{"doi":"10.17760/d20537510","title":"Investigating the involvement of human superior colliculus in cognition using ultra-high field 7-Tesla fMRI","abstract":"The superior colliculus is a laminated midbrain structure present in all vertebrates. Decades of research in non-human vertebrates have established that the superior colliculus is a hub for sensorimotor coordination where multisensory signals are integrated to guide adaptive motor behaviors. These functions are supported by a layered structure within the superior colliculus. The superficial layers process primarily visual signals, while the intermediate and deep layers process visual, auditory, somatosensory, and interoceptive signals as well as execute both visceromotor and skeletomotor control. More recent research with non-human vertebrates suggests that the intermediate and deep layers also support other cognitive functions traditionally associated with the cerebral cortex, such as selective attention and decision-making. Research on humans, however, has been largely limited to investigations of the superior colliculus in vision and visuomotor behaviors, in part because its signals are difficult to measure using conventional non-invasive imaging techniques (i.e., 3-Tesla functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)), which parse the brain into voxels with a relatively low resolution (2-3 mm isotropic voxel). The present dissertation aimed to help close the gap between non-human vertebrate and human research on the contributions of the superior colliculus to multisensory processing, sensory prediction, and cognitive control. Guided by the anatomical and functional evidence from non-human vertebrates, I used brain data collected with ultra-high field 7-Tesla fMRI with 1.1 mm isotropic voxels while participants (N = 103 with complete data; N = 140 in total) completed various psychological tasks. In Chapter 1, I hypothesized and validated the functional distinction of layer-dependent sensory processing within the superior colliculus, such that the superficial and deep layers showed greater blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) responses during visual and somatosensory stimulation, respectively. In addition, as hypothesized, I also observed that the entire superior colliculus showed a greater response when the sensory stimulation was aversive compared to neutral, suggesting the involvement of superior colliculus in the processing of interoceptive signals. Chapter 2 builds on the findings from Chapter 1 to examine the predictive functions of the superior colliculus. The predictive processing account of brain function hypothesizes that the brain generalizes from past experience to prepare an upcoming motor response and anticipate the sensory consequences of those planned movements, while comparing the sensory prediction signals to incoming signals from the sensory surfaces of the body. During a pre-stimulus decision period in which participants expected either visual stimulation or somatosensory stimulation (as a between subject manipulation) following a selection between two shapes, as hypothesized, I observed a similar layer-dependent pattern of superior colliculus response as found in Chapter 1, such that participants expecting visual signals showed greater response in the superficial layers whereas those expecting somatosensory signals showed greater response in the deep layers. In addition, the entire superior colliculus showed greater response when participants actively made decisions using a motor response during the pre-stimulus period compared to when they did not (and the selection was made randomly by the computer), suggesting that sensory prediction signals in the superior colliculus appear to be influenced by the corollary discharge of motor-related signals, as hypothesized by predictive processing accounts of brain function. These findings stand in contrast to the traditional view of the superior colliculus as functioning in a stimulus-response mode. Finally, in Chapter 3, I examined the role of the superior colliculus in cognitive control during an N-back working memory task. I hypothesized and observed greater super","journal":null,"year":2023,"id":414103,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":0,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9536,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2023-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1012535,"name":"Danlei Chen","orcid":"0000-0003-4118-4144","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":0,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T01:22:01.321790Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}