Activation of Midbrain and Ventral Striatal Regions Implicates Salience Processing during a Modified Beads Task

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Abstract

Introduction: Metacognition, i.e. critically reflecting on and monitoring one's own reasoning, has been linked behaviorally to the emergence of delusions and is a focus of cognitive therapy in patients with schizophrenia. However, little is known about the neural processing underlying metacognitive function. To address this issue, we studied brain activity during a modified beads task which has been used to measure a "Jumping to Conclusions" (JTC) bias in schizophrenia patients. Methods: We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to identify neural systems active in twenty-five healthy subjects when solving a modified version of the "beads task", which requires a probabilistic decision after a variable amount of data has been requested by the participants. We assessed brain activation over the duration of a trial and at the time point of decision making. Results: Analysis of activation during the whole process of probabilistic reasoning showed an extended network including the prefronto-parietal executive functioning network as well as medial parieto-occipital regions. During the decision process alone, activity in midbrain and ventral striatum was detected, as well as in thalamus, medial occipital cortex and anterior insula. Conclusions: Our data show that probabilistic reasoning shares neural substrates with executive functions. In addition, our finding that brain regions commonly associated with salience processing are active during probabilistic reasoning identifies a candidate mechanism that could underlie the behavioral link between dopamine-dependent aberrant salience and JTC in schizophrenia. Further studies with delusional schizophrenia patients will have to be performed to substantiate this link. © 2013 Esslinger et al.

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Esslinger, C., Braun, U., Schirmbeck, F., Santos, A., Meyer-Lindenberg, A., Zink, M., & Kirsch, P. (2013). Activation of Midbrain and Ventral Striatal Regions Implicates Salience Processing during a Modified Beads Task. PLoS ONE, 8(3). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0058536

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