Person: Benjamin, Christopher
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Benjamin, Christopher
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Publication Behavioral and Neural Correlates of Executive Functioning in Musicians and Non-Musicians(Public Library of Science, 2014) Zuk, Jennifer; Benjamin, Christopher; Kenyon, Arnold; Gaab, NadineExecutive functions (EF) are cognitive capacities that allow for planned, controlled behavior and strongly correlate with academic abilities. Several extracurricular activities have been shown to improve EF, however, the relationship between musical training and EF remains unclear due to methodological limitations in previous studies. To explore this further, two experiments were performed; one with 30 adults with and without musical training and one with 27 musically trained and untrained children (matched for general cognitive abilities and socioeconomic variables) with a standardized EF battery. Furthermore, the neural correlates of EF skills in musically trained and untrained children were investigated using fMRI. Adult musicians compared to non-musicians showed enhanced performance on measures of cognitive flexibility, working memory, and verbal fluency. Musically trained children showed enhanced performance on measures of verbal fluency and processing speed, and significantly greater activation in pre-SMA/SMA and right VLPFC during rule representation and task-switching compared to musically untrained children. Overall, musicians show enhanced performance on several constructs of EF, and musically trained children further show heightened brain activation in traditional EF regions during task-switching. These results support the working hypothesis that musical training may promote the development and maintenance of certain EF skills, which could mediate the previously reported links between musical training and enhanced cognitive skills and academic achievement.Publication Elemental Spatial and Temporal Association Formation in Left Temporal Lobe Epilepsy(Public Library of Science, 2014) Benjamin, Christopher; Saling, Michael M.; Wood, Amanda G.; Reutens, David C.The mesial temporal lobe (MTL) is typically understood as a memory structure in clinical settings, with the sine qua non of MTL damage in epilepsy being memory impairment. Recent models, however, understand memory as one of a number of higher cognitive functions that recruit the MTL through their reliance on more fundamental processes, such as “self-projection” or “association formation”. We examined how damage to the left MTL influences these fundamental processes through the encoding of elemental spatial and temporal associations. We used a novel fMRI task to image the encoding of simple visual stimuli, either rich or impoverished, in spatial or spatial plus temporal information. Participants included 14 typical adults (36.4 years, sd. 10.5 years) and 14 patients with left mesial temporal lobe damage as evidenced by a clinical diagnosis of left temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) and left MTL impairment on imaging (34.3 years, sd. 6.6 years). In-scanner behavioral performance was equivalent across groups. In the typical group whole-brain analysis revealed highly significant bilateral parahippocampal activation (right > left) during spatial associative processing and left hippocampal/parahippocampal deactivation in joint spatial-temporal associative processing. In the left TLE group identical analyses indicated patients used MTL structures contralateral to the seizure focus differently and relied on extra-MTL regions to a greater extent. These results are consistent with the notion that epileptogenic MTL damage is followed by reorganization of networks underlying elemental associative processes. In addition, they provide further evidence that task-related fMRI deactivation can meaningfully index brain function. The implications of these findings for clinical and cognitive neuropsychological models of MTL function in TLE are discussed.Publication The Influence of Rest Period Instructions on the Default Mode Network(Frontiers Media SA, 2010) Benjamin, Christopher; Lieberman, Daniel; Chang, Maria; Ofen, Noa; Whitfield-Gabrieli, Sue; Gabrieli, John D. E.; Gaab, NadineThe default mode network (DMN) refers to regional brain activity that is greater during rest periods than during attention-demanding tasks; many studies have reported DMN alterations in patient populations. It has also been shown that the DMN is suppressed by scanner background noise (SBN), which is the noise produced by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). However, it is unclear whether different approaches to “rest” in the noisy MR environment can alter the DMN and constitute a confound in studies investigating the DMN in particular patient populations (e.g., individuals with schizophrenia, Alzheimer's disease). We examined 27 healthy adult volunteers who completed an fMRI experiment with three different instructions for rest: (1) relax and be still, (2) attend to SBN, or (3) ignore SBN. Region of interest analyses were performed to determine the influence of rest period instructions on core regions of the DMN and DMN regions previously reported to be altered in patients with or at risk for Alzheimer's disease or schizophrenia. The dorsal medial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) exhibited greater activity when specific resting instructions were given (i.e., attend to or ignore SBN) compared to when non-specific resting instructions were given. Condition-related differences in connectivity were also observed between regions of the dmPFC and inferior parietal/posterior superior temporal cortex. We conclude that rest period instructions and SBN levels should be carefully considered for fMRI studies on the DMN, especially studies on clinical populations and groups that may have different approaches to rest, such as first-time research participants and children.