Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit

About: Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit is a facility organization based out in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Cognition & Semantic memory. The organization has 801 authors who have published 3055 publications receiving 257962 citations.

Mapping the common and distinct neural correlates of visual, rule and motor conflict

Abstract: Flexible behaviour requires cognitive-control mechanisms to efficiently resolve conflict between competing information and alternative actions. Whether a global neural resource mediates all forms of conflict or this is achieved within domain-specific systems remains debated. We use a novel fMRI paradigm to orthogonally manipulate rule, response and stimulus-based conflict within a full-factorial design. Whole-brain voxelwise analyses show that activation patterns associated with these conflict types are distinct but partially overlapping within Multiple Demand Cortex (MDC), the brain regions that are most commonly active during cognitive tasks. Region of interest analysis shows that most MDC sub-regions are activated for all conflict types, but to significantly varying levels. We propose that conflict resolution is an emergent property of distributed brain networks, the functional-anatomical components of which place on a continuous, not categorical, scale from domain-specialised to domain general. MDC brain regions place towards one end of that scale but display considerable functional heterogeneity.

Betahistine for Meniere's disease.

Abstract: Betahistine is ineffective, patients urgently need better alternatives The publication of a very well constructed randomised controlled trial1 of betahistine (Serc) for Meniere’s disease underlines the lack of evidence for the efficacy of this drug at both low and high doses. What does this mean for current and future users? Meniere’s disease is one of the most puzzling inner ear syndromes. It is typically described with a collection of symptoms, which might not occur all at once in the same person. These include tinnitus, vertigo, sensorineural hearing loss, and aural fullness. Currently, we don’t have a precise idea of aetiology, despite many efforts to indentify underlying causes. Common sensory or pathophysiological elements have been observed—such as endolymphatic hydrops (a distension of the membranous labyrinth2)—and some aetiological theories have been proposed, none of which has been able to inform a one-for-all treatment. The general approach to treatment is influenced by the severity of the symptoms, by the professional and personal views of the treating specialist, and by …

FarmApp: a new cognitive assessment method for young people with intellectual disability

Abstract: Background A major challenge when investigating intellectual disability (ID) is the selection of assessment tools that are sensitive to cognitive diversity within the ID population. This study introduces a new touchscreen-based method, FarmApp, which aims to measure competence in relatively low-level cognitive processes (selective attention, short-term visuospatial memory, longer-term recognition memory) which contribute to complex aspects of learning and behaviour. Methods Here we describe the FarmApp design, testing and analysis procedures. We report the feasibility and validity of the method, and demonstrate its utility for measuring change over time, and for comparing groups defined by aetiology. Results We found that FarmApp can be completed by a higher proportion of young people with ID than traditional psychometric tests. FarmApp performance correlates with standardised neuropsychological tests of attention and working memory, and with questionnaire measures of ADHD-relevant behavioural difficulties. Individual performance slopes over a two-week period correlate with general ability and behavioural difficulties, indicating that FarmApp is sensitive to meaningful dynamic variation in cognitive performance. Finally, we compared the FarmApp performance of two groups of young people with ID, defined by the physiological function of ID-associated genetic variants (functional network groups: chromatin-related and synaptic-related), and found that groups differ on attention parameters but not on memory ones. Conclusion FarmApp is a feasible, valid and useful alternative to traditional neuropsychological tests. It can increase access to cognitive assessment for individuals with ID. It adds the opportunity to monitor variation in performance over time and determine capacity to acquire task competence in addition to baseline ability. Our comparison between functional network groups supports the proposal that cognitive processes contributing to ID are differentially influenced by specific genetic aetiologies. In summary, we introduce a new tool for cognitive assessment in ID, with the potential for multiple future applications in clinical practice and research.

Changes in brain morphology and working memory capacity over childhood

Abstract: Developmental improvements in working memory are important in the acquisition of new skills, like reading and maths. Current accounts of the brain systems supporting working memory rarely take development into account. However, understanding the development of these skills, and in turn where this development can go awry, will require more sophsiticated neuropsychological accounts that fully consider the role of development. The current study investigated how structural brain correlates of components of the working memory system change over developmental time. Verbal and visuospatial short-term and working memory were assessed in 153 children between 6 and 16 years and latent components of the working memory system were derived using principal component analysis. Further, fractional anisotropy and cortical thickness maps were derived from T1-weighted and diffusion-weighted MRI and processed using eigenanatomy decomposition, an advanced dimensionality reduction method for neuroimaging data. We were then able to explore how the structural brain correlates of working memory gradually shifted across childhood. Regression modelling indicated greater involvement of the corpus callosum and posterior temporal white matter in younger children for performance associated with the executive part of the working memory system, while thickness of the occipitotemporal cortex was more predictive in older children. These findings are consistent with an account in which increasing specialisation leads to shifts in the contribution of neural substrates over developmental time, from early reliance on a distributed system supported by long-range connections to later reliance on specialised local circuitry. Furthemore, our findings emphasise the importance of taking development into account when considering the neural systems that support complex cognitive skills, like working memory.

Positive and negative influences of the lexicon on phonemic decision-making

Abstract: Lexical knowledge influences how human listeners make decisions about speech sounds. Positive lexical effects (faster responses to target sounds in words than in nonwords) are robust across several laboratory tasks, while negative effects (slower responses to targets in nonwords that are more like words than in nonwords that are less like nonwords) have been found in phonetic decision tasks but not phoneme monitoring tasks. Are negative lexical effects therefore a task-specific consequence of the forced choice required in phonetic decision? The present experiments refuted this hypothesis. We compared phoneme monitoring and phonetic decision performance using exactly the same Dutch materials. In both tasks there were positive lexical effects, but no negative lexical effects. In studies showing negative lexical effects, the materials were made by cross-splicing, and therefore contained evidence supporting the lexically-consistent phonemes. The present materials were not made by cross-splicing. We therefore argue that lexical knowledge only influences phonemic decision-making when there is evidence for the lexically-consistent phoneme in the speech signal.