Browsing by Author "Lavín, Claudio"
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Publication Another in need enhances prosociality and modulates frontal theta oscillations in young adults(2023) Lavín, Claudio; Soto-Icaza, Patricia; López, Vladimir; Billeke, PabloIntroduction: Decision-making is a process that can be strongly affected by social factors. Evidence has shown how people deviate from traditional rationalchoice predictions under different levels of social interactions. The emergence of prosocial decision-making, defined as any action that is addressed to benefit another individual even at the expense of personal benefits, has been reported as an example of such social influence. Furthermore, brain evidence has shown the involvement of structures such as the prefrontal cortex, anterior insula, and midcingulate cortex during decision settings in which a decision maker interacts with others under physical pain or distress or while being observed by others. Methods: Using a slightly modified version of the dictator game and EEG recordings, we tested the hypothesis that the inclusion of another person into the decision setting increases prosocial decisions in young adults and that this increase is higher when the other person is associated with others in need. At the brain level, we hypothesized that the increase in prosocial decisions correlates with frontal theta activity. Results and Discussion: The results showed that including another person in the decision, setting increased prosocial behavior only when this presence was associated with someone in need. This effect was associated with an increase in frontocentral theta-oscillatory activity. These results suggest that the presence of someone in need enhances empathy concerns and norm compliance, raising the participants’ prosocial decision-making.Publication Spatial navigation entropy suggests allocentric dysfunction in PPPD(2025) Faúndez, Felipe; Arévalo-Romero, Camilo; Villarroel, Karen; Lavín, Claudio; Alarcón, Kevin; Vial, Gustavo; Artus, Francisco; Billeke, Pablo; Delano, Paul H.; Breinbauer, HayoIntroduction: Persistent postural-perceptual dizziness (PPPD) is a common chronic dizziness disorder with an unclear pathophysiology. It is hypothesized that PPPD may involve functional dysfunction of the construction of inner cognitive maps, leading to disrupted spatial cognition processes as a core feature. The present studies attempt to unravel the neural mechanisms that underlie spatial navigation in PPPD. Methods: Fifty-two participants completed the study: 19 PPPD patients, 20 control subjects with vestibular disorders but without PPPD (with comparable peripheral vestibular function to the PPPD group, and 13 healthy volunteers). All underwent a virtual Morris Water Maze (vMWM) task in both, non-immersive (NI) and virtual reality (VR) modalities, assessing spatial navigation performance, gaze behavior, and head kinematics. Results: PPPD patients exhibited significantly worse navigation performance than both control groups across all metrics, with greater impairments in predominantly allocentric tasks. They also showed increased exploratory gaze behavior, unaffected by NI vs. VR modality or task condition. Head kinematics did not significantly differ between the three groups, though a non-significant trend indicated reduced head movement in both PPPD and vestibular controls. VR intolerance was highest in PPPD patients, followed by vestibular controls, with healthy volunteers showing the lowest discomfort. Discussion: Our findings suggest that PPPD involves deficits in allocentric spatial navigation, likely due to predictive coding errors and impaired internal model updating, rather than sensory input dysfunction. Increased gaze scanning may reflect compensatory mechanisms for spatial uncertainty. Notably, VR immersion did not alter navigation performance, suggesting visuo-vestibular conflict is not the primary driver of PPPD-related spatial deficits. These findings offer new insights into PPPD as a disorder of spatial cognition, opening avenues for novel diagnostic and therapeutic approaches.