scholarly journals Improving emotional-action control by targeting long-range phase-amplitude neuronal coupling

eLife ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bob Bramson ◽  
Hanneke EM den Ouden ◽  
Ivan Toni ◽  
Karin Roelofs
Keyword(s):  
Action Control ◽  
Avoidance Task ◽  
Social Emotional ◽  
Healthy Human ◽  
Neural Noise ◽  
Phase Amplitude ◽  
Emotional Approach ◽  
Coupling Mechanisms ◽  
Automatic Action ◽  
Action Tendencies

Control over emotional action tendencies is essential for everyday interactions. This cognitive function fails occasionally during socially challenging situations, and systematically in social psychopathologies. We delivered dual-site phase-coupled brain stimulation to facilitate theta-gamma phase-amplitude coupling between frontal regions known to implement that form of control, while neuropsychologically healthy human male participants were challenged to control their automatic action tendencies in a social–emotional approach/avoidance-task. Participants had increased control over their emotional action tendencies, depending on the relative phase and dose of the intervention. Concurrently measured fMRI effects of task and stimulation indicated that the intervention improved control by increasing the efficacy of anterior prefrontal inhibition over the sensorimotor cortex. This enhancement of emotional action control provides causal evidence for phase-amplitude coupling mechanisms guiding action selection during emotional-action control. Generally, the finding illustrates the potential of physiologically-grounded interventions aimed at reducing neural noise in cerebral circuits where communication relies on phase-amplitude coupling.

scholarly journals Improving emotional-action control by targeting long-range phase-amplitude neuronal coupling

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bob Bramson ◽  
Hanneke den Ouden ◽  
Ivan Toni ◽  
Karin Roelofs
Keyword(s):  
Effective Connectivity ◽  
Rhythmic Activity ◽  
Action Control ◽  
Avoidance Task ◽  
Coupling Mechanism ◽  
Social Emotional ◽  
Neural Noise ◽  
Phase Amplitude ◽  
Gamma Band Activity ◽  
Action Tendencies

AbstractControl over emotional action tendencies is essential for every-day interactions. This cognitive function can fail during socially challenging situations, and is chronically attenuated in social psychopathologies such as social anxiety and aggression. Previous studies have shown that control over social-emotional action tendencies depends on phase-amplitude coupling between prefrontal theta-band (6 Hz) rhythmic activity and broadband gamma-band activity in sensorimotor areas. Here, we delivered dual-site phase-coupled brain stimulation to facilitate theta-gamma phase-amplitude coupling between frontal regions known to implement that form of control, while participants were challenged to control their automatic action tendencies in a social-emotional approach/avoidance-task. Participants had increased control over their emotional action tendencies, depending on the relative phase and dose of the intervention. Concurrently measured fMRI effects of task and stimulation, and estimated changes in effective connectivity, indicated that the intervention improved control by increasing the efficacy of anterior prefrontal inhibition over sensorimotor cortex. This enhancement of emotional action control provides causal evidence for a phase-amplitude coupling mechanism guiding action selection during emotional-action control. More generally, the finding illustrates the potential of physiologically-grounded interventions aimed at reducing neural noise in cerebral circuits where communication relies on phase-amplitude coupling.

Neural Control of Emotional Actions in Response to Affective Vocalizations

2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (5) ◽  
pp. 977-988
Author(s):  
Saskia B. J. Koch ◽  
Alessandra Galli ◽  
Inge Volman ◽  
Reinoud Kaldewaij ◽  
Ivan Toni ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Neural Control ◽  
Neural Circuits ◽  
Action Control ◽  
Emotional Behavior ◽  
Emotional Control ◽  
Social Emotional ◽  
Emotional Faces ◽  
Posterior Insula ◽  
Automatic Action ◽  
Action Tendencies

Social–emotional cues, such as affective vocalizations and emotional faces, automatically elicit emotional action tendencies. Adaptive social–emotional behavior depends on the ability to control these automatic action tendencies. It remains unknown whether neural control over automatic action tendencies is supramodal or relies on parallel modality-specific neural circuits. Here, we address this largely unexplored issue in humans. We consider neural circuits supporting emotional action control in response to affective vocalizations, using an approach–avoidance task known to reliably index control over emotional action tendencies elicited by emotional faces. We isolate supramodal neural contributions to emotional action control through a conjunction analysis of control-related neural activity evoked by auditory and visual affective stimuli, the latter from a previously published data set obtained in an independent sample. We show that the anterior pFC (aPFC) supports control of automatic action tendencies in a supramodal manner, that is, triggered by either emotional faces or affective vocalizations. When affective vocalizations are heard and emotional control is required, the aPFC supports control through negative functional connectivity with the posterior insula. When emotional faces are seen and emotional control is required, control relies on the same aPFC territory downregulating the amygdala. The findings provide evidence for a novel mechanism of emotional action control with a hybrid hierarchical architecture, relying on a supramodal node (aPFC) implementing an abstract goal by modulating modality-specific nodes (posterior insula, amygdala) involved in signaling motivational significance of either affective vocalizations or faces.

scholarly journals Effects of go/no-go training on food-related action tendencies, liking and choice

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (8) ◽  
pp. 210666
Author(s):  
Loukia Tzavella ◽  
Natalia S. Lawrence ◽  
Katherine S. Button ◽  
Elizabeth A. Hart ◽  
Natalie M. Holmes ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Models ◽  
Food Choices ◽  
Avoidance Task ◽  
Training Effects ◽  
Control Food ◽  
Inhibition Control ◽  
Automatic Action ◽  
Action Tendencies ◽  
Healthy Participants ◽  
Complementary Mechanism

Inhibitory control training effects on behaviour (e.g. ‘healthier’ food choices) can be driven by changes in affective evaluations of trained stimuli, and theoretical models indicate that changes in action tendencies may be a complementary mechanism. In this preregistered study, we investigated the effects of food-specific go/no-go training on action tendencies, liking and impulsive choices in healthy participants. In the training task, energy-dense foods were assigned to one of three conditions: 100% inhibition (no-go), 0% inhibition (go) or 50% inhibition (control). Automatic action tendencies and liking were measured pre- and post-training for each condition. We found that training did not lead to changes in approach bias towards trained foods (go and no-go relative to control), but we warrant caution in interpreting this finding as there are important limitations to consider for the employed approach–avoidance task. There was only anecdotal evidence for an effect on food liking, but there was evidence for contingency learning during training, and participants were on average less likely to choose a no-go food compared to a control food after training. We discuss these findings from both a methodological and theoretical standpoint and propose that the mechanisms of action behind training effects be investigated further.

scholarly journals Stopping a Response When You Really Care about the Action: Considerations from a Clinical Perspective

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (8) ◽  
pp. 979
Author(s):  
Sharon Morein-Zamir ◽  
Gideon Anholt
Keyword(s):  
Response Inhibition ◽  
Action Control ◽  
Common Denominator ◽  
Obsessive Compulsive ◽  
Apparent Paradox ◽  
Compulsive Disorder ◽  
Reward Seeking ◽  
Threat Avoidance ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Action Tendencies

Response inhibition, whether reactive or proactive, is mostly investigated in a narrow cognitive framework. We argue that it be viewed within a broader frame than the action being inhibited, i.e., in the context of emotion and motivation of the individual at large. This is particularly important in the clinical domain, where the motivational strength of an action can be driven by threat avoidance or reward seeking. The cognitive response inhibition literature has focused on stopping reactively with responses in anticipation of clearly delineated external signals, or proactively in limited contexts, largely independent of clinical phenomena. Moreover, the focus has often been on stopping efficiency and its correlates rather than on inhibition failures. Currently, the cognitive and clinical perspectives are incommensurable. A broader context may explain the apparent paradox where individuals with disorders characterised by maladaptive action control have difficulty inhibiting their actions only in specific circumstances. Using Obsessive Compulsive Disorder as a case study, clinical theorising has focused largely on compulsions as failures of inhibition in relation to specific internal or external triggers. We propose that the concept of action tendencies may constitute a useful common denominator bridging research into motor, emotional, motivational, and contextual aspects of action control failure. The success of action control may depend on the interaction between the strength of action tendencies, the ability to withhold urges, and contextual factors.

scholarly journals Retraining Automatic Action Tendencies Changes Alcoholic Patients’ Approach Bias for Alcohol and Improves Treatment Outcome

2011 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 490-497 ◽  
Author(s):  
Reinout W. Wiers ◽  
Carolin Eberl ◽  
Mike Rinck ◽  
Eni S. Becker ◽  
Johannes Lindenmeyer
Keyword(s):  
Treatment Outcome ◽  
Approach Bias ◽  
Automatic Action ◽  
Action Tendencies

scholarly journals Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation increases phase-amplitude coupling

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chie Nakatani ◽  
Caitlin Mullin ◽  
Johan Wagemans ◽  
Cees van Leeuwen
Keyword(s):  
Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation ◽  
Magnetic Stimulation ◽  
Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation ◽  
Neuronal Firing ◽  
Neural Mass Model ◽  
Mass Model ◽  
Healthy Human ◽  
Lateral Occipital Complex ◽  
Sham Condition ◽  
Phase Amplitude

AbstractA prominent feature of brain activity with relevance to cognitive processes is Phase-Amplitude Coupling (PAC) between slow and fast oscillatory signals. A newly developed neural mass model of cross-frequency coupling [1] predicts, counter-intuitively, that PAC shows sustained increases after repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (rTMS). This is because rTMS leads to simultaneous neuronal firing in distinct regions, thereby enhancing the connectivity that, according to the model, is needed for PAC to be increased. We tested this prediction in healthy human volunteers. Two seconds of 10Hz rTMS were applied to the intraparietal sulcus, temporal-parietal junction, and lateral occipital complex. PAC in the subsequent electro-encephalogram was analyzed for two band pairs, theta-gamma and alpha-gamma, and compared to a sham condition. For all stimulation loci, PAC was higher in both band pairs after rTMS than in the sham condition. These results were found to be conform the model prediction. The perspective for using rTMS to modulate cross-band coupling is discussed.

Joint attention and social-emotional approach behavior in children with autism

1995 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Mundy
Keyword(s):  
Joint Attention ◽  
Social Information Processing ◽  
Skill Development ◽  
Children With Autism ◽  
Social Emotional ◽  
Approach Behavior ◽  
The Social ◽  
Affective Processes ◽  
Approach Behaviors ◽  
Emotional Approach

AbstractAutism is a development disorder that is characterized by a significant disturbance of social development. Research strongly suggests that this disorder results from neurological anomalies or deficits. However, both the specific neural systems involved in autism, and the most pertinent behavioral functions of those systems remains unclear. One current topic of debate concerns the degree to which the social disturbance of autism may result from developmental anomalies in neurological systems that subserve cognitive, or affective processes. In this paper a model of the neurological, cognitive, and affective processes involved in the pathogenesis of autism will be described in the context of an attempt to understand dissociations in the early social-skill development of these children. Young children with autism are better able to use social-communication gestures to request objects or events than they are able to use similar gesture simply to initiate joint or socially shared attention relative to an object or event. An integration of recent research suggests that joint attention skill development differs from requesting skill development with regard to affective and cognitive processes that may be associated with frontal and midbrain neurological systems. In particular, this integration of the literature suggests the following: (a) there is a specific neurological subsystem that regulates and promotes what are called social-emotional approach behaviors; (b) the tendency to initiate joint attention bids is prototypical of a social-emotional approach behavior; and (c) attenuation of social-approach behaviors in children with autism leads to a specific impoverishment of social information processing opportunities. This impoverishment has a lifelong negative effect on the social cognitive development of these children.

Retraining automatic action-tendencies to approach alcohol in hazardous drinkers

Addiction ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 105 (2) ◽  
pp. 279-287 ◽  
Author(s):  
Reinout W. Wiers ◽  
Mike Rinck ◽  
Robert Kordts ◽  
Katrijn Houben ◽  
Fritz Strack
Keyword(s):  
Automatic Action ◽  
Action Tendencies
Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document