Biology subjects

Seow, T. X.

Publications and source records attributed to Seow, T. X..

4 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2025

Biased replay of aversive and uncertain outcomes underlies irrational decision making

Humans often make irrational decisions when facing uncertain or aversive future events despite careful deliberation. How we make choices, including irrational ones1,2, has been the object of extensive study both behaviourally and neurally3-6 and is the focus of influential behavioural economic theories7-9. Yet, little is known about how these (irrational) decisions are carved out in the brain. Here, using magnetoencephalography (MEG), we show that the construction and outcome evaluation of irrational decisions involves rapid, sequential state reactivation, or "replay."10. During deliberation, we show that forward replay is biased towards choice options with more negative and uncertain outcomes, with this bias further amplified immediately preceding irrational choice. Likewise, post-decision evaluation relates to replay in a choice-dependent manner. Following irrational choices, relief-like signals were evident as stronger backward replay of worse counterfactual options, while after rational decisions, regret-like signals appeared as stronger backward replay of better counterfactual options. Together, these findings suggest that neural replay shapes both the formation and reflection of irrational decisions, and poise replay as a candidate mechanism underlying pervasive decision biases in humans.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2021

Reliability of web-based affective auditory stimulus presentation

Web-based experimental testing has seen an exponential growth in psychology and cognitive neuroscience. However, paradigms involving affective auditory stimuli have yet to adapt to the online approach due to concerns about the lack of experimental control and other technical challenges. In this study, we assessed if sounds commonly used to evoke affective responses in-lab can be used online. Using recent developments to increase sound presentation quality, we selected 15 commonly used sound stimuli and assessed their impact on valence and arousal states in a web-based experiment. Our results reveal good test-retest reliability and good internal consistency, with results comparable to in-lab studies. Additionally, we compared a variety of previously used unpleasant stimuli, allowing us to identify the most aversive of these sounds. Our findings demonstrate that affective sounds can be reliably delivered through web-based platforms, which helps facilitate the development of new auditory paradigms for affective online experiments.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2019

Null results from a dimensional study of error-related negativity (ERN) and self-reported psychiatric symptoms

Alterations in error processing are implicated in a range of DSM-defined psychiatric disorders. For instance, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and generalised anxiety disorder show enhanced electrophysiological responses to errors - i.e. error-related negativity (ERN) - while others like schizophrenia have an attenuated ERN. However, as diagnostic categories in psychiatry are heterogeneous and also highly intercorrelated, the precise mapping of ERN enhancements and impairments is unclear. To address this, we recorded electroencephalograms (EEG) from 196 participants who performed the Flanker task and collected scores on 9 questionnaires assessing psychiatric symptoms to test if a dimensional framework could reveal specific transdiagnostic clinical manifestations of error processing dysfunctions. Contrary to our hypothesis, we found no association between ERN amplitude and symptom severity of OCD, trait anxiety, depression, social anxiety, impulsivity, eating disorders, alcohol addiction, schizotypy or apathy. A transdiagnostic approach did nothing to improve signal; there was no association between three transdiagnostic dimensions (anxious-depression, compulsive behaviour and intrusive thought and social withdrawal) and ERN magnitude. In these same individuals, we replicated a previously published transdiagnostic association between goal-directed learning and compulsive behaviour and intrusive thought. Associations between the ERN and psychopathology might be smaller than previously assumed and/or dependent on a greater level of symptom severity than other transdiagnostic cognitive biomarkers.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2019

Transdiagnostic phenotyping reveals a range of metacognitive deficits associated with compulsivity

Recent work suggests that obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) patients have a breakdown in the relationship between explicit beliefs (i.e. confidence about states) and updates to behaviour. The precise computations underlying this disconnection are unclear because case-control and transdiagnostic studies yield conflicting results. Here, a large general population sample (N = 437) completed a predictive inference task previously studied in the context of OCD. We tested if confidence, and its relationship to action and environmental evidence, were specifically associated with self-reported OCD symptoms or common to an array of psychiatric symptoms. We then investigated if a transdiagnostic approach would reveal a stronger and more specific match between metacognitive deficits and clinical phenotypes. Consistent with prior case-control work, we found that decreases in action-confidence coupling were associated with OCD symptoms, but also 5/8 of the other clinical phenotypes tested (8/8 with no correction applied). This non-specific pattern was explained by a single transdiagnostic symptom dimension characterized by compulsivity that was linked to inflated confidence and several deficits in utilizing evidence to update confidence. These data highlight the importance of metacognitive deficits for our understanding of compulsivity and underscore how transdiagnostic methods may prove a more powerful alternative over studies examining single disorders.

neuroscience↗