Biological Psychology最新文献

High levels of test anxiety can cause negative emotional interference and have adverse effects in multiple aspects. It is currently unclear whether acute aerobic exercise can effectively reduce a series of negative emotions triggered by test anxiety. This study investigates the impact of 30 min of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise on the subjective emotional responses and frontal alpha asymmetry (FAA) in individuals with high test anxiety. Forty-four college students with high test anxiety were randomly assigned to an aerobic exercise group and a control group. Each group underwent two tests, involving subjective scale measurements and resting-state EEG recordings, with a seven-day interval between tests. Results showed that after 30 min of moderate-intensity acute aerobic exercise, the intervention group had significantly reduced scores in subjective negative emotional experiences, and FAA indicators significantly increased. The study suggests that acute aerobic exercise can enhance the emotional regulation ability of college students with high test anxiety and reduce their negative emotions.

The brain helps individuals build expectations based on emotional prediction, facilitating the processing of faces in social interactions. Due to the intricacy of the environment, accurately predicting emotions remains a formidable task. Contextual uncertainty represents a state characterized by the inability to predict when, how, and why events occur. It leads to intensified sentiments and triggers adverse emotions like anxiety. Therefore, comprehending the influences of contextual uncertainty carries importance. The present study utilized event-related potentials (ERPs) technology to investigate contextual uncertainty's influence on facial expression processing. We employed a novel S1-S2 paradigm, using scene images as S1 and faces as S2. From the learning phase into the testing phase, the certain to uncertain group (CER to UNC) experienced more unpredictability (increased uncertainty), whereas the uncertain to certain group (UNC to CER) experienced more predictability (decreased uncertainty). This allowed for manipulating dynamic alterations in predictive relationships. The behavioral results showed that the valence ratings of neutral facial expressions were more negative in the CER to UNC group with increased contextual uncertainty. The ERP results showed that the more negative SPN (stimulus preceding negativity) amplitudes and positive LPP (late positive potential) amplitudes were observed in the UNC to CER group with decreased contextual uncertainty, compared to the CER to UNC group with increased contextual uncertainty. These findings have indicated that contextual uncertainty affects facial expression processing. In summary, these results contributed to comprehending the contextual uncertainty.

Research on the impact of self-esteem on conspicuous consumption has shown inconsistent results. This study addresses this variability by examining how socioeconomic status (SES) moderates the relationship between self-esteem and conspicuous consumption. We hypothesized that the relationship varies with SES, predicting a positive relationship at high SES levels and a negative relationship at low SES levels. Our findings confirm this hypothesis. Using a Go/NoGo association task (GNAT) combined with event-related potentials (ERP), we investigated the cognitive processing speeds for congruent and incongruent pairings. This method provided insights into the implicit attitudes towards conspicuous products and revealed the complex dynamics between self-esteem and SES in influencing consumer behavior tendencies. This research advances our understanding of the interactions between self-esteem and SES in conspicuous consumption from an implicit cognitive perspective. It also offers significant practical implications, guiding the development of consumer marketing strategies that can be tailored to different socioeconomic contexts.

Personality traits linked to internalizing disorders influence the way we develop fears, but also how we regain a sense of safety. In the present study, we investigated the effect of intolerance of uncertainty (IU) on defensive responses using a differential fear conditioning protocol with an extinction phase. The conditioned stimulus was associated with an aversive sound (90 dB) in 75 % of the presentations during acquisition. A final sample of 176 participants completed the experiment. We measured self-reports of associative (expectancy of the unconditioned stimulus in acquisition) and evaluative learning (arousal and valence), and both physiological (skin conductance response) and electrocortical responses (steady-state visually evoked potentials, ssVEPs; late positive potentials, LPP) to the conditioned stimuli. Our results show that IU's impact is limited, with no effect in both acquisition and extinction. These findings emphasize the necessity of large samples in research on inter-individual differences and contribute to our understanding of how IU may or may not be involved in fear and safety learning processes considering multiple aspects of fear responding.

Individuals exhibiting high social anxiety (HSA) typically encounter challenges in identifying threatening stimuli with varying levels of intensity in different social scenes, ultimately affecting their social interactions. However, it is not well understood how social scenes, emotional intensity, and interaction influence the recognition of threat stimuli among HSA individuals (HSAs). To address this issue, a face recognition task was administered to 20 HSA participants and 22 individuals exhibiting low social anxiety (LSA) in this study. Results indicated that during the social scene presentation stage, HSAs produced larger P2 amplitude than LSA individuals (LSAs) no matter the valence of the scenes. During the face recognition stage, HSAs had smaller N170 amplitude than LSAs and exhibited lower recognition time for 2 % disgusted faces compared to LSAs. Furthermore, the consistency between scenes and faces led to faster recognition of disgusted faces in HSAs, but not in LSAs. Consequently, our findings suggested that HSAs exhibited unique cognitive processing patterns in social scenes, manifested by increased attention to scenes and decreased attention to faces. In addition, the emotional congruence between the scene and the faces could facilitate the recognition of faces by HSAs.

A prominent challenge in understanding neural consequences of substance use involves disentangling predispositional risk factors from resulting consequences of substance use. Existing literature has identified pre-existing brain variations as vulnerability markers for substance use throughout adolescence. As early initiation of use is an important predictor for later substance use problems, we examined whether pre-existing brain variations are associated with early initiation of use.

In the Generation R Study, a prospective population-based cohort, brain morphology (gray matter volume, cortical thickness and surface area) was assessed at ages 10 and 14 using neuroimaging. In the second wave, participants reported on alcohol and tobacco use initiation. From a base study population (N = 3019), we examined the longitudinal (N = 2218) and cross-sectional (N = 1817) association between brain morphology of frontolimbic regions of interest known to be associated with substance use risk, and very early (age < 13) alcohol/tobacco use initiation. Additionally, longitudinal and cross-sectional associations were examined with a brain surface-based approach. Models were adjusted for age at neuroimaging, sex and relevant sociodemographic factors.

No associations were found between brain morphology (ages 10 and 14) and early alcohol/tobacco use initiation (<13 years). Sex-specific analyses suggested a cross-sectional association between smaller brain volume and early initiated tobacco use in girls. Our findings are important for interpreting studies examining neural consequences of substance use in the general population. Future longitudinal studies are needed to specify whether these findings can be extended to initiation and continuation of alcohol/tobacco use in later stages of adolescence.

Many decisions happen in social contexts such as negotiations, yet little is understood about how people balance fairness versus selfishness. Past investigations found that activation in brain areas involved in executive function and reward processing was associated with people offering less with no threat of rejection from their partner, compared to offering more when there was a threat of rejection. However, it remains unclear how trait reward sensitivity may modulate activation and connectivity patterns in these situations. To address this gap, we used task-based fMRI to examine the relation between reward sensitivity and the neural correlates of bargaining choices. Participants (N = 54) completed the Sensitivity to Punishment (SP)/Sensitivity to Reward (SR) Questionnaire and the Behavioral Inhibition System/Behavioral Activation System scales. Participants performed the Ultimatum and Dictator Games as proposers and exhibited strategic decisions by being fair when there was a threat of rejection, but being selfish when there was not a threat of rejection. We found that strategic decisions evoked activation in the Inferior Frontal Gyrus (IFG) and the Anterior Insula (AI). Next, we found elevated IFG connectivity with the Temporoparietal junction (TPJ) during strategic decisions. Finally, we explored whether trait reward sensitivity modulated brain responses while making strategic decisions. We found that people who scored lower in reward sensitivity made less strategic choices when they exhibited higher AI-Angular Gyrus connectivity. Taken together, our results demonstrate how trait reward sensitivity modulates neural responses to strategic decisions, potentially underscoring the importance of this factor within social and decision neuroscience.

Eye contact with a human and with a humanoid robot elicits attention- and affect-related psychophysiological responses. However, these responses have mostly been studied in adults, leaving their developmental origin poorly understood. In this study, 114 infants (6–8 months old) viewed direct and averted gaze directions of a live human and an embodied humanoid robot while their heart rate deceleration (attention orienting), skin conductance (affective arousal), and facial muscle activity (affective valence) were measured. In addition, a non-humanoid object (a vase) was used as a control stimulus. Infants’ attention orienting was stronger to averted versus direct gaze of a human and a robot, but indifferent to the averted versus direct orientation of the non-humanoid object. Moreover, infants’ attention orienting was equally intensive toward a human and a robot, but less intensive toward a non-humanoid object. Affective arousal was insensitive to gaze direction and did not differ between the human, the robot, and the non-humanoid object. Facial muscle responses showed sensitivity to the gaze direction of a human and of a robot but not to the orientation of the non-humanoid object. These results suggest that infants recognize the attentional and affective/affiliative significance not only in a human’s gaze but also in a robot’s gaze.

Objective

Elevated pediatric irritability is a transdiagnostic symptom that predicts multiple mental health problems in adolescence and adulthood. Altered top-down regulatory networks, such as inhibitory control networks that suppress an impulse in favor of goal-directed behavior, are thought to contribute to high levels of youth irritability. Nevertheless, little work has examined links between youth irritability and neural processes supporting inhibitory control in large diverse samples, nor have they focused on the key period ramping up to adolescence (i.e., preadolescence).

Method

Functional MRI data from 5380 preadolescents (age M=9.97 years, SD=0.62) in the baseline Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study were analyzed. Parents reported on their preadolescent’s irritability. The stop signal task (SST) was leveraged to probe successful and failed inhibitory control. Activation and functional connectivity with amygdala, ventral striatum, and prefrontal seed regions were calculated during the SST and used in whole brain and region of interest (ROI) group-level analyses evaluating irritability effects.

Results

Preadolescents with higher levels of irritability displayed decreases in functional connectivity among amygdala, ventral striatum, and prefrontal cortex regions during both successful and failed inhibitory control conditions. These results remained after adjusting for co-occurring anxiety, depression, and attention-deficit/hyperactivity symptoms.

Conclusions

Findings suggest neural aberrations in inhibitory control play a role in the pathophysiology of preadolescent irritability and associations are not merely due to co-occurring symptoms. Neural mechanisms of inhibitory control associated with irritability may provide novel intervention targets.

Tobacco smoking is a risk factor for countless diseases, and smoking relapse remains a major public health concern. Subjective reports of stress by smokers are a common theme for relapse, however, the role of objective stress-related biomarkers in predicting tobacco relapse risk has been less studied. The aim of this manuscript was to review existing literature on the connection between biomarkers of stress and smoking relapse. Overall, trends indicate that blunted hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) responses to acute stress, larger reductions in HPA biomarkers during the initial days of abstinence during cessation (compared to pre-cessation levels), and exaggerated autonomic responses to stress predict increased risk of relapse. In addition, successful cessation is followed by changes in stress biomarkers (e.g., reductions in cortisol and heart rate, HR). This review also identifies potential modifiers, such as methodological differences, biological sex, and chronic stress, to account for heterogeneity of findings within and across studies. In addition, we identify gaps in the literature and suggest future research directions focusing on the roles of genetics and gene expression as well as the influence of neurobiological mechanisms on stress and relapse risk. Future clinical implications of this research include identifying reliable indicators of relapse risk and the potential of pharmacotherapeutic treatments to target stress response systems to correct dysregulation and potentially reduce stress-related risk of relapse.