The brain dynamics of visuospatial perspective-taking captured by intracranial EEG

0581704 - FGÚ 2025 RIV NL eng J - Journal Article
Gunia, Anna - Moraresku, Sofiia - Janča, R. - Ježdík, P. - Kalina, A. - Hammer, J. - Marusič, P. - Vlček, Kamil
The brain dynamics of visuospatial perspective-taking captured by intracranial EEG.
Neuroimage. Roč. 285, January (2024), č. článku 120487. ISSN 1053-8119. E-ISSN 1095-9572
R&D Projects: GA ČR(CZ) GA19-11753S
Institutional support: RVO:67985823
Keywords : intracranial EEG * time-frequency analysis * broadband gamma * perspective-taking * self-perspective * hierarchical theory of processing
OECD category: Biology (theoretical, mathematical, thermal, cryobiology, biological rhythm), Evolutionary biology
Impact factor: 5.7, year: 2022
Method of publishing: Open access
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2023.120487

Visuospatial perspective-taking (VPT) is the ability to imagine a scene from a position different from the one used in self-perspective judgments (SPJ). We typically use VPT to understand how others see the environment. VPT requires overcoming the self-perspective, and impairments in this process are implicated in various brain dis-orders, such as schizophrenia and autism. However, the underlying brain areas of VPT are not well distinguished from SPJ-related ones and from domain-general responses to both perspectives. In addition, hierarchical pro-cessing theory suggests that domain-specific processes emerge over time from domain-general ones. It mainly focuses on the sensory system, but outside of it, support for this hypothesis is lacking. Therefore, we aimed to spatiotemporally distinguish brain responses domain-specific to VPT from the specific ones to self-perspective, and domain-general responses to both perspectives. In particular, we intended to test whether VPT-and SPJ specific responses begin later than the general ones. We recorded intracranial EEG data from 30 patients with epilepsy who performed a task requiring laterality judgments during VPT and SPJ, and analyzed the spatio-temporal features of responses in the broad gamma band (50-150 Hz). We found VPT-specific processing in a more extensive brain network than SPJ-specific processing. Their dynamics were similar, but both differed from the general responses, which began earlier and lasted longer. Our results anatomically distinguish VPT-specific from SPJ-specific processing. Furthermore, we temporally differentiate between domain-specific and domaingeneral processes both inside and outside the sensory system, which serves as a novel example of hierarchical processing.
Permanent Link: https://hdl.handle.net/11104/0351183