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Exploration of the neural mechanisms of mental fatigue| title | Exploration of the neural mechanisms of mental fatigue |
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| start_date | 2022/06/23 |
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| schedule | 14h |
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| online | no |
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| summary | Demanding cognitive activity is aversive, requires effort, and, when prolonged, leads to mental fatigue. However, the origin of the aversive aspect of cognition and the neural mechanisms that lead to fatigue still remains enigmas for neuroscience. Mister Ioannucci, in his research, tests the hypothesis that fatigue originates from local alterations in neuronal activity caused by prolonged recruitment of brain networks. Moreover, this work sought to address a specific prediction derived from the functional view of mental fatigue: neuronal assemblies that are engaged in activity, even if passive, are bound to saturate and reach the point of failure. Drawing inspiration from converging yet separate lines of research, a novel experimental approach was devised in order to test our hypothesis while controlling as much as possible for the confounds which are pervasive in the pertaining literature, namely, differences in motivation, level of skill in the task and boredom. Across several experiments, specific behavioral performance deficits were induced in the participants, allowing us to confirm and characterize the posited passive fatigue effect. Indeed, in the first experiment, we unveiled a surprising interaction between the degree of specific performance alteration induced by prolonged stimulation and arousal caused by cross-sensory cognitive load. Additionally, we found a lack of support for sensory habituation being involved in the described process, as the analysis of electrophysiological data from the participants proved to be unfruitful. Furthermore, we used neuroimaging techniques to show disruption of brain activity of the participants that paralleled the behavioral deterioration, thus providing evidence for neural fatigue by passive induction. |
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| responsibles | Fenouillet, De Marco |
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Workflow history| from state (1) | to state | comment | date |
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| submitted | published | | 2022/06/16 09:47 UTC |
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