Cardiac defense reactivity and cognitive flexibility in high- and low-resilience women

Components of hot and cold executive functions and their relations to different forms of stress resilience: A systematic review

Increasing evidence points out that Executive Functions (i.e., EFs) may be core mechanisms for the generation of resilient responses to adversity. A systematic review testing the relations between either affective (hot) and/or non-affective (cold) EFs (i.e., inhibition, flexibility and working memory updating) and resilience was conducted. A total of 449 articles were initially identified. After two steps of title-and-abstract (k = 449), and full-text reading filtering (k = 67), 11 studies were reviewed. Three studies included cold measures of working memory and supported significant positive relations between higher working memory functioning and higher trait resilience levels. One study included cold measures of inhibition and another one both hot and cold measures, with only the first one supporting a positive relation between more efficient inhibition and higher trait resilience levels. Finally, 7 studies measured flexibility in its cold and/or hot dimensions and overall supported significant relations between higher flexibility and higher levels of trait, process and outcome resilience measures. These results support the role of EFs performance to promote different forms of resilience. This review allows to identify different issues that need to be addressed in future research and highlight the need to integrate the analysis of all hot and cold EFs components to understand their role in the generation of resilience.

Association between childhood trauma and Internet gaming disorder: a moderated mediation analysis with depression as a mediator and psychological resilience as a moderator

BACKGROUND

The effect of childhood trauma on Internet gaming disorder remains unclear. In this study, we examined this association in Chinese students and explored the possible associated roles of psychological resilience and depression.

METHODS

In total, 8,579 students from Hunan Province, China, provided information regarding their sociodemographic factors, history of childhood trauma, any symptoms of depression, psychological resilience, and characteristics of Internet gaming disorder for this cross-sectional study. The impact of childhood trauma on Internet gaming disorder, as well as the extent to which it was mediated by depression and moderated by psychological resilience was evaluated.

RESULTS

The influence of childhood trauma on Internet gaming disorder was partially mediated by depression (B = 0.07, 95% CI [0.04, 0.05], p < 0.001), with psychological resilience acting as a mitigating factor (B = -0.002, 95% CI [13.74, 21.72], p < 0.001). Psychological resilience also moderated the association between childhood trauma and depression (B = - 0.003, 95% CI [22.17, 28.10], p < 0.001). Our moderated mediation model elucidated psychosocial mechanisms, revealing the underlying link between childhood trauma and Internet gaming disorder. It also demonstrated the partial mediating role of depression and modulating role of psychological resilience among Chinese students.

CONCLUSIONS

Education and interventions, along with effective social support, should be provided to enhance students' psychological resilience and prevent childhood trauma and depression.

Cognitive flexibility and resilience measured through a residual approach

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES

Resilience refers to the process through which individuals show better outcomes than what would be expected based on the adversity they experienced. Several theories have proposed that variation in resilience is underpinned by cognitive flexibility, however, no study has investigated this using an outcome-based measure of resilience.

DESIGN

We used a residual-based approach to index resilience, which regresses a measure of mental health difficulties onto a measure of adversity experienced. The residuals obtained from this regression constitute how much better or worse someone is functioning relative to what is predicted by the adversity they have experienced.

METHODS

A total of 463 undergraduate participants completed questionnaires of mental health difficulties and adversity, as well as a number-letter task-switching task to assess cognitive flexibility.

RESULTS

Multiple regression analyses showed that better cognitive flexibility was not associated with greater resilience.

CONCLUSIONS

Our findings do not support theoretical models that propose the existence of a relationship between cognitive flexibility and resilience. Future research may serve to refine the residual-based approach to measure resilience, as well as investigate the contribution of "hot" rather than "cold" cognitive flexibility to individual differences in resilience.

An empirical evaluation of The Resilience Shield model

Background

Resilience refers to the process through which individuals deal with the adversity they experience. Previous research has shown there are multiple factors that contribute to individuals’ resilience, leading to increasing interest in the development of multidimensional resilience models. Once such recently proposed model is The Resilience Shield, which clusters groups of protective factors into different shield layers. The stronger these layers, the better the protection against adversity (Pronk et al. in The Resilience Shield, Pan Macmillan Australia, 2021). While this model was based in part on existing literature, no empirical evaluation has occurred to date. The aim of this study was therefore to evaluate the model fit for each of the modifiable shield layers and the overall model, and to examine whether each of the constructs included contributes to observed resilience scores.

Methods

Participants completed a series of questionnaires via The Resilience Shield website assessing constructs relevant to each resilience shield layer. Data from 3337 participants was analysed using Structural Equation Modelling and regression analyses.

Results

The results showed acceptable fit of the measurement model for the Social, Mind, and Professional Layers, but poor fit for the Body Layer. There was also good fit for the overall model. In addition, all but one of the constructs included in The Resilience Shield survey explained independent variance in either dispositional resilience scores, or dispositional vulnerability scores.

Conclusion

These results broadly support the multidimensional structure proposed by The Resilience Shield model and suggest that (at least in the population in which it was tested) this may be an acceptable model to index individuals’ performance on a range of indicators that contribute to resilience.

Psychophysiological correlates of pain resilience in anticipating, experiencing, and recovering from pain

Although researchers have documented behavioral and brain structure correlates of pain resilience, associated physiological responses have received little consideration. In this study, we assessed psychophysiological differences between high (HPR), moderate (MPR), and low (LPR) pain resilience subgroups during anticipation, experiencing, and recovery from laboratory pain. In an initial pain anticipation task, participants (79 women, 32 man) viewed visual cues to signal possible mild or intense shocks prior to receiving these shocks. Subsequently, in a pain recovery task, participants received uncued mild and intense shocks. Subjective appraisals were assessed during each task in tandem with continuous recording of skin conductance level (SCL), heart rate variability (HRV), and corrugator electromyography (cEMG). On physiological indexes, HPR subgroup members displayed significantly lower SCL than MPR and LPR subgroups did during anticipation and experiencing of pain while no resilience group effects were found for HRV or cEMG. During pain recovery, HPR and LPR subgroups displayed weaker SCL than the MPR subgroup did in the immediate aftermath of shock. However, HPR members continued to display lower SCL than other groups did over an extended recovery period. On self-report measures, the LPR subgroup reported higher levels of anticipatory anxiety and expected pain than HPR and MPR subgroups did during the pain anticipation task. Together, results suggested higher pain resilience is characterized, in part, by comparatively reduced SCL during the course of anticipating, experiencing and recovering from painful shock.

Relevance of Objective Measures in Psychiatric Disorders-Rest-Activity Rhythm and Psychophysiological Measures

PURPOSE OF REVIEW

We present a review of recent methods of objective measurement in psychiatry and psychology with a focus on home monitoring and its utility in guiding treatment.

RECENT FINDINGS

For individualized diagnostics and treatment of insomnia, actigraphy can generate clinically useful graphical presentations of sleep timing and patterns. Psychophysiological measures may complement psychometrics by tracking parallel changes in physiological responses and emotional functioning, especially during therapy for trauma symptoms and emotion regulation. It seems that rather than defining universal cut-offs, an individualised range of variability could characterize treatment response. Wearable actigraphy and psychophysiological sensors are promising devices to provide biofeedback and guide treatment. Use of feasible and reliable technology during experimental and clinical procedures may necessitate defining healthy and abnormal responses in different populations and pathological states. We present a "call for action" towards further collaborative work to enable large scale use of objective measures.