For cortical thickness measures however, seven edited ROI measures, primarily in frontal and temporal regions, differed significantly from their unedited counterparts, and three additional ROI measures approached significance. Mean effect sizes for edited ROIs did not differ from most unedited ROIs for either 1.5 or 3 tesla data. Taken together, these results suggest that although the application of control points may increase the validity of intensity normalization and, ultimately, segmentation, it may not affect the final, extracted metrics that FS generates.
Bridging cytoarchitectonics and connectomics in human cerebral cortex→
/Interesting if true!
In this communication, we combined data from the detailed mappings of early twentieth century cytoarchitectonic pioneers Von Economo and Koskinas (1925) on the microscale cellular structure of the human cortex with data on macroscale connectome wiring as derived from high-resolution diffusion imaging data from the Human Connectome Project. In a cross-scale examination, we show evidence of a significant association between cytoarchitectonic features of human cortical organization—in particular the size of layer 3 neurons—and whole-brain corticocortical connectivity. Our findings suggest that aspects of microscale cytoarchitectonics and macroscale connectomics are related.
State and trait components of functional connectivity: Individual differences vary with mental state→
/Individual differences in functional connectivity seem to be all the rage this month.
In the present study, we examined the relative contribution of state and trait components in shaping an individual's functional architecture. We used fMRI data from a large, population-based human sample (N = 587, age 18–88 years), as part of the Cambridge Centre for Aging and Neuroscience (Cam-CAN), which were collected in three mental states: resting, performing a sensorimotor task, and watching a movie. Whereas previous studies have shown commonalities across mental states in the average functional connectivity across individuals, we focused on the effects of states on the pattern of individual differences in functional connectivity. We found that state effects were as important as trait effects in shaping individual functional connectivity patterns, each explaining an approximately equal amount of variance. This was true when we looked at aging, as one specific dimension of individual differences, as well as when we looked at generic aspects of individual variation. These results show that individual differences in functional connectivity consist of state-dependent aspects, as well as more stable, trait-like characteristics.
Excellent advice for how to write a grant→
/Excellent advice - slightly tailored for British/European grant systems but applicable for all of us.
Keep your proposal simple. Introducers with their pile of a dozen or more grants to present will, at the panel meeting, only be able to keep in the forefront of their mind one main thing about your proposal. Make that the deliverable (i.e. the answer to the burning question), and make it a cool one. That deliverable should appear right at the start of your proposal, and also at the end, with the middle simply there to explain it.
Tenth (and final) Feltron Annual Report→
/I have two previous editions which are gorgeous. Great examples for stimulating thinking about collecting, analyzing, and displaying data of any type.
Don’t be that dude: Handy tips for the male academic (or anyone else)→
/These are all really good.
- Don’t leave it to women to do the work of increasing diversity. Be proactive, rather than reactive, in your departments and institutions. Speak out about incidents that promote a hostile environment at your school, to your students and your colleagues. If you observe someone doing or saying something sexist, tell them that it’s not okay. Actively support your female colleagues when they experience sexism.
The Fallacy of Placing Confidence in Confidence Intervals→
/Seems like an important paper, and a very cool website.
In this paper, we argue that advocacy of CIs is based on a folk understanding rather than a principled understanding of CI theory. We outline three fallacies underlying the folk theory of CIs, and place these in the philosophical and historical context of CI theory proper. Through an accessible example adapted from the statistical literature, we show how CI theory differs from the folk theory of CIs. Finally, we show the fallacies of confidence in the context of a CI advocated and commonly used for ANOVA and regression analysis, and discuss the implications of the mismatch between CI theory and the folk theory of CIs.
Great issue of Brain and Language on the electrophysiology of language and its precursors→
/Edited by Jonas Obleser. Looks like lots of interesting articles.
Successful memory formation is driven by contextual encoding in the core memory network→
/We assessed the electrophysiological correlates of associative processing by comparing intracranially recorded EEG activity during the encoding of items that were subsequently recalled and clustered; recalled and not clustered; or not recalled. We found that high frequency activity (HFA) in left prefrontal cortex, left temporal cortex and hippocampus increased during the encoding of subsequently recalled items. Critically, the magnitude of this effect was largest for those recalled items that were also subsequently clustered.
On the importance of electrode parameters for shaping electric field patterns generated by tDCS→
/Here, we explore via finite element method (FEM) simulations based on a high-resolution head model how detailed electrode modeling influences the calculated electric field in the brain. We take into account electrode shape, size, connector position and conductivities of different electrode materials (including saline solutions and electrode gels). These factors are systematically characterized to demonstrate their impact on the field distribution in the brain.
Great advice on poster design from Zen Faulkes→
/Love this.
Make everything bigger.
Improved sensitivity and specificity for resting state and task fMRI with multiband multi-echo EPI compared to multi-echo EPI at 7T→
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- Whole brain comparison of multiband multi-echo and multi-echo EPI with task and RS fMRI at 7T.
- Multiband multi-echo has increased specificity and sensitivity with respect to multi-echo.
- Detection of resting state networks improves with multiband multi-echo and after FIX correction.
- Expected activation clusters for task fMRI data only appear for MBME data with FIX correction.
The human voice areas: Spatial organization and inter-individual variability in temporal and extra-temporal cortices→
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- Three “voice patches” along human superior temporal gyrus/sulcus.
- Anatomical location reproducible within- but variable between-individuals.
- Extended voice processing network includes amygdala and prefrontal cortex.
- Stimulus material for “voice localizer” scan available for download.
Multivariate sensitivity to voice during auditory categorization→
/Across a series of auditory categorization tests, we found that bilateral superior and middle temporal cortex consistently exhibited robust sensitivity to human vocal sounds. Although the strongest categorization was in distinguishing human voice from other categories, subsets of these regions were also able to distinguish reliably between nonhuman categories, suggesting a general role in auditory object categorization. Our findings complement the current evidence of cortical sensitivity to human vocal sounds by revealing that the greatest sensitivity during categorization tasks is devoted to distinguishing voice from nonvoice categories within human temporal cortex.
Dorothy Bishop on her PrePrint Experiences at PeerJ→
/Short but informative. Preprints seem like a good idea, generally, for scientific discussion.
What are the benefits to you personally of publishing your work as a PeerJ PrePrint prior to any formal peer review process?
It is very useful to get feedback from experts in the field before finalising a manuscript; ultimately, it should save time, because the paper is more likely to have a smooth passage through a formal review process if you have anticipated and responded to major criticisms, and also been pointed to other relevant literature. Having said that, I don’t yet know if our paper will be accepted for publication! However, even if it is not, it has been useful to have the debate about the p-curve method out in the open, and our pre-print allowed us to put our views in the public domain in a permanent, citeable format.
Rapid attentional selection of non-native stimuli despite perceptual narrowing→
/To determine whether perceptual narrowing stems from underspecified attentional templates for non-native exemplars, this study used ERP (the N2pc component) and behavioral measures in a visual search task, where the target was either an exemplar (e.g., a specific ape face) or a category (e.g., any ape face). The N2pc component, an ERP marker of early attentional selection emerging at 200 msec poststimulus, is typically modulated by the specificity of the target and, therefore, by the attentional template—the N2pc is larger for specific items versus categories. In two experiments using both human and ape faces (i.e., native and non-native stimuli), we found that perceptual narrowing affects later response selection (i.e., manual RT and accuracy), but not early attentional selection relying on attentional templates (i.e., the N2pc component). Our ERP results show that adults deploy exemplar level attentional templates for non-native stimuli (as well as native stimuli), despite poor downstream behavioral performance.
Predicting the timecourse of object processing with MEG (vision + semantics)→
/Here, we test whether a model of individual objects—based on combining the HMax computational model of vision with semantic-feature information—can account for and predict time-varying neural activity recorded with magnetoencephalography. We show that combining HMax and semantic properties provides a better account of neural object representations compared with the HMax alone, both through model fit and classification performance. Our results show that modeling and classifying individual objects is significantly improved by adding semantic-feature information beyond ∼200 ms.
Dissociating Contributions of the Motor Cortex to Speech Perception and Response Bias by Using Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation→
/In the present TMS study, we addressed this question by using signal detection theory to calculate sensitivity (i.e., d′) and response bias (i.e., criterion c). We used repetitive TMS to temporarily disrupt the lip or hand representation in the left motor cortex. Participants discriminated pairs of sounds from a “ba”–“da” continuum before TMS, immediately after TMS (i.e., during the period of motor disruption), and after a 30-min break. We found that the sensitivity for between-category pairs was reduced during the disruption of the lip representation. In contrast, disruption of the hand representation temporarily reduced response bias.
Parcellation of human and monkey auditory cortex with fMRI pattern classification→
/We propose a marker for core AC based directly on functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data and pattern classification. We show that a portion of AC in Heschl's gyrus classifies sound frequency more accurately than other regions in AC. Using fMRI data from macaques, we validate that the region where frequency classification performance is significantly above chance overlaps core auditory fields, predominantly A1. Within this region, we measure tonotopic gradients and estimate the locations of the human homologues of the core auditory subfields A1 and R.
fMRI Responses in children and adults to increasing language production demands→
/Here we scanned 37 children aged 7–13 and 19 young adults who performed a well-normed picture-naming task with 3 levels of difficulty. While neural organization for naming was largely similar in childhood and adulthood, adults had greater activation in all naming conditions over inferior temporal gyri and superior temporal gyri/supramarginal gyri. Manipulating naming complexity affected adults and children quite differently: neural activation, especially over the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, showed complexity-dependent increases in adults, but complexity-dependent decreases in children. These represent fundamentally different responses to the linguistic and conceptual challenges of a simple naming task that makes no demands on literacy or metalinguistics.
