A growing body of evidence suggests an involvement of the somatosensory cortices for social perception. For example, it has been shown that observing touch on other bodies (in the absence of any real ...touch on the own body) affects somatosensory brain areas. Thus, understanding others' sensory experiences seems to rely on vicarious activation of somatosensory cortices. Recent studies also demonstrated that observation of painful and nonpainful touch engages the observer's somatosensory cortex differentially. The somatosensory activation during observation of painful stimulation has been related to trait differences in empathy, thereby drawing the attention to inter-individual differences in vicarious somatosensory activation. The current study aims to test the hypothesis if vicarious somatosensory activation during observation of nonpainful touch is also linked to inter-individual differences in empathy. We employed a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) paradigm to present video clips showing simple non-painful touch with a paintbrush to a hand relative to a control condition including the same visual and motion parts. Results revealed vicarious somatosensory activation when seeing the hand being touched. This activation was associated with trait differences in interpersonal reactivity. Thus, we found that the somatosensory response in primary somatosensory cortex (SI) was associated with the empathy subscale perspective taking. This link demonstrates that vicarious somatosensory responses for simple touch are influenced by the observer's personality traits, therefore suggesting a role for personality traits in a putative mirror neuron system.
Sexual activity involves excitement with high arousal and pleasure as typical features of emotions. Brain activations specifically related to erotic feelings and those related to general emotional ...processing are therefore hard to disentangle. Using fMRI in 21 healthy subjects (11 males and 10 females), we investigated regions that show activations specifically related to the viewing of sexually intense pictures while controlling for general emotional arousal (GEA) or pleasure. Activations in the ventral striatum and hypothalamus were found to be modulated by the stimulus' specific sexual intensity (SSI) while activations in the anterior cingulate cortex were associated with an interaction between sexual intensity and emotional valence. In contrast, activation in other regions like the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, the mediodorsal thalamus and the amygdala was associated only with a general emotional component during sexual arousal. No differences were found in these effects when comparing females and males. Our findings demonstrate for the first time neural differentiation between emotional and sexual components in the neural network underlying sexual arousal.
On the basis of the hypothesis that brands may function as reward stimuli, we investigated brain responses to favorite brands. Participants viewed brand logos while we measured cortical activity with ...functional magnetic resonance imaging. Results revealed activity in the striatum for favorite brands that positively correlated with sports and luxury characteristics, but negatively with attributions to a brand of rational choice. Reduced activation of a single region in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex was demonstrated when viewing the most beloved brand, possibly suggesting reduced strategic reasoning on the basis of affect. The results propose that brands that have been associated with appetitive stimuli owing to marketing efforts engage brain networks similar to those engaged by artificially associated reward stimuli. Moreover, social stimuli may function as secondary inducers of reward mechanisms.
Abstract Culturally based brands have a high impact on people's economic actions. Here we aimed to examine whether socioeconomic information conveyed by certain classes of brands (prestigious versus ...pragmatic classes) differentially evoke brain response. We presented icons of brands while recording subject's brain activity during a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) session. After the experiment, we asked subjects to assess the brands according to different characteristics. Results revealed an active network of bilateral superior frontal gyri, hippocampus and posterior cingulate related to familiar brands in general. Brands of the category sports and luxury activated regions in medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) and precuneus. In contrast, brands rated as value products activated the left superior frontal gyrus and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). The results suggest an active cortical network related to cognitive control for value brands and a network known to be associated with self-relevant processing for prestigious brands. We discuss the results as differential engagement of the prefrontal cortex depending on the attributed characteristic of a brand.
The theory of embodied cognition claims that knowledge is represented in modal systems derived from perception. Recent behavioral studies found evidence for this hypothesis, for example, by linking ...moral purity with physical cleansing (the Macbeth effect). Neurophysiological approaches provided further support by showing an involvement of sensorimotor cortices for embodied metaphors. However, the exact role of this brain region for embodied cognitions remains to be cleared. Here we demonstrate that the involvement of the sensorimotor cortex for the embodied metaphor of moral-purity is somatotopically organized. Participants enacted in scenarios where they had to perform immoral or moral acts either with their mouths or their hands. Results showed that mouthwash products were particularly desirable after lying in a voice mail and hand wash products were particularly desirable after writing a lie, thus demonstrating that the moral-purity metaphor is specific to the sensorimotor modality involved in earlier immoral behavior. FMRI results of this interaction showed activation in sensorimotor cortices during the evaluation phase that was somatotopically organized with respect to preceding lying in a voice mail (mouth-area) or in a written note (hand-area). Thus, the results provide evidence for a central role of the sensorimotor cortices for embodied metaphors.
An important issue in language learning is how new words are integrated in the brain representations that sustain language processing. To identify the brain regions involved in meaning acquisition ...and word learning, we conducted a functional magnetic resonance imaging study. Young participants were required to deduce the meaning of a novel word presented within increasingly constrained sentence contexts that were read silently during the scanning session. Inconsistent contexts were also presented in which no meaning could be assigned to the novel word. Participants showed meaning acquisition in the consistent but not in the inconsistent condition. A distributed brain network was identified comprising the left anterior inferior frontal gyrus (BA 45), the middle temporal gyrus (BA 21), the parahippocampal gyrus, and several subcortical structures (the thalamus and the striatum). Drawing on previous neuroimaging evidence, we tentatively identify the roles of these brain areas in the retrieval, selection, and encoding of the meaning.
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DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
A fundamental question about human memory is why some experiences are remembered whereas others are forgotten. Brain activation during word encoding was measured using blocked and event-related ...functional magnetic resonance imaging to examine how neural activation differs for subsequently remembered and subsequently forgotten experiences. Results revealed that the ability to later remember a verbal experience is predicted by the magnitude of activation in left prefrontal and temporal cortices during that experience. These findings provide direct evidence that left prefrontal and temporal regions jointly promote memory formation for verbalizable events.
An increasing body of evidence has demonstrated that in contrast to the classic understanding the primary somatosensory cortex (SI) reflects merely seen touch (in the absence of any real touch on the ...own body). Based on these results it has been discussed that SI may play a role in understanding touch seen on other bodies. In order to further examine this understanding of observed touch, the current study aimed to test if mirror-like responses in SI are affected by the perspective of the seen touch. Thus, we presented touch on a hand and close to the hand either in first-person-perspective or in third-person-perspective.
Results of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) revealed stronger vicarious brain responses in SI/BA2 for touch seen in first-person-perspective. Surprisingly, the third-person viewpoint revealed activation in SI both when subjects viewed a hand being stimulated as well as when the space close to the hand was being touched.
Based on these results we conclude that vicarious somatosensory responses in SI/BA2 are affected by the viewpoint of the seen hand. Furthermore, we argue that mirror-like responses in SI do not only reflect seen touch, but also the peripersonal space surrounding this body (in third-person-perspective). We discuss these findings with recent studies on mirror responses for action observation in peripersonal space.
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Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Evidence from animal studies points to the importance of the parahippocampal region (PHR) including entorhinal, perirhinal, and parahippocampal (PHC) cortices for recognition of visual stimuli. ...Recent findings in animals suggest that PHR may also be involved in visual associative recognition memory for configurations of stimuli. Thus far, however, such involvement has not been demonstrated in humans. In fact, it has been argued that associative recognition in humans is critically dependent on the hippocampal formation (HF). To better understand the division of function between HF and PHR during recognition memory in humans, we measured the activity of both areas in healthy young adults during an associative recognition memory task using functional magnetic resonance imaging. To more precisely characterize the nature of the associations that might be coded by the HF and PHR during recognition, subjects were required to learn and were later tested for associations based on either the spatial arrangements of two stimuli or the identity of two stimuli (a face and a tool). An area in the PHC was found to be more active for recognized old configurations than new configurations in both the spatial and identity conditions. The HF, on the other hand, was more active for recognition of new configurations than old configurations and also more active in the spatial than the identity condition. These data highlight the involvement of PHR in the long-term coding of associative relationships between stimuli and help to clarify the nature of its functional distinction from the HF.
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