COGNITIVE EFFORT MODULATES FRONTAL EFFECTIVE CONNECTIONS: A DYNAMIC CAUSAL MODELING STUDY ON MACAQUE MONKEYS

Abstract

Event Abstract Back to Event COGNITIVE EFFORT MODULATES FRONTAL EFFECTIVE CONNECTIONS: A DYNAMIC CAUSAL MODELING STUDY ON MACAQUE MONKEYS Katharina Wegner1*, Charlie R. Wilson2, Emmanuel Procyk2, Karl J. Friston3 and Daniele Marinazzo1 1 Ghent University, Belgium 2 INSERM U1028 Centre de Recherche en Neurosciences de Lyon, France 3 Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging, University College London, United Kingdom In order to stay focused in a given cognitive task, one needs to maintain the task-relevant information in memory, while filtering out distracting information. This coordination of thoughts and actions is known as cognitive control [1]. When the task needs to be executed continuously over time, focusing on the task may become more challenging due to the emergence of mental fatigue. Cognitive effort can be thought to be a requirement to maintain the current performance level and may hence increase as a task progresses. Recent work has found that neural activity in the beta band changes as a function of cognitive control [2]: Using electrocorticography (EcoG) on two macaque monkeys, who performed a trial-and-error search task, it was observed that frontal beta power increased during the pre-stimulus period when task demands were elevated and as the task progressed. Here, we further investigate how the time-sensitive changes in spectral power relate to changes in effective connectivity. To this end, we applied dynamic causal modeling (DCM) to prefrontal and premotor spectral activity during the pre-stimulus period. Trials were divided into eight bins across the experimental session. First, in each hemisphere, we compared three model architectures to one another to select the model that best fits the data (Figure 1). As a second step, for the winning model, we used parametric empirical Bayes (PEB) to model how the extrinsic connections change across the session. PEB can model random effects on connectivity parameters given the connectivity estimates from the within-bin level [3]. More specifically, we used PEB to identify which connections are necessary to explain changes according to the shape of the beta band increase across the session. Interestingly, the result of the model comparisons points towards two different model architectures between both hemispheres. In the left hemisphere, a full model was most plausible, while in the right hemisphere, the forward model architecture was the winning model (Figure 2). The results of the time effect show that only the forward connections and not the feedback connections change according to the beta band increase. If we assume that beta power models the effects of cognitive effort, the extrinsic forward connections from the prefrontal to the premotor area may thus be modulated by cognitive effort during the pre-stimulus period in a trial-and-error search task. Figure 1 Figure 2 References [1] Barch, D. M. (2002). Disordered cognitive control: a cognitive neuroscience perspective. Principles of frontal lobe function, 428. [2] Stoll, F. M., Wilson, C. R., Faraut, M. C., Vezoli, J., Knoblauch, K., & Procyk, E. (2016). The effects of cognitive control and time on frontal beta oscillations. Cerebral Cortex, 26(4), 1715-1732. [3] Friston, K., Zeidman, P., & Litvak, V. (2015). Empirical Bayes for DCM: a group inversion scheme. Frontiers in systems neuroscience, 9. Keywords: cognitive control, cognitive effort, Dynamic causal modeling (DCM), beta power, Time-on-task, Parametric empirical Bayes, effective connectivity Conference: 13th National Congress of the Belgian Society for Neuroscience , Brussels, Belgium, 24 May - 24 May, 2019. Presentation Type: Poster presentation Topic: Behavioral/Systems Neuroscience Citation: Wegner K, Wilson CR, Procyk E, Friston KJ and Marinazzo D (2019). COGNITIVE EFFORT MODULATES FRONTAL EFFECTIVE CONNECTIONS: A DYNAMIC CAUSAL MODELING STUDY ON MACAQUE MONKEYS. Front. Neurosci. Conference Abstract: 13th National Congress of the Belgian Society for Neuroscience . doi: 10.3389/conf.fnins.2019.96.00059 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 24 Apr 2019; Published Online: 27 Sep 2019. * Correspondence: Miss. Katharina Wegner, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium, katharina.wegner@ugent.be Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Katharina Wegner Charlie R Wilson Emmanuel Procyk Karl J Friston Daniele Marinazzo Google Katharina Wegner Charlie R Wilson Emmanuel Procyk Karl J Friston Daniele Marinazzo Google Scholar Katharina Wegner Charlie R Wilson Emmanuel Procyk Karl J Friston Daniele Marinazzo PubMed Katharina Wegner Charlie R Wilson Emmanuel Procyk Karl J Friston Daniele Marinazzo Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.