A11
Does the thalamus play a role in human goal-directed behavior?
Over the last two decades evidence has accumulated that - besides prefrontal cortex regions - specific subcortical structures play a pivotal role in cognitive control processes, such as the striatum, pallidum, substantia nigra, amygdala, cerebellum, and the thalamus. Of these the human thalamus is the least investigated, which is surprising, because of
(i) its neuroanatomical complexity, (ii) its strategically important position connecting the basal ganglia to the cerebral cortex and distinct cerebral cortex areas with each other, and (iii) because pioneering studies in animals and humans show that distinct thalamic nuclei are critical for separable subcomponents of cognitive control processes. In the past, research on the thalamus in humans in vivo has been hindered by its misconception as one unitary entity that solves low-level functions and by the technical challenge to investigate the separate thalamic nuclei in humans in vivo. Our goal in this project is to make a first step in assessing the role of the thalamus, its distinct nuclei, and its connectivity to prefrontal cortices in a subset of those human cognitive control processes that are key ingredients of several CRC projects, i.e., adaptation to novel rules and contexts. The project will include two well-established experimental designs and a recently developed high-resolution neuroimaging protocol that surmounts previous technical challenges of imaging thalamic nuclei in humans in vivo. In addition, we plan formal structural and functional meta-analyses on existing neuroimaging studies to explore thalamus involvement on a broad range of cognitive control processes. We expect that the project will make three major impacts. First, the results will provide novel insights on the neuroscientific mechanisms of adaptation to novel rules and contexts. Based on pilot results, we expect that the contribution of distinct thalamus nuclei is vital for a more mechanistic understanding of these processes. This hypothesis will also be tested in collaboration with A9. Second, the results are not only important from a basic science perspective, but also for patient populations with cognitive control difficulties. Of these, Anorexia Nervosa, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, and drug addiction are particularly relevant as these disorders are associated with thalamic alterations
and dysfunction. We plan to collaborate with C1 and C3 to test whether dysfunctional adaptive behaviour might be partly explained by thalamic alterations. Third, the formal meta-analyses will provide a first step to a comprehensive understanding of a broad set of cognitive control processes and their relation to thalamus function. The results will be
a solid basis for generating novel and testable hypothesis for further funding initiatives.
Project Members
Principal Investigators
Prof. Dr. Katharina von Kriegstein
Professor of Cognitive and Clinical Neuroscience
Phone: +49 (0)351 - 463-43901
E-Mail:
Prof. Dr. rer. nat. Hannes Ruge
Assistant Professor
Phone: +49 (0)351 463-33824
E-Mail:
PhD Student
Publications
Ruge H, Schäfer TA, Zwosta K, Mohr H, Wolfensteller U (2019). Neural representation of newly instructed rule identities during early implementation trials. Elife, 8, e48293. https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.48293
Zwosta K, Ruge H, Goschke T, Wolfensteller U (2018). Habit strength is predicted by activity dynamics in goal-directed brain systems during training. Neuroimage, 165, 125-137. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2017.09.062
Mihai PG, Moerel M, de Martino F, Trampel R, Kiebel S, von Kriegstein K. (2019). Modulation of tonotopic ventral medial geniculate body is behaviorally relevant for speech recognition. Elife, 8. https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.44837