Cognitive neuroscience articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Decisions under uncertainty involve a balance between exploiting familiar valuable options and exploring unfamiliar ones. Here, the authors study hippocampal responses using fMRI during a reinforcement learning task, and show the differential involvement of the anterior-posterior regions in the explore-exploit aspects of the task.

    • Alexandre Y. Dombrovski
    • , Beatriz Luna
    •  & Michael N. Hallquist

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The human brain fluently parses continuous speech during perception and production. Using direct brain recordings coupled with stimulation, the authors identify separable substrates underlying two distinct predictive mechanisms of “when” in Heschl’s gyrus and “what” in planum temporale.

    • K. J. Forseth
    • , G. Hickok
    •  & N. Tandon

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Even decisions based on simple sensory stimuli result from an interplay between many brain regions. Here, the authors track the dynamics of information about sensory input and behavioral choice across the human cerebral cortex, uncovering feedback of decision signals to early sensory cortex.

    • Niklas Wilming
    • , Peter R. Murphy
    •  & Tobias H. Donner

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Brain disconnection after stroke leads to functional deficits whose anatomical basis is poorly understood. Here, based on a collection of stroke imaging, a database of neuroimaging meta-analysis, and high fidelity white matter mapping, the authors provide an atlas of human white matter function.

    • Michel Thiebaut de Schotten
    • , Chris Foulon
    •  & Parashkev Nachev

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The transition from resting to perceiving one’s milieu requires a fundamental reorganization of brain activity. Here, the authors show how a fundamental reshaping of brain state dynamics supports perceptual engagement in naturalistic stimuli.

    • Johan N. van der Meer
    • , Michael Breakspear
    •  & Luca Cocchi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Humans are able to exploit patterns or schemas when performing new tasks, but the mechanism for this ability is still unknown. Using graph-learning tasks, we show that humans are able to transfer abstract structural knowledge and suggest a computational mechanism by which such transfer can occur.

    • Shirley Mark
    • , Rani Moran
    •  & Timothy E. J. Behrens

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is a powerful method to understand neural mechanisms of cognition but imaging of small animals can be challenging. The authors present an event-related fMRI platform to visualize the neural fundaments of perceptual and cognitive functions in awake birds.

    • Mehdi Behroozi
    • , Xavier Helluy
    •  & Onur Güntürkün

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Progress in eye movement research has been limited since existing eye trackers are expensive and do not scale. Here, the authors show that smartphone-based eye tracking achieves high accuracy comparable to state-of-the-art mobile eye trackers, replicating key findings from prior eye movement research.

    • Nachiappan Valliappan
    • , Na Dai
    •  & Vidhya Navalpakkam

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The human brain is specialised for face processing, yet sometimes objects are perceived as illusory faces. Here, the authors show that illusory faces are initially represented similarly to real faces, but the representation quickly transforms into one equivalent to ordinary objects.

    • Susan G. Wardle
    • , Jessica Taubert
    •  & Chris I. Baker

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Using fMRI on awake infants could help us understand the contents of a baby’s mind, long before they can speak. Here, the authors report advances in how to collect, preprocess, and analyze task-based fMRI data from infants, and they share the resulting datasets and software.

    • C. T. Ellis
    • , L. J. Skalaban
    •  & N. B. Turk-Browne

  • Comment
    | Open Access

    Bayesian brain theories suggest that perception, action and cognition arise as animals minimise the mismatch between their expectations and reality. This principle could unify cognitive science with the broader natural sciences, but leave key elements of cognition and behaviour unexplained.

    • Daniel Yon
    • , Cecilia Heyes
    •  & Clare Press

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Humans can unconsciously learn to gamble on rewarding options, but can they do so when it comes to their own mental states? Here, the authors show that participants can learn to use unconscious representations in their own brains to earn rewards, and that metacognition correlates with their learning processes.

    • Aurelio Cortese
    • , Hakwan Lau
    •  & Mitsuo Kawato

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Neurons with grid firing fields are thought to play important roles in spatial cognition. Here, the authors show that in contrast to assumptions underlying current models and analyses, grid fields are modulated by local head direction; this suggests different mechanisms and new roles for grid firing.

    • Klara Gerlei
    • , Jessica Passlack
    •  & Matthew F. Nolan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Individuals with PTSD are unable to recollect contextual cues related to the trauma. Here the authors show that this contextual amnesia, associated with the inhibition of hippocampal activity, is causally involved in PTSD-like hypermnesia in mice, and that re-exposure to all trauma-related cues eliminates PTSD-like memory while promoting normal fear memory.

    • Alice Shaam Al Abed
    • , Eva-Gunnel Ducourneau
    •  & Aline Desmedt

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Fatigue influences our choices to engage in physical activity. Here, the authors investigate the underlying cognitive and neuronal mechanisms by which fatigue influences decisions to exert, and show that information about motor cortical state modulates decisions to engage in physical activity.

    • Patrick S. Hogan
    • , Steven X. Chen
    •  & Vikram S. Chib

  • Article
    | Open Access

    What sensory information is available for decision making? Here, using multi-alternative decisions, the authors show that a substantial amount of information from sensory representations is lost during the transformation to a decision-level representation.

    • Jiwon Yeon
    •  & Dobromir Rahnev

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Wittmann and colleagues show that not only single outcome events but also the global reward state (GRS) impact learning in macaques; low GRS drives explorative choices. Analyses of macaque BOLD signal reveals that GRS impacts activity in the anterior insula as well as the dorsal raphe nucleus.

    • Marco K. Wittmann
    • , Elsa Fouragnan
    •  & Matthew F. S. Rushworth

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Eyewitness errors contribute to wrongful convictions. Here, the authors present a lineup procedure that reveals the structure of eyewitness memory, reduces decision bias, and measures performance of individual witnesses.

    • Sergei Gepshtein
    • , Yurong Wang
    •  & Thomas D. Albright

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Eye movements are inhibited prior to the occurrence of predictable visual events. Here the authors show that this inhibition is also found in the auditory domain, thus revealing a multimodal perception action coupling.

    • Dekel Abeles
    • , Roy Amit
    •  & Shlomit Yuval-Greenberg

  • Article
    | Open Access

    When our expectations are violated, it is adaptive to update our internal models to improve predictions in the future. Here, the authors show that during mnemonic violations, hippocampal networks are biased towards an encoding state and away from a retrieval state to potentially update these predictions.

    • Oded Bein
    • , Katherine Duncan
    •  & Lila Davachi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In value-based decision-making, single prefrontal neurons represent multiple variables at different times in the decision process. Here, the authors show these representations to be separable and stable at the population level, allowing read out of specific variables at behaviorally relevant times.

    • Daniel L. Kimmel
    • , Gamaleldin F. Elsayed
    •  & William T. Newsome

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In some types of decision-making, people must accept or forego an option without knowing what prospects might later be available. Here, the authors reveal how a key bias– asymmetric learning from negative versus positive outcomes – emerges in this type of decision.

    • Neil Garrett
    •  & Nathaniel D. Daw

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Decision-making is traditionally thought to be guided by memories of option values. Here, the authors challenge this view by showing that merely making a choice – even without experiencing any outcomes – alters neural representations of stimulus-reward associations and biases future decisions.

    • Lennart Luettgau
    • , Claus Tempelmann
    •  & Gerhard Jocham

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Our brain derives a sense of direction from visual inputs. Here, the authors combine 7T-fMRI with predictive modeling of virtual navigation to show that the strength, width and topology of directional coding in the human brain reflect ongoing memory-guided behavior.

    • Matthias Nau
    • , Tobias Navarro Schröder
    •  & Christian F. Doeller

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Habitat complexity influences the sensory ecology of predator-prey interactions. Here, the authors show that habitat complexity also affects the use of different decision-making paradigms, namely habit- and plan-based action selection. Simulations across habitat types show that only savanna-like terrestrial habitats favor planning during visually-guided predator evasion, while aquatic and simple terrestrial habitats do not.

    • Ugurcan Mugan
    •  & Malcolm A. MacIver

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Working memory is a critical component of executive function that allows people to complete complex tasks in the moment. Here, the authors show that this ability is underpinned by two newly defined brain networks.

    • Andrew C. Murphy
    • , Maxwell A. Bertolero
    •  & Danielle S. Bassett

  • Article
    | Open Access

    How is action perception organized in the brain? Here, the authors report evidence for five networks tuned to actions’ social content and the scale of their effect on the world and propose that sociality and interaction envelope are organizing dimensions of visual action representation.

    • Leyla Tarhan
    •  & Talia Konkle

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Sensory hypersensitivity is common in autism spectrum disorders. Using functional MRI, psychophysics, and computational modeling, Schallmo et al. show that differences in visual motion perception in ASD are accompanied by weaker neural suppression in visual cortex.

    • Michael-Paul Schallmo
    • , Tamar Kolodny
    •  & Scott O. Murray

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Path integration abilities, important for spatial navigation, vary widely across individuals and deteriorate in old age. This work shows that path integration errors in general, as well as age-related path integration deficits, are mainly caused by accumulating noise in people’s velocity estimation.

    • Matthias Stangl
    • , Ingmar Kanitscheider
    •  & Thomas Wolbers

  • Article
    | Open Access

    People often ignore evidence that disconfirms their prior beliefs. Here, the authors investigate the underlying cognitive, computational and neuronal mechanisms of such confirmation bias, and show that high confidence induces a selective neural processing of choice-consistent information.

    • Max Rollwage
    • , Alisa Loosen
    •  & Stephen M. Fleming

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Semantic dementia patients present with a core semantic impairment and variations of language, behavioural and face recognition abilities. Here, the authors build a unified multidimensional model to capture all these graded symptoms and map them to the variations in the patients’ frontotemporal atrophy.

    • Junhua Ding
    • , Keliang Chen
    •  & Matthew. A. Lambon Ralph

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Goal directed behavior requires the sequential retrieval and evaluation of the multiple choices for action and their deterministic outcomes. Here, the authors report sequential, decodable probabilistic outcome representations in magnetoencephalography (MEG) signals during a risky foraging task.

    • Giuseppe Castegnetti
    • , Athina Tzovara
    •  & Dominik R. Bach

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The cognitive computational mechanisms underlying the antidepressant treatment response of SSRIs is not well understood. Here the authors show that SSRI treatment in healthy subjects for a week manifests as an amplification of the perception of positive outcomes when learning occurs in a positive mood setting.

    • Jochen Michely
    • , Eran Eldar
    •  & Raymond J. Dolan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Critical slowing (associated with increased variance and autocorrelation) can precede critical state transitions. Here, the authors show critical slowing can be used as a marker in seizure forecasting algorithms.

    • Matias I. Maturana
    • , Christian Meisel
    •  & Dean R. Freestone

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Conscious task load modulates the unconscious processing of semantic interference between an invisible prime and a visible target in a double-Stroop paradigm, providing evidence that high-level unconscious processing requires attention.

    • Shao-Min Hung
    • , Daw-An Wu
    •  & Shinsuke Shimojo

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