With the ever-changing social environment, individual creativity is facing a severe challenge induced by stress. However, little is known about the physiological mechanisms by which acute stress affects creative cognitive processing. The current study explored the effects of neuroendocrine response on creativity under stress and its underlying cognitive flexibility mechanisms. The Enzyme-Linked Immuno Sorbent Assay was used to assess salivary cortisol, which acted as a marker of stress-induced activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. Eye blink rate (EBR) and pupil diameter were measured as respective indicators of dopamine and noradrenaline released by activation of the sympathetic-adrenal medullary (SAM) axis. The Wisconsin Card Task (WCST) measured cognitive flexibility, while the Alternative Uses Task (AUT) and the Remote Association Task (RAT) measured separately divergent and convergent thinking in creativity. Results showed higher cortisol increments following acute stress induction in the stress group compared to the control group. Ocular results showed that the stress manipulation significantly increased EBR and pupil diameter compared to controls, reflecting increased SAM activity. Further analysis revealed that stress-released cortisol impaired the originality component of the AUT by increasing perspective errors of the WCST. Serial mediation analyses showed that both EBR and pupil diameter were also associated with increased perspective errors leading to poor originality on the AUT. These findings confirm that physiological arousal under stress can impair divergent thinking through the regulation of different neuroendocrine pathways, in which the deterioration of flexible switching plays an important mediating role.

Fear overgeneralization and perceived uncertainty about future outcomes have been suggested as risk factors for clinical anxiety. However, little is known regarding how they influence each other. In this study, we investigated whether different levels of threat uncertainty influence fear generalization. Three groups of healthy participants underwent a differential fear conditioning protocol followed by a generalization test. All groups learned to associate one female face (conditioned stimulus, CS+) with a female scream (unconditioned stimulus, US) while the other face (CS-) was not associated with the scream. In order to manipulate threat uncertainty, one group (low uncertainty, n = 26) received 80%, the second group (moderate uncertainty, n = 32) received 60%, and the third group (high uncertainty, n = 30) 40% CS-US contingency. In the generalization test, all groups saw CS+ and CS- again as well as four morphs that varied in similarity with the CS+ in steps of 20%. Subjective (expectancy, valence, and arousal ratings), psychophysiological (skin conductance response, SCR), and visuocortical (steady-state visual evoked potentials, ssVEPs) indices of fear were registered. Participants expected the US in accordance with their reinforcement schedules but displayed stronger skin conductance with more uncertainty. However, acquisition of conditioned fear was not evident in ssVEPs. During the generalization test, we found no effect of threat uncertainty in any of the measured variables, but the strength of generalization for threat expectancy ratings was positively correlated with dispositional intolerance of uncertainty. This study suggests that mere threat uncertainty does not modulate fear generalization.

Active engagement improves learning and memory, and self- vs. externally generated stimuli are processed differently: perceptual intensity and neural responses are attenuated. Whether the attenuation is linked to memory formation remains to be understood. This study investigates whether active oculomotor control over auditory stimuli – controlling for movement and stimulus predictability – benefits associative learning, and studies the underlying neural mechanisms. Using EEG and eyetracking we explored the impact of control during learning on the processing and memory recall of arbitrary oculomotor-auditory associations. Participants (N=23) learned associations through active exploration or passive observation, using a gaze-controlled interface to generate sounds. Our results show faster learning progress in the active condition. ERPs time-locked to the onset of sound stimuli showed that learning progress was linked to an attenuation of the P3a component. The detection of matching movement-sound pairs triggered a target-matching P3b response. There was no general modulation of ERPs through active learning. However, participants could be divided into different learner types: those who benefited strongly from active control during learning and those who did not. The strength of the N1 attenuation effect for self-generated stimuli was correlated with memory gain in active learning. Our results show that control helps learning and memory and modulates sensory responses. Individual differences during sensory processing predict the strength of the memory benefit. Taken together, these results help to disentangle the effects of agency, unspecific motor-based neuromodulation, and stimulus predictability on ERP components and establish a link between self-generation effects and active learning memory gain.

Working memory (WM) impairment has been well characterized in normal ageing. Various studies have explored changes in either the regional activity or the interregional connectivity underlying the WM ageing process. We proposed that brain activity and connectivity would independently alter with ageing and affect WM performance. WM was assessed with a classical N-back task during functional magnetic resonance imaging in a community-based sample comprising 168 elderly subjects (aged 55 to 86 years old). Following the rationale of background functional connectivity, we assessed age-related alterations in brain activity and seed-based interregional connectivity independently. Analyses revealed age-related decrease in the activity of the inferior parietal lobule (IPL) and an increase in the activity of the ventral anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), and the local functional dysfunctions were accompanied by alterations in their connectivity to other cortical regions. Importantly, regional activity impairments in the IPL and ACC could mediate age-related effects on accuracy rate and reaction time, respectively, and those effects were further counterbalanced by enhancement of their background functional connectivity. We thus claimed that age-induced alterations in regional activity and interregional connectivity occurred independently and contributed to WM changes in ageing. Our findings presented the way brain activity and functional connectivity interact in the late adulthood, thus providing a new perspective for understanding WM and cognitive ageing.

Our sensory system is able to build a unified perception of the world, which although rich, is limited and inaccurate. Sometimes, features from different objects are erroneously combined. At the neural level, the role of the parietal cortex in feature integration is well-known (Humphreys, 2016; Shafritz et al., 2002). However, the brain dynamics underlying correct and incorrect feature integration are less clear. To explore the temporal dynamics of feature integration, we studied the modulation of different frequency bands in trials in which feature integration was correct or incorrect. Participants responded to the color of a shape target, surrounded by distractors. A calibration procedure ensured that accuracy was around 70% in each participant. To explore the role of expectancy in feature integration, we introduced an unexpected feature to the target in the last blocks of trials. Results demonstrated the contribution of several frequency bands to feature integration both pre- and post-stimulus. During the pre-stimulus period, alpha power was higher for illusions compared to hits. After stimulus onset, alpha, beta, and gamma-band power was reduced for hits compared to illusions. Moreover, gamma power was overall larger during the experiment for participants who were aware of the unexpected target presented during the last blocks of trials (as compared to unaware participants). These results demonstrate that feature integration is a complex process that can go wrong at different stages of information processing and is influenced by top-down expectancies.

Hypnotizability is a psychophysiological trait measured by scales and associated with several differences including interoceptive accuracy and the morpho-functional characteristics of interoception-related brain regions. The aim of the study was to assess whether the amplitude of the heartbeat evoked cortical potential (HEP), a correlate of interoceptive accuracy, differs in participants with low (lows) and high (highs) hypnotizability scores (assessed by the Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scale, form A) before and after the induction of hypnosis. ECG and EEG were monitored in 16 highs and 15 lows during an experimental session including open eyes baseline (B), closed eyes relaxation (R), hypnotic induction (IND), neutral hypnosis (NH), post session baseline (Post). No significant difference was observed between groups and conditions in autonomic variables. The HEP amplitude was lower in highs than in lows at the right parietal site, likely due to hypnotizability-related differences in the functional connection between the right insula and parietal cortex. It increased in highs and decreased in lows across the session, possibly due to the highs’ preeminently internally directed attention and to the lows’ possible disengagement from the task. Since interoception is involved in several cognitive-emotional functions, its hypnotizability-related differences may contribute to the variability of experience and behavior in daily life.

A document by Emma Tinney. Click on the document to view its contents.

The tendency to ruminate (i.e., repetitive, self-referential, negative thoughts) is a maladaptive form of emotional regulation and represents a transdiagnostic vulnerability factor for stress-related psychopathology. Vagally-mediated heart rate variability (HRV), reflecting parasympathetic nervous system activity, is commonly used as a physiological marker of stress regulation. Past research has suggested a link between trait rumination and resting HRV at baseline; however, inconsistent results exist in healthy individuals. In this study, we investigated the association between the tendency to ruminate and resting HRV measured at baseline in a healthy population using a large cross-sectional dataset (N = 1189, 88% women; mean age = 21.55, ranging from 17 to 48 years old), which was obtained by combining samples of healthy individuals from different studies from our laboratory. The results showed no cross-sectional correlation between resting baseline HRV and trait rumination (confirmed by Bayesian analyses), even after controlling for important confounders such as gender, age, and depressive symptoms. Also, a nonlinear relationship was rejected. In summary, based on our results in a large sample of healthy individuals, baseline resting HRV is not a trait marker of the tendency to ruminate.

Heightened impulsivity and compulsivity are often found in association with both dysfunctional everyday behavior as well as with psychopathology. Impulsivity and compulsivity are also linked to alterations in behavioral response inhibition and its electrophysiological correlates. However, they are rarely examined jointly and their effect outside of clinical samples is still disputed. This study assesses the influence and interaction of impulsivity and compulsivity as measured by questionnaires on behavioral performance and event-related potentials (N2, P3a and P3b) in a visual Go/Nogo task. Data from 250 participants from the general population (49% female; age M = 25.16, SD = 5.07; education level: 94% high school or higher; self-reported lifetime diagnosis of any mental disorder: 12%) were collected. We used robust linear regression as well as regression tree analyses, a type of machine learning algorithm, to uncover potential non-linear effects. We did not find any significant relationship between the self-report measures and behavioral or neural inhibition effects in either type of analysis, with the exception of a linear effect of the premeditation scale of the UPPS on behavioral performance. The current sample size was large enough to uncover even small effects. We discuss potential explanations for this current null finding. One possibility is that inhibitory performance was unimpaired in the current sample and that associations between inhibitory performance and self-report measures might only be seen in samples with mental disorders.