Biology subjects

Ibarrola, D.

Publications and source records attributed to Ibarrola, D..

3 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2024

Shaping the physical world to our ends: The left PF technical-cognition area

Our propensity to materiality, which consists in using, making, creating, and passing on technologies, has enabled us to shape the physical world according to our ends. To explain this proclivity, scientists have calibrated their lens to either low-level skills such as motor cognition or high-level skills such as language or social cognition. Yet, little has been said about the intermediate-level cognitive processes that are directly involved in mastering this materiality, that is, technical cognition. We aim to focus on this intermediate level for providing new insights into the neurocognitive bases of human materiality. Here we show that a technical-reasoning process might be specifically at work in physical problem-solving situations. We found via two distinct neuroimaging studies that the area PF (parietal F) within the left parietal lobe is central for this reasoning process in both tool-use and non-tool-use physical problem-solving and can work along with social-cognitive skills to resolve day-to-day interactions that combine social and physical constraints. Our results demonstrate the existence of a specific cognitive module in the human brain dedicated to materiality, which might be the supporting pillar allowing the accumulation of technical knowledge over generations. Intensifying research on technical cognition could nurture a comprehensive framework that has been missing in fields interested in how early and modern humans have been interacting with the physical world through technology, and how this interaction has shaped our history and culture.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2022

Upper limb rehabilitation after stroke: constraint versus intensive training. A longitudinal case-control study correlating motor performance with fMRI data

BackgroundThe reproducible beneficial effect of constraint-induced movement therapy (CIMT) in hemiparetic stroke patients makes it a good model to study brain plasticity during rehabilitation procedures. ObjectiveAssess the functional brain reorganization induced by each of the two components of CIMT: (i) non-affected upper-limb constraint and (ii) intensive training of the paretic arm. MethodsBrain activity of a right hemiparetic chronic stroke patient and of 10 healthy controls was recorded with a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during a finger opposition task. For the patient, a total of 8 assessments were performed, before and after each component of CIMT. At each time point, brain activity during movement was compared with rest. Patients results were first compared to the control group and then correlated to motor performance across sessions. ResultsConstraint-therapy-related improvement was correlated with a decrease of cerebral activity in sensory-motor regions of both the affected and the non-affected hemispheres. Intensive-therapy-related improvement was correlated with the recruitment of pre-motor cortices and cerebellum in both hemispheres. ConclusionsTwo different patterns of brain activity underlie the effects of intensive training and constraint which could account for the respective effect of each component of the therapy.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2021

Non-invasive real-time access to spatial attention information from 3T fMRI BOLD signals

Access to higher cognitive functions in real-time remains very challenging, because these functions are internally driven and their assessment is based onto indirect measures. In addition, recent finding show that these functions are highly dynamic. Previous studies using intra-cortical recordings in monkeys, succeed to access the (x,y) position of covert spatial attention, in real-time, using classification methods applied to monkey prefrontal multi-unit activity and local field potentials. In contrast, the direct access to attention with non-invasive methods is limited to predicting the attention localisation based on a quadrant classification. Here, we demonstrate the feasibility to track covert spatial attention localization using non-invasive fMRI BOLD signals, with an unprecedented spatial resolution. We further show that the errors produced by the decoder are not randomly distributed but concentrate on the locations neighbouring the cued location and that behavioral errors correlate with weaker decoding performance. Last, we also show that the voxels contributing to the decoder precisely match the visual retinotopic organization of the occipital cortex and that single trial access to attention is limited by the intrinsic dynamics of spatial attention. Taken together, these results open the way to the development of remediation and enhancement neurofeedback protocols targeting the attentional function.

neuroscience↗