MRI: Acquisition of a Dual Acquisition Station Dense Sensory Array EEG/ERP System

执行认知功能是人类最先进的心理操作组成部分。执行功能的例子包括操纵工作记忆的内容，抑制自动但不适当的反应，以及灵活地在策略之间切换。这些功能使人们能够做出有效的决策，规范社会行为，并提前计划。执行功能在发育过程中是最后成熟的，在正常衰老、精神障碍和神经损伤和疾病中往往是最先恶化的。研究还没有完全描述这些高阶心理操作的神经基础，理解执行功能的神经基础可能会让我们深入了解为什么有些人比其他人更擅长计划和决策，并允许更有效的干预和治疗执行功能障碍。执行功能的神经基础可能涉及分布在整个大脑中的神经结构网络，它们以特定的时间序列协同工作，单个节点的活动时间仅为几十毫秒。大量文献表明，前额叶皮层是该网络的核心结构。该研究利用密集传感器阵列脑电图（EEG）系统，扩展了额叶覆盖范围，研究了执行功能背后的协调神经活动。事件相关电位（ERPs）是头皮记录的神经电反应刺激和动作嵌入正在进行的脑电图。erp是评估认知处理过程中与功能相关的神经活动的时间过程的极好方法，因此是研究使执行功能成为可能的神经网络动力学的有力工具。密集传感器阵列脑电图，就像这里的128通道系统，提高了ERP的空间分辨率，可以更好地估计头皮记录信号的神经来源。密集传感器阵列erp允许研究人员检查与特定认知操作相关的神经网络活动。研究人员将使用这个系统来研究学习和记忆，潜在地改进学习策略，风险决策中的个体差异（为什么有些人比其他人做出更冒险的选择），注意力选择（大脑如何使用经济原则，如期望值，来分配其有限的处理资源的能力），以及其他执行功能，它们在个体之间的可变性，以及它们在神经损伤（如轻度创伤性脑损伤）和疾病（如亨廷顿氏病）中的破坏。

The executive cognitive functions are humans' most advanced component mental operations. Examples of executive functions include manipulating the contents of working memory, inhibiting automatic but inappropriate responses, and flexibly switching between strategies. These functions allow people to make effective decisions, regulate social behavior, and plan ahead. The executive functions are the last to mature in development and are often the first to deteriorate in normal aging as well as mental disorders and neurological injury and disease. Research has yet to fully describe the neural bases of these higher-order mental operations, and understanding the neural bases of the executive functions might provide insight into why some people are better at planning and decision-making than others and allow for more effective intervention and treatment of executive function impairment. The neural bases of the executive functions likely involve networks of neural structures distributed throughout the brain working together in specific temporal sequences, with individual nodes active for only tens of milliseconds. A large literature exists suggesting the prefrontal cortex as a core structure within this network. The research enabled by the dense-sensor array electroencephalography (EEG) system, with extended frontal coverage, investigates the coordinated neural activity underlying the executive functions.Event-related potentials (ERPs) are scalp recorded neural electrical responses to stimuli and actions embedded in the ongoing EEG. ERPs are an excellent means of assessing the timecourse of functionally relevant neural activity during cognitive processing, and hence a powerful tool for investigating the neural network dynamics that make executive functioning possible. Dense-sensor array EEG, like the 128 channel system here, improves ERP's spatial resolution, allowing better estimation of the neural sources of the scalp-recorded signal. Dense sensor array ERPs allows researchers to examine the neural network activity related to specific cognitive operations. Researchers will use this system to study learning and memory, potentially improving learning strategies, individual differences in risky decision-making (why some individuals make riskier choices than others), attention selection (how the brain may use economic principles, like expected value, to allocate its limited capacity processing resources), and other executive functions, their variability across individuals, and their disruption in neurological injuries (e.g. mild traumatic brain injury) and disease (e.g. Huntington's disease).