Joshua H Balsters

• PhD
• Lecturer at Royal Holloway University of London

Social deficits are a core symptom of autism spectrum disorder; however, the perturbed neural mechanisms underpinning these deficits remain unclear. It has been suggested that social prediction errors—coding discrepancies between the predicted and actual outcome of another’s decisions—might play a crucial role in processing social information. Whil...

A plethora of research has implicated the cingulate cortex in the processing of social information (i.e., processing elicited by, about, and directed toward others) and reward-related information that guides decision-making. However, it is often overlooked that there is variability in the cytoarchitectonic properties and anatomical connections acro...

Background Social motivation theory suggests that deficits in social reward processing underlie social impairments in autism spectrum disorders (ASD). However, the extent to which abnormalities in reward processing generalize to other classes of stimuli remains unresolved. The aim of the current study was to examine if reward processing abnormaliti...

Although resting state fMRI (RS-fMRI) is increasingly used to generate biomarkers of psychiatric illnesses, analytical choices such as seed size and placement can lead to variable findings. Seed placement especially impacts on RS-fMRI studies of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), because individuals with ASD are known to possess more variable network...

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) has been associated with abnormal synaptic development causing a breakdown in functional connectivity. However, when measured at the macro scale using resting state fMRI, these alterations are subtle and often difficult to detect due to the large heterogeneity of the pathology. Recently, we outlined a novel approach f...

People differ in their levels of impulsivity and patience, and these preferences are heavily influenced by others. Previous research suggests that susceptibility to social influence may vary with age, but the mechanisms and whether people are more influenced by patience or impulsivity remain unknown. Here, using a delegated inter-temporal choice ta...

Motor fatigability emerges when challenging motor tasks must be maintained over an extended period of time. It is frequently observed in everyday life and affects patients as well as healthy individuals. Motor fatigability can be measured using simple tasks like finger tapping at maximum speed for 30 s. This typically results in a rapid decrease of...

People differ in their levels of impulsivity and patience, and these preferences are heavily influenced by others. Previous research suggests that susceptibility to social influence may vary with age, but the mechanisms and whether people are more influenced by patience or impulsivity remain unknown. Here, using a delegated inter-temporal choice ta...

Motor fatigability emerges when challenging motor tasks must be maintained over an extended period of time. It is a frequently observed phenomenon in everyday life which affects patients as well as healthy individuals. Motor fatigability can be measured using simple tasks like finger tapping at maximum speed for 30s. This typically results in a rap...

Neuroeconomics paradigms have demonstrated that learning about another’s beliefs can make you more like them (i.e., contagion). Due to social deficits in autism, it is possible that autistic individuals will be immune to contagion. We fit Bayesian computational models to a temporal discounting task, where participants made decisions for themselves...

Evolution, as we currently understand it, strikes a delicate balance between animals’ ancestral history and adaptations to their current niche. Similarities between species are generally considered inherited from a common ancestor whereas observed differences are considered as more recent evolution. Hence comparing species can provide insights into...

Adolescence is a period of heightened exploration relative to adulthood and childhood. This predisposition has been linked with negative behaviours related to risk‐taking, including dangerous driving, substance misuse and risky sexual practices. However, recent models have argued that adolescents’ heightened exploration serves a functional purpose...

Current methods to infer an agent’s state of attentional focus rely on scalp potential recordings and pupil diameter measurements, both of which are unrealistic in many real-world situations, and are also prone to movement and electrical artifacts. Being able to predict attentional performance from a simple and noninvasive measure, such as respirat...

Evolution, as we currently understand it, strikes a delicate balance between animals' ancestral history and adaptations to their current niche. Similarities between species are generally considered inherited from a common ancestor whereas observed differences are considered more recent occurrences. Hence comparing species can provide insights into...

Human behavior is strongly influenced by our motivation to establish social relationships and maintain them throughout life. Despite the importance of social behavior across species, it is still unclear how neural mechanisms drive social actions. Rodent models have been used for decades to unravel the neural pathways and substrates of social intera...

With the increasing necessity of animal models in biomedical research, there is a vital need to harmonise findings across species by establishing similarities and differences in rodent and primate neuroanatomy. Using connectivity fingerprint matching, we compared cortico-striatal circuits across humans, non-human primates, and mice using resting-st...

With the increasing necessity of animal models in biomedical research, there is a vital need to harmonise findings across species by establishing similarities and differences in rodent and primate neuroanatomy. Using connectivity fingerprint matching, we compared cortico-striatal circuits across humans, non-human primates, and mice using resting-st...

With the increasing necessity of animal models in biomedical research, there is a vital need to harmonise findings across species by establishing similarities and differences in rodent and primate neuroanatomy. Using connectivity fingerprint matching, we compared cortico-striatal circuits across humans, non-human primates, and mice using resting-st...

With the increasing necessity of animal models in biomedical research, there is a vital need to harmonise findings across species by establishing similarities and differences in rodent and primate neuroanatomy. Using a connectivity fingerprint matching approach, we compared cortico-striatal circuits across humans, non-human primates, and mice using...

Motor fatigability emerges when demanding tasks are executed over an extended period of time. Here, we used repetitive low-force movements that cause a gradual reduction in movement speed (or ‘motor slowing’) to study the central component of fatigability in healthy adults. We show that motor slowing is associated with a gradual increase of net exc...

In children with unilateral cerebral palsy (uCP), the corticospinal tract (CST)-wiring patterns may differ (contralateral, ipsilateral or bilateral), partially determining motor deficits. However, the impact of such CST-wiring on functional connectivity remains unknown. Here, we explored resting-state sensorimotor functional connectivity in 26 uCP...

Motor fatigability emerges when demanding task are executed over an extended period of time. Here, we used repetitive low-force movements, which cause a gradual reduction in movement speed (or motor slowing), to study the central component of fatigability in healthy adults. We show that motor slowing is associated with a gradual increase of net exc...

In children with unilateral cerebral palsy (uCP), the corticospinal tract (CST) wiring patterns may differ (contralateral, ipsilateral or bilateral), partially determining motor deficits. However, the impact of such CST wiring on functional connectivity remains unknown. Here, we explored differences in functional connectivity of the resting-state s...

To date there exists no reliable method to non-invasively upregulate or downregulate the state of the resting human motor system over a large dynamic range. Here we show that an operant conditioning paradigm which provides neurofeedback of the size of motor evoked potentials (MEPs) in response to transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), enables par...

With the greying population, it is increasingly necessary to establish robust and individualized markers of cognitive decline. This requires the combination of well-established neural mechanisms, and the development of increasingly sensitive methodologies. The P300 event-related potential (ERP) has been one of the most heavily investigated neural m...

To date there exists no reliable method to non-invasively upregulate or downregulate the state of the resting motor system over a large dynamic range. Here we show that an operant conditioning paradigm which provides neurofeedback of the size of motor evoked potentials (MEPs) in response to transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), enables participa...

The locus coeruleus (LC) has established functions in both attention and respiration. Good attentional performance requires optimal levels of tonic LC activity, and must be matched to task consistently. LC neurons are chemosensitive, causing respiratory phrenic nerve firing to increase frequency with higher CO2 levels, and as CO2 level varies with...

Drawing on sociocultural theories and Bayesian accounts of brain function, in this article we construe psychiatric conditions as disorders of social interaction to fully account for their complexity and dynamicity across levels of description and temporal scales. After an introduction of the theoretical underpinnings of our integrative approach, we...

Obese individuals have been shown to exhibit abnormal sensitivity to rewards and reward-predicting cues as for example food-associated cues frequently used in advertisements. It has also been shown that food-associated cues can increase goal-directed behavior but it is currently unknown, whether this effect differs between normal-weight, overweight...

Background: In the last decade, interest in combined transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and electroencephalography (EEG) approaches has grown substantially. Aside from the obvious artifacts induced by the magnetic pulses themselves, separate and more sinister signal disturbances arise as a result of contact between the TMS coil and EEG electr...

In today's 24/7 society, sleep restriction is a common phenomenon which leads to increased levels of sleep pressure in daily life. However, the magnitude and extent of impairment of brain functioning due to increased sleep pressure is still not completely understood. Resting state network (RSN) analyses have become increasingly popular because they...

Background In the last decade, interest in combined transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and electroencephalography (EEG) approaches has grown substantially. Aside from the obvious artifacts induced by the magnetic pulses themselves, separate and more sinister signal disturbances arise as a result of contact between the TMS coil and EEG electrod...

Translational neuroimaging requires approaches and techniques that can bridge between multiple different species and disease states. One candidate method, which offers insights into the brain's functional connectivity (FC), is resting state fMRI (rs-fMRI). In both humans and non-human primates, patterns of functional connectivity (often referred to...

The second iteration of the Autism Brain Imaging Data Exchange (ABIDE II) aims to enhance the scope of brain connectomics research in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Consistent with the initial ABIDE effort (ABIDE I), that released 1112 datasets in 2012, this new multisite open-data resource is an aggregate of resting state functional magnetic reso...

Multiple types of reward, such as money, food or social approval, are capable of driving behavior. However, most previous investigations have only focused on one of these reward classes in isolation, as such it is not clear whether different reward classes have a unique influence on instrumental responding or whether the subjective value of the rew...

Most psychiatric disorders are associated with subtle alterations in brain function and are subject to large interindividual differences. Typically, the diagnosis of these disorders requires time-consuming behavioral assessments administered by a multidisciplinary team with extensive experience. While the application of Machine Learning classificat...

Over the last decade, structure-function relationships have begun to encompass networks of brain areas rather than individual structures. For example, corticostriatal circuits have been associated with sensorimotor, limbic, and cognitive information processing, and damage to these circuits has been shown to produce unique behavioral outcomes in Aut...

Higher brain function relies upon the ability to flexibly integrate information across specialized communities of brain regions; however, it is unclear how this mechanism manifests over time. In this study, we used time-resolved network analysis of fMRI data to demonstrate that the human brain traverses between functional states that maximize eithe...

Supplementary materials.

Pathophysiological and atrophic changes in the cerebellum are documented in Parkinson's disease. Without compensatory activity, such abnormalities could potentially have more widespread effects on both motor and non-motor symptoms. We examined how atrophic change in the cerebellum impacts functional connectivity patterns within the cerebellum and b...

Objective. In electroencephalography (EEG) measurements, the signal of each recording electrode is contrasted with a reference electrode or a combination of electrodes. The estimation of a neutral reference is a long-standing issue in EEG data analysis, which has motivated the proposal of different re-referencing methods, among which linked-mastoid...

Influential theories of brain-viscera interactions propose a central role for interoception in basic motivational and affective feeling states. Recent neuroimaging studies have underlined the insula, anterior cingulate, and ventral prefrontal cortices as the neural correlates of interoception. However, the relationships between these distributed br...

One of the cardinal and unique features of Autism (ASD) is their difficulty in understanding the mental states of others (Theory of Mind; ToM). Despite numerous behavioural and neuroimaging investigations, it is as yet unclear why individuals with ASD tend to struggle with this task, however, a computational approach may provide greater insight1. I...

It has been suggested that the computational and neural mechanisms that underpin ToM may be similar to those that underpin first-person Reinforcement Learning (RL), i.e. unexpected decision-making outcomes (false beliefs) constitute prediction errors (PE) that activate neurons in regions such as the Middle Cingulate Cortex (MCC). Here, we present a...

The locus coeruleus-noradrenergic (LC–NA) neuromodulatory system has been implicated in a broad array of cognitive processes, yet scope for investigating this system’s function in humans is currently limited by an absence of reliable non-invasive measures of LC activity. Although pupil diameter has been employed as a proxy measure of LC activity in...

Theories positing that the cerebellum contributes to cognitive as well as motor control are driven by two sources of information: (1) studies highlighting connections between the cerebellum and both prefrontal and motor territories, (2) functional neuroimaging studies demonstrating cerebellar activa-tions evoked during the performance of both cogni...

The pathogenesis of adult-onset primary dystonia remains poorly understood. There is variable age-related and gender-related expression of the phenotype, the commonest of which is cervical dystonia. Endophenotypes may provide insight into underlying genetic and pathophysiological mechanisms of dystonia. The temporal discrimination threshold (TDT)-t...

The pathogenesis of adult-onset primary dystonia remains poorly understood. There is variable age-related and gender-related expression of the phenotype, the commonest of which is cervical dystonia. Endophenotypes may provide insight into underlying genetic and pathophysiological mechanisms of dystonia. The temporal discrimination threshold (TDT)—t...

We describe a unique patient who experienced a progressive autoimmune coma from age 14 to 17. The patient awoke after treatment with immunosuppressant medication. Although alertness, verbalization, and mobilization markedly improved, the patient reported persistent cognitive difficulties. Neuropsychological assessment from age 21 showed impairments...

Abnormalities in frontostriatal circuitry potentially underlie the two core deficits in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD); social interaction and communication difficulties and restricted interests and repetitive behaviors. Whilst a few studies have examined connectivity within this circuitry in ASD, no previous study has examined both functional and...

Electrophysiology studies routinely investigate the relationship between neural oscillations and task performance. However, the sluggish nature of the BOLD response means that few researchers have investigated the spectral properties of the BOLD signal in a similar manner. For the first time we have applied group ICA to fMRI data collected during a...

Resting fluctuations in the blood oxygenation level-dependent signal have attracted considerable interest for their sensitivity to pathological brain processes. However, these analyses are susceptible to confound by nonneural physiological factors such as vasculature, breathing, and head movement which is a concern when investigating elderly or pat...

Supplementary materials.

Converging anatomical and functional evidence suggests that the cerebellum processes both motor and nonmotor information originating from the primary motor cortex and prefrontal cortex, respectively. However, it has not been established whether the cerebellum only processes prefrontal information where rules specify actions or whether the cerebellu...

Background: The ‘Social Motivation Hypothesis,’ suggests that impairments in social interaction which characterise ASD are due to a failure to associate social stimuli with emotional rewards. Previous studies of reward processing in ASD have shown reduced activity in the ventral striatum in response to social rewards. However, results with referenc...

The ability to attribute mental states to others and understand the basis of their decisions is essential for human social interaction. A controversial theory states that this is achieved by simulating another's information processing in one's own neural circuits. The anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) is known to play an important role in the registr...

The influence of personality on the neural correlates of emotional processing is still not well characterized. We investigated the relationship between extraversion and neuroticism and emotional perception using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in a group of 23 young, healthy women. Using a parametric modulation approach, we examined ho...

EEG drug effects for eyes open and eyes closed conditions. a) Delta eyes closed drug effect. b) Alpha1 eyes closed drug effect. c) Delta eyes closed drug by age interaction. d) Alpha1 eyes closed drug by session interaction. e) Alpha2 eyes open drug by region interaction. An asterisk next to the region name indicate a significant difference (p<0.05...

CPAL performance for experiment 1 and experiment 2. Values are percent accuracy with values in brackets showing the standard error. (DOCX)

Experiment 2 EEG results for drug effects on tonic EEG power and EEG reactivity. (DOCX)

The adaptive gain theory highlights the pivotal role of the locus coeruleus-noradrenergic (LC-NE) system in regulating task engagement. In humans, however, LC-NE functional dynamics remain largely unknown. We evaluated the utility of two candidate psychophysiological markers of LC-NE activity: the P3 event-related potential and pupil diameter. Elec...

Rising life expectancies coupled with an increasing awareness of age-related cognitive decline have led to the unwarranted use of psychopharmaceuticals, including acetylcholinesterase inhibitors (AChEIs), by significant numbers of healthy older individuals. This trend has developed despite very limited data regarding the effectiveness of such drugs...

Theories of corticocerebellar function propose roles for the cerebellum in automating motor control, a process thought to depend on plasticity in cerebellar circuits that exchange information with the motor cortex. Little is known, however, about automating behaviors beyond the motor domain. The present study tested the hypothesis that cerebellar p...

It has been suggested that interconnected brain areas evolve in tandem because evolutionary pressures act on complete functional systems rather than on individual brain areas. The cerebellar cortex has reciprocal connections with both the prefrontal cortex and motor cortex, forming independent loops with each. Specifically, in capuchin monkeys cere...

Introduction: The ability to learn patterns and rules, and apply them under different circumstances or to new effectors, enables efficient interaction with a complex, changing environment. There is much evidence showing that the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) can represent rules that guide actions (1). However, the network of brain areas th...

The functional organization of the cerebellum is reflected in large part by the unique afferent and efferent connectivity of the individual cerebellar lobules. This functional diversity on a relatively small spatial scale makes accurate localization methods for human functional imaging and anatomical patient-based research indispensable. Here we pr...

Cerebellar cortical areas connected to the neocortical motor system process information important for the sensory guidance of action. Converging evidence also supports the view that cerebellar cortical areas connected with the prefrontal cortex process information similarly in the cognitive domain. Here, we test the hypothesis that the prefrontal-p...

Analysis of fMRI time-series data is usually performed within the general linear model (GLM), and conclusions are based on the probability (p) of a false-positive voxel. In its simplest form, this process assumes that temporal noise in the time-series is random (white); if it is not, then an error in the estimation of p will occur. Various methods...

Analysis of fMRI time-series data is usually performed within the general linear model (GLM), and conclusions are based on the probability (p) of a false-positive voxel. In its simplest form, this process assumes that temporal noise in the time-series is random (white); if it is not, then an error in the estimation of p will occur. Various methods...