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  • Bischoff, M., Zentgraf, K., Lorey, B., Pilgramm, S., Balser, N., Baumgartner, E., Hohmann, T., Stark, R., Vaitl, D., & Munzert, J. (2012). Motor familiarity: brain activation when watching kinematic displays of one’s own movements. Neuropsychologia, 50(8), 2085–2092. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2012.05.009

    The perception of action is influenced by the observer's familiarity with its movement. However, how does motor familiarity with own movement patterns modulate the visual perception of action effects? Cortical activation was examined with fMRI while 20 observers were watching videotaped point-light displays of markers on the shoulders, the right elbow, and wrist of an opposing table tennis player. The racket and ball were not displayed. Participants were asked to predict the invisible effect of the stroke, that is, the ball flight direction. Different table tennis models were used without the observers knowing and being informed in advance that some of the presented videos displayed their own movements from earlier training sessions. Prediction had to be made irrespective of the identity of the player represented by the four moving markers. Results showed that participants performed better when observing their "own" strokes. Using a region-of-interest approach, fMRI data showed that observing own videos was accompanied by stronger activation (compared to other videos) in the left angular gyrus of the inferior parietal lobe and the anterior rostral medial frontal cortex. Other videos elicited stronger activation than own videos in the left intraparietal sulcus and right supramarginal gyrus. We suggest that during action observation of motorically familiar movements, the compatibility between the observed action and the observers' motor representation is already coded in the parietal angular gyrus--in addition to the paracingulate gyrus. The activation in angular gyrus is presumably part of an action-specific effect retrieval that accompanies actor-specific prefrontal processing. The intraparietal sulcus seems to be sensitive to incongruence between observed kinematics and internal model representations, and this also influences processing in the supramarginal gyrus.

  • Stippekohl, B., Winkler, M. H., Walter, B., Kagerer, S., Mucha, R. F., Pauli, P., Vaitl, D., & Stark, R. (2012). Neural responses to smoking stimuli are influenced by smokers’ attitudes towards their own smoking behaviour. PloS One, 7(11), e46782. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0046782

    An important feature of addiction is the high drug craving that may promote the continuation of consumption. Environmental stimuli classically conditioned to drug-intake have a strong motivational power for addicts and can elicit craving. However, addicts differ in the attitudes towards their own consumption behavior: some are content with drug taking (consonant users) whereas others are discontent (dissonant users). Such differences may be important for clinical practice because the experience of dissonance might enhance the likelihood to consider treatment. This fMRI study investigated in smokers whether these different attitudes influence subjective and neural responses to smoking stimuli. Based on self-characterization, smokers were divided into consonant and dissonant smokers. These two groups were presented smoking stimuli and neutral stimuli. Former studies have suggested differences in the impact of smoking stimuli depending on the temporal stage of the smoking ritual they are associated with. Therefore, we used stimuli associated with the beginning (BEGIN-smoking-stimuli) and stimuli associated with the terminal stage (END-smoking-stimuli) of the smoking ritual as distinct stimulus categories. Stimulus ratings did not differ between both groups. Brain data showed that BEGIN-smoking-stimuli led to enhanced mesolimbic responses (amygdala, hippocampus, insula) in dissonant compared to consonant smokers. In response to END-smoking-stimuli, dissonant smokers showed reduced mesocortical responses (orbitofrontal cortex, subcallosal cortex) compared to consonant smokers. These results suggest that smoking stimuli with a high incentive value (BEGIN-smoking-stimuli) are more appetitive for dissonant than consonant smokers at least on the neural level. To the contrary, smoking stimuli with low incentive value (END-smoking-stimuli) seem to be less appetitive for dissonant smokers than consonant smokers. These differences might be one reason why dissonant smokers experience difficulties in translating their attitudes into an actual behavior change.

  • Kagerer, S., Klucken, T., Wehrum, S., Zimmermann, M., Schienle, A., Walter, B., Vaitl, D., & Stark, R. (2011). Neural activation toward erotic stimuli in homosexual and heterosexual males. The Journal of Sexual Medicine, 8(11), 3132–3143. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1743-6109.2011.02449.x

    INTRODUCTION: Studies investigating sexual arousal exist, yet there are diverging findings on the underlying neural mechanisms with regard to sexual orientation. Moreover, sexual arousal effects have often been confounded with general arousal effects. Hence, it is still unclear which structures underlie the sexual arousal response in homosexual and heterosexual men. AIM: Neural activity and subjective responses were investigated in order to disentangle sexual from general arousal. Considering sexual orientation, differential and conjoint neural activations were of interest. METHODS: The functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study focused on the neural networks involved in the processing of sexual stimuli in 21 male participants (11 homosexual, 10 heterosexual). Both groups viewed pictures with erotic content as well as aversive and neutral stimuli. The erotic pictures were subdivided into three categories (most sexually arousing, least sexually arousing, and rest) based on the individual subjective ratings of each participant. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Blood oxygen level-dependent responses measured by fMRI and subjective ratings. RESULTS: A conjunction analysis revealed conjoint neural activation related to sexual arousal in thalamus, hypothalamus, occipital cortex, and nucleus accumbens. Increased insula, amygdala, and anterior cingulate gyrus activation could be linked to general arousal. Group differences emerged neither when viewing the most sexually arousing pictures compared with highly arousing aversive pictures nor compared with neutral pictures. CONCLUSION: Results suggest that a widespread neural network is activated by highly sexually arousing visual stimuli. A partly distinct network of structures underlies sexual and general arousal effects. The processing of preferred, highly sexually arousing stimuli recruited similar structures in homosexual and heterosexual males.

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