Resting State Psychophysiology in Youth with OCD and Their Caregivers: Preliminary Evidence for Trend Synchrony and Links to Family Functioning

The burden of OCD in children and adolescents extends to their caregivers. Prior work in other disorders and unaffected youth has found synchrony in psychophysiological arousal for youth-caregiver dyads. This preliminary study explored whether psychophysiological trend synchrony in youth-caregiver dyads (N = 48) occurred and was moderated by youth OCD diagnosis. We also explored whether psychophysiological indices (i.e., electrodermal activity, heart rate, respiratory sinus arrhythmia) were correlated with reported family functioning in the OCD subsample (n = 25). Youth with OCD had higher resting heart rate than unaffected peers; this was not replicated in caregivers. Trend synchrony was found across the full sample of dyads for electrodermal activity and heart rate, with no moderation by diagnostic group. In the OCD group, youth heart rate was correlated with family conflict and caregiver heart rate with expressiveness. Findings provide preliminary support for further examination of heart rate and family factors in OCD-affected youth and their caregivers.

Psychophysiological effects of walking in forests and urban built environments with disparate road traffic noise exposure: study protocol of a randomized controlled trial

BACKGROUND

Stress is a widespread phenomenon and reality of everyday life, entailing negative consequences for physical and psychological wellbeing. Previous studies have indicated that exposure to greenspaces and nature-based interventions are promising approaches to reducing stress and promoting restoration. However, an increasing percentage of the population lives in urban regions with limited opportunities to spend time in greenspaces. In addition, urban settings typically feature increased levels of noise, which represents a major environmental stressor. Although various studies have compared the effects of exposure to greenspaces versus urban built environments, evidence of the effects of noise in this context is very limited. Psychophysiological benefits of exposure to greenspaces compared to urban built environments reported in earlier studies might be less (or at least not only) due to features of the greenspaces than to additional stressors, such as road traffic noise in the urban built environment. Hence, differences in the effects attributed to greenness in previous studies may also be due to potentially detrimental noise effects in comparison settings. This paper reports the study protocol for a randomized, controlled intervention study comparing the effects of walking in forest versus urban built environments, taking road traffic noise exposure during walks in the respective settings into account.

METHODS

The protocol envisages a field study employing a pretest-posttest design to compare the effects of 30-min walks in urban built environments and forests with different road traffic noise levels. Assessments will consist of self-reported measures, physiological data (salivary cortisol and skin conductance), an attention test, and noise, as well as greenness measurements. The outcomes will be restoration, stress, positive and negative affect, attention, rumination, and nature connectedness.

DISCUSSION

The results will inform about the restorative effect of walking in general, of exposure to different types of environments, and to different noise levels in these sites. The study will provide insights into the benefits of walking and nature-based interventions, taking into account the potential detrimental effects of noise exposure. It will thus facilitate a better understanding of low-threshold interventions to prevent stress and foster wellbeing.

TRIAL REGISTRATION

ISRCTN48943261 ; Registered 23.11.2023.

Skin Conductance-Based Acupoint and Non-Acupoint Recognition Using Machine Learning

Acupoints (APs) prove to have positive effects on disease diagnosis and treatment, while intelligent techniques for the automatic detection of APs are not yet mature, making them more dependent on manual positioning. In this paper, we realize the skin conductance-based APs and non-APs recognition with machine learning, which could assist in APs detection and localization in clinical practice. Firstly, we collect skin conductance of traditional Five-Shu Point and their corresponding non-APs with wearable sensors, establishing a dataset containing over 36000 samples of 12 different AP types. Then, electrical features are extracted from the time domain, frequency domain, and nonlinear perspective respectively, following which typical machine learning algorithms (SVM, RF, KNN, NB, and XGBoost) are demonstrated to recognize APs and non-APs. The results demonstrate XGBoost with the best precision of 66.38%. Moreover, we also quantify the impacts of the differences among AP types and individuals, and propose a pairwise feature generation method to weaken the impacts on recognition precision. By using generated pairwise features, the recognition precision could be improved by 7.17%. The research systematically realizes the automatic recognition of APs and non-APs, and is conducive to pushing forward the intelligent development of APs and Traditional Chinese Medicine theories.

Temporal Summation of the Thermal Grill Illusion is Comparable to That Observed Following Noxious Heat

The thermal grill illusion (TGI) describes a peculiar or even painful percept caused by non-noxious, interlaced warm and cold stimuli. It involves the glutamatergic system and is affected in putatively nociplastic syndromes such as fibromyalgia. The glutamatergic system is also involved in wind-up, that is, the increased activation of spinal neurons following repeated noxious stimulation leading to a temporal summation of perceived stimulus intensity. Here we combined both stimulation methods to further investigate whether non-noxious stimuli as employed in the TGI can lead to a similar summation of perceived stimulus intensity. In an experiment using a full crossover within-subjects design, 35 healthy volunteers received repeated stimuli, either in a thermal grill configuration or simply noxious heat. Both modalities were presented as sequences of 1 lead-in contact, followed by 11 consecutive contacts (each between 1.5 and 3 seconds), with either fast repetition ("wind-up" condition), or 2 slow-repeating control conditions. The main analyses concerned the relative pre-to-post sequence changes to quantify putatively wind-up-related effects. Pain ratings and skin conductance level (SCL) increased more strongly in "wind-up" than in control conditions. Interestingly, wind-up-related effects were of the same magnitude in TGI as compared to the pain control modality. Further, contact-by-contact SCL tracked how the effect emerged over time. These results indicate that although TGI does not involve noxious stimuli it is amenable to temporal summation and wind-up-like processes. Since both phenomena involve the glutamatergic system, the combination of wind-up with the TGI could yield a promising tool for the investigation of chronic pain conditions. PERSPECTIVE: Using thermal stimuli in an experimental protocol to combine 1) the TGI (painful or peculiar percept from simultaneous cold/warm stimulation) and 2) wind-up (increase in stimulus intensity after repeated exposure) holds promise to investigate pain and thermoceptive mechanisms, and chronic pain conditions.

Trait impulsivity influences behavioural and physiological responses to threat in a virtual environment

Trait impulsivity represents a tendency to take action without forethought or consideration of consequences. This trait is multifaceted and can be decomposed into attentional, motor and non-planning subtypes of impulsivity. The purpose of the current study was to investigate how subtypes of trait impulsivity responded to different degrees of threat within room-scale virtual reality (VR) with respect to behaviour and level of physiological activation. Thirty-four participants were required to negotiate a virtual environment (VE) where they walked at height with the continuous threat of a virtual 'fall.' Behavioural measures related to the speed of movement, interaction frequency and risk were collected. Participants also wore ambulatory sensors to collect data from electrocardiogram (ECG) and electrodermal activity (EDA). Our results indicated that participants who scored highly on non-planning impulsivity exhibited riskier behaviour and higher skin conductance level (SCL). Participants with higher motor impulsivity interacted with more objects in the VE when threat was high, they also exhibited contradictory indicators of physiological activation. Attentional impulsivity was associated with a greater number of falls across the VE. The results demonstrate that subtypes of trait impulsivity respond to threats via different patterns of behaviour and levels of physiological activation, reinforcing the multifaceted nature of the trait.

Stress Inoculation in Police Officers Using Virtual Reality: A Controlled Study

Policing is a highly demanding and stressful profession. Virtual reality (VR) has emerged as a promising tool for enhancing stress management programs, including for police officers. The use of VR in combination with biosensors enables measurement of psychophysiological responses such as peripheral temperature (PT) and skin conductance level (SCL). This study investigated the psychophysiological responses of police officers exposed to a VR scenario simulating a car accident. The study included a total of 63 police officers from the Public Security Police. Participants were divided into three groups based on their police divisions: the Investigation Brigade of Traffic Accidents, the Traffic Surveillance Squad (TSS), and a control group from the Lisbon Metropolitan Command. The results indicated that the VR environment effectively induced psychophysiological arousal, particularly in less experienced officers (TSS), that is, there were significant group differences in mean SCL and PT, showing this group with higher SCL and lower PT during the VR exposure. These results support the potential of VR as a stress inoculation strategy for training police officers and highlight the complex nature of stress responses that are influenced by individual factors and psychopathology.

Social Signal Processing in Affective Virtual Reality: Human-Shaped Agents Increase Electrodermal Activity in an Elicited Negative Environment

Prior research on affect elicitation indicates that stimuli with social content (pictures or videos) are more arousing than nonsocial stimuli. In particular, they elicit stronger physiological arousal as measured by electrodermal activity (EDA; i.e., social EDA effect). However, it is unclear how this effect applies to virtual reality (VR), which enables an enhanced sense of presence (SoP) and ecological validity. The study here approached this question from a social-emotional VR framework. A sample of N = 72 participants (55 percent women) experienced a set of six virtual environments (VEs) in the form of emotional parks specifically designed to elicit positive, negative, or neutral affectivity. Half of these VEs included human-shaped agents (social context) and the other half omitted these agents (nonsocial context). The results supported the social EDA effect, which in addition was amplified by the reported SoP. Importantly, the VE featuring a social negative content qualified this observed social EDA effect. The finding is discussed in the light of a negativity bias reported in affect literature, through which negative stimuli typically mobilize attention and bodily activation as a mechanism linked to stress responses. The study's implications extend to the use of VR in both research and practical applications, emphasizing the role of social content in influencing affective and physiological responses.

Transcranial focused ultrasound of the amygdala modulates fear network activation and connectivity

BACKGROUND

Current noninvasive brain stimulation methods are incapable of directly modulating subcortical brain regions critically involved in psychiatric disorders. Transcranial Focused Ultrasound (tFUS) is a newer form of noninvasive stimulation that could modulate the amygdala, a subcortical region implicated in fear.

OBJECTIVE

We investigated the effects of active and sham tFUS of the amygdala on fear circuit activation, skin conductance responses (SCR), and self-reported anxiety during a fear-inducing task. We also investigated amygdala tFUS' effects on amygdala-fear circuit resting-state functional connectivity.

METHODS

Thirty healthy individuals were randomized in this double-blinded study to active or sham tFUS of the left amygdala. We collected fMRI scans, SCR, and self-reported anxiety during a fear-inducing task (participants viewed red or green circles which indicated the risk of receiving an aversive stimulus), as well as resting-state scans, before and after tFUS.

RESULTS

Compared to sham tFUS, active tFUS was associated with decreased (pre to post tFUS) blood-oxygen-level-dependent fMRI activation in the amygdala (F(1,25) = 4.86, p = 0.04, η2 = 0.16) during the fear task, and lower hippocampal (F(1,27) = 4.41, p = 0.05, η2 = 0.14), and dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (F(1,27) = 6.26, p = 0.02; η2 = 0.19) activation during the post tFUS fear task. The decrease in amygdala activation was correlated with decreased subjective anxiety (r = 0.62, p = 0.03). There was no group effect in SCR changes from pre to post tFUS (F(1,23) = 0.85, p = 0.37). The active tFUS group also showed decreased amygdala-insula (F(1,28) = 4.98, p = 0.03) and amygdala-hippocampal (F(1,28) = 7.14, p = 0.01) rsFC, and increased amygdala-ventromedial prefrontal cortex (F(1,28) = 3.52, p = 0.05) resting-state functional connectivity.

CONCLUSIONS

tFUS can change functional connectivity and brain region activation associated with decreased anxiety. Future studies should investigate tFUS' therapeutic potential for individuals with clinical levels of anxiety.

Does vibrotactile stimulation of the auricular vagus nerve enhance working memory? A behavioral and physiological investigation

BACKGROUND

Working memory is essential to a wide range of cognitive functions and activities. Transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation (taVNS) is a promising method to improve working memory performance. However, the feasibility and scalability of electrical stimulation are constrained by several limitations, such as auricular discomfort and inconsistent electrical contact.

OBJECTIVE

We aimed to develop a novel and practical method, vibrotactile taVNS, to improve working memory. Further, we investigated its effects on arousal, measured by skin conductance and pupil diameter.

METHOD

This study included 20 healthy participants. Behavioral response, skin conductance, and eye tracking data were concurrently recorded while the participants performed N-back tasks under three conditions: vibrotactile taVNS delivered to the cymba concha, earlobe (sham control), and no stimulation (baseline control).

RESULTS

In 4-back tasks, which demand maximal working memory capacity, active vibrotactile taVNS significantly improved the performance metric d' compared to the baseline but not to the sham. Moreover, we found that the reduction rate of d' with increasing task difficulty was significantly smaller during vibrotactile taVNS sessions than in both baseline and sham conditions. Arousal, measured as skin conductance and pupil diameter, declined over the course of the tasks. Vibrotactile taVNS rescued this arousal decline, leading to arousal levels corresponding to optimal working memory levels. Moreover, pupil diameter and skin conductance level were higher during high-cognitive-load tasks when vibrotactile taVNS was delivered to the concha compared to baseline and sham.

CONCLUSION

Our findings suggest that vibrotactile taVNS modulates the arousal pathway and could be a potential intervention for enhancing working memory.

Elementary integrate-and-fire process underlies pulse amplitudes in Electrodermal activity

Electrodermal activity (EDA) is a direct read-out of sweat-induced changes in the skin’s electrical conductance. Sympathetically-mediated pulsatile changes in skin sweat measured as EDA resemble an integrate-and-fire process, which yields an inverse Gaussian model as the inter-pulse interval distribution. We have previously showed that the inter-pulse intervals in EDA follow an inverse Gaussian distribution. However, the statistical structure of EDA pulse amplitudes has not yet been characterized based on the physiology. Expanding upon the integrate-and-fire nature of sweat glands, we hypothesized that the amplitude of an EDA pulse is proportional to the excess volume of sweat produced compared to what is required to just reach the surface of the skin. We modeled this as the difference of two inverse Gaussian models for each pulse, one which represents the time required to produce just enough sweat to rise to the surface of the skin and one which represents the time requires to produce the actual volume of sweat. We proposed and tested a series of four simplifications of our hypothesis, ranging from a single difference of inverse Gaussians to a single simple inverse Gaussian. We also tested four additional models for comparison, including the lognormal and gamma distributions. All models were tested on EDA data from two subject cohorts, 11 healthy volunteers during 1 hour of quiet wakefulness and a different set of 11 healthy volunteers during approximately 3 hours of controlled propofol sedation. All four models which represent simplifications of our hypothesis outperformed other models across all 22 subjects, as measured by Akaike’s Information Criterion (AIC), as well as mean and maximum distance from the diagonal on a quantile-quantile plot. Our broader model set of four simplifications offered a useful framework to enhance further statistical descriptions of EDA pulse amplitudes. Some of the simplifications prioritize fit near the mode of the distribution, while others prioritize fit near the tail. With this new insight, we can summarize the physiologically-relevant amplitude information in EDA with at most four parameters. Our findings establish that physiologically based probability models provide parsimonious and accurate description of temporal and amplitude characteristics in EDA.

Electrodermal activity (EDA) is an indirect read-out of the body’s sympathetic nervous system, or fight-or-flight response, measured as sweat-induced changes in the electrical conductance properties of the skin. Interest is growing in using EDA to track physiological conditions such as stress levels, sleep quality, and emotional states. Our previous worked showed that the times in between EDA pulses obeyed a specific statistical distribution, the inverse Gaussian, that arises from the physiology of EDA production. In this work, we build on that insight to analyze the amplitudes of EDA pulses. In an analysis of EDA data recorded in 11 healthy volunteers during quiet wakefulness and 11 different healthy volunteers during controlled propofol sedation, we establish that the amplitudes of EDA pulses also have specific statistical structure, as the differences of inverse Gaussians, that arises from the physiology of sweat production. We capture that structure using a series of progressively simpler models that each prioritize different parts of the pulse amplitude distribution. Our findings show that a physiologically-based statistical model provides a parsimonious and accurate description of EDA. This enables increased reliability and robustness in analyzing EDA data collected under any circumstance.

The effect of colour on reading performance in children, measured by a sensor hub: From the perspective of gender

In recent decades reported findings regarding gender differences in reading achievement, cognitive abilities and maturation process in boys and girls are conflicting. As reading is one of the most important processes in the maturation of an individual, the aim of the study was to better understand gender differences between primary school students. The study evaluates differences in Heart Rate Variability (HRV), Electroencephalography (EEG), Electrodermal Activities (EDA) and eye movement of participants during the reading task. Taking into account that colour may affect reading skills, in that it affects the emotional and physiological state of the body, the research attempts to provide a better understanding of gender differences in reading through examining the effect of colour, as applied to reading content. The physiological responses of 50 children (25 boys and 25 girls) to 12 different background and overlay colours of reading content were measured and summarised during the reading process. Our findings show that boys have shorter reading duration scores and a longer Saccade Count, Saccade Duration Total, and Saccade Duration Average when reading on a coloured background, especially purple, which could be caused by their motivation and by the type of reading task. Also, the boys had higher values for the Delta band and the Whole Range of EEG measurements in comparison to the girls when reading on coloured backgrounds, which could reflect the faster maturation of the girls. Regarding EDA measurements we did not find systematic differences between groups either on white or on coloured/overlay background. We found the most significant differences arose in the HRV parameters, namely (SDNN (ms), STD HR (beats/min), RMSSD (ms), NN50 (beats), pNN50 (%), CVRR) when children read the text on coloured/overlay backgrounds, where the girls showed systematically higher values on HRV measurements in comparison to the boys, mostly with yellow, red, and orange overlay colours.

Real-life dental examination elicits physiological responses different to visual and auditory dental-related stimuli

BACKGROUND

Previous studies on dental anxiety have examined the psychophysiological responses evoked in dentally anxious subjects by dental-related stimuli, but not during a real-life dental examination, which was achieved in the present study.

METHODS

The heart rate, skin conductance level, and heart rate variability of 25 subjects with dental anxiety and 25 healthy controls were examined. Anxiety was determined by the Modified Dental Anxiety Scale and the Dental Anxiety Scale-Revised. The psychophysiological reactions of the two groups were compared during exposure to dental-related pictures, dental-related sounds, and an actual examination in a dental surgery.

RESULTS

All the dental-related stimuli provoked an increase in heart rate, i.e. visual stimuli (p<0.001; 95% CI 0.98-3.95 bpm), auditory stimuli (p<0.001; 95% CI 1.34-4.99 bpm), and a dental examination (p<0.001; 95% CI 1.26-5.39 bpm). Dental-related pictures provoked inferior skin conductance level changes compared to dental-related sounds and the dental examination (visual modality vs auditory p<0.001; 95% CI 0.039-0.152; visual modality vs examination p<0.001; 95% CI 0.083-0.275). Heart rate variability manifested in a complex pattern of responses to the dental examination. However, when exposed to all three dental-related stimuli presentation conditions, the heart rate (F = 0.352, p = 0.556), skin conductance level (F = 0.009, p = 0.926), and heart rate variability parameters of subjects with dental anxiety did not differ in comparison to the healthy controls.

CONCLUSIONS

This pilot study represents an evaluation of psychophysiological reactions during a real-life dental examination compared to single modality stimuli, and shows that a real-life dental examination provokes an increase in heart rate, heart rate variability and skin conductance level. Additionally, autonomic responses did not differ between the experimental and control groups. The key issue for future studies is the effect of real-life situations on the physiological and psychological state of the subjects, which should be considered when planning new research and studied in depth.

Reliability and laterality of the soleus H-reflex following galvanic vestibular stimulation in healthy individuals

The vestibulospinal tract (VST) plays an important role in the control of the ipsilateral antigravity muscles, and the balance of left and right VST excitability is important in human postural control. A method for measuring VST excitability is the application of galvanic vestibular stimulation (GVS) before tibial nerve stimulation that evokes the soleus H-reflex; the change rate of the H-reflex amplitude is then evaluated. Assessments of VST excitability and the left and right balance could be useful when determining the pathology for interventions in postural control impairments. However, the reliability and laterality of this assessment have not been clarified, nor has its relationship to postural control. We investigated the reliability, laterality and standing postural control in relation to the degree of facilitation of the H-reflex following GVS in 15 healthy adults. The assessments were performed in two sessions, one each for the left- and right-sides, in random order. The inter-session reliability of the short-interval assessments of an increase in the H-reflex following GVS on both sides were sufficient. The degree of H-reflex facilitation by GVS showed no significant difference between the left- and right-sides in any session. There was a moderate positive correlation between the mediolateral position of the center of pressure in the eyes-closed standing on foam condition and the left/right ratio of the degree of increased H-reflex in the first-session. We concluded that this method for evaluating the increase in the soleus H-reflex following GVS has high inter-session reliability in the short-interval that did not differ between sides.

Heterosexual, gay, and lesbian people's reactivity to virtual caresses on their embodied avatars' taboo zones

Embodying an artificial agent through immersive virtual reality (IVR) may lead to feeling vicariously somatosensory stimuli on one's body which are in fact never delivered. To explore whether vicarious touch in IVR reflects the basic individual and social features of real-life interpersonal interactions we tested heterosexual men/women and gay men/lesbian women reacting subjectively and physiologically to the observation of a gender-matched virtual body being touched on intimate taboo zones (like genitalia) by male and female avatars. All participants rated as most erogenous caresses on their embodied avatar taboo zones. Crucially, heterosexual men/women and gay men/lesbian women rated as most erogenous taboo touches delivered by their opposite and same gender avatar, respectively. Skin conductance was maximal when taboo touches were delivered by female avatars. Our study shows that IVR may trigger realistic experiences and ultimately allow the direct exploration of sensitive societal and individual issues that can otherwise be explored only through imagination.

Controllability over stressor decreases responses in key threat-related brain areas

Controllability over stressors has major impacts on brain and behavior. In humans, however, the effect of controllability on responses to stressors is poorly understood. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we investigated how controllability altered responses to a shock-plus-sound stressor with a between-group yoked design, where participants in controllable and uncontrollable groups experienced matched stressor exposure. Employing Bayesian multilevel analysis at the level of regions of interest and voxels in the insula, and standard voxelwise analysis, we found that controllability decreased stressor-related responses across threat-related regions, notably in the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis and anterior insula. Posterior cingulate cortex, posterior insula, and possibly medial frontal gyrus showed increased responses during control over stressor. Our findings support the idea that the aversiveness of stressors is reduced when controllable, leading to decreased responses across key regions involved in anxiety-related processing, even at the level of the extended amygdala.

Emotion regulation of others' positive and negative emotions is related to distinct patterns of heart rate variability and situational empathy

Although emotion regulation has been proposed to be crucial for empathy, investigations on emotion regulation have been primarily limited to intrapersonal processes, leaving the interpersonal processes of self-regulation rather unexplored. Moreover, studies showed that emotion regulation and empathy are related with increased autonomic activation. How emotion regulation and empathy are related at the autonomic level, and more specifically during differently valenced social situations remains an open question. Healthy adults viewed a series of short videos illustrating a target who was expressing positive, negative, or no emotions during a social situation (Positive, Negative, or Neutral Social Scenes). Prior to each video, participants were instructed to reappraise their own emotions (Up-regulation, Down-regulation, or No-regulation). To assess autonomic activation, RR intervals (RRI), high frequency (HF) components of heart rate variability (HRV), and electrodermal activity phasic responses (EDRs) were calculated. Situational empathy was measured through a visual analogue scale. Participants rated how empathic they felt for a specific target. Up- and Down-regulation were related to an increase and a decrease in situational empathy and an increase in RRI and HF, respectively, compared to the control condition (No-regulation). This suggests increased activity of the parasympathetic branch during emotion regulation of situational empathic responses. Positive compared to Negative Social Scenes were associated with decreased situational empathy, in addition to a slightly but non-significantly increased HF. Altogether, this study demonstrates that emotion regulation may be associated with changes in situational empathy and autonomic responses, preferentially dominated by the parasympathetic branch and possibly reflecting an increase of regulatory processes. Furthermore, the current study provides evidence that empathy for different emotional valences is associated with distinct changes in situational empathy and autonomic responses.

Mother-father physiological synchrony during conflict and moderation by parenting challenges: Findings from parents of children with autism spectrum disorder

INTRODUCTION

Despite robust evidence in the broader family process literature for within-couple associations between romantic partners' physiological responding, this linkage has not been tested directly among parents raising a child with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Explicit attention to these parents is warranted on the basis of the established family-wide challenges associated with the persistent emotional, functional, and behavior impairments typically observed in children with ASD (see Karst & Van Hecke, 2012). The first purpose of this study is to extend examination of within-couple associations between electrodermal activity (EDA) to mothers and fathers of children with ASD. The second purpose is to test 2 potential moderators of EDA synchrony reflecting heightened challenges among parents of children with ASD, namely parenting as an observed conflict topic and global parenting stress.

METHOD

Both parents wore wrist sensors that captured continuous EDA during a recorded marital conflict interaction. Trained coders provided ratings of emotional intensity and conflict topics, including whether the topic of parenting was discussed. Parents reported their global level of parenting stress. Dyadic multilevel modeling was used to test our hypotheses and accounted for interaction factors (e.g., movement data, emotional intensity).

RESULTS

Findings identified significant positive associations between parents' EDA. One moderator result emerged; specifically, father EDA was a stronger predictor of mother EDA when parenting was discussed as a conflict topic.

CONCLUSION

This study extends evidence of within-couple physiological linkage to parents raising a child with ASD and provides a foundation for future research examining the family-wide implications of this linkage. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Joint and individual effectiveness of galvanic cutaneous stimulation and tactile stimulation at decreasing Simulator Adaptation Syndrome

This research was focused on investigating the effectiveness of galvanic cutaneous stimulation and tactile stimulation jointly and individually at mitigating Simulator Adaptation Syndrome. Forty drivers (mean age = 23.1 ± 3.4 years old, twenty women) participated in a driving simulation experiment. Total scores of the Simulator Sickness Questionnaire, head movements (an index of body balance), and driving performance variables were compared across four different stimulation conditions: i) baseline (where no stimulation was presented), ii) galvanic cutaneous stimulation and iii) tactile stimulation deployed individually, and iv) both techniques deployed jointly. The results showed that both techniques presented in conjunction alleviate Simulator Adaptation Syndrome and improve driving performance more effectively than when they are presented in isolation. Importantly, reduced head movements were only revealed when galvanic cutaneous stimulation was applied. We concluded that the reduction of this syndrome is due to an improvement of body balance (elicited by galvanic cutaneous stimulation), and a distraction from the symptoms (elicited by tactile stimulation). We encourage the use of both techniques simultaneously to decrease Simulator Adaptation Syndrome.

A pilot study exploring the relationship between wellness and physical fitness: an examination into autonomic health

Objective: To explore the relationship between physical fitness and wellness in order to determine if perceptions of wellness can be predicted by physical fitness level.Participants: Sixty-seven college students (41 females; M = 20.86 years, SD = 4.23 years) were recruited from a large southeastern university during March-May 2018.Methods: Baseline measures for skin conductance and heart rate variability were obtained. Participants completed a wellness questionnaire and a series of tests (body composition, cardiorespiratory fitness, flexibility, and muscular fitness) designed to determine physical fitness levels. Correlation and regression analyses were run to explore relationships between physical fitness and wellness measures.Results: Muscular fitness and composite physical fitness significantly predicted perceived wellness. Heart rate variability was significantly related to physical fitness components.Conclusion: College students endorse muscular fitness as representative of health status; suggesting that by remaining physically active, in particular through muscular fitness, college student quality of life and cardiovascular health can be improved.

Sex differences in the human reward system: convergent behavioral, autonomic and neural evidence

Several studies have suggested that females and males differ in reward behaviors and their underlying neural circuitry. Whether human sex differences extend across neural and behavioral levels for both rewards and punishments remains unclear. We studied a community sample of 221 young women and men who performed a monetary incentive task known to engage the mesoaccumbal pathway and salience network. Both stimulus salience (behavioral relevance) and valence (win vs loss) varied during the task. In response to high- vs low-salience stimuli presented during the monetary incentive task, men showed greater subjective arousal ratings, behavioral accuracy and skin conductance responses (P < 0.006, Hedges' effect size g = 0.38 to 0.46). In a subsample studied with functional magnetic resonance imaging (n = 44), men exhibited greater responsiveness to stimulus salience in the nucleus accumbens, midbrain, anterior insula and dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (P < 0.02, g = 0.86 to 1.7). Behavioral, autonomic and neural sensitivity to the valence of stimuli did not differ by sex, indicating that responses to rewards vs punishments were similar in women and men. These results reveal novel and robust sex differences in reward- and punishment-related traits, behavior, autonomic activity and neural responses. These convergent results suggest a neurobehavioral basis for sexual dimorphism observed in the reward system, including reward-related disorders.

Individual differences in fear acquisition: multivariate analyses of different emotional negativity scales, physiological responding, subjective measures, and neural activation

Negative emotionality is a well-established and stable risk factor for affective disorders. Individual differences in negative emotionality have been linked to associative learning processes which can be captured experimentally by computing CS-discrimination values in fear conditioning paradigms. Literature suffers from underpowered samples, suboptimal methods, and an isolated focus on single questionnaires and single outcome measures. First, the specific and shared variance across three commonly employed questionnaires [STAI-T, NEO-FFI-Neuroticism, Intolerance of Uncertainty (IU) Scale] in relation to CS-discrimination during fear-acquisition in multiple analysis units (ratings, skin conductance, startle) is addressed (NStudy1 = 356). A specific significant negative association between STAI-T and CS-discrimination in SCRs and between IU and CS-discrimination in startle responding was identified in multimodal and dimensional analyses, but also between latent factors negative emotionality and fear learning, which capture shared variance across questionnaires/scales and across outcome measures. Second, STAI-T was positively associated with CS-discrimination in a number of brain areas linked to conditioned fear (amygdala, putamen, thalamus), but not to SCRs or ratings (NStudy2 = 113). Importantly, we replicate potential sampling biases between fMRI and behavioral studies regarding anxiety levels. Future studies are needed to target wide sampling distributions for STAI-T and verify whether current findings are generalizable to other samples.

Venomous snakes elicit stronger fear than nonvenomous ones: Psychophysiological response to snake images

Snakes have been important ambush predators of both primates and human hunter-gatherers throughout their co-evolutionary history. Viperid snakes in particular are responsible for most fatal venomous snakebites worldwide and thus represent a strong selective pressure. They elicit intense fear in humans and are easily recognizable thanks to their distinctive morphotype. In this study, we measured skin resistance (SR) and heart rate (HR) in human subjects exposed to snake pictures eliciting either high fear (10 venomous viperid species) or disgust (10 nonvenomous fossorial species). Venomous snakes subjectively evaluated as frightening trigger a stronger physiological response (higher SR amplitude) than repulsive non-venomous snakes. However, stimuli presented in a block (more intense stimulation) do not trigger a stronger emotional response compared to sequentially presented stimuli (less intense stimulation). There are significant interindividual differences as subjects with high fear of snakes confronted with images of viperid snakes show stronger, longer-lasting, and more frequent changes in SR and higher HR compared to low-fear subjects. Thus, we show that humans demonstrate a remarkable ability to discriminate between dangerous viperids and harmless fossorial snakes, which is also reflected in distinct autonomous body responses.

Physiological Correlates of Sluggish Cognitive Tempo in Children: Examining Autonomic Nervous System Reactivity during Social and Cognitive Stressor Tasks

It is important to establish correlates of sluggish cognitive tempo (SCT) across units of analysis and to better understand how SCT may be conceptualized in models of psychopathology. The current study examined SCT symptoms in relation to automatic nervous system reactivity during social and cognitive stressor tasks. Participants were 61 children ages 8-12 years with a full range of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptom severity. Parents provided ratings of SCT and parents and teachers completed measures that were used to create composite indices of ADHD symptoms. Children were administered standardized peer rejection and impossible puzzle tasks, during which their respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) and skin conductance level (SCL) reactivity were recorded. Regression analyses indicated that SCT symptoms were unassociated with RSA reactivity to either task. Greater SCT symptoms were significantly associated with greater SCL reactivity to peer rejection. Greater SCT symptoms were not significantly associated with SCL reactivity to the impossible puzzle task. The pattern of findings was unchanged in sensitivity analyses that controlled for ADHD symptoms, internalizing symptoms, medication status, or sex. This study provides the first evidence that SCT symptoms are associated with sympathetic nervous system reactivity. These findings suggest that SCT symptoms may be associated with greater behavioral inhibition system activation, and reactivity may be especially pronounced in social challenges.

Social comparison impacts stimulus evaluation in a competitive social learning task

When we perform an action, the outcome that follows it can change the value we place on that behaviour, making it more or less likely to be repeated in the future. However, the values that we learn are not objective: we interpret the outcomes that we receive for ourselves relative to those that share our environment, i.e. we engage in social comparison. The temporal dynamics of physiological responses to stimulus valuation in social learning tasks are poorly understood, particularly in human participants. Therefore, we recorded stimulus-locked event-related potentials with 64-channel EEG to examine stimulus valuation, following the design of a study previously used in macaques. Pairs of participants performed a social learning task in which they received outcomes sequentially for a presented stimulus (partner first) by pressing a button in response to a cue. There were two conditions: one in which stimulus values varied for the participant but output a constant rate of reward for the partner (self-variable blocks), and another condition in which this payout was reversed (other-variable blocks). We then measured participants' self-reported competitiveness. Approximately 200 ms post-stimulus, an ERP related to stimulus evaluation and attentional processing appeared to encode own stimulus value in self-variable blocks. In other-variable blocks the same pattern of activity was reversed, even though the value of the stimulus for the participant did not depend on the stimulus presented. Outcome-locked analyses further showed that attention dedicated to the partner's outcome was greater in more competitive participants. We conclude that subjective stimulus value can be reflected in early stimulus-locked ERP responses and that competitive participants may be more invested in their own performance relative to the other player, hence their increased interest in the outcome of their partner.

Physiological arousal and observed behaviour in parent-child interactions involving young children with Down syndrome

BACKGROUND

Parents of children with Down syndrome (DS) play an important role in their child's development. Physiological measures, such as electrodermal activity (EDA), can shed light on parent-child relations beyond the behavioural level. The goals of the current study were to assess the feasibility of collecting EDA data in preschool age children with DS, examine the association between parent and child EDA during play-based interactions, and investigate the relation between parent and child EDA and observed parent behaviours.

METHOD

Two parents in 15 families participated in dyadic free play interactions with their child with DS (i.e., 15 mother-child and 15 father-child interactions). The children with DS (aged 24-61 months) and both of their parents wore multisensory wristbands measuring EDA. Parent behaviours were coded as requests for behavioural complies, requests for verbal complies, or comments.

RESULTS

Usable EDA data were collected for 13/15 children and 11/15 mothers during the mother-child interactions and 14/15 children and 12/15 fathers during the father-child interactions. Parent and child EDA variability was significantly positively related for father-child but not mother-child dyads. Maternal use of requests for behavioural complies was positively related to child EDA variability.

CONCLUSIONS

The collection of EDA data through wristbands worn by young children with DS during early parent-child interactions was feasible. Preliminary findings indicated that some aspects of parent and child physiology in DS may be related in different ways for mother-child and father-child dyads.

Negative Social Evaluation Impairs Executive Functions in Adolescents With Excess Weight: Associations With Autonomic Responses

BACKGROUND

Adolescents with excess weight suffer social stress more frequently than their peers with normal weight.

PURPOSE

To examine the impact of social stress, specifically negative social evaluation, on executive functions in adolescents with excess weight. We also examined associations between subjective stress, autonomic reactivity, and executive functioning.

METHODS

Sixty adolescents (aged 13-18 years) classified into excess weight or normal weight groups participated. We assessed executive functioning (working memory, inhibition, and shifting) and subjective stress levels before and after the Trier Social Stress Task (TSST). The TSST was divided into two phases according to the feedback of the audience: positive and negative social evaluation. Heart rate and skin conductance were recorded.

RESULTS

Adolescents with excess weight showed poorer executive functioning after exposure to TSST compared with adolescents with normal weight. Subjective stress and autonomic reactivity were also greater in adolescents with excess weight than adolescents with normal weight. Negative social evaluation was associated with worse executive functioning and increased autonomic reactivity in adolescents with excess weight.

CONCLUSIONS

The findings suggest that adolescents with excess weight are more sensitive to social stress triggered by negative evaluations. Social stress elicited deterioration of executive functioning in adolescents with excess weight. Evoked increases in subjective stress and autonomic responses predicted decreased executive function. Deficits in executive skills could reduce cognitive control abilities and lead to overeating in adolescents with excess weight. Strategies to cope with social stress to prevent executive deficits could be useful to prevent future obesity in this population.

State and Trait Mindfulness as Predictors of Skin Conductance Response to Stress

Mindfulness is typically understood as non-judgmental, focused attention on the present moment, although it may be conceptualized as a state, a trait, and an outcome of intervention. There is a limited understanding of the physiological effects of state and trait mindfulness, and it has been a challenge to the research community to measure these effects. This study examined whether state and trait mindfulness are associated with reduced stress response activation in healthy young adults. Fifty-four undergraduate participants completed self-ratings of state and trait mindfulness, and continuous measures of psychophysiological reactivity (i.e., skin conductance response) before, during, and after an interview about a recurrent stressor. Results indicated that individuals with greater self-reported state mindfulness had lower sympathetic psychophysiological activation than those with lower state mindfulness. Moreover, those with greater self-reported state mindfulness experienced greater drops in psychophysiological activation following a stressful task. However, differences in psychophysiological activation were not evident when comparing those with higher and lower self-reported trait mindfulness. The findings suggest that state mindfulness, or "being in the moment", rather than trait mindfulness results in less engagement of metabolically costly psychophysiological activation in response to stress. Thus, intentional mindfulness during a stressful event may be important for decreasing sympathetic activation, resulting in lower bodily stress.

A mixed filter algorithm for sympathetic arousal tracking from skin conductance and heart rate measurements in Pavlovian fear conditioning

Pathological fear and anxiety disorders can have debilitating impacts on individual patients and society. The neural circuitry underlying fear learning and extinction has been known to play a crucial role in the development and maintenance of anxiety disorders. Pavlovian conditioning, where a subject learns an association between a biologically-relevant stimulus and a neutral cue, has been instrumental in guiding the development of therapies for treating anxiety disorders. To date, a number of physiological signal responses such as skin conductance, heart rate, electroencephalography and cerebral blood flow have been analyzed in Pavlovian fear conditioning experiments. However, physiological markers are often examined separately to gain insight into the neural processes underlying fear acquisition. We propose a method to track a single brain-related sympathetic arousal state from physiological signal features during fear conditioning. We develop a state-space formulation that probabilistically relates features from skin conductance and heart rate to the unobserved sympathetic arousal state. We use an expectation-maximization framework for state estimation and model parameter recovery. State estimation is performed via Bayesian filtering. We evaluate our model on simulated and experimental data acquired in a trace fear conditioning experiment. Results on simulated data show the ability of our proposed method to estimate an unobserved arousal state and recover model parameters. Results on experimental data are consistent with skin conductance measurements and provide good fits to heartbeats modeled as a binary point process. The ability to track arousal from skin conductance and heart rate within a state-space model is an important precursor to the development of wearable monitors that could aid in patient care. Anxiety and trauma-related disorders are often accompanied by a heightened sympathetic tone and the methods described herein could find clinical applications in remote monitoring for therapeutic purposes.

Psychophysiological modelling and the measurement of fear conditioning

Quantification of fear conditioning is paramount to many clinical and translational studies on aversive learning. Various measures of fear conditioning co-exist, including different observables and different methods of pre-processing. Here, we first argue that low measurement error is a rational desideratum for any measurement technique. We then show that measurement error can be approximated in benchmark experiments by how closely intended fear memory relates to measured fear memory, a quantity that we term retrodictive validity. From this perspective, we discuss different approaches commonly used to quantify fear conditioning. One of these is psychophysiological modelling (PsPM). This builds on a measurement model that describes how a psychological variable, such as fear memory, influences a physiological measure. This model is statistically inverted to estimate the most likely value of the psychological variable, given the measured data. We review existing PsPMs for skin conductance, pupil size, heart period, respiration, and startle eye-blink. We illustrate the benefit of PsPMs in terms of retrodictive validity and translate this into sample size required to achieve a desired level of statistical power. This sample size can differ up to a factor of three between different observables, and between the best, and the current standard, data pre-processing methods.

Impact of a reminder/extinction procedure on threat-conditioned pupil size and skin conductance responses

A reminder can render consolidated memory labile and susceptible to amnesic agents during a reconsolidation window. For the case of threat memory (also termed fear memory), it has been suggested that extinction training during this reconsolidation window has the same disruptive impact. This procedure could provide a powerful therapeutic principle for treatment of unwanted aversive memories. However, human research yielded contradictory results. Notably, all published positive replications quantified threat memory by conditioned skin conductance responses (SCR). Yet, other studies measuring SCR and/or fear-potentiated startle failed to observe an effect of a reminder/extinction procedure on the return of fear. Here we sought to shed light on this discrepancy by using a different autonomic response, namely, conditioned pupil dilation, in addition to SCR, in a replication of the original human study. N = 71 humans underwent a 3-d threat conditioning, reminder/extinction, and reinstatement, procedure with 2 CS+, of which one was reminded. Participants successfully learned the threat association on day 1, extinguished conditioned responding on day 2, and showed reinstatement on day 3. However, there was no difference in conditioned responding between the reminded and the nonreminded CS, neither in pupil size nor SCR. Thus, we found no evidence that a reminder trial before extinction prevents the return of threat-conditioned responding.

Assessing Autonomic Function from Electrodermal Activity and Heart Rate Variability During Cold-Pressor Test and Emotional Challenge

Standard functional assessment of autonomic nervous system (ANS) activity on cardiovascular control relies on spectral analysis of heart rate variability (HRV) series. However, difficulties in obtaining a reliable measure of sympathetic activity from HRV spectra limits the exploitation of sympatho-vagal metrics. On the other hand, measures of electrodermal activity (EDA) have been demonstrated to provide a reliable quantifier of sympathetic dynamics. In this study we propose novel indices of phasic autonomic regulation mechanisms by combining HRV and EDA correlates and thoroughly investigating their time-varying dynamics. HRV and EDA series were gathered from 26 healthy subjects during a cold-pressor test and emotional stimuli. Instantaneous linear and nonlinear (bispectral) estimates of vagal dynamics were obtained from HRV through inhomogeneous point-process models, and combined with a sensitive maker of sympathetic tone from EDA spectral power. A wavelet decomposition analysis was applied to estimate phasic components of the proposed sympatho-vagal indices. Results show significant statistical differences for the proposed indices between the cold-pressor elicitation and previous resting state. Furthermore, an accuracy of 73.08% was achieved for the automatic emotional valence recognition. The proposed nonlinear processing of phasic ANS markers brings novel insights on autonomic functioning that can be exploited in the field of affective computing and psychophysiology.

Electrodermal activity patient simulator

Electrodermal activity (EDA) is an electrical property of the human skin, correlated with person's psychological arousal. Nowadays, different types of EDA measuring devices are used in highly versatile fields-from research, health-care and education to entertainment industry. But despite their universal use the quality of their measuring function (their accuracy) is questioned or investigated very seldom. In this paper, we propose a concept of an EDA patient simulator-a device enabling metrological testing of EDA devices by means of a variable resistance. EDA simulator was designed based on a programmable light-controlled resistor with a wide resistance range, capable of simulating skin conductance levels (SCL) and responses (SCR) and was equipped with an artificial hand. The hand included electrically conductive fingers for attachment of EDA device electrodes. A minimal set of tests for evaluating an EDA device was identified, the simulator's functionality discussed and some testing results presented.

Event-Related Electrodermal Response to Stress: Results From a Realistic Driving Simulator Scenario

OBJECTIVE

The study goal was to test whether induced stress during driving could be measured at the event level through electrodermal activity responses.

BACKGROUND

Stress measured in simulation scenarios could thus far show an overall change in the stress state, but not be well attributed to acute stressful events. Driving simulator scenarios that induce stress measurable at the event level in realistic situations are thus warranted. As such, acute stress reactions can be measured in the context of changing situational factors such as fatigue, substance abuse, or medical conditions.

METHOD

Twelve healthy female participants drove the same route numerous times in a driving simulator, each time with different random traffic events occurring throughout. During one of the scenarios, unknown to the participants, 10 programmed neutral traffic events occurred, whereas in another scenario, at the same location, 10 stressful events occurred.

RESULTS

Electrodermal response results showed both effects of scenario type and of events. The amplitude of the electrodermal response was significantly correlated with subjective stress experience.

CONCLUSION

We conclude that our developed ecological driving simulation scenarios can be used to induce and measure stress at the event level.

APPLICATION

The developed simulator scenarios enable us to measure stress reactions in driving situations at the time when the event actually happens. With these scenarios, we can measure how situational factors, such as fatigue or substance abuse, can change immediate stress reactions when driving. We can further measure more specifically how induced driving stress can affect physical and mental functioning afterward.

Relationship between corneal confocal microscopy and markers of peripheral nerve structure and function in Type 2 diabetes

AIMS

To investigate changes in corneal nerve morphology in Type 2 diabetes and to establish relationships between in vivo corneal confocal microscopy and markers of peripheral nerve structure and function.

PARTICIPANTS AND METHODS

We recruited 57 participants with Type 2 diabetes and 26 healthy controls of similar age and sex distribution. We also recruited a disease control group of 54 participants with Type 1 diabetes. All participants were assessed for distal symmetrical polyneuropathy using the Total Neuropathy Score. In vivo corneal confocal microscopy was used to assess corneal nerve fibre length, corneal nerve fibre density, corneal nerve branch density and inferior whorl length. Peripheral nerve structure was assessed using median nerve ultrasonography. Large fibre function was assessed according to median nerve axonal excitability. Small fibre function was assessed using Sudoscan^TM and the Survey of Autonomic Symptoms.

RESULTS

Corneal nerve fibre length, fibre density and branch density and inferior whorl length were significantly lower in individuals with Type 2 diabetes compared to controls (P<0.001 for all). In the Type 2 diabetes cohort, correlations were observed between neuropathy severity and corneal nerve fibre density (P=0.004), corneal nerve branch density (P=0.003), corneal nerve fibre length (P=0.002) and inferior whorl length (P=0.01). Significant correlations were observed between corneal confocal outcomes and axonal excitability measurements. No association was found between corneal confocal microscopy and median nerve cross-sectional area, Sudoscan measurements or the Survey of Autonomic Symptoms.

CONCLUSIONS

This study demonstrated significant changes in corneal nerves in individuals with Type 2 diabetes. Reductions in corneal nerve measures correlated with increasing neuropathy severity. Associations were found between corneal confocal microscopy and markers of voltage-gated potassium channel function.

Focusing attention on biological markers of acute stressor intensity: Empirical evidence and limitations

ARMARIO, A, J. Labad and R. Nadal. Focusing attention on biological markers of acute stressor intensity: empirical evidence and limitations. NEUROSCIENCE AND BIOBEHAVIORAL REVIEWS. The availability of biological markers that objectively quantify stress is a highly relevant issue. However, experimental evidence suggests that most physiological changes elicited by emotional stressors do not reflect their intensity and are not useful for this purpose. Thus, we review experimental evidence in animals and humans about the putative validity of neuroendocrine and sympathetic/parasympathetic variables to measure stress. Plasma levels of some hormones (e.g. ACTH, glucocorticoids, prolactin and catecholamines) have been found to reflect, at least under certain conditions, the intensity of emotional stressors in animals and probably in humans. However, the temporal resolution of hormone changes is insufficient to reflect the very dynamic psychological processes taking place while experiencing stressors. Cardiovascular parameters (e.g. heart rate and blood pressure) have much better temporal resolution but their validity as markers of stressor intensity either in animals or humans is problematic. Skin conductance and pupil dilation appear to be promising. Additional and more systematic studies are needed to demonstrate the actual validity of stress-induced physiological changes to quantify stress.

An Investigation of Various Machine and Deep Learning Techniques Applied in Automatic Fear Level Detection and Acrophobia Virtual Therapy

In this paper, we investigate various machine learning classifiers used in our Virtual Reality (VR) system for treating acrophobia. The system automatically estimates fear level based on multimodal sensory data and a self-reported emotion assessment. There are two modalities of expressing fear ratings: the 2-choice scale, where 0 represents relaxation and 1 stands for fear; and the 4-choice scale, with the following correspondence: 0—relaxation, 1—low fear, 2—medium fear and 3—high fear. A set of features was extracted from the sensory signals using various metrics that quantify brain (electroencephalogram—EEG) and physiological linear and non-linear dynamics (Heart Rate—HR and Galvanic Skin Response—GSR). The novelty consists in the automatic adaptation of exposure scenario according to the subject’s affective state. We acquired data from acrophobic subjects who had undergone an in vivo pre-therapy exposure session, followed by a Virtual Reality therapy and an in vivo evaluation procedure. Various machine and deep learning classifiers were implemented and tested, with and without feature selection, in both a user-dependent and user-independent fashion. The results showed a very high cross-validation accuracy on the training set and good test accuracies, ranging from 42.5% to 89.5%. The most important features of fear level classification were GSR, HR and the values of the EEG in the beta frequency range. For determining the next exposure scenario, a dominant role was played by the target fear level, a parameter computed by taking into account the patient’s estimated fear level.

Physiological Correlates of Fluent and Stuttered Speech Production in Preschool Children Who Stutter

Purpose The purpose of this study was to compare physiological indices of sympathetic nervous system arousal recorded during fluent and stuttered utterances in a preschool children who stutter (CWS). Method Twenty-two 4- to 5-year-old CWS participated in the experiment. We recorded children's skin conductance response amplitude and frequency, blood pulse volume amplitude, and pulse rate as they completed a picture description task. We then compared indices of phasic sympathetic arousal recorded during stuttered versus fluent utterances. In addition, children's communication attitudes were evaluated with a self-report measure. Results We detected significantly higher sympathetic arousal during stuttered utterances compared to fluent utterances. Specifically, we found larger skin conductance responses occurring at an increased frequency and decreased blood pulse volume amplitudes during stuttered speech. The behavioral measure indicated a negative communication attitude in only one-third of the participants. Conclusion Our findings suggest that preschool CWS may exhibit higher levels of sympathetic arousal during stuttered speech compared to when they are speaking fluently. We discuss the potential impact of increased sympathetic arousal on speech regulatory mechanisms in early childhood stuttering and present questions to guide future research.

Psychological and physiological effects of applying self-control to the mobile phone

This preregistered study examined the psychological and physiological consequences of exercising self-control with the mobile phone. A total of 125 participants were randomly assigned to sit in an unadorned room for six minutes and either (a) use their mobile phone, (b) sit alone with no phone, or (c) sit with their device but resist using it. Consistent with prior work, participants self-reported more concentration difficulty and more mind wandering with no device present compared to using the phone. Resisting the phone led to greater perceived concentration abilities than sitting without the device (not having external stimulation). Failing to replicate prior work, however, participants without external stimulation did not rate the experience as less enjoyable or more boring than having something to do. We also observed that skin conductance data were consistent across conditions for the first three-minutes of the experiment, after which participants who resisted the phone were less aroused than those who were without the phone. We discuss how the findings contribute to our understanding of exercising self-control with mobile media and how psychological consequences, such as increased mind wandering and focusing challenges, relate to periods of idleness or free thinking.

Effect of d-cycloserine on fear extinction training in adults with social anxiety disorder

Preclinical and clinical data have shown that D-cycloserine (DCS), a partial agonist at the N-methyl-d-aspartate receptor complex, augments the retention of fear extinction in animals and the therapeutic learning from exposure therapy in humans. However, studies with non-clinical human samples in de novo fear conditioning paradigms have demonstrated minimal to no benefit of DCS. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of DCS on the retention of extinction learning following de novo fear conditioning in a clinical sample. Eighty-one patients with social anxiety disorder were recruited and underwent a previously validated de novo fear conditioning and extinction paradigm over the course of three days. Of those, only 43 (53%) provided analyzable data. During conditioning on Day 1, participants viewed images of differently colored lamps, two of which were followed by with electric shock (CS+) and a third which was not (CS-). On Day 2, participants were randomly assigned to receive either 50 mg DCS or placebo, administered in a double-blind manner 1 hour prior to extinction training with a single CS+ in a distinct context. Day 3 consisted of tests of extinction recall and renewal. The primary outcome was skin conductance response to conditioned stimuli, and shock expectancy ratings were examined as a secondary outcome. Results showed greater skin conductance and expectancy ratings in response to the CS+ compared to CS- at the end of conditioning. As expected, this difference was no longer present at the end of extinction training, but returned at early recall and renewal phases on Day 3, showing evidence of return of fear. In contrast to hypotheses, DCS had no moderating influence on skin conductance response or expectancy of shock during recall or renewal phases. We did not find evidence of an effect of DCS on the retention of extinction learning in humans in this fear conditioning and extinction paradigm.

Impact of Physiological Signals Acquisition in the Emotional Support Provided in Learning Scenarios

Physiological sensors can be used to detect changes in the emotional state of users with affective computing. This has lately been applied in the educational domain, aimed to better support learners during the learning process. For this purpose, we have developed the AICARP (Ambient Intelligence Context-aware Affective Recommender Platform) infrastructure, which detects changes in the emotional state of the user and provides personalized multisensorial support to help manage the emotional state by taking advantage of ambient intelligence features. We have developed a third version of this infrastructure, AICARP.V3, which addresses several problems detected in the data acquisition stage of the second version, (i.e., intrusion of the pulse sensor, poor resolution and low signal to noise ratio in the galvanic skin response sensor and slow response time of the temperature sensor) and extends the capabilities to integrate new actuators. This improved incorporates a new acquisition platform (shield) called PhyAS (Physiological Acquisition Shield), which reduces the number of control units to only one, and supports both gathering physiological signals with better precision and delivering multisensory feedback with more flexibility, by means of new actuators that can be added/discarded on top of just that single shield. The improvements in the quality of the acquired signals allow better recognition of the emotional states. Thereof, AICARP.V3 gives a more accurate personalized emotional support to the user, based on a rule-based approach that triggers multisensorial feedback, if necessary. This represents progress in solving an open problem: develop systems that perform as effectively as a human expert in a complex task such as the recognition of emotional states.

Electrodermal Activity Monitoring during Endotracheal Suction in Sedated Adult Intensive Care Unit Patients

BACKGROUND

Endotracheal suctioning of respiratory secretions is one of the most common causes of pain and discomfort in Intensive Care Unit environment. The electrical properties of the skin, also known as electrodermal activity (EDA), are considered as an indirect measure of autonomous nervous system.

AIM

This study explores EDA changes during endotracheal suction in sedated adult critical care patients; and compares these changes to other monitoring parameters.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Skin conductance variability, selected hemodynamic and respiratory parameters, bispectral index (BIS) and ambient noise level, were monitored during 4 hour routine daytime intensive care nursing and treatment in an adult Intensive Care Unit. 4h-measurements were divided into 2 groups, based upon the sedation level (group A: Ramsay sedation scale 2-4 and group B: 5-6 respectively) of the patients. Selected recordings before and after endotracheal suction (stress events) were performed. Seven stress events from Group A and 17 from Group B were included for further analysis. Patients' demographics, laboratory exams and severity scores were recorded. Pain status evaluation before every event was also performed via 2 independent observers.

RESULTS

In both groups the rate of EDA changes was greater than in other monitoring parameters. Yet, in group A only selected parameters were significantly changed after the start of the procedure, while in group B, every parameter showed significant change (p<0.05). Groups were similar for other co-founding factors.

CONCLUSION

EDA measurements are more sensitive to stress stimuli, than cardiovascular, respiratory or even BIS monitoring. Deeper sedation seems to affect more the intensity of EDA changes during suction.

A Flexible Wearable Device for Measurement of Cardiac, Electrodermal, and Motion Parameters in Mental Healthcare Applications

Mental illnesses are vast and cause a lot of individual and social discomfort, with significant healthcare costs associated in terms of diagnosis and treatment. They can be triggered by a number of factors including stress, fatigue or anxiety. The associated physiological, cardiac and autonomic changes can be assessed, centrally, through brain imaging or, peripherally, by other signal recording modalities. With recent advances in wearable devices, these parameters can now be assessed in natural living conditions as associated mood disorders such as obsessive/compulsive behavior or depression are difficult to be examined in controlled settings. In this paper, we present a low-powered and flexible device with electrocardiogram (ECG), galvanic skin response (GSR), temperature and bio-motion detection channels, with signal accuracies of 62 μV for ECG, 6.6 kΩ for GSR, 0.13 °C for temperature and 0.04 g for acceleration. Potential applications include mental health assessment of patients during daily activities at home and/or work through non-continuous and multimodal sensing as demonstrated in this paper during exercise, rest and mental activities performed by healthy individuals only, achieving an overall accuracy of 89% in the classification of the different tasks executed by volunteers.

Psychophysiological Synchrony During Verbal Interaction in Romantic Relationships

Previous studies about romantic relationships have shown that the reciprocal influence between partners occurs not only at the behavioral and socio-emotional levels, but also at the psychophysiological level. This reciprocal influence is expressed in a pattern of physiological synchrony between partners (i.e., coordinated dynamics of the physiological time series). The main aim of the present study was to explore the presence of a pattern of physiological synchrony in electrodermal activity (EDA) during a couple interaction task. A second objective was to compare the synchrony levels during a negative interaction condition versus a positive interaction condition. Finally, we analyzed the association between synchrony and self-perception of empathy, dyadic empathy, and relationship satisfaction. Thirty-two couples (64 individuals) participated in this study. Each couple performed a structured interaction task while the EDA of both partners was being registered. The quantification of synchrony was based on the cross-correlation of both members' EDA time-series. In order to control for coincidental synchrony, surrogate datasets were created by repeatedly shuffling the original data of spouses X and Y of a dyad and computing synchronies on the basis of the shuffled data (pseudosynchrony values). Our results confirmed the presence of significant EDA synchrony during the interaction. We also found that synchrony was higher during the negative interactions relative to the positive interactions. Additionally, physiological synchrony during positive interaction was higher for those couples in which males scored higher in dyadic empathy. The clinical implications of these findings are discussed.

Reward sensitivity and electrodermal responses to actions and outcomes in a go/no-go task

Skin conductance response (SCR) is used in psychophysiological research to measure the reactions of the autonomic nervous system to reward and punishment. While there is consistent evidence that SCR increases to both aversive and appetitive stimuli, it remains unclear whether SCR simply represents a general index of arousal to motivationally significant outcomes or may also differentiate action or inhibition of action that lead to such outcomes. Furthermore, individual differences in trait sensitivity to reward and punishment can influence physiological arousal during approach and avoidance behaviors. Yet, their inter-relationships have not been examined. To address these gaps, we employed a reward go/no-go task with ⅔ go and ⅓ no-go trials and an individually titrated go response window. Correct go and no-go responses were rewarded while incorrect responses were penalized. We examined whether SCR varied with outcome (win vs. loss), action (go vs. no-go), and individual differences in reward sensitivity (SR) and sex. The results showed greater SCRs to loss vs. win, to go vs. no-go success, and to go success in positive correlation with SR. Further, SCR mediated the relationship between SR and go success rate. In sex differences, men exhibited greater SCR which was more predictive of go success rate relative to women. In contrast, SCR was more predictive of no-go success rate in women. Thus, SCR varies according to behavioral contingency, outcome, sex, and reward sensitivity. These findings add to the literature by characterizing the individual and behavioral factors that may influence physiological arousal in response to salient events.

Music and Dementia: Individual Differences in Response to Personalized Playlists

Personalized music playlists are increasingly being used in health-care contexts to address the psychological and behavioral symptoms in people with dementia. However, there is little understanding of how people with different mental health histories and symptoms respond differently to music. A factorial experiment was conducted to investigate the influence of depression, anxiety, apathy, and cognitive decline on affective response to music. Ninety-nine people with dementia listened to three music playlists based on personal preferences. Activation of facial action units was measured, and behavioural responses continuously observed. Results demonstrated that people with high levels of depression and with symptoms of Alzheimer's type dementia demonstrated increased levels of sadness when listening to music. People with low depression but high levels of apathy demonstrated the highest behavioral evidence of pleasure during music listening, although behavioral evidence declined with severity of cognitive impairment. It is concluded that as well as accounting for personal preferences, music interventions for people with dementia need to take mental health history and symptoms into account.

Associations between maternal physiology and maternal sensitivity vary depending on infant distress and emotion context

Individual differences in maternal sensitivity to infant distress were examined by testing whether mothers' physiological responses interacted to predict sensitivity differently in a fear task relative to an anger task, and based on the level of distress displayed by the infant. Mothers' (N = 208) physiological arousal (skin conductance level [SCL] arousal) and physiological regulation (respiratory sinus arrhythmia [RSA] withdrawal/augmentation) were measured during a baseline task and while interacting with their 1-year-old infants during tasks that elicited infant fear and infant anger. Infant negative affect and maternal sensitivity were assessed during these interactions, and mothers later reported on their perceptions of infant distress during the tasks. Results indicated that the mother SCL arousal × RSA change interaction predicted sensitivity only with infants who displayed higher distress, and in a different pattern across tasks. In the fear task, for mothers of infants displaying higher distress, SCL arousal related to greater sensitivity only for mothers who displayed RSA withdrawal. In the anger task, for mothers of infants displaying higher distress, SCL arousal related to greater sensitivity only for mothers who displayed RSA augmentation. Further, although infants displayed similar levels of distress in each task, maternal SCL arousal, sensitivity, and perceptions of distress differed across tasks. These results suggest that contextual cues and infant distress cues both contribute to associations between mothers' physiological responses and maternal sensitivity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Clinical validation of a non-invasive electrodermal biofeedback device useful for reducing chronic perceived pain and systemic inflammation

BACKGROUND

This study was performed to evaluate the potential clinical usefulness of a new non-invasive electrodermal biofeedback device in reducing perceived pain levels and chronic systemic inflammation.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

This multicenter study was designed and coordinated by BioTekna, included 20 general practice medical centers, took place between June 2010 and January 2011, and was validated clinically at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece. The study participants were 1015 Caucasian men (401) and women (614), while the placebo-treated controls were 950 Caucasian men (500) and women (450). Patients were aged between 30 and 86 years (average age about 50 years) and all suffered from chronic pain and other medically unexplained symptoms (MUS). The RegMatEx electrodermal biofeedback device (brand BioTekna - Biomedical Technologies, Marcon, Venice, Italy) was used to evaluate the clinical efficacy of electrodermal biofeedback in reducing the level of pain perceived by decreasing the chronic systemic inflammation of the subjects. All subjects received 6 × 30 min sessions of electrodermal or placebo biofeedback given twice a week over 3 weeks. Perceived pain was evaluated using the Numeric Rating Scale (NRS) for pain, while systemic inflammation was examined with measurements of morning circulating C-reactive protein (CRP) concentrations.

RESULTS

Perceived pain in the treatment group was significantly lessened in the NRS scale (p < 005), while circulating CRP concentrations were also decreased (p < 0.05). Parallel placebo studies showed no changes in perceived pain or morning serum CRP concentrations.

DISCUSSION

Use of the electrodermal biofeedback RegMatEx device was associated with reduced pain perception and decreased chronic systemic inflammation, with stability over time. This did not occur in the placebo-treated group. The symptomatology of the treated patients significantly improved in terms of pain relief as shown on the NRS scale, and this was accompanied by reported improvements in mobility, mood, and quality of life.

CONCLUSIONS

The RegMatEx electrodermal biofeedback procedure is a non-invasive and easy to use therapeutic method, free of side effects, with high patient acceptability, excellent efficacy, and duration of effect, and, hence, a valuable tool in the treatment of chronic pain and inflammation.

Skin conductance responses in Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) under mental arithmetic stress

Depressive symptoms are related to abnormalities in the autonomic nervous system (ANS), and physiological signals that can be used to measure and evaluate such abnormalities have previously been used as indicators for diagnosing mental disorder, such as major depressive disorder (MDD). In this study, we investigate the feasibility of developing an objective measure of depressive symptoms that is based on examining physiological abnormalities in individuals when they are experiencing mental stress. To perform this, we recruited 30 patients with MDD and 31 healthy controls. Then, skin conductance (SC) was measured during five 5-min experimental phases, comprising baseline, mental stress, recovery from the stress, relaxation, and recovery from the relaxation, respectively. For each phase, the mean amplitude of the skin conductance level (MSCL), standard deviations of the SCL (SDSCL), slope of the SCL (SSCL), mean amplitude of the non-specific skin conductance responses (MSCR), number of non-specific skin conductance responses (NSCR), and power spectral density (PSD) were evaluated from the SC signals, producing 30 parameters overall (six features for each phase). These features were used as input data for a support vector machine (SVM) algorithm designed to distinguish MDD patients from healthy controls based on their physiological responses. Statistical tests showed that the main effect of task was significant in all SC features, and the main effect of group was significant in MSCL, SDSCL, SSCL, and PSD. In addition, the proposed algorithm achieved 70% accuracy, 70% sensitivity, 71% specificity, 70% positive predictive value, 71% negative predictive value in classifying MDD patients and healthy controls. These results demonstrated that it is possible to extract meaningful features that reflect changes in ANS responses to various stimuli. Using these features, detection of MDD was feasible, suggesting that SC analysis has great potential for future diagnostics and prediction of depression based on objective interpretation of depressive states.

Dynamic Threat Processing

During real-life situations, multiple factors interact dynamically to determine threat level. In the current fMRI study involving healthy adult human volunteers, we investigated interactions between proximity, direction (approach vs. retreat), and speed during a dynamic threat-of-shock paradigm. As a measure of threat-evoked physiological arousal, skin conductance responses were recorded during fMRI scanning. Some brain regions tracked individual threat-related factors, and others were also sensitive to combinations of these variables. In particular, signals in the anterior insula tracked the interaction between proximity and direction where approach versus retreat responses were stronger when threat was closer compared with farther. A parallel proximity-by-direction interaction was also observed in physiological skin conductance responses. In the right amygdala, we observed a proximity by direction interaction, but intriguingly in the opposite direction as the anterior insula; retreat versus approach responses were stronger when threat was closer compared with farther. In the right bed nucleus of the stria terminalis, we observed an effect of threat proximity, whereas in the right periaqueductal gray/midbrain we observed an effect of threat direction and a proximity by direction by speed interaction (the latter was detected in exploratory analyses but not in a voxelwise fashion). Together, our study refines our understanding of the brain mechanisms involved during aversive anticipation in the human brain. Importantly, it emphasizes that threat processing should be understood in a manner that is both context-sensitive and dynamic.

Circadian variations in electric current responses at ryodoraku points across the waking stage: A prospective observational study

Human body undergoes the 24-hour daily rhythm in response primarily to light and darkness. The circadian rhythms of biomarkers reflect bodily conditions including the prognosis of some pathologies. As a sensitive index of sympathetic nervous response (SNR), electrodermal activity (EDA) is a recent research topic in healthcare industry as a noninvasive and easy-access biosignal. The EDA response at Ryodoraku points (RPs) is of potential clinical usage in relation to SNR and meridian theory, but still remains in its primitive development stage.In this study, the 24-hour variations of EDA for 14 hospitalized participants were monitored over 3 days using a Ryodoraku device, and a circadian model of EDA was constructed using a cosinor analysis based on the linear mixed effect model.As a result, EDA at every RP showed a circadian cycle with its value the lowest in the morning and increased gradually until the late afternoon, and monotonically decreased again until the next morning. Circadian variations were observed in EDAs of all 12 RPs. However, Ryodoraku-specific features were not detected. Midline estimating statistic of rhythm (MESOR) values in men and young group were higher than in women and old group, and cosinor analysis showed significant circadian rhythms, especially for men and young groups. Especially, circadian variation in EDA in the young group went above 35% of the MESOR value.It implies that the circadian rhythm should be considered for the Ryodoraku analysis to examine bodily conditions or the prognosis of some pathologies.