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. 2020 Feb 14:14:29.
doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2020.00029. eCollection 2020.

Cerebellum, Basal Ganglia, and Cortex Mediate Performance of an Aerial Pursuit Task

Robert J Gougelet  1   2 , Cengiz Terzibas  3 , Daniel E Callan  2   4
Affiliations

Cerebellum, Basal Ganglia, and Cortex Mediate Performance of an Aerial Pursuit Task

Robert J Gougelet et al. Front Hum Neurosci. .

Abstract

The affordance competition hypothesis is an ethologically inspired theory from cognitive neuroscience that provides an integrative neural account of continuous, real-time behavior, and will likely become increasingly relevant to the growing field of neuroergonomics. In the spirit of neuroergonomics in aviation, we designed a three-dimensional, first-person, continuous, and real-time fMRI task during which human subjects maneuvered a simulated airplane in pursuit of a target airplane along constantly changing headings. We introduce a pseudo-event-related, parametric fMRI analysis approach to begin testing the affordance competition hypothesis in neuroergonomic contexts, and attempt to identify regions of the brain that exhibit a linear metabolic relationship with the continuous variables of task performance and distance-from-target. In line with the affordance competition hypothesis, our results implicate the cooperation of the cerebellum, basal ganglia, and cortex in such a task, with greater involvement of the basal ganglia during good performance, and greater involvement of cortex and cerebellum during poor performance and when distance-from-target closes. We briefly review the somatic marker and dysmetria of thought hypotheses, in addition to the affordance competition hypothesis, to speculate on the intricacies of the cooperation of these brain regions in a task such as ours. In doing so, we demonstrate how the affordance competition hypothesis and other cognitive neuroscience theories are ready for testing in continuous, real-time tasks such as ours, and in other neuroergonomic settings more generally.

Keywords: affordance competition hypothesis; aviation; dysmetria of thought; fMRI; flying; neuroergonomics; somatic marker hypothesis; universal cerebellar computation.

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Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Description of the experimental task conducted in the fMRI scanner. (A) First-person depiction of two behavioral variables of interest: experimentally manipulated distance (top two) and performance (bottom two). (B) Subjects were tasked with training a crosshair on the target airplane, which changed headings randomly. Performance was measured as log of three-dimensional angle offset; negative is better. (C) Behavioral results showed a strong relationship between distance and performance; flying farther away was easier. (D) Three-dimensional depiction of three runs of subject and target plane trajectories; note the constant course correction of the subject.
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
(A) Brain areas that become more active when performance worsens, or less active when performance improves (pFDR < 0.05 peak level corrected across entire brain) rendered on anatomical MRI slices using xjView toolbox (https://www.alivelearn.net/xjview). Note cerebellar and cortical activity. (B) Brain areas that become more active when performance improves, or less active when performance worsens. Same rendering as (A). Note basal ganglia activity.
FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3
Brain areas that become more active when near the target. Significant parametric modulation (pFDR < 0.05 peak level corrected across entire brain) rendered on anatomical MRI slices using xjView toolbox (https://www.alivelearn.net/xjview). Note widespread, distributed activity, particularly in cerebellum and cortex.
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