@article{WartenburgerHeekerenPreusseetal.2009, author = {Wartenburger, Isabell and Heekeren, Hauke R. and Preusse, Franziska and Kramer, J{\"u}rg and van der Meer, Elke}, title = {Cerebral correlates of analogical processing and their modulation by training}, issn = {1053-8119}, doi = {10.1016/j.neuroimage.2009.06.025}, year = {2009}, abstract = {There is increasing interest ill understanding the neural systems that mediate analogical thinking, which is essential for learning and fluid intelligence. The aim of the present study was to shed light on the cerebral correlates of geometric analogical processing and on training-induced changes at the behavioral and brain level. In healthy participants a bilateral fronto-parietal network was engaged in processing geometric analogies and showed greater blood oxygenation dependent (BOLD) signals as resource demands increased. This network, as well as fusiform and subcortical brain regions, additionally showed training-induced decreases in the BOLD signal over time. The general finding that brain regions were modulated by the amount of resources demanded by the task, and/or by the reduction of allocated resources due to short term training, reflects increased efficiency - in terms of more focal and more specialized brain activation - to more economically process the geometric analogies. Our data indicate a rapid adaptation of the cognitive system which is efficiently modulated by short term training based on a positive correlation of resource demands and brain activation.}, language = {en} } @article{WartenburgerHeekerenBurchertetal.2004, author = {Wartenburger, Isabell and Heekeren, Hauke R. and Burchert, Frank and Heinemann, Steffi and De Bleser, Ria and Villringer, Arno}, title = {Neural correlates of syntactic transformations}, issn = {1065-9471}, year = {2004}, abstract = {Many agrammatic aphasics have a specific syntactic comprehension deficit involving processing syntactic transformations. It has been proposed that this deficit is due to a dysfunction of Broca's area, an area that is thought to be critical for comprehension of complex transformed sentences. The goal of this study was to investigate the role of Broca's area in processing canonical and non-canonical sentences in healthy subjects. The sentences were presented auditorily and were controlled for task difficulty. Subjects were asked to judge the grammaticality of the sentences while their brain activity was monitored using event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging. Processing both kinds of sentences resulted in activation of language-related brain regions. Comparison of non-canonical and canonical sentences showed greater activation in bilateral temporal regions; a greater activation of Broca's area in processing antecedent-gap relations was not found. Moreover, the posterior part of Broca's area was conjointly activated by both sentence conditions. Broca's area is thus involved in general syntactic processing as required by grammaticality judgments and does not seem to have a specific role in processing syntactic transformations. (C) 2004 Wiley-Liss, Inc}, language = {en} } @article{WartenburgerHeekerenAbutalebietal.2003, author = {Wartenburger, Isabell and Heekeren, Hauke R. and Abutalebi, Jubin and Cappa, Stefano F. and Villringer, Arno and Perani, Daniela}, title = {Early setting of grammatical processing in the bilingual brain}, issn = {0896-6273}, year = {2003}, language = {en} } @article{WartenburgerBurchertHeekerenetal.2003, author = {Wartenburger, Isabell and Burchert, Frank and Heekeren, Hauke R. and De Bleser, Ria and Villringer, Arno}, title = {Grammaticality judgments on sentences with and without movement of phrasal constituents : an event-related fMRI study}, issn = {0911-6044}, year = {2003}, language = {en} } @article{vanderMeerBeyerHornetal.2010, author = {van der Meer, Elke and Beyer, Reinhard and Horn, Judith and Foth, Manja and Bornemann, Boris and Ries, Jan and Kramer, J{\"u}rg and Warmuth, Elke and Heekeren, Hauke R. and Wartenburger, Isabell}, title = {Resource allocation and fluid intelligence ; insights from pupillometry}, issn = {0048-5772}, year = {2010}, language = {en} } @article{ScheibeWartenburgerWuestenbergetal.2006, author = {Scheibe, Christina and Wartenburger, Isabell and W{\"u}stenberg, Torsten and Kathmann, Norbert and Villringer, Arno and Heekeren, Hauke R.}, title = {Neural correlates of the interaction between transient and sustained processes : a mixed blocked/event-related fMRI study}, issn = {1065-9471}, year = {2006}, language = {en} } @article{PrehnWartenburgerMeriauetal.2008, author = {Prehn, Kristin and Wartenburger, Isabell and M{\´e}riau, Katja and Scheibe, Christina and Goodenough, Oliver R. and Villringer, Arno and van der Meer, Elke and Heekeren, Hauke R.}, title = {Individual differences in moral judgment competence influence neural correlates of socio-normative judgments}, issn = {1749-5016}, year = {2008}, language = {en} } @article{PassowWesterhausenWartenburgeretal.2012, author = {Passow, Susanne and Westerhausen, Rene and Wartenburger, Isabell and Hugdahl, Kenneth and Heekeren, Hauke R. and Lindenberger, Ulman and Li, Shu-Chen}, title = {Human aging compromises attentional control of auditory perception}, series = {Psychology and aging}, volume = {27}, journal = {Psychology and aging}, number = {1}, publisher = {American Psychological Association}, address = {Washington}, issn = {0882-7974}, doi = {10.1037/a0025667}, pages = {99 -- 105}, year = {2012}, abstract = {Older adults often experience hearing difficulties in multitalker situations. Attentional control of auditory perception is crucial in situations where a plethora of auditory inputs compete for further processing. We combined an intensity-modulated dichotic listening paradigm with attentional manipulations to study adult age differences in the interplay between perceptual saliency and attentional control of auditory processing. When confronted with two competing sources of verbal auditory input, older adults modulated their attention less flexibly and were more driven by perceptual saliency than younger adults. These findings suggest that aging severely impairs the attentional regulation of auditory perception.}, language = {en} } @article{PassowWesterhausenHugdahletal.2014, author = {Passow, Susanne and Westerhausen, Rene and Hugdahl, Kenneth and Wartenburger, Isabell and Heekeren, Hauke R. and Lindenberger, Ulman and Li, Shu-Chen}, title = {Electrophysiological correlates of adult age differences in attentional control of auditory processing}, series = {Cerebral cortex}, volume = {24}, journal = {Cerebral cortex}, number = {1}, publisher = {Oxford Univ. Press}, address = {Cary}, issn = {1047-3211}, doi = {10.1093/cercor/bhs306}, pages = {249 -- 260}, year = {2014}, abstract = {In addition to sensory decline, age-related losses in auditory perception also reflect impairments in attentional modulation of perceptual saliency. Using an attention and intensity-modulated dichotic listening paradigm, we investigated electrophysiological correlates of processing conflicts between attentional focus and perceptual saliency in 25 younger and 26 older adults. Participants were instructed to attend to the right or left ear, and perceptual saliency was manipulated by varying the intensities of both ears. Attentional control demand was higher in conditions when attentional focus and perceptual saliency favored opposing ears than in conditions without such conflicts. Relative to younger adults, older adults modulated their attention less flexibly and were more influenced by perceptual saliency. Our results show, for the first time, that in younger adults a late negativity in the event-related potential (ERP) at fronto-central and parietal electrodes was sensitive to perceptual-attentional conflicts during auditory processing (N450 modulation effect). Crucially, the magnitude of the N450 modulation effect correlated positively with task performance. In line with lower attentional flexibility, the ERP waveforms of older adults showed absence of the late negativity and the modulation effect. This suggests that aging compromises the activation of the frontoparietal attentional network when processing the competing and conflicting auditory information.}, language = {en} } @article{PassowMuellerWesterhausenetal.2013, author = {Passow, Susanne and M{\"u}ller, Maike and Westerhausen, Rene and Hugdahl, Kenneth and Wartenburger, Isabell and Heekeren, Hauke R. and Lindenberger, Ulman and Li, Shu-Chen}, title = {Development of attentional control of verbal auditory perception from middle to late childhood - comparisons to healthy aging}, series = {Developmental psychology}, volume = {49}, journal = {Developmental psychology}, number = {10}, publisher = {American Psychological Association}, address = {Washington}, issn = {0012-1649}, doi = {10.1037/a0031207}, pages = {1982 -- 1993}, year = {2013}, abstract = {Multitalker situations confront listeners with a plethora of competing auditory inputs, and hence require selective attention to relevant information, especially when the perceptual saliency of distracting inputs is high. This study augmented the classical forced-attention dichotic listening paradigm by adding an interaural intensity manipulation to investigate developmental differences in the interplay between perceptual saliency and attentional control during auditory processing between early and middle childhood. We found that older children were able to flexibly focus on instructed auditory inputs from either the right or the left ear, overcoming the effects of perceptual saliency. In contrast, younger children implemented their attentional focus less efficiently. Direct comparisons of the present data with data from a recently published study of younger and older adults from our group suggest that younger children and older adults show similar levels of performance. Critically, follow-up comparisons revealed that younger children's performance restrictions reflect difficulties in attentional control only, whereas older adults' performance deficits also reflect an exaggerated reliance on perceptual saliency. We conclude that auditory attentional control improves considerably from middle to late childhood and that auditory attention deficits in healthy aging cannot be reduced to a simple reversal of child developmental improvements.}, language = {en} } @article{MeriauWartenburgerKazzeretal.2009, author = {M{\´e}riau, Katja and Wartenburger, Isabell and Kazzer, Philipp and Prehn, Kristin and Villringer, Arno and van der Meer, Elke and Heekeren, Hauke R.}, title = {Insular activity during passive viewing of aversive stimuli reflects individual differences in state negative affect}, issn = {0278-2626}, doi = {10.1016/j.bandc.2008.05.006}, year = {2009}, abstract = {People differ with regard to how they perceive, experience, and express negative affect. While trait negative affect reflects a stable, sustained personality trait, state negative affect represents a stimulus limited and temporally acute emotion. So far, little is known about the neural systems mediating the relationship between negative affect and acute emotion processing. To address this issue we investigated in a healthy female sample how individual differences in state negative affect are reflected in changes in blood oxygen level-dependent responses during passive viewing of emotional stimuli. To assess autonomic arousal we simultaneously recorded changes in skin conductance level. At the psychophysiological level we found increased skin conductance level in response to aversive relative to neutral pictures. However, there was no association of state negative affect with skin conductance level. At the neural level we found that high state negative affect was associated with increased left insular activity during passive viewing of aversive stimuli. The insula has been implicated in interoceptive processes and in the integration of sensory, visceral, and affective information thus contributing to subjective emotional experience. Greater recruitment of the insula in response to aversive relative to neutral stimuli in subjects with high state negative affect may represent increased processing of salient aversive stimuli.}, language = {en} } @article{MeriauWartenburgerKazzeretal.2006, author = {M{\´e}riau, Katja and Wartenburger, Isabell and Kazzer, Philipp and Prehn, Kristin and Lammers, Claas-Hinrich and van der Meer, Elke and Villringer, Arno and Heekeren, Hauke R.}, title = {A neural network reflecting individual differences in cognitive processing of emotions during perceptual decision making}, issn = {1053-8119}, year = {2006}, language = {en} } @article{MellHeekerenMarschneretal.2005, author = {Mell, Thomas and Heekeren, Hauke R. and Marschner, Alexander and Wartenburger, Isabell and Villringer, Arno and Reischies, Friedel M.}, title = {Effect of aging on stimulus-reward association learning}, issn = {0028-3932}, year = {2005}, abstract = {The flexible learning of stimulus-reward associations when required by situational context is essential for everyday behavior. Older adults experience a progressive decline in several cognitive functions and show deficiencies in neuropsychological tasks requiring flexible adaptation to external feedback, which could be related to impairments in reward association learning. To study the effect of aging on stimulus-reward association learning 20 young and 20 older adults performed a probabilistic object reversal task (pORT) along with a battery of tests assessing executive functions and general intellectual abilities. The pORT requires learning and reversing associations between actions and their outcomes. Older participants collected fewer points, needed more trials to reach the learning criterion, and completed less blocks successfully compared to young adults. This difference remained statistically significant after correcting for the age effect of other tests assessing executive functions. This suggests that there is an age-related difference in reward association learning as measured using the pORT, which is not closely related to other executive functions with respect to the age effect. In human aging, structural alterations of reward detecting structures and functional changes of the dopaminergic as well as the serotonergic system might contribute to the deficit in reward association learning observed in this study. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved}, language = {en} } @article{MarschnerMellWartenburgeretal.2005, author = {Marschner, Alexander and Mell, Thomas and Wartenburger, Isabell and Villringer, Arno and Reischies, Friedel M. and Heekeren, Hauke R.}, title = {Reward-based decision-making and aging}, issn = {0361-9230}, year = {2005}, language = {en} } @article{LausbergKazzerHeekerenetal.2015, author = {Lausberg, Hedda and Kazzer, Philipp and Heekeren, Hauke R. and Wartenburger, Isabell}, title = {Pantomiming tool use with an imaginary tool in hand as compared to demonstration with tool in hand specifically modulates the left middle and superior temporal gyri}, series = {Cortex : a journal devoted to the study of the nervous system and behaviour}, volume = {71}, journal = {Cortex : a journal devoted to the study of the nervous system and behaviour}, publisher = {Elsevier}, address = {Milano}, issn = {0010-9452}, pages = {1 -- 14}, year = {2015}, abstract = {Neuropsychological lesion studies evidence the necessity to differentiate between various forms of tool-related actions such as real tool use, tool use demonstration with tool in hand and without physical target object, and pantomime without tool in hand. However, thus far, neuroimaging studies have primarily focused only on investigating tool use pantomimes. The present fMRI study investigates pantomime without tool in hand as compared to tool use demonstration with tool in hand in order to explore patterns of cerebral signal modulation associated with acting with imaginary tools in hand. Fifteen participants performed with either hand (i) tool use pantomime with an imaginary tool in hand in response to visual tool presentation and (ii) tool use demonstration with tool in hand in response to visual-tactile tool presentation. In both conditions, no physical target object was present. The conjunction analysis of the right and left hands executions of tool use pantomime relative to tool use demonstration yielded significant activity in the left middle and superior temporal lobe. In contrast, demonstration relative to pantomime revealed large bihemispherically distributed homologous areas of activity. Thus far, fMRI studies have demonstrated the relevance of the left middle and superior temporal gyri in viewing, naming, and matching tools and related actions and contexts. Since in our study all these factors were equally (ir)relevant both in the tool use pantomime and the tool use demonstration conditions, the present findings enhance the knowledge about the function of these brain regions in tool-related cognitive processes. The two contrasted conditions only differ regarding the fact that the pantomime condition requires the individual to act with an imaginary tool in hand. Therefore, we suggest that the left middle and superior temporal gyri are specifically involved in integrating the projected mental image of a tool in the execution of a tool-specific movement concept. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.}, language = {en} } @article{HeekerenWartenburgerSchmidtetal.2003, author = {Heekeren, Hauke R. and Wartenburger, Isabell and Schmidt, Helge and Schwintowski, Hans-Peter and Villringer, Arno}, title = {An fMRI study of simple ethical decision-making}, issn = {0959-4965}, year = {2003}, language = {en} } @article{HeekerenWartenburgerSchmidtetal.2005, author = {Heekeren, Hauke R. and Wartenburger, Isabell and Schmidt, Helge and Prehn, Kristin and Schwintowski, Hans-Peter and Villringer, Arno}, title = {Influence of bodily harm on neural correlates of semantic and moral decision-making}, issn = {1053-8119}, year = {2005}, abstract = {Moral decision-making is central to everyday social life because the evaluation of the actions of another agent or our own actions made with respect to the norms and values guides our behavior in a community. There is previous evidence that the presence of bodily harm-even if irrelevant for a decision-may affect the decision-making, process. While recent neuroimaging studies found a common neural substrate of moral decision-making, the role of bodily harm has not been systematically studied so far. Here we used event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate how behavioral and neural correlates of semantic and moral decision-making processes are modulated by the presence of direct bodily harm or violence in the stimuli. Twelve participants made moral and semantic decisions about sentences describing actions of agents that either contained bodily harm or not and that could easily be judged as being good or bad or correct/incorrect, respectively. During moral and semantic decision-making, the presence of bodily harm resulted in faster response times (RT) and weaker activity in the temporal poles relative to trials devoid of bodily harm/violence, indicating a processing advantage and reduced processing depth for violence-related linguistic stimuli. Notably, there was no increase in activity in the amygdala and the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) in response to trials containing bodily harm. These findings might be a correlate of limited generation of the semantic and emotional context in the anterior temporal poles during the evaluation of actions of another agent related to violence that is made with respect to the norms and values guiding our behavior in a community. (C) 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved}, language = {en} } @article{HeekerenWartenburgerMarschneretal.2007, author = {Heekeren, Hauke R. and Wartenburger, Isabell and Marschner, Alexander and Mell, Thomas and Villringer, Arno and Reischies, Friedel M.}, title = {Role of ventral striatum in reward-based decision making}, issn = {0959-4965}, year = {2007}, language = {en} } @article{FatfoutaMeshiMerkletal.2016, author = {Fatfouta, Ramzi and Meshi, Dar and Merkl, Angela and Heekeren, Hauke R.}, title = {Accepting unfairness by a significant other is associated with reduced connectivity between medial prefrontal and dorsal anterior cingulate cortex}, series = {Social Neuroscience}, volume = {13}, journal = {Social Neuroscience}, number = {1}, publisher = {Routledge, Taylor \& Francis Group}, address = {Abingdon}, issn = {1747-0919}, doi = {10.1080/17470919.2016.1252795}, pages = {61 -- 73}, year = {2016}, abstract = {Conflict is a ubiquitous feature of interpersonal relationships, yet many of these relationships preserve their value following conflict. Our ability to refrain from punishment despite the occurrence of conflict is a characteristic of human beings. Using a combination of behavioral and neuroimaging techniques, we show that prosocial decision-making is modulated by relationship closeness. In an iterated social exchange, participants were more likely to cooperate with their partner compared to an unknown person by accepting unfair exchanges. Importantly, this effect was not influenced by how resources were actually being shared with one's partner. The medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) was activated when the partner, rather than the unknown person, behaved unfairly and, in the same context, the MPFC demonstrated greater functional connectivity with the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (DACC). MPFC-DACC connectivity was inversely associated with participants' tendency to "forgive" their partner for unfairness as well as performance outside the scanner on a behavioral measure of forgiveness. We conclude that relationship closeness modulates a neural network comprising the MPFC/DACC during economic exchanges.}, language = {en} }