Intra- and interindividual differences in lateralized cognitive performance and asymmetrical EEG activity in the frontal cortex

The study shows that changes in relative verbal vs. figural working memory and fluency performance from one session to a second session two to 3 weeks apart covary with spontaneously occurring changes of cortical asymmetry in the lateral frontal and central cortex, measured by electroencephalography (EEG) in resting conditions before the execution of tasks. That is, it was examined whether the current state of cortical asymmetry predicts verbal vs. figural performance. The findings complete the circle from studies showing correlations between changes of EEG asymmetry in the lateral frontal cortex and changes of mood to studies showing correlations between changes of mood and changes of relative verbal vs. figural working memory and fluency performance. The study suggests that state-dependent changes of lateralized cortical activity may underlie certain cognitive-emotional interactions observed in previous studies, and supports the assumption of reciprocal influences of specific emotional and specific cognitive processes.

[1]  Á. Pascual-Leone,et al.  Reciprocal modulation and attenuation in the prefrontal cortex: An fMRI study on emotional–cognitive interaction , 2004, Human brain mapping.

[2]  J. Palva,et al.  New vistas for α-frequency band oscillations , 2007, Trends in Neurosciences.

[3]  R. Davidson,et al.  Alterations in Brain and Immune Function Produced by Mindfulness Meditation , 2003, Psychosomatic medicine.

[4]  G. Lienert,et al.  Hand-Dominanz-Test , 1971 .

[5]  R. Davidson,et al.  Anterior electrophysiological asymmetries, emotion, and depression: conceptual and methodological conundrums. , 1998, Psychophysiology.

[6]  J. P. Kline,et al.  Anterior electroencephalographic asymmetry changes in elderly women in response to a pleasant and an unpleasant odor , 2000, Biological Psychology.

[7]  T. Glauser,et al.  Effects of experimentally-induced emotional states on frontal lobe cognitive task performance , 1999, Neuropsychologia.

[8]  J. Lurito,et al.  Word rhyming as a probe of hemispheric language dominance with functional magnetic resonance imaging. , 2000, Neuropsychiatry, neuropsychology, and behavioral neurology.

[9]  D. Boles,et al.  Factor analysis and the cerebral hemispheres: Temporal, occipital and frontal functions , 1992, Neuropsychologia.

[10]  Jeffrey B. Henriques,et al.  Asymmetrical brain electrical activity discriminates between psychometrically-matched verbal and spatial cognitive tasks. , 1990, Psychophysiology.

[11]  I. Papousek,et al.  Quantitative assessment of five behavioural laterality measures: distributions of scores and intercorrelations among right-handers. , 1999, Laterality.

[12]  P. D. West,et al.  Assessment of the relationship of cerebral hemisphere arousal asymmetry to perceptual asymmetry , 1992, Brain and Cognition.

[13]  Sharon L. Thompson-Schill,et al.  Role of the left inferior frontal gyrus in covert word retrieval: Neural correlates of switching during verbal fluency , 2006, Neuropsychologia.

[14]  M. D’Esposito,et al.  Functional MRI studies of spatial and nonspatial working memory. , 1998, Brain research. Cognitive brain research.

[15]  S. Uijtdehaage,et al.  Relationship between brain electrical activity and cortical perfusion in normal subjects , 1999, Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging.

[16]  Wendy Heller,et al.  regional Brain Activity in Emotion: A Framework for Understanding Cognition in Depresion , 1997 .

[17]  Y. Suchy,et al.  Evaluating the role of motor regulation in figural fluency: Partialing variance in the Ruff Figural Fluency Test , 2008, Journal of clinical and experimental neuropsychology.

[18]  K. Hugdahl.  Brain Laterality - Beyond the Basics , 1996 .

[19]  P. Venables,et al.  Research in Psychophysiology , 1975 .

[20]  R. E. Gur,et al.  Lateralized Increases in Cerebral Blood Flow during Performance of Verbal and Spatial Tasks: Relationship with Performance Level , 1994, Brain and Cognition.

[21]  Richard S. J. Frackowiak,et al.  The neural correlates of the verbal component of working memory , 1993, Nature.

[22]  I. Papousek,et al.  EEG Correlates of Behavioural Laterality: Ear Dominance , 2002, Perceptual and motor skills.

[23]  T. Klingberg,et al.  Common and unique components of inhibition and working memory: An fMRI, within-subjects investigation , 2008, Neuropsychologia.

[24]  P. Nunez.  Toward a quantitative description of large-scale neocortical dynamic function and EEG , 2000, Behavioral and Brain Sciences.

[25]  R. T. Pivik,et al.  Guidelines for the recording and quantitative analysis of electroencephalographic activity in research contexts. , 1993, Psychophysiology.

[26]  R. Davidson.  Emotion and Affective Style: Hemispheric Substrates , 1992 .

[27]  E. Harmon-Jones,et al.  State anger and prefrontal brain activity: evidence that insult-related relative left-prefrontal activation is associated with experienced anger and aggression. , 2001, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[28]  J. Henry,et al.  A meta-analytic review of verbal fluency performance following focal cortical lesions. , 2004, Neuropsychology.

[29]  Philip A. Gable,et al.  The role of asymmetric frontal cortical activity in emotion-related phenomena: A review and update , 2010, Biological Psychology.

[30]  P. Ekman,et al.  Approach-withdrawal and cerebral asymmetry: emotional expression and brain physiology. I. , 1990, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[31]  E E Smith,et al.  Components of verbal working memory: evidence from neuroimaging. , 1998, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[32]  I. Kiss,et al.  Modality-specific control processes in verbal versus spatial working memory , 2010, Brain Research.

[33]  A. Glass,et al.  Individual Differences in Hemispheric Specialization , 1987, NATO ASI Series.

[34]  Gary H. Glover,et al.  Development of Spatial and Verbal Working Memory Capacity in the Human Brain , 2009, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[35]  John J. B. Allen,et al.  Issues and assumptions on the road from raw signals to metrics of frontal EEG asymmetry in emotion , 2004, Biological Psychology.

[36]  J. Lisman,et al.  Oscillations in the alpha band (9-12 Hz) increase with memory load during retention in a short-term memory task. , 2002, Cerebral cortex.

[37]  A. Angrilli,et al.  Dysfunctional hemispheric asymmetry of theta and beta EEG activity during linguistic tasks in developmental dyslexia , 2008, Biological Psychology.

[38]  Nicole Y. Weekes,et al.  The effect of a naturalistic stressor on frontal EEG asymmetry, stress, and health , 2007, Biological Psychology.

[39]  E. Martin,et al.  Simultaneous EEG-fMRI during a Working Memory Task: Modulations in Low and High Frequency Bands , 2010, PloS one.

[40]  D. Schutter,et al.  Parietal electroencephalogram beta asymmetry and selective attention to angry facial expressions in healthy human subjects , 2001, Neuroscience Letters.

[41]  Marcus E. Raichle,et al.  Suppression of Regional Cerebral Blood during Emotional versus Higher Cognitive Implications for Interactions between Emotion and Cognition , 1998 .

[42]  Ruben C. Gur,et al.  Cognitive task effects on hemispheric blood flow in humans: Evidence for individual differences in hemispheric activation , 1980, Brain and Language.

[43]  D. Voyer,et al.  Cross-modal correlation of auditory and visual language laterality tasks: A serendipitous finding , 2003, Brain and Cognition.

[44]  Gregory A. Miller,et al.  Regional brain activity in anxiety and depression, cognition/emotion interaction, and emotion regulation. , 2003 .

[45]  W. Ray,et al.  EEG alpha activity reflects attentional demands, and beta activity reflects emotional and cognitive processes. , 1985, Science.

[46]  B. Turetsky,et al.  An fMRI Study of Sex Differences in Regional Activation to a Verbal and a Spatial Task , 2000, Brain and Language.

[47]  Michael C. Corballis,et al.  Anterior–posterior beta asymmetries in dyslexia during lexical decisions , 2003, Brain and Language.

[48]  I. Papousek,et al.  Eeg Correlates of Behavioural Laterality: Right-Handedness , 1999, Perceptual and motor skills.

[49]  R. Barry,et al.  EEG differences between eyes-closed and eyes-open resting conditions , 2007, Clinical Neurophysiology.

[50]  O. Bertrand,et al.  Oscillatory gamma activity in humans and its role in object representation , 1999, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[51]  Gregory P. Lee,et al.  Sensitivity of figural fluency on the five-point test to focal neurological dysfunction , 1997 .

[52]  Günter Schulter,et al.  Covariations of EEG asymmetries and emotional states indicate that activity at frontopolar locations is particularly affected by state factors. , 2002, Psychophysiology.

[53]  J. Jonides,et al.  Brain mechanisms of proactive interference in working memory , 2006, Neuroscience.

[54]  Günter Schulter,et al.  Manipulation of frontal brain asymmetry by cognitive tasks , 2004, Brain and Cognition.

[55]  Richard J. Davidson,et al.  The asymmetrical brain , 2003 .

[56]  A P Shimamura,et al.  Verbal and design fluency in patients with frontal lobe lesions , 2001, Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society.

[57]  I. Papousek,et al.  Effects of emotionally contagious films on changes in hemisphere-specific cognitive performance. , 2009, Emotion.

[58]  J. Hellige,et al.  Individual variation in hemispheric asymmetry: multitask study of effects related to handedness and sex. , 1994, Journal of experimental psychology. General.

[59]  J. Gruzelier.  Individual Differences in Dynamic Process Asymmetries in the Normal and Pathological Brain , 1987 .

[60]  D. Hagemann,et al.  Individual differences in anterior EEG asymmetry: methodological problems and solutions , 2004, Biological Psychology.

[61]  J. G. Snodgrass,et al.  Pragmatics of measuring recognition memory: applications to dementia and amnesia. , 1988, Journal of experimental psychology. General.

[62]  R. Davidson,et al.  Anterior brain electrical asymmetries in response to reward and punishment. , 1992, Electroencephalography and clinical neurophysiology.

[63]  J. Gray,et al.  Emotional modulation of cognitive control: approach-withdrawal states double-dissociate spatial from verbal two-back task performance. , 2001, Journal of experimental psychology. General.

[64]  John J. B. Allen,et al.  Frontal EEG asymmetry as a moderator and mediator of emotion , 2004, Biological Psychology.

[65]  G A Miller,et al.  Patterns of regional brain activity differentiate types of anxiety. , 1997, Journal of abnormal psychology.

[66]  Richard J. Davidson,et al.  Baseline Asymmetries in Brain Electrical Activity Predict Dichotic Listening Performance , 1996 .

[67]  J. Hellige.  Cerebral hemisphere asymmetry: Method, theory, and application , 1983 .

[68]  E. Labouvie,et al.  Measurement of individual differences in intraindividual changes. , 1980 .

[69]  Alessandro Angrilli,et al.  Developmental aspects of language lateralization in delta, theta, alpha and beta EEG bands , 2010, Biological Psychology.

[70]  R. Ruff,et al.  Figural fluency: differential impairment in patients with left versus right frontal lobe lesions. , 1994, Archives of clinical neuropsychology : the official journal of the National Academy of Neuropsychologists.

[71]  Julian F. Thayer,et al.  Does resting electroencephalograph asymmetry reflect a trait? an application of latent state-trait theory. , 2002 .

[72]  R. E. Wheeler,et al.  Psychometric properties of resting anterior EEG asymmetry: temporal stability and internal consistency. , 1992, Psychophysiology.

[73]  J. P. Kline,et al.  Individual differences in anterior EEG asymmetry between high and low defensive individuals during a rumination/distraction task , 2005 .

[74]  D. Harrison,et al.  The Ruff Figural Fluency Test: heightened right frontal lobe delta activity as a function of performance. , 2005, Archives of clinical neuropsychology : the official journal of the National Academy of Neuropsychologists.

[75]  M. Raichle,et al.  Integration of emotion and cognition in the lateral prefrontal cortex , 2002, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[76]  W. Klimesch,et al.  'Paradoxical' alpha synchronization in a memory task. , 1999, Brain research. Cognitive brain research.

[77]  L. Pessoa.  On the relationship between emotion and cognition , 2008, Nature Reviews Neuroscience.

[78]  J. Jonides,et al.  Storage and executive processes in the frontal lobes. , 1999, Science.

[79]  I. Papousek,et al.  Different temporal stability and partial independence of EEG asymmetries from different locations: implications for laterality research. , 1998, The International journal of neuroscience.

[80]  M. Banich,et al.  Are variations among right-handed individuals in perceptual asymmetries caused by characteristic arousal differences between hemispheres? , 1983, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[81]  Richard J Davidson,et al.  Baseline eeg asymmetries and performance on neuropsychological tasks , 1998, Neuropsychologia.

[82]  C. Curtis,et al.  Persistent activity in the prefrontal cortex during working memory , 2003, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[83]  Alex Martin,et al.  Neural systems supporting lexical search guided by letter and semantic category cues: A self-paced overt response fMRI study of verbal fluency , 2010, NeuroImage.

[84]  David Badre,et al.  Frontal lobe mechanisms that resolve proactive interference. , 2005, Cerebral cortex.

[85]  S Makeig,et al.  Human auditory evoked gamma-band magnetic fields. , 1991, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[86]  R. Davidson.  Cognitive Neuroscience Needs Affective Neuroscience (and Vice Versa) , 2000, Brain and Cognition.

[87]  E. Harmon-Jones.  Unilateral right-hand contractions cause contralateral alpha power suppression and approach motivational affective experience. , 2006, Psychophysiology.

[88]  L. Phillips,et al.  The psychological, neurochemical and functional neuroanatomical mediators of the effects of positive and negative mood on executive functions , 2007, Neuropsychologia.

[89]  R. Davidson.  EEG measures of cerebral asymmetry: conceptual and methodological issues. , 1988, The International journal of neuroscience.