Visuospatial Task Research Articles

Perceptual-cognitive performance of youth soccer players in a 360°-environment – An investigation of the relationship with soccer-specific performance and the effects of systematic training

IntroductionSoccer is a complex game in which athletes perform in a dynamic 360°-environment. The results of numerous studies highlight the importance of perceptual-cognitive functions for soccer performance. Moreover, in recent years, the idea of improving sports performance through systematic perceptual-cognitive training has been increasingly investigated. Contradictory results and limitations in previous research call for further investigation. The current study aims to investigate both the relationship between perceptual-cognitive performance in a dynamic 360°-environment and soccer performance as well as the effects of perceptual-cognitive training in such an environment on soccer performance. Methods42 youth soccer players aged 11–13 years were tested at a first time of measurement (T1) on their perceptual-cognitive functions using a 360°-multiple object tracking task (360-MOT) and a visuospatial attention task. Soccer performance was assessed using an isolated, validated 360°-passing task and a small-sided game. Subsequently, participants were randomly divided into a perceptual-cognitive training group, an active control group, or a passive control group. Participants in the training group received 360-MOT training twice per week during a 5-week intervention phase, while participants in the active control group received a pseudo video training. Perceptual-cognitive and soccer-specific performance was assessed after the intervention phase at a second time of measurement (T2). ResultsAt T1, there was a significant positive relationship between 360-MOT performance and both the accuracy score in the 360°-passing task and the defensive performance score in the small-sided game. Regarding the perceptual-cognitive training intervention, the analysis at T2 revealed significant task-specific training effects but no transfer effects on perceptual-cognitive or soccer-specific performance. ConclusionsThe results highlight the relevance of perceptual-cognitive performance in a 360°-environment for soccer-specific performance but question the effects of short isolated perceptual-cognitive training interventions on soccer-specific performance.

What Individuals Experience During Visuo-Spatial Working Memory Task Performance: An Exploratory Phenomenological Study.

In experimental cognitive psychology, objects of inquiry are typically operationalized with psychological tasks. When interpreting results from such tasks, we focus primarily on behavioral measures such as reaction times and accuracy rather than experiences – i.e., phenomenology – associated with the task, and posit that the tasks elicit the desired cognitive phenomenon. Evaluating whether the tasks indeed elicit the desired phenomenon can be facilitated by understanding the experience during task performance. In this paper we explore the breadth of experiences that are elicited by and accompany task performance using in-depth phenomenological and qualitative methodology to gather subjective reports during the performance of a visuo-spatial change detection task. Thirty-one participants (18 females) were asked to remember either colors, orientations or positions of the presented stimuli and recall them after a short delay. Qualitative reports revealed rich experiential landscapes associated with the task-performance, suggesting a distinction between two broad classes of experience: phenomena at the front of consciousness and background feelings. The former includes cognitive strategies and aspects of metacognition, whereas the latter include more difficult-to-detect aspects of experience that comprise the overall sense of experience (e.g., bodily feelings, emotional atmosphere, mood). We focus primarily on the background feelings, since strategies of task-performance to a large extent map onto previously identified cognitive processes and discuss the methodological implications of our findings.

A Window Into the Tired Brain: Neurophysiological Dynamics of Visuospatial Working Memory Under Fatigue.

We examine the spatiotemporal dynamics of neural activity and its correlates in heart rate and its variability (HR/HRV) during a fatiguing visuospatial working memory task. The neural and physiological drivers of fatigue are complex, coupled, and poorly understood. Investigations that combine the fidelity of neural indices and the field-readiness of physiological measures can facilitate measurements of fatigue states in operational settings. Sixteen healthy adults, balanced by sex, completed a 60-minute fatiguing visuospatial working memory task. Changes in task performance, subjective measures of effort and fatigue, cerebral hemodynamics, and HR/HRV were analyzed. Peak brain activation, functional and effective connections within relevant brain networks were contrasted against spectral and temporal features of HR/HRV. Task performance elicited increased neural activation in regions responsible for maintaining working memory capacity. With the onset of time-on-task effects, resource utilization was seen to increase beyond task-relevant networks. Over time, functional connections in the prefrontal cortex were seen to weaken, with changes in the causal relationships between key regions known to drive working memory. HR/HRV indices were seen to closely follow activity in the prefrontal cortex. This investigation provided a window into the neurophysiological underpinnings of working memory under the time-on-task effect. HR/HRV was largely shown to mirror changes in cortical networks responsible for working memory, therefore supporting the possibility of unobtrusive state recognition under ecologically valid conditions. Findings here can inform the development of a fieldable index for cognitive fatigue.

Use of wearable physiological sensors to predict cognitive workload in a visuospatial learning task.

Increased cognitive workload, sometimes known as mental strain or mental effort, has been associated with reduced performance. The use of physiological monitoring was investigated to predict cognitive workload and performance. Twenty-one participants completed a 10-minute seated rest, a visuospatial learning task modeled after crane operation, and the Stroop test, an assessment that measures cognitive interference. Heart rate, heart rate variability, electrodermal activity, skin temperature, and electromyographic activity were collected. It was found that participants' ability to learn the simulated crane operation task was inversely correlated with self-reported frustration. Significant changes were also found in physiological metrics in the simulation with respect to rest, including an increase in heart rate, electrodermal activity, and trapezius muscle activity; heart rate and muscle activity were also correlated with simulation performance. The relationship between physiological measures and self-reported workload was modeled and it was found that muscle activity and high frequency power, a measure of heart rate variability, were significantly associated with the workload reported. The findings support the use of physiological monitoring to inform real time decision making (e.g., identifying individuals at risk of injury) or training decisions (e.g., by identifying individuals that may benefit from additional training even when no errors are observed).

Learning induces coordinated neuronal plasticity of metabolic demands and functional brain networks

The neurobiological basis of learning is reflected in adaptations of brain structure, network organization and energy metabolism. However, it is still unknown how different neuroplastic mechanisms act together and if cognitive advancements relate to general or task-specific changes. Therefore, we tested how hierarchical network interactions contribute to improvements in the performance of a visuo-spatial processing task by employing simultaneous PET/MR neuroimaging before and after a 4-week learning period. We combined functional PET and metabolic connectivity mapping (MCM) to infer directional interactions across brain regions. Learning altered the top-down regulation of the salience network onto the occipital cortex, with increases in MCM at resting-state and decreases during task execution. Accordingly, a higher divergence between resting-state and task-specific effects was associated with better cognitive performance, indicating that these adaptations are complementary and both required for successful visuo-spatial skill learning. Simulations further showed that changes at resting-state were dependent on glucose metabolism, whereas those during task performance were driven by functional connectivity between salience and visual networks. Referring to previous work, we suggest that learning establishes a metabolically expensive skill engram at rest, whose retrieval serves for efficient task execution by minimizing prediction errors between neuronal representations of brain regions on different hierarchical levels.

Flexible utilization of spatial- and motor-based codes for the storage of visuo-spatial information.

Working memory provides flexible storage of information in service of upcoming behavioral goals. Some models propose specific fixed loci and mechanisms for the storage of visual information in working memory, such as sustained spiking in parietal and prefrontal cortex during working memory maintenance. An alternative view is that information can be remembered in a flexible format that best suits current behavioral goals. For example, remembered visual information might be stored in sensory areas for easier comparison to future sensory inputs, or might be re-coded into a more abstract action-oriented format and stored in motor areas. Here, we tested this hypothesis using a visuo-spatial working memory task where the required behavioral response was either known or unknown during the memory delay period. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and multivariate decoding, we found that there was less information about remembered spatial position in early visual and parietal regions when the required response was known versus unknown. Furthermore, a representation of the planned motor action emerged in primary somatosensory, primary motor, and premotor cortex during the same task condition where spatial information was reduced in early visual cortex. These results suggest that the neural networks supporting working memory can be strategically reconfigured depending on specific behavioral requirements during a canonical visual working memory paradigm.

Utility of Cognitive Neural Features for Predicting Mental Health Behaviors.

Cognitive dysfunction underlies common mental health behavioral symptoms including depression, anxiety, inattention, and hyperactivity. In this study of 97 healthy adults, we aimed to classify healthy vs. mild-to-moderate self-reported symptoms of each disorder using cognitive neural markers measured with an electroencephalography (EEG). We analyzed source-reconstructed EEG data for event-related spectral perturbations in the theta, alpha, and beta frequency bands in five tasks, a selective attention and response inhibition task, a visuospatial working memory task, a Flanker interference processing task, and an emotion interference task. From the cortical source activation features, we derived augmented features involving co-activations between any two sources. Logistic regression on the augmented feature set, but not the original feature set, predicted the presence of psychiatric symptoms, particularly for anxiety and inattention with >80% sensitivity and specificity. We also computed current flow closeness and betweenness centralities to identify the “hub” source signal predictors. We found that the Flanker interference processing task was the most useful for assessing the connectivity hubs in general, followed by the inhibitory control go-nogo paradigm. Overall, these interpretable machine learning analyses suggest that EEG biomarkers collected on a rapid suite of cognitive assessments may have utility in classifying diverse self-reported mental health symptoms.

Parietal but not temporoparietal alpha-tACS modulates endogenous visuospatial attention

Visuospatial attention can either be voluntarily directed (endogenous/top-down attention) or automatically triggered (exogenous/bottom-up attention). Recent research showed that dorsal parietal transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) at alpha frequency modulates the spatial attentional bias in an endogenous but not in an exogenous visuospatial attention task. Yet, the reason for this task-specificity remains unexplored. Here, we tested whether this dissociation relates to the proposed differential role of the dorsal attention network (DAN) and ventral attention network (VAN) in endogenous and exogenous attention processes respectively. To that aim, we targeted the left and right dorsal parietal node of the DAN, as well as the left and right ventral temporoparietal node of the VAN using tACS at the individual alpha frequency. Every participant completed all four stimulation conditions and a sham condition in five separate sessions. During tACS, we assessed the behavioral visuospatial attention bias via an endogenous and exogenous visuospatial attention task. Additionally, we measured offline alpha power immediately before and after tACS using electroencephalography (EEG). The behavioral data revealed an effect of tACS on the endogenous but not exogenous attention bias, with a greater leftward bias during (sham-corrected) left than right hemispheric stimulation. In line with our hypothesis, this effect was brain area-specific, i.e., present for dorsal parietal but not ventral temporoparietal tACS. However, contrary to our expectations, there was no effect of ventral temporoparietal tACS on the exogenous visuospatial attention bias. Hence, no double dissociation between the two targeted attention networks. There was no effect of either tACS condition on offline alpha power. Our behavioral data reveal that dorsal parietal but not ventral temporoparietal alpha oscillations steer endogenous visuospatial attention. This brain-area specific tACS effect matches the previously proposed dissociation between the DAN and VAN and, by showing that the spatial attention bias effect does not generalize to any lateral posterior tACS montage, renders lateral cutaneous and retinal effects for the spatial attention bias in the dorsal parietal condition unlikely. Yet the absence of tACS effects on the exogenous attention task suggests that ventral temporoparietal alpha oscillations are not functionally relevant for exogenous visuospatial attention. We discuss the potential implications of this finding in the context of an emerging theory on the role of the ventral temporoparietal node.

Effects of continuous and discontinuous non-relevant stimulus on creativity

ABSTRACT Innovation is made of different tasks from strategic positioning to the first phases of production. One of the main activities is the generation of ideas through different creativity phases. These creativity activities are carried out in numerous conditions and with different tools having more or less context and interactions. This study focuses on the influence of different non-relevant stimuli composing our environment on cognitive load and creativity. This experiment consists of two creativity tasks which consisted in providing answers to a given question using the visuo-spatial and audio-verbal area, with three stimulus appearance conditions: without, continuous, discontinuous. For the visuo-spatial task, participants have to illustrate their answers using an immersive drawing software. For the audio-verbal task, participants have to answer a question with a simple text editor software. Regarding the drawing task, results indicate that the discontinuous stimulus had decreased the number of ideas per participant. For the writing task, the stimulus had increased the intrinsic and extraneous cognitive load. This study reveals our creativity is under the influence of the different elements of our environment, the tool used and the task.

Early Subitizing Development: The Role of Visuospatial Working Memory

The present study explored enumeration processes, serial counting and subitizing, in early childhood. Subitizing is a fast and accurate assessment of small quantities. Early quantitative processing is built off of a “parallel individuation” system, a domain-general, visuospatial system that allows infants to track small sets of objects. This system creates a precise mental model of every object in a small set, similar to subitizing. Subitizing ability helps children to acquire mature symbolic representation of numeral, and deficits in enumeration processes is associate to math disabilities. However, the role of development in enumeration processes and the role of visuospatial working memory is enumeration processes is largely unknown. Hence, in the present study, we tested visuospatial working memory’s role in subitizing development in preschoolers. We tested 3 to 5-year-old’s performance in enumeration and visuospatial working memory tasks. Performance in the subitizing range (one to four items) related to individual differences in visuospatial working memory and age, while performance for greater numericities in the serial counting range did not. Interestingly, controlling for visuospatial working memory span reduced the developmental effect of subitizing, suggesting that both visuospatial working memory and age can affect individual differences in subitizing in young children, which has implications for early childhood education.
 

A new angle on mental rotation ability in transgender men: Modulation by ovarian milieu

Organizational/activational theory posits that transgender individuals should perform in the direction of their gender, not their sex, on cognitive tasks that show sex differences—the largest of which are observed on visuospatial tasks. Yet, tests of this hypothesis have been mixed for transgender men (TM). One possible reason is that performance shifts associated with the hormonal milieu at testing have not been fully considered in TM. Although “activating” influences, like gender-affirming hormone therapy (GAHT), are well-characterized in this population, endogenous ones, like ovarian cycling, have gone unaddressed. To provide a more complete picture of hormonal activation, we explored an influence of ovarian milieu on visuospatial performance of TM, and its potential contributions toward effects of sex and GAHT. We administered two male-favoring mental rotation tests (MRTs), and a sex-neutral control task to 22 TM naïve to GAHT (TM-), 29 TM receiving GAHT (TM+), and cisgender men (CM; n = 24) and women (CW; n = 43), testing cycling men (TM-) and women (CW) in either early follicular phase (Follicular) or midluteal phase (Luteal). On MRTs, performance of TM- varied across the menstrual cycle, and matched that of menstrual phase-matched CW. Additionally, cycling individuals in Follicular performed as strongly as TM+ and CM, all of whom performed above individuals in Luteal. Effects did not extend to a verbal control task, on which TM+ performed below others. Rather than conforming to static categories that suggest sex- or gender-typical organization of cognitive circuits, our findings support dynamic shifts in visuospatial ability of TM, and illustrate the need to consider activating effects of hormones beyond GAHT.

Suppression of alpha-band power underlies exogenous attention to emotional distractors.

Alpha‐band oscillations (8–14 Hz) are essential for attention and perception processes by facilitating the selection of relevant information. Directing visuospatial endogenous (voluntary) attention to a given location consistently results in a power suppression of alpha activity over occipito‐parietal areas contralateral to the attended visual field. In contrast, the neural oscillatory dynamics underlying the involuntary capture of attention, or exogenous attention, are currently under debate. By exploiting the inherent capacity of emotionally salient visual stimuli to capture attention, we aimed to investigate whether exogenous attention is characterized by either a reduction or an increase in alpha‐band activity. Electroencephalographic activity was recorded while participants completed a Posner visuospatial cueing task, in which a lateralized image with either positive, negative, or neutral emotional content competed with a target stimulus presented in the opposite hemifield. Compared with trials with no distractors, alpha power was reduced over occipital regions contralateral to distracting images. This reduction of alpha activity turned out to be functionally relevant, as it correlated with impaired behavioral performance on the ongoing task and was enhanced for distractors with negative valence. Taken together, our results demonstrate that visuospatial exogenous attention is characterized by a suppression of alpha‐band activity contralateral to distractor location, similar to the oscillatory underpinnings of endogenous attention. Further, these results highlight the key role of exogenous attention as an adaptive mechanism for the efficient detection of biologically salient stimuli.

The cognitive profile of Friedreich ataxia: a systematic review and meta-analysis

BackgroundStudy the cognitive profile of individuals with Friedreich ataxia (FRDA) and seek evidence for correlations between clinical, genetic and imaging characteristics and neuropsychological impairments.MethodsBased on PRISMA guidelines, a meta-analysis was realized using the Pubmed and Scopus databases to identify studies (1950–2021) reporting neuropsychological test results in genetically confirmed FRDA and control participants in at least one of the following cognitive domains: attention/executive, language, memory and visuo-spatial functions as well as emotion. Studies using identical outcomes in a minimum of two studies were pooled. Pooled effect sizes were calculated with Cohen’s d.ResultsEighteen studies were included. Individuals with FRDA displayed significantly lower performance than individuals without FRDA in most language, attention, executive function, memory visuospatial function, emotion regulation and social cognitive tasks. Among the included studies, thirteen studies examined the relationship between neuropsychological test results and clinical parameters and reported significant association with disease severity and six studies reviewed the relationship between neuroimaging measures and cognitive performance and mainly reported links between reduced cognitive performance and changes in cerebellar structure.ConclusionsIndividuals with FRDA display significantly lower performances in many cognitive domains compared to control participants. The spectrum of the cognitive profile alterations in FRDA and its correlation with disease severity and cerebellar structural parameters suggest a cerebellar role in the pathophysiology of FRDA cognitive impairments.

Enhancing Visuospatial Working Memory Performance Using Intermittent Theta-Burst Stimulation Over the Right Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex.

Noninvasive brain stimulation provides a promising approach for the treatment of neuropsychiatric conditions. Despite the increasing research on the facilitatory effects of this kind of stimulation on the cognitive processes, the majority of the studies have used the standard stimulation approaches such as the transcranial direct current stimulation and the conventional repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) which seem to be limited in robustness and the duration of the transient effects. However, a recent specialized type of rTMS, theta-burst stimulation (TBS), patterned to mimic the natural cross-frequency coupling of the human brain, may induce robust and longer-lasting effects on cortical activity. Here, we aimed to investigate the effects of the intermittent TBS (iTBS), a facilitatory form of TBS, over the right DLPFC (rDLPFC), a brain area implicated in higher-order cognitive processes, on visuospatial working memory (VSWM) performance. Therefore, iTBS was applied over either the rDLPFC or the vertex of 24 healthy participants, in two separate sessions. We assessed VSWM performance using 2-back and 4-back visuospatial tasks before iTBS (at the baseline (BL), and after the iTBS. Our results indicate that the iTBS over the rDLPFC significantly enhanced VSWM performance in the 2-back task, as measured by the discriminability index and the reaction time. However, the 4-back task performance was not significantly modulated by iTBS. These findings demonstrate that the rDLPFC plays a critical role in VSWM and that iTBS is a safe and effective approach for investigating the causal role of the specific brain areas.

Lack of an association between anticipatory alpha oscillations and attentional selection in children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder

ObjectiveAttention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is characterized by attention problems. The current study investigated whether and how anticipatory alpha oscillations, the subsequent target-elicited N2 posterior-contralateral component (N2pc) and their relationship contributed to attention problems in children with ADHD. MethodsElectroencephalograms (EEGs) were recorded from 8−13-year-old children with ADHD and typically developing children during a cued visuospatial covert attention task. ResultsChildren with ADHD could not sustain hemispheric alpha lateralization during the late stage of the cued period. Similar to the pattern of adults, high-accuracy typically developing children showed a strong positive correlation between the degree of cue-induced anticipatory alpha lateralization and the subsequent target-evoked N2pc amplitude, the latter of which further predicted behavioral performance. However, only the aberrant “cue alpha-target N2pc” temporal relationship was related to symptom severity and behavioral performance in children with ADHD. ConclusionsWe showed that the temporal association of “cue alpha-target N2pc” was already present in some typically developing children. However, children with ADHD might need more time to develop this temporal association. SignificanceOur results provide neurophysiological evidence that the developmental origin of covert spatial attention is related to the temporal association between low-frequency brain oscillations and event-related potentials (ERPs).

Intracranial recordings in humans reveal specific hippocampal spectral and dorsal vs. ventral connectivity signatures during visual, attention and memory tasks

Invasive brain recordings using many electrodes across a wide range of tasks provide a unique opportunity to study the role of oscillatory patterning and functional connectivity. We used large-scale recordings (stereo EEG) within and beyond the human hippocampus to investigate the role of distinct frequency oscillations during real-time execution of visual, attention and memory tasks in eight epileptic patients. We found that activity patterns in the hippocampus showed task and frequency dependent properties. Importantly, we found distinct connectivity signatures, in particular concerning parietal-hippocampal connectivity, thus revealing large scale synchronization of networks involved in memory tasks. Comparing the power per frequency band, across tasks and hippocampal regions (anterior/posterior) we confirmed a main effect of frequency band (p = 0.002). Gamma band activity was higher for visuo-spatial memory tasks in the anterior hippocampus. Further, we found that alpha and beta band activity in posterior hippocampus had larger modulation for high memory load visual tasks (p = 0.004). Three functional connectivity task related networks were identified: (dorsal) parietal-hippocampus (visual attention and memory), ventral stream- hippocampus and hippocampal-frontal connections (mainly tasks involving face recognition or object based search). These findings support the critical role of oscillatory patterning in the hippocampus during visual and memory tasks and suggests the presence of task related spectral and functional connectivity signatures. These results show that the use of large scale human intracranial recordings can validate the role of oscillatory and functional connectivity patterns across a broad range of cognitive domains.

Naming spatial relations across the adult lifespan: At the crossroads of language and perception.

Language abilities in adulthood remain relatively intact with increasing age, while spatial abilities decline. However, much less is known about ageing effects on spatial language (the ability to verbally describe where objects are located in relation to other objects). The primary goal of this study was to examine age-related changes in naming static and dynamic spatial relations across the adult lifespan. Moreover, we examined whether spatial naming is more closely associated with (non-spatial) verbal or (non-linguistic) visuospatial abilities. Healthy adults aged between 18 and 85 years completed a newly developed Spatial Naming Test (SNT), as well as standard object and action naming tests and various visuospatial tasks. The psychometric properties of the novel SNT (inter-rater and test-retest reliability and convergent, divergent, and construct validity) were also examined. The psychometric evaluation confirmed the reliability and validity of the SNT. Striking effects of ageing on naming of both static and dynamic spatial relations were found, as well as on visuospatial abilities, while object and action naming remained age invariant. Moreover, both (non-spatial) verbal and (non-linguistic) visuospatial abilities predicted static spatial naming, but only visuospatial abilities accounted for significant variance in dynamic spatial naming beyond age. These findings provide the first evidence that naming spatial relations declines in ageing as a function of changes in non-linguistic visuospatial abilities, indicating strong connections between linguistic and non-linguistic representations of space. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Planning in amnestic mild cognitive impairment: an fMRI study.

The memory impairment that is characteristic of amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) is often accompanied by difficulties in executive functioning, including planning. Though planning deficits in aMCI are well documented, their neural correlates are largely unknown, and have not yet been investigated with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The aim of this study was to: (1) identify differences in brain activity and connectivity during planning between people with aMCI and cognitively healthy older adults, and (2) find whether planning-related activity and connectivity are associated with cognitive performance and symptoms of apathy. Twenty-five people with aMCI and 15 cognitively healthy older adults performed a visuospatial planning task (Tower of London; ToL) during fMRI. Task-related brain activation, spatial maps of task-related independent components, and seed-to-voxel functional connectivity were compared between the two groups and regressed against measures of executive functions (Trail Making Test difference score, TMT B-A; Digit Symbol Substitution Test, DSST), delayed recall (Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test), and apathy (Apathy Evaluation Scale). People with aMCI scored lower on task-switching (TMT B-A), working memory (DSST), and planning (ToL). During planning, people with aMCI had less activation in the bilateral anterior calcarine sulcus/cuneus, the bilateral temporal cortices, the left precentral gyrus, the thalamus, and the right cerebellum. Across all participants, higher planning-related activity in the supplementary motor area, the retrosplenial cortex and surrounding areas, and the right temporal cortex was related to better delayed recall. There were no between-group differences in functional connectivity, nor were there any associations between connectivity and cognition. We also did not find any associations between brain activity or connectivity and apathy. Impaired planning in people with aMCI appears to be accompanied by lower activation in a diffuse cortico-thalamic network. Across all participants, higher planning-related activity in parieto-occipital, temporal, and frontal areas was related to better memory performance. The results point to the relevance of planning deficits for understanding aMCI and extend its clinical and neurobiological signature.

Atypical connectivity in the cortico-striatal network in NF1 children and its relationship with procedural perceptual-motor learning and motor skills

IntroductionNeurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) is considered a model of neurodevelopmental disorder because of the high frequency of learning deficits, especially developmental coordination disorder. In neurodevelopmental disorder, Nicolson and Fawcett formulated the hypothesis of an impaired procedural learning system that has its origins in cortico-subcortical circuits. Our aim was to investigate the relationship between cortico-striatal connectivity and procedural perceptual-motor learning performance and motor skills in NF1 children.MethodsSeventeen NF1 and 18 typically developing children aged between 8 and 12 years old participated in the study. All were right-handed and did not present intellectual or attention deficits. In all children, procedural perceptual-motor learning was assessed using a bimanual visuo-spatial serial reaction time task (SRTT) and motor skills using the Movement Assessment Battery for Children (M-ABC). All participants underwent a resting-state functional MRI session. We used a seed-based approach to explore cortico-striatal connectivity in somatomotor and frontoparietal networks. A comparison between the groups’ striato-cortical connectivity and correlations between connectivity and learning (SRTT) and motor skills (M-ABC) were performed.ResultsAt the behavioral level, SRTT scores are not significantly different in NF1 children compared to controls. However, M-ABC scores are significantly impaired within 9 patients (scores below the 15th percentile). At the cerebral level, NF1 children present a higher connectivity in the cortico-striatal regions mapping onto the right angular gyrus compared to controls. We found that the higher the connectivity values between these regions, differentiating NF1 and controls, the lower the M-ABC scores in the whole sample. No correlation was found for the SRTT scores.ConclusionNF1 children present atypical hyperconnectivity in cortico-striatal connections. The relationship with motor skills could suggest a sensorimotor dysfunction already found in children with developmental coordination disorder. These abnormalities are not linked to procedural perceptual-motor learning assessed by SRTT.

Imaging visuospatial memory in temporal lobe epilepsy-Results of an fMRI study.

PurposeImpairment of cognitive functions is commonly observed in temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE). The aim of this study was to assess visuospatial memory functions and memory-related networks using an adapted version of Roland’s Hometown Walking (RHWT) functional MRI (fMRI) task in patients with TLE.MethodsWe used fMRI to study activation patterns based on a visuospatial memory paradigm in 32 TLE patients (9 right; 23 left) and also within subgroups of lesional and non-lesional TLE. To test for performance, a correlational analysis of fMRI activation patterns and out-of-scanner neuropsychological visuospatial memory testing was performed. Additionally, we assessed memory-related networks using functional connectivity (FC).ResultsGreater contralateral than ipsilateral mesiotemporal (parahippocampal gyrus/hippocampus) activation was observed in left (n = 23)/right (n = 9) TLE. In lesional left TLE (n = 17), significant activations were seen in right more than left mesiotemporal areas (parahippocampal gyrus), while non-lesional left TLE patients (n = 6) showed significant bilateral (left>right) activations in mesiotemporal structures (parahippocampal gyrus). In left TLE, visuospatial cognitive testing correlated with fMRI activations in left (parahippocampal gyrus) and right mesiotemporal structures (hippocampus), characterized by greater fMRI activation being associated with better memory scores. In right TLE, higher scores in visuospatial memory testing were associated with greater fMRI activations in left and right insular regions. FC patterns of memory-related networks differ in right and left TLE.ConclusionWhile TLE in general leads to asymmetrical mesiotemporal activation, lesion-induced and non-lesional TLE patients reveal different memory fMRI activation patterns. In right TLE, insular regions try to compensate for impaired right mesiotemporal structures during the performance of visuospatial tasks. Underlying functional visuospatial memory networks differ in right and left TLE.