Thomas Fangmeier

Reasoning, Models, and Images: Behavioral Measures and Cortical Activity

The goal of this study was to investigate the neurocognitive processes of mental imagery in deductive reasoning. Behavioral studies yielded four sorts of verbal relations: (1) visuospatial relations that are easy to envisage both visually and spatially; (2) visual relations that are easy to envisage visually but hard to envisage spatially; (3) spatial relations that are hard to envisage visually but easy to envisage spatially; and (4) control relations that are hard to envisage both visually and spatially. In three experiments, visual relations slowed the process of reasoning in comparison with control relations, whereas visuospatial and spatial relations yielded inferences comparable to those of control relations. An experiment using functional magnetic resonance imaging showed that in the absence of any correlated visual input (problems were presented acoustically via headphones), all types of reasoning problems evoked activity in the left middle temporal gyrus, in the right superior parietal cortex, and bilaterally in the precuneus. In the prefrontal cortex, increased activity was found in the middle and inferior frontal gyri. However, only the problems based on visual relations also activated areas of the visual association cortex corresponding to V2. The results indicate that cortical activity during reasoning depends on the nature of verbal relations. All relations elicit mental models that underlie reasoning, but visual relations in addition elicit visual images. This account resolves inconsistencies in the previous literature.

Fmri evidence for a three-stage model of deductive reasoning

Deductive reasoning is fundamental to science, human culture, and the solution of problems in daily life. It starts with premises and yields a logically necessary conclusion that is not explicit in the premises. Here we investigated the neurocognitive processes underlying logical thinking with event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging. We specifically focused on three temporally separable phases: (1) the premise processing phase, (2) the premise integration phase, and (3) the validation phase in which reasoners decide whether a conclusion logically follows from the premises. We found distinct patterns of cortical activity during these phases, with initial temporo-occipital activation shifting to the prefrontal cortex and then to the parietal cortex during the reasoning process. Activity in these latter regions was specific to reasoning, as it was significantly decreased during matched working memory problems with identical premises and equal working memory load.

The Neural Correlates of Logical Thinking: An Event-Related fMRI Study

Deductive reasoning is fundamental to science, human culture, and the solution of problems in daily life. It starts with premises and yields a logically necessary conclusion that is not explicit in the premises. Here we investigated the neurocognitive processes underlying logical thinking with event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging. We specifically focused on three temporally separable phases: (1) the premise processing phase, (2) the premise integration phase, and (3) the validation phase in which reasoners decide whether a conclusion logically follows from the premises. We found distinct patterns of cortical activity during these phases, with initial temporo-occipital activation shifting to the prefrontal cortex and then to the parietal cortex during the reasoning process. Activity in these latter regions was specific to reasoning, as it was significantly decreased during matched working memory problems with identical premises and equal working memory load.

High-functioning autism spectrum disorder as a basic disorder in adult psychiatry and psychotherapy: psychopathological presentation, clinical relevance and therapeutic concepts

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is characterized by deficits in social cognition and competence, communication, highly circumscribed interests and a strong desire for routines. Besides, there are specific abnormalities in perception and language. Typical symptoms are already present in early childhood. Traditionally autism has been regarded as a severe form of neurodevelopmental disorder which goes along with overtly abnormal language, learning difficulties and low IQ in the majority of cases. However, over the last decades, it has become clear that there are also many patients with high-functioning variants of ASD. These are patients with normal language at a superficial level of description and normal and sometimes above average intelligence. In high-functioning variants of the disease, they may run unrecognized until late in adult life. High-functioning ASD is associated with a very high prevalence of comorbid classical psychiatric disorders such as depression, anxiety, ADHD, tics, psychotic symptoms or emotionally unstable syndromes. In many such cases, there is a causal relationship between ASD and the comorbid psychiatric conditions in that the specific ASD symptoms result in chronic conflicts, misunderstandings and failure in private and vocational relationships. These problems in turn often lead to depression, anxiety and sometimes psychosis-like stress reactions. In this constellation, ASD has to be regarded as a basic disorder with causal relevance for secondary psychiatric syndromes. In this paper, we summarize the classical presentation of high-functioning ASD in adult psychiatry and psychotherapy and suggest a nosological model to classify different ASD conditions instead. To conclude, we outline first treatment concepts in out- and in-patient settings.

Disturbed cingulate glutamate metabolism in adults with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder: evidence in support of the excitatory/inhibitory imbalance hypothesis.

Over the last few years, awareness of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in adults has increased. The precise etiology of ASD is still unresolved. Animal research, genetic and postmortem studies suggest that the glutamate (Glu) system has an important role, possibly related to a cybernetic imbalance between neuronal excitation and inhibition. To clarify the possible disruption of Glu metabolism in adults with high-functioning autism, we performed a magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) study investigating the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and the cerebellum in adults with high-functioning ASD. Twenty-nine adult patients with high-functioning ASD and 29 carefully matched healthy volunteers underwent MRS scanning of the pregenual ACC and the left cerebellar hemisphere. Metabolic data were compared between groups and were correlated with psychometric measures of autistic features. We found a significant decrease in the cingulate N-acetyl-aspartate (NAA) and the combined Glu and glutamine (Glx) signals in adults with ASD, whereas we did not find other metabolic abnormalities in the ACC or the cerebellum. The Glx signal correlated significantly with psychometric measures of autism, particularly with communication deficits. Our data support the hypothesis that there is a link between disturbances of the cingulate NAA and Glx metabolism, and autism. The findings are discussed in the context of the hypothesis of excitatory/inhibitory imbalance in autism. Further research should clarify the specificity and dynamics of these findings regarding other neuropsychiatric disorders and other brain areas.

Effect of Disorder-Specific vs Nonspecific Psychotherapy for Chronic Depression: A Randomized Clinical Trial

Importance Chronic depression is a highly prevalent and disabling disorder. There is a recognized need to assess the value of long-term disorder-specific psychotherapy. Objective To evaluate the efficacy of the Cognitive Behavioral Analysis System of Psychotherapy (CBASP) compared with that of nonspecific supportive psychotherapy (SP). Design, Setting, and Participants A prospective, multicenter, evaluator-blinded, randomized clinical trial was conducted among adult outpatients with early-onset chronic depression who were not taking antidepressant medication. Patients were recruited between March 5, 2010, and October 16, 2012; the last patient finished treatment on October 14, 2013. Data analysis was conducted from March 5, 2014, to October 27, 2016. Interventions The treatment included 24 sessions of CBASP or SP for 20 weeks in the acute phase, followed by 8 continuation sessions during the next 28 weeks. Main Outcomes and Measures The primary outcome was symptom severity after 20 weeks (blinded observer ratings) as assessed by the 24-item Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (HRSD-24). Secondary outcomes were rates of response (reduction in HRSD-24 score of ≥50% from baseline) and remission (HRSD-24 score ⩽8), as well as self-assessed ratings of depression, global functioning, and quality of life. Results Among 622 patients assessed for eligibility, 268 were randomized: 137 to CBASP (96 women [70.1%] and 41 men [29.9%]; mean [SD] age, 44.7 [12.1] years) and 131 to SP (81 women [61.8%] and 50 men [38.2%]; mean [SD] age, 45.2 [11.6] years). The mean (SD) baseline HRSD-24 scores of 27.15 (5.49) in the CBASP group and 27.05 (5.74) in the SP group improved to 17.19 (10.01) and 20.39 (9.65), respectively, after 20 weeks, with a significant adjusted mean difference of –2.51 (95% CI, –4.16 to –0.86; P = .003) and a Cohen d of 0.31 in favor of CBASP. After 48 weeks, the HRSD-24 mean (SD) scores were 14.00 (9.72) for CBASP and 16.49 (9.96) for SP, with an adjusted difference of –3.13 (95% CI, –5.01 to –1.25; P = .001) and a Cohen d of 0.39. Patients undergoing CBASP were more likely to reach response (48 of 124 [38.7%] vs 27 of 111 [24.3%]; adjusted odds ratio, 2.02; 95% CI, 1.09 to 3.73; P = .03) or remission (27 of 124 [21.8%] vs 14 of 111 [12.6%]; adjusted odds ratio, 3.55; 95% CI, 1.61 to 7.85; P = .002) after 20 weeks. Patients undergoing CBASP showed significant advantages in most other secondary outcomes. Conclusions and Relevance Highly structured specific psychotherapy was moderately more effective than nonspecific therapy in outpatients with early-onset chronic depression who were not taking antidepressant medication. Adding an extended phase to acute psychotherapy seems promising in this population. Trial Registration clinicaltrials.gov Identifier: NCT00970437.

Neural correlates of acoustic reasoning.

We report an fMRI experiment on deductive reasoning with acoustically presented problems. Twelve volunteers received problems in which an acoustic stimulus came from the left or the right of another stimulus. The participants then heard a third stimulus coming from the left or the right of one of the proceeding stimuli. Their task was to determine the spatial relation between the two stimuli they never perceived together. In the psychology of reasoning, such problems are called transitive inferences or three-term-series problems. During the early phases of the inference, activity in primary and secondary acoustic areas and in the anterior prefrontal cortex was found. Further processing was accompanied by activity in medial frontal gyrus, the cingulate cortex, and in the parietal cortex. In the final phase, activity was found in the left frontal cortex, the right cerebellum, the right superior temporal gyrus, and in the parietal lobule. These results show that different brain areas are related to different phases of an inference. Based on these findings, we propose a three-stage-model of acoustic reasoning and identify the neural structures that are involved in the cognitive processes taking place in each phase. The results also show how acoustically presented reasoning problems differ from problems in which the problems are presented visually.

No significant brain volume decreases or increases in adults with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder and above average intelligence: A voxel-based morphometric study

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is increasingly being recognized as an important issue in adult psychiatry and psychotherapy. High intelligence indicates overall good brain functioning and might thus present a particularly good opportunity to study possible cerebral correlates of core autistic features in terms of impaired social cognition, communication skills, the need for routines, and circumscribed interests. Anatomical MRI data sets for 30 highly intelligent patients with high-functioning autism and 30 pairwise-matched control subjects were acquired and analyzed with voxel-based morphometry. The gray matter volume of the pairwise-matched patients and the controls did not differ significantly. When correcting for total brain volume influences, the patients with ASD exhibited smaller left superior frontal volumes on a trend level. Heterogeneous volumetric findings in earlier studies might partly be explained by study samples biased by a high inclusion rate of secondary forms of ASD, which often go along with neuronal abnormalities. Including only patients with high IQ scores might have decreased the influence of secondary forms of ASD and might explain the absence of significant volumetric differences between the patients and the controls in this study.

Magnetic resonance spectroscopy comparing adults with high functioning autism and above average IQ

Magnetic resonance spectroscopy comparing adults with high functioning autism and above average IQ

Preferred mental models: how and why they are so important in human reasoning with spatial relations

According to the mental models theory, humans reason by constructing, inspecting, and validating mental models of the state of affairs described in the premises. We present a formal framework describing all three phases and testing new predictions about the construction principle humans normally use and about the deduction process itself - the model variation phase. Finally, empirical findings in support of these principles are reported.