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Brain Activity Associated With Expected Task Difficulty

Previous research shows that people can use a cue to mentally prepare for a cognitive challenge. The response to a cue has been defined as phasic alertness which is reflected in faster responses and increased activity in frontal, parietal, thalamic, and visual brain regions. We examine if and how ph...

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Autores principales: de Dreu, Miek J., Schouwenaars, Irena T., Rutten, Geert-Jan M., Ramsey, Nick F., Jansma, Johan M.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6724610/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31555110
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2019.00286
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author de Dreu, Miek J.
Schouwenaars, Irena T.
Rutten, Geert-Jan M.
Ramsey, Nick F.
Jansma, Johan M.
author_facet de Dreu, Miek J.
Schouwenaars, Irena T.
Rutten, Geert-Jan M.
Ramsey, Nick F.
Jansma, Johan M.
author_sort de Dreu, Miek J.
collection PubMed
description Previous research shows that people can use a cue to mentally prepare for a cognitive challenge. The response to a cue has been defined as phasic alertness which is reflected in faster responses and increased activity in frontal, parietal, thalamic, and visual brain regions. We examine if and how phasic alertness can be tuned to the expected difficulty of an upcoming challenge. If people in general are able to tune their level of alertness, then an inability to tune may be linked to disease. Twenty-two healthy volunteers performed a cued visual perception task with two levels of task difficulty. Performance and brain activity were compared between these two levels. Performance was lower for difficult stimuli than for easy stimuli. For both cue types, participants showed activation in a network associated with central executive function and deactivation in regions of the default mode network (DMN) and visual cortex. Deactivation was significantly stronger for cues signaling difficult stimuli than for cues signaling easy stimuli. This effect was most prominent in medial prefrontal gyrus, visual, and temporal cortices. Activation did not differ between the cues. Our study shows that phasic alertness is represented by activated as well as deactivated brain regions. However only deactivated brain regions tuned their level of activity to the expected task difficulty. These results suggest that people, in general, are able to tune their level of alertness to an upcoming task. Cognition may be facilitated by a brain-state coupled to expectations about an upcoming cognitive challenge. Unique identifier = 842003004.
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spelling pubmed-67246102019-09-25 Brain Activity Associated With Expected Task Difficulty de Dreu, Miek J. Schouwenaars, Irena T. Rutten, Geert-Jan M. Ramsey, Nick F. Jansma, Johan M. Front Hum Neurosci Human Neuroscience Previous research shows that people can use a cue to mentally prepare for a cognitive challenge. The response to a cue has been defined as phasic alertness which is reflected in faster responses and increased activity in frontal, parietal, thalamic, and visual brain regions. We examine if and how phasic alertness can be tuned to the expected difficulty of an upcoming challenge. If people in general are able to tune their level of alertness, then an inability to tune may be linked to disease. Twenty-two healthy volunteers performed a cued visual perception task with two levels of task difficulty. Performance and brain activity were compared between these two levels. Performance was lower for difficult stimuli than for easy stimuli. For both cue types, participants showed activation in a network associated with central executive function and deactivation in regions of the default mode network (DMN) and visual cortex. Deactivation was significantly stronger for cues signaling difficult stimuli than for cues signaling easy stimuli. This effect was most prominent in medial prefrontal gyrus, visual, and temporal cortices. Activation did not differ between the cues. Our study shows that phasic alertness is represented by activated as well as deactivated brain regions. However only deactivated brain regions tuned their level of activity to the expected task difficulty. These results suggest that people, in general, are able to tune their level of alertness to an upcoming task. Cognition may be facilitated by a brain-state coupled to expectations about an upcoming cognitive challenge. Unique identifier = 842003004. Frontiers Media S.A. 2019-08-28 /pmc/articles/PMC6724610/ /pubmed/31555110 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2019.00286 Text en Copyright © 2019 de Dreu, Schouwenaars, Rutten, Ramsey and Jansma. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Human Neuroscience
de Dreu, Miek J.
Schouwenaars, Irena T.
Rutten, Geert-Jan M.
Ramsey, Nick F.
Jansma, Johan M.
Brain Activity Associated With Expected Task Difficulty
title Brain Activity Associated With Expected Task Difficulty
title_full Brain Activity Associated With Expected Task Difficulty
title_fullStr Brain Activity Associated With Expected Task Difficulty
title_full_unstemmed Brain Activity Associated With Expected Task Difficulty
title_short Brain Activity Associated With Expected Task Difficulty
title_sort brain activity associated with expected task difficulty
topic Human Neuroscience
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6724610/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31555110
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2019.00286
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