Penn State professor to lead field campaign to study climate in Baltimore area

Kenneth Davis will spearhead the DOE-funded project to investigate influence of surface-atmosphere interactions

Grant and Award Announcement

PENN STATE

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Kenneth Davis, professor of atmospheric and climate science at Penn State, will lead a team of 23 investigators from 13 research institutions in a new field campaign supported by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to study surface-atmosphere interactions around Baltimore, Maryland, to see how they influence the city’s climate. The new campaign, called the Coast-Urban-Rural Atmospheric Gradient Experiment (CoURAGE), is expected to start in October 2024 and run through September 2025.

CoURAGE will contribute to the Baltimore Social-Environmental Collaborative (BSEC), one of four recently funded DOE Urban Integrated Field Laboratories. BSEC and the three other urban laboratories, located in Arizona, Texas and Illinois, will expand the understanding of climate and weather events and their impact on urban systems.

Davis is the principal investigator for Penn State’s portion of the multi-institutional BSEC laboratory, led by Johns Hopkins University. The CoURAGE science team includes Benjamin Zaitchik, Johns Hopkins professor and BSEC’s principal investigator, along with nine BSEC co-investigators.

With its aging infrastructure, growing susceptibility to heat and flooding, and ongoing issues with air and water pollution, Baltimore is characteristic of many large industrial cities in the Eastern United States. This was a motivating factor in deciding to propose an urban laboratory in Baltimore, Davis said.

“It’s a city that needs to adapt to thrive in a changing climate,” Davis said. “The city also needs sound evidence regarding options for climate change mitigation — options like urban greening. We also need to partner to generate climate science that addresses the priorities of people and neighborhoods in the city that historically have been neglected. Many of our cities face these challenges.”

BSEC will collect long-term data on the urban atmosphere and land-atmosphere interactions. However, it does not have enough resources to observe all the important variables within the city, nor can it cover “the neighbors,” as Davis put it — the atmospheric environments upwind of Baltimore that affect the city’s climate.

DOE’s Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) user facility will provide instruments and infrastructure for CoURAGE. During CoURAGE, ARM instruments will help provide coverage where BSEC cannot, forming much of what the campaign’s science team calls “a four-node regional atmospheric observatory network.”

CoURAGE is expected to include three ARM nodes. The primary node will be located in Baltimore at Morgan State University’s Clifton Park site, where ARM will operate a portable observatory consisting of instruments, shelters and data and communications systems.

Two nodes will be smaller observational arrays located at key sites outside the city. One will be located in a rural area northwest of Baltimore, on land typical of the plains found between the coast and the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. Air at this this rural site is often carried into Baltimore by the prevailing winds. The other site will be on an island in the Chesapeake Bay designed to sample atmospheric conditions representative of the bay, the southeastern boundary of the Baltimore metropolitan area.

The fourth node will be an existing long-term observatory operated in Beltsville, Maryland, by Howard University and the Maryland Department of the Environment. Located north of Washington D.C., the observatory will measure the air that is carried into Baltimore when the winds come from the southwest, traveling across the nation’s capital.

With data from multiple sites, CoURAGE will be able to document the degree to which different surface conditions around the region can change Baltimore’s atmospheric environment, according to Davis.

“The CoURAGE campaign will be an important contribution to BER’s urban initiative,” said DOE ARM Program Manager Sally McFarlane. “The ARM observations will help improve understanding of atmospheric processes in urban regions, the surface and environmental conditions that drive them, and how our models of urban systems need to be improved.”

The team will collect what it calls impact and process measurements. Impact measurements are tied to conditions that directly affect residents, such as microclimate, air quality or street flooding in a particular area.

“Those are the properties we want to get right in order to understand the environment people live in,” Davis said. “Most of ARM’s data will be process measurements. These measurements will help scientists determine whether they are getting the right answers in models for the right reasons.”

Davis said his BSEC colleagues have found that wealthier neighborhoods have more existing climate and air quality measurements, so they are focused on putting instruments in lower-income parts of Baltimore. The plan could evolve as the BSEC team hears more from stakeholders in the city.

The project’s community engagement team, led by Tonya Sanders Thach and Samia Kirchner, professors  at Morgan State University; Genee Smith, professor at Johns Hopkins University; and Lisa Iulo, associate professor of architecture at Penn State, has gathered a steering committee that includes a broad array of community members and representatives of city government to guide the scientific effort. The steering committee, in turn, connects BSEC, and now CoURAGE, with a diverse cross-section of Baltimore residents to engage in knowledge co-generation, citizen science activities and educational programs.

Other Penn State faculty who are part of CoURAGE are Kelly Lombardo, Natasha Miles, Ying Pan, John Peters, and Scott Richardson, all faculty in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences’ Department of Meteorology and Atmospheric Science.

ARM’s last urban campaign, the TRacking Aerosol Convection interactions ExpeRiment (TRACER), took place around Houston, Texas, from October 2021 through September 2022. Led by Penn State alum Michael Jensen, a meteorologist at Brookhaven Lab in New York, TRACER studied the effects of aerosols on storms in the Houston area. Jensen is now a co-investigator for CoURAGE.

The other institutions whose investigators will contribute to CoURAGE include Brookhaven National Laboratory, City College of New York, Columbia University, Howard University, Johns Hopkins University, Morgan State University, NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory, Princeton University, University at Albany, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, University of Maryland, College Park and University of Texas at Austin.

 

New odor map helps match perceptions of smells with their chemical structure

Peer-Reviewed Publication

AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE (AAAS)

Brian K. Lee and colleagues have developed a Principal Odor Map (POM) that models the connections between an odorant’s chemical structure with its perceptual property of smell. The map performed as well as some highly trained human “sniffers” in describing odor quality, and could be used for predicting odor intensity and perceptual similarity between odorants. The map moves researchers closer to being able to match molecular properties of odorants to their perceptual properties, a challenge that has proved difficult for olfactory science. (For other senses, neuroscientists have been able to map light wavelengths to color and frequency to pitch, for instance.) Lee et al. used a type of neural network for data processing, called graph neural networks, to develop the POM. One of the things POM could be used for is exploring new odorants; the researchers compiled a list of about 500,000 potential odorants that have never been synthesized, plotting them in the POM to get an idea of how they might smell. Exploring this space would take approximately 70 person-years of continuous smelling time to collect using trained human sniffers. The POM could also aid research on digitizing smells, the authors note.

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JOURNAL

Science

DOI

10.1126/science.ade4401 

ARTICLE TITLE

A principal odor map unifies diverse tasks in olfactory perception

A step closer to digitizing the sense of smell: Monell Center, Osmo model describes odors better than human panelists

Peer-Reviewed Publication

MONELL CHEMICAL SENSES CENTER

 

IMAGE: JOEL MAINLAND, PHD view more 

CREDIT: MONELL CHEMICAL SENSES CENTER

PHILADELPHIA (August 31, 2023) – A main crux of neuroscience is learning how our senses translate light into sight, sound into hearing, food into taste, and texture into touch.  Smell is where these sensory relationships get more complex and perplexing. 

 

To address this question, a research team co-led by the Monell Chemical Senses Center and start-up Osmo, a Cambridge, Mass.-based company spun out of machine learning research done at Google Research, are investigating how airborne chemicals connect to odor perception in the brain. To this end they discovered that a machine-learning model has achieved human-level proficiency at describing, in words, how chemicals might smell. Their research appears in the September 1 issue of Science.

 

“The model addresses age-old gaps in the scientific understanding of the sense of smell,” said senior co-author Joel Mainland, PhD, Monell Center Member. This collaboration moves the world closer to digitizing odors to be recorded and reproduced. It also may identify new odors for the fragrance and flavor industry that could not only decrease dependence on naturally sourced endangered plants, but also identify new functional scents for such uses as mosquito repellent or malodor masking. 

 

“How our brains and noses work together”
Humans have about 400 functional olfactory receptors. These are proteins at the end of olfactory nerves that connect with airborne molecules to transmit an electrical signal to the olfactory bulb. The number of olfactory receptors is much more than we use for color vision - four - or even taste – about 40. 

 

“In olfaction research, however, the question of what physical properties make an airborne molecule smell the way it does to the brain has remained an enigma,” said Mainland. “But if a computer can discern the relationship between how molecules are shaped and how we ultimately perceive their odors, scientists could use that knowledge to advance the understanding of how our brains and noses work together.”

 

To address this, Osmo CEO Alex Wiltschko, PhD and his team created a model that learned how to match the prose descriptions of a molecule's odor with the odor’s molecular structure. The resulting map of these interactions is essentially groupings of similarly smelling odors, like floral sweet and candy sweet. “Computers have been able to digitize vision and hearing, but not smell - our deepest and oldest sense,” said Wiltschko. “This study proposes and validates a novel data-driven map of human olfaction, matching chemical structure to odor perception.”

 

What is the smell of garlic or of ozone? 

The model was trained using an industry dataset that included the molecular structures and odor qualities of 5,000 known odorants. Data input is the shape of a molecule, and the output is a prediction of which odor words best describe its smell. 

 

To ascertain the efficacy of the model, researchers at Monell conducted a blind validation procedure in which a panel of trained research participants described new molecules, and then compared their answers with the model’s description. The 15 panelists were each given 400 odorants as well as trained to use a set of 55 words - from mint to musty - to describe each molecule. 

 

“Our confidence in this model can only be as good as our confidence in the data we used to test it,” said co-first author Emily Mayhew, PhD, who conducted this research while a Monell postdoctoral fellow. She is now an assistant professor at Michigan State University. Brian K. Lee, PhD, Google Research, Brain Team, Cambridge, Mass., is also a co-first author. 

 

The Monell team supplied panelists with lab-designed odor reference kits to teach them how to recognize the smells and select the most appropriate words to describe their perception. To avoid pitfalls from past studies like panelist conflation of “musty,” like a wet basement, and “musky,” like a perfume, training sessions and lab-designed odor reference kits taught each panelist the odor quality associated with each descriptive term.

 

The panelists were asked to select which of the 55 descriptors applied and to rate the extent to which the term best applied to the odor on a 1-to-5 scale for each of the 400 odors. For example, one panelist rated the smell of the previously uncharacterized odorant 2,3-dihydrobenzofuran-5-carboxaldehyde as very powdery (5) and somewhat sweet (3). 

 

Quality control is also important in the final comparison of the human sniffers to the computer model. That’s where co-author Jane Parker, PhD, Professor of Flavour Chemistry, University of Reading, UK comes in. “I’ve worked on smell for many years, relying mainly on my own nose to describe aromas.”Her team verified the purity of samples used to test the model’s prediction. First, gas chromatography enabled them to separate out each compound in a sample, including any impurities. Next, Parker and her team smelled each separated compound to determine whether any impurity is overwhelming the target molecule’s known odor.

 

“We did find a few samples with significant impurities, among the 50 tested,” Parker said. In one case, the impurity was from traces of a reagent used in the synthesis of the target molecule and gave the sample a distinctive buttery smell that overpowered the odorant of interest. “In this case we were able to explain why the panel had described the smell differently to the AI prediction.”

  

CAPTION

Emily Mayhew, PhD

CREDIT

Monell Chemical Senses Center

Better Than a Human?

In comparing the model’s performance to that of individual panelists, the model achieved better predictions of the average of the group’s odor ratings than any single panelist in the study, impurities aside. Specifically, the model performed better than the average panelist for 53% of the molecules tested. 

 

“The most surprising result, however, is that the model succeeded at olfactory tasks it was not trained to do,” said Mainland. “The eye-opener was that we never trained it to learn odor strength, but it could nonetheless make accurate predictions.” 

 

The model was able to identify dozens of pairs of structurally dissimilar molecules that had counter-intuitively similar smells, and characterize a wide variety of odor properties, such as odor strength, for 500,000 potential scent molecules. “We hope this map will be useful to researchers in chemistry, olfactory neuroscience, and psychophysics as a new tool for investigating the nature of olfactory sensation,” said Mainland. 

 

What’s next? The team surmises that the model map may be organized based on metabolism, which would be a fundamental shift in how scientists think about odors. In other words, odors that are close to each other on the map, or perceptually similar, are also more likely to be metabolically related. Sensory scientists currently organize molecules the way a chemist would, for example, asking does it have an ester or an aromatic ring? 

“Our brains don't organize odors in this way,” said Mainland. “Instead, this map suggests that our brains may organize odors according to the nutrients from which they derive.” 

 

Special Notes to Reporters
More information, including a copy of the paper, can be found online in the Science press package at https://www.eurekalert.org/press/scipak/.

This research was funded in part by Google Research and National Institutes of Health grants F32 DC019030 and T32 DC000014. 

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The Monell Chemical Senses Center is an independent nonprofit basic research institute based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1968, Monell‘s mission is to improve health and well-being by advancing the scientific understanding of taste, smell, and related senses, where our discoveries lead to improving nutritional health, diagnosing and treating disease, addressing smell and taste loss, and digitizing chemosensory data.

 

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JOURNAL

Science

DOI

10.1126/science.ade4401 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Computational simulation/modeling

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

A principal odor map unifies diverse tasks in olfactory perception

 

Largest genetic study of epilepsy to date provides new insights on why epilepsy develops and potential treatments

Peer-Reviewed Publication

RCSI

Thursday, 31 August 2023: The largest genetic study of its kind, coordinated by the International League Against Epilepsy, including scientists from FutureNeuro at RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences, has discovered specific changes in our DNA that increase the risk of developing epilepsy. 

The research, published today in Nature Genetics, greatly advances our knowledge of why epilepsy develops and may inform the development of new treatments for the condition. 

Epilepsy, a common brain disorder of which there are many different types, is known to have genetic component and to sometimes run in families. Here, researchers compared the DNA from diverse groups of almost 30,000 people with epilepsy to the DNA of 52,500 people without epilepsy. The differences highlighted areas of our DNA that might be involved in the development of epilepsy.  

The researchers identified 26 distinct areas in our DNA that appear to be involved in epilepsy. This included 19 which are specific to a particular form of epilepsy called ‘genetic generalized epilepsy’ (GGE). They were also able to point to 29 genes that are probably contributing to epilepsy within these DNA regions.  

The scientists found that the genetic picture was quite different when comparing distinct types of epilepsy, in particular, when ‘focal’ and ‘generalized’ epilepsies were compared. The results also suggested that proteins that carry electrical impulse across the gaps between neurons in our brain make up some of the risk for generalized forms of epilepsy. 

“Gaining a better understanding of the genetic underpinnings of epilepsy is key to developing new therapeutic options and consequently a better quality of life for the over 50 million people globally living with epilepsy,” said Professor Gianpiero Cavalleri, Professor of Human Genetics at RCSI School of Pharmacy and Biomolecular Science and Deputy Director of the SFI FutureNeuro Research Centre. 

“The discoveries we report on here could only be achieved through international collaboration,  on a global scale. We are proud of how the global community of scientists working to better understand the genetics of the epilepsies have pooled resources and collaborated effectively, for the benefit of people impacted the condition” commented Professor Cavalleri.  

The researchers also showed that many of the current medications for epilepsy work by targeting the same epilepsy risk genes that were highlighted in this study. However, based on their data, the researchers were able to propose some potentially effective alternative drugs. These will need to be clinically tested for use in epilepsy as they are normally used for other conditions, but they are known to target some of the other epilepsy risk genes uncovered. 

“This identification of epilepsy associated genetic changes will allow us to improve diagnosis and classification of different epilepsy subtypes. This in turn, will guide clinicians in selecting the most beneficial treatment strategies, minimising seizures” said Professor Colin Doherty, Consultant Neurologist, St James’s Hospital, Co-author and Clinical Investigator at the SFI FutureNeuro Centre. 

Over 150 researchers, based across Europe, Australia, Asia, South America and North America, carried out the research. They worked together as part of the International League Against Epilepsy (ILAE) Consortium on Complex Epilepsies. The ILAE Consortium was formed by researchers in 2010, recognising that the complexity of genetic and environmental factors underlying epilepsy would require research across massive datasets, and therefore unprecedented collaboration on an international scale.  

“Undertaking such a comprehensive study is a remarkable achievement that RCSI and Futureneuro are proud to have played a leading role in. The challenge now is to translate the findings of this research to improve the lives of people with epilepsy” concluded Professor Cavalleri. 

“With this study, we have bookmarked parts of our genome that should be the major focus of future epilepsy research. It will form the basis for further work looking at the molecular pathways involved in seizure generation, neuronal dysfunction and altered brain activity” said Professor Samuel Berkovic, University of Melbourne. 

"This is a major milestone for the ILAE Consortium on Complex Epilepsies, demonstrating what can be achieved when scientists openly collaborate and share data from across the world. The outputs are wide-reaching and applicable to epilepsy patients globally.” said Professor Helen Cross, President of the International League Against Epilepsy. 

Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) supported the work through their funding of the Futureneuro Research Centre. 

 

ENDS 

For further information:  

Laura Anderson, Communications Officer, RCSI 

087 199 0399/ lauraanderson@rcsi.ie  

 

About RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences 

RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences is ranked first in the world for its contribution to UN Sustainable Development Goal 3, Good Health and Well-being, in the Times Higher Education (THE) University Impact Rankings 2023. 

Exclusively focused on education and research to drive improvements in human health worldwide, RCSI is an international not-for-profit university, headquartered in Dublin. It is among the top 250 universities worldwide in the World University Rankings (2023). RCSI has been awarded Athena Swan Bronze accreditation for positive gender practice in higher education. 

Founded in 1784 as the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI) with national responsibility for training surgeons in Ireland, today RCSI is an innovative, world-leading international health sciences university and research institution offering education and training at undergraduate, postgraduate and professional level.  

Visit the RCSI MyHealth Expert Directory to find the details of our experts across a range of healthcare issues and concerns. Recognising their responsibility to share their knowledge and discoveries to empower people with information that leads them to better health, these clinicians and researchers are willing to engage with the media in their area of expertise. 

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JOURNAL

Nature Genetics

DOI

10.1038/s41588-023-01485-w 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Meta-analysis

ARTICLE TITLE

GWAS meta-analysis of over 29,000 people with epilepsy identifies 26 risk loci and subtype-specific genetic architecture

 

Developing silicones that are friendlier toward health and the environment

Peer-Reviewed Publication

CNRS

 

IMAGE: SILICONE SYNTHESIS EQUATION DEVELOPED BY THE RESEARCH TEAM (ECOIH/LHFA). view more 

CREDIT: © TSUYOSHI KATO/CNRS

Polysiloxanes, the scientific name for silicones, possess exceptional properties, and are used in numerous fields ranging from cosmetics to aerospace. They are absolutely everywhere! However, they have a major flaw, as small, cyclic oligosolixanes—toxic for the environment and identified as an endocrine disruptor—form during their synthesis. To correct this drawback, a team of scientists1 led by a CNRS researcher recently developed a new process for synthesising silicones in a cleaner and more environmentally-friendly manner by preventing the formation of these small cyclic oligosolixanes. The results will appear in Science on 1 September, and could have a considerable impact on the industrial sector.

1. From the Fundamental and Applied Heterochemistry Laboratory (CNRS/Université de Toulouse Paul Sabatier), the company Elkem Silicones, and the Chemistry Department of the Autonomous University of Barcelona.

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JOURNAL

Science

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

ARTICLE TITLE

Ring-opening polymerization of cyclic oligosiloxanes without producing cyclic oligomers

 

Exciting the brain could be key to boosting maths learning, says new study

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF SURREY

Exciting a brain region using electrical noise stimulation can help improve mathematical learning in those who struggle with the subject, according to a new study from the Universities of Surrey and Oxford, Loughborough University, and Radboud University in The Netherlands.

During this unique study, researchers investigated the impact of neurostimulation on learning. Despite the growing interest in this non-invasive technique, little is known about the neurophysiological changes induced and the effect it has on learning.

Researchers found that electrical noise stimulation over the frontal part of the brain improved the mathematical ability of people whose brain was less excited (by mathematics) before the application of stimulation. No improvement in mathematical scores was identified in those who had a high level of brain excitation during the initial assessment or in the placebo groups. Researchers believe that electrical noise stimulation acts on the sodium channels in the brain, interfering with the cell membrane of the neurons, which increases cortical excitability.

Professor Roi Cohen Kadosh, Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience and Head of the School of Psychology at the University of Surrey who led this project, said:

“Learning is key to everything we do in life – from developing new skills, such as driving a car, to learning how to code. Our brains are constantly absorbing and acquiring new knowledge.

“Previously, we have shown that a person’s ability to learn is associated with neuronal excitation in their brains. What we wanted to discover in this case is if our novel stimulation protocol could boost, in other words excite, this activity and improve mathematical skills.”

For the study, 102 participants were recruited, and their mathematical skills were assessed through a series of multiplication problems. Participants were then split into four groups: a learning group exposed to high-frequency random electrical noise stimulation, an overlearning group in which participants practised the multiplication beyond the point of mastery with high-frequency random electrical noise stimulation. The remaining two groups, consisted of a learning and overlearning group but they were exposed to a sham (i.e., placebo) condition, an experience akin to real stimulation without applying significant electrical currents. EEG recordings were taken at the beginning and at the end of the stimulation to measure brain activity.

Dr Nienke van Bueren from Radboud University, who led this work under Professor Cohen Kadosh's supervision, said:

“These findings highlight that individuals with lower brain excitability may be more receptive to noise stimulation, leading to enhanced learning outcomes, while those with high brain excitability might not experience the same benefits in their mathematical abilities.”

Professor Cohen Kadosh adds:

“What we have found is how this promising neurostimulation works and under which conditions the stimulation protocol is most effective. This discovery could not only pave the way for a more tailored approach in a person’s learning journey but also shed light on the optimal timing and duration of its application.”  

This study was published in PL0S Biology

 

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JOURNAL

PLoS Biology

DOI

10.1101/2022.04.29.489988 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

ARTICLE TITLE

Human Neuronal Excitation/Inhibition Balance Explains and Predicts Neurostimulation Induced Learning Benefits

Student engagement improves calculus class outcomes among undergraduates

Peer-Reviewed Publication

AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE (AAAS)

A randomized trial involving 811 undergraduate students at a U.S. Hispanic-Serving Institution (HIS) university found that students assigned to calculus classes focused on collaborative learning and student engagement had a greater understanding of calculus concepts and improved grades compared to those assigned to classes taught in a traditional lecture style. Laird Kramer and colleagues note that the success of the engagement “treatment” occurred across all racial and ethnic groups, academic majors, and genders. Since calculus is usually a foundation for further study in STEM majors, improving student success is critical for removing barriers to STEM degrees and STEM professions, especially among traditionally underserved students. Kramer et al.’s study at Florida International University, conducted over three semesters, used an engagement model that cultivates “mathematical habits of mind,” including identifying patterns, making connections, and developing and testing hypotheses, mostly in small groups of students with minimal lecturing. Historic pass rates for the introductory calculus class (conducted mostly as lectures) averaged 55%, but the engagement treatment improved this pass rate by 11%, the researchers note. Applying this improvement to all first-time calculus students at the university would translate to 220 additional students passing calculus each year—and 33,000 U.S. students annually if the engagement classes were taught nationwide. The improvements would reduce the number of classes needed each semester and save students nationwide an estimated $23.9 million in tuition, the researchers calculate.

In this week’s Science Podcast, host Sarah Crespi talks with Kramer about his group’s work shaking up the calculus curriculum, and with Science staffers about their own calculus trauma, from fear of spinning shapes to thinking twice about majoring in physics. Beyond anecdotes, research has shown that many students, particularly women and minority students, are deterred from continuing in STEM fields by their experience in calculus courses. The results from Kramer and team show a significant increase in student retention after exposure to a different teaching approach. The podcast discussing the Kramer et al. study will be available at https://www.science.org/podcasts on Thursday, August 31 at 2pm US ET.

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JOURNAL

Science

DOI

10.1126/science.ade9803 

ARTICLE TITLE

Establishing a new standard of care for calculus using trials with randomized student allocation

 

The eyes are a window into the deciding mind

Peer-Reviewed Publication

TOHOKU UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: PERCEPTUAL DECISIONS ONLY AFFECT EYE MOVEMENTS WHEN SIMULTANEOUS EYE AND REACH MOVEMENTS ARE MADE. view more 

CREDIT: KAZUMICHI MATSUMIYA

Researchers worldwide are seeking visible indicators of what is going on inside our minds as we think about issues and take decisions. They are searching for the ability to probe the invisible workings of the mind by monitoring subtle signals from the body. New insights from experiments at Tohoku University have revealed a link between eye movements and certain types of decision-making. Kazumichi Matsumiya and Shota Furukawa at the university's Graduate School of Information Sciences reported their findings in the journal Communications Biology.

"Our work has revealed that eye movements that are not related to the visual requirements for decision-making are nevertheless affected by the process of making decisions," says Matsumiya. Previous research in the field has analyzed how eye and hand movements affect decision-making, but did not look at the issue from the other direction to investigate if decision-making affects eye and hand movements.

The new research was conducted to assess the validity of the previous general assumption that motor movements, such as by the eyes or hand, will not be affected by decision-making activities in situations where the movements are not directly related to making the decision.

The Tohoku University researchers instructed participants to move their eyes and right hand towards targets that were not relevant to an ongoing perceptual decision-making task. Participants were first given a separate task where they were asked to decide and report on the direction of movement of a visual stimulus that was briefly presented on the display. This was defined as a perceptual decision-making task. The participants then performed the task in which their eye and hand motor movements were irrelevant to their decision-making. Comparing the results of the two tasks allowed the research team to identify and measure any effects of decision-making on eye and hand movements that were irrelevant to the decisions.

"We found that perceptual decision-making interfered with unrelated eye movements but not hand movements," Matsumiya says. "This demonstrates that nerve signals involved in making decisions continuously flow into the oculomotor eye-movement system, even when multiple motor actions are irrelevant to the decision-making," he adds.

The researchers expect that their findings will contribute to developing new technologies for inferring when decision-making tasks are proceeding in the mind, even when making the decisions does not involve any movements of the eyes.

This could be used to advance fundamental research into what is going on inside a person's mind, by monitoring indirectly when decisions are and are not being made.

It might also be used in more practical applications, such as monitoring attentiveness when crucial tasks involving making significant decisions are being performed. For example, it may be useful for mental care support, dementia care support, and crime prevention.

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JOURNAL

Communications Biology

DOI

10.1038/s42003-023-05249-4 

ARTICLE TITLE

Perceptual decisions interfere more with eye movements than with reach movements