WorldWideScience

Sample records for multiple arousal systems

  1. Emotional Arousal and Multiple Memory Systems in the Mammalian Brain

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mark G. Packard

    2012-03-01

    Full Text Available Emotional arousal induced by stress and/or anxiety can exert complex effects on learning and memory processes in mammals. Recent studies have begun to link study of the influence of emotional arousal on memory with earlier research indicating that memory is organized in multiple systems in the brain that differ in terms of the type of memory they mediate. Specifically, these studies have examined whether emotional arousal may have a differential effect on the cognitive and stimulus-response habit memory processes subserved by the hippocampus and dorsal striatum, respectively. Evidence indicates that stress or the peripheral injection of anxiogenic drugs can bias animals and humans towards the use of striatal-dependent habit memory in dual-solution tasks in which both hippocampal and stritatal-based strategies can provide an adequate solution. A bias towards the use of habit memory can also be produced by intra-basolateral amygdala administration of anxiogenic drugs, consistent with the well documented role of efferent projections of this brain region in mediating the modulatory influence of emotional arousal on memory. In some learning situations, the bias towards the use of habit memory produced by emotional arousal appears to result from an impairing effect on hippocampus-dependent cognitive memory. Further research examining the neural mechanisms linking emotion and the relative use of multiple memory systems should prove useful in view of the potential role for maladaptive habitual behaviors in various human psychopathologies.

  2. A female sex offender with multiple paraphilias: a psychologic, physiologic (laboratory sexual arousal) and endocrine case study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cooper, A J; Swaminath, S; Baxter, D; Poulin, C

    1990-05-01

    A 20 year old female pedophile exhibiting multiple paraphilias and who had been both a victim of incest and an active participant, undertook extensive clinical, psychometric, endocrine and laboratory sexual arousal studies. Her psychiatric, psychometric and physiologic arousal profiles showed similarities to those of a sizable proportion of male child molesters, especially incestors. It is suggested that laboratory arousal tests (using the vaginal photoplethysmograph) may have a role in the assessment of some female sex offenders.

  3. Serotonergic systems associated with arousal and vigilance behaviors following administration of anxiogenic drugs

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Abrams, J K; Johnson, P L; Hay-Schmidt, Anders

    2005-01-01

    Serotonergic systems play important roles in modulating behavioral arousal, including behavioral arousal and vigilance associated with anxiety states. To further our understanding of the neural systems associated with increases in anxiety states, we investigated the effects of multiple anxiogenic...... and vigilance behaviors consistent with an increase in anxiety state. In addition, these anxiogenic drugs, excluding yohimbine, had convergent actions on an anatomically-defined subset of serotonergic neurons within the middle and caudal, dorsal subdivision of the DR. High resolution topographical analysis...... nucleus, a forebrain structure important for emotional appraisal and modulation of anxiety-related physiological and behavioral responses. Together these findings support the hypothesis that there is a functional topographical organization in the DR and are consistent with the hypothesis that anxiogenic...

  4. Multiple-output support vector machine regression with feature selection for arousal/valence space emotion assessment.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Torres-Valencia, Cristian A; Álvarez, Mauricio A; Orozco-Gutiérrez, Alvaro A

    2014-01-01

    Human emotion recognition (HER) allows the assessment of an affective state of a subject. Until recently, such emotional states were described in terms of discrete emotions, like happiness or contempt. In order to cover a high range of emotions, researchers in the field have introduced different dimensional spaces for emotion description that allow the characterization of affective states in terms of several variables or dimensions that measure distinct aspects of the emotion. One of the most common of such dimensional spaces is the bidimensional Arousal/Valence space. To the best of our knowledge, all HER systems so far have modelled independently, the dimensions in these dimensional spaces. In this paper, we study the effect of modelling the output dimensions simultaneously and show experimentally the advantages in modeling them in this way. We consider a multimodal approach by including features from the Electroencephalogram and a few physiological signals. For modelling the multiple outputs, we employ a multiple output regressor based on support vector machines. We also include an stage of feature selection that is developed within an embedded approach known as Recursive Feature Elimination (RFE), proposed initially for SVM. The results show that several features can be eliminated using the multiple output support vector regressor with RFE without affecting the performance of the regressor. From the analysis of the features selected in smaller subsets via RFE, it can be observed that the signals that are more informative into the arousal and valence space discrimination are the EEG, Electrooculogram/Electromiogram (EOG/EMG) and the Galvanic Skin Response (GSR).

  5. Elevated arousal levels enhance contrast perception.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kim, Dongho; Lokey, Savannah; Ling, Sam

    2017-02-01

    Our state of arousal fluctuates from moment to moment-fluctuations that can have profound impacts on behavior. Arousal has been proposed to play a powerful, widespread role in the brain, influencing processes as far ranging as perception, memory, learning, and decision making. Although arousal clearly plays a critical role in modulating behavior, the mechanisms underlying this modulation remain poorly understood. To address this knowledge gap, we examined the modulatory role of arousal on one of the cornerstones of visual perception: contrast perception. Using a reward-driven paradigm to manipulate arousal state, we discovered that elevated arousal state substantially enhances visual sensitivity, incurring a multiplicative modulation of contrast response. Contrast defines vision, determining whether objects appear visible or invisible to us, and these results indicate that one of the consequences of decreased arousal state is an impaired ability to visually process our environment.

  6. The neurophysiology of sexual arousal.

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    Schober, Justine M; Pfaff, Donald

    2007-09-01

    Our understanding of the process and initiation of sexual arousal is being enhanced by both animal and human studies, inclusive of basic science principles and research on clinical outcomes. Sexual arousal is dependent on neural (sensory and cognitive) factors, hormonal factors, genetic factors and, in the human case, the complex influences of culture and context. Sexual arousal activates the cognitive and physiologic processes that can eventually lead to sexual behavior. Sexual arousal comprises a particular subset of central nervous system arousal functions which depend on primitive, fundamental arousal mechanisms that cause generalized brain activity, but are manifest in a sociosexual context. The neurophysiology of sexual arousal is seen as a bidirectional system universal to all vertebrates. The following review includes known neural and genomic mechanisms of a hormone-dependent circuit for simple sex behavior. New information about hormone effects on causal steps related to sex hormones' nuclear receptor isoforms expressed by hypothalamic neurons continues to enrich our understanding of this neurophysiology.

  7. Arousal, exploration and the locus coeruleus-norepinephrine system

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Jepma, Marieke

    2011-01-01

    The studies described in this thesis address a range of topics related to arousal, exploration, temporal attention, and the locus coeruleus-norepinephrine (LC-NE) system. Chapters 2 and 3 report two studies that investigated a recent theory about the role of the LC-NE system in the regulation of the

  8. Automatic, ECG-based detection of autonomic arousals and their association with cortical arousals, leg movements, and respiratory events in sleep

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Olsen, Mads; Schneider, Logan Douglas; Cheung, Joseph

    2018-01-01

    The current definition of sleep arousals neglects to address the diversity of arousals and their systemic cohesion. Autonomic arousals (AA) are autonomic activations often associated with cortical arousals (CA), but they may also occur in isolation in relation to a respiratory event, a leg movement...... event or spontaneously, without any other physiological associations. AA should be acknowledged as essential events to understand and explore the systemic implications of arousals. We developed an automatic AA detection algorithm based on intelligent feature selection and advanced machine learning using...... or respiratory events. This indicates that most FP constitute autonomic activations that are indistinguishable from those with cortical cohesion. The proposed algorithm provides an automatic system trained in a clinical environment, which can be utilized to analyse the systemic and clinical impacts of arousals....

  9. Micro-arousals during nocturnal sleep.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Halász, P; Kundra, O; Rajna, P; Pál, I; Vargha, M

    1979-01-01

    In 8 young adult human subjects EEG- and polygraphic characteristics of transient shifts towards arousal (micro-arousal, MA) have been studied during sleep under five different experimental conditions in 40 night sessions. Out of the five applied experimental situations, two (psychostimulant application and sensory stimulation) resulted in a shift of the balance between the systems of sleep and arousal towards an increased activity of the arousal system, while an other condition (rebound following partial sleep deprivation) led to an opposite change to a rise in "sleep pressure". An inverse correlation has been found between the frequency of MA and the depth of sleep, a finding consistently observed in every subject and in every experimental situation. During the process of sleep periodic changes in the dispersity of MA could be seen; the number of MA-s decreased and increased according to the descending and ascending slope of the sleep cycles. During the ascending slope of cycles there was a coupling between the occurence of MA-s and the changes of phases. Increases in the level of activation and in sleep pressure did not influence the occurrence of MA-s. Increasing the tone of the arousal system in chemical way, or by means of enhancing the phasic sensory input resulted in a reduction of the difference between the number of MA on the descending and ascending slopes of cycles. During the phases of sleep, the spontaneous occurrence of MA-s went parallel with the possibility to evoke MA-s by sensory stimuli. These data show that MA is a regular phenomenon of nocturnal sleep; MA manifests itself as a result of phasic functioning of the reticular arousal system and plays a role in the organization of those periods of the sleep cycle, which tend toward arousal. It is suggested that MA-phenomenon is considered a standard measure of sleep and that it could represent an indicator of the function of the arousal system controlled by external or internal mechanisms during

  10. Stress Effects on Multiple Memory System Interactions

    OpenAIRE

    Ness, Deborah; Calabrese, Pasquale

    2016-01-01

    Extensive behavioural, pharmacological, and neurological research reports stress effects on mammalian memory processes. While stress effects on memory quantity have been known for decades, the influence of stress on multiple memory systems and their distinct contributions to the learning process have only recently been described. In this paper, after summarizing the fundamental biological aspects of stress/emotional arousal and recapitulating functionally and anatomically distinct memory syst...

  11. No arousal-biased competition in focused visuospatial attention.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ásgeirsson, Árni Gunnar; Nieuwenhuis, Sander

    2017-11-01

    Arousal sometimes enhances and sometimes impairs perception and memory. A recent theory attempts to reconcile these findings by proposing that arousal amplifies the competition between stimulus representations, strengthening already strong representations and weakening already weak representations. Here, we report a stringent test of this arousal-biased competition theory in the context of focused visuospatial attention. Participants were required to identify a briefly presented target in the context of multiple distractors, which varied in the degree to which they competed for representation with the target, as revealed by psychophysics. We manipulated arousal using emotionally arousing pictures (Experiment 1), alerting tones (Experiment 2) and white-noise stimulation (Experiment 3), and validated these manipulations with electroencephalography and pupillometry. In none of the experiments did we find evidence that arousal modulated the effect of distractor competition on the accuracy of target identification. Bayesian statistics revealed moderate to strong evidence against arousal-biased competition. Modeling of the psychophysical data based on Bundesen's (1990) theory of visual attention corroborated the conclusion that arousal does not bias competition in focused visuospatial attention. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  12. Stress Effects on Multiple Memory System Interactions

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ness, Deborah; Calabrese, Pasquale

    2016-01-01

    Extensive behavioural, pharmacological, and neurological research reports stress effects on mammalian memory processes. While stress effects on memory quantity have been known for decades, the influence of stress on multiple memory systems and their distinct contributions to the learning process have only recently been described. In this paper, after summarizing the fundamental biological aspects of stress/emotional arousal and recapitulating functionally and anatomically distinct memory systems, we review recent animal and human studies exploring the effects of stress on multiple memory systems. Apart from discussing the interaction between distinct memory systems in stressful situations, we will also outline the fundamental role of the amygdala in mediating such stress effects. Additionally, based on the methods applied in the herein discussed studies, we will discuss how memory translates into behaviour. PMID:27034845

  13. Stress Effects on Multiple Memory System Interactions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ness, Deborah; Calabrese, Pasquale

    2016-01-01

    Extensive behavioural, pharmacological, and neurological research reports stress effects on mammalian memory processes. While stress effects on memory quantity have been known for decades, the influence of stress on multiple memory systems and their distinct contributions to the learning process have only recently been described. In this paper, after summarizing the fundamental biological aspects of stress/emotional arousal and recapitulating functionally and anatomically distinct memory systems, we review recent animal and human studies exploring the effects of stress on multiple memory systems. Apart from discussing the interaction between distinct memory systems in stressful situations, we will also outline the fundamental role of the amygdala in mediating such stress effects. Additionally, based on the methods applied in the herein discussed studies, we will discuss how memory translates into behaviour.

  14. Stress Effects on Multiple Memory System Interactions

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Deborah Ness

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available Extensive behavioural, pharmacological, and neurological research reports stress effects on mammalian memory processes. While stress effects on memory quantity have been known for decades, the influence of stress on multiple memory systems and their distinct contributions to the learning process have only recently been described. In this paper, after summarizing the fundamental biological aspects of stress/emotional arousal and recapitulating functionally and anatomically distinct memory systems, we review recent animal and human studies exploring the effects of stress on multiple memory systems. Apart from discussing the interaction between distinct memory systems in stressful situations, we will also outline the fundamental role of the amygdala in mediating such stress effects. Additionally, based on the methods applied in the herein discussed studies, we will discuss how memory translates into behaviour.

  15. Night-to-night arousal variability and interscorer reliability of arousal measurements.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Loredo, J S; Clausen, J L; Ancoli-Israel, S; Dimsdale, J E

    1999-11-01

    Measurement of arousals from sleep is clinically important, however, their definition is not well standardized, and little data exist on reliability. The purpose of this study is to determine factors that affect arousal scoring reliability and night-to-night arousal variability. The night-to-night arousal variability and interscorer reliability was assessed in 20 subjects with and without obstructive sleep apnea undergoing attended polysomnography during two consecutive nights. Five definitions of arousal were studied, assessing duration of electroencephalographic (EEG) frequency changes, increases in electromyographic (EMG) activity and leg movement, association with respiratory events, as well as the American Sleep Disorders Association (ASDA) definition of arousals. NA. NA. NA. Interscorer reliability varied with the definition of arousal and ranged from an Intraclass correlation (ICC) of 0.19 to 0.92. Arousals that included increases in EMG activity or leg movement had the greatest reliability, especially when associated with respiratory events (ICC 0.76 to 0.92). The ASDA arousal definition had high interscorer reliability (ICC 0.84). Reliability was lowest for arousals consisting of EEG changes lasting <3 seconds (ICC 0.19 to 0.37). The within subjects night-to-night arousal variability was low for all arousal definitions In a heterogeneous population, interscorer arousal reliability is enhanced by increases in EMG activity, leg movements, and respiratory events and decreased by short duration EEG arousals. The arousal index night-to-night variability was low for all definitions.

  16. Trigeminal induced arousals during human sleep.

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    Heiser, Clemens; Baja, Jan; Lenz, Franziska; Sommer, J Ulrich; Hörmann, Karl; Herr, Raphael M; Stuck, Boris A

    2015-05-01

    Arousals caused by external stimuli during human sleep have been studied for most of the sensorial systems. It could be shown that a pure nasal trigeminal stimulus leads to arousals during sleep. The frequency of arousals increases dependent on the stimulus concentration. The aim of the study was to evaluate the influence of different stimulus durations on arousal frequency during different sleep stages. Ten young healthy volunteers with 20 nights of polysomnography were included in the study. Pure trigeminal stimulation with both different concentrations of CO2 (0, 10, 20, 40% v/v) and different stimulus durations (1, 3, 5, and 10 s) were applied during different sleep stages to the volunteers using an olfactometer. The application was performed during different sleep stages (light sleep, deep sleep, REM sleep). The number of arousals increased with rising stimulus duration and stimulus concentration during each sleep stage. Trigeminal stimuli during sleep led to arousals in dose- and time-dependent manner.

  17. Effects of Arousal on Mouse Sensory Cortex Depend on Modality

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    Daisuke Shimaoka

    2018-03-01

    Full Text Available Summary: Changes in arousal modulate the activity of mouse sensory cortex, but studies in different mice and different sensory areas disagree on whether this modulation enhances or suppresses activity. We measured this modulation simultaneously in multiple cortical areas by imaging mice expressing voltage-sensitive fluorescent proteins (VSFP. VSFP imaging estimates local membrane potential across large portions of cortex. We used temporal filters to predict local potential from running speed or from pupil dilation, two measures of arousal. The filters provided good fits and revealed that the effects of arousal depend on modality. In the primary visual cortex (V1 and auditory cortex (Au, arousal caused depolarization followed by hyperpolarization. In the barrel cortex (S1b and a secondary visual area (LM, it caused only hyperpolarization. In all areas, nonetheless, arousal reduced the phasic responses to trains of sensory stimuli. These results demonstrate diverse effects of arousal across sensory cortex but similar effects on sensory responses. : Shimaoka et al. use voltage-sensitive imaging to show that the effects of arousal on the mouse cortex are markedly different across areas and over time. In all the sensory areas studied, nonetheless, arousal reduced the phasic voltage responses to trains of sensory stimuli. Keywords: cerebral cortex, cortical state, locomotion, sensory processing, widefield imaging

  18. Disconnection of the Ascending Arousal System in Traumatic Coma

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    Edlow, Brian L.; Haynes, Robin L.; Takahashi, Emi; Klein, Joshua P.; Cummings, Peter; Benner, Thomas; Greer, David M.; Greenberg, Steven M.; Wu, Ona; Kinney, Hannah C.; Folkerth, Rebecca D.

    2013-01-01

    Traumatic coma is associated with disruption of axonal pathways throughout the brain but the specific pathways involved in humans are incompletely understood. In this study, we used high angular resolution diffusion imaging (HARDI) to map the connectivity of axonal pathways that mediate the 2 critical components of consciousness – arousal and awareness – in the postmortem brain of a 62-year-old woman with acute traumatic coma and in 2 control brains. HARDI tractography guided tissue sampling in the neuropathological analysis. HARDI tractography demonstrated complete disruption of white matter pathways connecting brainstem arousal nuclei to the basal forebrain and thalamic intralaminar and reticular nuclei. In contrast, hemispheric arousal pathways connecting the thalamus and basal forebrain to the cerebral cortex were only partially disrupted, as were the cortical “awareness pathways.” Neuropathologic examination, which utilized β-amyloid precursor protein and fractin immunomarkers, revealed axonal injury in the white matter of the brainstem and cerebral hemispheres that corresponded to sites of HARDI tract disruption. Axonal injury was also present within the grey matter of the hypothalamus, thalamus, basal forebrain, and cerebral cortex. We propose that traumatic coma may be a subcortical disconnection syndrome related to the disconnection of specific brainstem arousal nuclei from the thalamus and basal forebrain. PMID:23656993

  19. Happiness and Arousal: Framing Happiness as Arousing Results in Lower Happiness Ratings for Older Adults

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    Par eBjalkebring

    2015-06-01

    Full Text Available Older adults have been shown to describe their happiness as lower in arousal when compared to younger adults. In addition, older adults prefer low arousal positive emotions over high arousal positive emotions in their daily lives. We experimentally investigated whether or not changing a few words in the description of happiness could influence a person’s rating of their happiness. We randomly assigned 193 participants, aged 22-92 years, to one of three conditions (high arousal, low arousal, or control. In line with previous findings, we found that older participants rated their happiness lower when framed as high in arousal (i.e., ecstatic, to be bursting with positive emotions and rated their happiness higher when framed as low in arousal (i.e., satisfied, to have a life filled with positive emotions. Younger adults remained uninfluenced by the manipulation. Our study demonstrates that arousal is essential to understanding ratings of happiness, and gives support to the notion that there are age differences in the preference for arousal.

  20. A unifying computational framework for stability and flexibility of arousal

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    Christin eKosse

    2014-10-01

    Full Text Available Arousal and consciousness flexibly adjust to salient cues, but remain stable despite noise and disturbance. Diverse, highly interconnected neural networks govern the underlying transitions of behavioural state; these networks are robust but very complex. Frameworks from systems engineering provide powerful tools for understanding functional logic behind component complexity. From a general systems viewpoint, a minimum of three communicating control modules may enable flexibility and stability to coexist. Comparators would subtract current arousal from desired arousal, producing an error signal. Regulators would compute control signals from this error. Generators would convert control signals into arousal, which is fed back to comparators, to make the system noise-proof through self-correction. Can specific neurons correspond to these control elements? To explore this, here we consider the brain-wide orexin/hypocretin network, which is experimentally established to be vital for flexible and stable arousal. We discuss whether orexin neurons may act as comparators, and their target neurons as regulators and generators. Experiments are proposed for testing such predictions, based on computational simulations showing that comparators, regulators, and generators have distinct temporal signatures of activity. If some regulators integrate orexin-communicated errors, robust arousal control may be achieved via integral feedback (a basic engineering strategy for tracking a set-point despite noise. An integral feedback view also suggests functional roles for specific molecular aspects, such as differing life-spans of orexin peptides. The proposed framework offers a unifying logic for molecular, cellular, and network details of arousal systems, and provides insight into behavioral state transitions, complex behaviour, and bases for disease.

  1. Attribution of Arousal as a Mediator of the Effectiveness of Fear-Arousing Communications.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schwarz, Norbert; And Others

    Characteristics of the situation in which a fear-arousing communication is received affect the effectiveness of the communication. The influence of situational factors affecting a recipient's interpretation of the arousal induced by communication were investigated with smokers (N=37) who were exposed to a fear-arousing anti-smoking movie. Prior to…

  2. One Session of Autogenic Training Increases Acute Subjective Sexual Arousal in Premenopausal Women Reporting Sexual Arousal Problems.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Stanton, Amelia M; Hixon, J Gregory; Nichols, Lindsey M; Meston, Cindy M

    2018-01-01

    Below average heart rate variability (HRV) has been associated with sexual arousal dysfunction and overall sexual dysfunction in women. Autogenic training, a psychophysiologic relaxation technique, has been shown to increase HRV. In a recent study, sexually healthy women experienced acute increases in physiologic (ie, genital) and subjective sexual arousal after 1 brief session of autogenic training. To build on these findings by testing the effects of a single session of autogenic training on sexual arousal in a sample of women who reported decreased or absent sexual arousal for at least 6 months. Genital sexual arousal, subjective sexual arousal, and perceived genital sensations were assessed in 25 women 20 to 44 years old before and after listening to a 22-minute autogenic training recording. HRV was assessed with electrocardiography. Change in genital sexual arousal, subjective sexual arousal, and perceived genital sensations from the pre-manipulation erotic film to the post-manipulation erotic film. Marginally significant increases in discrete subjective sexual arousal (P = .051) and significant increases in perceived genital sensations (P = .018) were observed. In addition, degree of change in HRV significantly moderated increases in subjective arousal measured continuously over time (P autogenic training, and other interventions that aim to increase HRV, could be a useful addition to treatment protocols for women who are reporting a lack of subjective arousal or decreased genital sensations. There are few treatment options for women with arousal problems. We report on a new psychosocial intervention that could improve arousal. Limitations include a relatively small sample and the lack of a control group. Our findings indicate that autogenic training significantly improves acute subjective arousal and increases perceived genital sensations in premenopausal women with self-reported arousal concerns. Stanton AM, Hixon JG, Nichols LM, Meston CM. One Session of

  3. Cerebral activation associated with visually evoked sexual arousal in the limbic system: functional MR imaging

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Eun, Sung Jong; Kong, Gwang Woo; Kim, Hyung Joong; Seo, Jeong Jin; Kang, Heoung Keun; Cho, Ki Hyun; Yoon, Ka Hyun; Kim, Kyung Yo

    2004-01-01

    To identify the brain centers associated with visually evoked sexual arousal in the human brain, and to investigate the neural mechanism for sexual arousal using functional MRI (fMRI). A total of 20 sexually potent volunteers consisting of 10 males (mean age: 24) and 10 females (mean age: 23) underwent fMRI on a 1.5T MR scanner (GE Signa Horizon). The fMRI data were obtained from 7 slices (10 mm slice thickness) parallel to the AC-PC (anterior commissure and posterior commissure) line, giving a total of 511 MR images. The sexual stimulation consisted of a 1-minute rest with black screen, followed by a 4-minute stimulation by an erotic video film, and concluded with a 2-minute rest. The brain activation maps and their quantification were analyzed by the statistical parametric mapping (SPM 99) program. The brain activation regions associated with visual sexual arousal in the limbic system are the posterior cingulate gyrus, parahippocampal gyrus, hypothalamus, medial cingulate gyrus, thalamus, amygdala, anterior cingulate gyrus, insula, hippocampus, caudate nucleus, globus pallidus and putamen. Especially, the parahippocampal gyrus, cingulate gyrus, thalamus and hypothalamus were highly activated in comparison with other areas. The overall activities of the limbic lobe, diencephalon, and basal ganglia were 11.8%, 10.5%, and 3.4%, respectively. In the correlation test between brain activity and sexual arousal, the hypothalamus and thalamus showed positive correlation, but the other brain areas showed no correlation. The fMRI is useful to quantitatively evaluate the cerebral activation associated with visually evoked, sexual arousal in the human brain. This result may be helpful by providing clinically valuable information on sexual disorder in humans as well as by increasing the understanding of the neuroanatomical correlates of sexual arousal

  4. Cerebral activation associated with visually evoked sexual arousal in the limbic system: functional MR imaging

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Eun, Sung Jong; Kong, Gwang Woo; Kim, Hyung Joong; Seo, Jeong Jin; Kang, Heoung Keun; Cho, Ki Hyun; Yoon, Ka Hyun [School of Medicine, Chonnam National Univ., Kwangju (Korea, Republic of); Kim, Kyung Yo [Wonkwang Univ., Iksan (Korea, Republic of)

    2004-08-01

    To identify the brain centers associated with visually evoked sexual arousal in the human brain, and to investigate the neural mechanism for sexual arousal using functional MRI (fMRI). A total of 20 sexually potent volunteers consisting of 10 males (mean age: 24) and 10 females (mean age: 23) underwent fMRI on a 1.5T MR scanner (GE Signa Horizon). The fMRI data were obtained from 7 slices (10 mm slice thickness) parallel to the AC-PC (anterior commissure and posterior commissure) line, giving a total of 511 MR images. The sexual stimulation consisted of a 1-minute rest with black screen, followed by a 4-minute stimulation by an erotic video film, and concluded with a 2-minute rest. The brain activation maps and their quantification were analyzed by the statistical parametric mapping (SPM 99) program. The brain activation regions associated with visual sexual arousal in the limbic system are the posterior cingulate gyrus, parahippocampal gyrus, hypothalamus, medial cingulate gyrus, thalamus, amygdala, anterior cingulate gyrus, insula, hippocampus, caudate nucleus, globus pallidus and putamen. Especially, the parahippocampal gyrus, cingulate gyrus, thalamus and hypothalamus were highly activated in comparison with other areas. The overall activities of the limbic lobe, diencephalon, and basal ganglia were 11.8%, 10.5%, and 3.4%, respectively. In the correlation test between brain activity and sexual arousal, the hypothalamus and thalamus showed positive correlation, but the other brain areas showed no correlation. The fMRI is useful to quantitatively evaluate the cerebral activation associated with visually evoked, sexual arousal in the human brain. This result may be helpful by providing clinically valuable information on sexual disorder in humans as well as by increasing the understanding of the neuroanatomical correlates of sexual arousal.

  5. AffectCam : arousal- augmented sensecam for richer recall of episodic memories

    OpenAIRE

    Sas, Corina; Fratczak, Thomasz; Rees, Matthew; Gellersen, Hans; Kalnikaitė, Vaiva; Coman, Alina; Höök, Kristina

    2013-01-01

    This paper describes the design and evaluation of AffectCam, a wearable system integrating SenseCam and BodyMedia SenseWear for capturing galvanic skin response as a measure of bodily arousal. AffectCam’s algorithms use arousal as a filtering mechanism for selecting the most personally relevant photos captured during people’s ordinary daily life, i.e. high arousal photos. We discuss initial findings showing that emotional arousal does improve the quality of memory recall associated with emoti...

  6. Arousal and consumer in-store behavior.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Groeppel-Klein, Andrea

    2005-11-15

    From a psychophysiological point of view, arousal is a fundamental feature of behavior. As reported in different empirical studies based on insights from theories of consumer behavior, store atmosphere should evoke phasic arousal reactions to attract consumers. Most of these empirical investigations used verbal scales to measure consumers' perceived phasic arousal at the point-of-sale (POS). However, the validity of verbal arousal measurement is questioned; self-reporting methods only allow a time-lagged measurement. Furthermore, the selection of inappropriate items to represent perceived arousal is criticized, and verbal reports require some form of cognitive evaluation of perceived arousal by the individual, who might (in a non-measurement condition) not even be aware of the arousal. By contrast, phasic electrodermal reaction (EDR) has proven to be the most appropriate and valid indicator for measuring arousal [W. Boucsein, Physiologische Grundlagen und Messmethoden der dermalen Aktivität. In: F. Rösler (Ed.), Enzyklopädie der Psychologie, Bereich Psychophysiologie, Band 1: Grundlagen and Methoden der Psychophysiologie, Kapitel, Vol. 7, Hogrefe, Göttingen, 2001, pp. 551-623] that could be relevant to behavior. EDR can be recorded simultaneously to the perception of stimuli. Furthermore, telemetric online device can be used, which enables physiological arousal measurement while participants can move freely through the store and perform the assigned task in the experiments. The present paper delivers insights on arousal theory and results from empirical studies using EDR to measure arousal at the POS.

  7. Hyper-arousal decreases human visual thresholds.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Adam J Woods

    Full Text Available Arousal has long been known to influence behavior and serves as an underlying component of cognition and consciousness. However, the consequences of hyper-arousal for visual perception remain unclear. The present study evaluates the impact of hyper-arousal on two aspects of visual sensitivity: visual stereoacuity and contrast thresholds. Sixty-eight participants participated in two experiments. Thirty-four participants were randomly divided into two groups in each experiment: Arousal Stimulation or Sham Control. The Arousal Stimulation group underwent a 50-second cold pressor stimulation (immersing the foot in 0-2° C water, a technique known to increase arousal. In contrast, the Sham Control group immersed their foot in room temperature water. Stereoacuity thresholds (Experiment 1 and contrast thresholds (Experiment 2 were measured before and after stimulation. The Arousal Stimulation groups demonstrated significantly lower stereoacuity and contrast thresholds following cold pressor stimulation, whereas the Sham Control groups showed no difference in thresholds. These results provide the first evidence that hyper-arousal from sensory stimulation can lower visual thresholds. Hyper-arousal's ability to decrease visual thresholds has important implications for survival, sports, and everyday life.

  8. Direct manipulation of physiological arousal in induced anxiety therapy - biofeedback approach.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sappington, A A

    1977-10-01

    This study investigated the role of physiological arousal in the affect induction phase of Induced Anxiety therapy by using biofeedback to facilitate arousal. Twenty-one college students who were suffering from free-floating anxiety were assigned randomly to one of three groups: (1) a no-treatment control group simply completed the measures before and after therapy; (2) a conventional Induced Anxiety group went through five standard Induced Anxiety sessions; and (3) biofeedback Induced Anxiety group went through a similar procedure except that biofeedback was used in the affect induction phase to facilitate heart rate increase. It was found that the biofeedback procedure did result in a greater heart rate increase during the affect induction phase arousal than did the conventional procedure (.01 level of significance), but did not facilitate subjective emotional arousal. Biofeedback Induced Anxiety resulted in a greater reduction of trait anxiety as measured by the Multiple Affect Adjective Check List than did the no-treatment group or the conventonal Induced Anxiety group. The conventional Induced Anxiety group did not differ significantly from the no-treatment control group.

  9. Female Sexual Arousal Disorders

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Giraldi, Annamaria; Rellini, Alessandra H; Pfaus, James

    2012-01-01

    Introduction.  Definitions and terminology for female sexual arousal disorder (FSAD) are currently being debated. While some authors have suggested that FSAD is more a subjective response rather than a genital response, others have suggested that desire and arousal disorders should be combined...... and psychological disorders, as well as to discuss different medical and psychological assessment and treatment modalities. Methods.  The experts of the International Society for Sexual Medicine's Standard Committee convened to provide a survey using relevant databases, journal articles, and own clinical experience....... Results.  Female Arousal Disorders have been defined in several ways with focus on the genital or subjective response or a combination of both. The prevalence varies and increases with increasing age, especially at the time of menopause, while distress decreases with age. Arousal disorders are often...

  10. Descending projections of the hamster intergeniculate leaflet: relationship to the sleep/arousal and visuomotor systems

    Science.gov (United States)

    Morin, Lawrence P.; Blanchard, Jane H.

    2005-01-01

    The intergeniculate leaflet (IGL), homolog of the primate pregeniculate nucleus, modulates circadian rhythms. However, its extensive anatomical connections suggest that it may regulate other systems, particularly those for visuomotor function and sleep/arousal. Here, descending IGL-efferent pathways are identified with the anterograde tracer, Phaseolus vulgaris leucoagglutinin, with projections to over 50 brain stem nuclei. Projections of the ventral lateral geniculate are similar, but more limited. Many of the nuclei with IGL afferents contribute to circuitry governing visuomotor function. These include the oculomotor, trochlear, anterior pretectal, Edinger-Westphal, and the terminal nuclei; all layers of the superior colliculus, interstitial nucleus of the medial longitudinal fasciculus, supraoculomotor periaqueductal gray, nucleus of the optic tract, the inferior olive, and raphe interpositus. Other target nuclei are known to be involved in the regulation of sleep, including the lateral dorsal and pedunculopontine tegmentum. The dorsal raphe also receives projections from the IGL and may contribute to both sleep/arousal and visuomotor function. However, the locus coeruleus and medial vestibular nucleus, which contribute to sleep and eye movement regulation and which send projections to the IGL, do not receive reciprocal projections from it. The potential involvement of the IGL with the sleep/arousal system is further buttressed by existing evidence showing IGL-efferent projections to the ventrolateral preoptic area, dorsomedial, and medial tuberal hypothalamus. In addition, the great majority of all regions receiving IGL projections also receive input from the orexin/hypocretin system, suggesting that this system contributes not only to the regulation of sleep, but to eye movement control as well.

  11. Arousal from sleep mechanisms in infants.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Franco, Patricia; Kato, Ineko; Richardson, Heidi L; Yang, Joel S C; Montemitro, Enza; Horne, Rosemary S C

    2010-08-01

    Arousals from sleep allow sleep to continue in the face of stimuli that normally elicit responses during wakefulness and also permit awakening. Such an adaptive mechanism implies that any malfunction may have clinical importance. Inadequate control of arousal in infants and children is associated with a variety of sleep-related problems. An excessive propensity to arouse from sleep favors the development of repeated sleep disruptions and insomnia, with impairment of daytime alertness and performance. A lack of an adequate arousal response to a noxious nocturnal stimulus reduces an infant's chances of autoresuscitation, and thus survival, increasing the risk for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). The study of arousability is complicated by many factors including the definition of an arousal; the scoring methodology; the techniques used (spontaneous arousability versus arousal responses to endogenous or exogenous stimuli); and the confounding factors that complicate the determination of arousal thresholds by changing the sleeper's responses to a given stimulus such as prenatal drug, alcohol, or cigarette use. Infant age and previous sleep deprivation also modify thresholds. Other confounding factors include time of night, sleep stages, the sleeper's body position, and sleeping conditions. In this paper, we will review these different aspects for the study of arousals in infants and also report the importance of these studies for the understanding of the pathophysiology of some clinical conditions, particularly SIDS. Copyright 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  12. Simultaneous conditioning of valence and arousal.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gawronski, Bertram; Mitchell, Derek G V

    2014-01-01

    Evaluative conditioning (EC) refers to the change in the valence of a conditioned stimulus (CS) due to its pairing with a positive or negative unconditioned stimulus (US). To the extent that core affect can be characterised by the two dimensions of valence and arousal, EC has important implications for the origin of affective responses. However, the distinction between valence and arousal is rarely considered in research on EC or conditioned responses more generally. Measuring the subjective feelings elicited by a CS, the results from two experiments showed that (1) repeated pairings of a CS with a positive or negative US of either high or low arousal led to corresponding changes in both CS valence and CS arousal, (2) changes in CS arousal, but not changes in CS valence, were significantly related to recollective memory for CS-US pairings, (3) subsequent presentations of the CS without the US reduced the conditioned valence of the CS, with conditioned arousal being less susceptible to extinction and (4) EC effects were stronger for high arousal than low arousal USs. The results indicate that the conditioning of affective responses can occur simultaneously along two independent dimensions, supporting evidence in related areas that calls for a consideration of both valence and arousal. Implications for research on EC and the acquisition of emotional dispositions are discussed.

  13. The polarizing effect of arousal on negotiation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Brown, Ashley D; Curhan, Jared R

    2013-10-01

    In this research, we examined the impact of physiological arousal on negotiation outcomes. Conventional wisdom and the prescriptive literature suggest that arousal should be minimized given its negative effect on negotiations, whereas prior research on misattribution of arousal suggests that arousal might polarize outcomes, either negatively or positively. In two experiments, we manipulated arousal and measured its effect on subjective and objective negotiation outcomes. Our results support the polarization effect. When participants had negative prior attitudes toward negotiation, arousal had a detrimental effect on outcomes, whereas when participants had positive prior attitudes toward negotiation, arousal had a beneficial effect on outcomes. These effects occurred because of the construal of arousal as negative or positive affect, respectively. Our findings have important implications not only for negotiation, but also for research on misattribution of arousal, which previously has focused on the target of evaluation, in contrast to the current research, which focused on the critical role of the perceiver.

  14. Valence, arousal and cognitive control: A voluntary task switching study

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jelle eDemanet

    2011-11-01

    Full Text Available The present study focused on the interplay between arousal, valence and cognitive control. To this end, we investigated how arousal and valence associated with affective stimuli influenced cognitive flexibility when switching between tasks voluntarily. Three hypotheses were tested. First, a valence hypothesis that states that the positive valence of affective stimuli will facilitate both global and task-switching performance because of increased cognitive flexibility. Second, an arousal hypothesis that states that arousal, and not valence, will specifically impair task-switching performance by strengthening the previously executed task-set. Third, an attention hypothesis that states that both cognitive and emotional control ask for limited attentional resources, and predicts that arousal will impair both global and task-switching performance. The results showed that arousal affected task-switching but not global performance, possibly by phasic modulations of the noradrenergic system that reinforces the previously executed task. In addition, positive valence only affected global performance but not task-switching performance, possibly by phasic modulations of dopamine that stimulates the general ability to perform in a multitasking environment.

  15. Top-down control of arousal and sleep: Fundamentals and clinical implications.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Krone, Lukas; Frase, Lukas; Piosczyk, Hannah; Selhausen, Peter; Zittel, Sulamith; Jahn, Friederike; Kuhn, Marion; Feige, Bernd; Mainberger, Florian; Klöppel, Stefan; Riemann, Dieter; Spiegelhalder, Kai; Baglioni, Chiara; Sterr, Annette; Nissen, Christoph

    2017-02-01

    Mammalian sleep emerges from attenuated activity in the ascending reticular arousal system (ARAS), the main arousal network of the brain. This system originates in the brainstem and activates the thalamus and cortex during wakefulness via a well-characterized 'bottom-up' pathway. Recent studies propose that a less investigated cortico-thalamic 'top-down' pathway also regulates sleep. The present work integrates the current evidence on sleep regulation with a focus on the 'top-down' pathway and explores the potential to translate this information into clinically relevant interventions. Specifically, we elaborate the concept that arousal and sleep continuity in humans can be modulated by non-invasive brain stimulation (NIBS) techniques that increase or decrease cortical excitability. Based on preclinical studies, the modulatory effects of the stimulation are thought to extend to subcortical arousal networks. Further exploration of the 'top-down' regulation of sleep and its modulation through non-invasive brain stimulation techniques may contribute to the development of novel treatments for clinical conditions of disrupted arousal and sleep, which are among the major health problems worldwide. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  16. Interplay between affect and arousal in recognition memory.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Greene, Ciara M; Bahri, Pooja; Soto, David

    2010-07-23

    Emotional states linked to arousal and mood are known to affect the efficiency of cognitive performance. However, the extent to which memory processes may be affected by arousal, mood or their interaction is poorly understood. Following a study phase of abstract shapes, we altered the emotional state of participants by means of exposure to music that varied in both mood and arousal dimensions, leading to four different emotional states: (i) positive mood-high arousal; (ii) positive mood-low arousal; (iii) negative mood-high arousal; (iv) negative mood-low arousal. Following the emotional induction, participants performed a memory recognition test. Critically, there was an interaction between mood and arousal on recognition performance. Memory was enhanced in the positive mood-high arousal and in the negative mood-low arousal states, relative to the other emotional conditions. Neither mood nor arousal alone but their interaction appears most critical to understanding the emotional enhancement of memory.

  17. Interplay between affect and arousal in recognition memory.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ciara M Greene

    2010-07-01

    Full Text Available Emotional states linked to arousal and mood are known to affect the efficiency of cognitive performance. However, the extent to which memory processes may be affected by arousal, mood or their interaction is poorly understood.Following a study phase of abstract shapes, we altered the emotional state of participants by means of exposure to music that varied in both mood and arousal dimensions, leading to four different emotional states: (i positive mood-high arousal; (ii positive mood-low arousal; (iii negative mood-high arousal; (iv negative mood-low arousal. Following the emotional induction, participants performed a memory recognition test. Critically, there was an interaction between mood and arousal on recognition performance. Memory was enhanced in the positive mood-high arousal and in the negative mood-low arousal states, relative to the other emotional conditions.Neither mood nor arousal alone but their interaction appears most critical to understanding the emotional enhancement of memory.

  18. Female sexual arousal disorders

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Giraldi, Annamaria; Rellini, Alessandra H.; Pfaus, James; Laan, Ellen

    2013-01-01

    Definitions and terminology for female sexual arousal disorder (FSAD) are currently being debated. While some authors have suggested that FSAD is more a subjective response rather than a genital response, others have suggested that desire and arousal disorders should be combined in one entity.

  19. Hypothalamic Tuberomammillary Nucleus Neurons: Electrophysiological Diversity and Essential Role in Arousal Stability.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fujita, Akie; Bonnavion, Patricia; Wilson, Miryam H; Mickelsen, Laura E; Bloit, Julien; de Lecea, Luis; Jackson, Alexander C

    2017-09-27

    Histaminergic (HA) neurons, found in the posterior hypothalamic tuberomammillary nucleus (TMN), extend fibers throughout the brain and exert modulatory influence over numerous physiological systems. Multiple lines of evidence suggest that the activity of HA neurons is important in the regulation of vigilance despite the lack of direct, causal evidence demonstrating its requirement for the maintenance of arousal during wakefulness. Given the strong correlation between HA neuron excitability and behavioral arousal, we investigated both the electrophysiological diversity of HA neurons in brain slices and the effect of their acute silencing in vivo in male mice. For this purpose, we first validated a transgenic mouse line expressing cre recombinase in histidine decarboxylase-expressing neurons ( Hdc -Cre) followed by a systematic census of the membrane properties of both HA and non-HA neurons in the ventral TMN (TMNv) region. Through unsupervised hierarchical cluster analysis, we found electrophysiological diversity both between TMNv HA and non-HA neurons, and among HA neurons. To directly determine the impact of acute cessation of HA neuron activity on sleep-wake states in awake and behaving mice, we examined the effects of optogenetic silencing of TMNv HA neurons in vivo We found that acute silencing of HA neurons during wakefulness promotes slow-wave sleep, but not rapid eye movement sleep, during a period of low sleep pressure. Together, these data suggest that the tonic firing of HA neurons is necessary for the maintenance of wakefulness, and their silencing not only impairs arousal but is sufficient to rapidly and selectively induce slow-wave sleep. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT The function of monoaminergic systems and circuits that regulate sleep and wakefulness is often disrupted as part of the pathophysiology of many neuropsychiatric disorders. One such circuit is the posterior hypothalamic histamine (HA) system, implicated in supporting wakefulness and higher brain

  20. Memory effects of sleep, emotional valence, arousal and novelty in children

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Vermeulen, Marije C M; van der Heijden, Kristiaan B; Benjamins, Jeroen S; Swaab, Hanna; van Someren, Eus J W

    Effectiveness of memory consolidation is determined by multiple factors, including sleep after learning, emotional valence, arousal and novelty. Few studies investigated how the effect of sleep compares with (and interacts with) these other factors, of which virtually none are in children. The

  1. Memory effects of sleep, emotional valence, arousal and novelty in children

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Vermeulen, Marije C M; van der Heijden, Kristiaan B; Benjamins, Jeroen S.; Swaab, Hanna; Van Someren, Eus J W

    2017-01-01

    Effectiveness of memory consolidation is determined by multiple factors, including sleep after learning, emotional valence, arousal and novelty. Few studies investigated how the effect of sleep compares with (and interacts with) these other factors, of which virtually none are in children. The

  2. Musical Tasks and Energetic Arousal.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lim, Hayoung A; Watson, Angela L

    2018-03-08

    Music is widely recognized as a motivating stimulus. Investigators have examined the use of music to improve a variety of motivation-related outcomes; however, these studies have focused primarily on passive music listening rather than active participation in musical activities. To examine the influence of participation in musical tasks and unique participant characteristics on energetic arousal. We used a one-way Welch's ANOVA to examine the influence of musical participation (i.e., a non-musical control and four different musical task conditions) upon energetic arousal. In addition, ancillary analyses of participant characteristics including personality, age, gender, sleep, musical training, caffeine, nicotine, and alcohol revealed their possible influence upon pretest and posttest energetic arousal scores. Musical participation yielded a significant relationship with energetic arousal, F(4, 55.62) = 44.38, p = .000, estimated ω2 = 0.60. Games-Howell post hoc pairwise comparisons revealed statistically significant differences between five conditions. Descriptive statistics revealed expected differences between introverts' and extraverts' energetic arousal scores at the pretest, F(1, 115) = 6.80, p = .010, partial η2= .06; however, mean differences failed to reach significance at the posttest following musical task participation. No other measured participant characteristics yielded meaningful results. Passive tasks (i.e., listening to a story or song) were related to decreased energetic arousal, while active musical tasks (i.e., singing, rhythm tapping, and keyboard playing) were related to increased energetic arousal. Musical task participation appeared to have a differential effect for individuals with certain personality traits (i.e., extroverts and introverts).

  3. The dynamic opponent relativity model: an integration and extension of capacity theory and existing theoretical perspectives on the neuropsychology of arousal and emotion.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Comer, Clinton S; Harrison, Patti Kelly; Harrison, David W

    2015-01-01

    Arousal theory as discussed within the present paper refers to those mechanisms and neural systems involved in central nervous system activation and more specifically the systems involved in cortical activation. Historical progress in the evolution of arousal theory has led to a better understanding of the functional neural systems involved in arousal or activation processes and ultimately contributed much to our current theories of emotion. Despite evidence for the dynamic interplay between the left and right cerebral hemispheres, the concepts of cerebral balance and dynamic activation have been emphasized in the neuropsychological literature. A conceptual model is proposed herein that incorporates the unique contributions from multiple neuropsychological theories of arousal and emotion. It is argued that the cerebral hemispheres may play oppositional roles in emotion partially due to the differences in their functional specializations and in their persistence upon activation. In the presence of a threat or provocation, the right hemisphere may activate survival relevant responses partially derived from hemispheric specializations in arousal and emotional processing, including the mobilization of sympathetic drive to promote heightened blood pressure, heart rate, glucose mobilization and respiratory support necessary for the challenge. Oppositional processes and mechanisms are discussed, which may be relevant to the regulatory control over the survival response; however, the capacity of these systems is necessarily limited. A limited capacity mechanism is proposed, which is familiar within other physiological systems, including that providing for the prevention of muscular damage under exceptional demand. This capacity theory is proposed, wherein a link may be expected between exceptional stress within a neural system and damage to the neural system. These mechanisms are proposed to be relevant to emotion and emotional disorders. Discussion is provided on the

  4. Exposure to arousal-inducing sounds facilitates visual search.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Asutay, Erkin; Västfjäll, Daniel

    2017-09-04

    Exposure to affective stimuli could enhance perception and facilitate attention via increasing alertness, vigilance, and by decreasing attentional thresholds. However, evidence on the impact of affective sounds on perception and attention is scant. Here, a novel aspect of affective facilitation of attention is studied: whether arousal induced by task-irrelevant auditory stimuli could modulate attention in a visual search. In two experiments, participants performed a visual search task with and without auditory-cues that preceded the search. Participants were faster in locating high-salient targets compared to low-salient targets. Critically, search times and search slopes decreased with increasing auditory-induced arousal while searching for low-salient targets. Taken together, these findings suggest that arousal induced by sounds can facilitate attention in a subsequent visual search. This novel finding provides support for the alerting function of the auditory system by showing an auditory-phasic alerting effect in visual attention. The results also indicate that stimulus arousal modulates the alerting effect. Attention and perception are our everyday tools to navigate our surrounding world and the current findings showing that affective sounds could influence visual attention provide evidence that we make use of affective information during perceptual processing.

  5. Sexual Desire and Arousal Disorders in Women

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Laan, Ellen; Both, Stephanie

    2011-01-01

    According to incentive motivation theory, sexual desire is the result of the interplay between a sensitive sexual response system and stimuli that activate the system. From this notion it follows that sexual desire is not a cause but a consequence of sexual arousal. The effects of hormones, somatic

  6. Detection of arousals in Parkinson's disease patients

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Sørensen, Gertrud Laura; Kempfner, Jacob; Jennum, Poul

    2011-01-01

    sleepiness. Manual scoring of arousals is time-consuming and the inter-score agreement is highly varying especially for patients with sleep related disorders. The aim of this study was to design an arousal detection algorithm capable of detecting arousals from sleep, in both non-REM and REM sleep in patients......Arousal from sleep are short awakenings, which can be identified in the EEG as an abrupt change in frequency. Arousals can occur in all sleep stages and the number and frequency increase with age. Frequent arousals during sleep results in sleep fragmentation and is associated with daytime...... suffering from Parkinson's disease (PD). The proposed algorithm uses features from EEG, EMG and the manual sleep stage scoring as input to a feed-forward artificial neural network (ANN). The performance of the algorithm has been assessed using polysomnographic (PSG) recordings from a total of 8 patients...

  7. CAP, epilepsy and motor events during sleep: the unifying role of arousal.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Parrino, Liborio; Halasz, Peter; Tassinari, Carlo Alberto; Terzano, Mario Giovanni

    2006-08-01

    Arousal systems play a topical neurophysiologic role in protecting and tailoring sleep duration and depth. When they appear in NREM sleep, arousal responses are not limited to a single EEG pattern but are part of a continuous spectrum of EEG modifications ranging from high-voltage slow rhythms to low amplitude fast activities. The hierarchic features of arousal responses are reflected in the phase A subtypes of CAP (cyclic alternating pattern) including both slow arousals (dominated by the ASDA arousals). CAP is an infraslow oscillation with a periodicity of 20-40s that participates in the dynamic organization of sleep and in the activation of motor events. Physiologic, paraphysiologic and pathologic motor activities during NREM sleep are always associated with a stereotyped arousal pattern characterized by an initial increase in EEG delta power and heart rate, followed by a progressive activation of faster EEG frequencies. These findings suggest that motor patterns are already written in the brain codes (central pattern generators) embraced with an automatic sequence of EEG-vegetative events, but require a certain degree of activation (arousal) to become visibly apparent. Arousal can appear either spontaneously or be elicited by internal (epileptic burst) or external (noise, respiratory disturbance) stimuli. Whether the outcome is a physiologic movement, a muscle jerk or a major epileptic attack will depend on a number of ongoing factors (sleep stage, delta power, neuro-motor network) but all events share the common trait of arousal-activated phenomena.

  8. Congruent bodily arousal promotes the constructive recognition of emotional words.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kever, Anne; Grynberg, Delphine; Vermeulen, Nicolas

    2017-08-01

    Considerable research has shown that bodily states shape affect and cognition. Here, we examined whether transient states of bodily arousal influence the categorization speed of high arousal, low arousal, and neutral words. Participants realized two blocks of a constructive recognition task, once after a cycling session (increased arousal), and once after a relaxation session (reduced arousal). Results revealed overall faster response times for high arousal compared to low arousal words, and for positive compared to negative words. Importantly, low arousal words were categorized significantly faster after the relaxation than after the cycling, suggesting that a decrease in bodily arousal promotes the recognition of stimuli matching one's current arousal state. These findings highlight the importance of the arousal dimension in emotional processing, and suggest the presence of arousal-congruency effects. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  9. Sexual arousal, is it for mammals only?

    OpenAIRE

    Ball, Gregory F.; Balthazart, Jacques

    2010-01-01

    Sexual arousal has many dimensions and has consequently been defined in various ways. In humans sexual arousal can be assessed based in part on verbal communication. In male non-human mammalian species it has been argued that arousal can only be definitively inferred if the subject exhibits a penile erection in a sexual context. In non-mammalian species that lack an intromittent organ, as is the case for most avian species, the question of how to assess sexual arousal has not been thoroughly ...

  10. Subjective Sexual Arousal to Films of Masturbation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mosher, Donald L.; Abramson, Paul R.

    1977-01-01

    A film of a male or female masturbating was viewed by 96 males and 102 females. Males reported the highest level of sexual arousal to the female film and the lowest level of arousal to the male film. Females were sexually aroused by both films. (Author)

  11. Male bisexual arousal: a matter of curiosity?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rieger, Gerulf; Rosenthal, Allen M; Cash, Brian M; Linsenmeier, Joan A W; Bailey, J Michael; Savin-Williams, Ritch C

    2013-12-01

    Conflicting evidence exists regarding whether bisexual-identified men are sexually aroused to both men and women. We hypothesized that a distinct characteristic, level of curiosity about sexually diverse acts, distinguishes bisexual-identified men with and without bisexual arousal. Study 1 assessed men's (n=277) sexual arousal via pupil dilation to male and female sexual stimuli. Bisexual men were, on average, higher in their sexual curiosity than other men. Despite this general difference, only bisexual-identified men with elevated sexual curiosity showed bisexual arousal. Those lower in curiosity had responses resembling those of homosexual men. Study 2 assessed men's (n=72) sexual arousal via genital responses and replicated findings of Study 1. Study 3 provided information on the validity on our measure of sexual curiosity by relating it to general curiosity and sexual sensation seeking (n=83). Based on their sexual arousal and personality, at least two groups of men identify as bisexual. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  12. Sexual Arousal Patterns of Autogynephilic Male Cross-Dressers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hsu, Kevin J; Rosenthal, A M; Miller, David I; Bailey, J Michael

    2017-01-01

    Men's sexual arousal patterns have been an important window into the nature of their erotic interests. Autogynephilia is a natal male's paraphilic tendency to be sexually aroused by the thought or image of being a woman. Autogynephilic arousal per se is difficult to assess objectively, because it is inwardly focused. However, assessing sexual arousal patterns of autogynephilic males in response to external stimuli is also potentially useful. For example, there is substantial association between autogynephilia and gynandromorphophilia (GAMP), or sexual attraction to gynandromorphs (GAMs), colloquially "she-males." GAMP men's sexual arousal patterns in response to GAM, female, and male stimuli have recently been characterized. In the present study, we extended this understanding by comparing the sexual arousal patterns of autogynephilic male cross-dressers, GAMP men, heterosexual men, and homosexual men. Erotic stimuli included sexually explicit videos of men, women, and GAMs. Autogynephilic men were much more similar in their arousal patterns to heterosexual and GAMP men than to homosexual men. However, similar to GAMP men, autogynephilic men showed increased arousal by GAM stimuli relative to female stimuli compared with heterosexual men.

  13. Multilevel analysis of facial expressions of emotion and script: self-report (arousal and valence) and psychophysiological correlates.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Balconi, Michela; Vanutelli, Maria Elide; Finocchiaro, Roberta

    2014-09-26

    The paper explored emotion comprehension in children with regard to facial expression of emotion. The effect of valence and arousal evaluation, of context and of psychophysiological measures was monitored. Indeed subjective evaluation of valence (positive vs. negative) and arousal (high vs. low), and contextual (facial expression vs. facial expression and script) variables were supposed to modulate the psychophysiological responses. Self-report measures (in terms of correct recognition, arousal and valence attribution) and psychophysiological correlates (facial electromyography, EMG, skin conductance response, SCR, and heart rate, HR) were observed when children (N = 26; mean age = 8.75 y; range 6-11 y) looked at six facial expressions of emotions (happiness, anger, fear, sadness, surprise, and disgust) and six emotional scripts (contextualized facial expressions). The competencies about the recognition, the evaluation on valence and arousal was tested in concomitance with psychophysiological variations. Specifically, we tested for the congruence of these multiple measures. Log-linear analysis and repeated measure ANOVAs showed different representations across the subjects, as a function of emotion. Specifically, children' recognition and attribution were well developed for some emotions (such as anger, fear, surprise and happiness), whereas some other emotions (mainly disgust and sadness) were less clearly represented. SCR, HR and EMG measures were modulated by the evaluation based on valence and arousal, with increased psychophysiological values mainly in response to anger, fear and happiness. As shown by multiple regression analysis, a significant consonance was found between self-report measures and psychophysiological behavior, mainly for emotions rated as more arousing and negative in valence. The multilevel measures were discussed at light of dimensional attribution model.

  14. Behavioral and biochemical dissociation of arousal and homeostatic sleep need influenced by prior wakeful experience in mice.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Suzuki, Ayako; Sinton, Christopher M; Greene, Robert W; Yanagisawa, Masashi

    2013-06-18

    Sleep is regulated by homeostatic mechanisms, and the low-frequency power in the electroencephalogram (delta power) during non-rapid eye movement sleep reflects homeostatic sleep need. Additionally, sleep is limited by circadian and environmentally influenced arousal. Little is known, however, about the underlying neural substrates for sleep homeostasis and arousal and about the potential link between them. Here, we subjected C57BL/6 mice to 6 h of sleep deprivation using two different methods: gentle handling and continual cage change. Both groups were deprived of sleep to a similar extent (>99%), and, as expected, the delta power increase during recovery sleep was quantitatively similar in both groups. However, in a multiple sleep latency test, the cage change group showed significantly longer sleep latencies than the gentle handling group, indicating that the cage change group had a higher level of arousal despite the similar sleep loss. To investigate the possible biochemical correlates of these behavioral changes, we screened for arousal-related and sleep need-related phosphoprotein markers from the diencephalon. We found that the abundance of highly phosphorylated forms of dynamin 1, a presynaptic neuronal protein, was associated with sleep latency in the multiple sleep latency test. In contrast, the abundance of highly phosphorylated forms of N-myc downstream regulated gene 2, a glial protein, was increased in parallel with delta power. The changes of these protein species disappeared after 2 h of recovery sleep. These results suggest that homeostatic sleep need and arousal can be dissociated behaviorally and biochemically and that phosphorylated N-myc downstream regulated gene 2 and dynamin 1 may serve as markers of homeostatic sleep need and arousal, respectively.

  15. Factors that influence the relative use of multiple memory systems.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Packard, Mark G; Goodman, Jarid

    2013-11-01

    Neurobehavioral evidence supports the existence of at least two anatomically distinct "memory systems" in the mammalian brain that mediate dissociable types of learning and memory; a "cognitive" memory system dependent upon the hippocampus and a "stimulus-response/habit" memory system dependent upon the dorsolateral striatum. Several findings indicate that despite their anatomical and functional distinctiveness, hippocampal- and dorsolateral striatal-dependent memory systems may potentially interact and that, depending on the learning situation, this interaction may be cooperative or competitive. One approach to examining the neural mechanisms underlying these interactions is to consider how various factors influence the relative use of multiple memory systems. The present review examines several such factors, including information compatibility, temporal sequence of training, the visual sensory environment, reinforcement parameters, emotional arousal, and memory modulatory systems. Altering these parameters can lead to selective enhancements of either hippocampal-dependent or dorsolateral striatal-dependent memory, and bias animals toward the use of either cognitive or habit memory in dual-solution tasks that may be solved adequately with either memory system. In many learning situations, the influence of such experimental factors on the relative use of memory systems likely reflects a competitive interaction between the systems. Research examining how various factors influence the relative use of multiple memory systems may be a useful method for investigating how these systems interact with one another. Copyright © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

  16. Pupil-linked arousal is driven by decision uncertainty and alters serial choice bias

    Science.gov (United States)

    Urai, Anne E.; Braun, Anke; Donner, Tobias H.

    2017-03-01

    While judging their sensory environments, decision-makers seem to use the uncertainty about their choices to guide adjustments of their subsequent behaviour. One possible source of these behavioural adjustments is arousal: decision uncertainty might drive the brain's arousal systems, which control global brain state and might thereby shape subsequent decision-making. Here, we measure pupil diameter, a proxy for central arousal state, in human observers performing a perceptual choice task of varying difficulty. Pupil dilation, after choice but before external feedback, reflects three hallmark signatures of decision uncertainty derived from a computational model. This increase in pupil-linked arousal boosts observers' tendency to alternate their choice on the subsequent trial. We conclude that decision uncertainty drives rapid changes in pupil-linked arousal state, which shape the serial correlation structure of ongoing choice behaviour.

  17. Emotions and false memories: valence or arousal?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Corson, Yves; Verrier, Nadège

    2007-03-01

    The effects of mood on false memories have not been studied systematically until recently. Some results seem to indicate that negative mood may reduce false recall and thus suggest an influence of emotional valence on false memory. The present research tested the effects of both valence and arousal on recall and recognition and indicates that the effect is actually due to arousal. In fact, whether participants' mood is positive, negative, or neutral, false memories are significantly more frequent under conditions of high arousal than under conditions of low arousal.

  18. Pupil-linked arousal is driven by decision uncertainty and alters serial choice bias

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Urai, A.E.; Braun, A.; Donner, T.H.

    2017-01-01

    While judging their sensory environments, decision-makers seem to use the uncertainty about their choices to guide adjustments of their subsequent behaviour. One possible source of these behavioural adjustments is arousal: decision uncertainty might drive the brain's arousal systems, which control

  19. The sound of arousal in music is context-dependent.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Blumstein, Daniel T; Bryant, Gregory A; Kaye, Peter

    2012-10-23

    Humans, and many non-human animals, produce and respond to harsh, unpredictable, nonlinear sounds when alarmed, possibly because these are produced when acoustic production systems (vocal cords and syrinxes) are overblown in stressful, dangerous situations. Humans can simulate nonlinearities in music and soundtracks through the use of technological manipulations. Recent work found that film soundtracks from different genres differentially contain such sounds. We designed two experiments to determine specifically how simulated nonlinearities in soundtracks influence perceptions of arousal and valence. Subjects were presented with emotionally neutral musical exemplars that had neither noise nor abrupt frequency transitions, or versions of these musical exemplars that had noise or abrupt frequency upshifts or downshifts experimentally added. In a second experiment, these acoustic exemplars were paired with benign videos. Judgements of both arousal and valence were altered by the addition of these simulated nonlinearities in the first, music-only, experiment. In the second, multi-modal, experiment, valence (but not arousal) decreased with the addition of noise or frequency downshifts. Thus, the presence of a video image suppressed the ability of simulated nonlinearities to modify arousal. This is the first study examining how nonlinear simulations in music affect emotional judgements. These results demonstrate that the perception of potentially fearful or arousing sounds is influenced by the perceptual context and that the addition of a visual modality can antagonistically suppress the response to an acoustic stimulus.

  20. Neuroendocrine response to film-induced sexual arousal in men and women.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Exton, N G; Truong, T C; Exton, M S; Wingenfeld, S A; Leygraf, N; Saller, B; Hartmann, U; Schedlowski, M

    2000-02-01

    The psychoneuroendocrine responses to sexual arousal have not been clearly established in humans. However, we have demonstrated previously that masturbation-induced orgasm stimulates cardiovascular activity and induces increases in catecholamines and prolactin in blood of both males and females. We presently investigated the role of orgasm in producing these effects. Therefore, in this study parallel analysis of prolactin, adrenaline, noradrenaline, and cortisol concentrations, together with cardiovascular variables of systolic/diastolic blood pressure and heart rate were undertaken during film-induced sexual arousal in nine healthy adult men and nine healthy adult women. Blood was drawn continuously via an indwelling cannula and connected tubing system passed through a mini-pump. In parallel, the cardiovascular parameters were recorded continuously via a computerised finger-cuff sensor. Subjective sexual arousal increased significantly in both men and women during the erotic film, with sexual arousal eliciting an increase in blood pressure in both males and females, and plasma noradrenaline in females only. In contrast, adrenaline, cortisol and prolactin levels were unaffected by sexual arousal. These data further consolidate the role of sympathetic activation in sexual arousal processes. Furthermore, they demonstrate that increases in plasma prolactin during sexual stimulation are orgasm-dependent, suggesting that prolactin may regulate a negative-feedback sexual-satiation mechanism.

  1. Memory recall in arousing situations - an emotional von Restorff effect?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wiswede, Daniel; Rüsseler, Jascha; Hasselbach, Simone; Münte, Thomas F

    2006-07-24

    Previous research has demonstrated a relationship between memory recall and P300 amplitude in list learning tasks, but the variables mediating this P300-recall relationship are not well understood. In the present study, subjects were required to recall items from lists consisting of 12 words, which were presented in front of pictures taken from the IAPS collection. One word per list is made distinct either by font color or by a highly arousing background IAPS picture. This isolation procedure was first used by von Restorff. Brain potentials were recorded during list presentation. Recall performance was enhanced for color but not for emotional isolates. Event-related brain potentials (ERP) showed a more positive P300-component for recalled non-isolated words and color-isolated words, compared to the respective non-remembered words, but not for words isolated by arousing background. Our findings indicate that it is crucial to take emotional mediator variables into account, when using the P300 to predict later recall. Highly arousing environments might force the cognitive system to interrupt rehearsal processes in working memory, which might benefit transfer into other, more stable memory systems. The impact of attention-capturing properties of arousing background stimuli is also discussed.

  2. Molecular and cellular sex differences at the intersection of stress and arousal.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Valentino, Rita J; Reyes, Beverly; Van Bockstaele, Elisabeth; Bangasser, Debra

    2012-01-01

    Elucidating the mechanisms underlying sex biases in the prevalence and severity of diseases can advance our understanding of their pathophysiological basis and serve as a guide for developing treatments. A well-established sex difference in psychiatry is the higher incidence of mood and anxiety disorders in females. These disorders share stress as a potential etiological contributor and hyperarousal as a core symptom, suggesting that the distinction between sexes lies at the intersection of stress and arousal systems. This review focuses on the link between the stress axis and the brain norepinephrine arousal system as a key point at which sex differences occur and are translated to differences in the expression of mood disorders. Evidence for a circuit designed to relay emotion-related information via the limbic corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF) system to the locus coeruleus (LC)-norepinephrine arousal system is reviewed. This is followed by recent novel findings of sex differences in CRF receptor signaling and trafficking that would result in an enhanced arousal response and a compromised ability to adapt to chronic stress in females. Finally, we discuss the evidence for sex differences in LC dendritic structure that allow for an increased receipt and processing of limbic information in females compared to males. Together these complementary sets of data suggest that in females, the LC arousal system is poised to process more limbic information and to respond to some of this information in an enhanced manner compared to males. The clinical and therapeutic considerations arising from this perspective are discussed. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled 'Anxiety and Depression'. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  3. Can Arousal Modulate Response Inhibition?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Weinbach, Noam; Kalanthroff, Eyal; Avnit, Amir; Henik, Avishai

    2015-01-01

    The goal of the present study was to examine if and how arousal can modulate response inhibition. Two competing hypotheses can be drawn from previous literature. One holds that alerting cues that elevate arousal should result in an impulsive response and therefore impair response inhibition. The other suggests that alerting enhances processing of…

  4. Personality change at the intersection of autonomic arousal and stress.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hart, Daniel; Eisenberg, Nancy; Valiente, Carlos

    2007-06-01

    We hypothesized that personality change in children can be predicted by the interaction of family risk with susceptibility to autonomic arousal and that children characterized by both high-risk families and highly reactive autonomic nervous systems tend to show maladaptive change. This hypothesis was tested in a 6-year longitudinal study in which personality-type prototypicality, problem behavior, and negative emotional intensity were measured at 2-year intervals. The results indicated that children who both had exaggerated skin conductance responses (a measure of autonomic reactivity) and were living in families with multiple risk factors were most likely to develop an undercontrolled personality type and to exhibit increases in problem behavior and negative emotional intensity. The implications of the results for understanding personality change are discussed.

  5. Caffeine effects on resting-state arousal.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Barry, Robert J; Rushby, Jacqueline A; Wallace, Mark J; Clarke, Adam R; Johnstone, Stuart J; Zlojutro, Ilinka

    2005-11-01

    This study examined the use of caffeine to manipulate arousal level without the confounds associated with task-related activation. From previous work in our laboratory, an increase in skin conductance level (SCL) and EEG alpha frequency, together with a global decrease in alpha power, were used as markers of arousal increase, and we sought to identify these effects with caffeine ingestion. We examined the effect of a single oral dose of caffeine (250 mg) in a randomised double-blind placebo-controlled repeated-measures cross-over study. Eighteen healthy university students (mean age 21 years; 13/18 females) participated in two sessions 1 week apart. EEG and autonomic data (SCL, heart rate, systolic and diastolic blood pressure, and respiration rate) from a 2 min eyes-closed epoch, commencing approximately 30 min after ingestion of caffeine or placebo, were examined. Caffeine was associated with increased SCL, a global reduction in EEG power in the alpha band, and a global increase in alpha frequency. There were no cardiovascular effects. The positive results are consistent with recent electrodermal and EEG studies of arousal and suggest that caffeine may be utilised as a task-free means of manipulating arousal in future investigations. Further work is necessary to clarify the absence of cardiovascular effects, and to integrate those data with emerging conceptualisations of arousal and activation. The present data support the use of caffeine as a simple tool to explore the role of arousal in both normal and atypical functioning, and this may be useful in determining the validity and importance of supposed hyper- or hypo-arousal in such syndromes as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (AD/HD).

  6. Positive and negative affect and arousal: cross-sectional and longitudinal associations with adolescent cortisol diurnal rhythms.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hoyt, Lindsay T; Craske, Michelle G; Mineka, Susan; Adam, Emma K

    2015-05-01

    Psychobiological research with adolescent populations tends to focus on negative mood, stress, and psychopathology, but the role of positive emotions is insufficiently understood. The current study examines the relative contributions of both negative and positive affective experiences to the basal activity of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, measured by levels of cortisol across the waking day. A sample of 315 ethnically and racially diverse high school students (mean age = 17.1 years, 73% female) completed a multiple-day naturalistic salivary cortisol protocol twice over a 5-year period. Along with each saliva sample, youth provided diary reports of their current mood states. Principal components analysis revealed four factors: high arousal positive affect (PA), low arousal PA, high arousal negative affect (NA), and low arousal NA. Multilevel growth curve models suggested that greater high arousal PA was associated with adaptive patterns of hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal activity: steeper cortisol slope from waking to bedtime and lower evening cortisol, independent of NA. In addition, increases in high arousal PA over the 5-year follow-up period were associated with a steepening of the diurnal cortisol slope (β = -0.038, p = .009; negative values indicate the decrease of cortisol throughout the day) and lower evening cortisol levels (β = -0.661, p = .027) based on within-person fixed-effect regression analysis. This study shows that high arousal PA, such as feeling alert and active, is associated with a steeper decline in cortisol throughout the day. Low arousal positive emotions did not display this relationship.

  7. Memory effects of sleep, emotional valence, arousal and novelty in children.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vermeulen, Marije C M; van der Heijden, Kristiaan B; Benjamins, Jeroen S; Swaab, Hanna; van Someren, Eus J W

    2017-06-01

    Effectiveness of memory consolidation is determined by multiple factors, including sleep after learning, emotional valence, arousal and novelty. Few studies investigated how the effect of sleep compares with (and interacts with) these other factors, of which virtually none are in children. The present study did so by repeated assessment of declarative memory in 386 children (45% boys) aged 9-11 years through an online word-pair task. Children were randomly assigned to either a morning or evening learning session of 30 unrelated word-pairs with positive, neutral or negative valenced cues and neutral targets. After immediately assessing baseline recognition, delayed recognition was recorded either 12 or 24 h later, resulting in four different assessment schedules. One week later, the procedure was repeated with exactly the same word-pairs to evaluate whether effects differed for relearning versus original novel learning. Mixed-effect logistic regression models were used to evaluate how the probability of correct recognition was affected by sleep, valence, arousal, novelty and their interactions. Both immediate and delayed recognition were worse for pairs with negatively valenced or less arousing cue words. Relearning improved immediate and delayed word-pair recognition. In contrast to these effects, sleep did not affect recognition, nor did sleep moderate the effects of arousal, valence and novelty. The findings suggest a robust inclination of children to specifically forget the pairing of words to negatively valenced cue words. In agreement with a recent meta-analysis, children seem to depend less on sleep for the consolidation of information than has been reported for adults, irrespective of the emotional valence, arousal and novelty of word-pairs. © 2017 European Sleep Research Society.

  8. Sexual arousal, is it for mammals only?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ball, Gregory F.; Balthazart, Jacques

    2012-01-01

    Sexual arousal has many dimensions and has consequently been defined in various ways. In humans sexual arousal can be assessed based in part on verbal communication. In male non-human mammalian species it has been argued that arousal can only be definitively inferred if the subject exhibits a penile erection in a sexual context. In non-mammalian species that lack an intromittent organ, as is the case for most avian species, the question of how to assess sexual arousal has not been thoroughly addressed. Based on studies performed in male Japanese quail, we argue that several behavioral or physiological characteristics provide suitable measures of sexual arousal in birds and probably also in other tetrapods. These indices include the performance of appetitive sexual behavior in anticipation of copulation (although anticipation and arousal are not the synonyms), the activation of specific brain areas as identified by the detection of the expression of immediate early genes (fos, egr-1) or by 2-deoxygucose quantitative autoradiography, and above all the release of dopamine in the medial preoptic areas as measured by in vivo dialysis. Based on these criteria, it is possible to assess in birds sexual arousal in its broadest sense but meeting the more restrictive definition of arousal proposed for mammals (erection in an explicit sexual context) is and will probably remain impossible in birds until refinement of in vivo imaging techniques such fMRI allow us to match in different species, with and without an intromittent organ, the brain areas that are activated in the presence of specific stimuli. PMID:21073874

  9. Long-term video surveillance and automated analyses reveal arousal patterns in groups of hibernating bats

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hayman, David T.S.; Cryan, Paul; Fricker, Paul D.; Dannemiller, Nicholas G.

    2017-01-01

    Understanding natural behaviours is essential to determining how animals deal with new threats (e.g. emerging diseases). However, natural behaviours of animals with cryptic lifestyles, like hibernating bats, are often poorly characterized. White-nose syndrome (WNS) is an unprecedented disease threatening multiple species of hibernating bats, and pathogen-induced changes to host behaviour may contribute to mortality. To better understand the behaviours of hibernating bats and how they might relate to WNS, we developed new ways of studying hibernation across entire seasons.We used thermal-imaging video surveillance cameras to observe little brown bats (Myotis lucifugus) and Indiana bats (M. sodalis) in two caves over multiple winters. We developed new, sharable software to test for autocorrelation and periodicity of arousal signals in recorded video.We processed 740 days (17,760 hr) of video at a rate of >1,000 hr of video imagery in less than 1 hr using a desktop computer with sufficient resolution to detect increases in arousals during midwinter in both species and clear signals of daily arousal periodicity in infected M. sodalis.Our unexpected finding of periodic synchronous group arousals in hibernating bats demonstrate the potential for video methods and suggest some bats may have innate behavioural strategies for coping with WNS. Surveillance video and accessible analysis software make it now practical to investigate long-term behaviours of hibernating bats and other hard-to-study animals.

  10. Personality modulates the effects of emotional arousal and valence on brain activation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kehoe, Elizabeth G; Toomey, John M; Balsters, Joshua H; Bokde, Arun L W

    2012-10-01

    The influence of personality on the neural correlates of emotional processing is still not well characterized. We investigated the relationship between extraversion and neuroticism and emotional perception using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in a group of 23 young, healthy women. Using a parametric modulation approach, we examined how the blood oxygenation level dependent (BOLD) signal varied with the participants' ratings of arousal and valence, and whether levels of extraversion and neuroticism were related to these modulations. In particular, we wished to test Eysenck's biological theory of personality, which links high extraversion to lower levels of reticulothalamic-cortical arousal, and neuroticism to increased reactivity of the limbic system and stronger reactions to emotional arousal. Individuals high in neuroticism demonstrated reduced sustained activation in the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and attenuated valence processing in the right temporal lobe while viewing emotional images, but an increased BOLD response to emotional arousal in the right medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC). These results support Eysenck's theory, as well as our hypothesis that high levels of neuroticism are associated with attenuated reward processing. Extraversion was inversely related to arousal processing in the right cerebellum, but positively associated with arousal processing in the right insula, indicating that the relationship between extraversion and arousal is not as simple as that proposed by Eysenck.

  11. Sexual arousal, is it for mammals only?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ball, Gregory F; Balthazart, Jacques

    2011-05-01

    Sexual arousal has many dimensions and has consequently been defined in various ways. In humans, sexual arousal can be assessed based in part on verbal communication. In male non-human mammalian species, it has been argued that arousal can only be definitively inferred if the subject exhibits a penile erection in a sexual context. In non-mammalian species that lack an intromittent organ, as is the case for most avian species, the question of how to assess sexual arousal has not been thoroughly addressed. Based on studies performed in male Japanese quail, we argue that several behavioral or physiological characteristics provide suitable measures of sexual arousal in birds and probably also in other tetrapods. These indices include, the performance of appetitive sexual behavior in anticipation of copulation (although anticipation and arousal are not synonymous), the activation of specific brain area as identified by the detection of the expression of immediate early genes (fos, egr-1) or by 2-deoxyglucose quantitative autoradiography, and above all, by the release of dopamine in the medial preoptic area as measured by in vivo dialysis. Based on these criteria, it is possible to assess in birds sexual arousal in its broadest sense but meeting the more restrictive definition of arousal proposed for male mammals (erection in an explicit sexual context) is and will probably remain impossible in birds until refinement of in vivo imaging techniques such fMRI allow us to match in different species, with and without an intromittent organ, the brain areas that are activated in the presence of specific stimuli. Copyright © 2010. Published by Elsevier Inc.

  12. Ventilatory response to induced auditory arousals during NREM sleep.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Badr, M S; Morgan, B J; Finn, L; Toiber, F S; Crabtree, D C; Puleo, D S; Skatrud, J B

    1997-09-01

    Sleep state instability is a potential mechanism of central apnea/hypopnea during non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep. To investigate this postulate, we induced brief arousals by delivering transient (0.5 second) auditory stimuli during stable NREM sleep in eight normal subjects. Arousal was determined according to American Sleep Disorders Association (ASDA) criteria. A total of 96 trials were conducted; 59 resulted in cortical arousal and 37 did not result in arousal. In trials associated with arousal, minute ventilation (VE) increased from 5.1 +/- 1.24 minutes to 7.5 +/- 2.24 minutes on the first posttone breath (p = 0.001). However, no subsequent hypopnea or apnea occurred as VE decreased gradually to 4.8 +/- 1.5 l/minute (p > 0.05) on the fifth posttone breath. Trials without arousal did not result in hyperpnea on the first breath nor subsequent hypopnea. We conclude that 1) auditory stimulation resulted in transient hyperpnea only if associated with cortical arousal; 2) hypopnea or apnea did not occur following arousal-induced hyperpnea in normal subjects; 3) interaction with fluctuating chemical stimuli or upper airway resistance may be required for arousals to cause sleep-disordered breathing.

  13. How Arousal Affects Younger and Older Adults' Memory Binding

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nashiro, Kaoru; Mather, Mara

    2009-01-01

    A number of recent studies have shown that associative memory for within-item features is enhanced for emotionally arousing items, whereas arousal-enhanced binding is not seen for associations between distinct items (for a review see Mather, 2007). The costs and benefits of arousal in memory binding have been examined for younger adults but not for older adults. The present experiment examined whether arousal would enhance younger and older adults' within-item and between-item memory binding. The results revealed that arousal improved younger adults' within-item memory binding but not that of older adults. Arousal worsened both groups' between-item memory binding. PMID:21240821

  14. The Carotid Body and Arousal in the Fetus and Neonate

    Science.gov (United States)

    2012-01-01

    Arousal from sleep is a major defense mechanism in infants against hypoxia and/or hypercapnia. Arousal failure may be an important contributor to SIDS. Areas of the brainstem that have been found to be abnormal in a majority of SIDS infants are involved in the arousal process. Arousal is sleep state dependent, being depressed during AS in most mammals, but depressed during QS in human infants. Repeated exposure to hypoxia causes a progressive blunting of arousal that may involve medullary raphe GABAergic mechanisms. Whereas CB chemoreceptors contribute heavily to arousal in response to hypoxia, serotonergic central chemoreceptors have been implicated in the arousal response to CO2. Pulmonary or chest wall mechanoreceptors also contribute to arousal in proportion to the ventilatory response and decreases in their input may contribute to depressed arousal during AS. Little is known about specific arousal pathways beyond the NTS. Whether CB chemoreceptor stimulation directly stimulates arousal centers or whether this is done indirectly through respiratory networks remains unknown. This review will focus on arousal in response to hypoxia and CO2 in the fetus and newborn and will outline what we know (and don’t know) about the involvement of the carotid body in this process. PMID:22684039

  15. Detection of arousals in Parkinson’s disease patients

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Sørensen, Gertrud Laura; Kempfner, Jacob; Jennum, Poul

    2011-01-01

    sleepiness. Manual scoring of arousals is time-consuming and the inter-score agreement is highly varying especially for patients with sleep related disorders. The aim of this study was to design an arousal detection algorithm capable of detecting arousals from sleep, in both non-REM and REM sleep in patients......Arousal from sleep are short awakenings, which can be identified in the EEG as an abrupt change in frequency. Arousals can occur in all sleep stages and the number and frequency increase with age. Frequent arousals during sleep results in sleep fragmentation and is associated with daytime...... suffering from Parkinson’s disease (PD). The proposed algorithm uses features from EEG, EMG and the manual sleep stage scoring as input to a feed-forward artificial neural network (ANN). The performance of the algorithm has been assessed using polysomnographic (PSG) recordings from a total of 8 patients...

  16. Influence of arousal threshold and depth of sleep on respiratory stability in man: analysis using a mathematical model.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Longobardo, G S; Evangelisti, C J; Cherniack, N S

    2009-12-01

    We examined the effect of arousals (shifts from sleep to wakefulness) on breathing during sleep using a mathematical model. The model consisted of a description of the fluid dynamics and mechanical properties of the upper airways and lungs, as well as a controller sensitive to arterial and brain changes in CO(2), changes in arterial oxygen, and a neural input, alertness. The body was divided into multiple gas store compartments connected by the circulation. Cardiac output was constant, and cerebral blood flows were sensitive to changes in O(2) and CO(2) levels. Arousal was considered to occur instantaneously when afferent respiratory chemical and neural stimulation reached a threshold value, while sleep occurred when stimulation fell below that value. In the case of rigid and nearly incompressible upper airways, lowering arousal threshold decreased the stability of breathing and led to the occurrence of repeated apnoeas. In more compressible upper airways, to maintain stability, increasing arousal thresholds and decreasing elasticity were linked approximately linearly, until at low elastances arousal thresholds had no effect on stability. Increased controller gain promoted instability. The architecture of apnoeas during unstable sleep changed with the arousal threshold and decreases in elasticity. With rigid airways, apnoeas were central. With lower elastances, apnoeas were mixed even with higher arousal thresholds. With very low elastances and still higher arousal thresholds, sleep consisted totally of obstructed apnoeas. Cycle lengths shortened as the sleep architecture changed from mixed apnoeas to total obstruction. Deeper sleep also tended to promote instability by increasing plant gain. These instabilities could be countered by arousal threshold increases which were tied to deeper sleep or accumulated aroused time, or by decreased controller gains.

  17. Arousal, mood, and the Mozart effect.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Thompson, W F; Schellenberg, E G; Husain, G

    2001-05-01

    The "Mozart effect" refers to claims that people perform better on tests of spatial abilities after listening to music composed by Mozart. We examined whether the Mozart effect is a consequence of between-condition differences in arousal and mood. Participants completed a test of spatial abilities after listening to music or sitting in silence. The music was a Mozart sonata (a pleasant and energetic piece) for some participants and an Albinoni adagio (a slow, sad piece) for others. We also measured enjoyment, arousal, and mood. Performance on tbe spatial task was better following the music than the silence condition but only for participants who heard Mozart. The two music selections also induced differential responding on the enjoyment, arousal and mood measures. Moreover, when such differences were held constant by statistical means, the Mozart effect disappeared. These findings provide compelling evidence that the Mozart effect is an artifact of arousal and mood.

  18. Can sustained arousal explain the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome?

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Eriksen Hege R

    2009-02-01

    Full Text Available Abstract We present an integrative model of disease mechanisms in the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS, unifying empirical findings from different research traditions. Based upon the Cognitive activation theory of stress (CATS, we argue that new data on cardiovascular and thermoregulatory regulation indicate a state of permanent arousal responses – sustained arousal – in this condition. We suggest that sustained arousal can originate from different precipitating factors (infections, psychosocial challenges interacting with predisposing factors (genetic traits, personality and learned expectancies (classical and operant conditioning. Furthermore, sustained arousal may explain documented alterations by establishing vicious circles within immunology (Th2 (humoral vs Th1 (cellular predominance, endocrinology (attenuated HPA axis, skeletal muscle function (attenuated cortical activation, increased oxidative stress and cognition (impaired memory and information processing. Finally, we propose a causal link between sustained arousal and the experience of fatigue. The model of sustained arousal embraces all main findings concerning CFS disease mechanisms within one theoretical framework.

  19. Determinants of subjective experience of sexual arousal in women: feedback from genital arousal and erotic stimulus content

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Laan, E.; Everaerd, W.; van der Velde, J.; Geer, J. H.

    1995-01-01

    Sixty-two women participated in a study designed to explore the association between genital and subjective sexual arousal. Four stimulus conditions were created, designed to evoke differential patterns of genital arousal over time. Subjects were instructed to report sensations in their genitalia

  20. The scoring of arousal in sleep: reliability, validity, and alternatives.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bonnet, Michael H; Doghramji, Karl; Roehrs, Timothy; Stepanski, Edward J; Sheldon, Stephen H; Walters, Arthur S; Wise, Merrill; Chesson, Andrew L

    2007-03-15

    The reliability and validity of EEG arousals and other types of arousal are reviewed. Brief arousals during sleep had been observed for many years, but the evolution of sleep medicine in the 1980s directed new attention to these events. Early studies at that time in animals and humans linked brief EEG arousals and associated fragmentation of sleep to daytime sleepiness and degraded performance. Increasing interest in scoring of EEG arousals led the ASDA to publish a scoring manual in 1992. The current review summarizes numerous studies that have examined scoring reliability for these EEG arousals. Validity of EEG arousals was explored by review of studies that empirically varied arousals and found deficits similar to those found after total sleep deprivation depending upon the rate and extent of sleep fragmentation. Additional data from patients with clinical sleep disorders prior to and after effective treatment has also shown a continuing relationship between reduction in pathology-related arousals and improved sleep and daytime function. Finally, many suggestions have been made to refine arousal scoring to include additional elements (e.g., CAP), change the time frame, or focus on other physiological responses such as heart rate or blood pressure changes. Evidence to support the reliability and validity of these measures is presented. It was concluded that the scoring of EEG arousals has added much to our understanding of the sleep process but that significant work on the neurophysiology of arousal needs to be done. Additional refinement of arousal scoring will provide improved insight into sleep pathology and recovery.

  1. Memory recall in arousing situations – an emotional von Restorff effect?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wiswede, Daniel; Rüsseler, Jascha; Hasselbach, Simone; Münte, Thomas F

    2006-01-01

    Background Previous research has demonstrated a relationship between memory recall and P300 amplitude in list learning tasks, but the variables mediating this P300-recall relationship are not well understood. In the present study, subjects were required to recall items from lists consisting of 12 words, which were presented in front of pictures taken from the IAPS collection. One word per list is made distinct either by font color or by a highly arousing background IAPS picture. This isolation procedure was first used by von Restorff. Brain potentials were recorded during list presentation. Results Recall performance was enhanced for color but not for emotional isolates. Event-related brain potentials (ERP) showed a more positive P300-component for recalled non-isolated words and color-isolated words, compared to the respective non-remembered words, but not for words isolated by arousing background. Conclusion Our findings indicate that it is crucial to take emotional mediator variables into account, when using the P300 to predict later recall. Highly arousing environments might force the cognitive system to interrupt rehearsal processes in working memory, which might benefit transfer into other, more stable memory systems. The impact of attention-capturing properties of arousing background stimuli is also discussed. PMID:16863589

  2. Memory recall in arousing situations – an emotional von Restorff effect?

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hasselbach Simone

    2006-07-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Previous research has demonstrated a relationship between memory recall and P300 amplitude in list learning tasks, but the variables mediating this P300-recall relationship are not well understood. In the present study, subjects were required to recall items from lists consisting of 12 words, which were presented in front of pictures taken from the IAPS collection. One word per list is made distinct either by font color or by a highly arousing background IAPS picture. This isolation procedure was first used by von Restorff. Brain potentials were recorded during list presentation. Results Recall performance was enhanced for color but not for emotional isolates. Event-related brain potentials (ERP showed a more positive P300-component for recalled non-isolated words and color-isolated words, compared to the respective non-remembered words, but not for words isolated by arousing background. Conclusion Our findings indicate that it is crucial to take emotional mediator variables into account, when using the P300 to predict later recall. Highly arousing environments might force the cognitive system to interrupt rehearsal processes in working memory, which might benefit transfer into other, more stable memory systems. The impact of attention-capturing properties of arousing background stimuli is also discussed.

  3. Effects of Voice on Emotional Arousal

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Psyche eLoui

    2013-10-01

    Full Text Available Music is a powerful medium capable of eliciting a broad range of emotions. Although the relationship between language and music is well documented, relatively little is known about the effects of lyrics and the voice on the emotional processing of music and on listeners’ preferences. In the present study, we investigated the effects of vocals in music on participants’ perceived valence and arousal in songs. Participants (N = 50 made valence and arousal ratings for familiar songs that were presented with and without the voice. We observed robust effects of vocal content on perceived arousal. Furthermore, we found that the effect of the voice on enhancing arousal ratings is independent of familiarity of the song and differs across genders and age: females were more influenced by vocals than males; furthermore these gender effects were enhanced among older adults. Results highlight the effects of gender and aging in emotion perception and are discussed in terms of the social roles of music.

  4. Arousal and exposure duration affect forward step initiation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Daniëlle eBouman

    2015-11-01

    Full Text Available Emotion influences parameters of goal-directed whole-body movements in several ways. For instance, previous research has shown that approaching (moving toward pleasant stimuli is easier compared to approaching unpleasant stimuli. However, some studies found that when emotional pictures are viewed for a longer time, approaching unpleasant stimuli may in fact be facilitated. The effect of viewing duration may modulate whole-body approach movement in previous research but this has not been investigated before. In the current study, participants initiated a step forward after viewing neutral, high-arousal pleasant and high-arousal unpleasant stimuli. The viewing duration of the stimuli was set to 7 different durations, varying from 100 to 4000ms. Valence and arousal scores were collected for all stimuli.The results indicate that both viewing duration and the arousal of the stimuli influence kinematic parameters in forward gait initiation. Specifically, longer viewing duration, compared to shorter viewing duration, (a diminished the step length and peak velocity in both neutral and emotional stimuli, (b increased reaction time in neutral stimuli and, (c decreased reaction time in pleasant and unpleasant stimuli. Strikingly, no differences were found between high-arousal pleasant and high-arousal unpleasant stimuli. In other words, the valence of the stimuli did not influence kinematic parameters of forward step initiation. In contrast, the arousal level (neutral: low; pleasant and unpleasant: high explained the variance found in the results. The kinematics of forward gait initiation seemed to be reflected in the subjective arousal scores, but not the valence scores. So it seems arousal affects forward gait initiation parameters more strongly than valence. In addition, longer viewing duration seemed to cause diminished alertness, affecting GI parameters. These results shed new light on the prevailing theoretical interpretations regarding approach

  5. Sympathetic arousal increases a negative memory bias in young women with low sex hormone levels

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nielsen, Shawn E.; Barber, Sarah J.; Chai, Audrey; Clewett, David V.; Mather, Mara

    2015-01-01

    Emotionally arousing events are typically better attended to and remembered than neutral ones. Current theories propose that arousal-induced increases in norepinephrine during encoding bias attention and memory in favor of affectively salient stimuli. Here, we tested this hypothesis by manipulating levels of physiological arousal prior to encoding and examining how it influenced memory for emotionally salient images, particularly those that are negative rather than positive in valence. We also tested whether sex steroid hormones interact with noradrenergic activity to influence these emotional memory biases in women. Healthy naturally cycling women and women on hormonal contraception completed one of the following physiological arousal manipulations prior to viewing a series of negative, positive and neutral images: 1) Immediate handgrip arousal – isometric handgrip immediately prior to encoding, 2) Residual handgrip arousal – isometric handgrip 15 min prior to encoding, or 3) No handgrip. Sympathetic arousal was measured throughout the session via pupil diameter changes. Levels of 17β-estradiol and progesterone were measured via salivary samples. Memory performance was assessed approximately 10 minutes after encoding using a surprise free recall test. The results indicated that handgrip successfully increased sympathetic arousal compared to the control task. Under immediate handgrip arousal, women showed enhanced memory for negative images over positive images; this pattern was not observed in women assigned to the residual and no-handgrip arousal conditions. Additionally, under immediate handgrip arousal, both high estradiol and progesterone levels attenuated the memory bias for negative over positive images. Follow-up hierarchical linear models revealed consistent effects when accounting for trial-by-trial variability in normative International Affective Picture System valence and arousal ratings. These findings suggest that heightened sympathetic arousal

  6. Interobserver variability in recognizing arousal in respiratory sleep disorders.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Drinnan, M J; Murray, A; Griffiths, C J; Gibson, G J

    1998-08-01

    Daytime sleepiness is a common consequence of repeated arousal in obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). Arousal indices are sometimes used to make decisions on treatment, but there is no evidence that arousals are detected similarly even by experienced observers. Using the American Sleep Disorders Association (ASDA) definition of arousal in terms of the accompanying electroencephalogram (EEG) changes, we have quantified interobserver agreement for arousal scoring and identified factors affecting it. Ten patients with suspected OSA were studied; three representative EEG events during each of light, slow-wave, and rapid-eye-movement (REM) sleep were extracted from each record (90 events total) and evaluated by experts in 14 sleep laboratories. Observers differed (ANOVA, p ASDA definition of arousal is only moderately repeatable. Account should be taken of this variability when results from different centers are compared.

  7. Regulation of zebrafish sleep and arousal states: current and prospective approaches

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Cindy N Chiu

    2013-04-01

    Full Text Available Every day, we shift among various states of sleep and arousal to meet the many demands of our bodies and environment. A central puzzle in neurobiology is how the brain controls these behavioral states, which are essential to an animal’s well-being and survival. Mammalian models have predominated sleep and arousal research, although in the past decade, invertebrate models have made significant contributions to our understanding of the genetic underpinnings of behavioral states. More recently, the zebrafish has emerged as a promising model system for sleep and arousal research. Here we review experimental evidence that the zebrafish, a diurnal vertebrate, exhibits fundamental behavioral and neurochemical characteristics of mammalian sleep and arousal. We also propose how specific advantages of the zebrafish can be harnessed to advance the field. These include tractable genetics to identify and manipulate molecular and cellular regulators of behavioral states, optical transparency to facilitate in vivo observation of neural structure and function, and amenability to high-throughput drug screens to discover novel therapies for neurological disorders.

  8. Increased Arousal Levels and Decreased Sleep by Brain Music in Rats

    Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

    Guang-Zhan Fang; Chun-Peng Zhang; Dan Wu; Yang Xia; Yong-Xiu Lai; De-Zhong Yao

    2009-01-01

    More and more studies have been reported on whether music and other types of auditory stimulation would improve the quality of sleep.Many of these studies have found significant results,but others argue that music is not significantly better than the tones or control conditions in improving sleep.For further understanding the relationship between music and sleep or music and arousal,the present study therefore examines the effects of brain music on sleep and arousal by means of biofeedback.The music is from the transformation of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep electroencephalogram (EEG) of rats using an algorithm in the Chengdu Brain Music (CBM) system.When the brain music was played back to rats,EEG data were recorded to assess the efficacy of music to induce or improve sleep,or increase arousal levels by sleep staging,etc.Our results demonstrate that exposure to the brain music increases arousal levels and decreases sleep in rats,and the underlying mechanism of decreased non-rapid eye movement (NREM) and REM sleep may be different.

  9. Transient decoupling of cortical EEGs following arousals during NREM sleep in middle-aged and elderly women.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ramanand, Pravitha; Bruce, Margaret C; Bruce, Eugene N

    2010-08-01

    Spontaneous cortical arousals in non-REM sleep increase with age and contribute to sleep fragmentation in the elderly. EEG spectral power in the faster frequencies exhibits well-described shifts during arousals. On the other hand, EEG activities also exhibit correlations, which are interpreted as an index of interdependence between distant cortical neural activities. The possibility of changes to the interdependence between cortical regions due to an arousal has not been considered. In this work, using previously recorded C3A2 and C4A1 EEG signals from two groups of adults, middle-aged (42-50 years) and elderly (71-86 years) women, we examined the effects of spontaneous arousals in NREM sleep on cortical interdependence. We quantified the auto- and cross-correlations in these signals using mutual information and characterized these correlations in periods before the onset and following the end of arousals. The pre-arousal period exhibited significantly higher interdependence between central regions than that following the arousal in both age groups (middle-aged: p=0.004, elderly: ppower changes characteristic of an arousal are no longer visible. The findings suggest that the state following an arousal characterized by lower interdependence may resemble a more vigilant period during which the system may be vulnerable to more arousals. Copyright 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  10. Quantifying the Arousal Threshold Using Polysomnography in Obstructive Sleep Apnea.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sands, Scott A; Terrill, Philip I; Edwards, Bradley A; Taranto Montemurro, Luigi; Azarbarzin, Ali; Marques, Melania; de Melo, Camila M; Loring, Stephen H; Butler, James P; White, David P; Wellman, Andrew

    2018-01-01

    Precision medicine for obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) requires noninvasive estimates of each patient's pathophysiological "traits." Here, we provide the first automated technique to quantify the respiratory arousal threshold-defined as the level of ventilatory drive triggering arousal from sleep-using diagnostic polysomnographic signals in patients with OSA. Ventilatory drive preceding clinically scored arousals was estimated from polysomnographic studies by fitting a respiratory control model (Terrill et al.) to the pattern of ventilation during spontaneous respiratory events. Conceptually, the magnitude of the airflow signal immediately after arousal onset reveals information on the underlying ventilatory drive that triggered the arousal. Polysomnographic arousal threshold measures were compared with gold standard values taken from esophageal pressure and intraoesophageal diaphragm electromyography recorded simultaneously (N = 29). Comparisons were also made to arousal threshold measures using continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) dial-downs (N = 28). The validity of using (linearized) nasal pressure rather than pneumotachograph ventilation was also assessed (N = 11). Polysomnographic arousal threshold values were correlated with those measured using esophageal pressure and diaphragm EMG (R = 0.79, p < .0001; R = 0.73, p = .0001), as well as CPAP manipulation (R = 0.73, p < .0001). Arousal threshold estimates were similar using nasal pressure and pneumotachograph ventilation (R = 0.96, p < .0001). The arousal threshold in patients with OSA can be estimated using polysomnographic signals and may enable more personalized therapeutic interventions for patients with a low arousal threshold. © Sleep Research Society 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Sleep Research Society. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail journals.permissions@oup.com.

  11. Respiratory and spontaneous arousals in patients with Sleep Apnea Hypopnea Syndrome.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mesquita, J; Porée, F; Carrault, G; Fiz, J A; Abad, J; Jané, R

    2012-01-01

    Sleep in patients with Sleep Apnea-Hypopnea Syndrome (SAHS) is frequently interrupted with arousals. Increased amounts of arousals result in shortening total sleep time and repeated sleep-arousal change can result in sleep fragmentation. According to the American Sleep Disorders Association (ASDA) an arousal is a marker of sleep disruption representing a detrimental and harmful feature for sleep. The nature of arousals and its role on the regulation of the sleep process raises controversy and has sparked the debate in the last years. In this work, we analyzed and compared the EEG spectral content of respiratory and spontaneous arousals on a database of 45 SAHS subjects. A total of 3980 arousals (1996 respiratory and 1984 spontaneous) were analyzed. The results showed no differences between the spectral content of the two kinds of arousals. Our findings raise doubt as to whether these two kinds of arousals are truly triggered by different organic mechanisms. Furthermore, they may also challenge the current beliefs regarding the underestimation of the importance of spontaneous arousals and their contribution to sleep fragmentation in patients suffering from SAHS.

  12. Sympathetic arousal, but not disturbed executive functioning, mediates the impairment of cognitive flexibility under stress.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Marko, Martin; Riečanský, Igor

    2018-05-01

    Cognitive flexibility emerges from an interplay of multiple cognitive systems, of which lexical-semantic and executive are thought to be the most important. Yet this has not been addressed by previous studies demonstrating that such forms of flexible thought deteriorate under stress. Motivated by these shortcomings, the present study evaluated several candidate mechanisms implied to mediate the impairing effects of stress on flexible thinking. Fifty-seven healthy adults were randomly assigned to psychosocial stress or control condition while assessed for performance on cognitive flexibility, working memory capacity, semantic fluency, and self-reported cognitive interference. Stress response was indicated by changes in skin conductance, hearth rate, and state anxiety. Our analyses showed that acute stress impaired cognitive flexibility via a concomitant increase in sympathetic arousal, while this mediator was positively associated with semantic fluency. Stress also decreased working memory capacity, which was partially mediated by elevated cognitive interference, but neither of these two measures were associated with cognitive flexibility or sympathetic arousal. Following these findings, we conclude that acute stress impairs cognitive flexibility via sympathetic arousal that modulates lexical-semantic and associative processes. In particular, the results indicate that stress-level of sympathetic activation may restrict the accessibility and integration of remote associates and bias the response competition towards prepotent and dominant ideas. Importantly, our results indicate that stress-induced impairments of cognitive flexibility and executive functions are mediated by distinct neurocognitive mechanisms. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  13. Barratt Impulsivity and Neural Regulation of Physiological Arousal.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sheng Zhang

    Full Text Available Theories of personality have posited an increased arousal response to external stimulation in impulsive individuals. However, there is a dearth of studies addressing the neural basis of this association.We recorded skin conductance in 26 individuals who were assessed with Barratt Impulsivity Scale (BIS-11 and performed a stop signal task during functional magnetic resonance imaging. Imaging data were processed and modeled with Statistical Parametric Mapping. We used linear regressions to examine correlations between impulsivity and skin conductance response (SCR to salient events, identify the neural substrates of arousal regulation, and examine the relationship between the regulatory mechanism and impulsivity.Across subjects, higher impulsivity is associated with greater SCR to stop trials. Activity of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC negatively correlated to and Granger caused skin conductance time course. Furthermore, higher impulsivity is associated with a lesser strength of Granger causality of vmPFC activity on skin conductance, consistent with diminished control of physiological arousal to external stimulation. When men (n = 14 and women (n = 12 were examined separately, however, there was evidence suggesting association between impulsivity and vmPFC regulation of arousal only in women.Together, these findings confirmed the link between Barratt impulsivity and heightened arousal to salient stimuli in both genders and suggested the neural bases of altered regulation of arousal in impulsive women. More research is needed to explore the neural processes of arousal regulation in impulsive individuals and in clinical conditions that implicate poor impulse control.

  14. Barratt Impulsivity and Neural Regulation of Physiological Arousal.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Sheng; Hu, Sien; Hu, Jianping; Wu, Po-Lun; Chao, Herta H; Li, Chiang-shan R

    2015-01-01

    Theories of personality have posited an increased arousal response to external stimulation in impulsive individuals. However, there is a dearth of studies addressing the neural basis of this association. We recorded skin conductance in 26 individuals who were assessed with Barratt Impulsivity Scale (BIS-11) and performed a stop signal task during functional magnetic resonance imaging. Imaging data were processed and modeled with Statistical Parametric Mapping. We used linear regressions to examine correlations between impulsivity and skin conductance response (SCR) to salient events, identify the neural substrates of arousal regulation, and examine the relationship between the regulatory mechanism and impulsivity. Across subjects, higher impulsivity is associated with greater SCR to stop trials. Activity of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) negatively correlated to and Granger caused skin conductance time course. Furthermore, higher impulsivity is associated with a lesser strength of Granger causality of vmPFC activity on skin conductance, consistent with diminished control of physiological arousal to external stimulation. When men (n = 14) and women (n = 12) were examined separately, however, there was evidence suggesting association between impulsivity and vmPFC regulation of arousal only in women. Together, these findings confirmed the link between Barratt impulsivity and heightened arousal to salient stimuli in both genders and suggested the neural bases of altered regulation of arousal in impulsive women. More research is needed to explore the neural processes of arousal regulation in impulsive individuals and in clinical conditions that implicate poor impulse control.

  15. Emotionally arousing pictures increase blood glucose levels and enhance recall.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Blake, T M; Varnhagen, C K; Parent, M B

    2001-05-01

    Arousal enhances memory in human participants and this enhancing effect is likely due to the release of peripheral epinephrine. As epinephrine does not readily enter the brain, one way that peripheral epinephrine may enhance memory is by increasing circulating blood glucose levels. The present study investigated the possibility that emotionally arousing color pictures would improve memory and elevate blood glucose levels in human participants. Blood glucose levels were measured before, 15 min, and 30 min after male university students viewed 60 emotionally arousing or relatively neutral pictures. Participants viewed each picture for 6 s and then had 10 s to rate the arousal (emotional intensity) and valence (pleasantness) of each picture. A free-recall memory test was given 30 min after the last picture was viewed. Although the emotionally arousing and neutral picture sets were given comparable valence ratings, participants who viewed the emotionally arousing pictures rated the pictures as being more arousing, recalled more pictures, and had higher blood glucose levels after viewing the pictures than did participants who viewed the neutral pictures. These findings indicate that emotionally arousing pictures increase blood glucose levels and enhance memory, and that this effect is not due to differences in the degree of pleasantness of the stimuli. These findings support the possibility that increases in circulating blood glucose levels in response to emotional arousal may be part of the biological mechanism that allows emotional arousal to enhance memory. Copyright 2001 Academic Press.

  16. Sexual Arousal and Sexually Explicit Media (SEM): Comparing Patterns of Sexual Arousal to SEM and Sexual Self-Evaluations and Satisfaction Across Gender and Sexual Orientation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hald, Gert Martin; Stulhofer, Aleksandar; Lange, Theis

    2018-03-01

    Investigations of patterns of sexual arousal to certain groups of sexually explicit media (SEM) in the general population in non-laboratory settings are rare. Such knowledge could be important to understand more about the relative specificity of sexual arousal in different SEM users. (i) To investigate whether sexual arousal to non-mainstream vs mainstream SEM contents could be categorized across gender and sexual orientation, (ii) to compare levels of SEM-induced sexual arousal, sexual satisfaction, and self-evaluated sexual interests and fantasies between non-mainstream and mainstream SEM groups, and (iii) to explore the validity and predictive accuracy of the Non-Mainstream Pornography Arousal Scale (NPAS). Online cross-sectional survey of 2,035 regular SEM users in Croatia. Patterns of sexual arousal to 27 different SEM themes, sexual satisfaction, and self-evaluations of sexual interests and sexual fantasies. Groups characterized by sexual arousal to non-mainstream SEM could be identified across gender and sexual orientation. These non-mainstream SEM groups reported more SEM use and higher average levels of sexual arousal across the 27 SEM themes assessed compared with mainstream SEM groups. Only few differences were found between non-mainstream and mainstream SEM groups in self-evaluative judgements of sexual interests, sexual fantasies, and sexual satisfaction. The internal validity and predictive accuracy of the NPAS was good across most user groups investigated. The findings suggest that in classified non-mainstream SEM groups, patterns of sexual arousal might be less fixated and category specific than previously assumed. Further, these groups are not more judgmental of their SEM-related sexual arousal patterns than groups characterized by patterns of sexual arousal to more mainstream SEM content. Moreover, accurate identification of non-mainstream SEM group membership is generally possible across gender and sexual orientation using the NPAS. Hald GM

  17. Dissociation of immediate and delayed effects of emotional arousal on episodic memory.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schümann, Dirk; Bayer, Janine; Talmi, Deborah; Sommer, Tobias

    2018-02-01

    Emotionally arousing events are usually better remembered than neutral ones. This phenomenon is in humans mostly studied by presenting mixed lists of neutral and emotional items. An emotional enhancement of memory is observed in these studies often already immediately after encoding and increases with longer delays and consolidation. A large body of animal research showed that the more efficient consolidation of emotionally arousing events is based on an activation of the central noradrenergic system and the amygdala (Modulation Hypothesis; Roozendaal & McGaugh, 2011). The immediately superior recognition of emotional items is attributed primarily to their attraction of attention during encoding which is also thought to be based on the amygdala and the central noradrenergic system. To investigate whether the amygdala and noradrenergic system support memory encoding and consolidation via shared neural substrates and processes a large sample of participants (n = 690) encoded neutral and arousing pictures. Their memory was tested immediately and after a consolidation delay. In addition, they were genotyped in two relevant polymorphisms (α 2B -adrenergic receptor and serotonin transporter). Memory for negative and positive emotional pictures was enhanced at both time points where these enhancements were correlated (immediate r = 0.60 and delayed test r = 0.46). Critically, the effects of emotional arousal on encoding and consolidation correlated only very low (negative r = 0.14 and positive r = 0.03 pictures) suggesting partly distinct underlying processes consistent with a functional heterogeneity of the central noradrenergic system. No effect of genotype on either effect was observed. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  18. Nipple/Breast stimulation and sexual arousal in young men and women.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Levin, Roy; Meston, Cindy

    2006-05-01

    The role of nipple/breast stimulation in influencing sexual arousal in men and women during lovemaking has only been the subject of opinion-based comment rather than evidence-based study. No attempt to question people about such sexual behavior has ever been undertaken. The study was designed to ascertain the effects of nipple/breast manipulation in young men and women on their sexual arousal. A short questionnaire about nipple/breast stimulation during sexual activity was administered to 301 (148 men; 153 women) sexually experienced undergraduates (age range 17-29 years, 95% between 18 and 22). Replies to questions in questionnaire. The major findings in regard to the women were that 81.5% reported that stimulation of their nipples/breasts caused or enhanced their sexual arousal, 78.2% agreed that when sexually aroused such manipulation increased their arousal, 59.1% had asked to have their nipples stimulated during lovemaking, and only 7.2% found that the manipulation decreased their arousal. In regard to the men, 51.7% reported that nipple stimulation caused or enhanced their sexual arousal, 39% agreed that when sexually aroused such manipulation increased their arousal, only 17.1% had asked to have their nipples stimulated, and only 7.5% found that such stimulation decreased their arousal. Manipulation of the nipples/breasts causes or enhances sexual arousal in approximately 82% of young women and 52% of young men with only 7-8% reporting that it decreased their arousal.

  19. Prediction of valence and arousal from music features

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Den Brinker, A.C.; Van Dinther, C.H.B.A.; Skowronek, J.

    2011-01-01

    Mood is an important attribute of music and knowledge on mood can beused as a basic ingredient in music recommender and retrieval systems. Moods are assumed to be dominantly determined by two dimensions:valence and arousal. An experiment was conducted to attain data forsong-based ratings of valence

  20. Early brain-body impact of emotional arousal

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Fabien D'Hondt

    2010-04-01

    Full Text Available Current research in affective neuroscience suggests that the emotional content of visual stimuli activates brain–body responses that could be critical to general health and physical disease. The aim of this study was to develop an integrated neurophysiological approach linking central and peripheral markers of nervous activity during the presentation of natural scenes in order to determine the temporal stages of brain processing related to the bodily impact of emotions. More specifically, whole head magnetoencephalogram (MEG data and skin conductance response (SCR, a reliable autonomic marker of central activation, were recorded in healthy volunteers during the presentation of emotional (unpleasant and pleasant and neutral pictures selected from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS. Analyses of event-related magnetic fields (ERFs revealed greater activity at 180 ms in an occipitotemporal component for emotional pictures than for neutral counterparts. More importantly, these early effects of emotional arousal on cerebral activity were significantly correlated with later increases in SCR magnitude. For the first time, a neuromagnetic cortical component linked to a well-documented marker of bodily arousal expression of emotion, namely, the skin conductance response, was identified and located. This finding sheds light on the time course of the brain–body interaction with emotional arousal and provides new insights into the neural bases of complex and reciprocal mind–body links.

  1. Differential effects of arousal in positive and negative autobiographical memories.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ford, Jaclyn Hennessey; Addis, Donna Rose; Giovanello, Kelly S

    2012-01-01

    Autobiographical memories are characterised by a range of emotions and emotional reactions. Recent research has demonstrated that differences in emotional valence (positive vs. negative emotion) and arousal (the degree of emotional intensity) differentially influence the retrieved memory narrative. Although the mnemonic effects of valence and arousal have both been heavily studied, it is currently unclear whether the effects of emotional arousal are equivalent for positive and negative autobiographical events. In the current study, multilevel models were used to examine differential effects of emotional valence and arousal on the richness of autobiographical memory retrieval both between and within subjects. Thirty-four young adults were asked to retrieve personal autobiographical memories associated with popular musical cues and to rate the valence, arousal and richness of these events. The multilevel analyses identified independent influences of valence and intensity upon retrieval characteristics at the within- and between-subject levels. In addition, the within-subject interactions between valence and arousal highlighted differential effects of arousal for positive and negative memories. These findings have important implications for future studies of emotion and memory, highlighting the importance of considering both valence and arousal when examining the role emotion plays in the richness of memory representation.

  2. Interplay between Affect and Arousal in Recognition Memory

    OpenAIRE

    Greene, Ciara M.; Bahri, Pooja; Soto, David

    2010-01-01

    Background: Emotional states linked to arousal and mood are known to affect the efficiency of cognitive performance. However, the extent to which memory processes may be affected by arousal, mood or their interaction is poorly understood. Methodology/Principal Findings: Following a study phase of abstract shapes, we altered the emotional state of participants by means of exposure to music that varied in both mood and arousal dimensions, leading to four different emotional states: (i) positive...

  3. Sexual arousal in men: a review and conceptual analysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Janssen, Erick

    2011-05-01

    Sexual arousal is an emotional/motivational state that can be triggered by internal and external stimuli and that can be inferred from central (including verbal), peripheral (including genital), and behavioral (including action tendencies and motor preparation) responses. This article, while focusing on sexual arousal in men, provides a conceptual analysis of this construct, reviews models of sexual arousal, and discusses the usefulness of perspectives derived from motivation and emotion research in improving our understanding of its determinants and behavioral correlates. In this, it considers the role of genital feedback in men's subjective sexual arousal and the connections between sexual arousal and sexual desire. Future research and definitions may increasingly focus on its central integrative functions (as opposed to its input and output characteristics). Yet, the study of sexual arousal can be expected to continue to benefit from the measurement of its genital, verbal, and behavioral components. Instances of discordance between response components suggest that they are, at least in part, under the control of different mechanisms, and it is proposed that a better understanding of sexual arousal will prove contingent on a better understanding of such mechanisms and the conditions under which they converge and diverge. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  4. Valence, arousal, and task effects in emotional prosody processing

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Silke ePaulmann

    2013-06-01

    Full Text Available Previous research suggests that emotional prosody processing is a highly rapid and complex process. In particular, it has been shown that different basic emotions can be differentiated in an early event-related brain potential (ERP component, the P200. Often, the P200 is followed by later long lasting ERPs such as the late positive complex (LPC. The current experiment set out to explore in how far emotionality and arousal can modulate these previously reported ERP components. In addition, we also investigated the influence of task demands (implicit vs. explicit evaluation of stimuli. Participants listened to pseudo-sentences (sentences with no lexical content spoken in six different emotions or in a neutral tone of voice while they either rated the arousal level of the speaker or their own arousal level. Results confirm that different emotional intonations can first be differentiated in the P200 component, reflecting a first emotional encoding of the stimulus possibly including a valence tagging process. A marginal significant arousal effect was also found in this time-window with high arousing stimuli eliciting a stronger P200 than low arousing stimuli. The P200 component was followed by a long lasting positive ERP between 400 and 750 ms. In this late time-window, both emotion and arousal effects were found. No effects of task were observed in either time-window. Taken together, results suggest that emotion relevant details are robustly decoded during early processing and late processing stages while arousal information is only reliably taken into consideration at a later stage of processing.

  5. Sexual Arousal and Sexually Explicit Media (SEM)

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Hald, Gert Martin; Stulhofer, Aleksandar; Lange, Theis

    2018-01-01

    -mainstream and mainstream SEM groups, and (iii) to explore the validity and predictive accuracy of the Non-Mainstream Pornography Arousal Scale (NPAS). METHODS: Online cross-sectional survey of 2,035 regular SEM users in Croatia. MAIN OUTCOMES MEASURES: Patterns of sexual arousal to 27 different SEM themes, sexual...

  6. Brief Emotion Regulation Training Facilitates Arousal Control During Sexual Stimuli.

    Science.gov (United States)

    van Overveld, Mark; Borg, Charmaine

    2015-01-01

    Disgust, a negative emotion which evokes strong behavioral avoidance tendencies, has been associated with sexual dysfunction. Recently, it was postulated that healthy sexual functioning requires a balance between excitatory (increased sexual arousal) and inhibitory processes (lowered disgust levels). This suggests that amplification of excitatory processes (like sexual arousal) could be a valuable addition to treatments for affect-based sexual dysfunctions. The major aim of the present study was to establish whether up-regulation could effectively enhance arousal levels during sexual stimuli, and whether such a training would simultaneously reduce disgust. Students (N = 163, mean age = 20.73 years, SD = 2.35) were trained in up-regulation of affect using either a sexual arousal film (i.e., female-friendly erotic movie) or a threat arousal film clip (i.e., horror movie), while control groups viewed the films without training instructions. Following this, participants viewed and rated state emotions during a series of pictures (sexual, disgusting, or neutral). Up-regulation of mood successfully enhanced general arousal in both groups, yet these arousal levels were not paralleled by reductions in disgust. Overall, the findings indicate that emotion regulation training by maximizing positive affect and general arousal could be an effective instrument to facilitate affect-related disturbances in sexual dysfunctions.

  7. Neural pathways in processing of sexual arousal: a dynamic causal modeling study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Seok, J-W; Park, M-S; Sohn, J-H

    2016-09-01

    Three decades of research have investigated brain processing of visual sexual stimuli with neuroimaging methods. These researchers have found that sexual arousal stimuli elicit activity in a broad neural network of cortical and subcortical brain areas that are known to be associated with cognitive, emotional, motivational and physiological components. However, it is not completely understood how these neural systems integrate and modulated incoming information. Therefore, we identify cerebral areas whose activations were correlated with sexual arousal using event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging and used the dynamic causal modeling method for searching the effective connectivity about the sexual arousal processing network. Thirteen heterosexual males were scanned while they passively viewed alternating short trials of erotic and neutral pictures on a monitor. We created a subset of seven models based on our results and previous studies and selected a dominant connectivity model. Consequently, we suggest a dynamic causal model of the brain processes mediating the cognitive, emotional, motivational and physiological factors of human male sexual arousal. These findings are significant implications for the neuropsychology of male sexuality.

  8. Frequency of EEG arousals from nocturnal sleep in normal subjects.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mathur, R; Douglas, N J

    1995-06-01

    Brief arousals are clinically important and increasingly scored during polysomnography. However, the frequency of arousals during routine polysomnography in the normal population is unknown. We performed overnight polysomnography in the 55 of 59 control subjects from a family practice list who were approached and agreed to undergo polysomnography. Awakenings were scored according to the criteria of Rechtschaffen and Kales and briefer arousals according to three different criteria, including the American Sleep Disorders Association (ASDA) definition. There was a mean of 4 [95% confidence interval (CI), 1-15) Rechtschaffen and Kales awakenings per hour, whereas the ASDA definition gave 21 (95% CI, 7-56) per hour slept. Arousal frequencies increased significantly (p < 0.001) with age in our subjects, who ranged from the late teens to early 70s. The high upper limit of the frequency of brief arousals was not altered by exclusion of patients who snored or had witnessed apneas or daytime sleepiness. It is important that those scoring arousals on routine polysomnography recognize that high arousal frequencies occur in the normal population on 1-night polysomnography.

  9. Termination of respiratory events with and without cortical arousal in obstructive sleep apnea.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jordan, Amy S; Eckert, Danny J; Wellman, Andrew; Trinder, John A; Malhotra, Atul; White, David P

    2011-11-15

    A total of 20-30% of respiratory events in obstructive sleep apnea are terminated without clear arousal. Arousals are thought to predispose to further events by promoting hyperventilation, hypocapnia, and upper-airway dilator muscle hypotonia. Therefore, events terminated without arousal may promote stable breathing. To compare physiologic changes at respiratory event termination with American Sleep Disorders Association (ASDA) Arousal to No Arousal, and determine whether secondary respiratory events are less common and have higher dilator muscle activity after No Arousal compared with ASDA Arousal. Patients with obstructive sleep apnea wore sleep staging, genioglossus (EMG(GG)), and tensor palatini (EMG(TP)) electrodes plus a nasal mask and pneumotachograph. During stable sleep, continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) was lowered for 3-minute periods to induce respiratory events. Physiologic variables were compared between events terminated with (1) ASDA Arousal, (2) No Arousal, or (3) sudden CPAP increase (CPAPinc, control). Sixteen subjects had adequate data. EMG(GG), EMG(TP), and heart rate increased after ASDA Arousal (340 ± 57%, 215 ± 28%, and 110.7 ± 2.3%) and No Arousal (185 ± 32%, 167 ± 15%, and 108.5 ± 1.6%) but not CPAPinc (90 ± 10%, 94 ± 11%, and 102.1 ± 1%). Ventilation increased more after ASDA Arousal than No Arousal and CPAPinc, but not after accounting for the severity of respiratory event. Fewer No Arousals were followed by secondary events than ASDA Arousals. However, low dilator muscle activity did not occur after ASDA Arousal or No Arousal (EMG(GG) rose from 75 ± 5 to 125 ± 7%) and secondary events were less severe than initial events (ventilation rose 4 ± 0.4 to 5.5 ± 0.51 L/min). Respiratory events that were terminated with ASDA Arousal were more severely flow-limited, had enhanced hyperventilation after event termination, and were more often followed by secondary events than No arousal. However, secondary events were not

  10. Dissociable modulation of overt visual attention in valence and arousal revealed by topology of scan path.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jianguang Ni

    Full Text Available Emotional stimuli have evolutionary significance for the survival of organisms; therefore, they are attention-grabbing and are processed preferentially. The neural underpinnings of two principle emotional dimensions in affective space, valence (degree of pleasantness and arousal (intensity of evoked emotion, have been shown to be dissociable in the olfactory, gustatory and memory systems. However, the separable roles of valence and arousal in scene perception are poorly understood. In this study, we asked how these two emotional dimensions modulate overt visual attention. Twenty-two healthy volunteers freely viewed images from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS that were graded for affective levels of valence and arousal (high, medium, and low. Subjects' heads were immobilized and eye movements were recorded by camera to track overt shifts of visual attention. Algebraic graph-based approaches were introduced to model scan paths as weighted undirected path graphs, generating global topology metrics that characterize the algebraic connectivity of scan paths. Our data suggest that human subjects show different scanning patterns to stimuli with different affective ratings. Valence salient stimuli (with neutral arousal elicited faster and larger shifts of attention, while arousal salient stimuli (with neutral valence elicited local scanning, dense attention allocation and deep processing. Furthermore, our model revealed that the modulatory effect of valence was linearly related to the valence level, whereas the relation between the modulatory effect and the level of arousal was nonlinear. Hence, visual attention seems to be modulated by mechanisms that are separate for valence and arousal.

  11. Evoking and Measuring Arousal in Game Settings

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Cusveller, J.; Gerritsen, C.; de Man, J.; Gobel, S.; Wiemeyer, J.

    2014-01-01

    Serious games seem to be more effective if the participant feels more involved in the game. The participant should experience a high sense of presence which can be obtained by matching the level of excitement to the level of arousal a participant experiences. The level of arousal should be measured

  12. Emotional Arousal Does Not Enhance Association-Memory

    Science.gov (United States)

    Madan, Christopher R.; Caplan, Jeremy B.; Lau, Christine S. M.; Fujiwara, Esther

    2012-01-01

    Emotionally arousing information is remembered better than neutral information. This enhancement effect has been shown for memory for items. In contrast, studies of association-memory have found both impairments and enhancements of association-memory by arousal. We aimed to resolve these conflicting results by using a cued-recall paradigm combined…

  13. Glucocorticoids interact with the noradrenergic arousal system in the nucleus accumbens shell to enhance memory consolidation of both appetitive and aversive taste learning.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wichmann, Romy; Fornari, Raquel V; Roozendaal, Benno

    2012-09-01

    It is well established that glucocorticoid hormones strengthen the consolidation of long-term memory of emotionally arousing experiences but have little effect on memory of low-arousing experiences. Although both positive and negative emotionally arousing events tend to be well remembered, studies investigating the neural mechanism underlying glucocorticoid-induced memory enhancement focused primarily on negatively motivated training experiences. In the present study we show an involvement of glucocorticoids within the nucleus accumbens (NAc) in enhancing memory consolidation of both an appetitive and aversive form of taste learning. The specific glucocorticoid receptor (GR) agonist RU 28362 (1 or 3ng) administered bilaterally into the NAc shell, but not core, of male Sprague-Dawley rats immediately after an appetitive saccharin drinking experience dose-dependently enhanced 24-h retention of the safe taste, resulting in a facilitated attenuation of neophobia. Similarly, GR agonist infusions given into the NAc shell immediately after pairing of the saccharin taste with a malaise-inducing agent enhanced memory of this negative experience, resulting in an intensified conditioned aversion. Importantly, a suppression of noradrenergic activity within the NAc shell with the β-adrenoceptor antagonist propranolol blocked the facilitating effect of a concurrently administered GR agonist on memory consolidation in both the appetitive and aversive learning task. Thus, these findings indicate that GR activation interacts with the noradrenergic arousal system within the NAc to enhance memory consolidation of emotionally arousing training experiences regardless of valence. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  14. Emotional arousal and memory after deep encoding.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Leventon, Jacqueline S; Camacho, Gabriela L; Ramos Rojas, Maria D; Ruedas, Angelica

    2018-05-22

    Emotion often enhances long-term memory. One mechanism for this enhancement is heightened arousal during encoding. However, reducing arousal, via emotion regulation (ER) instructions, has not been associated with reduced memory. In fact, the opposite pattern has been observed: stronger memory for emotional stimuli encoded with an ER instruction to reduce arousal. This pattern may be due to deeper encoding required by ER instructions. In the current research, we examine the effects of emotional arousal and deep-encoding on memory across three studies. In Study 1, adult participants completed a writing task (deep-encoding) for encoding negative, neutral, and positive picture stimuli, whereby half the emotion stimuli had the ER instruction to reduce the emotion. Memory was strong across conditions, and no memory enhancement was observed for any condition. In Study 2, adult participants completed the same writing task as Study 1, as well as a shallow-encoding task for one-third of negative, neutral, and positive trials. Memory was strongest for deep vs. shallow encoding trials, with no effects of emotion or ER instruction. In Study 3, adult participants completed a shallow-encoding task for negative, neutral, and positive stimuli, with findings indicating enhanced memory for negative emotional stimuli. Findings suggest that deep encoding must be acknowledged as a source of memory enhancement when examining manipulations of emotion-related arousal. Copyright © 2018. Published by Elsevier B.V.

  15. Memory enhancement by a semantically unrelated emotional arousal source induced after learning.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nielson, Kristy A; Yee, Douglas; Erickson, Kirk I

    2005-07-01

    It has been well established that moderate physiological or emotional arousal modulates memory. However, there is some controversy about whether the source of arousal must be semantically related to the information to be remembered. To test this idea, 35 healthy young adult participants learned a list of common nouns and afterward viewed a semantically unrelated, neutral or emotionally arousing videotape. The tape was shown after learning to prevent arousal effects on encoding or attention, instead influencing memory consolidation. Heart rate increase was significantly greater in the arousal group, and negative affect was significantly less reported in the non-arousal group after the video. The arousal group remembered significantly more words than the non-arousal group at both 30 min and 24 h delays, despite comparable group memory performance prior to the arousal manipulation. These results demonstrate that emotional arousal, even from an unrelated source, is capable of modulating memory consolidation. Potential reasons for contradictory findings in some previous studies, such as the timing of "delayed" memory tests, are discussed.

  16. Increasing arousal enhances inhibitory control in calm but not excitable dogs

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bray, Emily E.; MacLean, Evan L.; Hare, Brian A.

    2015-01-01

    The emotional-reactivity hypothesis proposes that problem-solving abilities can be constrained by temperament, within and across species. One way to test this hypothesis is with the predictions of the Yerkes-Dodson law. The law posits that arousal level, a component of temperament, affects problem solving in an inverted U-shaped relationship: optimal performance is reached at intermediate levels of arousal and impeded by high and low levels. Thus, a powerful test of the emotional-reactivity hypothesis is to compare cognitive performance in dog populations that have been bred and trained based in part on their arousal levels. We therefore compared a group of pet dogs to a group of assistance dogs bred and trained for low arousal (N = 106) on a task of inhibitory control involving a detour response. Consistent with the Yerkes-Dodson law, assistance dogs, which began the test with lower levels of baseline arousal, showed improvements when arousal was artificially increased. In contrast, pet dogs, which began the test with higher levels of baseline arousal, were negatively affected when their arousal was increased. Furthermore, the dogs’ baseline levels of arousal, as measured in their rate of tail wagging, differed by population in the expected directions. Low-arousal assistance dogs showed the most inhibition in a detour task when humans eagerly encouraged them while more highly aroused pet dogs performed worst on the same task with strong encouragement. Our findings support the hypothesis that selection on temperament can have important implications for cognitive performance. PMID:26169659

  17. Increasing arousal enhances inhibitory control in calm but not excitable dogs.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bray, Emily E; MacLean, Evan L; Hare, Brian A

    2015-11-01

    The emotional-reactivity hypothesis proposes that problem-solving abilities can be constrained by temperament, within and across species. One way to test this hypothesis is with the predictions of the Yerkes-Dodson law. The law posits that arousal level, a component of temperament, affects problem solving in an inverted U-shaped relationship: Optimal performance is reached at intermediate levels of arousal and impeded by high and low levels. Thus, a powerful test of the emotional-reactivity hypothesis is to compare cognitive performance in dog populations that have been bred and trained based in part on their arousal levels. We therefore compared a group of pet dogs to a group of assistance dogs bred and trained for low arousal (N = 106) on a task of inhibitory control involving a detour response. Consistent with the Yerkes-Dodson law, assistance dogs, which began the test with lower levels of baseline arousal, showed improvements when arousal was artificially increased. In contrast, pet dogs, which began the test with higher levels of baseline arousal, were negatively affected when their arousal was increased. Furthermore, the dogs' baseline levels of arousal, as measured in their rate of tail wagging, differed by population in the expected directions. Low-arousal assistance dogs showed the most inhibition in a detour task when humans eagerly encouraged them, while more highly aroused pet dogs performed worst on the same task with strong encouragement. Our findings support the hypothesis that selection on temperament can have important implications for cognitive performance.

  18. Physiological arousal in processing recognition information

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Guy Hochman

    2010-07-01

    Full Text Available The recognition heuristic (RH; Goldstein and Gigerenzer, 2002 suggests that, when applicable, probabilistic inferences are based on a noncompensatory examination of whether an object is recognized or not. The overall findings on the processes that underlie this fast and frugal heuristic are somewhat mixed, and many studies have expressed the need for considering a more compensatory integration of recognition information. Regardless of the mechanism involved, it is clear that recognition has a strong influence on choices, and this finding might be explained by the fact that recognition cues arouse affect and thus receive more attention than cognitive cues. To test this assumption, we investigated whether recognition results in a direct affective signal by measuring physiological arousal (i.e., peripheral arterial tone in the established city-size task. We found that recognition of cities does not directly result in increased physiological arousal. Moreover, the results show that physiological arousal increased with increasing inconsistency between recognition information and additional cue information. These findings support predictions derived by a compensatory Parallel Constraint Satisfaction model rather than predictions of noncompensatory models. Additional results concerning confidence ratings, response times, and choice proportions further demonstrated that recognition information and other cognitive cues are integrated in a compensatory manner.

  19. Video lottery: winning expectancies and arousal.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ladouceur, Robert; Sévigny, Serge; Blaszczynski, Alexander; O'Connor, Kieron; Lavoie, Marc E

    2003-06-01

    This study investigates the effects of video lottery players' expectancies of winning on physiological and subjective arousal. Participants were assigned randomly to one of two experimental conditions: high and low winning expectancies. Participants played 100 video lottery games in a laboratory setting while physiological measures were recorded. Level of risk-taking was controlled. Participants were 34 occasional or regular video lottery players. They were assigned randomly into two groups of 17, with nine men and eight women in each group. The low-expectancy group played for fun, therefore expecting to win worthless credits, while the high-expectancy group played for real money. Players' experience, demographic variables and subjective arousal were assessed. Severity of problem gambling was measured with the South Oaks Gambling Screen. In order to measure arousal, the average heart rate was recorded across eight periods. Participants exposed to high as compared to low expectations experienced faster heart rate prior to and during the gambling session. According to self-reports, it is the expectancy of winning money that is exciting, not playing the game. Regardless of the level of risk-taking, expectancy of winning is a cognitive factor influencing levels of arousal. When playing for fun, gambling becomes significantly less stimulating than when playing for money.

  20. Arousal from sleep: implications for obstructive sleep apnea pathogenesis and treatment.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Eckert, Danny J; Younes, Magdy K

    2014-02-01

    Historically, brief awakenings from sleep (cortical arousals) have been assumed to be vitally important in restoring airflow and blood-gas disturbances at the end of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) breathing events. Indeed, in patients with blunted chemical drive (e.g., obesity hypoventilation syndrome) and in instances when other defensive mechanisms fail, cortical arousal likely serves an important protective role. However, recent insight into the pathogenesis of OSA indicates that a substantial proportion of respiratory events do not terminate with a cortical arousal from sleep. In many cases, cortical arousals may actually perpetuate blood-gas disturbances, breathing instability, and subsequent upper airway closure during sleep. This brief review summarizes the current understanding of the mechanisms mediating respiratory-induced cortical arousal, the physiological factors that influence the propensity for cortical arousal, and the potential dual roles that cortical arousal may play in OSA pathogenesis. Finally, the extent to which existing sedative agents decrease the propensity for cortical arousal and their potential to be therapeutically beneficial for certain OSA patients are highlighted.

  1. Age-Related Reduction of Recovery Sleep and Arousal Threshold in Drosophila

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vienne, Julie; Spann, Ryanne; Guo, Fang; Rosbash, Michael

    2016-01-01

    Study Objectives: Physiological studies show that aging affects both sleep quality and quantity in humans, and sleep complaints increase with age. Along with knowledge about the negative effects of poor sleep on health, understanding the enigmatic relationship between sleep and aging is important. Because human sleep is similar to Drosophila (fruit fly) sleep in many ways, we addressed the effects of aging on sleep in this model organism. Methods: Baseline sleep was recorded in five different Drosophila genotypes raised at either 21°C or 25°C. The amount of sleep recovered was then investigated after a nighttime of sleep deprivation (12 h) and after chronic sleep deprivation (3 h every night for multiple nights). Finally, the effects of aging on arousal, namely, sensitivity to neuronal and mechanical stimuli, were studied. Results: We show that fly sleep is affected by age in a manner similar to that of humans and other mammals. Not only do older flies of several genotypes have more fragmented sleep and reduced total sleep time compared to young flies, but older flies also fail to recover as much sleep after sleep deprivation. This suggests either lower sleep homeostasis and/or a failure to properly recover sleep. Older flies also show a decreased arousal threshold, i.e., an increased response to neuronal and mechanical wake-promoting stimuli. The reduced threshold may either reflect or cause the reduced recovery sleep of older flies compared to young flies after sleep deprivation. Conclusions: Further studies are certainly needed, but we suggest that the lower homeostatic sleep drive of older flies causes their decreased arousal threshold. Citation: Vienne J, Spann R, Guo F, Rosbash M. Age-related reduction of recovery sleep and arousal threshold in Drosophila. SLEEP 2016;39(8):1613–1624. PMID:27306274

  2. Enhanced auditory arousal increases intake of less palatable and healthier foods.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Privitera, Gregory J; Diaz, Melissa; Haas, Meagan C

    2014-01-23

    Two experiments were conducted to test a prediction of the arousal hypothesis that increased arousal will increase intake of less palatable and healthy foods. In both experiments, arousal was manipulated by adjusting the volume of a movie (soft, loud volume) while participants consumed foods. In Experiment 1, participants ate fresh (palatable) or stale (less palatable) popcorn during a 9-minute movie played at a soft or loud volume. Experiment 2 used the same procedures with healthier foods (carrot sticks and apple slices). Partial support for the arousal hypothesis in Experiment 1 showed that participants consumed more stale but not fresh popcorn in the loud (high arousal) versus soft (low arousal) volume group. These findings suggest that low but not high palatable foods are susceptible to manipulations of arousal. Consistent with this interpretation, Experiment 2 showed that high but not low environmental arousal increased intake of the fruits and vegetables, which are typically rated as lower in palatability compared to high fat foods. These results show that high arousal in an eating-typical environment increases intake of less palatable foods, and healthy foods (i.e., fruits and vegetables). Increasing the availability of healthier foods in a loud food environment can have a positive impact on increasing intake of fruits and vegetables in that environment.

  3. Parental modelling of mathematical affect: self-efficacy and emotional arousal

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bartley, Sarah R.; Ingram, Naomi

    2017-12-01

    This study explored the relationship between parents' mathematics self-efficacy and emotional arousal to mathematics and their 12- and 13-year-old children's mathematics self-efficacy and emotional arousal to mathematics. Parental modelling of affective relationships during homework was a focus. Eighty-four parent and child pairings from seven schools in New Zealand were examined using embedded design methodology. No significant correlations were found when the parents' mathematics self-efficacy and emotional arousal to mathematics were compared with the children's mathematics self-efficacy and emotional arousal to mathematics. However, the parents' level of emotional arousal to mathematics was found to have affected their willingness to assist with mathematics homework. For those parents who assisted, a significant positive correlation was found between their mathematics self-efficacy and their children's emotional arousal to mathematics. Parents who did assist were generally reported as being calm, and used techniques associated with positive engagement. Fathers were calmer and more likely to express readiness to assist with mathematics homework than mothers. A further significant positive correlation was found between fathers' emotional arousal to mathematics and children's mathematics self-efficacy. Implications from the study suggest directions for future research.

  4. Discharge patterns of human genioglossus motor units during arousal from sleep.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wilkinson, Vanessa; Malhotra, Atul; Nicholas, Christian L; Worsnop, Christopher; Jordan, Amy S; Butler, Jane E; Saboisky, Julian P; Gandevia, Simon C; White, David P; Trinder, John

    2010-03-01

    Single motor unit recordings of the human genioglossus muscle reveal motor units with a variety of discharge patterns. Integrated multiunit electromyographic recordings of genioglossus have demonstrated an abrupt increase in the muscle's activity at arousal from sleep. The aim of the present study was to determine the effect of arousal from sleep on the activity of individual motor units as a function of their particular discharge pattern. Genioglossus activity was measured using intramuscular fine-wire electrodes inserted via a percutaneous approach. Arousals from sleep were identified using the ASDA criterion and the genioglossus electromyogram recordings analyzed for single motor unit activity. Sleep research laboratory. Sleep and respiratory data were collected in 8 healthy subjects (6 men). 138 motor units were identified during prearousalarousal sleep: 25% inspiratory phasic, 33% inspiratory tonic, 4% expiratory phasic, 3% expiratory tonic, and 35% tonic. At arousal from sleep inspiratory phasic units significantly increased the proportion of a breath over which they were active, but did not appreciably increase their rate of firing. 80 new units were identified at arousals, 75% were inspiratory, many of which were active for only 1 or 2 breaths. 22% of units active before arousal, particularly expiratory and tonic units, stopped at the arousal. Increased genioglossus muscle activity at arousal from sleep is primarily due to recruitment of inspiratory phasic motor units. Further, activity within the genioglossus motoneuron pool is reorganized at arousal as, in addition to recruitment, approximately 20% of units active before arousals stopped firing.

  5. Emotion and language: Valence and arousal affect word recognition

    Science.gov (United States)

    Brysbaert, Marc; Warriner, Amy Beth

    2014-01-01

    Emotion influences most aspects of cognition and behavior, but emotional factors are conspicuously absent from current models of word recognition. The influence of emotion on word recognition has mostly been reported in prior studies on the automatic vigilance for negative stimuli, but the precise nature of this relationship is unclear. Various models of automatic vigilance have claimed that the effect of valence on response times is categorical, an inverted-U, or interactive with arousal. The present study used a sample of 12,658 words, and included many lexical and semantic control factors, to determine the precise nature of the effects of arousal and valence on word recognition. Converging empirical patterns observed in word-level and trial-level data from lexical decision and naming indicate that valence and arousal exert independent monotonic effects: Negative words are recognized more slowly than positive words, and arousing words are recognized more slowly than calming words. Valence explained about 2% of the variance in word recognition latencies, whereas the effect of arousal was smaller. Valence and arousal do not interact, but both interact with word frequency, such that valence and arousal exert larger effects among low-frequency words than among high-frequency words. These results necessitate a new model of affective word processing whereby the degree of negativity monotonically and independently predicts the speed of responding. This research also demonstrates that incorporating emotional factors, especially valence, improves the performance of models of word recognition. PMID:24490848

  6. TASK Channels on Basal Forebrain Cholinergic Neurons Modulate Electrocortical Signatures of Arousal by Histamine.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vu, Michael T; Du, Guizhi; Bayliss, Douglas A; Horner, Richard L

    2015-10-07

    Basal forebrain cholinergic neurons are the main source of cortical acetylcholine, and their activation by histamine elicits cortical arousal. TWIK-like acid-sensitive K(+) (TASK) channels modulate neuronal excitability and are expressed on basal forebrain cholinergic neurons, but the role of TASK channels in the histamine-basal forebrain cholinergic arousal circuit is unknown. We first expressed TASK channel subunits and histamine Type 1 receptors in HEK cells. Application of histamine in vitro inhibited the acid-sensitive K(+) current, indicating a functionally coupled signaling mechanism. We then studied the role of TASK channels in modulating electrocortical activity in vivo using freely behaving wild-type (n = 12) and ChAT-Cre:TASK(f/f) mice (n = 12), the latter lacking TASK-1/3 channels on cholinergic neurons. TASK channel deletion on cholinergic neurons significantly altered endogenous electroencephalogram oscillations in multiple frequency bands. We then identified the effect of TASK channel deletion during microperfusion of histamine into the basal forebrain. In non-rapid eye movement sleep, TASK channel deletion on cholinergic neurons significantly attenuated the histamine-induced increase in 30-50 Hz activity, consistent with TASK channels contributing to histamine action on basal forebrain cholinergic neurons. In contrast, during active wakefulness, histamine significantly increased 30-50 Hz activity in ChAT-Cre:TASK(f/f) mice but not wild-type mice, showing that the histamine response depended upon the prevailing cortical arousal state. In summary, we identify TASK channel modulation in response to histamine receptor activation in vitro, as well as a role of TASK channels on cholinergic neurons in modulating endogenous oscillations in the electroencephalogram and the electrocortical response to histamine at the basal forebrain in vivo. Attentive states and cognitive function are associated with the generation of γ EEG activity. Basal forebrain

  7. Glucocorticoid effects on object recognition memory require training-associated emotional arousal.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Okuda, Shoki; Roozendaal, Benno; McGaugh, James L

    2004-01-20

    Considerable evidence implicates glucocorticoid hormones in the regulation of memory consolidation and memory retrieval. The present experiments investigated whether the influence of these hormones on memory depends on the level of emotional arousal induced by the training experience. We investigated this issue in male Sprague-Dawley rats by examining the effects of immediate posttraining systemic injections of the glucocorticoid corticosterone on object recognition memory under two conditions that differed in their training-associated emotional arousal. In rats that were not previously habituated to the experimental context, corticosterone (0.3, 1.0, or 3.0 mg/kg, s.c.) administered immediately after a 3-min training trial enhanced 24-hr retention performance in an inverted-U shaped dose-response relationship. In contrast, corticosterone did not affect 24-hr retention of rats that received extensive prior habituation to the experimental context and, thus, had decreased novelty-induced emotional arousal during training. Additionally, immediate posttraining administration of corticosterone to nonhabituated rats, in doses that enhanced 24-hr retention, impaired object recognition performance at a 1-hr retention interval whereas corticosterone administered after training to well-habituated rats did not impair 1-hr retention. Thus, the present findings suggest that training-induced emotional arousal may be essential for glucocorticoid effects on object recognition memory.

  8. Does Emotional Arousal Influence Swearing Fluency?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Stephens, Richard; Zile, Amy

    2017-08-01

    This study assessed the effect of experimentally manipulated emotional arousal on swearing fluency. We hypothesised that swear word generation would be increased with raised emotional arousal. The emotional arousal of 60 participants was manipulated by having them play a first-person shooter video game or, as a control, a golf video game, in a randomised order. A behavioural measure of swearing fluency based on the Controlled Oral Word Association Test was employed. Successful experimental manipulation was indicated by raised State Hostility Questionnaire scores after playing the shooter game. Swearing fluency was significantly greater after playing the shooter game compared with the golf game. Validity of the swearing fluency task was demonstrated via positive correlations with self-reported swearing fluency and daily swearing frequency. In certain instances swearing may represent a form of emotional expression. This finding will inform debates around the acceptability of using taboo language.

  9. Age differences in emotional reactions: arousal and age-relevance count.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Streubel, Berit; Kunzmann, Ute

    2011-12-01

    Recent findings suggest positivity effects in older adults' attention and memory, but few studies have examined such effects on the level of emotional reactivity. In this study, 52 young and 52 older adults rated 172 pictures of the International Affective Picture System, differing in arousal and age-relevance, in terms of valence and discrete emotions. Age differences in the ratio of pleasantness reactions to pleasant pictures vs. unpleasantness reactions to unpleasant pictures as well as age differences in absolute levels of unpleasantness and pleasantness reactions suggest that positivity effects in older adults' subjective emotional reactions are reduced under high arousal. There is also evidence that positivity effects may be restricted to stimuli with low relevance in old age.

  10. Valence evaluation with approaching or withdrawing cues: directly testing valence-arousal conflict theory.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, Yan Mei; Li, Ting; Li, Lin

    2017-07-19

    The valence-arousal conflict theory assumes that both valence and arousal will trigger approaching or withdrawing tendencies. It also predicts that the speed of processing emotional stimuli will depend on whether valence and arousal trigger conflicting or congruent motivational tendencies. However, most previous studies have provided evidence of the interaction between valence and arousal only, and have not provided direct proof of the interactive links between valence, arousal and motivational tendencies. The present study provides direct evidence for the relationship between approach-withdrawal tendencies and the valence-arousal conflict. In an empirical test, participants were instructed to judge the valence of emotional words after visual-spatial cues that appeared to be either approaching or withdrawing from participants. A three-way interaction (valence, arousal, and approach-withdrawal tendency) was observed such that the response time was shorter if participants responded to a negative high-arousal stimulus after a withdrawing cue, or to a positive low-arousal stimulus after an approaching cue. These findings suggest that the approach-withdrawal tendency indeed plays a crucial role in valence-arousal conflict, and that the effect depends on the congruency of valence, arousal and tendency at an early stage of processing.

  11. Sex differences in patterns of genital sexual arousal: measurement artifacts or true phenomena?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Suschinsky, Kelly D; Lalumière, Martin L; Chivers, Meredith L

    2009-08-01

    Sex differences in patterns of sexual arousal have been reported recently. Men's genital arousal is typically more category-specific than women's, such that men experience their greatest genital arousal to stimuli depicting their preferred sex partners whereas women experience significant genital arousal to stimuli depicting both their preferred and non-preferred sex partners. In addition, men's genital and subjective sexual arousal patterns are more concordant than women's: The correlation between genital and subjective sexual arousal is much larger in men than in women. These sex differences could be due to low response-specificity in the measurement of genital arousal in women. The most commonly used measure of female sexual arousal, vaginal photoplethysmography, has not been fully validated and may not measure sexual arousal specifically. A total of 20 men and 20 women were presented with various sexual and non-sexual emotionally laden short film clips while their genital and subjective sexual arousal were measured. Results suggest that vaginal photoplethysmography is a measure of sexual arousal exclusively. Women's genital responses were highest during sexual stimuli and absent during all non-sexual stimuli. Sex differences in degree of category-specificity and concordance were replicated: Men's genital responses were more category-specific than women's and men's genital and subjective sexual arousal were more strongly correlated than women's. The results from the current study support the continued use of vaginal photoplethysmography in investigating sex differences in patterns of sexual arousal.

  12. Bidirectional interactions between the baroreceptor reflex and arousal: an update.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Silvani, Alessandro; Calandra-Buonaura, Giovanna; Benarroch, Eduardo E; Dampney, Roger A L; Cortelli, Pietro

    2015-02-01

    Studies involving genetic engineering on animal models and mathematical analysis of cardiovascular signals on humans are shedding new light on the interactions between the arterial baroreceptor reflex (baroreflex) and arousal. Baroreceptor stimulation, if very mild or performed under anaesthesia, may inhibit cortical arousal. However, substantial increases or decreases in baroreflex activation cause arousal in animal models and human subjects in physiological conditions. On the other hand, cardiovascular changes during autonomic arousals and between the states of wakefulness and sleep involve changes in the baroreflex set point and balance with central autonomic commands. Neural connectivity and functional data suggest that the nucleus of the solitary tract, adrenergic C1 neurons of the medulla, and the parabrachial nucleus of the pons mediate the bidirectional interactions between the baroreflex and arousal. These interactions may constitute a positive feedback loop that facilitates sharp and coordinated brain state and autonomic transitions upon arousal: upon arousal, central autonomic commands may increase blood pressure, thereby loading baroreceptors and further increasing arousal. Anomalies of this feedback loop may play a role in the pathophysiology of disease conditions associated with cardiovascular and sleep-wake cycle alterations. These conditions include: obstructive sleep apnoea syndrome, with its association with excessive daytime sleepiness and baroreflex impairment; and insomnia, with its association with autonomic hyperarousal and hypertension. When faced with disorders associated with cardiovascular and sleep-wake cycle alterations, clinical reasoning should entertain the possibility that both conditions are strongly influenced by anomalies of baroreflex function. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  13. Higher motivation - greater control? The effect of arousal on judgement.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Riemer, Hila; Viswanathan, Madhu

    2013-01-01

    This research examines control over the effect of arousal, a dimension of affect, on judgement. Past research shows that high processing motivation enhances control over the effects of affect on judgement. Isolating and studying arousal as opposed to valence, the other dimension of affect, and its effect on judgement, we identify boundary conditions for past findings. Drawing from the literature on processes by which arousal influences judgement, we demonstrate that the role of motivation is contingent upon the type of judgement task (i.e., memory- versus stimulus-based judgement). In stimulus-based judgement, individuals exert greater control over the effect of arousal on judgement under low compared to high motivation. In contrast, in memory-based judgement individuals exert greater control over the effect of arousal under high compared to low motivation. Theoretical implications and avenues for future research are discussed.

  14. Beyond intensity: Spectral features effectively predict music-induced subjective arousal.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gingras, Bruno; Marin, Manuela M; Fitch, W Tecumseh

    2014-01-01

    Emotions in music are conveyed by a variety of acoustic cues. Notably, the positive association between sound intensity and arousal has particular biological relevance. However, although amplitude normalization is a common procedure used to control for intensity in music psychology research, direct comparisons between emotional ratings of original and amplitude-normalized musical excerpts are lacking. In this study, 30 nonmusicians retrospectively rated the subjective arousal and pleasantness induced by 84 six-second classical music excerpts, and an additional 30 nonmusicians rated the same excerpts normalized for amplitude. Following the cue-redundancy and Brunswik lens models of acoustic communication, we hypothesized that arousal and pleasantness ratings would be similar for both versions of the excerpts, and that arousal could be predicted effectively by other acoustic cues besides intensity. Although the difference in mean arousal and pleasantness ratings between original and amplitude-normalized excerpts correlated significantly with the amplitude adjustment, ratings for both sets of excerpts were highly correlated and shared a similar range of values, thus validating the use of amplitude normalization in music emotion research. Two acoustic parameters, spectral flux and spectral entropy, accounted for 65% of the variance in arousal ratings for both sets, indicating that spectral features can effectively predict arousal. Additionally, we confirmed that amplitude-normalized excerpts were adequately matched for loudness. Overall, the results corroborate our hypotheses and support the cue-redundancy and Brunswik lens models.

  15. A Single Session of Autogenic Training Increases Acute Subjective and Physiological Sexual Arousal in Sexually Functional Women.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Stanton, Amelia; Meston, Cindy

    2017-10-03

    Heart rate variability (HRV) has recently been associated with female sexual function (Stanton, Lorenz, Pulverman, & Meston, 2015). Below-average HRV was identified as a possible risk factor for sexual arousal dysfunction and overall sexual dysfunction in women. Based on this newly established relationship between HRV and female sexual function, the present study examined the effect of autogenic training to increase HRV on acute physiological and subjective sexual arousal in women. Specifically, vaginal pulse amplitude (VPA), an index of genital sexual arousal, and subjective sexual arousal were assessed in 33 sexually functional women, aged 18 to 27, before and after a short session of autogenic training. Autogenic training, a relaxation technique that restores the balance between the activity of the sympathetic and the parasympathetic branches of the autonomic nervous system, has been shown to significantly increase HRV (Miu, Heilman, & Miclea, 2009). After autogenic training, significant increases in both VPA (p <.05) and subjective sexual arousal (p <.005) were observed. Moreover, change in HRV from pre- to postmanipulation significantly moderated changes in subjective sexual arousal (p <.05) when it was measured continuously during the presentation of the erotic stimulus. This cost-effective, easy-to-administer behavioral intervention may have important implications for increasing sexual arousal in women.

  16. The effect of personality type and musical task on self-perceived arousal.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lim, Hayoung A

    2008-01-01

    This study was designed to measure the level of arousal influenced by 4 different musical experiences classified by task difficulty and to examine the relationship between music-induced arousal level and personality type. Participants included 32 university students who were neither musicians nor music majors. The Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (Eysenck & Eysenck, 1975) was used to identify participants as either extravert or introvert. Participants were randomly assigned to 1 of 4 types of musical tasks: listening, singing, rhythm tapping, or keyboard playing. Arousal level was measured using the Activation-Deactivation Adjective Check List (ADACL) (Thayer, 1978) before and after the musical task. The ADACL is a self-report scale consisting of a list of 20 adjectives which describe various transitory arousal states, including energy, tiredness, tension, and calmness. Results showed no significant difference between personality types and the changes in arousal level. Result indicated a significant effect of listening on decreased tension arousal. Singing and rhythm tapping, which are regarded as having a relatively moderate task difficulty, increased energy arousal significantly and decreased tiredness arousal significantly. Participants' tiredness arousal levels also decreased significantly after keyboard playing. These findings suggest that engaging in musical experience that has a moderate level of task difficulty makes individuals more energetic and less tired.

  17. Persistent genital arousal disorder

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Eibye, Simone; Jensen, Hans Mørch

    2014-01-01

    We report a case of a woman suffering from persistent genital arousal disorder (PGAD) after paroxetine cessation. She was admitted to a psychiatric department and diagnosed with agitated depression. Physical investigation showed no gynaecological or neurological explanation; however, a pelvic MRI...

  18. Glucocorticoids interact with the noradrenergic arousal system in the nucleus accumbens shell to enhance memory consolidation of both appetitive and aversive taste learning

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Wichmann, Romy; Fornari, Raquel V.; Roozendaal, Benno

    It is well established that glucocorticoid hormones strengthen the consolidation of long-term memory of emotionally arousing experiences but have little effect on memory of low-arousing experiences. Although both positive and negative emotionally arousing events tend to be well remembered, studies

  19. Glucocorticoids interact with the noradrenergic arousal system in the nucleus accumbens shell to enhance memory consolidation of both appetitive and aversive taste learning

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Wichmann, R.; Fornari, R.V.; Roozendaal, B.

    2012-01-01

    It is well established that glucocorticoid hormones strengthen the consolidation of long-term memory of emotionally arousing experiences but have little effect on memory of low-arousing experiences. Although both positive and negative emotionally arousing events tend to be well remembered, studies

  20. Functional wiring of hypocretin and LC-NE neurons: implications for arousal.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Matthew E Carter

    2013-05-01

    Full Text Available To survive in a rapidly changing environment, animals must sense their external world and internal physiological state and properly regulate levels of arousal. Levels of arousal that are abnormally high may result in inefficient use of internal energy stores and unfocused attention to salient environmental stimuli. Alternatively, levels of arousal that are abnormally low may result in the inability to properly seek food, water, sexual partners, and other factors necessary for life. In the brain, neurons that express hypocretin neuropeptides may be uniquely posed to sense the external and internal state of the animal and tune arousal state according to behavioral needs. In recent years, we have applied temporally precise optogenetic techniques to study the role of these neurons and their downstream connections in regulating arousal. In particular, we have found that noradrenergic neurons in the brainstem locus coeruleus are particularly important for mediating the effects of hypocretin neurons on arousal. Here, we discuss our recent results and consider the implications of the anatomical connectivity of these neurons in regulating the arousal state of an organism across various states of sleep and wakefulness.

  1. Eyes Wide Shopped: Shopping Situations Trigger Arousal in Impulsive Buyers

    Science.gov (United States)

    Serfas, Benjamin G.; Büttner, Oliver B.; Florack, Arnd

    2014-01-01

    The present study proposes arousal as an important mechanism driving buying impulsiveness. We examined the effect of buying impulsiveness on arousal in non-shopping and shopping contexts. In an eye-tracking experiment, we measured pupil dilation while participants viewed and rated pictures of shopping scenes and non-shopping scenes. The results demonstrated that buying impulsiveness is closely associated with arousal as response to viewing pictures of shopping scenes. This pertained for hedonic shopping situations as well as for utilitarian shopping situations. Importantly, the effect did not emerge for non-shopping scenes. Furthermore, we demonstrated that arousal of impulsive buyers is independent from cognitive evaluation of scenes in the pictures. PMID:25489955

  2. Eyes wide shopped: shopping situations trigger arousal in impulsive buyers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Serfas, Benjamin G; Büttner, Oliver B; Florack, Arnd

    2014-01-01

    The present study proposes arousal as an important mechanism driving buying impulsiveness. We examined the effect of buying impulsiveness on arousal in non-shopping and shopping contexts. In an eye-tracking experiment, we measured pupil dilation while participants viewed and rated pictures of shopping scenes and non-shopping scenes. The results demonstrated that buying impulsiveness is closely associated with arousal as response to viewing pictures of shopping scenes. This pertained for hedonic shopping situations as well as for utilitarian shopping situations. Importantly, the effect did not emerge for non-shopping scenes. Furthermore, we demonstrated that arousal of impulsive buyers is independent from cognitive evaluation of scenes in the pictures.

  3. The Comparisons of Cerebral Hemodynamics Induced by Obstructive Sleep Apnea with Arousal and Periodic Limb Movement with Arousal: A Pilot NIRS Study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Zhongxing; Schneider, Maja; Laures, Marco; Qi, Ming; Khatami, Ramin

    2016-01-01

    Obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSA) and restless legs syndrome (RLS) with periodic limb movement during sleep (PLMS) are two sleep disorders characterized by repetitive respiratory or movement events associated with cortical arousals. We compared the cerebral hemodynamic changes linked to periodic apneas/hypopneas with arousals (AHA) in four OSA-patients with periodic limb movements (PLMA) with arousals in four patients with RLS-PLMS using near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS). AHA induced homogenous pattern of periodic fluctuations in oxygenated (HbO2) and deoxygenated (HHb) hemoglobin, i.e., the decrease of HbO2 was accompanied by an increase of HHb during the respiratory event and resolved to reverse pattern when cortical arousal started. Blood volume (BV) showed the same pattern as HHb but with relative smaller amplitude in most of the AHA events.These changing patterns were significant as Wilcoxon signed-rank tests gave p Wilcoxon signed-rank tests, p Wilcoxon signed-rank test, p Wilcoxon signed-rank test, p Wilcoxon signed-rank test, p < 0.001) and then decreased. The results of this preliminary study show that both AHA and PLMA induce changes in cerebral hemodynamics. The occurrence of cortical arousal is accompanied by increased HR in both events, but by different BV changes (i.e., decreased/increased BV in AHA/PLMA, respectively). HR changes may partially account for the increased cerebral hemodynamics during PLMA; whereas in AHA probable vasodilatation mediated by hypoxia/hypercapnia is more crucial for the post-arousal hemodynamics. The differences between changes of cerebral hemodynamics and HR may indicate different pathological mechanisms behind these two sleep disorder events.

  4. Subjective sleep quality, unstimulated sexual arousal, and sexual frequency

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Rui Costa

    Full Text Available Introduction: REM sleep deprivation increases unstimulated erections in rats, and total sleep deprivation increases erections during audiovisual sexual stimulation in men, but the effects of sleep problems on human unstimulated sexual arousal are unknown. Objective: We examined the associations of subjective sleep quality with unstimulated sexual arousal, satisfaction with sex life, and sexual frequency and desire over the past month. Methods: 275 Portuguese (169 women reported their anxiety, sexual arousal and sexual desire during a resting state, and completed the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, the sexual satisfaction subscale of the LiSat scale, the Desire dimensions of the Female Sexual Function Index (women only and International Index of Erectile Function (men only. They additionally reported how many days in the past month they engaged in penile-vaginal intercourse, noncoital sex, and masturbation. Salivary testosterone (T was assayed by luminescence immunoassays. Results: Poorer sleep quality correlated with greater unstimulated sexual arousal in men with higher T levels and in women with higher T levels not taking oral contraceptives. In women with lower T, poorer subjective sleep quality correlated with greater sexual dissatisfaction. In both sexes, sleep quality was uncorrelated with sexual desire and sexual frequency over the past month. Discussion: Consistently with other studies in humans and animals, the findings are congruent with the notion that lack of sleep can increase sexual arousal, but not sexual frequency. T might play a role in the sexual arousal caused by lack of appropriate sleep.

  5. Arousal-But Not Valence-Reduces False Memories at Retrieval.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mirandola, Chiara; Toffalini, Enrico

    2016-01-01

    Mood affects both memory accuracy and memory distortions. However, some aspects of this relation are still poorly understood: (1) whether valence and arousal equally affect false memory production, and (2) whether retrieval-related processes matter; the extant literature typically shows that mood influences memory performance when it is induced before encoding, leaving unsolved whether mood induced before retrieval also impacts memory. We examined how negative, positive, and neutral mood induced before retrieval affected inferential false memories and related subjective memory experiences. A recognition-memory paradigm for photographs depicting script-like events was employed. Results showed that individuals in both negative and positive moods-similar in arousal levels-correctly recognized more target events and endorsed fewer false memories (and these errors were linked to remember responses less frequently), compared to individuals in neutral mood. This suggests that arousal (but not valence) predicted memory performance; furthermore, we found that arousal ratings provided by participants were more adequate predictors of memory performance than their actual belonging to either positive, negative or neutral mood groups. These findings suggest that arousal has a primary role in affecting memory, and that mood exerts its power on true and false memory even when induced at retrieval.

  6. False physiological feedback and persuasion: effect of fear arousal vs. fear reduction on attitude change.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hendrick, C; Giesen, M; Borden, R

    1975-06-01

    Two experiments tested the hypothesis that increases in false physiological feedback of fear arousal will enhance persuasion and that reduction in the arousal feedback is unnecessary for increased persuasion to occur. Prior research has usually found a positive relation between level of arousal and persuasion, but support for the drive reduction hypothesis is tenuous. However, Harris and Jellison (1971) claimed support for such a hypothesis. They manipulated subjects' fear arousal cognitively via false physiological feedback while the subjects listened to a persuasive communication. The present experiments used a similar procedure in an attempt to test an "arousal only" against an "arousal reduction" hypothesis. Subjects listened to a persuasive speech while receiving false feedback via a meter concerning their fear arousal. In Experiment I half of the subjects received high arousal and half received moderate arousal information. Within each of these conditions half of the subjects had their arousal reduced, and the other half did not. In Experiment II subjects received either low arousal, high arousal, or high then low arousal feedback while listening. The results of the two studies generally provided support for the "arousal only" hypothesis. An interpretation in terms of Bem's attribution theory was tentatively suggested.

  7. [Daytime tiredness correlated with nocturnal respiratory and arousal variables in patients with sleep apnea: polysomnographic and EEG mapping studies].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Saletu, M; Hauer, C; Anderer, P; Saletu-Zyhlarz, G; Gruber, G; Oberndorfer, S; Mandl, M; Popovic, R; Saletu, B

    2000-03-24

    There is evidence that daytime tiredness is caused by apnea/hypopnea with oxygen desaturation and/or by sleep fragmentation due to arousals. The aim of this study was to investigate objective and subjective sleep and awakening quality and daytime vigilance--objectified by midmorning mapping of vigilance-controlled EEG (V-EEG)--in sleep apnea patients (N: 18), as compared with age- and sex-matched normal controls (N: 18) as well as to correlate nocturnal respiratory distress and arousals to daytime brain function. Statistical analyses demonstrated a deterioration in subjective and objective sleep and awakening quality in apnea patients. Midmorning V-EEG mapping in apnea patients exhibited less total power, more delta and theta, less alpha and beta activity, as well as a slower dominant frequency and centroid of the total activity compared to controls, which suggests a vigilance decrement. The Spearman rank correlation between 6 polysomnographically registered respiratory variables and 36 diurnal quantitative EEG measures demonstrated the following: the higher the apnea, apnea-hypopnea, snoring and desaturation indices and the lower the minimum and average low oxygen saturation, the more pronounced was diurnal tiredness. Eleven arousal measures based on ASDA criteria showed the following significant correlations: the higher the nocturnal arousal index and the more arousals due to hypopneas, the greater was daytime tiredness. On the other hand, the greater the average frequency change during arousals and the more spontaneous arousals, the better was daytime vigilance. Our findings show that, in contrast to the lengthy Multiple Sleep Latency (MSLT) and Maintenance of Wakefulness (MWT) tests which evaluate sleep pressure under resting conditions conducive to sleep, V-EEG mapping provides a brief objective measure of a sleep apnea patient's daytime tiredness under conditions of wakefulness more appropriate to reflect the patient's everyday life.

  8. Alexithymia and empathy predict changes in autonomic arousal during affective stimulation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bogdanov, Volodymyr B; Bogdanova, Olena V; Gorlov, Dmytro S; Gorgo, Yuriy P; Dirckx, Joris J J; Makarchuk, Mykola Y; Schoenen, Jean; Critchley, Hugo

    2013-09-01

    Alexithymia, the inability to describe one's own emotions, is linked to deficits in empathy, manifesting as a diminished capacity to recognize or understand the emotions and mental states of others. Several brain centers of autonomic control and interoception that are activated in empathy are thought to misfunction in alexithymia. We hypothesized that individual differences in autonomic changes under affective stimulation might be associated with differences in alexithymia and empathy. We studied 21 healthy volunteers, comparing their alexithymia and empathy scores with changes in their sympathetic autonomic arousal, indexed by the palmar skin potential level, during 3 tasks: playing a computer game, performing mental arithmetic, and watching a negative emotional valence video. Both autonomic and subjective sense of arousal increased at the beginning of each task and then gradually subsided over the course of the task. Higher autonomic arousal at the onset of the computer game was associated with higher empathy scores, and at the onset of the negative video with higher scores for both empathy and alexithymia. Alexithymia delayed the habituation of autonomic arousal during the computer game, while the empathy score was related to a faster decline in arousal during the negative video task. High alexithymia and high empathy scores were linked to increased autonomic arousal at the onset of emotional stimulation, but were distinguishable in the rates of habituation of the evoked arousal. Our data provide insight into the relationships among interacting psychological traits, physiologic regulation, and the arousal dimension of emotional experience.

  9. Emotion and decision-making under uncertainty: Physiological arousal predicts increased gambling during ambiguity but not risk.

    Science.gov (United States)

    FeldmanHall, Oriel; Glimcher, Paul; Baker, Augustus L; Phelps, Elizabeth A

    2016-10-01

    Uncertainty, which is ubiquitous in decision-making, can be fractionated into known probabilities (risk) and unknown probabilities (ambiguity). Although research has illustrated that individuals more often avoid decisions associated with ambiguity compared to risk, it remains unclear why ambiguity is perceived as more aversive. Here we examine the role of arousal in shaping the representation of value and subsequent choice under risky and ambiguous decisions. To investigate the relationship between arousal and decisions of uncertainty, we measure skin conductance response-a quantifiable measure reflecting sympathetic nervous system arousal-during choices to gamble under risk and ambiguity. To quantify the discrete influences of risk and ambiguity sensitivity and the subjective value of each option under consideration, we model fluctuating uncertainty, as well as the amount of money that can be gained by taking the gamble. Results reveal that although arousal tracks the subjective value of a lottery regardless of uncertainty type, arousal differentially contributes to the computation of value-that is, choice-depending on whether the uncertainty is risky or ambiguous: Enhanced arousal adaptively decreases risk-taking only when the lottery is highly risky but increases risk-taking when the probability of winning is ambiguous (even after controlling for subjective value). Together, this suggests that the role of arousal during decisions of uncertainty is modulatory and highly dependent on the context in which the decision is framed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

  10. Beyond pleasure and arousal: appetitive erotic stimuli modulate electrophysiological brain correlates of early attentional processing.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kuhr, Benjamin; Schomberg, Jessica; Gruber, Thomas; Quirin, Markus

    2013-03-27

    Previous studies investigating affective reactions to pictures that elicit a specific effect have mainly focused on the dimensions valence and arousal. Using an event-related picture-viewing paradigm in electroencephalography, we investigated whether erotica - that is appetitive, evolutionarily relevant stimuli - have effects on early stages of attentional processing that are distinct from those of other positive and arousing stimuli. Seventeen male students viewed arousing photos of erotic, nude women or pictures of extreme sport scenes, as well as control pictures of attractive, dressed women or daily activities. Erotic pictures differed from extreme sport pictures not only in late but also in early attentional processes, as indicated by event-related potentials appearing from 130 ms after stimulus onset (P1). The findings suggest (a) that the dimension of appetence should be considered in addition to valence and arousal when investigating psychophysiological reactions to affective-motivational stimuli and (b) that early attentional processing as mirrored by the P1 can be influenced by motivational systems.

  11. Eyes wide shopped: shopping situations trigger arousal in impulsive buyers.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Benjamin G Serfas

    Full Text Available The present study proposes arousal as an important mechanism driving buying impulsiveness. We examined the effect of buying impulsiveness on arousal in non-shopping and shopping contexts. In an eye-tracking experiment, we measured pupil dilation while participants viewed and rated pictures of shopping scenes and non-shopping scenes. The results demonstrated that buying impulsiveness is closely associated with arousal as response to viewing pictures of shopping scenes. This pertained for hedonic shopping situations as well as for utilitarian shopping situations. Importantly, the effect did not emerge for non-shopping scenes. Furthermore, we demonstrated that arousal of impulsive buyers is independent from cognitive evaluation of scenes in the pictures.

  12. Amines, Astrocytes and Arousal

    OpenAIRE

    Bazargani, N.; Attwell, D.

    2017-01-01

    Amine neurotransmitters, such as noradrenaline, mediate arousal, attention, and reward in the CNS. New data suggest that, from flies to mammals, a major mechanism for amine transmitter action is to raise astrocyte [Ca2+]i and release gliotransmitters that modulate neuronal activity and behavior.

  13. Synchronized Bilateral Synaptic Inputs to Drosophila melanogaster Neuropeptidergic Rest/Arousal Neurons

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    McCarthy, E. V.; Wu, Y.; deCarvalho, T.

    2011-01-01

    Neuropeptide PDF (pigment-dispersing factor)-secreting large ventrolateral neurons (lLN(v)s) in the Drosophila brain regulate daily patterns of rest and arousal. These bilateral wake-promoting neurons are light responsive and integrate information from the circadian system, sleep circuits...

  14. Developmental Reversals in False Memory: Effects of Emotional Valence and Arousal

    Science.gov (United States)

    Brainerd, C. J.; Holliday, R. E.; Reyna, V. F.; Yang, Y.; Toglia, M. P.

    2010-01-01

    Do the emotional valence and arousal of events distort children's memories? Do valence and arousal modulate counterintuitive age increases in false memory? We investigated those questions in children, adolescents, and adults using the Cornell/Cortland Emotion Lists, a word list pool that induces false memories and in which valence and arousal can…

  15. Baseline autonomic nervous system arousal and physical and relational aggression in preschool: the moderating role of effortful control.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gower, Amy L; Crick, Nicki R

    2011-09-01

    The current study investigates whether established associations between physical aggression and low autonomic nervous system arousal, as indexed by heart rate and blood pressure, also apply to the study of the development of relational aggression. Baseline heart rate and blood pressure were collected in two samples of preschoolers, and teachers reported on classroom physical and relational aggression. In Study 1, lower systolic and diastolic blood pressure were related to increased engagement in relational aggression among older preschoolers. In Study 2, lower heart rate and blood pressure predicted increased engagement in classroom physical and relational aggression concurrently and across a preschool year in some cases. Low baseline arousal-aggression associations were strongest for children with poorer self-regulation abilities, whereas high self-regulation appeared to protect children with low heart rate and blood pressure from engagement in aggressive classroom behavior. These findings suggest the utility of examining baseline physiological measures in the study of relational aggression as well as physical aggression. Implications for interventions targeted to physical and relational aggression in early childhood are discussed. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  16. Emotionally enhanced memory for negatively arousing words: storage or retrieval advantage?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nadarevic, Lena

    2017-12-01

    People typically remember emotionally negative words better than neutral words. Two experiments are reported that investigate whether emotionally enhanced memory (EEM) for negatively arousing words is based on a storage or retrieval advantage. Participants studied non-word-word pairs that either involved negatively arousing or neutral target words. Memory for these target words was tested by means of a recognition test and a cued-recall test. Data were analysed with a multinomial model that allows the disentanglement of storage and retrieval processes in the present recognition-then-cued-recall paradigm. In both experiments the multinomial analyses revealed no storage differences between negatively arousing and neutral words but a clear retrieval advantage for negatively arousing words in the cued-recall test. These findings suggest that EEM for negatively arousing words is driven by associative processes.

  17. Psychopathology and Deviant Sexual Arousal in Incarcerated Sexual Offenders.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Serin, Ralph C.; And Others

    1994-01-01

    Investigates the relationship between psychopathology and deviant sexual arousal in sexual offenders (n=65), with approximately equal numbers of rapists and child molesters. Differentiating between rapists, extrafamilial pedophiles, and incest offenders revealed that the relationship between psychopathology and arousal was most apparent for…

  18. Financial Anxiety, Physiological Arousal, and Planning Intention

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    John Grable

    2014-12-01

    Full Text Available Results from this exploratory clinical study indicate that financial anxiety—holding an unhealthy attitude about one’s financial situation—and physiological arousal—the physical precursor to behavior—play important roles in shaping consumer intention to engage in future financial planning activity. Findings suggest that those who are most likely to engage the services of a financial adviser exhibit low levels of financial anxiety and moderate to high levels of physiological arousal. The least likely to seek the help of a financial adviser are those who exhibit high financial anxiety and low physiological arousal. Results support findings documented in the literature that high anxiety levels often lead to a form of self-imposed helplessness. In order to move those experiencing financial anxiety towards financial solutions, financial advisers ought to take steps to simultaneously reduce financial stressors and stimulate arousal as a way to promote behavioral change and help seeking.

  19. Enhanced conflict-driven cognitive control by emotional arousal, not by valence.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zeng, Qinghong; Qi, Senqing; Li, Miaoyun; Yao, Shuxia; Ding, Cody; Yang, Dong

    2017-09-01

    Emotion is widely agreed to have two dimensions, valence and arousal. Few studies have explored the effect of emotion on conflict adaptation by considering both of these, which could have dissociate influence. The present study aimed to fill the gap as to whether emotional valence and arousal would exert dissociable influence on conflict adaptation. In the experiments, we included positive, neutral, and negative conditions, with comparable arousal between positive and negative conditions. Both positive and negative conditions have higher arousal than neutral ones. In Experiment 1, by using a two-colour-word Flanker task, we found that conflict adaptation was enhanced in both positive and negative contexts compared to a neutral context. Furthermore, this effect still existed when controlling stimulus-response repetitions in Experiment 2, which used a four-colour-word Flanker task. The findings suggest emotional arousal enhances conflict adaptation, regardless of emotional valence. Thus, future studies should consider emotional arousal when studying the effect of emotion on conflict adaptation. Moreover, the unique role of the emotional context in conflict-driven cognitive control is emphasised.

  20. Adaptive memory: Is the animacy effect on memory due to emotional arousal?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Meinhardt, Martin J; Bell, Raoul; Buchner, Axel; Röer, Jan P

    2018-05-07

    Animate entities are often better remembered than inanimate ones. The proximal mechanisms underlying this animacy effect on recall are unclear. In two experiments, we tested whether the animacy effect is due to emotional arousal. Experiment 1 revealed that translations of the animate words used in the pioneering study of Nairne et al. (Psychological science, 24, 2099-2105, 2013) were perceived as being more arousing than translations of the inanimate words, suggesting that animacy might have been confounded with arousal in previous studies. In Experiment 2, new word lists were created in which the animate and inanimate words were matched on arousal (amongst several other dimensions), and participants were required to reproduce the animate and inanimate words in a free recall task. There was a tendency towards better memory for arousing items, but robust animacy effects were obtained even though animate and inanimate words were matched on arousal. Thus, while arousal may contribute to the animacy effect when it is not carefully controlled for, it cannot explain the memory advantage of animate items.

  1. Independent effects of relevance and arousal on deductive reasoning.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Caparos, Serge; Blanchette, Isabelle

    2017-08-01

    Emotional content can have either a deleterious or a beneficial impact on logicality. Using standard deductive-reasoning tasks, we tested the hypothesis that the interplay of two factors - personal relevance and arousal - determines the nature of the effect of emotional content on logicality. Arousal was assessed using measures of skin conductance. Personal relevance was manipulated by asking participants to reason about semantic contents linked to an emotional event that they had experienced or not. Findings showed that (1) personal relevance exerts a positive effect on logicality while arousal exerts a negative effect, and that (2) these effects are independent of each other.

  2. The Importance of Arousal for Variation in Working Memory Capacity and Attention Control: A Latent Variable Pupillometry Study

    Science.gov (United States)

    Unsworth, Nash; Robison, Matthew K.

    2017-01-01

    A great deal of prior research has examined the relation between working memory capacity (WMC) and attention control. The current study explored the role of arousal in individual differences in WMC and attention control. Participants performed multiple WMC and attention control tasks. During the attention control tasks participants were…

  3. Resting-state functional connectivity differentiates anxious apprehension and anxious arousal.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Burdwood, Erin N; Infantolino, Zachary P; Crocker, Laura D; Spielberg, Jeffrey M; Banich, Marie T; Miller, Gregory A; Heller, Wendy

    2016-10-01

    Brain regions in the default mode network (DMN) display greater functional connectivity at rest or during self-referential processing than during goal-directed tasks. The present study assessed resting-state connectivity as a function of anxious apprehension and anxious arousal, independent of depressive symptoms, in order to understand how these dimensions disrupt cognition. Whole-brain, seed-based analyses indicated differences between anxious apprehension and anxious arousal in DMN functional connectivity. Lower connectivity associated with higher anxious apprehension suggests decreased adaptive, inner-focused thought processes, whereas higher connectivity at higher levels of anxious arousal may reflect elevated monitoring of physiological responses to threat. These findings further the conceptualization of anxious apprehension and anxious arousal as distinct psychological dimensions with distinct neural instantiations. © 2016 Society for Psychophysiological Research.

  4. Arousal-But Not Valence-Reduces False Memories at Retrieval.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Chiara Mirandola

    Full Text Available Mood affects both memory accuracy and memory distortions. However, some aspects of this relation are still poorly understood: (1 whether valence and arousal equally affect false memory production, and (2 whether retrieval-related processes matter; the extant literature typically shows that mood influences memory performance when it is induced before encoding, leaving unsolved whether mood induced before retrieval also impacts memory. We examined how negative, positive, and neutral mood induced before retrieval affected inferential false memories and related subjective memory experiences. A recognition-memory paradigm for photographs depicting script-like events was employed. Results showed that individuals in both negative and positive moods-similar in arousal levels-correctly recognized more target events and endorsed fewer false memories (and these errors were linked to remember responses less frequently, compared to individuals in neutral mood. This suggests that arousal (but not valence predicted memory performance; furthermore, we found that arousal ratings provided by participants were more adequate predictors of memory performance than their actual belonging to either positive, negative or neutral mood groups. These findings suggest that arousal has a primary role in affecting memory, and that mood exerts its power on true and false memory even when induced at retrieval.

  5. Interactions Between Epinephrine, Ascending Vagal Fibers and Central Noradrenergic Systems in Modulating Memory for Emotionally Arousing Events.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Cedric L. Williams

    2012-06-01

    Full Text Available It is well established that exposure to emotionally laden events initiates secretion of the arousal related hormone epinephrine in the periphery. These neuroendocrine changes and the subsequent increase in peripheral physiological output play an integral role in modulating brain systems involved in memory formation. The impermeability of the blood brain barrier to epinephrine represents an important obstacle in understanding how peripheral hormones initiate neurochemical changes in the brain that lead to effective memory formation. This obstacle necessitated the identity of a putative pathway capable of conveying physiological changes produced by epinephrine to limbic structures that incorporate arousal and affect related information into memory. A major theme of the proposed studies is that ascending fibers of the vagus nerve may represent such a mechanism. This hypothesis was tested by evaluating the contribution of ascending vagal fibers in modulating memory for responses learned under behavioral conditions that produce emotional arousal by manipulating appetitive stimuli. A combination of electrophysiological recording of vagal afferent fibers and in vivo microdialysis was employed in a second study to simultaneously assess how elevations in peripheral levels of epinephrine affect vagal nerve discharge and the subsequent potentiation of norepinephrine release in the basolateral amygdala. The final study used double immunohistochemistry labeling of c-fos and dopamine beta hydroxylase, the enzyme for norepinephrine synthesis to determine if epinephrine administration alone or stimulation of the vagus nerve at an intensity identical to that which improved memory in Experiment 1 produces similar patterns of neuronal activity in brain areas involved in processing memory for emotional events. Findings emerging from this collection of studies establish the importance of ascending fibers of the vagus nerve as an essential pathway for conveying the

  6. Upbeat and happy: arousal as an important factor in studying attention.

    Science.gov (United States)

    McConnell, Meghan M; Shore, David I

    2011-11-01

    The present study examined the effects of music-induced mood changes on different components of visual attention. Affective valence (positive vs. negative) and arousal (high vs. low) were manipulated by having participants listen to one of four versions of a Mozart Sonata that varied in mode (major or minor) and tempo (fast or slow). Attention was measured in three domains-alerting, orienting, and executive control. Affective valence and arousal had an effect on executive control, but not on alerting or orienting. Individuals who experienced positive valence had less efficient control over their responses than those who experienced negative valence, but only when arousal levels were high. Positive and negative valence did not influence executive control measures when arousal levels were low. These findings demonstrate that affective valence and arousal interact with one another to influence the processing of items in visual attention.

  7. Tracking arousal state and mind wandering with pupillometry.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Unsworth, Nash; Robison, Matthew K

    2018-04-13

    In four experiments, the association between arousal state and different mind-wandering states was examined. Participants performed a sustained attention task while pupil responses were continuously recorded. Periodically during the task, participants were presented with thought probes to determine if they were on task or mind wandering. Across the four experiments, the results suggested that in situations that promoted on-task behaviors and focused external attention, mind wandering was associated with lowered arousal, as seen by smaller tonic pupil diameters and smaller phasic pupillary responses. However, in situations that promoted a more internal focus of attention, there were no differences between on-task states and mind wandering in tonic pupil diameter (although differences emerged for phasic pupillary responses), suggesting similar arousal levels. Furthermore, across the four experiments, mind blanking and mind wandering dissociated in terms of whether the situation promoted focused external attention or focused internal attention. These results are broadly consistent with the notion that mind wandering is a heterogeneous construct, with different forms of mind wandering being associated with different arousal states, and suggest that a combination of behavioral and pupillary measures can be used to track these various states.

  8. Effects of music on arousal during imagery in elite shooters: A pilot study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kuan, Garry; Morris, Tony; Terry, Peter

    2017-01-01

    Beneficial effects of music on several performance-related aspects of sport have been reported, but the processes involved are not well understood. The purpose of the present study was to investigate effects of relaxing and arousing classical music on physiological indicators and subjective perceptions of arousal during imagery of a sport task. First, appropriate music excerpts were selected. Then, 12 skilled shooters performed shooting imagery while listening to the three preselected music excerpts in randomized order. Participants' galvanic skin response, peripheral temperature, and electromyography were monitored during music played concurrently with imagery. Subjective music ratings and physiological measures showed, as hypothesized, that unfamiliar relaxing music was the most relaxing and unfamiliar arousing music was the most arousing. Researchers should examine the impact of unfamiliar relaxing and arousing music played during imagery on subsequent performance in diverse sports. Practitioners can apply unfamiliar relaxing and arousing music with imagery to manipulate arousal level.

  9. Affective picture processing and motivational relevance: arousal and valence effects on ERPs in an oddball task.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Briggs, Kate E; Martin, Frances H

    2009-06-01

    There are two dominant theories of affective picture processing; one that attention is more deeply engaged by motivationally relevant stimuli (i.e., stimuli that activate both the appetitive and aversive systems), and two that attention is more deeply engaged by aversive stimuli described as the negativity bias. In order to identify the theory that can best account for affective picture processing, event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded from 34 participants during a modified oddball paradigm in which levels of stimulus valence, arousal, and motivational relevance were systematically varied. Results were partially consistent with motivated attention models of emotional perception, as P3b amplitude was enhanced in response to highly arousing and motivationally relevant sexual and unpleasant stimuli compared to respective low arousing and less motivationally relevant stimuli. However P3b amplitudes were significantly larger in response to the highly arousing sexual stimuli compared to all other affective stimuli, which is not consistent with either dominant theory. The current study therefore highlights the need for a revised model of affective picture processing and provides a platform for further research investigating the independent effects of sexual arousal on cognitive processing.

  10. The influence of valence and arousal on reasoning: Affective priming in the semantic verification task

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Orlić Ana

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available The aim of the present study was to examine the effects of affective valence and arousal on the reasoning process. Reasoning was measured using a semantic verification task and the influence of valence and arousal was tracked using the affective priming paradigm. Primes were photographs varied on two dimensions - emotional valence (positive, neutral, negative and arousal (high, low. Forty-nine psychology students participated in the experiment. Results showed that reaction time needed for semantic verification was significantly faster for positive-high arousing in comparison to positive-low arousing condition and for neutral high arousing in comparison to neutral-low arousing condition, but there were no significant differences in negative low and high arousing conditions. Also, significant differences were found among all three valences in high arousing conditions and there were no such differences in low arousing conditions. These results reveal the importance of both arousal and valence in the research on the influence of emotions on the reasoning process. [Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. 179033

  11. Cultural differences in emotion: differences in emotional arousal level between the East and the West

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Nangyeon Lim

    2016-06-01

    Full Text Available Whether emotion is universal or social is a recurrent issue in the history of emotion study among psychologists. Some researchers view emotion as a universal construct, and that a large part of emotional experience is biologically based. However, emotion is not only biologically determined, but is also influenced by the environment. Therefore, cultural differences exist in some aspects of emotions, one such important aspect of emotion being emotional arousal level. All affective states are systematically represented as two bipolar dimensions, valence and arousal. Arousal level of actual and ideal emotions has consistently been found to have cross-cultural differences. In Western or individualist culture, high arousal emotions are valued and promoted more than low arousal emotions. Moreover, Westerners experience high arousal emotions more than low arousal emotions. By contrast, in Eastern or collectivist culture, low arousal emotions are valued more than high arousal emotions. Moreover, people in the East actually experience and prefer to experience low arousal emotions more than high arousal emotions. Mechanism of these cross-cultural differences and implications are also discussed.

  12. Cultural differences in emotion: differences in emotional arousal level between the East and the West.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lim, Nangyeon

    2016-06-01

    Whether emotion is universal or social is a recurrent issue in the history of emotion study among psychologists. Some researchers view emotion as a universal construct, and that a large part of emotional experience is biologically based. However, emotion is not only biologically determined, but is also influenced by the environment. Therefore, cultural differences exist in some aspects of emotions, one such important aspect of emotion being emotional arousal level. All affective states are systematically represented as two bipolar dimensions, valence and arousal. Arousal level of actual and ideal emotions has consistently been found to have cross-cultural differences. In Western or individualist culture, high arousal emotions are valued and promoted more than low arousal emotions. Moreover, Westerners experience high arousal emotions more than low arousal emotions. By contrast, in Eastern or collectivist culture, low arousal emotions are valued more than high arousal emotions. Moreover, people in the East actually experience and prefer to experience low arousal emotions more than high arousal emotions. Mechanism of these cross-cultural differences and implications are also discussed.

  13. Neural correlates of attention and arousal: insights from electrophysiology, functional neuroimaging and psychopharmacology.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Coull, J T

    1998-07-01

    Attention and arousal are multi-dimensional psychological processes, which interact closely with one another. The neural substrates of attention, as well as the interaction between arousal and attention, are discussed in this review. After a brief discussion of psychological and neuropsychological theories of attention, event-related potential correlates of attention are discussed. Essentially, attention acts to modulate stimulus-induced electrical potentials (N100/P100, P300, N400), rather than generating any unique potentials of its own. Functional neuroimaging studies of attentional orienting, selective attention, divided attention and sustained attention (and its inter-dependence on underlying levels of arousal) are then reviewed. A distinction is drawn between the brain areas which are crucially involved in the top-down modulation of attention (the 'sources' of attention) and those sensory-association areas whose activity is modulated by attention (the 'sites' of attentional expression). Frontal and parietal (usually right-lateralised) cortices and thalamus are most often associated with the source of attentional modulation. Also, the use of functional neuroimaging to test explicit hypotheses about psychological theories of attention is emphasised. These experimental paradigms form the basis for a 'new generation' of functional imaging studies which exploit the dynamic aspect of imaging and demonstrate how it can be used as more than just a 'brain mapping' device. Finally, a review of psychopharmacological studies in healthy human volunteers outlines the contributions of the noradrenergic, cholinergic and dopaminergic neurotransmitter systems to the neurochemical modulation of human attention and arousal. While, noradrenergic and cholinergic systems are involved in 'low-level' aspects of attention (e.g. attentional orienting), the dopaminergic system is associated with more 'executive' aspects of attention such as attentional set-shifting or working memory.

  14. Effects of music on arousal during imagery in elite shooters: A pilot study.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Garry Kuan

    Full Text Available Beneficial effects of music on several performance-related aspects of sport have been reported, but the processes involved are not well understood. The purpose of the present study was to investigate effects of relaxing and arousing classical music on physiological indicators and subjective perceptions of arousal during imagery of a sport task. First, appropriate music excerpts were selected. Then, 12 skilled shooters performed shooting imagery while listening to the three preselected music excerpts in randomized order. Participants' galvanic skin response, peripheral temperature, and electromyography were monitored during music played concurrently with imagery. Subjective music ratings and physiological measures showed, as hypothesized, that unfamiliar relaxing music was the most relaxing and unfamiliar arousing music was the most arousing. Researchers should examine the impact of unfamiliar relaxing and arousing music played during imagery on subsequent performance in diverse sports. Practitioners can apply unfamiliar relaxing and arousing music with imagery to manipulate arousal level.

  15. Low-Arousal Speech Noise Improves Performance in N-Back Task: An ERP Study

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Dandan; Jin, Yi; Luo, Yuejia

    2013-01-01

    The relationship between noise and human performance is a crucial topic in ergonomic research. However, the brain dynamics of the emotional arousal effects of background noises are still unclear. The current study employed meaningless speech noises in the n-back working memory task to explore the changes of event-related potentials (ERPs) elicited by the noises with low arousal level vs. high arousal level. We found that the memory performance in low arousal condition were improved compared with the silent and the high arousal conditions; participants responded more quickly and had larger P2 and P3 amplitudes in low arousal condition while the performance and ERP components showed no significant difference between high arousal and silent conditions. These findings suggested that the emotional arousal dimension of background noises had a significant influence on human working memory performance, and that this effect was independent of the acoustic characteristics of noises (e.g., intensity) and the meaning of speech materials. The current findings improve our understanding of background noise effects on human performance and lay the ground for the investigation of patients with attention deficits. PMID:24204607

  16. Low-arousal speech noise improves performance in N-back task: an ERP study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Han, Longzhu; Liu, Yunzhe; Zhang, Dandan; Jin, Yi; Luo, Yuejia

    2013-01-01

    The relationship between noise and human performance is a crucial topic in ergonomic research. However, the brain dynamics of the emotional arousal effects of background noises are still unclear. The current study employed meaningless speech noises in the n-back working memory task to explore the changes of event-related potentials (ERPs) elicited by the noises with low arousal level vs. high arousal level. We found that the memory performance in low arousal condition were improved compared with the silent and the high arousal conditions; participants responded more quickly and had larger P2 and P3 amplitudes in low arousal condition while the performance and ERP components showed no significant difference between high arousal and silent conditions. These findings suggested that the emotional arousal dimension of background noises had a significant influence on human working memory performance, and that this effect was independent of the acoustic characteristics of noises (e.g., intensity) and the meaning of speech materials. The current findings improve our understanding of background noise effects on human performance and lay the ground for the investigation of patients with attention deficits.

  17. Low-arousal speech noise improves performance in N-back task: an ERP study.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Longzhu Han

    Full Text Available The relationship between noise and human performance is a crucial topic in ergonomic research. However, the brain dynamics of the emotional arousal effects of background noises are still unclear. The current study employed meaningless speech noises in the n-back working memory task to explore the changes of event-related potentials (ERPs elicited by the noises with low arousal level vs. high arousal level. We found that the memory performance in low arousal condition were improved compared with the silent and the high arousal conditions; participants responded more quickly and had larger P2 and P3 amplitudes in low arousal condition while the performance and ERP components showed no significant difference between high arousal and silent conditions. These findings suggested that the emotional arousal dimension of background noises had a significant influence on human working memory performance, and that this effect was independent of the acoustic characteristics of noises (e.g., intensity and the meaning of speech materials. The current findings improve our understanding of background noise effects on human performance and lay the ground for the investigation of patients with attention deficits.

  18. Are females more responsive to emotional stimuli? A neurophysiological study across arousal and valence dimensions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lithari, C; Frantzidis, C A; Papadelis, C; Vivas, Ana B; Klados, M A; Kourtidou-Papadeli, C; Pappas, C; Ioannides, A A; Bamidis, P D

    2010-03-01

    Men and women seem to process emotions and react to them differently. Yet, few neurophysiological studies have systematically investigated gender differences in emotional processing. Here, we studied gender differences using Event Related Potentials (ERPs) and Skin Conductance Responses (SCR) recorded from participants who passively viewed emotional pictures selected from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS). The arousal and valence dimension of the stimuli were manipulated orthogonally. The peak amplitude and peak latency of ERP components and SCR were analyzed separately, and the scalp topographies of significant ERP differences were documented. Females responded with enhanced negative components (N100 and N200), in comparison to males, especially to the unpleasant visual stimuli, whereas both genders responded faster to high arousing or unpleasant stimuli. Scalp topographies revealed more pronounced gender differences on central and left hemisphere areas. Our results suggest a difference in the way emotional stimuli are processed by genders: unpleasant and high arousing stimuli evoke greater ERP amplitudes in women relatively to men. It also seems that unpleasant or high arousing stimuli are temporally prioritized during visual processing by both genders.

  19. A psychophysiological investigation of sexual arousal in women with lifelong vaginismus.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cherner, Rebecca A; Reissing, Elke D

    2013-05-01

    Relatively little is known about the subjective reactions of women with lifelong vaginismus to erotic stimuli and genital arousal has never been investigated. Reports of maladaptive cognitions and fears regarding sexuality and intercourse suggest that anxiety may interfere with sexual arousal in women with vaginismus. To examine the genital and subjective responses to sexually explicit film stimuli of women with lifelong vaginismus compared with women with lifelong dyspareunia and women with no pain. Forty-five women (15 vaginismus, 15 dyspareunia, and 15 no pain) viewed two neutral and two erotic film sets, one depicting sexual activity without vaginal penetration and the other depicting intercourse, over two testing sessions. Vulvar temperature was recorded using an infrared camera. Participants completed a measure of subjective responses after viewing each film. All groups experienced increased vulvar temperature during the erotic films regardless of activity depicted. In response to the erotic films, the vaginismus group reported less mental arousal than the no-pain group and a range of negative subjective responses, including threat and disgust. Overall, participants showed concordance between peak subjective sexual arousal and temperature change from baseline to peak arousal. Despite negative subjective responses, women with vaginismus responded with increased genital sexual arousal to erotic films. The resilience of genital arousal may have resulted from moderate levels of anxiety experienced in the laboratory setting facilitating sexual response regardless of subjective appraisal; however, anxiety experienced in a dyadic context may interfere more substantially. © 2013 International Society for Sexual Medicine.

  20. Depression, Fatigue, and Pre-Sleep Arousal: A Mediation Model

    Science.gov (United States)

    Karlson, Cynthia W.; Stevens, Natalie R.; Olson, Christy A.; Hamilton, Nancy A.

    2010-01-01

    Fatigue is a common and debilitating symptom of clinical depression; however, the causes are not well understood. The present study was designed to test the hypotheses that subjective sleep, objective sleep, and arousal in the pre-sleep state would mediate the relationship between depression status and fatigue. Sleep, pre-sleep arousal, and…

  1. Epidural electrocorticography for monitoring of arousal in locked-in state

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Alireza eGharabaghi

    2014-10-01

    Full Text Available Electroencephalography often fails to assess both the level (i.e. arousal and the content (i.e. awareness of pathologically altered consciousness in patients without motor responsiveness. This might be related to a decline of awareness, to episodes of low arousal and disturbed sleep patterns, and/or to distorting and attenuating effects of the skull and intermediate tissue on the recorded brain signals. Novel approaches are required to overcome these limitations.We introduced epidural electrocorticography (ECoG for monitoring of cortical physiology in a late-stage amytrophic lateral sclerosis patient in completely locked-in state. Despite long-term application for a period of six months, no implant-related complications occurred. Recordings from the left frontal cortex were sufficient to identify three arousal states. Spectral analysis of the intrinsic oscillatory activity enabled us to extract state-dependent dominant frequencies at < 4, ~ 7 and ~ 20 Hz, representing sleep-like periods, and phases of low and elevated arousal, respectively. In the absence of other biomarkers, ECoG proved to be a reliable tool for monitoring circadian rhythmicity, i.e. avoiding interference with the patient when he was sleeping and exploiting time windows of responsiveness. Moreover, the effects of interventions addressing the patient’s arousal, e.g. amantadine medication, could be evaluated objectively on the basis of physiological markers, even in the absence of behavioral parameters.Epidural ECoG constitutes a feasible trade-off between surgical risk and quality of recorded brain signals to gain information on the patient’s present level of arousal. This approach enables us to optimize the timing of interactions and medical interventions, all of which should take place when the patient is in a phase of high arousal. Furthermore, avoiding low-responsiveness periods will facilitate measures to implement alternative communication pathways involving brain

  2. Influence of Body Odors and Gender on Perceived Genital Arousal.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Alves-Oliveira, Patrícia; Carvalho, Joana; Ferreira, Jacqueline; Alho, Laura; Nobre, Pedro; Olsson, Mats J; Soares, Sandra C

    2018-04-01

    Olfaction is often linked to mating behavior in nonhumans. Additionally, studies in mating behavior have shown that women seem to be more affected by odor cues than men. However, the relationship between odor cues and sexual response-specifically, sexual arousal-has not been studied yet. The aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of the exposure to human body odors (from individuals of the opposite gender) on perceived genital arousal, while these were presented concomitantly to sexually explicit video clips. Eighty university students (40 women) rated their perceived genital arousal (perceived degree of erection/genital lubrication) in response to an audiovisual sexual stimulus, while simultaneously exposed to a body odor from an opposite-gender donor or no odor. Participants also rated each odor sample's (body odor and no odor) perceived pleasantness, intensity, and familiarity. Findings indicated that odor condition had an effect on women's (but not men's) perceived genital arousal, with women showing higher levels of perceived genital arousal in the no odor condition. Also, results showed that women rated body odors as less pleasant than no odor. Notwithstanding, the odor ratings do not seem to explain the association between body odor and perceived genital arousal. The current results support the hypothesis that women, rather than men, are sensitive to odors in the context of sexual response. The findings of this study have relevance for the understanding of human sexuality with respect to chemosensory communication.

  3. Subjective emotional over-arousal to neutral social scenes in paranoid schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Haralanova, Evelina; Haralanov, Svetlozar; Beraldi, Anna; Möller, Hans-Jürgen; Hennig-Fast, Kristina

    2012-02-01

    From the clinical practice and some experimental studies, it is apparent that paranoid schizophrenia patients tend to assign emotional salience to neutral social stimuli. This aberrant cognitive bias has been conceptualized to result from increased emotional arousal, but direct empirical data are scarce. The aim of the present study was to quantify the subjective emotional arousal (SEA) evoked by emotionally non-salient (neutral) compared to emotionally salient (negative) social stimuli in schizophrenia patients and healthy controls. Thirty male inpatients with paranoid schizophrenia psychosis and 30 demographically matched healthy controls rated their level of SEA in response to neutral and negative social scenes from the International Affective Picture System and the Munich Affective Picture System. Schizophrenia patients compared to healthy controls had an increased overall SEA level. This relatively higher SEA was evoked only by the neutral but not by the negative social scenes. To our knowledge, the present study is the first designed to directly demonstrate subjective emotional over-arousal to neutral social scenes in paranoid schizophrenia. This finding might explain previous clinical and experimental data and could be viewed as the missing link between the primary neurobiological and secondary psychological mechanisms of paranoid psychotic-symptom formation. Furthermore, despite being very short and easy to perform, the task we used appeared to be sensitive enough to reveal emotional dysregulation, in terms of emotional disinhibition/hyperactivation in paranoid schizophrenia patients. Thus, it could have further research and clinical applications, including as a neurobehavioral probe for imaging studies.

  4. Yawning, acute stressors, and arousal reduction in Nazca booby adults and nestlings.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liang, Amy C; Grace, Jacquelyn K; Tompkins, Emily M; Anderson, David J

    2015-03-01

    Yawning is a familiar and phylogenetically widespread phenomenon, but no consensus exists regarding its functional significance. We tested the hypothesis that yawning communicates to others a transition from a state of physiological and/or psychological arousal (for example, due to action of a stressor) to a more relaxed state. This arousal reduction hypothesis predicts little yawning during arousal and more yawning (above baseline) during and after down-regulation of arousal. Experimental capture-restraint tests with wild adult Nazca boobies (Sula granti), a seabird, increased yawning frequency after release from restraint, but yawning was almost absent during tests. Natural maltreatment by non-parental adults also increased yawning by nestlings, but only after the maltreatment ended and the adult left. CORT (corticosterone) was a logical a priori element of the stress response affecting the stressor-yawning relationship under the arousal reduction hypothesis, and cannot be excluded as such for adults in capture-restraint tests but is apparently unimportant for nestlings being maltreated by adults. The arousal reduction hypothesis unites formerly disparate results on yawning: its socially contagious nature in some taxa, its clear pharmacological connection to the stress response, and its temporal linkage to transitions in arousal between consciousness and sleep. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  5. Self-Alert Training: Volitional Modulation of Autonomic Arousal Improves Sustained Attention

    Science.gov (United States)

    O'Connell, Redmond G.; Bellgrove, Mark A.; Dockree, Paul M.; Lau, Adam; Fitzgerald, Michael; Robertson, Ian H.

    2008-01-01

    The present study examines a new alertness training strategy (Self-Alert Training, SAT) designed to explore the relationship between the top-down control processes governing arousal and sustained attention. In order to maximally target frontal control systems SAT combines a previously validated behavioural self-alerting technique [Robertson, I.…

  6. The effects of arousal reappraisal on stress responses, performance and attention.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sammy, Nadine; Anstiss, Paul A; Moore, Lee J; Freeman, Paul; Wilson, Mark R; Vine, Samuel J

    2017-11-01

    This study examined the effects of arousal reappraisal on cardiovascular responses, demand and resource evaluations, self-confidence, performance and attention under pressurized conditions. A recent study by Moore et al. [2015. Reappraising threat: How to optimize performance under pressure. Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 37(3), 339-343. doi: 10.1123/jsep.2014-0186 ] suggested that arousal reappraisal is beneficial to the promotion of challenge states and leads to improvements in single-trial performance. This study aimed to further the work of Moore and colleagues (2015) by examining the effects of arousal reappraisal on cardiovascular responses, demand and resource evaluations, self-confidence, performance and attention in a multi-trial pressurized performance situation. Participants were randomly assigned to either an arousal reappraisal intervention or control condition, and completed a pressurized dart throwing task. The intervention encouraged participants to view their physiological arousal as facilitative rather than debilitative to performance. Measures of cardiovascular reactivity, demand and resource evaluations, self-confidence, task performance and attention were recorded. The reappraisal group displayed more favorable cardiovascular reactivity and reported higher resource evaluations and higher self-confidence than the control group but no task performance or attention effects were detected. These findings demonstrate the strength of arousal reappraisal in promoting adaptive stress responses, perceptions of resources and self-confidence.

  7. Synchrony and Physiological Arousal Increase Cohesion and Cooperation in Large Naturalistic Groups.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jackson, Joshua Conrad; Jong, Jonathan; Bilkey, David; Whitehouse, Harvey; Zollmann, Stefanie; McNaughton, Craig; Halberstadt, Jamin

    2018-01-09

    Separate research streams have identified synchrony and arousal as two factors that might contribute to the effects of human rituals on social cohesion and cooperation. But no research has manipulated these variables in the field to investigate their causal - and potentially interactive - effects on prosocial behaviour. Across four experimental sessions involving large samples of strangers, we manipulated the synchronous and physiologically arousing affordances of a group marching task within a sports stadium. We observed participants' subsequent movement, grouping, and cooperation via a camera hidden in the stadium's roof. Synchrony and arousal both showed main effects, predicting larger groups, tighter clustering, and more cooperative behaviour in a free-rider dilemma. Synchrony and arousal also interacted on measures of clustering and cooperation such that synchrony only encouraged closer clustering-and encouraged greater cooperation-when paired with physiological arousal. The research helps us understand why synchrony and arousal often co-occur in rituals around the world. It also represents the first use of real-time spatial tracking as a precise and naturalistic method of simulating collective rituals.

  8. Developmental Reversals in False Memory: Effects of Emotional Valence and Arousal

    OpenAIRE

    Brainerd, C. J.; Holliday, R. E.; Reyna, V. F.; Yang, Y.; Toglia, M. P.

    2010-01-01

    Do the emotional valence and arousal of events distort children’s memories? Do valence and arousal modulate counterintuitive age increases in false memory? We investigated those questions in children, adolescents, and adults using the Cornell/Cortland Emotion Lists, a word list pool that induces false memories and in which valence and arousal can be manipulated factorially. False memories increased with age for unpresented semantic associates of word lists, and net accuracy (the ratio of true...

  9. Sexual Arousal and Sexually Explicit Media (SEM: Comparing Patterns of Sexual Arousal to SEM and Sexual Self-Evaluations and Satisfaction Across Gender and Sexual Orientation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Gert Martin Hald, PhD

    2018-03-01

    Hald GM, Stulhofer A, Lange T, et al. Sexual Arousal and Sexually Explicit Media (SEM: Comparing Patterns of Sexual Arousal to SEM and Sexual Self-Evaluations and Satisfaction Across Gender and Sexual Orientation. Sex Med 2018;6:30–38.

  10. Preattentive processing, poststimulus elaboration, and memory for emotionally arousing stimuli.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Migita, Mai; Otani, Hajime; Libkuman, Terry M; Sheffert, Sonya M

    2011-01-01

    Christianson (1992) proposed two mechanisms to explain emotionally enhanced memory: preattentive processing and poststimulus elaboration. Experiment 1 examined these processes by instructing participants to perform (1) a concurrent distractor task, (2) a continuous distractor task, or (3) both while viewing the negatively arousing, positively arousing, and neutral pictures. Recall of negatively arousing pictures showed a small decline in one of the distractor conditions, indicating that elaboration plays a minor role in remembering these pictures. Experiment 2 partially replicated Experiment 1 with an intentional learning instruction to investigate whether participants in Experiment 1 were anticipating a recall test. For all three picture types, recall declined in the continuous distractor task condition, indicating that elaboration played a role, even when the pictures were negatively arousing. Overall, these results were consistent with the notion that remembering negatively valenced stimuli is largely based on preattentive processing with a minor role played by poststimulus elaboration.

  11. Ultrasonic vocalizations of adult male Foxp2-mutant mice: behavioral contexts of arousal and emotion.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gaub, S; Fisher, S E; Ehret, G

    2016-02-01

    Adult mouse ultrasonic vocalizations (USVs) occur in multiple behavioral and stimulus contexts associated with various levels of arousal, emotion and social interaction. Here, in three experiments of increasing stimulus intensity (water; female urine; male interacting with adult female), we tested the hypothesis that USVs of adult males express the strength of arousal and emotion via different USV parameters (18 parameters analyzed). Furthermore, we analyzed two mouse lines with heterozygous Foxp2 mutations (R552H missense, S321X nonsense), known to produce severe speech and language disorders in humans. These experiments allowed us to test whether intact Foxp2 function is necessary for developing full adult USV repertoires, and whether mutations of this gene influence instinctive vocal expressions based on arousal and emotion. The results suggest that USV calling rate characterizes the arousal level, while sound pressure and spectrotemporal call complexity (overtones/harmonics, type of frequency jumps) may provide indices of levels of positive emotion. The presence of Foxp2 mutations did not qualitatively affect the USVs; all USV types that were found in wild-type animals also occurred in heterozygous mutants. However, mice with Foxp2 mutations displayed quantitative differences in USVs as compared to wild-types, and these changes were context dependent. Compared to wild-type animals, heterozygous mutants emitted mainly longer and louder USVs at higher minimum frequencies with a higher occurrence rate of overtones/harmonics and complex frequency jump types. We discuss possible hypotheses about Foxp2 influence on emotional vocal expressions, which can be investigated in future experiments using selective knockdown of Foxp2 in specific brain circuits. © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd and International Behavioural and Neural Genetics Society.

  12. Influence of emotional valence and arousal on the spread of activation in memory.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jhean-Larose, Sandra; Leveau, Nicolas; Denhière, Guy

    2014-11-01

    Controversy still persists on whether emotional valence and arousal influence cognitive activities. Our study sought to compare how these two factors foster the spread of activation within the semantic network. In a lexical decision task, prime words were varied depending on the valence (pleasant or unpleasant) or on the level of emotional arousal (high or low). Target words were carefully selected to avoid semantic priming effects, as well as to avoid arousing specific emotions (neutral). Three SOA durations (220, 420 and 720 ms) were applied across three independent groups. Results indicate that at 220 ms, the effect of arousal is significantly higher than the effect of valence in facilitating spreading activation while at 420 ms, the effect of valence is significantly higher than the effect of arousal in facilitating spreading activation. These findings suggest that affect is a sequential process involving the successive intervention of arousal and valence.

  13. Reduction of the Misinformation Effect by Arousal Induced after Learning

    Science.gov (United States)

    English, Shaun M.; Nielson, Kristy A.

    2010-01-01

    Misinformation introduced after events have already occurred causes errors in later retrieval. Based on literature showing that arousal induced after learning enhances delayed retrieval, we investigated whether post-learning arousal can reduce the misinformation effect. 251 participants viewed four short film clips, each followed by a retention…

  14. Distinct parietal sites mediate the influences of mood, arousal, and their interaction on human recognition memory.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Greene, Ciara M; Flannery, Oliver; Soto, David

    2014-12-01

    The two dimensions of emotion, mood valence and arousal, have independent effects on recognition memory. At present, however, it is not clear how those effects are reflected in the human brain. Previous research in this area has generally dealt with memory for emotionally valenced or arousing stimuli, but the manner in which interacting mood and arousal states modulate responses in memory substrates remains poorly understood. We investigated memory for emotionally neutral items while independently manipulating mood valence and arousal state by means of music exposure. Four emotional conditions were created: positive mood/high arousal, positive mood/low arousal, negative mood/high arousal, and negative mood/low arousal. We observed distinct effects of mood valence and arousal in parietal substrates of recognition memory. Positive mood increased activity in ventral posterior parietal cortex (PPC) and orbitofrontal cortex, whereas arousal condition modulated activity in dorsal PPC and the posterior cingulate. An interaction between valence and arousal was observed in left ventral PPC, notably in a parietal area distinct from the those identified for the main effects, with a stronger effect of mood on recognition memory responses here under conditions of relative high versus low arousal. We interpreted the PPC activations in terms of the attention-to-memory hypothesis: Increased arousal may lead to increased top-down control of memory, and hence dorsal PPC activation, whereas positive mood valence may result in increased activity in ventral PPC regions associated with bottom-up attention to memory. These findings indicate that distinct parietal sites mediate the influences of mood, arousal, and their interplay during recognition memory.

  15. The effect of exercise-induced arousal on chosen tempi for familiar melodies.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jakubowski, Kelly; Halpern, Andrea R; Grierson, Mick; Stewart, Lauren

    2015-04-01

    Many previous studies have shown that arousal affects time perception, suggesting a direct influence of arousal on the speed of the pacemaker of the internal clock. However, it is unknown whether arousal influences the mental representation of tempo (speed) for highly familiar and complex stimuli, such as well-known melodies, that have long-term representations in memory. Previous research suggests that mental representations of the tempo of familiar melodies are stable over time; the aim of the present study was to investigate whether these representations can be systematically altered via an increase in physiological arousal. Participants adjusted the tempo of 14 familiar melodies in real time until they found a tempo that matched their internal representation of the appropriate tempo for that piece. The task was carried out before and after a physiologically arousing (exercise) or nonarousing (anagrams) manipulation. Participants completed this task both while hearing the melodies aloud and while imagining them. Chosen tempi increased significantly following exercise-induced arousal, regardless of whether a melody was heard aloud or imagined. These findings suggest that a change in internal clock speed affects temporal judgments even for highly familiar and complex stimuli such as music.

  16. Evaluative ratings and attention across the life span: emotional arousal and gender.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ferrari, Vera; Bruno, Nicola; Chattat, Rabih; Codispoti, Maurizio

    2017-04-01

    This study was designed to investigate the evolution of emotional processing over the whole adult life span as a function of stimulus arousal and participants' gender. To this end, self-reported affective evaluation and attentional capture prompted by pleasant and unpleasant pictures varying in arousal were measured in a large sample of participants (n = 211) balanced by gender and equally spread across seven decades from 20 to 90 years. Results showed age differences only for affective evaluation of pleasant stimuli, with opposite patterns depending on stimulus arousal. As age increased, low-arousing pleasant cues (e.g. images of babies) were experienced as more pleasant and arousing by both males and females, whereas high-arousing stimuli (e.g. erotic images) were experienced as less pleasant only by females. In contrast, emotional pictures (both pleasant and unpleasant) were effective at capturing attention in a similar way across participants, regardless of age and gender. Taken together, these findings suggest that specific emotional cues prompt different subjective responses across different age groups, while basic mechanisms involved in attentional engagement towards both pleasant and unpleasant stimuli are preserved in healthy ageing.

  17. Reliability of scoring arousals in normal children and children with obstructive sleep apnea syndrome.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wong, Tat Kong; Galster, Patricia; Lau, Tai Shing; Lutz, Janita M; Marcus, Carole L

    2004-09-15

    Scoring of arousals in children is based on an extension of adult criteria, as defined by the American Sleep Disorders Association (ASDA). By this, a minimum duration of 3 seconds is required. A few recent studies utilized modified criteria for the study of children, with durations as short as 1 second. However, the validity and reliability of scoring these shorter arousals have never been verified. Based on studies in adults, we hypothesized that interscorer agreement for scoring arousals shorter than 3 seconds was poor. Retrospective review of polysomnograms by 2 experienced sleep practitioners who independently scored arousals according to the ASDA 3-second criteria and modified duration criteria of 1 and 2 seconds. Academic hospital. 20 polysomnographic studies from children aged 3 to 8 years with mild to severe obstructive sleep apnea syndrome, and 16 polysomnographic studies from normal children. None. The intraclass correlation coefficient for scoring ASDA arousals was 0.90 (95% confidence interval: 0.81-0.95), indicating excellent interscorer agreement. The intraclass correlation coefficient for scoring modified 1-second and 2-second arousals were 0.35 (95% confidence interval: 0.02-0.61) and 0.42 (95% confidence interval: 0.12-0.65) respectively, indicating poor to fair interscorer agreement. Furthermore, modified 1-second and 2-second arousals accounted for less than 15% of all arousals scored. We conclude that there is much poorer interscorer agreement for scoring arousals shorter than 3 seconds, when compared to the standard ASDA criteria. We propose that scoring of arousals in children should follow the standard ASDA criteria.

  18. The effects of valence and arousal on the neural activity leading to subsequent memory.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mickley Steinmetz, Katherine R; Kensinger, Elizabeth A

    2009-11-01

    This study examined how valence and arousal affect the processes linked to subsequent memory for emotional information. While undergoing an fMRI scan, participants viewed neutral pictures and emotional pictures varying by valence and arousal. After the scan, participants performed a recognition test. Subsequent memory for negative or high arousal information was associated with occipital and temporal activity, whereas memory for positive or low arousal information was associated with frontal activity. Regression analyses confirmed that for negative or high arousal items, temporal lobe activity was the strongest predictor of later memory whereas for positive or low arousal items, frontal activity corresponded most strongly with later memory. These results suggest that the types of encoding processes relating to memory (e.g., sensory vs. elaborative processing) can differ based on the affective qualities of emotional information.

  19. Effects of Relaxing and Arousing Music during Imagery Training on Dart-Throwing Performance, Physiological Arousal Indices, and Competitive State Anxiety.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kuan, Garry; Morris, Tony; Kueh, Yee Cheng; Terry, Peter C

    2018-01-01

    Music that is carefully selected to match the requirements of activities and the characteristics of individuals has been shown to produce significant impacts on performance enhancement (Priest et al., 2004). There is also evidence that music can enhance imagery (Grocke and Wigram, 2007), although few studies have investigated the effects of music on imagery in the context of sport skills. In the present study, the effects of relaxing and arousing music during imagery on dart-throwing performance, physiological arousal indices, and competitive state anxiety, were investigated among 63 novice dart throwers. Participants had moderate-to-high imagery ability and were randomly assigned to unfamiliar relaxing music (URM), unfamiliar arousing music (UAM), or no music (NM) groups. Performance was assessed by 40 dart throws at a concentric circles dartboard before and after 12 imagery sessions over 4 weeks. Measures of galvanic skin response (GSR), peripheral temperature (PT), and heart rate (HR) were taken during imagery sessions 1 and 12, and the Competitive State Anxiety Inventory-2 Revised (CSAI-2R) was administered prior to the pre- and post-intervention performance task. Dart-throwing gain scores were significantly higher for URM than for UAM and NM, with no significant difference between UAM and NM (URM = 37.24 ± 5.66, UAM = 17.57 ± 5.30, and NM = 13.19 ± 6.14, F 2,62 = 5.03, p = 0.01, η 2 = 0.14). GSR, PT, and HR reflected lower arousal for URM than for UAM or NM. Significant decreases in somatic anxiety were evident for URM and UAM but not NM. Significant decreases in cognitive anxiety were evident for URM and NM but not UAM. Significant increases in self-confidence were evident for URM but not UAM or NM. Performance improved in all three conditions but URM was associated with the largest performance gain, the lowest physiological indices of arousal, and the most positive CSAI-2R profiles. Listening to relaxing music during imagery may have benefits for

  20. Effects of Relaxing and Arousing Music during Imagery Training on Dart-Throwing Performance, Physiological Arousal Indices, and Competitive State Anxiety

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Garry Kuan

    2018-02-01

    Full Text Available Music that is carefully selected to match the requirements of activities and the characteristics of individuals has been shown to produce significant impacts on performance enhancement (Priest et al., 2004. There is also evidence that music can enhance imagery (Grocke and Wigram, 2007, although few studies have investigated the effects of music on imagery in the context of sport skills. In the present study, the effects of relaxing and arousing music during imagery on dart-throwing performance, physiological arousal indices, and competitive state anxiety, were investigated among 63 novice dart throwers. Participants had moderate-to-high imagery ability and were randomly assigned to unfamiliar relaxing music (URM, unfamiliar arousing music (UAM, or no music (NM groups. Performance was assessed by 40 dart throws at a concentric circles dartboard before and after 12 imagery sessions over 4 weeks. Measures of galvanic skin response (GSR, peripheral temperature (PT, and heart rate (HR were taken during imagery sessions 1 and 12, and the Competitive State Anxiety Inventory-2 Revised (CSAI-2R was administered prior to the pre- and post-intervention performance task. Dart-throwing gain scores were significantly higher for URM than for UAM and NM, with no significant difference between UAM and NM (URM = 37.24 ± 5.66, UAM = 17.57 ± 5.30, and NM = 13.19 ± 6.14, F2,62 = 5.03, p = 0.01, η2 = 0.14. GSR, PT, and HR reflected lower arousal for URM than for UAM or NM. Significant decreases in somatic anxiety were evident for URM and UAM but not NM. Significant decreases in cognitive anxiety were evident for URM and NM but not UAM. Significant increases in self-confidence were evident for URM but not UAM or NM. Performance improved in all three conditions but URM was associated with the largest performance gain, the lowest physiological indices of arousal, and the most positive CSAI-2R profiles. Listening to relaxing music during imagery may have benefits for

  1. The effects of valence and arousal on the neural activity leading to subsequent memory

    OpenAIRE

    Mickley Steinmetz, Katherine R.; Kensinger, Elizabeth A.

    2009-01-01

    This study examined how valence and arousal affect the processes linked to subsequent memory for emotional information. While undergoing an fMRI scan, participants viewed neutral pictures and emotional pictures varying by valence and arousal. After the scan, participants performed a recognition test. Subsequent memory for negative or high arousal information was associated with occipital and temporal activity, while memory for positive or low arousal information was associated with frontal ac...

  2. Arousal Rather than Basic Emotions Influence Long-Term Recognition Memory in Humans.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Marchewka, Artur; Wypych, Marek; Moslehi, Abnoos; Riegel, Monika; Michałowski, Jarosław M; Jednoróg, Katarzyna

    2016-01-01

    Emotion can influence various cognitive processes, however its impact on memory has been traditionally studied over relatively short retention periods and in line with dimensional models of affect. The present study aimed to investigate emotional effects on long-term recognition memory according to a combined framework of affective dimensions and basic emotions. Images selected from the Nencki Affective Picture System were rated on the scale of affective dimensions and basic emotions. After 6 months, subjects took part in a surprise recognition test during an fMRI session. The more negative the pictures the better they were remembered, but also the more false recognitions they provoked. Similar effects were found for the arousal dimension. Recognition success was greater for pictures with lower intensity of happiness and with higher intensity of surprise, sadness, fear, and disgust. Consecutive fMRI analyses showed a significant activation for remembered (recognized) vs. forgotten (not recognized) images in anterior cingulate and bilateral anterior insula as well as in bilateral caudate nuclei and right thalamus. Further, arousal was found to be the only subjective rating significantly modulating brain activation. Higher subjective arousal evoked higher activation associated with memory recognition in the right caudate and the left cingulate gyrus. Notably, no significant modulation was observed for other subjective ratings, including basic emotion intensities. These results emphasize the crucial role of arousal for long-term recognition memory and support the hypothesis that the memorized material, over time, becomes stored in a distributed cortical network including the core salience network and basal ganglia.

  3. Arousal rather than basic emotions influence long-term recognition memory in humans.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Artur Marchewka

    2016-10-01

    Full Text Available Emotion can influence various cognitive processes, however its impact on memory has been traditionally studied over relatively short retention periods and in line with dimensional models of affect. The present study aimed to investigate emotional effects on long-term recognition memory according to a combined framework of affective dimensions and basic emotions. Images selected from the Nencki Affective Picture System were rated on the scale of affective dimensions and basic emotions. After six months, subjects took part in a surprise recognition test during an fMRI session. The more negative the pictures the better they were remembered, but also the more false recognitions they provoked. Similar effects were found for the arousal dimension. Recognition success was greater for pictures with lower intensity of happiness and with higher intensity of surprise, sadness, fear, and disgust. Consecutive fMRI analyses showed a significant activation for remembered (recognized vs. forgotten (not recognized images in anterior cingulate and bilateral anterior insula as well as in bilateral caudate nuclei and right thalamus. Further, arousal was found to be the only subjective rating significantly modulating brain activation. Higher subjective arousal evoked higher activation associated with memory recognition in the right caudate and the left cingulate gyrus. Notably, no significant modulation was observed for other subjective ratings, including basic emotion intensities. These results emphasize the crucial role of arousal for long-term recognition memory and support the hypothesis that the memorized material, over time, becomes stored in a distributed cortical network including the core salience network and basal ganglia.

  4. Lost in Time and Space: States of High Arousal Disrupt Implicit Acquisition of Spatial and Sequential Context Information

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Maran, Thomas; Sachse, Pierre; Martini, Markus

    2017-01-01

    Biased cognition during high arousal states is a relevant phenomenon in a variety of topics: from the development of post-traumatic stress disorders or stress-triggered addictive behaviors to forensic considerations regarding crimes of passion. Recent evidence indicates that arousal modulates...... the engagement of a hippocampus-based “cognitive” system in favor of a striatum-based “habit” system in learning and memory, promoting a switch from flexible, contextualized to more rigid, reflexive responses. Existing findings appear inconsistent, therefore it is unclear whether and which type of context...

  5. Non-monotonic relationships between emotional arousal and memory for color and location.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Boywitt, C Dennis

    2015-01-01

    Recent research points to the decreased diagnostic value of subjective retrieval experience for memory accuracy for emotional stimuli. While for neutral stimuli rich recollective experiences are associated with better context memory than merely familiar memories this association appears questionable for emotional stimuli. The present research tested the implicit assumption that the effect of emotional arousal on memory is monotonic, that is, steadily increasing (or decreasing) with increasing arousal. In two experiments emotional arousal was manipulated in three steps using emotional pictures and subjective retrieval experience as well as context memory were assessed. The results show an inverted U-shape relationship between arousal and recognition memory but for context memory and retrieval experience the relationship was more complex. For frame colour, context memory decreased linearly while for spatial location it followed the inverted U-shape function. The complex, non-monotonic relationships between arousal and memory are discussed as possible explanations for earlier divergent findings.

  6. Time-limited effects of emotional arousal on item and source memory.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, Bo; Sun, Bukuan

    2015-01-01

    Two experiments investigated the time-limited effects of emotional arousal on consolidation of item and source memory. In Experiment 1, participants memorized words (items) and the corresponding speakers (sources) and then took an immediate free recall test. Then they watched a neutral, positive, or negative video 5, 35, or 50 min after learning, and 24 hours later they took surprise memory tests. Experiment 2 was similar to Experiment 1 except that (a) a reality monitoring task was used; (b) elicitation delays of 5, 30, and 45 min were used; and (c) delayed memory tests were given 60 min after learning. Both experiments showed that, regardless of elicitation delay, emotional arousal did not enhance item recall memory. Second, both experiments showed that negative arousal enhanced delayed item recognition memory only at the medium elicitation delay, but not in the shorter or longer delays. Positive arousal enhanced performance only in Experiment 1. Third, regardless of elicitation delay, emotional arousal had little effect on source memory. These findings have implications for theories of emotion and memory, suggesting that emotion effects are contingent upon the nature of the memory task and elicitation delay.

  7. Understanding Women's Subjective Sexual Arousal Within the Laboratory: Definition, Measurement, and Manipulation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Handy, Ariel B; Stanton, Amelia M; Meston, Cindy M

    2018-04-01

    Subjective sexual arousal (SSA) is positive, cognitive engagement in sexual activity. SSA is considered an important aspect of the sexual experience, as it has been found to facilitate sexual activity and, in situations of chronically low or absent arousal, potentially cause distress. Despite the clinical implications of SSA, a thorough review of how to manipulate SSA has yet to be conducted. To review the state of knowledge about SSA in women, including its definition, measurement, and the outcomes of studies attempting to manipulate SSA within a laboratory setting. A comprehensive search of the electronic databases of PubMed and PsycINFO was conducted. The generated list of articles was reviewed and duplicates were removed. Individual articles were assessed for inclusion and, when appropriate, relevant content was extracted. The potential effects of various manipulations of SSA in a laboratory setting was the main outcome. 44 studies were included in this review. Manipulations were grouped into 3 primary categories: pharmacological (n = 16), cognitive (n = 22), and those based on changes to the autonomic nervous system (n = 6). Results suggest that cognitive manipulation is the most effective method of increasing SSA. Altering the relative balance of the 2 branches of the autonomic nervous system (the sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic nervous system) also appears to be a promising avenue for increasing SSA. This review supports the use of cognitive manipulation for increasing women's SSA in a laboratory setting. Avenues for future research and recommendations for clinicians are discussed. Handy AB, Stanton AM, Meston CM. Understanding Women's Subjective Sexual Arousal Within the Laboratory: Definition, Measurement, and Manipulation. Sex Med Rev 2018;6:201-216. Copyright © 2017 International Society for Sexual Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  8. Pre-Sleep Arousal and Sleep Problems of Anxiety-Disordered Youth

    Science.gov (United States)

    Alfano, Candice A.; Pina, Armando A.; Zerr, Argero A.; Villalta, Ian K.

    2010-01-01

    The current study examined sleep problems and pre-sleep arousal among 52 anxious children and adolescents, aged 7-14 years, in relation to age, sex, ethnicity, and primary anxiety disorder. Assessment included structured diagnostic interviews and parent and child completed measures of sleep problems and pre-sleep arousal. Overall, 85% of parents…

  9. A Case of Frequent Arousal Following Nocturnal Dyspnea Caused by Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Dae Wui Yoon

    2013-06-01

    Full Text Available Gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD is a common disorder that is associated with many esophageal syndromes and complications. Most cases of reflux event occur during the day, but reflux during sleep can cause not only esophageal problems, but also sleep problems, such as arousal and poor sleep quality. We report the case of a 17-year-old man who had been referred to us with frequent arousal following sudden dyspnea. On polysomnography, no respiratory disturbances and periodic limb movements were found during the sleep study, but frequent events of arousal were reported (arousal index: 12.3/h. On a 24-hr esophageal pH monitoring test, his DeMeester score was 176.43 and the total reflux time was 1120.9 min (76.9%, indicating the presence of significant acid reflux. After treatment with a proton-pump inhibitor, the arousals following nocturnal dyspnea and fatigue in the morning disappeared in the patient. GERD should be considered as a cause of spontaneous arousal or awakening not accompanying respiratory disturbances.

  10. WARMING UP FOR SLEEP - GROUND-SQUIRRELS SLEEP DURING AROUSALS FROM HIBERNATION

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    DAAN, S; BARNES, BM; STRIJKSTRA, AM

    1991-01-01

    Hypothermia during mammalian hibernation is periodically interrupted by arousals to euthermy, the function of which is unknown. We report that arctic ground squirrels (Spermophilus parryii) consistently sleep during these arousals, and that their EEG shows the decrease in slow wave activity

  11. Genital responsiveness in healthy women with and without sexual arousal disorder

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Laan, Ellen; van Driel, Esther M.; van Lunsen, Rik H. W.

    2008-01-01

    INTRODUCTION: Most pharmacological treatments that are currently being developed for women with sexual arousal disorder are aimed at remedying a vasculogenic deficit. AIM: This study investigated whether pre- and postmenopausal women with sexual arousal disorder are less genitally responsive to

  12. Differences in Perceived and Physiologic Genital Arousal Between Women With and Without Sexual Dysfunction.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Handy, Ariel B; Stanton, Amelia M; Pulverman, Carey S; Meston, Cindy M

    2018-01-01

    Many sexual psychophysiologic studies have failed to find differences in physiologic genital arousal between women with and those without sexual dysfunction. However, differences in self-reported (ie, perceived) measures of genital responses between these 2 groups of women have been noted. To determine whether women with and without sexual dysfunction differ on measures of physiologic and perceived genital arousal based on type of analytic technique used, to explore differences in perceived genital arousal, and to assess the relation between physiologic and perceived genital arousal. Data from 5 studies (N = 214) were used in this analysis. Women were categorized into 3 groups: women with arousal-specific sexual dysfunction (n = 40), women with decreased sexual function (n = 72), and women who were sexually functional (n = 102). Women viewed an erotic film while their physiologic genital arousal was measured using a vaginal photoplethysmograph. After watching the film, women completed a self-report measure of perceived genital arousal. There were differences in vaginal pulse amplitude (VPA) levels and association of VPA with perceived genital sensations based on level of sexual function. Commonly used methods of analysis failed to identify significant differences in VPA among these groups of women. When VPA data were analyzed with hierarchical linear modeling, significant differences emerged. Notably, women with arousal-specific dysfunction exhibited lower VPA than sexually functional women at the beginning of the assessment. As the erotic film progressed, women with arousal-specific dysfunction became aroused at a faster rate than sexually functional women, and these 2 groups ultimately reached a similar level of VPA. Sexually functional women reported the highest levels of perceived genital responses among the 3 groups of women. No significant relation between VPA and perceived genital arousal emerged. Women's perception of their genital responses could play

  13. The effect of exercise-induced arousal on chosen tempi for familiar melodies

    OpenAIRE

    Jakubowski, Kelly; Halpern, Andrea; Grierson, Mick; Stewart, Lauren

    2014-01-01

    Many previous studies have shown that arousal affects time perception, suggesting a direct influence of arousal on the speed of the pacemaker of the internal clock. However, it is unknown whether arousal influences the mental representation of tempo (speed) for highly familiar and complex stimuli, such as well-known melodies, that have long-term representations in memory. Previous research suggests that mental representations of the tempo of familiar melodies are stable over time; the aim of ...

  14. Arousal, anxiety, and performance: a reexamination of the Inverted-U hypothesis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Arent, Shawn M; Landers, Daniel M

    2003-12-01

    Until recently, the traditional Inverted-U hypothesis had been the primary model used by sport psychologists to describe the arousal-performance relationship. However, many sport psychology researchers have challenged this relationship, and the current trend is a shift toward a more "multidimensional" view of arousal-anxiety and its effects on performance. In the current study, 104 college-age participants performed a simple response time task while riding a bicycle ergometer. Participants were randomly assigned to one of eight arousal groups (between 20 and 90% of heart rate reserve) and were told they were competing for a cash prize. Prior to the task, the Competitive State Anxiety Inventory-2 and Sport Anxiety Scale (SAS) were administered to assess the influence of cognitive and somatic anxiety. As hypothesized, regression analysis revealed a significant quadratic trend for arousal and reaction time. This accounted for 13.2% of the variance, F change (1, 101) = 15.10, p performance beyond that accounted for by the nonsignificant linear trend. As predicted by the Inverted-U hypothesis, optimal performance on the simple task was seen at 60 and 70% of maximum arousal. Furthermore, for the simple task used in this study, only somatic anxiety as measured by the SAS accounted for significant variance in performance beyond that accounted for by arousal alone. These findings support predictions of the Inverted-U hypothesis and raise doubts about the utility theories that rely on differentiation of cognitive and somatic anxiety to predict performance on simple tasks that are not cognitively loaded.

  15. Affective picture modulation: valence, arousal, attention allocation and motivational significance.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Leite, Jorge; Carvalho, Sandra; Galdo-Alvarez, Santiago; Alves, Jorge; Sampaio, Adriana; Gonçalves, Oscar F

    2012-03-01

    The present study analyses the modulatory effects of affective pictures in the early posterior negativity (EPN), the late positive potential (LPP) and the human startle response on both the peripheral (eye blink EMG) and central neurophysiological levels (Probe P3), during passive affective pictures viewing. The affective pictures categories were balanced in terms of valence (pleasant; unpleasant) and arousal (high; low). The data shows that EPN may be sensitive to specific stimulus characteristics (affective relevant pictures versus neutral pictures) associated with early stages of attentional processing. In later stages, the heightened attentional resource allocation as well as the motivated significance of the affective stimuli was found to elicit enhanced amplitudes of slow wave processes thought to be related to enhanced encoding, namely LPP,. Although pleasant low arousing pictures were effective in engaging the resources involved in the slow wave processes, the highly arousing affective stimuli (pleasant and unpleasant) were found to produce the largest enhancement of the LPP, suggesting that high arousing stimuli may are associated with increased motivational significance. Additionally the response to high arousing stimuli may be suggestive of increased motivational attention, given the heightened attentional allocation, as expressed in the P3 probe, especially for the pleasant pictures. The hedonic valence may then serve as a mediator of the attentional inhibition to the affective priming, potentiating or inhibiting a shift towards defensive activation, as measured by the startle reflex. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  16. Approach and Withdrawal Tendencies during Written Word Processing: Effects of Task, Emotional Valence, and Emotional Arousal.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Citron, Francesca M M; Abugaber, David; Herbert, Cornelia

    2015-01-01

    The affective dimensions of emotional valence and emotional arousal affect processing of verbal and pictorial stimuli. Traditional emotional theories assume a linear relationship between these dimensions, with valence determining the direction of a behavior (approach vs. withdrawal) and arousal its intensity or strength. In contrast, according to the valence-arousal conflict theory, both dimensions are interactively related: positive valence and low arousal (PL) are associated with an implicit tendency to approach a stimulus, whereas negative valence and high arousal (NH) are associated with withdrawal. Hence, positive, high-arousal (PH) and negative, low-arousal (NL) stimuli elicit conflicting action tendencies. By extending previous research that used several tasks and methods, the present study investigated whether and how emotional valence and arousal affect subjective approach vs. withdrawal tendencies toward emotional words during two novel tasks. In Study 1, participants had to decide whether they would approach or withdraw from concepts expressed by written words. In Studies 2 and 3 participants had to respond to each word by pressing one of two keys labeled with an arrow pointing upward or downward. Across experiments, positive and negative words, high or low in arousal, were presented. In Study 1 (explicit task), in line with the valence-arousal conflict theory, PH and NL words were responded to more slowly than PL and NH words. In addition, participants decided to approach positive words more often than negative words. In Studies 2 and 3, participants responded faster to positive than negative words, irrespective of their level of arousal. Furthermore, positive words were significantly more often associated with "up" responses than negative words, thus supporting the existence of implicit associations between stimulus valence and response coding (positive is up and negative is down). Hence, in contexts in which participants' spontaneous responses are

  17. Segregation of information about emotional arousal and valence in horse whinnies.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Briefer, Elodie F; Maigrot, Anne-Laure; Mandel, Roi; Freymond, Sabrina Briefer; Bachmann, Iris; Hillmann, Edna

    2015-04-21

    Studying vocal correlates of emotions is important to provide a better understanding of the evolution of emotion expression through cross-species comparisons. Emotions are composed of two main dimensions: emotional arousal (calm versus excited) and valence (negative versus positive). These two dimensions could be encoded in different vocal parameters (segregation of information) or in the same parameters, inducing a trade-off between cues indicating emotional arousal and valence. We investigated these two hypotheses in horses. We placed horses in five situations eliciting several arousal levels and positive as well as negative valence. Physiological and behavioral measures collected during the tests suggested the presence of different underlying emotions. First, using detailed vocal analyses, we discovered that all whinnies contained two fundamental frequencies ("F0" and "G0"), which were not harmonically related, suggesting biphonation. Second, we found that F0 and the energy spectrum encoded arousal, while G0 and whinny duration encoded valence. Our results show that cues to emotional arousal and valence are segregated in different, relatively independent parameters of horse whinnies. Most of the emotion-related changes to vocalizations that we observed are similar to those observed in humans and other species, suggesting that vocal expression of emotions has been conserved throughout evolution.

  18. Uncovering category specificity of genital sexual arousal in women: The critical role of analytic technique.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pulverman, Carey S; Hixon, J Gregory; Meston, Cindy M

    2015-10-01

    Based on analytic techniques that collapse data into a single average value, it has been reported that women lack category specificity and show genital sexual arousal to a large range of sexual stimuli including those that both match and do not match their self-reported sexual interests. These findings may be a methodological artifact of the way in which data are analyzed. This study examined whether using an analytic technique that models data over time would yield different results. Across two studies, heterosexual (N = 19) and lesbian (N = 14) women viewed erotic films featuring heterosexual, lesbian, and gay male couples, respectively, as their physiological sexual arousal was assessed with vaginal photoplethysmography. Data analysis with traditional methods comparing average genital arousal between films failed to detect specificity of genital arousal for either group. When data were analyzed with smoothing regression splines and a within-subjects approach, both heterosexual and lesbian women demonstrated different patterns of genital sexual arousal to the different types of erotic films, suggesting that sophisticated statistical techniques may be necessary to more fully understand women's genital sexual arousal response. Heterosexual women showed category-specific genital sexual arousal. Lesbian women showed higher arousal to the heterosexual film than the other films. However, within subjects, lesbian women showed significantly different arousal responses suggesting that lesbian women's genital arousal discriminates between different categories of stimuli at the individual level. Implications for the future use of vaginal photoplethysmography as a diagnostic tool of sexual preferences in clinical and forensic settings are discussed. © 2015 Society for Psychophysiological Research.

  19. Valence interacts with the early ERP old/new effect and arousal with the sustained ERP old/new effect for affective pictures.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Van Strien, Jan W; Langeslag, Sandra J E; Strekalova, Nadja J; Gootjes, Liselotte; Franken, Ingmar H A

    2009-01-28

    To examine whether valence and arousal influence recognition memory during early automatic or during more sustained processes, event-related brain potentials (ERPs) of 21 women were recorded while they made old/new judgments in a continuous recognition task with pictures from the International Affective Picture System. The pictures were presented twice and differed in emotional valence and arousal. The P1 peak and four time windows were investigated: 200-300 ms, 300-400 ms, 400-600 ms, and 750-1000 ms after stimulus onset. There was a robust old/new effect starting in the 200-300 ms epoch and lasting all time windows. The valence effect was mainly present in the P1 peak and the 200-400 ms epoch, whereas the arousal effect was found in the 300-1000 ms epoch. Exploratory sLORETA analyses dissociated valence-dependent ventromedial prefrontal activity and arousal-dependent occipital activity in the 350-380 ms time window. Valence interacted with the 200-400 ms old/new effect at central and frontal sites. Arousal interacted with the 750-1000 ms old/new effect at posterior sites. It is concluded that valence influences fast recognition memory, while arousal may influence sustained encoding.

  20. Arousal responses in babies at risk of sudden infant death syndrome at different postnatal ages.

    LENUS (Irish Health Repository)

    Dunne, K P

    1992-03-01

    Hypercarbic and hypoxic arousal responses during sleep were measured in healthy term infants, infants where a previous sibling died from sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) and infants suffering a clearly defined apparent life threatening event (ALTE) requiring vigorous or mouth to mouth resuscitation. Groups of infants were tested at approximately one, six and 13 weeks postnatally. Arousal was defined as gross body movement with eyes opening and moving or crying. Hypercarbic arousal was by step increases in F1 Co2 until arousal occurred or until endtidal (PETCO2) reached 8.7 KpA (65 mm Hg) Hypoxic arousal was by step decreases in FIO2 until arousal occurred or until an FIO2 of 0.15 had been maintained for 20 minutes. There was no difference in hypercaribic arousal threshold with age in any group. Hypercarbic arousal threshold was significantly higher in siblings (mean 53.4, 53.6, 54.7 mmHg. [7.12, 7.14, 7.29 KPA] at 0, 6, 13 postnatal weeks) compared to controls (mean 50.9, 52.3, 53.0mm Hg. [6.78, 6.97, 7.29 KPS respectively). ALTE infants differed only at 12 weeks having a significantly lower threshold (51.0mmHg. [6.80 KPA] V 53.0mm Hg. (7.06 KPA]) compared to controls. There was no difference in hypoxic arousal response with age in any group. An arousal response to hypoxia occurred in only 22% of ALTE infants and 40% of siblings compared to 67% of normal infants. Deficient sleep arousal, especially to hypoxia, is common in infants and especially those considered at increased risk from SIDS. This deficiency is present in the first postnatal week and did not vary overy the first three months of postnatal life.

  1. The Influence of Presession Factors in the Assessment of Deviant Arousal

    Science.gov (United States)

    Reyes, Jorge R.; Vollmer, Timothy R.; Hall, Astrid

    2011-01-01

    Three adult male sex offenders with developmental disabilities participated in an evaluation of presession factors that may influence levels of sexual arousal measured with a penile plethysmograph. We evaluated the effects of presession masturbation (1 participant) and arousal-suppression strategies (2 participants). Results showed that presession…

  2. Preliminary support for a generalized arousal model of political conservatism.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tritt, Shona M; Inzlicht, Michael; Peterson, Jordan B

    2013-01-01

    It is widely held that negative emotions such as threat, anxiety, and disgust represent the core psychological factors that enhance conservative political beliefs. We put forward an alternative hypothesis: that conservatism is fundamentally motivated by arousal, and that, in this context, the effect of negative emotion is due to engaging intensely arousing states. Here we show that study participants agreed more with right but not left-wing political speeches after being exposed to positive as well as negative emotion-inducing film-clips. No such effect emerged for neutral-content videos. A follow-up study replicated and extended this effect. These results are consistent with the idea that emotional arousal, in general, and not negative valence, specifically, may underlie political conservatism.

  3. Preliminary Support for a Generalized Arousal Model of Political Conservatism

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tritt, Shona M.; Inzlicht, Michael; Peterson, Jordan B.

    2013-01-01

    It is widely held that negative emotions such as threat, anxiety, and disgust represent the core psychological factors that enhance conservative political beliefs. We put forward an alternative hypothesis: that conservatism is fundamentally motivated by arousal, and that, in this context, the effect of negative emotion is due to engaging intensely arousing states. Here we show that study participants agreed more with right but not left-wing political speeches after being exposed to positive as well as negative emotion-inducing film-clips. No such effect emerged for neutral-content videos. A follow-up study replicated and extended this effect. These results are consistent with the idea that emotional arousal, in general, and not negative valence, specifically, may underlie political conservatism. PMID:24376687

  4. Improved Arousal and Motor Function Using Zolpidem in a Patient With Space-Occupying Intracranial Lesions: A Case Report.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bomalaski, Martin Nicholas; Smith, Sean Robinson

    2017-08-01

    Patients with disorders of consciousness (DOC) have profound functional limitations with few treatment options for improving arousal and quality of life. Zolpidem is a nonbenzodiazepine hypnotic used to treat insomnia that has also been observed to paradoxically improve arousal in those with DOC, such as the vegetative or minimally conscious states. Little information exists on its use in patients with DOC who have intracranial space-occupying lesions. We present a case of a 24-year-old man in a minimally conscious state due to central nervous system lymphoma who was observed to have increased arousal and improved motor function after the administration of zolpidem. V. Copyright © 2017 American Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  5. A computerized algorithm for arousal detection in healthy adults and patients with Parkinson disease

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Sørensen, Gertrud Laura; Jennum, Poul; Kempfner, Jacob

    2012-01-01

    arousals from non-rapid eye movement (REM) and REM sleep, independent of the subject's age and disease. The proposed algorithm uses features from EEG, EMG, and the manual sleep stage scoring as input to a feed-forward artificial neural network (ANN). The performance of the algorithm has been assessed using......Arousals occur from all sleep stages and can be identified as abrupt electroencephalogram (EEG) and electromyogram (EMG) changes. Manual scoring of arousals is time consuming with low interscore agreement. The aim of this study was to design an arousal detection algorithm capable of detecting...

  6. The Effects of Caffeine on Arousal, Response Time, Accuracy, and Performance in Division I Collegiate Fencers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Doyle, Taylor P; Lutz, Rafer S; Pellegrino, Joseph K; Sanders, David J; Arent, Shawn M

    2016-11-01

    Doyle, TP, Lutz, RS, Pellegrino, JK, Sanders, DJ, and Arent, SM. The effects of caffeine on arousal, response time, accuracy, and performance in Division I collegiate fencers. J Strength Cond Res 30(11): 3228-3235, 2016-Caffeine has displayed ergogenic effects on aerobic performance. However, sports requiring precision and quick reaction may also be impacted by central nervous system arousal because of caffeine consumption. The purpose of this study was to assess the effects of caffeine on arousal, response time (RT), and accuracy during a simulated fencing practice. Using a randomized, within-subjects, placebo-controlled, double-blind design, Division I male and female college fencers (N = 13; 69.1 ± 3.5 kg) were administered caffeine doses of 0, 1.5, 3.0, 4.5, 6.0, or 7.5 mg·kg during separate testing days. Performance was assessed via RT and accuracy to a 4-choice reaction task. A total of 25 trials were performed each day using a random 2- to 8-s delay between trials. Arousal was assessed using the activation-deactivation adjective check list. Results of repeated-measures multivariate analysis of variance revealed a significant dose effect (p = 0.02) on performance. Follow-up analyses indicated this was due to a significant effect for RT (p = 0.03), with the dose-response curve exhibiting a quadratic relationship. Response time was significantly faster (p performance (p performance beginning to deteriorate at 7.5 mg·kg. Energetic arousal, tiredness, tension, and calmness all significantly changed as a function of caffeine dose (p ≤ 0.05). Based on these results, caffeine improves RT and overall performance in fencers, particularly as doses increase up to 4.5-6.0 mg·kg. Above this level, performance begins to deteriorate, consistent with an "inverted-U" model of arousal and performance.

  7. Influence of uvulopalatopharyngoplasty on alpha-EEG arousals in nonapnoeic snorers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Boudewyns, A; De Cock, W; Willemen, M; Wagemans, M; De Backer, W; Van de Heyning, P H

    1997-01-01

    Arousals are more numerous in heavy snorers than in nonsnorers and might be a cause of excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS) in these patients. The present study investigated whether treatment of snoring by uvulopalatopharyngoplasty (UPPP) had an influence on sleep microstructure in nonapnoeic snorers. The polysomnographic records of 10 nonapnoeic snorers were reviewed retrospectively and arousals scored according to the American Sleep Disorders Association (ASDA) 3 s definition. Scores for snoring, EDS and polysomnographic data were compared before and after UPPP (mean (+/-SD) time interval 249 +/- 183 days). UPPP resulted in a subjective improvement of snoring and a significant decrease in the arousal index (mean 14.6, 95% confidence interval (95% CI) 8.5-20.8 vs mean 9.1, 95% CI 6.6-11.5) (p = 0.01). EDS and the amount of slow-wave sleep remained unchanged. Uvulopalatopharyngoplasty resulted in an improvement of subjective snoring and a significant decrease of arousals in nonapnoeic snorers. Although these data do not provide any insight into whether the improvement observed can be maintained on a long-term basis, uvulopalatopharyngoplasty can be considered as a useful treatment modality to reduce sleep fragmentation and snoring in nonapnoeic snorers.

  8. Trait- and pre-sleep-state-dependent arousal in insomnia disorders: what role may sleep reactivity and sleep-related metacognitions play? A pilot study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Palagini, Laura; Mauri, Mauro; Dell'Osso, Liliana; Riemann, Dieter; Drake, Christopher L

    2016-09-01

    Research into the cause of chronic insomnia has identified hyperarousal as a key factor, which is likely to have both trait and state components. Sleep-related cognition, metacognition, and sleep reactivity also play an important role in insomnia. Our aim was to investigate how these insomnia-related constructs are associated with trait predisposition and pre-sleep arousal in subjects with an insomnia disorder. Fifty-three individuals with insomnia disorder (according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) (F = 33; 52 + 10)) and 30 healthy controls (F = 18; 51.8 + 12 years) were evaluated with a set of questionnaires, including the Ford Insomnia Response to Stress Test (FIRST), Metacognition Questionnaire - Insomnia (MCQI), Arousal Predisposition Scale (APS), and Pre-sleep Arousal Scale (PSAS). Statistical analyses included multiple regression to elucidate the independent determinants of APS and PSAS. Participants with insomnia presented higher FIRST, MCQI, APS, PSAS scores (p-values insomnia, APS and cognitive PSAS were best determined by MCQI (respectively, B = 0.09, p = 0.001, B = 0.08, p = 0.02), somatic PSAS by cognitive arousal (PSAS B = 0.35, p = 0.004) CONCLUSIONS: This study suggests that in insomnia disorders, trait predisposition toward hyperarousal and pre-sleep-cognitive-state-dependent arousal may be closely related to sleep-related metacognitive processes. Sleep-related metacognitive processes may be associated with trait hyperarousal within the framework of a mutual relationship, and could, in turn, modulate cognitive pre-sleep-state arousal. A broad range of cognitive and metacognitive processes should be considered when dealing with subjects with insomnia. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  9. Threat but not arousal narrows attention: Evidence from pupil dilation and saccade control

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Henk eVan Steenbergen

    2011-10-01

    Full Text Available It has been shown that negative affect causes attentional narrowing. According to Easterbrook’s (1959 influential hypothesis this effect is driven by the withdrawal motivation inherent to negative emotions and might be related to increases in arousal. We investigated whether valence-unspecific increases in physiological arousal, as measured by pupil dilation, could account for attentional narrowing effects in a cognitive control task. Following the presentation of a negative, positive, or neutral picture, participants performed a saccade task with a prosaccade versus an antisaccade instruction. The reaction time difference between pro- and antisaccades was used to index attentional selectivity, and while pupil diameter was used as an index of physiological arousal. Pupil dilation was observed for both negative and positive pictures, which indicates increased physiological arousal. However, increased attentional selectivity was only observed following negative pictures. Our data show that motivational intensity effects on attentional narrowing can occur independently of physiological arousal effects.

  10. Approach and withdrawal tendencies during written word processing: effects of task, emotional valence and emotional arousal

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Francesca M. M. Citron

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available The affective dimensions of emotional valence and emotional arousal affect processing of verbal and pictorial stimuli. Traditional emotional theories assume a linear relationship between these dimensions, with valence determining the direction of a behaviour (approach vs. withdrawal and arousal its intensity or strength. In contrast, according to the valence-arousal conflict theory, both dimensions are interactively related: positive valence and low arousal (PL are associated with an implicit tendency to approach a stimulus, whereas negative valence and high arousal (NH are associated with withdrawal. Hence, positive, high-arousal (PH and negative, low-arousal (NL stimuli elicit conflicting action tendencies. By extending previous research that used several tasks and methods, the present study investigated whether and how emotional valence and arousal affect subjective approach vs. withdrawal tendencies towards emotional words during two novel tasks. In Study 1, participants had to decide whether they would approach or withdraw from concepts expressed by written words. In Studies 2 and 3 participants had to respond to each word by pressing one of two keys labelled with an arrow pointing upward or downward. Across experiments, positive and negative words, high or low in arousal, were presented. In Study 1 (explicit task, in line with the valence-arousal conflict theory, PH and NL words were responded to more slowly than PL and NH words. In addition, participants decided to approach positive words more often than negative words. In Studies 2 and 3, participants responded faster to positive than negative words, irrespective of their level of arousal. Furthermore, positive words were significantly more often associated with up responses than negative words, thus supporting the existence of implicit associations between stimulus valence and response coding (positive is up and negative is down. Hence, in contexts in which participants’ spontaneous

  11. An Online Cross-Sectional Comparison of Women With Symptoms of Persistent Genital Arousal, Painful Persistent Genital Arousal, and Chronic Vulvar Pain.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jackowich, Robyn A; Pink, Leah; Gordon, Allan; Poirier, Évéline; Pukall, Caroline F

    2018-04-01

    Persistent genital arousal disorder (PGAD) is an understudied condition characterized by unwanted physiologic genital arousal in the absence of subjective sexual arousal. Markos and Dinsmore (Int J STD AIDS 2013;24:852-858) theorized that PGAD shares a number of similarities with vulvodynia (unexplained chronic vulvar pain [CVP]), including symptom characteristics and comorbidities. To compare medical histories, symptom characteristics, pain characteristics, and daily functioning among women with persistent genital pain (PGA) (n = 42), painful PGA (n = 37), and CVP (n = 42) symptoms. An online cross-sectional survey was conducted from October 2015 through April 2016. Self-report measures of symptoms, diagnosed medical conditions, pain characteristics (McGill Pain Questionnaire), catastrophizing (Pain Catastrophizing Scale), and daily functioning (Functional Status Questionnaire) were collected. All 3 groups reported similar medical diagnoses and high frequencies of other chronic pelvic pain conditions. Women in all 3 groups reported comparable ages at symptom onset and timing of symptom expression (ie, constant vs intermittent). Women in the 2 PGA groups reported significantly greater feelings of helplessness than women in the CVP group. Women in the painful PGA and CVP groups endorsed significantly more sensory terms to describe their symptoms compared with women in the PGA group, whereas women in the painful PGA group reported significantly more affective terms to describe their symptoms compared with women in the CVP group. Women in the 2 PGA groups reported that their symptoms interfered significantly with most areas of daily functioning. Given the similarities between PGA and CVP symptoms, women with PGA may benefit from similar assessment, treatment, and research approaches. Limitations of the present study include its sole use of self-report measures; the presence of PGA or CVP symptoms was not confirmed by clinical assessment. However, the anonymous

  12. Disentangling the Effect of Valence and Arousal on Judgments Concerning Moral Transgressions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    de la Viña, Luis; Garcia-Burgos, David; Okan, Yasmina; Cándido, Antonio; González, Felisa

    2015-08-10

    An increasing body of research has investigated the effect of emotions on judgments concerning moral transgressions. Yet, few studies have controlled for arousal levels associated with the emotions. High arousal may affect moral processing by triggering attention to salient features of transgressions, independently of valence. Therefore previously documented differences in effects of negative and positive emotions may have been confounded by differences in arousal. We conducted two studies to shed light on this issue. In Study 1 we developed a questionnaire including vignettes selected on the basis of psychometrical properties (i.e., mean ratings of the actions and variability). This questionnaire was administered to participants in Study 2, after presenting them with selected pictures inducing different valence but equivalent levels of arousal. Negative pictures led to more severe moral judgments than neutral (p = .054, d = 0.60) and positive pictures (p = .002, d = 1.02), for vignettes that were not associated with extreme judgments. In contrast, positive pictures did not reliably affect judgments concerning such vignettes. These findings suggest that the observed effects of emotions cannot be accounted for by an increase in attention linked to the arousal which accompanies these emotions.

  13. An assessment of the construct distinctiveness of stress arousal and burnout.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Smith, Kenneth J; Davy, Jeanette A; Everly, George S

    2006-10-01

    This study examined the construct and discriminant validity of stress arousal and burnout as measured on the Stress Arousal Scale and the multidimensional role-specific version of the Maslach Burnout Inventory, respectively. The analyses utilized data from 148 individuals randomly selected from a database of 563 respondents to a larger study. The sample responded to a survey sent to members of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA). Sample size used in this study fell within Loehlin's 1992 prescription that for confirmatory factor analysis with two to four factors, a minimum of 100 to 200 cases should be collected. Forty-six respondents indicated that they were partners, principals, or sole practitioners in accounting firms, and 103 indicated that they were staff members (juniors, seniors, or managers). Latent variables were first constructed for the stress arousal and burnout factors. Confirmatory factor analysis was then conducted on the scale data to assess whether the factors would load on their respective underlying theoretical constructs. Finally, a nested model constraining stress arousal and burnout to load on one underlying construct was tested against the hypothesized two-factor model. The results indicated good model fit for the two-factor model and a significant loss of fit for the one-factor model, thus providing strong support for the conceptualization of stress arousal and burnout as distinct constructs.

  14. The role of nucleus accumbens core/shell in sleep-wake regulation and their involvement in modafinil-induced arousal.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mei-Hong Qiu

    Full Text Available BACKGROUND: We have previously shown that modafinil promotes wakefulness via dopamine receptor D(1 and D(2 receptors; however, the locus where dopamine acts has not been identified. We proposed that the nucleus accumbens (NAc that receives the ventral tegmental area dopamine inputs play an important role not only in reward and addiction but also in sleep-wake cycle and in mediating modafinil-induced arousal. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: In the present study, we further explored the role of NAc in sleep-wake cycle and sleep homeostasis by ablating the NAc core and shell, respectively, and examined arousal response following modafinil administration. We found that discrete NAc core and shell lesions produced 26.5% and 17.4% increase in total wakefulness per day, respectively, with sleep fragmentation and a reduced sleep rebound after a 6-hr sleep deprivation compared to control. Finally, NAc core but not shell lesions eliminated arousal effects of modafinil. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: These results indicate that the NAc regulates sleep-wake behavior and mediates arousal effects of the midbrain dopamine system and stimulant modafinil.

  15. Glucocorticoid effects on object recognition memory require training-associated emotional arousal

    OpenAIRE

    Okuda, Shoki; Roozendaal, Benno; McGaugh, James L.

    2004-01-01

    Considerable evidence implicates glucocorticoid hormones in the regulation of memory consolidation and memory retrieval. The present experiments investigated whether the influence of these hormones on memory depends on the level of emotional arousal induced by the training experience. We investigated this issue in male Sprague–Dawley rats by examining the effects of immediate posttraining systemic injections of the glucocorticoid corticosterone on object recognition memory under two condition...

  16. Temporal associations between arousal and body/limb movement in children with suspected obstructed sleep apnoea.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lamprecht, Marnie L; Bradley, Andrew P; Williams, Gordon; Terrill, Philip I

    2016-01-01

    The inter-relationship between arousal events and body and/or limb movements during sleep may significantly impact the performance and clinical interpretation of actigraphy. As such, the objective of this study was to quantify the temporal association between arousals and body/limb movement. From this, we aim to determine whether actigraphy can predict arousal events in children, and identify the impact of arousal-related movements on estimates of sleep/wake periods. Thirty otherwise healthy children (5-16 years, median 9 years, 21 male) with suspected sleep apnoea were studied using full polysomnography and customised raw tri-axial accelerometry measured at the left fingertip, left wrist, upper thorax, left ankle and left great toe. Raw data were synchronised to within 0.1 s of the polysomnogram. Movements were then identified using a custom algorithm. On average 67.5% of arousals were associated with wrist movement. Arousals associated with movement were longer than those without movement (mean duration: 12.2 s versus 7.9 s respectively, p  <  0.01); movements during wake and arousal were longer than other sleep movements (wrist duration: 6.26 s and 9.89 s versus 2.35 s respectively, p  <  0.01); and the movement index (movements/h) did not predict apnoea-hypopnoea index (ρ  =  -0.11). Movements associated with arousals are likely to unavoidably contribute to actigraphy's poor sensitivity for wake. However, as sleep-related movements tend to be shorter than those during wake or arousal, incorporating movement duration into the actigraphy scoring algorithm may improve sleep staging performance. Although actigraphy-based measurements cannot reliably predict all arousal events, actigraphy can likely identify longer events that may have the greatest impact on sleep quality.

  17. White-nose syndrome-affected little brown myotis (Myotis lucifugus) increase grooming and other active behaviors during arousals from hibernation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Brownlee-Bouboulis, Sarah A; Reeder, DeeAnn M

    2013-10-01

    White-nose syndrome (WNS) is an emerging infectious disease of hibernating bats linked to the death of an estimated 5.7 million or more bats in the northeastern United States and Canada. White-nose syndrome is caused by the cold-loving fungus Pseudogymnoascus destructans (Pd), which invades the skin of the muzzles, ears, and wings of hibernating bats. Previous work has shown that WNS-affected bats arouse to euthermic or near euthermic temperatures during hibernation significantly more frequently than normal and that these too-frequent arousals are tied to severity of infection and death date. We quantified the behavior of bats during these arousal bouts to understand better the causes and consequences of these arousals. We hypothesized that WNS-affected bats would display increased levels of activity (especially grooming) during their arousal bouts from hibernation compared to WNS-unaffected bats. Behavior of both affected and unaffected hibernating bats in captivity was monitored from December 2010 to March 2011 using temperature-sensitive dataloggers attached to the backs of bats and infrared motion-sensitive cameras. The WNS-affected bats exhibited significantly higher rates of grooming, relative to unaffected bats, at the expense of time that would otherwise be spent inactive. Increased self-grooming may be related to the presence of the fungus. Elevated activity levels in affected bats likely increase energetic stress, whereas the loss of rest (inactive periods when aroused from torpor) may jeopardize the ability of a bat to reestablish homeostasis in a number of physiologic systems.

  18. Endocannabinoid signaling within the basolateral amygdala integrates multiple stress hormone effects on memory consolidation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Atsak, Piray; Hauer, Daniela; Campolongo, Patrizia; Schelling, Gustav; Fornari, Raquel V; Roozendaal, Benno

    2015-05-01

    Glucocorticoid hormones are known to act synergistically with other stress-activated neuromodulatory systems, such as norepinephrine and corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF), within the basolateral complex of the amygdala (BLA) to induce optimal strengthening of the consolidation of long-term memory of emotionally arousing experiences. However, as the onset of these glucocorticoid actions appear often too rapid to be explained by genomic regulation, the neurobiological mechanism of how glucocorticoids could modify the memory-enhancing properties of norepinephrine and CRF remained elusive. Here, we show that the endocannabinoid system, a rapidly activated retrograde messenger system, is a primary route mediating the actions of glucocorticoids, via a glucocorticoid receptor on the cell surface, on BLA neural plasticity and memory consolidation. Furthermore, glucocorticoids recruit downstream endocannabinoid activity within the BLA to interact with both the norepinephrine and CRF systems in enhancing memory consolidation. These findings have important implications for understanding the fine-tuned crosstalk between multiple stress hormone systems in the coordination of (mal)adaptive stress and emotional arousal effects on neural plasticity and memory consolidation.

  19. Adrenal stress hormones, amygdala activation, and memory for emotionally arousing experiences.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Roozendaal, Benno; Barsegyan, Areg; Lee, Sangkwan

    2008-01-01

    Extensive evidence indicates that stress hormones released from the adrenal glands are critically involved in memory consolidation of emotionally arousing experiences. Epinephrine or glucocorticoids administered after exposure to emotionally arousing experiences enhance the consolidation of long-term memories of these experiences. Our findings indicate that adrenal stress hormones influence memory consolidation via interactions with arousal-induced activation of noradrenergic mechanisms within the amygdala. In turn, the amygdala regulates memory consolidation via its efferent projections to many other brain regions. In contrast to the enhancing effects on consolidation, high circulating levels of stress hormones impair memory retrieval and working memory. Such effects also require noradrenergic activation of the amygdala and interactions with other brain regions.

  20. Orexin receptor activation generates gamma band input to cholinergic and serotonergic arousal system neurons and drives an intrinsic Ca2+-dependent resonance in LDT and PPT cholinergic neurons.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Masaru eIshibashi

    2015-06-01

    Full Text Available A hallmark of the waking state is a shift in EEG power to higher frequencies with epochs of synchronized intracortical gamma activity (30-60 Hz - a process associated with high-level cognitive functions. The ascending arousal system, including cholinergic laterodorsal (LDT and pedunculopontine (PPT tegmental neurons and serotonergic dorsal raphe (DR neurons, promotes this state. Recently, this system has been proposed as a gamma wave generator, in part, because some neurons produce high-threshold, Ca2+-dependent oscillations at gamma frequencies. However, it is not known whether arousal-related inputs to these neurons generate such oscillations, or whether such oscillations are ever transmitted to neuronal targets. Since key arousal input arises from hypothalamic orexin (hypocretin neurons, we investigated whether the unusually noisy, depolarizing orexin current could provide significant gamma input to cholinergic and serotonergic neurons, and whether such input could drive Ca2+-dependent oscillations. Whole-cell recordings in brain slices were obtained from mice expressing Cre-induced fluorescence in cholinergic LDT and PPT, and serotonergic DR neurons. After first quantifying reporter expression accuracy in cholinergic and serotonergic neurons, we found that the orexin current produced significant high frequency, including gamma, input to both cholinergic and serotonergic neurons. Then, by using a dynamic clamp, we found that adding a noisy orexin conductance to cholinergic neurons induced a Ca2+-dependent resonance that peaked in the theta and alpha frequency range (4 - 14 Hz and extended up to 100 Hz. We propose that this orexin current noise and the Ca2+ dependent resonance work synergistically to boost the encoding of high-frequency synaptic inputs into action potentials and to help ensure cholinergic neurons fire during EEG activation. This activity could reinforce thalamocortical states supporting arousal, REM sleep and intracortical

  1. Ascending control of arousal and motivation: role of nucleus incertus and its peptide neuromodulators in behavioural responses to stress.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ma, S; Gundlach, A L

    2015-06-01

    Arousal is a process that involves the activation of ascending neural pathways originating in the rostral pons that project to the forebrain through the midbrain reticular formation to promote the activation of key cortical, thalamic, hypothalamic and limbic centres. Established modulators of arousal include the cholinergic, serotonergic, noradrenergic and dopaminergic networks originating in the pons and midbrain. Recent data indicate that a population of largely GABAergic projection neurones located in the nucleus incertus (NI) are also involved in arousal and motivational processes. The NI has prominent efferent connections with distinct hypothalamic, amygdalar and thalamic nuclei, in addition to dense projections to key brain regions associated with the generation and pacing of hippocampal activity. The NI receives strong inputs from the prefrontal cortex, lateral habenula and the interpeduncular and median raphe nuclei, suggesting it is highly integrated in circuits regulating higher cognitive behaviours (hippocampal theta rhythm) and emotion. Anatomical and functional studies have revealed that the NI is a rich source of multiple peptide neuromodulators, including relaxin-3, and may mediate extra-hypothalamic effects of the stress hormone corticotrophin-releasing factor, as well as other key modulators such as orexins and oxytocin. This review provides an overview of earlier studies and highlights more recent research that implicates this neural network in the integration of arousal and motivated behaviours and has begun to identify the associated mechanisms. Future research that should help to better clarify the connectivity and function of the NI in major experimental species and humans is also discussed. © 2015 British Society for Neuroendocrinology.

  2. Approach and withdrawal tendencies during written word processing: effects of task, emotional valence and emotional arousal

    OpenAIRE

    Citron, Francesca Maria Marina; Abugaber, David; Herbert, Cornelia

    2016-01-01

    The affective dimensions of emotional valence and emotional arousal affect processing of verbal and pictorial stimuli. Traditional emotional theories assume a linear relationship between these dimensions, with valence determining the direction of a behaviour (approach vs. withdrawal) and arousal its intensity or strength. In contrast, according to the valence-arousal conflict theory, both dimensions are interactively related: positive valence and low arousal (PL) are associated with an implic...

  3. Mood and sexual arousal in women

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Laan, E.; Everaerd, W.; van Berlo, R.; Rijs, L.

    1995-01-01

    The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of a positive 'mood for sex' on genital and subjective sexual arousal in functional women, using a musical mood induction procedure. Fifty-one female Ss were randomly assigned to one of four conditions: erotic film preceded by mood induction;

  4. The Effects of Valence and Arousal on Associative Working Memory and Long-Term Memory

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bergmann, Heiko C.; Rijpkema, Mark; Fernández, Guillén; Kessels, Roy P. C.

    2012-01-01

    Background Emotion can either facilitate or impair memory, depending on what, when and how memory is tested and whether the paradigm at hand is administered as a working memory (WM) or a long-term memory (LTM) task. Whereas emotionally arousing single stimuli are more likely to be remembered, memory for the relationship between two or more component parts (i.e., relational memory) appears to be worse in the presence of emotional stimuli, at least in some relational memory tasks. The current study investigated the effects of both valence (neutral vs. positive vs. negative) and arousal (low vs. high) in an inter-item WM binding and LTM task. Methodology/Principal Findings A five-pair delayed-match-to-sample (WM) task was administered. In each trial, study pairs consisted of one neutral picture and a second picture of which the emotional qualities (valence and arousal levels) were manipulated. These pairs had to be remembered across a delay interval of 10 seconds. This was followed by a probe phase in which five pairs were tested. After completion of this task, an unexpected single item LTM task as well as an LTM task for the pairs was assessed. As expected, emotional arousal impaired WM processing. This was reflected in lower accuracy for pairs consisting of high-arousal pictures compared to pairs with low-arousal pictures. A similar effect was found for the associative LTM task. However, the arousal effect was modulated by affective valence for the WM but not the LTM task; pairs with low-arousal negative pictures were not processed as well in the WM task. No significant differences were found for the single-item LTM task. Conclusions/Significance The present study provides additional evidence that processes during initial perception/encoding and post-encoding processes, the time interval between study and test and the interaction between valence and arousal might modulate the effects of “emotion” on associative memory. PMID:23300724

  5. [Environmental uncertainty and arousal/stress as the direct determinants of animal behaviour].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Popov, S V

    2010-01-01

    A model of direct behavioural mechanisms is suggested. The suggestion is founded on the following prerequisites: the law of optimum arousal by Yerkes-Dodson; the data on animals' purposeful striving towards the optimum; and the data on effect of stimuli uncertainty (unpredictability and/or uncontrollability) on susceptibility to the stimuli. The key postulate of the model is animals' ability to affect the environment uncertainty with their behaviour and, hence, to change their susceptibility to various stimuli and optimize their stress/arousal level. This function of behaviour had never been discussed and seems to be rather important for proximal behavioural mechanisms and for forming direct motives of behaviour. Optimization of arousal level may be viewed as "universal benefit" at the level of direct behavioural mechanisms (similar to "joint genetic fitness" at the level of evolutional mechanisms). Within the model framework it is possible to take up some sophisticated aspects of ethology such as social relations forming, "begging for punishment", "zoo stereotypy", and so on. Among verifiable predictions that can be derived from its analysis, the following ones are worthwhile: (1) the stronger of two similar social relations cannot be more stressful than the weaker one; (2) the intensity of marking activity never increases as arousal/stress level decreases; (3) stress/arousal level of an animal having been experienced "zoo stereotypy" for a long time can never be higher than that of a conspecific individual showing the behaviour for the first time; (4) the rate of "begging for punishment" behaviour of an individual should positively correlate with environmental uncertainty; (5) arousal/stress level of an individual looking for novelty can never be higher than arousal/stress level of the same individual when avoiding novelty; (6) the striving of a specimen for displaying the behaviour promoting an increase in uncertainty can be suppressed by raising the

  6. Experimental Evidence of the Knowledge Gap: Message Arousal, Motivation, and Time Delay

    Science.gov (United States)

    Grabe, Maria Elizabeth; Yegiyan, Narine; Kamhawi, Rasha

    2008-01-01

    This study experimentally tested the knowledge gap from an information processing perspective. Specifically, knowledge acquisition was investigated under conditions of medium and low news message arousal, with time delay. Results show the persistence of a knowledge gap, particularly for low arousing messages. In fact, at low levels of message…

  7. Age differences in liking and recall of arousing television commercials

    OpenAIRE

    van der Goot, M.; van Reijmersdal, E.; Eisend, M.; Langner, T.

    2011-01-01

    This paper examines age differences in liking of arousing television commercials and recall of the advertised brands and products. Based on the activation theory of information exposure, sensation seeking theory and the limited capacity model of mediated message processing, we expect that the effects of arousing commercials on liking and recall are moderated by age. An experiment (N = 66) indeed demonstrated that older adults showed more liking of calm commercials and better recall of the bra...

  8. Pain increases during sympathetic arousal in patients with complex regional pain syndrome.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Drummond, P D; Finch, P M; Skipworth, S; Blockey, P

    2001-10-09

    To investigate the effect of sympathetic arousal on pain and vasomotor responses in healthy control subjects and patients with complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS), and to determine whether pain increases in patients with particular symptoms. In experiments 1 and 2, capsaicin was applied to the forearm of 24 healthy subjects to induce thermal hyperalgesia. Vascular responses were monitored and subjects rated thermal hyperalgesia before and after being startled (experiment 1), and before, during, and after mental arithmetic, breath holding, forehead cooling, the Valsalva maneuver, and a cold pressor test in experiment 2. In a third experiment, sensitivity to heat, cold, and mechanical stimulation was investigated in 61 patients with CRPS. Pain ratings and vascular and electrodermal responses were recorded after patients were startled and during forehead cooling. In experiment 1, thermal hyperalgesia decreased in healthy control subjects after they were startled, and digital blood vessels constricted symmetrically. In experiment 2, thermal hyperalgesia decreased during and after other forms of sympathetic arousal. However, in experiment 3, ratings of clinical pain increased during forehead cooling or after being startled in over 70% of patients with CRPS. Pain increased most consistently during forehead cooling in patients with cold allodynia or punctate allodynia. Digital blood vessels constricted more intensely on the symptomatic than the nonsymptomatic side in patients with CRPS during sympathetic arousal. Normal inhibitory influences on pain during sympathetic arousal are compromised in the majority of patients with CRPS. The augmented vasoconstrictor response in the symptomatic limb during sympathetic arousal is consistent with adrenergic supersensitivity. An adrenergic sensitivity in nociceptive afferents might contribute to pain and hyperalgesia during sympathetic arousal in certain patients with CRPS.

  9. Debating the Role of Arousal in Delirium Diagnosis: Should Delirium Diagnosis Be Inclusive or Restrictive?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Oldham, Mark A; Flaherty, Joseph H; Rudolph, James L

    2017-07-01

    Delirium is common in acute, postacute, and long-term care settings, and it can be difficult to recognize, especially without deliberate mental status evaluation. Because delirium typically presents with altered arousal and arousal can be assessed within a matter of seconds, routine assessment of arousal offers an efficient means of delirium screening. Nevertheless, impaired arousal often precludes formal assessment of attention and awareness, the cardinal features of delirium per the current Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition. Here we debate the relative merits of "ruling in" as delirious noncomatose patients with impaired arousal (inclusive approach) vs reserving delirium diagnosis to patients in whom diagnostic criteria can be elicited (restrictive approach). Inclusivism provides efficiency and may prevent missing or delaying delirium diagnosis. The restrictive approach challenges the utility of ruling such patients in as delirious and advocates for identifying mental states that directly inform clinical care. Both positions, however, firmly emphasize the value of routine clinical assessment of arousal. Copyright © 2017 AMDA – The Society for Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medicine. All rights reserved.

  10. Brain processing of emotional scenes in aging: effect of arousal and affective context.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Nicolas Gilles Mathieu

    Full Text Available Research on emotion showed an increase, with age, in prevalence of positive information relative to negative ones. This effect is called positivity effect. From the cerebral analysis of the Late Positive Potential (LPP, sensitive to attention, our study investigated to which extent the arousal level of negative scenes is differently processed between young and older adults and, to which extent the arousal level of negative scenes, depending on its value, may contextually modulate the cerebral processing of positive (and neutral scenes and favor the observation of a positivity effect with age. With this aim, two negative scene groups characterized by two distinct arousal levels (high and low were displayed into two separate experimental blocks in which were included positive and neutral pictures. The two blocks only differed by their negative pictures across participants, as to create two negative global contexts for the processing of the positive and neutral pictures. The results show that the relative processing of different arousal levels of negative stimuli, reflected by LPP, appears similar between the two age groups. However, a lower activity for negative stimuli is observed with the older group for both tested arousal levels. The processing of positive information seems to be preserved with age and is also not contextually impacted by negative stimuli in both younger and older adults. For neutral stimuli, a significantly reduced activity is observed for older adults in the contextual block of low-arousal negative stimuli. Globally, our study reveals that the positivity effect is mainly due to a modulation, with age, in processing of negative stimuli, regardless of their arousal level. It also suggests that processing of neutral stimuli may be modulated with age, depending on negative context in which they are presented to. These age-related effects could contribute to justify the differences in emotional preference with age.

  11. Disentangling brain activity related to the processing of emotional visual information and emotional arousal.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kuniecki, Michał; Wołoszyn, Kinga; Domagalik, Aleksandra; Pilarczyk, Joanna

    2018-05-01

    Processing of emotional visual information engages cognitive functions and induces arousal. We aimed to examine the modulatory role of emotional valence on brain activations linked to the processing of visual information and those linked to arousal. Participants were scanned and their pupil size was measured while viewing negative and neutral images. The visual noise was added to the images in various proportions to parametrically manipulate the amount of visual information. Pupil size was used as an index of physiological arousal. We show that arousal induced by the negative images, as compared to the neutral ones, is primarily related to greater amygdala activity while increasing visibility of negative content to enhanced activity in the lateral occipital complex (LOC). We argue that more intense visual processing of negative scenes can occur irrespective of the level of arousal. It may suggest that higher areas of the visual stream are fine-tuned to process emotionally relevant objects. Both arousal and processing of emotional visual information modulated activity within the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC). Overlapping activations within the vmPFC may reflect the integration of these aspects of emotional processing. Additionally, we show that emotionally-evoked pupil dilations are related to activations in the amygdala, vmPFC, and LOC.

  12. Disentangling the roles of arousal and amygdala activation in emotional declarative memory.

    Science.gov (United States)

    de Voogd, Lycia D; Fernández, Guillén; Hermans, Erno J

    2016-09-01

    A large body of evidence in animals and humans implicates the amygdala in promoting memory for arousing experiences. Although the amygdala can trigger threat-related noradrenergic-sympathetic arousal, in humans amygdala activation and noradrenergic-sympathetic arousal do not always concur. This raises the question how these two processes play a role in enhancing emotional declarative memory. This study was designed to disentangle these processes in a combined subsequent-memory/fear-conditioning paradigm with neutral items belonging to two conceptual categories as conditioned stimuli. Functional MRI, skin conductance (index of sympathetic activity), and pupil dilation (indirect index of central noradrenergic activity) were acquired throughout procedures. Recognition memory for individual items was tested 24 h later. We found that pupil dilation and skin conductance responses were higher on CS+ (associated with a shock) compared with CS- trials, irrespective of later memory for those items. By contrast, amygdala activity was only higher for CS+ items that were later confidently remembered compared with CS+ items that were later forgotten. Thus, amygdala activity and not noradrenergic-sympathetic arousal, predicted enhanced declarative item memory. This dissociation is in line with animal models stating that the amygdala integrates arousal-related neuromodulatory changes to alter mnemonic processes elsewhere in the brain. © The Author (2016). Published by Oxford University Press. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

  13. Affective Norms for Italian Words in Older Adults: Age Differences in Ratings of Valence, Arousal and Dominance.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fairfield, Beth; Ambrosini, Ettore; Mammarella, Nicola; Montefinese, Maria

    2017-01-01

    In line with the dimensional theory of emotional space, we developed affective norms for words rated in terms of valence, arousal and dominance in a group of older adults to complete the adaptation of the Affective Norms for English Words (ANEW) for Italian and to aid research on aging. Here, as in the original Italian ANEW database, participants evaluated valence, arousal, and dominance by means of the Self-Assessment Manikin (SAM) in a paper-and-pencil procedure. We observed high split-half reliabilities within the older sample and high correlations with the affective ratings of previous research, especially for valence, suggesting that there is large agreement among older adults within and across-languages. More importantly, we found high correlations between younger and older adults, showing that our data are generalizable across different ages. However, despite this across-ages accord, we obtained age-related differences on three affective dimensions for a great number of words. In particular, older adults rated as more arousing and more unpleasant a number of words that younger adults rated as moderately unpleasant and arousing in our previous affective norms. Moreover, older participants rated negative stimuli as more arousing and positive stimuli as less arousing than younger participants, thus leading to a less-curved distribution of ratings in the valence by arousal space. We also found more extreme ratings for older adults for the relationship between dominance and arousal: older adults gave lower dominance and higher arousal ratings for words rated by younger adults with middle dominance and arousal values. Together, these results suggest that our affective norms are reliable and can be confidently used to select words matched for the affective dimensions of valence, arousal and dominance across younger and older participants for future research in aging.

  14. The Role of Arousal in the Spontaneous Regulation of Emotions in Healthy Aging: An fMRI Investigation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sanda eDolcos

    2014-07-01

    Full Text Available Despite ample support for enhanced affective well-being and emotional stability in healthy aging, the role of potentially important dimensions, such as the emotional arousal, has not been systematically investigated in neuroimaging studies. In addition, the few behavioral studies that examined effects of arousal have produced inconsistent findings. The present study manipulated the arousal of pictorial stimuli to test the hypothesis that preserved emotional functioning in aging is modulated by the level of arousal, and to identify the associated neural correlates. Young and older healthy participants were presented with negative and neutral pictures, which they rated for emotional content, while fMRI data were recorded. There were three main novel findings regarding the neural mechanisms underlying the processing of negative pictures with different levels of arousal in young and older adults. First, the common engagement of the right amygdala in young and older adults was driven by high arousing negative stimuli. Second, complementing an age-related reduction in the subjective ratings for low arousing negative pictures, there were opposing patterns of activity in the rostral/ventral anterior cingulate cortex (ACC and the amygdala, which showed increased vs. decreased responses, respectively, to low arousing negative pictures. Third, increased spontaneous activity in the ventral ACC/ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC in older adults was linked to reduced ratings for low arousing negative pictures. Overall, these findings advance our understanding of the neural correlates underlying processing of negative emotions with different levels of arousal in the context of enhanced emotional functioning in healthy aging. Notably, the results support the idea that older adults have emotion regulation networks chronically activated, in the absence of explicit induction of the goal to regulate emotions, and that this effect is specific to low arousing

  15. Pleasure, arousal, dominance: Mehrabian and Russell revisited

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Bakker, I.C.; van der Voordt, Theo; de Boon, J; Vink, P.

    2014-01-01

    This paper presents a discursive review of the dimensions pleasure, arousal and dominance that Mehrabian and Russell developed in 1974 to assess environmental perception, experience, and psychological responses. Since then numerous researchers applied these dimensions to assess the experience of the

  16. The effect of arousal on regulation of negative emotions using cognitive reappraisal: An ERP study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Langeslag, Sandra J E; Surti, Kruti

    2017-08-01

    Because the effectiveness of the emotion regulation strategy cognitive reappraisal may vary with emotion intensity, we investigated how stimulus arousal affects reappraisal success. Participants up- and down-regulated emotional responses using cognitive reappraisal to low and high arousing unpleasant pictures while the electroencephalogram (EEG) was recorded. Up-regulation resulted in more negative self-reported valence, while down-regulation resulted in less negative self-reported valence regardless of stimulus arousal, suggesting that subjective reappraisal success does not vary with emotional intensity. Participants felt that down-regulation of emotional responses to low arousing unpleasant pictures was easiest, which is in line with previous findings that participants showed a greater preference for reappraisal in low than high arousing situations. The late positive potential (LPP) amplitude was enhanced by down-regulation of high arousing unpleasant pictures. Even though this effect was unexpected and is opposite to the typical effect of down-regulation on the LPP, it is in line with several previous studies. Potential explanations for LPP regulation effects in the unexpected direction, such as strategy selection and task design, are evaluated. Suggestions and recommendations for future research are discussed, including using trial-by-trial manipulation of regulation instructions and studying the effect of stimulus arousal on up- and down-regulation of positive emotions. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  17. Addiction and arousal: the hypocretin connection

    Science.gov (United States)

    Boutrel, Benjamin; de Lecea, Luis

    2015-01-01

    The hypocretins, also known as orexins, are two neuropeptides now commonly described as critical components to maintain and regulate the stability of arousal. Several lines of evidence have raised the hypothesis that hypocretin-producing neurons are part of the circuitries that mediate the hypothalamic response to acute stress. Intracerebral administration of hypocretin leads to a dose related reinstatement of drug and food seeking behaviors. Furthermore, stress-induced reinstatement can be blocked with hypocretin receptor 1 antagonism. These results, together with recent data showing that hypocretin is critically involved in cocaine sensitization through the recruitment of NMDA receptors in the ventral tegmental area, strongly suggest that activation of hypocretin neurons play a critical role in the development of the addiction process. The activity of hypocretin neurons may affect addictive behavior by contributing to brain sensitization or by modulating the brain reward system. Hypocretinergic cells, in coordination with brain stress systems may lead to a vulnerable state that facilitates the resumption of drug seeking behavior. Hence, the hypocretinergic system is a new drug target that may be used to prevent relapse of drug seeking. PMID:18262574

  18. Chronic procrastination among Turkish adults: exploring decisional, avoidant, and arousal styles.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ferrari, Joseph R; Ozer, Bilge Uzun; Demir, Ayhan

    2009-06-01

    The authors examined the prevalence of chronic procrastination (decisional, avoidant, and arousal styles) as functions of demographic variables among 354 Turkish adults (148 men, 206 women; M age = 38.7 years, SD = 8.26 years). Prevalence analyses showed that among Turkish participants, 17.5% were indecisive procrastinators, 13.8% were avoidant procrastinators, and 14.7% were arousal procrastinators. Results did not yield significant differences for gender or age on any forms of procrastination, which is consistent with other international samples. However, significant differences emerged depending on the number of children such that Turkish adults who had more than 3 children claimed to be more indecisive than they claimed to be arousal or avoidant procrastinators. Respondents with less than a graduate degree reported higher rates of indecision than did respondents with at least a graduate degree.

  19. Relationship of slow and rapid EEG components of CAP to ASDA arousals in normal sleep.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Parrino, L; Smerieri, A; Rossi, M; Terzano, M G

    2001-12-15

    Besides arousals (according to the ASDA definition), sleep contains also K-complexes and delta bursts which, in spite of their sleep-like features, are endowed with activating effects on autonomic functions. The link between phasic delta activities and enhancement of vegetative functions indicates the possibility of physiological activation without sleep disruption (i.e., arousal without awakening). A functional connection seems to include slow (K-complexes and delta bursts) and rapid (arousals) EEG events within the comprehensive term of activating complexes. CAP (cyclic alternating pattern) is the spontaneous EEG rhythm that ties both slow and rapid activating complexes together during NREM sleep. The present study aims at exploring the relationship between arousals and CAP components in a selected sample of healthy sleepers. Polysomnographic analysis according to the scoring rules for sleep stages and arousals. CAP analysis included also tabulation of subtypes A1 (slow EEG activating complexes), A2 and A3 (activating complexes with fast EEG components). 40 sleep-lab accomplished recordings. Healthy subjects belonging to a wide age range (38 +/- 20 yrs.). N/A. Of all the arousals occurring in NREM sleep, 87% were inserted within CAP. Subtypes A2 and A3 of CAP corresponded strikingly with arousals (r=0.843; p<0.0001), while no statistical relationship emerged when arousals were matched with subtypes A1 of CAP. Subtypes A1 instead correlated positively with the percentages of deep sleep (r=0.366; p<0.02). The CAP subtype classification encompasses both the process of sleep maintenance (subtypes A1) and sleep fragmentation (subtypes A2 and A3), and provides a periodicity dimension to the activating events of NREM sleep.

  20. Brain activations to emotional pictures are differentially associated with valence and arousal ratings

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Antje B M Gerdes

    2010-10-01

    Full Text Available Several studies have investigated the neural responses triggered by emotional pictures, but the specificity of the involved structures such as the amygdala or the ventral striatum is still under debate. Furthermore, only few studies examined the association of stimuli’s valence and arousal and the underlying brain responses. Therefore, we investigated brain responses with functional magnetic resonance imaging of 17 healthy subjects to pleasant and unpleasant affective pictures with comparable arousal levels and afterwards assessed ratings of valence and arousal. As expected, unpleasant pictures strongly activated the right and left amygdala, the right hippocampus, and the medial occipital lobe, whereas pleasant pictures elicited significant activations in left occipital regions, and in parts of the medial temporal lobe. The direct comparison of unpleasant and pleasant pictures which were comparable in arousal clearly indicated stronger amygdala activation in response to the unpleasant pictures. Most important, correlational analyses revealed on the one hand that the arousal of unpleasant pictures was significantly associated with activations in the right amygdala and the left caudate body. On the other hand, valence of pleasant pictures was significantly correlated with activations in the right caudate head, extending to the nucleus accumbens (NAcc and the left dorso-lateral prefrontal cortex. These findings support the notion that the amygdala is primarily involved in processing of unpleasant stimuli, and the stronger the more arousing the stimuli are, whereas reward-related structures like the NAcc primarily responds to pleasant stimuli, the stronger the more positive the valence of these stimuli is.

  1. The effects of experimentally-induced sad and happy mood on sexual arousal in sexually healthy women.

    Science.gov (United States)

    ter Kuile, Moniek M; Both, Stephanie; van Uden, Janneke

    2010-03-01

    In depressed women, common sexual difficulties include decreased sexual desire, sexual arousal and orgasmic difficulties, reduced sexual satisfaction, and reduced sexual pleasure. Experimental research on the influence of depressed mood on genital and subjective sexual arousal in women is scarce. To investigate the effects of sad mood on genital and subjective sexual arousal in sexually healthy women, using a mood induction procedure. Thirty-two subjects received a sad mood and a happy mood induction, on two different days, using a within subjects design. The mood induction procedure was a combination of the Velten procedure and music. In the Velten procedure, the subject is asked to read sad or happy self-referent sentences and to experience the mood suggested by these sentences. Immediately following mood induction, the subjects were exposed to an erotic film clip. Genital arousal was assessed using vaginal photoplethysmography. Self-report ratings of sad and happy mood, subjective sexual arousal and affective reactions were collected before and after the erotic clip. The sad and happy mood ratings indicated that the mood inductions affected mood as intended. No difference in genital sexual arousal was found between the sad and happy mood conditions. Subjects reported significantly less subjective sexual arousal and positive affect and marginally significant fewer genital sensations and more negative affect in the sad mood condition than in the happy mood condition. The results provide empirical support for the idea that mood can impact on subjective sexual arousal in women.

  2. Getting a line on commercial advertising : a bio-informational approach to study pleasure and arousal reactions to ads

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Poels, K.; Dewitte, S.

    2008-01-01

    The bio-informational theory of emotion contends that pleasure and arousal reactions are organized around two universal motivational systems: an appetitive and a defensive motivational system. This paper posits that the appetitive motivation, reflected by a tight linear relation between pleasure and

  3. Dissociable effects of valence and arousal on different subtypes of old/new effect: Evidence from event-related potentials

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Huifang eXu

    2015-12-01

    Full Text Available Here we utilized the study-test paradigm combined with recognition confidence assessment and behavioral and event-related potential (ERP measurements to investigate the effects of valence and arousal on the different subtypes of the old-new effect. We also test the effect of valence and arousal at encoding stage to investigate the underlying mechanism of the effect of the two emotional dimension on different retrieval process. In order to test the effects of valence and arousal on old/new effect precisely, we used the subject-oriented orthogonal design which manipulated valence and arousal independently according to subjects’ verbal reporting to investigate the effects of valence and arousal on old/new effect respectively. Three subtypes of old/new effect were obtained in the test phase, which were FN400, LPC, and late positivity over right frontal. They are supposed to be associated with familiarity, recollection, and post-retrieval processes respectively according to previous studies. For the FN400 component, valence affected mid-frontal negativity from 350 to 500 ms. Pleasant items evoked an enhanced ERP old/new effect relative to unpleasant items. However, arousal only affected LPC amplitude from 500 to 800ms. The old/new effect for high-arousal items was greater than for low-arousal items. Valence also affected the amplitude of a positive-going slow wave at right frontal sites from 800 to 1000 ms, possibly serving as an index of post-retrieval processing. At encoding stage, the valence and arousal also have dissociable effect on the frontal slow wave between 350-800ms and the centro-parietal positivity in 500-800ms. The pleasant items evoked a more positive frontal slow wave relative to unpleasant ones, and the high arousal items evoked a larger centro-parietal positivity relative to low arousal ones. These results suggest that valence and arousal may differentially impact these different memory processes: valence affects familiarity and

  4. Localizing Brain Activity from Multiple Distinct Sources via EEG

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    George Dassios

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available An important question arousing in the framework of electroencephalography (EEG is the possibility to recognize, by means of a recorded surface potential, the number of activated areas in the brain. In the present paper, employing a homogeneous spherical conductor serving as an approximation of the brain, we provide a criterion which determines whether the measured surface potential is evoked by a single or multiple localized neuronal excitations. We show that the uniqueness of the inverse problem for a single dipole is closely connected with attaining certain relations connecting the measured data. Further, we present the necessary and sufficient conditions which decide whether the collected data originates from a single dipole or from numerous dipoles. In the case where the EEG data arouses from multiple parallel dipoles, an isolation of the source is, in general, not possible.

  5. Performance demand and sexual arousal in women

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Laan, E.; Everaerd, W.; van Aanhold, M. T.; Rebel, M.

    1993-01-01

    Up to now, no experimental studies have inquired into the possible role of performance demand in female sexuality. The objective of this study is to investigate the effects of performance demand on sexual arousal in functional women, using explicit instructions. Forty-eight female subjects were

  6. Norepinephrine is required to promote wakefulness and for hypocretin-induced arousal in zebrafish.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Singh, Chanpreet; Oikonomou, Grigorios; Prober, David A

    2015-09-16

    Pharmacological studies in mammals suggest that norepinephrine (NE) plays an important role in promoting arousal. However, the role of endogenous NE is unclear, with contradicting reports concerning the sleep phenotypes of mice lacking NE due to mutation of dopamine β-hydroxylase (dbh). To investigate NE function in an alternative vertebrate model, we generated dbh mutant zebrafish. In contrast to mice, these animals exhibit dramatically increased sleep. Surprisingly, despite an increase in sleep, dbh mutant zebrafish have a reduced arousal threshold. These phenotypes are also observed in zebrafish treated with small molecules that inhibit NE signaling, suggesting that they are caused by the lack of NE. Using genetic overexpression of hypocretin (Hcrt) and optogenetic activation of hcrt-expressing neurons, we also find that NE is important for Hcrt-induced arousal. These results establish a role for endogenous NE in promoting arousal and indicate that NE is a critical downstream effector of Hcrt neurons.

  7. Directed attention reduces processing of emotional distracters irrespective of valence and arousal level.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wiens, Stefan; Syrjänen, Elmeri

    2013-09-01

    Emotional stimuli tend to capture attention, and this so-called motivated attention is commonly measured using the early posterior negativity (EPN) and the late positive potential (LPP). We hypothesized that voluntary, directed attention reduces motivated attention more strongly for highly than moderately arousing pleasant or unpleasant pictures. Participants were instructed to direct their attention to either a picture at fixation or the letters flanking the picture. Pictures varied substantially in arousal and valence. When the pictures were attended to, EPN and LPP increased linearly with arousal. When the letters were attended to, these linear effects decreased in the EPN for pleasant and unpleasant pictures and in the LPP for pleasant pictures. Thus, directed attention decreases processing of emotional distracters more strongly for highly than moderately arousing pleasant and unpleasant pictures. These results are consistent with the view that directed attention decreases emotion effects on sensory gain. Copyright © 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  8. Sexual arousal and rhythmic synchronization: A possible effect of vasopressin

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Miani, Alessandro

    2016-01-01

    Music is ubiquitous. Yet, its biological relevance is still an ongoing debate. Supporting the view that music had an ancestral role in courtship displays, a pilot study presented here provides preliminary evidence on the link between music and sexual selection. The underlying hypothesis is based...... by vasopressin and its genes. Hence, to test this hypothesis, a rhythmic synchronization task was employed here on one male subject during sexual arousal. Results revealed a significant effect of sexual arousal on rhythm synchronization. This is the first report that empirically supports the hypothesis...

  9. Disgust versus Lust: Exploring the Interactions of Disgust and Fear with Sexual Arousal in Women.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Diana S Fleischman

    Full Text Available Sexual arousal is a motivational state that moves humans toward situations that inherently pose a risk of disease transmission. Disgust is an emotion that adaptively moves humans away from such situations. Incongruent is the fact that sexual activity is elementary to human fitness yet involves strong disgust elicitors. Using an experimental paradigm, we investigated how these two states interact. Women (final N=76 were assigned to one of four conditions: rate disgust stimuli then watch a pornographic clip; watch a pornographic clip then rate disgust stimuli; rate fear stimuli then watch a pornographic clip; or watch a pornographic clip then rate fear stimuli. Women's genital sexual arousal was measured with vaginal photoplethysmography and their disgust and fear reactions were measured via self-report. We did not find that baseline disgust propensity predicted sexual arousal in women who were exposed to neutral stimuli before erotic content. In the Erotic-before-Disgust condition we did not find that sexual arousal straightforwardly predicted decreased image disgust ratings. However, we did find some evidence that sexual arousal increased self-reported disgust in women with high trait disgust and sexual arousal decreased self-reported disgust in women with low trait disgust. Women who were exposed to disgusting images before erotic content showed significantly less sexual arousal than women in the control condition or women exposed to fear-inducing images before erotic content. In the Disgust-before-Erotic condition the degree of self-reported disgust was negatively correlated with genital sexual arousal. Hence, in the conflict between the ultimate goals of reproduction and disease avoidance, cues of the presence of pathogens significantly reduce the motivation to engage in mating behaviors that, by their nature, entail a risk of pathogen transmission.

  10. Disgust versus Lust: Exploring the Interactions of Disgust and Fear with Sexual Arousal in Women

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fleischman, Diana S.; Hamilton, Lisa Dawn; Fessler, Daniel M. T.; Meston, Cindy M.

    2015-01-01

    Sexual arousal is a motivational state that moves humans toward situations that inherently pose a risk of disease transmission. Disgust is an emotion that adaptively moves humans away from such situations. Incongruent is the fact that sexual activity is elementary to human fitness yet involves strong disgust elicitors. Using an experimental paradigm, we investigated how these two states interact. Women (final N=76) were assigned to one of four conditions: rate disgust stimuli then watch a pornographic clip; watch a pornographic clip then rate disgust stimuli; rate fear stimuli then watch a pornographic clip; or watch a pornographic clip then rate fear stimuli. Women’s genital sexual arousal was measured with vaginal photoplethysmography and their disgust and fear reactions were measured via self-report. We did not find that baseline disgust propensity predicted sexual arousal in women who were exposed to neutral stimuli before erotic content. In the Erotic-before-Disgust condition we did not find that sexual arousal straightforwardly predicted decreased image disgust ratings. However, we did find some evidence that sexual arousal increased self-reported disgust in women with high trait disgust and sexual arousal decreased self-reported disgust in women with low trait disgust. Women who were exposed to disgusting images before erotic content showed significantly less sexual arousal than women in the control condition or women exposed to fear-inducing images before erotic content. In the Disgust-before-Erotic condition the degree of self-reported disgust was negatively correlated with genital sexual arousal. Hence, in the conflict between the ultimate goals of reproduction and disease avoidance, cues of the presence of pathogens significantly reduce the motivation to engage in mating behaviors that, by their nature, entail a risk of pathogen transmission. PMID:26106894

  11. Disgust versus Lust: Exploring the Interactions of Disgust and Fear with Sexual Arousal in Women.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fleischman, Diana S; Hamilton, Lisa Dawn; Fessler, Daniel M T; Meston, Cindy M

    2015-01-01

    Sexual arousal is a motivational state that moves humans toward situations that inherently pose a risk of disease transmission. Disgust is an emotion that adaptively moves humans away from such situations. Incongruent is the fact that sexual activity is elementary to human fitness yet involves strong disgust elicitors. Using an experimental paradigm, we investigated how these two states interact. Women (final N=76) were assigned to one of four conditions: rate disgust stimuli then watch a pornographic clip; watch a pornographic clip then rate disgust stimuli; rate fear stimuli then watch a pornographic clip; or watch a pornographic clip then rate fear stimuli. Women's genital sexual arousal was measured with vaginal photoplethysmography and their disgust and fear reactions were measured via self-report. We did not find that baseline disgust propensity predicted sexual arousal in women who were exposed to neutral stimuli before erotic content. In the Erotic-before-Disgust condition we did not find that sexual arousal straightforwardly predicted decreased image disgust ratings. However, we did find some evidence that sexual arousal increased self-reported disgust in women with high trait disgust and sexual arousal decreased self-reported disgust in women with low trait disgust. Women who were exposed to disgusting images before erotic content showed significantly less sexual arousal than women in the control condition or women exposed to fear-inducing images before erotic content. In the Disgust-before-Erotic condition the degree of self-reported disgust was negatively correlated with genital sexual arousal. Hence, in the conflict between the ultimate goals of reproduction and disease avoidance, cues of the presence of pathogens significantly reduce the motivation to engage in mating behaviors that, by their nature, entail a risk of pathogen transmission.

  12. Daily stress, presleep arousal, and sleep in healthy young women: a daily life computerized sleep diary and actigraphy study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Winzeler, Katja; Voellmin, Annette; Schäfer, Valérie; Meyer, Andrea H; Cajochen, Christian; Wilhelm, Frank H; Bader, Klaus

    2014-03-01

    Our study aimed to further elucidate the mediating role of presleep arousal in the relationship between daily stress and sleep by investigating subjective sleep quality and actigraphy-assessed sleep efficiency (SE) on both within- and between-participant levels in a sample of healthy young women. Multilevel modeling was applied on electronically assessed data comprising 14 consecutive nights in 145 healthy young women to assess the relationship between daily stress, presleep (somatic and cognitive) arousal, and sleep on both levels between participants and within participants across days. Higher levels of daily stress were consistently and significantly associated with higher levels of somatic and cognitive arousal. Somatic arousal mediated the relationship between daily stress and worsened subjective sleep quality on the between-participant level, while cognitive arousal mediated the relationship between daily stress and worsened subjective sleep quality on the within-participants level. Unexpectedly, healthy young women showed higher SE following days with above-average stress with somatic arousal mediating this relationship. Our data corroborate the role of presleep arousal mediating the relationship between daily stress and subjective sleep quality. Interestingly this effect was restricted to somatic arousal being relevant on interindividual levels and cognitive arousal on intraindividual levels. For young and healthy individuals who experience high stress and arousal, well-established cognitive-behavioral techniques could be useful to regulate arousal and prevent worse subjective sleep quality. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  13. Effective visual short-term storage capacity and speed of encoding are affected by arousal

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Sørensen, Thomas Alrik; Bundesen, Claus

    2011-01-01

    of encoding into visual short-term memory (VSTM) increased with the level of arousal in a single-stimulus identification experiment. Here we present a whole-report experiment corroborating the finding that speed of encoding stimulus items (letters) into VSTM increases with the level of arousal. However....... Thus, in terms of the TVA model (Bundesen, 1990), partial report experiments should show that, at high levels of arousal, parameter a (the ratio of the attentional weight of a distractor to the attentional weight of a target) increases....

  14. Enhanced fear recall and emotional arousal in rats recovering from chronic variable stress.

    Science.gov (United States)

    McGuire, Jennifer; Herman, James P; Horn, Paul S; Sallee, Floyd R; Sah, Renu

    2010-11-02

    Emergence of posttraumatic-like behaviors following chronic trauma is of interest given the rising prevalence of combat-related posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Stress associated with combat usually involves chronic traumatization, composed of multiple, single episode events occurring in an unpredictable fashion. In this study, we investigated whether rats recovering from repeated trauma in the form of chronic variable stress (CVS) express posttraumatic stress-like behaviors and dysregulated neuroendocrine responses. Cohorts of Long-Evans rats underwent a 7 day CVS paradigm followed by behavioral and neuroendocrine testing during early (16 h post CVS) and delayed (7 day) recovery time points. A fear conditioning-extinction-reminder shock paradigm revealed that CVS induces exaggerated fear recall to reminder shock, suggestive of potentiated fear memory. Rats with CVS experience also expressed a delayed expression of fearful arousal under aversive context, however, social anxiety was not affected during post-CVS recovery. Persistent sensitization of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocorticotropic response to a novel acute stressor was observed in CVS exposed rats. Collectively, our data are consistent with the constellation of symptoms associated with posttraumatic stress syndrome, such as re-experiencing, and arousal to fearful contexts. The CVS-recovery paradigm may be useful to simulate trauma outcomes following chronic traumatization that is often associated with repeated combat stress. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  15. Rapid upregulation of heart antioxidant enzymes during arousal from estivation in the Giant African snail (Achatina fulica).

    Science.gov (United States)

    Salway, Kurtis D; Tattersall, Glenn J; Stuart, Jeffrey A

    2010-11-01

    Estivation is an adaptive response to environments characterized by elevated temperatures and desiccative stress, as may occur during summer dry seasons. Similar to diapause and hibernation, it is characterized by low levels of activity, a drastically suppressed metabolic rate and enhanced stress resistance. We tested the hypothesis that Achatina fulica, a pulmonate land snail, enhances stress resistance during estivation and/or arousal by upregulating intracellular antioxidant defenses in the heart, kidney, hepatopancreas and foot tissues. No statistically significant changes in mitochondrial or cytosolic superoxide dismutase levels or activities, or glutathione peroxidase, glutathione reductase or catalase activities were associated with estivation in any tissue, however. In contrast, during arousal from estivation, activities of several antioxidant enzymes increased in heart, hepatopancreas and foot. In heart, a rapid increase in MnSOD protein levels was observed that peaked at 2h post arousal, but no such change was observed in CuZnSOD protein levels. Glutathione peroxidase activity was upregulated at 1h post arousal and remained elevated until 8h post arousal in heart tissue. Glutathione peroxidase was also upregulated at 24h post arousal in foot tissue. Glutathione reductase activity was upregulated at 4h post arousal in heart and foot tissues whereas catalase activity showed no changes. Markers of lipid peroxidation and protein damage revealed no significant increases during estivation or arousal. Therefore, antioxidant enzymes may play a role in oxidative stress defense specifically during arousal from estivation in A. fulica. Copyright 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  16. Sleep fragmentation: comparison of two definitions of short arousals during sleep in OSAS patients.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Smurra, M V; Dury, M; Aubert, G; Rodenstein, D O; Liistro, G

    2001-04-01

    The measurement of arousals during sleep is useful to quantify sleep fragmentation. The criteria for electroencephalography (EEG) arousals defined by the American Sleep Disorders Association (ASDA) have recently been criticized because of lack of interobserver agreement. The authors have adopted a scoring method that associates the increase in chin electromyography (EMG) with the occurrence of an alpha-rhythm in all sleep stages (Université Catholique de Louvain (UCL) definition of arousals). The aim of the present study was to compare the two scoring definitions in terms of agreement and repeatability and the time taken for scoring in patients with obstructive sleep apnoea syndrome (OSAS) of varying severity. Two readers using both ASDA and UCL definitions scored twenty polysomnographies (PSGs) each on two occasions. The PSGs were chosen retrospectively to represent a wide range of arousal index (from 6-82) in OSAS patients. There was no difference in the arousal indices between readers and between scoring methods. The mean+/-SD difference between the two definitions (the bias) was 1.1+/-3.76 (95% confidence interval: -0.66-2.86). There was a strong linear relationship between the arousal index scored with the two definitions (r=0.981, pASDA definitions (18.5+/-5.4 versus 25.3+/-6.6 min, p<0.001). In conclusion, it has been found that in obstructive sleep apnoea syndrome patients, the American Sleep Disorders Association and Université Catholique de Louvain definitions were comparable in terms of agreement and repeatability.

  17. The animacy advantage for free-recall performance is not attributable to greater mental arousal.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Popp, Earl Y; Serra, Michael J

    2018-01-01

    People often demonstrate better memory for animate concepts (e.g., lion and sailor) than for inanimate concepts (e.g., hammer and mountain). Researchers have attributed this effect to an adaptive memory mechanism that favours information relevant for survival, including information about living things. In the present experiment, we examined the hypothesis that people demonstrate better free-recall performance for animate than inanimate words because animate words tend to be associated with greater mental arousal than inanimate words, a factor that was not controlled for in previous experiments on this topic. To this end, we matched animate and inanimate word lists on mental arousal (and several other factors), and compared participants' free-recall performance for the two word types. We were able to replicate past findings that participants' free-recall of animate words exceeds their free-recall of inanimate words, but we found no support for the possibility that the effect stems from differences in mental arousal between animate and inanimate concepts, as this effect maintained even when the word lists were matched on mental arousal. The present results therefore indicate that mental arousal cannot explain the effects of animacy on free-recall performance.

  18. Sex Differences in Emotional Evaluation of Film Clips: Interaction with Five High Arousal Emotional Categories

    Science.gov (United States)

    Maffei, Antonio; Vencato, Valentina; Angrilli, Alessandro

    2015-01-01

    The present study aimed to investigate gender differences in the emotional evaluation of 18 film clips divided into six categories: Erotic, Scenery, Neutral, Sadness, Compassion, and Fear. 41 female and 40 male students rated all clips for valence-pleasantness, arousal, level of elicited distress, anxiety, jittery feelings, excitation, and embarrassment. Analysis of positive films revealed higher levels of arousal, pleasantness, and excitation to the Scenery clips in both genders, but lower pleasantness and greater embarrassment in women compared to men to Erotic clips. Concerning unpleasant stimuli, unlike men, women reported more unpleasantness to the Compassion, Sadness, and Fear compared to the Neutral clips and rated them also as more arousing than did men. They further differentiated the films by perceiving greater arousal to Fear than to Compassion clips. Women rated the Sadness and Fear clips with greater Distress and Jittery feelings than men did. Correlation analysis between arousal and the other emotional scales revealed that, although men looked less aroused than women to all unpleasant clips, they also showed a larger variance in their emotional responses as indicated by the high number of correlations and their relatively greater extent, an outcome pointing to a masked larger sensitivity of part of male sample to emotional clips. We propose a new perspective in which gender difference in emotional responses can be better evidenced by means of film clips selected and clustered in more homogeneous categories, controlled for arousal levels, as well as evaluated through a number of emotion focused adjectives. PMID:26717488

  19. Sex Differences in Emotional Evaluation of Film Clips: Interaction with Five High Arousal Emotional Categories.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Antonio Maffei

    Full Text Available The present study aimed to investigate gender differences in the emotional evaluation of 18 film clips divided into six categories: Erotic, Scenery, Neutral, Sadness, Compassion, and Fear. 41 female and 40 male students rated all clips for valence-pleasantness, arousal, level of elicited distress, anxiety, jittery feelings, excitation, and embarrassment. Analysis of positive films revealed higher levels of arousal, pleasantness, and excitation to the Scenery clips in both genders, but lower pleasantness and greater embarrassment in women compared to men to Erotic clips. Concerning unpleasant stimuli, unlike men, women reported more unpleasantness to the Compassion, Sadness, and Fear compared to the Neutral clips and rated them also as more arousing than did men. They further differentiated the films by perceiving greater arousal to Fear than to Compassion clips. Women rated the Sadness and Fear clips with greater Distress and Jittery feelings than men did. Correlation analysis between arousal and the other emotional scales revealed that, although men looked less aroused than women to all unpleasant clips, they also showed a larger variance in their emotional responses as indicated by the high number of correlations and their relatively greater extent, an outcome pointing to a masked larger sensitivity of part of male sample to emotional clips. We propose a new perspective in which gender difference in emotional responses can be better evidenced by means of film clips selected and clustered in more homogeneous categories, controlled for arousal levels, as well as evaluated through a number of emotion focused adjectives.

  20. The Impact of Sexual Arousal on Sexual Risk-Taking and Decision-Making in Men and Women.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Skakoon-Sparling, Shayna; Cramer, Kenneth M; Shuper, Paul A

    2016-01-01

    Sexual arousal has emerged as an important contextual feature in sexual encounters that can impact safer-sex decision-making. We conducted two experiments that investigated the effects of sexual arousal among male and female participants. Experiment 1 (N = 144) examined the impact of sexual around on sexual health decision-making. Sexually explicit and neutral video clips as well as hypothetical romantic scenarios were used to evaluate the effects of sexual arousal on sexual risk-taking intentions. Men and women who reported higher levels of sexual arousal also displayed greater intentions to participate in risky sexual behavior (e.g., unprotected sex with a new sex partner). Experiment 2 (N = 122) examined the impact of sexual arousal on general risk-taking, using the same videos clips as in Experiment 1 and a modified version of a computerized Blackjack card game. Participants were offered a chance to make either a risky play or a safe play during ambiguous conditions. Increased sexual arousal in Experiment 2 was associated with impulsivity and a greater willingness to make risky plays in the Blackjack game. These findings suggest that, in situations where there are strong sexually visceral cues, both men and women experiencing strong sexual arousal may have lower inhibitions and may experience impaired decision-making. This phenomenon may have an impact during sexual encounters and may contribute to a failure to use appropriate prophylactic protection.

  1. Development and Preliminary Validation of the Coma Arousal Communication Scale.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Garin, Julie; Reina, Margot; DeiCas, Paula; Rousseaux, Marc

    To develop a Coma Arousal Communication Scale and perform preliminary validation. A group of experts developed a questionnaire to assess communication between patients emerging from coma and caregiver (participation, communication modes, and themes) and the strategies used to facilitate communication. To assess the scale's psychometric characteristics, it was presented to the caregivers of 40 inpatients admitted to 5 coma units and (to obtain reference data) to 29 control participants. The Coma Arousal Communication Scale displayed good intra- and interrater reliability as judged by intraclass correlation coefficients (between 0.76 and 0.98) and Bland and Altman plots. Cohen κ coefficient revealed moderate to almost perfect levels of agreement for most individual items and slight levels for a few items dealing with compensatory strategies. We observed good internal consistency, relations with the Wessex Head Injury Matrix, and sensitivity to change for patients who had sustained brain injury in the previous 6 months. The Coma Arousal Communication Scale provides accurate information about communication skills of individuals emerging from coma. However, some compensatory strategies adopted by caregivers are difficult to characterize.

  2. Neural correlates of emotional recognition memory in schizophrenia: effects of valence and arousal.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lakis, Nadia; Jiménez, José A; Mancini-Marïe, Adham; Stip, Emmanuel; Lavoie, Marc E; Mendrek, Adrianna

    2011-12-30

    Schizophrenia patients are often impaired in their memory for emotional events compared with healthy subjects. Investigations of the neural correlates of emotional memory in schizophrenia patients are scarce in the literature. The present study aimed to compare cerebral activations in schizophrenia patients and healthy controls during memory retrieval of emotional images that varied in both valence and arousal. In a study with functional magnetic resonance imaging, 37 schizophrenia patients were compared with 37 healthy participants while performing a yes/no recognition paradigm with positive, negative (differing in arousal intensity) and neutral images. Schizophrenia patients performed worse than healthy controls in all experimental conditions. They showed less cerebral activation in limbic and prefrontal regions than controls during retrieval of negatively valenced stimuli, but had a similar pattern of brain activation compared with controls during retrieval of positively valenced stimuli (particularly in the high arousal condition) in the cerebellum, temporal lobe and prefrontal cortex. Both groups demonstrated increased brain activations in the high relative to low arousing conditions. Our results suggest atypical brain function during retrieval of negative pictures, but intact functional circuitry of positive affect during episodic memory retrieval in schizophrenia patients. The arousal data revealed that schizophrenia patients closely resemble the control group at both the behavioral and neurofunctional level. 2011 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

  3. Cognitive Processing of Fear-Arousing Message Content.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hale, Jerold L.; And Others

    1995-01-01

    Investigates two models (the Elaboration Likelihood Model and the Heuristic-Systematic Model) of the cognitive processing of fear-arousing messages in undergraduate students. Finds in three of the four conditions (low fear, high fear, high trait anxiety) that cognitive processing appears to be antagonistic. Finds some evidence of concurrent…

  4. Changes in blood glucose and salivary cortisol are not necessary for arousal to enhance memory in young or older adults.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gore, Jane B; Krebs, Desiree L; Parent, Marise B

    2006-06-01

    Emotional arousal enhances memory, and this memory-enhancing effect may involve neurochemicals released by arousal, such as glucose and cortisol. Physiological consequences of arousal change with age, and these changes may contribute to age-related memory decline. The present study examined whether emotionally arousing pictures would affect glucose and cortisol levels and enhance memory in young and older adults. Blood glucose and salivary cortisol were measured once before and six times after young and old adults viewed either 60 highly arousing or 60 relatively neutral pictures. Recall for the stimuli was measured 75 min later. The results indicated that recall was impaired in older adults. Arousal as measured by self-report enhanced recall in both young and older adults. However, arousal did not affect glucose or cortisol levels in either group. These findings demonstrate that changes in blood glucose or salivary cortisol levels are not necessary for arousal to enhance memory.

  5. Optimizing assessment of sexual arousal in postmenopausal women using erotic film clips.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ramos Alarcon, Lauren G; Dai, Jing; Collins, Karen; Perez, Mindy; Woodard, Terri; Diamond, Michael P

    2017-10-01

    This study sought to assess sexual arousal in a subgroup of women by identifying erotic film clips that would be most mentally appealing and physically arousing to postmenopausal women. By measuring levels of mental appeal and self-reported physical arousal using a bidirectional scale, we aimed to elucidate the clips that would best be utilized for sexual health research in the postmenopausal or over 50-year-old subpopulation. Our results showed that postmenopausal women did not rate clips with older versus younger actors differently (p>0.05). The mean mental and mean physical scores were significantly correlated for both premenopausal subject ratings (r=0.69, perotic film clips; this knowledge is relevant for design of future sexual function research. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  6. Hypocretin as a Hub for Arousal and Motivation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Susan M. Tyree

    2018-06-01

    Full Text Available The lateral hypothalamus is comprised of a heterogeneous mix of neurons that serve to integrate and regulate sleep, feeding, stress, energy balance, reward, and motivated behavior. Within these populations, the hypocretin/orexin neurons are among the most well studied. Here, we provide an overview on how these neurons act as a central hub integrating sensory and physiological information to tune arousal and motivated behavior accordingly. We give special attention to their role in sleep-wake states and conditions of hyper-arousal, as is the case with stress-induced anxiety. We further discuss their roles in feeding, drug-seeking, and sexual behavior, which are all dependent on the motivational state of the animal. We further emphasize the application of powerful techniques, such as optogenetics, chemogenetics, and fiber photometry, to delineate the role these neurons play in lateral hypothalamic functions.

  7. The relation between young children's physiological arousal and their motivation to help others.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hepach, Robert; Vaish, Amrisha; Müller, Katharina; Tomasello, Michael

    2017-10-10

    Children are motivated to help others from an early age. However, little is known about the internal biological mechanisms underlying their motivation to help. Here, we compiled data from five separate studies in which children, ranging in age from 18 months to 5.5 years, witnessed an adult needing help. In all studies, we assessed both (1) children's internal physiological arousal via changes in their pupil dilation, and (2) the latency and likelihood of them providing help. The results showed that the greater the baseline-corrected change in children's internal arousal in response to witnessing the need situation, the faster and more likely children were to help the adult. This was not the case for the baseline measure of children's tonic arousal state. Together, these results suggest that children's propensity to help is systematically related to their physiological arousal after they witness others needing help. This sheds new light on the biological mechanisms underlying not only young children's social perception but also their prosocial motivation more generally. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  8. Emotional arousal and discount rate in intertemporal choice are reference dependent.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lempert, Karolina M; Glimcher, Paul W; Phelps, Elizabeth A

    2015-04-01

    Many decisions involve weighing immediate gratification against future consequences. In such intertemporal choices, people often choose smaller, immediate rewards over larger delayed rewards. It has been proposed that emotional responses to immediate rewards lead us to choose them at our long-term expense. Here we utilize an objective measure of emotional arousal-pupil dilation-to examine the role of emotion in these decisions. We show that emotional arousal responses, as well as choices, in intertemporal choice tasks are reference-dependent and reflect the decision-maker's recent history of offers. Arousal increases when less predictable rewards are better than expected, whether those rewards are immediate or delayed. Furthermore, when immediate rewards are less predictable than delayed rewards, participants tend to be patient. When delayed rewards are less predictable, immediate rewards are preferred. Our findings suggest that we can encourage people to be more patient by changing the context in which intertemporal choices are made. (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).

  9. Cholinergic basal forebrain structures are not essential for mediation of the arousing action of glutamate.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lelkes, Zoltán; Abdurakhmanova, Shamsiiat; Porkka-Heiskanen, Tarja

    2017-09-18

    The cholinergic basal forebrain contributes to cortical activation and receives rich innervations from the ascending activating system. It is involved in the mediation of the arousing actions of noradrenaline and histamine. Glutamatergic stimulation in the basal forebrain results in cortical acetylcholine release and suppression of sleep. However, it is not known to what extent the cholinergic versus non-cholinergic basal forebrain projection neurones contribute to the arousing action of glutamate. To clarify this question, we administered N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA), a glutamate agonist, into the basal forebrain in intact rats and after destruction of the cholinergic cells in the basal forebrain with 192 immunoglobulin (Ig)G-saporin. In eight Han-Wistar rats with implanted electroencephalogram/electromyogram (EEG/EMG) electrodes and guide cannulas for microdialysis probes, 0.23 μg 192 IgG-saporin was administered into the basal forebrain, while the eight control animals received artificial cerebrospinal fluid. Two weeks later, a microdialysis probe targeted into the basal forebrain was perfused with cerebrospinal fluid on the baseline day and for 3 h with 0.3 mmNMDA on the subsequent day. Sleep-wake activity was recorded for 24 h on both days. NMDA exhibited a robust arousing effect in both the intact and the lesioned rats. Wakefulness was increased and both non-REM and REM sleep were decreased significantly during the 3-h NMDA perfusion. Destruction of the basal forebrain cholinergic neurones did not abolish the wake-enhancing action of NMDA. Thus, the cholinergic basal forebrain structures are not essential for the mediation of the arousing action of glutamate. © 2017 European Sleep Research Society.

  10. A relook at the motor vehicle buyer after the purchase: dissonance arousal

    OpenAIRE

    S. Brijball

    2000-01-01

    This study, based on Leon Festingers (1957) theory of cognitive dissonance, evaluates the relative power of various dissonance arousal factors, the impact of price and the psychological conditions necessary for dissonance arousal, for example, effort exerted. The empirical analysis was undertaken on a sample of 200 new motor vehicle buyers. Eight dimensions impact significantly on the magnitude of cognitive dissonance, namely, awareness of expectations, unconfirmed expectations, reported diss...

  11. The Relation Between Valence and Arousal in Subjective Experience Varies With Personality and Culture.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kuppens, Peter; Tuerlinckx, Francis; Yik, Michelle; Koval, Peter; Coosemans, Joachim; Zeng, Kevin J; Russell, James A

    2017-08-01

    While in general arousal increases with positive or negative valence (a so-called V-shaped relation), there are large differences among individuals in how these two fundamental dimensions of affect are related in people's experience. In two studies, we examined two possible sources of this variation: personality and culture. In Study 1, participants (Belgian university students) recalled a recent event that was characterized by high or low valence or arousal and reported on their feelings and their personality in terms of the Five-Factor Model. In Study 2, participants from Canada, China/Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, and Spain reported on their feelings in a thin slice of time and on their personality. In Study 1, we replicated the V-shape as characterizing the relation between valence and arousal, and identified personality correlates of experiencing particular valence-arousal combinations. In Study 2, we documented how the V-shaped relation varied as a function of Western versus Eastern cultural background and personality. The results showed that the steepness of the V-shaped relation between valence and arousal increases with Extraversion within cultures, and with a West-East distinction between cultures. Implications for the personality-emotion link and research on cultural differences in affect are discussed. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

  12. Radiosensitivity of ileum crypt cells in hibernating, arousing, and awake ground squirrels (Citellus tridecemlineatus)

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Jaroslow, B.N.; Michael Fry, R.J.; Suhrbier, K.M.; Sallese, A.R.

    1976-01-01

    Radiosensitivity of ileal crypt cells, to 60 Co gamma radiation, was studied in ground squirrels (Citellus tridecemlineatus) during hibernation, arousal, and the euthermic state. Survival of ileal crypt cells, assayed by the microcolony technique from stained transverse sections of ileum, was greater in animals irradiated in hibernation or 1 hr after initiation of arousal from hibernation. Crypt survival returned to the level of irradiated nonhibernating controls in animals irradiated 3 to 7 hr after initiation of arousal. Over the exposure range of 1500 to 2400 R, the survival of crypt cells for euthermic controls gave a D 0 = 133 +- 12 R and for animals irradiated in hibernation it gave a D 0 = 487 +- 92 R. In animals irradiated 1 hr after initiation of arousal, when core temperature is within the range of euthermic controls, crypt survival was almost as high as in the hibernators. These results suggest that the increased resistance of ileal crypt cells in hibernating animals could be due to hypoxia, although not direct evidence for hypoxia in hibernation was established. The changes in mitotic index of ileal crypt cells during hibernation and arousal indicate an alteration in the distribution of cells in the phases of the cycle. This change in distribution may also have contributed to the increased radioresistance of hibernators

  13. Negative Emotional Arousal Impairs Associative Memory Performance for Emotionally Neutral Content in Healthy Participants.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jonathan Guez

    Full Text Available The effect of emotional arousal on memory presents a complex pattern with previous studies reporting conflicting results of both improved and reduced memory performance following arousal manipulations. In this study we further tested the effect of negative emotional arousal (NEA on individual-item recognition and associative recognition of neutral stimuli in healthy participants, and hypothesized that NEA will particularly impair associative memory performance. The current study consists of two experiments; in both, participants studied a list of word-pairs and were then tested for items (items recognition test, and for associations (associative recognition test. In the first experiment, the arousal manipulation was induced by flashing emotionally-negative or neutral pictures between study-pairs while in the second experiment arousal was induced by presenting emotionally-negative or neutral pictures between lists. The results of the two experiments converged and supported an associative memory deficit observed under NEA conditions. We suggest that NEA is associated with an altered ability to bind one stimulus to another as a result of impaired recollection, resulting in poorer associative memory performance. The current study findings may contribute to the understanding of the mechanism underlying memory impairments reported in disorders associated with traumatic stress.

  14. Music, emotion, and time perception: the influence of subjective emotional valence and arousal?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Droit-Volet, Sylvie; Ramos, Danilo; Bueno, José L. O.; Bigand, Emmanuel

    2013-01-01

    The present study used a temporal bisection task with short (2 s) stimulus durations to investigate the effect on time estimation of several musical parameters associated with emotional changes in affective valence and arousal. In order to manipulate the positive and negative valence of music, Experiments 1 and 2 contrasted the effect of musical structure with pieces played normally and backwards, which were judged to be pleasant and unpleasant, respectively. This effect of valence was combined with a subjective arousal effect by changing the tempo of the musical pieces (fast vs. slow) (Experiment 1) or their instrumentation (orchestral vs. piano pieces). The musical pieces were indeed judged more arousing with a fast than with a slow tempo and with an orchestral than with a piano timbre. In Experiment 3, affective valence was also tested by contrasting the effect of tonal (pleasant) vs. atonal (unpleasant) versions of the same musical pieces. The results showed that the effect of tempo in music, associated with a subjective arousal effect, was the major factor that produced time distortions with time being judged longer for fast than for slow tempi. When the tempo was held constant, no significant effect of timbre on the time judgment was found although the orchestral music was judged to be more arousing than the piano music. Nevertheless, emotional valence did modulate the tempo effect on time perception, the pleasant music being judged shorter than the unpleasant music. PMID:23882233

  15. Music, Emotion and Time Perception: The influence of subjective emotional valence and arousal?

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    SYLVIE eDROIT-VOLET

    2013-07-01

    Full Text Available The present study used a temporal bisection task with short (< 2 s and long (> 2 s stimulus durations to investigate the effect on time estimation of several musical parameters associated with emotional changes in affective valence and arousal. In order to manipulate the positive and negative valence of music, Experiments 1 and 2 contrasted the effect of musical structure with pieces played normally and backwards, which were judged to be pleasant and unpleasant, respectively. This effect of valence was combined with a subjective arousal effect by changing the tempo of the musical pieces (fast vs. slow (Experiment 1 or their instrumentation (orchestral vs. piano pieces. The musical pieces were indeed judged more arousing with a fast than with a slow tempo and with an orchestral than with a piano timbre. In Experiment 3, affective valence was also tested by contrasting the effect of tonal (pleasant versus atonal (unpleasant versions of the same musical pieces. The results showed that the effect of tempo in music, associated with a subjective arousal effect, was the major factor that produced time distortions with time being judged longer for fast than for slow tempi. When the tempo was held constant, no significant effect of timbre on the time judgment was found although the orchestral music was judged to be more arousing than the piano music. Nevertheless, emotional valence did modulate the tempo effect on time perception, the pleasant music being judged shorter than the unpleasant music.

  16. Music, emotion, and time perception: the influence of subjective emotional valence and arousal?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Droit-Volet, Sylvie; Ramos, Danilo; Bueno, José L O; Bigand, Emmanuel

    2013-01-01

    The present study used a temporal bisection task with short (2 s) stimulus durations to investigate the effect on time estimation of several musical parameters associated with emotional changes in affective valence and arousal. In order to manipulate the positive and negative valence of music, Experiments 1 and 2 contrasted the effect of musical structure with pieces played normally and backwards, which were judged to be pleasant and unpleasant, respectively. This effect of valence was combined with a subjective arousal effect by changing the tempo of the musical pieces (fast vs. slow) (Experiment 1) or their instrumentation (orchestral vs. piano pieces). The musical pieces were indeed judged more arousing with a fast than with a slow tempo and with an orchestral than with a piano timbre. In Experiment 3, affective valence was also tested by contrasting the effect of tonal (pleasant) vs. atonal (unpleasant) versions of the same musical pieces. The results showed that the effect of tempo in music, associated with a subjective arousal effect, was the major factor that produced time distortions with time being judged longer for fast than for slow tempi. When the tempo was held constant, no significant effect of timbre on the time judgment was found although the orchestral music was judged to be more arousing than the piano music. Nevertheless, emotional valence did modulate the tempo effect on time perception, the pleasant music being judged shorter than the unpleasant music.

  17. Emotion and memory: a recognition advantage for positive and negative words independent of arousal.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Adelman, James S; Estes, Zachary

    2013-12-01

    Much evidence indicates that emotion enhances memory, but the precise effects of the two primary factors of arousal and valence remain at issue. Moreover, the current knowledge of emotional memory enhancement is based mostly on small samples of extremely emotive stimuli presented in unnaturally high proportions without adequate affective, lexical, and semantic controls. To investigate how emotion affects memory under conditions of natural variation, we tested whether arousal and valence predicted recognition memory for over 2500 words that were not sampled for their emotionality, and we controlled a large variety of lexical and semantic factors. Both negative and positive stimuli were remembered better than neutral stimuli, whether arousing or calming. Arousal failed to predict recognition memory, either independently or interactively with valence. Results support models that posit a facilitative role of valence in memory. This study also highlights the importance of stimulus controls and experimental designs in research on emotional memory. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  18. Hypnotherapy for persistent genital arousal disorder: a case study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Elkins, Gary R; Ramsey, Derek; Yu, Yimin

    2014-01-01

    Persistent genital arousal disorder (PGAD) is characterized by intrusive sexual arousal that is unresolvable via sexual activity and persists for an extended period of time. PGAD's etiology is unknown, and it has no established treatments. This case study reports on a 71-year-old female patient diagnosed with PGAD who received 9 sessions of hypnotherapy. The following measures were administered at baseline and follow-up: Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale, Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, and visual analogue measurements of quality of life, intensity of symptoms, and marital interference. At follow-up, there were significant improvements in all measures. Given the currently limited alternatives for treatment, this case study suggests that hypnotherapy may be beneficial for some patients with PGAD.

  19. Bi-directional associations between psychological arousal, cortisol, and sleep

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Garde, Anne Helene; Albertsen, Karen; Persson, Roger

    2012-01-01

    The aim was to elucidate the possible bi-directional relation between daytime psychological arousal, cortisol, and self-reported sleep in a group of healthy employees in active employment. Logbook ratings of sleep (Karolinska Sleep Questionnaire), stress, and energy, as well as positive...... and negative experiences in work and private life, were collected together with salivary cortisol over 3 days (n = 265). Higher bedtime ratings of stress and problems during the day were associated with morning ratings of poor sleep. Poorer morning ratings of sleep were associated with higher ratings of stress...... and problems during the day. The results underpin the possibility that arousal and poor sleep might create a self-reinforcing vicious circle that negatively affects a person's well-being....

  20. Feelings of disgust and disgust-induced avoidance weaken following induced sexual arousal in women.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Charmaine Borg

    Full Text Available BACKGROUND: Sex and disgust are basic, evolutionary relevant functions that are often construed as paradoxical. In general the stimuli involved in sexual encounters are, at least out of context strongly perceived to hold high disgust qualities. Saliva, sweat, semen and body odours are among the strongest disgust elicitors. This results in the intriguing question of how people succeed in having pleasurable sex at all. One possible explanation could be that sexual engagement temporarily reduces the disgust eliciting properties of particular stimuli or that sexual engagement might weaken the hesitation to actually approach these stimuli. METHODOLOGY: Participants were healthy women (n = 90 randomly allocated to one of three groups: the sexual arousal, the non-sexual positive arousal, or the neutral control group. Film clips were used to elicit the relevant mood state. Participants engaged in 16 behavioural tasks, involving sex related (e.g., lubricate the vibrator and non-sex related (e.g., take a sip of juice with a large insect in the cup stimuli, to measure the impact of sexual arousal on feelings of disgust and actual avoidance behaviour. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: The sexual arousal group rated the sex related stimuli as less disgusting compared to the other groups. A similar tendency was evident for the non-sex disgusting stimuli. For both the sex and non-sex related behavioural tasks the sexual arousal group showed less avoidance behaviour (i.e., they conducted the highest percentage of tasks compared to the other groups. SIGNIFICANCE: This study has investigated how sexual arousal interplays with disgust and disgust eliciting properties in women, and has demonstrated that this relationship goes beyond subjective report by affecting the actual approach to disgusting stimuli. Hence, this could explain how we still manage to engage in pleasurable sexual activity. Moreover, these findings suggest that low sexual arousal might be a key feature in the

  1. Novelty-Induced Arousal Enhances Memory for Cued Classical Fear Conditioning: Interactions between Peripheral Adrenergic and Brainstem Glutamatergic Systems

    Science.gov (United States)

    King, Stanley O., II; Williams, Cedric L.

    2009-01-01

    Exposure to novel contexts produce heightened states of arousal and biochemical changes in the brain to consolidate memory. However, processes permitting simple exposure to unfamiliar contexts to elevate sympathetic output and to improve memory are poorly understood. This shortcoming was addressed by examining how novelty-induced changes in…

  2. Not always a matter of context: direct effects of red on arousal but context-dependent moderations on valence

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Vanessa L. Buechner

    2016-09-01

    Full Text Available The arousal theory of color proposes that red is associated with arousal. Research on the color-in-context theory, in turn, states that the context in which red is perceived influences its valence-related meaning and behavioral responses to it. This study faces and integrates these theories by examining the influence of red on both arousal and valence perceptions of test-relevant and neutral stimuli, rendering a color 2 (red vs. blue × context 2 (test vs. neutral between-subjects design. Participants rated different pictures regarding their arousal and valence component, respectively. In line with the assumptions of both theories, red increased arousal perceptions of stimuli irrespective of their valence but a context × color interaction was found for valence perceptions: for participants viewing test-relevant pictures, red increased their perceptions of negativity compared to neutral pictures. The present study shows that both theories are actually compatible when differentiating the arousal and valence component.

  3. Additive effects of affective arousal and top-down attention on the event-related brain responses to human bodies.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hietanen, Jari K; Kirjavainen, Ilkka; Nummenmaa, Lauri

    2014-12-01

    The early visual event-related 'N170 response' is sensitive to human body configuration and it is enhanced to nude versus clothed bodies. We tested whether the N170 response as well as later EPN and P3/LPP responses to nude bodies reflect the effect of increased arousal elicited by these stimuli, or top-down allocation of object-based attention to the nude bodies. Participants saw pictures of clothed and nude bodies and faces. In each block, participants were asked to direct their attention towards stimuli from a specified target category while ignoring others. Object-based attention did not modulate the N170 amplitudes towards attended stimuli; instead N170 response was larger to nude bodies compared to stimuli from other categories. Top-down attention and affective arousal had additive effects on the EPN and P3/LPP responses reflecting later processing stages. We conclude that nude human bodies have a privileged status in the visual processing system due to the affective arousal they trigger. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  4. On Utmost Multiplicity of Hierarchical Stellar Systems

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Gebrehiwot Y. M.

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available According to theoretical considerations, multiplicity of hierarchical stellar systems can reach, depending on masses and orbital parameters, several hundred, while observational data confirm the existence of at most septuple (seven-component systems. In this study, we cross-match the stellar systems of very high multiplicity (six and more components in modern catalogues of visual double and multiple stars to find among them the candidates to hierarchical systems. After cross-matching the catalogues of closer binaries (eclipsing, spectroscopic, etc., some of their components were found to be binary/multiple themselves, what increases the system's degree of multiplicity. Optical pairs, known from literature or filtered by the authors, were flagged and excluded from the statistics. We compiled a list of hierarchical systems with potentially very high multiplicity that contains ten objects. Their multiplicity does not exceed 12, and we discuss a number of ways to explain the lack of extremely high multiplicity systems.

  5. The effect of arousal and eye gaze direction on trust evaluations of stranger's faces: A potential pathway to paranoid thinking.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Abbott, Jennie; Middlemiss, Megan; Bruce, Vicki; Smailes, David; Dudley, Robert

    2018-09-01

    When asked to evaluate faces of strangers, people with paranoia show a tendency to rate others as less trustworthy. The present study investigated the impact of arousal on this interpersonal bias, and whether this bias was specific to evaluations of trust or additionally affected other trait judgements. The study also examined the impact of eye gaze direction, as direct eye gaze has been shown to heighten arousal. In two experiments, non-clinical participants completed face rating tasks before and after either an arousal manipulation or control manipulation. Experiment one examined the effects of heightened arousal on judgements of trustworthiness. Experiment two examined the specificity of the bias, and the impact of gaze direction. Experiment one indicated that the arousal manipulation led to lower trustworthiness ratings. Experiment two showed that heightened arousal reduced trust evaluations of trustworthy faces, particularly trustworthy faces with averted gaze. The control group rated trustworthy faces with direct gaze as more trustworthy post-manipulation. There was some evidence that attractiveness ratings were affected similarly to the trust judgements, whereas judgements of intelligence were not affected by higher arousal. In both studies, participants reported low levels of arousal even after the manipulation and the use of a non-clinical sample limits the generalisability to clinical samples. There is a complex interplay between arousal, evaluations of trustworthiness and gaze direction. Heightened arousal influences judgements of trustworthiness, but within the context of face type and gaze direction. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  6. The 2007 AASM recommendations for EEG electrode placement in polysomnography: impact on sleep and cortical arousal scoring.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ruehland, Warren R; O'Donoghue, Fergal J; Pierce, Robert J; Thornton, Andrew T; Singh, Parmjit; Copland, Janet M; Stevens, Bronwyn; Rochford, Peter D

    2011-01-01

    To examine the impact of using American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) recommended EEG derivations (F4/M1, C4/M1, O2/M1) vs. a single derivation (C4/M1) in polysomnography (PSG) on the measurement of sleep and cortical arousals, including inter- and intra-observer variability. Prospective, non-blinded, randomized comparison. Three Australian tertiary-care hospital clinical sleep laboratories. 30 PSGs from consecutive patients investigated for obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) during December 2007 and January 2008. N/A. To examine the impact of EEG derivations on PSG summary statistics, 3 scorers from different Australian clinical sleep laboratories each scored separate sets of 10 PSGs twice, once using 3 EEG derivations and once using 1 EEG derivation. To examine the impact on inter- and intra-scorer reliability, all 3 scorers scored a subset of 10 PSGs 4 times, twice using each method. All PSGs were de-identified and scored in random order according to the 2007 AASM Manual for the Scoring of Sleep and Associated Events. Using 3 referential EEG derivations during PSG, as recommended in the AASM manual, instead of a single central EEG derivation, as originally suggested by Rechtschaffen and Kales (1968), resulted in a mean ± SE decrease in N1 sleep of 9.6 ± 3.9 min (P = 0.018) and an increase in N3 sleep of 10.6 ± 2.8 min (P = 0.001). No significant differences were observed for any other sleep or arousal scoring summary statistics; nor were any differences observed in inter-scorer or intra-scorer reliability for scoring sleep or cortical arousals. This study provides information for those changing practice to comply with the 2007 AASM recommendations for EEG placement in PSG, for those using portable devices that are unable to comply with the recommendations due to limited channel options, and for the development of future standards for PSG scoring and recording. As the use of multiple EEG derivations only led to small changes in the distribution of derived sleep

  7. People, clothing, music, and arousal as contextual retrieval cues in verbal memory.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Standing, Lionel G; Bobbitt, Kristin E; Boisvert, Kathryn L; Dayholos, Kathy N; Gagnon, Anne M

    2008-10-01

    Four experiments (N = 164) on context-dependent memory were performed to explore the effects on verbal memory of incidental cues during the test session which replicated specific features of the learning session. These features involved (1) bystanders, (2) the clothing of the experimenter, (3) background music, and (4) the arousal level of the subject. Social contextual cues (bystanders or experimenter clothing) improved verbal recall or recognition. However, recall decreased when the contextual cue was a different stimulus taken from the same conceptual category (piano music by Chopin) that was heard during learning. Memory was unaffected by congruent internal cues, produced by the same physiological arousal level (low, moderate, or high heart rate) during the learning and test sessions. However, recall increased with the level of arousal across the three congruent conditions. The results emphasize the effectiveness as retrieval cues of stimuli which are socially salient, concrete, and external.

  8. Activation of stress signaling molecules in bat brain during arousal from hibernation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lee, Moonyong; Choi, Inho; Park, Kyoungsook

    2002-08-01

    Induction of glucose-regulated proteins (GRPs) is a ubiquitous intracellular response to stresses such as hypoxia, glucose starvation and acidosis. The induction of GRPs offers some protection against these stresses in vitro, but the specific role of GRPs in vivo remains unclear. Hibernating bats present a good in vivo model to address this question. The bats must overcome local high oxygen demand in tissue by severe metabolic stress during arousal thermogenesis. We used brain tissue of a temperate bat Rhinolopus ferrumequinum to investigate GRP induction by high metabolic oxygen demand and to identify associated signaling molecules. We found that during 30 min of arousal, oxygen consumption increased from nearly zero to 11.9/kg/h, which was about 8.7-fold higher than its active resting metabolic rate. During this time, body temperature rose from 7 degrees C to 35 degrees C, and levels of TNF-alpha and lactate in brain tissue increased 2-2.5-fold, indicating a high risk of oxygen shortage. Concomitantly, levels of GRP75, GRP78 and GRP94 increased 1.5-1.7-fold. At the same time, c-Jun N-terminal protein kinase (JNK) activity increased 6.4-fold, and extracellular signal-regulated protein kinase (ERK) activity decreased to a similar degree (6.1-fold). p38 MAPK activity was very low and remained unchanged during arousal. In addition, survival signaling molecules protein kinase B (Akt) and protein kinase C (PKC) were activated 3- and 5-fold, respectively, during arousal. Taken together, our results showed that bat brain undergoes high oxygen demand during arousal from hibernation. Up-regulation of GRP proteins and activation of JNK, PKCgamma and Akt may be critical for neuroprotection and the survival of bats during the repeated process.

  9. Familiarity mediates the relationship between emotional arousal and pleasure during music listening

    Science.gov (United States)

    van den Bosch, Iris; Salimpoor, Valorie N.; Zatorre, Robert J.

    2013-01-01

    Emotional arousal appears to be a major contributing factor to the pleasure that listeners experience in response to music. Accordingly, a strong positive correlation between self-reported pleasure and electrodermal activity (EDA), an objective indicator of emotional arousal, has been demonstrated when individuals listen to familiar music. However, it is not yet known to what extent familiarity contributes to this relationship. In particular, as listening to familiar music involves expectations and predictions over time based on veridical knowledge of the piece, it could be that such memory factors plays a major role. Here, we tested such a contribution by using musical stimuli entirely unfamiliar to listeners. In a second experiment we repeated the novel music to experimentally establish a sense of familiarity. We aimed to determine whether (1) pleasure and emotional arousal would continue to correlate when listeners have no explicit knowledge of how the tones will unfold, and (2) whether this could be enhanced by experimentally-induced familiarity. In the first experiment, we presented 33 listeners with 70 unfamiliar musical excerpts in two sessions. There was no relationship between the degree of experienced pleasure and emotional arousal as measured by EDA. In the second experiment, 7 participants listened to 35 unfamiliar excerpts over two sessions separated by 30 min. Repeated exposure significantly increased EDA, even though individuals did not explicitly recall having heard all the pieces before. Furthermore, increases in self-reported familiarity significantly enhanced experienced pleasure and there was a general, though not significant, increase in EDA. These results suggest that some level of expectation and predictability mediated by prior exposure to a given piece of music play an important role in the experience of emotional arousal in response to music. PMID:24046738

  10. Physiologic Arousal to Social Stress in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders: A Pilot Study

    Science.gov (United States)

    Levine, Todd P.; Sheinkopf, Stephen J.; Pescosolido, Matthew; Rodino, Alison; Elia, Gregory; Lester, Barry

    2012-01-01

    Little is known about arousal to socially stressful situations in children with Autism Spectrum Disorders. This preliminary study investigates physiologic arousal in children with high functioning autism (HFA, n = 19) compared to a comparison group (n = 11) before, during, and after the Trier Social Stress Test. The HFA group was more likely to…

  11. Affective processing within 1/10th of a second: High arousal is necessary for early facilitative processing of negative but not positive words.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hofmann, Markus J; Kuchinke, Lars; Tamm, Sascha; Võ, Melissa L-H; Jacobs, Arthur M

    2009-12-01

    Lexical decisions to high- and low-arousal negative words and to low-arousal neutral and positive words were examined in an event-related potentials (ERP) study. Reaction times to positive and high-arousal negative words were shorter than those to neutral (low-arousal) words, whereas those to low-arousal negative words were longer. A similar pattern was observed in an early time window of the ERP response: Both positive and high-arousal negative words elicited greater negative potentials in a time frame of 80 to 120 msec after stimulus onset. This result suggests that arousal has a differential impact on early lexical processing of positive and negative words. Source localization in the relevant time frame revealed that the arousal effect in negative words is likely to be localized in a left occipito-temporal region including the middle temporal and fusiform gyri. The ERP arousal effect appears to result from early lexico-semantic processing in high-arousal negative words.

  12. Disorders in sexual desire and sexual arousal in women, a 2010 state of the art

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Both, Stephanie; Laan, Ellen; Schultz, Willibrord Weijmar

    2010-01-01

    In this contribution, female sexual desire and arousal disorders are viewed from the perspective of incentive motivation and information processing models of sexual response. The effects of hormones, somatic disease, and medication on sexual arousability are discussed, as well as the influence of

  13. Driving with music : Effects on arousal and performance

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Unal, Ayca Berfu; de Waard, Dick; Epstude, Kai; Steg, Linda

    2013-01-01

    In the current study, we aimed at exploring the influence of music on driving performance, arousal and mental effort while carrying out a monotonous car-following task in a low-complexity traffic setting. Participants (N = 47) were randomly assigned to loud and moderate volume music groups, and

  14. A combination of high stress-induced tense and energetic arousal compensates for impairing effects of stress on memory retrieval in men.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Boehringer, Andreas; Schwabe, Lars; Schachinger, Hartmut

    2010-09-01

    Stress can both impair and enhance memory retrieval. Glucocorticoids mediate impairing effects of stress on memory retrieval. Little is known, however, about factors that facilitate post-stress memory performance. Here, we asked whether stress-induced arousal mediates facilitative stress effects on memory retrieval. Two arousal dimensions were separated: tense arousal, which is characterized by feelings ranging from tension and anxiety to calmness and quietness, and energetic arousal, which is associated with feelings ranging from energy and vigor to states of fatigue and tiredness. Fifty-one men (mean age +/- SEM: 24.57 +/- 0.61 years) learned emotional and neutral words. Memory for these words was tested 165 min later, after participants were exposed to a psychosocial stress or a non-arousing control condition. Changes in heart rate, self-reported (energetic and tense) arousal, and saliva cortisol in response to the stress/control condition were measured. Overall, stress impaired memory retrieval. However, stressed participants with large increases in both tense and energetic arousal performed comparably to controls. Neither salivary cortisol level nor autonomic arousal predicted memory performance after controlling for changes in energetic and tense arousal. The present data indicate that stress-induced concurrent changes in tense and energetic arousal can compensate for impairing effects of stress on memory retrieval. This finding could help to explain some of the discrepancies in the literature on stress and memory.

  15. Post-encoding emotional arousal enhances consolidation of item memory, but not reality-monitoring source memory.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, Bo; Sun, Bukuan

    2017-03-01

    The current study examined whether the effect of post-encoding emotional arousal on item memory extends to reality-monitoring source memory and, if so, whether the effect depends on emotionality of learning stimuli and testing format. In Experiment 1, participants encoded neutral words and imagined or viewed their corresponding object pictures. Then they watched a neutral, positive, or negative video. The 24-hour delayed test showed that emotional arousal had little effect on both item memory and reality-monitoring source memory. Experiment 2 was similar except that participants encoded neutral, positive, and negative words and imagined or viewed their corresponding object pictures. The results showed that positive and negative emotional arousal induced after encoding enhanced consolidation of item memory, but not reality-monitoring source memory, regardless of emotionality of learning stimuli. Experiment 3, identical to Experiment 2 except that participants were tested only on source memory for all the encoded items, still showed that post-encoding emotional arousal had little effect on consolidation of reality-monitoring source memory. Taken together, regardless of emotionality of learning stimuli and regardless of testing format of source memory (conjunction test vs. independent test), the facilitatory effect of post-encoding emotional arousal on item memory does not generalize to reality-monitoring source memory.

  16. Concerned, responsible and guilty? Testing a model of guilt arousal and effects in environmental campaigns

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Wonneberger, A.

    2014-01-01

    Guilt has been identified as a crucial factor mediating the effects of social campaigns, for instance, on charity giving. So far, however, knowledge regarding the process of guilt arousal is limited. Who is especially susceptible to guilt arousal and how does guilt influence campaign effects? This

  17. Distinct populations of neurons respond to emotional valence and arousal in the human subthalamic nucleus.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sieger, Tomáš; Serranová, Tereza; Růžička, Filip; Vostatek, Pavel; Wild, Jiří; Štastná, Daniela; Bonnet, Cecilia; Novák, Daniel; Růžička, Evžen; Urgošík, Dušan; Jech, Robert

    2015-03-10

    Both animal studies and studies using deep brain stimulation in humans have demonstrated the involvement of the subthalamic nucleus (STN) in motivational and emotional processes; however, participation of this nucleus in processing human emotion has not been investigated directly at the single-neuron level. We analyzed the relationship between the neuronal firing from intraoperative microrecordings from the STN during affective picture presentation in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) and the affective ratings of emotional valence and arousal performed subsequently. We observed that 17% of neurons responded to emotional valence and arousal of visual stimuli according to individual ratings. The activity of some neurons was related to emotional valence, whereas different neurons responded to arousal. In addition, 14% of neurons responded to visual stimuli. Our results suggest the existence of neurons involved in processing or transmission of visual and emotional information in the human STN, and provide evidence of separate processing of the affective dimensions of valence and arousal at the level of single neurons as well.

  18. The stressed eyewitness: the interaction of thematic arousal and post-event stress in memory for central and peripheral event information

    OpenAIRE

    Echterhoff, Gerald; Wolf, Oliver T.

    2012-01-01

    Both arousal during the encoding of stimuli and subsequent stress can affect memory, often by increasing memory for important or central information. We explored whether event-based (thematic) arousal and post-event stress interact to selectively enhance eyewitnesses' memory for the central aspects of an observed incident. Specifically, we argue that memory for stimuli should be enhanced when (1) the stimuli are encoded under arousal (vs. non-arousal), and (2) stress is experienced soon after...

  19. Predictors of sexual assertiveness: the role of sexual desire, arousal, attitudes, and partner abuse.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Santos-Iglesias, Pablo; Sierra, Juan Carlos; Vallejo-Medina, Pablo

    2013-08-01

    This study was conducted to test interpersonal, attitudinal, and sexual predictors of sexual assertiveness in a Spanish sample of 1,619 men and 1,755 women aged 18-87 years. Participants completed measures of sexual assertiveness, solitary and dyadic sexual desire, sexual arousal, erectile function, sexual attitudes, and frequency of partner abuse. In men, higher sexual assertiveness was predicted by less non-physical abuse, more positive attitudes toward sexual fantasies and erotophilia, higher dyadic desire, and higher sexual arousal. In women, higher sexual assertiveness was predicted by less non-physical abuse, less solitary sexual desire and higher dyadic sexual desire, arousal, erotophilia, and positive attitudes towards sexual fantasies. Results were discussed in the light of prevention and educational programs that include training in sexual assertiveness skills.

  20. Symptom Characteristics and Medical History of an Online Sample of Women Who Experience Symptoms of Persistent Genital Arousal.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jackowich, Robyn; Pink, Leah; Gordon, Allan; Poirier, Évéline; Pukall, Caroline F

    2018-02-17

    Persistent genital arousal disorder (PGAD; Leiblum & Nathan, 2001 ) is characterized by distressing symptoms suggestive of genital arousal in the absence of subjective feelings of arousal. Although awareness of PGAD is growing, there continues to be a lack of systematic research on it. This study characterized an online sample of women with symptoms of persistent genital arousal (PGA) in terms of their symptom characteristics, medical comorbidities, symptom triggers, management strategies, and predictors of distress. Women reported diverse PGA symptoms, with almost half reporting painful symptoms, and most reported very high distress and negative emotions. Further research and awareness of PGA are needed to provide effective care for this population.

  1. Early cortical facilitation for emotionally arousing targets during the attentional blink

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ihssen Niklas

    2006-07-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background The present study aimed to investigate the time course of electrocortical facilitation for affectively arousing written words during the so-called 'attentional blink' (AB period in a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP task. The AB refers to a period of reduced awareness for second-target stimuli following a first target by an interval of about 200–500 ms. Pleasant, neutral, and unpleasant written verbs were used as second targets in an 8.6-Hz RSVP paradigm that contained affectively neutral words as distractors. Replicating and extending behavioral studies, we expected that emotional second targets would be associated with better identification accuracy and greater electrocortical activity, compared with neutral targets. Results The steady-state visual evoked potential was recorded using 129 scalp electrodes. The time-varying energy at the presentation frequency of 8.6 Hz was extracted as a continuous measure of electrocortical activity related to the RSVP stream. Behavioral data showed that at an inter-target interval of 232 ms, the report for emotionally arousing (pleasant and unpleasant words was more accurate than for neutral control words. This result was mirrored by the electrocortical response at posterior sensors, which showed rapid amplitude enhancement (120–270 ms after T2 onset for pleasant and unpleasant targets specifically. Conclusion The present data suggest that identification facilitation for emotionally arousing target words in the AB is related to rapid enhancement of sensory processing. Affectively arousing information is preferentially selected at the level of early perceptual analysis, leading to facilitation at later stages of processing, including consolidation in working memory and visual awareness.

  2. Inducing changes in arousal and valence: comparison of two mood induction procedures.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jallais, Christophe; Gilet, Anne-Laure

    2010-02-01

    This research examined the relative effectiveness of two mood induction procedures (MIPs) for inducing four specific moods varying along the dimensions of both valence and arousal. Participants were randomly assigned either to an autobiographical recall or to a music and guided imagery MIP and underwent a happiness, serenity, anger, or sadness mood induction. The findings confirmed the effectiveness of the two MIPs in producing changes on both the valence and arousal dimensions of mood. The results also revealed an unexpected greater efficiency of the autobiographical recall than of the combined procedure.

  3. PTSD's latent structure in Malaysian tsunami victims: assessing the newly proposed Dysphoric Arousal model.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Armour, Cherie; Raudzah Ghazali, Siti; Elklit, Ask

    2013-03-30

    The underlying latent structure of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is widely researched. However, despite a plethora of factor analytic studies, no single model has consistently been shown as superior to alternative models. The two most often supported models are the Emotional Numbing and the Dysphoria models. However, a recently proposed five-factor Dysphoric Arousal model has been gathering support over and above existing models. Data for the current study were gathered from Malaysian Tsunami survivors (N=250). Three competing models (Emotional Numbing/Dysphoria/Dysphoric Arousal) were specified and estimated using Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA). The Dysphoria model provided superior fit to the data compared to the Emotional Numbing model. However, using chi-square difference tests, the Dysphoric Arousal model showed a superior fit compared to both the Emotional Numbing and Dysphoria models. In conclusion, the current results suggest that the Dysphoric Arousal model better represents PTSD's latent structure and that items measuring sleeping difficulties, irritability/anger and concentration difficulties form a separate, unique PTSD factor. These results are discussed in relation to the role of Hyperarousal in PTSD's on-going symptom maintenance and in relation to the DSM-5. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

  4. The stressed eyewitness: The interaction of thematic arousal and post-event stress in memory for central and peripheral event information

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Gerald eEchterhoff

    2012-08-01

    Full Text Available Both arousal during the encoding of stimuli and subsequent stress can affect memory, often by increasing memory for important or central information. We explored whether event-based (thematic arousal and post-event stress interact to selectively enhance eyewitnesses’ memory for the central aspects of an observed incident. Specifically, we argue that memory for stimuli should be enhanced when (a the stimuli are encoded under arousal (vs. non-arousal, and (b stress is experienced soon after the encoding episode.We designed an experiment that extended previous research by manipulating arousal without changing the stimulus material, distinguishing between central and peripheral event information, and using a dynamic, life-like event instead of static pictures. After watching a video depicting a burglary under high or low thematic arousal, psychosocial stress was induced or not induced by the Trier Social Stress Test. Salivary cortisol was measured at standard intervals. Consistent with our prediction, we found a significant thematic arousal x post-event stress x centrality interaction, indicating that the recognition advantage for central event items over peripheral event items was most pronounced under both high thematic arousal and post-event stress. Because stress was induced after encoding this interaction cannot be explained by possible differences at encoding, such as narrowed attention. The centrality effect of post-event stress under high thematic arousal was statistically mediated by the cortisol increase, which suggests a key role of the stress hormone. We discuss implications of our findings for psychological and neuroscientific theories of emotional memory formation.

  5. Post-learning arousal enhances veridical memory and reduces false memory in the Deese-Roediger-McDermott paradigm.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nielson, Kristy A; Correro, Anthony N

    2017-10-01

    The Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm examines false memory by introducing words associated with a non-presented 'critical lure' as memoranda, which typically causes the lures to be remembered as frequently as studied words. Our prior work has shown enhanced veridical memory and reduced misinformation effects when arousal is induced after learning (i.e., during memory consolidation). These effects have not been examined in the DRM task, or with signal detection analysis, which can elucidate the mechanisms underlying memory alterations. Thus, 130 subjects studied and then immediately recalled six DRM lists, one after another, and then watched a 3-min arousing (n=61) or neutral (n=69) video. Recognition tested 70min later showed that arousal induced after learning led to better delayed discrimination of studied words from (a) critical lures, and (b) other non-presented 'weak associates.' Furthermore, arousal reduced liberal response bias (i.e., the tendency toward accepting dubious information) for studied words relative to all foils, including critical lures and 'weak associates.' Thus, arousal induced after learning effectively increased the distinction between signal and noise by enhancing access to verbatim information and reducing endorsement of dubious information. These findings provide important insights into the cognitive mechanisms by which arousal modulates early memory consolidation processes. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  6. No longer his and hers, but ours: examining sexual arousal in response to erotic stories designed for both sexes.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Scott, Christina L; Cortez, Angelberto

    2011-01-01

    Research on sexual arousal and erotica has focused primarily on men and women's responses to erotic films and stories designed for a sex-specific audience. To reduce the confounds of relying on separate materials when evaluating sex differences in arousal, the present study designed suggestive and explicit erotic stories that were rated as being equally appealing to men and women. Participants were 212 undergraduate students who completed self-report measures of sexual self-esteem, sexual desire, and pre- and posttest measures of arousal. As hypothesized, women in the suggestive and explicit conditions reported a significant increase in sexual arousal; however, only men who read the explicit story demonstrated significant elevations in arousal. The creation of "equally appealing" erotic stories has challenged the existing research paradigm and has initiated the investigation of sexual arousal from a set of common materials designed for both sexes. The benefits of creating a series of equally appealing erotic materials extends beyond empirical research and may ultimately facilitate greater openness and communication between heterosexual couples.

  7. Arousal vs. Relaxation: A Comparison of the Neurophysiological and Cognitive Correlates of Vajrayana and Theravada Meditative Practices

    Science.gov (United States)

    Amihai, Ido; Kozhevnikov, Maria

    2014-01-01

    Based on evidence of parasympathetic activation, early studies defined meditation as a relaxation response. Later research attempted to categorize meditation as either involving focused or distributed attentional systems. Neither of these hypotheses received strong empirical support, and most of the studies investigated Theravada style meditative practices. In this study, we compared neurophysiological (EEG, EKG) and cognitive correlates of meditative practices that are thought to utilize either focused or distributed attention, from both Theravada and Vajrayana traditions. The results of Study 1 show that both focused (Shamatha) and distributed (Vipassana) attention meditations of the Theravada tradition produced enhanced parasympathetic activation indicative of a relaxation response. In contrast, both focused (Deity) and distributed (Rig-pa) meditations of the Vajrayana tradition produced sympathetic activation, indicative of arousal. Additionally, the results of Study 2 demonstrated an immediate dramatic increase in performance on cognitive tasks following only Vajrayana styles of meditation, indicating enhanced phasic alertness due to arousal. Furthermore, our EEG results showed qualitatively different patterns of activation between Theravada and Vajrayana meditations, albeit highly similar activity between meditations within the same tradition. In conclusion, consistent with Tibetan scriptures that described Shamatha and Vipassana techniques as those that calm and relax the mind, and Vajrayana techniques as those that require ‘an awake quality’ of the mind, we show that Theravada and Vajrayana meditations are based on different neurophysiological mechanisms, which give rise to either a relaxation or arousal response. Hence, it may be more appropriate to categorize meditations in terms of relaxation vs. arousal, whereas classification methods that rely on the focused vs. distributed attention dichotomy may need to be reexamined. PMID:25051268

  8. Arousal vs. relaxation: a comparison of the neurophysiological and cognitive correlates of Vajrayana and Theravada meditative practices.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ido Amihai

    Full Text Available Based on evidence of parasympathetic activation, early studies defined meditation as a relaxation response. Later research attempted to categorize meditation as either involving focused or distributed attentional systems. Neither of these hypotheses received strong empirical support, and most of the studies investigated Theravada style meditative practices. In this study, we compared neurophysiological (EEG, EKG and cognitive correlates of meditative practices that are thought to utilize either focused or distributed attention, from both Theravada and Vajrayana traditions. The results of Study 1 show that both focused (Shamatha and distributed (Vipassana attention meditations of the Theravada tradition produced enhanced parasympathetic activation indicative of a relaxation response. In contrast, both focused (Deity and distributed (Rig-pa meditations of the Vajrayana tradition produced sympathetic activation, indicative of arousal. Additionally, the results of Study 2 demonstrated an immediate dramatic increase in performance on cognitive tasks following only Vajrayana styles of meditation, indicating enhanced phasic alertness due to arousal. Furthermore, our EEG results showed qualitatively different patterns of activation between Theravada and Vajrayana meditations, albeit highly similar activity between meditations within the same tradition. In conclusion, consistent with Tibetan scriptures that described Shamatha and Vipassana techniques as those that calm and relax the mind, and Vajrayana techniques as those that require 'an awake quality' of the mind, we show that Theravada and Vajrayana meditations are based on different neurophysiological mechanisms, which give rise to either a relaxation or arousal response. Hence, it may be more appropriate to categorize meditations in terms of relaxation vs. arousal, whereas classification methods that rely on the focused vs. distributed attention dichotomy may need to be reexamined.

  9. Torpor patterns, arousal rates, and temporal organization of torpor entry in wildtype and UCP1-ablated mice.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Oelkrug, R; Heldmaier, G; Meyer, C W

    2011-01-01

    In eutherian mammals, uncoupling protein 1 (UCP1) mediated non-shivering thermogenesis from brown adipose tissue (BAT) provides a mechanism through which arousal from torpor and hibernation is facilitated. In order to directly assess the magnitude by which the presence or absence of UCP1 affects torpor patterns, rewarming and arousal rates within one species we compared fasting induced torpor in wildtype (UCP1(+/+)) and UCP1-ablated mice (UCP(-/-)). Torpor was induced by depriving mice of food for up to 48 h and by a reduction of ambient temperature (T (a)) from 30 to 18°C at four different time points after 18, 24, 30 and 36 h of food deprivation. In most cases, torpor bouts occurred within 20 min after the switch in ambient temperature (30-18°C). Torpor bouts expressed during the light phase lasted 3-6 h while significantly longer bouts (up to 16 h) were observed when mice entered torpor during the dark phase. The degree of hypometabolism (5-22 ml h(-1)) and hypothermia (19.5-26.7°C) was comparable in wildtype and UCP1-ablated mice, and both genotypes were able to regain normothermia. In contrast to wildtype mice, UCP1-ablated mice did not display multiple torpor bouts per day and their peak rewarming rates from torpor were reduced by 50% (UCP1(+/+): 0.24 ± 0.08°C min(-1); UCP1(-/-): 0.12 ± 0.04°C min(-1)). UCP1-ablated mice therefore took significantly longer to rewarm from 25 to 32°C (39 vs. 70 min) and required 60% more energy for this process. Our results demonstrate the energetic benefit of functional BAT for rapid arousal from torpor. They also suggest that torpor entry and maintenance may be dependent on endogenous rhythms.

  10. Effect of emotional arousal on inter-temporal decision-making: an fMRI study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sohn, Jin-Hun; Kim, Hyo-Eun; Sohn, Sunju; Seok, Ji-Woo; Choi, Damee; Watanuki, Shigeki

    2015-03-07

    Previous research has shown that emotion can significantly impact decision-making in humans. The current study examined whether or not and how situationally induced emotion influences people to make inter-temporal choices. Affective pictures were used as experiment stimuli to provoke emotion, immediately followed by subjects' performance of a delay-discounting task to measure impulsivity during functional magnetic resonance imaging. Results demonstrate a subsequent process of increased impulsive decision-making following a prior exposure to both high positive and negative arousal stimuli, compared to the experiment subjects' experiences with neutral stimuli. Findings indicate that increased impulsive decision-making behaviors can occur with high arousal and can be characterized by decreased activities in the cognitive control regions such as prefronto-parietal regions. These results suggest that 'stabilization of high emotional arousal' may facilitate a reduction of impulsive decision-making and implementation of longer term goals.

  11. Effects of arousal and context on recognition memory for emotional pictures in younger and older adults

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, Yang; Yang, Jiongjiong

    2017-01-01

    Background/Study context Previous studies found that older adults tend to remember more positive than negative information (i.e., positivity bias), leading to an age-related positivity effect. However, the extent to which factors of arousal and contextual information influence the positivity bias in older adults remains to be determined. Methods In this study, 27 Chinese younger adults (20.00±1.75 years) and 33 Chinese older adults (70.76 ± 5.49) learned pictures with negative, positive and neutral valences. Half of the pictures had a human context, and the other half did not. In addition, emotional dimensions of negative and positive pictures were divided into high-arousal and low-arousal. The experimental task was to provide old/new recognition and confidence rating judgments. Results Both groups of subjects showed the positivity bias for low-arousal pictures, but the positivity bias was restricted to low-arousal pictures without the human context in older adults. In addition, the positivity bias was mainly driven by the recollection process in younger adults, and it was mainly driven by both the recollection and familiarity processes in older adults. The recognition of the nonhuman positive pictures was correlated with cognitive control abilities, but the recognition of pictures with human contexts was correlated with general memory abilities in older adults. Conclusion This study highlights the importance of arousal and contextual information in modulating emotional memory in younger and older adults. It suggests that there are different mechanisms for memorizing pictures with and without human contexts in older adults. PMID:28230422

  12. A Model of Anxious Arousal for Public Speaking

    Science.gov (United States)

    Finn, Amber N.; Sawyer, Chris R.; Behnke, Ralph R.

    2009-01-01

    With the goal of identifying the characteristics or traits students bring to the classroom that predispose them to panic when faced with the threat of presenting in front of an audience, this study introduced a subtype of public-speaking state anxiety--anxious arousal. Specifically, this study examined the extent to which trait anxiety and…

  13. Female sexual arousal in amphibians.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wilczynski, Walter; Lynch, Kathleen S

    2011-05-01

    Rather than being a static, species specific trait, reproductive behavior in female amphibians is variable within an individual during the breeding season when females are capable of reproductive activity. Changes in receptivity coincide with changes in circulating estrogen. Estrogen is highest at the point when females are ready to choose a male and lay eggs. At this time female receptivity (her probability of responding to a male vocal signal) is highest and her selectivity among conspecific calls (measured by her probability of responding to a degraded or otherwise usually unattractive male signal) is lowest. These changes occur even though females retain the ability to discriminate different acoustic characteristics of various conspecific calls. After releasing her eggs, female amphibians quickly become less receptive and more choosy in terms of their responses to male sexual advertisement signals. Male vocal signals stimulate both behavior and estrogen changes in amphibian females making mating more probable. The changes in female reproductive behavior are the same as those generally accepted as indicative of a change in female sexual arousal leading to copulation. They are situationally triggered, gated by interactions with males, and decline with the consummation of sexual reproduction with a chosen male. The changes can be triggered by either internal physiological state or by the presence of stimuli presented by males, and the same stimuli change both behavior and physiological (endocrine) state in such a way as to make acceptance of a male more likely. Thus amphibian females demonstrate many of the same general characteristics of changing female sexual state that in mammals indicate sexual arousal. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  14. Pleasure, arousal, dominance: Mehrabian and Russell revisited

    OpenAIRE

    Bakker, I.C.; van der Voordt, Theo; de Boon, J; Vink, P.

    2014-01-01

    This paper presents a discursive review of the dimensions pleasure, arousal and dominance that Mehrabian and Russell developed in 1974 to assess environmental perception, experience, and psychological responses. Since then numerous researchers applied these dimensions to assess the experience of the physical environment and its perceived qualities. Although the dimensions appeared to be useful, there is a long-lasting debate going on among environmental psychologists about the interpretation ...

  15. Do drives drive the train of thought?-Effects of hunger and sexual arousal on mind-wandering behavior.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rummel, Jan; Nied, Laura

    2017-10-01

    Physiological needs that are currently unfulfilled are known to affect human cognition and behavior. The present study investigates whether and how the temporary activation of two primary physiological needs, namely hunger and sexual arousal, influence both the frequency and the contents of mind-wandering episodes. To induce hunger, one group of participants fasted for a minimum of five hours whereas another group of participants was exposed to audio material with explicit sexual content to provoke sexual arousal. Both groups as well as an additional control group, which had not received hunger instructions and had not been exposed to arousing material of any kind beforehand, performed a reading task during which mind wandering was assessed using a standard experience-sampling method. Results showed that acute hunger but not elevated sexual arousal renders the occurrence of mind-wandering episodes more likely. Induction of both hunger and sexual arousal rendered the occurrence of need-related off-task thoughts more likely and changed time orientations of mind wandering. The present findings are well in line with the assumption that unfulfilled needs regularly achieve cognitive priority and extend the cognitive-priority idea to self-generated thoughts. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  16. Hearing something emotional influences memory for what was just seen: How arousal amplifies effects of competition in memory consolidation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ponzio, Allison; Mather, Mara

    2014-12-01

    Enhanced memory for emotional items often comes at the cost of memory for the background scenes. Because emotional foreground items both induce arousal and attract attention, it is not clear whether the emotion effects are simply the result of shifts in visual attention during encoding or whether arousal has effects beyond simple attention capture. In the current study, participants viewed a series of scenes that each either had a foreground object or did not have one, and then, after each image, heard either an emotionally arousing negative sound or a neutral sound. After a 24-hr delay, they returned for a memory test for the objects and scenes. Postencoding arousal decreased recognition memory of scenes shown behind superimposed objects but not memory of scenes shown alone. These findings support the hypothesis that arousal amplifies the effects of competition between mental representations, influencing memory consolidation of currently active representations.

  17. Tactile arousal threshold of sleeping king penguins in a breeding colony.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dewasmes, G; Telliez, F

    2000-09-01

    The tactile arousal threshold of sleeping birds has not been investigated to date. In this study, the characteristics of this threshold were assessed by stimulating either the upper back or a foot of two groups (one cutaneous site per group) of 60 sleeping king penguins (Aptenodytes patagonica) in the breeding colony of Baie du Marin (Crozet Archipelago). Increasing weights were put onto one of the feet or the upper back of individuals that had been sleeping for more than 5 min until they showed behavioural signs of arousal (head raising). The weight applied to the upper back that was needed to awaken a sleeper (837 +/- 73 g) was 20 times greater than that applied to a foot (38 +/- 6 g). In terms of pressure, the difference remained five times higher for the back (209 +/- 18 g/cm(2)) than the foot (40 g +/- 7 g/cm(2)). Because the king penguin incubates its single egg and rears its young chick on its feet, the low threshold measured at this level could be viewed as an adaptation against progeny predation. Sleepers are frequently bumped by conspecifics walking through the colony. The increased arousal threshold associated with tactile stimulation of the back may help to preserve sleep continuity under these conditions.

  18. Effects of emotional valence and arousal on the voice perception network

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kotz, Sonja A.; Belin, Pascal

    2017-01-01

    Abstract Several theories conceptualise emotions along two main dimensions: valence (a continuum from negative to positive) and arousal (a continuum that varies from low to high). These dimensions are typically treated as independent in many neuroimaging experiments, yet recent behavioural findings suggest that they are actually interdependent. This result has impact on neuroimaging design, analysis and theoretical development. We were interested in determining the extent of this interdependence both behaviourally and neuroanatomically, as well as teasing apart any activation that is specific to each dimension. While we found extensive overlap in activation for each dimension in traditional emotion areas (bilateral insulae, orbitofrontal cortex, amygdalae), we also found activation specific to each dimension with characteristic relationships between modulations of these dimensions and BOLD signal change. Increases in arousal ratings were related to increased activations predominantly in voice-sensitive cortices after variance explained by valence had been removed. In contrast, emotions of extreme valence were related to increased activations in bilateral voice-sensitive cortices, hippocampi, anterior and midcingulum and medial orbito- and superior frontal regions after variance explained by arousal had been accounted for. Our results therefore do not support a complete segregation of brain structures underpinning the processing of affective dimensions. PMID:28449127

  19. Brief Emotion Regulation Training Facilitates Arousal Control During Sexual Stimuli

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    van Overveld, Mark; Borg, Charmaine

    2015-01-01

    Disgust, a negative emotion which evokes strong behavioral avoidance tendencies, has been associated with sexual dysfunction. Recently, it was postulated that healthy sexual functioning requires a balance between excitatory (increased sexual arousal) and inhibitory processes (lowered disgust

  20. Cognitive Factors in Sexual Arousal: The Role of Distraction

    Science.gov (United States)

    Geer, James H.; Fuhr, Robert

    1976-01-01

    Four groups of male undergraduates were instructed to perform complex cognitive operations when randomly presented single digits of a dichotic listening paradigm. An erotic tape recording was played into the nonattended ear. Sexual arousal varied directly as a function of the complexity of the distracting cognitive operations. (Author)

  1. Paroxysmal arousal in epilepsy associated with cingulate hyperperfusion.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vetrugno, R; Mascalchi, M; Vella, A; Della Nave, R; Provini, F; Plazzi, G; Volterrani, D; Bertelli, P; Vattimo, A; Lugaresi, E; Montagna, P

    2005-01-25

    A patient with nocturnal frontal lobe epilepsy characterized by paroxysmal motor attacks during sleep had brief paroxysmal arousals (PAs), complex episodes of nocturnal paroxysmal dystonia, and epileptic nocturnal wandering since childhood. Ictal SPECT during an episode of PA demonstrated increased blood flow in the right anterior cingulate gyrus and cerebellar cortex with hypoperfusion in the right temporal and frontal associative cortices.

  2. Sexy thoughts: effects of sexual cognitions on testosterone, cortisol, and arousal in women.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Goldey, Katherine L; van Anders, Sari M

    2011-05-01

    Previous research suggests that sexual stimuli increase testosterone (T) in women and shows inconsistent effects of sexual arousal on cortisol (C), but effects of cognitive aspects of arousal, rather than behaviors or sensory stimuli, are unclear. The present study examined whether sexual thoughts affect T or C and whether hormonal contraceptive (HC) use moderated this effect, given mixed findings of HC use confounding hormone responses. Participants (79 women) provided a baseline saliva sample for radioimmunoassay. We created the Imagined Social Situation Exercise (ISSE) to test effects of imagining social interactions on hormones, and participants were assigned to the experimental (sexual) or one of three control (positive, neutral, stressful) conditions. Participants provided a second saliva sample 15 min post-activity. Results indicated that for women not using HCs, the sexual condition increased T compared to the stressful or positive conditions. In contrast, HC using women in the sexual condition had decreased T relative to the stressful condition and similar T to the positive condition. The effect was specific to T, as sexual thoughts did not change C. For participants in the sexual condition, higher baseline T predicted larger increases in sexual arousal but smaller increases in T, likely due to ceiling effects on T. Our results suggest that sexual thoughts change T but not C, baseline T levels and HC use may contribute to variation in the T response to sexual thoughts, and cognitive aspects of sexual arousal affect physiology. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  3. Assessing a five factor model of PTSD: is dysphoric arousal a unique PTSD construct showing differential relationships with anxiety and depression?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Armour, Cherie; Elhai, Jon D; Richardson, Don; Ractliffe, Kendra; Wang, Li; Elklit, Ask

    2012-03-01

    Posttraumatic stress disorder's (PTSD) latent structure has been widely debated. To date, two four-factor models (Numbing and Dysphoria) have received the majority of factor analytic support. Recently, Elhai et al. (2011) proposed and supported a revised (five-factor) Dysphoric Arousal model. Data were gathered from two separate samples; War veterans and Primary Care medical patients. The three models were compared and the resultant factors of the Dysphoric Arousal model were validated against external constructs of depression and anxiety. The Dysphoric Arousal model provided significantly better fit than the Numbing and Dysphoria models across both samples. When differentiating between factors, the current results support the idea that Dysphoric Arousal can be differentiated from Anxious Arousal but not from Emotional Numbing when correlated with depression. In conclusion, the Dysphoria model may be a more parsimonious representation of PTSD's latent structure in these trauma populations despite superior fit of the Dysphoric Arousal model. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  4. Frequent arousal from hibernation linked to severity of infection and mortality in bats with white-nose syndrome.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    DeeAnn M Reeder

    Full Text Available White-nose syndrome (WNS, an emerging infectious disease that has killed over 5.5 million hibernating bats, is named for the causative agent, a white fungus (Geomyces destructans (Gd that invades the skin of torpid bats. During hibernation, arousals to warm (euthermic body temperatures are normal but deplete fat stores. Temperature-sensitive dataloggers were attached to the backs of 504 free-ranging little brown bats (Myotis lucifugus in hibernacula located throughout the northeastern USA. Dataloggers were retrieved at the end of the hibernation season and complete profiles of skin temperature data were available from 83 bats, which were categorized as: (1 unaffected, (2 WNS-affected but alive at time of datalogger removal, or (3 WNS-affected but found dead at time of datalogger removal. Histological confirmation of WNS severity (as indexed by degree of fungal infection as well as confirmation of presence/absence of DNA from Gd by PCR was determined for 26 animals. We demonstrated that WNS-affected bats aroused to euthermic body temperatures more frequently than unaffected bats, likely contributing to subsequent mortality. Within the subset of WNS-affected bats that were found dead at the time of datalogger removal, the number of arousal bouts since datalogger attachment significantly predicted date of death. Additionally, the severity of cutaneous Gd infection correlated with the number of arousal episodes from torpor during hibernation. Thus, increased frequency of arousal from torpor likely contributes to WNS-associated mortality, but the question of how Gd infection induces increased arousals remains unanswered.

  5. Frequent arousal from hibernation linked to severity of infection and mortality in bats with white-nose syndrome.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Reeder, DeeAnn M; Frank, Craig L; Turner, Gregory G; Meteyer, Carol U; Kurta, Allen; Britzke, Eric R; Vodzak, Megan E; Darling, Scott R; Stihler, Craig W; Hicks, Alan C; Jacob, Roymon; Grieneisen, Laura E; Brownlee, Sarah A; Muller, Laura K; Blehert, David S

    2012-01-01

    White-nose syndrome (WNS), an emerging infectious disease that has killed over 5.5 million hibernating bats, is named for the causative agent, a white fungus (Geomyces destructans (Gd)) that invades the skin of torpid bats. During hibernation, arousals to warm (euthermic) body temperatures are normal but deplete fat stores. Temperature-sensitive dataloggers were attached to the backs of 504 free-ranging little brown bats (Myotis lucifugus) in hibernacula located throughout the northeastern USA. Dataloggers were retrieved at the end of the hibernation season and complete profiles of skin temperature data were available from 83 bats, which were categorized as: (1) unaffected, (2) WNS-affected but alive at time of datalogger removal, or (3) WNS-affected but found dead at time of datalogger removal. Histological confirmation of WNS severity (as indexed by degree of fungal infection) as well as confirmation of presence/absence of DNA from Gd by PCR was determined for 26 animals. We demonstrated that WNS-affected bats aroused to euthermic body temperatures more frequently than unaffected bats, likely contributing to subsequent mortality. Within the subset of WNS-affected bats that were found dead at the time of datalogger removal, the number of arousal bouts since datalogger attachment significantly predicted date of death. Additionally, the severity of cutaneous Gd infection correlated with the number of arousal episodes from torpor during hibernation. Thus, increased frequency of arousal from torpor likely contributes to WNS-associated mortality, but the question of how Gd infection induces increased arousals remains unanswered.

  6. Cortical arousal in children and adolescents with functional neurological symptoms during the auditory oddball task

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kasia Kozlowska, MBBS., PhD. FRANZCP

    2017-01-01

    Conclusions: Our findings add to a growing literature indicating that a baseline state of high arousal may be a precondition for generating functional neurological symptoms, a finding that helps explain why a range of psychological and physiological stressors can trigger functional neurological symptoms in some patients. Interventions that target cortical arousal may be central to the treatment of paediatric patients with functional neurological symptom disorder.

  7. EEG arousal prediction via hypoxemia indicator in patients with ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS) is a sleep breathing disorder characterized by recurrent airflow obstruction caused by a total or partial collapse of the upper airway. OSAS is a common affliction suffered by millions. The arousal index (ArI) is the best predictor of daytime somnolence for patients with OSAS, ...

  8. Visuospatial Working Memory Capacity Predicts Physiological Arousal in a Narrative Task.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Smithson, Lisa; Nicoladis, Elena

    2016-06-01

    Physiological arousal that occurs during narrative production is thought to reflect emotional processing and cognitive effort (Bar-Haim et al. in Dev Psychobiol 44:238-249, 2004). The purpose of this study was to determine whether individual differences in visuospatial working memory and/or verbal working memory capacity predict physiological arousal in a narrative task. Visuospatial working memory was a significant predictor of skin conductance level (SCL); verbal working memory was not. When visuospatial working memory interference was imposed, visuospatial working memory was no longer a significant predictor of SCL. Visuospatial interference also resulted in a significant reduction in SCL. Furthermore, listener ratings of narrative quality were contingent upon the visuospatial working memory resources of the narrator. Potential implications for educators and clinical practitioners are discussed.

  9. Subjective Significance Shapes Arousal Effects on Modified Stroop Task Performance: A Duality of Activation Mechanisms Account.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Imbir, Kamil K

    2016-01-01

    Activation mechanisms such as arousal are known to be responsible for slowdown observed in the Emotional Stroop and modified Stroop tasks. Using the duality of mind perspective, we may conclude that both ways of processing information (automatic or controlled) should have their own mechanisms of activation, namely, arousal for an experiential mind, and subjective significance for a rational mind. To investigate the consequences of both, factorial manipulation was prepared. Other factors that influence Stroop task processing such as valence, concreteness, frequency, and word length were controlled. Subjective significance was expected to influence arousal effects. In the first study, the task was to name the color of font for activation charged words. In the second study, activation charged words were, at the same time, combined with an incongruent condition of the classical Stroop task around a fixation point. The task was to indicate the font color for color-meaning words. In both studies, subjective significance was found to shape the arousal impact on performance in terms of the slowdown reduction for words charged with subjective significance.

  10. Subjective Significance Shapes Arousal Effects on Modified Stroop Task Performance: a Duality of Activation Mechanisms Account

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kamil Konrad Imbir

    2016-02-01

    Full Text Available Activation mechanisms such as arousal are known to be responsible for slowdown observed in the Emotional Stroop (EST and modified Stroop tasks. Using the duality of mind perspective, we may conclude that both ways of processing information (automatic or controlled should have their own mechanisms of activation, namely, arousal for an experiential mind, and subjective significance for a rational mind. To investigate the consequences of both, factorial manipulation was prepared. Other factors that influence Stroop task processing such as valence, concreteness, frequency and word length were controlled. Subjective significance was expected to influence arousal effects. In the first study, the task was to name the color of font for activation charged words. In the second study, activation charged words were, at the same time, combined with an incongruent condition of the classical Stroop task around a fixation point. The task was to indicate the font color for color-meaning words. In both studies, subjective significance was found to shape the arousal impact on performance in terms of the slowdown reduction for words charged with subjective significance.

  11. Effects of valence and arousal on emotional word processing are modulated by concreteness: Behavioral and ERP evidence from a lexical decision task.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yao, Zhao; Yu, Deshui; Wang, Lili; Zhu, Xiangru; Guo, Jingjing; Wang, Zhenhong

    2016-12-01

    We investigated whether the effects of valence and arousal on emotional word processing are modulated by concreteness using event-related potentials (ERPs). The stimuli included concrete words (Experiment 1) and abstract words (Experiment 2) that were organized in an orthogonal design, with valence (positive and negative) and arousal (low and high) as factors in a lexical decision task. In Experiment 1, the impact of emotion on the effects of concrete words mainly resulted from the contribution of valence. Positive concrete words were processed more quickly than negative words and elicited a reduction of N400 (300-410ms) and enhancement of late positive complex (LPC; 450-750ms), whereas no differences in response times or ERPs were found between high and low levels of arousal. In Experiment 2, the interaction between valence and arousal influenced the impact of emotion on the effects of abstract words. Low-arousal positive words were associated with shorter response times and a reduction of LPC amplitudes compared with high-arousal positive words. Low-arousal negative words were processed more slowly and elicited a reduction of N170 (140-200ms) compared with high-arousal negative words. The present study indicates that word concreteness modulates the contributions of valence and arousal to the effects of emotion, and this modulation occurs during the early perceptual processing stage (N170) and late elaborate processing stage (LPC) for emotional words and at the end of all cognitive processes (i.e., reflected by response times). These findings support an embodied theory of semantic representation and help clarify prior inconsistent findings regarding the ways in which valance and arousal influence different stages of word processing, at least in a lexical decision task. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  12. Stability of Self-Reported Arousal to Sexual Fantasies Involving Children in a Clinical Sample of Pedophiles and Hebephiles.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Grundmann, Dorit; Krupp, Jurian; Scherner, Gerold; Amelung, Till; Beier, Klaus M

    2016-07-01

    In forensic research, there is a controversial discussion concerning the changeability or stability of pedophilia. Seto (2012) conceptualized pedophilia as a sexual age orientation characterized by an early onset, correlations with sexual and romantic behavior, and stability over time. However, empirical data are sparse and are mostly based on samples of detected offenders. The present study examined self-reported arousal to sexual fantasies involving children in a clinical sample of pedo-/hebephiles. In Study 1, retrospective self-reports on the age of onset and duration of sexual interest in minors were examined. In Study 2, the stability and variability of self-reported arousal to sexual fantasies involving children were evaluated prospectively. Non-prosecuted self-identifying pedo-/hebephilic men seeking professional help were recruited within the Berlin Prevention Project Dunkelfeld. Between 2005 and 2013, 494 participants completed the intake assessment. Self-reported data were collected via questionnaire focusing on sexual arousal to fantasies during masturbation involving prepubescent and/or early pubescent minors. Subsequent assessments of sexual arousal were obtained for 121 of the participants. The average time between the first and last assessment was approximately 29 months. Spearman's correlation coefficients examined the between-group rank-order and Wilcoxon signed-rank tests examined the within-individual mean-level stability. The majority of subjects reported an early onset of their pedo-/hebephilic sexual arousal. The rank-order stability was medium to high. Over the investigated period, the majority of subjects showed no or only minimal decrease or increase of self-reported sexual arousal. These results suggested that sexual arousal to fantasies involving prepubescent and/or early pubescent children is stable. Furthermore, the results support the conceptualization of pedo-/hebephilia as a sexual age orientation in men.

  13. Age differences in liking and recall of arousing television commercials

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    van der Goot, M.; van Reijmersdal, E.; Eisend, M.; Langner, T.

    2011-01-01

    This paper examines age differences in liking of arousing television commercials and recall of the advertised brands and products. Based on the activation theory of information exposure, sensation seeking theory and the limited capacity model of mediated message processing, we expect that the

  14. The amplitude and phase precision of 40 Hz auditory steady-state response depend on the level of arousal

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Griskova, Inga; Mørup, Morten; Parnas, Josef

    2007-01-01

    The aim of this study was to investigate, in healthy subjects, the modulation of amplitude and phase precision of the auditory steady-state response (ASSR) to 40 Hz stimulation in two resting conditions varying in the level of arousal. Previously, ASSR measures have shown to be affected......-negative multi-way factorization (NMWF) (Morup et al. in J Neurosci Methods 161:361-368, 2007). The estimates of these measures were subjected to statistical analysis. The amplitude and phase precision of the ASSR were significantly larger during the low arousal state compared to the high arousal condition...

  15. Assessing the fit of the Dysphoric Arousal model across two nationally representative epidemiological surveys: The Australian NSMHWB and the United States NESARC.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Armour, Cherie; Carragher, Natacha; Elhai, Jon D

    2013-01-01

    Since the initial inclusion of PTSD in the DSM nomenclature, PTSD symptomatology has been distributed across three symptom clusters. However, a wealth of empirical research has concluded that PTSD's latent structure is best represented by one of two four-factor models: Numbing or Dysphoria. Recently, a newly proposed five-factor Dysphoric Arousal model, which separates the DSM-IV's Arousal cluster into two factors of Anxious Arousal and Dysphoric Arousal, has gathered support across a variety of trauma samples. To date, the Dysphoric Arousal model has not been assessed using nationally representative epidemiological data. We employed confirmatory factor analysis to examine PTSD's latent structure in two independent population based surveys from American (NESARC) and Australia (NSWHWB). We specified and estimated the Numbing model, the Dysphoria model, and the Dysphoric Arousal model in both samples. Results revealed that the Dysphoric Arousal model provided superior fit to the data compared to the alternative models. In conclusion, these findings suggest that items D1-D3 (sleeping difficulties; irritability; concentration difficulties) represent a separate, fifth factor within PTSD's latent structure using nationally representative epidemiological data in addition to single trauma specific samples. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  16. Structural connectomics of anxious arousal in early adolescence: Translating clinical and ethological findings

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Paul B. Sharp

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available Etiological explanations of clinical anxiety can be advanced through understanding the neural mechanisms associated with anxiety in youth prior to the emergence of psychopathology. In this vein, the present study sought to investigate how trait anxiety is related to features of the structural connectome in early adolescence. 40 adolescents (21 female, mean age = 13.49 years underwent a diffusion-weighted imaging scan. We hypothesized that the strength of several a priori defined structural connections would vary with anxious arousal based on previous work in human clinical neuroscience and adult rodent optogenetics. First, connection strength of caudate to rostral middle frontal gyrus was predicted to be anticorrelated with anxious arousal, predicated on extant work in clinically-diagnosed adolescents. Second, connection strength of amygdala to rostral anterior cingulate and to medial orbital frontal cortex would be positively and negatively correlated with anxious arousal, respectively, predicated on rodent optogenetics showing the former pathway is anxiogenic and the latter is anxiolytic. We also predicted that levels of anxiety would not vary with measures of global network topology, based on reported null findings. Results support that anxiety in early adolescence is associated with (1 the clinical biomarker connecting caudate to frontal cortex, and (2 the anxiogenic pathway connecting amygdala to rostral anterior cingulate, both in left but not right hemisphere. Findings support that in early adolescence, anxious arousal may be related to mechanisms that increase anxiogenesis, and not in a deficit in regulatory mechanisms that support anxiolysis.

  17. The Effect of Acute Exercise on Affect and Arousal in Inpatient Mental Health Consumers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Stanton, Robert; Reaburn, Peter; Happell, Brenda

    2016-09-01

    Acute exercise performed at a self-selected intensity improves affect and may improve long-term adherence. Similarly, in people with severe depression, acute aerobic exercise performed at self-selected intensity improves affect and arousal. However, the relationship between changes in affect and arousal and perceived exercise intensity in people with mental illness has not been evaluated. Affect and arousal were assessed immediately prior to, and immediately following, a group exercise program performed at a self-selected intensity in 40 inpatient mental health consumers who received a diagnosis of anxiety or bipolar or depressive disorders. Exercise intensity was assessed immediately after exercise. Postexercise affect was significantly improved for people with bipolar and depressive disorders but not for people with anxiety disorders. For the group as a whole, results showed a significant curvilinear relationship between ratings of perceived exertion and postexercise affect. These data will inform the development and delivery of future exercise interventions for inpatient mental health consumers.

  18. Light and Cognition: Roles for Circadian Rhythms, Sleep, and Arousal

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fisk, Angus S.; Tam, Shu K. E.; Brown, Laurence A.; Vyazovskiy, Vladyslav V.; Bannerman, David M.; Peirson, Stuart N.

    2018-01-01

    Light exerts a wide range of effects on mammalian physiology and behavior. As well as synchronizing circadian rhythms to the external environment, light has been shown to modulate autonomic and neuroendocrine responses as well as regulating sleep and influencing cognitive processes such as attention, arousal, and performance. The last two decades have seen major advances in our understanding of the retinal photoreceptors that mediate these non-image forming responses to light, as well as the neural pathways and molecular mechanisms by which circadian rhythms are generated and entrained to the external light/dark (LD) cycle. By contrast, our understanding of the mechanisms by which lighting influences cognitive processes is more equivocal. The effects of light on different cognitive processes are complex. As well as the direct effects of light on alertness, indirect effects may also occur due to disrupted circadian entrainment. Despite the widespread use of disrupted LD cycles to study the role circadian rhythms on cognition, the different experimental protocols used have subtly different effects on circadian function which are not always comparable. Moreover, these protocols will also disrupt sleep and alter physiological arousal, both of which are known to modulate cognition. Studies have used different assays that are dependent on different cognitive and sensory processes, which may also contribute to their variable findings. Here, we propose that studies addressing the effects of different lighting conditions on cognitive processes must also account for their effects on circadian rhythms, sleep, and arousal if we are to fully understand the physiological basis of these responses. PMID:29479335

  19. Intrinsic and Induced Arousal in the Short- and Long-Term Retention of Film Content by Elementary School Children in Puerto Rico. Technical Report No. 274.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Santiago, Salvador; Farley, Frank H.

    A study was designed to examine the contribution of intrinsic arousal (individual differences) and induced arousal to children's comprehension of film content with short- and long-term retention intervals. Intrinsic arousal was measured by a salivary response measure; induced arousal was manipulated by white auditory noise. The latter was…

  20. Positive effect of acute mild exercise on executive function via arousal-related prefrontal activations: an fNIRS study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Byun, Kyeongho; Hyodo, Kazuki; Suwabe, Kazuya; Ochi, Genta; Sakairi, Yosuke; Kato, Morimasa; Dan, Ippeita; Soya, Hideaki

    2014-09-01

    Despite the practical implication of mild exercise, little is known about its influence on executive function and its neural substrates. To address these issues, the present study examined the effect of an acute bout of mild exercise on executive function and attempted to identify potential neural substrates using non-invasive functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). Twenty-five young individuals performed a color-word matching Stroop task (CWST) and a two-dimensional scale to measure changes of psychological mood states both before and after a 10-minute exercise session on a cycle ergometer at light intensity (30% v(·)o2peak) and, for the control session, without exercise. Cortical hemodynamic changes in the prefrontal area were monitored with fNIRS during the CWST in both sessions. The acute bout of mild exercise led to improved Stroop performance, which was positively correlated with increased arousal levels. It also evoked cortical activations regarding Stroop interference on the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and frontopolar area. These activations significantly corresponded with both improved cognitive performance and increased arousal levels. Concurrently, this study provides empirical evidence that an acute bout of mild exercise improves executive function mediated by the exercise-induced arousal system, which intensifies cortical activation in task-related prefrontal sub-regions. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  1. Emotional intelligence buffers the effect of physiological arousal on dishonesty

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Pittarello, Andrea; Conte, Beatrice; Caserotti, Marta; Scrimin, Sara; Rubaltelli, Enrico

    We studied the emotional processes that allow people to balance two competing desires: benefitting from dishonesty and keeping a positive self-image. We recorded physiological arousal (skin conductance and heart rate) during a computer card game in which participants could cheat and fail to report a

  2. Competitive pressure and arousing television news: A cross-cultural study

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Hendriks Vettehen, P.G.J.; Zhou, S.H.; Kleemans, M.; d'Haenens, L.S.J.; Lin, T.T.C.

    2012-01-01

    In many scholarly writings about journalism, the idea can be found that competitive pressure urges journalists to make news more arousing. This hypothesis was tested in two cultural settings: the Western European culture and the Chinese-dominated culture. A total of 3028 TV news stories from seven

  3. Dissociable contributions of the amygdala to the immediate and delayed effects of emotional arousal on memory.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schümann, Dirk; Sommer, Tobias

    2018-06-01

    Emotional arousal enhances memory encoding and consolidation leading to better immediate and delayed memory. Although the central noradrenergic system and the amygdala play critical roles in both effects of emotional arousal, we have recently shown that these effects are at least partly independent of each other, suggesting distinct underlying neural mechanisms. Here we aim to dissociate the neural substrates of both effects in 70 female participants using an emotional memory paradigm to investigate how neural activity, as measured by fMRI, and a polymorphism in the α 2B -noradrenoceptor vary for these effects. To also test whether the immediate and delayed effects of emotional arousal on memory are stable traits, we invited back participants who were a part of a large-scale behavioral memory study ∼3.5 yr ago. We replicated the low correlation of the immediate and delayed emotional enhancement of memory across participants ( r = 0.16) and observed, moreover, that only the delayed effect was, to some degree, stable over time ( r = 0.23). Bilateral amygdala activity, as well as its coupling with the visual cortex and the fusiform gyrus, was related to the preferential encoding of emotional stimuli, which is consistent with affect-biased attention. Moreover, the adrenoceptor genotype modulated the bilateral amygdala activity associated with this effect. The left amygdala and its coupling with the hippocampus was specifically associated with the more efficient consolidation of emotional stimuli, which is consistent with amygdalar modulation of hippocampal consolidation. © 2018 Schümann and Sommer; Published by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press.

  4. Cognitive-motivational determinants of fat food consumption in overweight and obese youngsters: the implicit association between fat food and arousal.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Craeynest, Mietje; Crombez, Geert; Koster, Ernst H W; Haerens, Leen; De Bourdeaudhuij, Ilse

    2008-09-01

    Cognitive-motivational accounts of fat food intake propose an association between fat food and action dispositions, which are according to the biphasic emotion theory of Lang [(1995). The emotion probe. Studies of motivation and attention. American Psychologist, 50, 372-385; Lang, P.J., Bradley, M.M., & Cuthbert, M.M. (1997). Motivated attention: Affect, activation and action. In P.J. Lang, R.F. Simons & M.T. Balaban (Eds.). Attention and orienting: Sensory and motivational processes (pp. 97-134). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.] characterized by high levels of arousal. In two experiments, this association was investigated in lean and overweight youngsters. In the first experiment, 29 overweight and 29 lean youngsters conducted two Implicit Association Tasks (IAT; Greenwald, A.G., McGhee, D.E., & Schwartz, J.L. (1998). Measuring individual differences in implicit cognition: The implicit association test. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 1464-1480.). In a positive arousal IAT, implicit associations between fat vs. lean food, and high and low arousal words with a positive valence were assessed. In a negative arousal IAT, high and low arousal words with a negative valence were used. A second experiment was conducted to replicate Experiment 1 in 29 youngsters with severe obesity and 29 lean peers. The results revealed strong implicit associations between fat food and arousal in both the overweight and the control group. No differences were found between the groups, nor between the positive and the negative arousal task. These results are related to cognitive-motivational theories of fat food intake.

  5. Musically induced arousal affects pain perception in females but not in males: a psychophysiological examination.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kenntner-Mabiala, Ramona; Gorges, Susanne; Alpers, Georg W; Lehmann, Andreas C; Pauli, Paul

    2007-04-01

    The present study investigated affective and physiological responses to changes of tempo and mode in classical music and their effects on heat pain perception. Thirty-eight healthy non-musicians (17 female) listened to sequences of 24 music stimuli which were variations of 4 pieces of classical music. Tempo (46, 60, and 95 beats/min) and mode (major and minor) were manipulated digitally, all other musical elements were held constant. Participants rated valence, arousal, happiness and sadness of the musical stimuli as well as the intensity and the unpleasantness of heat pain stimuli which were applied during music listening. Heart rate, respiratory rate and end-tidal PCO(2) were recorded. Pain ratings were highest for the fastest tempo. Also, participants' arousal ratings, their respiratory rate and heart rate were accelerated by the fastest tempo. The modulation of pain perception by the tempo of music seems to be mediated by the listener's arousal.

  6. Misattribution of musical arousal increases sexual attraction towards opposite-sex faces in females.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Manuela M Marin

    Full Text Available Several theories about the origins of music have emphasized its biological and social functions, including in courtship. Music may act as a courtship display due to its capacity to vary in complexity and emotional content. Support for music's reproductive function comes from the recent finding that only women in the fertile phase of the reproductive cycle prefer composers of complex melodies to composers of simple ones as short-term sexual partners, which is also in line with the ovulatory shift hypothesis. However, the precise mechanisms by which music may influence sexual attraction are unknown, specifically how music may interact with visual attractiveness cues and affect perception and behaviour in both genders. Using a crossmodal priming paradigm, we examined whether listening to music influences ratings of facial attractiveness and dating desirability of opposite-sex faces. We also tested whether misattribution of arousal or pleasantness underlies these effects, and explored whether sex differences and menstrual cycle phase may be moderators. Our sample comprised 64 women in the fertile or infertile phase (no hormonal contraception use and 32 men, carefully matched for mood, relationship status, and musical preferences. Musical primes (25 s varied in arousal and pleasantness, and targets were photos of faces with neutral expressions (2 s. Group-wise analyses indicated that women, but not men, gave significantly higher ratings of facial attractiveness and dating desirability after having listened to music than in the silent control condition. High-arousing, complex music yielded the largest effects, suggesting that music may affect human courtship behaviour through induced arousal, which calls for further studies on the mechanisms by which music affects sexual attraction in real-life social contexts.

  7. The effects of state and trait self-focused attention on sexual arousal in sexually functional and dysfunctional women

    Science.gov (United States)

    Meston, Cindy M.

    2010-01-01

    This study examined the effects of state self-focused attention on sexual arousal and trait self-consciousness on sexual arousal and function in sexually functional (n = 16) and dysfunctional (n = 16) women. Self-focused attention was induced using a 50% reflectant television screen in one of two counterbalanced sessions during which self-report and physiological sexual responses to erotic films were measured. Self-focused attention significantly decreased vaginal pulse amplitude (VPA) responses among sexually functional but not dysfunctional women, and substantially decreased correlations between self-report and VPA measures of sexual arousal. Self-focused attention did not significantly impact subjective sexual arousal in sexually functional or dysfunctional women. Trait private self-consciousness was positively related to sexual desire, orgasm, compatibility, contentment and sexual satisfaction. Public self-consciousness was correlated with sexual pain. The findings are discussed in terms of Masters and Johnson’s [Masters, W. H. & Johnson, V. E. (1970). Human sexual inadequacy. Boston: Little, Brown) concepts of “spectatoring” and “sensate focus.” PMID:15927143

  8. Differences in neural activity when processing emotional arousal and valence in autism spectrum disorders.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tseng, Angela; Wang, Zhishun; Huo, Yuankai; Goh, Suzanne; Russell, James A; Peterson, Bradley S

    2016-02-01

    Individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) often have difficulty recognizing and interpreting facial expressions of emotion, which may impair their ability to navigate and communicate successfully in their social, interpersonal environments. Characterizing specific differences between individuals with ASD and their typically developing (TD) counterparts in the neural activity subserving their experience of emotional faces may provide distinct targets for ASD interventions. Thus we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and a parametric experimental design to identify brain regions in which neural activity correlated with ratings of arousal and valence for a broad range of emotional faces. Participants (51 ASD, 84 TD) were group-matched by age, sex, IQ, race, and socioeconomic status. Using task-related change in blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) fMRI signal as a measure, and covarying for age, sex, FSIQ, and ADOS scores, we detected significant differences across diagnostic groups in the neural activity subserving the dimension of arousal but not valence. BOLD-signal in TD participants correlated inversely with ratings of arousal in regions associated primarily with attentional functions, whereas BOLD-signal in ASD participants correlated positively with arousal ratings in regions commonly associated with impulse control and default-mode activity. Only minor differences were detected between groups in the BOLD signal correlates of valence ratings. Our findings provide unique insight into the emotional experiences of individuals with ASD. Although behavioral responses to face-stimuli were comparable across diagnostic groups, the corresponding neural activity for our ASD and TD groups differed dramatically. The near absence of group differences for valence correlates and the presence of strong group differences for arousal correlates suggest that individuals with ASD are not atypical in all aspects of emotion-processing. Studying these similarities

  9. Dynamics of large-scale brain activity in normal arousal states and epileptic seizures

    Science.gov (United States)

    Robinson, P. A.; Rennie, C. J.; Rowe, D. L.

    2002-04-01

    Links between electroencephalograms (EEGs) and underlying aspects of neurophysiology and anatomy are poorly understood. Here a nonlinear continuum model of large-scale brain electrical activity is used to analyze arousal states and their stability and nonlinear dynamics for physiologically realistic parameters. A simple ordered arousal sequence in a reduced parameter space is inferred and found to be consistent with experimentally determined parameters of waking states. Instabilities arise at spectral peaks of the major clinically observed EEG rhythms-mainly slow wave, delta, theta, alpha, and sleep spindle-with each instability zone lying near its most common experimental precursor arousal states in the reduced space. Theta, alpha, and spindle instabilities evolve toward low-dimensional nonlinear limit cycles that correspond closely to EEGs of petit mal seizures for theta instability, and grand mal seizures for the other types. Nonlinear stimulus-induced entrainment and seizures are also seen, EEG spectra and potentials evoked by stimuli are reproduced, and numerous other points of experimental agreement are found. Inverse modeling enables physiological parameters underlying observed EEGs to be determined by a new, noninvasive route. This model thus provides a single, powerful framework for quantitative understanding of a wide variety of brain phenomena.

  10. Women's self-rated attraction to male faces does not correspond with physiological arousal.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hagerman, S; Woolard, Z; Anderson, K; Tatler, B W; Moore, F R

    2017-10-19

    There has been little work to determine whether attractiveness ratings of faces correspond to sexual or more general attraction. We tested whether a measure of women's physiological arousal (pupil diameter change) was correlated with ratings of men's facial attractiveness. In Study 1, women rated the faces of men for whom we also measured salivary testosterone. They rated each face for attractiveness, and for desirability for friendship and long- and short-term romantic relationships. Pupil diameter change was not related to subjective ratings of attractiveness, but was positively correlated with the men's testosterone. In Study 2 we compared women's pupil diameter change in response to the faces of men with high versus low testosterone, as well as in response to non-facial images pre-rated as either sexually arousing or threatening. Pupil dilation was not affected by testosterone, and increased relatively more in response to sexually arousing than threatening images. We conclude that self-rated preferences may not provide a straightforward and direct assessment of sexual attraction. We argue that future work should identify the constructs that are tapped via attractiveness ratings of faces, and support the development of methodology which assesses objective sexual attraction.

  11. Emotional Valence and Arousal Effects on Memory and Hemispheric Asymmetries

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mneimne, Malek; Powers, Alice S.; Walton, Kate E.; Kosson, David S.; Fonda, Samantha; Simonetti, Jessica

    2010-01-01

    This study examined predictions based upon the right hemisphere (RH) model, the valence-arousal model, and a recently proposed integrated model (Killgore & Yurgelun-Todd, 2007) of emotion processing by testing immediate recall and recognition memory for positive, negative, and neutral verbal stimuli among 35 right-handed women. Building upon…

  12. Abnormal pain perception in patients with Multiple System Atrophy.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ory-Magne, F; Pellaprat, J; Harroch, E; Galitzsky, M; Rousseau, V; Pavy-Le Traon, A; Rascol, O; Gerdelat, A; Brefel-Courbon, C

    2018-03-01

    Patients with Parkinson's disease or Multiple System Atrophy frequently experience painful sensations. The few studies investigating pain mechanisms in Multiple System Atrophy patients have reported contradictory results. In our study, we compared pain thresholds in Multiple System Atrophy and Parkinson's disease patients and healthy controls and evaluated the effect of l-DOPA on pain thresholds. We assessed subjective and objective pain thresholds (using a thermotest and RIII reflex), and pain tolerance in OFF and ON conditions, clinical pain, motor and psychological evaluation. Pain was reported in 78.6% of Multiple System Atrophy patients and in 37.5% of Parkinson's disease patients. In the OFF condition, subjective and objective pain thresholds were significantly lower in Multiple System Atrophy patients than in healthy controls (43.8 °C ± 1.3 vs 45.7 °C ± 0.8; p = 0.0005 and 7.4 mA ± 3.8 vs 13.7 mA ± 2.8; p = 0.002, respectively). They were also significantly reduced in Multiple System Atrophy compared to Parkinson's disease patients. No significant difference was found in pain tolerance for the 3 groups and in the effect of l-DOPA on pain thresholds in Multiple System Atrophy and Parkinson's disease patients. In the ON condition, pain tolerance tended to be reduced in Multiple System Atrophy versus Parkinson's disease patients (p = 0.05). Multiple System Atrophy patients had an increase in pain perception compared to Parkinson's disease patients and healthy controls. The l-DOPA effect was similar for pain thresholds in Multiple System Atrophy and Parkinson's disease patients, but tended to worsen pain tolerance in Multiple System Atrophy. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  13. Central thalamic deep brain stimulation for support of forebrain arousal regulation in the minimally conscious state.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schiff, Nicholas D

    2013-01-01

    This chapter considers the use of central thalamic deep brain stimulation (CT/DBS) to support arousal regulation mechanisms in the minimally conscious state (MCS). CT/DBS for selected patients in a MCS is first placed in the historical context of prior efforts to use thalamic electrical brain stimulation to treat the unconscious clinical conditions of coma and vegetative state. These previous studies and a proof of concept result from a single-subject study of a patient in a MCS are reviewed against the background of new population data providing benchmarks of the natural history of vegetative and MCSs. The conceptual foundations for CT/DBS in selected patients in a MCS are then presented with consideration of both circuit and cellular mechanisms underlying recovery of consciousness identified from empirical studies. Directions for developing future generalizable criteria for CT/DBS that focus on the integrity of necessary brain systems and behavioral profiles in patients in a MCS that may optimally response to support of arousal regulation mechanisms are proposed. © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  14. Concurrent measurement of "real-world" stress and arousal in individuals with psychosis: assessing the feasibility and validity of a novel methodology.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kimhy, David; Delespaul, Philippe; Ahn, Hongshik; Cai, Shengnan; Shikhman, Marina; Lieberman, Jeffrey A; Malaspina, Dolores; Sloan, Richard P

    2010-11-01

    Psychosis has been repeatedly suggested to be affected by increases in stress and arousal. However, there is a dearth of evidence supporting the temporal link between stress, arousal, and psychosis during "real-world" functioning. This paucity of evidence may stem from limitations of current research methodologies. Our aim is to the test the feasibility and validity of a novel methodology designed to measure concurrent stress and arousal in individuals with psychosis during "real-world" daily functioning. Twenty patients with psychosis completed a 36-hour ambulatory assessment of stress and arousal. We used experience sampling method with palm computers to assess stress (10 times per day, 10 AM → 10 PM) along with concurrent ambulatory measurement of cardiac autonomic regulation using a Holter monitor. The clocks of the palm computer and Holter monitor were synchronized, allowing the temporal linking of the stress and arousal data. We used power spectral analysis to determine the parasympathetic contributions to autonomic regulation and sympathovagal balance during 5 minutes before and after each experience sample. Patients completed 79% of the experience samples (75% with a valid concurrent arousal data). Momentary increases in stress had inverse correlation with concurrent parasympathetic activity (ρ = -.27, P feasibility and validity of our methodology in individuals with psychosis. The methodology offers a novel way to study in high time resolution the concurrent, "real-world" interactions between stress, arousal, and psychosis. The authors discuss the methodology's potential applications and future research directions.

  15. Two Aspects of Activation: Arousal and Subjective Significance – Behavioral and Event-Related Potential Correlates Investigated by Means of a Modified Emotional Stroop Task

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kamil Imbir

    2017-12-01

    Full Text Available The arousal level of words presented in a Stroop task was found to affect their interference on the required naming of the words’ color. Based on a dual-processes approach, we propose that there are two aspects to activation: arousal and subjective significance. Arousal is crucial for automatic processing. Subjective significance is specific to controlled processing. Based on this conceptual model, we predicted that arousal would enhance interference in a Stroop task, as attention would be allocated to the meaning of the inhibited word. High subjective significance should have the opposite effect, i.e., it should enhance the controlled and explicit part of Stroop task processing, which is color naming. We found that response latencies were modulated by the interaction between the arousal and subjective significance levels of words. The longest reaction times were observed for highly arousing words of medium subjective significance level. Arousal shaped event related potentials in the 150–290 ms time range, while effects of subjective significance were found for 50–150, 150–290, and 290–530 ms time ranges.

  16. Deep Physiological Arousal Detection in a Driving Simulator Using Wearable Sensors

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Saeed, Aaqib; Trajanovski, Stojan; van Keulen, Maurice; van Erp, Johannes Bernardus Fransiscus

    2017-01-01

    Driving is an activity that requires considerable alertness. Insufficient attention, imperfect perception, inadequate information processing, and sub-optimal arousal are possible causes of poor human performance. Understanding of these causes and the implementation of effective remedies is of key

  17. Low Cognitive Load and Reduced Arousal Impede Practice Effects on Executive Functioning, Metacognitive Confidence and Decision Making

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jackson, Simon A.; Kleitman, Sabina; Aidman, Eugene

    2014-01-01

    The present study investigated the effects of low cognitive workload and the absence of arousal induced via external physical stimulation (motion) on practice-related improvements in executive (inhibitory) control, short-term memory, metacognitive monitoring and decision making. A total of 70 office workers performed low and moderately engaging passenger tasks in two successive 20-minute simulated drives and repeated a battery of decision making and inhibitory control tests three times – before, between and after these drives. For half the participants, visual simulation was synchronised with (moderately arousing) motion generated through LAnd Motion Platform, with vibration levels corresponding to a well-maintained unsealed road. The other half performed the same simulated drive without motion. Participants’ performance significantly improved over the three test blocks, which is indicative of typical practice effects. The magnitude of these improvements was the highest when both motion and moderate cognitive load were present. The same effects declined either in the absence of motion (low arousal) or following a low cognitive workload task, thus suggesting two distinct pathways through which practice-related improvements in cognitive performance may be hampered. Practice, however, degraded certain aspects of metacognitive performance, as participants became less likely to detect incorrect decisions in the decision-making test with each subsequent test block. Implications include consideration of low cognitive load and arousal as factors responsible for performance decline and targets for the development of interventions/strategies in low load/arousal conditions such as autonomous vehicle operations and highway driving. PMID:25549327

  18. Is there an inhibitory role of cortisol in the mechanism of male sexual arousal and penile erection?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Uckert, Stefan; Fuhlenriede, Mark H; Becker, Armin J; Stief, Christian G; Scheller, Friedemann; Knapp, Wolfram H; Jonas, Udo

    2003-12-01

    It has been speculated for more than 2 decades whether there is a significance of adrenal corticosteroids, such as cortisol, in the process of normal male sexual function, especially in the control of sexual arousal and the penile erectile tissue. However, only few in vivo studies have been carried out up until now on the effects of cortisol on human male sexual performance and penile erection. In order to evaluate further the role of cortisol in male sexual activity, the present study was conducted to detect serum levels of cortisol in the systemic and cavernous blood taken during different penile conditions from healthy males. The effects of cortisol derivative prednisolone, catecholamine norepinephrine (NE) and the peptide endothelin-1 (ET-1) on isolated human corpus cavernosum (HCC) were investigated using the organ bath technique. Fifty-four healthy adult male subjects were exposed to erotic stimuli in order to elicit penile tumescence and rigidity. Whole blood was simultaneously aspirated from the corpus cavernosum and the cubital vein during different penile conditions. Serum levels of cortisol (microg/dl) were determined by means of a radioimmunoassay (ELISA). In the healthy volunteers, cortisol serum levels significantly decreased in the systemic circulation and the cavernous blood with increasing sexual arousal, when the flaccid penis became rigid. During detumescence, the mean cortisol level remained unaltered in the systemic circulation, whereas in the cavernous compartment, it was found to decrease further. Under all penile conditions, no significant differences were registered between cortisol levels in the systemic circulation and in the cavernous blood. Cumulative addition of NE and ET-1 (0.001-10 microM) induced contraction of isolated HCC strips, whereas the contractile response to prednisolone was negligible. Our results strongly suggest an inhibitory role for cortisol in the mechanism of male sexual response and behaviour. These properties are

  19. How Fear-Arousing News Messages Affect Risk Perceptions and Intention to Talk About Risk.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Paek, Hye-Jin; Oh, Sang-Hwa; Hove, Thomas

    2016-09-01

    Building on the theoretical arguments of the impersonal-impact and differential-impact hypotheses, this study has a twofold purpose: first, to demonstrate how fear-arousing media messages about risk are associated with personal-level risk perception, as well as, and perhaps more so than, societal-level risk perception; and second, to examine how the resulting risk perceptions can mediate intention to talk about the risk with family and friends. A news message evaluation study was conducted among the general public in South Korea concerning two major risks, carcinogens and bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE). Two sets of structural equation models reveal three main findings: (a) Fear-arousing news messages are positively related to personal-level risk perception, as well as to societal-level risk perception; (b) fear-arousing news messages result in intention to talk about the risk directly and indirectly through risk perception; and (c) personal-level risk perception appears more strongly related to intention to talk than does societal-level risk perception, although such relationships may vary across risk topics.

  20. The effects of exogenous progesterone on drug craving and stress arousal in cocaine dependence: impact of gender and cue type.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fox, Helen C; Sofuoglu, Mehmet; Morgan, Peter T; Tuit, Keri L; Sinha, Rajita

    2013-09-01

    Exogenous progesterone has been shown to attenuate the rewarding effects of cocaine. However, its effects on provoked drug craving, stress arousal and cognitive performance has not been systematically investigated in cocaine dependent men and women. Thus, we conducted a double-blind placebo-controlled study assessing the efficacy of progesterone in reducing provoked drug craving, stress system arousal and improving cognitive performance in cocaine dependent men and women. Forty-two early abstinent treatment-seeking cocaine dependent individuals were randomly assigned to either daily doses of placebo (12M/9F) or micronized progesterone (12M/9F) (400 mg/day), for 7 days. Under experimental conditions, all subjects were exposed to three 5-min personalized guided imagery conditions (stress, cocaine cue, relaxing), one per day, consecutively in a random, counterbalanced order. Subjective craving, mood, hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) and cardiovascular output, and a cognitive measure of inhibitory control (Stroop Color Word Task) were assessed pre- and post imagery. Progesterone relative to placebo significantly decreased cue-induced craving and cortisol responses and increased cue-induced ACTH. In addition, women but not men receiving progesterone reported lower ratings of negative emotion and higher ratings of relaxed mood following stress exposure. Improved Stroop performance was observed in all participants receiving progesterone, across all conditions. Progesterone was selectively effective in reducing cocaine cue-induced but not stress-related cocaine craving as well as specific measures of the provoked arousal state. Findings suggest that progesterone's effects on drug craving and arousal are moderated by both the type of environmental cue exposure and gender. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  1. Thinking anxious, feeling anxious, or both? Cognitive bias moderates the relationship between anxiety disorder status and sympathetic arousal in youth.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rozenman, Michelle; Vreeland, Allison; Piacentini, John

    2017-01-01

    Cognitive bias and physiological arousal are two putative markers that may underlie youth anxiety. However, data on relationships between cognitive bias and arousal are limited, and typically do not include behavioral measurement of these constructs in order to tap real-time processes. We aimed to examine the relationship between performance-based cognitive bias and sympathetic arousal during stress in clinically anxious and typically-developing youth. The sample included children and adolescents ages 9 to 17 (Mean age=13.18, SD=2.60) who either met diagnostic criteria for primary generalized anxiety, social phobia, or separation anxiety (N=24) or healthy controls who had no history of psychopathology (N=22). Youth completed performance-based measures of attention and interpretation bias. Electrodermal activity was assessed while youth participated in the Trier Social Stress Test for Children (TSST-C; Buske-Kirschbaum, Jobst, & Wustmans, 1997). A mixed models analysis indicated significant linear and non-linear changes in skin conductance, with similar slopes for both groups. Interpretation bias, but not attention bias, moderated the relationship between group status and sympathetic arousal during the TSST-C. Arousal trajectories did not differ for anxious and healthy control youth who exhibited high levels of threat interpretation bias. However, for youth who exhibited moderate and low levels of interpretation bias, the anxious group demonstrated greater arousal slopes than healthy control youth. Results provide initial evidence that the relationship between anxiety status and physiological arousal during stress may be moderated by level of interpretation bias for threat. These findings may implicate interpretation bias as a marker of sympathetic reactivity in youth. Implications for future research and limitations are discussed. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

  2. Attention to Semantic versus Phonetic Verbal Attributes as a Function of Individual Differences in Arousal and Learning Strategy.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schmeck, Ronald R; Spofford, Mark

    1982-01-01

    An investigation was undertaken to determine whether highly aroused (e.g. highly anxious) students are handicapped with regard to their ability to learn through deep processing and elaboration. The hypothesis that well-developed deep and elaborative habits of thought might counteract the disruptive effects that excessive arousal has upon students…

  3. Exposure to predator odor influences the relative use of multiple memory systems: role of basolateral amygdala.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Leong, Kah-Chung; Packard, Mark G

    2014-03-01

    In a dual-solution plus-maze task in which both hippocampus-dependent place learning and dorsolateral striatal-dependent response learning provide an adequate solution, the relative use of multiple memory systems can be influenced by emotional state. Specifically, pre-training peripheral or intra-basolateral (BLA) administration of anxiogenic drugs result in the predominant use of response learning. The present experiments were designed to extend these findings by examining whether exposure to a putatively ethologically valid stressor would also produce a predominant use of response learning. In experiment 1, adult male Long-Evans rats were exposed to either a predator odor (trimethylthiazoline [TMT], a component of fox feces) or distilled water prior to training in a dual-solution water plus maze task. On a probe trial 24h following task acquisition, rats previously exposed to TMT predominantly displayed response learning relative to control animals. In experiment 2, rats trained on a single-solution plus maze task that required the use of response learning displayed enhanced acquisition following pre-training TMT exposure. In experiment 3, rats exposed to TMT or distilled water were trained in the dual-solution task and received post-training intra-BLA injections of the sodium channel blocker bupivacaine (1.0% solution, 0.5 μl) or saline. Relative to control animals, rats exposed to TMT predominantly displayed response learning on the probe trial, and this effect was blocked by neural inactivation of the BLA. The findings indicate that (1) the use of dorsal striatal-dependent habit memory produced by emotional arousal generalizes from anxiogenic drug administration to a putatively ecologically valid stressor (i.e. predator odor), and (2) the BLA mediates the modulatory effect of exposure to predator odor on the relative use of multiple memory systems. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  4. Sexual touching and difficulties with sexual arousal and orgasm among U.S. older adults.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Galinsky, Adena M

    2012-08-01

    Little is known about the non-genitally-focused sexual behavior of those experiencing sexual difficulties. The objective of this study was to review the theory supporting a link between sexual touching and difficulties with sexual arousal and orgasm, and to examine associations between these constructs among older adults in the United States. The data were from the 2005-2006 National Social Life Health and Aging Project, which surveyed 3,005 community-dwelling men and women ages 57-85 years. The 1,352 participants who had had sex in the past year reported on their frequency of sexual touching and whether there had been a period of several months or more in the past year when they were unable to climax, had trouble getting or maintaining an erection (men) or had trouble lubricating (women). Women also reported how often they felt sexually aroused during partner sex in the last 12 months. The odds of being unable to climax were greater by 2.4 times (95% CI 1.2-4.8) among men and 2.8 times (95% CI 1.4-5.5) among women who sometimes, rarely or never engaged in sexual touching, compared to those who always engaged in sexual touching, controlling for demographic factors and physical health. These results were attenuated but persisted after controlling for emotional relationship satisfaction and psychological factors. Similar results were obtained for erectile difficulties among men and subjective arousal difficulties among women, but not lubrication difficulties among women. Infrequent sexual touching is associated with arousal and orgasm difficulties among older adults in the United States.

  5. The relationship of deviant sexual arousal and psychopathy in incest offenders, extrafamilial child molesters, and rapists.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Firestone, P; Bradford, J M; Greenberg, D M; Serran, G A

    2000-01-01

    The relationship between deviant sexual arousal, as measured by auditory phallometric stimuli, and psychopathy, as measured by the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised, was examined in 156 incest offenders, 260 extrafamilial child molesters, and 123 rapists. Subjects in each group had never been convicted of another type of sexual offense. Replicating previous research, rapists were more psychopathic than incest offenders and child molesters. Deviant sexual arousal to auditory stimuli was evident only on the Pedophile Index for child molesters. When the relationship between psychopathy and deviant sexual arousal was evaluated in the three groups combined, several significant correlations emerged. However, a finer analysis of these correlations revealed that child molesters evidenced a significant correlation between psychopathy and the Rape Index and psychopathy and the Pedophile Index. There were no such significant findings in the incest offender or rapist groups. Implications of the results are discussed.

  6. The role of attention in the associative binding of emotionally arousing words.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Maddox, Geoffrey B; Naveh-Benjamin, Moshe; Old, Susan; Kilb, Angela

    2012-12-01

    In the present study, we examined the role of attention in modulating the memory benefit of emotional arousal for same-valence word pair associations. To assess the role of attention either at encoding or at retrieval, participants studied lists of positive, neutral, and negative words pairs under full attention, divided attention at encoding, or divided attention at retrieval, and then were tested on the single words and on the associations between words. Consistent with past studies, memory accuracy was higher for emotional items than for neutral items, and no memory difference was observed across emotional arousal conditions for associations when encoding occurred under full attention. In contrast, memory accuracy was higher for emotionally arousing items and associations relative to neutral items when encoding occurred under divided attention. Finally, dividing attention at retrieval revealed similar effects across emotion conditions, suggesting that retrieval of emotional stimuli relative to neutral stimuli, unlike encoding, does not benefit from automatic processing. The discussion emphasizes the role of automatic processing during encoding in producing the benefit of emotionally enhanced memory, as well as the extent to which controlled attention is responsible for eliminating or reversing (relative to neutral materials) emotionally enhanced memory for associations. Additionally, the implications of the divided-attention-at-retrieval manipulation include consideration of the way in which emotional items may be consciously processed during encoding.

  7. Vulnerability of multiple-barrier systems

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Lind, N.C.

    1996-01-01

    'Vulnerability' is defined as the ratio of the probability of failure of a damaged system to the probability of failure of the undamaged system. This definition applies to all engineered systems and can be specialized to particular system types. Some disastrous failures (e.g., Chernobyl) have shown that systems can be highly vulnerable. open-quotes Defense in depthclose quotes is a powerful design principle, reducing vulnerability when the consequences of failure can be catastrophic. In the nuclear industry, defense in depth is widely used in radiation protection, reactor control, and shutdown systems. A multiple-barrier system is a simple example of a system that has defense in depth. The idea is that the system is not vulnerable. It cannot fail if one barrier fails because there is another to take its place. This idea is untenable in waste management, but a quantified vulnerability of a system can help owners, designers, and regulators decide how much defense in depth is desirable or enough. Many multiple-barrier systems can be modeled as systems of components physically in a series, each individually able to prevent failure. Components typically have bimodal distributions of the service time to failure, as illustrated by an example of application to a hypothetical nuclear fuel waste repository

  8. Arousal Modulation in Females with Fragile X or Turner Syndrome

    Science.gov (United States)

    Roberts, Jane; Mazzocco, Michele M. M.; Murphy, Melissa M.; Hoehn-Saric, Rudolf

    2008-01-01

    The present study was carried out to examine physiological arousal modulation (heart activity and skin conductance), across baseline and cognitive tasks, in females with fragile X or Turner syndrome and a comparison group of females with neither syndrome. Relative to the comparison group, for whom a greater increase in skin conductance was…

  9. Greater emotional arousal predicts poorer long-term memory of communication skills in couples.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Baucom, Brian R; Weusthoff, Sarah; Atkins, David C; Hahlweg, Kurt

    2012-06-01

    Many studies have examined the importance of learning skills in behaviorally based couple interventions but none have examined predictors of long-term memory for skills. Associations between emotional arousal and long-term recall of communication skills delivered to couples during a behaviorally based relationship distress prevention program were examined in a sample of 49 German couples. Fundamental frequency (f(0)), a vocal measure of encoded emotional arousal, was measured during pre-treatment couple conflict. Higher levels of f(0) were linked to fewer skills remembered 11 years after completing the program, and women remembered more skills than men. Implications of results for behaviorally based couple interventions are discussed. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  10. Effects of music listening and relaxation instructions on arousal changes and the working memory task in older adults.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hirokawa, Eri

    2004-01-01

    The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of subject-preferred music and relaxation instructions on older adults' arousal and working memory. Fifteen female older adults participated in 10 minutes of all 3 experimental conditions: (a) subject-preferred music, (b) relaxation instructions, and (c) silence control. Four subcategories of arousal level, energy, tiredness, tension, and calmness, were measured before and after experimental treatment using the Activation-Deactivation Adjective Check List by Thayer (1978). After each experimental condition, subjects had a working memory test by Daneman and Carpenter (1980). Results of the 2 x 3 repeated measures analysis of variances indicated that music increased subjects' energy levels, but relaxation and silence significantly decreased energy levels. Relaxation and silence increased their tiredness and calmness levels. All experimental conditions decreased subjects' tension levels. The scores in the working memory test were not significantly different among experimental conditions. Results did not indicate clear relationships between four subcategories of arousal levels and working memory scores. Results indicated that subject-preferred music has potentials to increase older adults' energetic arousal and reduce tension.

  11. Face to face versus Facebook: does exposure to social networking web sites augment or attenuate physiological arousal among the socially anxious?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rauch, Shannon M; Strobel, Cara; Bella, Megan; Odachowski, Zachary; Bloom, Christopher

    2014-03-01

    The present study tested two competing hypotheses about the effect of Facebook exposure on the physiological arousal level of participants who then encountered the stimulus person in a face-to-face situation. Facebook exposure may attenuate later arousal by providing increased comfort and confidence, but it is also possible that Facebook exposure will augment arousal, particularly among the socially anxious. Participants completed a measure of social anxiety and were exposed to a stimulus person via Facebook, face to face, or both. Galvanic skin response was recorded during the exposures to the stimulus person. Results were consistent with the augmentation hypothesis: a prior exposure on Facebook will lead to increased arousal during a face-to-face encounter, particularly for those high in social anxiety.

  12. The mediating effect of daily stress on the sexual arousal function of women with a history of childhood sexual abuse.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zollman, Gena; Rellini, Alessandra; Desrocher, Danielle

    2013-01-01

    Psychopathologies such as posttraumatic stress disorder are often proposed as mediators of the sexual arousal dysfunction experienced by women with a history of childhood maltreatment. However, posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms are only part of the difficulties experienced by these women. Other factors to consider include negative affectivity and perceived daily stress. To assess the mediating role of posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms, negative affectivity, and perceived daily stress, we collected data from 62 women with and without a history of childhood maltreatment (sexual, physical and emotional abuse). A comprehensive assessment of sexual arousal functioning and sexual responses was obtained using self-reported measures and psychophysiological measures of vaginal engorgement and subjective sexual arousal during exposure to sexual visual stimuli. The model assessed the simultaneous mediating effect of posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms, negative affectivity and perceived daily stress on the relation between childhood maltreatment and sexual variables. Daily stress, showed a significant and stronger mediation effect on sexual arousal functioning as compared to posttraumatic stress disorder and negative affectivity. These findings suggest that daily stress may be an important mechanism to consider when treating sexual arousal functioning in women who have a history of childhood maltreatment.

  13. The effect of flow limitation on the cardiorespiratory response to arousal from sleep under controlled conditions of chemostimulation in healthy older adults.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Goff, Elizabeth A; Nicholas, Christian L; Kleiman, Jan; Spear, Owen; Morrell, Mary J; Trinder, John

    2012-12-01

    The influence of flow limitation on the magnitude of the cardiorespiratory response to arousal from sleep is of interest in older people, because they experience considerable flow limitation and frequent arousals from sleep. We studied older flow-limiting subjects, testing the hypothesis that the cardiorespiratory activation response would be larger when arousal occurred during flow limitation, compared to no flow limitation, and chemical stimuli were controlled. In 11 older adults [mean ± standard deviation (SD) age: 68 ± 5 years] ventilation was stabilized using continuous positive airway pressure, and flow limitation was induced by dialling down the pressure. Partial pressure of end-tidal carbon dioxide (PetCO(2)) was maintained by titration of the inspired CO(2) and hyperoxia was maintained using 40% O(2) balanced with nitrogen. Flow limitation at the time of arousal did not augment cardiovascular activation response (heart rate P = 0.7; systolic blood pressure P = 0.6; diastolic blood pressure P = 0.3), whereas ventilation was greater following arousals during flow limitation compared to no flow limitation (P sleep is not influenced by flow limitation at the time of arousal, when chemical stimuli are controlled in older adults. This finding may contribute to the decreased cardiovascular burden associated with sleep-disordered breathing reported in older adults, although our data do not exclude the possibility that flow limitation in the presence of mild hypoxic hypercapnia could increase the cardiovascular response to arousal. © 2012 European Sleep Research Society.

  14. Biological pacemakers in canines exhibit positive chronotropic response to emotional arousal

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Shlapakova, Iryna N.; Nearing, Bruce D.; Lau, David H.; Boink, Gerard J. J.; Danilo, Peter; Kryukova, Yelena; Robinson, Richard B.; Cohen, Ira S.; Rosen, Michael R.; Verrier, Richard L.

    2010-01-01

    Biological pacemakers based on the HCN2 channel isoform respond to beta-adrenergic and muscarinic stimulation, suggesting a capacity to respond to autonomic input. The purpose of this study was to investigate autonomic response to emotional arousal in canines implanted with murine HCN2-based

  15. Deep convolutional neural network based antenna selection in multiple-input multiple-output system

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cai, Jiaxin; Li, Yan; Hu, Ying

    2018-03-01

    Antenna selection of wireless communication system has attracted increasing attention due to the challenge of keeping a balance between communication performance and computational complexity in large-scale Multiple-Input MultipleOutput antenna systems. Recently, deep learning based methods have achieved promising performance for large-scale data processing and analysis in many application fields. This paper is the first attempt to introduce the deep learning technique into the field of Multiple-Input Multiple-Output antenna selection in wireless communications. First, the label of attenuation coefficients channel matrix is generated by minimizing the key performance indicator of training antenna systems. Then, a deep convolutional neural network that explicitly exploits the massive latent cues of attenuation coefficients is learned on the training antenna systems. Finally, we use the adopted deep convolutional neural network to classify the channel matrix labels of test antennas and select the optimal antenna subset. Simulation experimental results demonstrate that our method can achieve better performance than the state-of-the-art baselines for data-driven based wireless antenna selection.

  16. Menopause-related brain activation patterns during visual sexual arousal in menopausal women: An fMRI pilot study using time-course analysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kim, Gwang-Won; Jeong, Gwang-Woo

    2017-02-20

    The aging process and menopausal transition are important factors in sexual dysfunction of menopausal women. No neuroimaging study has assessed the age- and menopause-related changes on brain activation areas associated with sexual arousal in menopausal women. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the time course of regional brain activity associated with sexual arousal evoked by visual stimulation in premenopausal and menopausal women, and further to assess the effect of menopause on the brain areas associated with sexual arousal in menopausal women using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Thirty volunteers consisting of 15 premenopausal and 15 menopausal women underwent the fMRI. For the activation condition, volunteers viewed sexually arousing visual stimulation. The brain areas with significantly higher activation in premenopausal women compared with menopausal women included the thalamus, amygdala, and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) using analysis of covariance adjusting for age (psexual arousal. These findings might help elucidate the neural mechanisms associated with sexual dysfunction in menopausal women. Copyright © 2016 IBRO. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  17. Contagious yawning, social cognition, and arousal: an investigation of the processes underlying shelter dogs' responses to human yawns.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Buttner, Alicia Phillips; Strasser, Rosemary

    2014-01-01

    Studies of contagious yawning have reported inconsistent findings regarding whether dogs exhibit this behavior and whether it is mediated by social-cognitive processes or the result of physiological arousal. We investigated why some dogs yawn in response to human yawns; particularly, whether these dogs are exceptional in their ability to understand human social cues or whether they were more physiologically aroused. Sixty shelter dogs were exposed to yawning and nonyawning control stimuli demonstrated by an unfamiliar human. We took salivary cortisol samples before and after testing to determine the role of arousal in yawn contagion. Dogs were tested on the object-choice task to assess their sensitivity for interpreting human social cues. We found that 12 dogs yawned only in response to human yawns (i.e., appeared to exhibit yawn contagion), though contagious yawning at the population level was not observed. Dogs that exhibited yawn contagion did not perform better on the object-choice task than other dogs, but their cortisol levels remained elevated after exposure to human yawning, whereas other dogs had reduced cortisol levels following yawning stimuli relative to their baseline levels. We interpret these findings as showing that human yawning, when presented in a stressful context, can further influence arousal in dogs, which then causes some to yawn. Although the precise social-cognitive mechanisms that underlie contagious yawning in dogs are still unclear, yawning between humans and dogs may involve some communicative function that is modulated by context and arousal.

  18. Enhancing emotional experiences to dance through music: the role of valence and arousal in the cross-modal bias

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Julia F. Christensen

    2014-10-01

    Full Text Available It is well established that emotional responses to stimuli presented to one perceptive modality (e.g. visual are modulated by the concurrent presentation of affective information to another modality (e.g. auditory – an effect known as the cross-modal bias. However, the affective mechanisms mediating this effect are still not fully understood. It remains unclear what role different dimensions of stimulus valence and arousal play in mediating the effect, and to what extent cross-modal influences impact not only our perception and conscious affective experiences, but also our psychophysiological emotional response. We addressed these issues by measuring participants’ subjective emotion ratings and their Galvanic Skin Responses in a cross-modal affect perception paradigm employing videos of ballet dance movements and instrumental classical music as the stimuli. We chose these stimuli to explore the cross-modal bias in a context of stimuli (ballet dance movements that most participants would have relatively little prior experience with. Results showed (i that the cross-modal bias was more pronounced for sad than for happy movements, whereas it was equivalent when contrasting high vs. low arousal movements, and (ii that movement valence did not modulate participants’ GSR, while movement arousal did such that GSR was potentiated in the case of low arousal movements with sad music and when high arousal movements were paired with happy music. Results are discussed in the context of the cross-modal affect perception literature and with regards to implications for the art community.

  19. Enhancing emotional experiences to dance through music: the role of valence and arousal in the cross-modal bias.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Christensen, Julia F; Gaigg, Sebastian B; Gomila, Antoni; Oke, Peter; Calvo-Merino, Beatriz

    2014-01-01

    It is well established that emotional responses to stimuli presented to one perceptive modality (e.g., visual) are modulated by the concurrent presentation of affective information to another modality (e.g., auditory)-an effect known as the cross-modal bias. However, the affective mechanisms mediating this effect are still not fully understood. It remains unclear what role different dimensions of stimulus valence and arousal play in mediating the effect, and to what extent cross-modal influences impact not only our perception and conscious affective experiences, but also our psychophysiological emotional response. We addressed these issues by measuring participants' subjective emotion ratings and their Galvanic Skin Responses (GSR) in a cross-modal affect perception paradigm employing videos of ballet dance movements and instrumental classical music as the stimuli. We chose these stimuli to explore the cross-modal bias in a context of stimuli (ballet dance movements) that most participants would have relatively little prior experience with. Results showed (i) that the cross-modal bias was more pronounced for sad than for happy movements, whereas it was equivalent when contrasting high vs. low arousal movements; and (ii) that movement valence did not modulate participants' GSR, while movement arousal did, such that GSR was potentiated in the case of low arousal movements with sad music and when high arousal movements were paired with happy music. Results are discussed in the context of the affective dimension of neuroentrainment and with regards to implications for the art community.

  20. MULTIPLE ECH LAUNCHER CONTROL SYSTEM

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    GREEN, M.T.; PONCE, D.; GRUNLOH, H.J.; ELLIS, R.A.; GROSNICKLE, W.H.; HUMPHREY, R.L.

    2004-03-01

    OAK-B135 The addition of new, high power gyrotrons to the heating and current drive arsenal at DIII-D, required a system upgrade for control of fully steerable ECH Launchers. Each launcher contains two pointing mirrors with two degrees of mechanical freedom. The two flavors of motion are called facet and tilt. Therefore up to four channels of motion per launcher need to be controlled. The system utilizes absolute encoders to indicate mirror position and therefore direction of the microwave beam. The launcher movement is primarily controlled by PLC, but future iterations of design, may require this control to be accomplished by a CPU on fast bus such as Compact PCI. This will be necessary to accomplish real time position control. Safety of equipment and personnel is of primary importance when controlling a system of moving parts. Therefore multiple interlocks and fault status enunciators have been implemented. This paper addresses the design of a Multiple ECH Launcher Control System, and characterizes the flexibility needed to upgrade to a real time position control system in the future

  1. Sexual Touching and Difficulties with Sexual Arousal and Orgasm Among U.S. Older Adults

    Science.gov (United States)

    2013-01-01

    Little is known about the non-genitally-focused sexual behavior of those experiencing sexual difficulties. The objective of this study was to review the theory supporting a link between sexual touching and difficulties with sexual arousal and orgasm, and to examine associations between these constructs among older adults in the United States. The data were from the 2005–2006 National Social Life Health and Aging Project, which surveyed 3,005 community-dwelling men and women ages 57–85 years. The 1,352 participants who had had sex in the past year reported on their frequency of sexual touching and whether there had been a period of several months or more in the past year when they were unable to climax, had trouble getting or maintaining an erection (men) or had trouble lubricating (women). Women also reported how of ten they felt sexually aroused during partner sex in the last 12 months. The odds of being unable to climax were greater by 2.4 times (95% CI 1.2–4.8) among men and 2.8 times (95% CI 1.4–5.5) among women who sometimes, rarely or never engaged in sexual touching, compared to those who always engaged in sexual touching, controlling for demographic factors and physical health. These results were attenuated but persisted after controlling for emotional relationship satisfaction and psychological factors. Similar results were obtained for erectile difficulties among men and subjective arousal difficulties among women, but not lubrication difficulties among women. Infrequent sexual touching is associated with arousal and orgasm difficulties among older adults in the United States. PMID:22160881

  2. Arousal?But Not Valence?Reduces False Memories at Retrieval

    OpenAIRE

    Mirandola, Chiara; Toffalini, Enrico

    2016-01-01

    Mood affects both memory accuracy and memory distortions. However, some aspects of this relation are still poorly understood: (1) whether valence and arousal equally affect false memory production, and (2) whether retrieval-related processes matter; the extant literature typically shows that mood influences memory performance when it is induced before encoding, leaving unsolved whether mood induced before retrieval also impacts memory. We examined how negative, positive, and neutral mood indu...

  3. Event-related brain potential correlates of words' emotional valence irrespective of arousal and type of task.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Espuny, Javier; Jiménez-Ortega, Laura; Casado, Pilar; Fondevila, Sabela; Muñoz, Francisco; Hernández-Gutiérrez, David; Martín-Loeches, Manuel

    2018-03-23

    Many Event-Related brain Potential (ERP) experiments have explored how the two main dimensions of emotion, arousal and valence, affect linguistic processing. However, the heterogeneity of experimental paradigms and materials has led to mixed results. In the present study, we aim to clarify words' emotional valence effects on ERP when arousal is controlled, and determine whether these effects may vary as a function of the type of task performed. For these purposes, we designed an ERP experiment with the valence of words manipulated, and arousal equated across valences. The participants performed two types of task: in one, they had to read aloud each word, written in black on a white background; in the other, they had to name the color of the ink in which each word was written. The results showed the main effects of valence irrespective of task, and no interaction between valence and task. The most marked effects of valence were in response to negative words, which elicited an Early Posterior Negativity (EPN) and a Late Positive Complex (LPC). Our results suggest that, when arousal is controlled, the cognitive information in negative words triggers a 'negativity bias', these being the only words able to elicit emotion-related ERP modulations. Moreover, these modulations are largely unaffected by the types of task explored here. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  4. Multilevel analysis of facial expressions of emotion and script: self-report (arousal and valence) and psychophysiological correlates

    OpenAIRE

    Balconi, Michela; Vanutelli, Maria Elide; Finocchiaro, Roberta

    2014-01-01

    Background The paper explored emotion comprehension in children with regard to facial expression of emotion. The effect of valence and arousal evaluation, of context and of psychophysiological measures was monitored. Indeed subjective evaluation of valence (positive vs. negative) and arousal (high vs. low), and contextual (facial expression vs. facial expression and script) variables were supposed to modulate the psychophysiological responses. Methods Self-report measures (in terms of correct...

  5. Stronger Association Between Valence- and Arousal Ratings of Affective Pictures with Older Age: Evidence for Variation Across Emotion Categories

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Mikkelsen, Mai Bjørnskov; Mehlsen, Mimi Yung; Lyby, Marlene Skovgaard

    A sample of older and younger adults rated affective pictures according to valence, arousal and emotion category (happiness, sadness and disgust). Results indicate that older age is associated with a stronger linear association between ratings of arousal and valence. Further, the strength...... of the association vary according to emotion category....

  6. Stimuli eliciting sexual arousal in males who offend adult women: an experimental study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kolárský, A; Madlafousek, J; Novotná, V

    1978-03-01

    The sexually arousing effects of short film scenes showing a naked actress's seductive behavior were phalloplethysmographically measured in 14 sexual deviates. These were males who had offended adult women, predominantly exhibitionists. Controls were 14 normal men. Deviates responded positively to the scenes and differentiated strong and weak seduction scenes similarly to normals. Consequently, the question arises of why deviates avoid their victim's erotic cooperation and why they do not offend their regular sexual partners. Post hoc analysis of five scenes which elicited a strikingly higher response in deviates than in normals suggested that these scenes contained reduced seductive behavior but unrestrained presentation of the genitals. This finding further encourages the laboratory study of stimulus conditions for abnormal sexual arousal which occurs during the sexual offense.

  7. The place of confusional arousals in sleep and mental disorders - Findings in a general population sample of 13,057 subjects

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Ohayon, MM; Priest, RG; Zulley, J; Smirne, S

    Confusional arousals, or sleep drunkenness, occur upon awakening and remain un studied in the general population. We selected a representative sample from the United Kingdom. Germany, and Italy (N = 13,0.57) and conducted telephone interviews. Confusional arousals were reported by 2.9% of the

  8. Experimental effects of exposure to pornography: the moderating effect of personality and mediating effect of sexual arousal.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hald, Gert Martin; Malamuth, Neil N

    2015-01-01

    Using a randomly selected community sample of 200 Danish young adult men and women in a randomized experimental design, the study investigated the effects of a personality trait (agreeableness), past pornography consumption, and experimental exposure to non-violent pornography on attitudes supporting violence against women (ASV). We found that lower levels of agreeableness and higher levels of past pornography consumption significantly predicted ASV. In addition, experimental exposure to pornography increased ASV but only among men low in agreeableness. This relationship was found to be significantly mediated by sexual arousal with sexual arousal referring to the subjective assessment of feeling sexually excited, ready for sexual activities, and/or bodily sensations associated with being sexually aroused. In underscoring the importance of individual differences, the results supported the hierarchical confluence model of sexual aggression and the media literature on affective engagement and priming effects.

  9. Exoplanet orbital eccentricity: multiplicity relation and the Solar System.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Limbach, Mary Anne; Turner, Edwin L

    2015-01-06

    The known population of exoplanets exhibits a much wider range of orbital eccentricities than Solar System planets and has a much higher average eccentricity. These facts have been widely interpreted to indicate that the Solar System is an atypical member of the overall population of planetary systems. We report here on a strong anticorrelation of orbital eccentricity with multiplicity (number of planets in the system) among cataloged radial velocity (RV) systems. The mean, median, and rough distribution of eccentricities of Solar System planets fits an extrapolation of this anticorrelation to the eight-planet case rather precisely despite the fact that no more than two Solar System planets would be detectable with RV data comparable to that in the exoplanet sample. Moreover, even if regarded as a single or double planetary system, the Solar System lies in a reasonably heavily populated region of eccentricity-multiplicity space. Thus, the Solar System is not anomalous among known exoplanetary systems with respect to eccentricities when its multiplicity is taken into account. Specifically, as the multiplicity of a system increases, the eccentricity decreases roughly as a power law of index -1.20. A simple and plausible but ad hoc and model-dependent interpretation of this relationship implies that ∼ 80% of the one-planet and 25% of the two-planet systems in our sample have additional, as yet undiscovered, members but that systems of higher observed multiplicity are largely complete (i.e., relatively rarely contain additional undiscovered planets). If low eccentricities indeed favor high multiplicities, habitability may be more common in systems with a larger number of planets.

  10. Norepinephrine ignites local hotspots of neuronal excitation: How arousal amplifies selectivity in perception and memory.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mather, Mara; Clewett, David; Sakaki, Michiko; Harley, Carolyn W

    2016-01-01

    Emotional arousal enhances perception and memory of high-priority information but impairs processing of other information. Here, we propose that, under arousal, local glutamate levels signal the current strength of a representation and interact with norepinephrine (NE) to enhance high priority representations and out-compete or suppress lower priority representations. In our "glutamate amplifies noradrenergic effects" (GANE) model, high glutamate at the site of prioritized representations increases local NE release from the locus coeruleus (LC) to generate "NE hotspots." At these NE hotspots, local glutamate and NE release are mutually enhancing and amplify activation of prioritized representations. In contrast, arousal-induced LC activity inhibits less active representations via two mechanisms: 1) Where there are hotspots, lateral inhibition is amplified; 2) Where no hotspots emerge, NE levels are only high enough to activate low-threshold inhibitory adrenoreceptors. Thus, LC activation promotes a few hotspots of excitation in the context of widespread suppression, enhancing high priority representations while suppressing the rest. Hotspots also help synchronize oscillations across neural ensembles transmitting high-priority information. Furthermore, brain structures that detect stimulus priority interact with phasic NE release to preferentially route such information through large-scale functional brain networks. A surge of NE before, during, or after encoding enhances synaptic plasticity at NE hotspots, triggering local protein synthesis processes that enhance selective memory consolidation. Together, these noradrenergic mechanisms promote selective attention and memory under arousal. GANE not only reconciles apparently contradictory findings in the emotion-cognition literature but also extends previous influential theories of LC neuromodulation by proposing specific mechanisms for how LC-NE activity increases neural gain.

  11. Viewing sexual images is associated with reduced physiological arousal response to gambling loss.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lui, Ming; Hsu, Ming

    2018-01-01

    Erotic imagery is one highly salient emotional signal that exists everywhere in daily life. The impact of sexual stimuli on human decision-making, however, has rarely been investigated. This study examines the impact of sexual stimuli on financial decision-making under risk. In each trial, either a sexual or neutral image was presented in a picture categorization task before a gambling task. Thirty-four men made gambling decisions while their physiological arousal, measured by skin conductance responses (SCRs), was recorded. Behaviorally, the proportion of gambling decisions did not differ between the sexual and neutral image trials. Physiologically, participants had smaller arousal differences, measured in micro-siemen per dollar, between losses and gains in the sexual rather than in the neutral image trials. Moreover, participants' SCRs to losses relative to gains predicted the proportion of gambling decisions in the neutral image trials but not in the sexual image trials. The results were consistent with the hypothesis that the presence of emotionally salient sexual images reduces attentional and arousal-related responses to gambling losses. Our results are consistent with the theory of loss attention involving increased cognitive investment in losses compared to gains. The findings also have potential practical implications for our understanding of the specific roles of sexual images in human financial decision making in everyday life, such as gambling behaviors in the casino.

  12. The combination of perception of other individuals and exogenous manipulation of arousal enhances social facilitation as an aftereffect: re-examination of Zajonc's drive theory.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ukezono, Masatoshi; Nakashima, Satoshi F; Sudo, Ryunosuke; Yamazaki, Akira; Takano, Yuji

    2015-01-01

    Zajonc's drive theory postulates that arousal enhanced through the perception of the presence of other individuals plays a crucial role in social facilitation (Zajonc, 1965). Here, we conducted two experiments to examine whether the elevation of arousal through a stepping exercise performed in front of others as an exogenous factor causes social facilitation of a cognitive task in a condition where the presence of others does not elevate the arousal level. In the main experiment, as an "aftereffect of social stimulus," we manipulated the presence or absence of others and arousal enhancement before participants conducted the primary cognitive task. The results showed that the strongest social facilitation was induced by the combination of the perception of others and arousal enhancement. In a supplementary experiment, we manipulated these factors by adding the presence of another person during the task. The results showed that the effect of the presence of the other during the primary task is enough on its own to produce facilitation of task performance regardless of the arousal enhancement as an aftereffect of social stimulus. Our study therefore extends the framework of Zajonc's drive theory in that the combination of the perception of others and enhanced arousal as an "aftereffect" was found to induce social facilitation especially when participants did not experience the presence of others while conducting the primary task.

  13. The significance of ASDA arousals in children.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lopes, Maria-Cecilia; Marcus, Carole L

    2007-12-01

    Sleep disorders are common in children. The sleep disturbances associated with these disease processes may impact neurodevelopment and result in daytime behavioral and cognitive changes. Currently, there are no precise methods to accurately assess sleep disruption in the pediatric age group. There is evidence that American Sleep Disorders Association (ASDA) arousals are insufficient markers of sleep disruption in children. Other techniques that have been used to assess sleep disruption include unconventional means of evaluating the electroencephalogram (EEG) during sleep and evaluating subcortical or autonomic activation. The aim of this review is to discuss the application of conventional and unconventional markers of sleep disruption in children.

  14. Novelty-induced emotional arousal modulates cannabinoid effects on recognition memory and adrenocortical activity.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Campolongo, Patrizia; Morena, Maria; Scaccianoce, Sergio; Trezza, Viviana; Chiarotti, Flavia; Schelling, Gustav; Cuomo, Vincenzo; Roozendaal, Benno

    2013-06-01

    Although it is well established that cannabinoid drugs can influence cognitive performance, the findings-describing both enhancing and impairing effects-have been ambiguous. Here, we investigated the effects of posttraining systemic administration of the synthetic cannabinoid agonist WIN55,212-2 (0.1, 0.3, or 1.0 mg/kg) on short- and long-term retention of object recognition memory under two conditions that differed in their training-associated arousal level. In male Sprague-Dawley rats that were not previously habituated to the experimental context, WIN55,212-2 administered immediately after a 3-min training trial, biphasically impaired retention performance at a 1-h interval. In contrast, WIN55,212-2 enhanced 1-h retention of rats that had received extensive prior habituation to the experimental context. Interestingly, immediate posttraining administration of WIN55,212-2 to non-habituated rats, in doses that impaired 1-h retention, enhanced object recognition performance at a 24-h interval. Posttraining WIN55,212-2 administration to habituated rats did not significantly affect 24-h retention. In light of intimate interactions between cannabinoids and the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, we further investigated whether cannabinoid administration might differently influence training-induced glucocorticoid activity in rats in these two habituation conditions. WIN55,212-2 administered after object recognition training elevated plasma corticosterone levels in non-habituated rats whereas it decreased corticosterone levels in habituated rats. Most importantly, following pretreatment with the corticosterone-synthesis inhibitor metyrapone, WIN55,212-2 effects on 1- and 24-h retention of non-habituated rats became similar to those seen in the low-aroused habituated animals, indicating that cannabinoid-induced regulation of adrenocortical activity contributes to the environmentally sensitive effects of systemically administered cannabinoids on short- and long

  15. Effects of realism on extended violent and nonviolent video game play on aggressive thoughts, feelings, and physiological arousal.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Barlett, Christopher P; Rodeheffer, Christopher

    2009-01-01

    Previous research has shown that playing violent video game exposure can increase aggressive thoughts, aggressive feelings, and physiological arousal. This study compared the effects that playing a realistic violent, unrealistic violent, or nonviolent video game for 45 min has on such variables. For the purpose of this study, realism was defined as the probability of seeing an event in real life. Participants (N=74; 39 male, 35 female) played either a realistic violent, unrealistic violent, or nonviolent video game for 45 min. Aggressive thoughts and aggressive feelings were measured four times (every 15 min), whereas arousal was measured continuously. The results showed that, though playing any violent game stimulated aggressive thoughts, playing a more realistic violent game stimulated significantly more aggressive feelings and arousal over the course of play. Copyright 2009 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

  16. Multiple operating system rotation environment moving target defense

    Science.gov (United States)

    Evans, Nathaniel; Thompson, Michael

    2016-03-22

    Systems and methods for providing a multiple operating system rotation environment ("MORE") moving target defense ("MTD") computing system are described. The MORE-MTD system provides enhanced computer system security through a rotation of multiple operating systems. The MORE-MTD system increases attacker uncertainty, increases the cost of attacking the system, reduces the likelihood of an attacker locating a vulnerability, and reduces the exposure time of any located vulnerability. The MORE-MTD environment is effectuated by rotation of the operating systems at a given interval. The rotating operating systems create a consistently changing attack surface for remote attackers.

  17. The Aggression-Inhibiting and Aggression-Facilitating Influence of Heightened Sexual Arousal.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Baron, Robert A.; Bell, Paul A.

    Eighty-six undergraduate males participated in an experiment designed to investigate the impact of various types of erotic stimuli upon aggression. On the basis of previous research, it was hypothesized that exposure to mild erotic stimuli would tend to inhibit subsequent aggression, while exposure to more arousing stimuli of this type would…

  18. White-nose syndrome survivors do not exhibit frequent arousals associated with Pseudogymnoascus destructans infection.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lilley, Thomas Mikael; Johnson, Joseph Samuel; Ruokolainen, Lasse; Rogers, Elisabeth Jeannine; Wilson, Cali Ann; Schell, Spencer Mead; Field, Kenneth Alan; Reeder, DeeAnn Marie

    2016-01-01

    White-nose syndrome (WNS) has devastated bat populations in North America, with millions of bats dead. WNS is associated with physiological changes in hibernating bats, leading to increased arousals from hibernation and premature consumption of fat reserves. However, there is evidence of surviving populations of little brown myotis (Myotis lucifugus) close to where the fungus was first detected nearly ten years ago. We examined the hibernation patterns of a surviving population of little brown myotis and compared them to patterns in populations before the arrival of WNS and populations at the peak of WNS mortality. Despite infection with Pseudogymnoascus destructans, the causative fungal agent, the remnant population displayed less frequent arousals from torpor and lower torpid body temperatures than bats that died from WNS during the peak of mortality. The hibernation patterns of the remnant population resembled pre-WNS patterns with some modifications. These data show that remnant populations of little brown myotis do not experience the increase in periodic arousals from hibernation typified by bats dying from WNS, despite the presence of the fungal pathogen on their skin. These patterns may reflect the use of colder hibernacula microclimates by WNS survivors, and/or may reflect differences in how these bats respond to the disease.

  19. Role of innate and drug-induced dysregulation of brain stress and arousal systems in addiction: Focus on corticotropin-releasing factor, nociceptin/orphanin FQ, and orexin/hypocretin

    Science.gov (United States)

    Martin-Fardon, Rémi; Zorrilla, Eric P.; Ciccocioppo, Roberto; Weiss, Friedbert

    2010-01-01

    Stress-like symptoms are an integral part of acute and protracted drug withdrawal, and several lines of evidence have shown that dysregulation of brain stress systems, including the extrahypothalamic corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF) system, following long-term drug use is of major importance in maintaining drug and alcohol addiction. Recently, two other neuropeptide systems have attracted interest, the nociceptin/orphanin FQ (N/OFQ) and orexin/hypocretin (Orx/Hcrt) systems. N/OFQ participates in a wide range of physiological responses, and the hypothalamic Orx/Hcrt system helps regulate several physiological processes, including feeding, energy metabolism, and arousal. Moreover, these two systems have been suggested to participate in psychiatric disorders, including anxiety and drug addiction. Dysregulation of these systems by chronic drug exposure has been hypothesized to play a role in the maintenance of addiction and dependence. Recent evidence demonstrated that interactions between CRF-N/OFQ and CRF-Orx/Hcrt systems may be functionally relevant for the control of stress-related addictive behavior. The present review discusses recent findings that support the hypotheses of the participation and dysregulation of these systems in drug addiction and evaluates the current understanding of interactions among these stress-regulatory peptides. PMID:20026088

  20. Delegation control of multiple unmanned systems

    Science.gov (United States)

    Flaherty, Susan R.; Shively, Robert J.

    2010-04-01

    Maturing technologies and complex payloads coupled with a future objective to reduce the logistics burden of current unmanned aerial systems (UAS) operations require a change to the 2-crew employment paradigm. Increased automation and operator supervisory control of unmanned systems have been advocated to meet the objective of reducing the crew requirements, while managing future technologies. Specifically, a delegation control employment strategy has resulted in reduced workload and higher situation awareness for single operators controlling multiple unmanned systems in empirical studies1,2. Delegation control is characterized by the ability for an operator to call a single "play" that initiates prescribed default actions for each vehicle and associated sensor related to a common mission goal. Based upon the effectiveness of delegation control in simulation, the U.S. Army Aeroflightdynamics Directorate (AFDD) developed a Delegation Control (DelCon) operator interface with voice recognition implementation for play selection, real-time play modification, and play status with automation transparency to enable single operator control of multiple unmanned systems in flight. AFDD successfully demonstrated delegation control in a Troops-in-Contact mission scenario at Ft. Ord in 2009. This summary showcases the effort as a beneficial advance in single operator control of multiple UAS.

  1. Arousal and attention re-orienting in autism spectrum disorders: evidence from auditory event-related potentials

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Elena V Orekhova

    2014-02-01

    Full Text Available The extended phenotype of autism spectrum disorders (ASD includes a combination of arousal regulation problems, sensory modulation difficulties, and attention re-orienting deficit. A slow and inefficient re-orienting to stimuli that appear outside of the attended sensory stream is thought to be especially detrimental for social functioning. Event-related potentials (ERPs and magnetic fields (ERFs may help to reveal which processing stages underlying brain response to unattended but salient sensory event are affected in individuals with ASD. Previous research focusing on two sequential stages of the brain response - automatic detection of physical changes in auditory stream, indexed by mismatch negativity (MMN, and evaluation of stimulus novelty, indexed by P3a component, - found in individuals with ASD either increased, decreased or normal processing of deviance and novelty. The review examines these apparently conflicting results, notes gaps in previous findings, and suggests a potentially unifying hypothesis relating the dampened responses to unattended sensory events to the deficit in rapid arousal process. Specifically, ‘sensory gating’ studies focused on pre-attentive arousal consistently demonstrated that brain response to unattended and temporally novel sound in ASD is already affected at around 100 ms after stimulus onset. We hypothesize that abnormalities in nicotinic cholinergic arousal pathways, previously reported in individuals with ASD, may contribute to these ERP/ERF aberrations and result in attention re-orienting deficit. Such cholinergic dysfunction may be present in individuals with ASD early in life and can influence both sensory processing and attention re-orienting behavior. Identification of early neurophysiological biomarkers for cholinergic deficit would help to detect infants at risk who can potentially benefit from particular types of therapies or interventions.

  2. Using event related potentials to identify a user's behavioural intention aroused by product form design.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ding, Yi; Guo, Fu; Zhang, Xuefeng; Qu, Qingxing; Liu, Weilin

    2016-07-01

    The capacity of product form to arouse user's behavioural intention plays a decisive role in further user experience, even in purchase decision, while traditional methods rarely give a fully understanding of user experience evoked by product form, especially the feeling of anticipated use of product. Behavioural intention aroused by product form designs has not yet been investigated electrophysiologically. Hence event related potentials (ERPs) were applied to explore the process of behavioural intention when users browsed different smart phone form designs with brand and price not taken into account for mainly studying the brain activity evoked by variety of product forms. Smart phone pictures with different anticipated user experience were displayed with equiprobability randomly. Participants were asked to click the left mouse button when certain picture gave them a feeling of behavioural intention to interact with. The brain signal of each participant was recorded by Curry 7.0. The results show that pictures with an ability to arouse participants' behavioural intention for further experience can evoke enhanced N300 and LPPs (late positive potentials) in central-parietal, parietal and occipital regions. The scalp topography shows that central-parietal, parietal and occipital regions are more activated. The results indicate that the discrepancy of ERPs can reflect the neural activities of behavioural intention formed or not. Moreover, amplitude of ERPs occurred in corresponding brain areas can be used to measure user experience. The exploring of neural correlated with behavioural intention provide an accurate measurement method of user's perception and help marketers to know which product can arouse users' behavioural intention, maybe taken as an evaluating indicator of product design. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd and The Ergonomics Society. All rights reserved.

  3. Binaural Beat: A Failure to Enhance EEG Power and Emotional Arousal

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Fran López-Caballero

    2017-11-01

    Full Text Available When two pure tones of slightly different frequencies are delivered simultaneously to the two ears, is generated a beat whose frequency corresponds to the frequency difference between them. That beat is known as acoustic beat. If these two tones are presented one to each ear, they still produce the sensation of the same beat, although no physical combination of the tones occurs outside the auditory system. This phenomenon is called binaural beat. In the present study, we explored the potential contribution of binaural beats to the enhancement of specific electroencephalographic (EEG bands, as previous studies suggest the potential usefulness of binaural beats as a brainwave entrainment tool. Additionally, we analyzed the effects of binaural-beat stimulation on two psychophysiological measures related to emotional arousal: heart rate and skin conductance. Beats of five different frequencies (4.53 Hz -theta-, 8.97 Hz -alpha-, 17.93 Hz -beta-, 34.49 Hz -gamma- or 57.3 Hz -upper-gamma were presented binaurally and acoustically for epochs of 3 min (Beat epochs, preceded and followed by pink noise epochs of 90 s (Baseline and Post epochs, respectively. In each of these epochs, we analyzed the EEG spectral power, as well as calculated the heart rate and skin conductance response (SCR. For all the beat frequencies used for stimulation, no significant changes between Baseline and Beat epochs were observed within the corresponding EEG bands, neither with binaural or with acoustic beats. Additional analysis of spectral EEG topographies yielded negative results for the effect of binaural beats in the scalp distribution of EEG spectral power. In the psychophysiological measures, no changes in heart rate and skin conductance were observed for any of the beat frequencies presented. Our results do not support binaural-beat stimulation as a potential tool for the enhancement of EEG oscillatory activity, nor to induce changes in emotional arousal.

  4. Binaural Beat: A Failure to Enhance EEG Power and Emotional Arousal.

    Science.gov (United States)

    López-Caballero, Fran; Escera, Carles

    2017-01-01

    When two pure tones of slightly different frequencies are delivered simultaneously to the two ears, is generated a beat whose frequency corresponds to the frequency difference between them. That beat is known as acoustic beat. If these two tones are presented one to each ear, they still produce the sensation of the same beat, although no physical combination of the tones occurs outside the auditory system. This phenomenon is called binaural beat. In the present study, we explored the potential contribution of binaural beats to the enhancement of specific electroencephalographic (EEG) bands, as previous studies suggest the potential usefulness of binaural beats as a brainwave entrainment tool. Additionally, we analyzed the effects of binaural-beat stimulation on two psychophysiological measures related to emotional arousal: heart rate and skin conductance. Beats of five different frequencies (4.53 Hz -theta-, 8.97 Hz -alpha-, 17.93 Hz -beta-, 34.49 Hz -gamma- or 57.3 Hz -upper-gamma) were presented binaurally and acoustically for epochs of 3 min (Beat epochs), preceded and followed by pink noise epochs of 90 s (Baseline and Post epochs, respectively). In each of these epochs, we analyzed the EEG spectral power, as well as calculated the heart rate and skin conductance response (SCR). For all the beat frequencies used for stimulation, no significant changes between Baseline and Beat epochs were observed within the corresponding EEG bands, neither with binaural or with acoustic beats. Additional analysis of spectral EEG topographies yielded negative results for the effect of binaural beats in the scalp distribution of EEG spectral power. In the psychophysiological measures, no changes in heart rate and skin conductance were observed for any of the beat frequencies presented. Our results do not support binaural-beat stimulation as a potential tool for the enhancement of EEG oscillatory activity, nor to induce changes in emotional arousal.

  5. Fast modified signal-digit (MSD) multiplication technology and system

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sun, DeGui; He, Li-Ming; Wang, Na-Xin; Weng, Zhao-Heng

    1994-06-01

    In this paper, the carry-free property of modified-signed-digit (MSD) addition is analyzed with a space position logic encoding scheme. On this basis, MSD multiplication is discussed and a fast MSD multiplication system composed of optoelectronic logic technology and a multilayer optical interconnection architecture is propsed and studied. Finally, the effectivity of the fast MSD multiplication system is demostrated by using a 2X2 bit multiplication example and experimental results are given.

  6. The combination of perception of other individuals and exogenous manipulation of arousal enhances social facilitation as an aftereffect: re-examination of Zajonc’s drive theory

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ukezono, Masatoshi; Nakashima, Satoshi F.; Sudo, Ryunosuke; Yamazaki, Akira; Takano, Yuji

    2015-01-01

    Zajonc’s drive theory postulates that arousal enhanced through the perception of the presence of other individuals plays a crucial role in social facilitation (Zajonc, 1965). Here, we conducted two experiments to examine whether the elevation of arousal through a stepping exercise performed in front of others as an exogenous factor causes social facilitation of a cognitive task in a condition where the presence of others does not elevate the arousal level. In the main experiment, as an “aftereffect of social stimulus,” we manipulated the presence or absence of others and arousal enhancement before participants conducted the primary cognitive task. The results showed that the strongest social facilitation was induced by the combination of the perception of others and arousal enhancement. In a supplementary experiment, we manipulated these factors by adding the presence of another person during the task. The results showed that the effect of the presence of the other during the primary task is enough on its own to produce facilitation of task performance regardless of the arousal enhancement as an aftereffect of social stimulus. Our study therefore extends the framework of Zajonc’s drive theory in that the combination of the perception of others and enhanced arousal as an “aftereffect” was found to induce social facilitation especially when participants did not experience the presence of others while conducting the primary task. PMID:25999906

  7. Emotional Valence, Arousal, and Threat Ratings of 160 Chinese Words among Adolescents.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ho, Samuel M Y; Mak, Christine W Y; Yeung, Dannii; Duan, Wenjie; Tang, Sandy; Yeung, June C; Ching, Rita

    2015-01-01

    This study was conducted to provide ratings of valence/pleasantness, arousal/excitement, and threat/potential harm for 160 Chinese words. The emotional valence classification (positive, negative, or neutral) of all of the words corresponded to that of the equivalent English language words. More than 90% of the participants, junior high school students aged between 12 and 17 years, understood the words. The participants were from both mainland China and Hong Kong, thus the words can be applied to adolescents familiar with either simplified (e.g. in mainland China) or traditional Chinese (e.g. in Hong Kong) with a junior secondary school education or higher. We also established eight words with negative valence, high threat, and high arousal ratings to facilitate future research, especially on attentional and memory biases among individuals prone to anxiety. Thus, the new emotional word list provides a useful source of information for affective research in the Chinese language.

  8. Heart Rate Variability in Male Sexual Arousal and Erectile Dysfunction

    Science.gov (United States)

    2007-01-22

    research and practice to assess cardiac autonomic tone with patients presenting with ED symptoms. However, HRV patterns during sexual arousal and activity... masturbation or 18 other sexual activities, was associated with greater levels of HRV among cohabitating individuals [F(1,38) = 8.4, p < 0.01...respectively. The key issue for clinical practice is whether the ANS disturbances predicted in Hypotheses 2 limit tumescence or whether tumescence

  9. Automatic Detection of Cortical Arousals in Sleep using Bi-direction LSTM Networks

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Brink-Kjaer, A.; Olesen, Alexander Neergaard; Jespersen, C. A.

    2018-01-01

    ) and chin electromyography (EMG) to compute a probability of arousals through a bi-directional long short-term memory neural network. The study used a dataset of 233 nocturnal PSGs of population-based samples from Wisconsin Sleep Cohort (WSC) and 30 nocturnal PSGs of clinical samples from the Stanford Sleep...

  10. Enhanced sympathetic arousal in response to FMRI scanning correlates with task induced activations and deactivations.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Markus Muehlhan

    Full Text Available It has been repeatedly shown that functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI triggers distress and neuroendocrine response systems. Prior studies have revealed that sympathetic arousal increases, particularly at the beginning of the examination. Against this background it appears likely that those stress reactions during the scanning procedure may influence task performance and neural correlates. However, the question how sympathetic arousal elicited by the scanning procedure itself may act as a potential confounder of fMRI data remains unresolved today. Thirty-seven scanner naive healthy subjects performed a simple cued target detection task. Levels of salivary alpha amylase (sAA, as a biomarker for sympathetic activity, were assessed in samples obtained at several time points during the lab visit. SAA increased two times, immediately prior to scanning and at the end of the scanning procedure. Neural activation related to motor preparation and timing as well as task performance was positively correlated with the first increase. Furthermore, the first sAA increase was associated with task induced deactivation (TID in frontal and parietal regions. However, these effects were restricted to the first part of the experiment. Consequently, this bias of scanner related sympathetic activation should be considered in future fMRI investigations. It is of particular importance for pharmacological investigations studying adrenergic agents and the comparison of groups with different stress vulnerabilities like patients and controls or adolescents and adults.

  11. The effects of sedative music, arousal music, and silence on electrocardiography signals.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dousty, Mehdy; Daneshvar, Sabalan; Haghjoo, Majid

    2011-01-01

    Research indicates that music can affect heart rate, blood pressure, and skin conductance. Music can stimulate central emotions in the brain and release biochemical materials that change the physiologic state. We sought to compare changes in the electrical function of the heart in response to music. Subjects were asked to listen to 2 types of music, namely, sedative and arousal music, in conjunction with two 30-second periods of complete silence. The experiment was conducted in 4 segments: the first and third parts were silence, and the second and fourth parts were music. First, the response to each type of music was compared with that to the preceding period of silence. Next, the responses to both types of music were compared. Finally, the response to music regardless of the type was compared with that to silence. The amplitude of polarization and depolarization changed in response to different kinds of music. The electrical function of the heart in response to music, irrespective of the music type, differed from that in response to silence. The 2 types of music impacted the electrical function of the heart in different ways: the arousal music influenced T-wave maximum amplitude, whereas no such change was recorded in response to the sedative music. The bandwidth of the polarization and depolarization of the heart rate and R-wave amplitude increased in response to music by comparison with silence. In addition, the heart did not seem to try to synchronize with music. The mean R-wave amplitude in sedative music is higher than the arousal music, so our heart works differently when different types of music are heard. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  12. Migraine, arousal and sleep deprivation: comment on: "sleep quality, arousal and pain thresholds in migraineurs: a blinded controlled polysomnographic study".

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vollono, Catello; Testani, Elisa; Losurdo, Anna; Mazza, Salvatore; Della Marca, Giacomo

    2013-06-10

    We discuss the hypothesis proposed by Engstrom and coworkers that Migraineurs have a relative sleep deprivation, which lowers the pain threshold and predispose to attacks. Previous data indicate that Migraineurs have a reduction of Cyclic Alternating Pattern (CAP), an essential mechanism of NREM sleep regulation which allows to dump the effect of incoming disruptive stimuli, and to protect sleep. The modifications of CAP observed in Migraineurs are similar to those observed in patients with impaired arousal (narcolepsy) and after sleep deprivation. The impairment of this mechanism makes Migraineurs more vulnerable to stimuli triggering attacks during sleep, and represents part of a more general vulnerability to incoming stimuli.

  13. A Public Database of Immersive VR Videos with Corresponding Ratings of Arousal, Valence, and Correlations between Head Movements and Self Report Measures

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Benjamin J. Li

    2017-12-01

    Full Text Available Virtual reality (VR has been proposed as a methodological tool to study the basic science of psychology and other fields. One key advantage of VR is that sharing of virtual content can lead to more robust replication and representative sampling. A database of standardized content will help fulfill this vision. There are two objectives to this study. First, we seek to establish and allow public access to a database of immersive VR video clips that can act as a potential resource for studies on emotion induction using virtual reality. Second, given the large sample size of participants needed to get reliable valence and arousal ratings for our video, we were able to explore the possible links between the head movements of the observer and the emotions he or she feels while viewing immersive VR. To accomplish our goals, we sourced for and tested 73 immersive VR clips which participants rated on valence and arousal dimensions using self-assessment manikins. We also tracked participants' rotational head movements as they watched the clips, allowing us to correlate head movements and affect. Based on past research, we predicted relationships between the standard deviation of head yaw and valence and arousal ratings. Results showed that the stimuli varied reasonably well along the dimensions of valence and arousal, with a slight underrepresentation of clips that are of negative valence and highly arousing. The standard deviation of yaw positively correlated with valence, while a significant positive relationship was found between head pitch and arousal. The immersive VR clips tested are available online as supplemental material.

  14. Spacecraft Multiple Array Communication System Performance Analysis

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hwu, Shian U.; Desilva, Kanishka; Sham, Catherine C.

    2010-01-01

    The Communication Systems Simulation Laboratory (CSSL) at the NASA Johnson Space Center is tasked to perform spacecraft and ground network communication system simulations, design validation, and performance verification. The CSSL has developed simulation tools that model spacecraft communication systems and the space and ground environment in which the tools operate. In this paper, a spacecraft communication system with multiple arrays is simulated. Multiple array combined technique is used to increase the radio frequency coverage and data rate performance. The technique is to achieve phase coherence among the phased arrays to combine the signals at the targeting receiver constructively. There are many technical challenges in spacecraft integration with a high transmit power communication system. The array combining technique can improve the communication system data rate and coverage performances without increasing the system transmit power requirements. Example simulation results indicate significant performance improvement can be achieved with phase coherence implementation.

  15. Afferent Neural Feedback Overrides the Modulating Effects of Arousal, Hypercapnia and Hypoxemia on Neonatal Cardio-respiratory Control.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lumb, Kathleen J; Schneider, Jennifer M; Ibrahim, Thowfique; Rigaux, Anita; Hasan, Shabih U

    2018-04-20

    Evidence at whole animal, organ-system, and cellular and molecular levels suggests that afferent volume feedback is critical for establishment of adequate ventilation at birth. Due to the irreversible nature of vagal ablation studies to date, it was difficult to quantify the roles of afferent volume input, arousal and changes in blood gas tensions on neonatal respiratory control. During reversible perineural vagal block, profound apneas, and hypoxemia and hypercarbia were observed necessitating termination of perineural blockade. Respiratory depression and apneas were independent of the sleep states. We demonstrate that profound apneas and life-threatening respiratory failure in vagally denervated animals do not result from lack of arousal or hypoxemia. Change in sleep state and concomitant respiratory depression result from lack of afferent volume feedback, which appears to be critical for the maintenance of normal breathing patterns and adequate gas exchange during the early postnatal period. Afferent volume feedback plays a vital role in neonatal respiratory control. Mechanisms for the profound respiratory depression and life-threatening apneas observed in vagally denervated neonatal animals remain unclear. We investigated the roles of sleep states, hypoxic-hypercapnia and afferent volume feedback on respiratory depression using reversible perineural vagal block during early postnatal period. Seven lambs were instrumented during the first 48h of life to record/analyze sleep states, diaphragmatic electromyograph, arterial blood gas tensions, systemic arterial blood pressure and rectal temperature. Perineural cuffs were placed around the vagi to attain reversible blockade. Post-operatively, during the awake state, both vagi were blocked using 2% xylocaine for up to 30 minutes. Compared with baseline values, pHa, PaO 2 and SaO 2 decreased and PaCO 2 increased during perineural blockade (P Respiratory depression and apneas were independent of sleep states. This

  16. Effects of arousal on cognitive control: empirical tests of the conflict-modulated Hebbian-learning hypothesis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Brown, Stephen B R E; van Steenbergen, Henk; Kedar, Tomer; Nieuwenhuis, Sander

    2014-01-01

    An increasing number of empirical phenomena that were previously interpreted as a result of cognitive control, turn out to reflect (in part) simple associative-learning effects. A prime example is the proportion congruency effect, the finding that interference effects (such as the Stroop effect) decrease as the proportion of incongruent stimuli increases. While this was previously regarded as strong evidence for a global conflict monitoring-cognitive control loop, recent evidence has shown that the proportion congruency effect is largely item-specific and hence must be due to associative learning. The goal of our research was to test a recent hypothesis about the mechanism underlying such associative-learning effects, the conflict-modulated Hebbian-learning hypothesis, which proposes that the effect of conflict on associative learning is mediated by phasic arousal responses. In Experiment 1, we examined in detail the relationship between the item-specific proportion congruency effect and an autonomic measure of phasic arousal: task-evoked pupillary responses. In Experiment 2, we used a task-irrelevant phasic arousal manipulation and examined the effect on item-specific learning of incongruent stimulus-response associations. The results provide little evidence for the conflict-modulated Hebbian-learning hypothesis, which requires additional empirical support to remain tenable.

  17. Effects of arousal on cognitive control: Empirical tests of the conflict-modulated Hebbian-learning hypothesis

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Stephen B.R.E. Brown

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available An increasing number of empirical phenomena that were previously interpreted as a result of cognitive control, turn out to reflect (in part simple associative-learning effects. A prime example is the proportion congruency effect, the finding that interference effects (such as the Stroop effect decrease as the proportion of incongruent stimuli increases. While this was previously regarded as strong evidence for a global conflict monitoring-cognitive control loop, recent evidence has shown that the proportion congruency effect is largely item-specific and hence must be due to associative learning. The goal of our research was to test a recent hypothesis about the mechanism underlying such associative-learning effects, the conflict-modulated Hebbian-learning hypothesis, which proposes that the effect of conflict on associative learning is mediated by phasic arousal responses. In Experiment 1, we examined in detail the relationship between the item-specific proportion congruency effect and an autonomic measure of phasic arousal: task-evoked pupillary responses. In Experiment 2, we used a task-irrelevant phasic arousal manipulation and examined the effect on item-specific learning of incongruent stimulus-response associations. The results provide little evidence for the conflict-modulated Hebbian-learning hypothesis, which requires additional empirical support to remain tenable.

  18. Physical therapy treatment of persistent genital arousal disorder during pregnancy: a case report.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rosenbaum, Talli Yehuda

    2010-03-01

    Persistent genital arousal disorder (PGAD) is described as the spontaneous, intrusive, and unwanted genital arousal in the absence of sexual interest and desire. Whether the etiology of this disorder is essentially central or peripheral is unclear; however, a presenting symptom may be persistent engorgement of genital erectile and vascular tissue. To describe a case of a distressed 27 year old pregnant woman with symptoms consistent with PGAD, and the intervention leading to the resolution of symptoms. A patient with symptoms of PGAD was assessed. Information regarding this condition was offered. A manual therapy treatment was provided to decrease muscle hypertonus near the pudendal nerve, and a home intervention was suggested. Complete resolution of symptoms per patient's report 1 week later. Treatment with pelvic floor manual therapy directed at the pudendal nerve may provide safe and significant relief from PGAD symptoms in a pregnant woman patient.

  19. How hot is he? A psychophysiological and psychosocial examination of the arousal patterns of sexually functional and dysfunctional men.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sarin, Sabina; Amsel, Rhonda; Binik, Yitzchak M

    2014-07-01

    Despite much theorizing about the interchangeability of desire and arousal, research has yet to identify whether men with desire vs. arousal disorders can be differentiated based on their psychophysiological patterns of arousal. Additionally, little research has examined the relationship between subjective (SA) and genital arousal (GA) in sexually dysfunctional men. To compare patterns of SA and GA in a community sample of men meeting DSM-IV-TR criteria for hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD), erectile dysfunction (ED), both HSDD and ED (ED/HSDD), and healthy controls. Seventy-one men (19 controls, 13 HSDD, 19 ED, 20 ED/HSDD) completed self-report measures and watched two 15-minute film clips (neutral and erotic), while GA and SA were measured both continuously and discretely. Groups were compared on genital temperature (as an indicator of GA), SA, and psychosocial variables (i.e., body image, emotion regulation, sexual attitudes, sexual inhibition/excitation, mood, and trauma). Genital temperature increased for all groups during the erotic condition, yet men with ED and ED/HSDD showed less GA than men without erectile difficulties. All groups increased in SA during the erotic condition, yet ED/HSDD men reported less SA than controls or ED men. SA and GA were highly correlated for controls, and less strongly correlated for clinical groups; men with ED showed low agreement between SA and GA. Groups also differed on body image, sexual inhibition/excitation, sexual attitudes and alexithymia. Low desire vs. arousal sufferers have unique patterns of response, with those with both difficulties showing greatest impairment. Results have important implications for the diagnosis and treatment of these disorders. © 2014 International Society for Sexual Medicine.

  20. Priming for performance: valence of emotional primes interact with dissociable prototype learning systems.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Marissa A Gorlick

    Full Text Available Arousal Biased Competition theory suggests that arousal enhances competitive attentional processes, but makes no strong claims about valence effects. Research suggests that the scope of enhanced attention depends on valence with negative arousal narrowing and positive arousal broadening attention. Attentional scope likely affects declarative-memory-mediated and perceptual-representation-mediated learning systems differently, with declarative-memory-mediated learning depending on narrow attention to develop targeted verbalizable rules, and perceptual-representation-mediated learning depending on broad attention to develop a perceptual representation. We hypothesize that negative arousal accentuates declarative-memory-mediated learning and attenuates perceptual-representation-mediated learning, while positive arousal reverses this pattern. Prototype learning provides an ideal test bed as dissociable declarative-memory and perceptual-representation systems mediate two-prototype (AB and one-prototype (AN prototype learning, respectively, and computational models are available that provide powerful insights on cognitive processing. As predicted, we found that negative arousal narrows attentional focus facilitating AB learning and impairing AN learning, while positive arousal broadens attentional focus facilitating AN learning and impairing AB learning.

  1. Priming for performance: valence of emotional primes interact with dissociable prototype learning systems.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gorlick, Marissa A; Maddox, W Todd

    2013-01-01

    Arousal Biased Competition theory suggests that arousal enhances competitive attentional processes, but makes no strong claims about valence effects. Research suggests that the scope of enhanced attention depends on valence with negative arousal narrowing and positive arousal broadening attention. Attentional scope likely affects declarative-memory-mediated and perceptual-representation-mediated learning systems differently, with declarative-memory-mediated learning depending on narrow attention to develop targeted verbalizable rules, and perceptual-representation-mediated learning depending on broad attention to develop a perceptual representation. We hypothesize that negative arousal accentuates declarative-memory-mediated learning and attenuates perceptual-representation-mediated learning, while positive arousal reverses this pattern. Prototype learning provides an ideal test bed as dissociable declarative-memory and perceptual-representation systems mediate two-prototype (AB) and one-prototype (AN) prototype learning, respectively, and computational models are available that provide powerful insights on cognitive processing. As predicted, we found that negative arousal narrows attentional focus facilitating AB learning and impairing AN learning, while positive arousal broadens attentional focus facilitating AN learning and impairing AB learning.

  2. Assessing posttraumatic stress disorder's latent structure in elderly bereaved European trauma survivors: evidence for a five-factor dysphoric and anxious arousal model.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Armour, Cherie; O'Connor, Maja; Elklit, Ask; Elhai, Jon D

    2013-10-01

    The three-factor structure of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) specified by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, is not supported in the empirical literature. Two alternative four-factor models have received a wealth of empirical support. However, a consensus regarding which is superior has not been reached. A recent five-factor model has been shown to provide superior fit over the existing four-factor models. The present study investigated the fit of the five-factor model against the existing four-factor models and assessed the resultant factors' association with depression in a bereaved European trauma sample (N = 325). The participants were assessed for PTSD via the Harvard Trauma Questionnaire and depression via the Beck Depression Inventory. The five-factor model provided superior fit to the data compared with the existing four-factor models. In the dysphoric arousal model, depression was equally related to both dysphoric arousal and emotional numbing, whereas depression was more related to dysphoric arousal than to anxious arousal.

  3. Moving beyond average values: assessing the night-to-night instability of sleep and arousal in DSM-IV-TR insomnia subtypes.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sánchez-Ortuño, M Montserrat; Carney, Colleen E; Edinger, Jack D; Wyatt, James K; Harris, Andrea

    2011-04-01

    We explored differences between individuals with DSM-IV-TR diagnoses of primary insomnia (PI) and insomnia related to a mental disorder (IMD) by using serial measurements of self-reported sleep variables (sleep onset latency, SOL; wake after sleep onset, WASO; total sleep time, TST; sleep efficiency, SE), and visual analogue scale ratings of 2 forms of bedtime arousal (cognitive and emotional). Furthermore, we sought to examine the relationship between sleep and arousal within each diagnostic subgroup. Between-group and within-group comparisons. Duke and Rush University Medical Centers, USA. One hundred eighty-seven insomnia sufferers (126 women, average age 47.15 years) diagnosed by sleep specialists at 2 sleep centers as PI patients (n=126) and IMD patients (n=61). N/A. Multilevel models for sleep measures indicated that IMD displayed significantly more instability across nights in their TST (i.e., larger changes) than did PI patients. With respect to pre-sleep arousal, IMD patients exhibited higher mean levels of emotional arousal, as well as more instability on the nightly ratings of this measure. Within the PI group, correlational analyses revealed a moderate relationship between the 2 arousal variables and SOL (r values 0.29 and 0.26), whereas the corresponding correlations were negligible and statistically nonsignificant in the IMD group. We found a number of differences on nighttime variables between those diagnosed with primary insomnia and those diagnosed with insomnia related to a mental disorder. These differences imply different perpetuating mechanisms involved in their ongoing sleep difficulties. Additionally, they support the categorical distinctiveness and the concurrent validity of these insomnia subtypes.

  4. Frequent arousals from winter torpor in Rafinesque's big-eared bat (Corynorhinus rafinesquii.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Joseph S Johnson

    Full Text Available Extensive use of torpor is a common winter survival strategy among bats; however, data comparing various torpor behaviors among species are scarce. Winter torpor behaviors are likely to vary among species with different physiologies and species inhabiting different regional climates. Understanding these differences may be important in identifying differing susceptibilities of species to white-nose syndrome (WNS in North America. We fitted 24 Rafinesque's big-eared bats (Corynorhinus rafinesquii with temperature-sensitive radio-transmitters, and monitored 128 PIT-tagged big-eared bats, during the winter months of 2010 to 2012. We tested the hypothesis that Rafinesque's big-eared bats use torpor less often than values reported for other North American cave-hibernators. Additionally, we tested the hypothesis that Rafinesque's big-eared bats arouse on winter nights more suitable for nocturnal foraging. Radio-tagged bats used short (2.4 d ± 0.3 (SE, shallow (13.9°C ± 0.6 torpor bouts and switched roosts every 4.1 d ± 0.6. Probability of arousal from torpor increased linearly with ambient temperature at sunset (P<0.0001, and 83% (n=86 of arousals occurred within 1 hr of sunset. Activity of PIT-tagged bats at an artificial maternity/hibernaculum roost between November and March was positively correlated with ambient temperature at sunset (P<0.0001, with males more active at the roost than females. These data show Rafinesque's big-eared bat is a shallow hibernator and is relatively active during winter. We hypothesize that winter activity patterns provide Corynorhinus species with an ecological and physiological defense against the fungus causing WNS, and that these bats may be better suited to withstand fungal infection than other cave-hibernating bat species in eastern North America.

  5. Modification of medullary respiratory-related discharge patterns by behaviors and states of arousal.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chang, F C

    1992-02-07

    The modulatory influences of behaviors and states of arousal on bulbar respiratory-related unit (RRU) discharge patterns were studied in an unanesthetized, freely behaving guinea pig respiratory model system. When fully instrumented, this model system permits concurrent monitoring and recording of (i) single units from either Bötzinger complex or nucleus para-ambiguus; (ii) electrocorticogram; and, (iii) diaphragmatic EMG. In addition to being used in surveys of RRU discharge patterns in freely behaving states, the model system also offered a unique opportunity in investigating the effects of pentobarbital on RRU discharge patterns before, throughout the course of, and during recovery from anesthesia. In anesthetized preparations, a particular RRU discharge pattern (such as tonic, incrementing or decrementing) typically displayed little, if any notable variation. The most striking development following pentobarbital was a state of progressive bradypnea attributable to a significantly augmented RRU cycle duration, burst duration and an increase in the RRU spike frequencies during anesthesia. In freely behaving states, medullary RRU activities rarely adhered to a fixed, immutable discharge pattern. More specifically, the temporal organization (such as burst duration, cycle duration, and the extent of modulation of within-burst spike frequencies) of RRU discharge patterns regularly showed complex and striking variations, not only with states of arousal (sleep/wakefulness, anesthesia) but also with discrete alterations in electrocorticogram (ECoG) activities and a multitude of on-going behavioral repertoires such as volitional movement, postural modification, phonation, mastication, deglutition, sniffing/exploratory behavior, alerting/startle reflexes. Only during sleep, and on occasions when the animal assumed a motionless, resting posture, could burst patterns of relatively invariable periodicity and uniform temporal attributes be observed. RRU activities during

  6. Flooding and Systematic Desensitization: Efficacy in Subclinical Phobics as a Function of Arousal

    Science.gov (United States)

    Suarez, Yolanda; And Others

    1976-01-01

    Flooding and systematic desensitization procedures were investigated for possible interactions with subject arousal level on reduction in phobic reactions. No such interaction was found. Behaviorally and on GSR response, both flooding and systematic desensitization were effective, but only the latter was effective on subjective reports. (NG)

  7. System-wide versus component-specific trust using multiple aids.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Keller, David; Rice, Stephen

    2010-01-01

    Previous research in operator trust toward automated aids has focused primarily on single aids. The current study focuses on how operator trust is affected by the presence of multiple aids. Two competing theories of multiple-trust are presented. A component-specific trust theory predicts that operators will differentially place their trust in automated aids that vary in reliability. A system-wide trust theory predicts that operators will treat multiple imperfect aids as one "system" and merge their trust across aids despite differences in the aids' reliability. A simulated flight task was used to test these theories, whereby operators performed a pursuit tracking task while concurrently monitoring multiple system gauges that were augmented with perfect or imperfect automated aids. The data revealed that a system-wide trust theory best predicted the data; operators merged their trust across both aids, behaving toward a perfectly reliable aid in the same manner as they did towards unreliable aids.

  8. The effect of a dopamine antagonist on conditioning of sexual arousal in women.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Brom, Mirte; Laan, Ellen; Everaerd, Walter; Spinhoven, Philip; Trimbos, Baptist; Both, Stephanie

    2016-04-01

    Dopamine (DA) plays a key role in reward-seeking behaviours. Accumulating evidence from animal and human studies suggests that human sexual reward learning may also depend on DA transmission. However, research on the role of DA in human sexual reward learning is completely lacking. To investigate whether DA antagonism attenuates classical conditioning of sexual response in humans. Healthy women were randomly allocated to one of two treatment conditions: haloperidol (n = 29) or placebo (n = 29). A differential conditioning paradigm was applied with genital vibrostimulation as unconditional stimulus (US) and neutral pictures as conditional stimuli (CSs). Genital arousal was assessed, and ratings of affective value and subjective sexual arousal were obtained. Haloperidol administration affected unconditional genital responding. However, no significant effects of medication were found for conditioned responding. No firm conclusions can be drawn about whether female sexual reward learning implicates DA transmission since the results do not lend themselves to unambiguous interpretation.

  9. Phasic valence and arousal do not influence post-conflict adjustments in the Simon task.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dignath, David; Janczyk, Markus; Eder, Andreas B

    2017-03-01

    According to theoretical accounts of cognitive control, conflict between competing responses is monitored and triggers post conflict behavioural adjustments. Some models proposed that conflict is detected as an affective signal. While the conflict monitoring theory assumed that conflict is registered as a negative valence signal, the adaptation by binding model hypothesized that conflict provides a high arousal signal. The present research induced phasic affect in a Simon task with presentations of pleasant and unpleasant pictures that were high or low in arousal. If conflict is registered as an affective signal, the presentation of a corresponding affective signal should potentiate post conflict adjustments. Results did not support the hypothesis, and Bayesian analyses corroborated the conclusion that phasic affects do not influence post conflict behavioural adjustments in the Simon task. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  10. Is improved lane keeping during cognitive load caused by increased physical arousal or gaze concentration toward the road center?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Penghui; Markkula, Gustav; Li, Yibing; Merat, Natasha

    2018-08-01

    Driver distraction is one of the main causes of motor-vehicle accidents. However, the impact on traffic safety of tasks that impose cognitive (non-visual) distraction remains debated. One particularly intriguing finding is that cognitive load seems to improve lane keeping performance, most often quantified as reduced standard deviation of lateral position (SDLP). The main competing hypotheses, supported by current empirical evidence, suggest that cognitive load improves lane keeping via either increased physical arousal, or higher gaze concentration toward the road center, but views are mixed regarding if, and how, these possible mediators influence lane keeping performance. Hence, a simulator study was conducted, with participants driving on a straight city road section whilst completing a cognitive task at different levels of difficulty. In line with previous studies, cognitive load led to increased physical arousal, higher gaze concentration toward the road center, and higher levels of micro-steering activity, accompanied by improved lane keeping performance. More importantly, during the high cognitive task, both physical arousal and gaze concentration changed earlier in time than micro-steering activity, which in turn changed earlier than lane keeping performance. In addition, our results did not show a significant correlation between gaze concentration and physical arousal on the level of individual task recordings. Based on these findings, various multilevel models for micro-steering activity and lane keeping performance were conducted and compared, and the results suggest that all of the mechanisms proposed by existing hypotheses could be simultaneously involved. In other words, it is suggested that cognitive load leads to: (i) an increase in arousal, causing increased micro-steering activity, which in turn improves lane keeping performance, and (ii) an increase in gaze concentration, causing lane keeping improvement through both (a) further increased micro

  11. Qualitative and quantitative measurement of brain activity associated with visual sexual arousal in males and females: 3.0 tesIa functional MR imaging

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kim, Hyung Joong; Jeong, Gwang Woo; Eun, Sung Jong; Cho, Seong Hoon; Seo, Jeong Jin; Kang, Heoung Keun; Park, Kwang Sung

    2004-01-01

    the limbic system during sexual stimulation. The gender differences of brain activation in response to sexual arousal were characterized as follows. The activation area observed in males was the hypothalamus in the Iimbic system, whereas in females it was the cingulate gyrus, head of caudate nucleus, insula and corpus callosum. These findings reveal dissimilarities between males and females in neuronal responses to sexual arousal. As for the overall lateralization of activation in the limbic system, male volunteers gave a lateralization index that was greater than that of females by 300%. Our finding confirmed that neuroanatomical regions are associated with visually evoked sexual arousal and also with gender differences in response to sexual stimulation. Given that data from time-course traces of activation pattern and findings are observed by different stimuli, such as tactile and olfactory sense, it might be helpful to evaluate the neurophysiological mechanism for sexual arousal, and furthermore, to develop new diagnostic tools for sexual dysfunction and disorder

  12. Qualitative and quantitative measurement of brain activity associated with visual sexual arousal in males and females: 3.0 tesIa functional MR imaging

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Kim, Hyung Joong; Jeong, Gwang Woo; Eun, Sung Jong; Cho, Seong Hoon; Seo, Jeong Jin; Kang, Heoung Keun; Park, Kwang Sung [School of Medicine, Chonnam National Univ., Gwangju (Korea, Republic of)

    2004-08-01

    the limbic system during sexual stimulation. The gender differences of brain activation in response to sexual arousal were characterized as follows. The activation area observed in males was the hypothalamus in the Iimbic system, whereas in females it was the cingulate gyrus, head of caudate nucleus, insula and corpus callosum. These findings reveal dissimilarities between males and females in neuronal responses to sexual arousal. As for the overall lateralization of activation in the limbic system, male volunteers gave a lateralization index that was greater than that of females by 300%. Our finding confirmed that neuroanatomical regions are associated with visually evoked sexual arousal and also with gender differences in response to sexual stimulation. Given that data from time-course traces of activation pattern and findings are observed by different stimuli, such as tactile and olfactory sense, it might be helpful to evaluate the neurophysiological mechanism for sexual arousal, and furthermore, to develop new diagnostic tools for sexual dysfunction and disorder.

  13. Emotional arousal and overeating in restrained eaters.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cools, J; Schotte, D E; McNally, R J

    1992-05-01

    We tested the effects of 3 mood inductions (neutral, positive, and negative) on food intake in 91 women of varying degrees of dietary restraint. Mood induction was accomplished by exposure to 1 of 3 film segments: a travelogue (neutral affect), a comedy film (positive affect), and a horror film (negative affect). In subjects exposed to the neutral film, food intake decreased with increasing levels of dietary restraint. Among subjects who viewed either the comedy film or the horror film, however, food intake increased with increasing restraint. Although the horror film appeared to be more disinhibiting than the comedy film, this effect may have resulted from a difference in the intensity of the emotions induced rather than from their valence. These results suggest that emotional arousal, regardless of valence, may trigger overeating among restrained eaters.

  14. The role of incentive learning and cognitive regulation in sexual arousal

    OpenAIRE

    Brom, Mirte

    2016-01-01

    Insight in the underlying mechanisms of sexual motivation is essential to understand disorders in sexual desire and such understanding may be helpful in the development of new and effective psychological and pharmacological interventions, since empirically validated treatments are lacking for female sexual interest/arousal disorder as well as hypersexuality and related disorders. Because much sexual behaviour is thought to be acquired through learning, and given the specific hypothesis that c...

  15. Patterns of Anxious Arousal During a Speech Task Between Nonanxious Controls and Individuals With Social Anxiety Disorder Pre- and Posttreatment.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lee, Carol S; Wadsworth, Lauren P; Hayes-Skelton, Sarah A

    2017-11-01

    Although research indicates that anxious arousal in response to feared stimuli is related to treatment outcome (Heimberg et al., 1990), less is known about the patterns of anxious arousal. We identified patterns of anxious arousal in individuals with social anxiety disorder (SAD) at pre- (n= 61) and posttreatment (n= 40; 12-session CBGT, Heimberg & Becker, 2002), and in non-anxious controls (NACs; n= 31) using an assessment speech task administered at pretreatment (SAD) or the pretreatment equivalent (NACs), as well as at posttreatment (SAD only). We identified nine patterns of anxious arousal across groups that we further clustered into three groups: fear habituation, fear plateau, and fear increase. Chi-square and adjusted standardized residual analyses revealed that individuals in the pretreatment SAD group displayed the fear habituation patterns significantly more than chance and the fear plateau patterns significantly less than chance. In contrast, NACs displayed the fear plateau patterns significantly more than chance and the fear habituation patterns significantly less than chance. At posttreatment, treatment non-responders displayed fear habituation patterns significantly more than chance, whereas treatment responders displayed the fear habituation patterns significantly less than chance. Findings indicate that fear habituation during an anxiety-provoking assessment task is not necessary for treatment response. Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

  16. Alternative approaches to reliability modeling of a multiple engineered barrier system

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Ananda, M.M.A.; Singh, A.K.

    1994-01-01

    The lifetime of the engineered barrier system used for containment of high-level radioactive waste will significantly impact the total performance of a geological repository facility. Currently two types of designs are under consideration for an engineered barrier system, single engineered barrier system and multiple engineered barrier system. Multiple engineered barrier system consists of several metal barriers and the waste form (cladding). Some recent work show that a significant improvement of performance can be achieved by utilizing multiple engineered barrier systems. Considering sequential failures for each barrier, we model the reliability of the multiple engineered barrier system. Weibull and exponential lifetime distributions are used through out the analysis. Furthermore, the number of failed engineered barrier systems in a repository at a given time is modeled using a poisson approximation

  17. Multiple-Parameter, Low-False-Alarm Fire-Detection Systems

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hunter, Gary W.; Greensburg, Paul; McKnight, Robert; Xu, Jennifer C.; Liu, C. C.; Dutta, Prabir; Makel, Darby; Blake, D.; Sue-Antillio, Jill

    2007-01-01

    Fire-detection systems incorporating multiple sensors that measure multiple parameters are being developed for use in storage depots, cargo bays of ships and aircraft, and other locations not amenable to frequent, direct visual inspection. These systems are intended to improve upon conventional smoke detectors, now used in such locations, that reliably detect fires but also frequently generate false alarms: for example, conventional smoke detectors based on the blockage of light by smoke particles are also affected by dust particles and water droplets and, thus, are often susceptible to false alarms. In contrast, by utilizing multiple parameters associated with fires, i.e. not only obscuration by smoke particles but also concentrations of multiple chemical species that are commonly generated in combustion, false alarms can be significantly decreased while still detecting fires as reliably as older smoke-detector systems do. The present development includes fabrication of sensors that have, variously, micrometer- or nanometer-sized features so that such multiple sensors can be integrated into arrays that have sizes, weights, and power demands smaller than those of older macroscopic sensors. The sensors include resistors, electrochemical cells, and Schottky diodes that exhibit different sensitivities to the various airborne chemicals of interest. In a system of this type, the sensor readings are digitized and processed by advanced signal-processing hardware and software to extract such chemical indications of fires as abnormally high concentrations of CO and CO2, possibly in combination with H2 and/or hydrocarbons. The system also includes a microelectromechanical systems (MEMS)-based particle detector and classifier device to increase the reliability of measurements of chemical species and particulates. In parallel research, software for modeling the evolution of a fire within an aircraft cargo bay has been developed. The model implemented in the software can

  18. "Not for all the tea in China!" political ideology and the avoidance of dissonance-arousing situations.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    H Hannah Nam

    Full Text Available People often avoid information and situations that have the potential to contradict previously held beliefs and attitudes (i.e., situations that arouse cognitive dissonance. According to the motivated social cognition model of political ideology, conservatives tend to have stronger epistemic needs to attain certainty and closure than liberals. This implies that there may be differences in how liberals and conservatives respond to dissonance-arousing situations. In two experiments, we investigated the possibility that conservatives would be more strongly motivated to avoid dissonance-arousing tasks than liberals. Indeed, U.S. residents who preferred more conservative presidents (George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan complied less than Americans who preferred more liberal presidents (Barack Obama and Bill Clinton with the request to write a counter-attitudinal essay about who made a "better president." This difference was not observed under circumstances of low perceived choice or when the topic of the counter-attitudinal essay was non-political (i.e., when it pertained to computer or beverage preferences. The results of these experiments provide initial evidence of ideological differences in dissonance avoidance. Future work would do well to determine whether such differences are specific to political issues or topics that are personally important. Implications for political behavior are discussed.

  19. "Not for all the tea in China!" political ideology and the avoidance of dissonance-arousing situations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nam, H Hannah; Jost, John T; Van Bavel, Jay J

    2013-01-01

    People often avoid information and situations that have the potential to contradict previously held beliefs and attitudes (i.e., situations that arouse cognitive dissonance). According to the motivated social cognition model of political ideology, conservatives tend to have stronger epistemic needs to attain certainty and closure than liberals. This implies that there may be differences in how liberals and conservatives respond to dissonance-arousing situations. In two experiments, we investigated the possibility that conservatives would be more strongly motivated to avoid dissonance-arousing tasks than liberals. Indeed, U.S. residents who preferred more conservative presidents (George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan) complied less than Americans who preferred more liberal presidents (Barack Obama and Bill Clinton) with the request to write a counter-attitudinal essay about who made a "better president." This difference was not observed under circumstances of low perceived choice or when the topic of the counter-attitudinal essay was non-political (i.e., when it pertained to computer or beverage preferences). The results of these experiments provide initial evidence of ideological differences in dissonance avoidance. Future work would do well to determine whether such differences are specific to political issues or topics that are personally important. Implications for political behavior are discussed.

  20. Death-Related versus Fond Memories of a Deceased Attachment Figure: Examining Emotional Arousal

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rochman, Daniel

    2013-01-01

    Grieving is infused by memories and emotions. In this study, bereaved participants recalled either death-related or fond memories of their loved ones. Their emotional arousal was examined via physiologic and voice analytic measures. Both death-related and fond memories generated an acoustic profile indicative of sadness (reflected by voice quality…

  1. Differential gene expression in the liver of the African lungfish, Protopterus annectens, after 6 months of aestivation in air or 1 day of arousal from 6 months of aestivation.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kum C Hiong

    Full Text Available The African lungfish, Protopterus annectens, can undergo aestivation during drought. Aestivation has three phases: induction, maintenance and arousal. The objective of this study was to examine the differential gene expression in the liver of P. annectens after 6 months (the maintenance phase of aestivation as compared with the freshwater control, or after 1 day of arousal from 6 months aestivation as compared with 6 months of aestivation using suppression subtractive hybridization. During the maintenance phase of aestivation, the mRNA expression of argininosuccinate synthetase 1 and carbamoyl phosphate synthetase III were up-regulated, indicating an increase in the ornithine-urea cycle capacity to detoxify ammonia to urea. There was also an increase in the expression of betaine homocysteine-S-transferase 1 which could reduce and prevent the accumulation of hepatic homocysteine. On the other hand, the down-regulation of superoxide dismutase 1 expression could signify a decrease in ROS production during the maintenance phase of aestivation. In addition, the maintenance phase was marked by decreases in expressions of genes related to blood coagulation, complement fixation and iron and copper metabolism, which could be strategies used to prevent thrombosis and to conserve energy. Unlike the maintenance phase of aestivation, there were increases in expressions of genes related to nitrogen, carbohydrate and lipid metabolism and fatty acid transport after 1 day of arousal from 6 months aestivation. There were also up-regulation in expressions of genes that were involved in the electron transport system and ATP synthesis, indicating a greater demand for metabolic energy during arousal. Overall, our results signify the importance of sustaining a low rate of waste production and conservation of energy store during the maintenance phase, and the dependence on internal energy store for repair and structural modification during the arousal phase, of

  2. Consciousness and arousal effects on emotional face processing as revealed by brain oscillations. A gamma band analysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Balconi, Michela; Lucchiari, Claudio

    2008-01-01

    It remains an open question whether it is possible to assign a single brain operation or psychological function for facial emotion decoding to a certain type of oscillatory activity. Gamma band activity (GBA) offers an adequate tool for studying cortical activation patterns during emotional face information processing. In the present study brain oscillations were analyzed in response to facial expression of emotions. Specifically, GBA modulation was measured when twenty subjects looked at emotional (angry, fearful, happy, and sad faces) or neutral faces in two different conditions: supraliminal (10 ms) vs subliminal (150 ms) stimulation (100 target-mask pairs for each condition). The results showed that both consciousness and significance of the stimulus in terms of arousal can modulate the power synchronization (ERD decrease) during 150-350 time range: an early oscillatory event showed its peak at about 200 ms post-stimulus. GBA was enhanced by supraliminal more than subliminal elaboration, as well as more by high arousal (anger and fear) than low arousal (happiness and sadness) emotions. Finally a left-posterior dominance for conscious elaboration was found, whereas right hemisphere was discriminant in emotional processing of face in comparison with neutral face.

  3. Homogenization of Classification Functions Measurement (HOCFUN): A Method for Measuring the Salience of Emotional Arousal in Thinking.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tonti, Marco; Salvatore, Sergio

    2015-01-01

    The problem of the measurement of emotion is a widely debated one. In this article we propose an instrument, the Homogenization of Classification Functions Measure (HOCFUN), designed for assessing the influence of emotional arousal on a rating task consisting of the evaluation of a sequence of images. The instrument defines an indicator (κ) that measures the degree of homogenization of the ratings given over 2 rating scales (pleasant-unpleasant and relevant-irrelevant). Such a degree of homogenization is interpreted as the effect of emotional arousal on thinking and therefore lends itself to be used as a marker of emotional arousal. A preliminary study of validation was implemented. The association of the κ indicator with 3 additional indicators was analyzed. Consistent with the hypotheses, the κ indicator proved to be associated, even if weakly and nonlinearly, with a marker of the homogenization of classification functions derived from a separate rating task and with 2 indirect indicators of emotional activation: the speed of performance on the HOCFUN task and an indicator of mood intensity. Taken as a whole, such results provide initial evidence supporting the HOCFUN construct validity.

  4. Beyond the lab: Investigating early adolescents' cognitive, emotional, and arousal responses to violent games

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Fikkers, K.M.; Piotrowski, J.T.; Valkenburg, P.M.

    Cognitive, emotional, and arousal responses to violent games play a central role in theoretical explanations of how violent media may affect aggression. However, existing research has focused on a relatively narrow range of responses to violent games in experimental settings. This limits our

  5. Music and Emotion: the Dispositional or Arousal theory

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Alessandra Buccella

    2012-05-01

    Full Text Available One of the ways of analysing the relationship between music and emotions in through musical expressiveness.As the theory I discuss in this paper puts it, expressiveness in a particular kind of music's secondary quality or, to use the term which gives the theory its name, a disposition of music to arouse a certain emotional response in listeners.The most accurate version of the dispositional theory is provided by Derek Matravers in his book Art and Emotion and in other papers: what I will try to do, then, is to illustrate Matravers theory and claim that it is a good solution to many problems concerning music and its capacity to affect our inner states.

  6. A FIRST COMPARISON OF KEPLER PLANET CANDIDATES IN SINGLE AND MULTIPLE SYSTEMS

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Latham, David W.; Quinn, Samuel N.; Carter, Joshua A.; Holman, Matthew J.; Rowe, Jason F.; Borucki, William J.; Bryson, Stephen T.; Howell, Steve B.; Batalha, Natalie M.; Brown, Timothy M.; Buchhave, Lars A.; Caldwell, Douglas A.; Christiansen, Jessie L.; Ciardi, David R.; Cochran, William D.; Dunham, Edward W.; Fabrycky, Daniel C.; Ford, Eric B.; Gautier, Thomas N. III; Gilliland, Ronald L.

    2011-01-01

    In this Letter, we present an overview of the rich population of systems with multiple candidate transiting planets found in the first four months of Kepler data. The census of multiples includes 115 targets that show two candidate planets, 45 with three, eight with four, and one each with five and six, for a total of 170 systems with 408 candidates. When compared to the 827 systems with only one candidate, the multiples account for 17% of the total number of systems, and one-third of all the planet candidates. We compare the characteristics of candidates found in multiples with those found in singles. False positives due to eclipsing binaries are much less common for the multiples, as expected. Singles and multiples are both dominated by planets smaller than Neptune; 69 +2 -3 % for singles and 86 +2 -5 % for multiples. This result, that systems with multiple transiting planets are less likely to include a transiting giant planet, suggests that close-in giant planets tend to disrupt the orbital inclinations of small planets in flat systems, or maybe even prevent the formation of such systems in the first place.

  7. On the performance of spectrum sharing systems with multiple antennas

    KAUST Repository

    Yang, Liang; Alouini, Mohamed-Slim; Qaraqe, Khalid A.

    2012-01-01

    In this paper, we study the capacity of spectrum sharing (SS) multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems over Rayleigh fading channels. More specifically, we present closed-form capacity formulas for such systems with and without optimal power

  8. Anger arousal and behavioral anger regulation in everyday life among people with chronic low back pain: Relationships with spouse responses and negative affect.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Burns, John W; Gerhart, James I; Bruehl, Stephen; Post, Kristina M; Smith, David A; Porter, Laura S; Schuster, Erik; Buvanendran, Asokumar; Fras, Anne Marie; Keefe, Francis J

    2016-01-01

    To determine the degree to which anger arousal and anger regulation (expression, inhibition) in the daily lives of people with chronic pain were related to spouse support, criticism, and hostility as perceived by patients and as reported by spouses. Married couples (N = 105, 1 spouse with chronic low back pain) completed electronic daily diaries, with assessments 5 times/day for 14 days. On these diaries, patients completed items on their own anger arousal, anger expression, and inhibition, and on perceived spouse support, criticism, and hostility. Spouses reported on their responses toward patients and their negative affect. Hierarchical linear modeling tested concurrent and lagged relationships. Patient-reported increases in anger arousal and anger expression were predominantly related to concurrent decreases in patient-perceived and spouse-reported spouse support, concurrent increases in patient-perceived and spouse-reported spouse criticism and hostility, and increases in spouse-reported negative affect. Relationships for anger expression remained significant with anger arousal controlled. These effects were especially strong for male patients. Spouses reported greater negative affect when patients were present than when they were not. Social support may facilitate adjustment to chronic pain, with declining support and overt criticism and hostility possibly adversely impacting pain and function. Results suggest that patient anger arousal and expression may be related to a negative interpersonal environment for married couples coping with chronic low back pain. (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).

  9. MPACT Fast Neutron Multiplicity System Prototype Development

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    D.L. Chichester; S.A. Pozzi; J.L. Dolan; M.T. Kinlaw; S.J. Thompson; A.C. Kaplan; M. Flaska; A. Enqvist; J.T. Johnson; S.M. Watson

    2013-09-01

    This document serves as both an FY2103 End-of-Year and End-of-Project report on efforts that resulted in the design of a prototype fast neutron multiplicity counter leveraged upon the findings of previous project efforts. The prototype design includes 32 liquid scintillator detectors with cubic volumes 7.62 cm in dimension configured into 4 stacked rings of 8 detectors. Detector signal collection for the system is handled with a pair of Struck Innovative Systeme 16-channel digitizers controlled by in-house developed software with built-in multiplicity analysis algorithms. Initial testing and familiarization of the currently obtained prototype components is underway, however full prototype construction is required for further optimization. Monte Carlo models of the prototype system were performed to estimate die-away and efficiency values. Analysis of these models resulted in the development of a software package capable of determining the effects of nearest-neighbor rejection methods for elimination of detector cross talk. A parameter study was performed using previously developed analytical methods for the estimation of assay mass variance for use as a figure-of-merit for system performance. A software package was developed to automate these calculations and ensure accuracy. The results of the parameter study show that the prototype fast neutron multiplicity counter design is very nearly optimized under the restraints of the parameter space.

  10. Emotional arousal impairs association-memory: Roles of amygdala and hippocampus.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Madan, Christopher R; Fujiwara, Esther; Caplan, Jeremy B; Sommer, Tobias

    2017-08-01

    Emotional arousal is well-known to enhance memory for individual items or events, whereas it can impair association memory. The neural mechanism of this association memory impairment by emotion is not known: In response to emotionally arousing information, amygdala activity may interfere with hippocampal associative encoding (e.g., via prefrontal cortex). Alternatively, emotional information may be harder to unitize, resulting in reduced availability of extra-hippocampal medial temporal lobe support for emotional than neutral associations. To test these opposing hypotheses, we compared neural processes underlying successful and unsuccessful encoding of emotional and neutral associations. Participants intentionally studied pairs of neutral and negative pictures (Experiments 1-3). We found reduced association-memory for negative pictures in all experiments, accompanied by item-memory increases in Experiment 2. High-resolution fMRI (Experiment 3) indicated that reductions in associative encoding of emotional information are localizable to an area in ventral-lateral amygdala, driven by attentional/salience effects in the central amygdala. Hippocampal activity was similar during both pair types, but a left hippocampal cluster related to successful encoding was observed only for negative pairs. Extra-hippocampal associative memory processes (e.g., unitization) were more effective for neutral than emotional materials. Our findings suggest that reduced emotional association memory is accompanied by increases in activity and functional coupling within the amygdala. This did not disrupt hippocampal association-memory processes, which indeed were critical for successful emotional association memory formation. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  11. A model of the generation of ataque de nervios: the role of fear of negative affect and fear of arousal symptoms.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hinton, Devon E; Lewis-Fernández, Roberto; Pollack, Mark H

    2009-01-01

    This article examines a model of the generation of ataque de nervios, according to which both fear of negative affectivity and fear of arousal symptoms are associated with the emergence of ataques. We examine the relationship of fear of negative affectivity and fear of arousal to the severity of ataque de nervios during the last month and the last 6 months among Caribbean Latinos residing in the United States. The measures include a Fear of Anger Scale and the Anxiety Sensitivity Index (ASI), the ASI augmented with two items that assess fear of arousal symptoms common in ataques: chest tightness and a sense of inner heat. In keeping with the model of ataque generation, one-way analysis of variances (ANOVAs) and discriminant function analyses illustrated that items assessing "fear of negative affect" and "fear of somatic and psychological symptoms of arousal" both differentiated well among the levels of ataque severity. In addition, key ataque symptoms-mental incapacitation fears, shakiness, chest tightness, palpitations, and a sense of inner heat-were the best discriminators among levels of ataque severity. In patients with severe ataques, the scores of "fear of negative affect" and "fear of ataque-de-nervios-type somatic and psychological symptoms" were extremely elevated. This further suggests that both these types of fears are associated with this idiom of distress and that the specific content of the fears is linked to the symptom picture of the idiom. This suggests specific therapeutic targets for the treatment of ataque, namely, the reduction of anxiety sensitivity (and more generally negative-emotion and arousal sensitivity) using cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), relaxation, and mindfulness techniques.

  12. Being watched by others eliminates the effect of emotional arousal on inhibitory control

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yu, Jiaxin; Tseng, Philip; Muggleton, Neil G.; Juan, Chi-Hung

    2015-01-01

    The psychological effect of being watched by others has been proven a powerful tool in modulating social behaviors (e.g., charitable giving) and altering cognitive performance (e.g., visual search). Here we tested whether such awareness would affect one of the core elements of human cognition: emotional processing and impulse control. Using an emotion stop-signal paradigm, we found that viewing emotionally-arousing erotic images before attempting to inhibit a motor response impaired participants’ inhibition ability, but such an impairing effect was completely eliminated when participants were led to believe that their facial expressions were monitored by a webcam. Furthermore, there was no post-error slowing in any of the conditions, thus these results cannot be explained by a deliberate speed-accuracy tradeoff or other types of conscious shift in strategy. Together, these findings demonstrate that the interaction between emotional arousal and impulse control can be dependent on one’s state of self-consciousness. Furthermore, this study also highlights the effect that the mere presence of the experimenter may have on participants’ cognitive performance, even if it’s only a webcam. PMID:25653635

  13. Arousing news characteristics in Dutch television news 1990-2004: an exploration of competitive strategies

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Hendriks Vettehen, P.; Beentjes, J.; Nuijten, K.; Peeters, A.

    2011-01-01

    This study investigates the processes by which competition in the television news market might promote the presence of arousing characteristics in television news. A total of 3,024 news stories from six Dutch television news programs over the period 1990 to 2004 were investigated through content

  14. Arousing news characteristics in Dutch television news 1990-2004: An exploration of competitive strategies

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Hendriks Vettehen, P.G.J.; Beentjes, J.W.J.; Nuijten, C.M.; Peeters, A.L.

    2011-01-01

    This study investigates the processes by which competition in the television news market might promote the presence of arousing characteristics in television news. A total of 3,024 news stories from six Dutch television news programs over the period 1990 to 2004 were investigated through content

  15. How fear appeals work : motivational biases in the processing of fear-arousing health communications

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Das, E.H.H.J.

    2001-01-01

    This dissertation deals with the study of fear appeals, i.e. messages in which people are presented with fear-arousing health information, in order to convince them they should alter unhealthy habits and adopt healthy lifestyles. Fear appeals typically start with the presentation of the negative

  16. UNIVERSAL INTERFACE TO MULTIPLE OPERATIONS SYSTEMS

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Sonnenwald, Diane H.

    1986-01-01

    Alternative ways to provide access to operations systems that maintain, test, and configure complex telephone networks are being explored. It is suggested that a universal interface that provides simultaneous access to multiple operations systems that execute in different hardware and software...... environments, can be provided by an architecture that is based on the separation of presentation issues from application issues and on a modular interface management system that consists of a virtual user interface, physical user interface, and interface agent. The interface functionality that is needed...

  17. Why expressive suppression does not pay? Cognitive costs of negative emotion suppression: The mediating role of subjective tense-arousal

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Szczygieł Dorota

    2015-09-01

    Full Text Available The aim of this paper was to contribute to a broader understanding of the cognitive consequences of expressive suppression. Specifically, we examined whether the deteriorating effect of expressive suppression on cognitive functioning is caused by tense arousal enhanced by suppression. Two experiments were performed in order to test this prediction. In both studies we tested the effect of expressive suppression on working memory, as measured with a backwards digit-span task (Study 1, N = 43 and anagram problem-solving task (Study 2, N = 60. In addition, in Study 2 we tested whether expressive suppression degrades memory of the events that emerged during the period of expressive suppression. Both studies were conducted in a similar design: Participants watched a film clip which evoked negative emotions (i.e. disgust in Study 1 and a combination of sadness and anxiety in Study 2 under the instruction to suppress those negative emotions or (in the control condition to simply watch the film. The results of these experiments lead to three conclusions. First, the results reveal that expressive suppression degrades memory of the events that emerged during the period of expressive suppression and leads to poorer performance on working memory tasks, as measured with a backwards digit-span task and anagram problem-solving task. Second, the results indicate that expressive suppression leads to a significant increase in subjective tense arousal. Third, the results support our prediction that expressive suppression decreases cognitive performance through its effects on subjective tense arousal. The results of the Study 1 show that tense arousal activated during expressive suppression of disgust fully mediates the negative effect of suppression on working memory as measured with a backwards digit-span task. The results of Study 2 reveal that subjective tense arousal elicited while suppressing sadness and anxiety mediates both the effect of suppression on

  18. Catalogue of Exoplanets in Multiple-Star-Systems

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schwarz, Richard; Funk, Barbara; Bazsó, Ákos; Pilat-Lohinger, Elke

    2017-07-01

    Cataloguing the data of exoplanetary systems becomes more and more important, due to the fact that they conclude the observations and support the theoretical studies. Since 1995 there is a database which list most of the known exoplanets (The Extrasolar Planets Encyclopaedia is available at http://exoplanet.eu/ and described at Schneider et al. 2011). With the growing number of detected exoplanets in binary and multiple star systems it became more important to mark and to separate them into a new database. Therefore we started to compile a catalogue for binary and multiple star systems. Since 2013 the catalogue can be found at http://www.univie.ac.at/adg/schwarz/multiple.html (description can be found at Schwarz et al. 2016) which will be updated regularly and is linked to the Extrasolar Planets Encyclopaedia. The data of the binary catalogue can be downloaded as a file (.csv) and used for statistical purposes. Our database is divided into two parts: the data of the stars and the planets, given in a separate list. Every columns of the list can be sorted in two directions: ascending, meaning from the lowest value to the highest, or descending. In addition an introduction and help is also given in the menu bar of the catalogue including an example list.

  19. Stigma and Glucose Levels: Testing Ego Depletion and Arousal Explanations of Stereotype Threat Effects

    Science.gov (United States)

    Penner, Andrew M.; Willer, Robb

    2011-01-01

    Stereotype threat research shows that when stigmatized group membership is made salient, group members' cognitive performance is lowered; however, the mechanism through which this effect operates is not well understood. This study tests between arousal and ego depletion accounts of stereotype threat by examining whether stereotype threat effects…

  20. Magnetic resonance imaging of male and female genitals during coitus and female sexual arousal

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Schultz, WW; van Andel, P; Sabelis, [No Value; Mooyaart, E

    1999-01-01

    Objective To find out whether taking images of the male and female genitals during coitus is feasible and to find out whether former and current ideas about the anatomy during sexual intercourse and during female sexual arousal are based on assumptions or on facts. Design Observational study Setting

  1. Multiple-User, Multitasking, Virtual-Memory Computer System

    Science.gov (United States)

    Generazio, Edward R.; Roth, Don J.; Stang, David B.

    1993-01-01

    Computer system designed and programmed to serve multiple users in research laboratory. Provides for computer control and monitoring of laboratory instruments, acquisition and anlaysis of data from those instruments, and interaction with users via remote terminals. System provides fast access to shared central processing units and associated large (from megabytes to gigabytes) memories. Underlying concept of system also applicable to monitoring and control of industrial processes.

  2. Early Postnatal Manganese Exposure Causes Lasting Impairment of Selective and Focused Attention and Arousal Regulation in Adult Rats

    Science.gov (United States)

    Beaudin, Stephane A.; Strupp, Barbara J.; Strawderman, Myla; Smith, Donald R.

    2016-01-01

    Background: Studies in children and adolescents have associated early developmental manganese (Mn) exposure with inattention, impulsivity, hyperactivity, and oppositional behaviors, but causal inferences are precluded by the correlational nature of the data and generally limited control for potential confounders. Objectives: To determine whether early postnatal oral Mn exposure causes lasting attentional and impulse control deficits in adulthood, and whether continued lifelong Mn exposure exacerbates these effects, using a rat model of environmental Mn exposure. Methods: Neonates were exposed orally to 0, 25 or 50 mg Mn/kg/day during early postnatal life (PND 1–21) or throughout life from PND 1 until the end of the study. In adulthood, the animals were tested on a series of learning and attention tasks using the five-choice serial reaction time task. Results: Early postnatal Mn exposure caused lasting attentional dysfunction due to impairments in attentional preparedness, selective attention, and arousal regulation, whereas associative ability (learning) and impulse control were spared. The presence and severity of these deficits varied with the dose and duration of Mn exposure. Conclusions: This study is the first to show that developmental Mn exposure can cause lasting impairments in focused and selective attention and arousal regulation, and to identify the specific nature of the impairments. Given the importance of attention and arousal regulation in cognitive functioning, these findings substantiate concerns about the adverse effects of developmental Mn exposure in humans. Citation: Beaudin SA, Strupp BJ, Strawderman M, Smith DR. 2017. Early postnatal manganese exposure causes lasting impairment of selective and focused attention and arousal regulation in adult rats. Environ Health Perspect 125:230–237; http://dx.doi.org/10.1289/EHP258 PMID:27384154

  3. Early Postnatal Manganese Exposure Causes Lasting Impairment of Selective and Focused Attention and Arousal Regulation in Adult Rats.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Beaudin, Stephane A; Strupp, Barbara J; Strawderman, Myla; Smith, Donald R

    2017-02-01

    Studies in children and adolescents have associated early developmental manganese (Mn) exposure with inattention, impulsivity, hyperactivity, and oppositional behaviors, but causal inferences are precluded by the correlational nature of the data and generally limited control for potential confounders. To determine whether early postnatal oral Mn exposure causes lasting attentional and impulse control deficits in adulthood, and whether continued lifelong Mn exposure exacerbates these effects, using a rat model of environmental Mn exposure. Neonates were exposed orally to 0, 25 or 50 mg Mn/kg/day during early postnatal life (PND 1-21) or throughout life from PND 1 until the end of the study. In adulthood, the animals were tested on a series of learning and attention tasks using the five-choice serial reaction time task. Early postnatal Mn exposure caused lasting attentional dysfunction due to impairments in attentional preparedness, selective attention, and arousal regulation, whereas associative ability (learning) and impulse control were spared. The presence and severity of these deficits varied with the dose and duration of Mn exposure. This study is the first to show that developmental Mn exposure can cause lasting impairments in focused and selective attention and arousal regulation, and to identify the specific nature of the impairments. Given the importance of attention and arousal regulation in cognitive functioning, these findings substantiate concerns about the adverse effects of developmental Mn exposure in humans. Citation: Beaudin SA, Strupp BJ, Strawderman M, Smith DR. 2017. Early postnatal manganese exposure causes lasting impairment of selective and focused attention and arousal regulation in adult rats. Environ Health Perspect 125:230-237; http://dx.doi.org/10.1289/EHP258.

  4. Multiplicity fluctuations and collective flow in small colliding systems

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kawaguchi, Koji; Murase, Koichi; Hirano, Tetsufumi

    2017-11-01

    Recent observation of collective-flow-like behaviours in small colliding systems attracts significant theoretical and experimental interests. In large colliding systems, large collective flow has been interpreted as manifestation of almost-perfect fluidity of the quark gluon plasma (QGP). So it is quite intriguing to explore how small the QGP can be as a fluid. Multiplicity fluctuations play a crucial role in centrality definition of the events in small colliding systems since the fluctuations are, in general, more important as the system size is getting smaller. To consider the correct multiplicity fluctuations, we employ PYTHIA which naturally describes multiplicity distribution in p+p collisions. We superpose p+p collisions by taking into account the number of participants and that of binary collisions from Monte-Carlo version of Glauber model and evaluate initial entropy density distributions which contain not only multiplicity fluctuations but also fluctuations of longitudinal profiles. Solving hydrodynamic equations followed by the hadronic afterburner, we calculate transverse momentum spectra, elliptic and triangular flow parameters in p+Au, d+Au and 3He+Au collisions at the RHIC energy and p+Pb collisions at the LHC energy. Although a large fraction of final anisotropic flow parameters comes from the fluid-dynamical stage, the effects of hadronic rescatterings turn out to be also important as well in understanding of the flow data in small colliding systems.

  5. Free-space optical code-division multiple-access system design

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jeromin, Lori L.; Kaufmann, John E.; Bucher, Edward A.

    1993-08-01

    This paper describes an optical direct-detection multiple access communications system for free-space satellite networks utilizing code-division multiple-access (CDMA) and forward error correction (FEC) coding. System performance is characterized by how many simultaneous users operating at data rate R can be accommodated in a signaling bandwidth W. The performance of two CDMA schemes, optical orthogonal codes (OOC) with FEC and orthogonal convolutional codes (OCC), is calculated and compared to information-theoretic capacity bounds. The calculations include the effects of background and detector noise as well as nonzero transmitter extinction ratio and power imbalance among users. A system design for 10 kbps multiple-access communications between low-earth orbit satellites is given. With near- term receiver technology and representative system losses, a 15 W peak-power transmitter provides 10-6 BER performance with seven interfering users and full moon background in the receiver FOV. The receiver employs an array of discrete wide-area avalanche photodiodes (APD) for wide field of view coverage. Issues of user acquisition and synchronization, implementation technology, and system scalability are also discussed.

  6. The great escape - II. Exoplanet ejection from dying multiple-star systems

    Science.gov (United States)

    Veras, Dimitri; Tout, Christopher A.

    2012-05-01

    Extrasolar planets and belts of debris orbiting post-main-sequence single stars may become unbound as the evolving star loses mass. In multiple-star systems, the presence or co-evolution of the additional stars can significantly complicate the prospects for orbital excitation and escape. Here, we investigate the dynamical consequences of multi-phasic, non-linear mass loss and establish a criterion for a system of any stellar multiplicity to retain a planet whose orbit surrounds all of the parent stars. For single stars which become white dwarfs, this criterion can be combined with the Chandrasekhar Limit to establish the maximum allowable mass-loss rate for planet retention. We then apply the criterion to circumbinary planets in evolving binary systems over the entire stellar mass phase space. Through about 105 stellar evolutionary track realizations, we characterize planetary ejection prospects as a function of binary separation, stellar mass and metallicity. This investigation reveals that planets residing at just a few tens of au from a central concentration of stars are susceptible to escape in a wide variety of multiple systems. Further, planets are significantly more susceptible to ejection from multiple-star systems than from single-star systems for a given system mass. For system masses greater than about 2 M⊙, multiple-star systems represent the greater source of free-floating planets.

  7. Memory recall in arousing situations – an emotional von Restorff effect?

    OpenAIRE

    Wiswede, Daniel; Rüsseler, Jascha; Hasselbach, Simone; Münte, Thomas F

    2006-01-01

    Abstract Background Previous research has demonstrated a relationship between memory recall and P300 amplitude in list learning tasks, but the variables mediating this P300-recall relationship are not well understood. In the present study, subjects were required to recall items from lists consisting of 12 words, which were presented in front of pictures taken from the IAPS collection. One word per list is made distinct either by font color or by a highly arousing background IAPS picture. This...

  8. Multiple Antenna Systems with Inherently Decoupled Radiators

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Pelosi, Mauro; Knudsen, Mikael B.; Pedersen, Gert Frølund

    2012-01-01

    In multiple antenna systems mutual coupling needs to be minimized. We propose an alternative novel decoupling technique, investigating several multiple antenna configurations for small handsets through measurements and numerical simulations. The influence of different novel designs on performance...... metrics such as total loss, antenna isolation and envelope correlation coefficient are investigated. By varying antenna impedance bandwidth and antenna location with respect to the handset, both Planar Inverted F Antenna (PIFA) and Inverted F Antennas (IFA) were investigated in different UMTS frequency...

  9. Motivational intensity modulates the effects of positive emotions on set shifting after controlling physiological arousal.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhou, Ya; Siu, Angela F Y

    2015-12-01

    Recent research on the construct of emotion suggests the integration of a motivational dimension into the traditional two-dimension (subjective valence and physiological arousal) model. The motivational intensity of an emotional state should be taken into account while investigating the emotion-cognition relationship. This study examined how positive emotional states varying in motivational intensity influenced set shifting, after controlling the potential confounding impacts of physiological arousal. In Experiment 1, 155 volunteers performed a set-shifting task after being randomly assigned to five states: high- vs. low-motivating positive affect (interest vs. serenity), high- vs. low-motivating negative affect (disgust vs. anxiety), and neutral state. Eighty-five volunteers participated in Experiment 2, which further examined the effects of higher vs. lower degree of interest. Both experiments measured and compared participants' physiological arousal (blood pressure and pulse rate) under the normal and experimental conditions as the covariate. Results showed no difference in switching performance between the neutral and serenity groups. As compared with the neutral state, the high-motivating positive affect significantly increased set-switching reaction time costs, but reduced error rate costs; the higher the motivational intensity, the greater the time-costs impairment. This indicates a role of the high-motivating positive affect in regulating the balance between the flexible and stable cognitive control. Motivational intensity also modulated the effects of negative emotional states, i.e., disgust caused a larger increase in time costs than anxiety. Further exploration into neurobiological mechanisms that may mediate the emotional effects on set shifting is warranted. © 2015 Scandinavian Psychological Associations and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

  10. Comparison of Brain Activation Images Associated with Sexual Arousal Induced by Visual Stimulation and SP6 Acupuncture: fMRI at 3 Tesla

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Choi, Nam Gil; Han, Jae Bok; Jang, Seong Joo

    2009-01-01

    This study was performed not only to compare the brain activation regions associated with sexual arousal induced by visual stimulation and SP6 acupuncture, but also to evaluate its differential neuro-anatomical mechanism in healthy women using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) at 3 Tesla (T). A total of 21 healthy right-handed female volunteers (mean age 22 years, range 19 to 32) underwent fMRI on a 3T MR scanner. The stimulation paradigm for sexual arousal consisted of two alternating periods of rest and activation. It began with a 1-minute rest period, 3 minutes of stimulation with either of an erotic video film or SP6 acupuncture, followed by 1-minute rest. In addition, a comparative study on the brain activation patterns between an acupoint and a shampoint nearby GB37 was performed. The fMRI data were obtained from 20 slices parallel to the AC-PC line on an axial plane, giving a total of 2,000 images. The mean activation maps were constructed and analyzed by using the statistical parametric mapping (SPM99) software. As comparison with the shampoint, the acupoint showed 5 times and 2 times higher activities in the neocortex and limbic system, respectively. Note that brain activation in response to stimulation with the shampoint was not observed in the regions including the HTHL in the diencephalon, GLO and AMYG in the basal ganglia, and SMG in the parietal lobe. In the comparative study of visual stimulation vs. SP6 acupuncture, the mean activation ratio of stimulus was not significantly different to each other in both the neocortex and the limbic system (p < 0.05). The mean activities induced by both stimuli were not significantly different in the neocortex, whereas the acupunctural stimulation showed higher activity in the limbic system (p < 0.05). This study compared the differential brain activation patterns and the neural mechanisms for sexual arousal, which were induced by visual stimulation and SP6 acupuncture by using 3T fMRI. These findings

  11. Comparison of Brain Activation Images Associated with Sexual Arousal Induced by Visual Stimulation and SP6 Acupuncture: fMRI at 3 Tesla

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Choi, Nam Gil [Dept. of Radiology, Chonnam National University Hospital, Gwangju (Korea, Republic of); Han, Jae Bok; Jang, Seong Joo [Dept. of Radiology, Dongshin University, Naju (Korea, Republic of)

    2009-06-15

    This study was performed not only to compare the brain activation regions associated with sexual arousal induced by visual stimulation and SP6 acupuncture, but also to evaluate its differential neuro-anatomical mechanism in healthy women using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) at 3 Tesla (T). A total of 21 healthy right-handed female volunteers (mean age 22 years, range 19 to 32) underwent fMRI on a 3T MR scanner. The stimulation paradigm for sexual arousal consisted of two alternating periods of rest and activation. It began with a 1-minute rest period, 3 minutes of stimulation with either of an erotic video film or SP6 acupuncture, followed by 1-minute rest. In addition, a comparative study on the brain activation patterns between an acupoint and a shampoint nearby GB37 was performed. The fMRI data were obtained from 20 slices parallel to the AC-PC line on an axial plane, giving a total of 2,000 images. The mean activation maps were constructed and analyzed by using the statistical parametric mapping (SPM99) software. As comparison with the shampoint, the acupoint showed 5 times and 2 times higher activities in the neocortex and limbic system, respectively. Note that brain activation in response to stimulation with the shampoint was not observed in the regions including the HTHL in the diencephalon, GLO and AMYG in the basal ganglia, and SMG in the parietal lobe. In the comparative study of visual stimulation vs. SP6 acupuncture, the mean activation ratio of stimulus was not significantly different to each other in both the neocortex and the limbic system (p < 0.05). The mean activities induced by both stimuli were not significantly different in the neocortex, whereas the acupunctural stimulation showed higher activity in the limbic system (p < 0.05). This study compared the differential brain activation patterns and the neural mechanisms for sexual arousal, which were induced by visual stimulation and SP6 acupuncture by using 3T fMRI. These findings

  12. A test-retest assessment of the effects of mental load on ratings of affect, arousal and perceived exertion during submaximal cycling.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vera, Jesús; Perales, José C; Jiménez, Raimundo; Cárdenas, David

    2018-04-24

    This study aimed to test the effects of mental (i.e. executive) load during a dual physical-mental task on ratings of perceived exertion (RPE), affective valence, and arousal. The protocol included two dual tasks with matched physical demands but different executive demands (2-back and oddball), carried out on different days. The procedure was run twice to assess the sensitivity and stability of RPE, valence and arousal across the two trials. Linear mixed-effects analyses showed less positive valence (-0.44 points on average in a 1-9 scale; R β 2  = 0.074 [CI90%, 0.052-0.098]), and heightened arousal (+0.13 points on average in a 1-9 scale; R β 2  = 0.006 [CI90%, 0.001-0.015]), for the high executive load condition, but showed no effect of mental load on RPE. Separated analyses for the two task trials yielded best-fitting models that were identical across trials for RPE and valence, but not for arousal. Model fitting was improved by assuming a 1-level autoregressive covariance structure for all analyses. In conclusion, executive load during a dual physical-mental task modulates the emotional response to effort, but not RPE. The autoregressive covariance suggests that people tend to anchor estimates on prior ones, which imposes certain limits on scales' usability.

  13. Electroencephalographic brain dynamics of memory encoding in emotionally arousing context

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Carlos Enrique eUribe

    2011-06-01

    Full Text Available Emotional content/context enhances declarative memory through modulation of encoding and retrieval mechanisms. At encoding, neurophysiological data have consistently demonstrated the subsequent memory effect in theta and gamma oscillations. Yet, the existing studies were focused on the emotional content effect and let the emotional context effect unexplored. We hypothesized that theta and gamma oscillations show higher evoked/induced activity during the encoding of visual stimuli when delivered in an emotionally arousing context. Twenty-five healthy volunteers underwent evoked potentials recordings using a 21 scalp electrodes montage. They attended to an audiovisual test of emotional declarative memory being randomly assigned to either emotionally arousing or neutral context. Visual stimulus presentation was used as the time-locking event. Grand-averages of the evoked potentials and evoked spectral perturbations were calculated for each volunteer. Evoked potentials showed a higher negative deflection from 80 to 140 ms for the emotional condition. Such effect was observed over central, frontal and prefrontal locations bilaterally. Evoked theta power was higher in left parietal, central, frontal and prefrontal electrodes from -50 to 300 ms in the emotional condition. Evoked gamma power was higher in the emotional condition with a spatial distribution that overlapped at some points with the theta topography. The early theta power increase could be related to expectancy induced by auditory information processing that facilitates visual encoding in emotional contexts. Together, our results suggest that declarative memory enhancement for both emotional content and emotional context are supported by similar neural mechanisms at encoding, and offer new evidence about the brain processing of relevant environmental stimuli.

  14. Therapeutic options to enhance coma arousal after traumatic brain injury: state of the art of current treatments to improve coma recovery.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cossu, Giulia

    2014-04-01

    Traumatic brain injury is a leading cause of death and disability. Optimizing the recovery from coma is a priority in seeking to improve patients' functional outcomes. Standards of care have not been established: pharmacological interventions, right median nerve and sensory stimulation, dorsal column stimulation (DCS), deep brain stimulation, transcranial magnetic stimulation, hyperbaric oxygen therapy and cell transplantation have all been utilized with contrasting results. The aim of this review is to clarify the indications for the various techniques and to guide the clinical practice towards an earlier coma arousal. A systematic bibliographic search was undertaken using the principal search engines (Pubmed, Embase, Ovid and Cochrane databases) to locate the most pertinent studies. Traumatic injury is a highly individualized process, and subsequent impairments are dependent on multiple factors: this heterogeneity influences and determines therapeutic responses to the various interventions.

  15. Multiple equilibria in a simple elastocapillary system

    KAUST Repository

    Taroni, Michele

    2012-09-28

    We consider the elastocapillary interaction of a liquid drop placed between two elastic beams, which are both clamped at one end to a rigid substrate. This is a simple model system relevant to the problem of surface-tension-induced collapse of flexible micro-channels that has been observed in the manufacture of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS). We determine the conditions under which the beams remain separated, touch at a point, or stick along a portion of their length. Surprisingly, we show that in many circumstances multiple equilibrium states are possible. We develop a lubrication-type model for the flow of liquid out of equilibrium and thereby investigate the stability of the multiple equilibria. We demonstrate that for given material properties two stable equilibria may exist, and show via numerical solutions of the dynamic model that it is the initial state of the system that determines which stable equilibrium is ultimately reached. © 2012 Cambridge University Press.

  16. Physiological arousal deficits in addicted gamers differ based on preferred game genre.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Metcalf, Olivia; Pammer, Kristen

    2014-01-01

    There has been significant discussion surrounding the psychopathology of excessive gaming and whether it constitutes an addiction. The current study investigated physiological and subjective levels of arousal in gamers of two genres and the relationship between sensation seeking and gaming addiction. Heart rate (HR), blood pressure (BP) and skin conductance were recorded at baseline, during gaming for 15 min and after gaming in 30 massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) and 30 first-person shooter (FPS) male gamers. Gamers were identified as addicted using the Addiction-Engagement Questionnaire. Sensation seeking was measured using the Arnett Inventory of Sensation Seeking. Addicted MMORPG gamers (n=16) displayed significant decreases in cardiovascular activity during gaming compared to baseline and showed significant increases after gaming. Addicted FPS gamers (n=13) had significant increases in BP during gaming which decreased significantly after gaming. In comparison, non-addicted MMORPG gamers (n=14) had significant decreases in HR during gaming, whereas BP in non-addicted MMORPG and FPS gamers (n=17) increased during gaming and after gaming. There were no significant relationships between sensation seeking and addiction. There are physiological arousal deficits in addicted gamers, and these patterns differ according to the genre of game played. Copyright © 2013 S. Karger AG, Basel.

  17. The effects of tibolone on vaginal blood flow, sexual desire and arousability in postmenopausal women

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Laan, E.; van Lunsen, R. H.; Everaerd, W.

    2001-01-01

    AIMS: To compare the effects of 3 months' tibolone treatment with the effects of placebo on sexual function (in particular, vaginal blood flow, and sexual desire and arousability) and climacteric symptoms in postmenopausal women. METHODS: A randomized, double-blind, cross-over study was conducted in

  18. Metabolic regulation and behavior: how hunger produces arousal - an insect study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wicher, Dieter

    2007-12-01

    The metabolic state affects the level of general activity of an organism. Satiety is related to relaxation while hunger is coupled to elevated activity which supports the chance to balance the energy deficiency. The unrestricted food availability in modern industrial nations along with no required locomotor activity are risk factors to develop disorders such as obesity. One of the strategies to find new targets for future treatment of metabolic disorders in men is to gain detailed knowledge of molecular and cellular mechanisms involved in the regulation of metabolic homeostasis in less complex, i.e. invertebrate systems. This review reports recent molecular studies in insects about how hunger signals may be linked to global activation. Adipokinetic peptide hormones (AKHs) are the insect counterpart to the mammalian glucagon. They are released upon lack of energy and mobilize internal fuel reserves. In addition, AKHs stimulate the locomotor activity which involves their activity within the central nervous system. In the cockroach Periplaneta americana various neurons express the AKH receptor. Some of these, the dorsal unpaired median (DUM) neurons belonging to a general arousal system, release the biogenic amine octopamine, the insect counterpart to mammalian adrenergic hormones. The two Periplaneta AKHs activate Gs proteins, and AKH I also potently activates Gq proteins. AKH I and - less effectively - AKH II accelerate spiking of DUM neurons via an increase of a pacemaking Ca2+ current. Systemically injected AKH I stimulates locomotion in contrast to AKH II. This behavioral difference corresponds to the different effectiveness of the AKHs on the level of G-proteins.

  19. A Multiple Items EPQ/EOQ Model for a Vendor and Multiple Buyers System with Considering Continuous and Discrete Demand Simultaneously

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jonrinaldi; Rahman, T.; Henmaidi; Wirdianto, E.; Zhang, D. Z.

    2018-03-01

    This paper proposed a mathematical model for multiple items Economic Production and Order Quantity (EPQ/EOQ) with considering continuous and discrete demand simultaneously in a system consisting of a vendor and multiple buyers. This model is used to investigate the optimal production lot size of the vendor and the number of shipments policy of orders to multiple buyers. The model considers the multiple buyers’ holding cost as well as transportation cost, which minimize the total production and inventory costs of the system. The continuous demand from any other customers can be fulfilled anytime by the vendor while the discrete demand from multiple buyers can be fulfilled by the vendor using the multiple delivery policy with a number of shipments of items in the production cycle time. A mathematical model is developed to illustrate the system based on EPQ and EOQ model. Solution procedures are proposed to solve the model using a Mixed Integer Non Linear Programming (MINLP) and algorithm methods. Then, the numerical example is provided to illustrate the system and results are discussed.

  20. Multiple sleep alterations in mice lacking cannabinoid type 1 receptors.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Alessandro Silvani

    Full Text Available Cannabinoid type 1 (CB1 receptors are highly expressed in the brain and play a role in behavior control. Endogenous cannabinoid signaling is modulated by high-fat diet (HFD. We investigated the consequences of congenital lack of CB1 receptors on sleep in mice fed standard diet (SD and HFD. CB1 cannabinoid receptor knock-out (KO and wild-type (WT mice were fed SD or HFD for 4 months (n = 9-10 per group. Mice were instrumented with electroencephalographic (EEG and electromyographic electrodes. Recordings were performed during baseline (48 hours, sleep deprivation (gentle handling, 6 hours, sleep recovery (18 hours, and after cage switch (insomnia model paradigm, 6 hours. We found multiple significant effects of genotype on sleep. In particular, KO spent more time awake and less time in non-rapid-eye-movement sleep (NREMS and rapid-eye-movement sleep (REMS than WT during the dark (active period but not during the light (rest period, enhancing the day-night variation of wake-sleep amounts. KO had slower EEG theta rhythm during REMS. REMS homeostasis after sleep deprivation was less effective in KO than in WT. Finally, KO habituated more rapidly to the arousing effect of the cage-switch test than WT. We did not find any significant effects of diet or of diet x genotype interaction on sleep. The occurrence of multiple sleep alterations in KO indicates important roles of CB1 cannabinoid receptors in limiting arousal during the active period of the day, in sleep regulation, and in sleep EEG in mice.