scholarly journals Interrelations between pain, stress and executive functioning

2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 188-194
Author(s):  
Liviu Feller ◽  
Gal Feller ◽  
Theona Ballyram ◽  
Rakesh Chandran ◽  
Johan Lemmer ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Executive Functioning ◽  
Limbic System ◽  
Self Regulation ◽  
Psychosocial Stressors ◽  
Adaptive Behaviour ◽  
Neural Pathways ◽  
Pain Experience ◽  
Neural Connections ◽  
Adaptive Behaviours

Aim: The purpose of this narrative review is to discuss the interrelations between pain, stress and executive functions. Implications for practice: Self-regulation, through executive functioning, exerts control over cognition, emotion and behaviour. The reciprocal neural functional connectivity between the prefrontal cortex and the limbic system allows for the integration of cognitive and emotional neural pathways and then for higher-order psychological processes (reasoning, judgement etc.) to generate goal-directed adaptive behaviours and to regulate responses to psychosocial stressors and pain signals. Impairment in cognitive executive functioning may result in poor regulation of stress-, pain- and emotion-related processing of information. Conversely, adverse emotion, pain and stress impair executive functioning. The characteristic of the feedback and feedforward neural connections (quantity and quality) between the prefrontal cortex and the limbic system determine adaptive behaviour, stress response and pain experience.

scholarly journals Evaluation of a Coupled Model to Predict the Impact of Adaptive Behaviour in the Thermal Sensation of Occupants of Naturally Ventilated Buildings in Warm-Humid Regions

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 255
Author(s):  
Luciano C. de Faria ◽  
Marcelo A. Romero ◽  
Lúcia F. S. Pirró
Keyword(s):  
Computational Models ◽  
Thermal Sensation ◽  
Coupled Model ◽  
Adaptive Behaviour ◽  
Humid Climate ◽  
Clothing Insulation ◽  
Tropical Regions ◽  
Naturally Ventilated Buildings ◽  
Adaptive Behaviours ◽  
The Impact

Improving indoor environment quality and making urban centres in tropical regions more sustainable has become a challenge for which computational models for the prediction of thermal sensation for naturally ventilated buildings (NVBs) have major role to play. This work performed analysis on thermal sensation for non-residential NVBs located in Brazilian tropical warm-humid climate and tested the effectiveness of suggested adaptive behaviours to mitigate warm thermal sensation. The research method utilized transient computational fluid dynamics models coupled with a dynamic model for human thermophysiology to predict thermal sensation. The calculated results were validated with comparison with benchmark values from questionnaires and from field measurements. The calculated results for dynamic thermal sensation (DTS) seven-point scale showed higher agreement with the thermal sensation vote than with the predicted mean vote. The test for the suggested adaptive behaviours considered reducing clothing insulation values from 0.18 to 0.32 clo (reducing DTS from 0.1 to 0.9), increasing the air speed in 0.9 m/s (reducing DTS from 0.1 to 0.9), and applying both suggestions together (reducing DTS from 0.1 to 1.3) for five scenarios with operative temperatures spanning 34.5–24.0 °C. Results quantified the tested adaptive behaviours’ efficiency showing applicability to improve thermal sensation from slightly-warm to neutral.

scholarly journals Increase in prefrontal cortex oxygenation during static muscular endurance performance is modulated by self-regulation strategies

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Wanja Wolff ◽  
Maik Bieleke ◽  
Anna Hirsch ◽  
Christian Wienbruch ◽  
Peter M. Gollwitzer ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Self Regulation ◽  
Endurance Performance ◽  
Muscular Endurance ◽  
Regulation Strategies

scholarly journals An Investigation of the Relationship Between Psychopathy and Greater Gray Matter Density in Lateral Prefrontal Cortex

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Lasko ◽  
David Skylan Chester ◽  
Alexandra Martelli ◽  
Samuel James West ◽  
C. Nathan DeWall
Keyword(s):  
Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Gray Matter ◽  
Self Regulation ◽  
Structural Mri ◽  
Psychopathic Traits ◽  
Matter Density ◽  
Gray Matter Density ◽  
Inhibitory Mechanisms ◽  
Antisocial Tendencies

Psychopathic traits predispose individuals toward antisocial behavior. Such antagonistic acts often result in 'unsuccessful’ outcomes such as incarceration. What mechanisms allow some people with relatively high levels of psychopathic traits to live ‘successful’, un-incarcerated lives, in spite of their antisocial tendencies? Using neuroimaging, we investigated the possibility that ‘successful’ psychopathic individuals exhibited greater development of neural structures that promote ‘successful’ self-regulation, focusing on the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC). Across two structural MRI studies of ‘successful’ participants (Study 1: N = 80 individuals in long-term romantic relationships; Study 2: N = 64 undergraduates), we observed that gray matter density in the left and right VLPFC was positively associated with psychopathic traits. These preliminary results support a compensatory model of psychopathy, in which ‘successful’ psychopathic individuals develop inhibitory mechanisms to compensate for their antisocial tendencies. Traditional models of psychopathy that emphasize deficits may be aided by such compensatory models that identify surfeits in neural and psychological processes.

scholarly journals The child brain computes and utilizes internalized maternal choices

2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Seung-Lark Lim ◽  
J. Bradley C. Cherry ◽  
Ann M. Davis ◽  
S. N. Balakrishnan ◽  
Oh-Ryeong Ha ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Self Regulation ◽  
Food Preferences ◽  
Food Choices ◽  
Functional Magnetic Resonance ◽  
Left Dlpfc ◽  
Making Choices ◽  
Dorsolateral Prefrontal

Abstract As children grow, they gradually learn how to make decisions independently. However, decisions like choosing healthy but less-tasty foods can be challenging for children whose self-regulation and executive cognitive functions are still maturing. We propose a computational decision-making process in which children estimate their mother’s choices for them as well as their individual food preferences. By employing functional magnetic resonance imaging during real food choices, we find that the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) encodes children’s own preferences and the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) encodes the projected mom’s choices for them at the time of children’s choice. Also, the left dlPFC region shows an inhibitory functional connectivity with the vmPFC at the time of children’s own choice. Our study suggests that in part, children utilize their perceived caregiver’s choices when making choices for themselves, which may serve as an external regulator of decision-making, leading to optimal healthy decisions.

scholarly journals An evolutionary computational theory of prefrontal executive function in decision-making

2014 ◽  
Vol 369 (1655) ◽  
pp. 20130474 ◽  
Author(s):  
Etienne Koechlin
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Adaptive Behaviour ◽  
Computational Theory ◽  
Critical Reasoning ◽  
Model Free ◽  
Evolutionary Advantage ◽  
Adaptive Processes ◽  
Principled Account ◽  
Selection Of

The prefrontal cortex subserves executive control and decision-making, that is, the coordination and selection of thoughts and actions in the service of adaptive behaviour. We present here a computational theory describing the evolution of the prefrontal cortex from rodents to humans as gradually adding new inferential Bayesian capabilities for dealing with a computationally intractable decision problem: exploring and learning new behavioural strategies versus exploiting and adjusting previously learned ones through reinforcement learning (RL). We provide a principled account identifying three inferential steps optimizing this arbitration through the emergence of (i) factual reactive inferences in paralimbic prefrontal regions in rodents; (ii) factual proactive inferences in lateral prefrontal regions in primates and (iii) counterfactual reactive and proactive inferences in human frontopolar regions. The theory clarifies the integration of model-free and model-based RL through the notion of strategy creation. The theory also shows that counterfactual inferences in humans yield to the notion of hypothesis testing, a critical reasoning ability for approximating optimal adaptive processes and presumably endowing humans with a qualitative evolutionary advantage in adaptive behaviour.

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