The emotional stability of elders with tai chi experience in the sequential risk‐taking task

Tai Chi Chuan evidence related to impulsivity and impulse related disorders: A scoping review

BACKGROUND

The purpose of this study was to review the evidence for the potential of Tai Chi Chuan (TCC) as a model of meditative movement in benefiting people with impulsivity related disorders and provide guidance for future research.

METHODS

A scoping review of the literature was conducted in five databases. Eligibility criteria were original articles reporting TCC based interventions or included TCC techniques and provided any assessment on impulsivity or related measures, impulse control disorders, or other psychiatric disorders related to impulsivity (e.g., addictive disorders, ADHD, and other conduct disorders). Twenty-eight out of 304 studies initially retrieved were reviewed. The reports concentrated mostly on neurodegenerative conditions, cognitive decline, and substance use disorders (SUD).

RESULTS

TCC had several positive effects in cognitive domains resulting in improvements in memory, executive functions, inhibitory control, attention, and verbal fluency. These improvements in memory, executive function, including inhibitory control and attention, and verbal fluency were associated with changes in the brain plasticity, resting activity, and other neurobiological markers.

CONCLUSION

Albeit no study was found on the use of TCC in impulse control disorders or impulse related conditions, other than SUD, the findings suggest that considering the behavioral impact of TCC, especially the improvement of executive functions, it could be a valuable therapeutic tool for approaching impulse control related disorders.

Altered neural correlates of optimal decision-making in individuals with depressive status

Making optimal decisions by computing risk and benefit is necessary for humans. However, whether individuals with depressive status could utilize the optimal strategy to guide decision and its neural correlates remain unclear. The current study explored these issues by combining a decision task and high temporal-resolution electroencephalogram (EEG). The decision task involved an eight-box trial in which participants successively decided whether to open a box containing a potential reward or punishment, deciding to stop guaranteed they would retain the rewards already accumulated. Theoretically, the optimal strategy in the task was to stop at the fourth box, which had the largest expected value. We found that individuals with depressive status stopped fewer trials at the fourth box, relative to healthy controls, indicating their impaired optimal strategy during decision-making. Moreover, compared to healthy controls, individuals with depressive status showed weaker P2 amplitude and weaker beta-band oscillation at the frontocentral scalp when deciding whether to open the fourth box. Additionally, for healthy controls but not for individuals with depressive status, the P2 amplitude fully mediated the relationship between participants' degree of expected benefit (as reflected by the recreational risk-taking scale) and the frequency of trials stopped at the fourth box. Overall, this study revealed that the P2 amplitude and beta-band oscillation might explain the altered optimal decision-making in individuals with depressive status.

Abnormal functional connectivity in resting state contributes to the weaker emotional sensitivity to reward in depression

INTRODUCTION

Depression is one of the most prevalent mental diseases characterized by distortions in the affective sphere. By using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) technique, the current study aimed to investigate neural mechanisms associated with emotional sensitivity to reward, which represented the variation of emotional responsiveness as the degree of reward changing in individuals with depressive symptoms.

METHODS

We recruited 28 participants in elevated depressive symptoms (LD) group and 28 demographic-matched participants in low depressive symptoms (ED) group. After the rs-fMRI scan, participants were asked to complete a sequential risk-taking task, in which they might encounter both reward and loss.

RESULTS

The resting-state functional connectivity (rs-FC) between ventral striatum (VS) and inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) was associated with the emotional sensitivity to reward in LD group. Compared with LD group, participants in ED group showed weaker emotional sensitivity to reward and stronger rs-FC between VS and prefrontal regions.

CONCLUSIONS

The current study highlighted that the functional connectivity between VS and IFG in the resting state was related to the emotional sensitivity to reward in individuals with low depressive symptoms. However, individuals with elevated depressive symptoms exhibited altered functional connectivity between VS and IFG in the resting state, which might contribute to their weaker emotional sensitivity to reward.

The neural mechanisms underlying the modulation of attentional deployment on emotional stability

Emotional stability, the change of emotion response among situations, was associated with mental illness, such as depression. The current study aimed to explore the modulation of attentional deployment on emotional stability by combining functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and a sequential risk-taking task. During the task, participants were asked to open a series of boxes consecutively and decided when to stop. Each box contained a reward, except one containing a devil to zero reward in the trial. When participants stopped, both collected gains and missed chances were revealed. The attentional deployment was manipulated during the outcome feedback, i.e., inducing participants to focus on the good part (GF context) or the bad part (MF context) of the decision outcome. Besides, the Control context was also set, in which the attentional deployment was not manipulated. The behavioral results showed that the emotional stability was stronger in GF context relative to MF and Control contexts. At the neural level, with outcomes getting better, activations of ventral striatum (VS) and superior frontal gyrus (SFG) increased faster in GF context than that in MF and Control contexts. In addition, in GF context, the changing of SFG activation with outcomes getting better was associated with emotional stability. The current study highlighted that focusing on the good part of decision outcomes could enhance emotional stability effectively and SFG played a vital role in this process.

Altered neural responses to missed chance contribute to the risk-taking behaviour in individuals with Internet gaming disorder

Missed chance is a powerful factor in shaping risk-taking behaviour. The abnormal risk-taking behaviour is an obvious feature of individuals with Internet gaming disorder (IGD). However, the relationship between the neural responses to missed chance and risk-taking behaviour in IGD individuals remains unclear. In the current fMRI study, 28 IGD subjects (12 female, 23.04 ± 2.43 years old) and 26 healthy control (HC) subjects (13 female, 23.58 ± 2.67 years old) participated in fMRI scanning during performance of a sequential risk-taking task. The general linear model and the psycho-physiological interaction analyses were conducted to explore the difference in neural responses between the two groups. The results showed that IGD subjects reported more regret for the large missed chance and took more risk than HC subjects. Moreover, compared with HC subjects, IGD subjects exhibited greater activations in brain regions like ventral striatum (VS) and superior frontal gyrus (SFG), and stronger VS-thalamus functional connectivity for the large missed chance. Additionally, among IGD subjects, the SFG activation for the large missed chance was positively correlated with the risk-taking behaviour. Together, the results revealed the altered neural responses to missed chance contributed to the risk-taking behaviour in IGD individuals. The findings could help to clearly understand why IGD individuals continue playing online games despite the risks of widely known and could provide a new perspective for the intervention of IGD.

Resting-state functional connectivity within orbitofrontal cortex and inferior frontal gyrus modulates the relationship between reflection level and risk-taking behavior in internet gaming disorder

Internet gaming disorder (IGD) has become an increasing mental health issue worldwide. Previous studies indicated that IGD was related to maladaptive risk-taking behavior. However, the relationship among risk-taking behavior, reflection level, and resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) between brain regions in IGD individuals remains unclear. The current study combined resting-state fMRI and the Devil task to investigate this issue. The behavioral results suggested that IGD participants exhibited increased risk-taking behavior in the Devil task than healthy controls. Moreover, IGD participants' risk-taking behavior was positively correlated with their reflection level. As for fMRI results, IGD participants showed stronger rsFC between orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) than healthy controls. Additionally, the mediation analyses revealed that, among IGD participants, the rsFC between OFC and IFG fully mediated the relationship between reflection level and risk-taking behavior. Together, the current study highlighted that the altered rsFC between OFC and IFG in IGD individuals modified the relationship between their reflection level and risk-taking behavior, which might contribute to the understanding of neural mechanisms underlying risk-taking behavior in IGD individuals.

Alpha neural oscillation of females in the luteal phase is sensitive to high risk during sequential risk decisions

Risk taking is a non-negligible component in decision-making. Previous behavioral studies have demonstrated that female's risk decisions vary along with their menstrual cycle phases. However, little is known how females' neural processes of risk stimuli change in different menstrual cycle phases. To address this, the present study adopted a sequential economic risk-taking task and EEG technique. Thirty eligible female participants completed the task twice with EEG recordings, once in the late follicular phase and once in the midluteal phase, separately. We found that the risk stimuli induced an evident frontal N1 in the early time window of 90-180 ms. The results on N1 showed no significant difference between two phases for low- and medium-risk stimuli; whereas, for high-risk stimuli, females in midluteal phase exhibited a significantly larger N1 than that in late follicular phase. Further, by exploiting time-frequency transformation, we observed a pronounced low alpha (∼8 Hz) activity in frontal area from stimuli onset to 175 ms. The results indicated that, only for high-risk stimuli, the alpha power was significantly greater in midluteal phase than that in late follicular phase. Our neural results demonstrated a stronger early neural response to high-risk stimuli of females in midluteal phase, which suggests women are more sensitive to high risk in midluteal than in late follicular phase.

The Effect of Tai Chi Chuan on Negative Emotions in Non-Clinical Populations: A Meta-Analysis and Systematic Review

Tai Chi Chuan (TCC) as a typical mind-body practice has been investigated for its preventive role on negative emotions and has demonstrated its efficacy in healthy populations. However, the results are not consistent. We performed a meta-analysis and systematically evaluated the effect of TCC on selected negative emotions (i.e., anxiety and depression). Fourteen experimental studies from three English-and two Chinese-language databases were evaluated. The results showed that the positive effects of TCC on negative emotions were moderately to largely significant. In addition, although TCC significantly improved negative emotions in both the young adults and the older adults, old adults benefited more from TCC than young adults. These findings suggest that TCC is a worthy complementary non-pharmacological resource towards depression and anxiety and, thus, has great implications for the public health domain.