Investigating the Cognitive Processes That Underlie Social Knowledge and Behavior
Condition: Healthy
Study type: Observational

Summary: 
      The purpose of the protocol is to localize the neural regions and systems mediating the forms
      of knowledge representations hypothesized by the principal investigator to be stored in the
      human prefrontal cortex. Utilizing a variety of experimental neuropsychological tasks during
      functional MRI, we will investigate hypotheses regarding the role of the dorsolateral and
      ventromedial prefrontal cortex in social cognition and emotional processing. We will
      ascertain the relationship between so-called cold cognition such as event knowledge and "hot"
      social cognition such as attitude formation and specific brain regions within the prefrontal
      cortex. We will also attempt to determine the relationship between non-frontal neural
      structures involved in emotional expressions, such as amygdala, and those frontal neural
      structures involved in executive functions that may modulate emotion. The data that we
      collect in this protocol will be of value in (1) identifying a set of neural regions and
      distributed networks mediating the forms of knowledge representation stored in the prefrontal
      cortex and (2) developing functional MRI screening measures for subjects at-risk for
      developing a neurological disorder. We will also use the data obtained in these studies with
      healthy adult volunteers to constrain theories of frontal lobe function based on the study of
      patients with focal or diffuse frontal lobe lesions and to provide convergent evidence for
      the role of specific frontal cortex sectors in specific cognitive functions.
    

Detailed description: 
      Objective

      The purpose of the protocol is to localize the neural regions and systems mediating the forms
      of knowledge representations hypothesized by the principal investigator to be stored in the
      human prefrontal cortex. We suspect that political attitudes can also be viewed as a type of
      stored knowledge. Religious attitudinal and event knowledge are also expected to be similarly
      represented and stored. Utilizing a variety of experimental neuropsychological tasks during
      functional MRI, we will investigate hypotheses regarding the role of the dorsolateral and
      ventromedial prefrontal cortex in social cognition and emotional processing. We will
      ascertain the relationship between so-called "cold" cognition such as event knowledge and
      "hot" social cognition such as attitude formation and specific brain regions within the
      prefrontal cortex.

      Study Population

      Normal adult volunteers will participate in experiments dealing with processing of event
      knowledge, general attitudes, political stereotypes and attitudes, and religious attitudes,
      using fMRI.

      Design

      All the experiments will employ within-subject event-related fMRI design to determine whether
      activations of different cortical areas correspond to different kind of stored knowledge.

      Outcome Measures

      The data that we collect in this protocol will consist of fMRI activation images
      corresponding to varying neuropsychological tasks. The will be of value in (1) identifying a
      set of neural regions and distributed networks mediating the forms of knowledge
      representation stored in the prefrontal cortex and (2) developing functional MRI screening
      measures for subjects at-risk for developing a neurological disorder.
    

Keywords: Attitudes; fMRI; Development; Stereotypes; Memory; Healthy Volunteer; HV