Cortical oxygen consumption in mental arithmetic as a function of task difficulty: a near-infrared spectroscopy approach

Verner, Martin; Herrmann, Martin; Troche, Stefan J.; Roebers, Claudia M.; Rammsayer, Thomas

doi:10.3389/fnhum.2013.00217

Cited by 59 publications

(49 citation statements)

References 60 publications

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“…Other studies have suggested that the LPFC plays a key role in attentional control (Rossi et al, 2009), and that activity in the LPFC represents attentional status for a task requiring sustained attention (Derosière et al, 2014). In addition, similar relationships between LPFC activity and difficulty with language processing (Miura et al, 2005) and arithmetic processing (Verner et al, 2013) have been reported. Those relationships are associated with the increased demand placed on cognitive resources as task difficulty increases.…”

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 53%

Left Lateral Prefrontal Activity Reflects a Change of Behavioral Tactics to Cope with a Given Rule: An fNIRS Study

Miura

Shirasawa

Kanoh

2016

Front. Hum. Neurosci.

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Rules prescribe human behavior and our attempts to choose appropriate behavior under a given rule. Cognitive control, a mechanism to choose and evaluate actions under a rule, is required to determine the appropriate behavior within the limitations of that rule. Consequently, such cognitive control increases mental workload. However, the workload caused by a cognitive task might be different when an additional rule must be considered in choosing the action. The present study was a functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) investigation of an experimental task, in which the difficulty of an operation and existence of an additional rule were manipulated to dissociate the influence of that additional rule on cognitive processing. Twenty healthy Japanese volunteers participated. The participants performed an experimental task, in which the player caught one of five colored balls from the upper part of a computer screen by operating a mouse. Four task conditions were prepared to manipulate the task difficulty, which was defined in terms of operational difficulty. In turn, operational difficulty was determined by the width of the playable space and the existence of an additional rule, which reduced the score when a red ball was not caught. The 52-channel fNIRS data were collected from the forehead. Two regions of interest (ROIs) associated with the bilateral lateral prefrontal cortices (LPFCs) were determined, and a three-way repeated-measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) was performed using the task-related signal changes from each ROI. The fNIRS results revealed that bilateral LPFCs showed large signal changes with the increase in mental workload. The ANOVA showed a significant interaction between the existence of an additional rule and the location of the ROIs; that is, the left lateral prefrontal area showed a significant increase in signal intensity when the additional rule existed, and the participant occasionally decided to avoid catching a ball to successfully catch the red-colored ball. Thus, activation of the left LPFC corresponded more closely to the increase in cognitive control underlying the behavioral change made to cope with the additional rule.

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Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 53%

Left Lateral Prefrontal Activity Reflects a Change of Behavioral Tactics to Cope with a Given Rule: An fNIRS Study

Miura

Shirasawa

Kanoh

2016

Front. Hum. Neurosci.

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“…Arithmetic task performances activated the superior and middle frontal gyri (identical to the frontal polar cortex; BA10) in difficult tasks and the inferior frontal gyrus in easy tasks [31]. On the other hand, Takizawa et al [25] reported that the frontopolar PFC was associated with state anxiety during arithmetic tasks.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rightward Shift of Two-Channel NIRS-Defined Prefrontal Cortex Activity during Mental Arithmetic Tasks with Increasing Levels of State Anxiety

Horiuchi-Hirose

Sawada

2020

Symmetry

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This study was aimed at clarifying the effect of different levels of state anxiety caused by mental arithmetic tasks on the anxiety- and/or task performance-related activation of the frontopolar prefrontal cortex (PFC). Twenty-six healthy male subjects performed two sets of mental arithmetic tasks, which consisted of two difficulty levels. Anxiety levels were evaluated subjectively by the State–Trait Anxiety Inventory-Form JYZ (STAI). Near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) measurements revealed greater levels of oxyhemoglobin in the frontopolar PFC during experimental tasks. When the subjects were divided into three anxiety groups based on STAI scores, arithmetic task performance was reduced in the moderate and high state anxiety groups compared the low state anxiety group during the experimental task, but not in the control task. Increased frontopolar PFC activity during the experimental task was observed on either side in the moderate anxiety group. The laterality of frontopolar PFC activity in moderate and high state anxiety groups shifted from left to right dominance, independent of task difficulty. Our findings suggested that reduced task performance increased the difficulty of the arithmetic tasks and was involved in the state anxiety-associated rightward lateralization of the frontopolar PFC.

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“…Indeed, the majority of reviewed papers that reported using mental arithmetic used strategies that aimed at increasing the working memory demand and thus mainly measured brain activation in the frontal lobe. Examples of tasks used in these studies are subtraction to visually presented 3-digit or 2-digit numbers, or addition or multiplication of visually presented single or double digits to/with single or double digits 13,14,[59][60][61][62][63][64][65][66][67][68][69][70][71][72] . Here, we asked participants to recite common multiplication tables, which is considered an easy task and thus may have elicited lower responses in frontal and parietal areas when compared to more complex multiplication problems 73 .…”

Section: Understanding the Difference In Performance Across Layoutsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Guiding functional near-infrared spectroscopy optode-layout design using individual (f)MRI data: Effects on signal quality and sensitivity

Benitez-Andonegui

Lührs

Nagels-Coune

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Designing optode layouts is an essential step for functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) experiments as the quality of the measured signal and the sensitivity to cortical regions-of-interest depend on how optodes are arranged on the scalp. This becomes particularly relevant for fNIRS-based brain-computer interfaces (BCIs), where developing robust systems with few optodes is crucial for clinical applications. Available resources often dictate the approach researchers use for optode-layout design. Here we compared four approaches that incrementally incorporated subject-specific magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) information while participants performed mental-calculation, mental-rotation and inner-speech tasks. The literature-based approach (LIT) used a literature review to guide the optode layout design. The probabilistic approach (PROB), employed individual anatomical data and probabilistic maps of functional MRI (fMRI)-activation from an independent dataset. The individual fMRI (iFMRI) approach used individual anatomical and fMRI data, and the fourth approach used individual anatomical, functional and vascular information of the same subject (fVASC). The four approaches resulted in different optode layouts and the more informed approaches outperformed the minimally informed approach (LIT) in terms of signal quality and sensitivity. Further, PROB, iFMRI and fVASC approaches resulted in a similar outcome. We conclude that additional individual MRI data leads to a better outcome, but that not all the modalities tested here are required to achieve a robust setup. Finally, we give preliminary advice to efficiently using resources for developing robust optode layouts for BCI and neurofeedback applications.

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Cortical oxygen consumption in mental arithmetic as a function of task difficulty: a near-infrared spectroscopy approach

Cited by 59 publications

References 60 publications

Left Lateral Prefrontal Activity Reflects a Change of Behavioral Tactics to Cope with a Given Rule: An fNIRS Study

Left Lateral Prefrontal Activity Reflects a Change of Behavioral Tactics to Cope with a Given Rule: An fNIRS Study

Rightward Shift of Two-Channel NIRS-Defined Prefrontal Cortex Activity during Mental Arithmetic Tasks with Increasing Levels of State Anxiety

Guiding functional near-infrared spectroscopy optode-layout design using individual (f)MRI data: Effects on signal quality and sensitivity

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