Resting-State Activity in High-Order Visual Areas as a Window into Natural Human Brain Activations.

A major limitation of conventional human brain research has been its basis in highly artificial laboratory experiments. Due to technical constraints, little is known about the nature of cortical activations during ecological real life. We have previously proposed the "spontaneous trait reactivation (STR)" hypothesis arguing that resting-state patterns, which emerge spontaneously in the absence of external stimulus, reflect the statistics of habitual cortical activations during real life. Therefore, these patterns can serve as a window into daily life cortical activity. A straightforward prediction of this hypothesis is that spontaneous patterns should preferentially correlate to patterns generated by naturalistic stimuli compared with artificial ones. Here we targeted high-level category-selective visual areas and tested this prediction by comparing BOLD functional connectivity patterns formed during rest to patterns formed in response to naturalistic stimuli, as well as to more artificial category-selective, dynamic stimuli. Our results revealed a significant correlation between the resting-state patterns and functional connectivity patterns generated by naturalistic stimuli. Furthermore, the correlations to naturalistic stimuli were significantly higher than those found between resting-state patterns and those generated by artificial control stimuli. These findings provide evidence of a stringent link between spontaneous patterns and the activation patterns during natural vision.

Brain activity correlates with emotional perception induced by dynamic avatars.

An accurate judgment of the emotional state of others is a prerequisite for successful social interaction and hence survival. Thus, it is not surprising that we are highly skilled at recognizing the emotions of others. Here we aimed to examine the neuronal correlates of emotion recognition from gait. To this end we created highly controlled dynamic body-movement stimuli based on real human motion-capture data (Roether et al., 2009). These animated avatars displayed gait in four emotional (happy, angry, fearful, and sad) and speed-matched neutral styles. For each emotional gait and its equivalent neutral gait, avatars were displayed at five morphing levels between the two. Subjects underwent fMRI scanning while classifying the emotions and the emotional intensity levels expressed by the avatars. Our results revealed robust brain selectivity to emotional compared to neutral gait stimuli in brain regions which are involved in emotion and biological motion processing, such as the extrastriate body area (EBA), fusiform body area (FBA), superior temporal sulcus (STS), and the amygdala (AMG). Brain activity in the amygdala reflected emotional awareness: for visually identical stimuli it showed amplified stronger response when the stimulus was perceived as emotional. Notably, in avatars gradually morphed along an emotional expression axis there was a parametric correlation between amygdala activity and emotional intensity. This study extends the mapping of emotional decoding in the human brain to the domain of highly controlled dynamic biological motion. Our results highlight an extensive level of brain processing of emotional information related to body language, which relies mostly on body kinematics.

The emotion-action link? Naturalistic emotional stimuli preferentially activate the human dorsal visual stream.

A large body of brain imaging research highlights a set of specific regions in the limbic, insular and prefrontal cortex as sensitive to static visual images of high emotional content. Here we report that when using more naturalistic stimuli (short audio-visual video clips) the most selective cortical loci demonstrating preferential activation to emotional content were centered on the dorsal, action related, stream of visual areas. Subjects underwent fMRI scanning while watching a set of highly emotional as well as neutral video clips. Following the scan, clips were rated by each subject for emotional arousal and valence. Surprisingly, activity in dorsal stream visual areas (such as IPS and SPL) showed the highest preference to emotional arousal compared to all other brain areas. In contrast, ventral stream visual areas showed a significantly weaker emotional preference. Control experiments ruled out low level visual or auditory cues as contributing factors to this effect. Furthermore, the specific spatial pattern of emotion-related activations was incompatible with general arousal or attentional effects. Given the established role of dorsal stream visual areas in action-related functions, these results support the long held hypothesis associating emotion with preparation for action.

Growing Brains, Nurturing Minds-Neuroscience as an Educational Tool to Support Students' Development as Life-Long Learners.

Compared to other primates, humans are late bloomers, with exceptionally long childhood and adolescence. The extensive developmental period of humans is thought to facilitate the learning processes required for the growth and maturation of the complex human brain. During the first two and a half decades of life, the human brain is a construction site, and learning processes direct its shaping through experience-dependent neuroplasticity. Formal and informal learning, which generates long-term and accessible knowledge, is mediated by neuroplasticity to create adaptive structural and functional changes in brain networks. Since experience-dependent neuroplasticity is at full force during school years, it holds a tremendous educational opportunity. In order to fulfill this developmental and learning potential, educational practices should be human-brain-friendly and "ride" the neuroplasticity wave. Neuroscience can inform educators about the natural learning mechanisms of the brain to support student learning. This review takes a neuroscientific lens to explore central concepts in education (e.g., mindset, motivation, meaning-making, and attention) and suggests two methods of using neuroscience as an educational tool: teaching students about their brain (content level) and considering the neuro-mechanisms of learning in educational design (design level).

Coupling between spontaneous (resting state) fMRI fluctuations and human oculo-motor activity.

The recent discovery of incessant spontaneous fluctuations in human brain activity (also termed resting state fMRI) has been a focus of intense research in brain imaging. The spontaneous BOLD activity shows organized anatomical specialization as well as disruption in a number of brain pathologies. The link between the spontaneous fMRI fluctuations and human behavior is therefore of acute interest and importance. Here we report that a highly significant correlation exists between spontaneous BOLD fluctuations and eye movements which occur subliminally and spontaneously in the absence of any visual stimulation. Of the various eye movement parameters tested, we found robust and anatomically consistent correlations with both the amplitude and velocity of spontaneous eye movements. Control experiments ruled out a contribution of spatial and visual attention as well as smooth pursuit eye movements to the effect. The consistent anatomical specificity of the correlation patterns and their tight temporal link at the proper hemodynamic delay argues against a non-neuronal explanation of the effect, such as cardiac or respiratory cycles. Our results thus demonstrate a link between resting state and spontaneously emerging subconscious oculo-motor behavior.

Publisher Correction: Creative exploration as a scale-invariant search on a meaning landscape.

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.

Creative exploration as a scale-invariant search on a meaning landscape.

Can knowledge accumulated in systems biology on mechanisms governing cell behavior help us to elucidate cognitive processes, such as human creative search? To address this, we focus on the property of scale invariance, which allows sensory systems to adapt to environmental signals spanning orders of magnitude. For example, bacteria search for nutrients, by responding to relative changes in nutrient concentration rather than absolute levels, via a sensory mechanism termed fold-change detection (FCD). Scale invariance is prevalent in cognition, yet the specific mechanisms are mostly unknown. Here, we screen many possible dynamic equation topologies, to find that an FCD model best describes creative search dynamics. The model further predicts robustness to variations in meaning perception, in agreement with behavioral data. We thus suggest FCD as a specific mechanism for scale invariant search, connecting sensory processes of cells and cognitive processes in human.

Fear thou not: activity of frontal and temporal circuits in moments of real-life courage.

How does the brain encode courage in a real-life fearful situation that demands an immediate response? In this study, volunteers who fear snakes had to bring a live snake into close proximity with their heads while their brains were scanned using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Bringing the snake closer was associated with a dissociation between subjective fear and somatic arousal. Activity in the subgenual anterior cingulate cortex (sgACC) and the right temporal pole was positively correlated with such action. Further, activity in the sgACC was positively correlated with the level of fear upon choosing to overcome fear but not upon succumbing to it. Conversely, activity in a set of interrelated temporal lobe structures, including the amygdala, was attenuated as the level of fear increased when choosing to overcome fear. We propose how the internally reinforced fast representational shift, in which the courageous-response representation gains control over behavior, takes place.