A generalized cortical activity pattern at internally-generated mental context boundaries during unguided narrative recall

  1. Hongmi Lee  Is a corresponding author
  2. Janice Chen
  1. Johns Hopkins University, United States

Abstract

Current theory and empirical studies suggest that humans segment continuous experiences into events based on the mismatch between predicted and actual sensory inputs; detection of these 'event boundaries' evokes transient neural responses. However, boundaries can also occur at transitions between internal mental states, without relevant external input changes. To what extent do such 'internal boundaries' share neural response properties with externally-driven boundaries? We conducted an fMRI experiment where subjects watched a series of short movies and then verbally recalled the movies, unprompted, in the order of their choosing. During recall, transitions between movies thus constituted major boundaries between internal mental contexts, generated purely by subjects' unguided thoughts. Following the offset of each recalled movie, we observed stereotyped spatial activation patterns in the default mode network, especially the posterior medial cortex, consistent across different movie contents and even across the different tasks of movie watching and recall. Surprisingly, the between-movie boundary patterns did not resemble patterns at boundaries between events within a movie. Thus, major transitions between mental contexts elicit neural phenomena shared across internal and external modes and distinct from within-context event boundary detection, potentially reflecting a cognitive state related to the flushing and reconfiguration of situation models.

Data availability

The raw neuroimaging and behavioral data analyzed in the current study are publicly available via OpenNeuro (https://doi.org/10.18112/openneuro.ds004042.v1.0.0). Source data files have been provided for Figure 1-figure supplement 3, Figure 3, Figure 3-figure supplements 2, 3, & 4, Figure 4, Figure 4-figure supplements 1 & 2, Figure 5, and Figure 5-figure supplements 1 & 2.

Article and author information

Author details

  1. Hongmi Lee

    Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, United States
    For correspondence
    hongmi.lee@jhu.edu
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-8023-0727
  2. Janice Chen

    Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

Funding

Alfred P. Sloan Foundation (Sloan Research Fellowship)

  • Janice Chen

Google (Google Faculty Research Award)

  • Janice Chen

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Ethics

Human subjects: Informed consent was obtained in accordance with procedures approved by the Princeton University Institutional Review Board (Protocol #5516).

Copyright

© 2022, Lee & Chen

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.

Metrics

  • 2,047
    views
  • 478
    downloads
  • 9
    citations

Views, downloads and citations are aggregated across all versions of this paper published by eLife.

Download links

A two-part list of links to download the article, or parts of the article, in various formats.

Downloads (link to download the article as PDF)

Open citations (links to open the citations from this article in various online reference manager services)

Cite this article (links to download the citations from this article in formats compatible with various reference manager tools)

  1. Hongmi Lee
  2. Janice Chen
(2022)
A generalized cortical activity pattern at internally-generated mental context boundaries during unguided narrative recall
eLife 11:e73693.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.73693

Share this article

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.73693

Further reading

    1. Neuroscience
    Jakob Rupert, Dragomir Milovanovic
    Insight

    By influencing calcium homeostasis, local protein synthesis and the endoplasmic reticulum, a small protein called Rab10 emerges as a crucial cytoplasmic regulator of neuropeptide secretion.

    1. Neuroscience
    Brian C Ruyle, Sarah Masud ... Jose A Morón
    Research Article

    Millions of Americans suffering from Opioid Use Disorders face a high risk of fatal overdose due to opioid-induced respiratory depression (OIRD). Fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid, is a major contributor to the rising rates of overdose deaths. Reversing fentanyl overdoses has proved challenging due to its high potency and the rapid onset of OIRD. We assessed the contributions of central and peripheral mu opioid receptors (MORs) in mediating fentanyl-induced physiological responses. The peripherally restricted MOR antagonist naloxone methiodide (NLXM) both prevented and reversed OIRD to a degree comparable to that of naloxone (NLX), indicating substantial involvement of peripheral MORs to OIRD. Interestingly, NLXM-mediated OIRD reversal did not produce aversive behaviors observed after NLX. We show that neurons in the nucleus of the solitary tract (nTS), the first central synapse of peripheral afferents, exhibit a biphasic activity profile following fentanyl exposure. NLXM pretreatment attenuates this activity, suggesting that these responses are mediated by peripheral MORs. Together, these findings establish a critical role for peripheral MORs, including ascending inputs to the nTS, as sites of dysfunction during OIRD. Furthermore, selective peripheral MOR antagonism could be a promising therapeutic strategy for managing OIRD by sparing CNS-driven acute opioid-associated withdrawal and aversion observed after NLX.