Behavioral and Cognitive Neurodynamics

A special issue of Brain Sciences (ISSN 2076-3425). This special issue belongs to the section "Computational Neuroscience and Neuroinformatics".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 October 2020) | Viewed by 14085

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
Neuroheuristic Research Group, University of Lausanne, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
Interests: action–perception cycle; artificial intelligence; associative memory; decision making; dopamine; dynamical systems; emergence of consciousness; emotion recognition; information theory; machine learning; neuromodulation; nonlinear dynamics; recurrent neural dynamics; reward circuits; prediction error; sleep; learning; neural plasticity; working memory

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Multiple coding and decoding properties, multiple degrees of integration, and multiple time scales of information processing that are concurrently active make the brain a complex system that requires a transdisciplinary approach of study. Behavioral and cognitive neurodynamics is a field that lies at the crossroads of theoretical, basic, and clinical neurosciences.

This Special Issue of Brain Sciences aims to present a collection of papers covering the most recent advances in cognitive neurodynamics. Authors are invited to submit cutting-edge original studies and reviews that address the field by experimental, clinical, as well as theoretical and computational approaches. Among the experimental methods of investigation of the prospected studies are included functional neuroimaging (fMRI, near infrared spectroscopy, and magnetoencephalography), behavioral assessment of healthy controls and patients by sensorimotor stimulations or transcranial magnetic stimulation, and electrophysiology, at the level of single units, multiple units, electrocorticograms, EEG, and evoked potentials describing coding and learning properties from cell to brain areas. Besides the experimental data, we expect contributions in theoretical and computational neuroscience with new models, new techniques of information processing and data analysis, and simulations of neural networks and neural circuits. Contributions of studies on applications of nonlinear dynamics of brain activity, deterministic chaos, entropy, and statistical mechanics, to obtain a better understanding of human and animal behavior, are welcome.

Prof. Dr. Alessandro E. P. Villa
Guest Editor

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Keywords

  • Acetylcholine
  • Action potential
  • Action–perception cycle
  • Artificial intelligence
  • Associative memory
  • Attractor, auditory system
  • Basal ganglia
  • Brain computer interface (BCI)
  • Chaos, computational modelling
  • Convolutional neural network
  • Decision making, dopamine
  • Dynamical systems
  • Electroencephalography (EEG)
  • Emergence of consciousness
  • Emotion recognition, energy feature
  • Epilepsy
  • Event-related activity
  • Fokker–Planck equation
  • Fractal, free will
  • Functional connectivity
  • Global intensity
  • Granger causality
  • Granger causality
  • Graph theory analysis
  • Information theory
  • Machine learning
  • Maximum entropy model
  • Memory network
  • Motor cortex
  • Motor imagery
  • Multivoxel pattern analysis
  • Mutual information
  • Network analysis
  • Neural networks
  • Neuromodulation
  • Non-human primates
  • Nonlinear dynamics
  • Particle swarm optimization
  • Permutation disalignment index
  • Posterior parietal cortex, prefrontal cortex
  • Recurrent neural dynamics
  • Rehabilitation, reward prediction error
  • Seizure detection
  • Sleep
  • Specific entropy measurements
  • Spontaneous activity
  • State–space model
  • Stochastic binding process
  • Striatum, supervised learning
  • Synaptic plasticity
  • Synchronization
  • Synchronized rhythm
  • Synfire chain, thalamus
  • Transcranial simulation
  • Unsupervised learning
  • Visual system
  • Working memory

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Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

35 pages, 2212 KiB  
Article
Attention Networks in ADHD Adults after Working Memory Training with a Dual n-Back Task
by Masashi Dotare, Michel Bader, Sarah K. Mesrobian, Yoshiyuki Asai, Alessandro E. P. Villa and Alessandra Lintas
Brain Sci. 2020, 10(10), 715; https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci10100715 - 8 Oct 2020
Cited by 9 | Viewed by 5400
Abstract
Patients affected by Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) are characterized by impaired executive functioning and/or attention deficits. Our study aim is to determine whether the outcomes measured by the Attention Network Task (ANT), i.e., the reaction times (RTs) to specific target and cue conditions and [...] Read more.
Patients affected by Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) are characterized by impaired executive functioning and/or attention deficits. Our study aim is to determine whether the outcomes measured by the Attention Network Task (ANT), i.e., the reaction times (RTs) to specific target and cue conditions and alerting, orienting, and conflict (or executive control) effects are affected by cognitive training with a Dual n-back task. We considered three groups of young adult participants: ADHD patients without medication (ADHD), ADHD with medication (MADHD), and age/education-matched controls. Working memory training consisted of a daily practice of 20 blocks of Dual n-back task (approximately 30 min per day) for 20 days within one month. Participants of each group were randomly assigned into two subgroups, the first one with an adaptive mode of difficulty (adaptive training), while the second was blocked at the level 1 during the whole training phase (1-back task, baseline training). Alerting and orienting effects were not modified by working memory training. The dimensional analysis showed that after baseline training, the lesser the severity of the hyperactive-impulsive symptoms, the larger the improvement of reaction times on trials with high executive control/conflict demand (i.e., what is called Conflict Effect), irrespective of the participants’ group. In the categorical analysis, we observed the improvement in such Conflict Effect after the adaptive training in adult ADHD patients irrespective of their medication, but not in controls. The ex-Gaussian analysis of RT and RT variability showed that the improvement in the Conflict Effect correlated with a decrease in the proportion of extreme slow responses. The Dual n-back task in the adaptive mode offers as a promising candidate for a cognitive remediation of adult ADHD patients without pharmaceutical medication. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Behavioral and Cognitive Neurodynamics)
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23 pages, 4397 KiB  
Article
Neurodynamics of Patients during a Dolphin-Assisted Therapy by Means of a Fractal Intraneural Analysis
by Oswaldo Morales Matamoros, Jesús Jaime Moreno Escobar, Ricardo Tejeida Padilla and Ixchel Lina Reyes
Brain Sci. 2020, 10(6), 403; https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci10060403 - 25 Jun 2020
Cited by 9 | Viewed by 3376
Abstract
The recent proliferation of sensor technology applications in therapies for children’s disabilities to promote positive behavior among such children has produced optimistic results in developing a variety of skills and abilities in them. Dolphin-Assisted Therapy (DAT) has also become a topic of public [...] Read more.
The recent proliferation of sensor technology applications in therapies for children’s disabilities to promote positive behavior among such children has produced optimistic results in developing a variety of skills and abilities in them. Dolphin-Assisted Therapy (DAT) has also become a topic of public and research interest for these disorders’ intervention and treatment. This work exposes the development of a system that controls brain–computer interaction when a patient with different abilities undergoes a DAT. To develop the proposed system, TGAM1, i.e., ThinkGear-AM1 series of NeuroSky company, was used, connecting it to an isolated Bluetooth 4.0 communication protocol from a brackish and humid environment, and a Notch Filter was applied to reduce the input noise. In this way, at Definiti Ixtapa-Mexico facilities, we explored the behavior of three children with Infantile Spastic Cerebral Palsy (Experiment 1), as well as the behavior of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and neurotypic children (Experiment 2). This was done applying the Power Spectrum Density (PSD) and the Self-Affine Analysis (SSA) from Electroencephalogram (EEG) biosignals. The EEG Raw data were time series showing the cerebral brain activity (voltage versus time) before and during DAT for the Experiment 1, and before, during DAT and after for the Experiment 2. Likewise, the EEW RAW data were recorded by the first frontopolar electrode (FP1) by means of an EEG biosensor TGAM1 Module. From the PSD we found that in all child patients a huge increment of brain activity during DAT regarding the before and after therapy periods around 376.28%. Moreover, from the SSA we found that the structure function of the all five child patients displayed an antipersistent behavior, characterized by σ δ t H , for before, during DAT and after. Nonetheless, we propose that one way to assess whether a DAT is being efficient to the child patients is to increase the during DAT time when the samples are collected, supposing the data fitting by a power law will raise the time, displaying a persistent behavior or positive correlations, until a crossover appears and the curve tends to be horizontal, pointing out that our system has reached a stationary state. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Behavioral and Cognitive Neurodynamics)
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20 pages, 1381 KiB  
Article
Syntactic Comprehension of Relative Clauses and Center Embedding Using Pseudowords
by Kyung-Hwan Cheon, Youngjoo Kim, Hee-Dong Yoon, Ki-Chun Nam, Sun-Young Lee and Hyeon-Ae Jeon
Brain Sci. 2020, 10(4), 202; https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci10040202 - 31 Mar 2020
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 4752
Abstract
Relative clause (RC) formation and center embedding (CE) are two primary syntactic operations fundamental for creating and understanding complex sentences. Ample evidence from previous cross-linguistic studies has revealed several similarities and differences between RC and CE. However, it is not easy to investigate [...] Read more.
Relative clause (RC) formation and center embedding (CE) are two primary syntactic operations fundamental for creating and understanding complex sentences. Ample evidence from previous cross-linguistic studies has revealed several similarities and differences between RC and CE. However, it is not easy to investigate the effect of pure syntactic constraints for RC and CE without the interference of semantic and pragmatic interactions. Here, we show how readers process CE and RC using a self-paced reading task in Korean. More interestingly, we adopted a novel self-paced pseudoword reading task to exploit syntactic operations of the RC and CE, eliminating the semantic and pragmatic interference in sentence comprehension. Our results showed that the main effects of RC and CE conform to previous studies. Furthermore, we found a facilitation effect of sentence comprehension when we combined an RC and CE in a complex sentence. Our study provides a valuable insight into how the purely syntactic processing of RC and CE assists comprehension of complex sentences. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Behavioral and Cognitive Neurodynamics)
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