Working memory load reduces the late positive potential and this effect is attenuated with increasing anxiety

Emotion regulation decreases the processing of arousing stimuli, as indexed by the late positive potential (LPP), an electrocortical component that varies in amplitude with emotional arousal. Emotion regulation increases activity in the prefrontal areas associated with cognitive control, including the dosolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC). The present study manipulated working memory load, known to activate the DLPFC, and recorded the LPP elicited by aversive and neutral IAPS pictures presented during the retention interval. The LPP was larger on low-load compared to high-load trials, and on trials with aversive compared to neutral pictures. These LPP data suggest that emotional content and working memory load have opposing effects on attention to distracting stimuli. State anxiety was associated with reduced modulation of the LPP by working memory load. Results are discussed in terms of competition for attention between emotion and cognition and suggest a relationship between DLPFC activation and the allocation of attentional resources to distracting visual stimuli–a relationship that may be disrupted with increasing anxiety.     

Put yourself in my wheelchair: Perspective-taking can reduce prejudice toward people with disabilities and other stigmatized groups

This study aimed to compare perspective-taking with a hypothetical target and perspective-taking occurring during a real interaction with an outgroup member in reducing prejudice toward people with disabilities and other groups (e.g., immigrants, homosexual people), via increased empathy. We adopted an experimental design with two treatment groups (Hypothetical target vs. Real target) and one control group (no intervention), one pretest and two posttest measures. Participants, who were 437 students aged 11–17 years (M = 14.28; SD = 1.17), were randomly assigned to the various conditions on a classroom basis. Perspective-taking was facilitated asking participants to travel in a wheelchair on a path that simulated a real pavement in the presence (or not) of an individual with a motor disability. Findings showed that perspective-taking in the presence of a real target was more effective in reducing prejudice toward people with disabilities than perspective-taking task without encountering an outgroup member. Perspective-taking with a hypothetical target was not sufficient to increase participants' empathy toward people with disabilities, which instead was enhanced when the task was performed at the presence of a real member of that group. Positive effects produced by perspective-taking (with both a hypothetical and a real target) were transferred to immigrants and homosexuals. These findings suggest that, when possible, perspective-taking in the presence of the target, which can improve empathy by favoring a two-way exchange process, is highly recommended to improve attitudes toward different stigmatized groups, not necessarily targeted by the intervention.     

Emotion regulation and amygdala-precuneus connectivity: Focusing on attentional deployment

Attentional deployment is an emotion regulation strategy that involves shifting attentional focus. Deploying attention to non-arousing, compared to arousing, regions of unpleasant images has been associated with reduced negative affect, reduced amygdala activation, and increased activity in fronto-parietal control networks. The current study examined neural correlates and functional connectivity associated with using attentional deployment to increase negative affect (deploying attention towards arousing unpleasant information) or to decrease negative affect (deploying attention away from arousing unpleasant information), compared to naturally viewing unpleasant images, in 42 individuals while concurrently monitoring eye movements. Directing attention to both arousing and non-arousing regions resulted in enhanced fronto-parietal activation compared to natural viewing, but only directing attention to non-arousing regions was associated with changes in amygdala activation. There were no significant differences in connectivity between naturally viewing unpleasant images and focusing on arousing regions. However, naturally viewing unpleasant images, relative to focusing on non-arousing regions, was associated with increased connectivity between the amygdala and visual cortex, while focusing on non-arousing regions of unpleasant images, compared to natural viewing, was associated with increased connectivity between the amygdala and the precuneus. Amygdala-precuneus connectivity correlated positively with eye-tracking measures of attentional deployment success and with trait reappraisal. Deploying attention away from arousing unpleasant information, then, may depend upon functional relationships between the amygdala and parietal regions implicated in attentional control. Furthermore, these relationships might relate to the ability to successfully implement attentional deployment, and the predisposition to utilize adaptive emotion regulation strategies.     

Interference Control in Children with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder

The view that Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is associated with a diminished ability to control interfference is controversial and based exclusively on results of (verbal)-visual interference tasks, primarily the Stroop Color Word task. The present study compares medication-naïve children with ADHD (n?=?35 and n?=?51 in Experiments 1 and 2, respectively) with normal controls (n?=?26 and n?=?32, respectively) on two interference tasks to assess interference control in both the auditory and the visual modality: an Auditory Stroop task and a Simon task. Both groups showed reliable but equal degrees of interference on both tasks, suggesting that children with ADHD do not differ from normal controls in their ability to control interference in either modality.     

Differences in negative life events between patients with anxiety disorders,depression and hypochondriasis

This study investigated whether some categories of adverse life events are differentially associated with specific types of emotional disorders. A life self-report measure of major life events was completed by 42 subjects with diagnoses of anxiety disorders, 46 subjects with major depression, 26 subjects with hypochondriasis and 73 nonclinical subjects (controls). As predicted, the onset of anxiety disorders, depression, and hypochondriasis appears to be differentially related with life stress of ‘threat’, ‘loss’, and ‘health’, respectively, previously experienced by the clinical subjects. Also, there were significant differences between clinical and nonclinical subjects on both perceived life stress and number of life events reported. Findings suggest a differential implication of psychosocial stress categories in particular emotional disorders (i.e., anxiety, depressive and hypochondriacal disorders). These results expand previous findings that have demonstrated an association between negative life events and psychopathology.     

Repetition and form priming interact with neighborhood density at a brief stimulus onset asynchrony

The relationships between repetition- and form-priming effects and neighborhood density were analyzed in two masked priming experiments with the lexical decision task. Given that form-priming effects appear to be influenced by a word’s orthographic neighborhood, it is theoretically important to find out whether repetition priming also differs as a function of the word’s orthographic neighborhood. Within an activation framework, repetition- and form-priming effects are just quantitatively different phenomena, whereas the two effects are qualitatively different in a serial-ordered model of lexical access (theentry-opening model). The results show that repetition- and form-priming effects were stronger forhermit words than for words with many neighbors. These results pose some problems for both activation and serial-ordered models. The implications of these results for determining how neighbors affect the identification of a word are discussed.     

Longitudinal assessment of leg motor activity and sleep patterns in infants with and without Down syndrome

Whether infants with Down syndrome (DS) perform leg movements with the same frequency and quality as their typical development (TD) counterparts is equivocal. Furthermore, the relationship between these early leg movements and later onset of locomotor milestones has only been partially explored. The aims of this study were two-fold: (1) to describe the longitudinal leg activity in infants with and without DS (3-6 months), and (2) to examine sleeping patterns and leg activity during the night. In addition, the relationships between leg activities and sleep patterns with locomotor development were explored. An activity monitor was placed monthly on the infant's ankle for 48 h. Data were analyzed to separate day-night, high-low activity, and sleep fragmentation. The results indicate that infants with DS produced more low intensity activity and more fragmented sleep. These findings are discussed in relation to the influence of early motor activity on achievement of functional motor behavior.     

Acquisition, retention, and recall of memory after injection of RS67333, a 5-HT(4) receptor agonist, into the nucleus basalis magnocellularis of the rat

The serotonin 5-HT4 subtype receptor is predominantly localized into anatomical structures linked to memory and cognition. A few experimental studies report that the acute systemic administration of selective 5-HT4 agonists has ameliorative effects on memory performance, and that these effects are reversed by contemporary administration of 5-HT4 receptor antagonists. To verify whether this procognitive action occurs via the activation of the cholinergic nucleus basalis magnocellularis (NBM)-cortical pathways, we examined the effects of RS67333, a selective partial agonist of the 5-HT4 receptor, on rat performance in a place recognition task upon local administration of the drug into the NBM area. The intra-NBM administration of RS67333 enhances the acquisition (200-500 ng/0.5 microL) and the consolidation (40-200 ng/0.5 microL) of the place recognition memory. These effects are reversed by pretreatment with the selective 5-HT4 receptor antagonist RS39604 (300 ng/0.5 microL). Conversely, the recall of memory is not affected by the 5-HT4 agonist. Our results indicate that 5-HT4 receptors located within the NBM may play a role in spatial memory and that the procognitive effect of RS67333 is due, at least in part, to the potentiation of the activity of cholinergic NBM-cortical pathways.     

Perceptual and Response Bias in Unilateral Neglect: Two Modified Versions of the Milner Landmark Task

Perceptual and response bias in estimating the proportion of the two segments of prebisected lines were disambiguated in a group of 121 patients suffering from left neglect by means of two variants of the Milner Landmark task (Milner et al., 1993). The first variant, LANDMARK-V, required a verbal response; the second variant, LANDMARK-M, required manual pointing. The paper reports and discusses the results obtained on each task and their correlations, as well as the relationships between either kind of bias and the intrahemispheric location of the lesion. It is argued that besides their usefulness as a diagnostic tool the proposed variants of the Milner Landmark task provide results that are worth further investigation in their own right.     

The Efficacy of Acupuncture in the Treatment of Major Depression in Women

The effectiveness of acupuncture as a treatment for major depression was examined in 38 women, randomly assigned to one of three treatment groups. Specific treatment involved acupuncture treatments for symptoms of depression; nonspecific treatment involved acupuncture for symptoms that were not clearly part of depression; a wait-list condition involved waiting without treatment for 8 weeks. The nonspecific and wait-list conditions were followed by specific treatment. Five women terminated treatment prematurely, 4 prior to the completion of the first 8 weeks. Following treatments specifically designed to address depression, 64% of the women (n = 33) experienced full remission. A comparison of the acute effect of the three 8-week treatment conditions (n = 34) showed that patients receiving specific acupuncture treatments improved significantly more than those receiving the placebo-like nonspecific acupuncture treatments, and marginally more than those in the wait-list condition. Results from this small sample suggest that acupuncture can provide significant symptom relief in depression, at rates comparable to those of psychotherapy or pharmacotherapy. Acupuncture may hold sufficient promise to warrant a larger scale clinical trial.