Papers by Jutta Peterburs
Current opinion in neurobiology, Jan 30, 2016
While the cerebellum has traditionally been thought of as mainly involved in motor functions, evi... more While the cerebellum has traditionally been thought of as mainly involved in motor functions, evidence has been accumulating for cerebellar contributions also to non-motor, cognitive functions. The notion of a cerebellar internal model underlying prediction and processing of sensory events and coordination and fine-tuning of appropriate responses has put the cerebellum right at the interface of motor behavior and cognition. Along these lines, the cerebellum may critically contribute to performance monitoring, a set of cognitive and affective functions underlying adaptive behavior. This review presents and integrates evidence from recent neuroimaging and clinical studies for a cerebellar role in performance monitoring with focus on sensory prediction, error and conflict processing, response inhibition, and feedback learning. Together with evidence for involvement in articulatory monitoring during working memory, these findings suggest monitoring as the cerebellum's overarching fu...
Physiology & Behavior, 2016
Functional hemispheric asymmetries can vary over time and steroid hormones have been shown to be ... more Functional hemispheric asymmetries can vary over time and steroid hormones have been shown to be one of the factors that can modulate them. Research into this matter has mainly focused on sex steroid hormones (androgens, estrogens and progestogens), although there is increasing evidence that glucocorticoids which are related to the body's response to stress (e.g. cortisol or corticosterone) might also modulate functional hemispheric asymmetries. Here, we review studies in humans and non-human model species investigating the relation of stress and laterality. Results indicate a dual relationship of the two parameters. Both acute and chronic stress can affect different forms of lateralization in the human brain, often (but not always) resulting in greater involvement of the right hemisphere. Moreover, lateralization as a form of functional brain architecture can also represent a protective factor against adverse effects of stress.
Neuroscience Biobehavioral Reviews, 2014
We review new insights into the ontogenesis of language lateralization.We suggest that handedness... more We review new insights into the ontogenesis of language lateralization.We suggest that handedness and language lateralization show partial pleiotropy.We suggest shared ontogenetic factors.Dominance of the left hemisphere for many aspects of speech production and perception is one of the best known examples of functional hemispheric asymmetries in the human brain. Classic theories about its ontogenesis assume that it is determined by the same ontogenetic factors as handedness because the two traits are correlated to some extent. However, the strength of this correlation depends on the measures used to assess the two traits, and the neurophysiological basis of language lateralization is different from that of handedness. Therefore, we argue that although the two traits show partial pleiotropy, there is also a substantial amount of independent ontogenetic influences for each of them. This view is supported by several recent genetic and neuroscientific studies that are reviewed in the present article.
Http Dx Doi Org 10 1080 13576500903483515, Mar 1, 2010
The Cerebellum, Apr 1, 2010
Findings concerning cognitive impairment in patients with focal cerebellar lesions tend to be inc... more Findings concerning cognitive impairment in patients with focal cerebellar lesions tend to be inconsistent and usually reflect a mild deficit. Patient variables such as lesion age and the age at lesion onset might affect functional reorganization and contribute to the variability of the findings. To assess this issue, 14 patients with focal vascular cerebellar lesions and 14 matched healthy control subjects performed a verbal working memory and a verbal long-term memory task as well as verbal fluency tasks. Patients showed deficits in working memory and verbal fluency, while recall of complex narrative material was intact. Verbal fluency performance correlated significantly with age in the patient group, with more severe impairments in older patients, suggesting that age at lesion onset is a critical variable for cognitive outcome. In controls, no significant correlations with age were observed. Taken together, our findings support the idea of cerebellar involvement in nonmotor functions and indicate the relevance of interindividual differences in regard to clinical parameters after focal cerebellar damage.
NeuroImage, 2016
It is as yet unknown if behavioral and neural correlates of performance monitoring in socially an... more It is as yet unknown if behavioral and neural correlates of performance monitoring in socially anxious individuals are affected by whether feedback is provided by a person or a computer. This fMRI study investigated modulation of feedback processing by feedback source (person vs. computer) in participants with high (HSA) (N=16) and low social anxiety (LSA) (N=16). Subjects performed a choice task in which they were informed that they would receive positive or negative feedback from a person or the computer. Subjective ratings indicated increased arousal and anxiety in HSA versus LSA, most pronounced for social and negative feedback. FMRI analyses yielded hyperactivation in ventral medial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC)/anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and insula for social relative to computer feedback, and in mPFC/ventral ACC for positive relative to negative feedback in HSA as compared to LSA. These activation patterns are consistent with increased interoception and self-referential processing in social anxiety, especially during processing of positive feedback. Increased ACC activation in HSA to positive feedback may link to unexpectedness of (social) praise as posited in social anxiety disorder (SAD) psychopathology. Activation in rostral ACC showed a reversed pattern, with decreased activation to positive feedback in HSA, possibly indicating altered action values depending on feedback source and valence. The present findings corroborate a crucial role of mPFC for performance monitoring in social anxiety.
Biological Psychology, 2016
Effects of emotional intensity and valence on visual event-related potentials (ERPs) are still po... more Effects of emotional intensity and valence on visual event-related potentials (ERPs) are still poorly understood, in particular in the context of limited attentional resources. In the present EEG study, we investigated the effect of emotional intensity of different emotional facial expressions on P1, N170, early posterior negativity (EPN) and late positive potential (LPP) while varying the amount of available attentional resources. A new stimulus set comprising 90 full color pictures of neutral, happy (low, high intensity), and angry (low, high intensity) expressions was developed. These facial expressions were presented centrally, superimposed by two horizontal bars, and participants engaged in a focal bars task. Availability of attentional resources was varied in two conditions by manipulating the difficulty of the focal bars task (low vs. high perceptual load). Our findings demonstrate intensity and valence effects of task-irrelevant facial expressions on early (N170) and intermediate processing stages (EPN). In addition, task-related effects of perceptual load evolved at intermediate processing stages and were full blown in the time window of LPP. In line with limited resource accounts, valence effects on N170 and EPN were reduced under high perceptual load. Interestingly, apart from this valence by load interaction no further interactions between stimulus and task-driven factors were obtained: Effects of emotional intensity were not modulated by the perceptual load of the focal bars task, indicating that emotional intensity was processed even though attentional resources were heavily restricted.
Human brain mapping, Jan 25, 2016
Our understanding of altered emotional processing in social anxiety disorder (SAD) is hampered by... more Our understanding of altered emotional processing in social anxiety disorder (SAD) is hampered by a heterogeneity of findings, which is probably due to the vastly different methods and materials used so far. This is why the present functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study investigated immediate disorder-related threat processing in 30 SAD patients and 30 healthy controls (HC) with a novel, standardized set of highly ecologically valid, disorder-related complex visual scenes. SAD patients rated disorder-related as compared with neutral scenes as more unpleasant, arousing and anxiety-inducing than HC. On the neural level, disorder-related as compared with neutral scenes evoked differential responses in SAD patients in a widespread emotion processing network including (para-)limbic structures (e.g. amygdala, insula, thalamus, globus pallidus) and cortical regions (e.g. dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC), posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), and precuneus). Functional connecti...
Psychophysiology, 2015
Processing of performance-related feedback is an essential prerequisite for adaptive behavior. Ev... more Processing of performance-related feedback is an essential prerequisite for adaptive behavior. Even though in everyday life feedback is rarely immediate, to date very few studies have investigated whether the feedback-related negativity (FRN), a relative negativity in the ERP approximately 200 to 300 ms after feedback that is sensitive to feedback valence and predictability, is modulated by feedback timing, and findings are inconsistent. The present study investigated effects of gradually increasing feedback delays on feedback processing in the FRN time window. Subjects completed a probabilistic learning task in which feedback was provided after short, intermediate, or long delays. Difference wave-based analyses showed that amplitudes decreased linearly with increasing feedback delay. A distinct pattern was observed for the FRN as defined in the original waveforms, with FRN amplitudes being largest for long and smallest for short delays. This pattern of results is consistent with the notion that the neural systems underlying feedback processing vary depending on feedback timing. The gradually reduced difference wave signal might reflect a gradual shift away from processing in frontostriatal circuits toward medial temporal involvement. To what extent increased signal amplitudes for longer delays in the original waveforms are related to processing in certain brain structures will need to be determined in future studies.
Cerebral Cortex, 2015
It has been argued that cerebellar activations during cognitive tasks may masquerade as cognition... more It has been argued that cerebellar activations during cognitive tasks may masquerade as cognition, while actually reflecting processes related to movement planning or motor learning. The present study investigated whether the cerebellar load effect for verbal working memory, that is, increased activations in lobule VI/Crus I and lobule VIIB/VIIIA, is related to eye movements and oculomotor processing. Fifteen participants performed an fMRI-based Sternberg verbal working memory task. Oculomotor and cognitive task demands were manipulated by using closely and widely spaced stimuli, and high and low cognitive load. Trial-based quantitative eye movement parameters were obtained from concurrent eye tracking. Conventional MRI analysis replicated the cerebellar load effect in lobules VI and VIIB/VIIIa. With quantitative eye movement parameters as regressors, analysis yielded very similar activation patterns. While load effect and eye regressor generally recruited spatially distinct neocortical and cerebellar regions, conjunction analysis showed that a small subset of prefrontal areas implicated in the load effect also responded to the eye regressor. The present results indicate that cognitive load-dependent activations in lateral superior and posteroinferior cerebellar regions in the Sternberg task are independent of eye movements occurring during stimulus encoding. This is inconsistent with the notion that cognitive load-dependent cerebellar activations merely reflect oculomotor processing.
Neuropsychologia, 2015
The cerebellum applies an internal forward-model to predict the sensory consequences of actions. ... more The cerebellum applies an internal forward-model to predict the sensory consequences of actions. This forward-model is updated based on on-line performance monitoring. A previous study has shown that performance monitoring is altered in patients with focal vascular cerebellar lesions, but altered neural responses are not paralleled by impaired behaviour, and the critical cerebellar sites have yet to be identified. The present study investigated if saccadic performance monitoring is more severely altered in patients with cerebellar degenerative disease relative to the previously examined patients with focal vascular cerebellar lesions, and which cerebellar regions support performance monitoring. 16 patients and 16 healthy controls performed an antisaccade task while an electroencephalogram (EEG) was recorded. Error rates were increased, and the error-related negativity (ERN), an event-related potential (ERP) component associated with error processing/performance monitoring, was reduc...
Human Brain Mapping, 2014
Fear of negative evaluation, such as negative social performance feedback, is the core symptom of... more Fear of negative evaluation, such as negative social performance feedback, is the core symptom of social anxiety. The present study investigated the neural correlates of anticipation and perception of social performance feedback in social anxiety. High (HSA) and low (LSA) socially anxious individuals were asked to give a speech on a personally relevant topic and received standardized but appropriate expert performance feedback in a succeeding experimental session in which neural activity was measured during anticipation and presentation of negative and positive performance feedback concerning the speech performance, or a neutral feedback-unrelated control condition. HSA compared to LSA subjects reported greater anxiety during anticipation of negative feedback. Functional magnetic resonance imaging results showed deactivation of medial prefrontal brain areas during anticipation of negative feedback relative to the control and the positive condition, and medial prefrontal and insular hyperactivation during presentation of negative as well as positive feedback in HSA compared to LSA subjects. The results indicate distinct processes underlying feedback processing during anticipation and presentation of feedback in HSA as compared to LSA individuals. In line with the role of the medial prefrontal cortex in self-referential information processing and the insula in interoception, social anxiety seems to be associated with lower self-monitoring during feedback anticipation, and an increased self-focus and interoception during feedback presentation, regardless of feedback valence.
The Cerebellum, 2010
Findings concerning cognitive impairment in patients with focal cerebellar lesions tend to be inc... more Findings concerning cognitive impairment in patients with focal cerebellar lesions tend to be inconsistent and usually reflect a mild deficit. Patient variables such as lesion age and the age at lesion onset might affect functional reorganization and contribute to the variability of the findings. To assess this issue, 14 patients with focal vascular cerebellar lesions and 14 matched healthy control subjects performed a verbal working memory and a verbal long-term memory task as well as verbal fluency tasks. Patients showed deficits in working memory and verbal fluency, while recall of complex narrative material was intact. Verbal fluency performance correlated significantly with age in the patient group, with more severe impairments in older patients, suggesting that age at lesion onset is a critical variable for cognitive outcome. In controls, no significant correlations with age were observed. Taken together, our findings support the idea of cerebellar involvement in nonmotor functions and indicate the relevance of interindividual differences in regard to clinical parameters after focal cerebellar damage.
The Cerebellum, 2013
Efference copies of motor commands are used to update visual space across saccades, ultimately en... more Efference copies of motor commands are used to update visual space across saccades, ultimately ensuring transsaccadic constancy of space. Thalamic lesions have been shown to impair efference copy-based saccadic updating in an oculomotor context, i.e., when two successive saccades are required. Moreover, the cerebellum has also been discussed as one possible source of saccade-related efference copy signals. The present study aimed to investigate the effects of thalamic and cerebellar lesions on saccadic updating in a perceptual context. To this end, seven patients with focal cerebellar lesions, seven patients with focal thalamic lesions and 11 healthy controls completed a perceptual localisation task in which the position of a target had to be updated across a single horizontal saccade, while saccade-related event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded. Contrary to the expectations, localisation precision in both patient groups did not differ from the respective controls. A positive ERP component with centroparietal distribution occurring from about 300 to 500 ms after saccade onset in the updating condition was observed equally pronounced in controls and thalamic lesion patients. In cerebellar lesion patients, there was evidence of a reduction of this relative positivity in the updating condition, particularly for leftward saccades. This finding suggests that cerebellar damage altered the neural processes underlying saccadic updating in a perceptual context without causing overt behavioural deficits.
PLoS ONE, 2013
The feedback-related negativity (FRN) is an event-related potential (ERP) component associated wi... more The feedback-related negativity (FRN) is an event-related potential (ERP) component associated with processing of performance feedback, with more negative amplitudes for losses relative to wins. The amplitude of the FRN following near misses, i.e. the experience of coming close to winning, is between the amplitude elicited by losses and wins. In gambling, however, outcome value may not always be obvious since initially placed bets need to be taken into account when evaluating wins or losses. It is still unclear if initial bet size is reflected in the FRN or the later P300 component. The present study applied a virtual card gambling task to investigate the sensitivity of FRN and P300 to the manipulation of outcome magnitude as implemented through the presence or absence of initial bets, resulting in wins, losses or ambivalent outcomes, with the latter representing losses with and wins without bets. The FRN was larger for trials with bets compared to trials without bets. Wins were associated with a smaller FRN than losses or ambivalent outcomes, while losses and ambivalent outcomes did not differ. P300 amplitudes were larger for trials without bets, and wins were associated with a larger P300 than losses or ambivalent outcomes. Crucially, P300 amplitudes were also smaller for ambivalent outcomes compared to losses. Thus, the different dimensions determining outcome value appear to be integrated in early and late stages of feedback processing. However, only at later stages reflected in the P300 were ambivalent outcomes with and without bet clearly distinguished from other outcomes.
PLoS ONE, 2011
Event-related potentials (ERP) research has identified a negative deflection within about 100 to ... more Event-related potentials (ERP) research has identified a negative deflection within about 100 to 150 ms after an erroneous response -the error-related negativity (ERN) -as a correlate of awareness-independent error processing. The short latency suggests an internal error monitoring system acting rapidly based on central information such as an efference copy signal. Studies on monkeys and humans have identified the thalamus as an important relay station for efference copy signals of ongoing saccades. The present study investigated error processing on an antisaccade task with ERPs in six patients with focal vascular damage to the thalamus and 28 control subjects. ERN amplitudes were significantly reduced in the patients, with the strongest ERN attenuation being observed in two patients with right mediodorsal and ventrolateral and bilateral ventrolateral damage, respectively. Although the number of errors was significantly higher in the thalamic lesion patients, the degree of ERN attenuation did not correlate with the error rate in the patients. The present data underline the role of the thalamus for the online monitoring of saccadic eye movements, albeit not providing unequivocal evidence in favour of an exclusive role of a particular thalamic site being involved in performance monitoring. By relaying saccade-related efference copy signals, the thalamus appears to enable fast error processing. Furthermore early error processing based on internal information may contribute to error awareness which was reduced in the patients.
PLoS ONE, 2013
Time processing critically relies on the mesencephalic dopamine system and striato-prefrontal pro... more Time processing critically relies on the mesencephalic dopamine system and striato-prefrontal projections and has thus been suggested to play a key role in schizophrenia. Previous studies have provided evidence for an acceleration of the internal clock in schizophrenia that may be linked to dopaminergic pathology. The present study aimed to assess the relationship between altered time processing in schizophrenia and symptom manifestation in 22 patients and 22 controls. Subjects were required to estimate the time needed for a visual stimulus to complete a horizontal movement towards a target position on trials of varying cognitive demand. It was hypothesized that patients -compared to controls -would be less accurate at estimating the movement time, and that this effect would be modulated by symptom manifestation and task difficulty. In line with the notion of an accelerated internal clock due to dopaminergic dysregulation, particularly patients with severe positive symptoms were expected to underestimate movement time. However, if altered time perception in schizophrenia was better explained in terms of cognitive deficits, patients with severe negative symptoms should be specifically impaired, while generally, task performance should correlate with measures of processing speed and cognitive flexibility. Patients underestimated movement time on more demanding trials, although there was no link to disease-related cognitive dysfunction. Task performance was modulated by symptom manifestation. Impaired estimation of movement time was significantly correlated with PANSS positive symptom scores, with higher positive symptom scores associated with stronger underestimation of movement time. The present data thus support the notion of a deficit in anticipatory and predictive mechanisms in schizophrenia that is modulated both by symptom manifestation and by cognitive demand.
Neuroscience Letters, 2012
The rubber hand illusion (RHI) refers to the illusory perception of ownership of a rubber hand th... more The rubber hand illusion (RHI) refers to the illusory perception of ownership of a rubber hand that may occur when covert tactile stimulation of a participant's hand co-occurs with overt corresponding stimulation of a rubber hand. It is proposed that integrating the rubber hand into one's body image may shift the subjective body midline away from the rubber hand. The present study investigated the influence of the RHI on pseudoneglect on the line bisection task, i.e. the leftward bias when marking the centre of horizontal lines, in 79 neurologically healthy adults. Overall, pseudoneglect was reduced after RHI application. Importantly, this effect was specific for individuals who reported having vividly experienced the illusion (high responders) as opposed to individuals who did not (low responders). Moreover, pseudoneglect was eliminated only after RHI application to the left hand. This pattern of results is consistent with functional hemispheric asymmetry for spatial processing and suggests that integrating the left sided rubber hand into one's body image shifts the subjective body midline to the right, thus counteracting pseudoneglect.
Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 2014
Dominance of the left hemisphere for many aspects of speech production and perception is one of t... more Dominance of the left hemisphere for many aspects of speech production and perception is one of the best known examples of functional hemispheric asymmetries in the human brain. Classic theories about its ontogenesis assume that it is determined by the same ontogenetic factors as handedness because the two traits are correlated to some extent. However, the strength of this correlation depends on the measures used to assess the two traits, and the neurophysiological basis of language lateralization is different from that of handedness. Therefore, we argue that although the two traits show partial pleiotropy, there is also a substantial amount of independent ontogenetic influences for each of them. This view is supported by several recent genetic and neuroscientific studies that are reviewed in the present article.
Neuropsychologia, 2012
Error processing is associated with distinct event-related potential components (ERPs), i.e. the ... more Error processing is associated with distinct event-related potential components (ERPs), i.e. the error-related negativity (ERN) which occurs within approximately 150 ms and is typically more pronounced than the correct-response negativity (CRN), and the error positivity (Pe) emerging from about 200 to 400 ms after an erroneous response. The short latency of the ERN suggests that the internal error monitoring system acts on rapidly available central information such as an efference copy signal rather than slower peripheral feedback. The cerebellum has been linked to an internal forward-model which enables online performance monitoring by predicting the sensory consequences of actions, most probably by making use of efference copies. In the present study it was hypothesized that the cerebellum is involved in the fast evaluation of saccadic response accuracy as reflected by the ERN. Error processing on an antisaccade task was investigated in eight patients with focal vascular lesions to the cerebellum and 22 control subjects using ERPs. While error rates were comparable between groups, saccadic reaction times (SRTs) were enhanced in the patients, and the error-correct difference waveforms showed reduced amplitudes for patients relative to controls in the ERN time window. Notably, this effect was mainly driven by an increased CRN in the patients. In the later Pe time window, the difference signal yielded higher amplitudes in patients compared to controls mainly because of smaller Pe amplitudes on correct trials in patients. The altered ERN/CRN pattern suggests that the cerebellum is critically involved in fast classification of saccadic accuracy. Largely intact performance accuracy together with increased SRTs and the altered Pe pattern may indicate a compensatory mechanism presumably related to slower, more conscious aspects of error processing in the patients.
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Papers by Jutta Peterburs