Distributed neural representations of logical arguments in school-age children.
Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Mathieu R
PROVIDER: S-EPMC4814569 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Similar Datasets
Project description:Artificial activation of anatomically localized, genetically defined hypothalamic neuron populations is known to trigger distinct innate behaviors, suggesting a hypothalamic nucleus-centered organization of behavior control. To assess whether the encoding of behavior is similarly anatomically confined, we performed simultaneous neuron recordings across twenty hypothalamic regions in freely moving animals. Here we show that distinct but anatomically distributed neuron ensembles encode the social and fear behavior classes, primarily through mixed selectivity. While behavior class-encoding ensembles were spatially distributed, individual ensembles exhibited strong localization bias. Encoding models identified that behavior actions, but not motion-related variables, explained a large fraction of hypothalamic neuron activity variance. These results identify unexpected complexity in the hypothalamic encoding of instincts and provide a foundation for understanding the role of distributed neural representations in the expression of behaviors driven by hardwired circuits.
| S-EPMC10690204 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Converging data suggest recovery from injury in the preterm brain. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to test the hypothesis that cerebral connectivity involving Wernicke's area and other important cortical language regions would differ between preterm (PT) and term (T) control school age children during performance of an auditory language task. Fifty-four PT children (600-1250 g birth weight) and 24 T controls were evaluated using an fMRI passive language task and neurodevelopmental assessments including: the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children - III (WISC-III), the Peabody Individual Achievement Test - Revised (PIAT-R) and the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test - Revised (PPVT-R) at 8 years of age. Neural activity was assessed for language processing and the data were evaluated for connectivity and correlations to cognitive outcomes. We found that PT subjects scored significantly lower on all components of the WISC-III (p<0.009), the PIAT-R Reading Comprehension test (p=0.013), and the PPVT-R (p=0.001) compared to term subjects. Connectivity analyses revealed significantly stronger neural circuits in PT children between Wernicke's area and the right inferior frontal gyrus (R IFG, Broca's area homologue) and both the left and the right supramarginal gyri (SMG) components of the inferior parietal lobules (p</=0.02 for all). We conclude that PT subjects employ neural systems for auditory language function at school age differently than T controls; these alterations may represent a delay in maturation of neural networks or the engagement of alternate circuits for language processing.
| S-EPMC2775072 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies investigating the acquisition of sequential motor skills in humans have revealed learning-related functional reorganizations of the cortico-striatal and cortico-cerebellar motor systems accompanied with an initial hippocampal contribution. Yet, the functional significance of these activity-level changes remains ambiguous as they convey the evolution of both sequence-specific knowledge and unspecific task ability. Moreover, these changes do not specifically assess the occurrence of learning-related plasticity. To address these issues, we investigated local circuits tuning to sequence-specific information using multivariate distances between patterns evoked by consolidated or newly acquired motor sequences production. The results reveal that representations in dorsolateral striatum, prefrontal and secondary motor cortices are greater when executing consolidated sequences than untrained ones. By contrast, sequence representations in the hippocampus and dorsomedial striatum becomes less engaged. Our findings show, for the first time in humans, that complementary sequence-specific motor representations evolve distinctively during critical phases of skill acquisition and consolidation.
| S-EPMC6461441 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Temporal-difference (TD) algorithms have been proposed as models of reinforcement learning (RL). We examine two issues of distributed representation in these TD algorithms: distributed representations of belief and distributed discounting factors. Distributed representation of belief allows the believed state of the world to distribute across sets of equivalent states. Distributed exponential discounting factors produce hyperbolic discounting in the behavior of the agent itself. We examine these issues in the context of a TD RL model in which state-belief is distributed over a set of exponentially-discounting "micro-Agents", each of which has a separate discounting factor (gamma). Each microAgent maintains an independent hypothesis about the state of the world, and a separate value-estimate of taking actions within that hypothesized state. The overall agent thus instantiates a flexible representation of an evolving world-state. As with other TD models, the value-error (delta) signal within the model matches dopamine signals recorded from animals in standard conditioning reward-paradigms. The distributed representation of belief provides an explanation for the decrease in dopamine at the conditioned stimulus seen in overtrained animals, for the differences between trace and delay conditioning, and for transient bursts of dopamine seen at movement initiation. Because each microAgent also includes its own exponential discounting factor, the overall agent shows hyperbolic discounting, consistent with behavioral experiments.
| S-EPMC2760757 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Ocular following eye movements have provided insights into how the visual system of humans and monkeys processes motion. Recently, it has been shown that they also reliably reveal stereoanomalies, and, thus, might have clinical applications. Their translation from research to clinical setting has however been hindered by their small size, which makes them difficult to record, and by a lack of data about their properties in sizable populations. Notably, they have so far only been recorded in adults. We recorded ocular following responses (OFRs)-defined as the change in eye position in the 80-160 ms time window following the motion onset of a large textured stimulus-in 14 school-age children (6 to 13 years old, 9 males and 5 females), under recording conditions that closely mimic a clinical setting. The OFRs were acquired non-invasively by a custom developed high-resolution video-oculography system, described in this study. With the developed system we were able to non-invasively detect OFRs in all children in short recording sessions. Across subjects, we observed a large variability in the magnitude of the movements (by a factor of 4); OFR magnitude was however not correlated with age. A power analysis indicates that even considerably smaller movements could be detected. We conclude that the ocular following system is well developed by age six, and OFRs can be recorded non-invasively in young children in a clinical setting.
| S-EPMC9648761 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Most European countries have systematic health assessments of refugees with a main focus on infectious diseases. The aim of this study was to describe the broader health care needs identified in newly settled refugee children in a school health setting. The study population consisted of all 609 recently settled Non-European refugee and asylum-seeking children in the age range 6-15 years who were enrolled in the schools of Malmö, Sweden during the autumn semester of 2015, of which 265 had arrived in Sweden unaccompanied. The data were collected in a structured routine intake interview by an experienced school nurse. Almost half of the children had obvious untreated caries. For the unaccompanied children, prominent mental health needs were present in almost one in three. Previously unidentified vision and/or hearing problems were identified in one in ten and around 5% had a daily medication, and 4.5% of the unaccompanied children and 1.2% of the accompanied children were judged to be in need of immediate care and were referred accordingly. Newly settled refugee children in northern Europe have considerable health care needs apart from communicable diseases. School health services have a unique platform to identify and initiate this care.
| S-EPMC6862330 | biostudies-literature
Project description:In a population-based sample of school-age children, we investigated factors associated with rhinitis, and differences between allergic and nonallergic rhinitis. Amongst children with asthma, we explored the association between rhinitis and asthma severity.Children participating in a birth cohort study (n = 906) were reviewed at age 8 years. Asthma was defined as at least two of the following three features: physician-diagnosed asthma, currently using asthma medication and current wheeze. We measured lung function (plethysmography and spirometry) and airway hyper-reactivity (AHR; methacholine challenge).In the analysis adjusted for the presence of asthma, children with rhinitis had significantly higher AHR (P = 0.001). Maternal smoking and absence of breastfeeding were stronger predictors of nonallergic rhinitis, whereas current wheeze and eczema were stronger predictors of allergic rhinitis. Amongst asthmatics (n = 159), when compared to 76 children without rhinitis, those with rhinitis (n = 83) were 2.89-fold (95% CI 1.41-5.91) more likely to experience frequent attacks of wheezing, 3.44-fold (1.19-9.94) more likely to experience severe attacks of wheezing limiting speech, 10.14-fold (1.27-81.21) more likely to have frequent visits to their doctor because of asthma and nine-fold (1.11-72.83) more likely to miss school. Reported use of intranasal corticosteroids resulted in a numerically small, but consistent reduction in risk, rendering the associations between rhinitis and asthma severity nonsignificant.We observed differences in risk factors and severity between allergic and nonallergic rhinitis. In children with asthma, rhinitis had adverse impact on asthma severity. The use of intranasal corticosteroids resulted in a small, but consistent reduction in the risk.
| S-EPMC4209798 | biostudies-other
Project description:Previous studies have shown that infants and young children with single-suture craniosynostosis (SSC) perform more poorly on tests of visuomotor function than children without SSC. However, previous studies are limited by small sample sizes and little is known about the persistence of visuomotor problems into the school-age years. The aim of this study was to compare visuomotor function in children with and without SSC at the beginning of elementary school.The study included 179 children with SSC (cases) and 183 children without SSC (controls). Visuomotor function was measured by the NEPSY-II Arrows, the Purdue Pegboard Test, and the Beery-Buktenica Developmental Test of visual-motor integration. Case-control differences were estimated using linear regression, adjusted for age, sex, socioeconomic status, and maternal IQ.Cases scored more poorly on all measures of visuomotor function, although the magnitude of case-control differences varied across measures. The greatest differences were observed for the Purdue Pegboard Test, with an average adjusted difference of -0.2 to -0.4 SD points (p-values ranged from .008 to .05). Case-control differences were small in magnitude for other measures of visuomotor function, ranging from -0.01 to -0.1 SD points (p-values ranged from .22 to .88).Children with SSC experienced deficits in manual dexterity into the school-age years but were similar to children without SSC on measures of visual processing. These findings advocate for the assessment of fine-motor function as part of school readiness evaluations in children with SSC.
| S-EPMC4930420 | biostudies-other
Project description:The function of midcingulate cortex (MCC) remains elusive despite decades of investigation and debate. Complicating matters, individual MCC neurons respond to highly diverse task-related events, and MCC activation is reported in most human neuroimaging studies employing a wide variety of task manipulations. Here we investigate this issue by applying a model-based cognitive neuroscience approach involving neural network simulations, functional magnetic resonance imaging, and representational similarity analysis. We demonstrate that human MCC encodes distributed, dynamically evolving representations of extended, goal-directed action sequences. These representations are uniquely sensitive to the stage and identity of each sequence, indicating that MCC sustains contextual information necessary for discriminating between task states. These results suggest that standard univariate approaches for analyzing MCC function overlook the major portion of task-related information encoded by this brain area and point to promising new avenues for investigation.
| S-EPMC6016775 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Developmental dyslexia (DD) is a common reading disability, affecting 5% to 11% of children in North America. Children classified as having DD often have a history of early language delay (ELD) or language impairments. Nevertheless, studies have reported conflicting results as to the association between DD-ELD and the extent of current language difficulties in children with DD. To examine these relationships, we queried the parents of school-age children with reading difficulties on their child's early and current language ability. Siblings were also examined. Children were directly assessed using quantitative tests of language and reading skills. To compare this study with the literature, we divided the sample (N = 674) into three groups: DD, intermediate readers (IR), and skilled readers (SR). We found a significant association between DD and ELD, with parents of children in the DD/IR groups reporting their children put words together later than the SR group. We also found a significant association between DD and language difficulties, with children with low reading skills having low expressive/receptive language abilities. Finally, we identified early language predicted current language, which predicted reading skills. These data contribute to research indicating that children with DD experience language difficulties, suggesting early recognition may help identify reading problems.
| S-EPMC8996296 | biostudies-literature