Age-related differences in brain activity during implicit and explicit processing of fearful facial expressions

2016 ◽  
Vol 1650 ◽  
pp. 208-217 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isabella Zsoldos ◽  
Emilie Cousin ◽  
Yanica Klein-Koerkamp ◽  
Cédric Pichat ◽  
Pascal Hot
2012 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 279-292 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Lo Bianco ◽  
G. Blasi ◽  
P. Taurisano ◽  
A. Di Giorgio ◽  
F. Ferrante ◽  
...  

BackgroundEmotion dysregulation is a key feature of schizophrenia, a brain disorder strongly associated with genetic risk and aberrant dopamine signalling. Dopamine is inactivated by catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT), whose gene contains a functional polymorphism (COMT Val158Met) associated with differential activity of the enzyme and with brain physiology of emotion processing. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether genetic risk for schizophrenia and COMT Val158Met genotype interact on brain activity during implicit and explicit emotion processing.MethodA total of 25 patients with schizophrenia, 23 healthy siblings of patients and 24 comparison subjects genotyped for COMT Val158Met underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging during implicit and explicit processing of facial stimuli with negative emotional valence.ResultsWe found a main effect of diagnosis in the right amygdala, with decreased activity in patients and siblings compared with control subjects. Furthermore, a genotype × diagnosis interaction was found in the left middle frontal gyrus, such that the effect of genetic risk for schizophrenia was evident in the context of the Val/Val genotype only, i.e. the phenotype of reduced activity was present especially in Val/Val patients and siblings. Finally, a complete inversion of the COMT effect between patients and healthy subjects was found in the left striatum during explicit processing.ConclusionsOverall, these results suggest complex interactions between genetically determined dopamine signalling and risk for schizophrenia on brain activity in the prefrontal cortex during emotion processing. On the other hand, the effects in the striatum may represent state-related epiphenomena of the disorder itself.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronak Patel

This thesis examines whether implicit and explicit processing of emotional facial expressions affects the emotional enhancement of memory (EEM). On the basis that explicit processing is associated with relative reductions in amygdala activation and arousal, I predicted that fearful faces, in particular, would lead to a robust EEM effect following encoding with implicit, but not explicit processing. Participants were shown a series of facial expressions (happy, fearful, angry, and neutral) in an "indirect" and a "direct" task designed to elicit implicit and explicit processing, respectively. Later they underwent a recognition memory test using the Remember-Know paradigm. Fearful faces exhibited a unique pattern whereby indirect encoding led to an enhanced subjective sense of recollection, whereas direct encoding prevented an increase in recollection that was observed for all other emotions. These findings may reflect interactions among amygdalar/arousal thresholds and levels of processing (LOP) effects on recognition memory.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronak Patel

This thesis examines whether implicit and explicit processing of emotional facial expressions affects the emotional enhancement of memory (EEM). On the basis that explicit processing is associated with relative reductions in amygdala activation and arousal, I predicted that fearful faces, in particular, would lead to a robust EEM effect following encoding with implicit, but not explicit processing. Participants were shown a series of facial expressions (happy, fearful, angry, and neutral) in an "indirect" and a "direct" task designed to elicit implicit and explicit processing, respectively. Later they underwent a recognition memory test using the Remember-Know paradigm. Fearful faces exhibited a unique pattern whereby indirect encoding led to an enhanced subjective sense of recollection, whereas direct encoding prevented an increase in recollection that was observed for all other emotions. These findings may reflect interactions among amygdalar/arousal thresholds and levels of processing (LOP) effects on recognition memory.


2014 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 148-161 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Friedman ◽  
Ray Johnson

A cardinal feature of aging is a decline in episodic memory (EM). Nevertheless, there is evidence that some older adults may be able to “compensate” for failures in recollection-based processing by recruiting brain regions and cognitive processes not normally recruited by the young. We review the evidence suggesting that age-related declines in EM performance and recollection-related brain activity (left-parietal EM effect; LPEM) are due to altered processing at encoding. We describe results from our laboratory on differences in encoding- and retrieval-related activity between young and older adults. We then show that, relative to the young, in older adults brain activity at encoding is reduced over a brain region believed to be crucial for successful semantic elaboration in a 400–1,400-ms interval (left inferior prefrontal cortex, LIPFC; Johnson, Nessler, & Friedman, 2013 ; Nessler, Friedman, Johnson, & Bersick, 2007 ; Nessler, Johnson, Bersick, & Friedman, 2006 ). This reduced brain activity is associated with diminished subsequent recognition-memory performance and the LPEM at retrieval. We provide evidence for this premise by demonstrating that disrupting encoding-related processes during this 400–1,400-ms interval in young adults affords causal support for the hypothesis that the reduction over LIPFC during encoding produces the hallmarks of an age-related EM deficit: normal semantic retrieval at encoding, reduced subsequent episodic recognition accuracy, free recall, and the LPEM. Finally, we show that the reduced LPEM in young adults is associated with “additional” brain activity over similar brain areas as those activated when older adults show deficient retrieval. Hence, rather than supporting the compensation hypothesis, these data are more consistent with the scaffolding hypothesis, in which the recruitment of additional cognitive processes is an adaptive response across the life span in the face of momentary increases in task demand due to poorly-encoded episodic memories.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adeline Jabès ◽  
Giuliana Klencklen ◽  
Paolo Ruggeri ◽  
Christoph M. Michel ◽  
Pamela Banta Lavenex ◽  
...  

AbstractAlterations of resting-state EEG microstates have been associated with various neurological disorders and behavioral states. Interestingly, age-related differences in EEG microstate organization have also been reported, and it has been suggested that resting-state EEG activity may predict cognitive capacities in healthy individuals across the lifespan. In this exploratory study, we performed a microstate analysis of resting-state brain activity and tested allocentric spatial working memory performance in healthy adult individuals: twenty 25–30-year-olds and twenty-five 64–75-year-olds. We found a lower spatial working memory performance in older adults, as well as age-related differences in the five EEG microstate maps A, B, C, C′ and D, but especially in microstate maps C and C′. These two maps have been linked to neuronal activity in the frontal and parietal brain regions which are associated with working memory and attention, cognitive functions that have been shown to be sensitive to aging. Older adults exhibited lower global explained variance and occurrence of maps C and C′. Moreover, although there was a higher probability to transition from any map towards maps C, C′ and D in young and older adults, this probability was lower in older adults. Finally, although age-related differences in resting-state EEG microstates paralleled differences in allocentric spatial working memory performance, we found no evidence that any individual or combination of resting-state EEG microstate parameter(s) could reliably predict individual spatial working memory performance. Whether the temporal dynamics of EEG microstates may be used to assess healthy cognitive aging from resting-state brain activity requires further investigation.


2007 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 292-302 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle L. Keightley ◽  
Kimberly S. Chiew ◽  
Gordon Winocur ◽  
Cheryl L. Grady

2021 ◽  
Vol 57 (3) ◽  
pp. 386-396
Author(s):  
Miao Qian ◽  
Gail D. Heyman ◽  
Paul C. Quinn ◽  
Francoise A. Messi ◽  
Genyue Fu ◽  
...  

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Anna A. Matejko ◽  
Daniel Ansari

Abstract Visuospatial working memory (VSWM) plays an important role in arithmetic problem solving, and the relationship between these two skills is thought to change over development. Even though neuroimaging studies have demonstrated that VSWM and arithmetic both recruit frontoparietal networks, inferences about common neural substrates have largely been made by comparisons across studies. Little work has examined how brain activation for VSWM and arithmetic converge within the same participants and whether there are age-related changes in the overlap of these neural networks. In this study, we examined how brain activity for VSWM and arithmetic overlap in 38 children and 26 adults. Although both children and adults recruited the intraparietal sulcus (IPS) for VSWM and arithmetic, children showed more focal activation within the right IPS, whereas adults recruited the bilateral IPS, superior frontal sulcus/middle frontal gyrus, and right insula. A comparison of the two groups revealed that adults recruited a more left-lateralized network of frontoparietal regions for VSWM and arithmetic compared with children. Together, these findings suggest possible neurocognitive mechanisms underlying the strong relationship between VSWM and arithmetic and provide evidence that the association between VSWM and arithmetic networks changes with age.


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