Hypnotic suggestion modulates cognitive conflict: the case of the flanker compatibility effect

The present work was aimed at investigating whether the flanker compatibility effect can be eliminated by means of a posthypnotic suggestion influencing attentional focusing. In Experiment 1, participants who scored high and low on hypnotic susceptibility performed the flanker compatibility task when naturally awake and when under a posthypnotic suggestion aimed at increasing the target's discriminability from the flankers. Results showed that the posthypnotic suggestion effectively eliminated the flanker compatibility effect in highly susceptible participants, whereas low-susceptibility participants did not show any reduction in the effect. In Experiment 2, highly susceptible participants performed the task after receiving a suggestion but without the induction of hypnosis. Results showed that the suggestion alone was not sufficient to reduce the flanker compatibility effect. These results support the view that in highly susceptible participants, hypnotic suggestion can influence the ability to focus on relevant information.     

Mapping the Connections between Politics and Morality: The Multiple Sociopolitical Orientations Involved in Moral Intuition

According to moral foundations theory (Haidt & Joseph, 2004), five foundations are central to moral intuition. The two individualizing foundations—harm/care and fairness/reciprocity—hinge on the rights of the individual, whereas the three binding foundations—in‐group/loyalty, authority/respect, and purity/sanctity—focus on communal bonds. Recent work suggests that reliance on the various foundations varies as a function of sociopolitical orientation: liberals consistently rely on the individualizing foundations, whereas conservatives rely on both the individualizing and binding foundations. In an effort to further explore the relationship between sociopolitical orientation and morality, we argue that only certain types of sociopolitical attitudes and beliefs should relate to each cluster of foundations. Drawing on dual‐process models of social and political attitudes, we demonstrate that the individualizing foundations are aligned with attitudes and beliefs relevant to preferences for equality versus inequality (i.e., SDO and competitive‐jungle beliefs), whereas the binding foundations are aligned with attitudes and beliefs relevant to preferences for openness versus social conformity (i.e., RWA and dangerous‐world beliefs). We conclude by discussing the consequences of these findings for our understanding of the relationship between sociopolitical and moral orientations.     

Cholinergic dependence of taste memory formation: evidence of two distinct processes

Learning the aversive or positive consequences associated with novel taste solutions has a strong significance for an animal's survival. A lack of recognition of a taste's consequences could prevent ingestion of potential edibles or encounter death. We used conditioned taste aversion (CTA) and attenuation of neophobia (AN) to study aversive and safe taste memory formation. To determine if muscarinic receptors in the insular cortex participate differentially in both tasks, we infused the muscarinic antagonists scopolamine at distinct times before or after the presentation of a strong concentration of saccharin, followed by either an i.p. injection of a malaise-inducing agent or no injection. Our results showed that blockade of muscarinic receptors before taste presentation disrupts both learning tasks. However, the same treatment after the taste prevents AN but not CTA. These results clearly demonstrate that cortical cholinergic activity participates in the acquisition of both safe and aversive memory formation, and that cortical muscarinic receptors seem to be necessary for safe but not for aversive taste memory consolidation. These results suggest that the taste memory trace is processed in the insular cortex simultaneously by at least two independent mechanisms, and that their interaction would determine the degree of aversion or preference learned to a novel taste.     

More Education, Less Administration: Reflections of Neuroimagers’ Attitudes to Ethics Through the Qualitative Looking Glass

In follow-up to a large-scale ethics survey of neuroscientists whose research involves neuroimaging, brain stimulation and imaging genetics, we conducted focus groups and interviews to explore their sense of responsibility about integrating ethics into neuroimaging and readiness to adopt new ethics strategies as part of their research. Safety, trust and virtue were key motivators for incorporating ethics into neuroimaging research. Managing incidental findings emerged as a predominant daily challenge for faculty, while student reports focused on the malleability of neuroimaging data and scientific integrity. The most frequently cited barrier was time and administrative burden associated with the ethics review process. Lack of scholarly training in ethics also emerged as a major barrier. Participants constructively offered remedies to these challenges: development and dissemination of best practices and standardized ethics review for minimally invasive neuroimaging protocols. Students in particular, urged changes to curricula to include early, focused training in ethics.     

Route and survey processing of topographical memory during navigation

We investigated the characteristics of route and survey processing of a unique complex virtual environment both at the behavioral and brain levels. Prior to fMRI scanning, participants were trained to follow a route and to learn the spatial relationships between several places, acquiring both route and survey knowledge from a ground-level perspective. During scanning, snapshots of the environment were presented, and participants were required to either indicate the direction to take to follow the route (route task), or to locate unseen targets (survey task). Data suggest that route and survey processing are mainly supported by a common occipito-fronto-parieto-temporal neural network. Our results are consistent with those gathered in studies concerning the neural bases of route versus survey knowledge acquired either from different perspectives or in different environments. However, rather than arguing for a clear distinction between route and survey processing, “mixed” strategies are likely to be involved when both types of encoding take place in the same environment.     

Role of cholinergic system on the construction of memories: taste memory encoding

There is a large body of evidence suggesting that cholinergic activity is involved in memory processes. It seems that cholinergic activity is essential to learn several tasks and recent works suggest that acetylcholine plays an important role during the early stages of memory formation. In this review, we will discuss the results related to taste memory formation, focusing particularly on the conditioned taste aversion paradigm. We will first give evidence that nucleus basalis magnocellularis is involved in taste memory formation, due to its cholinergic projections. We then show that the cholinergic activity of the insular (gustatory) cortex is related to the taste novelty, and that the cholinergic signals initiated by novelty are crucial for taste memory formation. Then we present recent data indicating that cortical activation of muscarinic receptors is necessary for taste trace encoding, and also for its consolidation under certain circumstances. Finally, interactions between the cholinergic and other neuromodulatory systems inducing intracellular mechanisms related to plastic changes will be proposed as important processes underlying gustatory memory trace storage.