scholarly journals Trauma-associated anterior cingulate connectivity during reward learning predicts affective and anxiety states in young adults

2018 ◽  
Vol 49 (11) ◽  
pp. 1831-1840 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristen L. Eckstrand ◽  
Lindsay C. Hanford ◽  
Michele A. Bertocci ◽  
Henry W. Chase ◽  
Tsafrir Greenberg ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Young Adults ◽  
Negative Affect ◽  
Anxiety Symptoms ◽  
Anterior Cingulate ◽  
Reward Learning ◽  
Neural Activation ◽  
Emotional States ◽  
Learning Networks ◽  
The Impact

AbstractBackgroundTrauma exposure is associated with development of depression and anxiety; yet, some individuals are resilient to these trauma-associated effects. Differentiating mechanisms underlying development of negative affect and resilience following trauma is critical for developing effective interventions. One pathway through which trauma could exert its effects on negative affect is reward-learning networks. In this study, we examined relationships among lifetime trauma, reward-learning network function, and emotional states in young adults.MethodsOne hundred eleven young adults self-reported trauma and emotional states and underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging during a monetary reward task. Trauma-associated neural activation and functional connectivity were analyzed during reward prediction error (RPE). Relationships between trauma-associated neural functioning and affective and anxiety symptoms were examined.ResultsNumber of traumatic events was associated with greater ventral anterior cingulate cortex (vACC) activation, and lower vACC connectivity with the right insula, frontopolar, inferior parietal, and temporoparietal regions, during RPE. Lower trauma-associated vACC connectivity with frontoparietal regions implicated in regulatory and decision-making processes was associated with heightened affective and anxiety symptoms; lower vACC connectivity with insular regions implicated in interoception was associated with lower affective and anxiety symptoms.ConclusionsIn a young adult sample, two pathways linked the impact of trauma on reward-learning networks with higherv.lower negative affective and anxiety symptoms. The disconnection between vACC and regions implicated in decision-making and self-referential processes may reflect aberrant regulatory but appropriate self-focused mechanisms, respectively, conferring risk forv.resilience against negative affective and anxiety symptoms.

scholarly journals Relationship between systolic blood pressure and decision-making during emotional processing

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sophie Jacqueline Andree Betka ◽  
David Watson ◽  
Sarah N Garfinkel ◽  
Gaby Pfeifer ◽  
Henrique Sequeira ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Blood Pressure ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Systolic Blood Pressure ◽  
Emotional Processing ◽  
Subjective Experience ◽  
Short Term Memory ◽  
Memory Task ◽  
Emotional States ◽  
Physiological Changes ◽  
The Impact

Objective: Emotional states are expressed in body and mind through subjective experience of physiological changes. In previous work, subliminal priming of anger prior to lexical decisions increased systolic blood pressure (SBP). This increase predicted the slowing of response times (RT), suggesting that baroreflex-related autonomic changes and their interoceptive (feedback) representations, influence cognition. Alexithymia is a subclinical affective dysfunction characterized by difficulty in identifying emotions. Atypical autonomic and interoceptive profiles are observed in alexithymia. Therefore, we sought to identify mechanisms through which SBP fluctuations during emotional processing might influence decision-making, including whether alexithymia contributes to this relationship. Methods Thirty-two male participants performed an affect priming paradigm and completed the Toronto Alexithymia Scale. Emotional faces were briefly presented (20ms) prior a short-term memory task. RT, accuracy and SBP were recorded on a trial-by-trial basis. Generalized mixed-effects linear models were used to evaluate the impact of emotion, physiological changes, alexithymia score, and their interactions, on performances. Results A main effect of emotion was observed on accuracy. Participants were more accurate on trials with anger primes, compared to neutral priming. Greater accuracy was related to increased SBP. An interaction between SBP and emotion was observed on RT: Increased SBP was associated with RT prolongation in the anger priming condition, yet this relationship was absent under the sadness priming. Alexithymia did not significantly moderate the above relationships. Conclusions Our data suggest that peripheral autonomic responses during affective challenges guide cognitive processes. We discuss our findings in the theoretical framework proposed by Lacey and Lacey (1970).

Day-to-Day Decision Making by Adolescents and Young Adults with Cancer

2022 ◽  
pp. 275275302110687
Author(s):  
Kimberly A. Pyke-Grimm ◽  
Linda S. Franck ◽  
Bonnie Halpern-Felsher ◽  
Robert E. Goldsby ◽  
Roberta S. Rehm
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Young Adults ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Healthcare Providers ◽  
Adolescents And Young Adults ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Self Advocacy ◽  
Daily Lives ◽  
Life Threatening Illness ◽  
The Impact

Background: Adolescents and young adults (AYAs) with cancer must negotiate the transition between childhood and adulthood while dealing with a life-threatening illness. AYA involvement in decision making varies depending on the type of decision and when decisions occur during treatment, and evidence suggests that AYAs want to be involved in decision making. Objective: To explore involvement of AYAs with cancer in day-to-day decisions affected by their cancer and treatment. Methods: This qualitative study used interpretive focused ethnography within the sociologic tradition, informed by symbolic interactionism. Semi-structured interviews and informal participant observation took place at two quaternary pediatric oncology programs. Results: Thirty-one interviews were conducted with 16 AYAs ages 15 to 20 years. Major day to day decision-making categories identified included: (1) mental mindset, (2) self-care practices, (3) self-advocacy, and (4) negotiating relationships. Participants described how they came to grips with their illness early on and decided to fight their cancer. They described decisions they made to protect their health, how they advocated for themselves and decisions they made about relationships with family and friends. Conclusions: Through day-to-day decisions, participants managed the impact of cancer and its treatment on their daily lives. Research should focus on developing and implementing interventions to empower AYAs to participate in day-to-day decisions that will affect how they manage their cancer, its treatment and ultimately their outcomes. Implications for Practice: Healthcare providers can facilitate AYA's participation in day-to-day decision making through encouraging autonomy and self-efficacy by providing support and through effective communication.

Emotion-Based Decision Making in schizophrenia: evidence from the Iowa Gambling Task

2009 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 104-106 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcella Bellani ◽  
Luisa Tomelleri ◽  
Paolo Brambilla
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Iowa Gambling Task ◽  
Neural System ◽  
Anterior Cingulate ◽  
Emotional States ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Complex Process ◽  
Social Conduct ◽  
Contextual Stimuli

The decision making can be defined as the mental process in which a “choice is made after reflecting on the consequences of that choice” (Bechara & Van Der Linden, 2005; Bechara et al., 1997). It is a complex process that involves cognitive as well as emotion-based functions. In fact human beings make fast adaptive decisions in daily life, and that is based on the skill to relate emotion to contextual stimuli in order to anticipate outcomes through activation of emotional states (Bechara et al., 2005). In this regard, the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC) has been widely recognized to play a key role in the emotional decision making process. The VMPFC includes the medial part of the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), the more ventral sectors of the medial prefrontal cortex and the anterior cingulate cortex (Bechara et al., 1997). In particular the OFC, within the VMPFC, is part of a neural system underpinning decision-making and reward-related behaviours which are thought to be linked to social conduct (Rolls, 2000).

scholarly journals The Impact of Gain- and Loss-Framed Messages on Young Adults’ Sexual Decision Making: An Experimental Study

2015 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 385-394 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathryn Macapagal ◽  
Erick Janssen ◽  
Margaret Matson ◽  
Peter R. Finn ◽  
Julia R. Heiman
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Experimental Study ◽  
Young Adults ◽  
Sexual Decision Making ◽  
Gain And Loss ◽  
The Impact

scholarly journals The impact of stress on financial decision-making varies as a function of depression and anxiety symptoms

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oliver J Robinson ◽  
Rebecca Bond ◽  
Jonathan P Roiser
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Anxiety Disorders ◽  
Trait Anxiety ◽  
Anxiety Symptoms ◽  
Financial Decision Making ◽  
Individual Vulnerability ◽  
Mood And Anxiety Disorders ◽  
Financial Decision ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Selection Of

Stress can precipitate the onset of mood and anxiety disorders. This may occur, at least in part, via a modulatory effect of stress on decision-making. Some individuals are, however, more resilient to the effects of stress than others. The mechanisms underlying such vulnerability differences are nevertheless unknown. In this study we attempted to begin quantifying individual differences in vulnerability by exploring the effect of experimentally induced stress on decision-making. Threat of unpredictable shock was used to induce stress in healthy volunteers (N=47) using a within-subjects, within-session design, and its impact on a financial decision-making task (the Iowa Gambling Task) was assessed alongside anxious and depressive symptomatology. As expected, participants learned to select advantageous decks and avoid disadvantageous decks. Importantly, we found that stress provoked a pattern of harm-avoidant behaviour (decreased selection of disadvantageous decks) in individuals with low levels of trait anxiety. By contrast, individuals with high trait anxiety demonstrated the opposite pattern: stress-induced risk-seeking (increased selection of disadvantageous decks). These contrasting influences of stress depending on mood and anxiety symptoms might provide insight into vulnerability to common mental illness. In particular, we speculate that those who adopt a more harm-avoidant strategy may be better able to regulate their exposure to further environmental stress, reducing their susceptibility to mood and anxiety disorders. The threat of shock paradigm we employed might therefore hold promise as a ‘stress-test’ for determining individual vulnerability to mood and anxiety disorders.

scholarly journals The Impact of Mood and Subjective Intoxication on Hangover Severity

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (8) ◽  
pp. 2462 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joris C. Verster ◽  
Lizanne Arnoldy ◽  
Aurora J.A.E. van de Loo ◽  
Sarah Benson ◽  
Andrew Scholey ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Young Adults ◽  
Alcohol Consumption ◽  
Negative Affect ◽  
Subjective Stress ◽  
The Past ◽  
Relevant Effect ◽  
Alcohol Hangover ◽  
The Impact

The aim of this study was to investigate whether baseline mood and/or mood while drinking have an impact on alcohol hangover severity. A survey was held among N = 331 young adults (mean age = 23.6 years, range = 18–35 years). Demographics, alcohol consumption, subjective intoxication, and hangover severity were assessed for the past three days. In addition, mood (baseline, while drinking, and during hangover) was also assessed. N = 143 participants reported to be hungover on the day of assessment, N = 122 participants reported to have been hungover the previous day (‘yesterday’), and N = 87 participants reported to have been hungover two days before the assessment (‘2 days ago’). The analyses revealed that baseline mood and mood while drinking had no relevant effect on the amount of consumed alcohol and did not significantly contribute to hangover severity. However, hangover severity was associated with significantly increased negative affect, particularly with higher levels of subjective stress on the day of the hangover.

scholarly journals Parents Versus Peers: Assessing the Impact of Social Agents on Decision Making in Young Adults

2018 ◽  
Vol 29 (9) ◽  
pp. 1526-1539 ◽  
Author(s):  
João F. Guassi Moreira ◽  
Sarah M. Tashjian ◽  
Adriana Galván ◽  
Jennifer A. Silvers
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Young Adults ◽  
Relationship Quality ◽  
Young Adulthood ◽  
Empirical Work ◽  
Developmental Phase ◽  
Social Agents ◽  
Social Milieu ◽  
The Impact

Young adulthood is a developmental phase when individuals must navigate a changing social milieu that involves considering how their decisions affect close others such as parents and peers. To date, no empirical work has directly evaluated how young adults weigh these relationships against one another. We conducted a preregistered experiment in which we pitted outcomes for parents against outcomes for friends. Participants ( N = 174, ages 18–30 years) played two runs of the Columbia Card Task—one in which gains benefited a parent and losses were incurred by a friend and another in which the opposite was true. We also tested whether age, relationship quality, and reward type earned for parents and friends (simulated vs. real) acted as moderating influences on parent–friend prioritization. Results showed that individuals were more likely to make decisions that benefited a parent at the expense of a friend. Relationship quality and reward type moderated this effect, whereas age did not.

scholarly journals The impact of traumatic stress on Pavlovian biases

2017 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 327-336 ◽  
Author(s):  
O. T. Ousdal ◽  
Q. J. Huys ◽  
A. M. Milde ◽  
A. R. Craven ◽  
L. Ersland ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Traumatic Stress ◽  
Instrumental Learning ◽  
Learning Task ◽  
Anterior Cingulate ◽  
Dorsal Anterior Cingulate Cortex ◽  
Single Episode ◽  
Reinforcement Learning Models ◽  
Stress Influences ◽  
The Impact

BackgroundDisturbances in Pavlovian valuation systems are reported to follow traumatic stress exposure. However, motivated decisions are also guided by instrumental mechanisms, but to date the effect of traumatic stress on these instrumental systems remain poorly investigated. Here, we examine whether a single episode of severe traumatic stress influences flexible instrumental decisions through an impact on a Pavlovian system.MethodsTwenty-six survivors of the 2011 Norwegian terror attack and 30 matched control subjects performed an instrumental learning task in which Pavlovian and instrumental associations promoted congruent or conflicting responses. We used reinforcement learning models to infer how traumatic stress affected learning and decision-making. Based on the importance of dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) for cognitive control, we also investigated if individual concentrations of Glx (=glutamate + glutamine) in dACC predicted the Pavlovian bias of choice.ResultsSurvivors of traumatic stress expressed a greater Pavlovian interference with instrumental action selection and had significantly lower levels of Glx in the dACC. Across subjects, the degree of Pavlovian interference was negatively associated with dACC Glx concentrations.ConclusionsExperiencing traumatic stress appears to render instrumental decisions less flexible by increasing the susceptibility to Pavlovian influences. An observed association between prefrontal glutamatergic levels and this Pavlovian bias provides novel insight into the neurochemical basis of decision-making, and suggests a mechanism by which traumatic stress can impair flexible instrumental behaviours.

scholarly journals A Focus on the Functions of Area 25

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (6) ◽  
pp. 129 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laith Alexander ◽  
Hannah Clarke ◽  
Angela Roberts
Keyword(s):  
Negative Affect ◽  
Affective Disorders ◽  
Anterior Cingulate ◽  
Emotional States ◽  
Infralimbic Cortex ◽  
Future Studies ◽  
Mood Changes ◽  
Behavioral Evidence ◽  
Putative Homologue

Subcallosal area 25 is one of the least understood regions of the anterior cingulate cortex, but activity in this area is emerging as a crucial correlate of mood and affective disorder symptomatology. The cortical and subcortical connectivity of area 25 suggests it may act as an interface between the bioregulatory and emotional states that are aberrant in disorders such as depression. However, evidence for such a role is limited because of uncertainty over the functional homologue of area 25 in rodents, which hinders cross-species translation. This emphasizes the need for causal manipulations in monkeys in which area 25, and the prefrontal and cingulate regions in which it is embedded, resemble those of humans more than rodents. In this review, we consider physiological and behavioral evidence from non-pathological and pathological studies in humans and from manipulations of area 25 in monkeys and its putative homologue, the infralimbic cortex (IL), in rodents. We highlight the similarities between area 25 function in monkeys and IL function in rodents with respect to the regulation of reward-driven responses, but also the apparent inconsistencies in the regulation of threat responses, not only between the rodent and monkey literatures, but also within the rodent literature. Overall, we provide evidence for a causal role of area 25 in both the enhanced negative affect and decreased positive affect that is characteristic of affective disorders, and the cardiovascular and endocrine perturbations that accompany these mood changes. We end with a brief consideration of how future studies should be tailored to best translate these findings into the clinic.

scholarly journals Lower neural value signaling in the prefrontal cortex is related to childhood family income and depressive symptomatology during adolescence

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Esther E. Palacios-Barrios ◽  
Jamie L. Hanson ◽  
Kelly R. Barry ◽  
Dustin Albert ◽  
Stuart F. White ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Adolescent Depression ◽  
Family Income ◽  
Depressive Symptomatology ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Anterior Cingulate ◽  
Reward Learning ◽  
The Difference

AbstractLower family income during childhood is related to increased rates of adolescent depression, though the specific mechanisms are poorly understood. Evidence suggests that individuals with depression demonstrate hypoactivation in brain regions involved in reward learning and decision-making processes (e.g., portions of the prefrontal cortex). Separately, lower family income has been associated with neural alterations in similar regions. We examined associations between family income, depression, and brain activity during a reward learning and decision-making fMRI task in a sample of adolescents (full n=94; usable n=78; mean age=15.4 years). We identified neural regions representing 1) expected value (EV), the learned subjective value of an object, and 2) prediction error, the difference between EV and the actual outcome received. Regions of interest related to reward learning were examined in connection to childhood family income and parent-reported adolescent depressive symptoms. As hypothesized, lower activity in the subgenual anterior cingulate (sACC) for EV in response to approach stimuli was associated with lower childhood family income, as well as greater symptoms of depression measured one-year after the neuroimaging session. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that lower early family income leads to disruptions in reward and decision-making brain circuitry, which leads to adolescent depression.

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