A team of researchers from Drexel University and the University of Pennsylvania recently conducted a cognitive switch test and concluded that some brains are more naturally wired to switch focus quickly.<\/p>\n
The study is <\/span>published<\/span><\/a> in<\/span> Nature Human Behavior. <\/span><\/p>\n Led by <\/span>John Medaglia<\/span><\/a>, assistant professor of psychology at Drexel\u2019s College of Arts and Sciences, the researchers tested the cognitive flexibility of 30 participants while measuring their brain activity using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). <\/span><\/p>\n Cognitive flexibility<\/span><\/a> is \u201cthe mental ability to switch between thinking about two different concepts, and to think about multiple concepts simultaneously.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n It is one of the executive functions and a skill that is involved in \u201cvirtually every complex behavior we undertake \u2014 from mental arithmetic to driving a car,\u201d according to a <\/span>press release<\/span><\/a> citing Medaglia. <\/span><\/p>\n In the study, during which a different shape flashed in front of the participants every two seconds, they were asked to identify the larger, or global, shape if the image was green and to identify the smaller, or local, shape if the image was white. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cHow fast people can make that transition \u2013 from the global to the local \u2013 is the switch cost, and that\u2019s our index of flexibility,\u201d Medaglia said in a statement. \u201cFor some people, that\u2019s a very jarring, effortful task. Even if you\u2019ve learned the rules very well, it\u2019s hard to make the right decision when things are happening fast.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n To reveal the potential basis for cognitive flexibility, the researchers used a combination of human behavior measures, the brain\u2019s structure and function, and the mathematical system of graph signal processing (GSP) to analyze signals on graphs.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cOur behavior is determined both by the way the brain is structured, and, to some extent, the way it is dynamic, or changes over time,\u201d Medaglia said in a statement. \u201cWe wanted to find a way to study both of those things at the same time.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n The team took the GSP approach, as GSP is a specialty of <\/span>Alejandro Ribeiro<\/span><\/a>, associate professor of electrical and systems engineering at the University of Pennsylvania, and <\/span>Weiyu Huang<\/span><\/a>, doctoral candidate with the Department of Electrical and Systems Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania, according to Medaglia. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIn discussions with Weiyu, we realized that there were many potential opportunities to use GSP to approach the distinct problem of representing brain structure and function in ways that are relevant to cognition,\u201d Medaglia said. \u201cWhen we realized we could represent measured brain function on top of anatomy, we speculated that the idea of \u2018aligning\u2019 signals with anatomy might provide a measure related to cognitive flexibility, and got to work\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n He credits Huang with handling \u201cthe brunt of the analyses.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n During the study, the researchers realized that \u201cGSP could allow us to see whether the way human network anatomy — the pathways that connect brain regions — organizes functional signals measured with fMRI,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n The researchers \u201cthought that the extent to which these brain signals align might be related to cognitive flexibility,\u201d he continued. <\/span><\/p>\n They found that the \u201cswitching\u201d speed varies based on the alignment of the brain signals.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIt turns out that if the signals that diverge most from anatomy are more aligned, people are faster at switching,\u201d said Medaglia. \u201cSo, GSP gave us a window to examine whether anatomy and function come together to support this mental function, and we found evidence that they do.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n The teams believes that this study is key to future research.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThis study is potentially very important because it shows that we can find measures of cooperation between brain anatomy and function that tell us about cognition,\u201d Medaglia said. \u201cIt turns out that it’s really hard to get a measure that is both simple and has a clear interpretation in applied neuroscience. Since we rely on our cognitive flexibility for almost every complex task we do, it’s really crucial that we try to use modern neuroimaging and sophisticated, yet elegant mathematical approaches to get our heads around how the process works in the brain.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n The researchers are hopeful that the new approach could be used as a basis for other studies.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWeiyu and Alejandro are investigating the use of these approaches in the brain more generally.\u201d Medaglia said. \u201cI’m hopeful that the specific approach we used here might be validated in other studies and tested as a potential target for interventions, such as the brain stimulation techniques we use in our laboratory or pharmacology.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A team of researchers from Drexel University and the University of Pennsylvania recently conducted a cognitive switch test and concluded that some brains are more naturally wired to switch focus quickly. The study is published in Nature Human Behavior. Led by John Medaglia, assistant professor of psychology at Drexel\u2019s College of Arts and Sciences, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":22938,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[325,241,229,534],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-drexel-university-university-newsroom","category-medical-breakthrough","category-lead-stories","category-university-of-pennsylvania"],"aioseo_notices":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Cognitive-Flex.jpg",830,533,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Cognitive-Flex-224x144.jpg",224,144,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Cognitive-Flex-300x193.jpg",300,193,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Cognitive-Flex.jpg",830,533,false],"large":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Cognitive-Flex.jpg",830,533,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Cognitive-Flex.jpg",830,533,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Cognitive-Flex.jpg",830,533,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Samuel O'Brient","author_link":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/author\/samuel\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"A team of researchers from Drexel University and the University of Pennsylvania recently conducted a cognitive switch test and concluded that some brains are more naturally wired to switch focus quickly. The study is published in Nature Human Behavior. Led by John Medaglia, assistant professor of psychology at Drexel\u2019s College of Arts and Sciences, the…","featured_media_src_url":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Cognitive-Flex.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/35"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22904"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22904\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}What\u2019s next?<\/b><\/h2>\n