Neurophysiological responses to emotional faces predict dynamic fluctuations in affect in adolescents

The ability to accurately identify and interpret others' emotions is critical for social and emotional functioning during adolescence. Indeed, previous research has identified that laboratory-based indices of facial emotion recognition and engagement with emotional faces predict adolescent mood states. Whether socioemotional information processing relates to real-world affective dynamics using an ecologically sensitive approach, however, has rarely been assessed. In the present study, adolescents (N = 62; ages 13-18) completed a Facial Recognition Task, including happy, angry, and sad stimuli, while EEG data were acquired. Participants also provided ecological momentary assessment (EMA) data probing their current level of happiness, anger, and sadness for 1-week, resulting in indices of emotion (mean-level, inertia, instability). Analyses focused on relations between (1) accuracy for and (2) prolonged engagement with (LPP) emotional faces and EMA-reported emotions. Greater prolonged engagement with happy faces was related to less resistance to changes in happiness (i.e., less happiness inertia), whereas greater prolonged engagement with angry faces associated with more resistance to changes in anger (i.e., greater anger inertia). Results suggest that socioemotional processes captured by laboratory measures have real-world implications for adolescent affective states and highlight potentially actionable targets for novel treatment approaches (e.g., just-in-time interventions). Future studies should continue to assess relations among socioemotional informational processes and dynamic fluctuations in adolescent affective states.

Competition influences outcome processing involving social comparison: An ERP study

In a complicated social context, outcome evaluation involves not only oneself but also others in relation to the self (i.e., social comparison). Previous event-related potential (ERP) studies have investigated the processing of social comparison-related outcomes when one's interests are independent of the interests of others (i.e., noncompetition circumstances). However, it is unclear how social comparison-related outcomes are processed in the brain when there are conflicts of interest between oneself and others (i.e., competition circumstances). To address this issue, participants in the current study were asked to perform an attentional task with several peers and were subsequently presented with self-related outcomes (i.e., the performance difference between the current trial and several preceding trials) and social comparison-related outcomes (i.e., the performance difference between oneself and their peer). Importantly, rewards and punishments were based on social comparison-related outcomes in the competition condition and on self-related outcomes in the noncompetition condition. ERP results revealed that in the competition condition, positive outcomes involving social comparison elicited a greater P300 response than negative outcomes, whereas this effect was not observed in the noncompetition condition. Additionally, there was generally a larger late positive potential (LPP) response to negative outcomes involving social comparison than to positive outcomes only when one obtained a self-related positive outcome in the competition condition. These findings suggest that competition might strengthen outcome processing involving social comparison at late time ranges relying on self-related outcomes to some extent.

Vocal Emotion Recognition in Autism: Behavioral Performance and Event-Related Potential (ERP) Response

Autistic youth display difficulties in emotion recognition, yet little research has examined behavioral and neural indices of vocal emotion recognition (VER). The current study examines behavioral and event-related potential (N100, P200, Late Positive Potential [LPP]) indices of VER in autistic and non-autistic youth. Participants (N = 164) completed an emotion recognition task, the Diagnostic Analyses of Nonverbal Accuracy (DANVA-2) which included VER, during EEG recording. The LPP amplitude was larger in response to high intensity VER, and social cognition predicted VER errors. Verbal IQ, not autism, was related to VER errors. An interaction between VER intensity and social communication impairments revealed these impairments were related to larger LPP amplitudes during low intensity VER. Taken together, differences in VER may be due to higher order cognitive processes, not basic, early perception (N100, P200), and verbal cognitive abilities may underlie behavioral, yet occlude neural, differences in VER processing.

Processing of food stimuli in anorexia nervosa: An ERP-study comparing adolescents and adults

BACKGROUND

Anorexia nervosa (AN) is associated with altered processing of disorder-relevant stimuli. Event-related potentials (ERP) - such as the Late Positive Potential (LPP) - give information about the underlying mechanisms of central nervous stimulus processing.

METHODS

Patients with AN (22 adolescents, 23 adults) and healthy controls (HCs; 17 adolescents, 24 adults) were included. Neutral, low, and high calorie food-images were rated for valence and arousal; EEG activity was recorded and LPPs (early: 350-700 ms; late: 800-1200 ms) were extracted. Effects of patient status, age group, and stimulus category were analyzed via mixed 2 × 2 × 3-AN(C)OVAs.

RESULTS

Patients with AN rated high calorie stimuli lower in valence and higher in arousal than HCs. Controlling for hunger, food stimuli elicited higher early LPPs than neutral ones in patients and HCs. For the late LPP, patients with AN showed larger amplitudes.

CONCLUSION

Results suggest a highly automatic attentional bias towards low-calorie foods. Patients with AN seem to have more intense cognitive processing independent of stimulus material. More research is needed to validate and clarify differences between early and late LPP measures as well as the operationalization and relevance of hunger status.

The impact of culture on emotion suppression: Insights from an electrophysiological study of emotion regulation in Japan

Prior theory and evidence suggest that native East Asians tend to down-regulate their emotional arousal to negatively valenced experiences through expressive suppression, an emotion regulation technique focused on suppressing one's emotional experience. One proposed explanation for this choice of regulation strategy and its efficacy is rooted in their commitment to the cultural value of interdependence with others. However, prior work has not yet thoroughly supported this hypothesis using in vivo neural correlates of emotion regulation. Here, we utilized an established electroencephalogram (EEG) correlate of emotional arousal, the late positive potential (LPP), to examine whether down-regulation of the LPP in native East Asians might be particularly pronounced for those relatively high in interdependent self-construal. In this study, native Japanese participants attempted to suppress their emotional reaction to unpleasant images during EEG recording. In support of the hypothesis that emotion suppression among native East Asians is influenced by the cultural value of interdependence, there was a significant effect of interdependent self-construal on the LPP. Specifically, those relatively high in interdependent (versus independent) self-construal exhibited a smaller LPP in response to unpleasant pictures when instructed to suppress their emotions versus a passive viewing condition. However, this effect was negligible for those relatively low in interdependent self-construal, suggesting that cultural values impact the in vivo efficacy of different emotion regulation techniques. These results demonstrate the importance of identifying correspondence between self-report measures and in vivo correlates of emotion regulation in cross-cultural research.

Expectancy and attention bias to spiders: Dissecting anticipation and allocation processes using ERPs

The current registered report focused on the temporal dynamics of the relationship between expectancy and attention toward threat, to better understand the mechanisms underlying the prioritization of threat detection over expectancy. In the current event-related potentials experiment, a-priori expectancy was manipulated, and attention bias was measured, using a well-validated paradigm. A visual search array was presented, with one of two targets: spiders (threatening) or birds (neutral). A verbal cue stating the likelihood of encountering a target preceded the array, creating congruent and incongruent trials. Following cue presentation, preparatory processes were examined using the contingent negative variation (CNV) component. Following target presentation, two components were measured: early posterior negativity (EPN) and late positive potential (LPP), reflecting early and late stages of natural selective attention toward emotional stimuli, respectively. Behaviorally, spiders were found faster than birds, and congruency effects emerged for both targets. For the CNV, a non-significant trend of more negative amplitudes following spider cues emerged. As expected, EPN and LPP amplitudes were larger for spider targets compared to bird targets. Data-driven, exploratory, topographical analyses revealed different patterns of activation for bird cues compared to spider cues. Furthermore, 400-500 ms post-target, a congruency effect was revealed only for bird targets. Together, these results demonstrate that while expectancy for spider appearance is evident in differential neural preparation, the actual appearance of spider target overrides this expectancy effect and only in later stages of processing does the cueing effect come again into play.

Sustained training with novel distractors attenuates the behavioral interference of emotional pictures but does not affect the electrocortical markers of emotional processing

Introduction

Research has recently shown that behavioral interference prompted by emotional distractors is subject to habituation when the same exemplars are repeated, but promptly recovers in response to novel stimuli. The present study investigated whether prolonged experience with distractors that were all novel was effective in shaping the attentional filter, favoring stable and generalizable inhibition effects.

Methods

To test this, the impact of emotional distractors was measured before and after a sustained training phase with only novel distractor pictures, and that for a group of participants depicted only a variety of neutral contents, whereas a different group was exposed only to emotional contents.

Results

Results showed that emotional interference on reaction times was attenuated after the training phase (compared to the pre-test), but emotional distractors continued to interfere more than neutral ones in the post-test. The two groups did not differ in terms of training effect, suggesting that the distractor suppression mechanism developed during training was not sensitive to the affective category of natural scenes with which one had had experience. The affective modulation of neither the LPP or Alpha-ERD showed any effect of training.

Discussion

Altogether, these findings suggest that sustained experience with novel distractors may attenuate attention allocation toward task irrelevant emotional stimuli, but the evaluative processes and the engagement of motivational systems are always needed to support the monitoring of the environment for significant cues.

Emotional congruency between faces and words benefits emotional judgments in women: An event-related potential study

The present study aimed to investigate the effects of emotional congruency between faces and words on word evaluation through event-related brain potentials (ERPs). To this end, 20 women performed a face-word congruency task in which an emotional face was presented simultaneously with an affective word in a non-superimposed format. Participants had to evaluate the emotional valence of the word in three different conditions: congruent, incongruent, and control. The emotionally congruent words were categorized faster and more accurately than the incongruent ones. In addition, the emotionally congruent words elicited higher P3/LPP amplitudes than the incongruent ones. These results indicate a beneficial effect of emotional face-word congruency on emotional judgments of words.

The effect of cognitive reappraisal on food craving and consumption: Does working memory capacity influence reappraisal ability? An event-related potential study

Regulating cravings for unhealthy foods in favour of healthier options is essential for weight management. Cognitive reappraisal, which involves changing the meaning of a stimulus to modify its emotional impact, has shown promise for regulating food craving and consumption. Eighty participants were presented with high-calorie (HC) and low-calorie (LC) food pictures preceded by cues signalling instructions to naturally view the food (i.e., passive viewing; LOOK) or to imagine the future consequences of consuming that food (i.e., cognitive reappraisal; REGULATE). Participants' subjective craving and event-related potentials (ERPs) were measured, and food consumption after the task was assessed. Participants' working memory capacity (WMC) was measured with the automated Operation Span task. During cognitive reappraisal, cravings for HC foods decreased, whereas cravings for LC foods increased, compared to passive viewing. Cravings for LC and HC foods were correlated with consumptions of LC and HC foods, respectively. Occipital N1 (100-200ms) amplitudes were more negative for LC than for HC pictures, but were not modulated by strategy (LOOK or REGULATE), whereas early posterior negativity (EPN; 200-300ms) was not sensitive to food type (HC or LC) or strategy. Late positive potential (LPP; 400-1000ms) ERPs were largest in the HC-REGULATE condition, possibly due to cognitive processes induced by focusing on the consequences of unhealthy foods. Late LPP (1000-3000ms) was not affected by food type or strategy. LPP amplitudes were not correlated with cravings. WMC was weakly correlated with cravings for LC following reappraisal, suggesting that WMC may influence reappraisal ability. In sum, focusing on future consequences of eating may promote healthier food choices through craving regulation. Further research is needed to examine how regulatory effects evolve over time and how they relate to WMC and brain activity.

Predictive utility of the P3 event-related potential (ERP) response to alcohol cues for ecologically assessed alcohol craving and use

Neural measures of alcohol cue incentive salience have been associated with retrospective reports of riskier alcohol use behaviour and subjective response profiles. This study tested whether the P3 event-related potential (ERP) elicited by alcohol-related cues (ACR-P3) can forecast alcohol use and craving during real-world drinking episodes. Participants (N = 262; Mage  = 19.53; 56% female) completed a laboratory task in which they viewed images of everyday objects (Neutral), non-alcohol drinks (NonAlc) and alcohol beverages (Alc) while EEG was recorded and then completed a 21-day ecological momentary assessment (EMA) protocol in which they recorded alcohol craving and consumption. Anthropometrics were used to derive estimated blood alcohol concentration (eBAC) throughout drinking episodes. Multilevel modelling indicated positive associations between P3 amplitudes elicited by all stimuli and within-episode alcohol use measures (e.g., eBAC, cumulative drinks). Focal follow-up analyses indicated a positive association between AlcP3 amplitude and eBAC within episodes: Larger AlcP3 was associated with a steeper rise in eBAC. This association was robust to controlling for the association between NonAlcP3 and eBAC. AlcP3 also was positively associated with episode-level measures (e.g., max drinks, max eBAC). There were no associations between any P3 variables and EMA-based craving measures. Thus, individual differences in neural measures of alcohol cue incentive salience appear to predict the speed and intensity of alcohol consumption but not reports of craving during real-world alcohol use episodes.

Acute high-intensity interval exercise improves food-related cognition in young adults with obesity: An ERP study

Purpose Cognitive function, particularly food-related cognition, is critical for maintaining a healthy weight and preventing the acceleration of obesity. High-Intensity Interval Exercise (HIIE) is an increasingly popular form of exercise and has been shown to improve physical fitness and cognitive function. However, there is limited research on the effects and underlying mechanisms of HIIE on general and food-related cognition among adults with obesity. The aim of the current study was to examine the influence of a single bout of HIIE on food-related cognition among young adults with obesity. Methods Fifteen young men with obesity (BMI = 33.88 ± 4.22, age = 24.60 ± 5.29 years) were recruited. Participants took part in a HIIE condition consisting of 30 minutes of stationary cycle exercise (5-min warm-up, 20-min HIIE and 5-min cool down), and a control session consisting of a time and attention-matched period of sedentary rest in a counterbalanced order. Behavioral (reaction time and accuracy) and event-related potential measures (P3 and the late positive potential, LPP) elicited during a food-related Flanker task were measured after the HIIE and control session. Results Shorter response times were observed following HIIE, regardless of congruency or picture type, with no change in accuracy. Increased P3 and LPP amplitudes were observed following HIIE relative to the control session. Conclusion The findings suggest a single bout of HIIE has a beneficial effect on general and food-related cognition among young adults with obesity, with increased recruitment of cognitive resources to support cognitive control. Future research is warranted to examine the dose-response relationship between acute bouts or longer participation in HIIE on food-related cognition in obesity.

To remember or not to remember: Neural oscillations and ERPs as predictors of intentional associative fear learning

It is widely accepted that impaired safety learning to a safe stimulus is a pathological feature of anxiety disorders. Safety learning refers to learning that a stimulus is associated with the absence of threat. Cognitive mechanisms that underlie successful threat and safety learning are, however, poorly understood. This study aimed to identify various physiological markers, including neural oscillations and event-related potentials (ERPs) that predict successful threat and safety learning. Therefore, to detect potential differences in these markers, we measured EEG in a fear learning framework combined with a subsequent memory paradigm. Thirty-seven participants were asked to memorize a series of associations between faces and an aversive unconditioned stimulus (US) or its omission. We found a decrease of power in the alpha band in occipital brain regions during learning for both threatening (conditioned stimuli, CS+) and safe faces (control stimuli, CS-) that were subsequently remembered to be associated with a US or not. No effects in theta band were found. In regard to ERPs, a late positive potential (LPP) and a P300 component were larger for remembered than for forgotten CS-US associations. The P300 was also enhanced to remembered US and US omissions, thus replicating previous findings. These results point to the importance of cognitive resource allocation as an underlying mechanism of fear learning and electrophysiological measurements as potential biomarkers for successful threat and safety learning.

The effect of emotion counter-regulation to anger on working memory updating

Emotion counter-regulation has been suggested as the core cognitive mechanism of automatic emotion regulation. Emotion counter-regulation not only induces an unintentional transfer of attention from the current emotional state to stimuli with the opposite valence but also prompts approach to stimuli of the opposite valence and increases response inhibition to stimuli of the same valence. Working memory (WM) updating has been shown to be related to attention selection and response inhibition. However, it remains unclear whether emotion counter-regulation would affect WM updating with emotional stimuli. In the present study, 48 participants were recruited and randomly assigned to the angry-priming group that watched highly arousing angry video clips, or the control group that watched neutral video clips. Then participants performed a two-back face identity matching task with happy and angry face pictures. Behavioral results showed higher accuracy for identity recognition of happy than of angry faces. The event-related potential (ERP) results revealed smaller P2 to angry faces than to happy faces in the control group. In the angry-priming group, there was no difference in P2 amplitude between angry and happy trials. Between groups, P2 to angry faces was larger in the priming group than in the control group. Late positive potential (LPP) was smaller for happy faces than for angry faces in the priming group, but not in the control group. These findings suggest that emotion counter-regulation affects the onset updating and maintenance of emotional face stimuli in WM.

Hierarchical status is rapidly assessed from behaviourally dominant faces

Recognition of social hierarchy is a key feature that helps us navigate through our complex social environment. Neuroimaging studies have identified brain structures involved in the processing of hierarchical stimuli, but the precise temporal dynamics of brain activity associated with such processing remains largely unknown. In this investigation, we used event-related potentials (ERPs) to examine the effect of social hierarchy on the neural responses elicited by dominant and nondominant faces. Participants played a game where they were led to believe that they were middle-rank players, responding alongside other alleged players, whom they perceived as higher or lower-ranking. ERPs were examined in response to dominant and nondominant faces, and low-resolution electromagnetic tomography (LORETA) was used to identify the implicated brain areas. The results revealed that the amplitude of the N170 component was enhanced for faces of dominant individuals, showing that hierarchy influences the early stages of face processing. A later component, the late positive potential (LPP) appearing between 350-700 ms, also was enhanced for faces of higher-ranking players. Source localisation suggested that the early modulation was due to an enhanced response in limbic regions. These findings provide electrophysiological evidence for enhanced early visual processing of socially dominant faces.

Contextual valence influences the neural dynamics of time and magnitude representation during feedback evaluation

Contextual valence is an important dimension during value-based decision-making. Previous research has revealed behavioral and neural asymmetries between the gain context and the loss context. The present event-related potential study investigated the effects of contextual valence on neural dynamics underlying magnitude and time, two important reward dimensions, during feedback evaluation. Forty-two participants performed a simple guessing task in which they experienced both a gain context wherein high or low rewards were delivered immediately or six months later, and a loss context wherein high or low losses were delivered in the same way. Results showed that in the gain context, time and magnitude information were processed in a parallel way during the time windows of the reward positivity (RewP) and the P3. In the loss context, however, time and magnitude information were processed in a serial way such that time information was encoded during the RewP and P3 periods, whereas magnitude information was not tracked until the time window of the late positive potential. Our findings suggest that the neural dynamics underlying time and magnitude information are distinct between the gain and loss contexts, thus providing a novel perspective for the well-known gain-loss asymmetry.

Event-related potentials evidence of how location contiguity influences consumer purchase intentions

Geographical information plays an important role in understanding consumers' decisions and behavior. However, few research has investigated the effect of location contiguity on consumers' purchase intention. By applying event-related potentials (ERPs) method, the current study investigated the neural mechanism of location contiguity on consumers' purchase intentions. Behaviorally, compared with the location incongruence condition, participants in the location congruence condition demonstrated a higher purchase rate and a shorter reaction time (RT). Moreover, the location congruence condition elicited a decreased N400 and an increased LPP compared to the location incongruence condition. This study illustrated a positive relationship between location contiguity and consumers' purchase intention. The results of our study will be useful for both researchers and practitioners.

Characterisation of Lipoma-Preferred Partner as a Novel Mechanotransducer in Vascular Smooth Muscle Cells

In arteries and arterioles, a chronic increase in blood pressure raises wall tension. This continuous biomechanical strain causes a change in gene expression in vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) that may lead to pathological changes. Here we have characterised the functional properties of lipoma-preferred partner (LPP), a Lin11-Isl1-Mec3 (LIM)-domain protein, which is most closely related to the mechanotransducer zyxin but selectively expressed by smooth muscle cells, including VSMCs in adult mice. VSMCs isolated from the aorta of LPP knockout (LPP-KO) mice displayed a higher rate of proliferation than their wildtype (WT) counterparts, and when cultured as three-dimensional spheroids, they revealed a higher expression of the proliferation marker Ki 67 and showed greater invasion into a collagen gel. Accordingly, the gelatinase activity was increased in LPP-KO but not WT spheroids. The LPP-KO spheroids adhering to the collagen gel responded with decreased contraction to potassium chloride. The relaxation response to caffeine and norepinephrine was also smaller in the LPP-KO spheroids than in their WT counterparts. The overexpression of zyxin in LPP-KO VSMCs resulted in a reversal to a more quiescent differentiated phenotype. In native VSMCs, i.e., in isolated perfused segments of the mesenteric artery (MA), the contractile responses of LPP-KO segments to potassium chloride, phenylephrine or endothelin-1 did not vary from those in isolated perfused WT segments. In contrast, the myogenic response of LPP-KO MA segments was significantly attenuated while zyxin-deficient MA segments displayed a normal myogenic response. We propose that LPP, which we found to be expressed solely in the medial layer of different arteries from adult mice, may play an important role in controlling the quiescent contractile phenotype of VSMCs.

The Influence of Tourist Attraction Type on Product Price Perception and Neural Mechanism in Tourism Consumption: An ERP Study

Background

Tourism consumption is a topic with heated debates in tourism research, and pricing tourism products is a crucial task for tourism managers. Different types of tourist attractions offer different experiences to tourists, which affect their price perceptions and purchase decisions.

Methods

This study combined questionnaires and event-related potentials (ERPs) measures to explore the magnitude of psychological conflict and the degree of emotional arousal that consumers experience when faced with different prices of goods in different scenic types.

Results

The questionnaire results showed that attraction type influenced consumers' price perceptions and that consumers were willing to pay higher prices for products in attractions. The ERP results implied that in the early stage of cognition, attraction type did not affect consumers' perceptual processing, while price information attracted consumers' cognitive attention. In the late stage of cognition, attraction type, and price information jointly influenced consumers' decision-making, and consumers tended to accept high prices of products in entertainment attractions and cultural attractions, but consumers were more sensitive to the price of products in cultural attractions and less tolerant to price increases.

Conclusion

The study elucidated how price information influenced consumers' purchase decisions of tourism products at different stages of the dual-process theory, which can assist tourism managers in devising different pricing strategies and positioning strategies based on the attributes of attractions, to enhance product sales and revenues. This would further the vision of the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) of "tourism fostering economic development".

Electrophysiological correlates of semantic pain processing in the affective priming

Introduction

Pain plays a fundamental role in the well-being of the individual, and its semantic content may have specific properties compared to other negative domains (i.e., fear and anger) which allows the cognitive system to detect it with priority. Considering the influence of the affective context in which stimuli (targets) are evaluated, it is possible that their valence could be differentially processed if preceded by negative stimuli (primes) associated with pain than negative stimuli not associated with pain. Thus, the present study aims to investigate the electrophysiological correlates of the implicit processing of words with pain content by using an affective priming paradigm.

Methods

Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded while participants were presented with positive and negative word targets (not associated with pain) that were preceded by positive, negative (not associated with pain), and pain word primes. Participants were asked to judge the valence of the target word.

Results

Results showed faster reaction times (RTs) in congruent conditions, especially when the negative target was preceded by a pain prime rather than a positive one. ERPs analyses showed no effect of pain at an early-stage processing (N400), but a larger waveform when the pain prime preceded the positive prime on the LPP.

Discussion

These results reaffirm the importance that valence has in establishing the priority with which stimuli are encoded in the environment and highlight the role that pain has in the processing of stimuli, supporting the hypothesis according to which the valence and the semantics of a stimulus interact with each other generating a specific response for each type of emotion.

Weathering the storm of emotions: immediate and lasting effects of reinterpretation and distancing on event-related potentials and their association with habitual use of cognitive reappraisal

Reinterpretation and distancing, two cognitive reappraisal tactics, are known to effectively reduce negative feelings and event-related potentials (ERPs), such as the P300 and the late positive potential (LPP), in the short-term. Less is known about differential and lasting effects on ERPs as well as their association with habitual reappraisal. Fifty-seven participants were instructed to passively view or reappraise (reinterpretation, distancing) pictures that were repeatedly presented with the same instruction (active regulation phase). Thirty minutes later, these pictures were shown again without instruction for the assessment of lasting effects (re-exposure phase). ERPs were recorded and participants rated the intensity of negative feelings following picture presentation. Reappraisal led to an attenuation of the LPP, and both tactics decreased negative feelings during active regulation, whereby reinterpretation had a stronger impact on the subjective level. Passive re-exposure resulted in reduced negative feelings for previously reappraised pictures but had no lasting effects on ERPs. Higher habitual reappraisal was associated with higher P300 and early LPP amplitudes for emotional reactivity during the active regulation phase. During the re-exposure phase, higher habitual reappraisal was not related to ERPs. The current findings emphasize the effectiveness of both tactics in the short-term and lasting effects on the subjective experience of negative feelings. Enhanced emotional reactivity on the electrocortical level in individuals with a more frequent habitual use of reappraisal might indicate a higher preparedness to regulate.

The Lipid Phosphate Phosphatase Wunen Promotes Eggshell Formation and Is Essential for Fertility in Drosophila

The eggshell that surrounds insect eggs acts as a barrier, protecting against biotic factors and desiccation. The eggshell is a multi-layered structure which is synthesised by the somatic follicle cells that surround the developing oocyte. Although the temporal order of expression of the protein eggshell components goes someway to explaining how the different layers are built up, but how the precise three-dimensional structure is achieved and how lipid components responsible for desiccation resistance are incorporated are poorly understood. In this paper, we demonstrate that wunen, which encodes a lipid phosphate phosphatase, is necessary for fertility in Drosophila females. Compared to sibling controls, females null for wunen lay fewer eggs which subsequently collapse such that no larvae emerge. We show that this is due to a requirement for wunen in the ovarian follicle cells which is needed to produce an ordered and functional eggshell. Knockdown of a septate junction component also results in collapsed eggs, supporting the idea that similar to its role in embryonic tracheal development, Wunen in follicle cells also promotes septate junction function.

Current and lasting effects of affect labeling on late positive potential (LPP) amplitudes elicited by negative events

INTRODUCTION

Labeling the emotional aspect of self-unrelated stimuli (i.e., affect labeling) is a crucial strategy for implicit emotion regulation. However, it is uncertain whether affect labeling influences event-related potential (ERP) responses (e.g., the late positive potential, LPP) to negative stimuli in comparison with control conditions in which attention is shifted to the emotional content of the stimuli (e.g., affect matching). Additionally, it is unknown whether affect labeling has a lasting effect on the processing of negative stimuli.

METHODS

Participants were required to label the emotion (negative or neutral) of target pictures with two words, to match the emotion with alternative pictures or to merely view the target pictures. Target pictures were presented again immediately after the regulation task. After all the target pictures had been labeled, matched and viewed, the pictures were re-exposed for the third time.

RESULTS

The results showed that negative pictures elicited larger late LPP responses during the affect labeling task than during other tasks. However, the LPP responses were smaller for negative pictures in the affect labeling condition than in the other conditions when target pictures were re-exposed immediately after the task. When target pictures were re-presented again long after the regulation tasks, the LPP responses were smaller for negative stimuli with a history of affect labeling than viewing, whereas this effect did not differ between the affect labeling and matching conditions.

CONCLUSION

The current findings suggest that affect labeling has current effects and, to some extent, has lasting effects on negative stimulus processing.

Case-by-case: neural markers of emotion and task stimulus significance

The present study assessed the hypothesis that electrophysiological markers of emotional and task stimulus significance can be demonstrated in concert at the level of the individual case. Participants (n = 18, 9 females) viewed low and high-arousing pictures selected from behavior systems of sexual reproduction, disease avoidance, and predator fear. Furthermore, to concurrently manipulate task relevance, participants performed an explicit emotion categorization task with either low or high-arousing pictures alternating as target stimuli in separate experimental blocks. Pooled across behavior systems, event-related components sensitive to emotional significance reached statistical significance in 100% of the tests for the early posterior negativity and in 96% of the tests for the late positive potential. Regarding explicit task relevance, the target P3 effect was significant in 96% of the tests. These findings demonstrate that neural markers of stimulus significance driven by emotional picture content and explicit task demands can be assessed at the individual level. Replicating an effect case-after-case provides strong support for an effect common-to-all and may support individual inferences. Contributions of the case-by-case approach to reveal reproducible effects and implications for the development of neural biomarkers for specific affective and cognitive component processes are discussed.

Electrophysiological normative responses to emotional, neutral, and cigarette-related images

To create reproducible emotional probes, affective scientists rely on sets of standardized pictures that are normed using subjective ratings of valence and emotional arousal. However, when emotional responses are investigated using neurophysiological measures, it might be more appropriate to select pictures integrating information from normative subjective reports and normative neurophysiological responses. Here, we provide electrophysiological normative responses for 323 emotional pictures (215 from the IAPS) covering a wide range of categories (erotica, romantic, appetizing foods, landscapes, people engaged in mundane activities, household objects, disgusting objects, accidents, sad people, violence, mutilations, and cigarette-related contents). Event-related potentials (ERPs) and subjective ratings of pleasure and emotional arousal were collected from 763 individuals (52% females, 41% white) aged between 18 and 65 (mean = 43). For each image, the mean amplitude of the late positive potential (LPP, an electrophysiological index of motivational relevance) and the mean subjective ratings of valence and arousal were calculated. We validated our procedure by showing that the subjective ratings of valence and arousal from this sample were highly correlated to the IAPS' published norms (Pearson r = .97 for pleasure and r = .82 for emotional arousal). LPP responses and subjective ratings of emotional arousal also were correlated (Pearson r = .61), but some categories reported being significantly more arousing than neutral (i.e., food, landscapes, and unpleasant objects) did not evoke LPPs significantly different from those evoked by neutral pictures. Researchers interested in probing the brain's affective systems can use these electrophysiological normative responses to create emotional probes that evoke reliable neuroaffective responses.

Brain potentials related to violent video clips

The aim of the present study was to investigate whether affective video can elicit ERPs related to emotional processing. Compared with neutral video clips, violent video clips elicited delayed but amplitude-similar N1 component. The most conspicuous finding was enhanced EPN and LPP components for violent than neutral video clips. These data indicate the possibility of using affective video as stimulus to elicit ERPs and provide new evidence for processing affective stimuli, using real-life video clips with better ecological validity.

Replication of association at the LPP and UBASH3A loci in a UK autoimmune Addison's disease cohort

Autoimmune Addison's disease (AAD) arises from a complex interplay between multiple genetic susceptibility polymorphisms and environmental factors. The first genome wide association study (GWAS) with patients from Scandinavian Addison's registries has identified association signals at four novel loci in the genes LPP, SH2B3, SIGLEC5, and UBASH3A. To verify these novel risk loci, we performed a case-control association study in our independent cohort of 420 patients with AAD from the across the UK. We report significant association of alleles of the LPP and UBASH3A genes [odds ratio (95% confidence intervals), 1.46 (1.21-1.75)and 1.40 (1.16-1.68), respectively] with AAD in our UK cohort. In addition, we report nominal association of AAD with SH2B3 [OR 1.18 (1.02-1.35)]. We confirm that variants at the LPP and UBASH3A loci confer susceptibility to AAD in a UK population. Further studies with larger patient cohorts are required to robustly confirm the association of SH2B3 and SIGLEC5/SPACA6 alleles.

Neuronal underpinnings of the attentional bias toward threat in the anxiety spectrum: Meta-analytical data on P3 and LPP event-related potentials

BACKGROUND

This systematic review analyzes brain responses at later stages of neuronal processing (P3 at 300-500 ms, and LPP at 300-700 ms). Both P3 and LPP are implicated in attentional threat bias in disorders grouped into fear and distress dimensions of the anxiety spectrum described by the Hierarchical Taxonomy Model of Psychopathology (HiTOP), but there are no consistent findings so far.

METHOD

Meta-analyses with between- (32 studies, n = 1631) and within-groups design (31 studies, n = 1699) were performed for assessing P3 and LPP modulation in negative, positive, and neutral stimuli, while also considering differences between controls and anxious individuals. Relevant moderators (e.g., age, sex, task) were controlled for and negative stimuli were further decomposed in terms of category (Relevant, Fear/Threat, or Unpleasant).

RESULTS

Increased P3 and LPP amplitudes were found for negative and positive stimuli, when compared to neutral stimuli (within-subjects analysis), confirming that both components are elicited by emotionally arousing information. Within-effects for negative and positive stimuli were higher for the anxious groups. Nonetheless, between-groups analyses showed that attentional threat bias occurs only in anxious groups when negative, personally relevant-threat information is presented. The HiTOP fear dimension moderated the findings.

LIMITATIONS

Potential missed studies; ERPs time windows' heterogeneity; adult sample only; the uneven number of computed effects; categorical analyses.

CONCLUSION

Attentional bias toward disorder-congruent threatening cues can be a transdiagnostic mechanism of HiTOP fear disorders, clustered within the anxiety spectrum.

Transfer learning for image classification using VGG19: Caltech-101 image data set

Image classification is getting more attention in the area of computer vision. During the past few years, a lot of research has been done on image classification using classical machine learning and deep learning techniques. Presently, deep learning-based techniques have given stupendous results. The performance of a classification system depends on the quality of features extracted from an image. The better is the quality of extracted features, the more the accuracy will be. Although, numerous deep learning-based methods have shown enormous performance in image classification, still due to various challenges deep learning methods are not able to extract all the important information from the image. This results in a reduction in overall classification accuracy. The goal of the present research is to improve the image classification performance by combining the deep features extracted using popular deep convolutional neural network, VGG19, and various handcrafted feature extraction methods, i.e., SIFT, SURF, ORB, and Shi-Tomasi corner detector algorithm. Further, the extracted features from these methods are classified using various machine learning classification methods, i.e., Gaussian Naïve Bayes, Decision Tree, Random Forest, and eXtreme Gradient Boosting (XGBClassifier) classifier. The experiment is carried out on a benchmark dataset Caltech-101. The experimental results indicate that Random Forest using the combined features give 93.73% accuracy and outperforms other classifiers and methods proposed by other authors. The paper concludes that a single feature extractor whether shallow or deep is not enough to achieve satisfactory results. So, a combined approach using deep learning features and traditional handcrafted features is better for image classification.

Acute sensitization of the P3 event-related potential response to beverage images and the risk for alcohol use disorder

Previous research suggests the amplitude of the P3 event-related potential (ERP) response reflects the incentive value of the eliciting stimulus, and that individuals with trait-like lower sensitivity (LS) to the acute effects of alcohol, a potent risk factor for alcohol use disorder (AUD), tend to show exaggerated P3 ERP responses to alcohol beverage cues (compared to their peers with higher sensitivity; HS). No prior research has examined trajectories of the cue-elicited P3 response across repeated trials of nonreinforced cue presentations. Characterizing these trajectories can be informative as to potential mechanisms linking LS with increased AUD risk. Here, we tested whether individual differences in alcohol sensitivity are associated with different trial-by-trial trajectories of the P3 elicited by alcohol and nonalcohol reward cues (infrequent oddball/target stimuli) using a large sample of emerging adults (M _age = 19.53; N = 287; 55% female; 86% White; 90% right-handed) stratified for alcohol sensitivity. Multilevel models adjusted for age, sex, handedness, and alcohol use indicated that: (i) the P3 response to alcohol and nonalcohol reward cues alike sensitized (i.e., increased) across trials; (ii) across the task, the P3 response to alcohol cues was larger for the LS than the HS phenotype; and (iii) the P3 difference score (alcohol - nonalcohol) was larger for the LS than HS phenotype only across the first half of task. Findings suggest that whereas incentive value attribution may be a mechanism for alcohol cue-triggered attentional biases for both LS and HS individuals, LS individuals more consistently over-attribute incentive value to alcohol cues.

Platelet-rich plasma in alopecia areata and primary cicatricial alopecias: A systematic review

Background

Immune-mediated alopecias (IMAs), a group of hair disorders associated with immunological reactions, remain a therapeutic challenge since available treatments are generally unfavorable with potential side effects. Platelet-rich plasma (PRP) has been recently proposed as a treatment option based on several limited-quality studies; however, there is no systematic evaluation of PRP efficacy on IMAs in the literature.

Objective

To assess PRP's effects in treating IMAs using a systematic review.

Methods

Electronic searches were conducted using PubMed, Embase, Scopus, and Cochrane Library databases. A search strategy was designed to retrieve all studies exploring PRP in treating IMAs, including alopecia areata (AA) and primary cicatricial alopecias (PCAs). In addition, all randomized and non-randomized studies reporting subjective and/or objective outcomes of alopecia treatment with PRP were included.

Results

Thirty-two studies were included, comprising 621 patients with AA and 19 patients with PCAs. PRP had superior efficacy as monotherapy in five studies, comparable to intralesional corticosteroids in six studies in AA treatment. In addition, in the analysis of PCAs, including lymphocytic and neutrophilic subtypes, PRP was efficacious in alleviating disease progression in nine studies.

Conclusion

PRP is considered a promising treatment for AA and PCAs in patients who experienced unfavorable outcomes from conventional treatment. However, its clinical application remains to be standardized, and its recommendation as a treatment for IMAs could not be ascertained due to a lack of high-quality evidence.

Systematic review registration

[https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/display_record.php?RecordID=353859], identifier [CRD42022353859].

The modulation of attentional deployment on emotional sensitivity to missed opportunity in depressive individuals: An event-related potential study

BACKGROUND

Depression affects individuals' physical and mental health seriously. It's important to explore the pathological mechanisms underlying depression. However, the emotional sensitivity to missed opportunity in depressive individuals and whether attentional deployment influences it remain unclear. The exploration of these questions could help to find novel approaches for the treatment of depression.

METHODS

Experiment 1 investigated the emotional sensitivity to missed opportunity in depressive participants during a sequential risk-taking task relative to healthy participants. Experiment 2 added attentional deployment manipulation to the task, i.e., inducing participants to focus on the positive or negative part of decision outcome, and investigated the modulation of attentional deployment on depressive participants' emotional sensitivity to missed opportunity and the neural mechanisms underlying this process by using EEG.

RESULTS

Depressive participants showed stronger emotional sensitivity to missed opportunity and LPP was a biomarker of this sensitivity. Moreover, focusing on the positive part of outcome reduced depressive participants' emotional sensitivity to missed opportunity effectively, and alpha power in the parietal area played a key role in this process.

CONCLUSIONS

The current study primarily revealed that depressive individuals were more sensitive to missed opportunity and attentional deployment was an effective way to modulate this sensitivity.

Chinese patients' response to doctor-patient relationship stimuli: evidence from an event-related potential study

Background

With improvements in medical technology, the doctor–patient relationship should be further improved. However, disputes between doctors and patients have increased, with the two groups frequently hurting each other. Therefore, we sought to explore the perception of Chinese patients regarding the stimuli of doctor–patient relationships with different valence.

Methods

We used event-related potential (ERP) to explore the brain electrical activity of 19 undergraduate participants who had a clinical experience in the previous 6 months where they perceived negative, neutral, and positive doctor–patient relationships. The ERPs were recorded, and the early ERP components (P2) and late positive potential (LPP) were measured.

Results

Compared with the stimuli of negative doctor–patient relationships, those of positive doctor–patient relationships would attract more attention and have larger P2 amplitude; LPP was larger for the stimuli of negative doctor–patient relationships than neutral ones in the 500–800 ms, while in the 1100–1500 ms, the stimuli of neutral doctor–patient relationships elicited larger LPP amplitude than positive ones.

Conclusion

Patients paid more attention to the stimuli of positive doctor–patient relationships because they expected to have the same positive relationship. Although threatening elements in negative doctor–patient relationships would catch patients’ attention and make them have implicit emotional regulation, neutral stimuli with poker-faced doctors would cause lasting attention. These results illustrate the patients’ real perception of the different valence of doctor–patient relationship stimuli.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s40359-022-00961-y.

Performance Differences Between High and Low Empathy Ability in Conflicts of Interest: An ERP Study

OBJECTIVE

Empathy is negatively correlated with high levels of conflict behaviors, such as aggression. The purpose of this study was to examine whether there were still differences in the performance of high and low empathy ability under the general level of conflict.

METHODS

The Chinese version of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI-C) was distributed to 250 undergraduate students. The subjects were classified as the high-empathy group (n = 38) and the low-empathy group (n = 37). An improved ultimatum paradigm was used to create a relatively realistic general-intensity conflict situation. A total of 29 undergraduate students (15 in the low-empathy group) were subjected to conflicting or non-conflicting proposals. Event-related potential technology was used to record the EEG of the high- and low-empathy groups during the processing of different proposal types.

RESULTS

The high-empathy group had longer response times and lower rejection rates under different proposal types compared to the low-empathy group. The low-empathy group evoked more negative MFN amplitude under conflicting proposals than under non-conflicting proposals, while the difference was not significant in the high-empathy group. The low-empathy group induced greater LPP under non-conflicting proposals than under conflicting proposals, while the difference was not significant in the high-empathy group.

CONCLUSION

High-empathy individuals showed more altruistic behaviors, and fewer conflict tendencies compared to low-empathy individuals. Low-empathy individuals had greater negative evaluations of conflicting offers, while high-empathy individuals weakened their negative evaluations of conflicting proposals because of their relatively high empathy. Compared to high-empathy individuals, low-empathy individuals showed stronger motivation to converge on non-conflicting proposals.

Anticipatory threat responses mediate the relationship between mindfulness and anxiety: A cross-sectional study

Increasing research has shown that mindfulness-based interventions can effectively alleviate anxiety; however, the underlying neural mechanism has not yet been elucidated. Recent studies suggest that abnormal and excessive anticipatory responses to unpredictable threats play an important role in anxiety symptoms. Mindfulness refers to the non-judgmental awareness of the present moment's real experience, which is antithetical to the future-oriented thinking processes involved in anxiety-oriented cognition and its corresponding emotion regulation tactics. Thus, mitigating anticipatory threat responses may be a potential mechanism by which mindfulness alleviates anxiety. This study aimed to detect the possible mediating effects of anticipatory threat responses on the relationship between mindfulness and anxiety. A total of 35 trait-anxious (TA) individuals and 36 low-anxious (LA) individuals were recruited to participate in the predictable and unpredictable threat test. Self-reported intolerance of uncertainty (IU) and electroencephalographic responses to uncertainty were recorded. TA individuals reported more IU and less mindfulness, and exhibited significantly higher late positive potential (LPP) and longer reaction time (RT) than LA individuals in the unpredictable negative threat condition. In addition, there were significant mediating effects of the LPP amplitude and RT in the uncertain threats on the relationship between mindfulness and anxiety. The data from this study verified that mitigating anticipatory threat responses (including self-reported IU, behavioral RT, and LPP amplitude) might be the potential mechanism by which mindfulness alleviates anxiety. These findings may have practical implications for the development and optimization of mindfulness treatments for anxiety.

The effects of a single aerobic exercise session on mood and neural emotional reactivity in depressed and healthy young adults: A late positive potential study

Depression has been characterized by lowered mood and unfavorable changes in neural emotional reactivity (altered brain responses to emotional stimuli). Physical exercise is a well-established strategy to improve the mood of healthy and depressed individuals. Increasing evidence suggests that exercise might also improve emotional reactivity in healthy adults by increasing or decreasing brain responses to positive or negative stimuli, respectively. It is unknown, however, if exercise could also benefit emotional reactivity in depressed individuals. We investigated the effects of a single aerobic exercise session on mood and emotional reactivity in 24 depressed and 24 matched healthy young adults. Self-reported mood and neural reactivity to emotional pictures (indexed by the EEG late positive potential, LPP) were assessed before and after two experimental protocols: exercise (36 min of moderate-intensity exercise at 75% of maximal heart rate) and seated rest condition (36 min). In the healthy control group, exercise improved self-reported mood and neural emotional reactivity (increasing LPP to positive pictures). In the depressed group, exercise improved self-reported mood; however, it did not affect neural emotional reactivity. Additional analyses performed on both groups revealed that exercise-induced changes in emotional reactivity are associated with the severity of depressive symptoms: the effectiveness of exercise in improving emotional reactivity decreases with the severity of depressive symptoms. Overall, the study further strengthens the claim of a beneficial role of exercise on mood and emotional reactivity. It also suggests that a single aerobic exercise session might have a limited influence on neural emotional reactivity in depressed individuals.

Influence of Environmental Aesthetic Value and Anticipated Emotion on Pro-Environmental Behavior: An ERP Study

Perceptual cues act as signals in the aesthetic value environment, which promote emotion regulation toward pro-environment behavior. This type of perception-emotion-behavior reactivity forms the core of human altruism. However, differences in pro-environmental behavior may result from variation across high-aesthetic-value (HAV) and low-aesthetic-value (LAV) environments. This study investigated the neural mechanisms underlying interaction effects between environmental context and emotion regulation on pro-environmental behavior by integrating behavioral and temporal dynamics of decision-making information processing with event-related potential (ERP) technique measures. The results indicated that changing anticipated emotions changes pro-environmental behavior. Regarding changing aesthetic value environments, while modulating emotion regulation, significant differences were found in brain regions and mean amplitudes of N1, P2, N2, and late positive potential (LPP) components, which anticipated emotion. The findings suggest that environmental aesthetic value and emotion regulation impact pro-environmental behavior.

The Impact of the Scale of Third-Party Logistics Guaranteeing Firms on Bank Credit Willingness in Supply Chain Finance: An ERP Study

Supply chain financing guaranteed by third-party logistics (3PL) firms is an effective way to solve the financing difficulties of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Studies have explored factors that affect the willingness of supply chain financial credit providers under guarantee of 3PL firms (e.g., the scale of financing enterprises and credit). However, whether the scale of 3PL firms will affect the bank’s credit decision has not been studied, as well as the neural processing of credit decisions. To clarify these issues, this study extracted behavioral and event-related potentials (ERPs) data when participants performed a selection task of judging whether to grant credit to guaranteed financing-seeking enterprises according to the large or small scale of the 3PL guaranteeing firms. The behavioral results showed that under the condition of a large-scale 3PL guaranteeing firm, the willingness to provide credit to SMEs was higher than that under the condition of a small-scale 3PL guaranteeing firm. This finding indicates there was credit scale discrimination against 3PL guaranteeing firms in supply chain finance. The ERP results showed that compared with the condition of a large-scale 3PL guaranteeing firm, a greater N2 amplitude was induced under the condition of a small-scale 3PL guaranteeing firm, which indicated that credit decision makers experienced greater perceived risk and more decision-making conflict. In contrast, a larger LPP amplitude was detected under the condition of a large-scale 3PL guaranteeing firm (as opposed to a small-scale firm), which indicated that large-scale 3PL guaranteeing firms received more positive comments and more positive emotions from credit decision makers than small-scale 3PL guaranteeing firms. Based on these results, this study reveals the cognition process of credit decision makers regarding the impact of the 3PL guaranteeing firm scale on the willingness to provide credit in supply chain finance and explains the theory of credit scale discrimination from the perspective of decision neuroscience.

Identification of Bacterial Drug-Resistant Cells by the Convolutional Neural Network in Transmission Electron Microscope Images

The emergence of bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics is common in areas where antibiotics are used widely. The current standard procedure for detecting bacterial drug resistance is based on bacterial growth under antibiotic treatments. Here we describe the morphological changes in enoxacin-resistant Escherichia coli cells and the computational method used to identify these resistant cells in transmission electron microscopy (TEM) images without using antibiotics. Our approach was to create patches from TEM images of enoxacin-sensitive and enoxacin-resistant E. coli strains, use a convolutional neural network for patch classification, and identify the strains on the basis of the classification results. The proposed method was highly accurate in classifying cells, achieving an accuracy rate of 0.94. Using a gradient-weighted class activation mapping to visualize the region of interest, enoxacin-resistant and enoxacin-sensitive cells were characterized by comparing differences in the envelope. Moreover, Pearson's correlation coefficients suggested that four genes, including lpp, the gene encoding the major outer membrane lipoprotein, were strongly associated with the image features of enoxacin-resistant cells.

Documenting the late positive potential towards self-imagery within social anxiety

Models of social anxiety propose that negative self-imagery is a maintenance factor of psychopathology, yet the mechanisms of this relationship are unclear. One proposed mechanism is attention towards self-images. However, self-image creation does not occur in isolation and is likely influenced by other mechanisms, such as anticipatory processing (AP). The current study aimed to investigate how trait social anxiety and AP influence motivated attention during self-imagery (i.e., late-positive potential; LPP). Participants (N = 40) with a mean age of 18.95 (SD = 1.22) completed AP manipulations and a self-imagery task. Results revealed that participants with high levels of social anxiety who engaged in AP demonstrated blunted LPP activity in the late time window (6000-10,000 ms) relative to those who engaged in Distraction. These results suggest that motivated attention towards self-imagery may be impacted by anticipatory processing, but less influenced by the valence of self-imagery. Given previous research has been limited in methodology, this study expands upon current research by documenting the neural mechanisms of self-imagery manipulations within social anxiety.

Distinct Effects of Stimulus Repetition on Various Temporal Stages of Subject's Own Name Processing

The self is one of the most important concepts in psychology, which is of great significance for human survival and development. As an important self-related stimulus, the subject’s own name (SON) shows great advantages in cognitive and social processing and is widely used as an oddball stimulus in previous studies. However, it remained unknown whether the multiple repetition of stimulus would have similar influence on the neural response to SON and the other names under equal probability. In this study, adopting EEG and an equal–probability paradigm, we first detected the SON-related ERP components which could differentiate SON from other names, and then investigated how these components are influenced by repeated exposure of the stimulus. Our results showed that SON evoked an earlier SON-related negativity (SRN) at the fronto-central region and a late positive potential (LPP) at the centro-parietal region. More intriguingly, the earlier SRN demonstrated reduction after multiple repetitions, whereas LPP did not exhibit significant changes. In conclusion, these findings revealed that multiple repetitions of the stimulus might influence the various temporal stages in SON-related processing and highlighted the robustness of the late stage in this processing.

Fibroblast-derived LPP as a biomarker for treatment response and therapeutic target in gastric cancer

Association of tumor microenvironment and immune checkpoint (e.g., PD-L1) is important for immune escape, impacting chemotherapy and immunotherapy efficacy. We aimed to investigate biomarkers and therapeutic targets against treatment resistance in gastric cancer. Abundances of tumor-infiltrating immune cells were estimated in multiple datasets. Three patient subgroups (A, B, and C) were identified based on seven types of PD-L1- and IFN-γ-associated immune cells. Patients yielded increased prognosis from subgroup A to C (p = 0.027). Subgroup A was characterized by high activated CD4⁺ memory T cell infiltration, while more resting CD4⁺ memory T cells were in subgroup C. Further, a risk score was developed for prognostication. Lipoma preferred partner (LPP), as the hub gene in subgroup-related regulatory network, was upregulated (p < 0.01) and was associated with high risk score (p < 0.001) and poor survival (p < 0.05). Bioinformatics analyses and experiments found that LPP expressed restrictively in fibroblasts and associated with activated CD4⁺ memory T cell infiltration and tumor growth. High-LPP patients yielded fewer benefits from chemotherapy or immunotherapy, compared with the low-LPP group. We finally identified 28 compounds as sensitive drugs for high-LPP patients. Our findings suggested LPP might be a biomarker for treatment response and therapeutic target in gastric cancer.

Distinct aspects of emotion dysregulation differentially correspond to magnitude and slope of the late positive potential to affective stimuli

ABSTRACTEmotion dysregulation (ED) is a transdiagnostic risk factor for several forms of psychopathology. One established, integrative conceptualisation of ED that has informed our understanding of psychopathology (Gratz, K. L., & Roemer, L. (2004). Multidimensional assessment of emotion regulation and dysregulation : development, factor structure, and initial validation of the difficulties in emotion regulation scale. Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment, 26(1), 41-54) was recently extended to account for state-level and specifically physiological aspects of ED. As such, the goal of the current study was to assess the degree to which this conceptualisation could be captured using a physiological, state-level index (i.e. the late positive potential; LPP). Participants (N=41; M_age=27.5 years, SD=11.0) completed a trait-based rating scale measure of the extended conceptualisation of ED and viewed a series of images that ranged in valence (i.e. unpleasant, pleasant, and neutral). Multilevel modelling indicated some points of convergence between rating scale scores and the LPP, and other points of divergence. Findings underscore the utility of a multi-method approach to improve understanding of key transdiagnostic characteristics across levels of analysis. Further, results are novel evidence supporting validity of the extended conceptualisation of ED.

Deficits in facial emotional valence processing in older people with subjective memory complaints: Behavioral and electrophysiological evidence

Subjective memory complaints (SMCs), which occur in the absence of clinical memory deficits, may precede mild cognitive impairment (MCI) or Alzheimer's disease (AD). Some studies have reported a deficit in facial emotion processing in people with MCI or AD. However, it is unclear whether this deficit is also present in older people with SMCs. The present study used behavioral measurements and event-related potentials (ERPs) to investigate the facial emotion processing of 41 older people with SMCs and 38 without SMCs. The task contained 204 images displaying facial emotions (positive, negative, and neutral). In terms of behavior, our results showed that participants with SMCs were slower and less accurate than controls. In terms of ERPs, the N170 latency was longer in men with SMCs than in controls, whereas no differences were observed between groups in the P300 and late positive potential (LPP) latencies or amplitudes. Moreover, in participants with SMCs, higher P300 and LPP amplitudes were related to better performance on working memory, psychomotor speed, and attention. Additionally, women were faster and more accurate than men on the facial emotion-processing task. In sum, these results suggest that older people with SMCs may have deficits in the processing of facial expressions of emotion. However, this deficit seems to affect the structural encoding of faces, rather than the late stages of processing.

Neural Responses to Mandatory and Voluntary Donation Impact Charitable Giving Decisions: An Event-Related Potentials Study

The present study aimed to explore the influence of donation amounts on donation decisions in different donation contexts and to reveal the psychological mechanisms. Furthermore, we focused on how to enhance individuals' intention to donate voluntarily. We designed an experiment on donation decisions, employing event-related potentials (ERPs) to probe the effect of psychological mechanisms on donation decisions by detecting the neural basis of donation decision-making. Based on S-O-R (stimulus-organism-response) theory, we used donation contexts and donation amounts (stimuli) to induce psychological activity in the participants (organism) and then influence individual donation decision behaviors (response). Moreover, we applied psychological reactance (PR) theory to discuss the effect of donation context on decisions and the corresponding psychological process. The behavioral results showed that donation contexts (mandatory vs. voluntary) were significantly related to the donation amounts (i.e., less vs. more money that the charity received than money that the participants donated). At the ERP level, compared with mandatory donation, voluntary donation evoked a larger P2 amplitude when the charity received less money. In addition, a larger mean amplitude of LPP was elicited by voluntary donation compared to mandatory donation. This study provides practical implications for charity organizers to guide people to donate voluntarily.

Adaptation in face animacy perception: An event-related potential study

A real face differs from an artificial face mainly in the animacy. Nowadays, the perception boundaries between the real and artificial faces are becoming blurred in our life with the ubiquitous use of AI. Therefore, the perception of animacy causes increasing interests. Here, we used an adaptation paradigm to investigate the animacy perception in faces. We morphed a real and an artificial face to generate a continuum of face images, and asked participants to judge the animacy of those face images after they were exposed to a real face or an artificial face. We found that after adaptation to a real face, the subjects were apt to identify a subsequently ambiguous face to be inanimate, whereas after adaptation to an artificial face, the subjects were apt to identify a subsequently ambiguous face to be animate, i.e., the face animacy aftereffect (FAAE). We simultaneously recorded EEG during the task and analyzed the event-related potentials in response to the test faces, and found that adaptation to a face animacy suppressed the amplitude of LPP (late positive potential) and prolonged the latencies of N250r and LPP, in response to subsequent animacy-congruent faces. However, for subsequent animacy-incongruent faces, the amplitude was enhanced in LPP and the latencies were shortened in N250r and LPP. Those modulations of N250r and LPP activity act as a neural correlate of face animacy adaptation.

Impact of emotionally-charged images and trial order on downstream cognitive processing: An ERP study

Theories of emotion-cognition interactions suggest that emotional valence can both facilitate or limit cognitive performance. One cause for the mixed findings may be the order (random versus non-random presentation) in which emotional stimuli are presented. To investigate the impact of stimuli order on cognitive control processing, EEG data were recorded as 130 undergraduate students (M age = 22.2, SD = 5.4; 79 female) completed a modified version of the AX-Continuous Performance Task in which the cue was followed by an emotionally-valenced image (positive, negative, and neutral). Specifically, the task was designed so that valenced images were presented in either a block or random order, prior to probe presentation. We examined two event-related potentials (ERPs), the N2, which reflects aspects of cognitive control, and the late positive potential (LPP), which reflects attention allocation to emotional stimuli. We assessed the impact of emotionally oriented attention (LPP) on downstream cognitive control (N2) and how this relationship might differ for a block versus random (order of emotional image) task design. Consistent with the LPP literature, we found a main effect of image valence with the negative trials showing larger LPPs than the positive and neutral trials. For N2s, we found that the negative trials were associated with smaller N2s than both the positive and neutral trials. We observed that as LPP amplitude increased, subsequent N2 amplitude was reduced, specifically for negative trials in the random design. These results suggest an emotion-related depletion of neural cognitive resources. Lastly, we found larger N2s for the block design versus the random design. Together, these results indicate the importance of paying attention to both trial order (block versus random) and within trial stimulus sequence when designing emotion induction tasks.