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Cortical correlates of perceptual decision making during tactile spatial pattern discrimination.
- Source :
-
Human brain mapping [Hum Brain Mapp] 2015 Sep; Vol. 36 (9), pp. 3339-50. Date of Electronic Publication: 2015 Jun 10. - Publication Year :
- 2015
-
Abstract
- Perceptual decision making involves a distributed cortical network including areas related to sensory feature extraction, decision formation, and finally signalling the decision through a motor response. Although these processing steps are supposed to occur in sequence, the seemingly instant mapping of a perceptual decision onto a motor response renders these processes almost indistinguishable. To dissociate cortical areas related to sensory decision making from areas that prepare the subsequent motor response, we performed functional magnetic resonance imaging during a tactile spatial pattern discrimination task with interleaved immediate and delayed response conditions. Decision difficulty was manipulated parametrically by adding spatial noise to the tactile patterns, resulting in a rise in decision time with increasing noise. We assumed that areas involved in making the decision should show a variation in their activation with decision time and irrespective of whether (immediate response condition) or not (delayed response condition) a motor response could be prepared in advance. To exhibit these putative decision areas, we used response time, as was obtained in the immediate response condition, as parametric predictor for the difficulty-dependent variations of blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD)-activity in both response conditions. BOLD activations in right (contralateral) postcentral sulcus, right intraparietal sulcus (IPS) and bilateral anterior insula (aINS) reflected this parametric modulation in both response conditions, suggesting a role of these areas in tactile decisions independent of decision-specific motor preparation. Furthermore, a multivariate pattern analysis performed on the BOLD responses in the delayed response condition for a single difficulty level independently validated IPS and aINS as decision-related areas.<br /> (© 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.)
- Subjects :
- Adult
Brain Mapping methods
Cerebrovascular Circulation
Female
Humans
Magnetic Resonance Imaging methods
Male
Multivariate Analysis
Neural Pathways physiology
Neuropsychological Tests
Oxygen blood
Physical Stimulation
Reaction Time
Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted
Brain physiology
Decision Making physiology
Discrimination, Psychological physiology
Space Perception
Touch Perception
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 1097-0193
- Volume :
- 36
- Issue :
- 9
- Database :
- MEDLINE
- Journal :
- Human brain mapping
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 26095426
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1002/hbm.22844