Selective processing of buildings and faces during working memory: the role of the ventral striatum

Haeger, Alexa; Lee, Hweeling; Fell, Juergen; Axmacher, Nikolai

doi:10.1111/ejn.12808

Cited by 14 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 51 publications

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“…In Smith et al, 2011a , higher leisure time physical activity, according to the Stanford Brief Activity Survey (SBAS), was associated with an increased activation in the left caudate during a famous name discrimination fMRI task. The authors discussed the involvement of the caudate, not only as a reflection of motor function, but also in the augmentation and facilitation of cognitive processes (see also Crosson et al, 2007 ; Haeger et al, 2015 ) and its involvement in the progression of MCI ( Hakamata et al, 2010 ). This is in concordance with findings from Verstynen et al, 2012 , where higher cardiorespiratory fitness predicted better cognitive flexibility in older cognitively healthy adults, through greater gray matter volume in the dorsal striatum.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cerebral changes improved by physical activity during cognitive decline: A systematic review on MRI studies

Haeger

Costa

Schulz

et al. 2019

NeuroImage: Clinical

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Current treatment in late-life cognitive impairment and dementia is still limited, and there is no cure for brain tissue degeneration or reversal of cognitive decline. Physical activity represents a promising non-pharmacological interventional approach in many diseases causing cognitive impairment, but its effect on brain integrity is still largely unknown. Especially research of cerebral alterations in disease state that goes beyond observations of clinical improvement is crucial to understand disease processes and possible effective treatments. In this systematic review, we address the question how physical activity and fitness in mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer's disease (AD) influences brain architecture compared to cognitively healthy elderly. We review both interventional studies comprising aerobic, coordinative and resistance exercises and observational studies on fitness and physical activity combined with Magnetic Resonance imaging (MRI). Different MRI approaches were included such as volumetric and structural analyses, Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI), functional MRI and Cerebral Blood Flow (CBF). We evaluate MRI results for different exercise modalities and performed a methodological evaluation of interventional studies in cognitive decline compared to normal aging. According to our results, among 12 interventions in AD/MCI, aerobic exercise is most frequently applied (9 studies). Interventions in AD/MCI altogether reveal a higher methodological quality compared to interventions in healthy elderly (8.33 ± 2.19 vs. 6.25 ± 2.36 out of 13 points), with most frequent missing aspects related to descriptions of complications, lack of intention-to-treat and statistical power analyses. Effects of aerobic exercise and fitness seem to mainly impact brain structures sensitive to neurodegeneration, which especially comprise frontal, temporal and parietal regions, such as the hippocampal/parahippocampal region, precuneus, anterior cingulate and prefrontal cortex, which are reported by several studies. General fitness measured via an objective fitness assessment and questionnaires seems to have a more global cerebral effect, probably due to its long-term application, whereas distinct intervention effects of durations between 3 and 6 months seem to concentrate on more local brain regions as the hippocampus, which can also be influenced by region of interest analyses. There is still a lack of evidence on other or combined types of intervention modalities, such as resistance, coordinative as well as multicomponent exercise during cognitive decline, and complex interventions as dancing. Future research should examine their beneficial effect on brain integrity, since several non-MRI studies already point to their advantageous impact. As a further future prospect, combination and application of newly developed imaging methods such as metabolic im...

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cerebral changes improved by physical activity during cognitive decline: A systematic review on MRI studies

Haeger

Costa

Schulz

et al. 2019

NeuroImage: Clinical

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“…Accordingly, we found cognitive control ability to be directly correlated with signals in regions of the episodic-valuation-network including the hippocampus, the ACC and the ventral striatum when delayed options were combined with episodic events. The ACC as well as the ventral striatum are involved in the filtering and controlling of competing and goal-relevant information (Rushworth, 2008; Demanet et al, 2013; Haeger et al, 2015). Moreover, the ventral striatum has been implicated in the structuring of memory encoding and retrieval based on the expected utility of memories (reviewed by Scimeca and Badre, 2012).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cognitive Control Modulates Effects of Episodic Simulation on Delay Discounting in Aging

Sasse

Peters

Brassen

2017

Front. Aging Neurosci.

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Enhancing prospective thinking by tagging the future with specific episodic events has been shown to reduce delay discounting in young age (“tag-effect”). So far, it is unclear whether such beneficial effect extends to old adulthood. Since the general ability of future thinking and cognitive control are crucial modulators of temporal discounting in young age, potential age-related decline in these functions might impact on the effect. We focused on this issue by combining functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) with an established intertemporal choice task including episodic “tags” in healthy older participants. Future thinking ability was assessed using autobiographical interviews for future event simulations and a visual search task was applied to assess participants’ cognitive control ability. In contrast to previous data in young adults, the group of older participants did not benefit from tagging the future with episodic events. Older participants’ cognitive control function was directly associated with discounting rates in the episodic conditions: the less the older adults were able to focus their attention the less they benefited from the inclusion of episodic events. Consistent with this, imaging results revealed that: (a) subjective value (SV) signals in the hippocampus and the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) as well as; (b) hippocampal-striatal coupling during the episodic condition were positively related to participants’ control capacity. Our findings highlight the critical role of executive functioning for the simultaneous integration of episodic information with future value computation in aging. Boosting delay gratification by including episodic tags might hence be limited in older individuals with pronounced decline in distraction control.

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“…Individual FFA activation was defined by contrasting all faces (positive and neutral) vs. non-face stimuli, using a liberal threshold of p < 0.001. The activated FFA cluster was then masked by a dilated-by-2-voxels anatomical mask of the fusiform gyrus from the toolbox wfu_pickatlas for SPM (version 3.0.4) to obtain FFA regions individually for each subject ( Maldjian et al, 2003 ; Haeger et al, 2015 ). Peak activations in this region were used as center for a sphere of 5 mm radius equivalent to 80 voxels in order to obtain masks equal in size for each individual subject.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the context of working memory for faces, the FFA is strongly implicated, as its activation can be promoted by raising the working memory load ( Jha and McCarthy, 2000 ; Druzgal and D’Esposito, 2001 , 2003 ; Ranganath et al, 2004a , b ; Haeger et al, 2015 ). Combined data pointed to the fact that increased activation goes along with better working memory performance ( Lepsien and Nobre, 2007 ), which obviously is sustained both by the FFA and its interaction with other modules of the face processing network ( Lin et al, 2019 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Face Processing in Developmental Prosopagnosia: Altered Neural Representations in the Fusiform Face Area

Haeger

Pouzat²,

Luecken

et al. 2021

Front. Behav. Neurosci.

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Rationale: Face expertise is a pivotal social skill. Developmental prosopagnosia (DP), i.e., the inability to recognize faces without a history of brain damage, affects about 2% of the general population, and is a renowned model system of the face-processing network. Within this network, the right Fusiform Face Area (FFA), is particularly involved in face identity processing and may therefore be a key element in DP. Neural representations within the FFA have been examined with Representational Similarity Analysis (RSA), a data-analytical framework in which multi-unit measures of brain activity are assessed with correlation analysis.Objectives: Our study intended to scrutinize modifications of FFA-activation during face encoding and maintenance based on RSA.Methods: Thirteen participants with DP (23–70 years) and 12 healthy control subjects (19–62 years) participated in a functional MRI study, including morphological MRI, a functional FFA-localizer and a modified Sternberg paradigm probing face memory encoding and maintenance. Memory maintenance of one, two, or four faces represented low, medium, and high memory load. We examined conventional activation differences in response to working memory load and applied RSA to compute individual correlation-matrices on the voxel level. Group correlation-matrices were compared via Donsker’s random walk analysis.Results: On the functional level, increased memory load entailed both a higher absolute FFA-activation level and a higher degree of correlation between activated voxels. Both aspects were deficient in DP. Interestingly, control participants showed a homogeneous degree of correlation for successful trials during the experiment. In DP-participants, correlation levels between FFA-voxels were significantly lower and were less sustained during the experiment. In behavioral terms, DP-participants performed poorer and had longer reaction times in relation to DP-severity. Furthermore, correlation levels were negatively correlated with reaction times for the most demanding high load condition.Conclusion: We suggest that participants with DP fail to generate robust and maintained neural representations in the FFA during face encoding and maintenance, in line with poorer task performance and prolonged reaction times. In DP, alterations of neural coding in the FFA might therefore explain curtailing in working memory and contribute to impaired long-term memory and mental imagery.

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Selective processing of buildings and faces during working memory: the role of the ventral striatum

Cited by 14 publications

References 51 publications

Cerebral changes improved by physical activity during cognitive decline: A systematic review on MRI studies

Cerebral changes improved by physical activity during cognitive decline: A systematic review on MRI studies

Cognitive Control Modulates Effects of Episodic Simulation on Delay Discounting in Aging

Face Processing in Developmental Prosopagnosia: Altered Neural Representations in the Fusiform Face Area

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