Investigating real-life emotions in romantic couples: a mobile EEG study

The neural basis of emotional processing has been largely investigated in constrained spatial environments such as stationary EEGs or fMRI scanners using highly artificial stimuli like standardized pictures depicting emotional scenes. Typically, such standardized experiments have low ecological validity and it remains unclear whether their results reflect neuronal processing in real-life affective situations at all. Critically, emotional situations do not only encompass the perception of emotions, but also behavioral components associated with them. In this study, we aimed to investigate real-life emotions by recording couples in their homes using mobile EEG technology during embracing, kissing and emotional speech. We focused on asymmetries in affective processing as emotions have been demonstrated to be strongly lateralized in the brain. We found higher alpha and beta power asymmetry during kissing and embracing on frontal electrodes during emotional kisses and speech compared to a neutral control condition indicative of stronger left-hemispheric activation. In contrast, we found lower alpha power asymmetry at parieto-occipital electrode sites in the emotional compared to the neutral condition indicative of stronger right-hemispheric activation. Our findings for alpha power asymmetries are in line with models of emotional lateralization that postulate a valence-specific processing over frontal cortices and right-hemispheric dominance in emotional processing in parieto-occipital regions. In contrast, beta power asymmetries pointed more towards valence-specific processing indicating that, while alpha and beta frequencies seem to be functionally associated, they are not reflecting identical cognitive processing.

Investigating real-life emotions in romantic couples: a mobile EEG study

The neural basis of emotional processing has been largely investigated in constrained spatial environments such as stationary EEGs or fMRI scanners using highly artificial stimuli like standardized pictures depicting emotional scenes. Typically, such standardized experiments have low ecological validity and it remains unclear whether their results reflect neuronal processing in real-life affective situations at all. Critically, emotional situations do not only encompass the perception of emotions, but also behavioral components associated with them. In this study, we aimed to investigate real-life emotions by recording couples in their homes using mobile EEG technology during embracing, kissing and emotional speech. We focused on asymmetries in affective processing as emotions have been demonstrated to be strongly lateralized in the brain. We found higher alpha and beta power asymmetry during kissing and embracing on frontal electrodes during emotional kisses and speech compared to a neutral control condition indicative of stronger left-hemispheric activation. In contrast, we found lower alpha power asymmetry at parieto-occipital electrode sites in the emotional compared to the neutral condition indicative of stronger right-hemispheric activation. Our findings are in line with models of emotional lateralization that postulate a valence-specific processing over frontal cortices and right-hemispheric dominance in emotional processing in parieto-occipital regions. Overall, we could thus support theories of emotional asymmetries which suggest that affective processing is not uniformly lateralized across the brain using a highly ecologically valid paradigm.

Individual Response to Stressors and Efficiency in Project Activities

This article investigates the way a graded approach can be implemented in the organization of the project-based learning process in accordance with the personality characteristics of subjects. This study is based on the results analysis of the key features of project-based learning as one of the methods for developing human resources. The assessment of subjects’ individual response to stressors at different project stages is justified to be relevant in order to improve project efficiency in the framework of the learning process. The assessment of the individual response of subjects to stressors was carried out according to the activation dynamics of cerebral hemispheres. The research target was to determine features of the subjects’ individual responses to the project activity stressors and to identify specifics of the individual responding at each of its stages. The study involved 56 final-year students of different majors. Aktivatsiometr ATs-9K, a device for comprehensive psychophysiological diagnosis designed by Yu. A. Tsagarelli, was used to monitor hemispheric activation. This hardware and software complex consists of a device diagnosing the activation of cerebral hemispheres based on the galvanic skin response and PC software for automatic data processing. The individual typological indicators of activation (13 measurements in a familiar environment) and activity-situational indicators of activation (seven single measurements at different stages of the project activity) were calculated. The stress response was diagnosed if the activity-situational activation indicators of the cerebral hemispheres exceeded the individual typological activation indices by more than 1.5 times. The results of the empirical study show different types of individual responses to stressors at different stages of the project activity. The analysis of the profiles of individual responses to stressors made it possible to differentiate subjects, and also identify groups of students with the maximum resources for each stage of activity.

Finding Hidden Treasures: A Child-Friendly Neural Test of Task-Following in Individuals Using Functional Transcranial Doppler Ultrasound

Despite growing interest in the mental life of individuals who cannot communicate verbally, objective and non-invasive tests of covert cognition are still sparse. In this study, we assessed the ability of neurotypical children to understand and follow task instructions by measuring neural responses through functional transcranial Doppler ultrasound (fTCD). We recorded blood flow velocity for the two brain hemispheres of twenty children (aged 9 to 12) while they performed either a language task or a visuospatial memory task, on identical visual stimuli. We extracted measures of neural lateralisation for the two tasks separately to investigate lateralisation, and we compared the left-minus-right pattern of activation across tasks to assess task-following. At the group level, we found that neural responses were left-lateralised when children performed the language task, and not when they performed the visuospatial task. However, with statistically robust analyses and controlled paradigms, significant lateralisation in individual children was less frequent than expected from the literature. Nonetheless, the pattern of hemispheric activation for the two tasks allowed us to confirm task-following in the group of participants, as well as in over half of the individuals. This provides a promising avenue for a covert and inexpensive test of children’s ability to covertly follow task instructions and perform different mental tasks on identical stimuli.

The human amygdala disconnecting from auditory cortex preferentially discriminates musical sound of uncertain emotion by altering hemispheric weighting

How do humans discriminate emotion from non-emotion? The specific psychophysical cues and neural responses involved with resolving emotional information in sound are unknown. In this study we used a discrimination psychophysical-fMRI sparse sampling paradigm to locate threshold responses to happy and sad acoustic stimuli. The fine structure and envelope of auditory signals were covaried to vary emotional certainty. We report that emotion identification at threshold in music utilizes fine structure cues. The auditory cortex was activated but did not vary with emotional uncertainty. Amygdala activation was modulated by emotion identification and was absent when emotional stimuli were chance identifiable, especially in the left hemisphere. The right hemisphere amygdala was considerably more deactivated in response to uncertain emotion. The threshold of emotion was signified by a right amygdala deactivation and change of left amygdala greater than right amygdala activation. Functional sex differences were noted during binaural uncertain emotional stimuli presentations, where the right amygdala showed larger activation in females. Negative control (silent stimuli) experiments investigated sparse sampling of silence to ensure modulation effects were inherent to emotional resolvability. No functional modulation of Heschl’s gyrus occurred during silence; however, during rest the amygdala baseline state was asymmetrically lateralized. The evidence indicates changing hemispheric activation and deactivation patterns between the left and right amygdala is a hallmark feature of discriminating emotion from non-emotion in music.

Improved Accuracy on Lateralized Spatial Judgments in Healthy Aging

Objectives:Healthy young adults often demonstrate a leftward spatial bias called “pseudoneglect” which often diminishes with aging. One hypothesis for this phenomenon is an age-related deterioration in right hemisphere functions (right hemi-aging). If true, then a greater rightward bias should be evident on all spatial attention tasks regardless of content. Another hypothesis is a decrease in asymmetrical hemispheric activation with age (HAROLD). If true, older participants may show reduced bias in all spatial tasks, regardless of leftward or rightward biasing of specific spatial content.Methods:Seventy right-handed healthy participants, 33 younger (21–40) and 37 older (60–78), were asked to bisect solid and character-letter lines as well as to perform left and right trisections of solid lines.Results:Both groups deviated toward the left on solid line bisections and left trisections. Both groups deviated toward the right on right trisections and character line bisections. In all tasks, the older participants were more accurate than the younger participants.Conclusions:The finding that older participants were more accurate than younger participants across all bisection and trisection conditions suggests a decrease in the asymmetrical hemispheric activation of these specialized networks important in the allocation of contralateral spatial attention or spatial action intention.

Effects of Unilateral Hand Contraction on The Persistence of Hemispheric Asymmetry of Cortical Activity

Athletes who squeezed a ball with their left hand immediately prior to execution of sports activities did not show performance deterioration under severe pressure ( Beckmann, Gröpel, & Ehrlenspiel, 2013 ). This result has been explained by priming of the dominant right hemisphere. However, it remains unclear what variables have the greatest effect on asymmetrical brain activity (e.g., duration and strength of ball squeezing). We hypothesized that squeezing a ball harder for a longer period might lead to stronger asymmetrical activity because motor-related areas would have increased activation due to the more forceful movement. We used electroencephalograms (EEGs) to investigate the hemispheric asymmetry of brain activity produced by squeezing a ball with a unilateral hand. EEGs were assessed during a baseline period as well as in eight experimental conditions wherein the strength and duration of the ball squeeze were manipulated. Our results showed that right-hemispheric-dominant brain activation was maximized when participants squeezed with their left hand a ball that had an internal pressure of 100 hPa for 90 s or 20 hPa for 30 s. Moreover, squeezing the ball with 100 hPa internal pressure for 90 s created a prominent interhemispheric asymmetry of cortical activity. We suspect that squeezing a ball strongly for a long period might be helpful in dealing with “choking” under pressure by producing greater right-hemispheric activation. This result could help improve simple methods for competitive athletes to reduce the likelihood of exhibiting choking behavior that could be practiced with minimal effort, even during short breaks during a game.