The date/delay effect in intertemporal choice: A combined fMRI and eye-tracking study.

Temporal discounting, the tendency to devalue future rewards as a function of delay until receipt, is influenced by time framing. Specifically, discount rates are shallower when the time at which the reward is received is presented as a date (date condition; e.g., June 8, 2023) rather than in delay units (delay condition; e.g., 30 days), which is commonly referred to as the date/delay effect. However, the cognitive and neural mechanisms of this effect are not well understood. Here, we examined the date/delay effect by analysing combined fMRI and eye-tracking data of N = 31 participants completing a temporal discounting task in both a delay and a date condition. The results confirmed the date/delay effect and revealed that the date condition led to higher fixation durations on time attributes and to higher activity in precuneus/PCC and angular gyrus, that is, areas previously associated with episodic thinking. Additionally, participants made more comparative eye movements in the date compared to the delay condition. A lower date/delay effect was associated with higher prefrontal activity in the date > delay contrast, suggesting that higher control or arithmetic operations may reduce the date/delay effect. Our findings are in line with hypotheses positing that the date condition is associated with differential time estimation and the use of more comparative as opposed to integrative choice strategies. Specifically, higher activity in memory-related brain areas suggests that the date condition leads to higher perceived proximity of delayed rewards, while higher frontal activity (middle/superior frontal gyrus, posterior medial frontal cortex, cingulate) in participants with a lower date/delay effect suggests that the effect is particularly pronounced in participants avoiding complex arithmetic operations in the date condition.

Neural mechanisms of background and velocity effects in smooth pursuit eye movements.

Smooth pursuit eye movements (SPEM) are essential to guide behaviour in complex visual environments. SPEM accuracy is known to be degraded by the presence of a structured visual background and at higher target velocities. The aim of this preregistered study was to investigate the neural mechanisms of these robust behavioural effects. N = 33 participants performed a SPEM task with two background conditions (present and absent) at two target velocities (0.4 and 0.6 Hz). Eye movement and BOLD data were collected simultaneously. Both the presence of a structured background and faster target velocity decreased pursuit gain and increased catch-up saccade rate. Faster targets additionally increased position error. Higher BOLD response with background was found in extensive clusters in visual, parietal, and frontal areas (including the medial frontal eye fields; FEF) partially overlapping with the known SPEM network. Faster targets were associated with higher BOLD response in visual cortex and left lateral FEF. Task-based functional connectivity analyses (psychophysiological interactions; PPI) largely replicated previous results in the basic SPEM network but did not yield additional information regarding the neural underpinnings of the background and velocity effects. The results show that the presentation of visual background stimuli during SPEM induces activity in a widespread visuo-parieto-frontal network including areas contributing to cognitive aspects of oculomotor control such as medial FEF, whereas the response to higher target velocity involves visual and motor areas such as lateral FEF. Therefore, we were able to propose for the first time different functions of the medial and lateral FEF during SPEM.

Effects of ketamine on brain function during metacognition of episodic memory.

Only little research has been conducted on the pharmacological underpinnings of metacognition. Here, we tested the modulatory effects of a single intravenous dose (100 ng/ml) of the N-methyl-D-aspartate-glutamate-receptor antagonist ketamine, a compound known to induce altered states of consciousness, on metacognition and its neural correlates. Fifty-three young, healthy adults completed two study phases of an episodic memory task involving both encoding and retrieval in a double-blind, placebo-controlled fMRI study. Trial-by-trial confidence ratings were collected during retrieval. Effects on the subjective state of consciousness were assessed using the 5D-ASC questionnaire. Confirming that the drug elicited a psychedelic state, there were effects of ketamine on all 5D-ASC scales. Acute ketamine administration during retrieval had deleterious effects on metacognitive sensitivity (meta-d') and led to larger metacognitive bias, with retrieval performance (d') and reaction times remaining unaffected. However, there was no ketamine effect on metacognitive efficiency (meta-d'/d'). Measures of the BOLD signal revealed that ketamine compared to placebo elicited higher activation of posterior cortical brain areas, including superior and inferior parietal lobe, calcarine gyrus, and lingual gyrus, albeit not specific to metacognitive confidence ratings. Ketamine administered during encoding did not significantly affect performance or brain activation. Overall, our findings suggest that ketamine impacts metacognition, leading to significantly larger metacognitive bias and deterioration of metacognitive sensitivity as well as unspecific activation increases in posterior hot zone areas of the neural correlates of consciousness.

Convergent cross-sectional and longitudinal evidence for gaming-cue specific posterior parietal dysregulations in early stages of internet gaming disorder.

Exaggerated reactivity to drug-cues and emotional dysregulations represent key symptoms of early stages of substance use disorders. The diagnostic criteria for (Internet) gaming disorder strongly resemble symptoms for substance-related addictions. However, previous cross-sections studies revealed inconsistent results with respect to neural cue reactivity and emotional dysregulations in these populations. To this end, the present fMRI study applied a combined cross-sectional and longitudinal design in regular online gamers (n = 37) and gaming-naïve controls (n = 67). To separate gaming-associated changes from predisposing factors, gaming-naive subjects were randomly assigned to 6 weeks of daily Internet gaming or a non-gaming condition. At baseline and after the training, subjects underwent an fMRI paradigm presenting gaming-related cues and non-gaming-related emotional stimuli. Cross-sectional comparisons revealed gaming-cue specific enhanced valence attribution and neural reactivity in a parietal network, including the posterior cingulate in regular gamers as compared to gaming naïve-controls. Longitudinal analysis revealed that 6 weeks of gaming elevated valence ratings as well as neural cue-reactivity in a similar parietal network, specifically the posterior cingulate in previously gaming-naïve controls. Together, the longitudinal design did not reveal supporting evidence for altered emotional processing of non-gaming associated stimuli in regular gamers whereas convergent evidence for increased emotional and neural reactivity to gaming-associated stimuli was observed. Findings suggest that exaggerated neural reactivity in posterior parietal regions engaged in default mode and automated information processing already occur during early stages of regular gaming and probably promote continued engagement in gaming behavior.

Functional connectivity during smooth pursuit eye movements.

Smooth pursuit eye movements (SPEM) hold the image of a slowly moving stimulus on the fovea. The neural system underlying SPEM primarily includes visual, parietal, and frontal areas. In the present study, we investigated how these areas are functionally coupled and how these couplings are influenced by target motion frequency. To this end, healthy participants (n = 57) were instructed to follow a sinusoidal target stimulus moving horizontally at two different frequencies (0.2 Hz, 0.4 Hz). Eye movements and blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) activity were recorded simultaneously. Functional connectivity of the key areas of the SPEM network was investigated with a psychophysiological interaction (PPI) approach. How activity in five eye movement-related seed regions (lateral geniculate nucleus, V1, V5, posterior parietal cortex, frontal eye fields) relates to activity in other parts of the brain during SPEM was analyzed. The behavioral results showed clear deterioration of SPEM performance at higher target frequency. BOLD activity during SPEM versus fixation occurred in a geniculo-occipito-parieto-frontal network, replicating previous findings. PPI analysis yielded widespread, partially overlapping networks. In particular, frontal eye fields and posterior parietal cortex showed task-dependent connectivity to large parts of the entire cortex, whereas other seed regions demonstrated more regionally focused connectivity. Higher target frequency was associated with stronger activations in visual areas but had no effect on functional connectivity. In summary, the results confirm and extend previous knowledge regarding the neural mechanisms underlying SPEM and provide a valuable basis for further investigations such as in patients with SPEM impairments and known alterations in brain connectivity.NEW & NOTEWORTHY This study provides a comprehensive investigation of blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) functional connectivity during smooth pursuit eye movements. Results from a large sample of healthy participants suggest that key oculomotor regions interact closely with each other but also with regions not primarily associated with eye movements. Understanding functional connectivity during smooth pursuit is important, given its potential role as an endophenotype of psychoses.

Orbitofrontal gray matter deficits as marker of Internet gaming disorder: converging evidence from a cross-sectional and prospective longitudinal design.

Internet gaming disorder represents a growing health issue. Core symptoms include unsuccessful attempts to control the addictive patterns of behavior and continued use despite negative consequences indicating a loss of regulatory control. Previous studies revealed brain structural deficits in prefrontal regions subserving regulatory control in individuals with excessive Internet use. However, because of the cross-sectional nature of these studies, it remains unknown whether the observed brain structural deficits preceded the onset of excessive Internet use. Against this background, the present study combined a cross-sectional and longitudinal design to determine the consequences of excessive online video gaming. Forty-one subjects with a history of excessive Internet gaming and 78 gaming-naive subjects were enrolled in the present study. To determine effects of Internet gaming on brain structure, gaming-naive subjects were randomly assigned to 6 weeks of daily Internet gaming (training group) or a non-gaming condition (training control group). At study inclusion, excessive Internet gamers demonstrated lower right orbitofrontal gray matter volume compared with Internet gaming-naive subjects. Within the Internet gamers, a lower gray matter volume in this region was associated with higher online video gaming addiction severity. Longitudinal analysis revealed initial evidence that left orbitofrontal gray matter volume decreased during the training period in the training group as well as in the group of excessive gamers. Together, the present findings suggest an important role of the orbitofrontal cortex in the development of Internet addiction with a direct association between excessive engagement in online gaming and structural deficits in this brain region.

Effects of nicotine and atomoxetine on brain function during response inhibition.

The nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (nAChR) agonist nicotine and the noradrenaline transporter inhibitor atomoxetine are widely studied substances due to their propensity to alleviate cognitive deficits in psychiatric and neurological patients and their beneficial effects on some aspects of cognitive functions in healthy individuals. However, despite growing evidence of acetylcholine-noradrenaline interactions, there are only very few direct comparisons of the two substances. Here, we investigated the effects of nicotine and atomoxetine on response inhibition in the stop-signal task and we characterised the neural correlates of these effects using blood oxygen level dependent (BOLD) functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) at 3T. Nicotine (7 mg dermal patch) and atomoxetine (60 mg per os) were applied to N = 26 young, healthy adults in a double-blind, placebo-controlled, cross-over, within-subjects design. BOLD images were collected during a stop-signal task that controlled for infrequency of stop trials. There were no drug effects on behavioural performance or subjective state measures. However, there was a pronounced upregulation of activation in bilateral prefrontal and left parietal cortex following nicotine during successful compared to unsuccessful stop trials. The effect of nicotine on BOLD during failed stop trials was correlated across individuals with a measure of trait impulsivity. Atomoxetine, however, had no discernible effects on BOLD. We conclude that nicotine effects on brain function during inhibitory control are most pronounced in individuals with higher levels of impulsivity. This finding is compatible with previous evidence of nicotine effects on stop-signal task performance in highly impulsive individuals and implicates the nAChR in the neural basis of impulsivity.

Gain- and Loss-Related Brain Activation Are Associated with Information Search Differences in Risky Gambles: An fMRI and Eye-Tracking Study.

People differ in the way they approach and handle choices with unsure outcomes. In this study, we demonstrate that individual differences in the neural processing of gains and losses relates to attentional differences in the way individuals search for information in gambles. Fifty subjects participated in two independent experiments. Participants first completed an fMRI experiment involving financial gains and losses. Subsequently, they performed an eye-tracking experiment on binary choices between risky gambles, each displaying monetary outcomes and their respective probabilities. We find that individual differences in gain and loss processing relate to attention distribution. Individuals with a stronger reaction to gains in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex paid more attention to monetary amounts, while a stronger reaction in the ventral striatum to losses was correlated with an increased attention to probabilities. Reaction in the posterior cingulate cortex to losses was also found to correlate with an increased attention to probabilities. Our data show that individual differences in brain activity and differences in information search processes are closely linked.

Pay What You Want! A Pilot Study on Neural Correlates of Voluntary Payments for Music.

Pay-what-you-want (PWYW) is an alternative pricing mechanism for consumer goods. It describes an exchange situation in which the price for a given good is not set by the seller but freely chosen by the buyer. In recent years, many enterprises have made use of PWYW auctions. The somewhat contra-intuitive success of PWYW has sparked a great deal of behavioral work on economical decision making in PWYW contexts in the past. Empirical studies on the neural basis of PWYW decisions, however, are scarce. In the present paper, we present an experimental protocol to study PWYW decision making while simultaneously acquiring functional magnetic resonance imaging data. Participants have the possibility to buy music either under a traditional "fixed-price" (FP) condition or in a condition that allows them to freely decide on the price. The behavioral data from our experiment replicate previous results on the general feasibility of the PWYW mechanism. On the neural level, we observe distinct differences between the two conditions: In the FP-condition, neural activity in frontal areas during decision-making correlates positively with the participants' willingness to pay. No such relationship was observed under PWYW conditions in any neural structure. Directly comparing neural activity during PWYW and the FP-condition we observed stronger activity of the lingual gyrus during PWYW decisions. Results demonstrate the usability of our experimental paradigm for future investigations into PWYW decision-making and provides first insights into neural mechanisms during self-determined pricing decisions.

Nutrition labels influence value computation of food products in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex.

OBJECTIVE: Prevalence of obesity is high in most industrialized nations, and therefore, it is crucial to understand contextual factors underlying food choice. Nutrition labels are public policy interventions designed to adequately inform consumers about nutritional value and overall healthiness of food products. The present study examines how different nutrition labels, namely a purely information-based label (guideline daily amount, GDA) and a more explicit traffic light (TL) label, influence product valuation and choice in a functional MRI setting. METHODS: Thirty-five healthy participants across different BMIs were instructed to valuate healthy and unhealthy food products in combination with one of the two labels and to state their willingness to pay (WTP) for the product. RESULTS: The labeling methods significantly influenced participants' WTP. Red TL signaling activated parts of the left inferior frontal gyrus/dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, a region implicated in self-control in food choice. This region, in the case of red signaling, and the posterior cingulate cortex, in the case of green signaling, showed increased coupling to the valuation system in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex. CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggest that explicitly directing attention toward nutritional values using salient nutrition labels triggers neurobiological processes that resemble those utilized by successful dieters choosing healthier products.

Neuronal correlates of social decision making are influenced by social value orientation-an fMRI study.

Our decisions often have consequences for other people. Hence, self-interest and other-regarding motives are traded off in many daily-life situations. Interindividually, people differ in their tendency to behave prosocial. These differences are captured by the concept of social value orientation (SVO), which assumes stable, trait-like tendencies to act selfish or prosocial. This study investigates group differences in prosocial decision making and addresses the question of whether prosocial individuals act intuitively and selfish individuals instead need to control egoistic impulses to behave prosocially. We address this question via the interpretation of neuronal and behavioral indicators. In the present fMRI-study participants were grouped into prosocial- and selfish participants. They made decisions in multiple modified Dictator-Games (DG) that addressed self- and other-regarding motives to a varying extent (self gain, non-costly social gain, mutual gain, costly social gain). Selfish participants reacted faster than prosocial participants in all conditions, except for decisions in the non-costly social condition, in which selfish participants displayed the longest decision times. In the total sample we found enhanced neural activity in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC/BA 9) during decisions that resulted in non-costly social benefits. These areas have been implicated in cognitive control processes and deliberative value integration. Decisively, these effects were stronger in the group of selfish individuals. We believe that selfish individuals require more explicit and deliberative processing during prosocial decisions. Our results are compatible with the assumption that prosocial decisions in prosocials are more intuitive, whereas they demand more active reflection in selfish individuals.

Reality TV and vicarious embarrassment: an fMRI study.

BACKGROUND: Vicarious embarrassment (VE) is an emotion triggered by the observation of others' pratfalls or social norm violations. Several explanatory approaches have been suggested to explain the source of this phenomenon, including perspective taking abilities or ingroup identification. Knowledge about its biological bases, however, is scarce. To gain a better understanding, the present study investigated neural activation patterns in response to video clips from reality TV shows. Reality TV is well known for presenting social norm violations, flaws and pratfalls of its protagonists in real life situations thereby qualifying as an ecological valid trigger for VE. METHODS: N = 60 healthy participants viewed stand stills from previously watched video clips taken from German reality TV-shows while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging. The clips were preselected for high versus low VE content in a pilot study. Besides the investigation of differences in brain activation elicited by VE versus control stand stills (blocked design contrast), we performed additional exploratory functional connectivity analyses (psychophysiological interaction; PPI) to detect VE related brain networks. RESULTS: Compared to the low VE condition, participants in the high VE condition showed a higher activation in the middle temporal gyrus, the supramarginal gyrus, the right inferior frontal gyrus and the gyrus rectus. Functional connectivity analyses confirmed increased connectivity of these regions with the anterior cingulate in the VE condition. Moreover, self-ratings of VE and brain activity were correlated positively. CONCLUSION: Reality TV formats with high VE content activate brain regions associated with Theory of Mind, but also with empathic concern and social identity. Therefore, our results support the idea that the ability to put oneself in other person's shoes is a major prerequisite for VE.

Silent music reading: auditory imagery and visuotonal modality transfer in singers and non-singers.

In daily life, responses are often facilitated by anticipatory imagery of expected targets which are announced by associated stimuli from different sensory modalities. Silent music reading represents an intriguing case of visuotonal modality transfer in working memory as it induces highly defined auditory imagery on the basis of presented visuospatial information (i.e. musical notes). Using functional MRI and a delayed sequence matching-to-sample paradigm, we compared brain activations during retention intervals (10s) of visual (VV) or tonal (TT) unimodal maintenance versus visuospatial-to-tonal modality transfer (VT) tasks. Visual or tonal sequences were comprised of six elements, white squares or tones, which were low, middle, or high regarding vertical screen position or pitch, respectively (presentation duration: 1.5s). For the cross-modal condition (VT, session 3), the visuospatial elements from condition VV (session 1) were re-defined as low, middle or high "notes" indicating low, middle or high tones from condition TT (session 2), respectively, and subjects had to match tonal sequences (probe) to previously presented note sequences. Tasks alternately had low or high cognitive load. To evaluate possible effects of music reading expertise, 15 singers and 15 non-musicians were included. Scanner task performance was excellent in both groups. Despite identity of applied visuospatial stimuli, visuotonal modality transfer versus visual maintenance (VT>VV) induced "inhibition" of visual brain areas and activation of primary and higher auditory brain areas which exceeded auditory activation elicited by tonal stimulation (VT>TT). This transfer-related visual-to-auditory activation shift occurred in both groups but was more pronounced in experts. Frontoparietal areas were activated by higher cognitive load but not by modality transfer. The auditory brain showed a potential to anticipate expected auditory target stimuli on the basis of non-auditory information and sensory brain activation rather mirrored expectation than stimulation. Silent music reading probably relies on these basic neurocognitive mechanisms.

Effort increases sensitivity to reward and loss magnitude in the human brain.

It is ecologically adaptive that the amount of effort invested to achieve a reward increases the relevance of the resulting outcome. Here, we investigated the effect of effort on activity in reward and loss processing brain areas by using functional magnetic resonance imaging. In total, 28 subjects were endowed with monetary rewards of randomly varying magnitude after performing arithmetic calculations that were either difficult (high effort), easy (low effort) or already solved (no effort). Subsequently, a forced donation took place, where a varying part of the endowment was transferred to a charity organization, causing a loss for the subject. Results show that reward magnitude positively modulates activity in reward-processing brain areas (subgenual anterior cingulate cortex and nucleus accumbens) only in the high effort condition. Furthermore, anterior insular activity was positively modulated by loss magnitude only after high effort. The results strongly suggest an increasing relevance of outcomes with increasing previous effort.

Playing nice: a multi-methodological study on the effects of social conformity on memory.

Conformity is an important aspect of social behavior. Two main motives have been identified: people may adapt their behavior to "play nice" despite knowing better (normative conformity) or they may accept the others' opinion as a valid source of information (informative conformity). Neuroimaging studies can help to distinguish between these two possibilities. Here, we present a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study on memory conformity in a real group situation. We investigated the effects of group pressure on activity in hippocampus and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) which likely support informative and normative memory conformity, respectively. Furthermore, we related the single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) rs4680 [called Catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) Val158Met] on the gene coding for COMT to both behavior and fMRI activation. Homozygous Met-allele carriers (Val-) behaved more conformist than carriers of at least one Val-allele (Val+). In the neuroimaging data, we compared trials in which subjects were confronted with a majority of incorrect group responses to trials in which they were confronted with a majority of correct group responses. We found increased hippocampal activity when the majority of the group was correct, possibly indicating retrieval processes. Moreover, we observed enhanced activity in the ACC when the majority of the group was incorrect, suggesting that conformity was mostly normative. Most interestingly, this latter effect was more pronounced for Val- as compared to Val+ participants. This offers a speculative explanation for the higher behavioral levels of social conformity in Val- allele carriers, because their subjectively perceived conflict in the presence of an incorrect group majority may have been higher. Overall, this study demonstrates how the mechanisms leading to complex social behavior such as conformity can be studied by combining genetic analyses and fMRI in social neuroscience paradigms.

Progressive fiber tract affections after temporal lobe surgery.

SUMMARY: Several studies reported changes in white matter architecture following temporal lobe surgery in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) at short intervals after surgery. We investigated 20 patients with left-sided TLE using diffusion-imaging at two time points, that is, at 3-6 months and 12 months after surgery, to investigate postsurgical plasticity. We observed a loss of fiber tract integrity mainly in fiber tracts of the ipsilateral temporal lobe. Our data show that the remodeling of brain connectivity after surgical interventions continues for longer time periods. The functional implications of these plastic changes will have to be explored.

A reward prediction error for charitable donations reveals outcome orientation of donators.

The motives underlying prosocial behavior, like charitable donations, can be related either to actions or to outcomes. To address the neural basis of outcome orientation in charitable giving, we asked 33 subjects to make choices affecting their own payoffs and payoffs to a charity organization, while being scanned by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). We experimentally induced a reward prediction error (RPE) by subsequently discarding some of the chosen outcomes. Co-localized to a nucleus accumbens BOLD signal corresponding to the RPE for the subject's own payoff, we observed an equivalent RPE signal for the charity's payoff in those subjects who were willing to donate. This unique demonstration of a neuronal RPE signal for outcomes exclusively affecting unrelated others indicates common brain processes during outcome evaluation for selfish, individual and nonselfish, social rewards and strongly suggests the effectiveness of outcome-oriented motives in charitable giving.

Neural responses to advantageous and disadvantageous inequity.

In this paper we study neural responses to inequitable distributions of rewards despite equal performance. We specifically focus on differences between advantageous inequity (AI) and disadvantageous inequity (DI). AI and DI were realized in a hyperscanning functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiment with pairs of subjects simultaneously performing a task in adjacent scanners and observing both subjects' rewards. Results showed (1) hypoactivation of the ventral striatum (VS) under DI but not under AI; (2) inequity induced activation of the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) that was stronger under DI than under AI; (3) correlations between subjective evaluations of AI evaluation and bilateral ventrolateral prefrontal and left insular activity. Our study provides neurophysiological evidence for different cognitive processes that occur when exposed to DI and AI, respectively. One possible interpretation is that any form of inequity represents a norm violation, but that important differences between AI and DI emerge from an asymmetric involvement of status concerns.

Does excessive play of violent first-person-shooter-video-games dampen brain activity in response to emotional stimuli?

The present case-control study investigated the processing of emotional pictures in excessive first-person-shooter-video-players and control persons. All participants of the fMRI experiment were confronted with pictures from four categories including pleasant, unpleasant, neutral content and pictures from the first-person-shooter-video-game 'Counterstrike'. Compared to controls, gamers showed a significantly lower activation of the left lateral medial frontal lobe while processing negative emotions. Another interesting finding of the study represents the higher activation of frontal and temporal brain areas in gamers when processing screen-shots from the first-person-shooter-video-game 'Counterstrike'. Higher brain activity in the lateral prefrontal cortex could represent a protection mechanism against experiencing negative emotions by down-regulating limbic brain activity. Due to a frequent confrontation with violent scenes, the first-person-shooter-video-gamers might have habituated to the effects of unpleasant stimuli resulting in lower brain activation. Individual differences in brain activations of the contrast Counterstrike>neutral pictures potentially resemble the activation of action-scripts related to the video-game.

A key role for experimental task performance: effects of math talent, gender and performance on the neural correlates of mental rotation.

The neurophysiological mechanisms underlying superior cognitive performance are a research area of high interest. The majority of studies on the brain-performance relationship assessed the effects of capability-related group factors (e.g. talent, gender) on task-related brain activations while only few studies examined the effect of the inherent experimental task performance factor. In this functional MRI study, we combined both approaches and simultaneously assessed the effects of three relatively independent factors on the neurofunctional correlates of mental rotation in same-aged adolescents: math talent (gifted/controls: 17/17), gender (male/female: 16/18) and experimental task performance (median split on accuracy; high/low: 17/17). Better experimental task performance of mathematically gifted vs. control subjects and male vs. female subjects validated the selected paradigm. Activation of the inferior parietal lobule (IPL) was identified as a common effect of mathematical giftedness, gender and experimental task performance. However, multiple linear regression analyses (stepwise) indicated experimental task performance as the only predictor of parietal activations. In conclusion, increased activation of the IPL represents a positive neural correlate of mental rotation performance, irrespective of but consistent with the obtained neurocognitive and behavioral effects of math talent and gender. As experimental performance may strongly affect task-related activations this factor needs to be considered in capability-related group comparison studies on the brain-performance relationship.