Brain networks underlying mental imagery of auditory and visual information

Abstract

Mental imagery is a complex cognitive process that resembles the experience of perceiving an object when this object is not physically present to the senses. It has been shown that, depending on the sensory nature of the object, mental imagery also involves correspondent sensory neural mechanisms. However, it remains unclear which areas of the brain subserve supramodal imagery processes that are independent of the object modality, and which brain areas are involved in modality-specific imagery processes. Here, we conducted a functional magnetic resonance imaging study to reveal supramodal and modality-specific networks of mental imagery for auditory and visual information. A common supramodal brain network independent of imagery modality, two separate modality-specific networks for imagery of auditory and visual information, and a common deactivation network were identified. The supramodal network included brain areas related to attention, memory retrieval, motor preparation and semantic processing, as well as areas considered to be part of the default-mode network and multisensory integration areas. The modality-specific networks comprised brain areas involved in processing of respective modality-specific sensory information. Interestingly, we found that imagery of auditory information led to a relative deactivation within the modality-specific areas for visual imagery, and vice versa. In addition, mental imagery of both auditory and visual information widely suppressed the activity of primary sensory and motor areas, for example deactivation network. These findings have important implications for understanding the mechanisms that are involved in generation of mental imagery.

O5‐05‐05: Auditory spatial processing in Alzheimer's disease

“…It remains unclear whether the cognitive mechanisms that process particular auditory spatial parameters can be differentiated (Middlebrooks and Green, 1991;Blauert, 1997;Ducommun et al, 2002Ducommun et al, , 2004Richter et al, 2013); however, the present neuroanatomical data are in line with previous work in the healthy brain and in focal brain damage implicating temporo-parietal junction and precuneus in the analysis of sound motion and static location, respectively Ducommun et al, 2004;Krumbholz et al, 2005;Zü ndorf et al, 2013). These correlates might in turn reflect the relative dependence of auditory motion coding on finegrained spectrotemporal analysis and auditory location discrimination on imagery processes that integrate stored auditory representations Warren et al, 2002;Zü ndorf et al, 2013;Zvyagintsev et al, 2013). Involvement of precuneus here further accords with previous work implicating retrosplenial cortex in auditory scene analysis in Alzheimer's disease (Goll et al, 2012).…”

“…Retrosplenial cortical areas (posterior cingulate and precuneus) are key components of a core temporo-parieto-frontal brain network that is likely to be integral to the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease (Baron et al, 2001;Frisoni et al, 2002;Buckner et al, 2005;Dickerson et al, 2009;Seeley et al, 2009;Lehmann et al, 2010;Warren et al, 2012). This so-called 'default mode network' shows correlated activity in the healthy 'resting' brain (Raichle et al, 2001) and deactivates with certain tasks (Shulman et al, 1997) but has also been implicated in various 'active' processes including maintenance of internal sensory representations (Buckner and Carroll, 2007;Buckner et al, 2008;Spreng and Grady, 2010;Zvyagintsev et al, 2013). More directly, auditory spatial as well as other aspects of auditory scene analysis have been shown to depend on retrosplenial cortex in healthy individuals (Wong et al, 2009;Zü ndorf et al, 2013) and in patients with Alzheimer's disease (Goll et al, 2012).…”

Imagine that: elevated sensory strength of mental imagery in individuals with Parkinson's disease and visual hallucinations

“…This dissociation highlights the fact that, although imagery strength and hallucinations likely share a common neurobiological mechanism, they also reflect distinct processes. For instance, recent imaging studies have implicated increased activity within cortical regions used for attention [10,20], whereas visual hallucinations in PD have been related to impaired interactions between neural systems involved in the attentional modulation of perception [4,16,21,22].…”

Influencia de las imágenes mentales generadas por la publicidad en la mente del público infantil según la naturaleza del estímulo

“…La diferencia de generación de imágenes mentales dependiendo de la naturaleza sensorial del estímulo se ha mostrado a través de una amplia literatura científica (Sharps & Price, 1992;Thompson & Paivio, 1994;Arroyo, 1997Arroyo, , 2006Arroyo, Martínez-Val & García, 2001;Zvyagintsev et al, 2013). Sabemos por ella, en primer lugar, que las imágenes se recuerdan mejor que las palabras y que su recuerdo no decrece tan rápidamente con el paso del tiempo (Arroyo, 1997).…”

“…Evocar una imagen mental siempre es un proceso cognitivo complejo porque se trata de percibir un objeto que no está presente en el momento que lo reconstruimos (Zvyagintsev et al, 2013). Pero habitualmente el concepto de complejidad de una imagen mental en publicidad se asocia a la retórica publicitaria (Schroeder, 2008).…”