Biology subjects

Wokke, M. E.

Publications and source records attributed to Wokke, M. E..

4 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2022

Fear in action: Fear conditioning and alleviation through body movements

Acquisition of fear memories enhances survival especially when the memories guide defensive movements to minimize harm. Accordingly, fear memories and body movements have tight relationships in animals: Fear memory acquisition results in adapting reactive defense movements, while training active defense movements to avoid threat reduces fear memory. However, evidence in humans is scarce because their movements are typically marginalized in experiments. Here, we tracked participants whole-body motions while they underwent fear conditioning in a virtual 3D space. First, representational similarity analysis of body motions revealed that participants obtained distinct spatiotemporal movement patterns through fear conditioning. Second, subsequent training to actively avoid threats with naturalistic defensive actions led to a long-term (24 hrs) reduction of physiological and embodied conditioned responses, while extinction or vicarious training only transiently reduced the responses followed by their spontaneous return. Together, our results highlight the intrinsic role of body movements in human fear memory functions, suggesting the potential for improving fear memory interventions through embodiment.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2019

Action information contributes to metacognitive decision-making

Monitoring and control of our decision process are key ingredients of adept decision-making. Such metacognitive abilities allow us to adjust ongoing behavior and modify future decisions in the absence of external feedback. Although metacognition is critical in many daily life settings, it remains unclear what information is actually being monitored and what kind of information is being used for metacognitive decisions. In the present study, we investigated whether response information connected to perceptual events contribute to metacognitive decision-making. Therefore, we recorded EEG signals during a perceptual color discrimination task while participants were asked to provide an estimate about the quality of their decision on each trial. Critically, the moment participants provided second-order decisions varied across conditions, thereby changing the amount of action information (e.g., response competition or response fluency) available for metacognitive decisions.\n\nResults from three experiments demonstrate that metacognitive performance improved when first-order action information was available at the moment metacognitive decisions about the perceptual task had to be provided. This behavioral effect was accompanied by enhanced functional connectivity (beta phase synchrony) between motor areas and prefrontal regions, exclusively observed during metacognitive decision-making. Our findings demonstrate that action information contributes to metacognitive decision-making, thereby painting a picture of metacognition as a second-order process, integrating sensory evidence and the state of the decider during decision-making.\n\nSignificanceMonitoring and control of our decision process is a critical part of every day decision-making. When feedback is not available, metacognitive skills enable us to modify current behavior and adapt prospective decision-making. Here, we investigated what kind information is being used to compute an estimate about the quality of our decisions. Results demonstrate that during perceptual decision-making, information about ones actions towards perceptual events is being used to evaluate the quality of ones decisions. EEG results indicate that functional connectivity between motor regions and prefrontal cortex could serve as a mechanism to convey action information during metacognitive decision-making. Considered together, our results demonstrate that post-decisional information contributes to metacognition, thereby evaluating not only what one perceives (e.g., strength of perceptual evidence) but also how one responds towards perceptual events.

animal behavior and cognition↗

bioRxiv2018

Anterior prefrontal cortex mediates implicit inferences

Frequent experience with regularities in our environment allows us to use predictive information to guide our decision process. However, contingencies in our environment are not always explicitly present and sometimes need to be inferred. Heretofore, it remained unknown how predictive information guides decision-making when explicit knowledge is absent and how the brain shapes such implicit inferences. In the present experiment, participants performed a discrimination task in which a target stimulus was preceded by a predictive cue. Critically, participants had no explicit knowledge that some of the cues signaled an upcoming target, allowing us to investigate how implicit inferences emerge and guide decision-making. Despite unawareness of the cue-target contingencies, participants were able to use implicit information to improve performance. Concurrent EEG recordings demonstrate that implicit inferences rely upon interactions between internally and externally oriented networks, whereby anterior prefrontal regions inhibit right parietal cortex under internal implicit control.\n\nSignificanceRegularities in our environment can guide our behavior providing information about upcoming events. Interestingly, such predictive information does not need to be explicitly represented in order to effectively guide our decision process. Here, we show how the brain engages in such real-world data mining and how implicit inferences emerge. We employed a contingency cueing task and demonstrate that implicit inferences influenced responses to subsequent targets despite a lack of awareness of cue-target contingencies. Further, we show that these implicit inferences emerge through interactions between internally- and externally-oriented neural networks. The current results highlight the importance of the anterior prefrontal cortex in transforming external events into predictive internalized models of the world.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2018

Creative Minds Are Out of Control: Mid Frontal Theta and Creative Thinking

Creativity is considered to be the driving force behind innovation and progress, yet the mechanisms supporting creative thought remain elusive. In the current study, we investigated whether fluctuations in top-down control are related to creative thinking. Here, participants performed a caption this task in which they had to provide an original and apt caption to accompany a presented picture, while EEG signals were recorded. To assess changing levels of top-down control, we made use of the strong relationship between mid frontal oscillatory activity in the theta range (4-7 HZ) and top-down control. Results demonstrate that specifically during the process of optimization and implementation of creative solutions, lower levels of mid frontal theta resulted in higher levels of creativity. In addition, increased creativity related to enhanced functional connectivity between occipital and mid frontal cortex. Together, our findings indicate that creativity benefits from a top-down induced shift towards an internally-oriented state during idea optimization and evaluation.

animal behavior and cognition↗