Abstract
Neuroimaging studies have found ‘reality monitoring’, our ability to distinguish internally generated experiences from those derived from the external world, to be associated with activity in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) of the brain. Here we probe the functional underpinning of this ability using real-time fMRI neurofeedback to investigate the involvement of mPFC in recollection of the source of self-generated information. Thirty-nine healthy individuals underwent neurofeedback training in a between groups study receiving either Active feedback derived from the paracingulate region of the mPFC (21 subjects) or Sham feedback based on a similar level of randomised signal (18 subjects). Compared to those in the Sham group, participants receiving Active signal showed increased mPFC activity over the course of three real-time neurofeedback training runs undertaken in a single scanning session. Analysis of resting state functional connectivity associated with changes in reality monitoring accuracy following Active neurofeedback revealed increased connectivity between dorsolateral frontal regions of the fronto-parietal network (FPN) and the mPFC region of the default mode network (DMN), together with reduced connectivity within ventral regions of the FPN itself. However, only a trend effect was observed in the interaction of the recollection of the source of Imagined information compared with recognition memory between participants receiving Active and Sham neurofeedback, pre- and post- scanning. As such, these findings demonstrate that neurofeedback can be used to modulate mPFC activity and increase cooperation between the FPN and DMN, but the effects on reality monitoring performance are less clear.
Highlights
Reality monitoring refers to the cognitive processes used to distinguish internally generated experiences from those perceived in the external world (Johnson and Raye, 1981)
A morphological basis has been established between the extent of cortical folding within the paracingulate sulcus (PCS) which lies within the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), and reality monitoring accuracy in healthy individuals (Buda et al, 2011), with a possible functional explanation relating to the differential connectivity of the paracingulate region as part of large-scale brain functional networks including the default mode (DMN) and fronto-parietal (FPN) networks (Fornito et al, 2012; Garrison et al, 2015; Metzak et al, 2015)
Investigation of the reality monitoring impairment in schizophrenia suggests it is mediated by task specific mPFC dysfunction (Garrison et al, 2017a; Vinogradov et al, 2008) and we have found a consistent morphological connection with the experience of hallucinations in patients associated with lower levels of cortical folding within the PCS (Garrison et al, 2015; Rollins et al, 2020)
Summary
Reality monitoring refers to the cognitive processes used to distinguish internally generated experiences from those perceived in the external world (Johnson and Raye, 1981). Neuroimaging studies in healthy individuals have linked reality monitoring with functional activity within the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) (see Simons et al, 2017 for review), with the possibility of a causal link supported by a small navigated repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation study (N = 11; Subramaniam et al, 2020) Such a relationship is consistent with evidence implicating the mPFC in recalling internal vs external aspects of context (Simons et al, 2008; Turner et al., 2008), in making inferences about the mental states of others (Frith and Frith, 2003) and more broadly, in tasks involving self-referential judgements (Davey et al, 2016; Qin and Northoff, 2011; van der Meer et al, 2010). A morphological basis has been established between the extent of cortical folding within the paracingulate sulcus (PCS) which lies within the mPFC, and reality monitoring accuracy in healthy individuals (Buda et al, 2011), with a possible functional explanation relating to the differential connectivity of the paracingulate region as part of large-scale brain functional networks including the default mode (DMN) and fronto-parietal (FPN) networks (Fornito et al, 2012; Garrison et al, 2015; Metzak et al, 2015)
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