Does the emotional go/no-go task really measure behavioral inhibition? Convergence with measures on a non-emotional analog

Linking Cognitive Measures of Response Inhibition and Reward Sensitivity to Trait Impulsivity

Impulsivity is regarded as a multifaceted construct that comprises two dimensions: rapid-response impulsivity and reward-delay impulsivity. It is unclear, however, which aspects of trait impulsivity, as assessed by self-report measures are related to rapid-response impulsivity and/or to reward-delay impulsivity, as different results have been reported in studies using both self-report and cognitive measures. This study aimed to directly relate self-report measures of impulsivity to cognitive measures of impulsivity in individuals at low- or high-levels on two impulsivity dimensions, specifically rapid-response impulsivity and reward-delay impulsivity. Participants were classified into high- or low-impulsivity groups based on (1) level of rapid-response impulsivity (determined by BIS-11 Motor subscale scores); (2) level of reward-delay impulsivity (determined by BIS/BAS subscale scores); and (3) a combination of rapid-response impulsivity and reward-delay impulsivity levels. Impulsivity was assessed using Go/No-Go, Stop-Signal and Delay-Discounting tasks and self-report measures. The high rapid-response impulsivity group showed significantly higher reward-delay impulsivity on both, the Delay-Discounting tasks and on self-report measures assessing reward-delay impulsivity, than the low-risk group. Based on the level of reward-delay impulsivity, the high reward-delay impulsivity group scored significantly higher on task-based (cognitive) and self-report measures assessing rapid-response inhibition than the low reward-delay impulsivity group. Combining both dimensions of impulsivity showed that the high-impulsivity group performed significantly worse in rapid-response paradigms and temporally discounted significantly more impulsively than the low-impulsivity group. Thus, combined impulsivity factors provide better assessment of impulsivity than each dimension alone. In conclusion, robust differences in impulsivity can be identified in non-clinical young adults.

Behavioral and Neural Evidence of the Rewarding Value of Exercise Behaviors: A Systematic Review

BACKGROUND

In a time of physical inactivity pandemic, attempts to better understand the factors underlying the regulation of exercise behavior are important. The dominant neurobiological approach to exercise behavior considers physical activity to be a reward; however, negative affective responses during exercise challenge this idea.

OBJECTIVE

Our objective was to systematically review studies testing the automatic reactions triggered by stimuli associated with different types of exercise behavior (e.g. physical activity, sedentary behaviors) and energetic cost variations (e.g. decreased energetic cost, irrespective of the level of physical activity). We also examined evidence supporting the hypothesis that behaviors minimizing energetic cost (BMEC) are rewarding.

METHODS

Two authors systematically searched, screened, extracted, and analyzed data from articles in the MEDLINE database.

RESULTS

We included 26 studies. Three outcomes of automatic processes were tested: affective reactions, attentional capture, and approach tendencies. Behavioral results show that physical activity can become attention-grabbing, automatically trigger positive affect, and elicit approach behaviors. These automatic reactions explain and predict exercise behaviors; however, the use of a wide variety of measures prevents drawing solid conclusions about the specific effects of automatic processes. Brain imaging results are scarce but show that stimuli associated with physical activity and, to a lesser extent, sedentary behaviors activate regions involved in reward processes. Studies investigating the rewarding value of behaviors driving energetic cost variations such as BMEC are lacking.

CONCLUSION

Reward is an important factor in exercise behavior. The literature based on the investigation of automatic behaviors seems in line with the suggestion that physical activity is rewarding, at least for physically active individuals. Results suggest that sedentary behaviors could also be rewarding, although this evidence remains weak due to a lack of investigations. Finally, from an evolutionary perspective, BMEC are likely to be rewarding; however, no study has investigated this hypothesis. In sum, additional studies are required to establish a strong and complete framework of the reward processes underlying automatic exercise behavior.

Psychophysiological correlates between emotional response inhibition and posttraumatic stress symptom clusters

Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is characterized by diverse executive function impairments as well as abnormal emotion processing. The goal of the present study was to examine the relationships between emotional response inhibition and distinct PTSD symptom clusters from a six-factor DSM-5 model. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were measured in an emotional Go/NoGo task among 58 adult survivors from a deadly earthquake. Overall, the commission errors were lower and reaction time was faster for negative pictures compared to neutral pictures. The negative pictures elicited a smaller N2 but larger P3 amplitude compared to neutral and positive pictures, and larger P3 amplitude was further associated with a faster response. Multivariate regression models showed that the PCL score was related to smaller NoGo-N2 amplitude in the negative context, suggesting that the severity of posttraumatic stress symptoms is associated with worse conflict detection. Furthermore, the severity of anhedonia symptom cluster rather than negative affect symptom cluster was associated with fewer commission errors in the positive context, and this result provided electrophysiological evidence for the six-factor model, i.e., a distinction should be made between negative affect symptom cluster and anhedonia symptom cluster.

The Weight of Emotions in Decision-Making: How Fearful and Happy Facial Stimuli Modulate Action Readiness of Goal-Directed Actions

Modern theories of behavioral control converge with the idea that goal-directed/voluntary behaviors are intimately tied to the evaluation of resources. Of key relevance in the decision-making processes that underlie action selection are those stimuli that bear emotional content. However, even though it is acknowledged that emotional information affects behavioral control, the exact way in which emotions impact on action planning is largely unknown. To clarify this issue, I gave an emotional version of a go/no-go task to healthy participants, in which they had to perform the same arm reaching movement when pictures of fearful or happy faces were presented, and to withhold it when pictures of faces with neutral expressions were presented. This task allows for the investigation of the effects of emotional stimuli when they are task-relevant without conflating movement planning with target detection and task switching. It was found that both the reaction times (RTs) and the percentages of errors increased when the go-signal was the image of a fearful looking face, as opposed to when the go-signal was a happy looking face. Importantly, to control for the role of the features of the stimuli, I ran a control task in which the same pictures were shown; however, participants had to move/withhold the commanded movement according to gender, disregarding the emotional valence. In this context, the differences between RTs and error percentages between the fearful and happy faces disappeared. On the one hand, these results suggest that fearful facial stimuli are likely to capture and hold attention more strongly than faces that express happiness, which could serve to increase vigilance for detecting a potential threat in an observer’s environment. On the other hand, they also suggest that the influence of fearful facial stimuli is not automatic, but it depends on the task requirements.

The effects of multi-stage exercise with and without concurrent cognitive performance on cardiorespiratory and cerebral haemodynamic responses

INTRODUCTION

Studies of cerebral haemodynamics have shown changes with increased exercise intensity, but the patterns have been highly variable and reliable associations with cognitive performance have not been identified. The aim of this study was to examine whether exercise-induced changes in oxygenated haemoglobin (O₂Hb) led to changes in concomitant cognitive performance.

METHODS

This study examined cardiorespiratory and cerebral haemodynamics during multi-stage exercise from rest to exhaustion, with (Ex + C) and without (Ex) concurrent cognitive performance (Go/No-go task).

RESULTS

The presence of the cognitive task affected both cardiorespiratory and cerebral haemodynamics. The patterns in the cerebral haemodynamics during Ex and Ex + C diverged above the respiratory compensation threshold (RCT), but differences were significant only at 100% [Formula: see text], displaying increased deoxygenated haemoglobin (HHb), decreased difference between oxygenated and deoxygenated haemoglobin (HbDiff), and decreased cerebral oxygenation (COx) during Ex + C. More complex haemodynamic trends against intensity during Ex + C suggested that the presence of a cognitive task increases cerebral metabolic demand at high exercise intensities. The levels of O₂Hb, HHb, HbDiff and total haemoglobin increased most steeply at intensities around the RCT during both Ex and Ex + C, but these changes were not accompanied by improved cognitive performance.

CONCLUSION

The primary hypothesis, that cognitive performance would match changes in O₂Hb, was not supported. Small variations in reaction time and response accuracy across exercise intensities were not significant, suggesting that cognitive performance is unaffected by intense short-duration exercise. Our results add further evidence that exercise-induced changes in cerebral haemodynamics do not affect cognitive performance.

The effectiveness of Dutch Cell Dogs in correctional facilities in the Netherlands: a study protocol of a quasi-experimental trial

BACKGROUND

Many former inmates recidivate, resulting in high costs for societies worldwide. Evidence based treatment practices may not work in prisons, due to detainees' lacking motivation, impaired well-being, and an unsafe group environment. One attempt to improve social group climate and well-being is the use of Prison-based Animal Programs (PAP). Using a quasi-experimental design, the aim of the current study is to examine the effectiveness of one such PAP in the Netherlands: Dutch Cell Dogs (DCD).

METHODS/DESIGN

Participants (N = 256) from 12 justice centers, including psychiatric, juvenile and adult facilities, will be recruited. Half of the sample (n = 128) will receive DCD training after voluntarily signing up (intervention group); The other half (n = 128) will be recruited to participate in the research and receive treatment-as-usual (TAU/Ccomparison group). Factors related to psychosocial functioning (e.g., self-esteem, empathy, self-control, life satisfaction, attention) and general therapeutic factors (i.e., therapeutic alliance, treatment motivation), expected to contribute to treatment success, will be assessed to measure the effectiveness of DCD. In addition, behavioral problems will be measured as well as recidivism rates. Questionnaires and neuropsychological tests will be employed to measure aforementioned outcome variables. Moreover, physiological data, based on heart rate and cortisol measures, will be collected to provide insight into the functioning of participants' physiological stress response and to determine whether stress reduction occurs over time. Multimethod data collection will occur at pre-training (T1), at 1-month (halfway training/T2), at 2-months (end training/T3), and 6-months after the end of the training (follow up/T4).

DISCUSSION

This is the first study to examine the effectiveness of a widely implemented PAP in the Netherlands. Challenges associated with conducting the proposed study are typical for practice based research in correctional settings (e.g., a demanding workload of staff, lack of motivation to participate in research). Study results on the effects of a PAP will have an impact on inmates, justice centers, and municipalities across the Netherlands.

TRIAL REGISTRATION

Retrospectively registered. The Netherlands National Trial Register TC = 6894 .

Atypical neural modulation in the right prefrontal cortex during an inhibitory task with eye gaze in autism spectrum disorder as revealed by functional near-infrared spectroscopy

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is characterized by impairment in social communication and the presence of restricted and repetitive behaviors and interests. Executive function impairment is reportedly partially responsible for these symptoms. Executive function includes planning, flexibility, and inhibitory control. Although planning and flexibility in ASD have been consistently reported as atypical, the atypicality of inhibitory control remains controversial. As most previous studies have used nonsocial stimuli to investigate inhibitory control in ASD, the effects of socially relevant information on the inhibitory control system in individuals with ASD remain unclear. Therefore, we developed a go/no-go task with gaze stimuli and measured hemodynamic responses in the right prefrontal cortex (PFC), involved in inhibitory processing in both typically developing (TD) children and children with ASD, using functional near-infrared spectroscopy. Direct gaze induced commission errors to similar extents in both groups. Contrary to the behavioral responses, neural activation in the right PFC was modulated by gaze direction only in the TD group. These findings suggest that the gaze-processing mechanisms in the prefrontal region may be affected by atypical gaze processing in other brain regions during an inhibitory control task with socially relevant information in ASD.

Neurocognitive assessment of emotional context sensitivity

Sensitivity to emotional context is an emerging construct for characterizing adaptive or maladaptive emotion regulation, but few measurement approaches exist. The current study combined behavioral and neurocognitive measures to assess context sensitivity in relation to self-report measures of adaptive emotional flexibility and well-being. Sixty-six adults completed an emotional go/no-go task using happy, fearful, and neutral faces as go and no-go cues, while EEG was recorded to generate event-related potentials (ERPs) reflecting attentional selection and discrimination (N170) and cognitive control (N2). Context sensitivity was measured as the degree of emotional facilitation or disruption in the go/no-go task and magnitude of ERP response to emotion cues. Participants self-reported on emotional flexibility, anxiety, and depression. Overall participants evidenced emotional context sensitivity, such that when happy faces were go stimuli, accuracy improved (greater behavioral facilitation), whereas when fearful faces were no-go stimuli, errors increased (disrupted behavioral inhibition). These indices predicted emotional flexibility and well-being: Greater behavioral facilitation following happy cues was associated with lower depression and anxiety, whereas greater disruption in behavioral inhibition following fearful cues was associated with lower flexibility. ERP indices of context sensitivity revealed additional associations: Greater N2 to fear go cues was associated with less anxiety and depression, and greater N2 and N170 to happy and fear no-go cues, respectively, were associated with greater emotional flexibility and well-being. Results suggest that pleasant and unpleasant emotions selectively enhance and disrupt components of context sensitivity, and that behavioral and ERP indices of context sensitivity predict flexibility and well-being.

Neural substrates of the influence of emotional cues on cognitive control in risk-taking adolescents

Adolescence is a period characterised by increases in risk-taking. This behaviour has been associated with an imbalance in the integration of the networks involved in cognitive control and motivational processes. We examined whether the influence of emotional cues on cognitive control differs between adolescents who show high or low levels of risk-taking behaviour. Participants who scored especially high or low on a risky decision task were subsequently administered an emotional go/no-go fMRI task comprising angry, happy and calm faces. Both groups showed decreased cognitive control when confronted with appetitive and aversive emotional cues. Activation in the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) increased in line with the cognitive control demands of the task. Though the risk taking groups did not differ in their behavioural performance, functional connectivity analyses revealed the dorsal striatum plays a more central role in the processing of cognitive control in high than low risk-takers. Overall, these findings suggest that variance in fronto-striatal circuitry may underlie individual differences in risk-taking behaviour.

The theta burst transcranial magnetic stimulation over the right PFC affects electroencephalogram oscillation during emotional processing

Prefrontal cortex (PFC) plays an important role in emotional processing and therefore is one of the most frequently targeted regions for non-invasive brain stimulation such as repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) in clinical trials, especially in the treatment of emotional disorders. As an approach to enhance the effectiveness of rTMS, continuous theta burst stimulation (cTBS) has been demonstrated to be efficient and safe. However, it is unclear how cTBS affects brain processes related to emotion. In particular, psychophysiological studies on the underlying neural mechanisms are sparse. In the current study, we investigated how the cTBS influences emotional processing when applied over the right PFC. Participants performed an emotion recognition Go/NoGo task, which asked them to select a GO response to either happy or fearful faces after the cTBS or after sham stimulation, while 64-channel electroencephalogram (EEG) was recorded. EEG oscillation was examined using event-related spectral perturbation (ERSP) in a time-interval between 170 and 310ms after face stimuli onset. In the sham group, we found a significant difference in the alpha band between response to happy and fearful stimuli but that effect did not exist in the cTBS group. The alpha band activity at the scalp was reduced suggesting the excitatory effect at the brain level. The beta and gamma band activity was not sensitive to cTBS intervention. The results of the current study demonstrate that cTBS does affect emotion processing and the effect is reflected in changes in EEG oscillations in the alpha band specifically. The results confirm the role of prefrontal cortex in emotion processing. We also suggest that this pattern of cTBS results elucidates mechanisms by which mood improvement in depressive disorders is achieved using cTBS intervention.

Trait anxiety mediates the link between inferior frontal cortex volume and negative affective bias in healthy adults

Anxious individuals tend to show a negative affective bias in attention that likely reflects reduced executive control, a cognitive function associated with the inferior frontal cortex (IFC), particularly its posterior segment, pars opercularis. Here, we investigated the relations among gray matter volume in the pars opercularis of IFC, trait anxiety, and negative biases in attention, in healthy participants. Sixty-two adults underwent structural magnetic resonance imaging scanning, completed a trait anxiety measure, and performed an Affective Go/No-Go (AGN) task. IFC volumes were extracted using Freesurfer, and negative bias scores were calculated from AGN performance. Trait anxiety correlated negatively with left IFC volume, and positively with the negative bias in reaction time. Furthermore, trait anxiety mediated the negative relation between the IFC volume and the negative bias measure. Overall, the present findings extend previous understanding of the IFC involvement in anxiety at the structural level, and may inform the development of intervention programs targeting anxiety.

Neural Correlates of Response Inhibition and Conflict Control on Facial Expressions

Response inhibition and conflict control on affective information can be regarded as two important emotion regulation and cognitive control processes. The emotional Go/Nogo flanker paradigm was adopted and participant’s event-related potentials (ERPs) were analyzed to investigate how response inhibition and conflict control interplayed. The behavioral findings revealed that participants showed higher accuracy to identify happy faces in congruent condition relative to that in incongruent condition. The electrophysiological results manifested that response inhibition and conflict control interplayed during the detection/conflict monitoring stage, and Nogo-N2 was more negative in the incongruent trials than the congruent trials. With regard to the inhibitory control/conflict resolution stage, Nogo responses induced greater frontal P3 and parietal P3 responses than Go responses did. The difference waveforms of N2 and parietal P3 showed that response inhibition and conflict control had distinct processes, and the multiple responses requiring both conflict control and response inhibition processes induced stronger monitoring and resolution processes than conflict control. The current study manifested that response inhibition and conflict control on emotional information required separable neural mechanisms during emotion regulation processes.

Impulsive responding in threat and reward contexts as a function of PTSD symptoms and trait disinhibition

We examined current posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, trait disinhibition, and affective context as contributors to impulsive and self-destructive behavior in 94 trauma-exposed Veterans. Participants completed an affective Go/No-Go task (GNG) with different emotional contexts (threat, reward, and a multidimensional threat/reward condition) and current PTSD, trait disinhibition, and risky/self-destructive behavior measures. PTSD interacted with trait disinhibition to explain recent engagement in risky/self-destructive behavior, with Veterans scoring high on trait disinhibition and current PTSD symptoms reporting the highest levels of these behaviors. On the GNG task, commission errors were also associated with the interaction of PTSD symptoms and trait disinhibition. Specifically, PTSD symptoms were associated with greater commission errors in threat vs. reward contexts for individuals who were low on trait disinhibition. In contrast, veterans high on PTSD and trait disinhibition exhibited the greatest number of commission errors in the multidimensional affective context that involved both threat and reward processing. Results highlight the interactive effects of PTSD and disinhibited personality traits, as well as threat and reward systems, as risk factors for impulsive and self-destructive behavior in trauma-exposed groups. Findings have clinical implications for understanding heterogeneity in the expression of PTSD and its association with disinhibited behavior.

Cognitive Decline as a Result of Incarceration and the Effects of a CBT/MT Intervention: A Cluster-Randomized Controlled Trial

This study primarily tests whether incarceration negatively affects cognitive functioning; namely emotion regulation, cognitive control, and emotion recognition. As a secondary interest, we test protective effects of a Cognitive Behavioral Therapy/Mindfulness Training (CBT/MT) intervention. Dormitories containing 197 incarcerated males aged 16-18 were randomly assigned to either a CBT/MT program or an active control condition. A cognitive task was administered pre-treatment and again four months later, upon treatment completion. Performance on all outcome variables was significantly worse at follow-up compared to baseline. There were marginally significant group by time interactions. While the control group performance significantly declined in both cognitive control and emotion regulation, the CBT/MT group showed no significant decline in either outcome. This is the first study to probe the effects of incarceration on these three processes. Findings suggest that incarceration worsens a known risk factor for crime (cognitive functioning), and that a CBT/MT intervention may help buffer against declines.

Neural correlates of preferred activities: development of an interest-specific go/nogo task

The activities we choose to spend our leisure time with are intrinsically motivating and vary across individuals. Yet it is unknown how impulse control or neural activity changes when processing a preferred stimulus related to a hobby or interest. Developing a task that assesses the response to preferred interests is of importance as it would be relevant to a range of psychiatric disorders that have hyper- or hypo-arousal to such cues. During functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), 39 healthy adults completed a novel task to test approach behavior and cognitive control to cues that were personalized to the participants' interests compared to stimuli the participants identified as being of non-interest and colored shapes. fMRI results showed that cues of one's interest elicited activation in the anterior insula compared to colored shapes. Interests did not change inhibition compared to non-interests and colored shapes and all stimuli equally engaged a frontostriatal circuit. Together the results suggest that adults were sensitive to their interests but were effective at regulating their impulses towards these cues, a skill that is critical for navigating the temptations and distractions in our daily environment.

Go/No-Go task performance predicts differences in compulsivity but not in impulsivity personality traits

Lack of inhibitory control is present in impulsive and compulsive personality traits. The Go/No-Go task is one of the most effective means to assess response inhibition measured by the ability to appropriately withhold responding to No-Go stimuli. The aim of this work was to study whether differences in performance of Go/No-Go task predicts differences in personality traits related to inhibitory control. For this purpose 63 healthy participants divided into two groups based on the median split of false alarms on the Go/No-Go task completed Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (BIS-11) and the Maudsley Obsessional Compulsive Questionnaire (MOCI). Results showed that participants with high false alarms (H-FA) displayed a high-risk strategy of responding, and higher scores in the MOCI Total and MOCI Checking subscale compared to participants with low false alarms (L-FA). The results show for the first time a relation between the execution of the Go/No-Go task and the MOCI scale. Surprisingly, no relation was found between the Go/No-Go task and the BIS-11 scale. Further studies are needed to define the heterogeneous constructs of compulsivity and impulsivity, and to improve the convergence of the clinical scales and the behavioral measures of these two personality traits.

Do all inhibitions act alike? A study of go/no-go and stop-signal paradigms

Response inhibition is frequently measured by the Go/no-go and Stop-signal tasks. These two are often used indiscriminately under the assumption that both measure similar inhibitory control abilities. However, accumulating evidence show differences in both tasks' modulations, raising the question of whether they tap into equivalent cognitive mechanisms. In the current study, a comparison of the performance in both tasks took place under the influence of negative stimuli, following the assumption that ''controlled inhibition'', as measured by Stop-signal, but not ''automatic inhibition'', as measured by Go/no-go, will be affected. 54 young adults performed a task in which negative pictures, neutral pictures or no-pictures preceded go trials, no-go trials, and stop-trials. While the exposure to negative pictures impaired performance on go trials and improved the inhibitory capacity in Stop-signal task, the inhibitory performance in Go/no-go task was generally unaffected. The results support the conceptualization of different mechanisms operated by both tasks, thus emphasizing the necessity to thoroughly fathom both inhibitory processes and identify their corresponding cognitive measures. Implications regarding the usage of cognitive tasks for strengthening inhibitory capacity among individuals struggling with inhibitory impairments are discussed.

Task-irrelevant emotional faces impair response adjustments in a double-step saccade task

Cognitive control enables us to adjust behaviours according to task demands, and emotion influences the cognitive control. We examined how task-irrelevant emotional stimuli impact the ability to inhibit a prepared response and then programme another appropriate response. In the study, either a single target or two sequential targets appeared after emotional face images (positive, neutral, and negative). Subjects were required to freely viewed the emotional faces and make a saccade quickly upon target onset, but inhibit their initial saccades and redirect gaze to the second target if it appeared. We found that subjects were less successful at inhibiting their initial saccades as the inter-target delay increased. Emotional faces further reduced their inhibition ability with a longer delay, but not with a shorter delay. When subjects failed to inhibit the initial saccade, the longer delay produced longer intersaccadic interval. Especially, positive faces lengthened the intersaccadic interval with a longer delay. These results showed mere presence of emotional stimuli influences gaze redirection by impairing the ability to cancel a prepared saccade and delaying the programming of a corrective saccade. Therefore, we propose that the modulation of response adjustment exerted by emotional faces is related to the stage of initial response programming.

Don't make me angry, you wouldn't like me when I'm angry: Volitional choices to act or inhibit are modulated by subliminal perception of emotional faces

Volitional action and self-control-feelings of acting according to one's own intentions and in being control of one's own actions-are fundamental aspects of human conscious experience. However, it is unknown whether high-level cognitive control mechanisms are affected by socially salient but nonconscious emotional cues. In this study, we manipulated free choice decisions to act or withhold an action by subliminally presenting emotional faces: In a novel version of the Go/NoGo paradigm, participants made speeded button-press responses to Go targets, withheld responses to NoGo targets, and made spontaneous, free choices to execute or withhold the response for Choice targets. Before each target, we presented emotional faces, backwards masked to render them nonconscious. In Intentional trials, subliminal angry faces made participants more likely to voluntarily withhold the action, whereas fearful and happy faces had no effects. In a second experiment, the faces were made supraliminal, which eliminated the effects of angry faces on volitional choices. A third experiment measured neural correlates of the effects of subliminal angry faces on intentional choice using EEG. After replicating the behavioural results found in Experiment 1, we identified a frontal-midline theta component-associated with cognitive control processes-which is present for volitional decisions, and is modulated by subliminal angry faces. This suggests a mechanism whereby subliminally presented "threat" stimuli affect conscious control processes. In summary, nonconscious perception of angry faces increases choices to inhibit, and subliminal influences on volitional action are deep seated and ecologically embedded.

Anterior cingulate serotonin 1B receptor binding is associated with emotional response inhibition

Serotonin has a well-established role in emotional processing and is a key neurotransmitter in impulsive aggression, presumably by facilitating response inhibition and regulating subcortical reactivity to aversive stimuli. In this study 44 men, of whom 19 were violent offenders and 25 were non-offender controls, completed an emotional Go/NoGo task requiring inhibition of prepotent motor responses to emotional facial expressions. We also measured cerebral serotonin 1B receptor (5-HT_1BR) binding with [¹¹C]AZ10419369 positron emission tomography within regions of the frontal cortex. We hypothesized that 5-HT_1BR would be positively associated with false alarms (failures to inhibit nogo responses) in the context of aversive (angry and fearful) facial expressions. Across groups, we found that frontal cortex 5-HT_1BR binding was positively correlated with false alarms when angry faces were go stimuli and neutral faces were nogo stimuli (p = 0.05, corrected alpha = 0.0125), but not with false alarms for non-emotional stimuli (failures to inhibit geometric figures). A posthoc analysis revealed the strongest association in anterior cingulate cortex (p = 0.006). In summary, 5-HT_1BRs in the anterior cingulate are involved in withholding a prepotent response in the context of angry faces. Our findings suggest that serotonin modulates response inhibition in the context of certain emotional stimuli.

Emotional Oddball: A Review on Variants, Results, and Mechanisms

It is of the utmost importance for an organism to rapidly detect and react to changes in its environment. The oddball paradigm has repeatedly been used to explore the underlying cognitive and neurophysiological components of change detection. It is also used to investigate the special role of emotional content in perception and attention (emotional oddball paradigm; EOP). In this article, the EOP is systematically reviewed. The EOP is, for instance, used as a tool to address questions as to what degree emotional deviant stimuli trigger orientation reactions, which role the emotional context plays in the processing of deviant information, and how the processing of emotional deviant information differs interindividually (including clinical populations). Two main variants with regard to the emotionality of standards and deviants are defined. Most of the identified EOP studies report EEG data but an overview of behavioral data is also provided in this review. We integrate evidence from 99 EOP experiments and shape the EOP's theoretical background under the consideration of other paradigms’ mechanisms and theories.

Face Recognition, Musical Appraisal, and Emotional Crossmodal Bias

Recent research on the crossmodal integration of visual and auditory perception suggests that evaluations of emotional information in one sensory modality may tend toward the emotional value generated in another sensory modality. This implies that the emotions elicited by musical stimuli can influence the perception of emotional stimuli presented in other sensory modalities, through a top-down process. The aim of this work was to investigate how crossmodal perceptual processing influences emotional face recognition and how potential modulation of this processing induced by music could be influenced by the subject's musical competence. We investigated how emotional face recognition processing could be modulated by listening to music and how this modulation varies according to the subjective emotional salience of the music and the listener's musical competence. The sample consisted of 24 participants: 12 professional musicians and 12 university students (non-musicians). Participants performed an emotional go/no-go task whilst listening to music by Albeniz, Chopin, or Mozart. The target stimuli were emotionally neutral facial expressions. We examined the N170 Event-Related Potential (ERP) and behavioral responses (i.e., motor reaction time to target recognition and musical emotional judgment). A linear mixed-effects model and a decision-tree learning technique were applied to N170 amplitudes and latencies. The main findings of the study were that musicians' behavioral responses and N170 is more affected by the emotional value of music administered in the emotional go/no-go task and this bias is also apparent in responses to the non-target emotional face. This suggests that emotional information, coming from multiple sensory channels, activates a crossmodal integration process that depends upon the stimuli emotional salience and the listener's appraisal.

Multimethodale Erfassung der kindlichen Emotionsregulation

Zusammenfassung. Die emotionale Go-Nogo Aufgabe ist ein computergestütztes Verfahren, das die kognitive Kontrolle, Emotionsregulation und Emotionserkennung erfassen soll. Ziel der Studie war es zu überprüfen, inwieweit die Kennwerte der Aufgabe relevant sind für die habituellen Emotionsregulationsstrategien und Verhaltensauffälligkeiten von Kindern. Insgesamt wurden 58 Kinder im Alter von 6 bis 8 Jahren in die Studie eingeschlossen. Die im Elternbericht (überwiegend Mütter) erfassten maladaptiven Emotionsregulationsstrategien der Kinder hingen signifikant mit ihren Verhaltensauffälligkeiten (ebenfalls Elternbericht, überwiegend Mütter) zusammen. Hingegen zeigten sich keine Assoziationen zwischen den Go-Nogo Kennwerten und den Fragebogendaten zur Erhebung der Emotionsregulation und der Verhaltensauffälligkeiten. Möglicherweise erfassen die beiden Messmethoden, computergestützte Verfahren und Fragebögen (Eltern-/Mutterbericht), unterschiedliche Aspekte des Konstrukts der Emotionsregulation.

The two faces of avoidance: Time-frequency correlates of motivational disposition in blood phobia

Contrary to other phobias, individuals with blood phobia do not show a clear-cut withdrawal disposition from the feared stimulus. The study of response inhibition provides insights into reduced action disposition in blood phobia. Twenty individuals with and 20 without blood phobia completed an emotional go/no-go task including phobia-related pictures, as well as phobia-unrelated unpleasant, neutral, and pleasant stimuli. Behavioral results did not indicate a phobia-specific reduced action disposition in the phobic group. Time-frequency decomposition of event-related EEG data showed a reduction of right prefrontal activity, as indexed by an increase in alpha power (200 ms), for no-go mutilation trials in the phobic group but not in controls. Moreover, theta power (300 ms) increased specifically for phobia-related pictures in individuals with, but not without, blood phobia, irrespective of go or no-go trial types. Passive avoidance of phobia-related stimuli subtended by the increased alpha in the right prefrontal cortex, associated with increased emotional salience indexed by theta synchronization, represents a possible neurophysiological correlate of the conflicting motivational response in blood phobia. Through the novel use of time-frequency decomposition in an emotional go/no-go task, the present study contributed to clarifying the neurophysiological correlates of the overlapping motivational tendencies in blood phobia.

Emotional Contexts Exert a Distracting Effect on Attention and Inhibitory Control in Female and Male Adolescents

Adolescents exhibit difficulties in behavioral regulation that become more evident when emotional contexts are involved, since these may hinder the development of socially-adaptive behaviors. The objectives of the present study were: to examine the influence of emotional contexts on adolescents’ ability to inhibit a prepotent response, evaluated by ERPs, and to determine whether sex differences in response inhibition are observed in adolescents in those contexts. Participants performed a prepotent response inhibition task (Go-NoGo) under 3 background context conditions: neutral, pleasant, and unpleasant. While no differences in accuracy were observed, the presence of emotional contexts did prolong reaction times compared to the neutral context. Also, the unpleasant context caused an enhancement of N2 amplitudes compared to the neutral and pleasant contexts. Also, N2 and P3 latencies were longer in emotional contexts than in the neutral condition during both correct responses and correct inhibitions. No sex differences were found in amplitude, but females showed longer N2 and P3 latencies than males. These results confirm the idea that, in adolescents, unpleasant pictures receive preferential attention over neutral images and so generate greater difficulty in response inhibition. Finally, results demonstrate that sex differences in inhibition control in adolescence were observed only in relation to time-processing.

The Three Models of Emotional Intelligence and Performance in a Hot and Cool go/no-go Task in Undergraduate Students

Emotional intelligence (EI), or the ability to perceive, use, understand and regulate emotions, appears to be helpful in the performance of "hot" (i.e., emotionally laden) cognitive tasks when using performance-based ability models, but not when using self-report EI models. The aim of this study is to analyze the relationship between EI (as measured through a performance-based ability test, a self-report mixed test and a self-report ability test) and cognitive control ability during the performance of hot and "cool" (i.e., non-emotionally laden) "go/no-go" tasks. An experimental design was used for this study in which 187 undergraduate students (25% men) with a mean age of 21.93 years (standard deviation [SD] = 3.8) completed the three EI tests of interest (Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test [MSCEIT], Trait Meta-Mood Scale [TMMS] and Emotional Quotient Inventory-Short Form [EQi:S]) as well as go/no-go tasks using faces and geometric figures as stimuli. The results provide evidence for negative associations between the "managing" branch of EI measured through the performance-based ability test of EI and the cognitive control index of the hot go/no-go task, although similar evidence was not found when using the cool task. Further, the present study failed to observe consistent results when using the self-report EI instruments. These findings are discussed in terms of both the validity and implications of the various EI models.

Temperament and character traits in female adolescents with nonsuicidal self-injury disorder with and without comorbid borderline personality disorder

BACKGROUND

Temperament and character traits of adolescents with nonsuicidal self-injury disorder (NSSI) might differentiate those- with and without comorbid borderline personality disorder (BPD).

METHODS

Participants were 57 female adolescents with NSSI disorder without BPD (NSSI - BPD), 14 adolescents with NSSI disorder and BPD (NSSI + BPD), 32 clinical controls (CC), and 64 nonclinical controls (NC). Temperament and character traits were assessed with the Junior Temperament and Character Inventory, and impulsivity with the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale and a Go/NoGo task.

RESULTS

Adolescents with NSSI disorder scored significantly higher on novelty seeking and harm avoidance and lower on persistence, self-directedness, and cooperativeness than CC. The NSSI + BPD group scored even higher than the NSSI - BPD group on novelty seeking and harm avoidance and lower on persistence and cooperativeness (d ≥ 0.72). Adolescents with NSSI reported higher levels of impulsivity than the CC and NC group. However, this difference was not found in a Go/NoGo task.

CONCLUSIONS

The results provide further evidence for a distinct diagnostic entity of NSSI disorder.

Automatic emotion regulation in response inhibition: The temporal dynamics of emotion counter-regulation during a go/no-go task

Recent behavioral studies indicate that emotion counter-regulation automatically allocates attention to events that are opposite in the valence to the experienced emotional state. The present study explored the effect of emotion counter-regulation on response inhibition by using ERPs in a go/no-go paradigm. We recruited 58 subjects and randomly assigned them to either the angry priming group (watching Nanjing Massacre movie clips) or the neutral priming group (watching "mending a computer" movie clips). The behavioral results revealed that participants in the angry priming group responded significantly more accurately to go happy and no-go angry faces than go angry and no-go happy faces. The analyses of ERPs revealed that the amplitudes of the no-go N2 and no-go P3 were significantly larger for the happy faces than for the angry faces in the angry priming group. However, no such effects were found in the neutral priming group. These results suggest that highly aroused angry emotion could prompt a priority response to happy emotion stimuli and restrict the responses to angry emotion stimuli through emotion counter-regulation.

Poverty and Internalizing Symptoms: The Indirect Effect of Middle Childhood Poverty on Internalizing Symptoms via an Emotional Response Inhibition Pathway

Childhood poverty is a pervasive problem that can alter mental health outcomes. Children from impoverished circumstances are more likely than their middle-income counterparts to develop internalizing problems such as depression and anxiety. To date, however, the emotional-cognitive control processes that link childhood poverty and internalizing symptoms remain largely unexplored. Using the Emotion Go/NoGo paradigm, we examined the association between poverty and emotional response inhibition in middle childhood. We further examined the role of emotional response inhibition in the link between middle childhood poverty and internalizing symptoms. Lower income was associated with emotional response inhibition difficulties (indexed by greater false alarm rates in the context of task irrelevant angry and sad faces). Furthermore, emotional response inhibition deficits in the context of angry and sad distracters were further associated with child-report internalizing problems. The results of the current study demonstrate the significance of understanding the emotional-cognitive control vulnerabilities of children raised in poverty and their association with mental health outcomes.

The Gist of Delay of Gratification: Understanding and Predicting Problem Behaviors

Delay of gratification captures elements of temptation and self-denial that characterize real-life problems with money and other problem behaviors such as unhealthy risk taking. According to fuzzy-trace theory, decision makers mentally represent social values such as delay of gratification in a coarse but meaningful form of memory called "gist." Applying this theory, we developed a gist measure of delay of gratification that does not involve quantitative trade-offs (as delay discounting does) and hypothesize that this construct explains unique variance beyond sensation seeking and inhibition in accounting for problem behaviors. Across four studies, we examine this Delay-of-gratification Gist Scale by using principal components analyses and evaluating convergent and divergent validity with other potentially related scales such as Future Orientation, Propensity to Plan, Time Perspectives Inventory, Spendthrift-Tightwad, Sensation Seeking, Cognitive Reflection, Barratt Impulsiveness, and the Monetary Choice Questionnaire (delay discounting). The new 12-item measure captured a single dimension of delay of gratification, correlated as predicted with other scales, but accounted for unique variance in predicting such outcomes as overdrawing bank accounts, substance abuse, and overall subjective well-being. Results support a theoretical distinction between reward-related approach motivation, including sensation seeking, and inhibitory faculties, including cognitive reflection. However, individuals' agreement with the qualitative gist of delay of gratification, as expressed in many cultural traditions, could not be reduced to such dualist distinctions nor to quantitative conceptions of delay discounting, shedding light on mechanisms of self-control and risk taking.

Assessing personal financial management in patients with bipolar disorder and its relation to impulsivity and response inhibition

INTRODUCTION

Impulsivity and risk-taking behaviours are reported in bipolar disorder (BD). We examined whether financial management skills are related to impulsivity in patients with BD.

METHODS

We assessed financial management skills using the Executive Personal Finance Scale (EPFS), impulsivity using the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (BIS) and response inhibition using an emotional go/no-go task in bipolar individuals (N = 21) and healthy controls (HC; N = 23).

RESULTS

Patients had fewer financial management skills and higher levels of impulsivity than HC. In patients and controls, increased impulsivity was associated with poorer personal financial management. Patients and HC performed equally on the emotional go/no-go task. Higher BIS scores were associated with faster reaction times in HC. In patients, however, higher BIS scores were associated with slower reaction times, possibly indicating compensatory cognitive strategies to counter increased impulsivity.

CONCLUSIONS

Patients with BD may have reduced abilities to manage personal finances, when compared against healthy participants. Difficulty with personal finance management may arise in part as a result of increased levels of impulsivity. Patients may learn to compensate for increased impulsivity by modulating response times in our experimental situations although whether such compensatory strategies generalize to real-world situations is unknown.

Anorexia nervosa, emotional go/no-go, and the distinct effect of testosterone

OBJECTIVE

Behavioral disinhibition in the context of negative emotion (e.g., disgust, fear, etc.) may promote the core psychopathology of anorexia nervosa (AN). Affective models of AN position a number of clinical behaviors as functioning to reduce negative affect. Gonadal hormone dysregulation, in particular testosterone, likely plays some role in this process.

METHOD

Adolescent and young adult AN (n = 32) and healthy control (HC; n = 20) participants completed an emotional go/no-go task--a valenced measure of behavioral disinhibition--and had blood drawn to assess gonadal steroid hormone concentrations.

RESULTS

Analyses indicated that patients with AN committed significantly more commission errors, which measures the tendency to respond to nontarget stimuli. This effect was qualified by the valence of the stimulus; the higher relative level of error was true for disgust and happy stimuli, but not neutral stimuli. Hormone analyses revealed a testosterone by group interaction. Testosterone was associated with decreased commission errors for patients with AN, but had no discernible relationship with task outcome for HCs. These effects were not confounded by weight, pubertal status, or self-reported anxiety or depression.

DISCUSSION

These findings suggest patients with AN have difficulty inhibiting behavior in the context of emotional stimuli, and that this disinhibition is negatively related to levels of circulating androgens.

Brands and Inhibition: A Go/No-Go Task Reveals the Power of Brand Influence

Whether selecting a candy in a shop or picking a digital camera online, there are usually many options from which consumers may choose. With such abundance, consumers must use a variety of cognitive, emotional, and heuristic means to filter out and inhibit some of their responses. Here we use brand logos within a Go/No-Go task to probe inhibitory control during the presentation of familiar and unfamiliar logos. The results showed no differences in response times or in commission errors (CE) between familiar and unfamiliar logos. However, participants demonstrated a generally more cautious attitude of responding to the familiar brands: they were significantly slower and less accurate at responding to these brands in the Go trials. These findings suggest that inhibitory control can be exercised quite effectively for familiar brands, but that when such inhibition fails, the potent appetitive nature of brands is revealed.

Unpleasant stimuli differentially modulate inhibitory processes in an emotional Go/NoGo task: an event-related potential study

Threat stimuli typically elicit a psychophysiological response pattern supporting the organism's preparation for active defence. Differently, blood stimuli prompt a distinctive autonomic response pattern and sustained processing, which do not call for clear-cut mobilisation for action. However, the contribution of motor disposition in these response patterns remains unclear. One way to address this issue is to investigate whether threat and blood stimuli differentially affect the active suppression of an ongoing motor activity. Thirty-two undergraduates were presented with threat, mutilation, pleasant, and neutral pictures in an emotional Go/NoGo task. The amplitudes of the NoGo-N2 and NoGo-P3 components of the event-related potentials were analysed as indices of conflict monitoring and inhibition of motor response, respectively. Reaction times to Go trials were significantly faster for threat than for mutilations. The NoGo-N2 was significantly larger to threat than to mutilations, whereas the NoGo-P3amplitude did not differ between the two conditions. These findings suggest that threat stimuli facilitated the execution of a prepotent response and enhanced conflict monitoring when action must be withheld. In contrast, blood stimuli did not either promote action in the Go trials or increase conflict in the NoGo condition, suggesting a response pattern compatible with defensive immobility.

What Do We Really Know about Cognitive Inhibition? Task Demands and Inhibitory Effects across a Range of Memory and Behavioural Tasks

Our study explores inhibitory control across a range of widely recognised memory and behavioural tasks. Eighty-seven never-depressed participants completed a series of tasks designed to measure inhibitory control in memory and behaviour. Specifically, a variant of the selective retrieval-practice and the Think/No-Think tasks were employed as measures of memory inhibition. The Stroop-Colour Naming and the Go/No-Go tasks were used as measures of behavioural inhibition. Participants completed all 4 tasks. Task presentation order was counterbalanced across 3 separate testing sessions for each participant. Standard inhibitory forgetting effects emerged on both memory tasks but the extent of forgetting across these tasks was not correlated. Furthermore, there was no relationship between memory inhibition tasks and either of the main behavioural inhibition measures. At a time when cognitive inhibition continues to gain acceptance as an explanatory mechanism, our study raises fundamental questions about what we actually know about inhibition and how it is affected by the processing demands of particular inhibitory tasks.

Neurobiological indicators of disinhibition in posttraumatic stress disorder

Deficits in impulse control are increasingly recognized in association with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). To our further understanding of the neurobiology of PTSD-related disinhibition, we examined alterations in brain morphology and network connectivity associated with response inhibition failures and PTSD severity. The sample consisted of 189 trauma-exposed Operation Enduring Freedom/Operation Iraqi Freedom veterans (89% male, ages 19-62) presenting with a range of current PTSD severity. Disinhibition was measured using commission errors on a Go/No-Go (GNG) task with emotional stimuli, and PTSD was assessed using a measure of current symptom severity. Whole-brain vertex-wise analyses of cortical thickness revealed two clusters associated with PTSD-related disinhibition (Monte Carlo cluster corrected P < 0.05). The first cluster included portions of right inferior and middle frontal gyri and frontal pole. The second cluster spanned portions of left medial orbital frontal, rostral anterior cingulate, and superior frontal gyrus. In both clusters, commission errors were associated with reduced cortical thickness at higher (but not lower) levels of PTSD symptoms. Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging analyses revealed alterations in the functional connectivity of the right frontal cluster. Together, study findings suggest that reductions in cortical thickness in regions involved in flexible decision-making, emotion regulation, and response inhibition contribute to impulse control deficits in PTSD. Furthermore, aberrant coupling between frontal regions and networks involved in selective attention, memory/learning, and response preparation suggest disruptions in functional connectivity may also play a role.

Early processing of emotional faces in a Go/NoGo task: lack of N170 right-hemispheric specialisation in children with major depression

Emotionally biased information processing towards sad and away from happy information characterises individuals with major depression. To learn more about the nature of these dysfunctional modulations, developmental and neural aspects of emotional face processing have to be considered. By combining measures of performance (attention control, inhibition) in an emotional Go/NoGo task with an event-related potential (ERP) of early face processing (N170), we obtained a multifaceted picture of emotional face processing in a sample of children and adolescents (11-14 years) with major depression (MDD, n = 26) and healthy controls (CTRL, n = 26). Subjects had to respond to emotional faces (fearful, happy or sad) and withhold their response to calm faces or vice versa. Children of the MDD group displayed shorter N170 latencies than children of the CTRL group. Typical right lateralisation of the N170 was observed for all faces in the CTRL but not for happy and calm faces in the MDD group. However, the MDD group did not differ in their behavioural reaction to emotional faces, and effects of interference by emotional information on the reaction to calm faces in this group were notably mild. Although we could not find a typical pattern of emotional bias, the results suggest that alterations in face processing of children with major depression can be seen at early stages of face perception indexed by the N170. The findings call for longitudinal examinations considering effects of development in children with major depression as well as associations to later stages of processing.

Reprint of "Deficits of hot executive function in developmental coordination disorder: Sensitivity to positive social cues"

Recent research shows that children with motor coordination problems (or developmental coordination disorder--DCD) show deficits in not only cool executive function (EF), but also hot EF. We aimed to determine whether this deficit of hot EF is due to heightened sensitivity to rewarding stimuli, specifically, or to a general deficit of cognitive control, like inhibition. Using two versions of a go/no-go task, one with neutral facial expressions and the other with happy and fearful faces, we compared 12 children with DCD with 28 typically-developing children, aged 7-12 years. Like earlier studies, children responded faster to happy faces. Both groups showed comparable accuracy in response to go targets, and also had similar commission errors, except when the no-go stimulus was a happy face. Importantly, the DCD group made significantly more commission errors to happy faces failing to suppress their response on more than half of the no-go trials. These results suggest a heightened sensitivity to emotionally significant distractors in DCD; this type of impulsivity may undermine self-regulation in DCD, with possible implications for adaptive function and emotional well-being. We argue that the interaction of cognitive control and emotion processing networks may be disrupted in DCD or delayed in development.