Jordan Grafman

Shirley Ryan AbilityLab

We review and synthesize recent religion and brain studies and find that at a broad network neuroscience level, religious/spiritual experiences (RSEs) appear to depend crucially upon interactions between the default mode network (DMN), the frontoparietal network (FPN), and the salience network (SN). We see this general result as broadly consistent...

Studies exploring the brain correlates of behavioral symptoms in the frontotemporal dementia spectrum (FTD) have mainly searched for linear correlations with single modality neuroimaging data, either structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) or fluoro-deoxy-D-glucose positron emission tomography (FDG-PET). We aimed at studying the two imaging mod...

Objectives: To test the behavioral and physiological effects of monetary rewards on a cognitive task during inpatient rehabilitation for acquired brain injury (ABI).Design: Two-arm, partially randomized, controlled trial. Setting: Acute rehabilitation facility Participants: 17 participants with acquired brain injuries (ABIs) and 14 non-impaired con...

Objectives: To test the behavioral and physiological effects of monetary rewards on a cognitive task during inpatient rehabilitation for acquired brain injury (ABI).Design: Two-arm, partially randomized, controlled trial. Setting: Acute rehabilitation facility Participants: 17 participants with acquired brain injuries (ABIs) and 14 non-impaired con...

Religious fundamentalism, characterized by rigid adherence to a set of beliefs putatively revealing inerrant truths, is ubiquitous across cultures and has a global impact on society. Understanding the psychological and neurobiological processes producing religious fundamentalism may inform a variety of scientific, sociological, and cultural questio...

Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) is the second most common cause of early-onset dementia after Alzheimer disease (AD). Efforts in the field mainly focus on familial forms of disease (fFTDs), while studies of the genetic etiology of sporadic FTD (sFTD) have been less common. In the current work, we analyzed 4,685 sFTD cases and 15,308 controls looking...

Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and deep brain stimulation (DBS) can treat some neuropsychiatric disorders, but there is no consensus approach for identifying new targets. We localized causal circuit-based targets for anxiety that converged across multiple natural experiments. Lesions (n=451) and TMS sites (n=111) that modify anxiety mapped...

Religious fundamentalism, characterized by rigid adherence to a set of beliefs putatively revealing inerrant truths, is ubiquitous across cultures and has a global impact on society. Understanding the psychological and neurobiological processes producing religious fundamentalism may inform a variety of scientific, sociological, and cultural questio...

Therapeutic brain stimulation targets are typically designed to treat specific psychiatric or neurological symptoms. 1–4 This approach presents a dilemma when treating patients with comorbidities, atypical symptom profiles, or overlapping symptoms. Identifying targets that modulate groups of behavioral or cognitive symptoms across diagnoses may pro...

Understanding the neuroanatomy of schizophrenia remains elusive due to heterogenous findings across neuroimaging studies. Here, we investigated whether patterns of brain atrophy associated with schizophrenia would localize to a common brain network. Using the human connectome as a wiring diagram, we identified a connectivity pattern, a schizophreni...

Altruism is a type of prosocial behavior that is carried out in the absence of personal benefit or even at an expense to self. Trait altruism varies greatly across individuals, and the reasons for this variability are still not fully understood. Growing evidence suggests that altruism may be partly determined by the oxytocin receptor (OXTR) gene, w...

Background Studies exploring the brain correlates of behavioural symptoms in the frontotemporal dementia spectrum (FTD) have mainly searched for linear correlations with single modality neuroimaging data, either structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) or fluoro-deoxy-D-glucose positron emission tomography (FDG-PET). We aimed at studying the two...

Importance: It remains unclear why lesions in some locations cause epilepsy while others do not. Identifying the brain regions or networks associated with epilepsy by mapping these lesions could inform prognosis and guide interventions. Objective: To assess whether lesion locations associated with epilepsy map to specific brain regions and netwo...

Neuromodulation trials for PTSD have yielded mixed results, and the optimal neuroanatomical target remains unclear. We analyzed three datasets to study brain circuitry causally linked to PTSD in military Veterans. After penetrating traumatic brain injury (n=193), lesions that reduced probability of PTSD were preferentially connected to a circuit in...

We selectively review existing neuroscience research on theistic relational cognition—construed as ritual practices directed toward supernatural agents. We present a tentative framework rooted in cultural and evolutionary models of religion for understanding the disparate findings of emerging neuroscience research on theistic cognition. We propose...

Background: Emotion regulation has been linked to specific brain networks based on functional neuroimaging, but networks causally involved in emotion regulation remain unknown. Methods: We studied patients with focal brain damage (n=167) who completed the "managing emotion" subscale of the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT...

Psychiatric disorders share neurobiology and frequently co-occur. This neurobiological and clinical overlap highlights opportunities for transdiagnostic treatments. In this study, we used coordinate and lesion network mapping to test for a shared brain network across psychiatric disorders. In our meta-analysis of 193 studies, atrophy coordinates ac...

The cerebellum’s anatomical and functional organization and network interactions between the cerebellum and the cerebral cortex and subcortical structures are dynamic across the lifespan. Executive, emotional and social (EES) functions have likewise evolved during human development from contributing to primitive behaviors during infancy and childho...

The information humans are exposed to increased demands upon our information selection strategies, resulting in reduced fact-checking and critical-thinking time. Research showed that problem-solving (traditionally measured using the CRT) negatively correlates with believing in false information. We argue that this result is specifically related to...

Introduction: This study aims to measure frequency and correlates of initial idiopathic psychiatric diagnosis in a cohort of 147 patients with Frontotemporal Dementia (FTD)-spectrum disorders. Methods: Participants were evaluated at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. Initial participant diagnoses were determined by chart re...

The information humans are exposed to has grown exponentially. This has placed increased demands upon our information selection strategies resulting in reduced fact-checking and critical-thinking time. Prior research shows that problem solving (traditionally measured using the Cognitive Reflection Test -CRT) negatively correlates with believing in...

Background Damage to cortico-striato-thalamo-cortical (CSTC) circuits is associated with the development of repetitive behaviours in animals and humans. However, the types of repetitive behaviours that are developed after injury to these structures are poorly defined. This study examines the effect of damage to separate elements of CSTC circuits su...

Theory of Mind (ToM) is a social-cognitive skill that allows the understanding of the intentions, beliefs, and desires of others. There is a distinction between affective and cognitive ToM, with evidence showing that these processes rely on partially distinct neural networks. The role of the cerebellum in social cognition has only been rarely explo...

Emotion regulation has been linked to specific brain networks based on functional neuroimaging. We found that damage to these networks was associated with emotion regulation impairment in patients following focal brain injury (n = 167). Next, we used this lesion dataset to derive a de novo brain network for emotion regulation, which was defined by...

One of the major achievements of psychology in the twentieth century is the establishment and implementation of standard measures of human intelligence. The use of these measures yielded a large body of research as well as many controversies and criticisms (for review see Nisbett et al., 2012). The relatively recent development of structural and fu...

Introduction: Theory of Mind (ToM) is a social-cognitive skill that allows the understanding of the intentions, beliefs, and desires of others. There is a distinction between affective and cognitive ToM, with evidence showing that these processes rely on partially distinct neural networks. The role of the cerebellum in social cognition has only bee...

Background Over 80% of the global population consider themselves religious with even more identifying as spiritual, but the neural substrates of spirituality and religiosity remain unresolved. Methods In two independent brain lesion datasets (N1=88; N2=105), we apply lesion network mapping to test whether lesion locations associated with spiritual...

Humans all over the world believe in spirits and deities, yet how the brain supports religious cognition remains unclear. Drawing on a unique sample of patients with penetrating traumatic brain injuries (pTBI) and matched healthy controls (HCs) we investigate dependencies of religious cognition on neural networks that represent (1) others agents’ i...

Parkinson's disease (PD) patients receiving dopaminergic treatment may experience bursts of creativity. Although this phenomenon is sometimes recognized among patients and their clinicians, the association between dopamine replacement therapy (DRT) in PD patients and creativity remains underexplored. It is unclear, for instance, whether DRT affects...

Humans are highly adept at differentiating, regulating, and responding to their emotions. At the core of all these functions is emotional awareness: the conscious feeling states that are central to human mental life. Disrupted emotional awareness—a subclinical construct commonly referred to as alexithymia—is present in a range of psychiatric and ne...

Objective: We investigated whether the cerebellum plays a critical or supportive role in in executive and emotion processes in adults. Many investigators now espouse the hypothesis that participants with cerebellar lesions experience executive functions and emotions (EE) disorders. But we hypothesized that these disorders would be milder if the dam...

The ability to infer other persons' mental states, "Theory of Mind" (ToM), is a key function of social cognition and is needed when interpreting the intention of others. ToM is associated with a network of functionally related regions, with reportedly key prominent hubs located in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) and the temporoparietal j...

Background: Changes in sexual behaviors in frontotemporal dementia (FTD) are common and multifaceted, but not well characterized. Objective: To characterize changes in sexual behaviors and intimacy in FTD compared to corticobasal syndrome (CBS) and normal controls (NC), and to evaluate the neuroanatomical associations of these changes. Methods:...

We employed Mendelian randomization (MR) to evaluate the causal relationship between leukocyte telomere length (LTL) and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) with summary statistics from genome-wide association studies (n = ~ 38,000 for LTL and ~ 81,000 for ALS in the European population; n = ~ 23,000 for LTL and ~ 4,100 for ALS in the Asian populat...

Trust plays a critical role in nearly every aspect of social life. Parental investment theory and social role theory predict that women trust less than men due to a higher sensitivity to risk and betrayal, while men trust more than women to maximize resources and to signal their willingness to lose something. However, the underlying neuropsychologi...

Background: There are currently no disease-targeted treatments for cognitive or behavioral symptoms in patients with behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD). Objective: To determine the effect of tolcapone, a specific inhibitor of Catechol-O-Methyltransferase (COMT), in patients with bvFTD. Methods: In this randomized, double-blind,...

Objective: The authors examined the effects of two common functional polymorphisms-brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) Val66Met and catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) Val158Met-on cognitive, neuropsychiatric, and motor symptoms and MRI findings in persons with frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD) syndromes. Methods: The BDNF Val66Met a...

According to the Gestalt theorists, restructuring is an essential component of insight problem-solving, contributing to the “Aha!” experience, and similar to the perceptual switch experienced when reinterpreting ambiguous figures. Previous research has demonstrated that pupil diameter increases during the perceptual switch of ambiguous figures, and...

A strong personal relationship with God is theoretically and empirically associated with an enhanced sense of control. While a growing body of research is focused on understanding the neural mechanisms underlying religious belief, little is known about the brain basis of the link between a personal relationship with God and sense of control. Here,...

Religion’s neural underpinnings have long been a topic of speculation and debate, but an emerging neuroscience of religion is beginning to clarify which regions of the brain integrate moral, ritual, and supernatural religious beliefs with functionally adaptive responses. Here, we review evidence indicating that religious cognition involves a comple...

Problem-solving is essential for advances in cultural, social, and scientific knowledge. It is also one of the most challenging cognitive processes to facilitate. Some problem-solving is deliberate, but frequently people solve problems with a sudden insight, also known as a Eureka or “Aha!” moment. The advantage of solving problems via insight is t...

Humans compute the anticipated reward value of stimuli in their environment in order to behave in an adaptive, goal-directed manner. This reward valuation ability is vital, and its disruption in a range of clinical populations has profound personal and social consequences. However, research has often failed to consider the reward-related functions...

The effect of prior beliefs on reasoning and decision-making is a robust, poorly understood phenomenon, exhibiting considerable individual variation. Neuroimaging studies widely show the involvement of the left prefrontal cortex (pFC) in reasoning involving beliefs. However, little patient data exist to speak to the necessity and role of the left p...

Frontotemporal lobar degeneration with neuronal inclusions of the TAR DNA-binding protein 43 (FTLD-TDP) represents the most common pathological subtype of FTLD. We established the international FTLD-TDP whole-genome sequencing consortium to thoroughly characterize the known genetic causes of FTLD-TDP and identify novel genetic risk factors. Through...

Objectives The objective of this study is to evaluate the relationship between suicidal ideation (SI), structural brain damage, and cognitive deficits in patients with penetrating traumatic brain injury (pTBI). Methods Vietnam War veterans ( n = 142) with pTBI to the prefrontal cortex (PFC) underwent combination of neuropsychological and psychiatr...

People can solve problems through methodical analysis, or with a sudden insight (accompanied by an "Aha!" or "Eureka!" experience). Previous research has shown that these two ways of generating ideas are associated with distinct neural correlates and physiological markers. Solutions via insight correlate with a decrease of activity over the visual...

The emergence of enduring antisocial personality changes in previously normal individuals, or “acquired sociopathy,” has consistently been reported in patients with bilateral injuries of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex. Over the past three decades, cases of acquired sociopathy with (a) bilateral or (b) unilateral sparing of the ventromedial pref...

Background: An increased risk of suicide in Huntington's disease (HD) patients is well documented, with rates significantly higher than those of the general population as well as other neurodegenerative diseases. However, despite its prevalence, the magnitude of this phenomenon as well as its predictors and etiology are still poorly understood. Met...

Objective: To examine the association between childhood socioeconomic status (SES) and the level and rate of change in intelligence scores throughout adulthood following traumatic brain injury (TBI). Methods: In this longitudinal study we tested 186 patients with TBI and 54 healthy controls from the Vietnam Head Injury Study. Childhood SES was d...

Objective: To evaluate brain 18Fluorodeoxyglucose PET (FDG-PET) differences among patients with a clinical diagnosis of corticobasal syndrome (CBS) and distinct underling primary pathologies. Methods: We studied 29 patients with a diagnosis of CBS who underwent FDG-PET scan and postmortem neuropathologic examination. Patients were divided into s...

Introduction: Idea generation stands at the heart of problem solving. People generate ideas by either having a sudden insight (implicit processing known as an "Aha! moment") or via a step-by-step analysis (explicit deliberation). Behavioral and neuroimaging studies demonstrated that these two ways of solving problems rely on distinct neural network...

Identifying the mechanisms through which genetic risk causes dementia is an imperative for new therapeutic development. Here, we apply a multistage, systems biology approach to elucidate the disease mechanisms in frontotemporal dementia. We identify two gene coexpression modules that are preserved in mice harboring mutations in MAPT, GRN and other...

Executive functions (EFs) include high-order cognitive abilities such as working memory, inhibitory control, cognitive flexibility, planning, reasoning, and problem solving. EFs enable humans to achieve goals, adapt to novel everyday life situations, and manage social interactions. Traditionally EFs have been associated with frontal lobe functionin...

Loneliness is perceived as social isolation and exclusion. The neural substrate of loneliness has been investigated with functional neuroimaging; however, lesion-based studies and their associated outcomes are needed to infer causal involvement between brain regions and function. Here, we applied voxel-based lesion-symptom mapping (VLSM) analyses t...

The G4C2-repeat expansion in C9orf72 is the most common known cause of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and frontotemporal dementia. The high phenotypic heterogeneity of C9orf72 patients includes a wide range in age of onset, modifiers of which are largely unknown. Age of onset could be influenced by environmental and genetic factors both of which may...

The objective of the present study was to investigate structural changes in the narrative discourse of individuals with penetrating traumatic brain injury (pTBI) following immediate and delayed story retellings. Additionally, the potential influence of immediate memory, working memory, and executive functions on narrative discourse performance were...

Introduction: Idea generation stands at the heart of problem solving. People generate ideas by either having a sudden insight (implicit processing known as an “Aha! moment”) or via a step-by-step analysis (explicit deliberation). Behavioral and neuroimaging studies demonstrated that these two ways of solving problems rely on distinct neural network...

Neuroimaging studies have reported a large network of brain regions involved in altruism. However, these studies are unable to determine if these regions are necessary for altruistic attitudes. Here, we examined the brain-basis of everyday altruistic attitudes ([Self-Report Altruism Scale]; e.g., helping a stranger with car troubles) and potential...