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He who is well prepared has half won the battle: an FMRI study of task preparation.

ABSTRACT: The neural mechanism underlying preparation for tasks that vary in difficulty has not been explored. This functional magnetic resonance imaging study manipulated task difficulty by varying the working memory (WM) load of the n-back task. Each n-back task block was preceded by a preparation period involving a screen that indicated the level of difficulty of the upcoming task. Consistent with previous work, activation in some brain regions depended on WM load in the task. These regions were used as regions of interest for the univariate and multivariate (classification) analyses of preparation periods. The findings were that the patterns of brain activation during task preparation contain information about the upcoming task difficulty. (1) A support vector machine classifier was able to decode the n-back task difficulty from the patterns of brain activation during task preparation. Those individuals whose activation patterns for anticipated 1- versus 2- versus 3-back conditions were classified with higher accuracy showed better behavioral performance on the task, suggesting that task performance depends on task preparation. (2) Left inferior frontal gyrus, intraparietal sulcus, and anterior cingulate cortex parametrically decreased activation as anticipated task difficulty increased. Taken together, these results suggest dynamic involvement of the WM network not only during WM task performance, but also during task preparation.

SUBMITTER: Manelis A

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4318533 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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He who is well prepared has half won the battle: an FMRI study of task preparation.

Manelis Anna A Reder Lynne M LM

Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) 20131003 3

The neural mechanism underlying preparation for tasks that vary in difficulty has not been explored. This functional magnetic resonance imaging study manipulated task difficulty by varying the working memory (WM) load of the n-back task. Each n-back task block was preceded by a preparation period involving a screen that indicated the level of difficulty of the upcoming task. Consistent with previous work, activation in some brain regions depended on WM load in the task. These regions were used a ...[more]

PMID: 24092642

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Project description:The mechanism underlying neurological dysfunction in chronic fatigue syndrome/myalgic encephalomyelitis (CFS/ME) is yet to be established. This study investigated the temporal complexity of blood oxygenation level dependent (BOLD) changes in response to the Stroop task in CFS patients. 43 CFS patients (47.4?±?11.8?yrs) and 26 normal controls (NCs, 43.4?±?13.9?yrs) were included in this study. Their mental component summary (MCS) and physical component summary (PCS) from the 36-item Short Form Health Survey (SF-36) questionnaire were recorded. Their Stroop colour-word task performance was measured by accuracy and response time (RT). The BOLD changes associated with the Stroop task were evaluated using a 2-level general linear model approach. The temporal complexity of the BOLD responses, a measure of information capacity and thus adaptability to a challenging environment, in each activated region was measured by sample entropy (SampEn). The CFS patients showed significantly longer RTs than the NCs (P?<?0.05) but no significant difference in accuracy. One sample t-tests for the two groups (Family wise error adjusted PFWE?<?0.05) showed more BOLD activation regions in the CFS, although a two sample group comparison did not show significant difference. BOLD SampEns in ten regions were significantly lower (FDR-q?<?0.05) in CFS patients. BOLD SampEns in 15 regions were significantly associated with PCS (FDR-q?<?0.05) and in 9 regions were associated with MCS (FDR-q?<?0.05) across all subjects. SampEn of the BOLD signal in the medioventral occipital cortex could explain 40% and 31% of the variance in the SF-36 PCS and MCS scores, and those in the precentral gyrus could explain an additional 16% and 7% across all subjects. This is the first study to investigate BOLD signal SampEn in response to tasks in CFS. The results suggest the brain responds differently to a cognitive challenge in patients with CFS, with recruitment of wider regions to compensate for lower information capacity.

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He who is well prepared has half won the battle: an FMRI study of task preparation.

Publications

He who is well prepared has half won the battle: an FMRI study of task preparation.

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