Vincent Taschereau-Dumouchel

• PhD
• Assistant Professor-Researcher at Université de Montréal

Story reading is often accompanied by mental visualization of the scenes and the events described. Individuals with aphantasia, who report not experiencing vivid visual imagery, have recently been reported to be less absorbed and engaged when reading stories. In the present study, we explored how aphantasics read imagery-rich stories differently fr...

Story reading is often accompanied by mental visualization of the scenes and the events described. Individuals with aphantasia, who report not experiencing vivid visual imagery, have recently been reported to be less absorbed and engaged when reading stories. In the present study, we explored how aphantasics read imagery-rich stories differently fr...

Story reading is often accompanied by mental visualization of the scenes and the events described. Individuals with aphantasia, who report not experiencing vivid visual imagery, have recently been reported to be less absorbed and engaged when reading stories. In the present study, we explored how aphantasics read imagery-rich stories differently fr...

Theories of consciousness have a long and controversial history. One well-known proposal — integrated information theory — has recently been labeled as ‘pseudoscience’, which has caused a heated open debate. Here we discuss the case and argue that the theory is indeed unscientific because its core claims are untestable even in principle.

Aims The way that individuals subjectively experience the world greatly influences their own mental well‐being. However, it remains a considerable challenge to precisely characterize the breadth and depth of such experiences. One persistent problem is the lack of objective tools for directly quantifying and comparing narrative reports of subjective...

In human neuroscience, machine learning can help reveal lower-dimensional neural representations relevant to subjects’ behavior. However, state-of-the-art models typically require large datasets to train, and so are prone to overfitting on human neuroimaging data that often possess few samples but many input dimensions. Here, we capitalized on the...

Pain is a complex emotional experience that still remains challenging to manage. Previous functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies have associated pain with distributed patterns of brain activity (i.e. brain decoders), but it is still unclear whether these observations reflect causal mechanisms. To address this question, we devised a ne...

The way that individuals subjectively experience the world greatly influences their own mental well-being. However, it remains a considerable challenge to precisely characterize the breadth and depth of such experiences. One persistent problem is the lack of objective tools for directly quantifying and comparing narrative reports of subjective expe...

Aim A new closed‐loop functional magnetic resonance imaging method called multivoxel neuroreinforcement has the potential to alleviate the subjective aversiveness of exposure‐based interventions by directly inducing phobic representations in the brain, outside of conscious awareness. The current study seeks to test this method as an intervention fo...

It has been reported that threatening and non-threatening visual stimuli can be distinguished based on the multi-voxel patterns of haemodynamic activity in the human ventral visual stream. Do these findings mean that there may be evolutionarily hardwired mechanisms within early perception, for the fast and automatic detection of threat, and maybe e...

When patients seek professional help for mental disorders, they often do so because of troubling subjective affective experiences. While these subjective states are at the center of the patient's symptomatology, scientific tools for studying them and their cognitive antecedents are limited. Here, we explore the use of concepts and analytic tools fr...

The Signature Biobank is a longitudinal repository of biospecimen, psychological, sociodemographic, and diagnostic data that was created in 2012. The Signature Consortium represents a group of approximately one hundred Quebec-based transdisciplinary clinicians and research scientists with various expertise in the field of psychiatry. The objective...

Background Multi-voxel neuro-reinforcement has been shown to selectively reduce amygdala reactivity in response to feared stimuli, but the precise mechanisms supporting these effects are still unknown. The current pilot study seeks to identify potential intermediaries of change using functional brain connectivity at rest. Methods Individuals (N =...

Pain is a complex emotional experience that still remains challenging to manage. Previous functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies have associated pain with distributed patterns of brain activity (i.e., brain decoders), but it is still unclear whether these observations reflect causal mechanisms. To address this question, we devised a n...

It has been reported that threatening and non-threatening visual stimuli can be distinguished based on the multi-voxel patterns of hemodynamic activity in the human ventral visual stream. Do these findings mean that there may be evolutionarily hardwired mechanisms within early perception, for the fast and automatic detection of threat, and maybe ev...

Aim A new closed-loop fMRI method called multi-voxel neuro-reinforcement has the potential to alleviate the subjective aversiveness of exposure-based interventions by directly inducing phobic representations in the brain, outside of conscious awareness. The current study seeks to test this method as an intervention for specific phobia. Methods In...

The mechanisms underlying the subjective experiences of mental disorders remain poorly understood. This is partly due to long-standing over-emphasis on behavioral and physiological symptoms and a de-emphasis of the patient's subjective experiences when searching for treatments. Here we provide a new perspective on the subjective experience of menta...

In human neuroscience, machine learning can help reveal lower-dimensional neural representations relevant to subjects' behavior. However, state-of-the-art models typically require large datasets to train, so are prone to overfitting on human neuroimaging data that often possess few samples but many input dimensions. Here, we capitalized on the fact...

Multiple mental disorders have been associated with dysregulation of precise brain processes. However, few therapeutic approaches can correct such specific patterns of brain activity. Since the late 1960s and early 1970s, many researchers have hoped that this feat could be achieved by closed-loop brain imaging approaches, such as neurofeedback, tha...

Mental health problems often involve clusters of symptoms that include subjective (conscious) experiences as well as behavioral and/or physiological responses. Because the bodily responses are readily measured objectively, these have come to be emphasized when developing treatments and assessing their effectiveness. On the other hand, the subjectiv...

Multiple mental disorders have been associated with dysregulations of precise brain processes. However, few therapeutic approaches are currently available in order to correct such specific patterns of brain activity. Since the late 60s and early 70s, many have hoped that this feat could be achieved by closed-loop brain imaging approaches, such as n...

CACNA1A deletions cause epilepsy, ataxia, and a range of neurocognitive deficits, including inattention, impulsivity, intellectual deficiency and autism. To investigate the underlying mechanisms, we generated mice carrying a targeted Cacna1a deletion restricted to parvalbumin-expressing (PV) neurons (PVCre;Cacna1ac/+) or to cortical pyramidal cells...

BACKGROUND Pavlovian learning processes are central to the etiology and treatment of anxiety disorders. Anhedonia and related perturbations in reward processes have been implicated in Pavlovian learning. Associations between anhedonia symptoms and neural indices of Pavlovian learning can inform transdiagnostic associations among depressive and anxi...

Decoded neurofeedback (DecNef) is a form of closed-loop functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) combined with machine learning approaches, which holds some promises for clinical applications. Yet, currently only a few research groups have had the opportunity to run such experiments; furthermore, there is no existing public dataset for scientis...

In a recent experiment, Zhang and colleagues designed a closed-loop brain–machine interface that learned to reduce participants’ pain by decoding pain-related brain activity. In doing so, they also highlighted some of the challenges associated with coadaptive processes in brain–machine communication.

In studies of anxiety and other affective disorders, objectively measured physiological responses have commonly been used as a proxy for measuring subjective experiences associated with pathology. However, this commonly adopted “biosignal” approach has recently been called into question on the grounds that subjective experiences and objective physi...

Closed-loop neurofeedback has sparked great interest since its inception in the late 1960s. However, the field has historically faced various methodological challenges. Decoded fMRI neurofeedback may provide solutions to some of these problems. Notably, thanks to the recent advancements of machine learning approaches, it is now possible to target u...

Using neural reinforcement, participants can be trained to pair a reward with the activation of specific multivoxel patterns in their brains. In a double-blind placebo-controlled experiment, we previously showed that this intervention can decrease the physiological reactivity associated with naturally feared animals. However, the mechanisms behind...

Closed-loop neurofeedback has sparked great interest since its inception in the late 1960s. However, the field has historically faced various methodological challenges. Decoded fMRI neurofeedback may provide solutions to some of these problems. Notably, thanks to the recent advancements of machine learning approaches, it is now possible to target u...

While it has been proposed that metacognition and conscious perception are related, the mechanistic relationship between the two is unclear. To address this question, we combined decoded neurofeedback (DecNef) in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) with concurrent psychophysics. Participants were rewarded for activating multivoxel patterns...

Background: Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a neuropsychiatric affective disorder that can develop after traumatic life-events. Exposure-based therapy is currently one of the most effective treatments for PTSD. However, exposure to traumatic stimuli is so aversive that a significant number of patients drop-out of therapy during the course...

In studies of anxiety and other affective disorders, objectively measured physiological responses have commonly been used as a proxy for measuring subjective experiences associated with pathology. However, this commonly adopted "biosignal" approach has recently been called into question on the grounds that subjective experiences and objective physi...

The idea of targeting unconscious or implicit processes in psychological treatments is not new, but until recently it has not been easy to manipulate these processes without also engaging consciousness. Here we review how this is possible, using various modern cognitive neuroscience methods including a technique known as Decoded Neural-Reinforcemen...

The idea of targeting unconscious or implicit processes in psychological treatments is not new, but until recently it has not been easy to manipulate these processes without also engaging consciousness. Here we review how this is possible, using various modern cognitive neuroscience methods including a technique known as Decoded Neural-Reinforcemen...

Significance Conventional therapies for the treatment of anxiety disorders are aversive, and as a result, many patients terminate treatment prematurely. We have developed an unconscious method to bypass the unpleasantness in conscious exposure using functional magnetic resonance imaging neural reinforcement. Using this method, participants learn to...

A recent fMRI study by Webb et al. (Cortical networks involved in visual awareness independent of visual attention, Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2016;113:13923–28) proposes a new method for finding the neural correlates of awareness by matching atten- tion across awareness conditions. The experimental design, however, seems at odds with known features...

Can evolutionarily "hardwired" fear responses, e.g. for spiders and snakes, be reprogramed unconsciously in the human brain? Currently, exposure therapy is amongst the most effective treatments for anxiety disorders, but this intervention is subjectively aversive to patients, and rates of premature attrition from treatment have been reported to be...

Motor representations in the human mirror neuron system are tuned to respond to specific observed actions. This ability is widely believed to be influenced by genetic factors, but no study has reported a genetic variant affecting this system so far. One possibility is that genetic variants might interact with visuomotor associative learning to conf...

Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) studies have shown that observing an action induces muscle-specific changes in corticospinal excitability. From a signal detection theory standpoint, this pattern can be related to sensitivity, which here would measure the capacity to distinguish between two action observation conditions. In parallel to these...

Empathy is an important driver of human social behaviors and presents genetic roots that have been studied in neuroimaging using the intermediate phenotype approach. Notably, the Val66Met polymorphism of the Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) gene has been identified as a potential target in neuroimaging studies based on its influence on emot...

Data underlying the findings reported in the manuscript. (XLSX)

Emotion perception has been extensively studied in cognitive neurosciences and stands as a promising intermediate phenotype of social cognitive processes and psychopathologies. Exciting imaging genetic studies have recently identified genetic and epigenetic variants affecting brain responses during emotion perception tasks, but characterizing how t...

Vicarious pain has been shown to enhance the observers' nociceptive reactivity and pain perception. We exposed healthy participants to specific parts of facial pain expressions in order to investigate which components are required to induce this modulation. We created 2 classes of stimuli: one containing the most useful information for identificati...

According to an influential view, based on studies of development and of the face inversion effect, human face recognition relies mainly on the treatment of the distances among internal facial features. However, there is surprisingly little evidence supporting this claim. Here, we first use a sample of 515 face photographs to estimate the face reco...

The primary objective of this study was to validate French-Canadian versions of the Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ-F) and the Empathy Quotient (EQ-F) in normal and pathological samples. These versions of the scales were administered to 100 undergraduate university students in the hard science or humanities fields and to 23 individuals diagnosed with...

Abstract According to an influential view, based on studies of development and of the face inversion effect, human,face recognition relies mainly on the treatment of the distances among,internal facial features. However, there is surprisingly little evidence supporting this claim. Here, we first use a sample,of 515 face photographs,to estimate the...

La zeitgesit contemporaine sur la reconnaissance des visages suggère que le processus de reconnaissance reposerait essentiellement sur le traitement des distances entre les attributs internes du visage. Il est toutefois surprenant de noter que cette hypothèse n’a jamais été évaluée directement dans la littérature. Pour ce faire, 515 photographies d...