Mild Threat Research Articles

Monkeying around: Non-human primate behavioural responses to humans reproducing their facial expressions

People are often observed mimicking animals’ facial expressions in an attempt to communicate with them. However, to date, there is limited understanding of how animals respond to humans reproducing their facial displays, or if this type of human behaviour presents a risk for either human safety or animal welfare. In the present study, we investigated how Barbary macaques (Macaca sylvanus) responded to pictures of humans and conspecifics displaying their facial expressions. Macaques viewed pictures of neutral, mildly threatening or highly threatening human or macaque faces. We recorded aggressive, submissive, and self-directed behaviours exhibited by individuals while in front of each stimulus. Macaques displayed more self-scratching toward human neutral face compared to the corresponding macaque face, and vice versa for the mild threat. They also exhibited more aggressive behaviours toward macaque neutral and mildly threatening stimuli compared to the human stimuli. However, macaques did not display any more submissive behaviour between human and macaque for any facial stimuli. There was also no significant difference in behavioural responses for highly threatening faces between species. These findings suggest that while the reproduced facial expression by humans might carry meaning for macaques, their responses vary between species. Therefore, these results highlight some potential issues for facial signalling (mis)communication between species, which has implications for animal welfare and human safety.

Dissecting the brain's fear systems responding to snake threats.

We examined the behavioural responses and Fos expression pattern of rats that were exposed to snake threats from shed snakeskin and a live snake. We differentiated the behavioural responses and the pattern of Fos expression in response to the odour cues and mild threat from a live snake. Animals exposed to the snake odour alone or to the confined snake showed a great deal of risk assessment. Conversely, the intensification of odour during exposure to the live snake decreased the threat ambiguity, and the animals froze for a significantly longer period. Our Fos analysis showed that a pathway formed by the posteroventral part of the medial amygdalar nucleus to the central part of the ventromedial hypothalamic nucleus appeared to be solely responsive to odour cues. In addition, we showed increased Fos expression in a parallel circuit comprising the lateral amygdalar nucleus, ventral subiculum, lateral septum, and juxtadorsomedial region of the lateral hypothalamic area that is responsive to both the odour and mild threat from a live snake. This path is likely to process the environmental boundaries of the threat to be avoided. Both paths merge into the dorsal premammillary nucleus and periaqueductal grey sites, which all increase Fos expression in response to the snake threats and are likely to organize the defensive responses. Moreover, we found that the snake threat mobilized the Edinger-Westphal and supraoculomotor nuclei, which are involved in stress adaptation and attentional mechanisms.

Avoidance of mild threat observed in generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) using eye tracking

Attentional biases towards threat are assumed to be a causal factor in the development of anxiety disorders, including generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). However, findings have been inconsistent, and studies often examine single time-point bias during threat exposure, instead of across time. Attention to threat may shift throughout exposure (e.g., from initial engagement to avoidance), and research suggests that threat intensity and state anxiety influence attentional biases. No studies to our knowledge have examined biases across time and with varying threat intensity and state anxiety. Participants with GAD (n=38) and non-anxious controls (n=25) viewed emotional (high threat, mild threat, and positive) and neutral image pairs under calm and anxious mood states while their eye movements were tracked. Participants showed an initial orientation to emotional images, and, under the anxious mood induction, demonstrated a bias towards threatening images at first fixation and over time. Results suggest it may be normative to attend to threat cues over other stimuli while in an anxious state. Individuals with GAD uniquely showed a bias away from mild (but not high) threat images over time relative to controls. Implications for theories of attentional biases to threat and clinical implications for GAD and anxiety disorders broadly are discussed.

Self-protecting motivation, indexed by self-threat, modifies retrieval-induced-forgetting and confidence in employment decision bias against out-group targets

Human memory is malleable by both social and motivational factors and holds information relevant to workplace decisions. Retrieval-induced forgetting (RIF) describes a phenomenon where retrieval practice impairs subsequent memory for related (unpracticed) information. We report two RIF experiments. Chinese participants received a mild self-threat manipulation (Experiment 2) or not (Experiment 1) before an ethnicity-RIF task that involved practicing negative traits of either in-group (Chinese) or an out-group (Japanese) target. After a subsequent memory test, participants selected their preferred applicant for employment. RIF scores correspond to forgetting of unpracticed positive traits of one target (Rp−) relative to the recall of practiced negative traits of the other target (Rp+). Enhanced forgetting of positive traits was found in both experiments for both targets. Across experiments, a significant target by threat interaction showed that target ethnicity modified RIF (an ethnicity-RIF effect). Inducing a self-protecting motivation enhanced RIF effects for the out-group (Japanese) target. In a subsequent employment decision, there was a strong bias to select the in-group target, with the confidence in these decisions being associated with RIF scores. This study suggests that rehearsing negative traits of minority applicants can affect metacognitive aspects of employment decisions, possibly by shaping the schemas available to the majority (in-group) employer. To disrupt systemic racism, recruitment practices should aim to offset a human motivation to protect one-self, when exposed to a relatively mild threat to self-esteem. Discussing the negative traits of minority applicants is a critical, and sensitive, aspect of decision-making that warrants careful practice. These data suggest that recruiting individuals should be reminded of their personal strengths in this context, not their vulnerabilities, to secure their decision-making for fairer recruitment practice.

Magnitude of Anemia and Socio Demographic Factors Associated With It Among Adults Age 15-49 Years In Ethiopia: A Population Based Study Using The 2016 Demographic and Health Survey Data

Background: According to World Health Organization (WHO); anemia considered as a major public threat when prevalence was greater than 40%, a moderate public threat from 20-40%, and as a mild threat from 5-20%. This study aims to assess the prevalence of anemia and its associated socio demographic factors among adults age 15-49 years in Ethiopia. Methods: Demographic and Health Surveys in 2016, in Ethiopia were analyzed in SPSS, using multivariate logistic regression. Socio demographic variables were selected based on their availability in the dataset. Results: Of the total sample of 27289 of men and women 15-49 years at the time of survey, 19.8 % (n = 5078) anemia. Men and women 15-49 years living in rural areas 0.029 (AOR 0.029 ; 95% CI:0.018-0.048) ,men and women age living in afar region 0.821 (AOR 0.821; 95% CI: 0.725--0.929) , men and women who are in lowest wealth quintile 1.255 (AOR 1.255; 95% CI: 1.091-1.445) and an increase in one-year in age 9.952 (95% CI 6.2 to 16.1) were found significant predictors of anemia. Conclusions: The magnitude of anemia in the current study was found to be a mild public health problem. Rural residence, low wealth quartile and old age were predictors of anemia among adults Age 15-49 years. There is significant urban-rural difference in anemia prevalence, indicating the need for targeting specific areas for intervention.

Care vs Food as an Emotional Regulation Strategy in Elementary School Children: The Role of the Attachment Style

According to attachment theory, potentially threatening stimuli tend to activate the attachment system for the search of the protective figure. In secure attachments, the experience of responsive relationships increases the probability of resorting to available figures as a strategy for regulating emotions in stressful situations. The aim of the research was to verify whether, in conditions of mild threat, children’s attachment styles affect the choice between caring relationships and food as a form of emotion regulation. We used a mixed experimental design to perform this research. Here, we presented children (N = 65; Mage= 9.4) with threatening and neutral images and, afterwards, asked them to select from images of caring relationship or images of food. The results indicate that securely and ambivalently attached but not avoidantly attached children under both the neutral and threatening image conditions chose the care pictures over the food pictures. Second, only the securely attached increased their choice of care over food images in the threatening condition, and third, this difference was significant when compared with the avoidant children. In conclusion, the results show that although in general the choice of care is primary with respect to food, children with insecure attachments differ from secure children between the two options of emotional regulation.

Behavioural characterisation of chronic unpredictable stress based on ethologically relevant paradigms in rats

The chronic unpredictable stress (CUS) paradigm is extensively used in preclinical research. However, CUS exhibits translational inconsistencies, some of them resulting from the use of adult rodents, despite the evidence that vulnerability for many psychiatric disorders accumulates during early life. Here, we assessed the validity of the CUS model by including ethologically-relevant paradigms in juvenile rats. Thus, socially-isolated (SI) rats were submitted to CUS and compared with SI (experiment 1) and group-housed controls (experiment 1 and 2). We found that lower body-weight gain and hyperlocomotion, instead of sucrose consumption and preference, were the best parameters to monitor the progression of CUS, which also affected gene expression and neurotransmitter contents associated with that CUS-related phenotype. The behavioural characterisation after CUS placed locomotion and exploratory activity as the best stress predictors. By employing the exploratory factor analysis, we reduced each behavioural paradigm to few latent variables which clustered into two general domains that strongly predicted the CUS condition: (1) hyper-responsivity to novelty and mild threats, and (2) anxiety/depressive-like response. Altogether, the analyses of observable and latent variables indicate that early-life stress impairs the arousal-inhibition system leading to augmented and persistent responses towards novel, rewarding, and mildly-threatening stimuli, accompanied by lower body-weight gain.

Finishing the Picture

Finishing the Picture

Assessment of tea garden soils at An'xi County in southeast China reveals a mild threat from contamination of potentially harmful elements.

An extensive study of the spatial distribution characteristics of potentially harmful elements (PHEs) in tea (Camellia sinensis (L.) O. Kuntze) garden soils and ecological risk assessment at An'xi County, the birthplace of oolong tea in China, was implemented. A total of 78 soil samples were examined to determine the concentration of five PHEs (As, Cd, Cr, Hg and Pb), soil organic matter and pH by using geostatistical approaches combined with geographical information system analysis. All PHEs presented in the study area were slightly higher than their background values for provincial and national standards except Cr. Moreover, ecological risk assessment of PHEs in the tea garden soils at An'xi County was performed by means of the Håkanson method. The average ecological potential risk index (Er) of the five PHEs followed a descending order of Cd > Hg > Pb > As > Cr, and suggested a moderate ecological risk in the study area.

The nature and distribution of affiliative behaviour during exposure to mild threat.

Individual reactions to danger in humans are often characterized as antisocial and self-preservative. Yet, more than 50 years of research have shown that humans often seek social partners and behave prosocially when confronted by danger. This research has relied on post hoc verbal reports, which fall short of capturing the more spontaneous reactions to danger and determine their social nature. Real-world responses to danger are difficult to observe, due to their evanescent nature. Here, we took advantage of a series of photographs freely accessible online and provided by a haunted house attraction, which enabled us to examine the more immediate reactions to mild threat. Regarding the nature and structure of affiliative behaviour and their motivational correlates, we were able to analyse the distribution of gripping, a behaviour that could either be linked to self- or other-oriented protection. We found that gripping, an affiliative behaviour, was common, suggestive of the social nature of human immediate reactions to danger. We also found that, while gripping behaviour is quite stable across group sizes, mutual gripping dropped dramatically as group size increases. The fact that mutual gripping disappears when the number of available partners increases suggests that gripping behaviour most probably reflects a self-preservative motivation. We also found age class differences, with younger individuals showing more gripping but receiving little reciprocation. Also, the most exposed individuals received little mutual gripping. Altogether, these results suggest that primary reactions to threat in humans are driven by affiliative tendencies serving self-preservative motives.

Gamma-band activity reflects attentional guidance by facial expression

Facial expressions attract attention due to their motivational significance. Previous work focused on attentional biases towards threat-related, fearful faces, although healthy participants tend to avoid mild threat. Growing evidence suggests that neuronal gamma (>30Hz) and alpha-band activity (8–12Hz) play an important role in attentional selection, but it is unknown if such oscillatory activity is involved in the guidance of attention through facial expressions. Thus, in this magnetoencephalography (MEG) study we investigated whether attention is shifted towards or away from fearful faces and characterized the underlying neuronal activity in these frequency ranges in forty-four healthy volunteers. We employed a covert spatial attention task using neutral and fearful faces as task-irrelevant distractors and emotionally neutral Gabor patches as targets. Participants had to indicate the tilt direction of the target. Analysis of the neuronal data was restricted to the responses to target Gabor patches. We performed statistical analysis at the sensor level and used subsequent source reconstruction to localize the observed effects. Spatially selective attention effects in the alpha and gamma band were revealed in parieto-occipital regions. We observed an attentional cost of processing the face distractors, as reflected in lower task performance on targets with short stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA <150ms) between faces and targets. On the neuronal level, attentional orienting to face distractors led to enhanced gamma band activity in bilateral occipital and parietal regions, when fearful faces were presented in the same hemifield as targets, but only in short SOA trials. Our findings provide evidence that both top-down and bottom-up attentional biases are reflected in parieto-occipital gamma-band activity.

Emotion Evaluation and Response Slowing in a Non-Human Primate: New Directions for Cognitive Bias Measures of Animal Emotion?

The cognitive bias model of animal welfare assessment is informed by studies with humans demonstrating that the interaction between emotion and cognition can be detected using laboratory tasks. A limitation of cognitive bias tasks is the amount of training required by animals prior to testing. A potential solution is to use biologically relevant stimuli that trigger innate emotional responses. Here; we develop a new method to assess emotion in rhesus macaques; informed by paradigms used with humans: emotional Stroop; visual cueing and; in particular; response slowing. In humans; performance on a simple cognitive task can become impaired when emotional distractor content is displayed. Importantly; responses become slower in anxious individuals in the presence of mild threat; a pattern not seen in non-anxious individuals; who are able to effectively process and disengage from the distractor. Here; we present a proof-of-concept study; demonstrating that rhesus macaques show slowing of responses in a simple touch-screen task when emotional content is introduced; but only when they had recently experienced a presumably stressful veterinary inspection. Our results indicate the presence of a subtle “cognitive freeze” response; the measurement of which may provide a means of identifying negative shifts in emotion in animals.

Being Optimally Aroused Matters: Effects of a Weak Stress Manipulation on Children’s Executive Functions Are Moderated by Temperament and Age

We tested a core assumption of the bidirectional model of executive function (EF) (Blair & Ursache, 2011) indicating that EF is dependent on arousal. From a bottom-up perspective the performance on EF tasks is assumed to be curvilinearly related to arousal, with very high or low levels of arousal impairing EF. N = 107 4and 6-year-olds’ performance on EF tasks was explored as a function of a weak stress manipulation aiming to raise children’s emotional arousal. EF (Stroop, Flanker, Go/no-go, and Backwards Color Recall) was assessed and stress was induced in half of the children by imposing a mild social-evaluative threat. Furthermore, children’s temperament was assessed as a potential moderator. We found that stress effects on children’s EF performance were moderated by age and temperament: 4-year-olds with high Inhibitory Control and high Attentional Focusing were negatively affected by the stressor. However, it is unclear whether these effects were mediated by self-reported arousal. Our findings disconfirmed the hypotheses that adverse effects of the stressor are particularly high in children high on emotional reactivity aspects of temperament and low on self-regulatory aspects of temperament. Further, 6-year-olds did not show any stress effects. Results will be discussed within the framework of the Yerkes-Dodson law and with regard to stress manipulations in children.

Social learning of predators by tadpoles: does food restriction alter the efficacy of tutors as information sources?

Prey animals often need to learn the identity of unknown predators, and not surprisingly, nearby conspecifics provide a rich source of information about both the identity and risk level posed by unknown predators. Individuals that learn from watching conspecifics that show a weak response to a predator often learn that the predator is a mild threat, while those that observe conspecifics that show a strong response to the predator, learn that the predator is a high-level threat. This means that any factor that influences the intensity of the antipredator response of the tutor can potentially influence the efficacy of information transfer to the observer. We know that food resources influence the activity levels of prey, making them more or less conspicuous to nearby conspecifics. We also know that prey often ignore risk if they have restricted access to food resources. This means that food resources have the potential to dramatically change social learning dynamics. In the present study, we found that tadpoles fed restricted diets had much higher activity levels than those fed ad libitum food resources. Their high activity made them more conspicuous to nearby conspecifics, causing them to be much more efficient as tutors. Our work highlights the dynamic nature of social learning, as information transfer is likely to change considerably from place to place and year to year as resources change through space and time.

Personality predicts decision making only when information is unreliable

Phenotypic plasticity in decision making should be selected for when reliable information on current conditions is available. When current information is unreliable, however, selection should favour unresponsive behavioural phenotypes, which might lead to the emergence of personalities. We tested the hypothesis that personality will affect decision making when information is unreliable, but not when it is reliable. We measured two personality traits, boldness and anxiety, in 55 wild chacma baboons, Papio ursinus , by quantifying responses to a novel food and a mild threat, respectively, in repeated field experiments. To assess decision making under different information reliabilities, we recorded foraging decisions in two contexts. We followed the baboons as they foraged naturally with reliable information about their environment (>8900 decisions) and, to manipulate information reliability experimentally, we performed a large-scale in situ foraging experiment during which we provided the study troops with access to experimental food patches (>10 000 decisions). Importantly, the baboons could not see the food in the experimental patches until close inspection of them, and thus had unreliable information about patch quality. We found plastic foraging decisions in the presence of reliable cues, but personality-dependent decisions in the absence of such cues. Specifically, bold individuals were more likely to produce, and shy individuals scrounge, in the experimental arena but there was no effect of personality on foraging decisions under natural foraging conditions. Our results clarify the importance of information reliability in the evolution of personality and plasticity. These findings also contribute to our understanding of how individuals, and thus populations, might respond to environmental change in the future.

Dissecting the role of diazepam-sensitive γ-aminobutyric acid type A receptors in defensive behavioral reactivity to mild threat

Moderate reductions in synaptic γ-aminobutyric acidA receptors (GABAARs) have been associated with an enhanced defensive behavioral reactivity to mild threat, sensitive to diazepam. We here tested whether a deficit in α2 subunit-containing GABAergic synapses is sufficient to cause this anxiety-related phenotype and to prevent its attenuation by the benzodiazepine. Wild type (α2+/+), heterozygous (α2+/−) and homozygous (α2−/−) knock-out littermates were tested in the free-choice exploratory (FCE) and the light/dark choice (LDC) paradigms. α2−/− mice, double mutant α1H101Rα2−/− and α3H126Rα2−/− mice, which combine a lack of α2-GABAARs with point-mutated diazepam-insensitive either α1H101R or α3H126R-GABAARs, and double point-mutated α1H101Rα2H101R and α1H101Rα3H126R mice were used to uncover the GABAAR subtype(s) mediating the drug effects. Data show that in the FCE, α2−/− mice exhibited more retractions (i.e. risk assessment) and longer latencies to first occurrence into the novel compartment and less transitions and time spent inside it in comparison to α2+/− and α2+/+ mice. In the LDC, α2−/− mice visited and spent less time in the lit box and stayed longer in the tunnel than the other two groups. Minor differences were found between α2+/− and α2+/+ mice in the two paradigms. Diazepam (1.5mg/kg per os) normalized retractions and latencies in the FCE in α2−/− and α3H126Rα2−/− mice, but not in α1H101Rα2−/− mice. The same drug treatment failed to attenuate behavioral aversion in both paradigms in all mutants with impaired α2-GABAAR function. These results reveal α2-containing GABAARs as key molecular determinants in the regulation of anxiety-related responses elicited by exposure to relative novelty and mild threat. In the absence of these receptors, diazepam through activation of α1-GABAARs remains effective in reducing risk assessment, but not behavioral aversion.

Chronic partial sleep deprivation reduces brain sensitivity to glutamate N‐methyl‐d‐aspartate receptor‐mediated neurotoxicity

It has been hypothesized that insufficient sleep may compromise neuronal function and contribute to neurodegenerative processes. While sleep loss by itself may not lead to cell death directly, it may affect the sensitivity to a subsequent neurodegenerative insult. Here we examined the effects of chronic sleep restriction (SR) on the vulnerability of the brain to N-methyl-d-aspartate (NMDA)-induced excitotoxicity. Animals were kept awake 20 h per day and were only allowed to rest during the first 4 h of the light phase, i.e. their normal circadian resting phase. After 30 days of SR all rats received a unilateral injection with a neurotoxic dose of NMDA into the nucleus basalis magnocellularis (NBM). Brains were collected for assessment of damage. In the intact non-injected hemisphere, the number of cholinergic cells in the NBM and the density of their projections in the cortex were not affected by SR. In the injected hemisphere, NMDA caused a significant loss of cholinergic NBM cells and cortical fibres in all animals. However, the loss of cholinergic cells was attenuated in the SR group as compared with the controls. These data suggest that, if anything, SR reduces the sensitivity to a subsequent excitotoxic insult. Chronic SR may constitute a mild threat to the brain that does not lead to neurodegeneration by itself but prepares the brain for subsequent neurotoxic challenges. These results do not support the hypothesis that sleep loss increases the sensitivity to neurodegenerative processes.

Increased Anxiety During Anticipation of Unpredictable But Not Predictable Aversive Stimuli as a Psychophysiologic Marker of Panic Disorder

Predictability is a fundamental modulator of anxiety in that the ability to predict aversive events mitigates anxious responses. In panic disorder, persistent symptoms of anxiety are caused by anticipation of the next uncued (unpredictable) panic attack. The authors tested the hypothesis that elevated anxious reactivity, specifically toward unpredictable aversive events, is a psychophysiological correlate of panic disorder. Participants were exposed to one condition in which predictable aversive stimuli were signaled by a cue, a second condition in which aversive stimuli were administered unpredictably, and a third condition in which no aversive stimuli were anticipated. Startle was used to assess anxious responses to cues and contexts. Relative to healthy comparison subjects, patients with panic disorder displayed equivalent levels of fear-potentiated startle to the threat cue but elevated startle potentiation in the context of the unpredictable condition. Patients with panic disorder are overly sensitive to unpredictable aversive events. This vulnerability could be either a premorbid trait marker of the disorder or an acquired condition caused by the experience of uncued panic attacks. As a premorbid trait, vulnerability to unpredictability could be etiologically related to panic disorder by sensitizing an individual to danger, ultimately leading to intense fear/alarm responses to mild threats. As an acquired characteristic, such vulnerability could contribute to the maintenance and worsening of panic disorder symptoms by increasing anticipatory anxiety.

Tickled Rats and Human Laughter

The recent discovery that rats can be tickled suggests a deeper understanding of human laughter. We laugh when a system we share with other mammals is disinhibited. Laughter can thus be induced by direct action on the brain. In ordinary life, we have one physical response, laughing, but it can be induced by three very different stimuli or circumstances. One, we laugh when tickled. Two, we laugh for purely convivial, social reasons. Three, we laugh at jokes, wit, and less intellectual stimuli-like pratfalls and practical jokes. Leaving direct action on the brain aside, we can hypothesize that the latter three all involve the same psychological situation. Laughter is induced by, first, a mild, sudden, and playful threat to our ongoing process of maintaining and re-creating a personal style of responding to many things besides jokes followed by, second, the nullification of that mild threat.

Time-course of attention for threatening pictures in high and low trait anxiety

Cognitive studies about anxiety suggest that the interplay between automatic and strategic biases in attention to threat is related to the persistence of fear. In the present study, the time-course of attention to pictures with varying threat levels was investigated in high trait anxious (HTA, n = 21 ) and low trait anxious (LTA, n = 22 ) students. In a visual probe detection task, high and mild threat pictures were presented at three durations: 100, 500, and 1250 ms. Results indicated that all individuals attended to the high threat pictures for the 100 ms condition. Differential responding between HTA and LTA individuals was found for the 500 ms condition: only HTA individuals showed an attentional bias for mild threatening stimuli. For the 1250 ms condition, the HTA individuals attended away from high and mild threat pictures. The observed pattern of differential attention to threatening pictures may explain the persistence of fear in HTA individuals.