Understanding and Decoding Thoughts in the Human Brain

ABSTRACT

Many people cannot communicate because of their physical problems, such as paralysis. These patients cannot speak with their friends, but their brains are still working well. They can think by themselves and would bene t from a device that could read their minds and translate their thoughts into audible speech. In our study, we placed electrodes beneath patients’ skulls, directly at the surface of the brain, and measured brain activity while the patients were thinking. We then tried to decode and translate the words that they imagined into audible sounds. We showed that we could decode some parts of the sound of what patients were thinking. This was our rst attempt at translating thoughts to speech, and we hope to get much better, as many patients who cannot speak but have thoughts in their minds could bene t from a “speech decoder.”

AUTHORS

• Stéphanie Martin

• Christian Mikutta

• Robert T. Knight

• Brian Pasley

Date: 2016

DOI: 10.3389/frym.2016.00004

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Amygdala and Orbitofrontal engagement in breach and resolution of expectancy - a case study

ABSTRACT

Humans constantly predict their environment to facilitate mutual interaction. Predictions are connected with emotions as nonfatal penalties and rewards (for incorrect and correct expectancies, respectively) that result in negative and positive emotions. Music is an ideal stimulus to explore the underlying neurophysiological mechanisms of prediction related emotions. Using the high spatial and temporal resolution of stereotactic depth electrodes, we identified activation patterns and examined their distribution in the bilateral Amygdalae and the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC). We used music excerpts with either (a) a deceptive cadence (i.e., an unexpected chord/breach) or (b) a tonic chord inserted instead of a deceptive cadence (regular chord/no breach). These events were followed by a chord progression leading to and ending on the tonic after a breach (c) or (d) on a tonic after no breach. We computed the differences of the analytic amplitudes in the theta band at these time-points (i.e., events a–d) by using t tests. We found a significant difference between the unexpected chord (a) and the expected chord (b) in the analytic amplitude of the theta band in the left amygdala. Further we found a difference between the 2 resolutions (c and d) in the analytic amplitude of the theta band within the OFC. In conclusion, our case study supports the notion that the amygdala and the OFC are important for emotional responses to musical expectancy breaches as well as of their resolution. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)

AUTHORS

• Christian Mikutta

• S. Durschmid

• Nelson Bean

• Moritz Lehne

• James Lubell

• Andreas Altorfer

• Josef Parvizi

• Werner K. Strik

• Robert T. Knight

• Stefan Koelsch

Date: 2015

DOI: dx.doi.org/10.1037/pmu0000121

Memory in Music and Emotions

ABSTRACT

Music is a basic and ancient feature of human socialization. Music is a powerful inducer of emotions , and humans appear to listen to music specifically because of this. It was shown that emotion is a powerful modulator of memory encoding. The following chapter provides an overview over music specific encoding mechanisms in the short- and long-term memory. Hereby music specific features of working memory model as well as the interaction of the acceding auditory pathways, music processing and memory encoding are discussed. Furthermore, we show the overlap and the differences between language and music memory. The impact of music-induced emotions on memory encoding is explored. Finally music’s ability to reveal autobiographic memories is summarized.

AUTHORS

• Christian Mikutta

• Werner K. Strik

• Robert T. Knight

• Andreas Altorfer

Date: 2015

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