Rats respond to aversive emotional arousal of human handlers with the activation of the basolateral and central amygdala.

Reading danger signals may save an animal's life, and learning about threats from others allows avoiding first-hand aversive and often fatal experiences. Fear expressed by other individuals, including those belonging to other species, may indicate the presence of a threat in the environment and is an important social cue. Humans and other animals respond to conspecifics' fear with increased activity of the amygdala, the brain structure crucial for detecting threats and mounting an appropriate response to them. It is unclear, however, whether the cross-species transmission of threat information involves similar mechanisms, e.g., whether animals respond to the aversively induced emotional arousal of humans with activation of fear-processing circuits in the brain. Here, we report that when rats interact with a human caregiver who had recently undergone fear conditioning, they show risk assessment behavior and enhanced amygdala activation. The amygdala response involves its two major parts, the basolateral and central, which detect a threat and orchestrate defensive responses. Further, we show that humans who learn about a threat by observing another aversively aroused human, similar to rats, activate the basolateral and centromedial parts of the amygdala. Our results demonstrate that rats detect the emotional arousal of recently aversively stimulated caregivers and suggest that cross-species social transmission of threat information may involve similar neural circuits in the amygdala as the within-species transmission.

Learning about threat from friends and strangers is equally effective: An fMRI study on observational fear conditioning.

Humans often benefit from social cues when learning about the world. For instance, learning about threats from others can save the individual from dangerous first-hand experiences. Familiarity is believed to increase the effectiveness of social learning, but it is not clear whether it plays a role in learning about threats. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we undertook a naturalistic approach and investigated whether there was a difference between observational fear learning from friends and strangers. Participants (observers) witnessed either their friends or strangers (demonstrators) receiving aversive (shock) stimuli paired with colored squares (observational learning stage). Subsequently, participants watched the same squares, but without receiving any shocks (direct-expression stage). We observed a similar pattern of brain activity in both groups of observers. Regions related to threat responses (amygdala, anterior insula, anterior cingulate cortex) and social perception (fusiform gyrus, posterior superior temporal sulcus) were activated during the observational phase, possibly reflecting the emotional contagion process. The anterior insula and anterior cingulate cortex were also activated during the subsequent stage, indicating the expression of learned threat. Because there were no differences between participants observing friends and strangers, we argue that social threat learning is independent of the level of familiarity with the demonstrator.

Functional reorganization of the reading network in the course of foreign language acquisition.

During foreign language acquisition neural representations of native language and foreign language assimilate. In the reading network, this assimilation leads to a shift from effortful processing to automated reading. Longitudinal studies can track this transition and reveal dynamics that might not become apparent in behavior. Here, we report results from a longitudinal functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, which tracked functional changes in the reading network of beginning learners of Greek over one year. We deliberately chose Greek as foreign language that would have similar orthographic transparency but a different alphabet than the native language (Polish). fMRI scans with lexical and semantic decision tasks were performed at five different time points (every ~3 months). Classical language areas (the left inferior frontal gyrus, the left precentral gyrus, and the bilateral supplementary motor cortex), and cognitive control areas (left inferior parietal lobe and bilateral anterior cingulate cortex) showed stronger activation after the first months of instruction as compared to the activation before instruction. This pattern occured in both tasks. Task-related activity in the reading network remained constant throughout the remaining 6 months of learning and was also present in a follow-up scan 3 months after the end of the course. A similar pattern was demonstrated by the analysis of convergence between foreign and native languages occurring within the first months of learning. Additionally, in the lexical task, the extent of spatial overlap, between foreign and native language in Broca's area increased constantly from the beginning till the end of training. Our findings support the notion that reorganization of language networks is achieved after a relatively short time of foreign language instruction. We also demonstrate that cognitive control areas are recruited in foreign language reading at low proficiency levels. No apparent changes in the foreign or native reading network occur after the initial 3 months of learning. This suggests that task demand might be more important than proficiency in regulating the resources needed for efficient foreign language reading.

Multimodal imaging of brain reorganization in hearing late learners of sign language.

The neural plasticity underlying language learning is a process rather than a single event. However, the dynamics of training-induced brain reorganization have rarely been examined, especially using a multimodal magnetic resonance imaging approach, which allows us to study the relationship between functional and structural changes. We focus on sign language acquisition in hearing adults who underwent an 8-month long course and five neuroimaging sessions. We assessed what neural changes occurred as participants learned a new language in a different modality-as reflected by task-based activity, connectivity changes, and co-occurring structural alterations. Major changes in the activity pattern appeared after just 3 months of learning, as indicated by increases in activation within the modality-independent perisylvian language network, together with increased activation in modality-dependent parieto-occipital, visuospatial and motion-sensitive regions. Despite further learning, no alterations in activation were detected during the following months. However, enhanced coupling between left-lateralized occipital and inferior frontal regions was observed as the proficiency increased. Furthermore, an increase in gray matter volume was detected in the left inferior frontal gyrus which peaked at the end of learning. Overall, these results showed complexity and temporal distinctiveness of various aspects of brain reorganization associated with learning of new language in different sensory modality.

Functional hierarchy for tactile processing in the visual cortex of sighted adults.

Perception via different sensory modalities was traditionally believed to be supported by largely separate brain systems. However, a growing number of studies demonstrate that the visual cortices of typical, sighted adults are involved in tactile and auditory perceptual processing. Here, we investigated the spatiotemporal dynamics of the visual cortex's involvement in a complex tactile task: Braille letter recognition. Sighted subjects underwent Braille training and then participated in a transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) study in which they tactually identified single Braille letters. During this task, TMS was applied to their left early visual cortex, visual word form area (VWFA), and left early somatosensory cortex at five time windows from 20 to 520 ms following the Braille letter presentation's onset. The subjects' response accuracy decreased when TMS was applied to the early visual cortex at the 120-220 ms time window and when TMS was applied to the VWFA at the 320-420 ms time window. Stimulation of the early somatosensory cortex did not have a time-specific effect on the accuracy of the subjects' Braille letter recognition, but rather caused a general slowdown during this task. Our results indicate that the involvement of sighted people's visual cortices in tactile perception respects the canonical visual hierarchy-the early tactile processing stages involve the early visual cortex, whereas more advanced tactile computations involve high-level visual areas. Our findings are compatible with the metamodal account of brain organization and suggest that the whole visual cortex may potentially support spatial perception in a task-specific, sensory-independent manner.

Teaching Research Data Management with DataLad: A Multi-year, Multi-domain Effort.

Research data management has become an indispensable skill in modern neuroscience. Researchers can benefit from following good practices as well as from having proficiency in using particular software solutions. But as these domain-agnostic skills are commonly not included in domain-specific graduate education, community efforts increasingly provide early career scientists with opportunities for organised training and materials for self-study. Investing effort in user documentation and interacting with the user base can, in turn, help developers improve quality of their software. In this work, we detail and evaluate our multi-modal teaching approach to research data management in the DataLad ecosystem, both in general and with concrete software use. Spanning an online and printed handbook, a modular course suitable for in-person and virtual teaching, and a flexible collection of research data management tips in a knowledge base, our free and open source collection of training material has made research data management and software training available to various different stakeholders over the past five years.

How to establish and maintain a multimodal animal research dataset using DataLad.

Sharing of data, processing tools, and workflows require open data hosting services and management tools. Despite FAIR guidelines and the increasing demand from funding agencies and publishers, only a few animal studies share all experimental data and processing tools. We present a step-by-step protocol to perform version control and remote collaboration for large multimodal datasets. A data management plan was introduced to ensure data security in addition to a homogeneous file and folder structure. Changes to the data were automatically tracked using DataLad and all data was shared on the research data platform GIN. This simple and cost-effective workflow facilitates the adoption of FAIR data logistics and processing workflows by making the raw and processed data available and providing the technical infrastructure to independently reproduce the data processing steps. It enables the community to collect heterogeneously acquired and stored datasets not limited to a specific category of data and serves as a technical infrastructure blueprint with rich potential to improve data handling at other sites and extend to other research areas.

Emotion schema effects on associative memory differ across emotion categories at the behavioural, physiological and neural level: Emotion schema effects on associative memory differs for disgust and fear.

Previous behavioural and neuroimaging studies have consistently reported that memory is enhanced for associations congruent or incongruent with the structure of prior knowledge, termed as schemas. However, it remains unclear if similar effects arise with emotion-related associations, and whether they depend on the type of emotions. Here, we addressed this question using a novel face-word pair association paradigm combined with fMRI and eye-tracking techniques. In two independent studies, we demonstrated and replicated that both congruency with emotion schemas and emotion category interact to affect associative memory. Overall, memory retrieval was higher for faces from pairs congruent vs. incongruent with emotion schemas, paralleled by a greater recruitment of left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) during successful encoding. However, emotion schema effects differed across two negative emotion categories. Disgust was remembered better than fear, and only disgust activated left IFG stronger during encoding of congruent vs. incongruent pairs, suggestive of deeper semantic processing for the associations. On the contrary, encoding of congruent fear vs. disgust-related pairs was accompanied with greater activity in right fusiform gyrus (FG), suggesting a stronger sensory processing of faces. In addition, successful memory formation for congruent disgust pairs was associated with a higher pupil dilation index related to sympathetic activation, longer gaze time on words compared to faces, and more gaze switches between paired words and faces. This was reversed for fear-related congruent pairs where the faces attracted longer gaze time (compared to words). Overall, our results provide converging evidence from behavioural, physiological, and neural measures to suggest that congruency with available emotion schemas influence memory associations in a similar manner to semantic schemas. However, these effects vary across distinct emotion categories, pointing to a differential role of semantic processing and visual attention processes in the modulation of memory by disgust and fear, respectively.

Observational learning of fear in real time procedure.

Learning to avoid threats often occurs by observing others. Most previous research on observational fear learning (OFL) in humans has used pre-recorded standardized video of an actor and thus lacked ecological validity. Here, we aimed to enhance ecological validity of the OFL by engaging participants in a real-time observational procedure (35 pairs of healthy male friends, age 18-27). One of the participants watched the other undergo a differential fear conditioning task, in which a conditioned stimulus (CS+) was paired with an aversive electric shock and another stimulus (CS-) was always safe. Subsequently, the CS+ and CS- were presented to the observer to test the OFL. While the friend's reactions to the shock elicited strong skin conductance responses (SCR) in all observers, subsequent differential SCRs (CS+ > CS-) were found only when declarative knowledge of the CS+/US contingency (rated by the participants) was acquired. Contingency-aware observers also showed elevated fear potentiated startle responses during both CS+ and CS- compared to baseline. We conclude that our real-time procedure can be effectively used to study OFL. The procedure allowed for dissecting two components of the OFL: an automatic emotional reaction to the response of the demonstrator and learning about stimulus contingency.

Attenuated brain activity during error processing and punishment anticipation in procrastination - a monetary Go/No-go fMRI study.

Procrastination is a self-regulatory failure in which people voluntarily but irrationally delay important tasks. Trait procrastination is estimated to affect 15-20% of the total population and leads to a significant decrease in performance, satisfaction with achievements, and quality of life. Procrastination is related to impulsivity and reduced executive control, especially in the domain of inhibition. Moreover, procrastinatory tendencies seem to increase with negative affect, suggesting impaired emotion regulation. The aim of this study was to investigate the neuronal mechanisms of inhibition, error processing, and behavioral control under pressure of punishment in procrastinators. Non-student subjects recruited to low (LP) and high procrastination (HP) groups performed an fMRI monetary Go/No-go task. HP showed significantly lower error-related activity in ACC than LP. There was also a significant group by condition interaction in the ACC and right DLPFC suggesting increase of control during the punishment condition in LP but not HP group. These results suggest that procrastinators have impaired error processing mechanisms which may add to the persistence of procrastination through difficulties in correction of faulty behaviors. Procrastination also seems to be related to a decreased ability to intensify self-control in more demanding situations and/or impaired coping in the context of negative situations.