New advances in the neural correlates of insight: A decade in review of the insightful brain

The first neuroimaging study of real-time brain activity during insight problem solving was conducted almost ten years ago. Many subsequent studies have used high-resolution event-related potentials (ERPs) and event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate the temporal dynamics and neural correlates of insight. Recent results on the neural underpinnings of insight have led researchers to propose a neural framework referred to as the "insightful brain". This putative framework represents the neural basis of the cognitive and affective processes that are involved in insight. The insightful brain may involve numerous brain regions, including the lateral prefrontal cortex, cingulate cortex, hippocampus, superior temporal gyrus, fusiform gyrus, precuneus, cuneus, insula and cerebellum. Functional studies have demonstrated that the lateral prefrontal cortex is responsible for mental set shifting and breaking during insight problem solving. The cingulate cortex is involved in the cognitive conflict between new and old ideas and progress monitoring. The hippocampus, superior temporal gyrus and fusiform gyrus form an integrated functional network that specializes in the formation of novel and effective associations. The effective transformation of problem representations depends on a non-verbal visuospatial information-processing network that comprises the precuneus and cuneus. The insula reflects cognitive flexibility and the emotional experience that is associated with insight. The cortical control of finger movements relies on the cerebellum.     

Eye contact and Cross-cultural Communication

It is commonly agreed by contemporary scholars that it is important to understand the role of culture and its characteristics and potential impact on individuals engaged in cross-cultural communication. Nonverbal contact, as a medium to convey emotion, attitudes and intention, plays an undeniably vital role in often reveals basic culture traits. Eye The concentration of this paper is to discuss the functions of eye contact in communication, different information conveyed by eye contact on the basis of different cul- tures and the importance of understanding and respecting the rituals of eye contact in cross-cultural     

Resting state brain default network in patients with motor aphasia resulting from cerebral infarction

To explore the brain default mode network （DMN） in patients with motor aphasia resulting from cere- bral infarction, we used resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging （fMRI） to investigate the possible neural mechanism. Thirteen patients with motor aphasia resulting from cerebral infarction and ten matched controls were selected in this study. All subjects were examined using resting state fMRI. We chose the posterior cingulate cortex as the region of interest and then used functional connectivity analysis to calculate the DMN functional connectivity and analyze differences in the functional connectivity between the two groups. Compared with normal controls, aphasia patient group showed a significantly decreased functional connectivity in bilateral medial frontal gyrus, superior frontal gyrus, middle frontal gyrus, middle temporal gyrus, precuneus and cuneus. The aphasia patient group showed increased functional connectivity mainly in bilateral medial frontal gyrus, middle frontal gyrus, inferior frontal gyrus, precentral gyrus, insula. The DMN in cerebral infarction motor aphasia patients showed significantly decreased functional connectivity in the resting state. The DMN most likely plays an important role in motor aphasia resulting from cerebral infarction. Furthermore, functional connectivity inthe brain regions surrounding the left and right Broca＇s areas was significantly enhanced due to compensatory mecha- nisms. This may be helpful for the recovery of language function in cerebral infarction patients with motor aphasia.     

Biological Background of Kh. DIC Mice and Their Learning and Memory Defects

The learning ability of the Kh. DIC mice, a mutant of the Kunming mice, was studied to analyze its memory development. The mice‘s brain function was evaluated using a water maze with the amount of monoamines measured by fluorospectrophotometry and enzyme activities detected by ultraviolet spectrophotometry. The mice were found to have spacial learning and memory defects at the age of 1 month in both ordinary animals and in special pathogen free (SPF) animals. At the same time, the amount of monoamines and the activities of monoamine oxidase-B and dopamine-~-hydroxylase differed from those of the Kunming mice. The defects might be related to the differences in the monoamine neurotransmitter system. The results suggest that the DIC mice may be useful economic animal models for the study of brain defects.     

Single-trial decoding of imagined grip force parameters involving the right or left hand based on movement-related cortical potentials

Time–domain feature representation for imagined grip force movement-related cortical potentials(MRCP)of the right or left hand and the decoding of imagined grip force parameters based on electroencephalogram(EEG)activity recorded during a single trial were here investigated.EEG signals were acquired from eleven healthy subjects during four different imagined tasks performed with the right or left hand.Subjects were instructed to execute imagined grip movement at two different levels of force.Each task was executed 60 times in random order.The imagined grip force MRCP of the right or left hand was analyzed by superposition and averaging technology,a single-trial extraction method,analysis of variance(ANOVA),and multiple comparisons.Significantly different features were observed among different imagined grip force tasks.These differences were used to decode imagined grip force parameters using Fisher linear discrimination analysis based on kernel function(k-FLDA)and support vector machine(SVM).Under the proposed experimental paradigm,the study showed that MRCP may characterize the dynamic processing that takes place in the brain during the planning,execution,and precision of a given imagined grip force task.This means that features related to MRCP can be used to decode imagined grip force parameters based on EEG.ANOVA and multiple comparisons of time–domain features for MRCP showed that movement-monitoring potentials(MMP)and specific interval(0–150 ms)average potentials to be significantly different among 4 different imagined grip force tasks.The minimum peak negativity differed significantly between high and low amplitude grip force.Identification of the 4different imagined grip force tasks based on MMP was performed using k-FLDA and SVM,and the average misclassification rates of 27%±5%and 24%±4%across 11 subjects were achieved respectively.The minimum misclassification rate was 15%,and the average minimum misclassification rate across 11 subjects was24%±4.5%.This investigation indicates that imagined grip force MRCP may encode imagined grip force parameters.Single-trial decoding of imagined grip force parameters based on MRCP may be feasible.The study may provide some additional and fine control instructions for brain–computer interfaces.     

Carbon Nanotube Transistor with Short-Term Memory

Short-Term Memory(STM) is a primary capability of the human brain. Humans use STM to remember a small amount of information, like someone’s phone number, for a short period of time. Usually the duration of STM is less than 1 minute. Synapses, the connections between neurons, are of vital importance to memory in biological brains. For mimicking the memory function of synapses, Carbon Nanotube(CNT) networks based thinfilm transistors with Electric Double Layers(EDL) at the dielectric/channel interface were researched in this work.A response characteristic of pre-synaptic potential pulses on the gate electrode of this CNT synaptic transistor was shown remarkably similar to Excitatory Post-Synaptic Current(EPSC) of biological synapses. Also a multi-level modulatable STM of CNT synaptic transistors was investigated. Post-synaptic current was shown with tunable peak values, on-off ratio, and relaxation time.     

Deactivations during the numerical processing

Deactivation has been encountered frequently in functional brain imaging researches. However, the deactivations during the numerical processing have not been reported yet. In this study, the functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was employed to investigate the pattern of the deactivation in the brain of 15 healthy subjects during the numerical addition task. Analyses revealed significant deactivations in several brain regions, including the posterior cingulate, precuneus, anterior cingulate and prefrontal cortex. Especially, we found notable deactivation in bilateral insula. Accounting for the cognitive functions of these regions participating in a combinated way, we discuss their contributions in sustaining the brain activity during conscious resting state, and indicate that the insula is an important area of gathering auditory information from the external world.     

Interactions between working memory and selective attention

Event-related potential (ERP) was used to examine the interactions between working memory and se- lective attention. We combined two unrelated tasks, one requiring working memory and the other se- lective attention, which were performed by some undergraduates. The ERP results revealed that both congruent and incongruent stimuli in the selective attention task evoked an N400 component, reaching the peak point at around 500 ms. The N400 evoked by incongruent stimuli was more negative than that of congruent, which indicated the difference of semantic N400. Furthermore, working memory load had a significant influence on the N400 evoked by selective attention task in parietal region. And working memory load showed difference in the ERPs of working memory retrieval in central and parietal regions. The ERPs of probe under high working memory load were more positive from 350 to 550 ms post-stimulus; however, stimulus type of selective attention had no influence on working memory re- trieval. The present study shows that working memory does not play a major role in the selective at- tention, especially in ignoring distracter, but it influences the performance of the selective attention as the background. The congruency of target and distracter in the selective attention task does not influ- ence the working memory retrieval.     

An Incremental Time—Delay Neural Network for Dynamical Recurrent Associative Memory

An incremental time-delay neural network based on synapse growth,which is suitable for dynamic control and learning of autonomous robots,is prooposed to improve the learning and retrieving performance of dynamical recurrent associative memory architecture.The model allows steady and continuous establishment of associative memory for spatio-temporal regularities and time series in discrete sequence of inputs.The inserted hiddewn units can be taken as the Long-term memories that expand the capacity of network and sometimes may fade away under certain condition.Preliminary experiment has shown that this incremental netwrok may be a promising approach to endow autonomous robots with the ability of adapting to new data without destroying the learned patterns.The system also bendfits from its potential chaos character for emergence.     

Design for a Novel Framework of Hyper-Heuristic Algorithm

A novel framework of hyper-heuristic algorithm was proposed to improve the adaption of evolutionary algorithms （EAs） in optimization. The algorithm could be changed during the evolutionary progress according to their performances. In addition. a large number of elite individuals were employed in the algorithm and the elite individuals helped algorithm achieve a better performance. while such number of elite individuals stagnated the global convergence in conventional single algorithm. The time complexity was analyzed to demonstrate the novel framework did not increase the time complexity. The simulation results indicate that the proposed framework outperforms any single algorithm that composes the framework.     

Generating Fuzzy Rule-based Systems from Examples Based on Robust Support Vector Machine

This paper firstly proposes a new support vector machine regression （SVR） with a robust loss function, and designs a gradient based algorithm for implementation of the SVR,then uses the SVR to extract fuzzy rules and designs fuzzy rule-based system. Simulations show that fuzzy rule-based system technique based on robust SVR achieves superior performance to the conventional fuzzy inference method, the proposed method provides satisfactory performance with excellent approximation and generalization property than the existing algorithm.     

大脑前额叶皮层自发活动与连接的性别差异

Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) is a non-invasive optical technique for brain functional imaging. The objective of this study is using fNIRS to investigate sex-related differences in the spatial distribution of spontaneous hemodynamic fluctuations and resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC) in the prefrontal cortex. 20 heathy young adults participated in the experiment. 42 optical channels covered the anterior prefrontal cortex (aPFC), dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and the language area (inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and superior temporal gyrus (STG)). 8-min spontaneous hemodynamic fluctuations were recorded from each subject. The spatial distribution of the fluctuation power was calculated for each sex. To quantitatively characterize the degree of RSFC, the temporal correlation coefficients of the fluctuations were computed for all optical channel pairs. Two distinct networks were identified. One involved the aPFC and DLPFC, and the other included the bilateral language areas. Sex-related differences in the spatial distribution of the fluctuation power and RSFC were revealed. Compared with females, males experienced higher power of the fluctuations, especially in the aPFC+DLPFC. Males showed larger intra-network connectivity in the aPFC+DLPFC, whereas females showed larger inter-network connectivity between the language area and aPFC+DLPFC. Our observations might provide functional imaging-based evidence for understanding sex-related differences in behaviors and cognitions.     

Chinese semantic processing cerebral areas

This study has identified the active cerebral areas of normal Chinese that are associated with Chinese semantic processing using functional brain imaging. According to the traditional cognitive theory, semantic processing is not particularly associated with or affected by input modality. The functional brain imaging experiments were conducted to identify the common active areas of two modalities when subjects perform Chinese semantic tasks through reading and listening respectively. The result has shown that the common active areas include left inferior frontal gyrus (BA 44/45), left posterior inferior temporal gyrus (BA37); the joint area of inferior parietal Iobules (BA40) and superior temporal gyrus, the ventral occipital areas and cerebella of both hemispheres. It gives important clue to further discerning the roles of different cerebral areas in Chinese semantic processing.     

A potential ethnic difference in the association between 5-HTTLPR polymorphisms and the brain default mode network

The serotonin-transporter-linked polymorphic region （5-HTTLPR） is associated with mood disorders. This association is thought to be due to amygdala hyper- responsiveness to negative emotional stimuli as a result of reduced frontal cortical control. In Caucasians, the short form is associated with this effect, but in Han Chinese we recently found that the long form is involved. Serotonin receptors have rich expression in default mode network （DMN） regions and the recent studies have found an association between the short form of the 5-HTTLPR and DMN functional connectivity （FC） in Caucasians. The present study has investigated whether there may also be an ethnic difference in this influence of 5-HTTLPR on the DMN. We recruited 233 young Han Chinese subjects and calculated the resting-state default-network FC. Our study found that the L carriers had decreased FC in the bilateral medial prefrontal cortex, right parahippocampal gyrus, left middle temporal gyrus, and increased FC in left precuneus （Pcu） compared to SS. The PCC-Pcu FC in L carriers was significantly negatively correlated with the depression scores. Our findings, therefore, suggest that there is also a difference between Caucasian and Han Chinese subjects in the association between the different forms of the 5-HTTLPR and DMN functional connectivity.     

Hippocampus＇s role in forming ＂task-related＂ associations： Flashing to the things you are looking for

Eichenbaum and colleagues observed that the same place did or did not activate the ＂goal-approach＂ cells in hippocampus depending on whether the place was the way for rats to approach specific goal. Parallel with this, the present neuroimage study revealed that, the same type of items could activate the hippocampus more when it was related to the task at hand than when it not. Participants were scanned by fMRI while they made judgments on the type of relationships contained in the word-pairs （e.g., Does the word pair, ＂furniture-table＂, contain a ＂category-exemplar＂ relationship？）. Event-related analysis revealed that the forming of ＂task-related＂ association activated hippocampus more than that of ＂task-unrelated＂, even if it was the same type of items, and, this hippocampal difference was not caused by the different judgment requirements, nor by the effects of ＂yes＂ response. Consistently, the post-judgment cued-recall test exhibited a better retrieval performance for ＂task-related＂ associations than for the same type but ＂task-unrelated＂ associations. Results also showed that, the semantic relatedness between the to-be-associated individual words （e.g., the related word pair ＂healthy-hospital＂ versus the unrelated word pair ＂price-way＂） was not enough to activate the hippocampus when it was ＂task-unrelated＂. Generally, we proposed that, through participating in forming of ＂task-related＂ associations and consolidating of episodic memory, hippocampus enabled the organism to keep the information that owned great survival values in mind for future usage.     

Entransy analysis of open thermodynamic systems

The concept of entransy developed in recent years can describe the heat transport ability.This paper extends this concept to the open thermodynamic system and defines the concept of enthalpy entransy.The entransy balance equation of steady open thermodynamic systems,as well as the concept of entransy loss,is developed.The entransy balance equation is applied to analyzing and discussing the air standard cycle.It is found that the entransy loss rate can describe the change in net power output from the cycle but the entropy generation rate cannot when the heat absorbed by the working medium is from the combustion reaction of the gas fuel.When the working medium is heated by a high temperature stream,both the maximum entransy loss rate and the minimum entropy generation rate correspond to the maximum net power output from the cycle.Hence,the concept of entransy loss is an appropriate figure of merit that describes the cycle performance.     

ERP instantaneous synchronization analysis based on cross approximate entropy

A complexity estimating algorithm, cross approximate entropy (Cross-ApEn), was developed to analyze the instantaneous synchronization of cognitive ERPs, which could indicate the interactions of different brain regions during selective attention tasks. In order to illustrate the validity of Cross-ApEn’s reflection of instantaneous synchronization, cross covariance was also calculated to compare with the final result. Two main phenomena can be noticed from this investigation: (1) The Cross-ApEn of electrode pairs over frontal and parietal areas became lower during the response period (0—400 ms) in both incongruent and congruent situations. (2) It was shown that Cross-ApEn presents lower value in incongruent situation than that in congruent one during response period (0—400 ms) at most electrode pairs. These results demonstrated that Cross-ApEn is effective to evaluate ERPs’ instantaneous synchronization designating the cooperation of different brain regions and may bring a new view to cognitive neural imaging and recognition.     

ERP instantaneous synchronization analysis based on cross approximate entropy

A complexity estimating algorithm, cross approximate entropy (Cross-ApEn), was developed to analyze the instantaneous synchronization of cognitive ERPs, which could indicate the interactions of different brain regions during selective attention tasks. In order to illustrate the validity of Cross-ApEn’s reflection of instantaneous synchronization, cross covariance was also calculated to compare with the final result. Two main phenomena can be noticed from this investigation: (1) The Cross-ApEn of electrode pairs over frontal and parietal areas became lower during the response period (0—400 ms) in both incongruent and congruent situations. (2) It was shown that Cross-ApEn presents lower value in incongruent situation than that in congruent one during response period (0—400 ms) at most electrode pairs. These results demonstrated that Cross-ApEn is effective to evaluate ERPs’ instantaneous synchronization designating the cooperation of different brain regions and may bring a new view to cognitive neural imaging and recognition.