Pubertal Testosterone Tracks the Developmental Trajectory of Neural Oscillatory Activity Serving Visuospatial Processing.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Fung MH
PROVIDER: S-EPMC7673475 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Project description:The dynamic allocation of neural resources to discrete features within a visual scene enables us to react quickly and accurately to salient environmental circumstances. A network of bilateral cortical regions is known to subserve such visuospatial attention functions; however the oscillatory and functional connectivity dynamics of information coding within this network are not fully understood. Particularly, the coding of information within prototypical attention-network hubs and the subsecond functional connections formed between these hubs have not been adequately characterized. Herein, we use the precise temporal resolution of magnetoencephalography (MEG) to define spectrally specific functional nodes and connections that underlie the deployment of attention in visual space. Twenty-three healthy young adults completed a visuospatial discrimination task designed to elicit multispectral activity in visual cortex during MEG, and the resulting data were preprocessed and reconstructed in the time-frequency domain. Oscillatory responses were projected to the cortical surface using a beamformer, and time series were extracted from peak voxels to examine their temporal evolution. Dynamic functional connectivity was then computed between nodes within each frequency band of interest. We find that visual attention network nodes are defined functionally by oscillatory frequency, that the allocation of attention to the visual space dynamically modulates functional connectivity between these regions on a millisecond timescale, and that these modulations significantly correlate with performance on a spatial discrimination task. We conclude that functional hubs underlying visuospatial attention are segregated not only anatomically but also by oscillatory frequency, and importantly that these oscillatory signatures promote dynamic communication between these hubs. Hum Brain Mapp 38:5128-5140, 2017. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
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Project description:The ability to dynamically allocate neural resources within the visual space is supported by a number of spectrally-specific oscillatory responses, and such visuospatial processing has been found to decline moderately with age and differ by sex. However, the direct effects of age and sex on these oscillatory dynamics remains poorly understood. Using magnetoencephalography (MEG), structural magnetic resonance imaging, and advanced source reconstruction and statistical methods, we investigated the impact of aging and sex on behavioral performance and the underlying neural dynamics during visuospatial processing. In a large sample spanning a broad age range, we find that a number of prototypical attention and perception network components, both spectrally- and spatially-defined, exhibit complex and uniquely informative relationships with age and sex. Specifically, neural responses in the theta range (4-10?Hz) were found to covary with chronological age in prefrontal and motor cortices, signifying a possible relationship between age and cognitive control. Further, we found that beta (18-24?Hz) activity covaried with age across a large swath of the somato-motor strip, supporting previous findings of motor planning and execution deficits with increasing age. Finally, gamma-frequency (48-70?Hz) oscillations were found to exhibit robust covariance with age in superior parietal and temporo-parietal areas, indicating that the mapping of saliency in visual space is modulated by the normal aging process. Interestingly, behavioral performance and some of these oscillatory neural responses also exhibited interactions between age and sex, indicating sex differences in the evolution of the neural coding of visual perception as age increases. In particular, men were found to have stronger correlations between age and neural oscillatory responses during task performance than women in lateral occipital and superior temporal regions in the alpha band and in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in the gamma band, while women exhibited more robust covariance between age and neural responses than men in inferior temporal and medial prefrontal cortex in the theta range.
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Project description:Attention-related amplification of neural representations of external stimuli has been well documented in the visual domain, however, research concerning the oscillatory dynamics of such directed attention is relatively sparse in humans. Specifically, it is unknown which spectrally-specific neural responses are mainly impacted by the direction and division of attention, as well as whether the effects of attention on these oscillations are spatially disparate. In this study, we use magnetoencephalography and a visual-somatosensory oddball task to investigate the whole-brain oscillatory dynamics of directed (Experiment 1; N = 26) and divided (Experiment 2; N = 34) visual attention. Sensor-level data were transformed into the time-frequency domain and significant responses from baseline were imaged using a frequency-resolved beamformer. We found that multi-spectral cortical oscillations were stronger when attention was sustained in the visual space and that these effects exhibited informative spatial distributions that differed by frequency. More specifically, we found stronger frontal theta (4-8 Hz), frontal and occipital alpha (8-14 Hz), occipital beta (16-22 Hz), and frontal gamma (74-84 Hz) responses when visual attention was sustained than when it was directed away from the visual domain. Similarly, in the divided attention condition, we observed stronger fronto-parietal theta activity and temporo-parietal alpha and beta oscillations when visual attention was sustained toward the visual stimuli than divided between the visual and somatosensory domains. Investigating how attentional gain is implemented in the human brain is essential for better understanding how this process is degraded in disease, and may provide useful targets for future therapies.
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Project description:Previous studies have found alterations in 40 Hz oscillatory activity in response to auditory stimuli in adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The current study sought to examine the specificity and developmental trajectory of these findings by driving the cortex to oscillate at a range of frequencies in both children and adults with and without ASD. Fifteen participants with ASD (3 female, aged 6-23 years) and 15 age-matched controls (4 female, aged 6-25 years) underwent dense-array EEG as they listened to a carrier tone amplitude-modulated by a sinusoid linearly increasing in frequency from 0-100 Hz over 2 s. EEG data were analyzed for inter-trial phase coherence (ITPC) and single-trial power (STP). Older participants with ASD displayed significantly decreased ability to phase-lock to the stimulus in the low gamma frequency range relative to their typically developing (TD) counterparts, while younger ASD and TD did not significantly differ from each other. An interaction between age and diagnosis suggested that TD and ASD also show different developmental trajectories for low gamma power; TD showed a significant decrease in low gamma power with age, while ASD did not. Regardless of age, increased low gamma STP was significantly correlated with increased clinical scores for repetitive behaviors in the ASD group, particularly insistence on sameness. This study contributes to a growing body of evidence supporting alterations in auditory processing in ASD. Older ASD participants showed more pronounced low gamma deficits than younger participants, suggesting an altered developmental trajectory for neural activity contributing to auditory processing deficits that may also be more broadly clinically relevant. Future studies are needed employing a longitudinal approach to confirm findings of this cross-sectional study.
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Project description:BackgroundVisual-spatial processing deficits have been previously linked to heavy alcohol use, but the underlying neurological mechanisms are poorly understood. Neuroimaging studies have shown alcohol-related aberrations in occipital cortices that appear to be associated with these neuropsychological deficits in visual-spatial processing, however the neural dynamics underlying this altered processing remains unknown.MethodsTwenty-three adults with high scores on the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test - Consumption (male: ?5, female: ?4) were compared to 30 demographically-matched controls with low Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test - Consumption scores (?2). All participants completed a visual-spatial processing task while undergoing high-density magnetoencephalography. Time-frequency windows of interest were determined using a data-driven method, and spectrally-specific neural activity was imaged using a beamforming approach. Permutation testing of peak voxel time series was then used to statistically compare across groups.ResultsParticipants with heavy alcohol use responded slower on the task and their performance was more variable. The magnetoencephalography data indicated strong theta (4-8 Hz), alpha (10-16 Hz), and gamma (62-72 Hz) responses in posterior brain regions across both groups. Following voxel time-series extraction, significant group differences were found in the left and right visual association cortices from about 375-550 ms post-stimulus, such that adults with heavy alcohol use had blunted alpha responses compared to controls.ConclusionIndividuals with heavy alcohol use exhibited aberrant occipital alpha activity during visual-spatial processing. These data are the first to show spectrally-specific differences during visual-spatial processing related to heavy alcohol use, and highlight alcohol's effect on systems-level neural activity.
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Project description:Mental set switching is a key facet of executive control measured behaviorally through reaction time or accuracy (i.e., 'switch costs') when shifting among task types. One of several experimentally dissociable influences on switch costs is 'task set inertia', conceptualized as the residual interference conferred when a previous stimulus-response tendency interferes with subsequent stimulus processing on a new task. Task set inertia is thought to represent the passive decay of the previous stimulus-response set from working memory, and its effects decrease with increased interstimulus interval. Closely spaced trials confer high task set inertia, while sparsely spaced trials confer low task set inertia. This functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study characterized, for the first time, two opposing brain systems engaged to resolve task set inertia: 1) a frontoparietal 'cortical control' network for overcoming high task set inertia interference and 2) a subcortical-motor network more active during trials with low task set inertia. These networks were distinct from brain regions showing general switching effects (i.e., switch>non-switch) and from other previously characterized interference effects. Moreover, there were ongoing maturational effects throughout adolescence for the brain regions engaged to overcome high task set inertia not seen for generalized switching effects. These novel findings represent a new avenue of exploration of cognitive set switching neural function.
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Project description:BackgroundPsychosocial distress among youth is a major public health issue characterized by disruptions in cognitive control processing. Using the National Institute of Mental Health's Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) framework, we quantified multidimensional neural oscillatory markers of psychosocial distress serving cognitive control in youth.MethodsThe sample consisted of 39 peri-adolescent participants who completed the NIH Toolbox Emotion Battery (NIHTB-EB) and the Eriksen flanker task during magnetoencephalography (MEG). A psychosocial distress index was computed with exploratory factor analysis using assessments from the NIHTB-EB. MEG data were analyzed in the time-frequency domain and peak voxels from oscillatory maps depicting the neural cognitive interference effect were extracted for voxel time series analyses to identify spontaneous and oscillatory aberrations in dynamics serving cognitive control as a function of psychosocial distress. Further, we quantified the relationship between psychosocial distress and dynamic functional connectivity between regions supporting cognitive control.ResultsThe continuous psychosocial distress index was strongly associated with validated measures of pediatric psychopathology. Theta-band neural cognitive interference was identified in the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) and middle cingulate cortex (MCC). Time series analyses of these regions indicated that greater psychosocial distress was associated with elevated spontaneous activity in both the dlPFC and MCC and blunted theta oscillations in the MCC. Finally, we found that stronger phase coherence between the dlPFC and MCC was associated with greater psychosocial distress.ConclusionsGreater psychosocial distress was marked by alterations in spontaneous and oscillatory theta activity serving cognitive control, along with hyperconnectivity between the dlPFC and MCC.
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