Non-linear Functional Brain Co-activations in Short-Term Memory Distortion Tasks.

Anna Ceglarek,Barbara Sikora-Wachowicz,Bartosz Bohaterewicz,Ignacio Cifre,Jeremi K Ochab,Magdalena Fafrowicz,Koryna Lewandowska,Tadeusz Marek,Dante R Chialvo

doi:10.3389/fnins.2021.778242

Abstract

Recent works shed light on the neural correlates of true and false recognition and the influence of time of day on cognitive performance. The current study aimed to investigate the modulation of the false memory formation by the time of day using a non-linear correlation analysis originally designed for fMRI resting-state data. Fifty-four young and healthy participants (32 females, mean age: 24.17 ± 3.56 y.o.) performed in MR scanner the modified Deese-Roediger-McDermott paradigm in short-term memory during one session in the morning and another in the evening. Subjects’ responses were modeled with a general linear model, which includes as a predictor the non-linear correlations of regional BOLD activity with the stimuli, separately for encoding and retrieval phases. The results show the dependence of the non-linear correlations measures with the time of day and the type of the probe. In addition, the results indicate differences in the correlations measures with hippocampal regions between positive and lure probes. Besides confirming previous results on the influence of time-of-day on cognitive performance, the study demonstrates the effectiveness of the non-linear correlation analysis method for the characterization of fMRI task paradigms.

Highlights

The process of cognitive control supports adaptive responses and inhibits automatic ones
The present study aims to find neural correlates of encoding and retrieval and the diurnal activity of those correlates in the modified DRM paradigm with abstract, visual objects using a new analysis method—non-linear correlation implemented to the task environment
In the approach by Cifre et al (2021), which we used, the delay is defined as the time between the peak of each individual blood oxygenation level dependent (BOLD)-triggered event and the closest BOLD peak irrespective of its size

Summary

Introduction

The process of cognitive control supports adaptive responses and inhibits automatic ones. Cognitive control is enormously involved in decision-making processes to obtain appropriate responses to changing environmental conditions. A model of simple, two-choice decisions that has gained popularity in recent years is the driftdiffusion model (DDM; Ratcliff, 1978; Ratcliff and McKoon, 2008). It describes the decision-making process as an accumulation of evidence about a stimulus from perceptual organs or memory, leading to a reaction (most often a motor one) when the evidence exceeds a certain threshold. The studies investigating neural underpinnings of decision-making focus mainly on the prefrontal areas

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Conclusion