Biology subjects

Fournel, A.

Publications and source records attributed to Fournel, A..

3 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2024

The technical-reasoning network is recruited when people observe others make or teach how to make tools: An fMRI study

Cumulative technological culture is defined as the increase in efficiency and complexity of tools and techniques over generations. While the role of social cognitive skills in cultural transmission has been long acknowledged, recent accounts have emphasized that non-social cognitive skills such as technical reasoning, a form of causal reasoning aimed at understanding the physical world, are also at work during the social transmission of technical content. Here we contribute to this double process approach by reporting an fMRI study about the neurocognitive origins of social learning. Participants were shown videos depicting tool-making episodes in three social-learning conditions: Reverse engineering, Observation and Teaching. Our results showed that the technical-reasoning network, centred around the Area PF of the left inferior parietal cortex, was preferentially activated when watching tool-making episodes. Additionally, the teaching component was related to an activation of the right middle temporal gyrus. We propose that technical reasoning is at the heart of our technological culture and that the role of social cognition and teaching is to improve the learners technical reasoning by helping them concentrate on important parts of the technology. Thus, both technical reasoning and social-cognitive skills may play a key role in the cultural evolution of our technologies.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2024

Shaping the physical world to our ends: The left PF technical-cognition area

Our propensity to materiality, which consists in using, making, creating, and passing on technologies, has enabled us to shape the physical world according to our ends. To explain this proclivity, scientists have calibrated their lens to either low-level skills such as motor cognition or high-level skills such as language or social cognition. Yet, little has been said about the intermediate-level cognitive processes that are directly involved in mastering this materiality, that is, technical cognition. We aim to focus on this intermediate level for providing new insights into the neurocognitive bases of human materiality. Here we show that a technical-reasoning process might be specifically at work in physical problem-solving situations. We found via two distinct neuroimaging studies that the area PF (parietal F) within the left parietal lobe is central for this reasoning process in both tool-use and non-tool-use physical problem-solving and can work along with social-cognitive skills to resolve day-to-day interactions that combine social and physical constraints. Our results demonstrate the existence of a specific cognitive module in the human brain dedicated to materiality, which might be the supporting pillar allowing the accumulation of technical knowledge over generations. Intensifying research on technical cognition could nurture a comprehensive framework that has been missing in fields interested in how early and modern humans have been interacting with the physical world through technology, and how this interaction has shaped our history and culture.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2020

Cognitive regulation of multimodal food perception in the human brain

The ability to regulate appetite is essential to avoid food over-consumption. The desire for a particular food can be triggered by its odor before it is even seen. Using fMRI, we identify the neural systems modulated by cognitive regulation when experiencing appetizing food stimuli presented in both olfactory and visual modalities, while being hungry. Regulatory instruction modulated bids for food items and inhalation patterns. Distinct brain regions were observed for up and down appetite-regulation, respectively the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) and dorsolateral PFC. Food valuation engaged the ventromedial PFC and bilateral striatum while the amygdala was modulated by individual food preferences, indexed by rank-ordered bids. Furthermore, we identified a neurobiological marker for up-regulating success: individuals with higher blood levels of ghrelin were better at exercising up-regulation, and engaged more the dmPFC. This characterizes the neural circuitry regulating food consumption and suggests potential hormonal and neurofunctional targets for preventing eating disorders.

neuroscience↗