How Do Common Marmosets Maintain the Balance Between Response Execution and Action Inhibition?

Socio-dynamic situations require a balance between response execution and action inhibition. Nonadaptive imbalance between response inhibition and execution exists in neurodevelopmental and neuropsychological disorders. To investigate the underlying neural mechanisms of cognitive control and the related deficits, comparative studies in human and nonhuman primates are crucial.

Executive control fluctuations underlie behavioral variability in anthropoids.

In complex tasks requiring cognitive control, humans show trial-by-trial alterations in response time (RT), which are evident even when sensory-motor or other contextual aspects of the task remain stable. Exaggerated intra-individual RT variability is associated with brain injuries and frequently seen in aging and neuropsychological disorders. In this opinion, we discuss recent electrophysiology and imaging studies in humans and neurobiological studies in monkeys that indicate RT variability is linked with executive control fluctuation and that prefrontal cortical regions play essential, but dissociable, roles in such fluctuation of control and the resulting behavioral variability.

Morphine exposure modulates dimensional bias and set formation in anthropoids.

Humans demonstrate significant behavioural advantages with particular perceptual dimensions (such as colour or shape) and when the relevant dimension is repeated in consecutive trials. These dimension-related behavioural modulations are significantly altered in neuropsychological and addiction disorders; however, their underlying mechanisms remain unclear. Here, we studied whether these behavioural modulations exist in other trichromatic primate species and whether repeated exposure to opioids influences them.

What Does the Frontopolar Cortex Contribute to Goal-Directed Cognition and Action?

Understanding the unique functions of different subregions of primate prefrontal cortex has been a longstanding goal in cognitive neuroscience. Yet, the anatomy and function of one of its largest subregions (the frontopolar cortex) remain enigmatic and underspecified. Our Society for Neuroscience minisymposium will comprise a range of new anatomic and functional approaches that have helped to clarify the basic circuit anatomy of the frontal pole, its functional involvement during performance of cognitively demanding behavioral paradigms in monkeys and humans, and its clinical potential as a target for noninvasive brain stimulation in patients with brain disorders.

Dissociable effects of music and white noise on conflict-induced behavioral adjustments.

Auditory stimuli, encompassing a continually expanding collection of musical genres and sonic hues, present a safe and easily administrable therapeutic option for alleviating cognitive deficits associated with neuropsychological disorders, but their effects on executive control are yet to be completely understood. To better understand how the processing of certain acoustic properties can influence conflict processing, we had a large of cohort of undergraduate students complete the Stroop colour and word test in three different background conditions: classical music, white noise, and silence. Because of pandemic guidelines and the necessity to run the experiment remotely, participants also completed the Wisconsin card sorting test (WCST), so that the reliability and consistency of acquired data could be assessed.

Dynamic modulation of inhibition ability following repeated exposures to morphine in macaque monkey.

Background: Deficits in cognitive control, particularly inhibition ability, play crucial roles in susceptibility, progress, and relapse to opioid addiction. However, it is unclear when and how such deficits develop and interact with repeated exposures to prescribed opioids.

Aim: Using macaque monkey (), as an animal model with high translational merits in cognitive neuroscience, we tried to delineate alterations of inhibition ability in the course of repeated exposures to morphine.

The marmoset as a model for investigating the neural basis of social cognition in health and disease.

Social-cognitive processes facilitate the use of environmental cues to understand others, and to be understood by others. Animal models provide vital insights into the neural underpinning of social behaviours. To understand social cognition at even deeper behavioural, cognitive, neural, and molecular levels, we need to develop more representative study models, which allow testing of novel hypotheses using human-relevant cognitive tasks.

Dimension of visual information interacts with working memory in monkeys and humans.

Humans demonstrate behavioural advantages (biases) towards particular dimensions (colour or shape of visual objects), but such biases are significantly altered in neuropsychological disorders. Recent studies have shown that lesions in the prefrontal cortex do not abolish dimensional biases, and therefore suggest that such biases might not depend on top-down prefrontal-mediated attention and instead emerge as bottom-up processing advantages. We hypothesised that if dimensional biases merely emerge from an enhancement of object features, the presence of visual objects would be necessary for the manifestation of dimensional biases.

The neural substrate and underlying mechanisms of executive control fluctuations in primates.

Trial-by-trial alterations in response time have been linked to fluctuations of executive control and transient lapses of attention. Here, we report remarkable homologies in performance-dependent fluctuations of response time between humans and monkeys. We examined the effects of selective bilateral lesions in four frontal regions on control fluctuations in the context of a rule-shifting task.

Investigating the sex-dependent effects of prefrontal cortex stimulation on response execution and inhibition.

Context-dependent execution or inhibition of a response is an important aspect of executive control, which is impaired in neuropsychological and addiction disorders. Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) has been considered a remedial approach to address deficits in response control; however, considerable variability has been observed in tDCS effects. These variabilities might be related to contextual differences such as background visual-auditory stimuli or subjects' sex.

The effects of emotional stimuli and oxytocin on inhibition ability and response execution in macaque monkeys.

Social and emotional content of environmental stimuli influence executive control of behavior. There has been a great variability in the behavioral effects of emotional stimuli in humans. These variabilities might arise from other contextual factors, such as specific task demands or natural hormones, which potentially interact with emotional stimuli in modulating executive functions.

Short-term research projects in cognitive neuroscience for undergraduate students: a contingency plan to maintain quality teaching during COVID-19 pandemic.

The Corona Virus Disease 19 (COVID-19) pandemic has imposed serious restrictions for academic institutions to maintain their research and teaching practical subjects. Universities have implemented adaptive measures to maintain educational activities and achieve the learning objectives for undergraduate and postgraduate students by shifting to online teaching and learning. Although such approaches have enabled delivering the theoretical content of courses during the pandemic, universities have faced serious difficulties in running practicals with actual research experiments and teaching hand-on skills because such activities potentially override the required safety guidelines.

Neural substrate and underlying mechanisms of working memory: insights from brain stimulation studies.

The concept of working memory refers to a collection of cognitive abilities and processes involved in the short-term storage of task-relevant information to guide the ongoing and upcoming behavior and therefore describes an important aspect of executive control of behavior for achieving goals. Deficits in working memory and related cognitive abilities have been observed in patients with brain damage or neuropsychological disorders and therefore it is important to better understand neural substrate and underlying mechanisms of working memory. Working memory relies on neural mechanisms that enable encoding, maintenance, and manipulation of stored information as well as integrating them with ongoing and future goals.

Dimensional bias and adaptive adjustments in inhibitory control of monkeys.

Humans and macaque monkeys, performing a Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST), show a significant behavioral bias to a particular sensory dimension (e.g. color or shape); however, lesions in prefrontal cortical regions do not abolish the dimensional biases in monkeys and, therefore, it has been proposed that these biases emerge in earlier stages of visual information processing.

Color-hierarchies in executive control of monkeys' behavior.

Processing advantages for particular colors (color-hierarchies) influence emotional regulation and cognitive functions in humans and manifest as an advantage of the red color, compared with the green color, in triggering response inhibition but not in response execution. It remains unknown how such color-hierarchies emerge in human cognition and whether they are the unique properties of human brain with advanced trichromatic vision. Dominant models propose that color-hierarchies are formed as experience-dependent learning that associates various colors with different human-made conventions and concepts (e.

Emergence of abstract rules in the primate brain.

Various aspects of human cognition are shaped and enriched by abstract rules, which help to describe, link and classify discrete events and experiences into meaningful concepts. However, where and how these entities emerge in the primate brain and the neuronal mechanisms underlying them remain the subject of extensive research and debate. Evidence from imaging studies in humans and single-neuron recordings in monkeys suggests a pivotal role for the prefrontal cortex in the representation of abstract rules; however, behavioural studies in lesioned monkeys and data from neuropsychological examinations of patients with prefrontal damage indicate substantial functional dissociations and task dependency in the contribution of prefrontal cortical regions to rule-guided behaviour.

Negative Emotional Stimuli Enhance Conflict Resolution Without Altering Arousal.

In our daily life, we frequently need to make decisions between competing behavioral options while we are exposed to various contextual factors containing emotional/social information. We examined how changes in emotional/arousal state influence resolving conflict between behavioral rules. Visual stimuli with emotional content (positive, negative and neutral) and music (High/Low tempo), which could potentially alter emotional/arousal states, were included in the task context while participants performed the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST).

Interaction of music and emotional stimuli in modulating working memory in macaque monkeys.

Background music is one of the most frequently encountered contextual factors that affect cognitive and emotional functions in humans. However, it is still unclear whether music induces similar effects in nonhuman primates. Answering this question might bring insight to the long-lasting question regarding the ability of nonhuman primates in perceiving and dissociating music from other nonmusical acoustic information.

Interaction of task-related learning and transcranial direct current stimulation of the prefrontal cortex in modulating executive functions.

The effects of transcranial direct-current stimulation (tDCS) on cognitive functions, such as response inhibition, might be mediated through plastic changes within the prefrontal cortex. Previous studies have also confirmed learning-related plasticity in prefrontal neurocircuitry. The susceptibility of prefrontal neurocircuitry for tDCS-induced plastic changes and consequent behavioural modulations might depend on the level of learning in a particular task.

The effects of oxytocin on primates' working memory depend on the emotional valence of contextual factors.

Current models suggest that neuropeptide oxytocin modulates the salience of emotional/social stimuli and consequently influences perceptual, attentional and learning processes that underlie social behaviour. Therefore, oxytocin has been considered as a potential treatment in managing social and communication deficits in neuropsychological disorders. Recent studies indicate that effects of oxytocin on social and cognitive functions greatly vary and even lead to opposite outcomes.

Context-Dependent Adjustments in Executive Control of Goal-Directed Behaviour: Contribution of Frontal Brain Areas to Conflict-Induced Behavioural Adjustments in Primates.

Psychophysical studies in humans indicate that the performance in various tasks is affected by contextual factors such as conflict level and error commission. It is generally believed that contextual factors influence the executive control processes and consequently modulate ongoing behaviour. Imaging studies suggest that dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and anterior cingulate cortex play crucial roles in mediating these context-dependent adjustments in executive control of behaviour.

Interactive effects of music and prefrontal cortex stimulation in modulating response inhibition.

Influential hypotheses propose that alterations in emotional state influence decision processes and executive control of behavior. Both music and transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) of prefrontal cortex affect emotional state, however interactive effects of music and tDCS on executive functions remain unknown. Learning to inhibit inappropriate responses is an important aspect of executive control which is guided by assessing the decision outcomes such as errors.