title: Insula and inferior frontal triangularis activations distinguish between conditioned brain responses using emotional sounds for basic BCI communication.
abstract: In order to enable communication through a brain-computer interface (BCI), it is necessary to discriminate between distinct brain responses. As a first step, we probed the possibility to discriminate between affirmative ("yes") and negative ("no") responses using a semantic classical conditioning paradigm, within an fMRI setting. Subjects were presented with congruent and incongruent word-pairs as conditioned stimuli (CS), respectively eliciting affirmative and negative responses. Incongruent word-pairs were associated to an unpleasant unconditioned stimulus (scream, US1) and congruent word-pairs were associated to a pleasant unconditioned stimulus (baby-laughter, US2), in order to elicit emotional conditioned responses (CR). The aim was to discriminate between affirmative and negative responses, enabled by their association with the positive and negative affective stimuli. In the late acquisition phase, when the US were not present anymore, there was a strong significant differential activation for incongruent and congruent word-pairs in a cluster comprising the left insula and the inferior frontal triangularis. This association was not found in the habituation phase. These results suggest that the difference in affirmative and negative brain responses was established as an effect of conditioning, allowing to further investigate the possibility of using this paradigm for a binary choice BCI.
authors.affiliation: Department of Cognitive Psychology, University of Finance and Management Pawia, Warsaw, Poland ; Institute of Medical Psychology and Behavioral Neurobiology, Eberhard Karls-University Tübingen, Germany.
authors.forename: Linda
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: van der Heiden
authors.affiliation: Institute of Medical Psychology and Behavioral Neurobiology, Eberhard Karls-University Tübingen, Germany ; Interuniversity Centre for Research on Cognitive Processing in Natural and Artificial Systems (ECONA) Rome, Italy ; Institute of Neuroscience, Université Catholique de Louvain Brussels, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium.
authors.forename: Giulia
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Liberati
authors.affiliation: Institute of Medical Psychology and Behavioral Neurobiology, Eberhard Karls-University Tübingen, Germany ; Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Florida Gainesville, FL, USA ; Biomedical Engineering, Sri Chitra Tirunal Institute of Medical Sciences and Technology Trivandrum, India.
authors.forename: Ranganatha
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Sitaram
authors.affiliation: Institute of Medical Psychology and Behavioral Neurobiology, Eberhard Karls-University Tübingen, Germany.
authors.forename: Sunjung
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.affiliation: Department of Cognitive Psychology, University of Finance and Management Pawia, Warsaw, Poland.
authors.forename: Piotr
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Jaśkowski
authors.affiliation: Interuniversity Centre for Research on Cognitive Processing in Natural and Artificial Systems (ECONA) Rome, Italy ; Department of Psychology, University "Sapienza" of Rome Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Antonino
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Raffone
authors.affiliation: Interuniversity Centre for Research on Cognitive Processing in Natural and Artificial Systems (ECONA) Rome, Italy ; Department of Psychology, University "Sapienza" of Rome Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Marta
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Olivetti Belardinelli
authors.affiliation: Institute of Medical Psychology and Behavioral Neurobiology, Eberhard Karls-University Tübingen, Germany ; Ospedale San Camillo-IRCCS, Istituto di Ricovero e Cura a Carattere Scientifico Venezia Lido, Italy.
authors.forename: Niels
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Birbaumer
authors.affiliation: Institute of Medical Psychology and Behavioral Neurobiology, Eberhard Karls-University Tübingen, Germany.
authors.forename: Ralf
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Veit
keywords: BCI; Insula; classical conditioning; emotions; fMRI; inferior frontal triangularis
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