Biology subjects

Simony, E.

Publications and source records attributed to Simony, E..

3 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2018

Propagation of information along the cortical hierarchy as a function of attention while reading and listening to stories

How does attention route information from sensory to high-order areas as a function of task, within the relatively fixed topology of the brain? In this study, participants were simultaneously presented with two unrelated stories - one spoken and one written - and asked to attend one while ignoring the other. We used fMRI and a novel inter-subject correlation analysis to track the spread of information along the processing hierarchy as a function of task. Processing the unattended spoken (written) information was confined to auditory (visual) cortices. In contrast, attending to the spoken (written) story enhanced the stimulus-selective responses in early sensory regions and allowed it to spread into higher-order areas. Surprisingly, we found that the story-specific spoken (written) responses for the attended story also reached the opposite secondary visual (auditory) regions. These results demonstrate how attention enhances the processing of attended input and allows it to propagate across brain areas.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2017

Altered topology of neural circuits in congenital prosopagnosia

Using a novel fMRI-based inter-subject functional correlation (ISFC) approach, which isolates stimulus-locked inter-regional correlation patterns, we compared the cortical topology of the neural circuit for face processing in participants with congenital prosopagnosia (CP) and matched controls. Whereas the anterior temporal lobe served as the major network hub for face processing in controls, this was not the case for the CPs. Instead, this group evinced hyper-connectivity in posterior regions of the visual cortex, mostly associated with the lateral occipital and the inferior temporal cortices. Moreover, the extent to which the network organization was atypical differed as a function of the severity of the face recognition deficit. These results offer new insights into the perturbed cortical topology in CP, which may serve as the underlying neural basis of the behavioral deficits typical of this disorder. The approach adopted here has the potential to uncover altered topologies in other neurodevelopmental disorders, as well.\n\nSignificance StatementCongenital prosopagnosia (CP; face blindness), a developmental deficit in face recognition, is thought to affect up to 3% of the population. Understanding its neural basis is challenging as there is no obvious deficit on conventional structural or functional MRI scans. Using an innovative, fMRI-based inter-subject correlation approach geared towards tracking inter-regional stimulus-locked brain activation, the present study uncovers marked topological differences in a distributed brain network of higher-order visual regions in CP relative to controls. Alteration in topology also differs as a function of the severity of the deficit. These findings shed new light on the neural perturbations underlying CP, and the analytic approach we have adopted may have utility in elucidating the neural basis of other neurodevelopmental disorders such as dyslexia or amusia.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2016

Measuring speaker-listener neural coupling with functional near infrared spectroscopy

The present study investigates brain-to-brain coupling, defined as inter-subject correlations in the hemodynamic response, during natural verbal communication. We used functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to record brain activity of speakers telling stories and listeners comprehending audio recordings of these stories. Listeners brain activity was correlated with speakers with a delay. This between-brain correlation disappeared when verbal communication failed. We further compared the fNIRS and functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) recordings of listeners comprehending the same story and found a relationship between the fNIRS oxygenated-hemoglobin concentration changes and the fMRI BOLD in brain areas associated with speech comprehension. This correlation between fNIRS and fMRI was only present when data from the same story were compared between the two modalities and vanished when data from different stories were compared; this cross-modality consistency further highlights the reliability of the spatiotemporal brain activation pattern as a measure of story comprehension. Our findings suggest that fNIRS is a powerful tool for investigating brain-to-brain coupling during verbal communication. As fNIRS sensors are relatively low-cost and can even be built into wireless, portable, battery-operated systems, these results highlight the potential of broad utilization of this approach in everyday settings for augmenting communication and interaction.

neuroscience↗