Control Cues Research Articles

Neural cue reactivity and intrinsic functional connectivity in individuals with alcohol use disorder following treatment with topiramate or naltrexone.

Both topiramate and naltrexone have been shown to affect neural alcohol cue reactivity in alcohol use disorder (AUD). However, their comparative effects on alcohol cue reactivity are unknown. Moreover, while naltrexone has been found to normalize hyperactive localized network connectivity implicated in AUD, no studies have examined the effect of topiramate on intrinsic functional connectivity or compared functional connectivity between these two widely used medications. This study compared topiramate versus naltrexone on alcohol cue-elicited brain activation and intrinsic functional connectivity in patients with alcohol use disorder. Forty-seven participants with alcohol use disorder received daily topiramate (titrating the dose up to 200mg/day n = 21) or naltrexone (50mg/day, n = 26) for at least 6 weeks. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we examined intrinsic functional connectivity during rest and alcohol cue-elicited neural activation during a visual alcohol cue reactivity task 120min following treatment administration. Functional connectivity and alcohol cue reactivity and percentage of heavy drinking days (% HDD) associations were assessed. No differences in either intrinsic functional connectivity or alcohol cue-elicited neural activity were seen between topiramate and naltrexone-treated groups. Overall, participants showed increased alcohol cue-elicited activation in three clusters spanning occipital regions involved in visual recognition of stimuli, and hypoactivation to both alcohol and control cues in three clusters involved in salience attribution and processing of emotional valence of external stimuli. No differences between topiramate versus naltrexone were observed for either functional measure or associations with post-scan % HDD. Topiramate and naltrexone enacted comparable alcohol cue reactivity and intrinsic functional connectivity patterns. Some overall responses of increased brain activation to alcohol cues in visual processing regions coupled with reduced activation to alcohol and control cues were evidenced for both treatments. These activation patterns were in regions expected to show attenuation of brain activity resulting from treatment. Topiramate and naltrexone may thus enact functional effects through similar modulation of functional neural activity in individuals with AUD. ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT03479086 https://www. gov/study/NCT03479086 .

BRASSINAZOLE RESISTANT 1 delays photoperiodic flowering by repressing CONSTANS transcription.

Photoperiodic regulation of flowering time plays a critical role in plant reproductive success and crop yield. In Arabidopsis thaliana, the expression of the CONSTANS (CO) gene is closely regulated by day length and is modulated by both environmental and endogenous cues for precise control over flowering. Our findings reveal that the phytohormone brassinosteroid (BR) pathway represses flowering by inhibiting the expression of both CO and Flowering Locus T (FT). Additionally, we discovered that BRASSINAZOLE RESISTANT 1 (BZR1), a key transcription factor in the BR signaling pathway, directly binds to the proximal promoter region of CO to suppress its transcription during long days, thus regulating photoperiodic flowering. Genetically, BZR1 acts upstream of CO and FT to delay floral initiation depending on day length. Overall, our study reveals how a molecular module comprising BZR1-CO integrates signals from BR as well as photoperiodicity for appropriate adjustment of flowering time.

Examining Electronic Nicotine Delivery System (ENDS) Cue Reactivity Using a Remote Platform: Cigarette and ENDS Desire in Dual Users.

Prior research shows that in-person exposure to electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) use increases desire for cigarettes and ENDS. However, less is known about the impact of cues delivered during remote interactions. This study extends previous in-person cue work by leveraging a remote confederate-delivered cue-delivery paradigm to evaluate the impact of dual nicotine vaping (vs. sole smoking) on reactivity to an ENDS cue in individuals who smoke cigarettes. N=52 dual users (DU; current users of both combustible cigarettes and ENDS) and N=54 sole smokers (SS; users of combustible cigarettes only) observed a study confederate drinking bottled water (control cue) and then vaping an ENDS (active cue). Changes in desire for cigarettes and ENDS were compared between groups post-cue exposure. Multilevel models, controlling for sex and cigarettes per day, revealed that the remote ENDS cue, but not water, significantly increased desire for both cigarettes and ENDS. Relative to SS, DU reported greater post-ENDS cue increases in ENDS desire but not cigarette desire. A remote, confederate-delivered ENDS cue generalizes as a smoking and vaping cue, with DU showing greater reactivity than SS. This study provides the first evidence for the validity and feasibility of a remote, confederate-delivered ENDS cue reactivity paradigm. This study provides support for the use of a remote platform, an increasingly popular method of conducting research since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, to employ confederate-delivered ENDS cues. Frequent observations of vaping via remote platforms and social media may contribute to the maintenance of single and dual product use.

The time-stamped effects of screen exposure on food intake in adults: A meta-analysis of experimental studies.

The purpose of this study was to examine time-stamped impacts of screen exposure on food intake among healthy adults. Four electronic databases were searched up to August 31, 2024, including ProQuest, PubMed, Web of Science and Embase. A meta-analysis of inverse variance was used to calculate the standardized mean difference (SMD) in food intake between watching and not watching screen groups, and groups with different screen contents (e.g., food cues). 23 experimental studies with 1894 participants were included. Watching screen (vs. not watching group, SMD: 0.16; 95% CI: 0.06, 0.26; I2=42%; p0.01) significantly increased food intake, while the impact of the contents, including food cues, weight control cues and TV conditions, displayed on screens on food intake was not significantly different. Subgroup analysis revealed that food intake increased significantly with exposure to screens in females (SMD: 0.20; 95% CI: 0.04, 0.35; I2=25%; p = 0.01). Adults especially females eat more while watching screen, whatever the screen content displayed on the screen. Given the influence of study designs, more within-subject studies with high quality were required to understand the intricate relationship between screen exposure and food intake, ultimately managing promoting healthier dietary habits.

Evaluation of olfactory and visual cues for conservation biological control of crape myrtle bark scale in urban landscapes.

Acanthacoccus lagerstroemiae (crape myrtle bark scale, CMBS) is an exotic scale insect that feeds on the sap of crape myrtle trees. Heavy infestations of CMBS reduce flowering and honeydew promotes sooty mold growth on the leaves and branches, reducing the aesthetic value of crape myrtle trees in urban landscapes. Lady beetles (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae) are generalist predators that feed on CMBS. Several laboratory and field studies have demonstrated the attraction of lady beetles to olfactory and visual cues. We evaluated lady beetles' responses to olfactory lures and yellow visual attractants on infested potted and landscape trees to increase natural enemy recruitment and reduce dependence on chemical control methods. Gas chromatography mass spectrometry analysis showed that limonene is the dominant volatile compound released by crape myrtles infested with CMBS. Limonene and methyl salicylate lures, alone or in combination, failed to reduce CMBS or recruit additional lady beetles to infested trees in all experiments. Yellow rectangular panels placed 1 m above the base of an infested tree recruited up to twofold more lady beetles than control trees; however, this was not statistically significant. A significant reduction in CMBS was observed on infested trees with yellow rectangular panels placed in the canopy. Yellow rectangular panels are more likely to recruit lady beetles than limonene or methyl salicylate lures in an urban landscape. Management of CMBS is currently achieved using systemic insecticides. This study provides a basis for conservation biological control of CMBS through the recruitment of lady beetles, a significant advancement toward integrated management of this exotic pest. © 2024 Society of Chemical Industry.

Pavlovian cue-evoked alcohol seeking is disrupted by ventral pallidal inhibition

Cues paired with alcohol can be potent drivers of craving, alcohol-seeking, consumption, and relapse. While the ventral pallidum is implicated in appetitive and consummatory responses across several reward classes and types of behaviors, its role in behavioral responses to Pavlovian alcohol cues has not previously been established. Here, we tested the impact of optogenetic inhibition of ventral pallidum on Pavlovian-conditioned alcohol-seeking in male Long Evans rats. Rats underwent Pavlovian conditioning with an auditory cue predicting alcohol delivery to a reward port and a control cue predicting no alcohol delivery, until they consistently entered the reward port more during the alcohol cue than the control cue. We then tested the within-session effects of optogenetic inhibition during 50 % of cue presentations. We found that optogenetic inhibition of ventral pallidum during the alcohol cue reduced port entry likelihood and time spent in the port, and increased port entry latency. Overall, these results suggest that normal ventral pallidum activity is necessary for Pavlovian alcohol-seeking.

Category-specific general Pavlovian-instrumental transfer

Modern living is characterized by easy access to highly palatable energy-dense foods. Environmental cues associated with palatable foods increase seeking of those foods (specific transfer) and other palatable foods (general transfer). We conducted a series of studies testing the boundaries of food cue-reactivity by evaluating the impact of broader flavor associations (i.e. saltiness, sweetness) in eliciting general transfer effects. Experiment 1 was an online experiment with fictive rewards that tested if two actions associated with different food rewards (chip and chocolate points) could be provoked by images of other foods that were either similar or distinct in flavor from the foods associated with these instrumental actions. We observed that response excitation was only elicited by similarly flavored food cues, whereas distinctly flavored food cues inhibited response rates relative to control cues. Experiment 2 confirmed this observation in a classroom setting where real food rewards were contingent on task performance. Experiment 3 was an online study that further confirmed the reliability of the effects with a well powered sample. There were moderate-to-strong associations between specific and general transfer effects across all studies, suggesting overlapping cognitive processes are responsible for both transfer effects. These data improve the mechanistic understanding of how broad category associations can moderate the impact of food cues on food choices. This knowledge could be helpful for improving the precision of psychological interventions that seek to mitigate the impact of food cue-reactivity.

Engineering the Cellular Microenvironment: Integrating Three-Dimensional Nontopographical and Two-Dimensional Biochemical Cues for Precise Control of Cellular Behavior.

The development of biomaterials capable of regulating cellular processes and guiding cell fate decisions has broad implications in tissue engineering, regenerative medicine, and cell-based assays for drug development and disease modeling. Recent studies have shown that three-dimensional (3D) nanoscale physical cues such as nanotopography can modulate various cellular processes like adhesion and endocytosis by inducing nanoscale curvature on the plasma and nuclear membranes. Two-dimensional (2D) biochemical cues such as protein micropatterns can also regulate cell function and fate by controlling cellular geometries. Development of biomaterials with precise control over nanoscale physical and biochemical cues can significantly influence programming cell function and fate. In this study, we utilized a laser-assisted micropatterning technique to manipulate the 2D architectures of cells on 3D nanopillar platforms. We performed a comprehensive analysis of cellular and nuclear morphology and deformation on both nanopillar and flat substrates. Our findings demonstrate the precise engineering of single cell architectures through 2D micropatterning on nanopillar platforms. We show that the coupling between the nuclear and cell shape is disrupted on nanopillar surfaces compared to flat surfaces. Furthermore, our results suggest that cell elongation on nanopillars enhances nanopillar-induced endocytosis. We believe our platform serves as a versatile tool for further explorations into programming cell function and fate through combined physical cues that create nanoscale curvature on cell membranes and biochemical cues that control the geometry of the cell.

Attentional Bias, Pupillometry, and Spontaneous Blink Rate: Eye Characteristic Assessment Within a Translatable Nicotine Cue Virtual Reality Paradigm.

Incentive salience processes are important for the development and maintenance of addiction. Eye characteristics such as gaze fixation time, pupil diameter, and spontaneous eyeblink rate (EBR) are theorized to reflect incentive salience and may serve as useful biomarkers. However, conventional cue exposure paradigms have limitations that may impede accurate assessment of these markers. This study sought to evaluate the validity of these eye-tracking metrics as indicators of incentive salience within a virtual reality (VR) environment replicating real-world situations of nicotine and tobacco product (NTP) use. NTP users from the community were recruited and grouped by NTP use patterns: nondaily (n=33) and daily (n=75) use. Participants underwent the NTP cue VR paradigm and completed measures of nicotine craving, NTP use history, and VR-related assessments. Eye-gaze fixation time (attentional bias) and pupillometry in response to NTP versus control cues and EBR during the active and neutral VR scenes were recorded and analyzed using ANOVA and analysis of covariance models. Greater subjective craving, as measured by the Tobacco Craving Questionnaire-Short Form, following active versus neutral scenes was observed (F1,106=47.95; P<.001). Greater mean eye-gaze fixation time (F1,106=48.34; P<.001) and pupil diameter (F1,102=5.99; P=.02) in response to NTP versus control cues were also detected. Evidence of NTP use group effects was observed in fixation time and pupillometry analyses, as well as correlations between these metrics, NTP use history, and nicotine craving. No significant associations were observed with EBR. This study provides additional evidence for attentional bias, as measured via eye-gaze fixation time, and pupillometry as useful biomarkers of incentive salience, and partially supports theories suggesting that incentive salience diminishes as nicotine dependence severity increases.

Decision uncertainty as a context for motor memory

The current view of perceptual decision-making suggests that once a decision is made, only a single motor programme associated with the decision is carried out, irrespective of the uncertainty involved in decision making. In contrast, we show that multiple motor programmes can be acquired on the basis of the preceding uncertainty of the decision, indicating that decision uncertainty functions as a contextual cue for motor memory. The actions learned after making certain (uncertain) decisions are only partially transferred to uncertain (certain) decisions. Participants were able to form distinct motor memories for the same movement on the basis of the preceding decision uncertainty. Crucially, this contextual effect generalizes to novel stimuli with matched uncertainty levels, demonstrating that decision uncertainty is itself a contextual cue. These findings broaden the understanding of contextual inference in motor memory, emphasizing that it extends beyond direct motor control cues to encompass the decision-making process.

Scapula-Focused Exercises With or Without Biofeedback and Corticospinal Excitability in Recreational Overhead Athletes With Shoulder Impingement.

Individuals with shoulder impingement syndrome (SIS) exhibit changes in corticospinal excitability, scapular kinematics, and scapular muscle-activation patterns. To restore the scapular kinematics and muscle-activation patterns in individuals with SIS, treatment protocols usually include scapula-focused exercises, such as scapular-orientation and strength training. To investigate whether scapular-orientation and strength training can reverse the altered corticospinal excitability of recreational overhead athletes with SIS. Randomized controlled clinical trial. University laboratory. Forty-one recreational overhead athletes with SIS: 20 in the scapular-orientation group (age = 26.45 ± 4.13 years, height = 171.85 ± 7.88 cm, mass = 66.70 ± 10.68 kg) and 21 in the strengthening group (age = 26.43 ± 5.55 years, height = 171.62 ± 5.87 cm, mass = 68.67 ± 10.18 kg). Both groups performed a 30-minute training protocol consisting of 3 exercises to strengthen the lower trapezius (LT) and serratus anterior muscles without overactivating the upper trapezius muscles. Participants in the scapular-orientation group were instructed to consciously activate their scapular muscles with electromyographic biofeedback and cues, whereas the strengthening group did not receive biofeedback or cues for scapular motion. Corticospinal excitability was assessed using transcranial magnetic stimulation. Scapular kinematics and muscle activation during arm elevation were also measured. After training, both groups demonstrated an increase in motor-evoked potentials in the LT (P = .004) and increases in scapular upward rotation (P = .03), LT activation (P < .001), and serratus anterior activation (P < .001) during arm elevation. Moreover, the scapular-orientation group showed higher LT activation levels during arm elevation after training than the strengthening group (P = .03). With or without biofeedback and cues, scapula-focused exercises improved scapular control and increased corticospinal excitability. Adding biofeedback and cues for scapular control during exercise helped facilitate greater LT activation, so feedback and cues are recommended during scapula-focused training.

Delineating memory reactivation in sleep with verbal and non-verbal retrieval cues.

Sleep supports memory consolidation via the reactivation of newly formed memory traces. One way to investigate memory reactivation in sleep is by exposing the sleeping brain to auditory retrieval cues; a paradigm known as targeted memory reactivation. To what extent the acoustic properties of memory cues influence the effectiveness of targeted memory reactivation, however, has received limited attention. We addressed this question by exploring how verbal and non-verbal memory cues affect oscillatory activity linked to memory reactivation in sleep. Fifty-one healthy male adults learned to associate visual stimuli with spoken words (verbal cues) and environmental sounds (non-verbal cues). Subsets of the verbal and non-verbal memory cues were then replayed during sleep. The voice of the verbal cues was either matched or mismatched to learning. Memory cues (relative to unheard control cues) prompted an increase in theta/alpha and spindle power, which have been heavily implicated in sleep-associated memory processing. Moreover, verbal memory cues were associated with a stronger increase in spindle power than non-verbal memory cues. There were no significant differences between the matched and mismatched verbal cues. Our findings suggest that verbal memory cues may be most effective for triggering memory reactivation in sleep, as indicated by an amplified spindle response.

Different learning aberrations relate to delusion-like beliefs with different contents.

The prediction error account of delusions has had success. However, its explanation of delusions with different contents has been lacking. Persecutory delusions and paranoia are the common unfounded beliefs that others have harmful intentions towards us. Other delusions include believing that one's thoughts or actions are under external control or that events in the world have specific personal meaning. We compare learning in two different cognitive tasks, probabilistic reversal learning and Kamin blocking, that have relationships to paranoid and non-paranoid delusion-like beliefs, respectively. We find that clinical high-risk status alone does not result in different behavioural results in the probabilistic reversal learning task but that an individual's level of paranoia is associated with excessive switching behaviour. During the Kamin blocking task, paranoid individuals learned inappropriately about the blocked cue. However, they also had decreased learning about the control cue, suggesting more general learning impairments. Non-paranoid delusion-like belief conviction (but not paranoia) was associated with aberrant learning about the blocked cue but intact learning about the control cue, suggesting specific impairments in learning related to cue combination. We fit task-specific computational models separately to behavioural data to explore how latent parameters vary within individuals between tasks and how they can explain symptom-specific effects. We find that paranoia is associated with low learning rates in the probabilistic reversal learning task and the blocking task. Non-paranoid delusion-like belief conviction is instead related to parameters controlling the degree and direction of similarity between cue updating during simultaneous cue presentation. These results suggest that paranoia and other delusion-like beliefs involve dissociable deficits in learning and belief updating, which, given the transdiagnostic status of paranoia, might have differential utility in predicting psychosis.

The Main Mechanisms of Mesenchymal Stem Cell-Based Treatments against COVID-19.

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has a clinical manifestation of hypoxic respiratory failure and acute respiratory distress syndrome. However, COVID-19 still lacks of effective clinical treatments so far. As a promising potential treatment against COVID-19, stem cell therapy raised recently and had attracted much attention. Here we review the mechanisms of mesenchymal stem cell-based treatments against COVID-19, and provide potential cues for the effective control of COVID-19 in the future. Literature is obtained from databases PubMed and Web of Science. Key words were chosen for COVID- 19, acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, mesenchymal stem cells, stem cell therapy, and therapeutic mechanism. Then we summarize and critically analyze the relevant articles retrieved. Mesenchymal stem cell therapy is a potential effective treatment against COVID-19. Its therapeutic efficacy is mainly reflected in reducing severe pulmonary inflammation, reducing lung injury, improving pulmonary function, protecting and repairing lung tissue of the patients. Possible therapeutic mechanisms might include immunoregulation, anti-inflammatory effect, tissue regeneration, anti-apoptosis effect, antiviral, and antibacterial effect, MSC - EVs, and so on. Mesenchymal stem cells can effectively treat COVID-19 through immunoregulation, anti-inflammatory, tissue regeneration, anti-apoptosis, anti-virus and antibacterial, MSC - EVs, and other ways. Systematically elucidating the mechanisms of mesenchymal stem cell-based treatments for COVID-19 will provide novel insights into the follow-up research and development of new therapeutic strategies in next step.

Recall of Autobiographical Memories Following Odor vs Verbal Cues Among Adults With Major Depressive Disorder

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is associated with deficits in autobiographical memory (AM) recall, which is thought to stem from disruptions in effortful recall. Understanding whether these deficits are mitigated when recall is stimulated more directly, such as by odor cues, could inform therapeutic interventions for MDD. To evaluate whether deficits in specific AM recall in MDD are mitigated when odor cues vs word cues are used to prompt memory. This cross-sectional study assessed recall of specific AMs in response to both odor cues and word cues (in a randomized, counterbalanced order) in a repeated measures design. Data were collected between September 2021 and November 2022. The study took place at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine in Pennsylvania and included adults with a primary diagnosis of MDD, according to the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview. Data were analyzed from January to June 2023. The primary outcome measure was the percentage of specific AMs recalled in response to odor-cued memories vs word-cued memories. Additional outcome measures included ratings of arousal, vividness, repetition, and recall response time for odor-cued memories vs word-cued memories. Thirty-two adults (mean [SD] age, 30.0 [10.1] years; 26 [81.3%] female; 6 [18.8%] male) with a primary diagnosis of MDD completed the study. Participants recalled more specific AMs for odor cues than word cues (mean [SD], 68.4% [20.4%] vs 52.1% [23.3%]; Cohen d, 0.78; P < .001). Additionally, odor-cued recall was rated more arousing (mean [SD], 3.0 [0.8] vs 2.6 [0.7]; Cohen d, 1.28; P < .001) and vivid (mean [SD], 3.3 [0.7] vs 3.0 [0.7]; Cohen d, 0.67; P < .001), and was slower than word-cued recall (mean [SD], 14.5 [3.6] vs 8.9 [3.4] seconds; Cohen d, 1.18; P < .001). When compared with the population mean for word cues in healthy controls (80%), participants recalled fewer specific memories in response to words (Cohen d, 1.18; P < .001), supporting the presence of overgenerality. Notably, the percentage of specific memories recalled in response to odor cues did not differ from the healthy control population mean (Cohen d, 0.26; P = .15). In this cross-sectional study, adults with MDD recalled more specific AMs in response to odor cues compared with word cues. This study suggests that AM deficits may only be observed when verbal cues are used and provides a potential new method for increasing specific AM recall in patients with MDD.

Electric field-mediated adhesive dynamics of cells inside bio-functionalised microchannels offers important cues for active control of cell-substrate adhesion.

Adhesive dynamics of cells plays a critical role in determining different biophysical processes orchestrating health and disease in living systems. While the rolling of cells on functionalised substrates having similarity with biophysical pathways appears to be extensively discussed in the literature, the effect of an external stimulus in the form of an electric field on the same remains underemphasized. Here, we bring out the interplay of fluid shear and electric field on the rolling dynamics of adhesive cells in biofunctionalised micro-confinements. Our experimental results portray that an electric field, even restricted to low strengths within the physiologically relevant regimes, can significantly influence the cell adhesion dynamics. We quantify the electric field-mediated adhesive dynamics of the cells in terms of two key parameters, namely, the voltage-altered rolling velocity and the frequency of adhesion. The effect of the directionality of the electric field with respect to the flow direction is also analysed by studying cellular migration with electrical effects acting both along and against the flow. Our experiment, on one hand, demonstrates the importance of collagen functionalisation in the adhesive dynamics of cells through micro channels, while on the other hand, it reveals how the presence of an axial electric field can lead to significant alteration in the kinetic rate of bond breakage, thereby modifying the degree of cell-substrate adhesion and quantifying in terms of the adhesion frequency of the cells. Proceeding further forward, we offer a simple theoretical explanation towards deriving the kinetics of cellular bonding in the presence of an electric field, which corroborates favourably with our experimental outcome. These findings are likely to offer fundamental insights into the possibilities of local control of cellular adhesion via electric field mediated interactions, bearing critical implications in a wide variety of medical conditions ranging from wound healing to cancer metastasis.

Item-specific neural representations during human sleep support long-term memory.

Understanding how individual memories are reactivated during sleep is essential in theorizing memory consolidation. Here, we employed the targeted memory reactivation (TMR) paradigm to unobtrusively replaying auditory memory cues during human participants' slow-wave sleep (SWS). Using representational similarity analysis (RSA) on cue-elicited electroencephalogram (EEG), we found temporally segregated and functionally distinct item-specific neural representations: the early post-cue EEG activity (within 0 to 2,000 ms) contained comparable item-specific representations for memory cues and control cues, signifying effective processing of auditory cues. Critically, the later EEG activity (2,500 to 2,960 ms) showed greater item-specific representations for post-sleep remembered items than for forgotten and control cues, indicating memory reprocessing. Moreover, these later item-specific neural representations were supported by concurrently increased spindles, particularly for items that had not been tested prior to sleep. These findings elucidated how external memory cues triggered item-specific neural representations during SWS and how such representations were linked to successful long-term memory. These results will benefit future research aiming to perturb specific memory episodes during sleep.

Cannabis craving in response to alcohol cues in the laboratory and in daily life among adolescents ages 15-17 years.

Most adolescents who drink alcohol also use cannabis, and adolescents who use both substances experience worse long-term outcomes than adolescents who use only one or the other. Recent clinical trials with adolescents and emerging adults show that alcohol cues are associated with elevated cannabis craving in the natural environment but not in the laboratory, highlighting cross-cue reactivity as a potential intervention target. This study extends this work to a younger sample of adolescents at an earlier stage of substance use to examine the generalizability of prior findings and inform etiological mechanisms. Participants were 81 adolescents aged 15-17 years who endorsed past-month alcohol and lifetime cannabis use. They completed a laboratory cue reactivity protocol where they rated their cannabis craving during alcohol cue and control conditions. They also completed 24 days of ecological momentary assessment where they reported multiple times per day on their cannabis craving and whether alcohol cues were visible. Mixed models demonstrated lower cannabis craving following alcohol cue presentation in the laboratory compared to control cues, but higher cannabis craving during moments when alcohol was visible in daily life compared to moments when alcohol was not visible. Frequency of cannabis use at baseline was associated with greater cannabis craving in the laboratory and in daily life regardless of cue type or alcohol visibility, and cannabis craving following alcohol cue presentation in the laboratory was positively related to daily life cannabis craving across contexts. This study adds to prior work suggesting that daily life cannabis craving is elevated when alcohol cues are visible. This cross-cue reactivity may be one factor that drives and maintains alcohol and cannabis use in adolescence.

Further evidence for the role of temporal contiguity as a determinant of overshadowing.

Three experiments explored whether weakening temporal contiguity between auditory cues and an aversive outcome attenuated cue competition in an avoidance learning task with human participants. Overall, with strong temporal contiguity between auditory cues and the outcome during training (the offset of the predictive auditory signals concurred with the onset of the outcome), the target cue trained as part of a compound yielded less avoidance behaviour than the control cue trained alone, an instance of overshadowing. However, weakening temporal contiguity during training (inserting a 5-s trace) attenuated overshadowing, resulting in similar avoidance behaviour in response to the control and target cues. These results provide evidence that, as predicted by a recent modification of Pearce's configural theory, temporal contiguity is critical for determining cue competition.

Detecting depression based on facial cues elicited by emotional stimuli in video

Recently, depression research has received considerable attention and there is an urgent need for objective and validated methods to detect depression. Depression detection based on facial expressions may be a promising adjunct to depression detection due to its non-contact nature. Stimulated facial expressions may contain more information that is useful in detecting depression than natural facial expressions. To explore facial cues in healthy controls and depressed patients in response to different emotional stimuli, facial expressions of 62 subjects were collected while watching video stimuli, and a local face reorganization method for depression detection is proposed. The method extracts the local phase pattern features, facial action unit (AU) features and head motion features of a local face reconstructed according to facial proportions, and then fed into the classifier for classification. The classification accuracy was 76.25%, with a recall of 80.44% and a specificity of 83.21%. The results demonstrated that the negative video stimuli in the single-attribute stimulus analysis were more effective in eliciting changes in facial expressions in both healthy controls and depressed patients. Fusion of facial features under both neutral and negative stimuli was found to be useful in discriminating between healthy controls and depressed individuals. The Pearson correlation coefficient (PCC) showed that changes in the emotional stimulus paradigm were more strongly correlated with changes in subjects’ facial AU when exposed to negative stimuli compared to stimuli of other attributes. These results demonstrate the feasibility of our proposed method and provide a framework for future work in assisting diagnosis.