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Liu S, He Y, Guo D, Liu X, Hao X, Hu P, Ming D. Transcranial alternating current stimulation ameliorates emotional attention through neural oscillations modulation. Cogn Neurodyn 2023; 17:1473-1483. [PMID: 37969947 PMCID: PMC10640550 DOI: 10.1007/s11571-022-09880-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/28/2022] [Revised: 07/04/2022] [Accepted: 08/28/2022] [Indexed: 11/15/2022] Open
Abstract
Background Numerous clinical reports have suggested that psychopathy like schizophrenia, anxiety and depression is accompanied by early attentional abnormalities in emotional processing. Recently, the efficacy of transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) in changing emotional functioning has been repeatedly observed and demonstrated a causal relationship between endogenous oscillations and emotional processing. Aims Up to now, tACS effects on emotional attention have not yet been tested. To assess such ability, we delivered active-tACS at individual alpha frequency (IAF), 10 Hz or sham-tACS for 7 consecutive days in the bilaterally dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) to totally 79 healthy participants. Results IAF-tACS group showed significant alpha entrainment at-rest, especially in open state around stimulation area and showed an obvious advantage compared to 10 Hz-tACS. Event-related potential revealed a significant larger P200 amplitude after active-tACS and IAF group showed wider range of emotions than 10 Hz-tACS, indicating the attentional improvement in facial emotion processing. A notable positive correlation between alpha power and P200 amplitude provided an electrophysiological interpretation regarding the role of tACS in emotional attention modulation instead of somatosensory effects. Conclusion These results support a seminal outcome for the effect of IAF-tACS on emotional attention modulation, demonstrating a feasible and individual-specific therapy for neuropsychiatric disorders related to emotion processing, especially regarding oscillatory disturbances.
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Affiliation(s)
- Shuang Liu
- Academy of Medical Engineering and Translational Medicine, Tianjin University, 300072 Tianjin, China
| | - Yuchen He
- Academy of Medical Engineering and Translational Medicine, Tianjin University, 300072 Tianjin, China
| | - Dongyue Guo
- Academy of Medical Engineering and Translational Medicine, Tianjin University, 300072 Tianjin, China
| | - Xiaoya Liu
- Academy of Medical Engineering and Translational Medicine, Tianjin University, 300072 Tianjin, China
| | - Xinyu Hao
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, College of Precision Instruments and Optoelectronics Engineering, Tianjin University, 300072 Tianjin, China
| | - Pengchong Hu
- Academy of Medical Engineering and Translational Medicine, Tianjin University, 300072 Tianjin, China
| | - Dong Ming
- Academy of Medical Engineering and Translational Medicine, Tianjin University, 300072 Tianjin, China
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, College of Precision Instruments and Optoelectronics Engineering, Tianjin University, 300072 Tianjin, China
- Tianjin International Joint Research Center for Neural Engineering, 300072 Tianjin, China
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Abstract
Saccadic eye movements can allude to emotional states and visual attention. Recent studies have shown that microsaccadic responses (i.e., small fixational eye movements) reflect advanced brain activity during attentional and cognitive tasks. Moreover, the microsaccadic activity related to emotional attention provides new insights into this field. For example, emotional pictures attenuate the microsaccadic rate, and microsaccadic responses to covert attention occur in the direction opposite to a negative emotional target. However, the effects of various emotional events on microsaccadic activity remain debatable. This review introduces visual attention and eye movement studies that support findings on the modulation of microsaccadic responses to emotional events, comparing them with typical microsaccadic responses. This review also discusses the brain neuronal mechanisms governing microsaccadic responses to the attentional shifts triggered by emotion-related stimuli. It is hard to reveal the direct brain pathway of the microsaccadic modulation, especially in advanced (e.g., sustained anger, envy, distrust, guilt, frustration, delight, attraction, trust, and love), but also in basic human emotions (i.e., anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise). However, non-human primates and human studies can uncover the possible brain pathways of emotional attention and microsaccades, thus providing future research directions. In particular, the facilitated (or reduced) attention is common evidence that microsaccadic activities change under a variety of social modalities (e.g., cognition, music, mental illness, and working memory) that elicit emotions and feelings.
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Affiliation(s)
- Koji Kashihara
- College of Information Science and Engineering, Ritsumeikan University, 1-1-1 Noji-higashi, Kusatsu, Shiga, 525-8577, Japan.
- Graduate School of Technology, Industrial and Social Sciences, Tokushima University, 2-1 Minamijyousanjima, Tokushima, 770-8506, Japan.
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Kimonis ER, Graham N, Cauffman E. Aggressive Male Juvenile Offenders with Callous-Unemotional Traits Show Aberrant Attentional Orienting to Distress Cues. J Abnorm Child Psychol 2019; 46:519-527. [PMID: 28374219 DOI: 10.1007/s10802-017-0295-4] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/14/2023]
Abstract
Antisocial youth with callous-unemotional (CU) traits exhibit a pattern of severe and persistent conduct problems and deficits in emotional processing that parallels adults with psychopathy. Aberrant emotional attention, particularly among individuals high on aggression, constitutes one such deficit; however, its robustness across race/ethnicity requires further investigation given findings that the psychopathy construct manifests differently across race (Sullivan and Kosson 2006), and emotional attention is susceptible to the influence of adverse environmental factors such as violence exposure that is more common among ethnic minority youth (Kimonis et al. in Development and Psychopathology, 20, 569-589, 2008b). Also, the development of a comprehensive measure of CU traits, the Inventory of Callous-Unemotional Traits (ICU), has identified specific CU dimensions (Uncaring, Callous, Unemotional) that are yet to be investigated in relation to emotional attention deficits. Thus, the purpose of the present study was to examine whether aggressive boys high on total CU traits and specific ICU dimensions show deficits in attentional orienting to negative stimuli on a dot-probe task that are consistent across race/ethnicity. Results from a predominately Latino sample of incarcerated male adolescents (N = 156) showed that aggression moderated the association between CU traits and facilitation to distress stimuli. That is, aggressive boys high on CU traits or the Uncaring dimension showed deficient attentional orienting; a finding that was consistent across racial/ethnic minority groups. Results are consistent with prior research suggesting that the combination of high CU traits and aggression defines a unique subgroup of antisocial individuals that more closely fits with the construct of psychopathy than the presence of CU traits alone.
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Affiliation(s)
- Eva R Kimonis
- School of Psychology, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, 2052, Australia.
| | - Nicole Graham
- City University of New York - John Jay College of Criminal Justice, New York, NY, USA
| | - Elizabeth Cauffman
- Department of Psychology and Social Behavior, University of California, Irvine, CA, USA
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Zhang L, Cao X, Liang Q, Li X, Yang J, Yuan J. High-frequency repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation of the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex restores attention bias to negative information in methamphetamine addicts. Psychiatry Res 2018; 265:151-160. [PMID: 29709789 DOI: 10.1016/j.psychres.2018.04.039] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/15/2017] [Revised: 04/06/2018] [Accepted: 04/11/2018] [Indexed: 12/17/2022]
Abstract
Methamphetamine (hereafter, meth) addiction results in various emotional problems linked to structural impairments in the prefrontal cortex (PFC). In this paper, we investigated whether high-frequency (10 Hz) repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) of the left dorsolateral PFC (DLPFC) can improve emotional attention. Thirty-one meth addicts were randomly assigned to a 10 Hz or sham rTMS group; additionally, 31 healthy participants were enrolled, who were required to respond as correctly and quickly as possible to a yellow arrow embedded in an image depicting emotional content (neutral, fear, sadness, or disgust). Results showed that the healthy participants responded more rapidly to negative compared to neutral stimuli, while meth addicts responded indiscriminately to stimuli representing disgust, fear, and neutral content. The randomization check showed no significant differences in the pretest of emotional attention measures between the 10 Hz and sham groups. However, 10 Hz rTMS yielded faster response to negative pictures than to neutral pictures, which was similar to the performance of healthy participants but Sham not. However, this attention bias effect persisted in the 10 Hz group 2 weeks later. These results demonstrate that high-frequency rTMS of the left DLPFC can improve the emotional attention of meth addicts.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ling Zhang
- The Laboratory for Affect Cognition and Regulation, Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality of Ministry of Education, Faculty of Psychology, Southwest University, Chongqing,400715, China
| | - Xinyu Cao
- Da Lian Shan Institute of Addiction Rehabilitation, Nanjing, China
| | - Qiongdan Liang
- The Laboratory for Affect Cognition and Regulation, Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality of Ministry of Education, Faculty of Psychology, Southwest University, Chongqing,400715, China
| | - Xiang Li
- The Laboratory for Affect Cognition and Regulation, Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality of Ministry of Education, Faculty of Psychology, Southwest University, Chongqing,400715, China
| | - Jiemin Yang
- The Laboratory for Affect Cognition and Regulation, Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality of Ministry of Education, Faculty of Psychology, Southwest University, Chongqing,400715, China
| | - Jiajin Yuan
- The Laboratory for Affect Cognition and Regulation, Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality of Ministry of Education, Faculty of Psychology, Southwest University, Chongqing,400715, China.
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Tavares TP, Logie K, Mitchell DGV. Opposing effects of perceptual versus working memory load on emotional distraction. Exp Brain Res 2016; 234:2945-56. [PMID: 27329606 DOI: 10.1007/s00221-016-4697-2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/13/2015] [Accepted: 06/05/2016] [Indexed: 11/25/2022]
Abstract
Throughout our day-to-day activities, we are subjected to numerous stimuli that compete for our attention; consequently, we must prioritize stimuli for further processing and influence over behaviour. Previous research has demonstrated that the extent to which task-irrelevant distractors are processed is mediated by the nature of the cognitive task, and the level of processing load. Importantly though, the interaction between cognitive task, processing load, and emotional distractor processing remains unclear. This is a particularly important question given the unique ways that emotion interacts with attention, and the fact that some other forms of processing load have been shown to reduce emotional distractor encoding. In the present study, participants were presented with emotional distractors during a perceptual and working memory task, under varying levels of load. In Experiment 1, we showed that the impact of emotional distractors on behaviour was reduced under conditions of high relative to low perceptual load. However, in sharp contrast, high working memory load was associated with increased emotional distraction. Importantly, these results were replicated in Experiment 2. Overall, the impact of processing load on emotional distraction varies according to the cognitive function being performed. These results raise the intriguing possibility that working memory operations deplete some of the cognitive resources needed to control the impact of emotion on behaviour. The findings, therefore, may have important implications for clinical populations featuring cognitive dysfunction and emotional dysregulation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tamara P Tavares
- Graduate Program in Neuroscience, Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry, University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada
- The Brain and Mind Institute, University of Western Ontario, London, ON, N6A 5B7, Canada
| | - Kyle Logie
- Integrated Program in Neuroscience, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada
| | - Derek G V Mitchell
- Graduate Program in Neuroscience, Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry, University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada.
- The Brain and Mind Institute, University of Western Ontario, London, ON, N6A 5B7, Canada.
- Departments of Psychiatry, Anatomy and Cell Biology, and Psychology, University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada.
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