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

Neurobiological effects of exercise intervention for premenstrual syndrome

Background

Up to 75%-90% of women have varying degrees of premenstrual syndrome (PMS). Exercises are recognized to be beneficial to regulate the negative emotions associated with PMS; however, the effects of exercise on sadness inhibition have not yet been investigated from the neurobiological perspective.

Purpose

This study examined the effects of a single exercise intervention on the neural mechanisms mediating sadness response inhibition at the cortical level using multichannel event-related potential (ERP) recording in women with PMS.

Methods

Participants performed Go/No-go trials while viewing of sad or neutral images before and after exercise intervention, and changes in the No-go-evoked N200 (N2) ERP component were measured by electroencephalography (EEG) at multiple cortical sites. The associations of PMS Inventory scores with N2 amplitude and latency changes were then examined using Pearson's correlation analysis.

Results

There were no significant differences in N2 latency and response error rate following exercise compared to baseline. However, women with higher PMS Inventory scores (greater symptom severity) demonstrated significantly lengthen N2 latency at the Fz electrode sites during correct sad face No-go trials after exercise (p < 0.05), which was not the case in the pre-exercise baseline. We detected no significant relationship between the PMS score and N2 amplitude, either pre- or post-exercise.

Conclusion

Women with higher PMS severity exhibited longer sad N2 latencies as well as slow down the speed of reaction to negative stimuli by exercise, suggesting that the prefrontal emotion regulation network is involved in PMS symptoms and is sensitive to the beneficial effects of exercise.

Sexual Stimuli Cause Behavioral Disinhibition in Both Men and Women, but Even More So in Men

In our society men are considered more impulsive than women, especially in the violent and sexual domain. This correlation of sex and impulsivity might trace back to enhanced male impulsivity in general or a domain specific effect of emotions on impulsivity. The evidence for sex differences in the interaction of emotional or sexual stimuli and impulsivity has been relatively inconclusive so far. In this study, we investigated the effects of various emotional stimuli on responsivity in a Go/No-Go task. Participants had to respond quickly to a visual cue and withhold their response to another visual cue, while different emotional pictures were presented in the background, including sexual stimuli, non-sexual positive stimuli and negative stimuli. Both men (N = 37) and women (N = 38) made most commission errors in the sexual condition, indicating a disinhibiting effect in both genders. On top of this, men made even more commission errors than women, specifically in the sexual condition and not in other conditions. Men rated sexual stimuli as more positive, but did not differ from women in arousal ratings and pupil dilation. These findings may partly indicate increased impulsive behavior under sexual arousal in men, most likely driven by enhanced approach motivation due to more positive value but not higher arousal of sexual stimuli. The results are consistent with the theory of evolutionarily based concealment of sexual interest in women.

Automatic emotion regulation prompts response inhibition to angry faces in sub-clinical depression: An ERP study

The neurocognitive mechanism by which automatic emotion regulation (AER) affects emotion processing remains understudied in the context of psychopathology, such as depression. Participants with sub-clinical depression and healthy controls were randomly assigned to an emotion regulation priming group or a neutral priming group. All participants completed an emotional Go/No-go task by judging the gender of angry or happy faces. During the Go/No-go task, each trial was preceded by subliminal presentation of words describing emotion regulation goals or neutral goals as a manipulation of priming. The behavioral results showed that compared with neutral priming, subliminal priming of regulation goals increased the accuracy in No-go trials with angry faces only for sub-clinically depressed participants. In the ERP results, the main effect of regulation priming was significant in sub-clinically depressed participants, such that showing subliminal priming of regulation goals decreased the amplitude of N2 compared to the neutral priming. Similarly, for the sub-clinically depressed participants, regulation goal priming evoked smaller P3 in response to angry faces than to happy faces. No such pattern was found in neutral goal priming condition or for healthy controls. According to the automotive model of emotion regulation, once goals or norms related to emotion regulations are formed in the mind, a related regulation response could be activated without awareness. Our results suggest that subliminal priming of regulation goals could change the response inhibition to angry faces in sub-clinically depressed participants.

"Health Comes First": Action Tendencies to Health-Related Stimuli in People with Health-Anxiety as Revealed by an Emotional Go/No-Go Task

The processing of health-related stimuli can be biased by health anxiety and anxiety sensitivity but, at the moment, it is far from clear whether health-related stimuli can affect motor readiness or the ability to inhibit action. In this preliminary study, we assessed whether different levels of health anxiety and anxiety sensitivity affect disposition to action in response to positive and negative health-related stimuli in non-clinical individuals. An emotional go/no-go task was devised to test action disposition in response to positive (wellness-related), and negative (disease-related) stimuli in non-clinical participants who also underwent well-validated self-report measures of health anxiety and anxiety sensitivity. The main results showed that both health anxiety and anxiety sensitivity biased participants' responses. Importantly, safety-seeking and avoidance behaviors differently affected action disposition in response to positive and negative stimuli. These preliminary results support the idea that health anxiety and anxiety sensitivity could determine a hypervigilance for health-related information with a different perturbation of response control depending on the valence of the stimuli. Health anxiety and health anxiety disorder do form a continuum; thus, capturing different action tendencies to health-related stimuli could represent a valuable complementary tool to detect processing biases in persons who might develop a clinical condition.

Mutual influence between emotional language and inhibitory control processes. Evidence from an event-related potential study

There is abundant literature demonstrating that processing emotional stimuli modulates inhibitory control processes. However, the reverse effects, namely, how cognitive inhibition influences the processing of emotional stimuli, have been considerably neglected. This ERP study tries to fill this gap by studying the bidirectional interactions between emotional language and inhibitory processes. To this end, participants read emotional sentences, embedded in a cue-based Go-NoGo task. In Experiment 1, the critical emotional adjective preceded the Go-NoGo visual cue. The ERPs showed a significant reduction in the inhibition-related N2 component in NoGo trials when they were preceded by negative adjectives, compared to positive or neutral adjectives, indicating a priming-like effect on inhibitory control. Consistently, the estimated source of this interaction was the dorsomedial PFC, a region associated with inhibitory and control processes. In Experiment 2, the Go-NoGo cue preceded the emotional adjective, and the ERPs showed a sustained, broadly distributed LPP-like positivity for NoGo negative trials, relative to all the other conditions. In this case, the presetting of an inhibition state modulated the processing of negatively charged words. Together, the two experiments suggest a mutual facilitation between inhibitory control and negative valence, supporting thereby recent integrative theories of cognition-emotion interactions.

Effects of Mindfulness-Oriented Recovery Enhancement Versus Social Support on Negative Affective Interference During Inhibitory Control Among Opioid-Treated Chronic Pain Patients: A Pilot Mechanistic Study

BACKGROUND

Among opioid-treated chronic pain patients, deficient response inhibition in the context of emotional distress may contribute to maladaptive pain coping and prescription opioid misuse. Interventions that aim to bolster cognitive control and reduce emotional reactivity (e.g., mindfulness) may remediate response inhibition deficits, with consequent clinical benefits.

PURPOSE

To test the hypothesis that a mindfulness-based intervention, Mindfulness-Oriented Recovery Enhancement (MORE), can reduce the impact of clinically relevant, negative affective interference on response inhibition function in an opioid-treated chronic pain sample.

METHODS

We examined data from a controlled trial comparing adults with chronic pain and long-term prescription opioid use randomized to either MORE (n = 27) treatment or to an active support group comparison condition (n = 30). Participants completed an Emotional Go/NoGo Task at pre- and post-treatment, which measured response inhibition in neutral and clinically relevant, negative affective contexts (i.e., exposure to pain-related visual stimuli).

RESULTS

Repeated-measures analysis of variance indicated that compared with the support group, participants in MORE evidenced significantly greater reductions from pre- to post-treatment in errors of commission on trials with pain-related distractors relative to trials with neutral distractors, group × time × condition F(1,55) = 4.14, p = .047, η2partial = .07. Mindfulness practice minutes and increased nonreactivity significantly predicted greater emotional response inhibition. A significant inverse association was observed between improvements in emotional response inhibition and treatment-related reductions in pain severity by 3-month follow-up.

CONCLUSIONS

Study results provide preliminary evidence that MORE enhances inhibitory control function in the context of negative emotional interference.

Problematic Internet Use: The Relationship Between Resting Heart Rate Variability and Emotional Modulation of Inhibitory Control

A growing literature suggests that problematic Internet use (PIU) is associated with defective inhibitory control. In this study, we sought to investigate the ability to inhibit prepotent motor responses in an emotional context in individuals with PIU, and to examine the relationship between inhibitory control and resting heart rate variability (HRV), which is regarded as a measure of self-regulation and adaptability. Problematic users (PU, n = 20) and nonproblematic users (non-PU, n = 20) completed an emotional Go/NoGo task, involving the presentation of unpleasant, pleasant, and neutral pictures. The electrocardiogram was recorded at rest for a 3-minute period. PU showed lower resting HRV, relative to non-PU. Although reaction times (RTs) to Go task stimuli were not faster in PU, relative to non-PU, accuracy rates were significantly lower among PU, irrespective of pictures' emotional content. Only among PU did lower resting HRV predict lower response accuracy in pleasant and unpleasant Go trials and less efficient task performance (combining RTs to Go trials and accuracy to NoGo trials) upon presentation of unpleasant stimuli. Our findings suggest that reduced HRV is a potential indicator of defective inhibitory control in an emotional context in PIU.

Inhibitory Control in Excessive Social Networking Users: Evidence From an Event-Related Potential-Based Go-Nogo Task

Inhibitory control is a core executive function module that monitors and suppresses inappropriate behavior. Inhibitory deficits have been observed in different addiction types (e.g., smoking, alcohol, drug and gambling). The excessive use of social networking sites (SNSs) has attracted increasing attention; however, it is unknown whether inhibitory control is impaired in excessive SNS users. This study used event-related potentials in an SNS-related Go-Nogo task to investigate inhibitory control in excessive SNS users. Although the behavioral data did not show any significant differences between groups, the N1 amplitude was larger following SNS images than control images in excessive SNS users. Furthermore, excessive users showed larger N2 amplitude and smaller Nogo-P3 amplitude than non-excessive users irrespective of stimuli. These findings suggested that excessive SNS users are inefficient in allocating monitoring resources in the Go-Nogo task (reflected by enhance N2) and show difficulty in late inhibitory control procedure (reflected by reduced Nogo-P3) compared to non-excessive users. Also, excessive SNS users pay more attention to SNS-related images compared to non-SNS-related images (reflected by the N1). Interventions for this specific population should focus on limiting exposure to SNS cues and enhancing inhibitory control.

ERP study on the associations of peripheral oxytocin and prolactin with inhibitory processes involving emotional distraction

BACKGROUND

Child maltreatment is a major health and social welfare problem, with serious and longstanding consequences. Impulse control ability plays an important role in reducing the risk of child maltreatment. The aim of this study was to investigate the associations of oxytocin (OXT) and prolactin (PRL) with behavior inhibition using children's facial expressions (angry or neutral) as emotional distractions. This may clarify a part of the neuroendocrinological mechanism that modulates impulse control ability in the context of child caregiving.

METHODS

Participants were 16 females who had never been pregnant. Following venous blood sampling for OXT and PRL levels, participants performed an emotional Go/Nogo task during their follicular and luteal phases to test inhibitory control ability. Behavioral performance and event-related potentials (ERPs) during the task were measured.

RESULTS

The results showed that there were significant fixed effects of OXT on behavioral performance, as measured by sensitivity (d-prime). This suggests that high peripheral OXT levels may be associated with better performance on the emotional Go/Nogo task, regardless of emotional distractors. PRL was associated with inhibitory processes as reflected by the Nogo-N2 and Nogo-P3. Particularly, high PRL levels were associated with the Nogo-N2 latency extension with the emotional distractors.

CONCLUSIONS

Our findings suggest that OXT might be associated with improving behavioral performance regardless of emotional processes. It is suggested that processes related to PRL are related to premotor activities of behavioral inhibitions and emotions.

Affective auditory stimulus database: An expanded version of the International Affective Digitized Sounds (IADS-E)

Using appropriate stimuli to evoke emotions is especially important for researching emotion. Psychologists have provided several standardized affective stimulus databases-such as the International Affective Picture System (IAPS) and the Nencki Affective Picture System (NAPS) as visual stimulus databases, as well as the International Affective Digitized Sounds (IADS) and the Montreal Affective Voices as auditory stimulus databases for emotional experiments. However, considering the limitations of the existing auditory stimulus database studies, research using auditory stimuli is relatively limited compared with the studies using visual stimuli. First, the number of sample sounds is limited, making it difficult to equate across emotional conditions and semantic categories. Second, some artificially created materials (music or human voice) may fail to accurately drive the intended emotional processes. Our principal aim was to expand existing auditory affective sample database to sufficiently cover natural sounds. We asked 207 participants to rate 935 sounds (including the sounds from the IADS-2) using the Self-Assessment Manikin (SAM) and three basic-emotion rating scales. The results showed that emotions in sounds can be distinguished on the affective rating scales, and the stability of the evaluations of sounds revealed that we have successfully provided a larger corpus of natural, emotionally evocative auditory stimuli, covering a wide range of semantic categories. Our expanded, standardized sound sample database may promote a wide range of research in auditory systems and the possible interactions with other sensory modalities, encouraging direct reliable comparisons of outcomes from different researchers in the field of psychology.

Effects of aerobic exercise on sad emotion regulation in young women: an electroencephalograph study

The effects of exercise on cognitive abilities have been studied. However, evidence regarding the neural substrates of sad emotion regulation is limited. Women have higher rates for affective disorders than men, but insufficient outcomes assess how aerobic exercises modulate central frontal activation in sad emotion inhibition and resilience among healthy women. This study investigated the effects of aerobic exercise-related brain activity on sad emotion inhibition processing in young women. Sad facial Go/No-Go and neutral Go/No-Go trials were conducted among 30 healthy young women to examine the changes in the N2 component, which reflects frontal inhibition responses, between pre-exercise and post-exercise periods. The first test was performed before aerobic exercise (baseline; 1st) and the second test was performed during an absolute rest period of 90 min after exercise. The sad No-Go stimuli that evoked N200 (N2) event-related potential were recorded and analyzed. The results showed that in the sad No-Go trials, N2 activation at the central-prefrontal cortex was significantly attenuated after exercise compared to the baseline N2 activation. Exercise-modulated N2 activation was not observed in the neutral No-Go trials. The behavioral error rates of sad No-Go trials did not differ between the two experiments. A reduced engagement of central-frontal activation to sad No-Go stimuli was shown after exercise. However, behavioral performance was consistent between the two measurements. The findings scope the benefits of the aerobic exercise on the neural efficiency in responding to sad emotion-eliciting cues as well as adaptive transitions reinstatement for regulatory capabilities in healthy young women.

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.