Biological psychology
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Biological psychology · Oct 2014
Aberrant EEG functional connectivity and EEG power spectra in resting state post-traumatic stress disorder: a sLORETA study.
The aim of the present study was to explore the modifications of EEG power spectra and EEG connectivity of resting state (RS) condition in patients with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Seventeen patients and seventeen healthy subjects matched for age and gender were enrolled. EEG was recorded during 5min of RS. ⋯ In power spectra analysis PTSD patients showed a widespread increase of theta activity (4.5-7.5Hz) in parietal lobes (Brodmann Area, BA 7, 4, 5, 40) and in frontal lobes (BA 6). In the connectivity analysis PTSD patients also showed increase of alpha connectivity (8-12.5Hz) between the cortical areas explored by Pz-P4 electrode. Our results could reflect the alteration of memory systems and emotional processing consistently altered in PTSD patients.
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Biological psychology · Sep 2014
Real driving at night--predicting lane departures from physiological and subjective sleepiness.
Only limited information is available on how driving performance relates to physiological and subjective sleepiness on real roads. This relation was the focus of the present study. 33 volunteers drove for 90 min on a rural road during the afternoon and night in an instrumented car, while electroencephalography and electrooculography and lane departures were recorded continuously and subjective ratings of sleepiness were made every 5 min (Karolinska Sleepiness Scale - KSS). Data was analyzed using Bayesian multilevel modeling. ⋯ LDs were predicted by self-reported sleepiness and LBDs across time and were significantly higher in individuals with high sleepiness. Removal of intentional LDs, enhanced the KSS/LD relation. It was concluded that LDs, KSS, and LBDs are strongly increased during night driving and that KSS predicts LDs.
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Biological psychology · Apr 2014
Testing the effects of suppression and reappraisal on emotional concordance using a multivariate multilevel model.
In theory, the essence of emotion is coordination across experiential, behavioral, and physiological systems in the service of functional responding to environmental demands. However, people often regulate emotions, which could either reduce or enhance cross-system concordance. The present study tested the effects of two forms of emotion regulation (expressive suppression, positive reappraisal) on concordance of subjective experience (positive-negative valence), expressive behavior (positive and negative), and physiology (inter-beat interval, skin conductance, blood pressure) during conversations between unacquainted young women. ⋯ Suppression reduced overall expression for both regulating and uninstructed partners, while reappraisal reduced negative experience. Neither strategy influenced the uninstructed partners' concordance. These results suggest that emotion regulation impacts concordance by altering the temporal coupling of phasic subsystem responses, rather than by having divergent effects on subsystem tonic levels.
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Theories of emotion generally posit the synchronized, coordinated, and/or emergent combination of psychophysiological, cognitive, and behavioral components of the emotion system--emotional concordance--as a functional definition of emotion. However, the empirical support for this claim has been weak or inconsistent. As an introduction to this special issue on emotional concordance, we consider three domains of explanations as to why this theory-data gap might exist. ⋯ Second, there may be moderating factors such as emotion regulation, context, or individual differences that have obscured concordance. Finally, the methods typically used to test theory may be inadequate. In particular, we review a variety of potential issues: intensity of emotions elicited in the laboratory, nonlinearity, between- versus within-subject associations, the relative timing of components, bivariate versus multivariate approaches, and diversity of physiological processes.
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Biological psychology · Mar 2014
Self-esteem modulates the latency of P2 component in implicit self-relevant processing.
Previous study has shown that the latency of P2 component was more prolonged in processing self-relevant words compared to processing non-self-relevant words. However, the prolonged P2 latency may index the self-relevance of the words, the valence of the words, or an interaction of the two. The present study aimed to (1) further clarify the specific psychological significance of the prolonged P2 latency in implicit self-processing and (2) investigate the potential association between self-esteem and the latency of P2 in processing implicit self-relevant information. ⋯ Results showed that the latency of P2 was more prolonged in processing the negative-high self-relevant words compared to processing the positive-high self-relevant words. Also, self-esteem was negatively correlated with the P2 latency in processing negative-high self-relevant words. Overall, the results of the present study suggested that levels of self-esteem might modulate neural correlates of self-referential processing.