Psychophysiology最新文献

Emotion reactivity and regulation are implicated in the experience of anxiety and depression by autistic adults, but their measurement has been hindered by reliance on subjective judgment. Biological measurement methods may improve insight by offering a perspective beyond self/other-report. Using PRISMA guidelines, this systematic review aimed to (1) clarify current emotion reactivity and regulation measurement practices used with autistic adults, and (2) summarize conclusions on the autistic adult experience, organized across Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) units of analysis (circuits, physiology, behavior, self-/caregiver-report). Of the 31 original peer-reviewed studies that met inclusion criteria, there were 41 different reports: 15 circuitry, 13 physiological, one behavioral, and 14 self-/caregiver-reports of emotion reactivity and/or regulation. Findings generally indicated reduced emotion reactivity and emotion regulation processes for autistic adults compared to non-autistic groups, but inconsistencies emerged depending upon the emotional paradigms, social stimuli, laboratory versus naturalistic setting, sample characteristics, or RDoC measurement tools used. Overall, study design heterogeneity has limited the ability to infer how emotion reactivity and regulation are measured and, therefore, impacted in autistic adults. Future studies should establish standard methods across multiple measurements, assess both positive and negative emotions, and include diverse racial/cultural backgrounds and ability levels. In conclusion, there remains a dearth of evidence using circuitry, physiological, and behavioral measures of emotion reactivity and regulation in autistic adults, thus limiting our understanding of these critical internal experiences and processes.

Hyperscanning methods are gaining prominence in psychophysiological research and yielding interesting insights into the neural mechanisms supporting interpersonal social engagement. However, the vast majority of that innovative work is being carried out in adolescents and adults. Given the known importance of dyadic social interactions for supporting early neurodevelopment, expanding hyperscanning methods to child studies presents a promising opportunity to broaden the field's understanding of the interplay between neural, behavioral, and environmental factors contributing to social connectedness. This scoping review summarizes the findings from the empirical, peer-reviewed pediatric hyperscanning studies involving children 7 years of age or younger. We review methodological practices related to the experimental design of naturalistic social interaction paradigms and data analysis options for quantifying interpersonal neural synchrony, identify their strengths and knowledge gaps, and propose key areas for future study.

Variations in performance during tasks investigating response inhibition have long been a focus of research in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) studies. While event-related potential (ERP) studies have provided some insights, results have been inconsistent, with conflicting findings reported. Moreover, research on event-related spectral perturbation (ERSP) in this context is relatively scarce. In this study, behavioral performance, ERPs (N1, P2, N2, and P3; Ne and Pe), and ERSPs (delta and theta bands) data were collected from ADHD (n = 90) and typically developing (n = 62) children aged 6 to 13 years during a Go/No-Go task. In the correct-related No-Go condition, children with ADHD exhibited lower accuracy, smaller No-Go P3 amplitudes, and reduced delta-band synchronization compared to typically developing children. In the error-related No-Go condition, ADHD children showed reduced post-error slowing in Go response time and smaller Ne and Pe amplitudes than typically developing children. The atypical response inhibition observed in children with ADHD may arise from distinct neural activation patterns across the entire inhibitory control process, including perceptual encoding, response suppression, and error monitoring. This multistage neural profile highlights the need for comprehensive intervention strategies targeting the complete sequence of response inhibition processes.

Attentional bias significantly influences the development, persistence, and exacerbation of anxiety disorders in individuals with high trait anxiety (HTA). Although attention encompasses both temporal and spatial aspects, temporal attentional bias remains underexplored. Traditional views often negatively generalize attentional biases, neglecting their distinct cognitive vulnerabilities and biological adaptive functions. This study aims to explore temporal bias, focusing on its unique characteristics and significance. We used the rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) task to measure temporal attentional engagement and disengagement precisely in two EEG experiments. Experiment 1 examined attentional engagement by presenting neutral T1 followed by negative or neutral T2 stimuli. Experiment 2 assessed disengagement using negative or neutral T1 followed by neutral T2 stimuli. Behaviorally, typical attentional blink effects were observed in both experiments. Electrophysiologically, Experiment 1 (Engagement) revealed significantly larger P3b and late positive potential (LPP) amplitudes for negative compared with neutral T2 stimuli, specifically in the HTA group, suggesting enhanced engagement. The LTA group showed larger early posterior negativity (EPN) to negative T2 at lag 2 than the HTA group. Experiment 2 (disengagement) showed distinct T2-elicited LPP patterns: HTA participants exhibited significantly smaller LPP amplitudes following negative versus neutral T1 stimuli, whereas LTA participants showed no such difference, indicating greater difficulty disengaging from negative information in HTA. For T1 processing, LTA showed larger EPN to negative versus neutral T1, while HTA did not. Increased engagement with negative stimuli may be a common human trait, as evidenced by increased sensitivity in both high- and low-anxiety individuals. However, difficulties in disengaging attention from negative stimuli are particularly evident in individuals with HTA. These findings have important implications for the prediction, assessment, and prevention of anxiety disorders.

Synchrony has been proposed as a relevant phenomenon for investigating social neurophysiological and psychological processes, with interbrain synchrony, in particular, presumed to facilitate the functional integration of multiple brains. However, the lack of an accepted definition and a cohesive theoretical corpus that allows hypothesis-based approaches, often combined with less robust empirical methods, might hinder progress in this field. To address this, we propose a definition of interbrain synchrony and link various theoretical contributions that might justify the existence of meaningful temporal alignment between different brain activities. Furthermore, we propose a set of methods aimed at minimizing bias in the collection of evidence supporting this neural mechanism. Our approach entails extracting instantaneous phase data from Hilbert-transformed EEG time series recorded from individuals under different experimental conditions that account for the synchrony's confounding factors such as shared attention, cognitive, and motor dependencies, while also relying on simulation-based insight to refine the methodological specifics. We then propose multiple data analysis strategies, including circular statistics combined with permutation testing, the sliding technique for time-lagged dependencies, and mutual information. Finally, we present an example of a potential application within the context of cooperation in nuclear families. We believe that, by employing such methods consistently, the concept of interbrain synchrony is falsifiable. Whether this phenomenon is empirically supported or not, its investigation will contribute to advancing our understanding of the social brain.

Emotion and fairness play a key role in mediating socioeconomic decisions in humans; however, the underlying neurocognitive mechanism remains largely unknown. This exploratory study unraveled the interplay between agents' emotions and the fairness of their monetary proposal in rational decision-making, backed by ERP analyzes of N170, Late Positive Potential (LPP), Feedback Related Negativity (FRN) and P3a at a group as well as a strategic level. In a time- bound ultimatum-game paradigm, 40 participants were exposed to three distinct proposers' emotions (Happy, Neutral, Disgusted) followed by one of the three offer ranges (Low, Intermediate, High). Our findings show a robust influence of economic fairness on acceptance rates. A multilevel generalized linear model showed offer as the dominant predictor of trial-specific responses. Subsequent clustering grouped participants into five clusters, which the Drift Diffusion Model corroborates. Pertinent neural markers demonstrated the recognition of facial expressions; however, they had minimal effect during socioeconomic decision-making. Our study explores individualistic decision-making processes revealing different cognitive strategies.

Choosing the appropriate signal parameter is paramount to producing informative and reproducible findings. In EEG-based affective neuroscience, it is useful to consider that affective processes can unfold over several seconds, which can limit the utility of event-related potentials (ERPs) that are most sensitive near the onset of a stimulus. One promising solution for probing affective attention over longer time-windows is to present stimuli in flickering mode that increases the number of stimulus 'onsets' in a unit of time, an approach known as Steady-State Visually Evoked Potentials (SSVEP). In this study (N = 44), we used a barely noticeable (and therefore less disturbing) periodic contrast modulation (42.5 Hz) to probe variation in attention towards the flickering stimuli modulated by stimulus-driven (negative vs. neutral) and task-driven (unregulated viewing vs. distraction via mental imagery) mechanisms. Time-frequency analysis based on rhythmic entrainment source separation revealed sensitivity to task-driven attentional manipulation, albeit in an unexpected direction. Surprisingly, affective valence did not modulate EEG power at the tagged frequency, diverging from previous reports based on low-frequency SSVEP. Meanwhile, the late positive potential (LPP) indicated sensitivity towards both task-driven and stimulus-driven attention, although the task-driven effect proved more local and did not generalize across time in a sliding-window robustness check. Together, these findings suggest that SSVEPs and LPPs index distinct aspects of affective attention. The potential origins of these findings are discussed, with emphasis on the involvement of eye movements and imagery-driven resource competition in the brain.

Disorders of Gut-Brain Interaction (DGBI) are characterized by persistent digestive symptoms in the absence of objectively detectable abnormalities. Visceral hypersensitivity and interoceptive dysfunction are central features of DGBI, yet the specific interoceptive impairments associated with these conditions remain underexplored. This study aimed to characterize interoceptive processing in patients with DGBI by comparing gastric and cardiac interoceptive accuracy, interoceptive beliefs, and related affective responses with those of healthy controls. Thirty patients with DGBIs and 30 matched healthy controls completed the Water Load Test-II (WLT-II) and the Heartbeat Counting Task (HCT) to assess gastric and cardiac interoception, respectively. Participants completed self-report measures of interoceptive beliefs (MAIA-II), visceral sensitivity (VSI), and somatic symptom burden (SSD-12). Resting electrogastrographic signal (EGG) was also recorded. Results revealed that patients suffering from DGBIs exhibited significantly reduced gastric interoception compared to controls (p < 0.001), despite no differences in cardiac interoception (p = 0.893), supporting a modality-specific impairment. Patients also showed altered drinking behavior during WLT-II, requiring less water to reach satiety but more to reach fullness. Despite interoceptive beliefs not differing between groups, patients reported greater visceral sensitivity and somatic distress. Notably, WLT interoceptive measure in patients correlated positively with the "Trusting" MAIA-II subscale (r = 0.423, p = 0.020), and EGG peak frequency correlated with affective symptom distress (r = 0.496, p = 0.024). These findings suggest that impaired gastric interoception in DGBIs is associated with dysregulated physiological and affective responses, independent of subjective interoceptive beliefs. Our results highlight the importance of using modality-specific interoceptive assessments and suggest the potential for interoceptive training interventions to improve symptom management in DGBI populations.

Survivors of childhood abuse are at greater risk for a wide range of health disorders in adulthood, which is posited to occur in part through alterations to threat-related processes such as fear learning. Neighborhood characteristics such as area disadvantage and exposure to neighborhood crime are associated with threat processing in trauma-exposed individuals; however, their relationship with fear learning has not been studied to date. This study assessed relationships between three measures of neighborhood safety (neighborhood disadvantage, crime exposure, and self-reported neighborhood safety in childhood) with three established markers of fear learning (fear/safety discrimination, startle habituation, and fear extinction). A sample of N = 92 individuals assigned female at birth with varying levels of exposure to childhood abuse completed an established fear-potentiated startle task and reported their lifetime trauma history, as well as a brief measure of perceived neighborhood safety. The Trauma History Questionnaire (THQ) was used to identify the year and zip code of residence of their earliest abuse exposure; this was then used to identify census-derived indices for neighborhood disadvantage and neighborhood crime. Results showed that higher levels of neighborhood disadvantage were significantly associated with poorer fear/safety discrimination in adulthood (ß = -0.39, p = 0.03), and that this relationship remained significant after adjusting for the severity of childhood abuse (ß = -0.28, p = 0.01). Additionally, greater neighborhood disadvantage was associated with slightly blunted initial startle values during habituation (ß = -0.01, p = 0.03). No significant relationships were found between other neighborhood variables and markers of fear learning. These findings demonstrate the need for greater research into how neighborhood characteristics may influence recovery from traumatic experiences, particularly in terms of their influence on fear learning and memory processes.