Instrumental conditioning studies how animals and humans choose actions appropriate to the affective structure of an environment. According recent reinforcement learning models, two distinct components are involved: a “critic,” which learns predict future reward, “actor,” maintains information about rewarding outcomes enable better ones be chosen more frequently. We scanned human participants with functional magnetic resonance imaging while they engaged in instrumental conditioning. Our...

Congenital prosopagnosia (CP), an innate impairment in recognizing faces, as well the other-race effect (ORE), a disadvantage faces of foreign races, both affect face recognition abilities. Are same processing mechanisms affected situations? To investigate this question, we tested three groups 21 participants: German congenital prosopagnosics, South Korean participants and controls on different tasks involving objects. First all Cambridge Face Memory Test which they had to recognize...

Abstract Previous functional imaging experiments in humans showed activation increases the posterior superior temporal gyrus and sulcus during observation of geometrical shapes whose movements appear intentional or goal-directed. We modeled a chase scenario between two objects, which chasing object used different strategies to reach target object: The chaser either followed target's path appeared predict its end position. Activation human observers was greater when adopted rather than follow...

The ability to perceive facial motion is important successfully interact in social environments. Previously, imaging studies have investigated neural correlates of primarily using abstract stimuli. Here, we studied how the brain processes natural non-rigid direct comparison static stimuli and matched phase-scrambled controls. As predicted from previous studies, dynamic faces elicit higher responses than lateral temporal areas corresponding hMT+/V5 STS. Interestingly, individually defined,...

Objective: Childhood maltreatment is a major risk factor for psychopathology associated with interpersonal problems in adulthood, but the etiological pathways involved are still unclear. The authors propose that childhood confers dysfunctional behavior social interactions by altering distance preference and processing of touch. Methods: Ninety-two medication-free adults (64 them female) low, medium, high levels were tested an paradigm subsequently underwent touch functional MRI task during...

Aphantasia refers to reduced or absent visual imagery. While most of us can readily recall decade-old personal experiences (autobiographical memories, AM) with vivid mental images, there is a dearth information about whether the loss imagery in aphantasics affects their AM retrieval. The hippocampus thought be crucial hub brain-wide network underlying AM. One important question this network, especially connectivity hippocampus, altered aphantasia. In current study, we tested 14 congenital...

Facial motion carries essential information about other people's emotions and intentions. Most previous studies have suggested that facial is mainly processed in the superior temporal sulcus (STS), but several recent also shown involvement of ventral face-sensitive regions. Up to now, it not known whether increased response due an amount static stimulus, deformation face over time, or attentional demands. We presented nonrigidly moving faces control stimuli participants performing a...

Emotions can be aroused by various kinds of stimulus modalities. Recent neuroimaging studies indicate that several brain regions represent emotions at an abstract level, i.e., independently from the sensory cues which they are perceived (e.g., face, body, or voice stimuli). If indeed represented such then these representations should also activated memory emotional event. We tested this hypothesis asking human participants to learn associations between stimuli (videos faces bodies) and...

Loneliness is a public health concern with detrimental effects on physical and mental well-being. Given phenotypical overlaps between loneliness social anxiety (SA), cognitive-behavioral interventions targeting SA might be adopted to reduce loneliness. However, whether share the same underlying neurocognitive mechanisms still an elusive question. The current study aimed at investigating what extent known behavioral neural correlates of avoidance in are evident We used prestratified approach...

Congenital prosopagnosia, the innate impairment in recognizing faces, is a very heterogeneous disorder with different phenotypical manifestations. To investigate nature of prosopagnosia more detail, we tested 16 prosopagnosics and 21 controls an extended test battery addressing various aspects face recognition. Our results show that exhibited significant impairments several recognition tasks: impaired holistic processing (they were amongst others Cambridge Face Memory Test (CFMT)) as well...

Loneliness poses a significant health problem and existing psychological interventions have shown only limited positive effects on loneliness. Based preliminary evidence for impaired oxytocin signaling in trait-like loneliness, the current proof-of-concept study used randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled design to probe intranasal (OT) as an adjunct short-term modular-based group intervention individuals suffering from high loneliness (HL, UCLA Scale ≥55).

Abstract Background Chronic loneliness is associated with increased morbidity and mortality. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of as a modifiable risk factor for major depressive disorder (MDD) generalized anxiety (GAD). As result, there an urgent need neurobiologically informed interventions to reduce (1). Aims & Objectives Given preliminary evidence impaired oxytocin signaling in chronic (2), current proof- of-concept study used randomized, double-blind,...

Providing nutrition or health labels on product packaging can be an effective strategy to promote a conscious and healthier diet. However, such also have the potential counterproductive by creating obstructive expectations about flavor of food influencing odor perception. Conversely, olfaction could significantly influence label perception, whereby negative mitigated pleasant odors. This study explored neural processing interplay between odors using fMRI in 63 participants either sex, whom...

This study investigated the neural mechanisms involved in feelings of interpersonal guilt and responsibility evoked by social decisions. In two studies (one during fMRI), participants repeatedly chose between safe risky monetary outcomes contexts. Across conditions, each participant for both themselves a partner ( Social condition), or Partner just Solo condition, control). If option was chosen could receive either high low outcome lottery with 50% probability, independently other....

This study investigated the neural mechanisms involved in feelings of interpersonal guilt and responsibility evoked by social decisions. In two studies (one during fMRI), participants repeatedly chose between safe risky monetary outcomes contexts. Across conditions, each participant for both themselves a partner ( Social condition), or Partner just Solo condition, control). If option was chosen could receive either high low outcome lottery with 50% probability, independently other....

What cortical mechanisms allow humans to easily discern the expression or identity of a face? Subjects detected changes in stream dynamic faces while we measured BOLD responses from topographically and functionally defined areas throughout visual hierarchy. Responses dorsal increased during task, whereas ventral consistent with previous studies. Similar areas, early showed activity task. If are weighted by perceptual according their magnitude, these would lead improved attentional selection...

A great deal of perceptual and social information is conveyed by facial motion. Here, we investigated observers' sensitivity to the complex spatio-temporal in expressions what cues they use judge similarity these movements. We motion-captured four decomposed them into time courses semantically meaningful local actions (e.g., eyebrow raise). then generated approximations which differed amount about natural motion contained, used original animate an avatar head. Observers chose two animations...

Significance A potential new target for anxiolytic drug development is the oxytocin (OXT) neuropeptide system. An emerging question whether OXT has similar effects on neural microcircuitry of fear compared with clinically established compounds such as benzodiazepines. The present functional MRI study showed that both and its benzodiazepine comparator lorazepam (LZP) reduced centromedial amygdala responses to signals. OXT, but not LZP, increased extra-amygdalar connectivity between...