Cognitive Affective & Behavioral Neuroscience最新文献

Although defined as a movement disorder, Parkinson's disease is characterised by a diverse range of motor and nonmotor symptoms, including cognitive impairment. Use of motor subtypes to characterise symptom heterogeneity is common, but it remains unclear whether these subtypes capture meaningful differences in nonmotor symptoms. Our systematic review and meta-analysis sought to investigate differences in cognitive function between motor subtypes of Parkinson's disease. A total of 123 eligible studies were identified from database searches (PubMed, PsycINFO, CINAHL, Scopus, Web of Science; last searched 23/01/2024) and forward and backward snowballing. All included studies used at least one objective or clinician-rated motor measure to classify patients into motor subtypes and administered one or more objective or clinician-rated cognitive assessments. Data were analysed using a combination of multilevel meta-analysis, traditional meta-analysis, and narrative synthesis. Several study characteristics, including subtyping method, cognitive domain, and disease duration, were evaluated as possible moderators, and risk of bias was assessed using an adapted version of the Quality in Prognosis Studies tool. We found robust evidence for better preserved cognition in tremor-dominant motor subtypes and for poorer cognition in freezing of gait, postural instability gait disorder, and akinetic-rigid subtypes. Our moderator analyses indicated that motor subtype provides important information about cognitive profile that cannot be inferred from other patient characteristics. Unfortunately, reporting of motor subtyping procedures often lacked clarity, compromising subtype reproducibility. Our findings demonstrate the utility of motor subtyping for identifying patients most at risk of cognitive decline and dementia, and highlight opportunities for future motor subtyping research.

Background: Thought suppression is suggested as a causal factor in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), as it can lead to an increase in intrusive thoughts. However, the neural mechanisms through which obsessive-compulsive symptoms (OCS) influence thought suppression, particularly in the context of preferential processing of negatively valenced stimuli, remains unclear. We hypothesized that OCS would predict increased inhibitory communication between frontal and parahippocampal neurocircuitry during the suppression of negative words. Additionally, we tested an exploratory analysis to see whether this was mediated by preferential processing of these stimuli.

Methods: EEG was recorded from 47 participants tasked with directed forgetting of negative and neutral words. Data from 38 of these participants were analyzed. We examined the influence of OCS on fronto-parahippocampal beta-1 (13-18 Hz) synchronization during a Directed Forgetting task. An exploratory analysis of the mediating role of stimulus processing bias, measured via the late positive potential following the word stimulus, was assessed using a mediated moderation model.

Results: Obsessive-compulsive symptoms predicted enhanced fronto-parahippocampal beta-1 synchronisation when instructed to forget negative words. The moderating effect of valence was mediated by preferential processing of negative stimuli, as indicated by increased late positive potential.

Conclusions: Healthy individuals with relatively high OCS exhibit compensatory connectivity between frontal and parahippocampal regions when attempting to suppress negative emotional stimuli. Exploratory analysis showed this compensatory activity is influenced by both preferential processing of negative stimuli and the severity of OCS, providing preliminary evidence of a neural mechanism that may contribute to the persistence of intrusive thoughts in OCD.

Migrant flows in modern societies have produced substantial political and societal debates due to opposing views on immigrating people. The present study aimed to investigate whether depictions of suffering refugees in contrast to suffering in-group members are perceived differently and whether these differences are influenced by xenophobia and trait empathy. We conducted an fMRI experiment with 83 participants who were presented with depictions of suffering individuals in an in-group condition, out-group condition, and control stimuli. We defined several regions of interest that had previously been associated with empathy, including the insula, anterior and posterior cingulate, inferior frontal gyrus, temporal regions, and the precuneus. The results show higher activation of empathy-related areas in both the in-group and out-group compared with control condition and a significant cluster in the inferior frontal gyrus for the contrast in-group > out-group. Moreover, a moderation analysis revealed an interplay of empathic concern and xenophobic attitudes on the activation contrast in-group vs. out-group, in that empathic concern reduced the in-group favoring empathy-specific activation in more xenophobic individuals. The results highlight the importance of empathy in the neuronal perception of (suffering) out-groups and suggest that empathy might be capable of enhancing compassion with out-groups in individuals with more pronounced negative out-group attitudes.

Social connection is essential to human health and survival. Experiences of ostracism increase vulnerability to psychopathology. Emotion regulation, supported by executive functions, may buffer these effects. However, prior research has mainly examined how ostracism impacts executive functioning, not the reverse. This study tested whether individual differences in inhibitory control, a key component of executive function, modulate neural and psychological responses to ostracism. Forty-two college students (age: 20.6 ± 2.0) completed multi-echo fMRI scanning, first performing a color-word Stroop task followed by the Cyberball task. Greater Stroop interference correlated with heightened activation in presupplementary motor area (pSMA) and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC). Using these signals as covariates in Cyberball analyses, we found that greater inhibitory inefficiency in pSMA coincided with reduced recruitment of the fronto-striatal regions implicated in emotion regulation and social monitoring, including dlPFC, dorsomedial PFC, and caudate nucleus, during ostracism. Notably, we modeled Cyberball by ball-tossing events, allowing us to see that within the Inclusion Block, individuals with inefficient inhibitory control in pSMA, elicited greater activation in these regions while watching others toss to each other vs. including the participant. This association was reversed in the Ostracism Block, where exclusion was explicit and sustained. This pattern suggests that inefficient inhibitory control may correlate with over-engagement of regulatory and social-monitoring systems in response to ambiguous cues of exclusion, followed by disengagement during actual ostracism. These neural patterns were associated with greater self-reported distress, suggesting that inhibitory inefficiency may increase vulnerability to the emotional consequences of social exclusion.

Neuropsychiatric disorders are highly prevalent but particularly difficult to study. Animal models have been developed to understand the pathogenesis of these diseases and to develop treatments; however, the translational value of these findings has been limited. We discuss rodent and nonhuman primate (NHP) models for neuropsychiatric disorders and suggest farm animal models (FAMs) as a supplement or where NHP availability is limited and the scientific question allows it, as an alternative when feasible (i.e., when sufficient knowledge and validated methods exist). We discuss how farm animals can be relevant based on their anatomical, physiological, and brain functional similarity to humans, well-documented genetics, and complex higher cognitive functions. We discuss limitations of FAMs, including less availability of validated tools, relative lack of historical data, less expertise among livestock producers and scientists, and relatively limited understanding of functional neurocircuitry compared to rodents and NHPs. We offer guidance on the use of farm animals in research and emphasize the possibility of conducting semi-experimental studies on farms or in slaughterhouses. We argue that sustainability of research is enhanced by the availability of farm animal brains from the slaughterhouse, and generalizability is increased by using naturalistic, spontaneously occurring disease models, including from veterinary populations. The comparative validity, practicality, and ethics of using FAMs is discussed. We advocate for expanded basic science research of farm animal brains and behaviors, and conclude that FAMs may be advantageous for several reasons, although ultimately, the research question and available tools must guide the best choice of model.

Foraging is a crucial activity, yet the extent to which humans employ flexible versus rigid strategies remains unclear. This study investigates how individuals adapt their foraging strategies in response to resource distribution and foraging time constraints. For this, we designed a video-game-like foraging task that requires participants to navigate a four-area environment to collect coins from treasure boxes within a limited time. This task engages multiple cognitive abilities, such as navigation, learning, and memorization of treasure box locations. Findings indicate that participants adjust their foraging strategies - encompassing both stay-or-leave decisions, such as the number of boxes opened in initial areas and behavioral aspects, such as the time to navigate from box to box - depending on both resource distribution and foraging time. Additionally, they improved their performance over time by reducing the uncertainty about resource locations and distributions, demonstrating enhancements in both foraging strategies and navigation skills. They also adapted their strategies within trials based on their uncertainty, leaving areas more quickly when they resolved that other areas offered better foraging opportunities, and more slowly when they became certain that the alternatives were poorer. Finally, participants' performance was initially distant from the reward-maximizing performance of optimal agents due to the learning process humans undergo. However, it approximated the optimal agent's performance towards the end of the task, without fully reaching it. These results highlight the flexibility of human foraging behavior and underscore the importance of employing optimality models and ecologically rich scenarios to study foraging.

Maladaptive emotional processing is central to multiple forms of psychopathology, including both internalizing and externalizing disorders. The late positive potential (LPP) is an event-related potential component that reflects attention allocation and the motivational significance of affective stimuli. Altered LPP amplitudes to emotional pictures have been observed across a range of psychopathologies, yet it remains unclear whether specific higher-order psychopathology dimensions might explain these associations. In a sample of 172 female participants aged 13 to 22 years (M_age = 17.85, standard deviation [SD] = 1.96), the present study examined the association between higher-order psychopathology dimensions and the LPP. Participants completed the Inventory of Depression and Anxiety Symptoms - Expanded Version to assess internalizing symptoms, and a parent (89.3% mothers) completed the Child Behavior Checklist to report on their child's externalizing behaviors. Participants also completed the emotional interrupt task while electroencephalography (EEG) was recorded to measure the LPP during picture viewing. We conducted an analysis of covariance to examine the relationship between multiple psychopathology dimensions and both the overall LPP and emotion-modulated LPP. Results indicated that higher distress scores were associated with a more blunted overall LPP, while higher fear/obsessions and rule-breaking behavior scores were associated with a larger overall LPP. No psychopathology dimension was associated with the emotion-modulated LPP. The present study suggests that internalizing and externalizing subfactor dimensions are independently associated with the LPP, primarily reflecting general neural engagement with neutral, pleasant, and unpleasant emotional images.

The Attentional Control Theory postulates that anxiety impairs processing efficiency (and often performance effectiveness) on tasks involving the shifting function due to deficient recruitment of attentional control resources. Furthermore, recent studies have suggested that the association between self-reported attentional control (as measured by the Attentional Control Scale; ACS) and anxiety may be driven by biased self-perceptions of one's attentional control ability. The present study investigated the relationships among anxiety (measured via the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale-Anxiety subscale), subjective attentional control (measured via the ACS), and affective task-switching performance (measured via a word-based paradigm) in 181 adults from the Max Planck Institute-Leipzig Mind-Brain-Body dataset. At the behavioral level, we found no statistically significant association between anxiety and switch-cost measures after correction for multiple comparisons. However, a pattern emerged suggesting that higher anxiety was linked to faster disengagement from negative-valenced stimuli. This pattern was partially mediated by subjective attentional control. The whole-brain vertex-wise analysis revealed a negative association between ACS scores and cortical thickness in the right rostral anterior cingulate cortex (rACC)-a region typically associated with emotional regulation. However, no significant associations were found between ACS scores and resting-state functional connectivity, and no significant mediating effect was identified for the right rACC thickness on the link between anxiety and affective task-switching performance. Overall, these findings suggest that anxiety may facilitate strategic avoidance of aversive information under certain conditions, and that ACS scores may primarily reflect biased beliefs about attentional control abilities rather than objective cognitive control abilities.

The neural foundations of the Dark Triad (DT) personality traits-narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy-remain largely unexplored despite their profound impact on social behavior. Previous research has indicated potential structural and functional alterations in the default mode network (DMN) and reward-related regions in individuals exhibiting high levels of DT traits. However, these studies have often been limited by univariate analytical methods and small, unbalanced sample sizes. To address these gaps, we analyzed brain scans from a robust sample of 200 participants (mean age 32.43 years; 105 females) using group Independent Component Analysis (gICA), an unsupervised machine learning approach. This method allowed us to extract blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) low-frequency spectral power (fractional Amplitude of Low-Frequency Fluctuations; fALFF) associated with resting-state macro-networks without relying on predefined regions of interest. Our analysis identified 20 macro-networks, of which two were significantly predictive of DT traits: the Central Executive Network (CEN) and the posterior hub of the Default Mode Network (DMN). Notably, higher DT scores correlated with increased fALFF within the CEN and decreased fALFF within the DMN. The heightened activity in the CEN may reflect enhanced manipulative abilities and strategic planning commonly observed in individuals with high DT traits, which is supported by the association between the CEN and the Machiavellianism subscale. Conversely, reduced functionality in the DMN may correspond to diminished self-reflective and emotional capacities in these individuals. These findings contribute to a deeper understanding of the neurobiological basis of DT traits and hold implications for future research and interventions.

Navigating urban environments involves making directional decisions at intersections, which can be guided by different cognitive strategies. This study investigated whether distinct strategies correspond to specific spatiotemporal brain activity patterns, reflecting differences in cognitive processes using source-localized scalp electroencephalography (EEG). Thirty-two participants navigated five strategy-specific virtual mazes and made directional decisions at intersections in each given maze. At the behavioral level, we found that strategies involving higher cognitive memory load were associated with lower accuracy, while those requiring complex visual processing resulted in longer reaction times. At the EEG level, we observed that increased theta activity was sensitive to differences in cognitive demands across strategies and was particularly associated with cue-piloting, memory retrieval, and spatial information updating and integration. Increased alpha activity was linked to visual cue and scene processing, while both increased and decreased beta activity reflected internally referenced memory and predictive processing, respectively. We further found that strategies relying on wisely visible cues showed similar spatiotemporal theta activation patterns, whereas those involving absent or nearby visual cues exhibited distinct patterns. Lastly, we observed that increased theta, alpha, and beta activity were associated with higher cognitive demand both before and after decision making. However, during decision making, increased theta activity was linked to efficient navigation in frontal-limbic-parietal-temporal regions and to greater cognitive demand in occipital regions. These findings indicate that cortical dynamics differ according to the cognitive strategy, depending on the type of visual cues and spatial judgments, thereby supporting a classification framework grounded in cognitive processing demands.