Subjective stress and proactive and reactive cognitive control strategies

The impact of induced stress on reactive and proactive control in depression

Background

Depression, a widespread mental health issue, is often marked by impaired cognitive control, particularly in managing proactive and reactive processes. The Dual Mechanisms of Control (DMC) framework differentiates between these two modes of cognitive control: proactive control involves sustained goal maintenance, while reactive control is more stimulus-driven and transient. Stress, known to exacerbate cognitive dysfunction in depression, may influence the balance between these control processes, though the specific effects remain poorly understood. This study aimed to investigate how acute stress influences proactive and reactive control in individuals with depressive symptoms.

Methods

A total of 142 participants were divided into high-stress and control conditions and further categorized based on their depression levels, measured using the Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II). Cognitive control was assessed using the AX-Continuous Performance Task (AX-CPT), both before and after exposure to a stress-inducing anagram task, which was designed to differentiate between high-stress and low-stress conditions.

Results

Participants exposed to the high-stress condition reported significantly greater stress and fatigue levels compared to the control group, validating the stress manipulation. Although the balance between reactive and proactive control, as measured by the Proactive Behavioral Index (PBI), did not show significant changes, depressive individuals in the high-stress condition exhibited a significant decline in their ability to retain contextual information, as indicated by a reduction in the d'-context index. This suggests that depressive individuals may be more prone to stress-induced difficulties in proactive control.

Discussion

These findings highlight the selective impact of stress on proactive cognitive control in individuals with depressive symptoms, shedding light on a potential cognitive vulnerability in depression. While the balance between reactive and proactive control remained stable, the impaired retention of contextual information post-stress points to a specific deficit in proactive control. This could have implications for targeted cognitive interventions, such as cognitive control training, aimed at enhancing resilience against stress in depressive populations. Future research should explore the long-term effects of stress on cognitive control, particularly in clinically diagnosed individuals.

Poor maternal mental health is associated with a low degree of proactive control in refugee children

This study assesses the development of proactive control strategies in 100 Syrian refugee families (394 individuals) with 6- to 18-year-old children currently living in Turkish communities. The results demonstrate that children's age and their mothers' post-traumatic stress symptoms were associated with the degree of proactive control in their children, with worse mental health being associated with a larger reliance on reactive control and lesser reliance on proactive, future-oriented, control (measured via d' in the AX-CPT task). None of the following factors contributed to children's performance: fathers' experience with post-traumatic stress, parents' exposure to potentially traumatic war-related events, perceived discrimination, a decline in socio-economic status, religious beliefs, parents' proactive control strategies, or the education or gender of the children themselves. The association between mothers' mental health and proactive control strategies in children was large (in terms of effect size), suggesting that supporting mothers' mental health might have clear effects on the development of their children.

Flexible processing of distractor stimuli under stress

Acute stress is assumed to affect executive processing of stimulus information, although extant studies have yielded heterogeneous findings. The temporal flanker task, in which a target stimulus is preceded by a distractor of varying utility, offers a means of investigating various components involved in the adjustment of information processing and conflict control. Both behavioral and EEG data obtained with this task suggest stronger distractor-related response activation in conditions associated with higher predictivity of the distractor for the upcoming target. In two experiments we investigated distractor-related processing and conflict control after inducing acute stress (Trier Social Stress Test). Although the stressed groups did not differ significantly from unstressed control groups concerning behavioral markers of attentional adjustment (i.e., Proportion Congruent Effect), or event-related sensory components in the EEG (i.e., posterior P1 and N1), the lateralized readiness potential demonstrated reduced activation evoked by (predictive) distractor information under stress. Our results suggest flexible adjustment of attention under stress but hint at decreased usage of nominally irrelevant stimulus information for biasing response selection.

A biobehavioral examination of emotional eating in adolescents: Evaluating the role of acute cortisol stress reactivity in the context of a multi-method assessment of eating in response to stress

Stress is linked to emotional eating among adolescents, which in turn increases risk for overweight/obesity (OW/OB) development and continuation. There is a lack of research disentangling chronic and acute stress as predictors of adolescent emotional eating. Further, there is a corresponding need to understand the effects of acute physiological stress reactivity within the context of adolescent emotional eating. The primary aim of this study was to examine the impact of cortisol stress reactivity on emotional eating in adolescents, above and beyond the effects of perceived chronic stress. The impact of subjective stress reactivity was also explored. Adolescents' (N = 49) intake of highly palatable snack foods was measured on separate control and stress-induction (following the Trier Social Stress Test for Children) days. A multi-method approach was used to assess objective (caloric intake) and subjective (self-report) emotional eating. Results indicated that greater cortisol reactivity, but not subjective stress reactivity, predicted subjective emotional eating, beyond the impact of chronic stress. Neither chronic stress nor subjective or objective stress reactivity predicted objective emotional eating following stress-induction. Findings point to the role of chronic stress and cortisol reactivity as risks for greater perceived emotional eating among adolescents, while elucidating differences between perceived and objective emotional eating. Future research should explore how chronic versus acute stress differentially contribute to adolescent weight management.

Experimental Manipulation of Guided Attention to the Shoulder Movement Task in Clinical Dohsa-hou Induces Shifts in the Reactive Mode and Indicates Flexible Cognitive Control Performance

The empirical basis for self-control in Dohsa-hou as it relates to effects on cognitive processes has been explored in a few studies of the Japanese psychotherapy, but not under standardized conditions with a strong predictive theory of control. This study reports on a series of experiments with the Dual Mechanisms of Control framework to clarify the possible regulatory mechanism of Dohsa-hou by focusing on shoulder movement, a key body movement task used by practitioners across applied settings. Cognitive control was operationalized with the AX version of Continuous Performance Test (AX-CPT) paradigm for proactive control and a modified Stroop task paradigm for reactive control in a 3-arm parallel group trial study design. Healthy Japanese university students were assigned to a Dohsa-hou group that performed a shoulder movement task for few minutes, an active control group that performed a similar task, or a passive control group comprised of a resting condition. A total of 55 participants performed the AX-CPT and 57 participants performed the modified Stroop task before and after the group manipulation. In the AX-CPT, an increase in the error rate of AY (true cue-false probe) trial from pre- to post-test was observed in the passive control group only, and found to be marginally higher in the passive control group relative to Dohsa-hou group at post-test. This indicated that Dohsa-hou moderated the activation of proactive control by repeated AX-CPT performance. The error rate of the Proactive Behavioral Index did not differ from zero at post-test only in the Dohsa-hou group, indicating flexible cognitive control. In the modified Stroop task, there was no difference between congruent and incongruent trials at post-test for the Dohsa-hou group only, indicating the facilitation of reactive control. The evidence for a balancing effect for the Dohsa-hou-based shoulder movement task indicates that clients experience a form of continuous self-monitoring, which might reduce mind-wandering from their focus on movement execution combined with iterative verbal feedback from the therapist. Overall, the results of the present study suggest that the self-regulatory mechanism promoted in clinical Dohsa-hou emphasizes guided shifts in attention to the reactive mode toward a balance of cognitive control.