Abstract The centromedian nucleus of the thalamus (CMT) is a core arousal center with potential for enhancing cognitive attention. While emergent focused ultrasound can reach this area, stimulation paradigms which may enhance function in humans remain unknown. Here we performed bilateral CMT using novel neuromodulation wearable device 3 distinct pulse frequencies. We found that brief 25Hz enhanced reaction time directed attention Oddball task at least 40 minutes. Pre-post electrocortical EEG...

Transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation (taVNS) is a non-invasive brain candidate for use in basic and translational research as potential clinical tool variety of psychiatric disorders. However, among the diverse benefits, null effects have also been accumulating, well inconsistencies reporting. The goal this study was to evaluate dose duration (15 75 active minutes) taVNS across multiple modalities (autonomics electrocortical activity) processes (attentional engagement executive...

Hedonic bias during free viewing of novel emotional and neutral scenes was investigated in older adults college students. A neurophysiological index picture processing–the amplitude the centroparietal late positive potential (LPP)–was recorded from scalp using a dense sensor array while participants (29 adults; 21 students) viewed emotionally engaging or mundane natural that varied specific content. Both students showed LPP enhancement when affective, compared to neutral, scenes, there no...

This study examines whether individuals with borderline personality disorder (BPD) would exhibit augmented emotional responses to picture stimuli after being challenged an ideographic interpersonal conflict script. Participants were 24 adults diagnosed BPD, 23 obsessive-compulsive (OCPD), and 28 normal controls. viewed emotionally evocative pictures before listening the script while a variety of physiological measures recorded. Findings indicated that was effective in eliciting enduring from...

Individuals with borderline personality disorder (BPD) report erratic and poorly regulated emotional behavior. However, these abnormalities have not been confirmed in laboratory studies. This may be because the stimuli employed sufficiently relevant or evocative of psychological themes germane to BPD (e.g., threats attachment). The aim this study was develop a picture stimulus set that could research examine emotion dysregulation thought central BPD. Ninety pictures were initially selected...

Abstract The startle reflex is potentiated when anticipating emotional, compared to neutral, pictures. This study investigated the time course of modulation during anticipation and impact informative cuing on picture perception. Colors were used signal thematic content emotional neutral scenes; blink response was measured by presenting acoustic probes 3, 2, or 1 s before onset 2 after onset. During scenes, magnitude showed increasing attenuation as approached, consistent with a...

The National Institute of Mental Health Research Domain Criteria initiative encourages a search for dimensional biological measures psychopathology unconstrained by current diagnostic categories. Consistent with this aim, the presented research studies large sample anxiety and mood disorder patients, assessing differences in principal diagnoses comorbidity patterns, clinicians’ ratings, questionnaire negative affect life dysfunction as they relate to potential brain marker pathology:...

Stimulus repetition elicits either enhancement or suppression in neural activity, and a recent fMRI meta-analysis of effects for visual stimuli (Kim, 2017) reported cross-stimulus medial lateral parietal cortex, as well regions prefrontal, temporal, posterior cingulate cortex. Repetition was assessed here repeated novel scenes presented the context an explicit episodic recognition task implicit judgment task, order to study role spontaneous retrieval memories. Regardless whether memory...

This research examined human defensive reactivity when exposure to an aversive event could be escaped but not entirely avoided. Prolonged visual cues indicated whether upcoming (i.e., disgusting) picture terminated after onset (escaped) or not, that a neutral go signal would appear. Acoustically elicited startle reflexes were measured during each cue interval, as cardiac and skin conductance activity. Early in the cuing potentiated both escape inescapable trials, compared simple motor...

Background Electric field (E-field) modeling is a valuable method of elucidating the cortical target engagement from transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and electrical (tES), but it typically dependent on individual MRI scans. In this study, we systematically tested whether E-field models in template MNI-152 Ernie scans can reliably approximate group-level E-fields induced N = 195 individuals across 5 diagnoses (healthy, alcohol use disorder, tobacco anxiety, depression). Methods We...

Abstract The approach–avoidance task (AAT) is designed to measure implicit motivated action biases instantiated by emotional stimuli and alterations in such that drive psychiatric disorder. While some research has measured AAT event‐related potential (ERP) correlates establish bias sensitivity even at a neural level, lack of work with unpleasant, pleasant, neutral together common focus on disorder‐matched (rather than generally emotional) content limits conclusions can be drawn. Thus,...

Abstract Previous research indicates that predictive cues can dampen subsequent defensive reactions. The present study investigated whether effects of cuing are specific to aversive stimuli, using modulation the blink startle reflex as a measure emotional reactivity. Participants viewed pictures depicting violence, romance/erotica, or mundane content. On half all trials, cue (color) predicted content upcoming picture; on remaining scenes were presented without cue. Acoustic probes during...

Anxious adults show changes in smell function that are consistent with a durable shift sensitivity toward particular odorants and away from others. Little is known regarding the development of these changes, including whether they exist youth, stable during transition childhood to adolescence, odorant properties (e.g. trigeminal features, hedonic valence) affect anxiety-related differences detection. To address this, we measured detection thresholds phenyl ethyl alanine (PEA), rose-like...