Metaphors We Think With: The Role of Metaphor in Reasoning. The way we talk about complex and abstract ideas is suffused with metaphor. In five experiments, we explore how these metaphors influence the way that we reason about complex issues and forage for further information about them. We find that even the subtlest instantiation of a metaphor (via a single word) can have a powerful influence over how people attempt to solve social problems like crime and how they gather information to make “well-informed” decisions. Interestingly, we find that the influence of the metaphorical framing effect is covert: people do not recognize metaphors as influential in their decisions; instead they point to more “substantive” (often numerical) information as the motivation for their problem-solving decision.
Metaphors in language appear to instantiate frame-consistent knowledge structures and invite structurally consistent inferences. Figures Citation: Thibodeau PH, Boroditsky L (2011) Metaphors We Think With: The Role of Metaphor in Reasoning. Introduction. Functional Equivalency Inferred from “Authoritative Sources” in Networks of Homologous Proteins. A one-on-one mapping of protein functionality across different species is a critical component of comparative analysis. This paper presents a heuristic algorithm for discovering the Most Likely Functional Counterparts (MoLFunCs) of a protein, based on simple concepts from network theory. A key feature of our algorithm is utilization of the user's knowledge to assign high confidence to selected functional identification. We show use of the algorithm to retrieve functional equivalents for 7 membrane proteins, from an exploration of almost 40 genomes form multiple online resources.
We verify the functional equivalency of our dataset through a series of tests that include sequence, structure and function comparisons. Comparison is made to the OMA methodology, which also identifies one-on-one mapping between proteins from different species. Figures Citation: Natarajan S, Jakobsson E (2009) Functional Equivalency Inferred from “Authoritative Sources” in Networks of Homologous Proteins. Theory. Microstructural Abnormalities in Subcortical Reward Circuitry of Subjects with Major Depressive Disorder. Background Previous studies of major depressive disorder (MDD) have focused on abnormalities in the prefrontal cortex and medial temporal regions.
There has been little investigation in MDD of midbrain and subcortical regions central to reward/aversion function, such as the ventral tegmental area/substantia nigra (VTA/SN), and medial forebrain bundle (MFB). Methodology/Principal Findings We investigated the microstructural integrity of this circuitry using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) in 22 MDD subjects and compared them with 22 matched healthy control subjects.
Conclusions/Significance These findings suggest that MDD may be associated with abnormal microstructure in brain reward/aversion regions, and that there may be at least two subtypes of microstructural abnormalities which each impact core symptoms of depression. Figures Editor: Alessandro Bartolomucci, University of Minnesota, United States of America Received: May 13, 2010; Accepted: September 16, 2010; Published: November 29, 2010. Active Hippocampal Networks Undergo Spontaneous Synaptic Modification. Citation: Tsukamoto-Yasui M, Sasaki T, Matsumoto W, Hasegawa A, Toyoda T, et al. (2007) Active Hippocampal Networks Undergo Spontaneous Synaptic Modification.
PLoS ONE 2(11): e1250. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0001250 Academic Editor: Peter Wenner, Emory University, United States of America Received: August 21, 2007; Accepted: November 8, 2007; Published: November 28, 2007 Copyright: © 2007 Tsukamoto-Yasui et al. Funding: This work was supported in part by a Grant-in-Aid for Science Research on Priority Areas (Elucidation of neural network function in the brain: No. 18021008, No. 17023015), a Grant-in-Aid for Science Research (No. 17650090, No. 17689004, No. 19659013) from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology of Japan, the Sumitomo Foundation (No. 050038), the Takeda Science Foundation, the Asahi Glass Foundation, and the Research Foundation for Pharmaceutical Sciences.
Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. Results A–B.
Sex Differences in Neural Activation to Facial Expressions Denoting Contempt and Disgust. The facial expression of contempt has been regarded to communicate feelings of moral superiority. Contempt is an emotion that is closely related to disgust, but in contrast to disgust, contempt is inherently interpersonal and hierarchical. The aim of this study was twofold. First, to investigate the hypothesis of preferential amygdala responses to contempt expressions versus disgust. Second, to investigate whether, at a neural level, men would respond stronger to biological signals of interpersonal superiority (e.g., contempt) than women. Figures Citation: Aleman A, Swart M (2008) Sex Differences in Neural Activation to Facial Expressions Denoting Contempt and Disgust.
Editor: Bernhard Baune, James Cook University, Australia Received: April 2, 2008; Accepted: September 16, 2008; Published: November 5, 2008 Copyright: © 2008 Aleman, Swart. Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. Introduction Results Figure 1. Doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0003622.g001. Neural Correlates of Appetite and Hunger-Related Evaluative Judgments. How much we desire a meal depends on both the constituent foods and how hungry we are, though not every meal becomes more desirable with increasing hunger.
The brain therefore needs to be able to integrate hunger and meal properties to compute the correct incentive value of a meal. The present study investigated the functional role of the amygdala and the orbitofrontal cortex in mediating hunger and dish attractiveness. Furthermore, it explored neural responses to dish descriptions particularly susceptible to value-increase following fasting. We instructed participants to rate how much they wanted food menu items while they were either hungry or sated, and compared the rating differences in these states. Our results point to the representation of food value in the amygdala, and to an integration of attractiveness with hunger level in the orbitofrontal cortex. Dishes particularly desirable during hunger activated the thalamus and the insula. Figures Introduction Methods Design Task Results. Dopamine D4 Receptor Gene Associated with Fairness Preference in Ultimatum Game. In experimental economics, the preference for reciprocal fairness has been observed in the controlled and incentivized laboratory setting of the ultimatum game, in which two individuals decide on how to divide a sum of money, with one proposing the share while the second deciding whether to accept.
Should the proposal be accepted, the amount is divided accordingly. Otherwise, both would receive no money. A recent twin study has shown that fairness preference inferred from responder behavior is heritable, yet its neurogenetic basis remains unknown. The D4 receptor (DRD4) exon3 is a well-characterized functional polymorphism, which is known to be associated with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and personality traits including novelty seeking and self-report altruism. Applying a neurogenetic approach, we find that DRD4 is significantly associated with fairness preference.
Additionally, the interaction among this gene, season of birth, and gender is highly significant. Figures. “Thinking about Not-Thinking”: Neural Correlates of Conceptual Processing during Zen Meditation. Recent neuroimaging studies have identified a set of brain regions that are metabolically active during wakeful rest and consistently deactivate in a variety the performance of demanding tasks. This “default network” has been functionally linked to the stream of thoughts occurring automatically in the absence of goal-directed activity and which constitutes an aspect of mental behavior specifically addressed by many meditative practices.
Zen meditation, in particular, is traditionally associated with a mental state of full awareness but reduced conceptual content, to be attained via a disciplined regulation of attention and bodily posture. Using fMRI and a simplified meditative condition interspersed with a lexical decision task, we investigated the neural correlates of conceptual processing during meditation in regular Zen practitioners and matched control subjects. Figures Editor: Sheng He, University of Minnesota, United States of America Copyright: © 2008 Pagnoni et al. Introduction. Imagined Self-Motion Differs from Perceived Self-Motion: Evidence from a Novel Continuous Pointing Method. Background The extent to which actual movements and imagined movements maintain a shared internal representation has been a matter of much scientific debate. Of the studies examining such questions, few have directly compared actual full-body movements to imagined movements through space.
Here we used a novel continuous pointing method to a) provide a more detailed characterization of self-motion perception during actual walking and b) compare the pattern of responding during actual walking to that which occurs during imagined walking. Methodology/Principal Findings This continuous pointing method requires participants to view a target and continuously point towards it as they walk, or imagine walking past it along a straight, forward trajectory. By measuring changes in the pointing direction of the arm, we were able to determine participants' perceived/imagined location at each moment during the trajectory and, hence, perceived/imagined self-velocity during the entire movement.
Figures. The Neural Correlates of Religious and Nonreligious Belief. Corrections 14 Jan 2010: Harris S, Kaplan JT, Curiel A, Bookheimer SY, Iacoboni M, et al. (2010)Correction: The Neural Correlates of Religious and Nonreligious Belief.PLoS ONE 5(1):10.1371/annotation/7f0b174d-ab93-4844-8305-1de22836aab8. doi: 10.1371/annotation/7f0b174d-ab93-4844-8305-1de22836aab8 | View correction Background While religious faith remains one of the most significant features of human life, little is known about its relationship to ordinary belief at the level of the brain. Nor is it known whether religious believers and nonbelievers differ in how they evaluate statements of fact. Our lab previously has used functional neuroimaging to study belief as a general mode of cognition [1], and others have looked specifically at religious belief [2].
However, no research has compared these two states of mind directly. Methodology/Principal Findings Conclusions/Significance Figures Editor: Olaf Sporns, Indiana University, United States of America Copyright: © 2009 Harris et al. Results.
Abnormal Brain Default-Mode Network Functional Connectivity in Drug Addicts. Background The default mode network (DMN) is a set of brain regions that exhibit synchronized low frequency oscillations at resting-state, and is believed to be relevant to attention and self-monitoring. As the anterior cingulate cortex and hippocampus are impaired in drug addiction and meanwhile are parts of the DMN, the present study examined addiction-related alteration of functional connectivity of the DMN. Methodology Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging data of chronic heroin users (14 males, age: 30.1±5.3 years, range from 22 to 39 years) and non-addicted controls (13 males, age: 29.8±7.2 years, range from 20 to 39 years) were investigated with independent component analysis to address their functional connectivity of the DMN. Principal Findings Compared with controls, heroin users showed increased functional connectivity in right hippocampus and decreased functional connectivity in right dorsal anterior cingulate cortex and left caudate in the DMN.
Conclusions Figures. What Are They Up To? The Role of Sensory Evidence and Prior Knowledge in Action Understanding. Explaining or predicting the behaviour of our conspecifics requires the ability to infer the intentions that motivate it. Such inferences are assumed to rely on two types of information: (1) the sensory information conveyed by movement kinematics and (2) the observer's prior expectations – acquired from past experience or derived from prior knowledge. However, the respective contribution of these two sources of information is still controversial. This controversy stems in part from the fact that “intention” is an umbrella term that may embrace various sub-types each being assigned different scopes and targets. We hypothesized that variations in the scope and target of intentions may account for variations in the contribution of visual kinematics and prior knowledge to the intention inference process.
Figures Citation: Chambon V, Domenech P, Pacherie E, Koechlin E, Baraduc P, et al. (2011) What Are They Up To? Editor: Angela Sirigu, French National Centre for Scientific Research, France. Uncovering Intrinsic Modular Organization of Spontaneous Brain Activity in Humans. The characterization of topological architecture of complex brain networks is one of the most challenging issues in neuroscience.
Slow (<0.1 Hz), spontaneous fluctuations of the blood oxygen level dependent (BOLD) signal in functional magnetic resonance imaging are thought to be potentially important for the reflection of spontaneous neuronal activity. Many studies have shown that these fluctuations are highly coherent within anatomically or functionally linked areas of the brain. However, the underlying topological mechanisms responsible for these coherent intrinsic or spontaneous fluctuations are still poorly understood.
Here, we apply modern network analysis techniques to investigate how spontaneous neuronal activities in the human brain derived from the resting-state BOLD signals are topologically organized at both the temporal and spatial scales. Figures Editor: Olaf Sporns, Indiana University, United States of America Copyright: © 2009 He et al. Introduction Results Figure 1. The Nucleus Accumbens: A Switchboard for Goal-Directed Behaviors. Reward intake optimization requires a balance between exploiting known sources of rewards and exploring for new sources.
The prefrontal cortex (PFC) and associated basal ganglia circuits are likely candidates as neural structures responsible for such balance, while the hippocampus may be responsible for spatial/contextual information. Although studies have assessed interactions between hippocampus and PFC, and between hippocampus and the nucleus accumbens (NA), it is not known whether 3-way interactions among these structures vary under different behavioral conditions. Here, we investigated these interactions with multichannel recordings while rats explored an operant chamber and while they performed a learned lever-pressing task for reward in the same chamber shortly afterward. Neural firing and local field potentials in the NA core synchronized with hippocampal activity during spatial exploration, but during lever pressing they instead synchronized more strongly with the PFC. Figures. Intense Sweetness Surpasses Cocaine Reward. Background Refined sugars (e.g., sucrose, fructose) were absent in the diet of most people until very recently in human history.
Today overconsumption of diets rich in sugars contributes together with other factors to drive the current obesity epidemic. Overconsumption of sugar-dense foods or beverages is initially motivated by the pleasure of sweet taste and is often compared to drug addiction. Though there are many biological commonalities between sweetened diets and drugs of abuse, the addictive potential of the former relative to the latter is currently unknown. Methodology/Principal findings Here we report that when rats were allowed to choose mutually-exclusively between water sweetened with saccharin–an intense calorie-free sweetener–and intravenous cocaine–a highly addictive and harmful substance–the large majority of animals (94%) preferred the sweet taste of saccharin.
Conclusions Figures Academic Editor: Bernhard Baune, James Cook University, Australia Introduction Results. Random Drift versus Selection in Academic Vocabulary: An Evolutionary Analysis of Published Keywords. Individual Differences in Personality Predict How People Look at Faces. Uncertainty Compensation in Human Attention: Evidence from Response Times and Fixation Durations.