Cognitive Neuroscience Society Annual Meeting Program 2008...FINANCIAL RISK-TAKING Brian Knutson, Stanford University — Increases in endogenous nucleus accum-bens (NAcc) activity

Cognitive Neuroscience SocietyAnnual Meeting Program 2008

A supplement of the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience

ISSN 1096-8857

© CNS

Cognitive Neuroscience Societyc/o Center for Mind and BrainUniversity of California, Davis

One Shields AvenueDavis, CA 95616

www.cogneurosociety.org

Cognitive Neuroscience Society 2008 CommitteesGoverning Board

Carol Colby, Ph.D., University of PittsburghMarta Kutas, Ph.D., University of California, San Diego

Helen Neville, Ph.D., University of OregonMichael I. Posner, Ph.D., University of Oregon

Daniel Schacter, Ph.D., Harvard UniversityMichael S. Gazzaniga, Ph.D., University of California, Santa Barbara (ex officio)

George R. Mangun, Ph.D., University of California, Davis (ex officio)Patti Reuter-Lorenz, Ph.D., University of Michigan (ex officio)

Program Committee 2008 MeetingChair: Patti Reuter-Lorenz, Ph.D., University of Michigan

Randy L. Buckner, Ph.D., Harvard UniversityPeter Hagoort, Ph.D., University of Nijmegen

Liz Phelps, Ph.D., New York UniversityLorraine K. Tyler, Ph.D., University of Cambridge

Poster Committee 2008 MeetingChair: Reiko Graham, Ph.D., Texas State University

Nadine Gaab, Ph.D., Harvard Medical SchoolKelly S. Giovanello, Ph.D.,University of North Carolina Chapel Hill

Markus Kiefer, Ph.D., University of Ulm Jonathan Fugelsang, Ph.D., University of Waterloo

Chris Westbury, Ph.D., University of AlbertaStephanie Ortigue, Ph.D., University of California, Santa Barbara

Young Investigator Awards Committee 2008Co-Chair: Marlene Behrmann, Ph.D., Carnegie Mellon

Co-Chair: Silvia Bunge, Ph.D., University of California, BerkeleyRoberto Cabeza, Ph.D., Duke University

Karl Friston, Ph.D.,University College LondonSteve Petersen, Ph.D., Washington University

Founding Committee (1994)Michael S. Gazzaniga, Ph.D., University of California, Santa Barbara

George R. Mangun, Ph.D., University of California, DavisSteve Pinker, Ph.D., MIT

Patti Reuter-Lorenz, Ph.D., University of MichiganDaniel Schacter, Ph.D., Harvard University

Art Shimamura, Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley

Society StaffCathy Harding, Executive Director

TM Events Meeting StaffTara Miller, Event Director

Renee Smith, Registration ManagerBrenna Miller, Monitoring Manager

Linda Hacker, On-Site ManagerShauney Wilson, Submissions Manager

Joan Carole, Exhibits ManagerJeff Wilson, Cover Design

Cover Photo © Arlene Gee. Image from BigStockPhoto.com

iii

Table of Contents

Exhibitors iv

Schedule 1

George A. Miller Prize in CognitiveNeuroscience 3

Young Investigator Award in CognitiveNeuroscience 3

Symposia 5

Graduate Students Present 19

Poster Abstracts 23

Session A 25

Session B 55

Session C 85

Session D 115

Session E 145

Session F 175

Session G 205

Session H 235

Session I 265

Index 295

iv

Exhibitors

4-D Neuroimaging

ANT - Advanced Neuro Technology

American Psychological Association

BIOPAC Systems, Inc.

Cambridge University Press

Cedrus Corporation

Electrical Geodesics, Inc.

Electrode Arrays

Elsevier

Millisecond Software

NordicNeuroLab

Northern Digital, Inc.

Oxford University Press

Psychology Press

Psychology Software Tools, Inc.

Rogue Research, Inc.

Sinauer Associates, Inc.

The MIT Press

Wiley-Blackwell

Worth Publishing

Cognitive Neuroscience Society 1

Schedule of Events

Saturday, Apri l 12 9:00 am - 5:00 pm Satellites

12:00 - 5:00 pm Exhibitor Check-In, Pacific Concourse

2:30 - 7:30 pm On-site Registration & Pre-Reg Check In, Grand Ballroom Foyer

5:00 - 6:00 pm Cake Reception

5:00 - 7:30 pm Exhibits on Display, Pacific Concourse

5:30 - 7:30 pm Poster Session A, Pacific Concourse

Sunday, Apri l 137:30 am - 7:00 pm On-site Registration & Pre-Reg Check In, Grand Ballroom Foyer

8:00 am Coffee Service, Pacific Concourse

8:00 - 10:00 am Poster Session B, Pacific Concourse

8:00 am - 7:00 pm Exhibits on Display, Pacific Concourse

10:00 am - 12:00 pm Symposium Session 1, Grand Ballroom A

Symposium Session 2, Grand Ballroom B

12:00 - 1:00 pm Lunch Break

1:00 - 3:00 pm Poster Session C, Pacific Concourse

2:30 pm Coffee Service, Pacific Concourse

3:00 - 4:00 pm 14th Annual George A. Miller Prize in Cognitive Neuroscience Announcement of the Young Investigator Awards, Grand Ballroom

4:00 - 5:00 pm GAM Reception

5:00 - 7:00 pm Poster Session D, Pacific Concourse

Monday, Apri l 14 8:00 am - 7:00 pm On-site Registration & Pre-Reg Check-In, Grand Ballroom Foyer


8:00 - 10:00 am Poster Session E, Pacific Concourse




Schedule of Events

2 Cognitive Neuroscience Society


1:00 - 3:00 pm Poster Session F, Pacific Concourse


3:00 - 5:00 pm Symposium Session 5, Grand Ballroom A

Graduate Students Present Session, Grand Ballroom B

5:00 - 7:00 pm Poster Session G, Pacific Concourse

Tuesday, Apri l 158:00 am - 5:00 pm On-site Registration & Pre-Reg Check-In, Grand Ballroom Foyer


8:00 - 10:00 am Poster Session H, Pacific Concourse





1:00 - 3:00 pm Symposium Session 8, Grand Ballroom A



3:00 - 5:00 pm Poster Session I, Pacific Concourse

Mark your calendars now...the 16th Annual Cognitive Neuroscience

Society Meeting will be held at the Hyatt Regency San Francisco

March 21 - 24, 2009


George A. Mil ler Pr ize in Cognit ive Neuroscience

Sunday, Apri l 13, 20083:00 - 4 :00 pm, Grand Bal lroom

Award Winner: Anne Treisman, Ph.D., Princeton University

The George A. Miller Prize in Cognitive Neuroscience was established in 1995 by the Cognitive Neuro-science Society and the James S. McDonnell Foundation to honor the career contributions of George A. Miller to cognitive neuroscience. The first 10 years of the prize were funded by generous support from the James S. McDonnell Foundation.

The prize is awarded to the nominee whose career is characterized by distinguished and sustained scholarship and research at the cutting-edge of cognitive neuroscience. Extraordinary innovation and high impact on international scientific thinking should be a hallmark of the recipient's work.

Each year a call for nominations for the George A. Miller Prize is made to the membership of the society. The recipient is selected by a committee with the approval of the society. The prize winner attends the annual meeting of the Cognitive Neuroscience Society and delivers the George A. Miller Lecture.

Young Invest igator Award in Cognit ive Neuroscience 2008

Sunday, Apri l 13, 20083:00 - 4 :00 pm, Grand Bal lroom

The Young Investigator Awards in Cognitive Neuroscience recognize outstanding contributions by sci-entists early in their careers. Two awardees are named each year by the Award Committee, and are hon-ored at the Annual meeting of the Cognitive Neuroscience Society. Each award includes $500 to be used by the awardees toward travel costs to the meeting, or for any other purpose.

2008 Winners of the Young Investigator Award:Charan Ranganath Ph.D., University of California DavisKevin Ochsner Ph.D, Columbia University and Rebecca Saxe Ph.D, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Reception to follow, 4:00 - 5:00 pm


CNS Symposia

session one The Power of Expectancy in the Human BrainSunday, April 1310:00 am - 12:00 pmGrand Ballroom A

Chair Jack B. Nitschke, University of Wisconsin-Madison

SpeakersBrian Knutson, Daniela Schiller, Jack B. Nitschke, Jon-Kar Zubieta

Summary: Our expectations have an impact on our lives in multiple ways, including our perception ofexternal events and our emotional responses to them. The impact can be positive, such as enhancing thepleasant emotions followig success or mitigating the negative emotional consequences following adversity.The placebo effect is a prime example of the positive effects that expectations can impart. The impact ofexpectancy can also be negative, as seen in individuals with anxiety disorders. For them, expectationsabout possible negative events in the future can result in debilitating levels of worry and distress. Thissymposium covers seminal research investigating the neural instantiation of such expectancy effects. Thespeakers address a wide range of topics where expectancy plays an important role, including financial risk,fear learning, anxiety disorders, and placebo. One emerging theme is that the anticipation of emotionalevents activates the same brain areas that are recruited when those events are experienced. In addition, theresearch showcased here indicates overlap in the brain areas recruited by anticipatory function across thevarious domains of investigation covered. Discovering the brain mechanisms for these expectancy effects isenhancing our understanding of the power of expectancy, which in turn may inform clinical applications.

A B S T R A C T SNUCLEUS ACCUMBENS ACTIVATION MEDIATES THE INFLUENCE OF INCIDENTAL REWARD CUES ONFINANCIAL RISK-TAKING Brian Knutson, Stanford University — Increases in endogenous nucleus accum-bens (NAcc) activity precede switches from financially risk-averse to risk seeking strategies (Kuhnen andKnutson, 2005), but exogenous control over this process has not yet been demonstrated. We used event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI; GE 1.5 T scanner, voxel size = 4 mm cubic, TR =2000 msec, spiral in/out pulse sequence) to determine whether anticipation of viewing erotic pictureswould increase subsequent financial risk seeking in heterosexual males (n=15), and whether this effectwould be mediated by increased NAcc activation. Anticipation of viewing erotic pictures increased subse-quent financial risk taking, and this behavioral effect was mediated by anticipatory increases in NAcc acti-vation. These results indicate that that exogenously-induced reward anticipation can increase financial risktaking, in part by increasing NAcc activation. The findings are consistent with the notion that incidentalcues can influence financial decision-making by altering anticipatory affect.

OVERLAPPING NEURAL SYSTEMS MEDIATING EXTINCTION, REVERSAL AND REGULATION OF FEARDaniela Schiller, New York University — Fear learning is one of the most rapid and persistent emotionallearning processes. These characteristics are evolutionary beneficial in preventing the need to relearn aboutdanger, as well as in promoting ways to escape and avoid threats. However, when circumstances change, itis also advantageous to flexibly readjust behavior, and a failure to do so might be the cause of anxiety dis-orders. We investigated 3 ways to modify fear learning: 1) Extinction - a process by which learned fearresponses are no longer expressed after repeated exposure to the conditioned stimuli with no aversive con-sequences; 2) Reversal - fear responses are switched between two stimuli following a reversal of reinforce-ment contingencies; 3) Regulation - fear responses are diminished using a cognitive strategy of re-evaluation of the conditioned stimuli. In these studies, the fear measure was skin conductance responding,


Sunday, April 13, 10:00 am - 12:00 pm CNS Symposia

and we examined the underlying neural activation using fMRI. We observed two neural systems showingstriking overlapping activation in the 3 tasks: a system learning responses to external stimuli that are pre-dictive of aversive consequences, while another system readjusts these learned responses when environ-mental circumstances change. We will discuss differences and similarities in the neural mechanismsunderlying these fear expectancy paradigms.

ANTICIPATING THE WORST: INVESTIGATING BRAIN MECHANISMS OF ANXIETY Jack B. Nitschke,University of Wisconsin-Madison — A common feature extending across all the anxiety disorders is the con-cern about something bad happening in the future. When extreme, this future-oriented concern or worrycan have debilitating consequences for daily functioning and mental health. My laboratory has been devel-oping and refining experimental paradigms for examining the neural concomitants of anticipating nega-tive events. In our fMRI research with nonclinical healthy populations, we have shown how expectancymodulates neural responses to emotional events and influences perception and subsequent memory ofthose events. Our most recent studies have also investigated the impact of uncertainty and uncontrollabil-ity, because they are central to anticipatory anxiety. The primary areas implicated in this work with healthyvolunteers include the amygdala, hippocampus, insula, and anterior cingulate. Finally, having determinedthe normative patterns of brain activation in anticipation of aversive events, we have begun to search forneural abnormalities of anticipatory processing in individuals with anxiety disorders, with differences thusfar localized to the amygdala. This line of research on anxiety reflects a new approach in the study of psy-chopathology - one that emphasizes a focus on core constituent features, such as the anticipatory processesemphasized in our work - while along the way providing important lessons about how expectancy oper-ates in the brain.

NEUROBIOLOGICAL MECHANISMS OF PLACEBO EFFECTS Jon-Kar Zubieta, University of Michigan — Expec-tations, positive or negative, are modulating factors influencing behavior. They are also thought to under-lie placebo effects, additionally impacting perceptions and biological processes. Over the last decade wehave been able to acquire biological evidence for the activation of specific circuits during placebo adminis-tration. In the cases studied so far (e.g., pain, affective regulation, Parkinson's disease, Major Depression),some overlap in the brain regions involved is becoming evident. We have utilized a sustained pain modelto determine the development of both analgesia and affective changes with placebo administration inhealthy humans. Subjects were informed that they could receive either an active agent or an inactive com-pound, creating some uncertainty in the subjects. Across studies, these instructions were associated withexpectation of analgesia in the 50% range. Using three different samples and pain paradigms, we demon-strate the activation of endogenous opioid neurotransmission as measured with PET and the µ-opioidselective radiotracer [11C]carfentanil in anterior cingulate and prefrontal areas, insula, nucleus accumbens,amygdala, thalamus, hypothalamus and periaqueductal grey. These opioid data showed associations withreductions in pain report and negative affective state. Additional studies with the radiotracer [11C] raclo-pride, labeling dopamine D2/3 receptors, also demonstrate the activation of nucleus accumbens dopamineduring placebo administration under expectation of analgesia, in a manner similar to data acquired in Par-kinson's disease. Both dopamine and opioid neurotransmission were related to expectations of analgesiaand deviations from those initial expectations. When the activity of the nucleus accumbens was probedwith fMRI using a monetary reward expectation paradigm, its activation was correlated with both dopam-ine, opioid responses to placebo in this region and the formation of placebo analgesia. These data confirmthat specific neural circuits and neurotransmitter systems respond to the expectation of benefit during pla-cebo administration, inducing measurable physiological changes.


CNS Symposia Sunday, April 13, 10:00 am - 12:00 pm

session two Pattern-based fMRI analyses as a route to revealing neuralrepresentationsSunday, April 1310:00 am - 12:00 pmGrand Ballroom B

ChairRajeev Raizada, University of Washington

Speakers

Jim Haxby, Nikolaus Kriegeskorte, Rajeev Raizada, Geoff Boynton

Summary: Within any active brain region, many neural representations are intermingled. Because theserepresentations are spatially colocalised, they may elicit the same levels of local average activation, withthe result that neuroimaging studies have difficulty telling them apart. Recent studies analysing multi-voxel spatial patterns of fMRI activity are starting to provide new methods for accessing such neuralrepresentations, and for relating them to behaviour. This symposium presents examples of such research,from diverse cognitive domains. Jim Haxby will describe how pattern-based analyses reveal distributedrepresentations of objects in visual cortex. Drawing parallels between human and monkey studies,Nikolaus Kriegeskorte will show how information-based fMRI can reveal the structure of categoricalrepresentations of faces and objects in inferotemporal cortex. In the domain of speech perception, RajeevRaizada will show how the distinctness of phonetic representations in the brain can predict people's abilityto hear non-native speech contrasts. Moving beyond stimulus-driven neural responses, Geoff Boynton willdescribe how feature-based attentional signals can be decoded from distributed cortical activity.

A B S T R A C T SDISTRIBUTED NEURAL REPRESENTATION OF FACES AND OBJECTS IN VENTRAL TEMPORAL CORTEXJim Haxby, Princeton — Functional brain imaging has revealed a complex, macroscopic organization in thefunctional architecture of the ventral object vision pathway. Numerous studies have found regions of ven-tral temporal cortex that consistently demonstrate category-related response preferences, most notably aregion that responds maximally during face perception, the fusiform face area (FFA). Faces and numerousother object categories, however, also evoke distinct patterns of response across wider expanses of ventraltemporal cortex, including distinct patterns of response in cortical regions that respond submaximally tothe category being viewed, suggesting that the representations of faces and other objects extend beyondthe regions defined by category preference. Methods for analyzing these patterns of response, which wecall multi-voxel pattern analysis, represent a major departure from previous, standard methods for analyz-ing functional neuroimaging data. Whereas previous methods were designed to find clusters of voxelswith similar response properties, topographic pattern analysis is designed to detect reliable patterns of dif-ferences among the responses of voxels. The information-carrying capacity of submaximal responses sug-gests that these patterns may reflect spatially distributed population responses in which both strong andweak responses play an integral role in the representation of complex percepts. Furthermore, the similarityof patterns of response to visual stimuli is correlated with psychological similarity, suggesting that thesemethods now allow us to use fMRI to investigate how neural representations of visual stimuli are struc-tured.

EXPLOITING HI-RES FMRI AND RELATING MEASUREMENT MODALITIES WITH REPRESENTATIONALSIMILARITY ANALYSIS Nikolaus Kriegeskorte, NIH — High-resolution functional magnetic resonanceimaging (hi-res fMRI) promises to help bridge the gap of spatial scales between human low-resolution neu-roimaging and animal invasive electrophysiology. I will discuss how the fine-scale neuronal-pattern infor-mation present in hi-res fMRI data can be exploited for neuroscientific insight by means of multivariateanalysis. In particular, I will focus on the novel approach of "representational similarity analysis", whichallows us (1) to combine evidence across brain space and experimental conditions to sensitively detect neu-ronal pattern information and (2) to relate results (a) between different modalities of brain-activity mea-surement, (b) between different species, and (c) between brain-activity data and computational models ofbrain information processing. I will illustrate this approach with a study combining human and monkey


Monday, April 14, 10:00 am - 12:00 pm CNS Symposia

data from hi-res fMRI and single-cell recordings, respectively. We investigated response patterns elicitedby the same 92 photographs of isolated natural objects in inferotemporal (IT) cortex of both species. Withineach species, we compute a matrix of response-pattern similarities (one similarity value for each pair ofimages). We find a striking match of the resulting similarity matrices for man and monkey. This findingsuggests very similar categorical IT representations and provides some hope that data from single-cellrecording and fMRI, for all their differences, may consistently reveal neuronal representations when sub-jected to massively multivariate analyses of response-pattern information.

PREDICTING INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN SPEECH PERCEPTION USING PATTERN-BASED FMRIANALYSIS OF PHONEMIC REPRESENTATIONS Rajeev Raizada, University of Washington — The brain'sability to discriminate stimuli depends on how fine-grained its stimulus representations are. This represen-tational granularity can vary across individuals, as a function of factors such as sensory environment andlearning history. A key goal of cognitive neuroscience has been to relate the properties of such representa-tions in individuals' brains to their levels of behavioural performance. However, because the neural repre-sentations of different but related stimuli are typically colocalised within the same brain area, theirdistinctness from each other has been difficult for fMRI to measure. This problem has been overcome inlow-level sensory cortices, where the representational grain can be calculated from well-defined spa-tiotopic maps, or from direct mappings between stimulus-energy and levels of neural activation. However,for all but the simplest stimuli, no such mappings are available. For example, different phonemes such as /ra/ and /la/ activate the same areas of cortex, but there is no known "phonotopic map" that might allowthe distinctness of the evoked neural representations to be measured. I will describe how, by analysing themulti-voxel spatial fMRI patterns elicited by these stimuli in English and Japanese speakers, the statisticalseparability of such neural representations can be directly quantified. Moreover, in right primary auditorycortex, the separability of these fMRI patterns strongly predicted the degree to which subjects could behav-iourally discriminate the stimuli that gave rise to them. This opens up a new method, which may havebroad applicability, for relating neural representations in the human brain to levels of behavioural perfor-mance, and also reveals a hitherto unknown role played by right auditory cortex in processing speech.

PATTERN-BASED DECODING OF FEATURE-SPECIFIC VISUAL ATTENTION Geoff Boynton, University ofWashington — When faced with a crowded visual scene, observers must selectively attend to behaviorallyrelevant objects to avoid sensory overload. Often this selection process is guided by prior knowledge of atarget-defining feature (e.g., the color red when looking for an apple), which enhances the firing rate ofvisual neurons that are selective for the attended feature. Here, we used functional magnetic resonanceimaging and a pattern classification algorithm to predict the attentional state of human observers as theymonitored a visual feature (one of two directions of motion). We find that feature-specific attention effectsspread across the visual field - even to regions of the scene that do not contain a stimulus. This spread offeature-based attention to empty regions of space may facilitate the perception of behaviorally relevantstimuli by increasing sensitivity to attended features at all locations in the visual field.

session three A Common Role of Anterior Insula in Feelings, Empathy, andRisk?Monday, April 1410:00 am - 12:00 pmGrand Ballroom A

ChairTania Singer, University of Zurich

Speakers

A. D. (Bud) Craig, Tania Singer, Christian Keysers, Kerstin Preuschoff

Summary: Recent studies in the emerging fields of social neuroscience and neuroeconomics havesupported the view that anterior insula (AI) plays a crucial role in the processing of subjective feelings,empathy, and risk. The symposium provides an overview of different lines of research and suggests acommon underlying role of insular cortex for these seemingly different capacities. Bud Craig reviews


CNS Symposia Monday, April 14, 10:00 am - 12:00 pm

structural and functional evidence for a role of AI in interoceptive awareness, bodily states, and subjectivefeelings. Christian Keysers and Tania Singer then link this stream of research to recent empathy research insocial neuroscience that suggests that AI plays an important role in the processing of pain, taste, anddisgust in oneself as well as when one is empathizing with other people experiencing pain, taste, ordisgust. Finally, Kerstin Preuschoff summarizes the latest findings of fMRI studies on risk in the context ofeconomic decision making which indicate that AI plays an important role in the processing of subjectiverisk. The speakers discuss their findings in light of a common underlying function of AI as interoceptivecortex, in other words, as cortex serving to integrate information about contextual and internal bodilystates into representations of subjective feeling states.

A B S T R A C T STHE NEUROANATOMICAL BASIS FOR HUMAN AWARENESS OF INTEROCEPTIVE FEELINGS FROM THEBODY A. D. (Bud) Craig, University of Arizona — Experimental anatomical and physiological evidencewill be presented that identifies a phylogenetically unique homeostatic afferent pathway to the insular cor-tex of humanoid primates representing the interoceptive sense of the condition of the body. Evidence inhumans will be described supporting the view that multiple re-representations of this interoceptive path-way in an integrative progression culminating in the anterior insula seem to form the basis for human feel-ings, music, and time. These findings provide an anatomical basis for bidirectional interactions betweenemotions and bodily feelings that could underlie somatisation. The insula, as the limbic sensory cortex, isintegral for subjective feelings and acts in concert with the anterior cingulate, or limbic motor cortex, whichis integral for volition and agency. This view fits with recent work on the "Von Economo neurons" that areuniquely present in the fronto-insular and anterior cingulate cortices of humanoid primates, which mayprovide the interconnections between these two regions that were vital for the evolution of advanced emo-tional communication. Finally, this interoceptive view of awareness also leads to a new proposal for theforebrain asymmetry of emotion in the anterior insula and anterior cingulate cortices of the left and rightsides of the human brain.

THE ROLE OF ANTERIOR INSULA IN EMPATHY IN HEALTHY ADULTS, PATIENTS WITH AUTISTIC SPECTRUMDISORDER AND ALEXITHYMIA, AND BUDDHIST COMPASSION MEDITATORS Tania Singer, University ofZürich — I will summarize results from functional imaging studies suggesting an important role of ante-rior insula (AI) for the representation of one's own as well as others' feelings. I will focus on fMRI studieson empathy for pain that suggest an important role of AI when one shares the suffering of others. I willthen show results of two studies exploring the relationship between interoceptive awareness and empathyin patients with alexithymia and autistic spectrum disorder (ASD). These results provide evidence sup-porting the suggestion that deficits in understanding one's own emotions - a symptom observed inalexithymia - are associated with hypoactivation in AI and impaired empathy, but not impaired cognitiveperspective taking, the latter frequently being observed in patients with ASD. Finally, I will present initialresults from real-time fMRI studies in which we are exploring AI functions by asking a long-term medita-tion practitioner (a Buddhist monk) to up- and down-regulate activation in AI using online feedback basedon activation in AI while he is engaging in different mental techniques, in specific different forms of empa-thy and compassion meditation.

THE INSULA'S FUNCTION AND CONNECTIVITY DURING EMPATHIC OBSERVATION, IMAGINATION,AND EXPERIENCE OF EMOTIONS Christian Keysers, University Medical Center Groningen, TheNetherlands — The anterior insula and the adjacent frontal operculum (IFO) appear to play a critical roleboth in our experience of emotions and in our understanding of other individuals' emotions. To further ourunderstanding of this function, I will present data showing that the IFO is involved in the experience andobservation of other individuals' emotions and in our voluntary imagination of similar emotions and thatnot only negative, but also positive emotions recruit the IFO. Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and effectiveconnectivity reveal that this convergent function appears to be achieved using distinct networks. Duringemotion observation, connections with BA45 involved in facial motor control dominate, confirming a func-tional link between emotional contagion and facial mimicry. During imagination and experience, muchbroader networks involving basal ganglia, SMA, and somatosensory areas were effectively connected withthe IFO. Together, this data suggests that the IFO may be essential for adding "gut feelings" to our facialmimicry of other individuals' facial expressions, to our own emotional experiences, and to the imaginaryscenarios words can conjure.


Monday, April 14, 10:00 am - 12:00 pm CNS Symposia

THE ROLE OF ANTERIOR INSULA IN DECISION MAKING UNDER UNCERTAINTY Kerstin Preuschoff,California Institute of Technology — In addition to its role in processing emotions, anterior insula hasrecently been implied in processing uncertainty and risk. In economic decision making risk is a crucial fac-tor in determining the value of an outcome or action. Organisms must therefore track the level of risk asso-ciated with predictions of probabilistic reward, monitor the errors in those risk predictions, and updatethese in light of new information. I will explore the neural basis of such risk predictions by applying aquantitative framework provided by financial decision theory. Using behavioral and functional imagingdata from simple gambling tasks, I will show that activation in the human insula correlates significantlywith risk prediction and risk prediction errors and that these signals are consistent with a role in anticipa-tion of upcoming probabilistic rewards and reward learning. Together with previous studies involvingcomplexity, ambiguity, and uncertainty, these findings indicate that our understanding of the role of ante-rior insula needs to be expanded to include processing of risk.

session four Temporally Selective AttentionMonday, April 1410:00 am - 12:00 pmGrand Ballroom B

ChairLisa D. Sanders,University of Massachusetts, Amherst

SpeakersAnna Christina Nobre, Angel Correa, Kathrin Lange, Lisa D. Sanders

Summary: Decades of research have culminated in highly accurate and detailed models of the neuralmechanisms that support spatially selective attention. However, selecting stimuli for preferentialprocessing based on location is useful when more information than can be processed in detail is presentedsimultaneously and spread out in space. Much less is known about how perceptual systems deal withoverwhelming amounts of information presented rapidly at a single location. Recent evidence indicatesthat temporally selective attention plays an important role in perception under these conditions. In thissymposium, the effects of temporally selective attention on visual and auditory processing will bediscussed. Further, data that detail the relationship between temporal and spatial expectations andcompare the effects of endogenous and exogenous attention will be presented. The session will end withevidence that listeners employ temporally selective attention during speech processing. Overall, thisresearch indicates that temporally selective attention plays a critical role in perception and comprehensionof complex environments and suggests the extent to which temporally and spatially selective attention relyon shared neural systems.

A B S T R A C T STHE EFFECTS OF TEMPORAL AND SPATIAL EXPECTATIONS ON BRAIN ACTIVITY Anna Christina Nobre,University of Oxford — Temporal expectations are a vital ingredient to how the brain anticipates events thatare relevant to the current task goal and motivational state of the individual, to tune the relevant percep-tual and motor machinery accordingly. Temporal predictions are continuously formed and updated, bothimplicitly and explicitly. These interact with expectations about other relevant attributes of events, in orderto optimize our interaction with unfolding sensory stimulation. We have shown that temporal and spatialexpectations operating in isolation modulate evoked potentials linked to different stages of perceptual andmotor analysis. However, when these expectations are combined synergistic effects are obtained duringperceptual analysis. Analysis of the frequencies of neural activity induced during the anticipation of tem-porally predictable versus unpredictable events now reveals clear modulation of the time-course of oscilla-tory activity linked to perceptual and motor functions according to the specific intervals predicted.

TEMPORAL ORIENTING OF ATTENTION ENHANCES PERCEPTUAL SENSITIVITY AND STEADY-STATEVISUAL EVOKED POTENTIALS Angel Correa, University of Granada and University of Oxford — Pioneer researchassigned motor preparation as the main effect of temporal orienting on stimulus processing. Later studieschallenged this conclusion by showing that temporal orienting can also produce perceptual preparation


CNS Symposia Monday, April 14, 3:00 - 5:00 pm

under conditions of high perceptual demands. By using a perceptually-demanding unspeeded task, inwhich stimuli appeared in rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP), we found that temporal orientingenhanced visual processing as indexed by amplifications of both perceptual sensitivity (d') and steady-state visual evoked potentials (SSVEPs) recorded at occipital electrodes. The findings provide convergingpsychophysical and electrophysiological evidence that temporal orienting enhances perceptual processing.

STIMULUS-DRIVEN TEMPORAL ATTENTION ATTENUATES EARLY BRAIN CORRELATES OF AUDITORYPROCESSING Kathrin Lange, Heinrich-Heine-University, Düsseldorf — Event-related potential (ERP) stud-ies have shown that orienting attention voluntarily to a point in time enhances both early and late auditorybrain responses. The present study used ERPs to investigate how auditory processing is modulated whenattention is driven by temporal regularities of the presented stimuli. A tone sequence with either a regularor an irregular time structure was presented prior to a critical tone, which had to be evaluated for the pres-ence of a short gap. It was assumed that the regular but not the irregular time structure would guide atten-tion to the time of the critical tone. Participants responded faster when the time of the critical tone wasattended compared to when it was unattended. Contrary to findings from voluntary temporal attention,the N1 to the critical tone was attenuated rather than enhanced by attention. Consistent with findings fromvoluntary temporal attention, a late positivity was enhanced by attention. It thus seems that temporalattention can be both under voluntary control and driven by stimulus properties. Evidently, voluntary andstimulus-driven processes have opponent effects on early ERP correlates of auditory processing, whilethey exert comparable effects on ERP signs corresponding to later processing steps.

LISTENERS DIRECT SELECTIVE ATTENTION TO TIME SCALES AND TIME POINTS DURING SPEECHPERCEPTION. Lisa D. Sanders, University of Massachusetts, Amherst — Listeners can attend to relativelyfast (40 ms) or slow (500 ms) time scales and doing so modulates auditory evoked potentials (AEPs) elic-ited by physically identical sounds. Further, listeners can attend to specific time points (500, 1000, or 1500ms after cue onset) resulting in a larger amplitude auditory onset component (N1) for sounds presented atattended times. Directing selective attention to time scales and time points also plays an important role inspeech perception. Specifically, asking listeners to respond to the change in pitch (fast scale) or the averagepitch (slow scale) of a syllable affects AEPS. Native speakers of a tone language in which pitch change is alexical attribute show larger amplitude differences when attending to the fast time scale. When nativeEnglish speakers are asked to listen to a narrative in English for comprehension, attention probes thatoccur at or shortly after word onsets elicit larger N1s. This finding indicates listeners are selectively attend-ing to the times during which beginnings of words are presented. Directing temporally selective attentionto word onsets may reflect the relative unpredictability and importance of the initial portions of words.

session f ive The rise and fall of cognitive control: Lifespan developmentMonday, April 143:00 - 5:00 pmGrand Ballroom A

ChairsDenise Head, Washington University and Cindy Lustig, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

SpeakersCindy Lustig, Adele Diamond, Ulman Lindenberger, Bradley L. Schlaggar

Summary: Increases in the power and sophistication of cognitive control and executive function are acritical part of intellectual and social development as children move through infancy, adolescence andearly adulthood. On the other end of the age spectrum, breakdowns in these control functions are oftenblamed for older adults' difficulties in memory, attention and other domains. This symposium bringstogether leading researchers who have examined the development of cognitive control throughout thelifespan. A question of specific interest is how the brain deals with challenges to control at all stages ofdevelopment. The heuristic "last in, first out" has been used to describe the development of cognitivecontrol and its putative substrate, the prefrontal cortex. Does this heuristic hold true when applied to morespecific executive functions (orienting, inhibition, task-switching) and their associated brain networks?


Monday, April 14, 3:00 - 5:00 pm CNS Symposia

Children and older adults sometimes show similar behavioral patterns on tests of cognitive control - howsimilar is the underlying brain function? These questions are of interest both from a lifespan perspective,and for understanding the basic taxonomy and functional anatomy of cognitive control.

A B S T R A C T SAGE IN THE BALANCE: INTERACTIONS BETWEEN LIFESPAN DEVELOPMENT AND CONTROL DEMANDON FRONTAL ACTIVATIONS AND DEFAULT-NETWORK DEACTIVATIONS Cindy Lustig, PhD, University ofMichigan, Ann Arbor — In young adults, demands for cognitive and executive control generally result inincreased frontal activations, accompanied by more pronounced deactivation of default-network regionsassociated with task-unrelated processing. How does the balance between frontal and default-networkactivity, and the response to control demands, change across the lifespan? We addressed this question in alarge lifespan fMRI study (n = 239, age 9-97 yrs) of controlled semantic retrieval, episodic memory, and atask-switching procedure that varied control demands. The relationship between frontal activations anddefault-network deactivations differed depending on whether it was examined from the perspective ofdemand or development. Increases in task-related control demand were associated with increases in fron-tal activation and (for children and young adults) more pronounced default-network deactivation. By con-trast, across tasks, increasing age was associated with frontal activations that were greater and moresensitive to control demand, whereas default-network deactivations were generally smaller and less sensi-tive to control demand. Speculatively, development from childhood into young adulthood may be charac-terized by an increased ability to engage frontal regions associated with cognitive control, whereasdevelopment from young adulthood through old age may be associated with an increased need to exertcontrol in order to compensate for default-network dysfunction.

DIFFERENTIAL DIFFICULTY OF INHIBITORY CONTROL AND MEMORY LOAD AT DIFFERENT PERIODS OFLIFE Adele Diamond, PhD, University of British Columbia, BC Children's Hospital, Vancouver — Increasingdemands on inhibition are disproportionately more difficult for children aged 4-9 than are increasingdemands on how much information they need hold in mind (2 to 6 items). The reverse is true for youngadults; increasing memory load is disproportionately more difficult for adults than increasing inhibitorydemands. Adults may not appreciate how inordinately difficult inhibition is for children because it is lesstaxing for adults. Also, adults have little difficulty exercising inhibition in single-task blocks, but childrenshow a cost of doing so. For example, adults perform comparably on spatially compatible and incompati-ble single-task blocks. Only when these trials are intermixed do adults show a significant Simon effect. Forchildren under age 10, however, exercising inhibition, even in steady state, is sufficiently difficult to elicit acost. In mixed blocks, taxing cognitive flexibility and inhibition is not that hard for adults if memorydemands are minimal. For children, that is difficult even if memory demands are minimal.

EPISODIC MEMORY ACROSS THE LIFESPAN: DISSOCIATING STRATEGIC AND ASSOCIATIVECOMPONENTS Ulman Lindenberger, PhD, Center for Lifespan Psychology, Max Planck Institute for HumanDevelopment — We propose to distinguish between strategic and associative components to capture thereorganization of episodic memory from middle childhood to old age. The associative component refers tomechanisms that bind features into compound episodes. The strategic component refers to control pro-cesses selecting, manipulating, and elaborating these features. Based on available neuronal and behavioralevidence, we predict (a) that the development of the associative component precedes the development ofthe strategic component in children and adolescents, reflecting the progression of maturation from medio-temporal to prefrontal brain regions; (b) that both components undergo decline in late adulthood. To testthese predictions, we conducted a recognition-memory study assessing item and pair recognition memoryby associative demand (German-German vs. German-Malay word pairs) and strategy instructions (item,pair, or elaborative imagery) in 171 participants aged 10-11, 13-14, 20-25 and 70-75 years. Children's diffi-culties in episodic memory were primarily due to initially lower levels of strategic functioning. In contrast,older adults' deficits in episodic memory not only reflected impaired strategic functioning, but also deficitsin the associative component, such as high false alarm rates for rearranged pairs. Results support thehypothesis of a lifespan dissociation between associative and strategic components of episodic memory.

MATURATION OF CONTROL AND DEFAULT NETWORKS THROUGH SEGREGATION AND INTEGRATIONBradley L. Schlaggar, MD PhD, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis Children's Hospital —Recent evidence suggests that adults depend on distinct frontoparietal and cinguloopercular networks foradaptive online task control versus more stable set control, respectively. Several perspectives exist regard-ing the role of the brain's default network in cognition including, but not limited to: self-referentialthought, episodic memory, and theory of mind. During development, both experience dependent evoked


CNS Symposia Tuesday, April 15, 10:00 am - 12:00 pm

activity and spontaneous waves of synchronized activity are thought to support the formation and mainte-nance of neural networks. Such mechanisms may encourage tighter "integration" of some regions into net-works over time while "segregating" other sets of regions into separate networks. To investigate thematuration of distinct control and default networks we used resting state functional connectivity MRI,which measures correlations in spontaneous BOLD signal fluctuations between brain regions, to comparenetwork architecture between children and adults. We find that development of the proposed adult controlnetworks involves both segregation (i.e., decreased short-range connections) and integration (i.e.,increased long-range connections) of the brain regions that comprise them. At early school age, the brain'sdefault regions are only sparsely functionally interconnected; over development, these regions integratedinto a cohesive network. Delay/disruption in the processes of segregation and integration may play a rolein developmental disorders of cognition.

session s ix Cognitive neuroscience of visual short-term memoryTuesday, April 1510:00 am - 12:00 pmGrand Ballroom A

ChairsPierre Jolicouer, University of Montreal

Speakers

Edward K. Vogel, René Marois, Yaoda Xu, Pierre Jolicoeur

Summary: We examine recent results from behavioral and neuroimaging studies that elucidate thefunctional and neural basis of visual short-term memory (VSTM). Although the storage capacity of VSTMis limited to about three objects, passage of information into this system appears critical for consciousawareness and cognitive control from visual input. We review research using a variety of methodsincluding psychophysics, electrophysiology (EEG) and event-related potentials (ERPs),magnetoencephalography (MEG), wavelet analysis, and fMRI, that reveal the nature of the representationsin VSTM and their role in cognition. Speakers in the symposium will address issues such as the basic unitof storage in VSTM, individual differences in storage capacity and attentional control, the neural loci andtemporal dynamics of regions partcipating in the VSTM network, the involvement of VSTM in theattentional blink, memory for colours, shapes, letters, and words, and memory for content versus memoryfor spatial location (what vs.where). We will also examine encoding, retention, and retrieval usingbehavioral and neuroimaging methods.

A B S T R A C T SSHORT-TERM MEMORY CAPACITY AS AN INDEX OF ATTENTIONAL CONTROL: A NEURALLY-BASEDINDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES APPROACH Edward K. Vogel, University of Oregon — The capacity of visualworking memory is well known to be highly limited, but it is also known to vary considerably across indi-viduals. Individual differences in memory capacity appear to be a stable trait of the observer and are oftenpositively correlated with many high-level aptitude measures such as fluid intelligence and reasoning. Inthis presentation, I will describe recent work from my laboratory in which we examine the relationshipbetween an individual's visual working memory capacity and their ability to control the focus of selectiveattention. In particular, we use a new event-related potential technique that allows us to measure the activerepresentations of objects within the focus of attention across different task conditions and is highly sensi-tive to individual differences in memory capacity. In general, we have found that low memory capacityindividuals are substantially poorer than high capacity individuals across several tasks in which they mustexert attentional control over what information is stored in memory. These results suggest a tight relation-ship between the constructs of memory capacity and the control of attention.

THE NEURAL SUBSTRATES OF VISUAL SHORT-TERM MEMORY René Marois, Vanderbilt University — Visualshort-term memory (VSTM) is thought to be essential for conscious perception and coherent interactionwith the visual world. Yet, despite a ubiquitous role in cognition, VSTM is severely capacity-limited. Thiscapacity limit is not only apparent in the amount of information that can be held in VSTM, but also in the


Tuesday, April 15, 10:00 am - 12:00 pm CNS Symposia

rate of encoding information in VSTM. In this talk, I will describe experiments comparing and contrastingthe neural basis of encoding and maintening information in VSTM with standard and time-resolved fMRIstudies. I will also present studies describing the interdependence of attention and VSTM during encodingand maintenance of information in VSTM.

DISSOCIABLE PARIETAL MECHANISMS SUPPORTING VISUAL SHORT-TERM MEMORY FOR OBJECTS.Yaoda Xu, Yale University — Using visual information to guide behavior requires storage in a temporarybuffer, known as visual short-term memory (VSTM), that sustains attended information across saccadesand other visual interruptions. I will present fMRI data showing that VSTM storage is mediated by distinc-tive posterior brain mechanisms, such that VSTM capacity is determined both by a fixed number of objectsand by object complexity. Specifically, while the inferior intra-parietal sulcus (IPS) selects a fixed numberof about 4 objects via their spatial locations, the superior IPS encodes the features of a subset of the selectedobjects in great detail. Thus the inferior IPS selects visual object by individuating them, and the superiorIPS participates in subsequent object identification. Consistent with this idea, object individuation in theinferior IPS is sensitive to perceptual grouping cues between objects, and object representations in thesuperior IPS may play a key role in the binding of multiple independent object features. These findings notonly advance our understanding of the neural mechanisms underlying VSTM, but also have interestingimplications for cognitive theories and brain mechanisms supporting visual object perception.

ELECTROMAGNETIC EXPLORATIONS OF THE TEMPORAL DYNAMICS OF VISUAL SHORT-TERMMEMORY Pierre Jolicoeur, University of Montreal — By combining and contrasting results using behav-ioral, ERPs, MEG, and fMRI, under single-task and dual-task conditions, members of my laboratory arepiecing together various aspects of the functional and neuronal basis of VSTM. In this talk I will focus oninduced alpha-band oscillatory activity observed in MEG recordings during retention in VSTM. Bilateralalpha power, in parietal cortex, increased with increasing memory load, but without clear lateralization tothe hemisphere contralateral to the encoded stimuli in contrast with observed event-related magnetic(andelectric) fields. Changes in alpha activity associated with VSTM retention was also found in frontal areas.Even-related magnetic fields also showed a load-related bilateral decrease in field amplitudes, which I willcompare with observed decreases in BOLD signal change in companion fMRI experiments.

session seven The anterior temporal lobes and semantic memory: Puttingeverything togetherTuesday, April 1510:00 am - 12:00 pmGrand Ballroom B

ChairTimothy T. Rogers, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Speakers

Matthew Lambon Ralph, Eric Halgren, Timothy T. Rogers, Richard Wise

Summary: Essentially all current theories about the neural basis of semantic knowledge agree that muchof the content of our semantic memory is represented in brain regions that overlap with, or evencorrespond to, the regions responsible for perceiving and acting. The more global neuroanatomicalorganization of the semantic system remains, however, something of a mystery. One position holds thatanterior temporal lobe (ATL) regions play a critical role in mapping between different sensory, motor, andlinguistic representations distributed widely in cortex. This view originated with studies of patients withsemantic dementia (SD), a disorder in which progressive impairment to semantic knowledge across allmodalities of reception and expression is accompanied by progressive gray-matter loss andhypometabolism localized within anterior temporal regions. This view from neuropsychology seeminglycontrasts, however, with findings from functional neuroimaging studies of healthy individuals, whichroutinely report semantic activation in posterior temporal, temporo-parietal, and prefrontal regions, butonly rarely in ATL regions. This symposium aims to reconcile the apparent contradiction, throughpresentation of new evidence from converging methods, including rTMS, intracranial EEG, anatomically


CNS Symposia Tuesday, April 15, 10:00 am - 12:00 pm

constrained MEG, functional and metabolic neuroimaging, comparative patient studies, andcomputational modeling.

A B S T R A C T STHE CONTRASTIVE ROLES OF THE ANTERIOR TEMPORAL LOBES AND OTHER REGIONS IN SEMANTICCOGNITION. Matthew Lambon Ralph, University of Manchester — While semantic dementia (SD) appar-ently implicates bilateral anterior temporal lobes in amodal semantic representation, the case for the criticalrole of this region is still in doubt. fMRI studies of semantic processes only highlight ATL activation in ahandful of studies, but consistently activate prefrontal and temporoparietal areas. Such regions align withthe lesions found in patients with transcortical sensory aphasia (TSA), a fluent aphasia characterized bypoor comprehension and preserved repetition. Using a convergence of neuroscience techniques, it becomesapparent that there is a solution for this apparent discordance. We propose that semantic cognition is madeup of two interactive components: semantic representations (the database of semantic knowledge) andsemantic control (attentional-executive mechanisms that shape or manipulate semantic knowledge tomake verbal and nonverbal behaviour task- and time-appropriate). Converging evidence for the role of theATL in normal semantic processing comes in the form of i) new fMRI studies utilizing a correction for thefield inhomogeneities that plague the inferior aspects of the ATL, and ii) novel rTMS studies in normal par-ticipants. In addition, direct comparisons between SD and TSA suggest that SD patients have a degrada-tion of core amodal representations while TSA patients have impaired semantic control.

ELECTROPHYSIOLOGY OF SEMANTIC RESPONSES IN THE ANTERIOR TEMPORAL LOBE (ATL) EricHalgren, University of California, San Diego — The ATL is a common target of intracranial electrodes placedfor pre-surgical localization of the seizure focus. The most prominent responses during tasks that invokesemantic processing peak at ~400 and 600ms after stimulus onset. In some ATL sites, the N400/P600 repre-sents an entrained theta-delta rhythm that envelopes gamma activity and information-specific firing, andbecomes phase-locked with other cortical regions during tasks. The laminar distribution of transmembranecurrents during the N400/P600 suggests alternating feedforward/feedback processing. Within a givenlocation, responses are typically highly similar to words presented in the auditory versus visual modalities,or to faces versus words. Lateralization is weak. Across such manipulations as repetition and cloze proba-bility, the 400ms response changes in a manner similar to the scalp N400 event-related potential compo-nent, which appears to index semantic contextual integration. Distributed anatomically-constrained MEGsource estimation places the N400m in the ATL. Although both MEG and intracranial recordings indicatethat the ATL is not unique in generating N400/P600 activity, nor in showing similar responses across sen-sory modalities and semantic systems, ATL responses are generally stronger and more reliable than else-where. In summary, electrophysiological evidence suggests a core role for the ATL in relating stimulusmeaning to cognitive context during event-encoding.

DIFFERENT FORMS OF ANTERIOR TEMPORAL PATHOLOGY CAN PRODUCE QUALITATIVELY DIFFERENTSEMANTIC SYNDROMES. Timothy T. Rogers,University of Wisconsin-Madison — Semantic dementia (SD)and herpes simplex viral encephalitis (HSVE) are both associated with bilateral anterior temporal pathol-ogy, and both diseases produce impairments to semantic memory, but with substantially different profiles:whereas patients with SD show profound impairments for all semantic categories, patients with HSVEoften show degraded knowledge of living things, with comparatively spared or even normal knowledge ofmanmade objects. Recent structural imaging studies comparing SD and HSVE patients have shown that i)there is considerable overlap in the distribution of pathology in ATL regions and ii) the pathology in HSVEcan be more widespread, sometimes completely encompassing ATL regions affected in SD. These compar-ative studies pose a mystery: If HSVE affects the same ATL regions as SD, and additional regions besides,how can knowledge of manmade objects be relatively spared in this disease, but seriously degraded in SD?One possibility is that the two diseases produce qualitatively different kinds of functional disruptionwithin ATL regions. Computer simulations show that different forms of disruption to the same locus canproduce model analogs of the two syndromes. The simulations predict further counterintuitive differencesbetween the groups which have recently been tested in a case-series comparison of SD and HSVE.

THE ANTERIOR TEMPORAL LOBES DURING THE NORMAL COMPREHENSION AND PRODUCTION OFLANGUAGE: CONVERGING ACTIVITY. Richard Wise, Imperial College London — Functional imagingstudies have emphasized the roles of posterior temporal and inferior frontal cortex in speech comprehen-sion and production. These studies have predominantly used magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a tech-nique that returns a relatively low signal-to-noise ratio in anterior temporal cortex. Positron emissiontomography (PET) does not have this disadvantage. Across a number of studies, using a range of different


Tuesday, April 15, 1:00 - 3:00 pm CNS Symposia

study designs that involved normal speech comprehension, reading comprehension, propositional speechproduction and narrative writing, PET has demonstrated strong converging activity in anterior temporalcortex. Language comprehension, irrespective of modality, results in symmetrical activity between thehemispheres, whereas language production is associated with greater activity on the left. The comprehen-sion of speech is associated with strong functional connectivity between the two anterior temporal lobes, aconnectivity that is not present when subjects listen to acoustically matched but unintelligible spectrally-rotated speech. More recent fMRI studies are now also demonstrating language-related signal in anteriortemporal cortex. Interpretation of these functional imaging studies is made in the light of what is known ofimpaired and preserved language and memory functions in patients with semantic dementia. Together,the data provides very powerful evidence that anterior temporal cortex is implicated in semantic memory.

session eight The relationship between social cognition and emotionTuesday, April 151:00 - 3:00 pmGrand Ballroom A

ChairKevin N. Ochsner, Columbia University

SpeakersDaniella Schiller and Elizabeth Phelps, Jennifer S. Beer, Christian Keysers, Kevin N.Ochsner

Summary: It has been said that humans are the Social Animal, and that what sets us apart from otherspecies is the complexity of our social relationships and the culture it makes possible. To understand theneural mechanisms underlying these social abilities, recent functional imaging work has attempted toclarify the neural mechanisms underlying various socially-relevant behaviors, ranging from personperception to self-regulation, empathy and imitation. Despite mounting evidence that that the neural basesof social cognition are quite similar to those of emotion, little work has attempted to explain what thissimilarity might mean. Each talk in this symposium will shed light on this issue. Two talks (Schiller &Phelps, Beer) will show that brain systems typically associated with emotion - the amygdala andorbitofrontal cortex - are essential for person perception, because targets for social judgments - includingourselves - have affective relevance. Two other talks (Keysers, Ochsner) will show that interactions amongregions involved in motor control, affect, and mental state attribution underlie our tendency to take on theemotions of others and empathize with them. Taken together, these talks suggest that social cognition andemotion share common mechanisms that interact to support social behavior in multiple contexts.

A B S T R A C T STHE NEURAL CORRELATES OF FIRST IMPRESSIONS Daniella Schiller and Elizabeth Phelps, NYU — Evaluat-ing others requires processing of complex information. Nevertheless, during an initial encounter we canrapidly form an opinion of a certain individual, these opinions may vary across individual although thesame information is provided. The present study investigated the brain mechanisms giving rise to theimpressions formed upon meeting a new person. We measured brain responses using fMRI during expo-sure to different person profiles. Each profile consisted of varying degrees of positive and negative infor-mation. Subjects were requested to form an impression of each person using an evaluation scale. Based onsubjects' responses, we determined which information was subjectively significant, influencing theirimpressions (evaluation-relevant), and which was disregarded (evaluation-irrelevant). We then looked forbrain areas responding differentially to these two types of information. Results revealed that responses intwo brain regions typically associated with emotion - the amygdala and the posterior cingulate cortex(PCC) - were stronger while encoding social information that was relevant, relative to irrelevant to subse-quent evaluations. In addition, these responses scaled parametrically with the strength of evaluations.These findings provide the first evidence for encoding difference based on subsequent evaluation ("the DEeffect"), suggesting a key role for the amygdala and PCC in forming first impressions.


CNS Symposia Tuesday, April 15, 1:00 - 3:00 pm

EMOTIONS OFTEN DEPEND ON SELF-EVALUATION ACCURACY Jennifer S. Beer, University of Texas atAustin — The neural overlap between systems of emotion and social cognition (both self-perception andperception of others) is unsurprising from the perspective of appraisal theories of emotion. From this per-spective, emotion and social cognition share underlying appraisals. For example, an event or stimulusshould not elicit emotion unless is it appraised as relevant to the goals of the self or another person. Toaddress this issue, research in our lab has examined orbitofrontal cortex involvement in relation to emotionand self-evaluation. Studies of patients with orbitofrontal damage show that self-evaluations are impactedmuch more than emotions. Although orbitofrontal patients often exhibit typical reactions to emotionalstimuli, their impaired emotions arise from unrealistically positive self-evaluations. An fMRI study sup-ports these data by showing that the orbitofrontal cortex is recruited to support accurate self-evaluations.Together these studies suggest that although the orbitofrontal cortex is often conceptualized as an emo-tional region, it is critically involved in self-evaluations that have a downstream effect on emotion andsocial behavior.

INTEGRATING MOTOR AND EMOTIONAL CONTAGION Christian Keysers, University Medical CenterGroningen — Psychology proposes that our response to the facial expressions of others depend on twomechanisms but their causal relationship remains unclear: (a) Facial Mimicry: the vision of emotional facialexpressions triggers congruent facial expressions in the observer and (b) Emotional Contagion: the obser-vation of emotions triggers a similar emotional state in the observer. Here I show that the vision of facialexpressions, be they emotional or not, triggers activity in regions involved in the production of facialexpressions (BA45), providing a neural substrate for facial mimicry. Emotional facial expressions addition-ally trigger activity in the anterior insula/frontal operculum (IFO) involved in experiencing similar emo-tions, in particular in empathic individuals, providing a neural substrate for emotional contagion. Usingeffective connectivity, I will show that while viewing emotional facial expressions, the IFO's becomestrongly connected with BA45, suggesting that a link between facial mimicry and emotional contagionindeed exists, illustrating how emotional and motor simulation combine in the social brain. Importantly,this data helps explain why facial EMG is not predictive of emotional understanding: covert motor simula-tion in premotor structures not overt mimicry in primary motor or somatosensory regions seem mostdirectly linked to emotional contagion in the IFO.

UNPACKING THE MECHANISMS OF EMPATHY AND EMPATHIC ACCURACY Kevin N. Ochsner,Columbia University — Imaging studies of empathy have shown that first person experience activates someof the same neural systems activated by perception of others having the same experience. These data havebeen taken to suggest that the ability to empathically connect with and understand other's emotionsdepends upon the ability to automatically "share" their emotional responses. Problematic for this view,however, are the facts that 1) medial PFC regions associated with understanding other's mental states areseldom active in the contrasts analyses used in such studies, and 2) 40 years of behavioral studies show thataffect sharing does not predict accurate understanding of other's emotions. Here we 1) present data froman imaging study of pain empathy showing that interactions between medial PFC and regions represent-ing "shared emotions" can be detected using functional connectivity, but not contrast, analyses, and 2)present behavioral data showing that a person's tendency to empathically share emotion can, in fact, pre-dict their ability to accurately judge other's emotions, but only if we take into account the emotional expres-sivity of the judgment target. In other words, empathic accuracy is not a property of a perceiver, but oftheir interaction with an emotionally expressive target.

session nine Sleep, memory and plasticity: From molecules to mindTuesday, April 151:00 - 3:00 pmGrand Ballroom B

ChairMatthew Walker, University of California, Berkeley

SpeakersMarcos Frank, Gina Poe, Matthew Walker, Robert Stickgold


Tuesday, April 15, 1:00 - 3:00 pm CNS Symposia

Summary: The function(s) of sleep remain largely unknown, a surprising fact given the vast amount oftime that this state takes from our lives. One of the most exciting, and contentious, hypotheses suggeststhat sleep is critical for learning and brain plasticity. Over the last decade, a large number of studies havebegun to provide a substantive body of evidence in support of such sleep-dependent memory processing.This symposium offers a synthesis of this rich array of experimental evidence from leading internationalexperts, spanning phylogeny and descriptive levels, ranging from molecules and cells, to networks,systems and cognitive neuroscience. We believe the symposium would offer fertile ground for livelydiscussions regarding the role of sleep in 1) memory encoding, consolidation, integration and association,and 2) the underlying brain basis of these effects; sleep-dependent plasticity.

A B S T R A C T SSLEEP-DEPENDENT CORTICAL PLASTICITY IN VIVO: AN INTEGRATIVE APPROACH TO UNDERSTANDINGSLEEP FUNCTION Marcos Frank, University of Pennsylvania — Converging findings from studies inhumans and animals strongly suggest that sleep facilitates memory consolidation. However, the precisecellular mechanisms governing this process are unknown. We have shown that sleep consolidates a canon-ical form of in vivo synaptic plasticity (ocular dominance plasticity: ODP). This consolidation is blockedwhen sleep is prevented, or when neural activity in the sleeping brain is reversibly inhibited. We are nowbeginning to reveal the underlying, activity-dependent mechanisms that alter synaptic strength duringsleep. Because the study of ODP has provided insights into plasticity more generally, our findings willuncover basic rules that explain how experience and sleep work in concert to produce long-lasting modifi-cations of cortical circuitry.

PHYSIOLOGICAL PHENOMENA FOR REM SLEEP DEPENDENT MEMORY CONSOLIDATION Gina Poe,University of Michigan — The hippocampus is the assembly place, but not final storage site, of complex,associative memories in the brain. During complex associative learning, neurons in the hippocampus areactive in a manner consistent with forming new memory networks. Consolidation is the process wheretemporary hippocampal memories are transferred to long term storage sites throughout the neocortex.Rapid Eye Movement Sleep (REM) has been implicated in the consolidation of many types of memoriesand learning tasks. It is our hypothesis that the neurochemical milieu of REM creates a unique environ-ment that allows REM sleep brain activity patterns to serve a function for memory consolidation that can-not be fulfilled under normal circumstances during waking. Specifically, in addition to strengtheningnewly formed synapses, REM sleep allows for synaptic depotentiation of consolidated memories and theerasure of extraneous synapses. We have shown hippocampal reactivation patterns during REM sleep con-sistent with strengthening novel memories and weakening synapses of consolidated memories, and sawthat the reactivation pattern, called theta phase reversal, occurred over the period of 5-7 days consistentwith the time course shown for memory consolidation. Further REM deprivation and REM augmentationstudies have supported the importance of hippocampal reactivation patterns for learning and memoryconsolidation.

TO SLEEP…PER CHANCE TO LEARN? SLEEP-DEPENDENT MEMORY AND PLASTICITY IN THE HUMANBRAIN Matthew Walker, University of California, Berkeley — Building on the cellular and network-founda-tion presentations in this session, I will discuss complimentary evidence of sleep-dependent memory pro-cessing in the human brain at a systems and cognitive level. I will begin with an overview of the questionwhat is the relationship between sleep, memory and the brain plasticity, and how do we test it? This will befollowed by a selection of behavioral and neuroimaging studies describing 1) the essential need for sleepbefore learning in preparing the brain for initial memory formation/encoding, 2) the critical need for sleepafter learning for the subsequent neuroplastic consolidation of memory, and 3) a novel role for sleep in thedevelopment of associational links between recently learning information - potentially the ultimate goal ofmemory storage. I will conclude with a conceptual framework of how sleep may facilitate the processesunderlying the acquisition, consolidation, integration and possibly erasure of human memories.

SLEEP, MEMORY AND DREAMS: BEYOND CONSOLIDATION Robert Stickgold, Harvard Medical School —There is now considerable evidence for sleep's role in the consolidation of various forms of memory, fromprocedural skill learning to word pair recall. But beyond simple consolidation, sleep can also facilitate theintegration of new information with older memories and the extraction of patterns from multiple exem-plars, even when there is only a probabilistic relationship between exemplar and class. Evidence of thesemore sophisticated forms of memory processing during sleep will be presented, and the possible relevanceof dreaming to these processes discussed.


Graduate Students Present

Monday, April 14, 20083:00 - 5:00 pm, Grand Ballroom B

The Graduate Students Present is a forum enabling students to present their research to thegeneral audience in ten-minute intervals. Nine abstracts were chosen in a blind review, fromnearly 300 abstracts submitted. Each recipient is awarded a $500-travel award.The session will be moderated by Reiko Graham, Ph.D., Texas Sate University. Questions willbe at the discretion of each individual speaker.

Speakers:Idil Kokal, University of Groningen, the NetherlandsNamhee Kim, The Ohio State UniversityIsabelle Pelletier, Centre de recherche du Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Mère-Enfant(Sainte-Justine) and Université de MontréalAaron Boes, University of Iowa Carver College of MedicineJai-Min Bai, UCSDPamela Perschler, Southern Illinois UniversityElliot Berkman, UCLASabrina Segal, University of California, IrvineKeiko Yamazaki, Hokkaido University


Graduate Students Present

INVESTIGATING JOINT ACTIONS WITH FMRI Idil Kokal1,, ValeriaGazzola1, Christian Keysers1; 1BCN Neuroimaging Center, University MedicalCenter Groningen, University of Groningen, the Netherlands — Recent studiessuggest that the capacity to coordinate one’s actions with others’ relies onthe mirror neuron system (MNS). With fMRI we scanned participantsengaging in joint actions with the experimenter. The task involved movingone of the two sticks of a clock-like device singly as well as creating a par-ticular shape jointly with the experimenter. In the straight condition, theparticipant had to move his stick to the opposite side where the experi-menter moved hers; in the angle condition, to the same side. In the controlconditions, the participant had to (a) passively watch the experimenter’smovements or (b) move his stick alone. The MNS, involved in (a) and (b)included: the opercular part of the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and theleft inferior parietal lobule (IPL). The regions that are more active duringjoint actions compared to a+b were adjacent but anterior to the MNSregions in the IFG and IPL and additional activities in the left posteriorsuperior temporal sulcus, right precenues and bilateral lingual gyrus werefound. The straight condition recruited the right superior frontal gyrusmore strongly than the angle condition, possibly to inhibit the predomi-nant response to move in the same direction as the experimenter. The bilat-eral temporal parietal junction (TPJ), a region involved in perspectivetaking and theory of mind, was activated only in the angle condition. Ourresults suggest that dynamically coupling one’s actions to those of others’involves a circuitry that goes beyond the classical mirror system.THE EFFECT OF L-DOPA ON FMRI OF LANGUAGEPROCESSING Namhee Kim1, Madalina Tivarus2, Prem Goel1, DavidBeversdorf3; 1The Ohio State University, Department of Statistics, , 2Universityof Rochester, Department of Imaging Science and the Rochester Center for BrainImaging Rochester, NY, 3The Ohio State University, Department ofNeurology — L-dopa, which is a precursor for dopamine, acts to amplifystrong signals, and dampen weak signals as suggested by other studies.The effect of L-dopa on language processing has been demonstrated in lan-guage studies, suggesting restriction of the semantic network. In thisstudy, we aimed to examine the effect of L-dopa on language processingwith fMRI. Two types of language tasks (phonological and semantic cate-gorization tasks) were tested under two drug conditions (placebo and L-dopa) in 16 healthy subjects. Independent Component Analysis (ICA) wasused to select task-relevant (positive) sources. Group ICA of fMRI Tool-box (GIFT) was implemented to generate 25 sources for each subject for thefour conditions and the sources were classified into task-relevant sourcegroups by correlation criterion. We found that the highly task relevantbrain regions Left Inferior Frontal Gyrus (LIFG), Left Fusiform Gyrus(LFUS), and Middle Temporal Gyrus (MTG) showed distinct activationpatterns with L-dopa treatment as compared to placebo for both tasks. Wealso found out that the thalamus was activated in language processingwith placebo but was not significant with L-dopa treatment. Furtherresearch will be necessary to better understand how findings relate to thesemantic effects on L-dopa. However, the lack of thalamic activation withL-dopa suggests that L-dopa allows semantic processing to occur with lessinfluence from thalamic feedback.FUNCTIONAL MAGNETIC RESONANCE IMAGING STUDY OFLANGUAGE LATERALIZATION IN ACALLOSAL PATIENTS.Isabelle Pelletier1,2, Isabelle Rouleau4, Christine Rosa1, Katja Valois4, FredericAndermann5, Dave Saint-Amour1,2,3, Franco Lepore1,2, Maryse Lassonde1,2;1Centre de recherche du Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Mère-Enfant (Sainte-Justine), 2Centre de Recherche en Neuropsychologie et Cognition, Département depsychologie, Université de Montréal, 3Département d’ophtalmologie, Université

de Montréal., 4Centre de Neuroscience de la Cognition, Département depsychologie, Université du Québec à Montréal, 5Department of Neurology,Montreal Neurological Institute — Since the seminal work of Broca in 1861, itis well acknowledged that language is related to left hemisphere functions,at least in adults. However, the origins of this hemispheric specializationare more controversial. Some authors posit that language is genetically-coded while others have suggested that hemispheric specialization devel-ops over time. Tenants of the latter view have further suggested that theadult pattern of left hemispheric specialization is achieved through cal-losal inhibition of the homologous right speech areas. According to thishypothesis, it follows that language could develop bilaterally in the acal-losal brain (callosal agenesis, ACC). A functional magnetic resonanceimaging (fMRI) study of a single case of ACC suggests that this might bethe case (Riecker et al., 2007). Considering the important variability ofreorganization patterns in ACC, this finding needs to be replicated in alarger sample of subjects. In the present study, six ACC individuals under-went a language lateralization fMRI protocol comprising both a syntacticdecision task as well as a subvocal verbal fluency task. Some of the ACCindividuals showed a clear hemispheric specialization whereas others dis-played a more bilateral speech representation. While these results indicatethat various patterns of brain reorganization may be occurring in ACC,they also suggest that the corpus callosum does not play a necessary rolein the cerebral development of lateralized linguistic representation.RIGHT VENTROMEDIAL PREFRONTAL CORTEX: ANEUROANATOMICAL CORRELATE OF IMPULSIVENESS ANDHYPERACTIVITY IN BOYS Aaron Boes1,2, Daniel Tranel3, SteveAnderson3, Antoine Bechara4, Lynn Richman5, Peg Nopoulos1; 1Department ofPsychiatry, University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine, Iowa City, Iowa,2Medical Scientist Training Program, University of Iowa Carver College ofMedicine, Iowa City, Iowa, 3Department of Neurology (Division of BehavioralNeurology and Cognitive Neuroscience), University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa,USA, 4Institute for the Neurological Study of Emotion and Creativity,Department of Psychology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles,California, 5Department of Pediatrics, University of Iowa Carver College ofMedicine, Iowa City, Iowa — Emerging data on the neural mechanisms ofimpulse control have highlighted brain regions involved in emotion anddecision making, including the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPC),anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), and amygdala. We have previouslyhypothesized that variations in the development of these regions mayinfluence one’s propensity for impulsivity and, by extension, one’s vulner-ability to disorders involving poor impulse control (e.g. substance abuse).Here we test the hypothesis that poor impulse control is associated withstructural deficits in this emotion processing circuit in a group of normalhealthy boys. Also, we hypothesized that right-sided structures wouldpreferentially predict poor impulse control. In a sample of 61 boys, age 7 -17, we assessed parent- and teacher-reported behavioral ratings of impulsecontrol (non-planning and hyperactive behavior) in relation to volume ofthe VMPC, ACC and amygdala, measured using structural MRI and Free-Surfer. A regression analysis showed that, as a group, right-sided regionsof interest (ROIs) significantly predicted impulse control ratings, with theVMPC as an individually significant predictor. Follow-up correlation testsrevealed a significant correlation for poor impulse control and low rightVMPC volume, which is more robust in the medial sector of the VMPC. Acomparison a right VMPC volume between boys with high and low impul-siveness\hyperactivity revealed significantly lower right VMPC volumein the former group. These results are consistent with the notion that right


Graduate Students Present Monday, April 14, 3:00 - 5:00 pm

VMPC provides a neuroanatomical correlate of the normal variance inimpulse control observed in boys.ELECTROPHYSIOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF EMPATHY ANDTHEORY OF MIND FUNCTION IN CHILDREN WITH AUTISMSPECTRUM DISORDER Jai-Min Bai1,5, Derrik Asher1, Oriana Aragon1,3,Tom Gamage6, Yasmin Ghochani1, Stephen Johnson1, Steve Gilmore1, MattErhart1, Heather Pelton1, Ernesto Enrique4, Dane Chambers1, Jaime Pineda1,2;1Department of Cognitive Science, UCSD, 2Neuroscience Department, UCSD,3Cal State University, San Marcos, 4San Diego State University, 5University ofIllinois, Champaign-Urbana, 6Virginia Commonwealth University — Previ-ous research has identified the mirror neuron system (MNS) as a collec-tion of neurons involved in the integration of observation and executioninto a matching system. MNS activity monitored by EEG has beenindexed through power suppression from 8-13Hz (mu rhythms) over thesensorimotor cortex. Typically developing (TD) individuals show mupower suppression during goal oriented actions in observation and exe-cution. Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) show suppres-sion only in goal oriented actions involving execution and notobservation. Our research focused upon two methods for analyzingsocial cognition through observation of visual stimuli, empathy and the-ory of mind (ToM). The ToM method revealed results that reinforced aprevious study that dissociates ToM into two subcomponents. Theempathy study applied to TD children revealed mu power suppressionto emotional faces. In contrast, children with ASD showed similar mupower across different conditions. This result suggests that children withASD do not engage the mirror neuron system in face emotion processingas do TD children. In addition, TD children show higher mu power sup-pression in the right hemisphere than in the left. However, children withASD showed no mu power difference between hemispheres. Therefore,the electrophysiological data collected through these two methods con-tribute to the theory that children with ASD are deficient in their abilityto suppress mu rhythms. These results provide a fundamental basis foran ongoing study that is investigating whether the electrophysiologicaldiscrepancies in ASD are functional, structural or both.MODULATION OF NEURAL ACTIVITY IN THE LEFT INFERIORFRONTAL GYRUS AS A FUNCTION OF PRIOR ANDSUBSEQUENT ASSOCIATIVE LEARNING Pamela Perschler1, RezaHabib1; 1Southern Illinois University, Carbondale — The subsequent mem-ory (SM) paradigm is used to identify differences in activity duringencoding that predict whether a stimulus will be subsequently remem-bered. Here, we asked whether performance during a previous memorytest will modulate activity during subsequent encoding. Neural activitywas measured with functional MRI during the encoding phase of a multi-trial associative learning paradigm. Over the course of 7 trials, subjectslearned and recalled 40 unrelated word pairs. Cued recall performanceon trials 1-6 was used to categorize encoding activity on trials 2-7 into: 1)Rc11 (successful recall on the previous and current trial), Rc01 (unsuc-cessful recall on the previous trial but successful recall on the currenttrial), and Rc00 (unsuccessful recall on the previous and current trial).The comparison between Rc01 and Rc00 corresponds to the standard SManalysis and identified greater activity in the left inferior frontal gyrus(LIFG) and right parahippocampal gyrus. The comparison between Rc11and Rc01 identifies regions whose activity is modulated by whether anitem has been previously learned. Activations were observed in the leftsuperior temporal, medial frontal, and parahippocampal gyri; a deactiva-tion was observed in the same LIFG region identified in the standard SManalysis. This result indicates that activity of the LIFG is greater in theRc01 condition than either the Rc00 or the Rc11 condition, suggesting thatthis region is critical for for transforming an item from an unlearned stateto a learned state; once an item is learned, activity in this region isreduced.

CROSS-DOMAIN INHIBITION: INTENTIONAL MOTORINHIBITION PRODUCES INCIDENTAL LIMBIC INHIBITIONElliot Berkman1, Lisa Burklund1, Matthew Lieberman1; 1UCLA Department ofPsychology — Neurocognitive studies have consistently observed rIFGinvolvement in inhibition across a number of domains (e.g. motor, cogni-tive, affective), however there has been no systematic investigation ofwhether there is a common inhibitory mechanism in rIFG that producessimilar effects in each domain. The present study used an emotional go/no-go task that produces prepotent responses in both the motor andaffective domains, but with intentional inhibition in only one domain(motor) and affective responses being incidental to the task. We foundsupport for the hypothesis that rIFG serves as a common inhibitorymechanism across multiple psychological domains. We observedincreased rIFG and reduced amygdala activity when participantsengaged in response inhibition during the presentation of negatively-valenced stimuli. Across trials with negatively-valenced stimuli, func-tional connectivity analyses revealed significantly greater inverse correla-tions between the time courses of rIFG and amygdala during no-go trialsthan go trials, suggesting that when participants intentionally inhibited amotor response in the presence of an affective cue that would typicallyactivate the amygdala, amygdala activity was dampened to the extentthat the rIFG response was higher. Thus, intentional inhibition in themotor domain produced unintended inhibitory consequences in theaffective domain.ENDOGENOUS NORADRENERGIC ACTIVATION AND MEMORYFOR EMOTIONAL MATERIAL IN MEN AND WOMEN SabrinaSegal1, Larry Cahill1; 1University of California, Irvine — Abundant evi-dence in animal studies suggests that noradrenergic activity is related tomemory, particularly for emotional material. The salivary enzyme, alpha-amylase is known to be highly correlated with norepinephrine and is abiomarker for the sympathetic nervous system response (Chatterton, et.al 1996). This measurement was used to study the relationship betweenendogenous noradrenergic activation and memory in healthy men andwomen. Subjects viewed images from the International Affective PictureSet (IAPS) that ranged from neutral to emotional. Saliva samples werecollected at baseline, immediately after viewing the slides, and then 3, 8,18, and 28 minutes after the slide show. Subjects returned one week laterfor a surprise memory recall test. The most notable results were withrespect to the women who displayed an increase in salivary alpha-amy-lase (sAA) immediately after versus before viewing the pictures (n= 21).There was a highly significant correlation between the increase in sAAimmediately after viewing the

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Cognitive Neuroscience Society Annual Meeting Program 2008...FINANCIAL RISK-TAKING Brian Knutson, Stanford University — Increases in endogenous nucleus accum-bens (NAcc) activity