Emotional Modulation Research Articles

BackgroundThere are many conflicting findings on the gaze cueing effect (GCE) of emotional facial expressions. This study aimed to investigate whether an averted gaze, accompanied by a fearful expression of different durations, could enhance attentional orientation, as measured by a participant’s eye movements.MethodsTwelve participants (3 females) completed the gaze cue task, reacting to a target location after observing changes in the gaze and expression of a face illustrated on a computer screen. Meanwhile, participants’ eye movements were monitored by electrooculography. The GCE was calculated by reaction time as an indicator of attention shift.ResultsThe analysis of the overall data did not find a significant effect of fearful facial expressions on the GCE. However, analysis of trial data that excluded a participant’s eye movement data showed that brief (0, 100 ms) presentation of the fearful facial expression enhanced the GCE compared to that during a neutral facial expression, although when the presentation time of the fearful expression was increased to 200 or 400 ms, the GCE of the fearful expression was at the same level as when model showed a neutral expression.ConclusionsThe results suggest that the attention-enhancing effect of gaze cues induced by rapidly presented fearful expressions occurs only when the effect of eye movement trials is excluded. This effect may be mediated by reflexively neural circuits in the amygdala that process threatening stimuli. However, as the expression duration increased, the fearful expression’s attention-enhancing effect decreased. We suggest that future studies on the emotion modulation of GCE should consider the negative effects of participants’ saccades and blinks on the experimental results.

BackgroundMigraine is a highly disabling health burden with multiple symptoms; however, it remains undertreated because of an inadequate understanding of its neural mechanisms. Neuropeptide Y (NPY) has been demonstrated to be involved in the modulation of pain and emotion, and may play a role in migraine pathophysiology. Changes in NPY levels have been found in patients with migraine, but whether and how these changes contribute to migraine is unknown. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate the role of NPY in migraine-like phenotypes.MethodsHere, we used intraperitoneal injection of glyceryl trinitrate (GTN, 10 mg/kg) as a migraine mouse model, which was verified by light-aversive test, von Frey test, and elevated plus maze test. We then performed whole-brain imaging with NPY-GFP mice to explore the critical regions where NPY was changed by GTN treatment. Next, we microinjected NPY into the medial habenula (MHb), and further infused Y1 or Y2 receptor agonists into the MHb, respectively, to detect the effects of NPY in GTN-induced migraine-like behaviors.ResultsGTN effectively triggered allodynia, photophobia, and anxiety-like behaviors in mice. After that, we found a decreased level of GFP+ cells in the MHb of GTN-treated mice. Microinjection of NPY attenuated GTN-induced allodynia and anxiety without affecting photophobia. Furthermore, we found that activation of Y1—but not Y2—receptors attenuated GTN-induced allodynia and anxiety.ConclusionsTaken together, our data support that the NPY signaling in the MHb produces analgesic and anxiolytic effects through the Y1 receptor. These findings may provide new insights into novel therapeutic targets for the treatment of migraine.Graphical

Using a cross-sectional survey study with undergraduate students (N = 1257; M age = 20; 908 women) in the United States, this paper examined college students' use of social media for coping and its association with COVID-19-related worries (loneliness, interpersonal stress, anxiety) and mental health outcomes (depression, generalized anxiety, and life satisfaction). Undergraduate students were found to use social media frequently during the pandemic to socially connect with others online and to modulate negative emotions. Structural equation modeling revealed that COVID-19-related worries were positively related to social media use for coping and that coping using social media was negatively related to general mental health concerns (depression, generalized anxiety) and positively associated with general mental health wellness (i.e., life satisfaction). Implications of using social media for coping during the pandemic for college student mental health are discussed.

Chronic pain can cause both hyperalgesia and anxiety symptoms. However, how the two components are encoded in the brain remains unclear. The prelimbic cortex (PrL), a critical brain region for both nociceptive and emotional modulations, serves as an ideal medium for comparing how the two components are encoded. We report that PrL neurons projecting to the basolateral amygdala (PrLBLA) and those projecting to the ventrolateral periaqueductal gray (PrLl/vlPAG) were segregated and displayed elevated and reduced neuronal activity, respectively, during pain chronicity. Consistently, optogenetic suppression of the PrL-BLA circuit reversed anxiety-like behaviors, whereas activation of the PrL-l/vlPAG circuit attenuated hyperalgesia in mice with chronic pain. Moreover, mechanistic studies indicated that elevated TNF-α/TNFR1 signaling in the PrL caused increased insertion of GluA1 receptors into PrLBLA neurons and contributed to anxiety-like behaviors in mice with chronic pain. Together, these results provide insights into the circuit and molecular mechanisms in the PrL for controlling pain-related hyperalgesia and anxiety-like behaviors.

Essential oils are a mixture of natural aromatic volatile oils extracted from plants. The use of essential oils is ancient, and has prevailed in different cultures around the world, such as those of the Egyptians, Greeks, Persians, and Chinese. Today, essential oils are used in traditional and complimentary medicines, aromatherapy, massage therapies, cosmetics, perfumes and food industries. The screening effect of essential oils has been studied worldwide. They demonstrate a range of biological activities, such as antiparasitic, antifungal, antibacterial, antiviral, antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anticancer, antiaging, and neuroprotective properties. In this scoping review, we provide a 10-year updated comprehensive assessment of volatile oils and their effects on the nervous system. MEDLINE, Scopus, and Google Scholar were systematically and strategically searched for original studies investigating these effects from 2012 to 2022. Approximately seventy studies were selected as included studies. Among these studies, several outcomes were reported, including antistress, antianxiety, analgesic, cognitive, and autonomic effects. Some essential oils showed developmental benefits, with the potential to induce neurite outgrowth. The neurotransmitter receptor level can also be modified by essential oil application. Physiological and pathophysiological outcome measures were reported. For physiological outcomes, arousal, cognitive performance, circadian eating behavior, emotional modulation, consumer acceptance, preferences, and willingness to buy were investigated. For pathophysiological conditions, pain, depression, anxiety, stress, sleep disorder, mental fatigue, agitated behavior, and quality of life were measured. In conclusion, essential oils showed promising effects on the nervous system, which can be further applied to their use in functional foods, drinks, and alternative therapy.

Habenula functional connectivity variability increases with disease severity in individuals with major depression

Female sexual behavior is under the complex influence of psycho-emotional, neuroendocrine and social factors. The realization of normal sexual activity in women is possible if many conditions are met and, first of all, ensuring a positive psycho-emotional background, safety, a satisfactory state of health, as well as comfortable interpersonal relationships for most women. In addition to significant psychological and social impact, accumulated modern scientific data confirm the important role of neuro-hormonal regulation of sexual behavior and suggest the potential effectiveness of pharmacological therapy. Unfortunately, however, medical strategies for correcting female sexual disorders are limited. Currently, in some countries, several drugs that increase female sexual activity are allowed for use, however, all of them are not registered and are not approved for use on the territory of the Russian Federation. The article briefly describes the neural mechanisms of the main areas of the central nervous system underlying receptivity and sexual attraction, namely the olfactory and limbic systems, the neocortex. The main attention is paid to the function of neurotransmitters and hormones that are critically involved in the modulation of emotions and sexual behavior, including the inhibitory mediator of gamma aminobutyric acid (GABA), estrogens, testosterone, and the excitatory mediator glutamate. The stages of development, the results of experimental and clinical studies to assess the effectiveness and safety of the unique Russian neuropeptide drug Desirex, which is a stimulant of sexual behavior due to the mechanism of reversible suppression of the GABAergic system, nonspecific stimulation of the dopaminergic system of motivation and reinforcement of positive emotions and disinhibition of the controlling function of the neocortex, are presented in detail.

It has been shown that the perceiver’s mood affects the perception of emotional faces, but it is not known how mood affects preattentive brain responses to emotional facial expressions. To examine the question, we experimentally induced sad and neutral mood in healthy adults before presenting them with task-irrelevant pictures of faces while an electroencephalography was recorded. Sad, happy, and neutral faces were presented to the participants in an ignore oddball condition. Differential responses (emotional – neutral) for the P1, N170, and P2 amplitudes were extracted and compared between neutral and sad mood conditions. Emotional facial expressions modulated all the components, and an interaction effect of expression by mood was found for P1: an emotional modulation to happy faces, which was found in neutral mood condition, disappeared in sad mood condition. For N170 and P2, we found larger response amplitudes for both emotional faces, regardless of the mood. The results add to the previous behavioral findings showing that mood already affects low-level cortical feature encoding of task-irrelevant faces.

Research has been looking into neural pathophysiology of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and dynamic functioning connectivity (dFC) applying resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI). Previous studies showed that PTSD related impairments are associated with alterations distributed across different brain regions and disorganized functional connectivity, especially in Default Mode Network and the cerebellar area. In this study, we specifically looked into dFC on a whole brain level, and we focused on critical regions such as DMN and cerebellum. To explore the characteristics of dFC among patients with PTSD, we collected rs-fMRI data from 27 PTSD patients and 30 healthy controls. The study also added a control group of 33 trauma-exposed individuals to further look into trauma impact. Utilizing group spatial independent component analysis (ICA), the dynamic properties on whole brain level were detected with sliding time window approach, and k-means clustering. Two reoccurring FC "States" were identified, with connections being more concentrated on a within-network level in one state and more strongly inter-connected in the other state. Abnormalities in dFC were found within DMN, between DMN and cerebellum, and between DMN and visual network for PTSD patients. The findings were in accordance with the study hypothesis that the dFC alterations might point to deficits in emotional modulation and dysfunctional self-referential thought. Abnormalities in dFC among PTSD patients might also be indicators of PTSD symptoms including depression and anxiety, hypervigilance, impaired cognitive functioning and self-referential information processing.

Functional connectivity profiles of the default mode and visual networks reflect temporal accumulative effects of sustained naturalistic emotional experience

Using a foreign language can influence emotion modulation, but whether different psychotherapy processes would be affected by a foreign language is still unclear. The current study explored the foreign language effect on the extinction of fear. During the conditioning phase, part of the neutral stimuli presented to the participants were associated with a threat, while they performed a countdown task in their native language. In the extinction phase, participants performed the same task either in their native/foreign language and were informed that the threat would no longer appear. We collected self-reports of fear, and pupil dilation and electrodermal activity as physiological measures of arousal. Extinction was successful, indicated by greater self-reported fear and pupil dilation during the threat condition compared to neutral in the conditioning phase, but no significant differences during extinction. Although the foreign language group presented higher arousal, fear extinction occurred regardless of the linguistic context. Fear extinction via verbal instructions is equally effective in a foreign and a native language context. These results indicate that evidence should be continue to be gathered on the role of foreign languages using basic paradigms with clinical applications.

The factors that affect learning efficiency in different environments have been considered in many studies, but multimode mood-consistent learning has not been considered specifically. In this paper, a neural network circuit based on memristors to determine multimode mood consistency and mood dependency was constructed. The circuit is composed of a voltage control module, an emotion module, and a synaptic neuron module. Through the voltage control module and emotion module, learning materials with different properties are input into the synaptic neurons. The learning efficiency of different learning materials under different emotions was analyzed in detail. A dual-channel mood-consistent learning was realized, and the mood dependency was further considered. The influence of different channels on the learning was studied to provide ideas for the future development of intelligent brain-like neural networks.

The calculation of the difference in peaks of the event-related potential in men during exposure to different-sex faces with differential emotional modality using the MATLAB and EEGLAB software packages. The electrical activity of the brain of 20 male students of Taras Shevchenko Kyiv National University was recorded to identify the difference in the activation of brain structures during the demonstration of portraits of different sexes with positive and negative emotional modalities. Statistically significant differences in peak amplitude were recorded for components N250, N400, and P300 when subjects were presented with male and female portraits with a positive emotional modality, while when exposed to a series of images with a negative emotional modality, no statistical differences were registered in any of the componenStatistically significant differences in the peak amplitude were recorded for the N250, N400, and P300 components when subjects were presented with male and female portraits with a positive emotional modality, while when exposed to a series of images with a negative emotional modality, no statistical differences were registered in any of the components.

Aim: To study the characteristics of brain activity in male patients with recurrent and bipolar depression. Design: This was a comparative controlled non-randomized experimental clinical study. Materials and Methods: 59 male patients took part in this study before their medication started: 30 with bipolar and 29 with unipolar (recurrent) depression. Control group consisted of 27 healthy male volunteers. All investigated persons were aged 20 to 59 years. The participants had to sort photos of people and animals, of which 80 were neutral images and 80 showed angry/aggressive people or animals. Simple patterns (cues) were displayed two seconds prior to the pictures, and their relationship was not explained. A 128-channel EEG was recorded and brain responses were analyzed in 0–700 ms from cue onset. Differences between the neutral and emotional conditions (emotional modulation, EM) were statistically evaluated. Results: All components in this study (P100, N170/VPP, P200, P380, and LPC/LPP) in various degrees showed EM dependent on the group and on the type of threatening stimuli. Topography of EM for N170/VPP in all groups and both types of stimuli was quite similar. None of the components unambiguously distinguished between the controls and nosographically different depressions. Conclusion: Our results show that in the study of affective disorders and the search for markers for diagnosis, it is necessary not only to take into account the gender of patients, but also to use various cognitive tasks when recording EEG, and also to consider a set of neurophysiological parameters. Keywords: emotional modulation, electroencephalogram, recurrent depression, bipolar depression, visual evoked potentials.

Distance learning with its virtual settings has launched the transformation of education delivery, pedagogy, and classroom management. Consequently, it could cause educational discourse transformation in higher education as well. The research is focused on revealing educational discourse transformation in distance learning. Besides, the paper answers the following research questions: how university teachers communicate with students in virtual classrooms; what language patterns they use for giving instructions; whether verbal communication between teachers and students has crucially changed in digitally-based education. A mixed method approach (discourse analysis of 12 video-recorded lessons of ESL university teachers and the survey of students (n = 45)) makes it possible to shed light on the state of play in virtual educational discourse. The paper reveals that 1) communication in virtual classrooms depends on pedagogical activities which allows classifying educational language models into the following categories – preparation of teaching material presentation online, student engagement in an activity online, giving instruction on how to use EdTech, and expressing emotions or attitude; 2) university teachers use special language patterns for giving instructions related to using ICT tools and apps, e.g. screen sharing, chatting and emotional modality; 3) verbal communication between teachers and students except for linguistic and extra-linguistic features includes informal modes of communication – chat emojis and signs. The findings highlight that educational discourse has crucially changed in digitally-based education and has transformed into virtual educational discourse. The insights of the paper can contribute to the investigation of virtual educational discourse analysis.

Schizophrenia is a complex disorder involving deficits in both cognitive and emotional processes. Specifically, a marked deficit in cognitive control has been found, which seems to increase when dealing with emotional information. With the aim of exploring the possible common links behind cognitive and emotional deficits, two versions of the emotional Stroop task were administered. In the cognitive-emotional task, participants had to name the ink colour (while ignoring the meaning) of emotional words. In contrast, the emotional-emotional task consisted of emotional words superimposed on emotional faces, and the participants had to indicate the emotional valence of the faces. Fifty-eight participants (29 in-patients diagnosed with schizophrenia and 29 controls) took part in the study. Patients and controls showed similar response times in the cognitive-emotional task; however, patients were significantly slower than controls in the emotional-emotional task. This result supports the idea that patients show a more pronounced impairment in conflict modulation with emotional content. Besides, no significant correlations between the tasks and positive or negative symptoms were found. This would indicate that deficits are relatively independent of the clinical status of patients. However, a significant correlation between the emotional-emotional task and cognitive symptoms was found. These findings suggest a restricted capacity of patients with schizophrenia to deal with the attentional demands arising from emotional stimuli.

This contribution to the Forum analyzes narratives unfolding among Estonian Russian speakers who expose different attitudes towards the war in Ukraine. For this analysis the author selected several media platforms and public figures whose speaking positions are representative and typical for - and duly reflect - the entire spectrum of the current Russophone discourses in Estonia. The analysis singles out three distinct yet interconnected discursive positions that prominently feature in the Russophone milieu - pragmatic, popularly geopolitical and counter-normative.

Testing stimulus exposure time as the critical factor of increased EPN and LPP amplitudes for fearful faces during perceptual distraction tasks

Abstract This paper outlines a philosophical approach to emotional abilities. It sets out by charting different dimensions of emotional abilities, emphasising the distinction between the ability of an agent to develop an emotional repertoire and the ability to appropriately adapt specific emotions to specific situations. The paper elucidates this latter ability by focusing on two distinct varieties of it. First, there is a more active, explicit modulation of emotions. Second, there is also an implicit mode of emotion modulation that is habitualised. This implicit mode will then be characterised more precisely by means of a phenomenological differentiation between feeling and emotion and by means of the concept of an affective position-taking (Stellungnahme) towards one’s own bodily affectedness. Only the implicit mode can appear on its own, while the explicit mode aims to be habitualised and thus to transition into the implicit mode. By means of the implicit mode, emotionally competent agents can adapt elastically to the situation. The concept of emotional change of aspect is explained by way of an example. Finally, further consequences for a philosophical approach to emotional abilities are formulated.

Do emotional modulation induced by social rejection or social inclusion influences paranoia-like thoughts? The Autobiographical memory recall and Cyberball paradigms in two online studies