging data. The project takes the form of three papers. In the first I identify the use of multiple data analysis techniques as an important aspect of the data interpretation process that is overlooked by critics. In the second I develop an account of inferences in neuroimaging research that is sensitive to this use of data analysis techniques, arguing that interpreting neuroimaging data is a process of isolating and explaining a variety of data patterns. In the third I argue that the development and uptake of new techniques for analyzing data must be accompanied by changes in research practices and standards of evidence if they are to promote knowledge generation. My approach to this work is both traditionally philosophical, insofar as it involves reading and analyzing the work of philosophers and neuroscientists, and embedded insofar as most of the research was conducted while engaged in attending lab meetings and participating in the work of those scientists whose work is the object of my research. (shrink)

Socioeconomic status -related health disparities persist for numerous chronic diseases, with lower-SES individuals exhibiting greater risk of morbidity and mortality compared to their higher-SES counterparts. One likely contributor is disparities in health messaging efforts, which are currently less effective for motivating health behavior change among those lower in SES. Drawing on communication neuroscience and social neuroscience research, we describe a conceptual framework to improve health messaging effectiveness in lower SES communities. The framework is based on evidence that health-message-induced activity in (...) the ventral striatum and subdivisions of the medial pre-frontal cortex predicts behavior change. Additionally, we draw from social neuroscience work showing that activity in these regions during valuation and the processing of self-related vs. social information, differs as a function of SES. Bringing together these previously disparate lines of work, we argue that health messages emphasizing the benefits to close others of engaging in behavior change will be more effective among lower SES individuals. We also outline a research agenda based on our framework. Ultimately, we hope that this framework utilizing a “brain-as-predictor” approach generates novel insights about the neural underpinnings of message-induced behavior change among lower SES individuals, and helps to close the gap in SES-based health disparities by harnessing the power of neuroimaging. (shrink)

Purpose: Whereas ethical considerations on imaging techniques and interpretations of neuroimaging results flourish, there is not much work on their preconditions. In this paper, therefore, we discuss epistemological considerations on neuroimaging and their implications for neuroethics. Results: Neuroimaging uses indirect methods to generate data about surrogate parameters for mental processes, and there are many determinants influencing the results, including current hypotheses and the state of knowledge. This leads to an interdependence between hypotheses and data. Additionally, different levels (...) of description are involved, especially when experiments are designed to answer questions pertaining to broad concepts like the self, empathy or moral intentions. Interdisciplinary theoretical frameworks are needed to integrate findings from the life sciences and the humanities and to translate between them. While these epistemological issues are not specific for neuroimaging, there are some reasons why they are of special importance in this context: Due to their inferential proximity, 'neuro-images' seem to be self-evident, suggesting directness of observation and objectivity. This has to be critically discussed to prevent overinterpretation. Additionally, there is a high level of attention to neuroimaging, leading to a high frequency of presentation of neuroimaging data and making the critical examination of their epistemological properties even more pressing. Conclusions: Epistemological considerations are an important prerequisite for neuroethics. The presentation and communication of the results of neuroimaging studies, the potential generation of new phenomena and new 'dysfunctions' through neuroimaging, and the influence on central concepts at the foundations of ethics will be important future topics for this discipline. (shrink)

Neuroimaging has been to neuroethics what free will and determinism has been, albeit for much longer, to philosophy: pillars for scholarly inquiry and curiosity, and entries to dialogue, debate, and discovery. With interest piqued by reproducible measures of regional blood flow in the human brain under well-defined conditions such as existential problem solving, decision-making, and trust, this article meticulously documents emerging trends involving functional MRI studies. The article builds on that work and examines the hypothesis that almost twenty years (...) after the first wave of such studies, the focus on neuroimaging and its application to complex and profoundly personal human behaviors has not abated. Neuroimaging studies remain an unwavering source of energy for the field. It reviews some of the reasons that they have provoked so much attention in neuroethics and elsewhere, presenting a 2002–2008 update to the trends that documented for 1991–2001, comparing this second generation of data to the first. (shrink)

Without exaggeration, it could be said that we are entering a golden age of neuroscience. Informed by recent developments in neuroimaging that allow us to peer into the working brain at both a structural and functional level, neuroscientists are beginning to untangle mechanisms of recovery after brain injury and grapple with age-old questions about brain and mind and their correlates neural mechanisms and consciousness. Neuroimaging, coupled with new diagnostic categories and assessment scales are helping us develop a new (...) diagnostic nosology about disorders of consciousness which will likely improve prognostication and suggest therapeutic advances. Historically such diagnostic refinement has yield therapeutic advances in medicine and there is no reason to doubt that this will be the case for disorders of consciousness, perhaps bringing relief to a marginalized population now on the periphery of the therapeutic agenda. In spite of this promise, the translation of research findings into the clinical context will be difficult. As we move from descriptive categories about disorders of consciousness, like the vegetative or minimally conscious states, to ones further specified by integrating behavioral and neuroimaging findings, humility not hubris should be the virtue that guides the ethical conduct of research and practice. (shrink)

We discuss McMillan et al. (2005) paper devoted to study brain activity during comprehension of sentences with generalized quantifiers. According to the authors their results verify a particular computational model of natural language quantifier comprehension posited by several linguists and logicians (e. g. see van Benthem, 1986). We challenge this statement by invoking the computational difference between first-order quantifiers and divisibility quantifiers (e. g. see Mostowski, 1998). Moreover, we suggest other studies on quantifier comprehension, which can throw more light on (...) the role of working memory in processing quantifiers. (shrink)

:Recent neuroimaging research on disorders of consciousness provides direct evidence of covert consciousness otherwise not detected clinically in a subset of severely brain-injured patients. These findings have motivated strategic development of binary communication paradigms, from which researchers interpret voluntary modulations in brain activity to glean information about patients’ residual cognitive functions and emotions. The discovery of such responsiveness raises ethical and legal issues concerning the exercise of autonomy and capacity for decisionmaking on matters such as healthcare, involvement in research, (...) and end of life. These advances have generated demands for access to the technology against a complex background of continued scientific advancement, questions about just allocation of healthcare resources, and unresolved legal issues. Interviews with professionals whose work is relevant to patients with disorders of consciousness reveal priorities concerning further basic research, legal and policy issues, and clinical considerations. (shrink)

In their paper "Conceptual Challenges in the Neuroimaging of Psychiatric Disorders," Kanaan and McGuire (2011) review a number of methodological and analytical obstacles associated with the use of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to study psychiatric disorders. Although we agree that there are challenges and limitations to this end, it would be a shame for those without a background in neuroimaging to walk away from this article with the impression that such work is too daunting, and thus not (...) worth pursuing. On the contrary, despite a number of challenges (which are an inevitable part of all research), fMRI has already contributed many important insights into the nature and mechanisms of .. (shrink)

Without exaggeration, it could be said that we are entering a golden age of neuroscience. Informed by recent developments in neuroimaging that allow us to peer into the working brain at both a structural and functional level, neuroscientists are beginning to untangle mechanisms of recovery after brain injury and grapple with age-old questions about brain and mind and their correlates neural mechanisms and consciousness. Neuroimaging, coupled with new diagnostic categories and assessment scales are helping us develop a new (...) diagnostic nosology about disorders of consciousness which will likely improve prognostication and suggest therapeutic advances. Historically such diagnostic refinement has yield therapeutic advances in medicine and there is no reason to doubt that this will be the case for disorders of consciousness, perhaps bringing relief to a marginalized population now on the periphery of the therapeutic agenda. In spite of this promise, the translation of research findings into the clinical context will be difficult. As we move from descriptive categories about disorders of consciousness, like the vegetative or minimally conscious states, to ones further specified by integrating behavioral and neuroimaging findings, humility not hubris should be the virtue that guides the ethical conduct of research and practice. (shrink)

Currently, many scientific fields such as psychology or biomedicine face a methodological crisis concerning the reproducibility, replicability, and validity of their research. In neuroimaging, similar methodological concerns have taken hold of the field, and researchers are working frantically toward finding solutions for the methodological problems specific to neuroimaging. This article examines some ethical and legal implications of this methodological crisis in neuroimaging. With respect to ethical challenges, the article discusses the impact of flawed methods in neuroimaging (...) research in cognitive and clinical neuroscience, particularly with respect to faulty brain-based models of human cognition, behavior, and personality. Specifically examined is whether such faulty models, when they are applied to neurological or psychiatric diseases, could put patients at risk, and whether this places special obligations on researchers using neuroimaging. In the legal domain, the actual use of neuroimaging as evidence in United States courtrooms is surveyed, followed by an examination of ways that the methodological problems may create challenges for the criminal justice system. Finally, the article reviews and promotes some promising ideas and initiatives from within the neuroimaging community for addressing the methodological problems. (shrink)

AimThe neurocognitive basis of Developmental Coordination Disorder remains an issue of continued debate. This combined systematic review and meta-analysis provides a synthesis of recent experimental studies on the motor control, cognitive, and neural underpinnings of DCD.MethodsThe review included all published work conducted since September 2016 and up to April 2021. One-hundred papers with a DCD-Control comparison were included, with 1,374 effect sizes entered into a multi-level meta-analysis.ResultsThe most profound deficits were shown in: voluntary gaze control during movement; cognitive-motor integration; practice-/context-dependent (...) motor learning; internal modeling; more variable movement kinematics/kinetics; larger safety margins when locomoting, and atypical neural structure and function across sensori-motor and prefrontal regions.InterpretationTaken together, these results on DCD suggest fundamental deficits in visual-motor mapping and cognitive-motor integration, and abnormal maturation of motor networks, but also areas of pragmatic compensation for motor control deficits. Implications for current theory, future research, and evidence-based practice are discussed.Systematic Review RegistrationPROSPERO, identifier: CRD42020185444. (shrink)

Cognitive architectures (i.e., theorized blueprints on the structure of the mind) can be used to make predictions about the effect of multiregion brain activity on the systems level. Recent work has connected one high-level cognitive architecture, known as the “Common Model of Cognition,” to task-based functional MRI data with great success. That approach, however, was limited in that it was intrinsically top-down, and could thus only be compared with alternate architectures that the experimenter could contrive. In this paper, we propose (...) a bottom-up method to infer a cognitive architecture directly from brain imaging data itself, overcoming this limitation. Specifically, Granger causality modeling was applied to the same task-based fMRI data to infer a network of causal connections between brain regions based on their functional connectivity. The resulting network shares many connections with those proposed by the Common Model of Cognition but also suggests important additions likely related to the role of episodic memory. This combined top-down and bottom-up modeling approach can be used to help formalize the computational instantiation of cognitive architectures and further refine a comprehensive theory of cognition. (shrink)

BackgroundNeuroethics describes several interdisciplinary topics exploring the application and implications of engaging neuroscience in societal contexts. To explore this topic, we present Part 3 of a four-part bibliography of neuroethics’ literature focusing on the “ethics of neuroscience.”MethodsTo complete a systematic survey of the neuroethics literature, 19 databases and 4 individual open-access journals were employed. Searches were conducted using the indexing language of the U.S. National Library of Medicine. A Python code was used to eliminate duplications in the final bibliography.ResultsThis bibliography (...) consists of 1137 papers, 56 books, and 134 book chapters published from 2002 through 2014, covering ethical issues in neuroimaging, neurogenetics, neurobiomarkers, neuro-psychopharmacology, brain stimulation, neural stem cells, neural tissue transplants, pediatric-specific issues, dual-use, and general neuroscience research issues. These works contain explanations of recent research regarding neurotechnology, while exploring ethical issues in future discoveries and use. (shrink)

In this paper we contribute to “sociology in bioethics” and help clarify the range of ways sociological work can contribute to ethics scholarship. We do this using a case study of an innovative neurotechnology, functional magnetic resonance imaging, and its use to attempt to diagnose and communicate with severely brain-injured patients. We compare empirical data from interviews with relatives of patients who have a severe brain injury with perspectives from mainstream bioethics scholars. We use the notion of an “ethical landscape” (...) as an analogy for the different ethical positions subjects can take—whereby a person’s position relative to the landscape makes a difference to the way they experience and interact with it. We show that, in comparison to studying abstract ethics “from above” the ethical landscape, which involves universal generalizations and global judgements, studying ethics empirically “from the ground,” within the ethical landscape foregrounds a more plural and differentiated picture. We argue it is important not to treat empirical ethics as secondary to abstract ethics, to treat on-the-ground perspectives as useful only insofar as they can inform ethics from above. Rather, empirical perspectives can illuminate the plural vantage points in ethical judgments, highlight the “lived” nature of ethical reasoning, and point to all ethical vantage points as being significant. This is of epistemic importance to normative ethics, since researchers who pay attention to the various positions in and trajectories through the ethical landscape are unlikely to think about ethics in terms of abstract agency—as can happen with top-down ethics—or to elide agency with the agency of policymakers. Moreover, empirical perspectives may have transformative implications for people on the ground, especially where focus on the potential harms and benefits they face brings their experiences and interests to the forefront of ethical and policy discussion. (shrink)

Objective: To examine how research ethics boards review research projects in emerging disciplines such as functional neuroimaging.Design: To compare the criteria applied and the decisions reached by REBs that reviewed the same mock research protocol in functional neuroimaging.Participants: 44 Canadian biomedical REBs, mostly working in public university or hospital settings.Main measurements: The mock research protocol “The Neurobiology of Social Behavior” included several ethical issues operating at all three levels: personal, institutional and social. Data consisting of responses to closed (...) questions were analysed quantitatively. Qualitative analysis of open-question responses used mixed classification.Results: Similar criteria were used by most participating REBs. Yet the project was unconditionally approved by 3 REBs, approved conditionally by 10 and rejected by 30.Conclusions: The results point to the difficulty for REBs of reviewing all kinds of research projects, regardless of field, by relying on international and national norms framed in general terms and a possible variation between REBs in the interpretation of their mandate for the protection of research subjects. (shrink)

Muslim ethics is cautiously engaging developments in neuroscience. In their encounters with developments in neuroscience such as brain death and functional magnetic resonance imaging procedures, Muslim ethicists might be on the cusp of spirited debates. Science and religion perform different kinds of work and ought not to be conflated. Cultural translation is central to negotiating the complex life worlds of religious communities, Muslims included. Cultural translation involves lived encounters with modernity and its byproduct, modern science. Serious ethical debate requires more (...) than just a mere instrumental encounter with science. A robust Muslim approach to neuroethics might require an emulsion of religion and neuroscience, thought and body, and body and soul. Yet one must anticipate that Muslim debates in neuroethics will be inflected with Muslim values, symbols and the discrete faith perspectives of this tradition with meanings that are specific to people who share this worldview and their concerns. (shrink)

Background: Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing [EMDR] is an innovative, evidence-based and effective psychotherapy for post-traumatic stress disorder [PTSD]. As with other psychotherapies, the effectiveness of EMDR contrasts with a limited knowledge of its underlying mechanism of action. In its relatively short life as a therapeutic option, EMDR has not been without controversy, in particular regarding the role of the bilateral stimulation as an active component of the therapy. The high prevalence of EMDR in clinical practice and the dramatic increase (...) in EMDR research in recent years, with more than 26 randomized controlled trials published to date, highlight the need for a better understanding of its mechanism of action. Methods: We conducted a thorough systematic search of studies published until October 2017, using PubMed, ScienceDirect, Web of Knowledge and Scopus databases that examined the mechanism of action of EMDR or provided conclusions within the framework of current theoretical models of EMDR functioning. Results: Seventy-five studies were selected for review and classified into three overarching models; (i) psychological models (ii) psychophysiological models and (iii) neurobiological models. The evidence available from each study was analysed and discussed. Results demonstrated a reasonable empirical support for the working memory hypothesis and for the physiological changes associated with successful EMDR therapy. Recently, more sophisticated structural and functional neuroimaging studies using high resolution structural and temporal techniques are starting to provide preliminary evidence into the neuronal correlates before, during and after EMDR therapy. Discussion: Despite the increasing number of studies that published in recent years, the research into the mechanisms underlying EDMR therapy are still in its infancy. Studies in well-defined clinical and non-clinical populations, larger sample sizes and tighter methodological control are further needed in order to establish firm conclusions. (shrink)

We used optical neuroimaging to explore the extent of functional overlap between working memory (WM) networks involved in language and Early Stone Age toolmaking behaviors. Oldowan tool production activates two verbal WM areas, but the functions of these areas are indistinguishable from general auditory WM, suggesting that the first hominin toolmakers relied on early precursors of verbal WM to make simple flake tools. Early Acheulian toolmaking elicits activity in a region bordering on Broca’s area that is involved in both (...) visual and verbal WM tasks. The sensorimotor and mirror neurons in this area, along with enhancement of general WM capabilities around 1.8 million years ago, may have provided the scaffolding upon which a WM network dedicated to processing exclusively linguistic information could evolve. In the road map going forward, neuro-archaeologists should investigate the trajectory of WM over the course of human evolution to better understand its contribution to language origins. (shrink)

O'Regan & Noë's (O&N's) theoretical framework for studying visual perception and awareness is intriguing. This framework, based on sensorimotor contingency, can be examined in recent visual brain theories using neuroimaging methodologies. Here, I consider how a working memory (WM) system explains the sensorimotor account of visual consciousness. I believe WM inside the brain provides at least partial support for O&N's theory.

Categorization and memory for specific items are fundamental processes that allow us to apply knowledge to novel stimuli. This study directly compares categorization and memory using delay match to category (DMC) and delay match to sample (DMS) tasks. In DMC participants view and categorize a stimulus, maintain the category across a delay, and at the probe phase view another stimulus and indicate whether it is in the same category or not. In DMS, a standard item working memory task, participants encode (...) and maintain a specific individual item, and at probe decide if the stimulus is an exact match or not. Constrained Principal Components Analysis was used to identify and compare activity within neural networks associated with these tasks, and we relate these networks to those that have been identified with resting state-fMRI. We found that two frontoparietal networks of particular interest. The first network included regions associated with the dorsal attention network and frontoparietal salience network; this network showed patterns of activity consistent with a role in rapid orienting to and processing of complex stimuli. The second uniquely involved regions of the frontoparietal central executive network; this network responded more slowly following each stimulus and showed a pattern of activity consistent with a general role in role in decision-making across tasks. Additional components were identified that were associated with visual, somatomotor and default mode networks. (shrink)

In recent years bilingualism has been linked to both advantages in executive control and positive impacts on aging. Such positive cognitive effects of bilingualism have been attributed to the increased need for language control during bilingual processing and increased cognitive reserve, respectively. However, a mechanistic explanation of how bilingual experience contributes to cognitive reserve is still lacking. The current paper proposes a new focus on bilingual memory as an avenue to explore the relationship between executive control and cognitive reserve. We (...) argue that this focus will enhance our understanding of the functional and structural neural mechanisms underlying bilingualism-induced cognitive effects. With this perspective we discuss and integrate recent cognitive and neuroimaging work on bilingual advantage, and suggest an account that links cognitive control, cognitive reserve, and brain reserve in bilingual aging and memory. (shrink)

Recent neuroimaging studies of language processing are examining the neural substrate of phonology because of its critical role in mapping sound information onto higher levels of language processing (e.g., words) as well as providing codes in which verbal information can be temporarily stored in working memory. However, the precise role of the inferior frontal cortex in spoken and written phonological tasks has remained elusive. Although lesion studies have indicated the presence of selective deficits in phonological processing, the location of (...) lesions underlying these impairments has not revealed a consistent pattern. Despite efforts to refine methods and tasks, functional neuroimaging studies have also revealed variability in activation patterns. Reanalysis of evidence from these neuroimaging studies suggests that there are functional subregions within the inferior frontal gyrus that correspond to specific components of phonological processing (e.g., orthographic to phonological conversion in reading, and segmentation in speech). (shrink)

Dream lucidity, or being aware that one is dreaming while dreaming, is not an all-or-none phenomenon. Often, subjects report being some variant of “a little lucid” as opposed to completely or not at all. As recent neuroimaging work begins to elucidate the neural underpinnings of lucid experience, understanding subtle phenomenological variation within lucid dreams is essential. Here, we focus on the variability of lucid experience by asking participants to report their awareness of the dream on a 5-point Likert scale. (...) Participants implemented a combination of mnemonic training lucid dream induction methods at home for one week and provided detailed reports about their dream experiences each morning. Consistent with previous research, cognitive induction methods led to about half of participants reporting at least one lucid dream and about half of all dreams including some level of lucidity. However, we also show that induction success rate varies significantly depending on the minimum criteria for lucidity. Participants also reported how much they adhered to specific components of each induction method, and the amount of mnemonic rehearsal during a brief early awake period was predictive of lucidity level. Furthermore, lucidity levels were positively correlated with dream control, dream bizarreness, and next-morning positive affect. Lastly, we asked participants open-ended questions about why they chose particular levels of lucidity. We focus a qualitative discussion on responses to those “semi-lucid” dreams to explore why participants rate their dreams as having intermediate levels of awareness. Together, the present study explores the frequency of semi-lucid dreams, what they are, why they might arise, their correlates, and how they impact methodological concerns in lucid dreaming research. (shrink)

Detecting conscious awareness in a patient emerging from a coma state is problematic, because our standard attributions of conscious awareness rely on interpreting bodily movement as intentional action. Where there is an absence of intentional bodily action, as in the vegetative state, can we reliably assume that there is an absence of conscious awareness? Recent neuroimaging work suggests that we can attribute conscious awareness to some patients in a vegetative state by interpreting their brain activity as intentional mental action. (...) I suggest that this change of focus, from the interpretation of motor behaviour as intentional bodily action to the interpretation of neural activity as intentional mental action, raises philosophical issues that affect the interpretation of the neuroimaging data. (shrink)

Training under high interference conditions through interleaved practice results in performance suppression during training but enhances long-term performance relative to repetitive practice involving low interference. Previous neuroimaging work addressing this contextual interference effect of motor learning has relied heavily on the blood-oxygen-level-dependent response using functional magnetic resonance imaging methodology resulting in mixed reports of prefrontal cortex recruitment under IP and RP conditions. We sought to clarify these equivocal findings by imaging bilateral PFC recruitment using functional near-infrared spectroscopy while discrete (...) key pressing sequences were trained under IP and RP schedules and subsequently tested following a 24-h delay. An advantage of fNIRS over the fMRI BOLD response is that the former measures oxygenated and deoxygenated hemoglobin changes independently allowing for assessment of cortical hemodynamics even when there is neurovascular decoupling. Despite slower sequence performance durations under IP, bilateral PFC oxygenated and deoxygenated hemoglobin values did not differ between practice conditions. During test, however, slower performance from those previously trained under RP coincided with hemispheric asymmetry in PFC recruitment. Specifically, following RP, test deoxygenated hemoglobin values were significantly lower in the right PFC. The present findings contrast with previous behavioral demonstrations of increased cognitive demand under IP to illustrate a more complex involvement of the PFC in the contextual interference effect. IP and RP incur similar levels of bilateral PFC recruitment, but the processes underlying the recruitment are dissimilar. PFC recruitment during IP supports action reconstruction and memory elaboration while RP relies on PFC recruitment to maintain task variation information in working memory from trial to trial. While PFC recruitment under RP serves to enhance immediate performance, it does not support long-term performance. (shrink)

Recent work in neuroimaging suggests that some patients diagnosed as being in the persistent vegetative state are actually conscious. In this paper, we critically examine this new evidence. We argue that though it remains open to alternative interpretations, it strongly suggests the presence of consciousness in some patients. However, we argue that its ethical significance is less than many people seem to think. There are several different kinds of consciousness, and though all kinds of consciousness have some ethical significance, (...) different kinds underwrite different kinds of moral value. Demonstrating that patients have phenomenal consciousness — conscious states with some kind of qualitative feel to them — shows that they are moral patients, whose welfare must be taken into consideration. But only if they are subjects of a sophisticated kind of access consciousness — where access consciousness entails global availability of information to cognitive systems — are they persons, in the technical sense of the word employed by philosophers. In this sense, being a person is having the full moral status of ordinary human beings. We call for further research which might settle whether patients who manifest signs of consciousness possess the sophisticated kind of access consciousness required for personhood. (shrink)

A uniquely integrative work, this volume provides a much needed compilation of primary source material to researchers from basic neuroscience, psychology, developmental science, neuroimaging, neuropsychology and theoretical biology. * The ...

Multimodal neuroimaging provides a rich source of data for identifying brain regions associated with disease progression and aging. However, present studies still typically analyze modalities separately or aggregate voxel-wise measurements and analyses to the structural level, thus reducing statistical power. As a central example, previous works have used two quantitative MRI parameters—R2* and quantitative susceptibility —to study changes in iron associated with aging in healthy and multiple sclerosis subjects, but failed to simultaneously account for both. In this article, (...) we propose a unified framework that combines information from multiple imaging modalities and regularizes estimates for increased interpretability, generalizability, and stability. Our work focuses on joint region detection problems where overlap between effect supports across modalities is encouraged but not strictly enforced. To achieve this, we combine L1, total variation, and L2 group lasso penalties. While the TV penalty encourages geometric regularization by controlling estimate variability and support boundary geometry, the group lasso penalty accounts for similarities in the support between imaging modalities. We address the computational difficulty in this regularization scheme with an alternating direction method of multipliers optimizer. In a neuroimaging application, we compare our method against independent sparse and joint sparse models using a dataset of R2* and QS maps derived from MRI scans of 113 healthy controls: our method produces clinically-interpretable regions where specific iron changes are associated with healthy aging. Together with results across multiple simulation studies, we conclude that our approach identifies regions that are more strongly associated with the variable of interest, more accurate, and more stable with respect to training data variability. This work makes progress toward a stable and interpretable multimodal imaging analysis framework for studying disease-related changes in brain structure and can be extended for classification and disease prediction tasks. (shrink)

Intertemporal choice involves deciding between smaller, sooner and larger, later rewards. People tend to prefer smaller rewards that are available earlier to larger rewards available later, a phenomenon referred to as temporal or delay discounting. Despite its ubiquity in human and non-human animals, temporal discounting is subject to considerable individual differences. Here, we provide a critical narrative review of this literature and make suggestions for future work. We conclude that temporal discounting is associated with key socio-economic and health-related variables. Regarding (...) personality, large-scale studies have found steeper temporal discounting to be associated with higher levels of self-reported impulsivity and extraversion; however, effect sizes are small. Temporal discounting correlates negatively with future-oriented cognitive styles and inhibitory control, again with small effect sizes. There are consistent associations between steeper temporal discounting and lower intelligence, with effect sizes exceeding those of personality or cognitive variables, although socio-demographic moderator variables may play a role. Neuroimaging evidence of brain structural and functional correlates is not yet consistent, neither with regard to areas nor directions of effects. Finally, following early candidate gene studies, recent Genome Wide Association Study (GWAS) approaches have revealed the molecular genetic architecture of temporal discounting to be more complex than initially thought. Overall, the study of individual differences in temporal discounting is a maturing field that has produced some replicable findings. Effect sizes are small-to-medium, necessitating future hypothesis-driven work that prioritizes large samples with adequate power calculations. More research is also needed regarding the neural origins of individual differences in temporal discounting as well as the mediating neural mechanisms of associations of temporal discounting with personality and cognitive variables. (shrink)

Neuroimaging is critical in the diagnosis and treatment of brain cancers; however, the first detection of tumors is a challenge. Detection techniques like image segmentation are heavily reliant on the segmented image’s resolution. Magnetic resonance imaging tumor segmentation has emerged as a new study area in the medical imaging field. This spongy and delicate mass of tissue is the brain. Stable conditions allow for patterns to enter and interact with each other. To put it simply, a tumor is a (...) mass of tissue that has grown unchecked by the natural mechanisms that keep it under control. When cells divide uncontrollably, they create a cancerous tumor. Brain tumors can be detected and segmented using a variety of methods. A new method for detecting brain tumors using MRI images is presented in this research. An innovative Woelfel filter is used for enhancement, and morphological segmentation approaches combined with anisotropic diffusion are used for segmentation. Segmentation of brain tumors can be accomplished using thresholding and morphological techniques, which are both effective. The tumor will be located and identified using morphological image processing. Image denoising refers to the process of removing artefacts such as noise and aliasing from digital images. Here MATLAB programming language is utilised as it incorporates all the toolboxes required for the application involved in the work. (shrink)

Cognitive neuroscience increasingly relies on complex data analysis methods. Researchers in this field come from highly diverse scientific backgrounds, such as psychology, engineering, and medicine. This poses challenges with respect to acquisition of appropriate scientific computing and data analysis skills, as well as communication among researchers with different knowledge and skills sets. Are researchers in cognitive neuroscience adequately equipped to address these challenges? Here, we present evidence from an online survey of methods skills. Respondents (n= 307) mainly comprised students and (...) post-doctoral researchers working in the cognitive neurosciences. Multiple choice questions addressed a variety of basic and fundamental aspects of neuroimaging data analysis, such as signal analysis, linear algebra, and statistics. We analyzed performance with respect to the following factors: undergraduate degree (grouped into Psychology, Methods, and Biology), current researcher status (undergraduate student, PhD student, and post-doctoral researcher), gender, and self-rated expertise levels. Overall accuracy was 72%. Not surprisingly, the Methods group performed best (87%), followed by Biology (73%) and Psychology (66%). Accuracy increased from undergraduate (59%) to PhD (74%) level, but not from PhD to post-doctoral (74%) level. The difference in performance for the Methods vs. non-methods (Psychology/Biology) groups was especially striking for questions related to signal analysis and linear algebra, two areas particularly relevant to neuroimaging research. Self-rated methods expertise was not strongly predictive of performance. The majority of respondents (93%) indicated they would like to receive at least some additional training on the topics covered in this survey. In conclusion, methods skills among junior researchers in cognitive neuroscience can be improved, researchers are aware of this, and there is strong demand for more skills-oriented training opportunities. We hope that this survey will provide an empirical basis for the development of bespoke skills-oriented training programs in cognitive neuroscience institutions. We will provide practical suggestions on how to achieve this. (shrink)

This is a work in the epistemology of functional neuroimaging (fNI) and it applies the error-statistical (ES) philosophy to inferential problems in fNI to formulate and address these problems. This gives us a clear, accurate, and more complete understanding of what we can learn from fNI and how we can learn it. I review the works in the epistemology of fNI which I group into two categories; the first category consists of discussions of the theoretical significance of fNI (...) findings and the second category discusses methodological difficulties of fNI. Both types of works have shortcomings; the first category has been too theory-centered in its approach and the second category has implicitly or explicitly adopted the assumption that methodological difficulties of fNI cannot be satisfactorily addressed. In this dissertation, I address these shortcomings and show how and what kind of experimental knowledge fNI can reliably produce which would be theoretically significant. I take fMRI as a representative fNI procedure and discuss the history of its development. Two independent trajectories of research in physics and physiology eventually converge to give rise to fMRI. Thus, fMRI findings are laden in the theories of physics and physiology and I propose how this creates a kind of useful theory-ladenness which allows for the representation of and intervention in the constructs of cognitive neuroscience. Duhemian challenges and problems of underdetermination are often raised to argue that fNI is of little, if any, epistemic value for psychology. I show how the ES notions of severe tests and error probabilities can be applied in epistemological analyses of fMRI. The result is that hemodynamic hypotheses can be severely tested in fMRI experiments and I demonstrate how these hypotheses are theoretically significant and fuel the growth of experimental knowledge in cognitive neuroscience. Throughout this dissertation, I put the emphasis on the experimental knowledge we obtain from fNI and argue that this is the fruitful approach that enables us to see how fNI can contribute to psychology. In doing so, I offer an error-statistical epistemology of fNI, which hopefully will be a significant contribution to the philosophy of psychology. (shrink)

Recent advances in neuroimaging technologies have rendered multimodal analysis of operators’ cognitive processes in complex task settings and environments increasingly more practical. In this exploratory study, we utilized optical brain imaging and mobile eye tracking technologies to investigate the behavioral and neurophysiological differences among expert and novice operators while they operated a human-machine interface in normal and adverse conditions. In congruence with related work, we observed that experts tended to have lower prefrontal oxygenation and exhibit gaze patterns that are (...) better aligned with the optimal task sequence with shorter fixation durations as compared to novices. These trends reached statistical significance only in the adverse condition where the operators were prompted with an unexpected error message. Comparisons between hemodynamic and gaze measures before and after the error message indicated that experts’ neurophysiological response to the error involved a systematic increase in bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) activity accompanied with an increase in fixation durations, which suggests a shift in their attentional state, possibly from routine process execution to problem detection and resolution. The novices’ response was not as strong as that of experts, including a slight increase only in the left dlPFC with a decreasing trend in fixation durations, which is indicative of visual search behavior for possible cues to make sense of the unanticipated situation. A linear discriminant analysis model capitalizing on the covariance structure among hemodynamic and eye movement measures could distinguish experts from novices with 91% accuracy. Despite the small sample size, the performance of the linear discriminant analysis combining eye fixation and dorsolateral oxygenation measures before and after an unexpected event suggests that multimodal approaches may be fruitful for distinguishing novice and expert performance in similar neuroergonomic applications in the field. (shrink)

Multivariate pattern analysis can reveal new information from neuroimaging data to illuminate human cognition and its disturbances. Here, we develop a methodological approach, based on multivariate statistical/machine learning and time series analysis, to discern cognitive processing stages from functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) blood oxygenation level dependent (BOLD) time series. We apply this method to data recorded from a group of healthy adults whilst performing a virtual reality version of the delayed win-shift radial arm maze (RAM) task. This task (...) has been frequently used to study working memory and decision making in rodents. Using linear classifiers and multivariate test statistics in conjunction with time series bootstraps, we show that different cognitive stages of the task, as defined by the experimenter, namely, the encoding/retrieval, choice, reward and delay stages, can be statistically discriminated from the BOLD time series in brain areas relevant for decision making and working memory. Discrimination of these task stages was significantly reduced during poor behavioral performance in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), but not in the primary visual cortex (V1). Experimenter-defined dissection of time series into class labels based on task structure was confirmed by an unsupervised, bottom-up approach based on Hidden Markov Models. Furthermore, we show that different groupings of recorded time points into cognitive event classes can be used to test hypotheses about the specific cognitive role of a given brain region during task execution. We found that whilst the DLPFC strongly differentiated between task stages associated with different memory loads, but not between different visual-spatial aspects, the reverse was true for V1. Our methodology illustrates how different aspects of cognitive information processing during one and the same task can be separated and attributed to specific brain regions based on information contained in multivariate patterns of voxel activity. (shrink)

Recent advances in neuroimaging technologies have rendered multimodal analysis of operators’ cognitive processes in complex task settings and environments increasingly more practical. In this exploratory study, we utilized optical brain imaging and mobile eye tracking technologies to investigate the behavioral and neurophysiological differences among expert and novice operators while they operated a human-machine interface in normal and adverse conditions. In congruence with related work, we observed that experts tended to have lower prefrontal oxygenation and exhibit gaze patterns that are (...) better aligned with the optimal task sequence with shorter fixation durations as compared to novices. These trends reached statistical significance only in the adverse condition where the operators were prompted with an unexpected error message. Comparisons between hemodynamic and gaze measures before and after the error message indicated that experts’ neurophysiological response to the error involved a systematic increase in bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) activity accompanied with an increase in fixation durations, which suggests a shift in their attentional state, possibly from routine process execution to problem detection and resolution. The novices’ response was not as strong as that of experts, including a slight increase only in the left dlPFC with a decreasing trend in fixation durations, which is indicative of visual search behavior for possible cues to make sense of the unanticipated situation. A linear discriminant analysis model capitalizing on the covariance structure among hemodynamic and eye movement measures could distinguish experts from novices with 91% accuracy. Despite the small sample size, the performance of the linear discriminant analysis combining eye fixation and dorsolateral oxygenation measures before and after an unexpected event suggests that multimodal approaches may be fruitful for distinguishing novice and expert performance in similar neuroergonomic applications in the field. (shrink)

The notion that the working-memory system is not to be located in the prefrontal cortex, but rather constituted by the interplay between temporal and frontal areas, is of some attraction. However, at least for the domain of sentence comprehension, this perspective is promoted on the basis of sparse data. For this domain, the authors not only missed out on the chance to systematically integrate event-related brain potential (ERP) and neuroimaging data when interpreting their own findings on semantic aspects of (...) working memory, but also neglected syntactic aspects of working memory and computation altogether. (shrink)

The relationship between the neurobiology of speech and music has been investigated for more than a century. There remains no widespread agreement regarding how (or to what extent) music perception utilizes the neural circuitry that is engaged in speech processing, particularly at the cortical level. Prominent models such as Patel’s Shared Syntactic Integration Resource Hypothesis (SSIRH) and Koelsch’s neurocognitive model of music perception suggest a high degree of overlap, particularly in the frontal lobe, but also perhaps more distinct representations in (...) the temporal lobe with hemispheric asymmetries. The present meta-analysis study used activation likelihood estimate analyses to identify the brain regions consistently activated for music as compared to speech across the functional neuroimaging (fMRI and PET) literature. Eighty music and 91 speech neuroimaging studies of healthy adult control subjects were analyzed. Peak activations reported in the music and speech studies were divided into four paradigm categories: passive listening, discrimination tasks, error/anomaly detection tasks and memory-related tasks. We then compared activation likelihood estimates within each category for music versus speech, and each music condition with passive listening. We found that listening to music and to speech preferentially activate distinct temporo-parietal bilateral cortical networks. We also found music and speech to have shared resources in the left pars opercularis but speech-specific resources in the left pars triangularis. The extent to which music recruited speech-activated frontal resources was modulated by task. While there are certainly limitations to meta-analysis techniques particularly regarding sensitivity, this work suggests that the extent of shared resources between speech and music may be task-dependent and highlights the need to consider how task effects may be affecting conclusions regarding the neurobiology of speech and music. (shrink)