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Decreasing Alertness Modulates Perceptual Decision-Making.

Sridhar R Jagannathan1, Corinne A Bareham2,3,4,5, Tristan A Bekinschtein1

  • 1Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, CB2 3EB, United Kingdom srj34@cam.ac.uk tb419@cam.ac.uk.

The Journal of Neuroscience : the Official Journal of the Society for Neuroscience
|November 24, 2021
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Cognitive decision-making falters with decreased alertness, showing slower responses and altered brain activity. The brain reconfigures neural networks to compensate for reduced alertness during decision tasks.

Keywords:
alertnessarousalattentiondecision-makingevidence accumulationreconfiguration

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Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Neuroscience
  • Neuroscience
  • Decision-Making Research

Background:

  • Decision-making relies on integrating external information and prior knowledge.
  • Understanding how alertness impacts cognitive and neural decision-making processes is limited.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To characterize the cognitive and neural dynamics of perceptual decision-making during varying alertness levels.
  • To identify compensatory mechanisms in the brain as alertness decreases.

Main Methods:

  • Used electroencephalography (EEG) and behavioral modeling (psychophysics, signal detection theory, drift-diffusion modeling).
  • Human participants (14 male, 18 female) performed an auditory tone-localization task during full wakefulness and low alertness.
  • Multivariate pattern analysis (decoding) was employed to analyze neural signatures.

Main Results:

  • Low alertness led to slower reaction times, spatial inattention, and reduced evidence accumulation.
  • Neural signatures differentiating decisions showed a delayed onset (∼280 ms) and spatial reconfiguration (centroparietal to lateral frontal regions).
  • Compensatory mechanisms involved a shift in neural activity associated with evidence accumulation from right parietal to right frontoparietal regions.

Conclusions:

  • Decreased alertness significantly modulates decision-making processes, affecting evidence accumulation and neural dynamics.
  • The brain exhibits network reconfigurations to maintain decision-making function under reduced alertness.
  • This study reveals brain network resilience mechanisms when cognition is challenged by decreased alertness.