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

PubMed

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.

The Somatic Marker Hypothesis and Sexual Decision Making: Understanding the Role of Iowa Gambling Task Performance and Daily Sexual Arousal on the Sexual Behavior of Gay and Bisexual Men.

PubMed

Rendina, H Jonathon; Millar, Brett M; Dash, Genevieve; Feldstein Ewing, Sarah W; Parsons, Jeffrey T

2018-04-19

The sexual decision-making literature suggests that sexual arousal and behavior are associated. The somatic marker hypothesis suggests that individual neuropsychological differences in decision making, as measured by the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT), may moderate these associations; however, this hypothesis has yet to be tested with event-level sexual behavior data. We hypothesized that (a) daily sexual arousal would be positively associated with likelihood of engaging in sex and condomless anal sex (CAS) and (b) IGT scores would moderate these associations such that the associations would be stronger among those with higher IGT scores. We used daily diary data from 334 highly sexually active gay and bisexual men to examine the main and interaction effects of sexual arousal and IGT scores on sexual engagement and CAS. As hypothesized, daily sexual arousal was positively associated with greater odds of both sexual engagement and CAS with casual male partners. Individual-level IGT performance significantly moderated the day-level association between arousal and sexual engagement, which was stronger for men with higher IGT scores. There was no main effect of IGT scores on either sexual behavior outcome, nor did it moderate the association between arousal and CAS. These findings highlight the influence of sexual arousal on sexual engagement, which differed by IGT scores; the effect of arousal on CAS was much less variable and may not be moderated by neurocognitive factors. This study supports the importance of exploring integrated behavioral/biomedical interventions to improve individual decision making to prevent HIV infection.

Effects of Cognitive Interventions on Sports Anxiety and Performance.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Murphy, Shane M.; Woolfolk, Robert L.

Oxendine (1970) hypothesized that the arousal-performance relationship varies across tasks, such that gross motor activities will require high arousal for optimal performance while fine motor activities will be facilitated by low arousal, but adversely affected by high arousal. Although the effects of preparatory arousal on strength performance…

Positive Affect and Cognitive Restoration: Investigating the Role of Valence and Arousal

PubMed Central

2016-01-01

Positive moods are thought to restore self-control resources following depletion. However, it is not well understood whether this effect is due to affective valence (pleasantness), arousal (activation), or a combination of both. Across four studies, we set out to investigate the role of positive moods on cognitive and behavioral measures of self-regulation in an ego-depletion paradigm. In studies 1 and 2, we independently manipulated affective valence and arousal and assessed self-regulation with a Stroop task. Results did not suggest a restorative effect of either on cognitive resources. In study 3, we employed both behavioral (the ‘handgrip task’) and cognitive (Stroop) assessments of self-regulation. Again, no significant effect of mood was observed on the Stroop task. Additionally, participants did not persist significantly longer on the handgrip task following a positive mood induction. Finally, in study 4, high vs. low states of arousal were manipulated and self-regulation was assessed via pre- and post-manipulation Stroop performance. In study 4, Stroop performance improved slightly more across time points for those in the high arousal condition than for those in the low arousal condition. Therefore, across four studies, we failed to find a consistent pattern of results suggesting that positive moods restore cognitive resources. PMID:26784026

Interplay between affect and arousal in recognition memory.

PubMed

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.

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

PubMed Central

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, 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 performance in other fine motor skills. PMID:29459837

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

PubMed

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 performance in other fine motor skills.

The effects of exogenous progesterone on drug craving and stress arousal in cocaine dependence: Impact of gender and cue type

PubMed Central

Fox, Helen C.; Sofuoglu, Mehmet; Morgan, Peter T.; Tuit, Keri L.; Sinha, Rajita

2013-01-01

Summary Aims 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. Methods 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, hypothalamicpituitary-adrenal (HPA) and cardiovascular output, and a cognitive measure of inhibitory control (Stroop Color Word Task) were assessed pre- and post imagery. Results 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. Conclusions 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. PMID:23374328

The effects of exogenous progesterone on drug craving and stress arousal in cocaine dependence: impact of gender and cue type.

PubMed

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.

Mindfulness-Based Sex Therapy Improves Genital-Subjective Arousal Concordance in Women With Sexual Desire/Arousal Difficulties.

PubMed

Brotto, Lori A; Chivers, Meredith L; Millman, Roanne D; Albert, Arianne

2016-11-01

There is emerging evidence for the efficacy of mindfulness-based interventions for improving women's sexual functioning. To date, this literature has been limited to self-reports of sexual response and distress. Sexual arousal concordance-the degree of agreement between self-reported sexual arousal and psychophysiological sexual response-has been of interest due to the speculation that it may be a key component to healthy sexual functioning in women. We examined the effects of mindfulness-based sex therapy on sexual arousal concordance in a sample of women with sexual desire/arousal difficulties (n = 79, M age 40.8 years) who participated in an in-laboratory assessment of sexual arousal using a vaginal photoplethysmograph before and after four sessions of group mindfulness-based sex therapy. Genital-subjective sexual arousal concordance significantly increased from pre-treatment levels, with changes in subjective sexual arousal predicting contemporaneous genital sexual arousal (but not the reverse). These findings have implications for our understanding of the mechanisms by which mindfulness-based sex therapy improves sexual functioning in women, and suggest that such treatment may lead to an integration of physical and subjective arousal processes. Moreover, our findings suggest that future research might consider the adoption of sexual arousal concordance as a relevant endpoint in treatment outcome research of women with sexual desire/arousal concerns.

Brief Online Training Enhances Competitive Performance: Findings of the BBC Lab UK Psychological Skills Intervention Study

PubMed Central

Lane, Andrew M.; Totterdell, Peter; MacDonald, Ian; Devonport, Tracey J.; Friesen, Andrew P.; Beedie, Christopher J.; Stanley, Damian; Nevill, Alan

2016-01-01

In conjunction with BBC Lab UK, the present study developed 12 brief psychological skill interventions for online delivery. A protocol was designed that captured data via self-report measures, used video recordings to deliver interventions, involved a competitive concentration task against an individually matched computer opponent, and provided feedback on the effects of the interventions. Three psychological skills were used; imagery, self-talk, and if-then planning, with each skill directed to one of four different foci: outcome goal, process goal, instruction, or arousal-control. This resulted in 12 different intervention participant groups (randomly assigned) with a 13th group acting as a control. Participants (n = 44,742) completed a competitive task four times—practice, baseline, following an intervention, and again after repeating the intervention. Results revealed performance improved following practice with incremental effects for imagery-outcome, imagery-process, and self-talk-outcome and self-talk-process over the control group, with the same interventions increasing the intensity of effort invested, arousal and pleasant emotion. Arousal-control interventions associated with pleasant emotions, low arousal, and low effort invested in performance. Instructional interventions were not effective. Results offer support for the utility of online interventions in teaching psychological skills and suggest brief interventions that focus on increasing motivation, increased arousal, effort invested, and pleasant emotions were the most effective. PMID:27065904

Autogenic-feedback training improves pilot performance during emergency flying conditions

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Kellar, Michael A.; Folen, Raymond A.; Cowings, Patricia S.; Toscano, William B.; Hisert, Glen L.

1994-01-01

Studies have shown that autonomous mode behavior is one cause of aircraft fatalities due to pilot error. In such cases, the pilot is in a high state of psychological and physiological arousal and tends to focus on one problem, while ignoring more critical information. This study examined the effect of training in physiological self-recognition and regulation, as a means of improving crew cockpit performance. Seventeen pilots were assigned to the treatment and control groups matched for accumulated flight hours. The treatment group comprised three pilots of HC-130 Hercules aircraft and four HH-65 Dolphin helicopter pilots; the control group comprised three pilots of HC-130's and six Dolphin helicopter pilots. During an initial flight, physiological data were recorded for each crew member and individual crew performance was rated by an instructor pilot. Eight crewmembers were then taught to regulate their own physiological response levels using Autogenic-Feedback Training (AFT). The remaining subjects received no training. During a second flight, treatment subjects showed significant improvement in performance, while controls did not improve. The results indicate that AFT management of high states of physiological arousal may improve pilot performance during emergency flying conditions.

Autogenic-feedback training improves pilot performance during emergency flying conditions

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Kellar, Michael A.; Folen, Raymond A.; Cowings, Patricia S.; Toscano, William B.; Hisert, Glen L.

1993-01-01

Studies have shown that autonomous mode behavior is one cause of aircraft fatalities due to pilot error. In such cases, the pilot is in a high state of psychological and physiological arousal and tends to focus on one problem, while ignoring more critical information. The effect of training in physiological self-recognition and regulation, as a means of improving crew cockpit performance was examined. Seventeen pilots were assigned to the treatment and control groups matched for accumulated flight hours. The treatment group comprised four pilots of HC-130 Hercules aircraft and four HH-65 Dolphin helicopter pilots; the control group comprised three pilots of HC-130's and six Dolphin helicopter pilots. During an initial flight physiological data were recorded for each crewmember and individual crew performance and rated by an instructor pilot. Eight crewmembers were then taught to regulate their own physiological response levels using Autogenic-Feedback Training (AFT). The remaining subjects received no training. During a second flight, treatment subjects showed significant improvement in performance, while controls did not improve. The results indicate that AFT management of high states of physiological arousal may improve pilot performance during emergency flying conditions.

Distributed Neural Processing Predictors of Multi-dimensional Properties of Affect

PubMed Central

Bush, Keith A.; Inman, Cory S.; Hamann, Stephan; Kilts, Clinton D.; James, G. Andrew

2017-01-01

Recent evidence suggests that emotions have a distributed neural representation, which has significant implications for our understanding of the mechanisms underlying emotion regulation and dysregulation as well as the potential targets available for neuromodulation-based emotion therapeutics. This work adds to this evidence by testing the distribution of neural representations underlying the affective dimensions of valence and arousal using representational models that vary in both the degree and the nature of their distribution. We used multi-voxel pattern classification (MVPC) to identify whole-brain patterns of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)-derived neural activations that reliably predicted dimensional properties of affect (valence and arousal) for visual stimuli viewed by a normative sample (n = 32) of demographically diverse, healthy adults. Inter-subject leave-one-out cross-validation showed whole-brain MVPC significantly predicted (p < 0.001) binarized normative ratings of valence (positive vs. negative, 59% accuracy) and arousal (high vs. low, 56% accuracy). We also conducted group-level univariate general linear modeling (GLM) analyses to identify brain regions whose response significantly differed for the contrasts of positive versus negative valence or high versus low arousal. Multivoxel pattern classifiers using voxels drawn from all identified regions of interest (all-ROIs) exhibited mixed performance; arousal was predicted significantly better than chance but worse than the whole-brain classifier, whereas valence was not predicted significantly better than chance. Multivoxel classifiers derived using individual ROIs generally performed no better than chance. Although performance of the all-ROI classifier improved with larger ROIs (generated by relaxing the clustering threshold), performance was still poorer than the whole-brain classifier. These findings support a highly distributed model of neural processing for the affective dimensions of valence and arousal. Finally, joint error analyses of the MVPC hyperplanes encoding valence and arousal identified regions within the dimensional affect space where multivoxel classifiers exhibited the greatest difficulty encoding brain states – specifically, stimuli of moderate arousal and high or low valence. In conclusion, we highlight new directions for characterizing affective processing for mechanistic and therapeutic applications in affective neuroscience. PMID:28959198

Arousal and Anxiety Correlates of Gymnastic Performance

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Basler, Marilyn L.; And Others

1976-01-01

Tests on a women's gymnastic team to explore correlation between arousal, anxiety, and performance, revealed limited relationships between performance and arousal/anxiety measures and indicated that gymnastic ability is the best correlate of gymnastic performance. (JD)

Acute effects of donepezil in healthy young adults underline the fractionation of executive functioning.

PubMed

Ginani, G E; Tufik, S; Bueno, O F A; Pradella-Hallinan, M; Rusted, J; Pompéia, S

2011-11-01

The cholinergic system is involved in the modulation of both bottom-up and top-down attentional control. Top-down attention engages multiple executive control processes, but few studies have investigated whether all or selective elements of executive functions are modulated by the cholinergic system. To investigate the acute effects of the pro-cholinergic donepezil in young, healthy volunteers on distinct components of executive functions we conducted a double-blind, placebo-controlled, independent-groups design study including 42 young healthy male participants who were randomly assigned to one of three oral treatments: glucose (placebo), donepezil 5 mg or donepezil 7.5 mg. The test battery included measures of different executive components (shifting, updating, inhibition, dual-task performance, planning, access to long-term memory), tasks that evaluated arousal/vigilance/visuomotor performance, as well as functioning of working memory subsidiary systems. Donepezil improved sustained attention, reaction times, dual-task performance and the executive component of digit span. The positive effects in these executive tasks did not correlate with arousal/visuomotor/vigilance measures. Among the various executive domains investigated donepezil selectively increased dual-task performance in a manner that could not be ascribed to improvement in arousal/vigilance/visuomotor performance nor working memory slave systems. Other executive tasks that rely heavily on visuospatial processing may also be modulated by the cholinergic system.

Outside of the laboratory: Associations of working-memory performance with psychological and physiological arousal vary with age.

PubMed

Riediger, Michaela; Wrzus, Cornelia; Klipker, Kathrin; Müller, Viktor; Schmiedek, Florian; Wagner, Gert G

2014-03-01

We investigated age differences in associations among self-reported experiences of tense and energetic arousal, physiological activation indicated by heart rate, and working-memory performance in everyday life. The sample comprised 92 participants aged 14-83 years. Data were collected for 24 hr while participants pursued their normal daily routines. Participants wore an ambulatory biomonitoring system that recorded their cardiac and physical activity. Using mobile phones as assessment devices, they also provided an average of 7 assessments of their momentary experiences of tense arousal (feeling nervous) and energetic arousal (feeling wide-awake) and completed 2 trials of a well-practiced working-memory task. Experiences of higher energetic arousal were associated with higher heart rate in participants younger than 50 years of age but not in participants older than that, and energetic arousal was unrelated to within-person fluctuations in working-memory performance. Experiences of tense arousal were associated with higher heart rate independent of participants' age. Tense arousal and physiological activation were accompanied by momentary impairments in working-memory performance in middle-aged and older adults but not in younger individuals. Results suggest that psychological arousal experiences are associated with lower working-memory performance in middle-aged and older adults when they are accompanied by increased physiological activation and that the same is true for physiological activation deriving from other influences. Hence, age differences in cognitive performance may be exaggerated when the assessment situation itself elicits tense arousal or occurs in situations with higher physiological arousal arising from affective experiences, physical activity, or circadian rhythms. (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved.

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

PubMed

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.

Autogenic Feedback Training Exercise and pilot performance: enhanced functioning under search-and-rescue flying conditions.

PubMed

Cowings, P S; Kellar, M A; Folen, R A; Toscano, W B; Burge, J D

2001-01-01

Studies have shown that autonomous mode behavior is one cause of aircraft fatalities due to pilot error. In such cases, the pilot is in a high state of psychological and physiological arousal and tends to focus on one problem, while ignoring more critical information. This study examined the effect of training in physiological self-recognition and regulation, as a means of improving crew cockpit performance. Seventeen pilots were assigned to the treatment and control groups matched for accumulated flight hours. The treatment group contained 4 pilots from HC-130 Hercules aircraft and 4 HH-65 Dolphin helicopter pilots; the control group contained 3 pilots of HC-130s and 6 helicopter pilots. During an initial flight, physiological data were recorded on each crewmember and an instructor pilot rated individual crew performance. Eight crewmembers were then taught to regulate their own physiological response levels using Autogenic-Feedback Training Exercise (AFTE). The remaining participants received no training. During a second flight, treatment participants showed significant improvement in performance (rated by the same instructor pilot as in pretests) while controls did not improve. The results indicate that AFTE management of high states of physiological arousal may improve pilot performance during emergency flying conditions.

Autogenic Feedback Training Exercise and pilot performance: enhanced functioning under search-and-rescue flying conditions

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Cowings, P. S.; Kellar, M. A.; Folen, R. A.; Toscano, W. B.; Burge, J. D.

2001-01-01

Studies have shown that autonomous mode behavior is one cause of aircraft fatalities due to pilot error. In such cases, the pilot is in a high state of psychological and physiological arousal and tends to focus on one problem, while ignoring more critical information. This study examined the effect of training in physiological self-recognition and regulation, as a means of improving crew cockpit performance. Seventeen pilots were assigned to the treatment and control groups matched for accumulated flight hours. The treatment group contained 4 pilots from HC-130 Hercules aircraft and 4 HH-65 Dolphin helicopter pilots; the control group contained 3 pilots of HC-130s and 6 helicopter pilots. During an initial flight, physiological data were recorded on each crewmember and an instructor pilot rated individual crew performance. Eight crewmembers were then taught to regulate their own physiological response levels using Autogenic-Feedback Training Exercise (AFTE). The remaining participants received no training. During a second flight, treatment participants showed significant improvement in performance (rated by the same instructor pilot as in pretests) while controls did not improve. The results indicate that AFTE management of high states of physiological arousal may improve pilot performance during emergency flying conditions.

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

PubMed

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.

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

PubMed Central

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. PMID:28414741

Effects of a Mindfulness Task on Women's Sexual Response.

PubMed

Velten, Julia; Margraf, Jürgen; Chivers, Meredith L; Brotto, Lori A

2017-12-20

Mindfulness-based interventions are effective at improving symptoms of sexual dysfunction in women. The mechanisms by which mindfulness improves sexual function are less clear. The main objective of our study was to investigate the impact of a mindfulness task on sexual response in women. Forty-one women (mean age = 27.2, SD = 5.6) participated in two laboratory sessions that each included two erotic films and one attention task that were presented in counterbalanced order. Both attention tasks consisted of a six-minute audio recording of either a modified body scan, focusing on genital arousal sensations (mindfulness condition), or a visualization exercise. Subjective and genital sexual arousal were measured continuously during stimulus presentation. The mindfulness task led to greater subjective and lower genital arousal. The agreement of subjective and genital sexual arousal (i.e., concordance) was greater in the mindfulness condition. Trait mindfulness was related to lower sexual arousal but also greater sexual concordance in women. Mindfulness-based interventions that encourage women to focus on physical arousal sensations in the here and now may be associated with women's improved sexual function by enhancing feelings of sexual arousal during sexual activity and by increasing concordance between subjective and genital sexual arousal.

Emotion and language: Valence and arousal affect word recognition

PubMed Central

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

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

PubMed

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.

Prediction of Gymnastic Performance from Arousal and Anxiety Measures.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Basler, Marilyn L.; And Others

This study predicts gymnastic performance, arousal, and anxiety measures from past performances. Pulse rate and the Palmar Sweat Index were utilized as indicants of arousal. Anxiety was assessed by means of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory. Eighteen members of the Ithaca College women's varsity gymnastic team were tested throughout the 1973-74…

Exploring the Relationship between Exercise-Induced Arousal and Cognition Using Fractionated Response Time

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chang, Yu-Kai; Etnier, Jennifer L.; Barella, Lisa A.

2009-01-01

Although a generally positive effect of acute exercise on cognitive performance has been demonstrated, the specific nature of the relationship between exercise-induced arousal and cognitive performance remains unclear. This study was designed to identify the relationship between exercise-induced arousal and cognitive performance for the central…

Valence and arousal of emotional stimuli impact cognitive-motor performance in an oddball task.

PubMed

Lu, Yingzhi; Jaquess, Kyle J; Hatfield, Bradley D; Zhou, Chenglin; Li, Hong

2017-04-01

It is widely recognized that emotions impact an individual's ability to perform in a given task. However, little is known about how emotion impacts the various aspects of cognitive -motor performance. We recorded event-related potentials (ERPs) and chronometric responses from twenty-six participants while they performed a cognitive-motor oddball task in regard to four categories of emotional stimuli (high-arousing positive-valence, low-arousing positive-valence, high-arousing negative-valence, and low-arousing negative-valence) as "deviant" stimuli. Six chronometric responses (reaction time, press time, return time, choice time, movement time, and total time) and three ERP components (P2, N2 and late positive potential) were measured. Results indicated that reaction time was significantly affected by the presentation of emotional stimuli. Also observed was a negative relationship between N2 amplitude and elements of performance featuring reaction time in the low-arousing positive-valence condition. This study provides further evidence that emotional stimuli influence cognitive-motor performance in a specific manner. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Effects of emotional arousal on memory binding in normal aging and Alzheimer's disease.

PubMed

Nashiro, Kaoru; Mather, Mara

2011-01-01

Previous research suggests that associative memory declines in normal aging and is severely affected by Alzheimer's disease (AD); however, it is unclear whether and how this deficit can be minimized. The present study investigated whether emotional arousal improves associative memory in healthy younger and older adults and patients with probable AD. We examined the effect of arousal on memory for item-location associations. Arousal improved memory for item location similarly across the three groups, whereas valence had no effect in any groups. Overall, our results suggest that arousal has beneficial effects on associative memory in healthy older adults and patients with AD, as previously observed in younger adults.

Facilitation of Retention by White Noise

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Baumeister, Alfred A.; Kistler, Doris

1975-01-01

This study attempted to determine if white noise (an arousing stimulus), when presented at the time of recall, facilitates performance of second and fifth grade students, and if this effect generalizes across different kinds of learning tasks. Findings indicate that white noise produces improvements in performance in both age groups. (GO)

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

PubMed

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 < .0001). There were no significant increases in genital arousal after the manipulation. The results of this study suggest that 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 Autogenic Training Increases Acute Subjective Sexual Arousal in Premenopausal Women Reporting Sexual Arousal Problems. J Sex Med 2018;15:64-76. Copyright © 2017 International Society for Sexual Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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

PubMed

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.

How Arousal Affects Younger and Older Adults' Memory Binding

PubMed Central

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

How arousal affects younger and older adults' memory binding.

PubMed

Nashiro, Kaoru; Mather, Mara

2011-01-01

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, Perspectives on Psychological Science, 2, 33-52). 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.

Get excited: reappraising pre-performance anxiety as excitement.

PubMed

Brooks, Alison Wood

2014-06-01

Individuals often feel anxious in anticipation of tasks such as speaking in public or meeting with a boss. I find that an overwhelming majority of people believe trying to calm down is the best way to cope with pre-performance anxiety. However, across several studies involving karaoke singing, public speaking, and math performance, I investigate an alternative strategy: reappraising anxiety as excitement. Compared with those who attempt to calm down, individuals who reappraise their anxious arousal as excitement feel more excited and perform better. Individuals can reappraise anxiety as excitement using minimal strategies such as self-talk (e.g., saying "I am excited" out loud) or simple messages (e.g., "get excited"), which lead them to feel more excited, adopt an opportunity mind-set (as opposed to a threat mind-set), and improve their subsequent performance. These findings suggest the importance of arousal congruency during the emotional reappraisal process. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved.

Sexual picture processing interferes with decision-making under ambiguity.

PubMed

Laier, Christian; Pawlikowski, Mirko; Brand, Matthias

2014-04-01

Many people watch sexually arousing material on the Internet in order to receive sexual arousal and gratification. When browsing for sexual stimuli, individuals have to make several decisions, all possibly leading to positive or negative consequences. Decision-making research has shown that decisions under ambiguity are influenced by consequences received following earlier decisions. Sexual arousal might interfere with the decision-making process and should therefore lead to disadvantageous decision-making in the long run. In the current study, 82 heterosexual, male participants watched sexual pictures, rated them with respect to sexual arousal, and were asked to indicate their current level of sexual arousal before and following the sexual picture presentation. Afterwards, subjects performed one of two modified versions of the Iowa Gambling Task in which sexual pictures were displayed on the advantageous and neutral pictures on the disadvantageous card decks or vice versa (n = 41/n = 41). Results demonstrated an increase of sexual arousal following the sexual picture presentation. Decision-making performance was worse when sexual pictures were associated with disadvantageous card decks compared to performance when the sexual pictures were linked to the advantageous decks. Subjective sexual arousal moderated the relationship between task condition and decision-making performance. This study emphasized that sexual arousal interfered with decision-making, which may explain why some individuals experience negative consequences in the context of cybersex use.

Cortical membrane potential signature of optimal states for sensory signal detection

PubMed Central

McGinley, Matthew J.; David, Stephen V.; McCormick, David A.

2015-01-01

The neural correlates of optimal states for signal detection task performance are largely unknown. One hypothesis holds that optimal states exhibit tonically depolarized cortical neurons with enhanced spiking activity, such as occur during movement. We recorded membrane potentials of auditory cortical neurons in mice trained on a challenging tone-in-noise detection task while assessing arousal with simultaneous pupillometry and hippocampal recordings. Arousal measures accurately predicted multiple modes of membrane potential activity, including: rhythmic slow oscillations at low arousal, stable hyperpolarization at intermediate arousal, and depolarization during phasic or tonic periods of hyper-arousal. Walking always occurred during hyper-arousal. Optimal signal detection behavior and sound-evoked responses, at both sub-threshold and spiking levels, occurred at intermediate arousal when pre-decision membrane potentials were stably hyperpolarized. These results reveal a cortical physiological signature of the classically-observed inverted-U relationship between task performance and arousal, and that optimal detection exhibits enhanced sensory-evoked responses and reduced background synaptic activity. PMID:26074005

Is caffeine a cognitive enhancer?

PubMed

Nehlig, Astrid

2010-01-01

The effects of caffeine on cognition were reviewed based on the large body of literature available on the topic. Caffeine does not usually affect performance in learning and memory tasks, although caffeine may occasionally have facilitatory or inhibitory effects on memory and learning. Caffeine facilitates learning in tasks in which information is presented passively; in tasks in which material is learned intentionally, caffeine has no effect. Caffeine facilitates performance in tasks involving working memory to a limited extent, but hinders performance in tasks that heavily depend on working memory, and caffeine appears to rather improve memory performance under suboptimal alertness conditions. Most studies, however, found improvements in reaction time. The ingestion of caffeine does not seem to affect long-term memory. At low doses, caffeine improves hedonic tone and reduces anxiety, while at high doses, there is an increase in tense arousal, including anxiety, nervousness, jitteriness. The larger improvement of performance in fatigued subjects confirms that caffeine is a mild stimulant. Caffeine has also been reported to prevent cognitive decline in healthy subjects but the results of the studies are heterogeneous, some finding no age-related effect while others reported effects only in one sex and mainly in the oldest population. In conclusion, it appears that caffeine cannot be considered a ;pure' cognitive enhancer. Its indirect action on arousal, mood and concentration contributes in large part to its cognitive enhancing properties.

Case Study: Dose Response of Caffeine on 20-km Handcycling Time Trial Performance in a Paratriathlete.

PubMed

Graham-Paulson, Terri; Perret, Claudio; Goosey-Tolfrey, Victoria

2018-05-03

Caffeine's (CAF) ability to influence upper-body exercise endurance performance may be related to an individual's training status. This case study therefore aimed to investigate the ergogenic effects of CAF dose on 20-km time trial (TT) performance of an elite male paratriathlete (wheelchair user; age = 46 years, body mass = 76.9 kg, body fat = 25.4%, and handcycling [Formula: see text]). The athlete completed four 20-km handcycling TTs on a Cyclus II ergometer under controlled laboratory conditions following the ingestion of 2, 4, and 6 mg/kg CAF or placebo (PLA). Blood lactate concentration, power output, arousal, and ratings of perceived exertion were recorded. Ingestion of 2, 4, and 6 mg/kg CAF resulted in a 2%, 1.5%, and 2.7% faster TT compared with PLA (37:40 min:s). The participant's blood lactate concentration increased throughout all trials and was greater during CAF compared with PLA. There were no obvious differences in ratings of perceived exertion between trials despite different performance times. Baseline arousal scores differed between PLA and 4 mg/kg CAF (1 = low), and 2 and 6 mg/kg CAF (3 = moderate). Arousal increased at each time point following the ingestion of 4 and 6 mg/kg CAF. The largest CAF dose resulted in a positive pacing strategy, which, when combined with an end spurt, resulted in the fastest TT. CAF improved 20-km TT performance of an elite male paratriathlete, which may be related to greater arousal and an increased power output for a given rating of perceived exertion.

Learning under your gaze: the mediating role of affective arousal between perceived direct gaze and memory performance.

PubMed

Helminen, Terhi M; Pasanen, Tytti P; Hietanen, Jari K

2016-03-01

Previous studies have shown that cognitive performance can be affected by the presence of an observer and self-directed gaze. We investigated whether the effect of gaze direction (direct vs. downcast) on verbal memory is mediated by autonomic arousal. Male participants responded with enhanced affective arousal to both male and female storytellers' direct gaze which, according to a path analysis, was negatively associated with the performance. On the other hand, parallel to this arousal-mediated effect, males' performance was affected by another process impacting the performance positively and suggested to be related to effort allocation on the task. The effect of this process was observed only when the storyteller was a male. The participants remembered more details from a story told by a male with a direct vs. downcast gaze. The effect of gaze direction on performance was the opposite for female storytellers, which was explained by the arousal-mediated process. Surprisingly, these results were restricted to male participants only and no effects of gaze were observed among female participants. We also investigated whether the participants' belief of being seen or not (through an electronic window) by the storyteller influenced the memory and arousal, but this manipulation had no effect on the results.

The influence of autonomic arousal and semantic relatedness on memory for emotional words.

PubMed

Buchanan, Tony W; Etzel, Joset A; Adolphs, Ralph; Tranel, Daniel

2006-07-01

Increased memory for emotional stimuli is a well-documented phenomenon. Emotional arousal during the encoding of a stimulus is one mediator of this memory enhancement. Other variables such as semantic relatedness also play a role in the enhanced memory for emotional stimuli, especially for verbal stimuli. Research has not addressed the contributions of emotional arousal, indexed by self-report and autonomic measures, and semantic relatedness on memory performance. Twenty young adults (10 women) were presented neutral-unrelated words, school-related words, moderately arousing emotional words, and highly arousing taboo words while heart rate and skin conductance were measured. Memory was tested with free recall and recognition tests. Results showed that taboo words, which were both semantically related and high arousal were remembered best. School-related words, which were high on semantic relatedness but low on arousal, were remembered better than the moderately arousing emotional words and semantically unrelated neutral words. Psychophysiological responses showed that within the moderately arousing emotional and neutral word groups, those words eliciting greater autonomic activity were better remembered than words that did not elicit such activity. These results demonstrate additive effects of semantic relatedness and emotional arousal on memory. Relatedness confers an advantage to memory (as in the school-words), but the combination of relatedness and arousal (as in the taboo words) results in the best memory performance.

Fusion of electroencephalographic dynamics and musical contents for estimating emotional responses in music listening.

PubMed

Lin, Yuan-Pin; Yang, Yi-Hsuan; Jung, Tzyy-Ping

2014-01-01

Electroencephalography (EEG)-based emotion classification during music listening has gained increasing attention nowadays due to its promise of potential applications such as musical affective brain-computer interface (ABCI), neuromarketing, music therapy, and implicit multimedia tagging and triggering. However, music is an ecologically valid and complex stimulus that conveys certain emotions to listeners through compositions of musical elements. Using solely EEG signals to distinguish emotions remained challenging. This study aimed to assess the applicability of a multimodal approach by leveraging the EEG dynamics and acoustic characteristics of musical contents for the classification of emotional valence and arousal. To this end, this study adopted machine-learning methods to systematically elucidate the roles of the EEG and music modalities in the emotion modeling. The empirical results suggested that when whole-head EEG signals were available, the inclusion of musical contents did not improve the classification performance. The obtained performance of 74~76% using solely EEG modality was statistically comparable to that using the multimodality approach. However, if EEG dynamics were only available from a small set of electrodes (likely the case in real-life applications), the music modality would play a complementary role and augment the EEG results from around 61-67% in valence classification and from around 58-67% in arousal classification. The musical timber appeared to replace less-discriminative EEG features and led to improvements in both valence and arousal classification, whereas musical loudness was contributed specifically to the arousal classification. The present study not only provided principles for constructing an EEG-based multimodal approach, but also revealed the fundamental insights into the interplay of the brain activity and musical contents in emotion modeling.

Fusion of electroencephalographic dynamics and musical contents for estimating emotional responses in music listening

PubMed Central

Lin, Yuan-Pin; Yang, Yi-Hsuan; Jung, Tzyy-Ping

2014-01-01

Electroencephalography (EEG)-based emotion classification during music listening has gained increasing attention nowadays due to its promise of potential applications such as musical affective brain-computer interface (ABCI), neuromarketing, music therapy, and implicit multimedia tagging and triggering. However, music is an ecologically valid and complex stimulus that conveys certain emotions to listeners through compositions of musical elements. Using solely EEG signals to distinguish emotions remained challenging. This study aimed to assess the applicability of a multimodal approach by leveraging the EEG dynamics and acoustic characteristics of musical contents for the classification of emotional valence and arousal. To this end, this study adopted machine-learning methods to systematically elucidate the roles of the EEG and music modalities in the emotion modeling. The empirical results suggested that when whole-head EEG signals were available, the inclusion of musical contents did not improve the classification performance. The obtained performance of 74~76% using solely EEG modality was statistically comparable to that using the multimodality approach. However, if EEG dynamics were only available from a small set of electrodes (likely the case in real-life applications), the music modality would play a complementary role and augment the EEG results from around 61–67% in valence classification and from around 58–67% in arousal classification. The musical timber appeared to replace less-discriminative EEG features and led to improvements in both valence and arousal classification, whereas musical loudness was contributed specifically to the arousal classification. The present study not only provided principles for constructing an EEG-based multimodal approach, but also revealed the fundamental insights into the interplay of the brain activity and musical contents in emotion modeling. PMID:24822035

On pleasure and thrill: the interplay between arousal and valence during visual word recognition.

PubMed

Recio, Guillermo; Conrad, Markus; Hansen, Laura B; Jacobs, Arthur M

2014-07-01

We investigated the interplay between arousal and valence in the early processing of affective words. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded while participants read words organized in an orthogonal design with the factors valence (positive, negative, neutral) and arousal (low, medium, high) in a lexical decision task. We observed faster reaction times for words of positive valence and for those of high arousal. Data from ERPs showed increased early posterior negativity (EPN) suggesting improved visual processing of these conditions. Valence effects appeared for medium and low arousal and were absent for high arousal. Arousal effects were obtained for neutral and negative words but were absent for positive words. These results suggest independent contributions of arousal and valence at early attentional stages of processing. Arousal effects preceded valence effects in the ERP data suggesting that arousal serves as an early alert system preparing a subsequent evaluation in terms of valence. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Mood and the DRM paradigm: An investigation of the effects of valence and arousal on false memory.

PubMed

Van Damme, Ilse

2013-06-01

Recent studies regarding the effect of mood on the DRM (Deese-Roediger-McDermott) illusion have not been able to clearly establish yet whether valence or arousal is most critical in determining susceptibility to false memories, nor what the underlying processes are. In three experiments, both the valence and the level of arousal of participants' mood were manipulated. Six conditions were used: positive mood with high/low arousal, negative mood with high/low arousal, neutral mood, and a control condition. Memory was tested by means of immediate and delayed recognition and immediate free recall. The mood induction procedure was effective. For recognition memory, there was an effect of arousal on the endorsement of critical lures. Low-arousal moods elicited more false recognition than high-arousal moods, regardless of valence. Based on signal detection analyses, the effect was attributed to more liberal response criteria with low arousal, in combination with a tendency towards improved item-specific memory with high arousal.

Sleep facilitates consolidation of emotional declarative memory.

PubMed

Hu, Peter; Stylos-Allan, Melinda; Walker, Matthew P

2006-10-01

Both sleep and emotion are known to modulate processes of memory consolidation, yet their interaction is poorly understood. We examined the influence of sleep on consolidation of emotionally arousing and neutral declarative memory. Subjects completed an initial study session involving arousing and neutral pictures, either in the evening or in the morning. Twelve hours later, after sleeping or staying awake, subjects performed a recognition test requiring them to discriminate between these original pictures and novel pictures by responding "remember,"know" (familiar), or "new." Selective sleep effects were observed for consolidation of emotional memory: Recognition accuracy for know judgments of arousing stimuli improved by 42% after sleep relative to wake, and recognition bias for remember judgments of these stimuli increased by 58% after sleep relative to wake (resulting in more conservative responding). These findings hold important implications for understanding of human memory processing, suggesting that the facilitation of memory for emotionally salient information may preferentially develop during sleep.

Psychophysiological Assessment in Pilots Performing Challenging Simulated and Real Flight Maneuvers.

PubMed

Johannes, Bernd; Rothe, Stefanie; Gens, André; Westphal, Soeren; Birkenfeld, Katja; Mulder, Edwin; Rittweger, Jörn; Ledderhos, Carla

2017-09-01

The objective assessment of psychophysiological arousal during challenging flight maneuvers is of great interest to aerospace medicine, but remains a challenging task. In the study presented here, a vector-methodological approach was used which integrates different psychophysiological variables, yielding an integral arousal index called the Psychophysiological Arousal Value (PAV). The arousal levels of 15 male pilots were assessed during predetermined, well-defined flight maneuvers performed under simulated and real flight conditions. The physiological data, as expected, revealed inter- and intra-individual differences for the various measurement conditions. As indicated by the PAV, air-to-air refueling (AAR) turned out to be the most challenging task. In general, arousal levels were comparable between simulator and real flight conditions. However, a distinct difference was observed when the pilots were divided by instructors into two groups based on their proficiency in AAR with AWACS (AAR-Novices vs. AAR-Professionals). AAR-Novices had on average more than 2000 flight hours on other aircrafts. They showed higher arousal reactions to AAR in real flight (contact: PAV score 8.4 ± 0.37) than under simulator conditions (7.1 ± 0.30), whereas AAR-Professionals did not (8.5 ± 0.46 vs. 8.8 ± 0.80). The psychophysiological arousal value assessment was tested in field measurements, yielding quantifiable arousal differences between proficiency groups of pilots during simulated and real flight conditions. The method used in this study allows an evaluation of the psychophysiological cost during a certain flying performance and thus is possibly a valuable tool for objectively evaluating the actual skill status of pilots.Johannes B, Rothe S, Gens A, Westphal S, Birkenfeld K, Mulder E, Rittweger J, Ledderhos C. Psychophysiological assessment in pilots performing challenging simulated and real flight maneuvers. Aerosp Med Hum Perform. 2017; 88(9):834-840.

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

PubMed

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.

Mind over Matter: Reappraising Arousal Improves Cardiovascular and Cognitive Responses to Stress

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jamieson, Jeremy P.; Nock, Matthew K.; Mendes, Wendy Berry

2012-01-01

Researchers have theorized that changing the way we think about our bodily responses can improve our physiological and cognitive reactions to stressful events. However, the underlying processes through which mental states improve downstream outcomes are not well understood. To this end, we examined whether reappraising stress-induced arousal could…

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

PubMed

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.

A single dose of cocaine enhances prospective memory performance.

PubMed

Hutten, Nadia Rpw; Kuypers, Kim Pc; van Wel, Janelle Hp; Theunissen, Eef L; Toennes, Stefan W; Verkes, Robbert-Jan; Ramaekers, Johannes G

2018-06-01

Prospective memory is the ability to recall intended actions or events at the right time or in the right context. While cannabis is known to impair prospective memory, the acute effect of cocaine is unknown. In addition, it is not clear whether changes in prospective memory represent specific alterations in memory processing or result from more general effects on cognition that spread across multiple domains such as arousal and attention. The main objective of the study was, therefore, to determine whether drug-induced changes in prospective memory are memory specific or associated with more general drug-induced changes in attention and arousal. A placebo-controlled, three-way, cross-over study including 15 regular poly-drug users was set up to test the influence of oral cocaine (300 mg) and vaporised cannabis (300+150 'booster' µg/kg bodyweight) on an event-based prospective memory task. Attentional performance was assessed using a divided attention task and subjective arousal was assessed with the Profile of Mood States questionnaire. Results showed that cocaine enhanced prospective memory, attention and arousal. Mean performance of prospective memory and attention, as well as levels of arousal were lowest during treatment with cannabis as compared with placebo and cocaine as evinced by a significantly increased trend across treatment conditions. Prospective memory performance was only weakly positively associated to measures of attention and arousal. Together, these results indicate that cocaine enhancement of prospective memory performance cannot be fully explained by parallel changes in arousal and attention levels, and is likely to represent a direct change in the neural network underlying prospective memory.

Memory Performance After Arousal from Different Sleep Stages

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Stones, M. J.

1977-01-01

Learning material was presented to independent groups of subjects either after arousal from non-Rapid Eye Movement (non-REM) sleep, after arousal from REM sleep, or under conditions of no prior sleep. Measures of immediate and subsequent free recall were taken. (Editor)

Emotion recognition based on physiological changes in music listening.

PubMed

Kim, Jonghwa; André, Elisabeth

2008-12-01

Little attention has been paid so far to physiological signals for emotion recognition compared to audiovisual emotion channels such as facial expression or speech. This paper investigates the potential of physiological signals as reliable channels for emotion recognition. All essential stages of an automatic recognition system are discussed, from the recording of a physiological dataset to a feature-based multiclass classification. In order to collect a physiological dataset from multiple subjects over many weeks, we used a musical induction method which spontaneously leads subjects to real emotional states, without any deliberate lab setting. Four-channel biosensors were used to measure electromyogram, electrocardiogram, skin conductivity and respiration changes. A wide range of physiological features from various analysis domains, including time/frequency, entropy, geometric analysis, subband spectra, multiscale entropy, etc., is proposed in order to find the best emotion-relevant features and to correlate them with emotional states. The best features extracted are specified in detail and their effectiveness is proven by classification results. Classification of four musical emotions (positive/high arousal, negative/high arousal, negative/low arousal, positive/low arousal) is performed by using an extended linear discriminant analysis (pLDA). Furthermore, by exploiting a dichotomic property of the 2D emotion model, we develop a novel scheme of emotion-specific multilevel dichotomous classification (EMDC) and compare its performance with direct multiclass classification using the pLDA. Improved recognition accuracy of 95\\% and 70\\% for subject-dependent and subject-independent classification, respectively, is achieved by using the EMDC scheme.

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

PubMed

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.

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

PubMed

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.

Effect of emotional cues on prospective memory performance in patients with schizophrenia and major depressive disorder.

PubMed

Yang, Tian-Xiao; Cui, Xi-Long; Wang, Ya; Huang, Jing; Lui, Simon S Y; Zhang, Rui-Ting; Cheung, Eric F C; Chan, Raymond C K

2018-05-24

Prospective memory (PM) is the ability to remember to carry out future intentions when prompted by a cue, and previous studies have suggested that emotional PM cues may enhance PM performance. This study examined the influence of emotional cues on PM performance in patients with schizophrenia and major depressive disorder. All participants were required to respond to emotional or neutral PM cues while completing a working memory task. Healthy participants showed improved PM performance with positive and negative cues. Patients with major depressive disorder were not impaired in PM performance and showed significant improvement in PM performance when cued by negative but not positive cues. Patients with schizophrenia had impaired PM performance irrespective of cue emotionality. In addition, the majority of patients with schizophrenia failed to show an emotional enhancement effect, and only those who had normal arousal ratings for negative PM cues showed emotional enhancement effect. These findings show for the first time that patients with schizophrenia exhibit PM impairments even with emotional cues, and suggest that arousal may be a critical factor for schizophrenia patients to utilize emotional cues to facilitate execution of future actions. In patients with major depressive disorder, our findings suggest that the negative bias in attention and retrospective memory may also extend to memory for future actions. These novel findings have both theoretical and clinical implications. Copyright © 2018. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Arousal Modulates Activity in the Medial Temporal Lobe during a Short-Term Relational Memory Task

PubMed Central

Thoresen, Christian; Jensen, Jimmy; Sigvartsen, Niels Petter B.; Bolstad, Ingeborg; Server, Andres; Nakstad, Per H.; Andreassen, Ole A.; Endestad, Tor

2011-01-01

This study investigated the effect of arousal on short-term relational memory and its underlying cortical network. Seventeen healthy participants performed a picture by location, short-term relational memory task using emotional pictures. Functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to measure the blood-oxygenation-level dependent signal relative to task. Subjects’ own ratings of the pictures were used to obtain subjective arousal ratings. Subjective arousal was found to have a dose-dependent effect on activations in the prefrontal cortex, amygdala, hippocampus, and in higher order visual areas. Serial position analyses showed that high arousal trials produced a stronger primacy and recency effect than low arousal trials. The results indicate that short-term relational memory may be facilitated by arousal and that this may be modulated by a dose–response function in arousal-driven neuronal regions. PMID:22291626

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

PubMed

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 associated with low dilator muscle activity and airflow was improved after both No Arousal and ASDA Arousal.

Termination of Respiratory Events with and without Cortical Arousal in Obstructive Sleep Apnea

PubMed Central

Eckert, Danny J.; Wellman, Andrew; Trinder, John A.; Malhotra, Atul; White, David P.

2011-01-01

Rationale: 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. Objectives: 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. Methods: Patients with obstructive sleep apnea wore sleep staging, genioglossus (EMGGG), and tensor palatini (EMGTP) 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). Measurements and Main Results: Sixteen subjects had adequate data. EMGGG, EMGTP, 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 (EMGGG 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). Conclusions: 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 associated with low dilator muscle activity and airflow was improved after both No Arousal and ASDA Arousal. PMID:21836132

A mindfulness-based group psychoeducational intervention targeting sexual arousal disorder in women.

PubMed

Brotto, Lori A; Basson, Rosemary; Luria, Mijal

2008-07-01

Despite their widespread prevalence, there are no existing evidence-based psychological treatments for women with sexual desire and arousal disorder. Mindfulness, the practice of relaxed wakefulness, is an ancient eastern practice with roots in Buddhist meditation which has been found to be an effective component of psychological treatments for numerous psychiatric and medical illnesses. In recent years, mindfulness has been incorporated into sex therapy and has been found effective for genital arousal disorder among women with acquired sexual complaints secondary to gynecologic cancer. The aim of this study was to adapt an existing mindfulness-based psychoeducation (PED) to a group format for women with sexual desire/interest disorder and/or sexual arousal disorders unrelated to cancer. Twenty-six women participated in three 90-minute sessions, spaced 2 weeks apart, with four to six other women. Group PED was administered by one mental health trained provider and one gynecologist with post graduate training and experience in sexual medicine. Prior to and following the group, women viewed audiovisual erotic stimuli and had both physiological (vaginal pulse amplitude) and subjective sexual arousal assessed. Additionally, they completed self-report questionnaires of sexual response, sexual distress, mood, and relationship satisfaction. There was a significant beneficial effect of the group PED on sexual desire and sexual distress. Also, we found a positive effect on self-assessed genital wetness despite little or no change in actual physiological arousal, and a marginally significant improvement in subjective and self-reported physical arousal during an erotic stimulus. A follow-up comparison of women with and without a sexual abuse history revealed that women with a sexual abuse history improved significantly more than those without such history on mental sexual excitement, genital tingling/throbbing, arousal, overall sexual function, sexual distress, and on negative affect while viewing the erotic film. Moreover, there was a trend for greater improvement on depression scores among those with a sexual abuse history. These data provide preliminary support for a brief, three-session group psychoeducational intervention for women with sexual desire and arousal complaints. Specifically, women with a history of sexual abuse improved more than women without such a history. Participant feedback indicated that mindfulness was the most effective component of the treatment, in line with prior findings. However, future compartmentalization trials are necessary in order to conclude this more definitively.

The effect of oral appliances that advanced the mandible forward and limited mouth opening in patients with obstructive sleep apnea: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials.

PubMed

Okuno, K; Sato, K; Arisaka, T; Hosohama, K; Gotoh, M; Taga, H; Sasao, Y; Hamada, S

2014-07-01

Oral appliances (OAs) have demonstrated efficacy in treating obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), but many different OA devices are available. The Japanese Academy of Dental Sleep Medicine supported the use of OAs that advanced the mandible forward and limited mouth opening and suggested an evaluation of their effects in comparison with untreated or CPAP. A systematic search was undertaken in 16 April 2012. The outcome measures of interest were as follows: Apnea Hypopnea Index (AHI), lowest SpO2 , arousal index, Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS), the SF-36 Health Survey. We performed this meta-analysis using the Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) system. Five studies remained eligible after applying the exclusion criteria. Comparing OA and control appliance, OA significantly reduced the weighted mean difference (WMD) in both AHI and the arousal index (favouring OA, AHI: -7.05 events h(-1) ; 95% CI, -12.07 to -2.03; P = 0.006, arousal index: -6.95 events h(-1) ; 95% CI, -11.75 to -2.15; P = 0.005). OAs were significantly less effective at reducing the WMD in AHI and improving lowest SpO2 and SF-36 than CPAP, (favouring OA, AHI: 6.11 events h(-1) ; 95% CI, 3.24 to 8.98; P = 0.0001, lowest SpO2 : -2.52%; 95% CI, -4.81 to -0.23; P = 0.03, SF-36: -1.80; 95% CI, -3.17 to -042; P = 0.01). Apnea Hypopnea Index and arousal index were significantly improved by OA relative to the untreated disease. Apnea Hypopnea Index, lowest SpO2 and SF-36 were significantly better with CPAP than with OA. The results of this study suggested that OAs improve OSA compared with untreated. CPAP appears to be more effective in improving OSA than OAs. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Reappraising Stress Arousal Improves Performance and Reduces Evaluation Anxiety in Classroom Exam Situations

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jamieson, Jeremy P.; Peters, Brett J.; Greenwood, Emily J.; Altose, Aaron J.

2016-01-01

For students to thrive in the U.S. educational system, they must successfully cope with omnipresent demands of exams. Nearly all students experience testing situations as stressful, and signs of stress (e.g., racing heart) are typically perceived negatively. This research tested the efficacy of a psychosituational intervention targeting cognitive…

Emotion processing facilitates working memory performance.

PubMed

Lindström, Björn R; Bohlin, Gunilla

2011-11-01

The effect of emotional stimulus content on working memory performance has been investigated with conflicting results, as both emotion-dependent facilitation and impairments are reported in the literature. To clarify this issue, 52 adult participants performed a modified visual 2-back task with highly arousing positive stimuli (sexual scenes), highly arousing negative stimuli (violent death) and low-arousal neutral stimuli. Emotional stimulus processing was found to facilitate task performance relative to that of neutral stimuli, both in regards to response accuracy and reaction times. No emotion-dependent differences in false-alarm rates were found. These results indicate that emotional information can have a facilitating effect on working memory maintenance and processing of information.

Patients with bulimia nervosa do not show typical neurodevelopment of cognitive control under emotional influences.

PubMed

Dreyfuss, Michael F W; Riegel, Melissa L; Pedersen, Gloria A; Cohen, Alexandra O; Silverman, Melanie R; Dyke, Jonathan P; Mayer, Laurel E S; Walsh, B Timothy; Casey, B J; Broft, Allegra I

2017-08-30

Bulimia nervosa (BN) emerges in the late teen years and is characterized by binge eating and related compensatory behaviors. These behaviors often co-occur with periods of negative affect suggesting an association between emotions and control over eating behavior. In the current study, we examined how cognitive control and neural processes change under emotional states of arousal in 46 participants with (n=19) and without (n=27) BN from the ages of 18-33 years. Participants performed a go/nogo task consisting of brief negative, positive and neutral emotional cues and sustained negative, positive and neutral emotional states of arousal during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Overall task performance improved with age for healthy participants, but not for patients with BN. These age-dependent behavioral effects were paralleled by diminished recruitment of prefrontal control circuitry in patients with BN with age. Although patients with BN showed no difference in performance on the experimental manipulations of negative emotions, sustained positive emotions related to improved performance among patients with BN. Together the findings highlight a neurodevelopmental approach towards understanding markers of psychopathology and suggest that sustained positive affect may have potential therapeutic effects on maintaining behavioral control in BN. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

The Impact of Emotional States on Cognitive Control Circuitry and Function.

PubMed

Cohen, Alexandra O; Dellarco, Danielle V; Breiner, Kaitlyn; Helion, Chelsea; Heller, Aaron S; Rahdar, Ahrareh; Pedersen, Gloria; Chein, Jason; Dyke, Jonathan P; Galvan, Adriana; Casey, B J

2016-03-01

Typically in the laboratory, cognitive and emotional processes are studied separately or as a stream of fleeting emotional stimuli embedded within a cognitive task. Yet in life, thoughts and actions often occur in more lasting emotional states of arousal. The current study examines the impact of emotions on actions using a novel behavioral paradigm and functional neuroimaging to assess cognitive control under sustained states of threat (anticipation of an aversive noise) and excitement (anticipation of winning money). Thirty-eight healthy adult participants were scanned while performing an emotional go/no-go task with positive (happy faces), negative (fearful faces), and neutral (calm faces) emotional cues, under threat or excitement. Cognitive control performance was enhanced during the excited state relative to a nonarousing control condition. This enhanced performance was paralleled by heightened activity of frontoparietal and frontostriatal circuitry. In contrast, under persistent threat, cognitive control was diminished when the valence of the emotional cue conflicted with the emotional state. Successful task performance in this conflicting emotional condition was associated with increased activity in the posterior cingulate cortex, a default mode network region implicated in complex processes such as processing emotions in the context of self and monitoring performance. This region showed positive coupling with frontoparietal circuitry implicated in cognitive control, providing support for a role of the posterior cingulate cortex in mobilizing cognitive resources to improve performance. These findings suggest that emotional states of arousal differentially modulate cognitive control and point to the potential utility of this paradigm for understanding effects of situational and pathological states of arousal on behavior.

General Anesthesia and Altered States of Arousal: A Systems Neuroscience Analysis

PubMed Central

Brown, Emery N.; Purdon, Patrick L.; Van Dort, Christa J.

2011-01-01

Placing a patient in a state of general anesthesia is crucial for safely and humanely performing most surgical and many nonsurgical procedures. How anesthetic drugs create the state of general anesthesia is considered a major mystery of modern medicine. Unconsciousness, induced by altered arousal and/or cognition, is perhaps the most fascinating behavioral state of general anesthesia. We perform a systems neuroscience analysis of the altered arousal states induced by five classes of intravenous anesthetics by relating their behavioral and physiological features to the molecular targets and neural circuits at which these drugs are purported to act. The altered states of arousal are sedation-unconsciousness, sedation-analgesia, dissociative anesthesia, pharmaco-logic non-REM sleep, and neuroleptic anesthesia. Each altered arousal state results from the anesthetic drugs acting at multiple targets in the central nervous system. Our analysis shows that general anesthesia is less mysterious than currently believed. PMID:21513454

Perception of arousal in social anxiety: Effects of false feedback during a social interaction

PubMed Central

Wild, Jennifer; Clark, David M.; Ehlers, Anke; McManus, Freda

2008-01-01

Cognitive models suggest that during social interactions, socially anxious individuals direct their attention to internal cues of arousal and use this information to erroneously infer how they appear to others. High (N=36) and low (N=36) socially anxious adults had a conversation with a stooge, and were led to believe by false feedback that they were experiencing either an increase or decrease in arousal, or evaluating the comfort level of the feedback equipment. Compared to the other groups, participants who believed their arousal had increased, reported greater anxiety, poorer perceived performance, more physical cues of anxiety, and greater underestimation of their performance and overestimation of the visibility of their anxiety. The effects were not specific to participants with high social anxiety. Observers rated the behaviour of participants who believed that their arousal had decreased most favourably. The results have implications for the treatment of social phobia. PMID:17223072

Evoked fear and effects of appeals on attitudes to performing breast self-examination: an information-processing perspective.

PubMed

Ruiter, R A; Kok, G; Verplanken, B; Brug, J

2001-06-01

The effect of fear arousal on attitude toward participating in early detection activities [i.e. breast self-examination (BSE)] was studied from an information-processing perspective. It was hypothesized that fear arousal motivates respondents to more argument-based processing of fear-relevant persuasive information. Respondents first read information about breast cancer in which fear was manipulated. After measuring fear arousal, respondents read a persuasive message about performing BSE. Analyses with reported fear, but not manipulated fear, found support for the hypothesis. Respondents who reported mild fear of breast cancer based their attitude toward BSE more on the arguments provided than respondents who reported low fear of breast cancer. This finding suggests that the use of fear arousal may be an efficient tool in health education practice. However, alternative interpretations are provided, in addition to the suggestion to be careful with using fear arousal in health education messages.

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

PubMed

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.

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

PubMed Central

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

2010-01-01

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 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. PMID:19674398

Investigating Female Sexual Concordance: Do Sexual Excitation and Sexual Inhibition Moderate the Agreement of Genital and Subjective Sexual Arousal in Women?

PubMed

Velten, Julia; Scholten, Saskia; Graham, Cynthia A; Adolph, Dirk; Margraf, Jürgen

2016-11-01

The agreement of subjective and genital sexual response, also referred to as sexual concordance, shows substantial variability between women. Identifying predictors of sexual arousal and sexual concordance is important to improve our understanding of female sexual response and its relationship to sexual function or dysfunction. The aim of this study was to assess the relevance of sexual excitation and sexual inhibition as predictors of subjective sexual arousal, genital arousal, and sexual concordance. In a laboratory setting, sexual arousal was induced by erotic video stimuli. Subjective sexual arousal was assessed continuously during stimulus presentation and genital arousal was measured with vaginal photoplethysmography. Data of 58 women (M age = 24.95, SD = 4.65) were analyzed using multilevel analyses (HLM). This data analytic technique estimates the within-subject associations of subjective and genital arousal, by controlling for between-subject differences. An interaction term of sexual excitation and sexual inhibition significantly predicted genital sexual arousal. In exploratory analyses, two lower order factors of sexual inhibition (Concerns about Sexual Function and Arousal Contingency) were predictive of sexual concordance. Further examination of these associations might increase our knowledge of female sexual function and deepen our understanding of how sexual excitation and sexual inhibition affect sexual arousal and consequently, impact sexual behaviors, in women.

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.

PubMed

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.

A defining aspect of human resilience in the workplace: a structural modeling approach.

PubMed

Everly, George S; Davy, Jeanettte A; Smith, Kenneth J; Lating, Jeffrey M; Nucifora, Frederick C

2011-06-01

It has been estimated that up to 90% of the US population is exposed to at least 1 traumatic event during their lifetime. Although there is growing evidence that most people are resilient, meaning that they have the ability to adapt to or rebound from adversity, between 5% and 10% of individuals exposed to traumatic events meet criteria for posttraumatic stress disorder. Therefore, identifying the elements of resilience could lead to interventions or training programs designed to enhance resilience. In this article, we test the hypothesis that the effects of stressor conditions on outcomes such as job-related variables may be mediated through the cognitive and affective registrations of those events, conceptualized as subjective stress arousal. The subjects were 491 individuals employed in public accounting, who were sampled from a mailing list provided by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. The stressors used in this study were role ambiguity, role conflict, and role overload and the outcome measures were performance, turnover intentions, job satisfaction, and burnout. Stress arousal was measured using a previously developed stress arousal scale. We conducted a series of 2 EQS structural modeling analyses to assess the impact of stress arousal. The first model examined only the direct effects from the role stressors to the outcome constructs. The second model inserted stress arousal as a mediator in the relations between the role stressors and the outcomes. The results of our investigation supported the notion that subjective stress arousal provides greater explanatory clarity by mediating the effects of stressors upon job-related outcome. Including stress arousal in the model provided a much more comprehensive understanding of the relation between stressor and outcomes, and the contribution of role ambiguity and role conflict were better explained. By understanding these relations, anticipatory guidance and crisis intervention programs can be designed and implemented to enhance human resilience. These data could serve to improve training programs for these "at risk" professional groups or even the population as a whole.

Low Arousal Positive Emotional Stimuli Attenuate Aberrant Working Memory Processing in Persons with Mild Cognitive Impairment

PubMed Central

Broster, Lucas S; Jenkins, Shonna L; Holmes, Sarah D; Jicha, Gregory A.; Jiang, Yang

2018-01-01

Emotional enhancement effects on memory have been reported to mitigate the pathophysiology of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). However, relative to their manifestation in persons without pathologic aging, these effects may be reduced in magnitude or even deleterious, especially in tasks that more closely model ecologic memory performance. Based upon a synthesis of such reports, we hypothesized that in persons with AD low arousal positive stimuli would evoke relatively intact emotional enhancement effects, but that high arousal negative stimuli would evoke disordered emotional enhancement effects. To assess this, participants with and without mild cognitive impairment (MCI) presumed to be due to AD performed an emotionally-valenced short-term memory task while encephalography was recorded. Results indicated that for persons with MCI, high arousal negative stimuli led to working memory processing patterns previously associated with MCI presumed due to AD and dementia of the Alzheimer’s type. In contrast, low arousal positive stimuli evoked a processing pattern similar to MCI participants’ unaffected spouses. Our current findings suggest that low arousal positive stimuli attenuate working memory deficits of MCI due to Alzheimer’s disease. PMID:29060938

Child- or Adult-Directed Speech and Esteem: Effects on Performance and Arousal in Elderly Adults.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bunce, Vicki L.; Harrison, David W.

1991-01-01

Explored effects of speech type and esteem level on performance, physiological arousal level, and subsequent esteem in older adults (n=40). Results indicated that older adults performed difficult tasks better with clarified instructions given in attention-getting manner. Findings were contradictory to more intuitive accounts of child-directed…

Testing the arousal hypothesis of neonatal imitation in infant rhesus macaques

PubMed Central

Pedersen, Eric J.; Simpson, Elizabeth A.

2017-01-01

Neonatal imitation is the matching of (often facial) gestures by newborn infants. Some studies suggest that performance of facial gestures is due to general arousal, which may produce false positives on neonatal imitation assessments. Here we examine whether arousal is linked to facial gesturing in newborn infant rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta). We tested 163 infants in a neonatal imitation paradigm in their first postnatal week and analyzed their lipsmacking gestures (a rapid opening and closing of the mouth), tongue protrusion gestures, and yawn responses (a measure of arousal). Arousal increased during dynamic stimulus presentation compared to the static baseline across all conditions, and arousal was higher in the facial gestures conditions than the nonsocial control condition. However, even after controlling for arousal, we found a condition-specific increase in facial gestures in infants who matched lipsmacking and tongue protrusion gestures. Thus, we found no support for the arousal hypothesis. Consistent with reports in human newborns, imitators’ propensity to match facial gestures is based on abilities that go beyond mere arousal. We discuss optimal testing conditions to minimize potentially confounding effects of arousal on measurements of neonatal imitation. PMID:28617816

Autonomic Correlates of Speech Versus Nonspeech Tasks in Children and Adults

PubMed Central

Arnold, Hayley S.; MacPherson, Megan K.; Smith, Anne

2015-01-01

Purpose To assess autonomic arousal associated with speech and nonspeech tasks in school-age children and young adults. Method Measures of autonomic arousal (electrodermal level, electrodermal response amplitude, blood pulse volume, and heart rate) were recorded prior to, during, and after the performance of speech and nonspeech tasks by twenty 7- to 9-year-old children and twenty 18- to 22-year-old adults. Results Across age groups, autonomic arousal was higher for speech tasks compared with nonspeech tasks, based on peak electrodermal response amplitude and blood pulse volume. Children demonstrated greater relative arousal, based on heart rate and blood pulse volume, for nonspeech oral motor tasks than adults but showed similar mean arousal levels for speech tasks as adults. Children demonstrated sex differences in autonomic arousal; specifically, autonomic arousal remained high for school-age boys but not girls in a more complex open-ended narrative task that followed a simple sentence production task. Conclusions Speech tasks elicit greater autonomic arousal than nonspeech tasks, and children demonstrate greater autonomic arousal for nonspeech oral motor tasks than adults. Sex differences in autonomic arousal associated with speech tasks in school-age children are discussed relative to speech-language differences between boys and girls. PMID:24686989

Sexual arousal, is it for mammals only?

PubMed Central

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

Factors that influence sexual arousal in men: a focus group study.

PubMed

Janssen, Erick; McBride, Kimberly R; Yarber, William; Hill, Brandon J; Butler, Scott M

2008-04-01

The goal of this study was to improve our understanding of men's sexual response and its components as well as the factors or types of situations that men describe as facilitating or interfering with sexual arousal. Six focus groups, involving 50 mostly white, heterosexual men (M age = 35.2 years; range, 18-70), were conducted. As it was previously found in women (Graham, Sanders, Milhausen, & McBride, Archives of Sexual Behavior, 33, 527-538, 2004), men described a wide range of physical (genital as well as nongenital) and cognitive/affective cues for sexual arousal. Also, men described the relationship between sexual desire and arousal as being variable and complex, presented a wide range of factors that increased or decreased sexual arousal, and showed substantial variability in both the importance and direction of their effects. The findings may help further development of models of sexual response and inform discussions about gender differences in sexual desire and arousal.

Effects of Isometric Hand-Grip Muscle Contraction on Young Adults' Free Recall and Recognition Memory.

PubMed

Tomporowski, Phillip D; Albrecht, Chelesa; Pendleton, Daniel M

2017-03-01

The purpose of this study was to determine if physical arousal produced by isometric hand-dynamometer contraction performed during word-list learning affects young adults' free recall or recognition memory. Twenty-four young adults (12 female; M age  = 22 years) were presented with 4 20-item word lists. Moderate arousal was induced in 12 adults by an initial 30-s maximal hand-dynamometer squeeze with force productions of 50% maximum; low arousal was induced in 12 adults by an initial 1-s maximal dynamometer squeeze with force production of 10% maximum during learning. Memory performances following dual-task conditions experienced during the encoding, consolidation, and recall phases of learning were compared to a single-task control condition during which words were learned in the absence of isometric exercise. Planned contrasts revealed that arousal coinciding with word encoding led to significantly poorer immediate recall, F(1, 23) = 10.13, p < .05, [Formula: see text] = .31, delayed free recall, F(1, 23) = 15.81, p < .05, [Formula: see text] = .41, and recognition memory, F(1, 23) = 6.07, p < .05, [Formula: see text] = .21, compared with when there was no arousal. Neither arousal condition facilitated participants' memory performance. The reduction in long-term memory performance specific to the encoding phase of learning is explained in terms of the dual-task attentional demands placed on participants.

The effects of taboo-related distraction on driving performance.

PubMed

Chan, Michelle; Madan, Christopher R; Singhal, Anthony

2016-07-01

Roadside billboards containing negative and positive emotional content have been shown to influence driving performance, however, the impact of highly arousing taboo information is unknown. Taboo information more reliably evokes emotional arousal and can lead to greater attentional capture due to its inherent 'shock value.' The objective of the present study was to examine driver distraction associated with four types of information presented on roadside billboards: highly arousing taboo words, moderately arousing positive and negative words, and non-arousing neutral words. Participants viewed blocks of taboo, positive, negative and neutral words presented on roadside billboards while operating a driving simulator. They also responded to target (household-related) words by pressing a button on the steering wheel. At the end of the session, a surprise recall task was completed for all the words they saw while driving. Results showed that taboo words captured the most attention as revealed by better memory recall compared to all the other word types. Interestingly, taboo words were associated with better lane control compared to the other word types. We suggest that taboo-related arousal can enhance attentional focus during a complex task like simulated driving. That is, in a highly arousing situation, attention is selectively narrowed to the road ahead, resulting in better lane control. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Trigeminal induced arousals during human sleep.

PubMed

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.

APPROACHES TO THE ASSESSMENT OF AROUSALS AND SLEEP DISTURBANCE IN CHILDREN

PubMed Central

Paruthi, Shalini; Chervin, Ronald D.

2010-01-01

Childhood arousals, awakenings, and sleep disturbances during the night are common problems for both patients and their families. Additionally, inadequate sleep may contribute to daytime sleepiness, behavioral problems, and other important consequences of pediatric sleep disorders. Arousals, awakenings, and sleep disturbances can be quantified by routine polysomnography, and arousal scoring is generally performed as part of the standard polysomnogram. Here we review current approaches to quantification of arousals and sleep disturbances and examine outcomes that have been associated with these measures. Initial data suggest that computer-assisted identification of nonvisible arousals, cyclic alternating patterns, or respiratory cycle-related EEG changes may complement what can be accomplished by human scorers. Focus on contiguous bouts of sleep or specific sleep stages may prove similarly useful. Incorporation of autonomic arousal measures—such as heart rate variability, pulse transit time, or peripheral arterial tone—into standard reports may additionally capture subtle sleep fragmentation. PMID:20620104

Arousal and consumer in-store behavior.

PubMed

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.

Emotionally arousing pictures increase blood glucose levels and enhance recall.

PubMed

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.

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

PubMed Central

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

The effects of physiological arousal on cognitive and psychomotor performance among individuals with high and low anxiety sensitivity.

PubMed

Barnard, Kirsten E; Broman-Fulks, Joshua J; Michael, Kurt D; Webb, Rosemary M; Zawilinski, Laci L

2011-03-01

Information-processing models of anxiety posit that anxiety pathology is associated with processing biases that consume cognitive resources and may detract from one's ability to process environmental stimuli. Previous research has consistently indicated that high anxiety has a negative impact on cognitive and psychomotor performance. Anxiety sensitivity, or the fear of anxiety and anxiety-related arousal sensations, is an anxiety vulnerability factor that has been shown to play a role in the development and maintenance of panic attacks and panic disorder. However, relatively little is known regarding the potential impact of anxiety sensitivity on performance. In the present study, 105 college students who scored either high (≥ 24) or low (≤ 14) on the Anxiety Sensitivity Index were randomly assigned to complete a series of arousal-induction tasks or no activity, followed immediately by three cognitive and psychomotor performance tasks: digit span - backward, math fluency, and grooved pegboard. Results indicated that participants with high anxiety sensitivity performed comparably to individuals with low anxiety sensitivity on each task, regardless of arousal level.

Sexual arousal in men: a review and conceptual analysis.

PubMed

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.

Activation of the Basal Forebrain by the Orexin/Hypocretin Neurons: Orexin International Symposium

PubMed Central

Arrigoni, Elda; Mochizuki, Takatoshi; Scammell, Thomas E.

2010-01-01

The orexin neurons play an essential role in driving arousal and in maintaining normal wakefulness. Lack of orexin neurotransmission produces a chronic state of hypoarousal characterized by excessive sleepiness, frequent transitions between wake and sleep, and episodes of cataplexy. A growing body of research now suggests that the basal forebrain (BF) may be a key site through which the orexin-producing neurons promote arousal. Here we review anatomical, pharmacological and electrophysiological studies on how the orexin neurons may promote arousal by exciting cortically-projecting neurons of the BF. Orexin fibers synapse on BF cholinergic neurons and orexin-A is released in the BF during waking. Local application of orexins excites BF cholinergic neurons, induces cortical release of acetylcholine, and promotes wakefulness. The orexin neurons also contain and probably co-release the inhibitory neuropeptide dynorphin. We found that orexin-A and dynorphin have specific effects on different classes of BF neurons that project to the cortex. Cholinergic neurons were directly excited by orexin-A, but did not respond to dynorphin. Non-cholinergic BF neurons that project to the cortex seem to comprise at least two populations with some directly excited by orexin that may represent wake-active, GABAergic neurons, whereas others did not respond to orexin but were inhibited by dynorphin and may be sleep-active, GABAergic neurons. This evidence suggests that the BF is a key site through which orexins activate the cortex and promotes behavioral arousal. In addition, orexins and dynorphin may act synergistically in the BF to promote arousal and improve cognitive performance. PMID:19723027

Infant polysomnography: reliability and validity of infant arousal assessment.

PubMed

Crowell, David H; Kulp, Thomas D; Kapuniai, Linda E; Hunt, Carl E; Brooks, Lee J; Weese-Mayer, Debra E; Silvestri, Jean; Ward, Sally Davidson; Corwin, Michael; Tinsley, Larry; Peucker, Mark

2002-10-01

Infant arousal scoring based on the Atlas Task Force definition of transient EEG arousal was evaluated to determine (1). whether transient arousals can be identified and assessed reliably in infants and (2). whether arousal and no-arousal epochs scored previously by trained raters can be validated reliably by independent sleep experts. Phase I for inter- and intrarater reliability scoring was based on two datasets of sleep epochs selected randomly from nocturnal polysomnograms of healthy full-term, preterm, idiopathic apparent life-threatening event cases, and siblings of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome infants of 35 to 64 weeks postconceptional age. After training, test set 1 reliability was assessed and discrepancies identified. After retraining, test set 2 was scored by the same raters to determine interrater reliability. Later, three raters from the trained group rescored test set 2 to assess inter- and intrarater reliabilities. Interrater and intrarater reliability kappa's, with 95% confidence intervals, ranged from substantial to almost perfect levels of agreement. Interrater reliabilities for spontaneous arousals were initially moderate and then substantial. During the validation phase, 315 previously scored epochs were presented to four sleep experts to rate as containing arousal or no-arousal events. Interrater expert agreements were diverse and considered as noninterpretable. Concordance in sleep experts' agreements, based on identification of the previously sampled arousal and no-arousal epochs, was used as a secondary evaluative technique. Results showed agreement by two or more experts on 86% of the Collaborative Home Infant Monitoring Evaluation Study arousal scored events. Conversely, only 1% of the Collaborative Home Infant Monitoring Evaluation Study-scored no-arousal epochs were rated as an arousal. In summary, this study presents an empirically tested model with procedures and criteria for attaining improved reliability in transient EEG arousal assessments in infants using the modified Atlas Task Force standards. With training based on specific criteria, substantial inter- and intrarater agreement in identifying infant arousals was demonstrated. Corroborative validation results were too disparate for meaningful interpretation. Alternate evaluation based on concordance agreements supports reliance on infant EEG criteria for assessment. Results mandate additional confirmatory validation studies with specific training on infant EEG arousal assessment criteria.

Arousal from sleep mechanisms in infants.

PubMed

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.

The Role of Fear Appeals in Improving Driver Safety: A Review of the Effectiveness of Fear-Arousing (Threat) Appeals in Road Safety Advertising

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lewis, I.; Watson, B.; Tay, R.; White, K. M.

2007-01-01

This paper reviews theoretical and empirical evidence relating to the effectiveness of fear (threat) appeals in improving driver safety. The results of the review highlight the mixed and inconsistent findings that have been reported in the literature. While fear arousal appears important for attracting attention, its contribution to behaviour…

Arousal—But Not Valence—Reduces False Memories at Retrieval

PubMed Central

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. PMID:26938737

Is all motivation good for learning? Dissociable influences of approach and avoidance motivation in declarative memory.

PubMed

Murty, Vishnu P; LaBar, Kevin S; Hamilton, Derek A; Adcock, R Alison

2011-01-01

The present study investigated the effects of approach versus avoidance motivation on declarative learning. Human participants navigated a virtual reality version of the Morris water task, a classic spatial memory paradigm, adapted to permit the experimental manipulation of motivation during learning. During this task, participants were instructed to navigate to correct platforms while avoiding incorrect platforms. To manipulate motivational states participants were either rewarded for navigating to correct locations (approach) or punished for navigating to incorrect platforms (avoidance). Participants' skin conductance levels (SCLs) were recorded during navigation to investigate the role of physiological arousal in motivated learning. Behavioral results revealed that, overall, approach motivation enhanced and avoidance motivation impaired memory performance compared to nonmotivated spatial learning. This advantage was evident across several performance indices, including accuracy, learning rate, path length, and proximity to platform locations during probe trials. SCL analysis revealed three key findings. First, within subjects, arousal interacted with approach motivation, such that high arousal on a given trial was associated with performance deficits. In addition, across subjects, high arousal negated or reversed the benefits of approach motivation. Finally, low-performing, highly aroused participants showed SCL responses similar to those of avoidance-motivation participants, suggesting that for these individuals, opportunities for reward may evoke states of learning similar to those typically evoked by threats of punishment. These results provide a novel characterization of how approach and avoidance motivation influence declarative memory and indicate a critical and selective role for arousal in determining how reinforcement influences goal-oriented learning.

Is all motivation good for learning? Dissociable influences of approach and avoidance motivation in declarative memory

PubMed Central

Murty, Vishnu P.; LaBar, Kevin S.; Hamilton, Derek A.; Adcock, R. Alison

2011-01-01

The present study investigated the effects of approach versus avoidance motivation on declarative learning. Human participants navigated a virtual reality version of the Morris water task, a classic spatial memory paradigm, adapted to permit the experimental manipulation of motivation during learning. During this task, participants were instructed to navigate to correct platforms while avoiding incorrect platforms. To manipulate motivational states participants were either rewarded for navigating to correct locations (approach) or punished for navigating to incorrect platforms (avoidance). Participants’ skin conductance levels (SCLs) were recorded during navigation to investigate the role of physiological arousal in motivated learning. Behavioral results revealed that, overall, approach motivation enhanced and avoidance motivation impaired memory performance compared to nonmotivated spatial learning. This advantage was evident across several performance indices, including accuracy, learning rate, path length, and proximity to platform locations during probe trials. SCL analysis revealed three key findings. First, within subjects, arousal interacted with approach motivation, such that high arousal on a given trial was associated with performance deficits. In addition, across subjects, high arousal negated or reversed the benefits of approach motivation. Finally, low-performing, highly aroused participants showed SCL responses similar to those of avoidance–motivation participants, suggesting that for these individuals, opportunities for reward may evoke states of learning similar to those typically evoked by threats of punishment. These results provide a novel characterization of how approach and avoidance motivation influence declarative memory and indicate a critical and selective role for arousal in determining how reinforcement influences goal-oriented learning. PMID:22021253

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

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

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.

Priming for performance: valence of emotional primes interact with dissociable prototype learning systems.

PubMed

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.

Frequency of EEG arousals from nocturnal sleep in normal subjects.

PubMed

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.

Priming for Performance: Valence of Emotional Primes Interact with Dissociable Prototype Learning Systems

PubMed Central

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. PMID:23646101

Trazodone increases the respiratory arousal threshold in patients with obstructive sleep apnea and a low arousal threshold.

PubMed

Eckert, Danny J; Malhotra, Atul; Wellman, Andrew; White, David P

2014-04-01

The effect of common sedatives on upper airway physiology and breathing during sleep in obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) has been minimally studied. Conceptually, certain sedatives may worsen OSA in some patients. However, sleep and breathing could improve with certain sedatives in patients with OSA with a low respiratory arousal threshold. This study aimed to test the hypothesis that trazodone increases the respiratory arousal threshold in patients with OSA and a low arousal threshold. Secondary aims were to examine the effects of trazodone on upper airway dilator muscle activity, upper airway collapsibility, and breathing during sleep. Patients were studied on 4 separate nights according to a within-subjects cross-over design. Sleep physiology laboratory. Seven patients with OSA and a low respiratory arousal threshold. In-laboratory polysomnograms were obtained at baseline and after 100 mg of trazodone was administered, followed by detailed overnight physiology experiments under the same conditions. During physiology studies, continuous positive airway pressure was transiently lowered to measure arousal threshold (negative epiglottic pressure prior to arousal), dilator muscle activity (genioglossus and tensor palatini), and upper airway collapsibility (Pcrit). Trazodone increased the respiratory arousal threshold by 32 ± 6% (-11.5 ± 1.4 versus -15.3 ± 2.2 cmH2O, P < 0.01) but did not alter the apnea-hypopnea index (39 ± 12 versus 39 ± 11 events/h sleep, P = 0.94). Dilator muscle activity and Pcrit also did not systematically change with trazodone. Trazodone increases the respiratory arousal threshold in patients with obstructive sleep apnea and a low arousal threshold without major impairment in dilator muscle activity or upper airway collapsibility. However, the magnitude of change in arousal threshold was insufficient to overcome the compromised upper airway anatomy in these patients.

Using a False Biofeedback Methodology to Explore Relationships between Learners' Affect, Metacognition, and Performance

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Strain, Amber Chauncey; Azevedo, Roger; D'Mello, Sidney K.

2013-01-01

We used a false-biofeedback methodology to manipulate physiological arousal in order to induce affective states that would influence learners' metacognitive judgments and learning performance. False-biofeedback is a method used to induce physiological arousal (and resultant affective states) by presenting learners with audio stimuli of false heart…

Every look matters: appraisals of faces follow distinct rules of information integration under arousing versus non-arousing conditions.

PubMed

Kaufmann, Martina; Baumann, Nicola

2018-03-19

In this research, we investigated whether appraisals of faces follow distinct rules of information integration under arousing versus non-arousing conditions. Support for this prediction was found in four experiments in which participants observed angry (and fearful) faces that were presented with a direct versus an averted gaze (Experiments 1a, b), on a red versus a grey background (Experiment 2), and after performing a motor exercise versus no exercise (Experiment 3). Under arousing conditions, participants' appraisals of faces reflected summation (i.e. extremely negative encounters were strengthened by moderately negative encounters) whereas, under non-arousing conditions, appraisals did not reflect summation (i.e. extremely negative encounters were weakened by moderately negative encounters) and could instead be accounted for by three alternative rules of information integration based on averaging, mere exposure, or the number of strong stimuli.

Prefrontal EEG correlation during Tower of Hanoi and WCST performance: effect of emotional visual stimuli.

PubMed

Ruiz-Díaz, Marina; Hernández-González, Marisela; Guevara, Miguel Angel; Amezcua, Claudia; Ågmo, Anders

2012-10-01

Emotional stimuli elicit changes in the electroencephalographic (EEG) activity of several brain structures. Prefrontal cortex is involved in the processing of emotional stimuli and executive functions. The correlation analysis of EEG provides information about the functional coupling between areas. It is reasonable to expect that emotional activation will modify prefrontal coupling during the performance of executive tasks such as Tower of Hanoi or Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST). Determine whether the prefrontal EEG correlation during the performance of the Tower of Hanoi and WCST is affected by previous exposure to videos with sexual or aggressive content. Prefrontal EEG coupling was determined by the Pearson correlation. Valence and general arousal were evaluated by the Self-Assessment Manikin Scale and sexual arousal with a Sexual Arousal Scale. Computerized versions of the Towers of Hanoi and WCST provided data on prefrontal executive functions. EEG from the left and right prefrontal zones was recorded during the performance of the Tower of Hanoi and WCST immediately after the subjects were exposed to one of the videos (neutral, aggressive, and erotic). There was no difference between videos in the task performance parameters. Only the erotic video produced an increased prefrontal coupling in the slow bands (delta and theta) during the performance of the Tower of Hanoi, whereas a decreased coupling in the delta, theta, and alpha bands was observed during the WCST. Prefrontal coupling was changed after exposure to the erotic video, and it is likely that enhanced sexual arousal was the main cause of this change. The correlation patterns obtained could be associated with particular cognitive strategies or to functional adaptations while being sexually aroused. The results of this study may contribute to an understanding of the central nervous mechanisms underlying the cognitive effects of sexual arousal. © 2012 International Society for Sexual Medicine.

The association among lipoprotein-associated phospholipase A2 levels, total antioxidant capacity and arousal in male patients with OSA.

PubMed

Bekci, Taha T; Kayrak, Mehmet; Kiyici, Aysel; Maden, Emin; Ari, Hatem; Kaya, Zeynettin; Teke, Turgut; Akilli, Hakan

2011-01-01

The mechanisms of the increased cardiac and vascular events in patients with OSA are not well understood. Arousal which is an important component of OSA was associated with increased sympathetic activation and electrocardiographic changes which prone to arrhythmias. We planned to examine the association among arousal, circulating Lp-PLA2 and total antioxidant capacity in male patients with OSA. Fifty male patients with newly diagnosed OSA were enrolled the study. A full-night polysomnography was performed and arousal index was obtained. Lp-PLA2 concentrations were measured in serum samples with the PLAC Test. Total antioxidant capacity in patients was determined with Antioxidant Assay Kit. Arousal was positively correlated with LP-PLA2 levels (r=0.43, p=0.002) and was negatively correlated with total antioxidant capacity (r= -0.29, p=0.04). Elevated LP-PLA2 levels and decreased total antioxidant activities were found in the highest arousal quartile compared with the lowest and 2nd quartiles (p=0.02, p=0.05, respectively). LP-PLA2 was an independently predictor of arousal index in regression model (β=0.357, p=0.002) This study demonstrated a moderate linear relationship between arousal and LP-PLA2 levels. Also, total antioxidant capacities were decreased in the higher arousal index. Based on the study result, the patients with higher arousal index may be prone to vascular events.

Choke or thrive? The relation between salivary cortisol and math performance depends on individual differences in working memory and math-anxiety.

PubMed

Mattarella-Micke, Andrew; Mateo, Jill; Kozak, Megan N; Foster, Katherine; Beilock, Sian L

2011-08-01

In the current study, we explored how a person's physiological arousal relates to their performance in a challenging math situation as a function of individual differences in working memory (WM) capacity and math-anxiety. Participants completed demanding math problems before and after which salivary cortisol, an index of arousal, was measured. The performance of lower WM individuals did not depend on cortisol concentration or math-anxiety. For higher WM individuals high in math-anxiety, the higher their concentration of salivary cortisol following the math task, the worse their performance. In contrast, for higher WM individuals lower in math-anxiety, the higher their salivary cortisol concentrations, the better their performance. For individuals who have the capacity to perform at a high-level (higher WMs), whether physiological arousal will lead an individual to choke or thrive depends on math-anxiety. 2011 APA, all rights reserved

Effect of Green Tea Phytochemicals on Mood and Cognition.

PubMed

Dietz, Christina; Dekker, Matthijs

2017-01-01

Green tea is traditionally known to induce mental clarity, cognitive function, physical activation and relaxation. Recently, a special green tea, matcha tea, is rapidly gaining popularity throughout the world and is frequently referred to as a mood- and brain food. Matcha tea consumption leads to much higher intake of green tea phytochemicals compared to regular green tea. Previous research on tea constituents caffeine, L-theanine, and epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) repeatedly demonstrated benefits on mood and cognitive performance. These effects were observed when these phytochemicals were consumed separately and in combination. A review was conducted on 49 human intervention studies to summarize the research on acute psychoactive effects of caffeine, L-theanine, and EGCG on different dimensions of mood and cognitive performance. Caffeine was found to mainly improve performance on demanding long-duration cognitive tasks and self-reported alertness, arousal, and vigor. Significant effects already occurred at low doses of 40 mg. L-theanine alone improved self-reported relaxation, tension, and calmness starting at 200 mg. L-theanine and caffeine combined were found to particularly improve performance in attention-switching tasks and alertness, but to a lesser extent than caffeine alone. No conclusive evidence relating to effects induced by EGCG could be given since the amount of intervention studies was limited. These studies provided reliable evidence showing that L-theanine and caffeine have clear beneficial effects on sustained attention, memory, and suppression of distraction. Moreover, L-theanine was found to lead to relaxation by reducing caffeine induced arousal. Copyright© Bentham Science Publishers; For any queries, please email at epub@benthamscience.org.

Immediate postarousal sleep dynamics: an important determinant of sleep stability in obstructive sleep apnea.

PubMed

Younes, Magdy; Hanly, Patrick J

2016-04-01

Arousability from sleep is increasingly recognized as an important determinant of the clinical spectrum of sleep disordered breathing (SDB). Patients with SDB display a wide range of arousability. The reason for these differences is not known. We hypothesized that differences in the speed with which sleep deepens following arousals/awakenings (postarousal sleep dynamics) is a major determinant of these differences in arousability in patients with SDB. We analyzed 40 preexisting clinical polysomnography records from patients with a range of SDB severity (apnea-hypopnea index 5-135/h). Sleep depth was determined every 3 s using the odds ratio product (ORP) method, a continuous index of sleep depth (0 = deep sleep, 2.5 = full wakefulness) that correlates strongly (r = 0.98) with arousability (Younes M, Ostrowski M, Soiferman M, Younes H, Younes M, Raneri J, and Hanly P. Sleep 38: 641-654, 2015). Time course of ORP was determined from end of arousal until the next arousal. All arousals were analyzed (142 ± 65/polysomnogram). ORP increased from 0.58 ± 0.32 during sleep to 1.67 ± 0.35 during arousals. ORP immediately (first 9 s) following arousals/awakenings (ORP-9) ranged from 0.21(very deep sleep) to 1.71 (highly arousable state) in different patients. In patients with high ORP-9, sleep deepened slowly (over minutes) beyond 9 s but only if no arousals/awakenings recurred. ORP-9 correlated strongly with average non-rapid eye movement sleep depth (r = 0.87, P < 2E-13), the arousal/awakening index (r = 0.68, P < 5E-6), and with the apnea-hypopnea index (r = 0.60, P < 0.001). ORP-9 was consistent within each patient and did not change on continuous positive airway pressure despite marked improvement in sleep architecture. We conclude that postarousal sleep dynamics are highly variable among patients with sleep-disordered breathing and largely determine average sleep depth and continuity. Copyright © 2016 the American Physiological Society.

Manipulating motor performance and memory through real-time fMRI neurofeedback.

PubMed

Scharnowski, Frank; Veit, Ralf; Zopf, Regine; Studer, Petra; Bock, Simon; Diedrichsen, Jörn; Goebel, Rainer; Mathiak, Klaus; Birbaumer, Niels; Weiskopf, Nikolaus

2015-05-01

Task performance depends on ongoing brain activity which can be influenced by attention, arousal, or motivation. However, such modulating factors of cognitive efficiency are unspecific, can be difficult to control, and are not suitable to facilitate neural processing in a regionally specific manner. Here, we non-pharmacologically manipulated regionally specific brain activity using technically sophisticated real-time fMRI neurofeedback. This was accomplished by training participants to simultaneously control ongoing brain activity in circumscribed motor and memory-related brain areas, namely the supplementary motor area and the parahippocampal cortex. We found that learned voluntary control over these functionally distinct brain areas caused functionally specific behavioral effects, i.e. shortening of motor reaction times and specific interference with memory encoding. The neurofeedback approach goes beyond improving cognitive efficiency by unspecific psychological factors such as attention, arousal, or motivation. It allows for directly manipulating sustained activity of task-relevant brain regions in order to yield specific behavioral or cognitive effects. Copyright © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Manipulating motor performance and memory through real-time fMRI neurofeedback

PubMed Central

Scharnowski, Frank; Veit, Ralf; Zopf, Regine; Studer, Petra; Bock, Simon; Diedrichsen, Jörn; Goebel, Rainer; Mathiak, Klaus; Birbaumer, Niels; Weiskopf, Nikolaus

2015-01-01

Task performance depends on ongoing brain activity which can be influenced by attention, arousal, or motivation. However, such modulating factors of cognitive efficiency are unspecific, can be difficult to control, and are not suitable to facilitate neural processing in a regionally specific manner. Here, we non-pharmacologically manipulated regionally specific brain activity using technically sophisticated real-time fMRI neurofeedback. This was accomplished by training participants to simultaneously control ongoing brain activity in circumscribed motor and memory-related brain areas, namely the supplementary motor area and the parahippocampal cortex. We found that learned voluntary control over these functionally distinct brain areas caused functionally specific behavioral effects, i.e. shortening of motor reaction times and specific interference with memory encoding. The neurofeedback approach goes beyond improving cognitive efficiency by unspecific psychological factors such as attention, arousal, or motivation. It allows for directly manipulating sustained activity of task-relevant brain regions in order to yield specific behavioral or cognitive effects. PMID:25796342

Men's sexual response to female partner's intranasal oxytocin administration for hypoactive sexual desire disorder: an open prospective cohort study.

PubMed

Muin, Dana A; Sheikh Rezaei, Safoura; Tremmel-Scheinost, Max; Salama, Mohamed; Luger, Anton; Wolzt, Michael; Husslein, Peter W; Bayerle-Eder, Michaela

2017-03-01

To study sexual function, quality of life, and depression in men, whose female partners are undergoing double-blind placebo-controlled randomized treatment for hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD). Open prospective cohort study of 22 weeks. Academic medical center. Male partners of 30 premenopausal and postmenopausal women with HSDD. Baseline, 3-month, and 5-month assessment (for 8 weeks each) of male response to female partner's use of oxytocin nasal spray (32 IE) and placebo within 50 minutes before sexual intercourse. Primary outcome parameters were Sexual Life Quality Questionnaire-Male, Sexual Activity Record, Partner Performance Questionnaire, and Hamilton Depression Scale. Male Sexual Life Quality questionnaire improved significantly from -7.4 ± 9.9 at baseline to 8.2 ± 12 with female partners' treatment with oxytocin nasal spray and to 10.8 ± 13.8 with placebo. Frequency of intercourse improved slightly but not significantly from 6.3 ± 3.9 at baseline to 7.3 ± 4 with female oxytocin therapy, but not with placebo. Male desire and arousal remained stable throughout the study period. Evaluation of female partners' performance by men improved significantly from 8.9 ± 2.8 at baseline to 10.6 ± 2.2 with oxytocin and to 11.2 ± 2.6 with placebo. Female treatment with either oxytocin or placebo for HSDD significantly improves male sexual quality of life and evaluation of female partner's sexual performance with no difference between oxytocin and placebo on any outcome parameters. A nonsignificant improvement was seen in the frequency of intercourse, male arousal, desire, satisfaction, and Hamilton depression scale. NCT02229721. Copyright © 2016 American Society for Reproductive Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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

PubMed

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.

Synchronized arousal between performers and related spectators in a fire-walking ritual

PubMed Central

Konvalinka, Ivana; Xygalatas, Dimitris; Bulbulia, Joseph; Schjødt, Uffe; Jegindø, Else-Marie; Wallot, Sebastian; Van Orden, Guy; Roepstorff, Andreas

2011-01-01

Collective rituals are present in all known societies, but their function is a matter of long-standing debates. Field observations suggest that they may enhance social cohesion and that their effects are not limited to those actively performing but affect the audience as well. Here we show physiological effects of synchronized arousal in a Spanish fire-walking ritual, between active participants and related spectators, but not participants and other members of the audience. We assessed arousal by heart rate dynamics and applied nonlinear mathematical analysis to heart rate data obtained from 38 participants. We compared synchronized arousal between fire-walkers and spectators. For this comparison, we used recurrence quantification analysis on individual data and cross-recurrence quantification analysis on pairs of participants' data. These methods identified fine-grained commonalities of arousal during the 30-min ritual between fire-walkers and related spectators but not unrelated spectators. This indicates that the mediating mechanism may be informational, because participants and related observers had very different bodily behavior. This study demonstrates that a collective ritual may evoke synchronized arousal over time between active participants and bystanders. It links field observations to a physiological basis and offers a unique approach for the quantification of social effects on human physiology during real-world interactions. PMID:21536887

Emotion regulation during the encoding of emotional stimuli: Effects on subsequent memory.

PubMed

Leventon, Jacqueline S; Bauer, Patricia J

2016-02-01

In the adult literature, emotional arousal is regarded as a source of the enhancing effect of emotion on subsequent memory. Here, we used behavioral and electrophysiological methods to examine the role of emotional arousal on subsequent memory in school-age children. Furthermore, we implemented a reappraisal instruction to manipulate (down-regulate) emotional arousal at encoding to examine the relation between emotional arousal and subsequent memory. Participants (8-year-old girls) viewed emotional scenes as electrophysiological (EEG) data were recorded and participated in a memory task 1 to 5days later where EEG and behavioral responses were recorded; participants provided subjective ratings of the scenes after the memory task. The reappraisal instruction successfully reduced emotional arousal responses to negative stimuli but not positive stimuli. Similarly, recognition performance in both event-related potentials (ERPs) and behavior was impaired for reappraised negative stimuli but not positive stimuli. The findings indicate that ERPs are sensitive to the reappraisal of negative stimuli in children as young as 8years. Furthermore, the findings suggest an interaction of emotion and memory during the school years, implicating the explanatory role of emotional arousal at encoding on subsequent memory performance in female children as young as 8years. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Subjective Significance Shapes Arousal Effects on Modified Stroop Task Performance: A Duality of Activation Mechanisms Account.

PubMed

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.

The role of resting-state EEG localized activation and central nervous system arousal in executive function performance in children with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder.

PubMed

Zhang, Da-Wei; Johnstone, Stuart J; Roodenrys, Steven; Luo, Xiangsheng; Li, Hui; Wang, Encong; Zhao, Qihua; Song, Yan; Liu, Lu; Qian, Qiujin; Wang, Yufeng; Sun, Li

2018-06-01

This study explored the relationships between resting-state electroencephalogram (RS-EEG) localized activation and two important types of executive functions (EF) to extend the prognostic utilization of RS-EEG in children with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (AD/HD). Also, the role of central nervous system (CNS) arousal in the relationships was examined. Fifty-eight children with AD/HD participated in the study. RS-EEG localized activation was derived from spectral power differences between EEG in eyes-closed and eyes-open conditions. CNS arousal was measured based on alpha band power. Common and everyday EF scores were obtained as EF outcomes. Frontal delta activation predicted common EF ability and posterior alpha activation predicted everyday EF. A serial mediation analysis found that lower CNS baseline arousal was related to greater arousal and delta activation in series, which in turn related to worse common EF. A follow-up study found that baseline arousal was related to larger interference cost. RS-EEG is indicative of individual differences in two important types of EF in children with AD/HD. Lower CNS arousal may be a driving force for the poorer common EF performance. The current study supports prognostic utilization of RS-EEG and AD/HD models that take resting brain activity into consideration in children with AD/HD. Copyright © 2018 International Federation of Clinical Neurophysiology. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The insula modulates arousal-induced reluctance to try novel tastes through adrenergic transmission in the rat

PubMed Central

Rojas, Sebastián; Diaz-Galarce, Raúl; Jerez-Baraona, Juan Manuel; Quintana-Donoso, Daisy; Moraga-Amaro, Rodrigo; Stehberg, Jimmy

2015-01-01

Reluctance to try novel tastes (neophobia) can be exacerbated in arousing situations, such as when children are under social stress or in rodents, when the new taste is presented in a high arousal context (HA) compared to a low arousal context (LA). The present study aimed at determining whether adrenergic transmission at the Insula regulates the reluctance to try novel tastes induced by arousing contexts. To this end, a combination of systemic and intra-insular manipulations of adrenergic activity was performed before the novel taste (saccharin 0.1%) was presented either in LA or HA contexts in rats. Our results show that systemic adrenergic activity modulates reluctance to try novel tastes. Moreover, intra-insular microinjections of propranolol or norepinephrine (NE) were found to modulate the effects of arousing contexts on reluctance to try novel tastes. Finally, intra-insular propranolol blocked epinephrine-induced increased reluctance, while intra-insular NE blocked oral propranolol-induced decreases in reluctance and increased the reluctance to try novel tastes presented in low arousing contexts. In conclusion, our results suggest that the insula is a critical site for regulating the effects of arousal in the reluctance to try novel tastes via the adrenergic system. PMID:26175672

The Effect of Background Music and Background Noise on the Task Performance of Introverts and Extraverts

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cassidy, Gianna; MacDonald, Raymond A. R.

2007-01-01

The study investigated the effects of music with high arousal potential and negative affect (HA), music with low arousal potential and positive affect (LA), and everyday noise, on the cognitive task performance of introverts and extraverts. Forty participants completed five cognitive tasks: immediate recall, free recall, numerical and delayed…

Developing an EEG-based on-line closed-loop lapse detection and mitigation system

PubMed Central

Wang, Yu-Te; Huang, Kuan-Chih; Wei, Chun-Shu; Huang, Teng-Yi; Ko, Li-Wei; Lin, Chin-Teng; Cheng, Chung-Kuan; Jung, Tzyy-Ping

2014-01-01

In America, 60% of adults reported that they have driven a motor vehicle while feeling drowsy, and at least 15–20% of fatal car accidents are fatigue-related. This study translates previous laboratory-oriented neurophysiological research to design, develop, and test an On-line Closed-loop Lapse Detection and Mitigation (OCLDM) System featuring a mobile wireless dry-sensor EEG headgear and a cell-phone based real-time EEG processing platform. Eleven subjects participated in an event-related lane-keeping task, in which they were instructed to manipulate a randomly deviated, fixed-speed cruising car on a 4-lane highway. This was simulated in a 1st person view with an 8-screen and 8-projector immersive virtual-reality environment. When the subjects experienced lapses or failed to respond to events during the experiment, auditory warning was delivered to rectify the performance decrements. However, the arousing auditory signals were not always effective. The EEG spectra exhibited statistically significant differences between effective and ineffective arousing signals, suggesting that EEG spectra could be used as a countermeasure of the efficacy of arousing signals. In this on-line pilot study, the proposed OCLDM System was able to continuously detect EEG signatures of fatigue, deliver arousing warning to subjects suffering momentary cognitive lapses, and assess the efficacy of the warning in near real-time to rectify cognitive lapses. The on-line testing results of the OCLDM System validated the efficacy of the arousing signals in improving subjects' response times to the subsequent lane-departure events. This study may lead to a practical on-line lapse detection and mitigation system in real-world environments. PMID:25352773

Effects of Tiagabine on Slow Wave Sleep and Arousal Threshold in Patients With Obstructive Sleep Apnea.

PubMed

Taranto-Montemurro, Luigi; Sands, Scott A; Edwards, Bradley A; Azarbarzin, Ali; Marques, Melania; de Melo, Camila; Eckert, Danny J; White, David P; Wellman, Andrew

2017-02-01

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) severity is markedly reduced during slow-wave sleep (SWS) even in patients with a severe disease. The reason for this improvement is uncertain but likely relates to non-anatomical factors (i.e. reduced arousability, chemosensitivity, and increased dilator muscle activity). The anticonvulsant tiagabine produces a dose-dependent increase in SWS in subjects without OSA. This study aimed to test the hypothesis that tiagabine would reduce OSA severity by raising the overall arousal threshold during sleep. After a baseline physiology night to assess patients' OSA phenotypic traits, a placebo-controlled, double-blind, crossover trial of tiagabine 12 mg administered before sleep was performed in 14 OSA patients. Under each condition, we assessed the effects on sleep and OSA severity using standard clinical polysomnography. Tiagabine increased slow-wave activity (SWA) of the electroencephalogram (1-4 Hz) compared to placebo (1.8 [0.4] vs. 2.0 [0.5] LogμV2, p = .04) but did not reduce OSA severity (apnea-hypopnea index [AHI] 41.5 [20.3] vs. 39.1 [16.5], p > .5). SWS duration (25 [20] vs. 26 [43] mins, p > .5) and arousal threshold (-26.5 [5.0] vs. -27.6 [5.1] cmH2O, p = .26) were also unchanged between nights. Tiagabine modified sleep microstructure (increase in SWA) but did not change the duration of SWS, OSA severity, or arousal threshold in this group of OSA patients. Based on these findings, tiagabine should not be considered as a therapeutic option for OSA treatment. © Sleep Research Society 2016. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Sleep Research Society. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail journals.permissions@oup.com.

Eysenck's Theory of Personality and the Role of Background Music in Cognitive Task Performance: A Mini-Review of Conflicting Findings and a New Perspective.

PubMed

Küssner, Mats B

2017-01-01

The question of whether background music is able to enhance cognitive task performance is of interest to scholars, educators, and stakeholders in business alike. Studies have shown that background music can have beneficial, detrimental or no effects on cognitive task performance. Extraversion-and its postulated underlying cause, cortical arousal-is regarded as an important factor influencing the outcome of such studies. According to Eysenck's theory of personality, extraverts' cortical arousal at rest is lower compared to that of introverts. Scholars have thus hypothesized that extraverts should benefit from background music in cognitive tasks, whereas introverts' performance should decline with music in the background. Reviewing studies that have considered extraversion as a mediator of the effect of background music on cognitive task performance, it is demonstrated that there is as much evidence in favor as there is against Eysenck's theory of personality. Further, revisiting Eysenck's concept of cortical arousal-which has traditionally been assessed by activity in the EEG alpha band-and reviewing literature on the link between extraversion and cortical arousal, it is revealed that there is conflicting evidence. Due to Eysenck's focus on alpha power, scholars have largely neglected higher frequency bands in the EEG signal as indicators of cortical arousal. Based on recent findings, it is suggested that beta power might not only be an indicator of alertness and attention but also a predictor of cognitive task performance. In conclusion, it is proposed that focused music listening prior to cognitive tasks might be a more efficient way to boost performance than listening to background music during cognitive tasks.

Emotion’s Influence on Memory for Spatial and Temporal Context

PubMed Central

Schmidt, Katherine; Patnaik, Pooja; Kensinger, Elizabeth A.

2010-01-01

Individuals report remembering emotional items vividly. It is debated whether this report reflects enhanced memory accuracy or a bias to believe emotional memories are vivid. We hypothesized emotion would enhance memory accuracy, improving memory for contextual details. The hallmark of episodic memory is that items are remembered in a spatial and temporal context, so we examined whether an item’s valence (positive, negative) or arousal (high, low) would influence its ability to be remembered with those contextual details. Across two experiments, high-arousal items were remembered with spatial and temporal context more often than low-arousal items. Item valence did not influence memory for those details, although positive high-arousal items were recognized or recalled more often than negative items. These data suggest that emotion does not just bias participants to believe they have a vivid memory; rather, the arousal elicited by an event can benefit memory for some types of contextual details. PMID:21379376

Social Facilitation During the Initial Stage of Motor Learning: A Re-examination of Martens' Audience Study. Revised.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Landers, Daniel M.; And Others

1978-01-01

R. Martens' hypothesis that an audience acts as a stimulus to elicit arousal or drive in the performance of an individual, which in turn enhances the emission of the dominant habit, is reexamined. Where incorrect responses are dominant, learning of a novel task will be inhibited, or at least improvement will not be as rapid as for individuals…

Thinking anxious, feeling anxious, or both? Cognitive bias moderates the relationship between anxiety disorder status and sympathetic arousal in youth.

PubMed

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.

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

PubMed Central

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 interacts with estradiol and progesterone levels during encoding to increase the mnemonic advantage of negative over positive emotional material. PMID:26276087

Boredom: Under-aroused and restless.

PubMed

Danckert, James; Hammerschmidt, Tina; Marty-Dugas, Jeremy; Smilek, Daniel

2018-05-01

Boredom is a common experience associated with a range of negative outcomes. Debate remains as to whether boredom should be considered a high or low arousal state. We employed passages of text to induce either boredom or interest and probed self-reported levels of boredom, arousal, and restlessness. Results replicated known associations between mind-wandering and state boredom (i.e., mind-wandering was highest for the boredom mood induction). Reports of sleepiness (a proxy for arousal level) were highest for the boring induction. While restlessness was not different for the boring and interesting inductions when they were performed first, restlessness was significantly higher for the boredom induction when it was experienced last. We discuss these results within the context of the debate regarding boredom and arousal. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Emotional distractors can enhance attention

PubMed Central

Sussman, Tamara J.; Heller, Wendy; Miller, Gregory A.; Mohanty, Aprajita

2015-01-01

The deleterious effects of emotional distractors on attention are well demonstrated. However, it is unclear if emotional distractors inevitably disrupt task-relevant attention. Using multilevel modeling (MLM), the present study examined the impact of valence and arousal dimensions of distracting emotional stimuli and individual differences in anxiety on task-relevant processing. Consistent with prior literature, high-arousal negative distractors were associated with poor task-relevant attention compared to positive and neutral distractors. However, low-arousal negative distractors were associated with better task-relevant performance than were positive and neutral distractors. Furthermore, these effects were accentuated by individual differences in worry. These findings challenge assumptions that distraction and worry must be minimized for augmented attentional performance. Overall, these results emphasize the importance of taking into account emotional dimensions of arousal and valence as well as individual differences in anxiety when examining attention in the presence of emotional distractors. PMID:24058065

Exploring Delirium’s Heterogeneity: Association between Arousal Subtypes at Initial Presentation and 6-month Mortality in Older Emergency Department Patients

PubMed Central

Han, Jin H.; Brummel, Nathan E.; Chandrasekhar, Rameela; Wilson, Jo Ellen; Liu, Xulei; Vasilevskis, Eduard E.; Girard, Timothy D.; Carlo, Maria E.; Dittus, Robert S.; Schnelle, John F.; Ely, E. Wesley

2016-01-01

Objectives To determine how delirium subtyped by level of arousal at initial presentation affects 6-month mortality. Design This was a preplanned secondary analysis of two prospective cohort studies. Setting Academic tertiary care emergency department (ED). Participants 1,084 ED patients who were 65 years old or older. Measurements At the time of enrollment, trained research personnel performed the Confusion Assessment Method for the Intensive Care Unit (CAM-ICU) and Richmond Agitation Sedation Scale (RASS) to determine delirium and level of arousal, respectively. Patients were categorized as having no delirium, delirium with normal arousal, delirium with decreased arousal, or delirium with increased arousal. Death was ascertained by medical record review and the Social Security Death Index. Cox proportional hazard regression was used to analyze the association between delirium arousal subtypes and 6-month mortality. Results Delirium with normal arousal was the only subtype that was significantly associated with increased 6-month mortality (HR=3.1, 95%CI: 1.3 – 7.4) compared with the no delirium group after adjusting for confounders. The HRs for delirium with decreased and increased arousal were 1.4 (95%CI: 0.9 – 2.1) and 1.3 (95%CI: 0.3 – 5.4), respectively. Conclusion Delirious ED patients with normal arousal at initial presentation had a three-fold increased hazard of death within 6-months compared to patients without delirium. There was a trend towards increased hazard of death in delirious ED patients with decreased arousal, but this relationship did not reach statistical significance. These data suggest that subtyping delirium by arousal may have prognostic value but requires confirmation with a larger study. PMID:27623552

An Acute Bout of Exercise Improves the Cognitive Performance of Older Adults.

PubMed

Johnson, Liam; Addamo, Patricia K; Selva Raj, Isaac; Borkoles, Erika; Wyckelsma, Victoria; Cyarto, Elizabeth; Polman, Remco C

2016-10-01

There is evidence that an acute bout of exercise confers cognitive benefits, but it is largely unknown what the optimal mode and duration of exercise is and how cognitive performance changes over time after exercise. We compared the cognitive performance of 31 older adults using the Stroop test before, immediately after, and at 30 and 60 min after a 10 and 30 min aerobic or resistance exercise session. Heart rate and feelings of arousal were also measured before, during, and after exercise. We found that, independent of mode or duration of exercise, the participants improved in the Stroop Inhibition task immediately postexercise. We did not find that exercise influenced the performance of the Stroop Color or Stroop Word Interference tasks. Our findings suggest that an acute bout of exercise can improve cognitive performance and, in particular, the more complex executive functioning of older adults.

Trazodone Increases the Respiratory Arousal Threshold in Patients with Obstructive Sleep Apnea and a Low Arousal Threshold

PubMed Central

Eckert, Danny J.; Malhotra, Atul; Wellman, Andrew; White, David P.

2014-01-01

Study Objectives: The effect of common sedatives on upper airway physiology and breathing during sleep in obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) has been minimally studied. Conceptually, certain sedatives may worsen OSA in some patients. However, sleep and breathing could improve with certain sedatives in patients with OSA with a low respiratory arousal threshold. This study aimed to test the hypothesis that trazodone increases the respiratory arousal threshold in patients with OSA and a low arousal threshold. Secondary aims were to examine the effects of trazodone on upper airway dilator muscle activity, upper airway collapsibility, and breathing during sleep. Design: Patients were studied on 4 separate nights according to a within-subjects cross-over design. Setting: Sleep physiology laboratory. Patients: Seven patients with OSA and a low respiratory arousal threshold. Interventions: In-laboratory polysomnograms were obtained at baseline and after 100 mg of trazodone was administered, followed by detailed overnight physiology experiments under the same conditions. During physiology studies, continuous positive airway pressure was transiently lowered to measure arousal threshold (negative epiglottic pressure prior to arousal), dilator muscle activity (genioglossus and tensor palatini), and upper airway collapsibility (Pcrit). Measurements and Results: Trazodone increased the respiratory arousal threshold by 32 ± 6% (-11.5 ± 1.4 versus -15.3 ± 2.2 cmH2O, P < 0.01) but did not alter the apnea-hypopnea index (39 ± 12 versus 39 ± 11 events/h sleep, P = 0.94). Dilator muscle activity and Pcrit also did not systematically change with trazodone. Conclusions: Trazodone increases the respiratory arousal threshold in patients with obstructive sleep apnea and a low arousal threshold without major impairment in dilator muscle activity or upper airway collapsibility. However, the magnitude of change in arousal threshold was insufficient to overcome the compromised upper airway anatomy in these patients. Citation: Eckert DJ; Malhotra A; Wellman A; White DP. Trazodone increases the respiratory arousal threshold in patients with obstructive sleep apnea and a low arousal threshold. SLEEP 2014;37(4):811-819. PMID:24899767

Distinctive Features of NREM Parasomnia Behaviors in Parkinson’s Disease and Multiple System Atrophy

PubMed Central

Ratti, Pietro-Luca; Sierra-Peña, Maria; Manni, Raffaele; Simonetta-Moreau, Marion; Bastin, Julien; Mace, Harrison; Rascol, Olivier; David, Olivier

2015-01-01

Objective To characterize parasomnia behaviors on arousal from NREM sleep in Parkinson’s Disease (PD) and Multiple System Atrophy (MSA). Methods From 30 patients with PD, Dementia with Lewy Bodies/Dementia associated with PD, or MSA undergoing nocturnal video-polysomnography for presumed dream enactment behavior, we were able to select 2 PD and 2 MSA patients featuring NREM Parasomnia Behviors (NPBs). We identified episodes during which the subjects seemed to enact dreams or presumed dream-like mentation (NPB arousals) versus episodes with physiological movements (no-NPB arousals). A time-frequency analysis (Morlet Wavelet Transform) of the scalp EEG signals around each NPB and no- NPB arousal onset was performed, and the amplitudes of the spectral frequencies were compared between NPB and no-NPB arousals. Results 19 NPBs were identified, 12 of which consisting of ‘elementary’ NPBs while 7 resembling confusional arousals. With quantitative EEG analysis, we found an amplitude reduction in the 5-6 Hz band 40 seconds before NPBs arousal as compared to no-NPB arousals at F4 and C4 derivations (p<0.01). Conclusions Many PD and MSA patients feature various NREM sleep-related behaviors, with clinical and electrophysiological differences and similarities with arousal parasomnias in the general population. Significance This study help bring to attention an overlooked phenomenon in neurodegenerative diseases. PMID:25756280

Pharmacological Modulation of Noradrenergic Arousal Circuitry Disrupts Functional Connectivity of the Locus Ceruleus in Humans

PubMed Central

Song, Andrew H.

2017-01-01

State-dependent activity of locus ceruleus (LC) neurons has long suggested a role for noradrenergic modulation of arousal. However, in vivo insights into noradrenergic arousal circuitry have been constrained by the fundamental inaccessibility of the human brain for invasive studies. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies performed during site-specific pharmacological manipulations of arousal levels may be used to study brain arousal circuitry. Dexmedetomidine is an anesthetic that alters the level of arousal by selectively targeting α2 adrenergic receptors on LC neurons, resulting in reduced firing rate and norepinephrine release. Thus, we hypothesized that dexmedetomidine-induced altered arousal would manifest with reduced functional connectivity between the LC and key brain regions involved in the regulation of arousal. To test this hypothesis, we acquired resting-state fMRI data in right-handed healthy volunteers 18–36 years of age (n = 15, 6 males) at baseline, during dexmedetomidine-induced altered arousal, and recovery states. As previously reported, seed-based resting-state fMRI analyses revealed that the LC was functionally connected to a broad network of regions including the reticular formation, basal ganglia, thalamus, posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), precuneus, and cerebellum. Functional connectivity of the LC to only a subset of these regions (PCC, thalamus, and caudate nucleus) covaried with the level of arousal. Functional connectivity of the PCC to the ventral tegmental area/pontine reticular formation and thalamus, in addition to the LC, also covaried with the level of arousal. We propose a framework in which the LC, PCC, thalamus, and basal ganglia comprise a functional arousal circuitry. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Electrophysiological studies of locus ceruleus (LC) neurons have long suggested a role for noradrenergic mechanisms in mediating arousal. However, the fundamental inaccessibility of the human brain for invasive studies has limited a precise understanding of putative brain regions that integrate with the LC to regulate arousal. Our results suggest that the PCC, thalamus, and basal ganglia are key components of a LC-noradrenergic arousal circuit. PMID:28626012

Clitoral Sexual Arousal: Neuronal Tracing Study From the Clitoris Through the Spinal Tracts

PubMed Central

Martin-Alguacil, Nieves; Schober, Justine M.; Sengelaub, Dale R.; Pfaff, Donald W.; Shelley, Deborah N.

2009-01-01

Purpose Although genital tactile stimulation is regarded as a precursor to sexual arousal and a recognized initiator of central nervous system arousal, specific afferent neural pathways transmit sensory stimuli of arousal, beginning at the epithelial level on the clitoris and following the course of arousal stimuli through the central nervous system. Limited knowledge exists of the pathway from the cutaneous receptors of nerves originating in the epithelial tissue of the clitoris and continuing to spinal cord afferents. Such information may contribute to an understanding of sexual arousal, particularly in female vertebrates. We further defined the neural pathways and mechanisms responsible for arousal originating in the epithelium of the clitoris as well as related neural pathways to the spinal cord in a murine model. Materials and Methods We performed a comprehensive review of the published relevant clinical and histological material from human and nonhuman vertebrate studies. In 29 adult female C57B1/6 mice the distribution of pelvic nerves and vessels was mapped. Gross dissection of 4 female mice was facilitated by resin injection of the vascular system in 2. Neuronal tracing was performed in 25 mice that received clitoral injection of wheat germ agglutinin-horseradish peroxidase into the clitoris and were sacrificed after 72 to 96 hours. The spinal cord and periclitoral tissue were removed and fixed. Immunohistochemistry was performed. Results Gross anatomy of the mouse clitoris showed that pudendal and hypogastric nerves have a major role in the innervation of the external genitalia. Neuronal tracing revealed that the greatest nerve density was noted in the L5/6 spinal cord. The distribution extended from S1 to L2 with no labeling seen in the L3 spinal cord. Wheat germ agglutinin-horseradish peroxidase labeling was seen caudal in levels S1 through L4 and rostral in L2. Conclusions Understanding the neuroanatomy of the clitoris using a murine model may provide a valuable tool for the study of sexual arousal disorders and the further understanding of sexual function related to neural pathologies and trauma. PMID:18707740

Potential interactions among linguistic, autonomic, and motor factors in speech.

PubMed

Kleinow, Jennifer; Smith, Anne

2006-05-01

Though anecdotal reports link certain speech disorders to increases in autonomic arousal, few studies have described the relationship between arousal and speech processes. Additionally, it is unclear how increases in arousal may interact with other cognitive-linguistic processes to affect speech motor control. In this experiment we examine potential interactions between autonomic arousal, linguistic processing, and speech motor coordination in adults and children. Autonomic responses (heart rate, finger pulse volume, tonic skin conductance, and phasic skin conductance) were recorded simultaneously with upper and lower lip movements during speech. The lip aperture variability (LA variability index) across multiple repetitions of sentences that varied in length and syntactic complexity was calculated under low- and high-arousal conditions. High arousal conditions were elicited by performance of the Stroop color word task. Children had significantly higher lip aperture variability index values across all speaking tasks, indicating more variable speech motor coordination. Increases in syntactic complexity and utterance length were associated with increases in speech motor coordination variability in both speaker groups. There was a significant effect of Stroop task, which produced increases in autonomic arousal and increased speech motor variability in both adults and children. These results provide novel evidence that high arousal levels can influence speech motor control in both adults and children. (c) 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Pre-task music improves swimming performance.

PubMed

Smirmaul, B P; Dos Santos, R V; Da Silva Neto, L V

2015-12-01

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of pre-task music on swimming performance and other psychological variables. A randomized counterbalanced within-subjects (experimental and control condition) design was employed. Eighteen regional level male swimmers performed two 200-m freestyle swimming time trials. Participants were exposed to either 5 minutes of self-selected music (pre-task music condition) or 5 minutes of silence (control condition) and, after 1 minute, performed the swimming task. Swimming time was significantly shorter (-1.44%) in the pre-task music condition. Listening to pre-task music increased motivation to perform the swimming task, while arousal remained unchanged. While fatigue increased after the swimming task in both conditions, vigor, ratings of perceived exertion and affective valence were unaltered. It is concluded, for the first time, that pre-task music improves swimming performance.

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

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

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.…

Evaluative priming reveals dissociable effects of cognitive versus physiological anxiety on action monitoring.

PubMed

De Saedeleer, Lien; Pourtois, Gilles

2016-06-01

Performance monitoring enables the rapid detection of mismatches between goals or intentions and actions, as well as subsequent behavioral adjustment by means of enhanced attention control. These processes are not encapsulated, but they are readily influenced by affective or motivational variables, including negative affect. Here we tested the prediction that worry, the cognitive component of anxiety, and arousal, its physiological counterpart, can each influence specific processes during performance monitoring. In 2 experiments, participants were asked to discriminate the valence of emotional words that were preceded by either correct (good) or incorrect (bad) actions, serving as primes in a standard evaluative priming procedure. In Experiment 1 (n = 36) we examined the influence of trait worry and arousal. Additionally, we included a face priming task to examine the specificity of this effect. Stepwise linear regression analyses showed that increased worry, but not arousal, weakened the evaluative priming effect and therefore the rapid and automatic processing of actions as good or bad. By contrast, arousal, but not worry, increased posterror slowing. In Experiment 2 (n = 30) state worry was induced using an anagram task. Effects of worry on action monitoring were trait but not state dependent, and only evidenced when actions were directly used as primes. These results suggest a double dissociation between worry and arousal during performance monitoring. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

Prospective study on sexual behavior of women using 30 microg ethinylestradiol and 3 mg drospirenone oral contraceptive.

PubMed

Caruso, Salvatore; Agnello, Carmela; Intelisano, Giorgia; Farina, Marco; Di Mari, Lucia; Sparacino, Lucia; Cianci, Antonio

2005-07-01

The aim of the study was to determine the changes, if any, on the sexual behavior of women using an oral contraceptive containing 30 microg ethinylestradiol (EE) and 3 mg drospirenone (DRSP). Eighty healthy volunteer women (age range, 19-31 years), with regular menstrual cycle length (mean 27.6+/-3.1) and ovulation, participated in this prospective study. Sexual behavior was assessed using the self-administered Personal Experience Questionnaire, at baseline and at 3, 6 and 9 cycles of pill use. Women reported increased (i) sexual enjoyment (p < .001), (ii) orgasm frequency (p < .05) and (iii) satisfaction with sexual activity (p < .05) during all periods of pill intake with respect to baseline. Both arousal and frequency of sexual activity improved at the sixth and ninth cycle of pill use (p < .05) with respect to baseline. Moreover, women reported decreased genital pain associated with intercourse during pill intake (p < .05). Desire did not change during the use of the pill (p = NS). The mild dose of EE may have improved vaginal lubrication, sexual arousal and decreased dyspareunia. Consequently, women may have experienced increased sexual performance. In addition, improved sexual activity could have been the result of the effects of DRSP, with its antimineralocorticoid effects which could improve pill compliance, with a more satisfied sexual life.

Diaphragm pacing improves sleep in patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

PubMed

Gonzalez-Bermejo, Jesus; Morélot-Panzini, Capucine; Salachas, François; Redolfi, Stefania; Straus, Christian; Becquemin, Marie-Hélène; Arnulf, Isabelle; Pradat, Pierre-François; Bruneteau, Gaëlle; Ignagni, Anthony R; Diop, Moustapha; Onders, Raymond; Nelson, Teresa; Menegaux, Fabrice; Meininger, Vincent; Similowski, Thomas

2012-01-01

In amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) patients, respiratory insufficiency is a major burden. Diaphragm conditioning by electrical stimulation could interfere with lung function decline by promoting the development of type 1 muscle fibres. We describe an ancillary study to a prospective, non-randomized trial (NCT00420719) assessing the effects of diaphragm pacing on forced vital capacity (FVC). Sleep-related disturbances being early clues to diaphragmatic dysfunction, we postulated that they would provide a sensitive marker. Stimulators were implanted laparoscopically in the diaphragm close to the phrenic motor point in 18 ALS patients for daily conditioning. ALS functioning score (ALSFRS), FVC, sniff nasal inspiratory pressure (SNIP), and polysomnographic recordings (PSG, performed with the stimulator turned off) were assessed before implantation and after four months of conditioning (n = 14). Sleep efficiency improved (69 ± 15% to 75 ± 11%, p = 0.0394) with fewer arousals and micro-arousals. This occurred against a background of deterioration as ALSFRS-R, FVC, and SNIP declined. There was, however, no change in NIV status or the ALSFRS respiratory subscore, and the FVC decline was mostly due to impaired expiration. Supporting a better diaphragm function, apnoeas and hypopnoeas during REM sleep decreased. In conclusion, in these severe patients not expected to experience spontaneous improvements, diaphragm conditioning improved sleep and there were hints at diaphragm function changes.

Affective ERP Processing in a Visual Oddball Task: Arousal, Valence, and Gender

PubMed Central

Rozenkrants, Bella; Polich, John

2008-01-01

Objective To assess affective event-related brain potentials (ERPs) using visual pictures that were highly distinct on arousal level/valence category ratings and a response task. Methods Images from the International Affective Pictures System (IAPS) were selected to obtain distinct affective arousal (low, high) and valence (negative, positive) rating levels. The pictures were used as target stimuli in an oddball paradigm, with a visual pattern as the standard stimulus. Participants were instructed to press a button whenever a picture occurred and to ignore the standard. Task performance and response time did not differ across conditions. Results High-arousal compared to low-arousal stimuli produced larger amplitudes for the N2, P3, early slow wave, and late slow wave components. Valence amplitude effects were weak overall and originated primarily from the later waveform components and interactions with electrode position. Gender differences were negligible. Conclusion The findings suggest that arousal level is the primary determinant of affective oddball processing, and valence minimally influences ERP amplitude. Significance Affective processing engages selective attentional mechanisms that are primarily sensitive to the arousal properties of emotional stimuli. The application and nature of task demands are important considerations for interpreting these effects. PMID:18783987

EEG-based recognition of video-induced emotions: selecting subject-independent feature set.

PubMed

Kortelainen, Jukka; Seppänen, Tapio

2013-01-01

Emotions are fundamental for everyday life affecting our communication, learning, perception, and decision making. Including emotions into the human-computer interaction (HCI) could be seen as a significant step forward offering a great potential for developing advanced future technologies. While the electrical activity of the brain is affected by emotions, offers electroencephalogram (EEG) an interesting channel to improve the HCI. In this paper, the selection of subject-independent feature set for EEG-based emotion recognition is studied. We investigate the effect of different feature sets in classifying person's arousal and valence while watching videos with emotional content. The classification performance is optimized by applying a sequential forward floating search algorithm for feature selection. The best classification rate (65.1% for arousal and 63.0% for valence) is obtained with a feature set containing power spectral features from the frequency band of 1-32 Hz. The proposed approach substantially improves the classification rate reported in the literature. In future, further analysis of the video-induced EEG changes including the topographical differences in the spectral features is needed.

Emotion's influence on memory for spatial and temporal context.

PubMed

Schmidt, Katherine; Patnaik, Pooja; Kensinger, Elizabeth A

2011-02-01

Individuals report remembering emotional items vividly. It is debated whether this report reflects enhanced memory accuracy or a bias to believe emotional memories are vivid. We hypothesized emotion would enhance memory accuracy, improving memory for contextual details. The hallmark of episodic memory is that items are remembered in a spatial and temporal context, so we examined whether an item's valence (positive, negative) or arousal (high, low) would influence its ability to be remembered with those contextual details. Across two experiments, high-arousal items were remembered with spatial and temporal context more often than low-arousal items. Item valence did not influence memory for those details, although positive high-arousal items were recognized or recalled more often than negative items. These data suggest that emotion does not just bias participants to believe they have a vivid memory; rather, the arousal elicited by an event can benefit memory for some types of contextual details. © 2010 Psychology Press, an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an Informa business

Musical Tasks and Energetic Arousal.

PubMed

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).

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

PubMed

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.

Standard object recognition memory and "what" and "where" components: Improvement by post-training epinephrine in highly habituated rats.

PubMed

Jurado-Berbel, Patricia; Costa-Miserachs, David; Torras-Garcia, Meritxell; Coll-Andreu, Margalida; Portell-Cortés, Isabel

2010-02-11

The present work examined whether post-training systemic epinephrine (EPI) is able to modulate short-term (3h) and long-term (24 h and 48 h) memory of standard object recognition, as well as long-term (24 h) memory of separate "what" (object identity) and "where" (object location) components of object recognition. Although object recognition training is associated to low arousal levels, all the animals received habituation to the training box in order to further reduce emotional arousal. Post-training EPI improved long-term (24 h and 48 h), but not short-term (3 h), memory in the standard object recognition task, as well as 24 h memory for both object identity and object location. These data indicate that post-training epinephrine: (1) facilitates long-term memory for standard object recognition; (2) exerts separate facilitatory effects on "what" (object identity) and "where" (object location) components of object recognition; and (3) is capable of improving memory for a low arousing task even in highly habituated rats.

[Paradoxical effect of methylphenidate in the treatment of a patient with severe traumatic brain injury].

PubMed

Grønborg, Pia; Liljegren, Jeanette; Jansen, Jette

2009-06-22

Methylphenidate is a central nervous system (CNS)-stimulating agent. During recent years methylphenidate has been shown to increase arousal in patients with traumatic brain injury. We describe a patient with a severe traumatic injury in whom arousal was increased when methylphenidate was given, and the level of arousal decreased when the amount was diminished after some months. Due to possible side effects, methylphenidate treatment was reduced over several weeks 2 years after the trauma. Surprisingly, the cognitive level was then dramatically improved. To our knowledge, such paradoxical effect of methylphenidate has not previously been described.

Estrogen modifies arousal but not memory for emotional events in older women

PubMed Central

Pruis, T.A.; Neiss, M.B.; Leigland, L.A.; Janowsky, J.S.

2009-01-01

Emotional arousal and the affective content of events influence memory. These effects shift with age such that older people find negative information less arousing and remember proportionately more positive events compared to the young. The emotional enhancement of memory is mediated by medial temporal lobe limbic structures and the prefrontal cortex, which are both affected by sex hormones. We examined whether hormone use (estrogen or estrogen and progesterone) in older women modulated perceptions of valence and arousal, and subsequent memory for emotional images or stories. Their performance was compared to younger women. Hormone use in older women resulted in higher arousal for negative images and stories but memory was not affected. We hypothesize that estrogen modifies the influence of the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex on emotion, but that age-related changes in the hippocampus prevent the enhancement of emotional memory in older women. PMID:18160182

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

PubMed

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.

Exposure to blue light during lunch break: effects on autonomic arousal and behavioral alertness.

PubMed

Yuda, Emi; Ogasawara, Hiroki; Yoshida, Yutaka; Hayano, Junichiro

2017-07-11

Exposures to melanopsin-stimulating (melanopic) component-rich blue light enhance arousal level. We examined their effects in office workers. Eight healthy university office workers were exposed to blue and orange lights for 30 min during lunch break on different days. We compared the effects of light color on autonomic arousal level assessed by heart rate variability (HRV) and behavioral alertness by psychomotor vigilance tests (PVT). Heart rate was higher and high-frequency (HF, 0.150.45 Hz) power of HRV was lower during exposure to the blue light than to orange light. No significant difference with light color was observed, however, in any HRV indices during PVT or in PVT performance after light exposure. Exposure to blue light during lunch break, compared with that to orange light, enhances autonomic arousal during exposure, but has no sustained effect on autonomic arousal or behavioral alertness after exposure.

Arousals and aircraft noise - environmental disorders of sleep and health in terms of sleep medicine.

PubMed

Raschke, F

2004-01-01

World wide rules for sleep staging originate to 1967. Since then many investigations aimed to give numbers for the degree of sleep disturbances due to air traffic noise. But the variables used, such as the amount of relative sleep stages, total sleep time, or sleep efficiency, could not explain impairment in health and performance sufficiently. The beginning of the eighties has given new insight into the restorative functions of sleep, according to sleep fragmentation by micro-arousals. These are originating in autonomous dysfunctions during sleep, leading to non-restorative sleep. Environmentally related sleep disturbances are described, EEG and vegetative (micro)-arousals, and the actual knowledge in sleep medicine is given in terms of the international classification of sleep disorders (ICSD). The effects on health, and disturbed performance capacity during the day are shown by self ratings of 160 patients. Elevated metabolic rate caused by micro-arousal and/or insomnia, may play an additional role in health impairment.

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

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

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…

The dorsal raphe modulates sensory responsiveness during arousal in zebrafish

PubMed Central

Yokogawa, Tohei; Hannan, Markus C.; Burgess, Harold A.

2012-01-01

During waking behavior animals adapt their state of arousal in response to environmental pressures. Sensory processing is regulated in aroused states and several lines of evidence imply that this is mediated at least partly by the serotonergic system. However there is little information directly showing that serotonergic function is required for state-dependent modulation of sensory processing. Here we find that zebrafish larvae can maintain a short-term state of arousal during which neurons in the dorsal raphe modulate sensory responsiveness to behaviorally relevant visual cues. Following a brief exposure to water flow, larvae show elevated activity and heightened sensitivity to perceived motion. Calcium imaging of neuronal activity after flow revealed increased activity in serotonergic neurons of the dorsal raphe. Genetic ablation of these neurons abolished the increase in visual sensitivity during arousal without affecting baseline visual function or locomotor activity. We traced projections from the dorsal raphe to a major visual area, the optic tectum. Laser ablation of the tectum demonstrated that this structure, like the dorsal raphe, is required for improved visual sensitivity during arousal. These findings reveal that serotonergic neurons of the dorsal raphe have a state-dependent role in matching sensory responsiveness to behavioral context. PMID:23100441

Different patterns of sexual dysfunctions associated with psychiatric disorders and psychopharmacological treatment. Results of an investigation by semistructured interview of schizophrenic and neurotic patients and methadone-substituted opiate addicts.

PubMed

Teusch, L; Scherbaum, N; Böhme, H; Bender, S; Eschmann-Mehl, G; Gastpar, M

1995-05-01

Little is known about sexual dysfunctions associated with psychiatric disorders and psychopharmacological treatment. In the present study schizophrenic patients (n = 45, mostly under neuroleptic treatment), neurotic patients (n = 50, mostly treated without medication), methadone-substituted opiate addicts (n = 37), and normal controls (n = 41) were included. They were interviewed with the aid of a sex-differentiated semistructured questionnaire on sexual function. All the methadone-substituted opiate addicts and nearly all the schizophrenic patients suffered from dysfunctions in at least one criterion. The three clinical groups differed significantly from the controls in sexual interest, emotional arousal, physiological arousal (erectile function/vaginal lubrication), performance (ejaculatory function/vaginism, dyspareunia), and orgasm satisfaction. Characteristic patterns of dysfunction were found in the male patients. The schizophrenic patients had significantly more dysfunctions of interest, physiological arousal, performance, and orgasm than the controls. Emotional arousal, erectile and ejaculatory functions, and orgasm satisfaction were impaired more frequently in the male schizophrenics than in the neurotic patients. Reduced sexual interest, emotional arousal, and orgasm satisfaction were reported more frequently by the methadone-substituted opiate addicts than by the neurotic men. Emotional arousal was even more frequently reduced than in the schizophrenic men. There was no correlation between sexual dysfunction and particular neuroleptics or neuroleptic or methadone dosage. The results are compared with the literature and suggestions made for further investigations.

Mood and cognitive performance effects of "energy" drink constituents: caffeine, glucose and carbonation.

PubMed

Smit, H J; Cotton, J R; Hughes, S C; Rogers, P J

2004-06-01

Three studies using healthy volunteers (n = 271) investigated the effects of caffeine, carbohydrates and carbonation in functional "energy" drinks (EDs) with the aim of determining their benefit in every-day life. The results showed caffeine to be the main ED constituent responsible for the effects found, with possible minor, relatively weak effects of carbohydrates. EDs were found to improve and/or maintain mood and performance during fatiguing and cognitively demanding tasks relative to placebo. In terms of absolute values, EDs maintained levels of arousal compared to a deterioration in arousal where placebo was consumed. These effects were found in caffeine-deprived participants, and so may be largely due to "withdrawal reversal". There were only minor differences in the effects of water vs. "sensory-matched" placebo, supporting previous findings indicating that the type of placebo does not alter the conclusions drawn about the effects of the full ED. Finally, carbonation had various effects on mood, some of which were present immediately following consumption, others were consistent with slower absorption of caffeine (and possibly carbohydrates) from carbonated drinks.

Parameter estimation for chaotic systems using improved bird swarm algorithm

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Xu, Chuangbiao; Yang, Renhuan

2017-12-01

Parameter estimation of chaotic systems is an important problem in nonlinear science and has aroused increasing interest of many research fields, which can be basically reduced to a multidimensional optimization problem. In this paper, an improved boundary bird swarm algorithm is used to estimate the parameters of chaotic systems. This algorithm can combine the good global convergence and robustness of the bird swarm algorithm and the exploitation capability of improved boundary learning strategy. Experiments are conducted on the Lorenz system and the coupling motor system. Numerical simulation results reveal the effectiveness and with desirable performance of IBBSA for parameter estimation of chaotic systems.

Short-Term Effects of Chewing on Task Performance and Task-Induced Mydriasis: Trigeminal Influence on the Arousal Systems

PubMed Central

Tramonti Fantozzi, Maria Paola; De Cicco, Vincenzo; Barresi, Massimo; Cataldo, Enrico; Faraguna, Ugo; Bruschini, Luca; Manzoni, Diego

2017-01-01

Trigeminal input to the ascending activating system is important for the maintenance of arousal and may affect the discharge of the noradrenergic neurons of the locus coeruleus (LC), whose activity influences both vigilance state and pupil size, inducing mydriasis. For this reason, pupil size evaluation is now considered an indicator of LC activity. Since mastication activates trigeminal afferent neurons, the aims of the present study, conducted on healthy adult participants, were to investigate whether chewing a bolus of different hardness may: (1) differentially affect the performance on a cognitive task (consisting in the retrieval of specific target numbers within numerical matrices) and (2) increase the dilatation of the pupil (mydriasis) induced by a haptic task, suggesting a change in LC activation. Results show that chewing significantly increased both the velocity of number retrieval (without affecting the number of errors) and the mydriasis associated with the haptic task, whereas simple task repetition did not modify either retrieval or mydriasis. Handgrip exercise, instead, significantly decreased both parameters. Effects were significantly stronger and longer lasting when subjects chewed hard pellets. Finally, chewing-induced improvements in performance and changes in mydriasis were positively correlated, which suggests that trigeminal signals enhanced by chewing may boost the cognitive performance by increasing LC activity. PMID:28848404

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

PubMed

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.

Moderate anxiety modifies the electromyographic activity of a forearm muscle during a time-reaction task in women.

PubMed

Langlet, C; Hainaut, J P; Bolmont, B

2017-03-16

Arousal anxiety has a great impact on reaction time, physiological parameters and motor performance. Numerous studies have focused on the influence of anxiety on muscular activity during simple non ecologic task. We investigate the impact of a moderate state-anxiety (arousal stressor) on the specific component of a complex multi-joint ecologic movement during a reaction time task of auditory stimulus-response. Our objective is to know if central and peripheral voluntary motor processes were modulated in the same way by an arousal stressor. Eighteen women volunteers performed simple reaction time tasks of auditory stimulus-response. Video-recorded Stroop test with interferences was used to induced moderate state-anxiety. Electromyographic activity of the wrist extensor was recorded in order to analyse the two components of the reaction time: the premotor and motor time. In anxiogenic condition, an acceleration and an increase of muscular activity of the reaction time was obtained. This increase was due to a stronger muscle activity during the premotor time in the anxiogenic condition. Arousal anxiety has a different impact on central and peripheral voluntary motor processes. The modifications observed could be related to an increase in arousal related to a higher anxiety in order to prepare the body to act. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

A brief mindfulness-based cognitive behavioral intervention improves sexual functioning versus wait-list control in women treated for gynecologic cancer

PubMed Central

Brotto, Lori A.; Erskine, Yvonne; Carey, Mark; Ehlen, Tom; Finlayson, Sarah; Heywood, Mark; Kwon, Janice; McAlpine, Jessica; Stuart, Gavin; Thomson, Sydney; Miller, Dianne

2012-01-01

Goal The goal of this study was to evaluate a mindfulness-based cognitive behavioral intervention for sexual dysfunction in gynecologic cancer survivors compared to a wait-list control group. Methods Thirty-one survivors of endometrial or cervical cancer (mean age 54.0, range 31–64) who self-reported significant and distressing sexual desire and/or sexual arousal concerns were assigned either to three, 90-minute mindfulness-based cognitive behavior therapy sessions or two months of wait-list control prior to entering the treatment arm. Validated measures of sexual response, sexual distress, and mood, as well as laboratory-evoked physiological and subjective sexual arousal were assessed at pre-, one month post-, and 6-months following treatment. Results There were no significant effects of the wait-list condition on any measure. Treatment led to significant improvements in all domains of sexual response, and a trend towards significance for reducing sexual distress. Perception of genital arousal during an erotic film was also significantly increased following the intervention despite no change in physiologically-measured sexual arousal. Conclusions A brief mindfulness-based intervention was effective for improving sexual functioning. Geographic restrictions permitted only a select sample of survivors to participate, thus, the generalizability of the findings is limited. Future studies should aim to develop online modalities for treatment administration to overcome this limitation. PMID:22293042

A brief mindfulness-based cognitive behavioral intervention improves sexual functioning versus wait-list control in women treated for gynecologic cancer.

PubMed

Brotto, Lori A; Erskine, Yvonne; Carey, Mark; Ehlen, Tom; Finlayson, Sarah; Heywood, Mark; Kwon, Janice; McAlpine, Jessica; Stuart, Gavin; Thomson, Sydney; Miller, Dianne

2012-05-01

The goal of this study was to evaluate a mindfulness-based cognitive behavioral intervention for sexual dysfunction in gynecologic cancer survivors compared to a wait-list control group. Thirty-one survivors of endometrial or cervical cancer (mean age 54.0, range 31-64) who self-reported significant and distressing sexual desire and/or sexual arousal concerns were assigned either to three, 90-minute mindfulness-based cognitive behavior therapy sessions or two months of wait-list control prior to entering the treatment arm. Validated measures of sexual response, sexual distress, and mood, as well as laboratory-evoked physiological and subjective sexual arousal were assessed at pre-, one month post-, and 6-months following treatment. There were no significant effects of the wait-list condition on any measure. Treatment led to significant improvements in all domains of sexual response, and a trend towards significance for reducing sexual distress. Perception of genital arousal during an erotic film was also significantly increased following the intervention despite no change in physiologically-measured sexual arousal. A brief mindfulness-based intervention was effective for improving sexual functioning. Geographic restrictions permitted only a select sample of survivors to participate, thus, the generalizability of the findings is limited. Future studies should aim to develop online modalities for treatment administration to overcome this limitation. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Cognitive Factors in Sexual Arousal: The Role of Distraction

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

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)

The Subjective Sexual Arousal Scale for Men (SSASM): preliminary development and psychometric validation of a multidimensional measure of subjective male sexual arousal.

PubMed

Althof, Stanley E; Perelman, Michael A; Rosen, Raymond C

2011-08-01

Sexual arousal is a multifaceted process that involves both mental and physical components. No instrument has been developed and validated to assess subjective aspects of male sexual arousal. To develop and psychometrically validate a self-administered scale for assessing subjective male sexual arousal. Using recommendations of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) guidance on patient-reported outcome instruments, important aspects of male sexual arousal were identified via qualitative research (focus groups and interviews) of U.S. men with erectile dysfunction (ED) and healthy controls. After a preliminary questionnaire was developed by a panel of experts, a quantitative study of men with ED and controls was conducted to psychometrically validate the Subjective Sexual Arousal Scale for Men (SSASM). To develop a male sexual arousal scale and determine its factor structure, reliability, and construct validity. Five aspects of male sexual arousal were identified from the qualitative focus groups and cognitive interviews. Men's preferred language for describing sexual arousal and preferred response formats were incorporated into the questions. Factor analysis of data from the quantitative study of 304 men aged 21 to 70 years identified five domains with eigenvalues >1: sexual performance (six items), mental satisfaction (five items), sexual assertiveness (three items), partner communication (three items), and partner relationship (three items). The five domains had a high degree of internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha values 0.88-0.94). Test-retest reliability over a 2- to 4-week period was high-moderately high (r values 0.75-0.88) for the five domain scores. Correlations between SSASM domain scores and standardized scale scores for social desirability, general health, life satisfaction, and sexual function demonstrated the construct validity of the scale. Preliminary validation data suggest that the 20-item SSASM scale may be useful as a multidimensional, reliable, self-administered instrument for assessing subjective sexual arousal in men of different ages. © 2011 International Society for Sexual Medicine.

Methylphenidate Actively Induces Emergence from General Anesthesia

PubMed Central

Solt, Ken; Cotten, Joseph F.; Cimenser, Aylin; Wong, Kin F.K.; Chemali, Jessica J.; Brown, Emery N.

2011-01-01

Background Although accumulating evidence suggests that arousal pathways in the brain play important roles in emergence from general anesthesia, the roles of monoaminergic arousal circuits are unclear. In this study we tested the hypothesis that methylphenidate (an inhibitor of dopamine and norepinephrine transporters) induces emergence from isoflurane anesthesia. Methods Using adult rats we tested the effect of methylphenidate IV on time to emergence from isoflurane anesthesia. We then performed experiments to test separately for methylphenidate-induced changes in arousal and changes in minute ventilation. A dose-response study was performed to test for methylphenidate–induced restoration of righting during continuous isoflurane anesthesia. Surface electroencephalogram recordings were performed to observe neurophysiological changes. Plethysmography recordings and arterial blood gas analysis were performed to assess methylphenidate-induced changes in respiratory function. Droperidol IV was administered to test for inhibition of methylphenidate's actions. Results Methylphenidate decreased median time to emergence from 280 to 91 s. The median difference in time to emergence without compared to with methylphenidate was 200 [155, 331] s (median, [95% confidence interval]). During continuous inhalation of isoflurane, methylphenidate induced return of righting in a dose-dependent manner, induced a shift in electroencephalogram power from delta to theta, and induced an increase in minute ventilation. Administration of droperidol (0.5 mg/kg IV) prior to methylphenidate (5 mg/kg IV) largely inhibited methylphenidate-induced emergence behavior, electroencephalogram changes, and changes in minute ventilation. Conclusions Methylphenidate actively induces emergence from isoflurane anesthesia by increasing arousal and respiratory drive, possibly through activation of dopaminergic and adrenergic arousal circuits. Our findings suggest that methylphenidate may be clinically useful as an agent to reverse general anesthetic-induced unconsciousness and respiratory depression at the end of surgery. PMID:21934407

Acute effects of tea consumption on attention and mood.

PubMed

Einöther, Suzanne J; Martens, Vanessa E

2013-12-01

Tea has historically been associated with mood and performance benefits, such as relaxation and concentration. This review summarizes the research on the acute effects of tea, and its ingredients theanine and caffeine, on attention and mood. Consistent with abundant research on the benefits of caffeine, the performance benefits of tea were identified in a number of studies, with particularly consistent evidence for improved attention. Tea consumption also consistently improved self-reported alertness and arousal, whereas effects on pleasure or relaxation were less consistent. In addition to the research on caffeine in real-life performance, 2 recent studies have provided a broader perspective on tea's effects on psychological function in that they showed beneficial effects in related areas such as work performance and creativity. These studies showed the validity of laboratory findings by supporting the idea that tea consumption has acute benefits on both mood and performance in real-life situations.

Barratt Impulsivity and Neural Regulation of Physiological Arousal

PubMed Central

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

2015-01-01

Background 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. Methods 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. Results 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. Conclusions 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. PMID:26079873

Barratt Impulsivity and Neural Regulation of Physiological Arousal.

PubMed

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.

The power of emotion versus the power of suggestion: memory for emotional events in the misinformation paradigm.

PubMed

Van Damme, Ilse; Smets, Karolien

2014-04-01

Research has shown that emotional events are remembered better than neutral events, but might also elicit an increase in false memories. The present study was designed to disentangle the influences of valence and arousal on event memory in the misinformation paradigm. Participants were shown six types of photographs (positive with high/low arousal, negative with high/low arousal, ambiguous, neutral), after which half of them were exposed to misleading information. A recognition test assessed memory for both correct and false central and peripheral details. Negative and ambiguous events elicited fewer correct and more false memories for peripheral details than positive and neutral events, regardless of previous exposure to misinformation. Arousal improved memory for correct central details, and both negative valence and arousal inhibited control participants' tendency to endorse false central details. The power of emotion was overruled by the power of suggestion, however, as the latter effect disappeared with previous exposure to misinformation. Results are discussed in the light of earlier research on emotion and cognition, recent motivational theories, and implications for forensic practice.

Oculomotor Assessment of Diurnal Arousal Variations

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Mulligan, Jeffrey B.; Diaz-Piedra, Carolina; Di Stasi, Leandro L.

2017-01-01

Saccadic and pupillary responses are reliable indices of arousal decrement (e.g. fatigue), that might be exploited to improve work schedule guidelines. In this study, we tested the sensitivity of a short 30-s oculomotor test to detect diurnal arousal variations. Twelve participants (5 females, 7 males, 37.7+-11.9 years) volunteered to be assessed every hour (66+-20 min) for three consecutive working days, during their regular office-hours. We used a fully automated testing system, the FIT 2000 Fitness Impairment Tester (Pulse Medical Instruments Inc., Rockville, MD, USA), to measure and record saccadic peak velocity, pupil diameter, and latency and amplitude of the pupillary light reflex. In addition, we collected subjective levels of arousal using the Stanford Sleepiness Scale, and body core temperature. We analyzed the data using a linear mixed model approach for longitudinal data. Both saccadic velocity and subjective alertness decreased over the course of a day, while body core temperature increased (all p-values.05). The data also weakly suggested an increase of the pupil diameter (p 07). The findings support the use of oculomotor indices in the assessment of arousal and fatigue in applied settings.

Using music to change mood while driving.

PubMed

van der Zwaag, Marjolein D; Janssen, Joris H; Nass, Clifford; Westerink, Joyce H D M; Chowdhury, Shrestha; de Waard, Dick

2013-01-01

This study investigated whether gradual or abrupt music change towards more calming music is most effective in calming drivers during high-demand driving situations. Twenty-eight participants were subjected to two types of music change (gradual, abrupt) in a within-subject design. First, a relatively happy mood was induced with personally selected music during an eight-minute simulated high-demand drive. The drive then continued and the mood was changed either gradually or abruptly. Subjective results showed successful music mood induction irrespective of gradual or abrupt changes. The results further showed lower skin conductance (less arousal) and more facial corrugator muscle tension (more sadness) during the abrupt music change. Fewer accidents occurred during the abrupt music mood change. To conclude, the results support the abrupt way of changing music type to down-regulate one's mood: during high-demand driving, abrupt changes in music led to more physiological calmness and improved driving performance, and were thus safer and more effective. The current study shows that during high-demand drives, drivers are calmed more effectively using abrupt music changes compared to gradual music changes. This is illustrated by reductions in physiological arousal and improved driving behaviour. Hence, in-car music presentation can be used as a tool to improve driver's mood and behaviour.

Dominant Lyapunov exponent and approximate entropy in heart rate variability during emotional visual elicitation

PubMed Central

Valenza, Gaetano; Allegrini, Paolo; Lanatà, Antonio; Scilingo, Enzo Pasquale

2012-01-01

In this work we characterized the non-linear complexity of Heart Rate Variability (HRV) in short time series. The complexity of HRV signal was evaluated during emotional visual elicitation by using Dominant Lyapunov Exponents (DLEs) and Approximate Entropy (ApEn). We adopted a simplified model of emotion derived from the Circumplex Model of Affects (CMAs), in which emotional mechanisms are conceptualized in two dimensions by the terms of valence and arousal. Following CMA model, a set of standardized visual stimuli in terms of arousal and valence gathered from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS) was administered to a group of 35 healthy volunteers. Experimental session consisted of eight sessions alternating neutral images with high arousal content images. Several works can be found in the literature showing a chaotic dynamics of HRV during rest or relax conditions. The outcomes of this work showed a clear switching mechanism between regular and chaotic dynamics when switching from neutral to arousal elicitation. Accordingly, the mean ApEn decreased with statistical significance during arousal elicitation and the DLE became negative. Results showed a clear distinction between the neutral and the arousal elicitation and could be profitably exploited to improve the accuracy of emotion recognition systems based on HRV time series analysis. PMID:22393320

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

PubMed

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.

Emotional Arousal and Attitude Change During Simulation Games.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kidder, Steven J.

Psysiological and behavioral indices of emotional arousal and mood during performance in a simulation game were investigated. The hypotheses tested were: (1) there will be attitude change following participation in the social simulation game, Ghetto; (2) this change in attitude will be related to the players' emotional involvement in the game as…

Stigma and Glucose Levels: Testing Ego Depletion and Arousal Explanations of Stereotype Threat Effects

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

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…

Autonomic Correlates of Speech versus Nonspeech Tasks in Children and Adults

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Arnold, Hayley S.; MacPherson, Megan K.; Smith, Anne

2014-01-01

Purpose: To assess autonomic arousal associated with speech and nonspeech tasks in school-age children and young adults. Method: Measures of autonomic arousal (electrodermal level, electrodermal response amplitude, blood pulse volume, and heart rate) were recorded prior to, during, and after the performance of speech and nonspeech tasks by twenty…

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

PubMed

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.

EEG Beta Power but Not Background Music Predicts the Recall Scores in a Foreign-Vocabulary Learning Task.

PubMed

Küssner, Mats B; de Groot, Annette M B; Hofman, Winni F; Hillen, Marij A

2016-01-01

As tantalizing as the idea that background music beneficially affects foreign vocabulary learning may seem, there is-partly due to a lack of theory-driven research-no consistent evidence to support this notion. We investigated inter-individual differences in the effects of background music on foreign vocabulary learning. Based on Eysenck's theory of personality we predicted that individuals with a high level of cortical arousal should perform worse when learning with background music compared to silence, whereas individuals with a low level of cortical arousal should be unaffected by background music or benefit from it. Participants were tested in a paired-associate learning paradigm consisting of three immediate word recall tasks, as well as a delayed recall task one week later. Baseline cortical arousal assessed with spontaneous EEG measurement in silence prior to the learning rounds was used for the analyses. Results revealed no interaction between cortical arousal and the learning condition (background music vs. silence). Instead, we found an unexpected main effect of cortical arousal in the beta band on recall, indicating that individuals with high beta power learned more vocabulary than those with low beta power. To substantiate this finding we conducted an exact replication of the experiment. Whereas the main effect of cortical arousal was only present in a subsample of participants, a beneficial main effect of background music appeared. A combined analysis of both experiments suggests that beta power predicts the performance in the word recall task, but that there is no effect of background music on foreign vocabulary learning. In light of these findings, we discuss whether searching for effects of background music on foreign vocabulary learning, independent of factors such as inter-individual differences and task complexity, might be a red herring. Importantly, our findings emphasize the need for sufficiently powered research designs and exact replications of theory-driven experiments when investigating effects of background music and inter-individual variation on task performance.

EEG Beta Power but Not Background Music Predicts the Recall Scores in a Foreign-Vocabulary Learning Task

PubMed Central

de Groot, Annette M. B.; Hofman, Winni F.; Hillen, Marij A.

2016-01-01

As tantalizing as the idea that background music beneficially affects foreign vocabulary learning may seem, there is—partly due to a lack of theory-driven research—no consistent evidence to support this notion. We investigated inter-individual differences in the effects of background music on foreign vocabulary learning. Based on Eysenck’s theory of personality we predicted that individuals with a high level of cortical arousal should perform worse when learning with background music compared to silence, whereas individuals with a low level of cortical arousal should be unaffected by background music or benefit from it. Participants were tested in a paired-associate learning paradigm consisting of three immediate word recall tasks, as well as a delayed recall task one week later. Baseline cortical arousal assessed with spontaneous EEG measurement in silence prior to the learning rounds was used for the analyses. Results revealed no interaction between cortical arousal and the learning condition (background music vs. silence). Instead, we found an unexpected main effect of cortical arousal in the beta band on recall, indicating that individuals with high beta power learned more vocabulary than those with low beta power. To substantiate this finding we conducted an exact replication of the experiment. Whereas the main effect of cortical arousal was only present in a subsample of participants, a beneficial main effect of background music appeared. A combined analysis of both experiments suggests that beta power predicts the performance in the word recall task, but that there is no effect of background music on foreign vocabulary learning. In light of these findings, we discuss whether searching for effects of background music on foreign vocabulary learning, independent of factors such as inter-individual differences and task complexity, might be a red herring. Importantly, our findings emphasize the need for sufficiently powered research designs and exact replications of theory-driven experiments when investigating effects of background music and inter-individual variation on task performance. PMID:27537520

Modifiable Arousal in Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder and Its Etiological Association With Fluctuating Reaction Times.

PubMed

James, Sarah-Naomi; Cheung, Celeste H M; Rijsdijk, Fruhling; Asherson, Philip; Kuntsi, Jonna

2016-11-01

Cognitive theories of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) propose that high within-subject fluctuations of cognitive performance in ADHD, particularly reaction time (RT) variability (RTV), may reflect arousal dysregulation. However, direct evidence of arousal dysregulation and how it may account for fluctuating RTs in ADHD is limited. We used skin conductance (SC) as a measure of peripheral arousal and aimed to investigate its phenotypic and familial association with RTV in a large sample of ADHD and control sibling pairs. Adolescents and young adults ( N = 292), consisting of 73 participants with ADHD and their 75 siblings, and 72 controls and their 72 siblings, completed the baseline (slow, unrewarded) and fast-incentive conditions of a RT task, while SC was simultaneously recorded. A significant group-by-condition interaction emerged for SC level (SCL). Participants with ADHD had decreased SCL, compared with controls, in the baseline condition but not the fast-incentive condition. Baseline SCL was negatively associated with RTV, and multivariate model fitting demonstrated that the covariance of SCL with RTV, and of SCL with ADHD, was mostly explained by shared familial effects. ADHD is associated with decreased, but modifiable, tonic peripheral arousal. A shared familial cause underlies the relationship between arousal and RTV and between arousal and ADHD. Given the malleability of SCL, if our findings are replicated, it warrants further exploration as a potential treatment target for ADHD.

Can arousing feedback rectify lapses in driving? Prediction from EEG power spectra.

PubMed

Lin, Chin-Teng; Huang, Kuan-Chih; Chuang, Chun-Hsiang; Ko, Li-Wei; Jung, Tzyy-Ping

2013-10-01

This study explores the neurophysiological changes, measured using an electroencephalogram (EEG), in response to an arousing warning signal delivered to drowsy drivers, and predicts the efficacy of the feedback based on changes in the EEG. Eleven healthy subjects participated in sustained-attention driving experiments. The driving task required participants to maintain their cruising position and compensate for randomly induced lane deviations using the steering wheel, while their EEG and driving performance were continuously monitored. The arousing warning signal was delivered to participants who experienced momentary behavioral lapses, failing to respond rapidly to lane-departure events (specifically the reaction time exceeded three times the alert reaction time). The results of our previous studies revealed that arousing feedback immediately reversed deteriorating driving performance, which was accompanied by concurrent EEG theta- and alpha-power suppression in the bilateral occipital areas. This study further proposes a feedback efficacy assessment system to accurately estimate the efficacy of arousing warning signals delivered to drowsy participants by monitoring the changes in their EEG power spectra immediately thereafter. The classification accuracy was up 77.8% for determining the need for triggering additional warning signals. The findings of this study, in conjunction with previous studies on EEG correlates of behavioral lapses, might lead to a practical closed-loop system to predict, monitor and rectify behavioral lapses of human operators in attention-critical settings.

Emotional valence and arousal affect reading in an interactive way: Neuroimaging evidence for an approach-withdrawal framework

PubMed Central

Citron, Francesca M.M.; Gray, Marcus A.; Critchley, Hugo D.; Weekes, Brendan S.; Ferstl, Evelyn C.

2014-01-01

A growing body of literature shows that the emotional content of verbal material affects reading, wherein emotional words are given processing priority compared to neutral words. Human emotions can be conceptualised within a two-dimensional model comprised of emotional valence and arousal (intensity). These variables are at least in part distinct, but recent studies report interactive effects during implicit emotion processing and relate these to stimulus-evoked approach-withdrawal tendencies. The aim of the present study was to explore how valence and arousal interact at the neural level, during implicit emotion word processing. The emotional attributes of written word stimuli were orthogonally manipulated based on behavioural ratings from a corpus of emotion words. Stimuli were presented during an fMRI experiment while 16 participants performed a lexical decision task, which did not require explicit evaluation of a word′s emotional content. Results showed greater neural activation within right insular cortex in response to stimuli evoking conflicting approach-withdrawal tendencies (i.e., positive high-arousal and negative low-arousal words) compared to stimuli evoking congruent approach vs. withdrawal tendencies (i.e., positive low-arousal and negative high-arousal words). Further, a significant cluster of activation in the left extra-striate cortex was found in response to emotional than neutral words, suggesting enhanced perceptual processing of emotionally salient stimuli. These findings support an interactive two-dimensional approach to the study of emotion word recognition and suggest that the integration of valence and arousal dimensions recruits a brain region associated with interoception, emotional awareness and sympathetic functions. PMID:24440410

Binge Viewing, Sleep, and the Role of Pre-Sleep Arousal

PubMed Central

Exelmans, Liese; Van den Bulck, Jan

2017-01-01

Study Objectives: To investigate the prevalence of binge viewing, its association with sleep and examine arousal as an underlying mechanism of this association. Methods: Four hundred twenty-three adults (aged 18–25 years old, 61.9% female) completed an online survey assessing regular television viewing, binge viewing, sleep quality (Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index), fatigue (Fatigue Assessment Scale), insomnia (Bergen Insomnia Scale), and pre-sleep arousal (Pre-Sleep Arousal Scale). Regression analyses were conducted. Mediation analysis was performed using PROCESS Macro. Results: There were 80.6% who identified themselves as a binge viewer. Among those who binge viewed (n = 341), 20.2% had binge viewed at least a few times a week during the past month. Among poor sleepers (Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index > 5), 32.6% had a poor sleep quality associated with being a binge viewer. Higher binge viewing frequency was associated with a poorer sleep quality, increased fatigue and more symptoms of insomnia, whereas regular television viewing was not. Cognitive pre-sleep arousal fully mediated these relationships. Conclusions: New viewing styles such as binge viewing are increasingly prevalent and may pose a threat to sleep. Increased cognitive arousal functions as the mechanism explaining these effects. Measures of media exposure should take into account the user's level of engagement with media. Interventions aimed at (1) alerting viewers about excessive viewing duration and (2) reducing arousal before sleep may be useful ways to tackle sleep problems in binge viewers. Citation: Exelmans L, Van den Bulck J. Binge viewing, sleep, and the role of pre-sleep arousal. J Clin Sleep Med. 2017;13(8):1001–1008. PMID:28728618

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

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

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…

Physiological Arousal, Distress Tolerance, and Social Problem-Solving Deficits among Adolescent Self-Injurers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nock, Matthew K.; Mendes, Wendy Berry

2008-01-01

It has been suggested that people engage in nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) because they (a) experience heightened physiological arousal following stressful events and use NSSI to regulate experienced distress and (b) have deficits in their social problem-solving skills that interfere with the performance of more adaptive social responses. However,…

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

PubMed Central

Maran, Thomas; Sachse, Pierre; Martini, Markus; Weber, Barbara; Pinggera, Jakob; Zuggal, Stefan; Furtner, Marco

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 processing is disrupted by enhanced arousal. In this behavioral study, we investigated such arousal-triggered cognitive-state shifts in human subjects. We validated an arousal induction procedure (three experimental conditions: violent scene, erotic scene, neutral control scene) using pupillometry (Preliminary Experiment, n = 13) and randomly administered this method to healthy young adults to examine whether high arousal states affect performance in two core domains of contextual processing, the acquisition of spatial (spatial discrimination paradigm; Experiment 1, n = 66) and sequence information (learned irrelevance paradigm; Experiment 2, n = 84). In both paradigms, spatial location and sequences were encoded incidentally and both displacements when retrieving spatial position as well as the predictability of the target by a cue in sequence learning changed stepwise. Results showed that both implicit spatial and sequence learning were disrupted during high arousal states, regardless of valence. Compared to the control group, participants in the arousal conditions showed impaired discrimination of spatial positions and abolished learning of associative sequences. Furthermore, Bayesian analyses revealed evidence against the null models. In line with recent models of stress effects on cognition, both experiments provide evidence for decreased engagement of flexible, cognitive systems supporting encoding of context information in active cognition during acute arousal, promoting reduced sensitivity for contextual details. We argue that arousal fosters cognitive adaptation towards less demanding, more present-oriented information processing, which prioritizes a current behavioral response set at the cost of contextual cues. This transient state of behavioral perseverance might reduce reliance on context information in unpredictable environments and thus represent an adaptive response in certain situations. PMID:29170634

Improved Sleep Quality is Associated with Reductions in Depression and PTSD Arousal Symptoms and Increases in IGF-1 Concentrations

PubMed Central

Rusch, Heather L.; Guardado, Pedro; Baxter, Tristin; Mysliwiec, Vincent; Gill, Jessica M.

2015-01-01

Study Objectives: One-third of deployed military personnel will be diagnosed with insomnia, placing them at high risk for comorbid depression, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and medical conditions. The disruption of trophic factors has been implicated in these comorbid conditions, which can impede postdeployment recovery. This study determined if improved sleep quality is associated with (1) reductions in depression and posttraumatic symptoms, as well as enrichments in health-related quality of life (HRQOL), and (2) changes in plasma concentrations of brain derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1). Methods: Forty-four military personnel diagnosed with insomnia underwent clinical evaluations and blood draws at pretreatment and at posttreatment following cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia and automatic positive airway pressure treatment. Participants were classified as sleep improved (n = 28) or sleep declined (n = 16) based on their change in pretreatment to posttreatment Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) score. Both groups were compared on outcomes of depression, PTSD, HRQOL, BDNF, and IGF-1. Results: Paired t-tests of the sleep improved group revealed significant declines in depression (p = 0.005) and posttraumatic arousal (p = 0.006) symptoms, and a significant increase in concentrations of IGF-1 (p = 0.009). The sleep declined group had no relevant change in psychiatric symptoms or trophic factors, and had further declines on five of eight dimensions of HRQOL. Between-group change score differences were significant at p < 0.05. Conclusions: These findings suggest that interventions, which successfully improve sleep quality, are an effective means to reduce the depression and posttraumatic arousal symptoms common to military personnel, as well as increase protective trophic factors implicated in these conditions. Citation: Rusch HL, Guardado P, Baxter T, Mysliwiec V, Gill JM. Improved sleep quality is associated with reductions in depression and PTSD arousal symptoms and increases in IGF-1 concentrations. J Clin Sleep Med 2015;11(6):615–623. PMID:25766717

The power of clinicians' affective communication: how reassurance about non-abandonment can reduce patients' physiological arousal and increase information recall in bad news consultations. An experimental study using analogue patients.

PubMed

Sep, Milou S C; van Osch, Mara; van Vliet, Liesbeth M; Smets, Ellen M A; Bensing, Jozien M

2014-04-01

The diagnosis of incurable cancer may evoke physiological arousal in patients. Physiological arousal can negatively impact patients' recall of information provided in the medical consultation. We aim to investigate whether clinicians' affective communication during a bad news consultation will decrease patients' physiological arousal and will improve recall. Healthy women (N=50), acting as analogue patients, were randomly assigned to watch one out of the two versions of a scripted video-vignette of a bad news consultation in which clinician's communication differed: standard vs. affective communication. Participants' skin conductance levels were obtained during video-watching, and afterwards their recall was assessed. While the diagnosis increased skin conductance levels in all analogue patients, skin conductance levels during the remainder of the consultation decreased more in the affective communication condition than in the standard condition. Analogue patients' recall was significantly higher in the affective condition. Breaking bad news evokes physiological arousal. Affective communication can decrease this evoked physiological arousal and might be partly responsible for analogue patients' enhanced information recall. Although our findings need to be translated to clinical patients, they suggest that clinicians need to deal with patients' emotions before providing additional medical information. Copyright © 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd.. All rights reserved.

Cat aggression redirected to people: 14 cases (1981-1987).

PubMed

Chapman, B L; Voith, V L

1990-03-15

Among 27 cases of cat aggression manifested toward people, 14 cases were diagnosed as redirected or probable redirected aggression, because the cat was already highly aroused by other stimuli before attacking a person. A detailed behavioral history enabled identification of arousing stimuli. The most common arousing stimulus was the presence of another cat. Other arousing stimuli included high-pitched noises, visitors in the house, a dog, an unusual odor, and being outdoors unexpectedly. Medical problems or other behavioral abnormalities were not detected in any of the cats that could explain their aggressive behavior. Management consisted of avoidance or elimination of arousing stimuli wherever possible and extensive client education. On follow-up there was no recurrence of redirected attacks in 4 cats, variable decreases in the severity and frequency of attacks in 5 cats, and no change in 1 cat. Three cats were euthanatized, including one that had shown some improvement. Follow-up information was not available for the 2 remaining cases. Redirected aggression in cats is not well documented and may be misdiagnosed as idiopathic aggression or other behavioral abnormality. Although redirected attacks may be sudden, severe, and frightening, with careful management, a favorable outcome is possible.

Effects of acupuncture on tissue oxygenation of the rat brain.

PubMed

Chen, G S; Erdmann, W

1978-04-01

Acupuncture has been claimed to be effective in restoring consciousness in some comatose patients. Possible mechanisms to explain alleged acupuncture-induced arousal may include vasodilatory effects caused by smypathetic stimulation which leads to an augmentation of cerebral microcirculation and thereby improves oxygen supply to the brain tissue. Experiments were performed in ten albino rats (Wistar) employing PO2 microelectrodes which were inserted into the cortex through small burholes. Brain tissue PO2 was continuously recorded before, during, and after acupuncture. Stimulation of certain acupuncture points (Go-26) resulted in immediate increase of PO2 in the frontal cortex of the rat brain. This effect was reproducible and was comparable to that obtained with increase of inspiratory CO2 known to induce arterial vasodilatation and thus capillary perfusion pressure. The effect was more significant as compared to tissue PO2 increases obtained after increase in inspiratory oxygen concentration from 21% to 100%. It appears that acupuncture causes increased brain tissue perfusion which may be, at least in part, responsible for arousal of unconscious patients.

Superior Recognition Performance for Happy Masked and Unmasked Faces in Both Younger and Older Adults

PubMed Central

Svärd, Joakim; Wiens, Stefan; Fischer, Håkan

2012-01-01

In the aging literature it has been shown that even though emotion recognition performance decreases with age, the decrease is less for happiness than other facial expressions. Studies in younger adults have also revealed that happy faces are more strongly attended to and better recognized than other emotional facial expressions. Thus, there might be a more age independent happy face advantage in facial expression recognition. By using a backward masking paradigm and varying stimulus onset asynchronies (17–267 ms) the temporal development of a happy face advantage, on a continuum from low to high levels of visibility, was examined in younger and older adults. Results showed that across age groups, recognition performance for happy faces was better than for neutral and fearful faces at durations longer than 50 ms. Importantly, the results showed a happy face advantage already during early processing of emotional faces in both younger and older adults. This advantage is discussed in terms of processing of salient perceptual features and elaborative processing of the happy face. We also investigate the combined effect of age and neuroticism on emotional face processing. The rationale was previous findings of age-related differences in physiological arousal to emotional pictures and a relation between arousal and neuroticism. Across all durations, there was an interaction between age and neuroticism, showing that being high in neuroticism might be disadvantageous for younger, but not older adults’ emotion recognition performance during arousal enhancing tasks. These results indicate that there is a relation between aging, neuroticism, and performance, potentially related to physiological arousal. PMID:23226135

The role of interstimulus interval and "Stimulus-type" in prepotent response inhibition abilities in people with ASD: A quantitative and qualitative review.

PubMed

Kuiper, Marieke W M; Verhoeven, Elisabeth W M; Geurts, Hilde M

2016-11-01

Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are associated with prepotent response inhibition difficulties. However, the large variation between studies suggests that understudied factors, such as interstimulus interval (ISI) and "stimulus-type" (both hypothesized proxies of stressors influencing arousal), might influence the inhibitory abilities of people with ASD. Using meta-analysis, we tested whether differences in prepotent response inhibition between people with and without ASD was influenced by ISI. There was not enough variation in "stimulus-type" between the studies to include it as a moderator. Thirty-seven studies met inclusion criteria, with a combined sample size of 950 people with ASD and 966 typically developing controls. Additionally, a qualitative review including studies comparing a neutral and an arousing condition in one experiment was performed to examine whether fast ISI or specific arousing stimuli directly influence prepotent response inhibition. The meta-analysis indicated that ISI was not a relevant moderator. The qualitative review showed that ISI and "stimulus-type" had the same effect for both groups. Although all studies regarding ISI indicated that fast ISI worsened performance, different types of stimuli had either a positive or a negative influence. This could suggest that distinctive stimuli might affect arousal differently. While we replicated the inhibition difficulties in people with ASD (g = .51), our results do not show strong ASD-specific effects of ISI or "stimulus-type" on inhibition. Nonetheless, ISI and "stimulus-type" do seem to influence performance. Future research focusing on potential underlying factors (e.g., baseline physiological arousal) is needed to examine why this is the case. Autism Res 2016, 9: 1124-1141. © 2016 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. © 2016 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Sleep and wakefulness in somnambulism: a spectral analysis study.

PubMed

Guilleminault, C; Poyares, D; Aftab, F A; Palombini, L; Abat, F

2001-08-01

The sleep structure and the dynamics of EEG slow-wave activity (SWA) were investigated in 12 young adults and age- and gender-matched controls. Polysomnography was performed in subjects with well-documented chronic sleepwalking and in matched controls. Blinded visual scoring was performed using the international criteria from the Rechtschaffen and Kales atlas [A manual of standardized technology, techniques and scoring systems for sleep stages of human subjects. Los Angeles: UCLA Brain Information Service, Brain Research Institute, 1968.] and by determining the presence of microarousals as defined in the American Sleep Disorders Association (ASDA) atlas [Sleep 15 (1992) 173.]. An evaluation of SWA overnight was performed on total nocturnal sleep to determine if a difference existed between groups of subjects, since sleepwalking usually originates with slow-wave sleep. Investigation of the delta power in successive nonoverlapping 4-second windows in the 32 seconds just prior to EMG activity associated with a confusional arousal was also conducted. One central EEG lead was used for all analyses. Somnambulistic individuals experienced more disturbed sleep than controls during the first NREM-REM sleep cycle. They had a higher number of ASDA arousals and presented lower peak of SWA during the first cycle that led to a lower SWA decline overnight. When the investigation focused on the short segment immediately preceding a confusional arousal, they presented an important increase in the relative power of low delta (0.75-2 Hz) just prior to the confusional arousal. Sleepwalkers undergo disturbed nocturnal sleep at the beginning of the night. The increased power of low delta just prior to the confusional arousal experienced may not be related to Stages 3-4 NREM sleep. We hypothesize that it may be translated as a cortical reaction to brain activation.

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

PubMed

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.

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

PubMed Central

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

2015-01-01

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. PMID:25713375

Sex Attracts: Investigating Individual Differences in Attentional Bias to Sexual Stimuli

PubMed Central

Kagerer, Sabine; Wehrum, Sina; Klucken, Tim; Walter, Bertram; Vaitl, Dieter; Stark, Rudolf

2014-01-01

We investigated the impact of sexual stimuli and the influence of sexual motivation on the performance in a dot-probe task and a line-orientation task in a large sample of males and females. All pictures (neutral, erotic) were rated on the dimensions of valence, arousal, disgust, and sexual arousal. Additionally, questionnaires measuring sexual interest/desire/motivation were employed. The ratings of the sexual stimuli point to a successful picture selection because sexual arousal did not differ between the sexes. The stimuli were equally arousing for men and women. Higher scores in the employed questionnaires measuring sexual interest/desire/motivation led to higher sexual arousal ratings of the sex pictures. Attentional bias towards sex pictures was observed in both experimental tasks. The attentional biases measured by the dot-probe and the line-orientation task were moderately intercorrelated suggesting attentional bias as a possible marker for a sex-attention trait. Finally, only the sexual sensation seeking score correlated with the attentional biases of the two tasks. Future research is needed to increase the predictive power of these indirect measures of sexual interest. PMID:25238545

A Kalman filtering framework for physiological detection of anxiety-related arousal in children with autism spectrum disorder.

PubMed

Kushki, Azadeh; Khan, Ajmal; Brian, Jessica; Anagnostou, Evdokia

2015-03-01

Anxiety is associated with physiological changes that can be noninvasively measured using inexpensive and wearable sensors. These changes provide an objective and language-free measure of arousal associated with anxiety, which can complement treatment programs for clinical populations who have difficulty with introspection, communication, and emotion recognition. This motivates the development of automatic methods for detection of anxiety-related arousal using physiology signals. While several supervised learning methods have been proposed for this purpose, these methods require regular collection and updating of training data and are, therefore, not suitable for clinical populations, where obtaining labelled data may be challenging due to impairments in communication and introspection. In this context, the objective of this paper is to develop an unsupervised and real-time arousal detection algorithm. We propose a learning framework based on the Kalman filtering theory for detection of physiological arousal based on cardiac activity. The performance of the system was evaluated on data obtained from a sample of children with autism spectrum disorder. The results indicate that the system can detect anxiety-related arousal in these children with sensitivity and specificity of 99% and 92%, respectively. Our results show that the proposed method can detect physiological arousal associated with anxiety with high accuracy, providing support for technical feasibility of augmenting anxiety treatments with automatic detection techniques. This approach can ultimately lead to more effective anxiety treatment for a larger and more diverse population.

A Pilot Study of Eight-Session Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy Adapted for Women's Sexual Interest/Arousal Disorder.

PubMed

Paterson, Laurel Q P; Handy, Ariel B; Brotto, Lori A

2017-09-01

While few treatment options exist for low sexual desire and arousal, the most common sexual dysfunction in women, a growing body of research supports the efficacy of mindfulness-based approaches. The mechanisms underlying improvements, and whether they are due to mindfulness practice or other treatment components, are unclear. As a result, we designed and pilot-tested an eight-session group mindfulness-based cognitive therapy for sexuality (MBCT-S) program that includes more extensive practice of mindfulness skills and closely aligns with the evidence-based MBCT program for depression and anxiety. A total of 26 women (mean age 43.9, range 25 to 63) with a diagnosis of sexual interest/arousal disorder participated in eight weekly group sessions, before and after which they completed validated questionnaires. The majority of women attended all sessions and completed the recommended at-home mindfulness exercises. Compared to baseline, women reported significant improvements in sexual desire, overall sexual function, and sex-related distress, regardless of treatment expectations, relationship duration, or low desire duration. Depressed mood and mindfulness also significantly improved and mediated increases in sexual function. These pilot data suggest that eight-session MBCT-S is feasible and significantly improves sexual function, and provide the basis for a larger randomized-controlled trial (RCT) with a longer follow-up period.

Professional musicians listen differently to music.

PubMed

Mikutta, C A; Maissen, G; Altorfer, A; Strik, W; Koenig, T

2014-05-30

Experience-based adaptation of emotional responses is an important faculty for cognitive and emotional functioning. Professional musicians represent an ideal model in which to elicit experience-driven changes in the emotional processing domain. The changes of the central representation of emotional arousal due to musical expertise are still largely unknown. The aim of the present study was to investigate the electroencephalogram (EEG) correlates of experience-driven changes in the domain of emotional arousal. Therefore, the differences in perceived (subjective arousal via ratings) and physiologically measured (EEG) arousal between amateur and professional musicians were examined. A total of 15 professional and 19 amateur musicians listened to the first movement of Ludwig van Beethoven's 5th symphony (duration=∼7.4min), during which a continuous 76-channel EEG was recorded. In a second session, the participants evaluated their emotional arousal during listening. In a tonic analysis, we examined the average EEG data over the time course of the music piece. For a phasic analysis, a fast Fourier transform was performed and covariance maps of spectral power were computed in association with the subjective arousal ratings. The subjective arousal ratings of the professional musicians were more consistent than those of the amateur musicians. In the tonic EEG analysis, a mid-frontal theta activity was observed in the professionals. In the phasic EEG, the professionals exhibited an increase of posterior alpha, central delta, and beta rhythm during high arousal. Professionals exhibited different and/or more intense patterns of emotional activation when they listened to the music. The results of the present study underscore the impact of music experience on emotional reactions. Copyright © 2014 IBRO. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Inconsistent Effect of Arousal on Early Auditory Perception

PubMed Central

Bolders, Anna C.; Band, Guido P. H.; Stallen, Pieter Jan M.

2017-01-01

Mood has been shown to influence cognitive performance. However, little is known about the influence of mood on sensory processing, specifically in the auditory domain. With the current study, we sought to investigate how auditory processing of neutral sounds is affected by the mood state of the listener. This was tested in two experiments by measuring masked-auditory detection thresholds before and after a standard mood-induction procedure. In the first experiment (N = 76), mood was induced by imagining a mood-appropriate event combined with listening to mood inducing music. In the second experiment (N = 80), imagining was combined with affective picture viewing to exclude any possibility of confounding the results by acoustic properties of the music. In both experiments, the thresholds were determined by means of an adaptive staircase tracking method in a two-interval forced-choice task. Masked detection thresholds were compared between participants in four different moods (calm, happy, sad, and anxious), which enabled differentiation of mood effects along the dimensions arousal and pleasure. Results of the two experiments were analyzed both in separate analyses and in a combined analysis. The first experiment showed that, while there was no impact of pleasure level on the masked threshold, lower arousal was associated with lower threshold (higher masked sensitivity). However, as indicated by an interaction effect between experiment and arousal, arousal did have a different effect on the threshold in Experiment 2. Experiment 2 showed a trend of arousal in opposite direction. These results show that the effect of arousal on auditory-masked sensitivity may depend on the modality of the mood-inducing stimuli. As clear conclusions regarding the genuineness of the arousal effect on the masked threshold cannot be drawn, suggestions for further research that could clarify this issue are provided. PMID:28424639

Group mindfulness-based therapy significantly improves sexual desire in women.

PubMed

Brotto, Lori A; Basson, Rosemary

2014-06-01

At least a third of women across reproductive ages experience low sexual desire and impaired arousal. There is increasing evidence that mindfulness, defined as non-judgmental present moment awareness, may improve women's sexual functioning. The goal of this study was to test the effectiveness of mindfulness-based therapy, either immediately or after a 3-month waiting period, in women seeking treatment for low sexual desire and arousal. Women participated in four 90-min group sessions that included mindfulness meditation, cognitive therapy, and education. A total of 117 women were assigned to either the immediate treatment (n = 68, mean age 40.8 yrs) or delayed treatment (n = 49, mean age 42.2 yrs) group, in which women had two pre-treatment baseline assessments followed by treatment. A total of 95 women completed assessments through to the 6-month follow-up period. Compared to the delayed treatment control group, treatment significantly improved sexual desire, sexual arousal, lubrication, sexual satisfaction, and overall sexual functioning. Sex-related distress significantly decreased in both conditions, regardless of treatment, as did orgasmic difficulties and depressive symptoms. Increases in mindfulness and a reduction in depressive symptoms predicted improvements in sexual desire. Mindfulness-based group therapy significantly improved sexual desire and other indices of sexual response, and should be considered in the treatment of women's sexual dysfunction. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

PubMed

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.

Hypnotherapy for persistent genital arousal disorder: a case study.

PubMed

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.

A new non-pharmacological vacuum therapy for female sexual dysfunction.

PubMed

Billups, K L; Berman, L; Berman, J; Metz, M E; Glennon, M E; Goldstein, I

2001-01-01

Although Female Sexual Dysfunction (FSD) affects 40% of American women, there is no FDA-approved pharmaceutical therapy. The EROS-CTD (Clitoral Therapy Device, UroMetrics, Inc., St. Paul, MN) treatment is the first FDA cleared-to-market therapy for FSD. Clitoral engorgement is believed to play an important role in female sexual arousal and overall sexual satisfaction. The EROS-CTD is a small, battery-powered device designed to enhance clitoral engorgement, increase blood flow to the clitoris, and ultimately improve arousal in women with FSD. The objective of this study was to assess the effectiveness of the EROS-CTD on sexual arousal (genital sensation, vaginal lubrication, ability to reach orgasm, and sexual satisfaction) in normal volunteers and women with FSD.

Treatment effects on insular and anterior cingulate cortex activation during classic and emotional Stroop interference in child abuse-related complex post-traumatic stress disorder.

PubMed

Thomaes, K; Dorrepaal, E; Draijer, N; de Ruiter, M B; Elzinga, B M; van Balkom, A J; Smit, J H; Veltman, D J

2012-11-01

Functional neuroimaging studies have shown increased Stroop interference coupled with altered anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and insula activation in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). These brain areas are associated with error detection and emotional arousal. There is some evidence that treatment can normalize these activation patterns. At baseline, we compared classic and emotional Stroop performance and blood oxygenation level-dependent responses (functional magnetic resonance imaging) of 29 child abuse-related complex PTSD patients with 22 non-trauma-exposed healthy controls. In 16 of these patients, we studied treatment effects of psycho-educational and cognitive behavioural stabilizing group treatment (experimental treatment; EXP) added to treatment as usual (TAU) versus TAU only, and correlations with clinical improvement. At baseline, complex PTSD patients showed a trend for increased left anterior insula and dorsal ACC activation in the classic Stroop task. Only EXP patients showed decreased dorsal ACC and left anterior insula activation after treatment. In the emotional Stroop contrasts, clinical improvement was associated with decreased dorsal ACC activation and decreased left anterior insula activation. We found further evidence that successful treatment in child abuse-related complex PTSD is associated with functional changes in the ACC and insula, which may be due to improved selective attention and lower emotional arousal, indicating greater cognitive control over PTSD symptoms.

Female cats, but not males, adjust responsiveness to arousal in the voice of kittens.

PubMed

Konerding, Wiebke S; Zimmermann, Elke; Bleich, Eva; Hedrich, Hans-Jürgen; Scheumann, Marina

2016-08-12

The infant cry is the most important communicative tool to elicit adaptive parental behaviour. Sex-specific adaptation, linked to parental investment, may have evolutionary shaped the responsiveness to changes in the voice of the infant cries. The emotional content of infant cries may trigger distinctive responsiveness either based on their general arousing properties, being part of a general affect encoding rule, or based on affective perception, linked to parental investment, differing between species. To address this question, we performed playback experiments using infant isolation calls in a species without paternal care, the domestic cat. We used kitten calls recorded in isolation contexts inducing either Low arousal (i.e., isolation only) or High arousal (i.e., additional handling), leading to respective differences in escape response of the kittens. We predicted that only females respond differently to playbacks of Low versus High arousal kitten isolation calls, based on sex-differences in parental investment. Findings showed sex-specific responsiveness of adult cats listening to kitten isolation calls of different arousal conditions, with only females responding faster towards calls of the High versus the Low arousal condition. Breeding experience of females did not affect the result. Furthermore, female responsiveness correlated with acoustic parameters related to spectral characteristics of the fundamental frequency (F0): Females responded faster to kitten calls with lower F0 at call onset, lower minimum F0 and a steeper slope of the F0. Our study revealed sex-specific differences in the responsiveness to kitten isolation calls of different arousal conditions independent of female breeding experience. The findings indicated that features of F0 are important to convey the arousal state of an infant. Taken together, the results suggest that differences in parental investment evolutionary shaped responsiveness (auditory sensitivity/ motivation) to infant calls in a sex-specific manner in the domestic cat.

Efficacy of Tribulus Terrestris for the treatment of premenopausal women with hypoactive sexual desire disorder: a randomized double-blinded, placebo-controlled trial.

PubMed

Vale, Fabiene Bernardes Castro; Zanolla Dias de Souza, Karla; Rezende, Camilla Russi; Geber, Selmo

2018-05-01

Although hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD) is the most common sexual complaint, there is no consensus for the ideal treatment. Our study aimed to evaluate the efficacy of treating premenopausal women with HSDD with Tribulus terrestris and its effect on the serum levels of testosterone. We performed a prospective, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, with 40 premenopausal women reporting diminished libido, receiving T. terrestris or placebo. The questionnaires FSFI and the QS-F were used to evaluate sexual dysfunction before and after treatment. Patients treated with T. terrestris experienced improvement in total score of FSFI (p < .001) and domains "desire" (p < .001), "sexual arousal" (p = .005), "lubrication" (p = .001), "orgasm" (p <.001), "pain" (p = .030) and "satisfaction" (p = .001). Treatment with placebo did not improve the scores for the "lubrication" and "pain". QS-F scores showed that patients using T. terrestris had improvements in "desire" (p = .012), "sexual arousal/lubrication" (p = .002), "pain" (p = .031), "orgasm" (p = .004) and "satisfaction" (p = .001). Women treated with placebo did not score improvements. Women receiving T. terrestris had increased levels of free (p = .046) and bioavailable (p < .048) testosterone. T. terrestris might be a safe alternative for the treatment of premenopausal women with HSDD as it was effective in reducing the symptoms, probably due to an increase in the serum levels of free and bioavailable testosterone.

Sleep-related cognitive processes, arousal, and emotion dysregulation in insomnia disorder: the role of insomnia-specific rumination.

PubMed

Palagini, Laura; Moretto, Umberto; Dell'Osso, Liliana; Carney, Colleen

2017-02-01

Insomnia-specific rumination has presented in subjects with insomnia. Research has identified hyperarousal as a key factor, with both trait and state components. It has been shown that emotion dysregulation also plays a role in insomnia. Hence, the aim was to investigate how insomnia rumination is associated with both trait- and state-dependent arousal and emotion dysregulation in insomnia. Sixty-eight subjects with insomnia disorder (DSM-5) and 36 good sleepers were evaluated using: Insomnia Severity Index (ISI), Daytime Insomnia Symptom Response Scale (DISRS), Arousal Predisposition Scale (APS), Pre-sleep Arousal Scale (PSAS), and Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS). Univariate and multivariate regression analyses and mediation analyses were performed. Subjects with insomnia (F 41, mean age 50.2 ± 10) presented higher scores than good sleepers (F 22, mean age 49.7 ± 14) in all the scales (ISI, DISRS, APS, PSAS, DERS; p < 0.0001). Insomnia rumination was directly correlated with trait (APS, B = 0.22, p < 0.0001) pre-sleep state arousal (PSAS cognitive B = 0.22, p < 0.0001, PSAS somatic B = 0.24, p < 0.0001) and emotion dysregulation (B = 0.5, p = 0.03). It mediated the association between trait and pre-sleep state hyperarousal (Z = 3.3, p = 0.0008), the bidirectional association between cognitive and somatic arousal (p = 0.02), and the association between trait hyperarousal and emotion dysregulation (Z = 2.3, p = 0.04). In insomnia, specific rumination is related to both trait predisposition to arousal and to state-dependent arousal. It is also related to emotion dyregulation. Insomnia-specific ruminative response style may modulate the complex association between trait- and state-dependent arousal factors and arousal and emotion regulation in insomnia. In this framework, a broad range of cognitive processes may be considered when dealing with subjects with insomnia: the use of rumination-oriented psychological strategies could be important. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The Relationship Between Body Image and Domains of Sexual Functioning Among Heterosexual, Emerging Adult Women.

PubMed

Quinn-Nilas, Christopher; Benson, Lindsay; Milhausen, Robin R; Buchholz, Andrea C; Goncalves, Melissa

2016-09-01

Research suggests that body image affects sexual functioning, but the relationship between specific types of body image (evaluative, affective, and behavioral) and domains of sexual functioning (desire, arousal, and orgasm) has not been investigated. To determine whether, and to what degree, body image concerns (evaluative, affective, and behavioral) influence aspects of women's sexual functioning (desire, arousal, and orgasm). Eighty-eight sexually active women in heterosexual romantic relationships completed surveys assessing evaluative, affective, and behavioral body image and sexual functioning. Body composition data also were collected using dual energy x-ray absorptiometry. Sexual functioning was assessed using the desire, arousal, and orgasm subscales of the Female Sexual Functioning Index. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis indicated that poor evaluative, affective, and behavioral body image were detrimental to women's sexual functioning. Specifically, dissatisfaction with one's body predicted decrements in desire (β = -0.31, P < .05) and arousal (β = -0.35, P < .01). Similarly, feeling that others evaluate one's body negatively predicted decrements in desire (β = 0.22, P < .05) and arousal (β = 0.35, P < .01). Feeling negatively about one's appearance predicted decrements in arousal (β = 0.26, P < .05). Negative thoughts and feelings about one's body during a sexual encounter (body image self-consciousness) predicted decrements in arousal (β = -0.37, P < .01) and orgasm (β = -0.25, P < .05). Findings from this study suggest important linkages between body image and sexual functioning constructs and indicates that interventions to improve body image could have concomitant benefits related to sexual experience. Copyright © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Emotion and Multimedia Learning: An Investigation of the Effects of Valence and Arousal on Different Modalities in an Instructional Animation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chung, Sungwon; Cheon, Jongpil; Lee, Kwang-Woo

2015-01-01

Previous emotion studies in education have focused mainly on the superiority of positive emotion for learning performance (e.g., enjoyment) over negative emotion (e.g., fear). However, few studies have considered different arousal levels in terms of learners' emotion. For example, the effects of calm positive or negative emotion have not been…

Combining Mindfulness Meditation with Cognitive-Behavior Therapy for Insomnia

PubMed Central

Ong, Jason C.; Shapiro, Shauna L.; Manber, Rachel

2009-01-01

This treatment-development study is a Stage I evaluation of an intervention that combines mindfulness meditation with cognitive-behavior therapy for insomnia (CBT-I). Thirty adults who met research diagnostic criteria for Psychophysiological Insomnia (Edinger et al., 2004) participated in a 6-week, multi-component group intervention using mindfulness meditation, sleep restriction, stimulus control, sleep education, and sleep hygiene. Sleep diaries and self-reported pre-sleep arousal were assessed weekly while secondary measures of insomnia severity, arousal, mindfulness skills, and daytime functioning were assessed at pre-treatment and post-treatment. Data collected on recruitment, retention, compliance, and satisfaction indicate that the treatment protocol is feasible to deliver and is acceptable for individuals seeking treatment for insomnia. The overall patterns of change with treatment demonstrated statistically and clinically significant improvements in several nighttime symptoms of insomnia as well as statistically significant reductions in pre-sleep arousal, sleep effort, and dysfunctional sleep-related cognitions. In addition, a significant correlation was found between the number of meditation sessions and changes on a trait measure of arousal. Together, the findings indicate that mindfulness meditation can be combined with CBT-I and this integrated intervention is associated with reductions in both sleep and sleep-related arousal. Further testing of this intervention using randomized controlled trials is warranted to evaluate the efficacy of the intervention for this population and the specific effects of each component on sleep and both psychological and physiological arousal. PMID:18502250

Non-image forming effects of illuminance level: Exploring parallel effects on physiological arousal and task performance.

PubMed

Huiberts, Laura M; Smolders, Karin C H J; de Kort, Yvonne A W

2016-10-01

This study investigated diurnal non-image forming (NIF) effects of illuminance level on physiological arousal in parallel to NIF effects on vigilance and working memory performance. We employed a counterbalanced within-subjects design in which thirty-nine participants (mean age=21.2; SD=2.1; 11 male) completed three 90-min sessions (165 vs. 600lx vs. 1700lx at eye level) either in the morning (N=18) or afternoon (N=21). During each session, participants completed four measurement blocks (incl. one baseline block) each consisting of a 10-min Psychomotor Vigilance Task (PVT) and a Backwards Digit-Span Task (BDST) including easy trials (4-6 digits) and difficult trials (7-8 digits). Heart rate (HR), skin conductance level (SCL) and systolic blood pressure (SBP) were measured continuously. The results revealed significant improvements in performance on the BDST difficult trials under 1700lx vs. 165lx (p=0.01), while illuminance level did not affect performance on the PVT and BDST easy trials. Illuminance level impacted HR and SCL, but not SBP. In the afternoon sessions, HR was significantly higher under 1700lx vs. 165lx during PVT performance (p=0.05), while during BDST performance, HR was only slightly higher under 600 vs. 165lx (p=0.06). SCL was significantly higher under 1700lx vs. 165lx during performance on BDST easy trials (p=0.02) and showed similar, but nonsignificant trends during the PVT and BDST difficult trials. Although both physiology and performance were affected by illuminance level, no consistent pattern emerged with respect to parallel changes in physiology and performance. Rather, physiology and performance seemed to be affected independently, via unique pathways. Copyright © 2016. Published by Elsevier Inc.

The Sexual Thoughts Questionnaire: Psychometric Evaluation of a Measure to Assess Self-Reported Thoughts During Exposure to Erotica Using Sexually Functional Individuals.

PubMed

Sigre-Leirós, Vera; Carvalho, Joana; Nobre, Pedro J

2016-05-01

Validated instruments for assessing specific thought content during exposure to sexually explicit material are lacking. To investigate the psychometric properties of a measure that assesses self-reported thoughts during exposure to sexual stimuli in laboratory settings, namely the Sexual Thoughts Questionnaire. The factorial structure of the questionnaire and its reliability and validity were examined. One hundred sixty-seven sexually functional individuals (97 women and 70 men) were exposed to sexually explicit material while their genital arousal was being assessed. Subjective sexual arousal and thoughts during exposure to sexually explicit material also were assessed. Women's genital arousal was measured with a vaginal photoplethysmograph and men's genital arousal was measured with an indium-gallium strain gauge. Subjective sexual arousal and thoughts during exposure to erotica were assessed with self-report scales. Principal component analysis with varimax rotation identified five factors: sexual arousal thoughts, distractive and disengaging thoughts, body image and performance thoughts, actress's physical attractiveness thoughts, and sinful and lack of affection thoughts. Moreover, the scale showed satisfactory levels of internal consistency. Studies on convergent validity showed an association between self-reported thoughts and subjective sexual arousal levels in the women and men. The Sexual Thoughts Questionnaire showed adequate psychometric properties in a sexually functional sample. It could be useful in further experimental research on the role of cognitions in sexual response and allow further comparison between sexually functional and dysfunctional individuals, with possible significant implications for the assessment and treatment of sexual problems. Copyright © 2016 International Society for Sexual Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Role of Emotion and Cognition on Age Differences in the Framing Effect.

PubMed

Pu, Bingyan; Peng, Huamao; Xia, Shiyong

2017-09-01

Framing effect studies indicate that individuals are risk averse for decisions framed as gains but risk-seeking for decisions framed as losses. Findings of age-related differences in susceptibility to framing are mixed. In the current study, we examined emotional arousal in two decision tasks (life saving vs. money gambling) to evaluate the effects of emotion on age differences in the framing effect. When cognitive abilities and styles were controlled, there was a framing effect in the younger group in the life-saving task, a high-emotional arousal task, while older adults did not display this classic framing effect pattern. They showed risk aversion in both positive and negative framing. Age differences existed in the framing effect. Conversely, younger and older adults in the money-gambling task both displayed the framing effect; there was no age difference. When the cognitive abilities were not controlled, the pattern of results in the high-emotional arousal task remained unchanged, while greater framing effects were found, from the perspective of effect size, for older than younger adults in the low-emotional arousal task. Limited cognitive resources would not hamper older adults' performances when their emotional arousal was high. However, older adults with low-level emotional arousal were more susceptible than younger adults to framing because of declining cognitive capacities. This implied the importance of emotion in older adults' decision making and supported the selective engagement hypothesis.

Gender difference in brain activation to audio-visual sexual stimulation; do women and men experience the same level of arousal in response to the same video clip?

PubMed

Chung, W S; Lim, S M; Yoo, J H; Yoon, H

2013-01-01

Factors related to sexual arousal are different in men and women. The conditions for women to become aroused are more complex. However, the conventional audio-visual stimulation (AVS) materials used to evaluate sexual arousal are universal. In the present study, we investigated sexual differences in the response to different types of AVS by studying activated areas of the brain using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). fMRI was performed during two types of AVS in 20 healthy heterosexual volunteers (aged 20-28 years, 10 men and 10 women). The two AVS types were: (1) mood type, erotic video clips with a concrete story and (2) physical type, directly exposing sexual intercourse and genitalia. fMRI images were analyzed and compared for each stimulation with a Mann-Whitney U test, with statistical significance set at P<0.05. Men preferred the physical type of AVS to the mood type (mean arousal score 2.14 vs 1.86 in females) and women preferred the mood type (mean arousal score 2.14 vs 1.86 in males) (P<0.05). Degrees of activation in brain areas differed between genders and types of AVS for each gender. This should be considered when applying the AVS method to evaluate and diagnose female sexual dysfunction.

Pornographic picture processing interferes with working memory performance.

PubMed

Laier, Christian; Schulte, Frank P; Brand, Matthias

2013-01-01

Some individuals report problems during and after Internet sex engagement, such as missing sleep and forgetting appointments, which are associated with negative life consequences. One mechanism potentially leading to these kinds of problems is that sexual arousal during Internet sex might interfere with working memory (WM) capacity, resulting in a neglect of relevant environmental information and therefore disadvantageous decision making. In this study, 28 healthy individuals performed 4 experimental manipulations of a pictorial 4-back WM task with neutral, negative, positive, or pornographic stimuli. Participants also rated 100 pornographic pictures with respect to sexual arousal and indicated masturbation urges previous to and following pornographic picture presentation. Results revealed worse WM performance in the pornographic picture condition of the 4-back task compared with the three remaining picture conditions. Furthermore, hierarchical regression analysis indicated an explanation of variance of the sensitivity in the pornographic picture condition by the subjective rating of the pornographic pictures as well as by a moderation effect of masturbation urges. Results contribute to the view that indicators of sexual arousal due to pornographic picture processing interfere with WM performance. Findings are discussed with respect to Internet sex addiction because WM interference by addiction-related cues is well known from substance dependencies.

Effects of emotionally contagious films on changes in hemisphere-specific cognitive performance.

PubMed

Papousek, Ilona; Schulter, Günter; Lang, Brigitte

2009-08-01

In the framework of models on the lateralized involvement of the cortical hemispheres in affect and psychopathology, the authors examined whether cognitive processes associated with the left and the right prefrontal cortex varied as a function of valence, motivational direction, or intensity of induced mood. Affective states (cheerfulness, anxiety, sadness, anger, and neutral mood) were experimentally induced by short "emotionally contagious films." Findings confirmed that the newly developed films were suitable to effectively elicit the expected affective states and to differentially change the dimensions of interest. Changes in verbal versus figural fluency performance were examined as a function of positive versus negative valence, approach versus withdrawal motivation, and low versus high emotional arousal. Level of interest was evaluated as a control. Both the tendency to withdraw and emotional arousal seemed to produce relative advantages for cognitive processes that are more strongly represented in the right than left prefrontal cortex. Findings suggest that changes in cognitive performance might be best explained by an additive combination of motivational direction and arousal. 2009 APA, all rights reserved.

Physiologic parameters associated with sexual arousal in women with incomplete spinal cord injuries.

PubMed

Sipski, M L; Alexander, C J; Rosen, R C

1997-03-01

To compare the physiologic sexual responses of women with incomplete spinal cord injuries (SCIs) with and without preservation of the ability to perceive T11-L2 pinprick sensation. Controlled laboratory-based analysis of responses to varying combinations of audiovisual erotic stimulation, manual genital stimulation, and performance of a distracting task coupled with manual genital stimulation. The sexual physiology laboratory at our freestanding rehabilitation hospital. A volunteer sample of 17 women with incomplete SCIs. Two 78-minute protocols using 6-minute baselines alternating with 12-minute testing conditions. One protocol was designed to study the effects of psychogenic and psychogenic combined with manual sexual stimulation, while the other was designed to examine the effects of genital sexual stimulation performed in conjunction with a distracting task. Vaginal pulse amplitude, subjective arousal, heart rate, respiratory rate, and blood pressure. Subjective arousal increased in both groups of subjects with isolated audiovisual erotic stimulation; however, only those subjects with the ability to perceive T11-L2 pinprick sensation had concomitant increases in vaginal pulse amplitude. In contrast, when manual genital stimulation was added to the audiovisual erotic stimulation, both groups of subjects developed increases in vaginal pulse amplitude, whereas only those subjects with the ability to perceive T11-L2 demonstrated a further increase in their level of subjective arousal. Performance of manual genital stimulation in conjunction with a distracting task resulted in significantly increased vaginal pulse amplitude and arousal level only in those subjects with preservation of the ability to perceive T11-L2 pinprick sensation. With the changeover to masturbation, neither group of subjects developed significant increases in vaginal pulse amplitude. During masturbation, both groups of subjects had increases in their level of sexual arousal; however, only those subjects with T11-L2 pinprick preservation had a significant increase. Women with preservation of the ability to perceive T11-L2 pinprick sensation tended to maintain the ability for psychogenic genital vasocongestion. Psychogenic protocol results showed that all subjects appeared to develop reflex genital vasocongestion when manual stimulation was added to audiovisual erotic stimulation. Manual genital stimulation in conjunction with the performance of a distracting task only resulted in increased vaginal pulse amplitudes in those subjects with preservation of T11-L2 pinprick sensation. We believe that this was due to increased subjective sexual arousal and that the reason all subjects did not develop increased genital vasocongestion under these conditions was due to poor hand function. Further research examining women with lower levels of SCI is necessary to understand the neurophysiology of female sexual response after SCI.

Effects of acupuncture on tissue-oxygenation of the rat brain.

PubMed

Chen, G S; Erdmann, W

1977-01-01

Acupuncture has been claimed to be effective in restoring consciousness in some comatose patients. Possible mechanisms to explain alleged acupuncture-induced arousal may include vasodilatory effects caused by sympathetic stimulation which leads to an augmentation of cerebral microcirculation and thereby improves oxygen supply to the brain tissue. Experiments were performed in ten albino rats (Wistar) employing PO2 microelectrodes which were inserted into the cortex of the animals through small burholes. Brain tissue PO2 was continuously recorded before, during, and after acupuncture. Stimulation of certain acupuncture loci (Go-26) resulted in immediate increase of PO2 in the frontal cortex of the rat brain. This effect was reproducible. The effect was comparable to that obtained with increase of inspiratory CO2 known to induce arterial vasodilatation and thus capillary perfusion pressure. The effect was more significant as compared to tissue PO2 increases obtained after increase of inspiratory oxygen concentration from 21% to 100%. It appears that acupuncture causes an increase of brain tissue perfusion which may be, at least in part, responsible for arousal of unconscious patients. Dilatation of cerebral vascular vessels and improvement of autoregulation in the brain by acupuncture stimulation may also explain the effectiveness of acupuncture in the treatment of migraine headache.

Caffeine effects on mood and memory.

PubMed

Herz, R S

1999-09-01

The purpose of the present research was to assess whether a psychoactive dose of caffeine would have differential affects on the mood dimensions of arousal versus feelings of pleasantness and whether these mood alterations would influence memory either by (1) the experience of arousal at learning and/or (2) altered and congruent mood states at learning and recall. To address these questions, the administration of 5 mg/kg caffeine or placebo at learning and retrieval sessions was manipulated and subjects' mood was evaluated by several different self-report measures. Sixteen words were incidentally studied during the learning session and memory was evaluated by the number of words correctly recalled at the retrieval session two days later. Results revealed that caffeine reliably increased arousal, but did not affect any emotion dimensions related to feelings of pleasure. Subjects who received caffeine at learning and retrieval were also in equivalent mood states at both sessions. Moreover, caffeine did not produce any effects on memory; thus, neither hypothesis concerning the influence of arousal on memory was supported. These data show that caffeine is a useful method for manipulating arousal in the laboratory without influencing feelings of pleasantness or learning and memory performance.

Tracking arousal state and mind wandering with pupillometry.

PubMed

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.

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

PubMed

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.

The Effects of Impulsivity, Sexual Arousability, and Abstract Intellectual Ability on Men’s and Women’s Go/No-Go Task Performance

PubMed Central

Macapagal, Kathryn R.; Janssen, Erick; Fridberg, Daniel J.; Finn, Peter R.; Heiman, Julia R.

2011-01-01

While a number of studies have assessed the role of personality traits, situational variables, and drug use on sexual risk behaviors, fewer studies have employed experimental methods to examine cognitive processes that may underlie risky sexual decision making. This study used a go/no-go paradigm to examine how individual difference variables and sexual arousal influence discrimination learning and sexual and nonsexual decision making. A total of 28 men (M age = 20 years) and 25 women (M age = 19 years) completed self-report measures of impulsivity, abstract intellectual ability, and sexual excitation and inhibition and participated in a laboratory experiment. The experiment consisted of two go/no-go tasks with sexual stimuli and two tasks with neutral stimuli, preceded by either sexually arousing or sexually neutral stimulus presentations. Task performance was measured by totals of false alarms and misses. Individuals high in impulsivity and low in abstract intellectual ability committed more false alarms in conditions involving sexually arousing stimuli. Furthermore, higher sexual excitation scores were linked to more misses. These findings indicate that cognitive processes associated with decision making that occurs in the “heat of the moment” are influenced by a combination of situational and sexual and nonsexual individual difference variables. PMID:20862534

Light Effects on Behavioural Performance Depend on the Individual State of Vigilance

PubMed Central

Barba, Antonio; Padilla, Francisca

2016-01-01

Research has shown that exposure to bright white light or blue-enriched light enhances alertness, but this effect is not consistently observed in tasks demanding high-level cognition (e.g., Sustained Attention to Response Task—SART, which measures inhibitory control). Individual differences in sensitivity to light effects might be mediated by variations in the basal level of arousal. We tested this hypothesis by measuring the participants’ behavioural state of vigilance before light exposure, through the Psychomotor Vigilance Task. Then we compared the effects of a blue-enriched vs. dim light at nighttime on the performance of the auditory SART, by controlling for individual differences in basal arousal. The results replicated the alerting effects of blue-enriched light, as indexed by lower values of both proximal temperature and distal-proximal gradient. The main finding was that lighting effects on SART performance were highly variable across individuals and depended on their prior state of vigilance. Specifically, participants with higher levels of basal vigilance before light exposure benefited most from blue-enriched lighting, responding faster in the SART. These results highlight the importance of considering basal vigilance to define the boundary conditions of light effects on cognitive performance. Our study adds to current research delineating the complex and reciprocal interactions between lighting effects, arousal, cognitive task demands and behavioural performance. PMID:27820822

Light Effects on Behavioural Performance Depend on the Individual State of Vigilance.

PubMed

Correa, Ángel; Barba, Antonio; Padilla, Francisca

2016-01-01

Research has shown that exposure to bright white light or blue-enriched light enhances alertness, but this effect is not consistently observed in tasks demanding high-level cognition (e.g., Sustained Attention to Response Task-SART, which measures inhibitory control). Individual differences in sensitivity to light effects might be mediated by variations in the basal level of arousal. We tested this hypothesis by measuring the participants' behavioural state of vigilance before light exposure, through the Psychomotor Vigilance Task. Then we compared the effects of a blue-enriched vs. dim light at nighttime on the performance of the auditory SART, by controlling for individual differences in basal arousal. The results replicated the alerting effects of blue-enriched light, as indexed by lower values of both proximal temperature and distal-proximal gradient. The main finding was that lighting effects on SART performance were highly variable across individuals and depended on their prior state of vigilance. Specifically, participants with higher levels of basal vigilance before light exposure benefited most from blue-enriched lighting, responding faster in the SART. These results highlight the importance of considering basal vigilance to define the boundary conditions of light effects on cognitive performance. Our study adds to current research delineating the complex and reciprocal interactions between lighting effects, arousal, cognitive task demands and behavioural performance.

Congruent bodily arousal promotes the constructive recognition of emotional words.

PubMed

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.

Effect of sildenafil on subjective and physiologic parameters of the female sexual response in women with sexual arousal disorder.

PubMed

Berman, J R; Berman, L A; Lin, H; Flaherty, E; Lahey, N; Goldstein, I; Cantey-Kiser, J

2001-01-01

Sexual dysfunction is a complaint of 30-50% of American women. Aside from hormone replacement therapy, there are no current FDA-approved medical treatments for female sexual complaints. The goal of this pilot study was to determine safety and efficacy of sildenafil for use in women with sexual arousal disorder (SAD). Evaluations were completed on 48 women with complaints of SAD. Physiologic measurements, including genital blood flow, vaginal lubrication, intravaginal pressure-volume changes, and genital sensation were recorded pre- and postsexual stimulation at baseline and following 100 mg sildenafil. Subjective sexual function was assessed using a validated sexual function inventory at baseline and following 6 weeks of home use of sildenafil. At termination of the study patients also completed an intervention efficacy index (FIEI). Following sildenafil, poststimulation physiologic measurements improved significantly compared to baseline. Baseline subjective sexual function complaints, including low arousal, low desire, low sexual satisfaction, difficulty achieving orgasm, decreased vaginal lubrication, and dyspareunia also improved significantly following 6 weeks home use of sildenafil. Sildenafil appears to significantly improve both subjective and physiologic parameters of the female sexual response. Double-blind, placebo-controlled studies are currently in progress to further determine efficacy of this medication for treatment of female sexual dysfunction complaints in different populations of women.

Exercise Holds Immediate Benefits for Affect and Cognition in Younger and Older Adults

PubMed Central

Hogan, Candice L.; Mata, Jutta; Carstensen, Laura L.

2013-01-01

Physical activity is associated with improved affective experience and enhanced cognitive processing. Potential age differences in the degree of benefit, however, are poorly understood because most studies examine either younger or older adults. The present study examined age differences in cognitive performance and affective experience immediately following a single bout of moderate exercise. Participants (144 community members aged 19 to 93) were randomly assigned to one of two experimental conditions: (a) exercise (15 min of moderate intensity stationary cycling) or (b) control (15 min completing ratings of neutral IAPS images). Before and after the manipulation, participants completed tests of working memory and momentary affect experience was measured. Results suggest that exercise is associated with increased levels of high-arousal positive affect (HAP) and decreased levels of low-arousal positive affect (LAP) relative to control condition. Age moderated the effects of exercise on LAP, such that younger age was associated with a drop in reported LAP postexercise, whereas the effects of exercise on HAP were consistent across age. Exercise also led to faster RTs on a working memory task than the control condition across age. Self-reported negative affect was unchanged. Overall, findings suggest that exercise may hold important benefits for both affective experience and cognitive performance regardless of age. PMID:23795769

Effects of chronic sleep fragmentation on wake-active neurons and the hypercapnic arousal response.

PubMed

Li, Yanpeng; Panossian, Lori A; Zhang, Jing; Zhu, Yan; Zhan, Guanxia; Chou, Yu-Ting; Fenik, Polina; Bhatnagar, Seema; Piel, David A; Beck, Sheryl G; Veasey, Sigrid

2014-01-01

Delayed hypercapnic arousals may occur in obstructive sleep apnea. The impaired arousal response is expected to promote more pronounced oxyhemoglobin desaturations. We hypothesized that long-term sleep fragmentation (SF) results in injury to or dysfunction of wake-active neurons that manifests, in part, as a delayed hypercapnic arousal response. Adult male mice were implanted for behavioral state recordings and randomly assigned to 4 weeks of either orbital platform SF (SF4wk, 30 events/h) or control conditions (Ct4wk) prior to behavioral, histological, and locus coeruleus (LC) whole cell electrophysiological evaluations. SF was successfully achieved across the 4 week study, as evidenced by a persistently increased arousal index, P < 0.01 and shortened sleep bouts, P < 0.05, while total sleep/wake times and plasma corticosterone levels were unaffected. A multiple sleep latency test performed at the onset of the dark period showed a reduced latency to sleep in SF4wk mice (P < 0.05). The hypercapnic arousal latency was increased, Ct4wk 64 ± 5 sec vs. SF4wk 154 ± 6 sec, P < 0.001, and remained elevated after a 2 week recovery (101 ± 4 sec, P < 0.001). C-fos activation in noradrenergic, orexinergic, histaminergic, and cholinergic wake-active neurons was reduced in response to hypercapnia (P < 0.05-0.001). Catecholaminergic and orexinergic projections into the cingulate cortex were also reduced in SF4wk (P < 0.01). In addition, SF4wk resulted in impaired LC neuron excitability (P < 0.01). Four weeks of sleep fragmentation (SF4wk) impairs arousal responses to hypercapnia, reduces wake neuron projections and locus coeruleus neuronal excitability, supporting the concepts that some effects of sleep fragmentation may contribute to impaired arousal responses in sleep apnea, which may not reverse immediately with therapy.

Effects of Chronic Sleep Fragmentation on Wake-Active Neurons and the Hypercapnic Arousal Response

PubMed Central

Li, Yanpeng; Panossian, Lori A.; Zhang, Jing; Zhu, Yan; Zhan, Guanxia; Chou, Yu-Ting; Fenik, Polina; Bhatnagar, Seema; Piel, David A.; Beck, Sheryl G.; Veasey, Sigrid

2014-01-01

Study Objectives: Delayed hypercapnic arousals may occur in obstructive sleep apnea. The impaired arousal response is expected to promote more pronounced oxyhemoglobin desaturations. We hypothesized that long-term sleep fragmentation (SF) results in injury to or dysfunction of wake-active neurons that manifests, in part, as a delayed hypercapnic arousal response. Design: Adult male mice were implanted for behavioral state recordings and randomly assigned to 4 weeks of either orbital platform SF (SF4wk, 30 events/h) or control conditions (Ct4wk) prior to behavioral, histological, and locus coeruleus (LC) whole cell electrophysiological evaluations. Measurements and Results: SF was successfully achieved across the 4 week study, as evidenced by a persistently increased arousal index, P < 0.01 and shortened sleep bouts, P < 0.05, while total sleep/wake times and plasma corticosterone levels were unaffected. A multiple sleep latency test performed at the onset of the dark period showed a reduced latency to sleep in SF4wk mice (P < 0.05). The hypercapnic arousal latency was increased, Ct4wk 64 ± 5 sec vs. SF4wk 154 ± 6 sec, P < 0.001, and remained elevated after a 2 week recovery (101 ± 4 sec, P < 0.001). C-fos activation in noradrenergic, orexinergic, histaminergic, and cholinergic wake-active neurons was reduced in response to hypercapnia (P < 0.05-0.001). Catecholaminergic and orexinergic projections into the cingulate cortex were also reduced in SF4wk (P < 0.01). In addition, SF4wk resulted in impaired LC neuron excitability (P < 0.01). Conclusions: Four weeks of sleep fragmentation (SF4wk) impairs arousal responses to hypercapnia, reduces wake neuron projections and locus coeruleus neuronal excitability, supporting the concepts that some effects of sleep fragmentation may contribute to impaired arousal responses in sleep apnea, which may not reverse immediately with therapy. Citation: Li Y; Panossian LA; Zhang J; Zhu Y; Zhan G; Chou YT; Fenik P; Bhatnagar S; Piel DA; Beck SG; Veasey S. Effects of chronic sleep fragmentation on wake-active neurons and the hypercapnic arousal response. SLEEP 2014;37(1):51-64. PMID:24470695

Shock and awe: Distinct effects of taboo words on lexical decision and free recall.

PubMed

Madan, Christopher R; Shafer, Andrea T; Chan, Michelle; Singhal, Anthony

2017-04-01

Taboo stimuli are highly arousing, but it has been suggested that they also have inherent taboo-specific properties such as tabooness, offensiveness, or shock value. Prior studies have shown that taboo words have slower response times in lexical decision and higher recall probabilities in free recall; however, taboo words often differ from other words on more than just arousal and taboo properties. Here, we replicated both of these findings and conducted detailed item analyses to determine which word properties drive these behavioural effects. We found that lexical-decision performance was best explained by measures of lexical accessibility (e.g., word frequency) and tabooness, rather than arousal, valence, or offensiveness. However, free-recall performance was primarily driven by emotional word properties, and tabooness was the most important emotional word property for model fit. Our results suggest that the processing of taboo words is influenced by distinct sets of factors and by an intrinsic taboo-specific property.

The relationship between regular sports participation and vigilance in male and female adolescents.

PubMed

Ballester, Rafael; Huertas, Florentino; Yuste, Francisco Javier; Llorens, Francesc; Sanabria, Daniel

2015-01-01

The present study investigated the relationship between regular sport participation (soccer) and vigilance performance. Two groups of male and female adolescents differentiated in terms of their sport participation (athletes, n = 39, and non-athletes, n = 36) took part in the study. In one session, participants performed the Leger Multi-stage fitness test to estimate their aerobic fitness level. In the other session, participants completed the Psychomotor Vigilance Task (PVT) to evaluate their vigilance performance. Perceived arousal prior to the task and motivation toward the task were also measured in the PVT session. The results revealed that athletes had better cardiovascular fitness and showed better performance in the PVT. However, correlation analyses did not show any significant relationship between cardiovascular fitness and performance in the PVT. Athletes showed larger scores in motivation and perceived arousal measures with respect to non-athletes, although, once again, these variables were not correlated with PVT performance. Gender differences were observed only in the Leger test, with males showing greater fitness level than females. The major outcome of this research points to a positive relationship between regular sport participation and vigilance during adolescence. This relationship did not seem to be influenced by gender, perceived arousal, motivation toward the task or cardiovascular fitness. We discuss our results in terms of the different hypotheses put forward in the literature to explain the relationship between physical activity and cognitive functioning.

Contagious yawning, social cognition, and arousal: an investigation of the processes underlying shelter dogs' responses to human yawns.

PubMed

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.

Nitrogen narcosis and emotional processing during compressed air breathing.

PubMed

Löfdahl, Per; Andersson, Daniel; Bennett, Michael

2013-01-01

Previous studies on nitrogen narcosis have focused on how it affects behavior, performance, and cognitive function. However, little is known about the effects of nitrogen narcosis on the emotional processing of external stimuli. We presented 20 volunteers with images from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS) and categorized as unpleasant, neutral, or pleasant, while sitting in a hyperbaric chamber at the surface (101,3kPa) and at 39 m equivalent depth (496.4 kPa). The participants rated the images along three affective dimensions: valence (intrinsic attractiveness or aversiveness of a stimuli), arousal, and dominance. In the valence dimension there was no significant effect of increased pressure or interaction between increased pressure and image category. There was a significant interaction between image category and the pressure at which the images were viewed in the arousal dimension. The mean arousal rating score for unpleasant stimuli was 0.5 point (on a 9-point scale) lower at hyperbaric conditions and equal arousal rating score for neutral stimuli in general. The absence of any effect of pressure in the valence dimension suggests that divers have no impairment in their ability to determine the pleasantness or unpleasantness of different stimuli. Furthermore, this study suggests that the effects of nitrogen narcosis on the emotional processing of external stimuli are primarily evident in the arousal dimension. Although differences in arousal ratings were relatively small in magnitude, even a small alteration in emotional response to external stimuli might be important in the context of deep diving.

Emotions induced by operatic music: psychophysiological effects of music, plot, and acting: a scientist's tribute to Maria Callas.

PubMed

Balteş, Felicia Rodica; Avram, Julia; Miclea, Mircea; Miu, Andrei C

2011-06-01

Operatic music involves both singing and acting (as well as rich audiovisual background arising from the orchestra and elaborate scenery and costumes) that multiply the mechanisms by which emotions are induced in listeners. The present study investigated the effects of music, plot, and acting performance on emotions induced by opera. There were three experimental conditions: (1) participants listened to a musically complex and dramatically coherent excerpt from Tosca; (2) they read a summary of the plot and listened to the same musical excerpt again; and (3) they re-listened to music while they watched the subtitled film of this acting performance. In addition, a control condition was included, in which an independent sample of participants succesively listened three times to the same musical excerpt. We measured subjective changes using both dimensional, and specific music-induced emotion questionnaires. Cardiovascular, electrodermal, and respiratory responses were also recorded, and the participants kept track of their musical chills. Music listening alone elicited positive emotion and autonomic arousal, seen in faster heart rate, but slower respiration rate and reduced skin conductance. Knowing the (sad) plot while listening to the music a second time reduced positive emotions (peacefulness, joyful activation), and increased negative ones (sadness), while high autonomic arousal was maintained. Watching the acting performance increased emotional arousal and changed its valence again (from less positive/sad to transcendent), in the context of continued high autonomic arousal. The repeated exposure to music did not by itself induce this pattern of modifications. These results indicate that the multiple musical and dramatic means involved in operatic performance specifically contribute to the genesis of music-induced emotions and their physiological correlates. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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

PubMed

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.

Anesthesia Practice and Clinical Trends in Interventional Radiology: A European Survey

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Haslam, Philip J.; Yap, Bernard; Mueller, Peter R.

Purpose: To determine current European practice in interventional radiology regarding nursing care, anesthesia, and clinical care trends.Methods: A survey was sent to 977 European interventional radiologists to assess the use of sedoanalgesia, nursing care, monitoring equipment, pre- and postprocedural care, and clinical trends in interventional radiology. Patterns of sedoanalgesia were recorded for both vascular and visceral interventional procedures. Responders rated their preferred level of sedoanalgesia for each procedure as follows: (a) awake/alert, (b) drowsy/arousable, (c) asleep/arousable, (d) deep sedation, and (e) general anesthesia. Sedoanalgesic drugs and patient care trends were also recorded. A comparison was performed with data derived frommore » a similar survey of interventional practice in the United States.Results: Two hundred and forty-three of 977 radiologists responded (25%). The total number of procedures analyzed was 210,194. The majority (56%) of diagnostic and therapeutic vascular procedures were performed at the awake/alert level of sedation, 32% were performed at the drowsy/arousable level, and 12% at deeper levels of sedation. The majority of visceral interventional procedures were performed at the drowsy/arousable level of sedation (41%), 29% were performed at deeper levels of sedation, and 30% at the awake/alert level. In general, more sedoanalgesia is used in the United States. Eighty-three percent of respondents reported the use of a full-time radiology nurse, 67% used routine blood pressure/pulse oximetry monitoring, and 46% reported the presence of a dedicated recovery area. Forty-nine percent reported daily patient rounds, 30% had inpatient hospital beds, and 51% had day case beds.Conclusion: This survey shows clear differences in the use of sedation for vascular and visceral interventional procedures. Many, often complex, procedures are performed at the awake/alert level of sedation in Europe, whereas deeper levels of sedation are used in the United States. Trends toward making interventional radiology a clinical specialty are evident, with 51% of respondents having day case beds, and 30% having inpatient beds.« less

Affective and cognitive decision-making in adolescents.

PubMed

van Duijvenvoorde, Anna C K; Jansen, Brenda R J; Visser, Ingmar; Huizenga, Hilde M

2010-01-01

Adolescents demonstrate impaired decision-making in emotionally arousing situations, yet they appear to exhibit relatively mature decision-making skills in predominantly cognitive, low-arousal situations. In this study we compared adolescents' (13-15 years) performance on matched affective and cognitive decision-making tasks, in order to determine (1) their performance level on each task and (2) whether performance on the cognitive task was associated with performance on the affective task. Both tasks required a comparison of choice dimensions characterized by frequency of loss, amount of loss, and constant gain. Results indicated that in the affective task, adolescents performed sub-optimally by considering only the frequency of loss, whereas in the cognitive task adolescents used relatively mature decision rules by considering two or all three choice dimensions. Performance on the affective task was not related to performance on the cognitive task. These results are discussed in light of neural developmental trajectories observed in adolescence.

A test-retest assessment of the effects of mental load on ratings of affect, arousal and perceived exertion during submaximal cycling.

PubMed

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.

Exogenous melatonin in periodic limb movement disorder: an open clinical trial and a hypothesis.

PubMed

Kunz, D; Bes, F

2001-03-15

The etiology of Periodic Limb Movement Disorder (PLMD) as well as the precise role of melatonin in human physiology remains poorly understood. Inspired by a single case observation we performed the presented study in order to obtain first evidence for the hypothesis that exogenous melatonin would decrease PLM's and thereby improves symptoms of PLMD patients. N/A. N/A. Nine patients with first time diagnosis of PLMD without RLS were treated over a six-week period with 3 mg melatonin, taken between 10 and 11 p.m. N/A. Melatonin improved well-being in 7 of the 9 patients. Polysomnography, performed prior and at the end of melatonin treatment, demonstrated a significant reduction of investigated movement parameters, such as PLMs, PLM index, PLMs with arousals and PLM-arousal index. Actigraphy, measured over 14 nights prior and during the last 14 days of melatonin treatment, showed a significant reduction in movement rate and minutes with movements during Time in Bed. The temporal distribution of PLMs, as well as the coupling of PLMs with the phase position of circadian temperature curve, suggest an involvement of the circadian timing system in the pathophysiology of PLMD. Locomotor activity in animals clearly exhibits a circadian pattern and can be strongly influenced by exogenous melatonin. Results suggest a chronobiotic effect of exogenous melatonin in PLMD. More specifically, we hypothesize that the mode of action of melatonin in the presented PLMD patients might have been an increase of output-amplitude of the circadian timing system, thereby enhancing the circadian rhythmicity of locomotor activity with a reduction of sleep motor activity.

Orienting, emotion, and memory: phasic and tonic variation in heart rate predicts memory for emotional pictures in men.

PubMed

Abercrombie, Heather C; Chambers, Andrea S; Greischar, Lawrence; Monticelli, Roxanne M

2008-11-01

Arousal-related processes associated with heightened heart rate (HR) predict memory enhancement, especially for emotionally arousing stimuli. In addition, phasic HR deceleration reflects "orienting" and sensory receptivity during perception of stimuli. We hypothesized that both tonic elevations in HR as well as phasic HR deceleration during viewing of pictures would be associated with deeper encoding and better subsequent memory for stimuli. Emotional pictures are more memorable and cause greater HR deceleration than neutral pictures. Thus, we predicted that the relations between cardiac activity and memory enhancement would be most pronounced for emotionally-laden compared to neutral pictures. We measured HR in 53 males during viewing of unpleasant, neutral, and pleasant pictures, and tested memory for the pictures two days later. Phasic HR deceleration during viewing of individual pictures was greater for subsequently remembered than forgotten pictures across all three emotion categories. Elevated mean HR across the entire encoding epoch also predicted better memory performance, but only for emotionally arousing pictures. Elevated mean HR and phasic HR deceleration were associated, such that individuals with greater tonic HR also showed greater HR decelerations during picture viewing, but only for emotionally arousing pictures. Results suggest that tonic elevations in HR are associated both with greater orienting and heightened memory for emotionally arousing stimuli.

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

PubMed Central

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

Orienting, emotion, and memory: Phasic and tonic variation in heart rate predicts memory for emotional pictures in men

PubMed Central

Abercrombie, Heather C.; Chambers, Andrea S.; Greischar, Lawrence; Monticelli, Roxanne M.

2008-01-01

Arousal-related processes associated with heightened heart rate (HR) predict memory enhancement, especially for emotionally arousing stimuli. In addition, phasic HR deceleration reflects “orienting” and sensory receptivity during perception of stimuli. We hypothesized that both tonic elevations in HR as well as phasic HR deceleration during viewing of pictures would be associated with deeper encoding and better subsequent memory for stimuli. Emotional pictures are more memorable and cause greater HR deceleration than neutral pictures. Thus, we predicted that the relations between cardiac activity and memory enhancement would be most pronounced for emotionally-laden compared to neutral pictures. We measured HR in 53 males during viewing of unpleasant, neutral, and pleasant pictures, and tested memory for the pictures two days later. Phasic HR deceleration during viewing of individual pictures was greater for subsequently remembered than forgotten pictures across all three emotion categories. Elevated mean HR across the entire encoding epoch also predicted better memory performance, but only for emotionally arousing pictures. Elevated mean HR and phasic HR deceleration were associated, such that individuals with greater tonic HR also showed greater HR decelerations during picture viewing, but only for emotionally arousing pictures. Results suggest that tonic elevations in HR are associated both with greater orienting and heightened memory for emotionally arousing stimuli. PMID:18755284

Opinion Paper: On the Diagnosis/Classification of Sexual Arousal Concerns in Women.

PubMed

Althof, Stanley E; Meston, Cindy M; Perelman, Michael A; Handy, Ariel B; Kilimnik, Chelsea D; Stanton, Amelia M

2017-11-01

In the professional literature and among our professional societies, female sexual dysfunction nomenclature and diagnostic criterion sets have been the source of considerable controversy. Recently, a consensus group, supported by the International Society for Women's Sexual Health, published its recommendations for nosology and nomenclature, which included only one type of arousal dysfunction, female genital arousal disorder, in its classification system. Subjective arousal was considered an aspect of sexual desire and not part of the arousal phase. To advocate for the importance of including subjective arousal disorder in the diagnostic nomenclature in addition to the genital arousal subtype. We reviewed how the construct of subjective arousal was included in or eliminated from the iterations of various diagnostic and statistical manuals. The Female Sexual Function Index (FSFI) was used to examine the relations among subjective arousal, genital arousal, and desire in women with and without sexual arousal concerns. Sexual arousal through a self-report Film Scale, physiologic sexual arousal through vaginal photoplethysmography in response to an erotic film, and the FSFI. The clinical literature and experience support differentiating subjective arousal from desire and genital arousal. Correlations between the FSFI domains representing desire and subjective arousal, although sufficient to suggest relatedness, share approximately 58% of the variance between constructs-a lower shared variance than FSFI domains representing subjective arousal and orgasm. Similarly, when looking at FSFI individual items best representative of sexual desire and subjective arousal, the large majority of the variance in subjective arousal was unexplained by desire. A third line of evidence showed no significant difference in levels of subjective arousal to erotic films between sexually functional women and women with desire problems. If desire and subjective arousal were the same construct, then one would expect to see evidence of low subjective arousal in women with low sexual desire. Optimized treatment efficacy requires differentiating mental and physical factors that contribute to female sexual dysfunction. Support for our conclusion is based on clinical qualitative evidence and quantitative evidence. However, the quantitative support is from only one laboratory at this time. These findings strongly support the view that female sexual arousal disorder includes a subjective arousal subtype and that subjective arousal and desire are related but not similar constructs. We advocate for the relevance of maintaining subjective arousal disorder in the diagnostic nomenclature and present several lines of evidence to support this contention. Althof SE, Meston CM, Perelman M, et al. Opinion Paper: On the Diagnosis/Classification of Sexual Arousal Concerns in Women. J Sex Med 2017;14:1365-1371. Copyright © 2017 International Society for Sexual Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Physiological correlates of stress-induced decrements in human perceptual performance.

DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

1993-11-01

Stress-induced changes in human performance have been thought to result from alterations in the "multidimensional arousal state" of the individual, as indexed by alterations in the physiological and psychological mechanisms controlling performance. I...

Mood states determine the degree of task shielding in dual-task performance.

PubMed

Zwosta, Katharina; Hommel, Bernhard; Goschke, Thomas; Fischer, Rico

2013-01-01

Current models of multitasking assume that dual-task performance and the degree of multitasking are affected by cognitive control strategies. In particular, cognitive control is assumed to regulate the amount of shielding of the prioritised task from crosstalk from the secondary task. We investigated whether and how task shielding is influenced by mood states. Participants were exposed to two short film clips, one inducing high and one inducing low arousal, of either negative or positive content. Negative mood led to stronger shielding of the prioritised task (i.e., less crosstalk) than positive mood, irrespective of arousal. These findings support the assumption that emotional states determine the parameters of cognitive control and play an important role in regulating dual-task performance.

Intranasal post-cardiac arrest treatment with orexin-A facilitates arousal from coma and ameliorates neuroinflammation.

PubMed

Modi, Hiren R; Wang, Qihong; Gd, Sahithi; Sherman, David; Greenwald, Elliot; Savonenko, Alena V; Geocadin, Romergryko G; Thakor, Nitish V

2017-01-01

Cardiac arrest (CA) entails significant risks of coma resulting in poor neurological and behavioral outcomes after resuscitation. Significant subsequent morbidity and mortality in post-CA patients are largely due to the cerebral and cardiac dysfunction that accompanies prolonged whole-body ischemia post-CA syndrome (PCAS). PCAS results in strong inflammatory responses including neuroinflammation response leading to poor outcome. Currently, there are no proven neuroprotective therapies to improve post-CA outcomes apart from therapeutic hypothermia. Furthermore, there are no acceptable approaches to promote cortical or cognitive arousal following successful return of spontaneous circulation (ROSC). Hypothalamic orexinergic pathway is responsible for arousal and it is negatively affected by neuroinflammation. However, whether activation of the orexinergic pathway can curtail neuroinflammation is unknown. We hypothesize that targeting the orexinergic pathway via intranasal orexin-A (ORXA) treatment will enhance arousal from coma and decrease the production of proinflammatory cytokines resulting in improved functional outcome after resuscitation. We used a highly validated CA rat model to determine the effects of intranasal ORXA treatment 30-minute post resuscitation. At 4hrs post-CA, the mRNA levels of proinflammatory markers (IL1β, iNOS, TNF-α, GFAP, CD11b) and orexin receptors (ORX1R and ORX2R) were examined in different brain regions. CA dramatically increased proinflammatory markers in all brain regions particularly in the prefrontal cortex, hippocampus and hypothalamus. Post-CA intranasal ORXA treatment significantly ameliorated the CA-induced neuroinflammatory markers in the hypothalamus. ORXA administration increased production of orexin receptors (ORX1R and ORX2R) particularly in hypothalamus. In addition, ORXA also resulted in early arousal as measured by quantitative electroencephalogram (EEG) markers, and recovery of the associated behavioral neurologic deficit scale score (NDS). Our results indicate that intranasal delivery of ORXA post-CA has an anti-inflammatory effect and accelerates cortical EEG and behavioral recovery. Beneficial outcomes from intranasal ORXA treatment lay the groundwork for therapeutic clinical approach to treating post-CA coma.

The subliminal affective priming effects of faces displaying various levels of arousal: an ERP study.

PubMed

Li, Tian-Tian; Lu, Yong

2014-11-07

This study on the subliminal affective priming effects of faces displaying various levels of arousal employed event-related potentials (ERPs). The participants were asked to rate the arousal of ambiguous medium-arousing faces that were preceded by high- or low-arousing priming faces presented subliminally. The results revealed that the participants exhibited arousal-consistent variation in their arousal level ratings of the probe faces exclusively in the negative prime condition. Compared with high-arousing faces, the low-arousing faces tended to elicit greater late positive component (LPC, 450-660ms) and greater N400 (330-450ms) potentials. These findings support the following conclusions: (1) the effect of subliminal affective priming of faces can be detected in the affective arousal dimension; (2) valence may influence the subliminal affective priming effect of the arousal dimension of emotional stimuli; and (3) the subliminal affective priming effect of face arousal occurs when the prime stimulus affects late-stage processing of the probe. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Behaviorally-based couple therapies reduce emotional arousal during couple conflict.

PubMed

Baucom, Brian R; Sheng, Elisa; Christensen, Andrew; Georgiou, Panayiotis G; Narayanan, Shrikanth S; Atkins, David C

2015-09-01

Emotional arousal during relationship conflict is a major target for intervention in couple therapies. The current study examines changes in conflict-related emotional arousal in 104 couples that participated in a randomized clinical trial of two behaviorally-based couple therapies. Emotional arousal is measured using mean fundamental frequency of spouse's speech, and changes in emotional arousal from pre-to post-therapy are examined using multilevel models. Overall emotional arousal, the rate of increase in emotional arousal at the beginning of conflict, and the duration of emotional arousal declined for all couples. Reductions in overall arousal were stronger for TBCT wives than for IBCT wives but not significantly different for IBCT and TBCT husbands. Reductions in the rate of initial arousal were larger for TBCT couples than IBCT couples. Reductions in duration were larger for IBCT couples than TBCT couples. These findings suggest that both therapies can reduce emotional arousal, but that the two therapies create different kinds of change in emotional arousal. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

PubMed

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.

Clitoral therapy device for treatment of sexual dysfunction in irradiated cervical cancer patients.

PubMed

Schroder, Maryann; Mell, Loren K; Hurteau, Jean A; Collins, Yvonne C; Rotmensch, Jacob; Waggoner, Steven E; Yamada, S Diane; Small, William; Mundt, Arno J

2005-03-15

The purpose of this pilot study was to evaluate the efficacy of the clitoral therapy device (Eros Therapy) in alleviating sexual dysfunction in irradiated cervical cancer patients. Eligible patients had a history of cervical cancer treated with radiotherapy and self-reported sexual dysfunction of sexual arousal and/or orgasmic disorders. Patients used the noninvasive, nonpharmacologic clitoral therapy device using a hand-held, battery-powered vacuum to cause clitoral engorgement four times weekly for 3 months during foreplay and self-stimulation. Study instruments included the Female Sexual Function Index, Derogatis Interview for Sexual Functioning, and Dyadic Adjustment Scale. The outcome evaluation was performed at 3 months. Between 2001 and 2002, 15 women were enrolled and 13 completed the study. The median patient age and radiotherapy-enrollment interval was 43.5 years and 2 years, respectively. At baseline, all patients reported symptoms of sexual arousal and/or orgasmic disorders, and some also had sexual desire and pain disorders. At 3 months, statistically significant improvements were seen in all domains tested, including sexual desire, arousal, lubrication, orgasm, sexual satisfaction, and reduced pain. The median Female Sexual Function Index total score increased from 17 to 29.4 (maximal score, 36; p <0.001). The median Derogatis Interview for Sexual Functioning total raw score increased from 46 to 95 (maximal score, 118; p <0.001). At baseline, the Derogatis Interview for Sexual Functioning total T-score corresponded to the bottom 10th percentile of normal sexual functioning. At 3 months, the total T-score placed the patients at the normalcy cutoff. Gynecologic examinations revealed improved mucosal color and moisture and vaginal elasticity and decreased bleeding and ulceration. Our results from this pilot study suggest that the clitoral therapy device may alleviate sexual dysfunction in irradiated cervical cancer patients. A randomized, controlled trial is warranted to assess the full benefits of this approach.

Physiological arousal, distress tolerance, and social problem-solving deficits among adolescent self-injurers.

PubMed

Nock, Matthew K; Mendes, Wendy Berry

2008-02-01

It has been suggested that people engage in nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) because they (a) experience heightened physiological arousal following stressful events and use NSSI to regulate experienced distress and (b) have deficits in their social problem-solving skills that interfere with the performance of more adaptive social responses. However, objective physiological and behavioral data supporting this model are lacking. The authors compared adolescent self-injurers (n = 62) with noninjurers (n = 30) and found that self-injurers showed higher physiological reactivity (skin conductance) during a distressing task, a poorer ability to tolerate this distress, and deficits in several social problem-solving abilities. These findings highlight the importance of attending to increased arousal, distress tolerance, and problem-solving skills in the assessment and treatment of NSSI.

The Influence of Colour on Memory Performance: A Review

PubMed Central

Dzulkifli, Mariam Adawiah; Mustafar, Muhammad Faiz

2013-01-01

Human cognition involves many mental processes that are highly interrelated, such as perception, attention, memory, and thinking. An important and core cognitive process is memory, which is commonly associated with the storing and remembering of environmental information. An interesting issue in memory research is on ways to enhance memory performance, and thus, remembering of information. Can colour result in improved memory abilities? The present paper highlights the relationship between colours, attention, and memory performance. The significance of colour in different settings is presented first, followed by a description on the nature of human memory. The role of attention and emotional arousal on memory performance is discussed next. The review of several studies on colours and memory are meant to explain some empirical works done in the area and related issues that arise from such studies. PMID:23983571

The influence of colour on memory performance: a review.

PubMed

Dzulkifli, Mariam Adawiah; Mustafar, Muhammad Faiz

2013-03-01

Human cognition involves many mental processes that are highly interrelated, such as perception, attention, memory, and thinking. An important and core cognitive process is memory, which is commonly associated with the storing and remembering of environmental information. An interesting issue in memory research is on ways to enhance memory performance, and thus, remembering of information. Can colour result in improved memory abilities? The present paper highlights the relationship between colours, attention, and memory performance. The significance of colour in different settings is presented first, followed by a description on the nature of human memory. The role of attention and emotional arousal on memory performance is discussed next. The review of several studies on colours and memory are meant to explain some empirical works done in the area and related issues that arise from such studies.

Arousal Intensity is a Distinct Pathophysiological Trait in Obstructive Sleep Apnea

PubMed Central

Amatoury, Jason; Azarbarzin, Ali; Younes, Magdy; Jordan, Amy S.; Wellman, Andrew; Eckert, Danny J.

2016-01-01

Study Objectives: Arousals from sleep vary in duration and intensity. Accordingly, the physiological consequences of different types of arousals may also vary. Factors that influence arousal intensity are only partly understood. This study aimed to determine if arousal intensity is mediated by the strength of the preceding respiratory stimulus, and investigate other factors mediating arousal intensity and its role on post-arousal ventilatory and pharyngeal muscle responses. Methods: Data were acquired in 71 adults (17 controls, 54 obstructive sleep apnea patients) instrumented with polysomnography equipment plus genioglossus and tensor palatini electromyography (EMG), a nasal mask and pneumotachograph, and an epiglottic pressure sensor. Transient reductions in CPAP were delivered during sleep to induce respiratory-related arousals. Arousal intensity was measured using a validated 10-point scale. Results: Average arousal intensity was not related to the magnitude of the preceding respiratory stimuli but was positively associated with arousal duration, time to arousal, rate of change in epiglottic pressure and negatively with BMI (R2 > 0.10, P ≤ 0.006). High (> 5) intensity arousals caused greater ventilatory responses than low (≤ 5) intensity arousals (10.9 [6.8–14.5] vs. 7.8 [4.7–12.9] L/min; P = 0.036) and greater increases in tensor palatini EMG (10 [3–17] vs. 6 [2–11]%max; P = 0.031), with less pronounced increases in genioglossus EMG. Conclusions: Average arousal intensity is independent of the preceding respiratory stimulus. This is consistent with arousal intensity being a distinct trait. Respiratory and pharyngeal muscle responses increase with arousal intensity. Thus, patients with higher arousal intensities may be more prone to respiratory control instability. These findings are important for sleep apnea pathogenesis. Citation: Amatoury J, Azarbarzin A, Younes M, Jordan AS, Wellman A, Eckert DJ. Arousal intensity is a distinct pathophysiological trait in obstructive sleep apnea. SLEEP 2016;39(12):2091–2100. PMID:27784404

Inhibition of Orexin Signaling Promotes Sleep Yet Preserves Salient Arousability in Monkeys

PubMed Central

Tannenbaum, Pamela L.; Tye, Spencer J.; Stevens, Joanne; Gotter, Anthony L.; Fox, Steven V.; Savitz, Alan T.; Coleman, Paul J.; Uslaner, Jason M.; Kuduk, Scott D.; Hargreaves, Richard; Winrow, Christopher J.; Renger, John J.

2016-01-01

Study Objectives: In addition to enhancing sleep onset and maintenance, a desirable insomnia therapeutic agent would preserve healthy sleep's ability to wake and respond to salient situations while maintaining sleep during irrelevant noise. Dual orexin receptor antagonists (DORAs) promote sleep by selectively inhibiting wake-promoting neuropeptide signaling, unlike global inhibition of central nervous system excitation by gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA)-A receptor (GABAaR) modulators. We evaluated the effect of DORA versus GABAaR modulators on underlying sleep architecture, ability to waken to emotionally relevant stimuli versus neutral auditory cues, and performance on a sleepiness-sensitive cognitive task upon awakening. Methods: DORA-22 and GABAaR modulators (eszopiclone, diazepam) were evaluated in adult male rhesus monkeys (n = 34) with continuous polysomnography recordings in crossover studies of sleep architecture, arousability to a classically conditioned salient versus neutral acoustical stimulus, and psychomotor vigilance task (PVT) performance if awakened. Results: All compounds decreased wakefulness, but only DORA-22 sleep resembled unmedicated sleep in terms of underlying sleep architecture, preserved ability to awaken to salient-conditioned acoustic stimuli while maintaining sleep during neutral acoustic stimuli, and no congnitive impairment in PVT performance. Although GABAaR modulators induced lighter sleep, monkeys rarely woke to salient stimuli and PVT performance was impaired if monkeys were awakened. Conclusions: In nonhuman primates, DORAs' targeted mechanism for promoting sleep protects the ability to selectively arouse to salient stimuli and perform attentional tasks unimpaired, suggesting meaningful differentiation between a hypnotic agent that works through antagonizing orexin wake signaling versus the sedative hypnotic effects of the GABAaR modulator mechanism of action. Citation: Tannenbaum PL, Tye SJ, Stevens J, Gotter AL, Fox SV, Savitz AT, Coleman PJ, Uslaner JM, Kuduk SD, Hargreaves R, Winrow CJ, Renger JJ. Inhibition of orexin signaling promotes sleep yet preserves salient arousability in monkeys. SLEEP 2016;39(3):603–612. PMID:26943466

Sensate Vagina Pedicled-Spot for Male-to-Female Transsexuals: The Experience in the First 50 Patients.

PubMed

Kanhai, Robert C J

2016-04-01

The cosmetic and functional results of vaginoplasty by inversion of penile and scrotal skin in male-to-female transsexuals are, in general, satisfactory. The sexual arousal function of the neo-female genitalia depends mainly on the clitoris. Due to the lack of a sexual arousal organ within the neo-vagina, patients are denied sexual arousal during penetration of the neo-vagina. This necessitated improvement of sexual innervation within the neo-vagina. A new technique to create a sexual arousal organ in the anterior wall of the neo-vagina by creation of a sensate pedicled-spot, in combination with the neo-clitoroplasty. In this paper, this new technique and part of the long-term results in the first 50 patients with a sensate pedicled-spot plasty are presented and discussed. Sensate pedicled-spot plasty has proven to be a safe innovative technique which lead to adequate sexual functionality in all patients. This journal requires that authors assign a level of evidence to each article. For a full description of these Evidence-Based Medicine ratings, please refer to the Table of Contents or the online Instructions to Authors www.springer.com/00266.

Differential regulation of glomerular and interstitial endothelial nitric oxide synthase expression in the kidney of hibernating ground squirrel.

PubMed

Sandovici, Maria; Henning, Robert H; Hut, Roelof A; Strijkstra, Arjen M; Epema, Anne H; van Goor, Harry; Deelman, Leo E

2004-09-01

Hibernating animals transiently reduce renal function during their hypothermic periods (torpor), while completely restoring it during their periodical rewarming to euthermia (arousal). Moreover, structural integrity of the kidney is preserved throughout the hibernation. Nitric oxide (NO) generated by endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS) is a crucial vasodilatory mediator and a protective factor in the kidney. We investigated renal NOS expression in hibernating European ground squirrels after 1 day and 7 days of torpor (torpor short, TS, and torpor long, TL, respectively), at 1.5 and at 10 h of rewarming (arousal short, AS, and arousal long, AL, respectively), and in continuously euthermic animals after hibernation (EU). For that purpose, we performed NOS activity assay, immunohistochemistry and real-time PCR analysis. Immunohistochemistry revealed a decreased glomerular eNOS expression in hibernating animals (TS, TL, AS, and AL) compared to non-hibernating animals (EU, p < 0.05), whereas no difference was found in the expression of interstitial eNOS. Expression of iNOS and nNOS did not differ between all groups. The reduced glomerular eNOS was associated with a significantly lower eNOS mRNA levels and NOS activity of whole kidney during torpor and arousal (TS, TL, AS, and AL) compared to EU. In all methods used, torpid and aroused squirrels did not differ. These results demonstrate differential regulation of eNOS in glomeruli and interstitium of hibernating animals, which is unaffected during arousal. The differential regulation of eNOS may serve to reduce ultrafiltration without jeopardizing tubular structures during hibernation.

Effect of arousal on internal clock speed in real action and mental imagery.

PubMed

Ozel, Sylvie; Larue, Jacques; Dosseville, Fabrice

2004-09-01

The possible implication of an internal clock as a mechanism accounting for the temporal homology between actual and mental walking is studied. To observe this phenomenon, stressful sound stimuli were used to increase arousal, which is known to activate the internal clock. Seventeen participants performed three tasks: (1) a time production task, used as a reference task reflecting the internal clock speed; (2) an actual walking task; and (3) a mental walking task, all three in two sound conditions (no noise and noise). The results showed a significant effect of arousal on time in each task. The effect of noise, increasing the arousal level, was greater in time production and mental imagery tasks than in real action. In addition, the percentages of change between the two sound conditions for actual and mental walking time were not statistically different. These findings are further evidence of the existence of a timing process common to actual and mental walking. The data are consistent with the implication of an internal clock in both actual and mental walking.

Development and Preliminary Validation of the Coma Arousal Communication Scale.

PubMed

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.

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

PubMed

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.

Effects of increasing and decreasing physiological arousal on anticipation timing performance during competition and practice.

PubMed

Duncan, Michael J; Smith, Mike; Bryant, Elizabeth; Eyre, Emma; Cook, Kathryn; Hankey, Joanne; Tallis, Jason; Clarke, Neil; Jones, Marc V

2016-01-01

The aim of this study was to investigate if the effects of changes in physiological arousal on timing performance can be accurately predicted by the catastrophe model. Eighteen young adults (8 males, 10 females) volunteered to participate in the study following ethical approval. After familiarisation, coincidence anticipation was measured using the Bassin Anticipation Timer under four incremental exercise conditions: Increasing exercise intensity and low cognitive anxiety, increasing exercise intensity and high cognitive anxiety, decreasing exercise intensity and low cognitive anxiety and decreasing exercise intensity and high cognitive anxiety. Incremental exercise was performed on a treadmill at intensities of 30%, 50%, 70% and 90% heart rate reserve (HRR) respectively. Ratings of cognitive anxiety were taken at each intensity using the Mental Readiness Form 3 (MRF3) followed by performance of coincidence anticipation trials at speeds of 3 and 8 mph. Results indicated significant condition × intensity interactions for absolute error (AE; p = .0001) and MRF cognitive anxiety intensity scores (p = .05). Post hoc analysis indicated that there were no statistically significant differences in AE across exercise intensities in low-cognitive anxiety conditions. In high-cognitive anxiety conditions, timing performance AE was significantly poorer and cognitive anxiety higher at 90% HRR, compared to the other exercise intensities. There was no difference in timing responses at 90% HRR during competitive trials, irrespective of whether exercise intensity was increasing or decreasing. This study suggests that anticipation timing performance is negatively affected when physiological arousal and cognitive anxiety are high.

Effect of valproate on the sleep microstructure of juvenile myoclonic epilepsy patients - a cross-sectional CAP based study.

PubMed

Nayak, Chetan S; Sinha, Sanjib; Nagappa, Madhu; Kandavel, Thennarasu; Taly, Arun B

2016-01-01

Studies looking at the effect of anti-epileptic medications on sleep microstructure of patients with epilepsy are almost non-existent. The aim of this study was to compare sleep microstructural characteristics of drug-naïve juvenile myoclonic epilepsy (JME) patients with those on valproate (VPA) monotherapy. Three age- (p = 0.287) and gender- (p = 0.766) matched groups (N = 20 in each group): (1) drug-naïve JME (mean age: 21.2 ± 4.06 years; M : F = 9:11); (2) JME on VPA (mean age: 21.85 ± 4.28 years; M : F = 11:9); (3) healthy controls (mean age: 23.2 ± 3.82 years; M : F = 9:11) underwent overnight polysomnography. Scoring and analysis of arousals American Sleep Disorders Association (ASDA, 2002), cyclic alternating pattern (CAP) (Terzano et al., 2002) parameters were performed. Comparison of arousal and CAP parameters was performed using one-way ANOVA, followed by pairwise comparisons using Fisher's LSD test (p ≤ 0.05). Rapid eye movement (REM) arousal indices were higher in JME patients (Group 1 [p = 0.002] and Group 2 [p <0.001]), whereas the overall and NREM arousal indices were comparable between the three groups. CAP rate was higher in JME patients as compared to controls (p <0.001). Duration of phase A and its subtypes (p <0.001) was reduced in drug-naïve patients as compared to VPA group and controls. Finally, percentage of phase A1 (p = 0.003) was decreased and A3 (p = 0.045) was increased in drug-naïve patients as compared to VPA group and controls. We found significant alterations in REM arousal indices and several CAP parameters in JME patients. However, many of these alterations were not seen in the valproate group. This might indicate that anti-epileptic medications such as valproate may beneficially modulate arousal instability in JME patients, and hence promote sleep quality and continuity. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

In vivo pharmacological profile of S 38093, a novel histamine H3 receptor inverse agonist.

PubMed

Panayi, Fany; Sors, Aurore; Bert, Lionel; Martin, Brigitte; Rollin-Jego, Gaelle; Billiras, Rodolphe; Carrié, Isabelle; Albinet, Karine; Danober, Laurence; Rogez, Nathalie; Thomas, Jean-Yves; Pira, Luigi; Bertaina-Anglade, Valérie; Lestage, Pierre

2017-05-15

S 38093, a novel histamine H3 receptor inverse agonist, was tested in a series of neurochemical and behavioral paradigms designed to evaluate its procognitive and arousal properties. In intracerebral microdialysis studies performed in rats, S 38093 dose-dependently increased histamine extracellular levels in the prefrontal cortex and facilitated cholinergic transmission in the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus of rats after acute and chronic administration (10mg/kg i.p.). Acute oral administration of S 38093 at 0.1mg/kg significantly improved spatial working memory in rats in the Morris water maze test. The compound also displayed cognition enhancing properties in the two-trial object recognition task in rats, in a natural forgetting paradigm at 0.3 and 1mg/kg p.o. and in a scopolamine-induced memory deficit situation at 3mg/kg p.o. The property of S 38093 to promote episodic memory was confirmed in a social recognition test in rats at 0.3 and 1mg/kg i.p. Arousal properties of S 38093 were assessed in freely moving rats by using electroencephalographic recordings: at 3 and 10mg/kg i.p., S 38093 significantly reduced slow wave sleep delta power and induced at the highest dose a delay in sleep latency. S 38093 at 10mg/kg p.o. also decreased the barbital-induced sleeping time in rats. Taken together these data indicate that S 38093, a novel H3 inverse agonist, displays cognition enhancing at low doses and arousal properties at higher doses in rodents. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Zolpidem arousing effect in persistent vegetative state patients: autonomic, EEG and behavioral assessment.

PubMed

Machado, Calixto; Estévez, Mario; Rodríguez, Rafael; Pérez-Nellar, Jesús; Chinchilla, Mauricio; DeFina, Philip; Leisman, Gerry; Carrick, Frederick R; Melillo, Robert; Schiavi, Adam; Gutiérrez, Joel; Carballo, Maylén; Machado, Andrés; Olivares, Ana; Pérez-Cruz, Nuvia

2014-01-01

To study the Zolpidem arousing effect in persistent vegetative state (PVS) patients combining clinical evaluation, autonomic assessment by heart rate variability (HRV), and EEG records. We studied a group of 8 PVS patients and other 8 healthy control subjects, matched by age and gender. The patients and controls received drug or placebo in two experimental sessions, separated by 10-14 days. The first 30 minutes of the session were considered the basal record, and then Zolpidem was administered. All participants were evaluated clinically, by EEG, and by HRV during the basal record, and for 90 minutes after drug intake. We found in all patients, time-related arousing signs after Zolpidem intake: behavioral (yawns and hiccups), activation of EEG cortical activity, and a vagolytic chronotropic effect without a significant increment of the vasomotor sympathetic tone. We demonstrated time-related arousing signs after Zolpidem intake. We discussed possible mechanisms to explain these patho-physiological findings regarding EEG cortical activation and an autonomic vagolytic drug effect. As this autonomic imbalance might induce cardiocirculatory complications, which we didn't find in any of our patients, we suggest developing future trials under control of physiological indices by bedside monitoring. However, considering that this arousing Zolpidem effect might be certainly related to brain function improvement, it should be particularly considered for the development of new neuro-rehabilitation programs in PVS cases. According to the literature review, we claim that this is the first report about the vagolitic effect of Zolpidem in PVS cases.

The Emotion Recognition System Based on Autoregressive Model and Sequential Forward Feature Selection of Electroencephalogram Signals

PubMed Central

Hatamikia, Sepideh; Maghooli, Keivan; Nasrabadi, Ali Motie

2014-01-01

Electroencephalogram (EEG) is one of the useful biological signals to distinguish different brain diseases and mental states. In recent years, detecting different emotional states from biological signals has been merged more attention by researchers and several feature extraction methods and classifiers are suggested to recognize emotions from EEG signals. In this research, we introduce an emotion recognition system using autoregressive (AR) model, sequential forward feature selection (SFS) and K-nearest neighbor (KNN) classifier using EEG signals during emotional audio-visual inductions. The main purpose of this paper is to investigate the performance of AR features in the classification of emotional states. To achieve this goal, a distinguished AR method (Burg's method) based on Levinson-Durbin's recursive algorithm is used and AR coefficients are extracted as feature vectors. In the next step, two different feature selection methods based on SFS algorithm and Davies–Bouldin index are used in order to decrease the complexity of computing and redundancy of features; then, three different classifiers include KNN, quadratic discriminant analysis and linear discriminant analysis are used to discriminate two and three different classes of valence and arousal levels. The proposed method is evaluated with EEG signals of available database for emotion analysis using physiological signals, which are recorded from 32 participants during 40 1 min audio visual inductions. According to the results, AR features are efficient to recognize emotional states from EEG signals, and KNN performs better than two other classifiers in discriminating of both two and three valence/arousal classes. The results also show that SFS method improves accuracies by almost 10-15% as compared to Davies–Bouldin based feature selection. The best accuracies are %72.33 and %74.20 for two classes of valence and arousal and %61.10 and %65.16 for three classes, respectively. PMID:25298928

Being watched by others eliminates the effect of emotional arousal on inhibitory control.

PubMed

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.

Being watched by others eliminates the effect of emotional arousal on inhibitory control

PubMed Central

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

[Female sexual dysfunction: a systematic overview of classification, pathophysiology, diagnosis and treatment].

PubMed

Marthol, H; Hilz, M J

2004-03-01

Sexual dysfunction is defined as "disturbances in sexual desire and in the psychophysiological changes that characterize the sexual response cycle and cause marked distress and interpersonal difficulty". The female sexual response cycle consists of three phases: desire, arousal, and orgasm. Various organs of the external and internal genitalia, e.g. vagina, clitoris, labia minora, vestibular bulbs, pelvic floor muscles and uterus, contribute to female sexual function. During sexual arousal, genital blood flow and sensation are increased. The vaginal canal is moistened (lubrication). During orgasm, there is rhythmical contraction of the uterus and pelvic floor muscles. Within the central nervous system, hypothalamic, limbic-hippocampal structures play a central role for sexual arousal. Sexual arousal largely depends on the sympathetic nervous system. Moreover, nonadrenergic/noncholinergic neurotransmitters (NANC), e.g. vasoactive intestinal polypeptide (VIP) and nitric oxide (NO), are involved in smooth muscle relaxation and enhancement of genital blood flow. Furthermore, various hormones may influence female sexual function. Estrogen has a significant role in maintaining vaginal mucosal epithelium as well as sensory thresholds and genital blood flow. Androgens primarily affect sexual desire, arousal, orgasm and the overall sense of well-being. The internationally accepted classification of female sexual dysfunction consists of hypoactive sexual desire disorders, sexual aversion disorders, sexual arousal disorders, orgasmic disorders and sexual pain disorders. Vascular insufficiency, e.g. due to atherosclerosis, and neurologic diseases, e.g. diabetic neuropathy, are major causes of sexual dysfunction. Additionally, sexual dysfunction may be due to changes in hormonal levels, medications with sexual side effects or of psychological origin. For the diagnosis of female sexual dysfunction, a detailed history should be taken initially, followed by a physical examination and laboratory studies. Physiologic monitoring of parameters of arousal potentially allows to diagnose organic diseases. Recordings at baseline and following sexual stimulation are recommended to determine pathologic changes that occur with arousal. Duplex Doppler sonography, photoplethysmography or the measurement of vaginal and minor labial oxygen tension may help to evaluate genital blood flow. Moreover, measurements of vaginal pH and compliance should be performed. Neurophysiological examination, e.g. measurement of the bulbocavernosus reflex and pudendal evoked potentials, genital sympathetic skin response (SSR), warm, cold and vibratory perception thresholds as well as testing of the pressure and touch sensitivity of the external genitalia, should be performed to evaluate neurogenic etiologies. Medical management of female sexual dysfunction so far is primarily based on hormone replacement therapy. Application of estrogen results in decreased pain and burning during intercourse. The efficacy of various other medications, e.g. sildenafil, L-arginine, yohimbine, phentolamine, apomorphine and prostaglandin E1, in the treatment of female sexual dysfunction is still under investigation.

Conditions under which Arousal Does and Does Not Elevate Height Estimates

PubMed Central

Storbeck, Justin; Stefanucci, Jeanine K.

2014-01-01

We present a series of experiments that explore the boundary conditions for how emotional arousal influences height estimates. Four experiments are presented, which investigated the influence of context, situation-relevance, intensity, and attribution of arousal on height estimates. In Experiment 1, we manipulated the environmental context to signal either danger (viewing a height from above) or safety (viewing a height from below). High arousal only increased height estimates made from above. In Experiment 2, two arousal inductions were used that contained either 1) height-relevant arousing images or 2) height-irrelevant arousing images. Regardless of theme, arousal increased height estimates compared to a neutral group. In Experiment 3, arousal intensity was manipulated by inserting an intermediate or long delay between the induction and height estimates. A brief, but not a long, delay from the arousal induction served to increase height estimates. In Experiment 4, an attribution manipulation was included, and those participants who were made aware of the source of their arousal reduced their height estimates compared to participants who received no attribution instructions. Thus, arousal that is attributed to its true source is discounted from feelings elicited by the height, thereby reducing height estimates. Overall, we suggest that misattributed, embodied arousal is used as a cue when estimating heights from above that can lead to overestimation. PMID:24699393

The polarizing effect of arousal on negotiation.

PubMed

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.

Cooperative plasmonic effect of Ag and Au nanoparticles on enhancing performance of polymer solar cells.

PubMed

Lu, Luyao; Luo, Zhiqiang; Xu, Tao; Yu, Luping

2013-01-09

This article describes a cooperative plasmonic effect on improving the performance of polymer bulk heterojunction solar cells. When mixed Ag and Au nanoparticles are incorporated into the anode buffer layer, dual nanoparticles show superior behavior on enhancing light absorption in comparison with single nanoparticles, which led to the realization of a polymer solar cell with a power conversion efficiency of 8.67%, accounting for a 20% enhancement. The cooperative plasmonic effect aroused from dual resonance enhancement of two different nanoparticles. The idea was further unraveled by comparing Au nanorods with Au nanoparticles for solar cell application. Detailed studies shed light into the influence of plasmonic nanostructures on exciton generation, dissociation, and charge recombination and transport inside thin film devices.

Memory and event-related potentials for rapidly presented emotional pictures.

PubMed

Versace, Francesco; Bradley, Margaret M; Lang, Peter J

2010-08-01

Dense array event-related potentials (ERPs) and memory performance were assessed following rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) of emotional and neutral pictures. Despite the extremely brief presentation, emotionally arousing pictures prompted an enhanced negative voltage over occipital sensors, compared to neutral pictures, replicating previous encoding effects. Emotionally arousing pictures were also remembered better in a subsequent recognition test, with higher hit rates and better discrimination performance. ERPs measured during the recognition test showed both an early (250-350 ms) frontally distributed difference between hits and correct rejections, and a later (400-500 ms), more centrally distributed difference, consistent with effects of recognition on ERPs typically found using slower presentation rates. The data are consistent with the hypothesis that features of affective pictures pop out during rapid serial visual presentation, prompting better memory performance.

The relation of cognitive load and pupillary unrest.

PubMed

Müller, Andreas; Petru, Raluca; Seitz, Lucia; Englmann, Ines; Angerer, Peter

2011-06-01

This study examines the relationship between pupillary unrest (PU) and cognitive load. PU represents a measure of reduced central nervous tonic arousal (sleepiness). A loss of tonic arousal can be associated with difficulties in maintaining the required level of performance. Thus, the measurement of tonic arousal in occupational contexts can help to prevent overload or errors. We compared a group with high cognitive load (30 apron controllers of an international airport) with a control group with low cognitive load (63 healthy people during their free time) in a non-randomized experimental design with pre- and post-test assessment of PU. PU was scanned by an infrared sensor with a frequency of 25 Hz and a resolution of .05 mm. To control for circadian effects, measurements for both groups were taken at the same time of the day. High PU at the start of the shift correlated with high perceived load during the shift. There were no indications of reverse effects. Analyses of group x time effects with generalized linear models (repeated measures) revealed that cognitive load did in no way affected PU. Initially low tonic arousal (indicated by high PU) may predict subsequent workload, but being exposed to high cognitive load does not influence tonic arousal after the end of the shift. With that, the study contributes to valid interpretations of pupillary unrest measurements in occupational contexts.

All in its proper time: monitoring the emergence of a memory bias for novel, arousing-negative words in individuals with high and low trait anxiety.

PubMed

Eden, Annuschka Salima; Zwitserlood, Pienie; Keuper, Katharina; Junghöfer, Markus; Laeger, Inga; Zwanzger, Peter; Dobel, Christian

2014-01-01

The well-established memory bias for arousing-negative stimuli seems to be enhanced in high trait-anxious persons and persons suffering from anxiety disorders. We monitored the emergence and development of such a bias during and after learning, in high and low trait anxious participants. A word-learning paradigm was applied, consisting of spoken pseudowords paired either with arousing-negative or neutral pictures. Learning performance during training evidenced a short-lived advantage for arousing-negative associated words, which was not present at the end of training. Cued recall and valence ratings revealed a memory bias for pseudowords that had been paired with arousing-negative pictures, immediately after learning and two weeks later. This held even for items that were not explicitly remembered. High anxious individuals evidenced a stronger memory bias in the cued-recall test, and their ratings were also more negative overall compared to low anxious persons. Both effects were evident, even when explicit recall was controlled for. Regarding the memory bias in anxiety prone persons, explicit memory seems to play a more crucial role than implicit memory. The study stresses the need for several time points of bias measurement during the course of learning and retrieval, as well as the employment of different measures for learning success.

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

PubMed

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.

Influences of emotion on context memory while viewing film clips.

PubMed

Anderson, Lisa; Shimamura, Arthur P

2005-01-01

Participants listened to words while viewing film clips (audio off). Film clips were classified as neutral, positively valenced, negatively valenced, and arousing. Memory was assessed in three ways: recall of film content, recall of words, and context recognition. In the context recognition test, participants were presented a word and determined which film clip was showing when the word was originally presented. In two experiments, context memory performance was disrupted when words were presented during negatively valenced film clips, whereas it was enhanced when words were presented during arousing film clips. Free recall of words presented during the negatively valenced films was also disrupted. These findings suggest multiple influences of emotion on memory performance.

Alterations of male sexual behavior by learned aversions to hamster vaginal secretion.

PubMed

Johnston, R E; Zahorik, D M; Immler, K; Zakon, H

1978-02-01

Male hamsters poisoned after their first adult exposure to the vaginal secretion of female hamsters became hesitant to approach and ingest the secretion. The same aversion-training procedure also altered the responses of males to estrous females, changing the latency, frequency, and duration of a variety of behaviors that are commonly taken as indexes of sexual attraction or arousal and of copulatory performance. The effects suggest that the aversions to vaginal secretion alter the perceived meaning of the secretion for male hamsters, and analysis of the correlations between various measures of sexual arousal and performance support the hypothesis that separate mechanisms underlie the effects of the secretion on appetitive and consummatory sexual behavior.

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

PubMed

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.

Prevalence of Parasomnia in Autistic Children with Sleep Disorders

PubMed Central

Ming, Xue; Sun, Ye-Ming; Nachajon, Roberto V.; Brimacombe, Michael; Walters, Arthur S.

2009-01-01

The prevalence of sleep related complaints is reported by questionnaire studies to be as high as 83.3% in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Questionnaire studies report the presence of various parasomnia in ASD. However, no polysomnographic study reports non-REM parasomnias and only a single study reports REM related parasomnias in ASD. We investigated the prevalence and characteristics of sleep disorders by polysomnographic study and questionnaires in a cohort of 23 children with ASD and 23 age-matched children of a non-autistic comparison group. The results showed significantly more non-REM parasomnias in 14 children with ASD on polysomnograms (PSG) and 16 ASD children by questionnaire, a finding that was not associated with medication use, other comorbid medical or psychiatric disorders, or sleep disordered breathing. Of the 14 children with ASD who had PSG evidence of parasomnia, 11 of them had a history suggestive of parasomnia by questionnaire. There was a high sensitivity but a low specificity of parasomnia in ASD by questionnaire in predicting the presence of parasomnia in the PSG. Of the parasomnias recorded in the laboratory, 13 ASD children had Disorders of Partial Arousal, consistent with sleep terrors or confusional arousals. Furthermore, multiple episodes of partial arousal occurred in 11 of the 13 ASD children who had PSG evidence of Disorders of Partial Arousal. Of the 11 ASD children with multiple episodes of partial arousal, 6 ASD children had multiple partial arousals during both nights’ PSG study. Sleep architecture was abnormal in children with ASD, characterized by increased spontaneous arousals, prolonged REM latency and reduced REM percentage. These results suggest a high prevalence of parasomnia in this cohort of children with ASD and a careful history intake of symptoms compatible with parasomnia could be prudent to diagnose parasomnia in ASD children when performing a PSG is not possible. PMID:23818789

Exercise holds immediate benefits for affect and cognition in younger and older adults.

PubMed

Hogan, Candice L; Mata, Jutta; Carstensen, Laura L

2013-06-01

Physical activity is associated with improved affective experience and enhanced cognitive processing. Potential age differences in the degree of benefit, however, are poorly understood because most studies examine either younger or older adults. The present study examined age differences in cognitive performance and affective experience immediately following a single bout of moderate exercise. Participants (144 community members aged 19 to 93) were randomly assigned to one of two experimental conditions: (a) exercise (15 min of moderate intensity stationary cycling) or (b) control (15 min completing ratings of neutral IAPS images). Before and after the manipulation, participants completed tests of working memory and momentary affect experience was measured. Results suggest that exercise is associated with increased levels of high-arousal positive affect (HAP) and decreased levels of low-arousal positive affect (LAP) relative to control condition. Age moderated the effects of exercise on LAP, such that younger age was associated with a drop in reported LAP postexercise, whereas the effects of exercise on HAP were consistent across age. Exercise also led to faster RTs on a working memory task than the control condition across age. Self-reported negative affect was unchanged. Overall, findings suggest that exercise may hold important benefits for both affective experience and cognitive performance regardless of age. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved.

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

PubMed

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.

Co-occurring anxiety influences patterns of brain activity in depression.

PubMed

Engels, Anna S; Heller, Wendy; Spielberg, Jeffrey M; Warren, Stacie L; Sutton, Bradley P; Banich, Marie T; Miller, Gregory A

2010-03-01

Brain activation associated with anhedonic depression and co-occurring anxious arousal and anxious apprehension was measured by fMRI during performance of an emotion word Stroop task. Consistent with EEG findings, depression was associated with rightward frontal lateralization in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), but only when anxious arousal was elevated and anxious apprehension was low. Activity in the right inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) was also reduced for depression under the same conditions. In contrast, depression was associated with more activity in the anterior cingulate cortex (dorsal ACC and rostral ACC) and the bilateral amygdala. Results imply that depression, particularly when accompanied by anxious arousal, may result in a failure to implement top-down processing by appropriate brain regions (left DLPFC, right IFG) due to increased activation in regions associated with responding to emotionally salient information (right DLPFC, amygdala).

Co-occurring Anxiety Influences Patterns of Brain Activity in Depression

PubMed Central

Engels, Anna S.; Heller, Wendy; Spielberg, Jeffrey M.; Warren, Stacie L.; Sutton, Bradley P.; Banich, Marie T.; Miller, Gregory A.

2011-01-01

Brain activation associated with anhedonic depression and co-occurring anxious arousal and anxious apprehension was measured by fMRI during performance of an emotion-word Stroop task. Consistent with EEG findings, depression was associated with rightward frontal lateralization in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), but only when anxious arousal was elevated and anxious apprehension was low. Activity in right inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) was also reduced for depression under the same conditions. In contrast, depression was associated with more activity in anterior cingulate cortex (dACC and rACC) and bilateral amygdala. Results imply that depression, particularly when accompanied by anxious arousal, may result in a failure to implement top-down processing by appropriate brain regions (left DLPFC, right IFG) due to increased activation in regions associated with responding to emotionally salient information (right DLPFC, amygdala). PMID:20233962

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

PubMed

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.

Hypothesizing the body's genius to trigger and self-organize its healing: 25 years using a standardized neurophysics therapy

PubMed Central

Ross, Sara N.; Ware, Ken

2013-01-01

We aim for this contribution to operate bi-directionally, both as a “bedside to bench” reverse-translational fractal physiological hypothesis and as a methodological innovation to inform clinical practice. In 25 years using gym equipment therapeutically in non-research settings, the standardized therapy is consistently observed to trigger universal responses of micro to macro waves of system transition dynamics in the human nervous system. These are associated with observably desirable impacts on disorders, injuries, diseases, and athletic performance. Requisite conditions are therapeutic coaching, erect posture, extremely slow movements in mild resistance exercises, and executive control over arousal and attention. To motivate research into the physiological improvements and in validation studies, we integrate from across disciplines to hypothesize explanations for the relationships among the methods, the system dynamics, and evident results. Key hypotheses include: (1) Correctly-directed system efforts may reverse a system's heretofore misdirected efforts, restoring healthier neurophysiology. (2) The enhanced information processing accompanying good posture is an essential initial condition. (3) Behaviors accompanying exercises performed with few degrees of freedom amplify information processing, triggering destabilization and transition dynamics. (4) Executive control over arousal and attention is essential to release system constraints, amplifying and complexifying information. (5) The dynamics create necessary and in many cases evidently sufficient conditions for the body to resolve or improve its own conditions within often short time periods. Literature indicates how the human system possesses material self-awareness. A broad explanation for the nature and effects of the therapy appears rooted in the cascading recursions of the systems' dynamics, which appear to trigger health-fostering self-reorganizing processes when this therapy provides catalytic initial conditions. PMID:24312056

Effects of noninvasive ventilation on sleep outcomes in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

PubMed

Katzberg, Hans D; Selegiman, Adam; Guion, Lee; Yuan, Nancy; Cho, Sungho C; Katz, Jonathan S; Miller, Robert G; So, Yuen T

2013-04-15

The objective was to study the effects on noninvasive ventilation on sleep outcomes in patient with ALS, specifically oxygenation and overall sleep quality. Patients with ALS who met criteria for initiation of NIV were studied with a series of 2 home PSG studies, one without NIV and a follow-up study while using NIV. Primary outcome was a change in the maximum overnight oxygen saturation; secondary outcomes included change in mean overnight oxygen saturation, apnea and hypopnea indexes, sleep latency, sleep efficiency, sleep arousals, and sleep architecture. A total of 94 patients with ALS were screened for eligibility; 15 were enrolled; and 12 completed study procedures. Maximum overnight oxygen saturation improved by 7.0% (p = 0.01) and by 6.7% during REM sleep (p = 0.02) with NIV. Time spent below 90% oxygen saturation was also significant-ly better with NIV (30% vs 19%, p < 0.01), and there was trend for improvement in mean overnight saturation (1.5%, p = 0.06). Apnea index (3.7 to 0.7), hypopnea index (6.2 to 5.7), and apnea hypopnea index (9.8 to 6.3) did not significantly improve after introducing NIV. NIV had no effect on sleep efficiency (mean change 10%), arousal index (7 to 12), or sleep stage distribution (Friedman chi-squared = 0.40). NIV improved oxygenation but showed no significant effects on sleep efficiency, sleep arousals, restful sleep, or sleep architecture. The net impact of these changes for patients deserves further study in a larger group of ALS patients.

Women’s Sexual Arousal: Effects of High Alcohol Dosages and Self-Control Instructions

PubMed Central

George, William H.; Davis, Kelly Cue; Heiman, Julia R.; Norris, Jeanette; Stoner, Susan A.; Schacht, Rebecca L.; Hendershot, Christian S.; Kajumulo, Kelly F.

2011-01-01

The basic relationship between alcohol and women’s sexual arousal – especially genital arousal –received little research attention for nearly 30 years (e.g. Wilson & Lawson, 1978) until very recently (e.g. George et al., 2009). To investigate hypotheses based on earlier findings and Alcohol Myopia Theory (AMT), two experiments evaluated the effects of high blood alcohol concentrations (BACs) and arousal instructional demands on indices of vaginal responding and self-reported sexual arousal. In Experiment 1, self-control instructions to maximize (versus suppress) arousal increased peak and average Vaginal Pulse Amplitude (VPA) change. Self-control also interacted with a target BAC of .08% (versus .00%) to influence latency to peak arousal onset: Intoxicated women instructed to maximize showed a shorter latency to peak arousal than did intoxicated women instructed to suppress; however, sober women showed the same pattern. Also, in Experiment 1, the target BAC of .08% had no effect on VPA or subjective arousal measures. In Experiment 2, a target BAC of .10% (versus .00%) attenuated peak change and average change in VPA, but this dosage had no effects on latency to peak achieved arousal, or on subjective arousal. Instructions to maximize arousal (versus no instruction) had no effect on any arousal measures. Overall, among young moderate drinking women, alcohol had attenuating effects but only at the higher dosage. Maximize versus suppress instructions about arousal had predicted effects on arousal and interactive effects on latency, but only at the lower dosage. The findings highlight the importance of dosage and contextual factors in alcohol’s impact on the variability of women’s sexual responding. PMID:21439287

Laser Doppler imaging of genital blood flow: a direct measure of female sexual arousal.

PubMed

Waxman, Samantha E; Pukall, Caroline F

2009-08-01

Female sexual arousal is a challenging construct to measure, partly because of the subtle nature of its indicators, vaginal lubrication and genital swelling. As a result, many instruments have been used in an attempt to accurately measure it; however, problems are associated with each. Furthermore, the relationship between subjective and physiological indicators of arousal appears to be influenced by the instrument used to measure physiological arousal. Specifically, instruments measuring physiological arousal internally yield lower correlations between measures of physiological and subjective arousal than instruments examining the external genitals. Laser Doppler imaging (LDI) is a direct measure of external genital blood flow. The purpose of this study was to investigate the usefulness of LDI for measuring genital blood flow in women in response to erotic visual stimuli, and to explore the relationship between physiological and subjective sexual arousal. Sixty-five participants watched three 15-minute films during LDI scanning. Two nature films (measuring acclimatization and baseline blood flow levels) and one randomly assigned experimental film (erotic, anxiety, humor, or neutral) were used. Participants rated their level of subjective arousal following the third film. Results indicated a significant effect of film condition on genital blood flow, P < 0.001, with the erotic condition differing significantly from the other three conditions. In terms of the relationship between physiological and subjective sexual arousal, physiological arousal was significantly predicted by subjective ratings of sexual arousal (P < 0.001). LDI appears to be able to differentiate blood flow during erotic and nonerotic conditions. In addition, physiological sexual arousal was significantly predicted by women's reported subjective sexual arousal. These findings suggest that LDI is a useful instrument for measuring female sexual arousal, and that women may be more aware of their level of physiological arousal than previously assumed.

Arousal-Enhanced Location Memory for Pictures

PubMed Central

Mather, Mara; Nesmith, Kathryn

2008-01-01

Four experiments revealed arousal-enhanced location memory for pictures. After an incidental encoding task, participants were more likely to remember the locations of positive and negative arousing pictures than the locations of non-arousing pictures, indicating better binding of location to picture. This arousal-enhanced binding effect did not have a cost for the binding of nearby pictures to their locations. Thus, arousal can enhance binding of an arousing picture’s content to its location without interfering with picture-location binding for nearby pictures. In addition, arousal-enhanced picture-location memory binding is not just a side effect of enhanced memory for the picture itself, as it occurs both when recognition memory is good and when it is poor. PMID:19190722

Attribution-Based Nocebo Effects. Perceived Effects of a Placebo Pill and a Sham Magnetic Field on Cognitive Performance and Somatic Symptoms.

PubMed

Szemerszky, Renáta; Dömötör, Zsuzsanna; Berkes, Tímea; Köteles, Ferenc

2016-04-01

Negative non-specific (nocebo-like) effects of medications and electromagnetic fields are often described as results of mistaken attribution. The current study aimed to find empirical evidence supporting this theory. Participants completed questionnaires assessing modern health worries, health anxiety, and somatosensory amplification, were assigned to one of three conditions (placebo pill with sedative information, sham magnetic field, or control), and completed a 14-min vigilance task. Changes in physiological arousal (heart rate, heart rate variability, and skin conductance) and reported symptoms were also measured. Finally, causal attributions concerning cognitive performance and reported symptoms were assessed. No increase in symptom reports and physiological arousal was measured in the two intervention groups. A perceived negative effect on cognitive performance was attributed to both sham conditions, and attributions were connected to modern health worries. A proportion of reported symptoms was ascribed to the placebo pill but not to the sham magnetic field. Symptom attributions were not related to any assessed psychological variables. An aroused physiological state is not necessary for the automatic causal attribution process. Negative effects attributed to medication and environmental factors can be regarded as unavoidable side effects of human cognitive-emotional functioning; they might be alleviated, but cannot be completely eradicated.

The limits of arousal's memory impairing effects on nearby information

PubMed Central

Mather, Mara; Gorlick, Marissa; Nesmith, Kathryn

2009-01-01

Showing an arousing central stimulus in a scene often leads to enhanced memory for the arousing central information and impaired memory for peripheral details. However, it is not clear from previous work whether arousing stimuli impair memory for all non-arousing nearby information or just background information. In several experiments, we tested how emotionally arousing pictures affect memory for nearby pictures and for background information. We found that when two pictures were presented together, having one of the pictures be arousing did not affect item and location memory for the other picture. In contrast, an arousing picture impaired memory for a background pattern. These findings suggest that arousal impairs memory for information that is the target of perceptual suppression, such as background information when there is a figure-ground distinction, but does not impair memory for other foreground information. PMID:19827704

The Emotional Stroop as an Emotion Regulation Task.

PubMed

Kappes, Cathleen; Bermeitinger, Christina

2016-01-01

The present studies investigate age differences observed when performing the emotional Stroop task considered as an expression of emotion regulation. Previous studies employing this task showed mixed findings regarding age differences, with a lack of evidence for positivity effects. However, moderating factors such as arousal or dispositional (emotion) regulation strategies were mostly not taken into account. Moreover, relations between Stroop effects and emotional reactions were not examined. In two studies (Study 1/2: nyoung = 26/41; nold = 19/39), an emotional Stroop task was employed and valence (negative, neutral, positive [Study 2 only]) and arousal of the word stimuli were varied. Additionally, flexible goal adjustment (FGA), positive and negative affect in the last 12 months, and change in momentary affect (Study 2 only) were measured. Study 1 showed larger emotional Stroop effects (ESE) in older than younger adults with medium arousing negative words. We also found correlations between FGA (positive correlation) as well as negative affect (negative correlation) and the ESE with medium arousing negative words. Study 2 corroborates these findings by exhibiting positive change in momentary affect with larger ESEs for medium arousing negative words in the older age group. The findings emphasize the importance of including arousal level and dispositional regulation measures (such as FGA) as moderating factors in age differences and within-group differences in emotion regulation. Although we did not find evidence for a positivity effect, processing in the emotional Stroop task was related to positive change in momentary affect and less negative affect in the older age group. Taken together, our experiments demonstrate that the emotional Stroop task is suited as a measure for emotion induction and related emotion regulation mechanisms.

Effects of anxiety sensitivity and expectations on the modulation of the startle eyeblink response during a caffeine challenge.

PubMed

Benke, Christoph; Blumenthal, Terry D; Modeß, Christiane; Hamm, Alfons O; Pané-Farré, Christiane A

2015-09-01

The way in which the tendency to fear somatic arousal sensations (anxiety sensitivity), in interaction with the created expectations regarding arousal induction, might affect defensive responding to a symptom provocation challenge is not yet understood. The present study investigated the effect of anxiety sensitivity on autonomic arousal, startle eyeblink responses, and reported arousal and alertness to expected vs. unexpected caffeine consumption. To create a match/mismatch of expected and experienced arousal, high and low anxiety sensitive participants received caffeine vs. no drug either mixed in coffee (expectation of arousal induction) or in bitter lemon soda (no expectation of arousal induction) on four separate occasions. Autonomic arousal (heart rate, skin conductance level), respiration (end-tidal CO2, minute ventilation), defensive reflex responses (startle eyeblink), and reported arousal and alertness were recorded prior to, immediately and 30 min after beverage ingestion. Caffeine increased ventilation, autonomic arousal, and startle response magnitudes. Both groups showed comparable levels of autonomic and respiratory responses. The startle eyeblink responses were decreased when caffeine-induced arousal occurred unexpectedly, e.g., after administering caffeine in bitter lemon. This effect was more accentuated in high anxiety sensitive persons. Moreover, in high anxiety sensitive persons, the expectation of arousal (coffee consumption) led to higher subjective alertness when administering caffeine and increased arousal even if no drug was consumed. Unexpected symptom provocation leads to increased attention allocation toward feared arousal sensations in high anxiety sensitive persons. This finding broadens our understanding of modulatory mechanisms in defensive responding to bodily symptoms.

Neural activation toward erotic stimuli in homosexual and heterosexual males.

PubMed

Kagerer, Sabine; Klucken, Tim; Wehrum, Sina; Zimmermann, Mark; Schienle, Anne; Walter, Bertram; Vaitl, Dieter; Stark, Rudolf

2011-11-01

Studies investigating sexual arousal exist, yet there are diverging findings on the underlying neural mechanisms with regard to sexual orientation. Moreover, sexual arousal effects have often been confounded with general arousal effects. Hence, it is still unclear which structures underlie the sexual arousal response in homosexual and heterosexual men. Neural activity and subjective responses were investigated in order to disentangle sexual from general arousal. Considering sexual orientation, differential and conjoint neural activations were of interest. The functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study focused on the neural networks involved in the processing of sexual stimuli in 21 male participants (11 homosexual, 10 heterosexual). Both groups viewed pictures with erotic content as well as aversive and neutral stimuli. The erotic pictures were subdivided into three categories (most sexually arousing, least sexually arousing, and rest) based on the individual subjective ratings of each participant. Blood oxygen level-dependent responses measured by fMRI and subjective ratings. A conjunction analysis revealed conjoint neural activation related to sexual arousal in thalamus, hypothalamus, occipital cortex, and nucleus accumbens. Increased insula, amygdala, and anterior cingulate gyrus activation could be linked to general arousal. Group differences emerged neither when viewing the most sexually arousing pictures compared with highly arousing aversive pictures nor compared with neutral pictures. Results suggest that a widespread neural network is activated by highly sexually arousing visual stimuli. A partly distinct network of structures underlies sexual and general arousal effects. The processing of preferred, highly sexually arousing stimuli recruited similar structures in homosexual and heterosexual males. © 2011 International Society for Sexual Medicine.

Effects of repeated doses of caffeine on mood and performance of alert and fatigued volunteers.

PubMed

Smith, Andrew; Sutherland, David; Christopher, Gary

2005-11-01

Evidence for behavioural effects of caffeine is well documented in the literature. It is associated with increased subjective alertness, improved reaction time and enhanced encoding of new information. These effects are most prominent in low arousal situations. However, there is an ongoing debate as to whether such changes are in fact improvements or merely a reversal of the negative effects of a period of caffeine withdrawal (e.g. overnight abstinence). To avoid such a confound this study included multiple doses of caffeine which were administered under double-blind conditions to participants who had ingested their normal daily quota of caffeine. In the present study participants were fatigued by carrying out a prolonged testing schedule in the evening. Sixty volunteers, all regular caffeine consumers, took part in the study. They attended for three sessions on separate days. They were instructed to consume normal amounts of caffeinated beverages. Consumption was measured by a diary and saliva samples were taken and caffeine assays conducted. A baseline test session was carried out at 18.00h and following this a double blind placebo controlled caffeine challenge (1.5mg/kg) conducted. The test battery was repeated twice approximately 30 minutes after the caffeine challenge. Following this another drink was administered and the test battery repeated twice more. On one test session volunteers had placebo in both drinks, in another they had caffeine in both drinks and another caffeine in the first and placebo in the second. Order of conditions was balanced across subjects. The results showed that caffeine led to a more positive mood and improved performance on a number of tasks. Different effects of caffeine were seen depending on the person's level of arousal. Linear effects of caffeine dose were also observed. This is evidence against the argument that behavioural changes due to caffeine are merely the reversal of negative effects of a long period of caffeine abstinence. The findings are discussed in relation to both noradrenergic and cholinergic neurotransmitter systems.

Shining Light on Wakefulness and Arousal

PubMed Central

de Lecea, Luis; Carter, Matthew E.; Adamantidis, Antoine

2013-01-01

Alterations in arousal states are associated with multiple neuropsychiatric disorders including generalized anxiety disorders, addiction, schizophrenia, and depression. Therefore, elucidating the neurobiological mechanisms controlling the boundaries between arousal, hyperarousal, and hypoarousal is a crucial endeavor in biological psychiatry. Substantial research over several decades has identified distinct arousal-promoting neural populations in the brain; however, how these nuclei act individually and collectively to promote and maintain wakefulness and various arousal states is unknown. We have recently applied optogenetic technology to the repertoire of techniques used to study arousal. Here, we discuss the recent results of these experiments and propose future use of this approach as a way to understand the complex dynamics of neural circuits controlling arousal and arousal-related behaviors. PMID:22440618

Positive Arousal Increases Individuals’ Preferences for Risk

PubMed Central

Galentino, Andrea; Bonini, Nicolao; Savadori, Lucia

2017-01-01

Much is known about the effect of negative arousal on decision making, but little is known about the effect of positive arousal. In this study, we manipulated positive arousal and measured individual choices under risk using an incentivized task. Participants were randomly assigned to either a low arousal or a high arousal condition and asked to choose between pairs of two-outcome monetary lotteries with the same expected value but different risk in terms of outcome variance. The probability was set at 50% for each lottery. Participants in the high arousal group selected the riskier lottery more often and took more time to make choices than participants in the low arousal group. This finding shows that introducing a pleasant arousing cue as part of the decision context shifts an individual’s preferences toward the risky economic option and away from the safer one. PMID:29312030

Autonomic nervous system reactivity within the valence-arousal affective space: Modulation by sex and age.

PubMed

Gomez, Patrick; von Gunten, Armin; Danuser, Brigitta

2016-11-01

In the present study, we examined how sex and age shape cardiovascular, electrodermal, and pupillary reactivity to picture series within the valence-arousal affective space in a sample of 176 healthy younger, middle-aged, and older men and women. Across participants, heart rate (HR) decelerated with increasing self-reported unpleasantness, whereas skin conductance level (SCL) and pupil size (PS) increased with increasing self-rated arousal. Systolic (SBP) and diastolic (DBP) blood pressure increased with increasing self-rated arousal when valence was pleasant but much less when valence was unpleasant. Compared to women, men exhibited a stronger correlation between valence and HR and an SBP response characterized by larger increases for pleasant high-arousal states and lower change scores for unpleasant low- and high-arousal and pleasant low-arousal states. Men's largest SCL change scores were for pleasant high-arousal states, whereas women's largest SCL change scores were for unpleasant high-arousal states. The arousal-PS relationship was stronger among women, in particular for unpleasant series. From younger to older age, there were decreases in the strength of the valence-HR, arousal-SCL, and arousal-PS relationships. Older adults had larger overall increases in SBP and DBP than younger adults, but the relationships with self-reported valence and arousal were not age dependent. We discuss how the observed sex and age effects may reflect sex and age differences in emotional processing and in basic autonomic nervous system functioning. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

PubMed

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.

Lighting to Make You Feel Better: Improving the Mood of Elderly People with Affective Ambiences

PubMed Central

Kuijsters, Andre; Redi, Judith; de Ruyter, Boris; Heynderickx, Ingrid

2015-01-01

Current lighting technologies extend the options for changing the appearance of rooms and closed spaces, as such creating ambiences with an affective meaning. Using intelligence, these ambiences may instantly be adapted to the needs of the room’s occupant(s), possibly improving their well-being. We hypothesized that ambiences with a clearly recognizable, positive affective meaning could be used to effectively mitigate negative mood in elderly. After inducing a sad mood with a short movie one group of elderly was immersed in a positive high arousing (i.e., activating) ambience, and another group in a neutral ambience. Similarly, after inducing anxiety with a short movie one group of elderly was immersed in a pleasant low arousing (i.e., cozy) ambience, and another group in a neutral ambience. We monitored the evolution of the mood of the four groups of elderly over a period of ten minutes after the mood induction, with both self-reported mood measurements (every 2 minutes) and constant measurements of the skin conductance response (SCR) and electrocardiography (ECG). In line with our hypothesis we found that the activating ambience was physiologically more arousing than the neutral ambience. The cozy ambience was more effective in calming anxious elderly than the neutral ambience, as reflected by both the self-reported and physiological measurements. PMID:26192281

The Development of In Vivo Measures to Assess the Impact of Sex-Drive Reducing Medications in an Offender with an Intellectual Disability.

PubMed

Rea, Jerry A; Dixon, Michael R; Zettle, Robert D; Wright, Kasey L

2017-04-01

The ability to adequately evaluate medications in the treatment of paraphilias has been limited by reliance upon self-report as a measure of effectiveness over periods of time that may be too short to detect reoffending. One solution to this shortcoming is the development of valid, long-term, stable assessment measures. The purpose of this case study was to analyze the effects of Prozac and Provera on an array of behaviors germane to the successful treatment of paraphilias, including: (a) sexual arousal in the laboratory and natural environment, (b) sexual thoughts (deviant and nondeviant) accompanied by arousal in the natural environment, and (c) overt actions in the community associated with increased risk of reoffending over a 31-month period for an exhibitionist with an intellectual disability. Despite the ineffectiveness of the medications, the measures demonstrated long-term, differentiated significant clinical responding; further underscored the importance of assessing deviant sexual arousal and adherence to relapse-prevention procedures in the natural environment; and provided a new methodology to assess sexual preoccupations and sexual arousal. Use of these in vivo measures raises questions regarding their potential to improve the predictability of risk assessments, and serve as an aide in the analysis of whether a treatment procedure is effective for an individual.

Fractionation of Spatial Memory in GRM2/3 (mGlu2/mGlu3) Double Knockout Mice Reveals a Role for Group II Metabotropic Glutamate Receptors at the Interface Between Arousal and Cognition

PubMed Central

Lyon, Louisa; Burnet, Philip WJ; Kew, James NC; Corti, Corrado; Rawlins, J Nicholas P; Lane, Tracy; De Filippis, Bianca; Harrison, Paul J; Bannerman, David M

2011-01-01

Group II metabotropic glutamate receptors (mGluR2 and mGluR3, encoded by GRM2 and GRM3) are implicated in hippocampal function and cognition, and in the pathophysiology and treatment of schizophrenia and other psychiatric disorders. However, pharmacological and behavioral studies with group II mGluR agonists and antagonists have produced complex results. Here, we studied hippocampus-dependent memory in GRM2/3 double knockout (GRM2/3−/−) mice in an iterative sequence of experiments. We found that they were impaired on appetitively motivated spatial reference and working memory tasks, and on a spatial novelty preference task that relies on animals' exploratory drive, but were unimpaired on aversively motivated spatial memory paradigms. GRM2/3−/− mice also performed normally on an appetitively motivated, non-spatial, visual discrimination task. These results likely reflect an interaction between GRM2/3 genotype and the arousal-inducing properties of the experimental paradigm. The deficit seen on appetitive and exploratory spatial memory tasks may be absent in aversive tasks because the latter induce higher levels of arousal, which rescue spatial learning. Consistent with an altered arousal–cognition relationship in GRM2/3−/− mice, injection stress worsened appetitively motivated, spatial working memory in wild-types, but enhanced performance in GRM2/3−/− mice. GRM2/3−/− mice were also hypoactive in response to amphetamine. This fractionation of hippocampus-dependent memory depending on the appetitive-aversive context is to our knowledge unique, and suggests a role for group II mGluRs at the interface of arousal and cognition. These arousal-dependent effects may explain apparently conflicting data from previous studies, and have translational relevance for the involvement of these receptors in schizophrenia and other disorders. PMID:21832989

Awareness of subtle emotional feelings: a comparison of long-term meditators and nonmeditators.

PubMed

Nielsen, Lisbeth; Kaszniak, Alfred W

2006-08-01

The authors explored whether meditation training to enhance emotional awareness improves discrimination of subtle emotional feelings hypothesized to guide decision-making. Long-term meditators and nonmeditators were compared on measures of self-reported valence and arousal, skin conductance response (SCR), and facial electromyography (EMG) to masked and nonmasked emotional pictures, and on measures of heartbeat detection and self-reported emotional awareness. Groups responded similarly to nonmasked pictures. In the masked condition, only controls showed discrimination in valence self-reports. However, meditators reported greater emotional clarity than controls, and meditators with higher clarity had reduced arousal and improved valence discrimination in the masked condition. These findings provide qualified support for the somatic marker hypothesis and suggest that meditation may influence how emotionally ambiguous information is processed, regulated, and represented in conscious awareness. (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved

Dorsal Raphe Serotonin Neurons Mediate CO2-Induced Arousal from Sleep.

PubMed

Smith, Haleigh R; Leibold, Nicole K; Rappoport, Daniel A; Ginapp, Callie M; Purnell, Benton S; Bode, Nicole M; Alberico, Stephanie L; Kim, Young-Cho; Audero, Enrica; Gross, Cornelius T; Buchanan, Gordon F

2018-02-21

Arousal from sleep in response to CO 2 is a critical protective phenomenon. Dysregulation of CO 2 -induced arousal contributes to morbidity and mortality from prevalent diseases, such as obstructive sleep apnea and sudden infant death syndrome. Despite the critical nature of this protective reflex, the precise mechanism for CO 2 -induced arousal is unknown. Because CO 2 is a major regulator of breathing, prevailing theories suggest that activation of respiratory chemo- and mechano-sensors is required for CO 2 -induced arousal. However, populations of neurons that are not involved in the regulation of breathing are also chemosensitive. Among these are serotonin (5-HT) neurons in the dorsal raphe nucleus (DRN) that comprise a component of the ascending arousal system. We hypothesized that direct stimulation of these neurons with CO 2 could cause arousal from sleep independently of enhancing breathing. Dialysis of CO 2 -rich acidified solution into DRN, but not medullary raphe responsible for modulating breathing, caused arousal from sleep. Arousal was lost in mice with a genetic absence of 5-HT neurons, and with acute pharmacological or optogenetic inactivation of DRN 5-HT neurons. Here we demonstrate that CO 2 can cause arousal from sleep directly, without requiring enhancement of breathing, and that chemosensitive 5-HT neurons in the DRN critically mediate this arousal. Better understanding mechanisms underlying this protective reflex may lead to interventions to reduce disease-associated morbidity and mortality. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Although CO 2 -induced arousal is critical to a number of diseases, the specific mechanism is not well understood. We previously demonstrated that serotonin (5-HT) neurons are important for CO 2 -induced arousal, as mice without 5-HT neurons do not arouse to CO 2 Many have interpreted this to mean that medullary 5-HT neurons that regulate breathing are important in this arousal mechanism. Here we found that direct application of CO 2 -rich aCSF to the dorsal raphe nucleus, but not the medullary raphe, causes arousal from sleep, and that this arousal was lost with genetic ablation or acute inhibition of 5-HT neurons. We propose that 5-HT neurons in the dorsal raphe nucleus can be activated directly by CO 2 to cause arousal independently of respiratory activation. Copyright © 2018 the authors 0270-6474/18/381915-11$15.00/0.

Body temperatures of hibernating little brown bats reveal pronounced behavioural activity during deep torpor and suggest a fever response during white-nose syndrome.

PubMed

Mayberry, Heather W; McGuire, Liam P; Willis, Craig K R

2018-03-01

Hibernating animals use torpor [reduced body temperature (T b ) and metabolic rate] to reduce energy expenditure during winter. Periodic arousals to normal T b are energetically expensive, so hibernators trade off arousal benefits against energetic costs. This is especially important for bats with white-nose syndrome (WNS), a fungal disease causing increased arousal frequency. Little brown bats (Myotis lucifugus) with WNS show upregulation of endogenous pyrogens and sickness behaviour. Therefore, we hypothesized that WNS should cause a fever response characterized by elevated T b . Hibernators could also accrue some benefits of arousals with minimal T b increase, thus avoiding full arousal costs. We compared skin temperature (T sk ) of captive Myotis lucifugus inoculated with the WNS-causing fungus to T sk of sham-inoculated controls. Infected bats re-warmed to higher T sk during arousals which is consistent with a fever response. Torpid T sk did not differ. During what we term "cold arousals", bats exhibited movement following T sk increases of only 2.2 ± 0.3 °C, compared to >20 °C increases during normal arousals. Cold arousals occurred in both infected and control bats, suggesting they are not a pathophysiological consequence of WNS. Fever responses are energetically costly and could exacerbate energy limitation and premature fat depletion for bats with WNS. Cold arousals could represent an energy-saving mechanism for both healthy and WNS-affected bats when complete arousals are unnecessary or too costly. A few cold arousals were observed mid-hibernation, typically in response to disturbances. Cold arousals may, therefore, represent a voluntary restriction of arousal temperature instead of loss of thermoregulatory control.

Do respiratory cycle-related EEG changes or arousals from sleep predict neurobehavioral deficits and response to adenotonsillectomy in children?

PubMed

Chervin, Ronald D; Garetz, Susan L; Ruzicka, Deborah L; Hodges, Elise K; Giordani, Bruno J; Dillon, James E; Felt, Barbara T; Hoban, Timothy F; Guire, Kenneth E; O'Brien, Louise M; Burns, Joseph W

2014-08-15

Pediatric obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is associated with hyperactive behavior, cognitive deficits, psychiatric morbidity, and sleepiness, but objective polysomnographic measures of OSA presence or severity among children scheduled for adenotonsillectomy have not explained why. To assess whether sleep fragmentation might explain neurobehavioral outcomes, we prospectively assessed the predictive value of standard arousals and also respiratory cycle-related EEG changes (RCREC), thought to reflect inspiratory microarousals. Washtenaw County Adenotonsillectomy Cohort II participants included children (ages 3-12 years) scheduled for adenotonsillectomy, for any clinical indication. At enrollment and again 7.2 ± 0.9 (SD) months later, children had polysomnography, a multiple sleep latency test, parent-completed behavioral rating scales, cognitive testing, and psychiatric evaluation. The RCREC were computed as previously described for delta, theta, alpha, sigma, and beta EEG frequency bands. Participants included 133 children, 109 with OSA (apnea-hypopnea index [AHI] ≥ 1.5, mean 8.3 ± 10.6) and 24 without OSA (AHI 0.9 ± 0.3). At baseline, the arousal index and RCREC showed no consistent, significant associations with neurobehavioral morbidities, among all subjects or the 109 with OSA. At follow-up, the arousal index, RCREC, and neurobehavioral measures all tended to improve, but neither baseline measure of sleep fragmentation effectively predicted outcomes (all p > 0.05, with only scattered exceptions, among all subjects or those with OSA). Sleep fragmentation, as reflected by standard arousals or by RCREC, appears unlikely to explain neurobehavioral morbidity among children who undergo adenotonsillectomy. ClinicalTrials.gov, ID: NCT00233194.

Matter over mind: a randomised-controlled trial of single-session biofeedback training on performance anxiety and heart rate variability in musicians.

PubMed

Wells, Ruth; Outhred, Tim; Heathers, James A J; Quintana, Daniel S; Kemp, Andrew H

2012-01-01

Musical performance is a skilled activity performed under intense pressure, thus is often a profound source of anxiety. In other contexts, anxiety and its concomitant symptoms of sympathetic nervous system arousal have been successfully ameliorated with HRV biofeedback (HRV BF), a technique involving slow breathing which augments autonomic and emotional regulatory capacity. This randomised-controlled study explored the impact of a single 30-minute session of HRV BF on anxiety in response to a highly stressful music performance. A total of 46 trained musicians participated in this study and were randomly allocated to a slow breathing with or without biofeedback or no-treatment control group. A 3 Group×2 Time mixed experimental design was employed to compare the effect of group before and after intervention on performance anxiety (STAI-S) and frequency domain measures of HRV. Slow breathing groups (n=30) showed significantly greater improvements in high frequency (HF) and LF/HF ratio measures of HRV relative to control (n=15) during 5 minute recordings of performance anticipation following the intervention (effect size: η(2) =0.122 and η(2) =0.116, respectively). The addition of biofeedback to a slow breathing protocol did not produce differential results. While intervention groups did not exhibit an overall reduction in self-reported anxiety, participants with high baseline anxiety who received the intervention (n=15) displayed greater reductions in self-reported state anxiety relative to those in the control condition (n=7) (r=0.379). These findings indicate that a single session of slow breathing, regardless of biofeedback, is sufficient for controlling physiological arousal in anticipation of psychosocial stress associated with music performance and that slow breathing is particularly helpful for musicians with high levels of anxiety. Future research is needed to further examine the effects of HRV BF as a low-cost, non-pharmacological treatment for music performance anxiety.

Homogenization of Classification Functions Measurement (HOCFUN): A Method for Measuring the Salience of Emotional Arousal in Thinking.

PubMed

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.

Social functioning and autonomic nervous system sensitivity across vocal and musical emotion in Williams syndrome and autism spectrum disorder.

PubMed

Järvinen, Anna; Ng, Rowena; Crivelli, Davide; Neumann, Dirk; Arnold, Andrew J; Woo-VonHoogenstyn, Nicholas; Lai, Philip; Trauner, Doris; Bellugi, Ursula

2016-01-01

Both Williams syndrome (WS) and autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are associated with unusual auditory phenotypes with respect to processing vocal and musical stimuli, which may be shaped by the atypical social profiles that characterize the syndromes. Autonomic nervous system (ANS) reactivity to vocal and musical emotional stimuli was examined in 12 children with WS, 17 children with ASD, and 20 typically developing (TD) children, and related to their level of social functioning. The results of this small-scale study showed that after controlling for between-group differences in cognitive ability, all groups showed similar emotion identification performance across conditions. Additionally, in ASD, lower autonomic reactivity to human voice, and in TD, to musical emotion, was related to more normal social functioning. Compared to TD, both clinical groups showed increased arousal to vocalizations. A further result highlighted uniquely increased arousal to music in WS, contrasted with a decrease in arousal in ASD and TD. The ASD and WS groups exhibited arousal patterns suggestive of diminished habituation to the auditory stimuli. The results are discussed in the context of the clinical presentation of WS and ASD. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Instructions to rate genital vasocongestion increases genital and self-reported sexual arousal but not coherence between genital and self-reported sexual arousal.

PubMed

Prause, Nicole; Barela, James; Roberts, Verena; Graham, Cynthia

2013-09-01

Women are often reported to have a low coherence (often referred to as "discordance" in sexuality literature) between their genital response and self-reported sexual arousal. The purpose of this study was to determine whether differing instructions for rating sexual arousal would increase the coherence between genital response and self-reported arousal in women. Genital responses were recorded, using vaginal photoplethysmography, from 32 young women while they fantasized in three different conditions. Conditions instructed women to rate their overall sexual arousal, any physical cues, and genital blood flow. The primary outcome measure was the coherence of vaginal pulse amplitude (VPA) and reported sexual response in the three conditions. Unexpectedly, both VPA response and self-reported sexual arousal were higher when women were asked to rate their genital blood flow. Examining only participants who reported at least some sexual arousal in all conditions (n = 17), coherence was highest when women were instructed to rate overall sexual arousal. Results suggest that focusing on genital blood flow during sexual fantasy may increase women's (self-reported and genital) sexual response. Focusing on any physical arousal cues during sexual fantasy was associated with lower coherence of women's genital response and self-reported arousal compared with when they were instructed to rate their overall sexual arousal. © 2013 International Society for Sexual Medicine.

The levers of influence.

PubMed

Martin, W

1999-01-01

Physicians often determine the demand for health care services, as well as control the clinical processes aimed at improving health outcomes at the individual and population level. Given their important role in enhancing health status and improving the health care delivery system, it is critical that physician executives master the tools necessary to positively influence physician behavior. But changing behavior is far more complex than "doing it or not doing it." The Nike slogan "just do it" is motivating, but over-simplified. The roots of human change include: consciousness-raising, emotional arousal, commitment, helping relationships, self-reevaluation, reward, and environmental control. A model to effectively influence behavior is presented and includes setting clear expectations, measuring and monitoring performance, providing feedback, and rewarding and recognizing improvement. If all else fails, try discipline. This five-step approach is based on the science of human behavior and working with physicians in diverse settings, ranging from academic medical centers to small practices.

What kind of erotic film clips should we use in female sex research? An exploratory study.

PubMed

Woodard, Terri L; Collins, Karen; Perez, Mindy; Balon, Richard; Tancer, Manuel E; Kruger, Michael; Moffat, Scott; Diamond, Michael P

2008-01-01

Erotic film clips are used in sex research, including studies of female sexual dysfunction and arousal. However, little is known about which clips optimize female sexual response. Furthermore, their use is not well standardized. To identify the types of film clips that are most mentally appealing and physically arousing to women for use in future sexual function and dysfunction studies; to explore the relationship between mental appeal and reported physical arousal; to characterize the content of the films that were found to be the most and least appealing and arousing. Twenty-one women viewed 90 segments of erotic film clips. They rated how (i) mentally appealing and (ii) how physically aroused they were by each clip. The data were analyzed by descriptive statistics. The means of the mental and self-reported physical responses were calculated to determine the most and least appealing/arousing film clips. Pearson correlations were calculated to assess the relationship between mental appeal and reported physical arousal. Self-reported mental and physical arousal. Of 90 film clips, 18 were identified as the most mentally appealing and physically arousing while nine were identified as the least mentally appealing and physically arousing. The level of mental appeal positively correlated with the level of perceived physical arousal in both categories (r = 0.61, P < 0.05 and r = 0.62, P < 0.05). The most appealing and physically arousing films tended to exhibit heterosexual behavior with vaginal intercourse. The least appealing and least physically arousing films tended to depict male homosexual behavior, fellatio, and anal intercourse. Erotic film clips reliably produced a state of self-reported arousal in women. The most appealing and arousing films tended to depict heterosexual vaginal intercourse. Film clips with these attributes should be used in future research of sexual function and response of women.

New meanings of thin-skinned: The contrasting attentional profiles of typical 12-month-olds who show high, and low, stress reactivity.

PubMed

Wass, Sam V; de Barbaro, Kaya; Clackson, Kaili; Leong, Victoria

2018-05-01

Previous research is inconsistent as to whether a more labile (faster-changing) autonomic system confers performance advantages, or disadvantages, in infants and children. To examine this, we presented a stimulus battery consisting of mixed static and dynamic viewing materials to a cohort of 63 typical 12-month-old infants. While viewing the battery, infants' spontaneous visual attention (looks to and away from the screen) was measured. Concurrently, arousal was recorded via heart rate (HR), electrodermal activity, head velocity, and peripheral movement levels. In addition, stress reactivity was assessed using a mild behavioral stressor (watching a video of another infant crying). We found that infants who were generally more attentive showed smaller HR increases to the stressor. However, they also showed greater phasic autonomic changes to attractive, attention-getting stimulus events, a faster rate of change of both look duration and of arousal, and more general oscillatory activity in arousal. Finally, 4 sessions of attention training were applied to a subset of the infants (24 trained, 24 active controls), which had the effect of increasing visual sustained attention. No changes in HR responses to stressor were observed as a result of training, but concomitant increases in arousal lability were observed. Our results point to 2 contrasting autonomic profiles: infants with high autonomic reactivity to stressors show short attention durations, whereas infants with lower autonomic reactivity show longer attention durations and greater arousal lability. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

EEG Arousal Norms by Age

PubMed Central

Bonnet, Michael H.; Arand, Donna L.

2007-01-01

Study Objectives: Brief arousals have been systematically scored during sleep for more than 20 years. Despite significant knowledge concerning the importance of arousals for the sleep process in normal subjects and patients, comprehensive age norms have not been published. Methods: Seventy-six normal subjects (40 men) without sleep apnea or periodic limb movements of sleep, aged 18 to 70 years, slept in the sleep laboratory for 1 or more nights. Sleep and arousal data were scored by the same scorer for the first night (comparable to clinical polysomnograms) and summarized by age decade. Results: There were no statistically significant differences for sex or interaction of sex by age (p > .5 for both). The mean arousal index increased as a function of age. Newman-Keuls comparisons (.05) showed arousal index in the 18- to 20-year and 21- to 30-year age groups to be significantly less than the arousal index in the other 4 age groups. Arousal index in the 31-to 40-year and 41-to 50-year groups was significantly less than the arousal index in the older groups. The arousal index was significantly negatively correlated with total sleep time and all sleep stages (positive correlation with stage 1 and wake). Conclusions: Brief arousals are an integral component of the sleep process. They increase with other electroencephalographic markers as a function of age. They are highly correlated with traditional sleep-stage amounts and are related to major demographic variables. Age-related norms may make identification of pathologic arousal easier. Citations: Bonnet M; Arand D. EEG Arousal Norms by Age. J Clin Sleep Med 2007;3(3):271–274 PMID:17561594

Stimulant medications for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) improve memory of emotional stimuli in ADHD-diagnosed college students.

PubMed

Maul, J; Advokat, C

2013-04-01

Stimulant medications do not improve the academic achievement of ADHD diagnosed undergraduates. One reason may be that stimulant-induced sympathetic arousal might impair memory. To test this hypothesis, we conducted a study between September 2011 and March 2012, to compare medicated (n=12) and non-medicated (n=11) ADHD diagnosed undergraduates, with non-ADHD students (n=12). All participants were presented with an audiovisual narrative that included an emotional segment, and answered questions about the story one week later. All groups remembered the emotional segment significantly better than the neutral segments. Non-medicated ADHD students recalled less of both segments than the medicated ADHD or non-ADHD groups, which did not differ from each other. Stimulants improved memory in ADHD students, and did not impair the relative retention of emotional, as opposed to neutral information. Stimulant-induced arousal cannot explain the academic deficit of ADHD undergraduates. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Psychological factors predicting the distress to female persistent genital arousal symptoms.

PubMed

Carvalho, Joana; Veríssimo, Ana; Nobre, Pedro J

2015-01-01

Symptoms of persistent genital arousal are expected to negatively affect women's sexual and emotional well-being. However, not all women who experience persistent genital arousal complain about their genital condition. Against this background, this study aimed to evaluate psychological predictors of the distress associated with persistent genital arousal symptoms, as well as psychological moderators influencing the conditions under which persistent genital arousal causes distress. A total of 117 women reporting symptoms of persistent genital arousal answered to online questionnaires measuring personality traits, sexual beliefs, and dyadic adjustment. Women have also completed a checklist measuring the frequency/severity of persistent genital arousal symptoms and the distress/impairment caused by these symptoms. Results showed that neuroticism, (low) openness, sexual conservatism, and (low) dyadic adjustment significantly predicted distress associated with genital symptoms. Furthermore, sexual conservatism was found to moderate the relation between the symptoms' severity and the distress associated with those symptoms. Overall, sexual conservatism seems to be a key differentiator factor, influencing the psychological conditions under which women may report higher levels of distress caused by persistent genital arousal. Because such findings focus on the distress to genital arousal symptoms rather than on persistent genital arousal disorder as a clinical entity, the results under consideration may or may not characterize women formally assigned to the persistent genital arousal disorder label.

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

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

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…

Performance processes within affect-related performance zones: a multi-modal investigation of golf performance.

PubMed

van der Lei, Harry; Tenenbaum, Gershon

2012-12-01

Individual affect-related performance zones (IAPZs) method utilizing Kamata et al. (J Sport Exerc Psychol 24:189-208, 2002) probabilistic model of determining the individual zone of optimal functioning was utilized as idiosyncratic affective patterns during golf performance. To do so, three male golfers of a varsity golf team were observed during three rounds of golf competition. The investigation implemented a multi-modal assessment approach in which the probabilistic relationship between affective states and both, performance process and performance outcome, measures were determined. More specifically, introspective (i.e., verbal reports) and objective (heart rate and respiration rate) measures of arousal were incorporated to examine the relationships between arousal states and both, process components (i.e., routine consistency, timing), and outcome scores related to golf performance. Results revealed distinguishable and idiosyncratic IAPZs associated with physiological and introspective measures for each golfer. The associations between the IAPZs and decision-making or swing/stroke execution were strong and unique for each golfer. Results are elaborated using cognitive and affect-related concepts, and applications for practitioners are provided.

Eysenck's Theory of Personality and the Role of Background Music in Cognitive Task Performance: A Mini-Review of Conflicting Findings and a New Perspective

PubMed Central

Küssner, Mats B.

2017-01-01

The question of whether background music is able to enhance cognitive task performance is of interest to scholars, educators, and stakeholders in business alike. Studies have shown that background music can have beneficial, detrimental or no effects on cognitive task performance. Extraversion—and its postulated underlying cause, cortical arousal—is regarded as an important factor influencing the outcome of such studies. According to Eysenck's theory of personality, extraverts' cortical arousal at rest is lower compared to that of introverts. Scholars have thus hypothesized that extraverts should benefit from background music in cognitive tasks, whereas introverts' performance should decline with music in the background. Reviewing studies that have considered extraversion as a mediator of the effect of background music on cognitive task performance, it is demonstrated that there is as much evidence in favor as there is against Eysenck's theory of personality. Further, revisiting Eysenck's concept of cortical arousal—which has traditionally been assessed by activity in the EEG alpha band—and reviewing literature on the link between extraversion and cortical arousal, it is revealed that there is conflicting evidence. Due to Eysenck's focus on alpha power, scholars have largely neglected higher frequency bands in the EEG signal as indicators of cortical arousal. Based on recent findings, it is suggested that beta power might not only be an indicator of alertness and attention but also a predictor of cognitive task performance. In conclusion, it is proposed that focused music listening prior to cognitive tasks might be a more efficient way to boost performance than listening to background music during cognitive tasks. PMID:29184523

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

PubMed

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.

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

PubMed

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.

Locus Coeruleus Activity Strengthens Prioritized Memories Under Arousal.

PubMed

Clewett, David V; Huang, Ringo; Velasco, Rico; Lee, Tae-Ho; Mather, Mara

2018-02-07

Recent models posit that bursts of locus ceruleus (LC) activity amplify neural gain such that limited attention and encoding resources focus even more on prioritized mental representations under arousal. Here, we tested this hypothesis in human males and females using fMRI, neuromelanin MRI, and pupil dilation, a biomarker of arousal and LC activity. During scanning, participants performed a monetary incentive encoding task in which threat of punishment motivated them to prioritize encoding of scene images over superimposed objects. Threat of punishment elicited arousal and selectively enhanced memory for goal-relevant scenes. Furthermore, trial-level pupil dilations predicted better scene memory under threat, but were not related to object memory outcomes. fMRI analyses revealed that greater threat-evoked pupil dilations were positively associated with greater scene encoding activity in LC and parahippocampal cortex, a region specialized to process scene information. Across participants, this pattern of LC engagement for goal-relevant encoding was correlated with neuromelanin signal intensity, providing the first evidence that LC structure relates to its activation pattern during cognitive processing. Threat also reduced dynamic functional connectivity between high-priority (parahippocampal place area) and lower-priority (lateral occipital cortex) category-selective visual cortex in ways that predicted increased memory selectivity. Together, these findings support the idea that, under arousal, LC activity selectively strengthens prioritized memory representations by modulating local and functional network-level patterns of information processing. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Adaptive behavior relies on the ability to select and store important information amid distraction. Prioritizing encoding of task-relevant inputs is especially critical in threatening or arousing situations, when forming these memories is essential for avoiding danger in the future. However, little is known about the arousal mechanisms that support such memory selectivity. Using fMRI, neuromelanin MRI, and pupil measures, we demonstrate that locus ceruleus (LC) activity amplifies neural gain such that limited encoding resources focus even more on prioritized mental representations under arousal. For the first time, we also show that LC structure relates to its involvement in threat-related encoding processes. These results shed new light on the brain mechanisms by which we process important information when it is most needed. Copyright © 2018 the authors 0270-6474/18/381558-17$15.00/0.

The effects of cognitive-behavioral therapy for youth anxiety on sleep problems.

PubMed

Peterman, Jeremy S; Carper, Matthew M; Elkins, R Meredith; Comer, Jonathan S; Pincus, Donna B; Kendall, Philip C

2016-01-01

The present study examined (a) whether sleep related problems (SRPs) improved following cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) for youth with anxiety disorders, (b) whether variables that may link anxiety and SRPs (e.g., pre-sleep arousal, family accommodation, sleep hygiene) changed during treatment, and (c) whether such changes predicted SRPs at posttreatment. Youth were diagnosed with anxiety at pretreatment and received weekly CBT that targeted their principal anxiety diagnosis at one of two specialty clinics (N=69 completers, Mage=10.86). Results indicated that parent-reported SRPs improved from pre- to post-treatment and that treatment responders with regard to anxiety yielded greater SRP improvements than nonresponders. Parent report of bedtime resistance and sleep anxiety showed significant improvements. Youth reported lower rates of SRPs compared to their parents and did not demonstrate pre- to post-treatment changes in SRPs. Pre-sleep arousal and family accommodation decreased over treatment but did not predict lower SRPs at posttreatment. Higher accommodation was correlated with greater SRPs. Sleep hygiene evidenced no change and did not mediate links between accommodation and posttreatment SRPs. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Rate of initial recovery and subsequent radar monitoring performance following a simulated emergency involving startle.

DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

1983-09-01

The present study employed auditory startle to simulate the principal components (unexpectedness, fear, and physiological arousal) that are common to many types of sudden emergencies and compared performance recovery following startle with recovery f...

Effects of Emotional Valence and Arousal on Time Perception

PubMed Central

Van Volkinburg, Heather; Balsam, Peter

2016-01-01

We examined the influence of emotional arousal and valence on estimating time intervals. A reproduction task was used in which images from the International Affective Picture System served as the stimuli to be timed. Experiment 1 assessed the effects of positive and negative valence at a moderate arousal level and Experiment 2 replicated Experiment 1 with the addition of a high arousal condition. Overestimation increased as a function of arousal during encoding of times regardless of valence. For images presented during reproduction, overestimation occurred at the moderate arousal level for positive and negative valence but underestimation occurred in the negative valence high arousal condition. The overestimation of time intervals produced by emotional arousal during encoding and during reproduction suggests that emotional stimuli affect temporal information processing in a qualitatively different way during different phases of temporal information processing. PMID:27110491

Elevated arousal levels enhance contrast perception.

PubMed

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.

The male bisexuality debate revisited: some bisexual men have bisexual arousal patterns.

PubMed

Rosenthal, A M; Sylva, David; Safron, Adam; Bailey, J Michael

2012-02-01

Self-identified bisexual men report high sexual arousal to both male and female stimuli, but no study to date has compellingly demonstrated that such men have a bisexual pattern of genital arousal. We examined sexual arousal patterns among bisexual men recruited using stringent criteria designed to exclude those who were less likely to have sexual interest in both sexes. Furthermore, we included a bisexual stimulus depicting a man engaged in sex simultaneously with another man and a woman. On average, the bisexual men showed a bisexual arousal pattern, with respect to both self-reported and genital arousal. Additionally, the bisexual men were more aroused by the bisexual stimulus compared with the homosexual and heterosexual men. Some bisexual-identified men have bisexual genital arousal patterns, although it remains unclear how common they are.

The limits of arousal's memory-impairing effects on nearby information.

PubMed

Mather, Mara; Gorlick, Marissa A; Nesmith, Kathryn

2009-01-01

Showing an arousing central stimulus in a scene often leads to enhanced memory for the arousing central information and impaired memory for peripheral details. However, it is not clear from previous work whether arousing stimuli impair memory for all nonarousing nearby information or just background information. In several experiments, we tested how emotionally arousing pictures affect memory for nearby pictures and for background information. We found that when 2 pictures were presented together, an arousing picture did not affect item and location memory for the other picture. In contrast, an arousing picture impaired memory for a background pattern. These findings suggest that arousal impairs memory for information that is the target of perceptual suppression, such as background information when there is a figure-ground distinction, but does not impair memory for other foreground information.

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

PubMed

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.

Workload - An examination of the concept

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Gopher, Daniel; Donchin, Emanuel

1986-01-01

The relations between task difficulty and workload and workload and performance are examined. The architecture and limitations of the central processor are discussed. Various procedures for measuring workload are described and evaluated. Consideration is given to normative and descriptive approaches; subjective, performance, and arousal measures; performance operating characteristics; and psychophysiological measures of workload.

Sex-dependent dissociation between emotional appraisal and memory: a large-scale behavioral and fMRI study.

PubMed

Spalek, Klara; Fastenrath, Matthias; Ackermann, Sandra; Auschra, Bianca; Coynel, David; Frey, Julia; Gschwind, Leo; Hartmann, Francina; van der Maarel, Nadine; Papassotiropoulos, Andreas; de Quervain, Dominique; Milnik, Annette

2015-01-21

Extensive evidence indicates that women outperform men in episodic memory tasks. Furthermore, women are known to evaluate emotional stimuli as more arousing than men. Because emotional arousal typically increases episodic memory formation, the females' memory advantage might be more pronounced for emotionally arousing information than for neutral information. Here, we report behavioral data from 3398 subjects, who performed picture rating and memory tasks, and corresponding fMRI data from up to 696 subjects. We were interested in the interaction between sex and valence category on emotional appraisal, memory performances, and fMRI activity. The behavioral results showed that females evaluate in particular negative (p < 10(-16)) and positive (p = 2 × 10(-4)), but not neutral pictures, as emotionally more arousing (pinteraction < 10(-16)) than males. However, in the free recall females outperformed males not only in positive (p < 10(-16)) and negative (p < 5 × 10(-5)), but also in neutral picture recall (p < 3.4 × 10(-8)), with a particular advantage for positive pictures (pinteraction < 4.4 × 10(-10)). Importantly, females' memory advantage during free recall was absent in a recognition setting. We identified activation differences in fMRI, which corresponded to the females' stronger appraisal of especially negative pictures, but no activation differences that reflected the interaction effect in the free recall memory task. In conclusion, females' valence-category-specific memory advantage is only observed in a free recall, but not a recognition setting and does not depend on females' higher emotional appraisal. Copyright © 2015 the authors 0270-6474/15/350920-16$15.00/0.

Regional cerebral blood flow changes associated with clitorally induced orgasm in healthy women.

PubMed

Georgiadis, Janniko R; Kortekaas, Rudie; Kuipers, Rutger; Nieuwenburg, Arie; Pruim, Jan; Reinders, A A T Simone; Holstege, Gert

2006-12-01

There is a severe lack of knowledge regarding the brain regions involved in human sexual performance in general, and female orgasm in particular. We used [15O]-H2O positron emission tomography to measure regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) in 12 healthy women during a nonsexual resting state, clitorally induced orgasm, sexual clitoral stimulation (sexual arousal control) and imitation of orgasm (motor output control). Extracerebral markers of sexual performance and orgasm were rectal pressure variability (RPstd) and perceived level of sexual arousal (PSA). Sexual stimulation of the clitoris (compared to rest) significantly increased rCBF in the left secondary and right dorsal primary somatosensory cortex, providing the first account of neocortical processing of sexual clitoral information. In contrast, orgasm was mainly associated with profound rCBF decreases in the neocortex when compared with the control conditions (clitoral stimulation and imitation of orgasm), particularly in the left lateral orbitofrontal cortex, inferior temporal gyrus and anterior temporal pole. Significant positive correlations were found between RPstd and rCBF in the left deep cerebellar nuclei, and between PSA and rCBF in the ventral midbrain and right caudate nucleus. We propose that decreased blood flow in the left lateral orbitofrontal cortex signifies behavioural disinhibition during orgasm in women, and that deactivation of the temporal lobe is directly related to high sexual arousal. In addition, the deep cerebellar nuclei may be involved in orgasm-specific muscle contractions while the involvement of the ventral midbrain and right caudate nucleus suggests a role for dopamine in female sexual arousal and orgasm.

Motivational intensity modulates the effects of positive emotions on set shifting after controlling physiological arousal.

PubMed

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.

Assessing female sexual arousal with the labial thermistor: response specificity and construct validity.

PubMed

Prause, N; Heiman, J R

2009-05-01

The labial thermistor offers several potential psychometric advantages over existing measures of female sexual response; however, the thermistor lacked data to support these presumed advantages, especially with respect to its discriminant validity. In this study, both the labial thermistor was worn simultaneously with the vaginal photoplethysmograph as women viewed films. They also indicated their level of subjective sexual arousal using a lever. The labial thermistor discriminated sexual from nonsexual arousing stimuli and was sensitive to different levels of sexual arousal. The correspondence of the instrument with subjective sexual arousal, measured using a continuous lever, was lower during the mildly arousing sexual film and higher during the maximally sexual arousing film. One woman reported that the labial thermistor was very uncomfortable, while others indicated no or mild discomfort from each instrument. The vaginal photoplethysmograph largely replicated the effects documented by the labial thermistor, although it did not discriminate sexual stimuli of different intensity nor correspond with women's continuous lever responses as closely during the more arousing stimulus. Difficulties recording simultaneously with these instruments are noted. The labial thermistor adequately discriminates between generally arousing and sexually arousing stimuli, increasing its utility as a measure for between-subject study designs.

Ventilatory response to induced auditory arousals during NREM sleep.

PubMed

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.

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

PubMed

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: p<0.0001). Also, for both EEG signals the auto mutual information had a faster rate of decay, implying lower signal predictability, following the arousal than prior to it (both age groups, p<0.0001). These results indicate that the state of the cortex is different after, compared to before, the arousal even when the spectral power 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.

A Survey on Optimal Signal Processing Techniques Applied to Improve the Performance of Mechanical Sensors in Automotive Applications

PubMed Central

Hernandez, Wilmar

2007-01-01

In this paper a survey on recent applications of optimal signal processing techniques to improve the performance of mechanical sensors is made. Here, a comparison between classical filters and optimal filters for automotive sensors is made, and the current state of the art of the application of robust and optimal control and signal processing techniques to the design of the intelligent (or smart) sensors that today's cars need is presented through several experimental results that show that the fusion of intelligent sensors and optimal signal processing techniques is the clear way to go. However, the switch between the traditional methods of designing automotive sensors and the new ones cannot be done overnight because there are some open research issues that have to be solved. This paper draws attention to one of the open research issues and tries to arouse researcher's interest in the fusion of intelligent sensors and optimal signal processing techniques.

Three-dimensional N-doped graphene/polyaniline composite foam for high performance supercapacitors

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhu, Jun; Kong, Lirong; Shen, Xiaoping; Chen, Quanrun; Ji, Zhenyuan; Wang, Jiheng; Xu, Keqiang; Zhu, Guoxing

2018-01-01

Three-dimensional (3D) graphene aerogel and its composite with interconnected pores have aroused continuous interests in energy storage field owning to its large surface area and hierarchical pore structure. Herein, we reported the preparation of 3D nitrogen-doped graphene/polyaniline (N-GE/PANI) composite foam for supercapacitive material with greatly improved electrochemical performance. The 3D porous structure can allow the penetration and diffusion of electrolyte, the incorporation of nitrogen doping can enhance the wettability of the active material and the number of active sites with electrolyte, and both the N-GE and PANI can ensure the high electrical conductivity of total electrode. Moreover, the synergistic effect between N-GE and PANI materials also play an important role on the electrochemical performance of electrode. Therefore, the as-prepared composite foam could deliver a high specific capacitance of 528 F g-1 at 0.1 A g-1 and a high cyclic stability with 95.9% capacitance retention after 5000 charge-discharge cycles. This study provides a new idea on improving the energy storage capacity of supercapacitors by using 3D graphene-based psedocapacitive electrode materials.

Inhibition of Orexin Signaling Promotes Sleep Yet Preserves Salient Arousability in Monkeys.

PubMed

Tannenbaum, Pamela L; Tye, Spencer J; Stevens, Joanne; Gotter, Anthony L; Fox, Steven V; Savitz, Alan T; Coleman, Paul J; Uslaner, Jason M; Kuduk, Scott D; Hargreaves, Richard; Winrow, Christopher J; Renger, John J

2016-03-01

In addition to enhancing sleep onset and maintenance, a desirable insomnia therapeutic agent would preserve healthy sleep's ability to wake and respond to salient situations while maintaining sleep during irrelevant noise. Dual orexin receptor antagonists (DORAs) promote sleep by selectively inhibiting wake-promoting neuropeptide signaling, unlike global inhibition of central nervous system excitation by gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA)-A receptor (GABAaR) modulators. We evaluated the effect of DORA versus GABAaR modulators on underlying sleep architecture, ability to waken to emotionally relevant stimuli versus neutral auditory cues, and performance on a sleepiness-sensitive cognitive task upon awakening. DORA-22 and GABAaR modulators (eszopiclone, diazepam) were evaluated in adult male rhesus monkeys (n = 34) with continuous polysomnography recordings in crossover studies of sleep architecture, arousability to a classically conditioned salient versus neutral acoustical stimulus, and psychomotor vigilance task (PVT) performance if awakened. All compounds decreased wakefulness, but only DORA-22 sleep resembled unmedicated sleep in terms of underlying sleep architecture, preserved ability to awaken to salient-conditioned acoustic stimuli while maintaining sleep during neutral acoustic stimuli, and no congnitive impairment in PVT performance. Although GABAaR modulators induced lighter sleep, monkeys rarely woke to salient stimuli and PVT performance was impaired if monkeys were awakened. In nonhuman primates, DORAs' targeted mechanism for promoting sleep protects the ability to selectively arouse to salient stimuli and perform attentional tasks unimpaired, suggesting meaningful differentiation between a hypnotic agent that works through antagonizing orexin wake signaling versus the sedative hypnotic effects of the GABAaR modulator mechanism of action. © 2016 Associated Professional Sleep Societies, LLC.

Effects of valence and arousal on written word recognition: time course and ERP correlates.

PubMed

Citron, Francesca M M; Weekes, Brendan S; Ferstl, Evelyn C

2013-01-15

Models of affect assume a two-dimensional framework, composed of emotional valence and arousal. Although neuroimaging evidence supports a neuro-functional distinction of their effects during single word processing, electrophysiological studies have not yet compared the effects of arousal within the same category of valence (positive and negative). Here we investigate effects of arousal and valence on written lexical decision. Amplitude differences between emotion and neutral words were seen in the early posterior negativity (EPN), the late positive complex and in a sustained slow positivity. In addition, trends towards interactive effects of valence and arousal were observed in the EPN, showing larger amplitude for positive, high-arousal and negative, low-arousal words. The results provide initial evidence for interactions between arousal and valence during processing of positive words and highlight the importance of both variables in studies of emotional stimulus processing. Crown Copyright © 2012. Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Chemoreception and asphyxia-induced arousal

PubMed Central

Guyenet, Patrice G.; Abbott, Stephen B.G.

2013-01-01

Arousal protects against the adverse and potentially fatal effects of asphyxia during sleep. Asphyxia stimulates the carotid bodies and central chemoreceptors but the sequence of events leading to arousal is uncertain. In this review, the theoretical mechanisms leading to arousal from sleep are briefly summarized and the issue of whether central respiratory chemoreceptors (CRCs) or other types of CO2-responsive CNS neurons contribute to asphyxia-induced arousal is discussed. We focus on the role of the retrotrapezoid nucleus, the raphe and the locus coeruleus and emphasize the anatomical and neurophysiological evidence which suggests that these putative central chemoreceptors could contribute to arousal independently of their effects on breathing. Finally, we describe recent attempts to test the contribution of specific brainstem pathways to asphyxia-induced arousal using optogenetic and other tools and the possible contribution of a group of hypoxia-sensitive brainstem neurons (the C1 cells) to breathing and arousal. PMID:23608705

The neurophysiology of sexual arousal.

PubMed

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.

Evidence for a curvilinear relationship between sympathetic nervous system activation and women's physiological sexual arousal.

PubMed

Lorenz, Tierney Ahrold; Harte, Christopher B; Hamilton, Lisa Dawn; Meston, Cindy M

2012-01-01

There is increasing evidence that women's physiological sexual arousal is facilitated by moderate sympathetic nervous system (SNS) activation. Literature also suggests that the level of SNS activation may play a role in the degree to which SNS activity affects sexual arousal. We provide the first empirical examination of a possible curvilinear relationship between SNS activity and women's genital arousal using a direct measure of SNS activation in 52 sexually functional women. The relationship between heart rate variability (HRV), a specific and sensitive marker of SNS activation, and vaginal pulse amplitude (VPA), a measure of genital arousal, was analyzed. Moderate increases in SNS activity were associated with higher genital arousal, while very low or very high SNS activation was associated with lower genital arousal. These findings imply that there is an optimal level of SNS activation for women's physiological sexual arousal. Copyright © 2011 Society for Psychophysiological Research.

Chemoreception and asphyxia-induced arousal.

PubMed

Guyenet, Patrice G; Abbott, Stephen B G

2013-09-15

Arousal protects against the adverse and potentially fatal effects of asphyxia during sleep. Asphyxia stimulates the carotid bodies and central chemoreceptors but the sequence of events leading to arousal is uncertain. In this review, the theoretical mechanisms leading to arousal from sleep are briefly summarized and the issue of whether central respiratory chemoreceptors (CRCs) or other types of CO2-responsive CNS neurons contribute to asphyxia-induced arousal is discussed. We focus on the role of the retrotrapezoid nucleus, the raphe and the locus coeruleus and emphasize the anatomical and neurophysiological evidence which suggests that these putative central chemoreceptors could contribute to arousal independently of their effects on breathing. Finally, we describe recent attempts to test the contribution of specific brainstem pathways to asphyxia-induced arousal using optogenetic and other tools and the possible contribution of a group of hypoxia-sensitive brainstem neurons (the C1 cells) to breathing and arousal. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

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…

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

PubMed Central

Citron, Francesca M. M.; 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 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 based on implicit associations between stimulus valence and response, there is no influence of arousal. In line with the valence-arousal conflict theory, arousal seems to affect participants' approach-withdrawal tendencies only when such tendencies are made explicit by the task, and a minimal degree of processing depth is required. PMID:26779067

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.

PubMed

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, 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. Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier Inc.

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

PubMed

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 based on implicit associations between stimulus valence and response, there is no influence of arousal. In line with the valence-arousal conflict theory, arousal seems to affect participants' approach-withdrawal tendencies only when such tendencies are made explicit by the task, and a minimal degree of processing depth is required.

Dissociable Effects of Valence and Arousal on Different Subtypes of Old/New Effect: Evidence from Event-Related Potentials

PubMed Central

Xu, Huifang; Zhang, Qin; Li, Bingbing; Guo, Chunyan

2015-01-01

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 350–500 ms. Pleasant items evoked an enhanced ERP old/new effect relative to unpleasant items. However, arousal only affected LPC amplitude from 500–800 ms. 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 800–1000 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 350–800 ms and the centro-parietal positivity in 500–800 ms. 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 post-retrieval processing, whereas arousal affects recollection. These effects may be due to the conceptual encoding strategies for pleasant information and sensory encoding strategies for high arousal information. PMID:26696862

Improving Temporal Cognition by Enhancing Motivation

PubMed Central

Avlar, Billur; Kahn, Julia B.; Jensen, Greg; Kandel, Eric R.; Simpson, Eleanor H.; Balsam, Peter D.

2015-01-01

Increasing motivation can positively impact cognitive performance. Here we employed a cognitive timing task that allows us to detect changes in cognitive performance that are not influenced by general activity or arousal factors such as the speed or persistence of responding. This approach allowed us to manipulate motivation using three different methods; molecular/genetic, behavioral and pharmacological. Increased striatal D2Rs resulted in deficits in temporal discrimination. Switching off the transgene improved motivation in earlier studies, and here partially rescued the temporal discrimination deficit. To manipulate motivation behaviorally, we altered reward magnitude and found that increasing reward magnitude improved timing in control mice and partially rescued timing in the transgenic mice. Lastly, we manipulated motivation pharmacologically using a functionally selective 5-HT2C receptor ligand, SB242084, which we previously found to increase incentive motivation. SB242084 improved temporal discrimination in both control and transgenic mice. Thus, while there is a general intuitive belief that motivation can affect cognition, we here provide a direct demonstration that enhancing motivation, in a variety of ways, can be an effective strategy for enhancing temporal cognition. Understanding the interaction of motivation and cognition is of clinical significance since many psychiatric disorders are characterized by deficits in both domains. PMID:26371378

Quantifying the Arousal Threshold Using Polysomnography in Obstructive Sleep Apnea.

PubMed

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.

Therapeutic options to enhance coma arousal after traumatic brain injury: state of the art of current treatments to improve coma recovery.

PubMed

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.

Manual transmission enhances attention and driving performance of ADHD adolescent males: pilot study.

PubMed

Cox, Daniel J; Punja, Mohan; Powers, Katie; Merkel, R Lawrence; Burket, Roger; Moore, Melissa; Thorndike, Frances; Kovatchev, Boris

2006-11-01

Inattention is a major contributor to driving mishaps and is especially problematic among adolescent drivers with ADHD, possibly contributing to their 2 to 4 times higher incidence of collisions. Manual transmission has been demonstrated to be associated with greater arousal. This study tests the hypotheses that manual transmission, compared to automatic transmission, would be associated with better attention and performance on a driving simulator. Ten adolescent drivers with ADHD practice driving on the simulator in the manual and automatic mode. Employing a single-blind, cross-over design, participants drive the simulator at 19:30 and 22:30 hr for 30 min in both transmissions and rate their attention to driving. Subjectively, participants report being more attentive while driving in manual transmission mode. Objectively, participants drive safer in the manual transmission mode. Although in need of replication, this pilot study suggests a behavioral intervention to improve driving performance among ADHD adolescents.

Sexual Arousal Patterns of Autogynephilic Male Cross-Dressers.

PubMed

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.

No arousal-biased competition in focused visuospatial attention.

PubMed

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.

Salience Network Connectivity Modulates Skin Conductance Responses in Predicting Arousal Experience

PubMed Central

Xia, Chenjie; Touroutoglou, Alexandra; Quigley, Karen S.; Barrett, Lisa Feldman; Dickerson, Bradford C.

2017-01-01

Individual differences in arousal experience have been linked to differences in resting-state salience network connectivity strength. In this study, we investigated how adding task-related skin conductance responses (SCR), a measure of sympathetic autonomic nervous system activity, can predict additional variance in arousal experience. Thirty-nine young adults rated their subjective experience of arousal to emotionally evocative images while SCRs were measured. They also underwent a separate resting-state fMRI scan. Greater SCR reactivity (an increased number of task-related SCRs) to emotional images and stronger intrinsic salience network connectivity independently predicted more intense experiences of arousal. Salience network connectivity further moderated the effect of SCR reactivity: In individuals with weak salience network connectivity, SCR reactivity more significantly predicted arousal experience, whereas in those with strong salience network connectivity, SCR reactivity played little role in predicting arousal experience. This interaction illustrates the degeneracy in neural mechanisms driving individual differences in arousal experience and highlights the intricate interplay between connectivity in central visceromotor neural circuitry and peripherally expressed autonomic responses in shaping arousal experience. PMID:27991182

Effects of music engagement on responses to painful stimulation.

PubMed

Bradshaw, David H; Chapman, C Richard; Jacobson, Robert C; Donaldson, Gary W

2012-06-01

We propose a theoretical framework for the behavioral modulation of pain based on constructivism, positing that task engagement, such as listening for errors in a musical passage, can establish a construction of reality that effectively replaces pain as a competing construction. Graded engagement produces graded reductions in pain as indicated by reduced psychophysiological arousal and subjective pain report. Fifty-three healthy volunteers having normal hearing participated in 4 music listening conditions consisting of passive listening (no task) or performing an error detection task varying in signal complexity and task difficulty. During all conditions, participants received normally painful fingertip shocks varying in intensity while stimulus-evoked potentials (SEP), pupil dilation responses (PDR), and retrospective pain reports were obtained. SEP and PDR increased with increasing stimulus intensity. Task performance decreased with increasing task difficulty. Mixed model analyses, adjusted for habituation/sensitization and repeated measures within person, revealed significant quadratic trends for SEP and pain report (Pchange<0.001) with large reductions from no task to easy task and smaller graded reductions corresponding to increasing task difficulty/complexity. PDR decreased linearly (Pchange<0.001) with graded task condition. We infer that these graded reductions in indicators of central and peripheral arousal and in reported pain correspond to graded increases in engagement in the music listening task. Engaging activities may prevent pain by creating competing constructions of reality that draw on the same processing resources as pain. Better understanding of these processes will advance the development of more effective pain modulation through improved manipulation of engagement strategies.

How does emotion influence different creative performances? The mediating role of cognitive flexibility.

PubMed

Lin, Wei-Lun; Tsai, Ping-Hsun; Lin, Hung-Yu; Chen, Hsueh-Chih

2014-01-01

Cognitive flexibility is proposed to be one of the factors underlying how positive emotions can improve creativity. However, previous works have seldom set up or empirically measured an independent index to demonstrate its mediating effect, nor have they investigated its mediating role on different types of creative performances, which involve distinct processes. In this study, 120 participants were randomly assigned to positive, neutral or negative affect conditions. Their levels of cognitive flexibility were then measured by a switch task. Finally, their creative performances were calibrated by either an open-ended divergent thinking test or a closed-ended insight problem-solving task. The results showed that positive emotional states could reduce switch costs and enhance both types of creative performances. However, cognitive flexibility exhibited a full mediating effect only on the relationship between positive emotion and insight problem solving, but not between positive emotion and divergent thinking. Divergent thinking was instead more associated with arousal level. These results suggest that emotions might influence different creative performances through distinct mechanisms.

Sympathetic arousal as a marker of chronicity in childhood stuttering.

PubMed

Zengin-Bolatkale, Hatun; Conture, Edward G; Walden, Tedra A; Jones, Robin M

2018-01-01

This study investigated whether sympathetic activity during a stressful speaking task was an early marker for stuttering chronicity. Participants were 9 children with persisting stuttering, 23 children who recovered, and 17 children who do not stutter. Participants performed a stress-inducing picture-naming task and skin conductance was measured across three time points. Findings indicated that at the initial time point, children with persisting stuttering exhibited higher sympathetic arousal during the stressful speaking task than children whose stuttering recovered. Findings are taken to suggest that sympathetic activity may be an early marker of heightened risk for chronic stuttering.

Simultaneous conditioning of valence and arousal.

PubMed

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.

Enhanced Auditory Arousal Increases Intake of Less Palatable and Healthier Foods

PubMed Central

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

2014-01-01

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. PMID:24762340

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

PubMed

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.

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

PubMed

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.

Emotional arousal amplifies the effects of biased competition in the brain

PubMed Central

Lee, Tae-Ho; Sakaki, Michiko; Cheng, Ruth; Velasco, Ricardo

2014-01-01

The arousal-biased competition model predicts that arousal increases the gain on neural competition between stimuli representations. Thus, the model predicts that arousal simultaneously enhances processing of salient stimuli and impairs processing of relatively less-salient stimuli. We tested this model with a simple dot-probe task. On each trial, participants were simultaneously exposed to one face image as a salient cue stimulus and one place image as a non-salient stimulus. A border around the face cue location further increased its bottom-up saliency. Before these visual stimuli were shown, one of two tones played: one that predicted a shock (increasing arousal) or one that did not. An arousal-by-saliency interaction in category-specific brain regions (fusiform face area for salient faces and parahippocampal place area for non-salient places) indicated that brain activation associated with processing the salient stimulus was enhanced under arousal whereas activation associated with processing the non-salient stimulus was suppressed under arousal. This is the first functional magnetic resonance imaging study to demonstrate that arousal can enhance information processing for prioritized stimuli while simultaneously impairing processing of non-prioritized stimuli. Thus, it goes beyond previous research to show that arousal does not uniformly enhance perceptual processing, but instead does so selectively in ways that optimizes attention to highly salient stimuli. PMID:24532703

Drugs that may cause impotence

MedlinePlus

Impotence caused by medications; Drug-induced erectile dysfunction; Prescription medicines and impotence ... Many medicines and recreational drugs can affect a man's sexual arousal and sexual performance. What causes impotence in one ...

Concurrent respiratory resistance training and changes in respiratory muscle strength and sleep in an individual with spinal cord injury: case report

PubMed Central

Russian, Chris; Litchke, Lyn; Hudson, John

2011-01-01

Context Quality sleep possesses numerous benefits to normal nighttime and daytime functioning. High-level spinal cord injury (SCI) often impacts the respiratory muscles that can lead to poor respiratory function during sleep and negatively affect sleep quality. The impact of respiratory muscle training (RMT) on sleep quality, as assessed by overnight polysomnography (PSG), is yet to be determined among the spinal cord-injured population. This case report describes the effects of 10 weeks of RMT on the sleep quality of a 38-year-old male with cervical SCI. Methods Case report. Findings/results The subject completed overnight PSG, respiratory muscle strength assessment, and subjective sleepiness assessment before and after 10 weeks of RMT. The post-test results indicated improvements in sleep quality (e.g. fewer electroencephalographic (EEG) arousals during sleep) and daytime sleepiness scores following RMT. Conclusion/clinical relevance Respiratory activity has been proven to impact EEG arousal activity during sleep. Arousals during sleep lead to a fragmented sleeping pattern and affect sleep quality and daytime function. Our subject presented with a typical sleep complaint of snoring and excessive sleepiness. The subject's pre-test PSG demonstrated a large number of arousals during sleep. It is important for all individuals complaining of problems during sleep or daytime problems associated with sleep (i.e. excessive daytime sleepiness) to seek medical attention and proper evaluation. PMID:21675365

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

PubMed

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.

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

PubMed

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 <1Hz oscillation) and fast arousals (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.

The Influence of Background Music on Learning in the Light of Different Theoretical Perspectives and the Role of Working Memory Capacity.

PubMed

Lehmann, Janina A M; Seufert, Tina

2017-01-01

This study investigates how background music influences learning with respect to three different theoretical approaches. Both the Mozart effect as well as the arousal-mood-hypothesis indicate that background music can potentially benefit learning outcomes. While the Mozart effect assumes a direct influence of background music on cognitive abilities, the arousal-mood-hypothesis assumes a mediation effect over arousal and mood. However, the seductive detail effect indicates that seductive details such as background music worsen learning. Moreover, as working memory capacity has a crucial influence on learning with seductive details, we also included the learner's working memory capacity as a factor in our study. We tested 81 college students using a between-subject design with half of the sample listening to two pop songs while learning a visual text and the other half learning in silence. We included working memory capacity in the design as a continuous organism variable. Arousal and mood scores before and after learning were collected as potential mediating variables. To measure learning outcomes we tested recall and comprehension. We did not find a mediation effect between background music and arousal or mood on learning outcomes. In addition, for recall performance there were no main effects of background music or working memory capacity, nor an interaction effect of these factors. However, when considering comprehension we did find an interaction between background music and working memory capacity: the higher the learners' working memory capacity, the better they learned with background music. This is in line with the seductive detail assumption.

The Influence of Background Music on Learning in the Light of Different Theoretical Perspectives and the Role of Working Memory Capacity

PubMed Central

Lehmann, Janina A. M.; Seufert, Tina

2017-01-01

This study investigates how background music influences learning with respect to three different theoretical approaches. Both the Mozart effect as well as the arousal-mood-hypothesis indicate that background music can potentially benefit learning outcomes. While the Mozart effect assumes a direct influence of background music on cognitive abilities, the arousal-mood-hypothesis assumes a mediation effect over arousal and mood. However, the seductive detail effect indicates that seductive details such as background music worsen learning. Moreover, as working memory capacity has a crucial influence on learning with seductive details, we also included the learner’s working memory capacity as a factor in our study. We tested 81 college students using a between-subject design with half of the sample listening to two pop songs while learning a visual text and the other half learning in silence. We included working memory capacity in the design as a continuous organism variable. Arousal and mood scores before and after learning were collected as potential mediating variables. To measure learning outcomes we tested recall and comprehension. We did not find a mediation effect between background music and arousal or mood on learning outcomes. In addition, for recall performance there were no main effects of background music or working memory capacity, nor an interaction effect of these factors. However, when considering comprehension we did find an interaction between background music and working memory capacity: the higher the learners’ working memory capacity, the better they learned with background music. This is in line with the seductive detail assumption. PMID:29163283

Histaminergic responses by hypothalamic neurons that regulate lordosis and their modulation by estradiol.

PubMed

Dupré, Christophe; Lovett-Barron, Matthew; Pfaff, Donald W; Kow, Lee-Ming

2010-07-06

How do fluctuations in the level of generalized arousal of the brain affect the performance of specific motivated behaviors, such as sexual behaviors that depend on sexual arousal? A great deal of previous work has provided us with two important starting points in answering this question: (i) that histamine (HA) serves generalized CNS arousal and (ii) that heightened electrical activity of neurons in the ventromedial nucleus of the hypothalamus (VMN) is necessary and sufficient for facilitating the primary female sex behavior in laboratory animals, lordosis behavior. Here we used patch clamp recording technology to analyze HA effects on VMN neuronal activity. The results show that HA acting through H1 receptors (H1R) depolarizes these neurons. Further, acute administration of estradiol, an estrogen necessary for lordosis behavior to occur, heightens this effect. Hyperpolarization, which tends to decrease excitability and enhance inhibition, was not affected by acute estradiol or mediated by H1R but was mediated by other HA receptor subtypes, H2 and H3. Sampling of mRNA from individual VMN neurons showed colocalization of expression of H1 receptor mRNA with estrogen receptor (ER)-alpha mRNA but also revealed ER colocalization with the other HA receptor subtypes and colocalization of different subtypes with each other. The latter finding provides the molecular basis for complex "push-pull" regulation of VMN neuronal excitability by HA. Thus, in the simplest causal route, HA, acting on VMN neurons through H1R provides a mechanism by which elevated states of generalized CNS arousal can foster a specific estrogen-dependent, aroused behavior, sexual behavior.

Control Over Anxiety and Dispositional Coping Tendencies Are Associated With Presleep Arousal Among Children Referred for Anxiety Problems.

PubMed

Parker, Julia H; Van Lenten, Scott A; Pina, Armando A

2017-01-01

Anxious youth typically experience sleep-related difficulties, but little is known about the role children's coping and perceived control over anxiety may play in these relations. We examined children's perceived levels of control over external anxiety-provoking events and internal anxious emotional reactions, as well as two dispositional coping tendencies (avoidant, support-seeking), and whether these were associated with anxious children's (N = 86) presleep arousal. Low perceived control over anxiety was significantly associated with high levels of presleep arousal. For children with low perceived control, higher avoidance was associated with greater presleep arousal, whereas lower avoidance was associated with lower presleep arousal levels. Findings suggest that efforts to avoid stressful life events may contribute to presleep arousal, especially under conditions where anxious arousal seems uncontrollable.

Arousal (but not valence) amplifies the impact of salience.

PubMed

Sutherland, Matthew R; Mather, Mara

2018-05-01

Previous findings indicate that negative arousal enhances bottom-up attention biases favouring perceptual salient stimuli over less salient stimuli. The current study tests whether those effects were driven by emotional arousal or by negative valence by comparing how well participants could identify visually presented letters after hearing either a negative arousing, positive arousing or neutral sound. On each trial, some letters were presented in a high contrast font and some in a low contrast font, creating a set of targets that differed in perceptual salience. Sounds rated as more emotionally arousing led to more identification of highly salient letters but not of less salient letters, whereas sounds' valence ratings did not impact salience biases. Thus, arousal, rather than valence, is a key factor enhancing visual processing of perceptually salient targets.

The effects of self-focused attention, performance demand, and dispositional sexual self-consciousness on sexual arousal of sexually functional and dysfunctional men.

PubMed

van Lankveld, Jacques J D M; van den Hout, Marcel A; Schouten, Erik G W

2004-08-01

Sexually functional (N=26) and sexually dysfunctional heterosexual men with psychogenic erectile disorder (N=23) viewed two sexually explicit videos. Performance demand was manipulated through verbal instruction that a substantial genital response was to be expected from the videos. Self-focused attention was manipulated by introducing a camera pointed at the participant. Dispositional self-consciousness was assessed by questionnaire. Performance demand was found to independently inhibit the genital response. No main effect of self-focus was found. Self-focus inhibited genital response in men scoring high on general and sexual self-consciousness traits, whereas it enhanced penile tumescence in low self-conscious men. Inhibition effects were found in both volunteers and patients. No interaction effects of performance demand and self-focus were found. Subjective sexual arousal in sexually functional men was highest in the self-focus condition. In sexually dysfunctional men, subjective sexual response proved dependent on locus of attention as well as presentation order.

High-frequency electroencephalographic activity in left temporal area is associated with pleasant emotion induced by video clips.

PubMed

Kortelainen, Jukka; Väyrynen, Eero; Seppänen, Tapio

2015-01-01

Recent findings suggest that specific neural correlates for the key elements of basic emotions do exist and can be identified by neuroimaging techniques. In this paper, electroencephalogram (EEG) is used to explore the markers for video-induced emotions. The problem is approached from a classifier perspective: the features that perform best in classifying person's valence and arousal while watching video clips with audiovisual emotional content are searched from a large feature set constructed from the EEG spectral powers of single channels as well as power differences between specific channel pairs. The feature selection is carried out using a sequential forward floating search method and is done separately for the classification of valence and arousal, both derived from the emotional keyword that the subject had chosen after seeing the clips. The proposed classifier-based approach reveals a clear association between the increased high-frequency (15-32 Hz) activity in the left temporal area and the clips described as "pleasant" in the valence and "medium arousal" in the arousal scale. These clips represent the emotional keywords amusement and joy/happiness. The finding suggests the occurrence of a specific neural activation during video-induced pleasant emotion and the possibility to detect this from the left temporal area using EEG.

Psychophysiological assessment of sexual function in women after radiotherapy and total mesorectal excision for rectal cancer: a pilot study on four patients.

PubMed

Breukink, Stephanie O; Wouda, Jan C; Van Der Werf-Eldering, Marieke J; Van De Wiel, Harry B M; Bouma, Esther M C; Pierie, Jean Pierre-En; Wiggers, Theo; Meijerink, Jeroen W J H J; Weijmar Schultz, Willibrord C M

2009-04-01

The potential contribution of psychological and anatomical changes to sexual dysfunction in female patients following short-term preoperative radiotherapy (5 x 5 Gy) and total mesorectal excision (TME) is not clear. Aim. In this study we assessed female sexual dysfunction in patients who underwent radiotherapy and TME for rectal cancer. Genital arousal was assessed using vaginal videoplethysmography. Sexual functioning was examined in four patients who had rectal cancer and underwent radiotherapy and TME. All investigations were done at least 15 months after treatment. The results were compared with an age-matched group of 18 healthy women. The patients and healthy controls showed comparable changes in vaginal vasocongestion during sexual arousal, though three out of four patients showed a lower mean spectral tension (MST) of the vaginal pulse compared with healthy controls. Subjective sexual arousal was equivalent between the two groups. In this study the changes of genital and subjective sexual arousal after erotic stimulus condition between patients and healthy controls were not different, though lower MST of the vaginal pulse was found in three out of four patients compared with healthy women. Additional work, however, must be performed to clarify the mechanisms of sexual dysfunction following treatment of rectal cancer.

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

PubMed Central

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. PMID:28046070

Sexual arousal in East Asian and Euro-Canadian women: a psychophysiological study.

PubMed

Yule, Morag; Woo, Jane S T; Brotto, Lori A

2010-09-01

Studies of ethnic differences in self-report measures of sexuality have shown East Asian women to be more sexually conservative and less sexually experienced than Caucasian women. There is also strong evidence supporting the notion of ethnic group differences in general measures of nonsexual psychophysiological arousal; however, there have been no previous studies exploring ethnicity and physiological sexual arousal. The objective of this study was to explore group differences in self-reported and physiological sexual arousal in Euro-Canadian and East Asian women living in Canada; we also aimed to explore the association between level of acculturation (both mainstream and heritage) and sexual arousal in East Asian women only. Seventy-five women (N=38 Euro-Canadian, N=37 East Asian) completed a battery of questionnaires and underwent psychophysiological sexual arousal testing using the vaginal photoplethysmograph. They also completed a self-report measure of subjective arousal before and after erotic stimulus exposure. All women completed the Female Sexual Function Index, Vancouver Index of Acculturation, and Sexual Beliefs and Information Questionnaire. Change in genital sexual arousal (vaginal pulse amplitude; VPA), and change in subjective sexual arousal were measured during exposure to erotic stimuli. The groups did not differ in the percent increase in VPA induced by erotic stimuli, nor was there a correlation between VPA and subjective sexual arousal. Among East Asian women alone, neither heritage nor mainstream acculturation was correlated with change in VPA. East Asian and Euro-Canadian women who show similar ratings of sexual behaviors and self-reported sexual arousal do not differ in physiological or subjective arousal induced by erotic stimuli in the laboratory. © 2010 International Society for Sexual Medicine.

The effect of flow limitation on the cardiorespiratory response to arousal from sleep under controlled conditions of chemostimulation in healthy older adults.

PubMed

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 < 0.001). The pre-post-arousal differences in ventilation reflected significant pre-arousal suppression (due to flow limitation) plus post-arousal activation. In summary, the cardiovascular response to arousal from 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.

Emotional arousal state influences the ability of amygdalar endocannabinoid signaling to modulate anxiety.

PubMed

Morena, Maria; Leitl, Kira D; Vecchiarelli, Haley A; Gray, J Megan; Campolongo, Patrizia; Hill, Matthew N

2016-12-01

Systemic activation of cannabinoid receptors often induces biphasic effects on emotional memory and anxiety depending on the levels of emotional arousal associated to the experimental context. The basolateral nucleus of the amygdala (BLA) represents a crucial structure for the ability of endocannabinoid (eCB) signaling to modulate emotional behaviour, and receives dense projections from brainstem arousal system nuclei. We examined whether changes in emotional arousal state would influence the ability of acute eCB manipulations within the BLA to modulate anxiety. Rats were tested in an elevated plus maze (EPM) under low or high arousal conditions. The low emotional arousal group was extensively handled and habituated to the experimental room and tested under red light condition, the high emotional arousal group was not handled or habituated and tested under high light condition. We examined amygdalar eCB anandamide (AEA) and 2-arachidonoylglycerol (2-AG) levels immediately after the EPM and the effects of intra-BLA administration of the AEA hydrolysis inhibitor URB597 or the 2-AG hydrolysis inhibitor KML29 on anxiety behaviour. The modulation of anxiety-like behaviour by eCBs in the BLA was strictly dependent on the environmental-associated emotional arousal. Pharmacologically-induced elevations of AEA or 2-AG in the BLA decreased anxiety under conditions of low emotional arousal. Conversely, when the level of emotional arousal increased, local eCB manipulation was ineffective in the modulation of the emotional arousal-induced anxiety response. These findings suggest that, depending on the emotional arousal state, eCB system is differentially activated to regulate the anxiety response in the amygdala and help to understand the state-dependency of many interventions on anxiety. Copyright © 2016. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Strategies for improving performance in long duration events: Olympic distance triathlon.

PubMed

Hausswirth, Christophe; Brisswalter, Jeanick

2008-01-01

This review focuses on strategic aspects that may affect performance in a long-duration Olympic event, the Olympic distance triathlon. Given the variety of races during the Olympic Games triathlon, strategic aspects include improving technological features as well as energetics factors affecting overall triathlon performance. During the last decade, many studies have attempted to identify factors reducing the metabolic load associated (or not) with the development of fatigue process by analysing the relationship between metabolic and biomechanical factors with exercise duration. To date, a consensus exists about the benefit of adopting a drafting position during the swimming or the cycling part of the triathlon. Other potential strategic factors, such as the production of power output or the selection of cadence during the cycling or the running leg, are likely to affect the overall triathlon performance. Within this approach, pacing strategies are observed by elite athletes who swim or cycle in a sheltered position, inducing several changes of pace, intensity or stochastic shifts in the amplitude of the physiological responses. The analysis of these parameters appears to arouse some experimental and practical interest from researchers and coachers, especially for long-distance Olympic events.

Subjective Sexual Arousal to Films of Masturbation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

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)

Differential Effects of Arousal in Positive and Negative Autobiographical Memories

PubMed Central

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

2014-01-01

Autobiographical memories are characterized by a range of emotions and emotional reactions. Recent research has demonstrated that differences in emotional valence (positive v. 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 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. PMID:22873402

Differential effects of arousal in positive and negative autobiographical memories.

PubMed

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.

Interobserver variability in recognizing arousal in respiratory sleep disorders.

PubMed

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 < 0.001) in the number of events scored as arousal (totals ranged from 23 to 53 of the 90 events). Overall agreement was moderate (kappa = 0.47), but it was best for events during slow-wave sleep, moderate for REM, and poor for light sleep (kappa = 0.60, 0.52, and 0.28, respectively). Agreement was unrelated to arousal duration. We conclude that the ASDA definition of arousal is only moderately repeatable. Account should be taken of this variability when results from different centers are compared.

Prediction of Cognitive Performance and Subjective Sleepiness Using a Model of Arousal Dynamics.

PubMed

Postnova, Svetlana; Lockley, Steven W; Robinson, Peter A

2018-04-01

A model of arousal dynamics is applied to predict objective performance and subjective sleepiness measures, including lapses and reaction time on a visual Performance Vigilance Test (vPVT), performance on a mathematical addition task (ADD), and the Karolinska Sleepiness Scale (KSS). The arousal dynamics model is comprised of a physiologically based flip-flop switch between the wake- and sleep-active neuronal populations and a dynamic circadian oscillator, thus allowing prediction of sleep propensity. Published group-level experimental constant routine (CR) and forced desynchrony (FD) data are used to calibrate the model to predict performance and sleepiness. Only the studies using dim light (<15 lux) during alertness measurements and controlling for sleep and entrainment before the start of the protocol are selected for modeling. This is done to avoid the direct alerting effects of light and effects of prior sleep debt and circadian misalignment on the data. The results show that linear combination of circadian and homeostatic drives is sufficient to predict dynamics of a variety of sleepiness and performance measures during CR and FD protocols, with sleep-wake cycles ranging from 20 to 42.85 h and a 2:1 wake-to-sleep ratio. New metrics relating model outputs to performance and sleepiness data are developed and tested against group average outcomes from 7 (vPVT lapses), 5 (ADD), and 8 (KSS) experimental protocols, showing good quantitative and qualitative agreement with the data (root mean squared error of 0.38, 0.19, and 0.35, respectively). The weights of the homeostatic and circadian effects are found to be different between the measures, with KSS having stronger homeostatic influence compared with the objective measures of performance. Using FD data in addition to CR data allows us to challenge the model in conditions of both acute sleep deprivation and structured circadian misalignment, ensuring that the role of the circadian and homeostatic drives in performance is properly captured.

The neurochemistry of music.

PubMed

Chanda, Mona Lisa; Levitin, Daniel J

2013-04-01

Music is used to regulate mood and arousal in everyday life and to promote physical and psychological health and well-being in clinical settings. However, scientific inquiry into the neurochemical effects of music is still in its infancy. In this review, we evaluate the evidence that music improves health and well-being through the engagement of neurochemical systems for (i) reward, motivation, and pleasure; (ii) stress and arousal; (iii) immunity; and (iv) social affiliation. We discuss the limitations of these studies and outline novel approaches for integration of conceptual and technological advances from the fields of music cognition and social neuroscience into studies of the neurochemistry of music. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Negative Arousal Amplifies the Effects of Saliency in Short-Term Memory

PubMed Central

Sutherland, Matthew R.; Mather, Mara

2013-01-01

Evidence from two experiments suggests that negative arousal increases biases in attention that result from differences in visual salience. Participants were exposed to negative arousing or neutral sounds before briefly viewing an array of letters. They reported as many of the letters as they could, and attention was biased to certain letters by increasing salience through visual contrast. Regardless of the type of sound heard, participants were more likely to recall high-salience letters than low-salience letters. However, on arousing trials recall of high-salience letters increased, while recall of low-salience letters did not. These findings indicate that negative emotional arousal increases the selectivity of attention, and provides evidence for arousal-biased competition (ABC) theory (Mather & Sutherland, 2011), which predicts that emotional arousal enhances representations of stimuli that have priority. PMID:22642352

Impact of a multidisciplinary vulvodynia program on sexual functioning and dyspareunia.

PubMed

Brotto, Lori A; Yong, Paul; Smith, Kelly B; Sadownik, Leslie A

2015-01-01

For many years, multidisciplinary approaches, which integrate psychological, physical, and medical treatments, have been shown to be effective for the treatment of chronic pain. To date, there has been anecdotal support, but little empirical data, to justify the application of this multidisciplinary approach toward the treatment of chronic sexual pain secondary to provoked vestibulodynia (PVD). This study aimed to evaluate a 10-week hospital-based treatment (multidisciplinary vulvodynia program [MVP]) integrating psychological skills training, pelvic floor physiotherapy, and medical management on the primary outcomes of dyspareunia and sexual functioning, including distress. A total of 132 women with a diagnosis of PVD provided baseline data and agreed to participate in the MVP. Of this group, n = 116 (mean age 28.4 years, standard deviation 7.1) provided complete data at the post-MVP assessment, and 84 women had complete data through to the 3- to 4-month follow-up period. There were high levels of avoidance of intimacy (38.1%) and activities that elicited sexual arousal (40.7%), with many women (50.4%) choosing to focus on their partner's sexual arousal and satisfaction at baseline. With treatment, over half the sample (53.8%) reported significant improvements in dyspareunia. Following the MVP, there were strong significant effects for the reduction in dyspareunia (P = 0.001) and sex-related distress (P < 0.001), and improvements in sexual arousal (P < 0.001) and overall sexual functioning (P = 0.001). More modest but still statistically significant were improvements in sexual desire, lubrication, orgasmic function, and sexual satisfaction. All improvements were retained at 2- to 3-month follow-up. This study provides strong support for the efficacy of a multidisciplinary approach (psychological, pelvic floor physiotherapy, and medical management) for improving dyspareunia and all domains of sexual functioning among women with PVD. The study also highlights the benefits of incorporating sexual health education into general pain management strategies for this population. © 2014 International Society for Sexual Medicine.

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

PubMed

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.

Comparing Subjective Ratings of Sexual Arousal and Desire in Partnered Sexual Activities from Women of Different Sexual Orientations.

PubMed

Persson, Tonje J; Ryder, Andrew G; Pfaus, James G

2016-08-01

Little is known about non-monosexual women's sexual arousal and desire. Typically, bisexual women have been excluded from research on sexual arousal and desire, whereas mostly heterosexual and mostly lesbian women have been placed into monosexual categories. This research (1) compared the subjective sexual arousal and desire of self-identified heterosexual, mostly heterosexual, bisexual, mostly lesbian, and lesbian women in partnered sexual activities with men and with women, and (2) compared within-group differences for subjective sexual arousal and desire with men versus women for the five groups. Participants included 388 women (M age = 24.40, SD = 6.40, 188 heterosexual, 53 mostly heterosexual, 64 bisexual, 32 mostly lesbian, 51 lesbian) who filled out the Sexual Arousal and Desire Inventory (SADI). Sexual orientation was associated with sexual arousal and desire in sexual activities with both men and with women. Bisexuals reported higher sexual arousal and desire for women than heterosexuals and lesbians, while lesbians reported lower sexual arousal and desire with men than the other groups. Heterosexuals and mostly heterosexuals scored higher on the male than on the female motivational dimension of the SADI, while the reverse was found for lesbians and mostly lesbians. Findings indicate that non-monosexuals have higher sexual arousal and desire in sexual activities with women than monosexuals. Further, bisexual women did not differentiate their sexual arousal with men versus women, while the other sexual orientation groups differentiated in terms of their motivation to engage in sexual activity. These findings may have implications for how female sexual orientation is conceptualized.

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

PubMed

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.

Increased Evoked Potentials to Arousing Auditory Stimuli during Sleep: Implication for the Understanding of Dream Recall

PubMed Central

Vallat, Raphael; Lajnef, Tarek; Eichenlaub, Jean-Baptiste; Berthomier, Christian; Jerbi, Karim; Morlet, Dominique; Ruby, Perrine M.

2017-01-01

High dream recallers (HR) show a larger brain reactivity to auditory stimuli during wakefulness and sleep as compared to low dream recallers (LR) and also more intra-sleep wakefulness (ISW), but no other modification of the sleep macrostructure. To further understand the possible causal link between brain responses, ISW and dream recall, we investigated the sleep microstructure of HR and LR, and tested whether the amplitude of auditory evoked potentials (AEPs) was predictive of arousing reactions during sleep. Participants (18 HR, 18 LR) were presented with sounds during a whole night of sleep in the lab and polysomnographic data were recorded. Sleep microstructure (arousals, rapid eye movements (REMs), muscle twitches (MTs), spindles, KCs) was assessed using visual, semi-automatic and automatic validated methods. AEPs to arousing (awakenings or arousals) and non-arousing stimuli were subsequently computed. No between-group difference in the microstructure of sleep was found. In N2 sleep, auditory arousing stimuli elicited a larger parieto-occipital positivity and an increased late frontal negativity as compared to non-arousing stimuli. As compared to LR, HR showed more arousing stimuli and more long awakenings, regardless of the sleep stage but did not show more numerous or longer arousals. These results suggest that the amplitude of the brain response to stimuli during sleep determine subsequent awakening and that awakening duration (and not arousal) is the critical parameter for dream recall. Notably, our results led us to propose that the minimum necessary duration of an awakening during sleep for a successful encoding of dreams into long-term memory is approximately 2 min. PMID:28377708

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

PubMed

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.

Cardiovascular Arousal in Individuals with Autism

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Goodwin, Matthew S.; Groden, June; Velicer, Wayne F.; Lipsitt, Lewis P.; Baron, M. Grace; Hofmann, Stefan G.; Groden, Gerald

2006-01-01

Despite the hypothesized link between arousal and behavior in persons with autism, there is a lack of idiographic research that directly assesses arousal responses to novel stimuli or social situations in this population. The current study used heart rate as a measure of sympathetic activity to compare arousal responses to the presentation of…

The effects of reward and punishment on reaction times and autonomic activity in hyperactive and normal children.

PubMed

Firestone, P; Douglas, V

1975-01-01

The performance of hyperactive and control children was compared on a delayed reaction time task under three reinforcement conditions: reward, punishment, and reward plus punishment. Hyperactives had slower and more variable reaction times, suggesting an attentional deficit. Although each of the three reinforcement conditons was successful in improving reaction times for both subject groups, reward led to a significant increase in impulsive responses in the hyperactive children. Autonomic data revealed that reward also increased arousal to a greater extent than punishment or reward plus punishment. Although resting skin conductance was not different in the two groups of subjects, hyperactives produced fewer specific autonomic responses to signal stimuli.

Neural correlates of subliminally presented visual sexual stimuli.

PubMed

Wernicke, Martina; Hofter, Corinna; Jordan, Kirsten; Fromberger, Peter; Dechent, Peter; Müller, Jürgen L

2017-03-01

In the context of forensic psychiatry, it is crucial that diagnoses of deviant sexual interests are resistant to manipulation. In a first attempt to promote the development of such tools, the current fMRI study focusses on the examination of hemodynamic responses to preferred, in contrast to non-preferred, sexual stimuli with and without explicit sexual features in 24 healthy heterosexual subjects. The subliminal stimulus presentation of sexual stimuli could be a new approach to reduce vulnerability to manipulation. Meaningful images and scrambled images were applied as masks. Recognition performance was low, but interestingly, sexual preference and explicitness modulated stimulus visibility, suggesting interactions between networks of sexual arousal and consciousness. With scrambled masks, higher activations for sexually preferred images and for explicit images were found in areas associated with sexual arousal (Stoleru, Fonteille, Cornelis, Joyal, & Moulier, 2012). We conclude that masked sexual stimuli can evoke activations in areas associated with supraliminal induced sexual arousal. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Electrocortical and ocular indices of attention to fearful and neutral faces presented under high and low working memory load.

PubMed

MacNamara, Annmarie; Schmidt, Joseph; Zelinsky, Gregory J; Hajcak, Greg

2012-12-01

Working memory load reduces the late positive potential (LPP), consistent with the notion that functional activation of the DLPFC attenuates neural indices of sustained attention. Visual attention also modulates the LPP. In the present study, we sought to determine whether working memory load might exert its influence on ERPs by reducing fixations to arousing picture regions. We simultaneously recorded eye-tracking and EEG while participants performed a working memory task interspersed with the presentation of task-irrelevant fearful and neutral faces. As expected, fearful compared to neutral faces elicited larger N170 and LPP amplitudes; in addition, working memory load reduced the N170 and the LPP. Participants made more fixations to arousing regions of neutral faces and faces presented under high working memory load. Therefore, working memory load did not induce avoidance of arousing picture regions and visual attention cannot explain load effects on the N170 and LPP. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Coordinated Acetylcholine Release in Prefrontal Cortex and Hippocampus Is Associated with Arousal and Reward on Distinct Timescales.

PubMed

Teles-Grilo Ruivo, Leonor M; Baker, Keeley L; Conway, Michael W; Kinsley, Peter J; Gilmour, Gary; Phillips, Keith G; Isaac, John T R; Lowry, John P; Mellor, Jack R

2017-01-24

Cholinergic neurotransmission throughout the neocortex and hippocampus regulates arousal, learning, and attention. However, owing to the poorly characterized timing and location of acetylcholine release, its detailed behavioral functions remain unclear. Using electrochemical biosensors chronically implanted in mice, we made continuous measurements of the spatiotemporal dynamics of acetylcholine release across multiple behavioral states. We found that tonic levels of acetylcholine release were coordinated between the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus and maximal during training on a rewarded working memory task. Tonic release also increased during REM sleep but was contingent on subsequent wakefulness. In contrast, coordinated phasic acetylcholine release occurred only during the memory task and was strongly localized to reward delivery areas without being contingent on trial outcome. These results show that coordinated acetylcholine release between the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus is associated with reward and arousal on distinct timescales, providing dual mechanisms to support learned behavior acquisition during cognitive task performance. Copyright © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Authentic and Play-Acted Vocal Emotion Expressions Reveal Acoustic Differences

PubMed Central

Jürgens, Rebecca; Hammerschmidt, Kurt; Fischer, Julia

2011-01-01

Play-acted emotional expressions are a frequent aspect in our life, ranging from deception to theater, film, and radio drama, to emotion research. To date, however, it remained unclear whether play-acted emotions correspond to spontaneous emotion expressions. To test whether acting influences the vocal expression of emotion, we compared radio sequences of naturally occurring emotions to actors’ portrayals. It was hypothesized that play-acted expressions were performed in a more stereotyped and aroused fashion. Our results demonstrate that speech segments extracted from play-acted and authentic expressions differ in their voice quality. Additionally, the play-acted speech tokens revealed a more variable F0-contour. Despite these differences, the results did not support the hypothesis that the variation was due to changes in arousal. This analysis revealed that differences in perception of play-acted and authentic emotional stimuli reported previously cannot simply be attributed to differences in arousal, but by slight and implicitly perceptible differences in encoding. PMID:21847385

Brain activation by visual erotic stimuli in healthy middle aged males.

PubMed

Kim, S W; Sohn, D W; Cho, Y-H; Yang, W S; Lee, K-U; Juh, R; Ahn, K-J; Chung, Y-A; Han, S-I; Lee, K H; Lee, C U; Chae, J-H

2006-01-01

The objective of the present study was to identify brain centers, whose activity changes are related to erotic visual stimuli in healthy, heterosexual, middle aged males. Ten heterosexual, right-handed males with normal sexual function were entered into the present study (mean age 52 years, range 46-55). All potential subjects were screened over 1 h interview, and were encouraged to fill out questionnaires including the Brief Male Sexual Function Inventory. All subjects with a history of sexual arousal disorder or erectile dysfunction were excluded. We performed functional brain magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in male volunteers when an alternatively combined erotic and nonerotic film was played for 14 min and 9 s. The major areas of activation associated with sexual arousal to visual stimuli were occipitotemporal area, anterior cingulate gyrus, insula, orbitofrontal cortex, caudate nucleus. However, hypothalamus and thalamus were not activated. We suggest that the nonactivation of hypothalamus and thalamus in middle aged males may be responsible for the lesser physiological arousal in response to the erotic visual stimuli.

Increase in cardiac myosin heavy-chain (MyHC) alpha protein isoform in hibernating ground squirrels, with echocardiographic visualization of ventricular wall hypertrophy and prolonged contraction

PubMed Central

Nelson, O. Lynne; Rourke, Bryan C.

2013-01-01

SUMMARY Deep hibernators such as golden-mantled ground squirrels (Callospermophilus lateralis) have multiple challenges to cardiac function during low temperature torpor and subsequent arousals. As heart rates fall from over 300 beats min−1 to less than 10, chamber dilation and reduced cardiac output could lead to congestive myopathy. We performed echocardiography on a cohort of individuals prior to and after several months of hibernation. The left ventricular chamber exhibited eccentric and concentric hypertrophy during hibernation and thus calculated ventricular mass was ~30% greater. Ventricular ejection fraction was mildly reduced during hibernation but stroke volumes were greater due to the eccentric hypertrophy and dramatically increased diastolic filling volumes. Globally, the systolic phase in hibernation was ~9.5 times longer, and the diastolic phase was 28× longer. Left atrial ejection generally was not observed during hibernation. Atrial ejection returned weakly during early arousal. Strain echocardiography assessed the velocity and total movement distance of contraction and relaxation for regional ventricular segments in active and early arousal states. Myocardial systolic strain during early arousal was significantly greater than the active state, indicating greater total contractile movement. This mirrored the increased ventricular ejection fraction noted with early arousal. However, strain rates were slower during early arousal than during the active period, particularly systolic strain, which was 33% of active, compared with the rate of diastolic strain, which was 67% of active. As heart rate rose during the arousal period, myocardial velocities and strain rates also increased; this was matched closely by cardiac output. Curiously, though heart rates were only 26% of active heart rates during early arousal, the cardiac output was nearly 40% of the active state, suggesting an efficient pumping system. We further analyzed proportions of cardiac myosin heavy-chain (MyHC) isoforms in a separate cohort of squirrels over 5 months, including time points before hibernation, during hibernation and just prior to emergence. Hibernating individuals were maintained in both a 4°C cold room and a 20°C warm room. Measured by SDS-PAGE, relative percentages of cardiac MyHC alpha were increased during hibernation, at both hibernacula temperatures. A potential increase in contractile speed, and power, from more abundant MyHC alpha may aid force generation at low temperature and at low heart rates. Unlike many models of cardiomyopathies where the alpha isoform is replaced by the beta isoform in order to reduce oxygen consumption, ground squirrels demonstrate a potential cardioprotective mechanism to maintain cardiac output during torpor. PMID:24072796

Training Lessons Learned from Peak Performance Episodes

DTIC Science & Technology

1986-06-01

PEAK PERFORMAN4CE Fina Report- EPSOESOctober 1984-December 1985 % 6. PERFORMING ORG. REPORT NUMBER * 7. AUTHOR(@) 6. CONTRACT OR GRANT NUMBER(s) James...L. Fobes - 9. PERFORMING ORGANIZATION NAME AND) ADDRESS 10. PROGRAM ELEMENT. PROJECT, TASK U.S. Army Research Institute Field UnitAEA OKUINMER...peak performance indicates that three cogni- . tive components enable these episodes: psychological readiness (activating . optimal arousal and emotion

Achievement Goals in a Presentation Task: Performance Expectancy, Achievement Goals, State Anxiety, and Task Performance

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tanaka, Ayumi; Takehara, Takuma; Yamauchi, Hirotsugu

2006-01-01

The aims of the study were to test the linkages between achievement goals to task performance, as mediated by state anxiety arousal. Performance expectancy was also examined as antecedents of achievement goals. A presentation task in a computer practice class was used as achievement task. Fifty-three undergraduates (37 females and 16 males) were…

Do East Asian and Euro-Canadian women differ in sexual psychophysiology research participation?

PubMed

Woo, Jane S T; Brotto, Lori A; Yule, Morag A

2010-07-01

Evidence from studies of ethnic differences in sexual conservativeness and Papanicolaou (Pap) testing behaviors suggests that there may be culture-linked differences in rates of participation in physically invasive sexuality studies, resulting in volunteer bias. The effects of ethnicity and acculturation on participation in female psychophysiological sexual arousal research were investigated in a sample of Euro-Canadian (n = 50) and East Asian (n = 58) women. Participants completed a battery of questionnaires and were given either course credits or $10 for their participation. Participants were then informed about the opportunity to participate in a second phase of the study, which involved psychophysiological sexual arousal testing and which was completely optional. Contrary to expectations, the results showed that the East Asian women were more likely to participate in Phase 2 than the Euro-Canadian women. Among the East Asian women, greater heritage acculturation and lower mainstream acculturation predicted a lower likelihood of Phase 2 participation. The findings suggest the need to be wary of overgeneralizing female psychophysiological sexual arousal research results and may have implications for improving Pap testing behaviors in East Asian women.

THE INFLUENCE OF PRESESSION FACTORS IN THE ASSESSMENT OF DEVIANT AROUSAL

PubMed Central

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 masturbation lowered arousal levels and both participants suppressed arousal to varying degrees. These outcomes suggest the potential for consideration and manipulation of presession factors as treatment components for sex offenders with developmental disabilities. PMID:22219524

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

PubMed

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.

Self-Structure and Emotional Experience

PubMed Central

Ditzfeld, Christopher P.; Showers, Carolin J.

2013-01-01

Two studies examine individual differences in affective reactivity by linking emotional experience to cognitive self-structure. Consistent with the view that individuals with an evaluatively compartmentalized self-structure are emotionally reactive, we find that evaluative compartmentalization is associated with the experience of, and desire for, high-arousal positive affect, whereas evaluative integration is associated with the experience of low-arousal positive and negative affect and the desire for low-arousal positive affect. Although compartmentalized individuals are less granular in their tendency to report experiencing both high- and low-arousal affect (cf. Feldman Barrett, 2004), they are strongly differentiated in their perceptions of high-arousal states as positive and low-arousal states as negative. Thus, compartmentalized individuals’ reactivity may be explained by their preference for high-arousal positive states and the “breadth” of their emotionality (e.g., the tendency to experience sadness and nervousness at the same time). PMID:24125479

Musical preferences during and after relaxation and exercise.

PubMed

North, A C; Hargreaves, D J

2000-01-01

Effects of the listening context on responses to music largely have been neglected despite the prevalence of music listening in our everyday lives. This article reports 2 studies in which participants chose music of high or low arousal potential during (Experiment 1) or immediately after (Experiment 2) exercise or relaxation. In Experiment 1, participants preferred appropriate arousal-polarizing music over arousal-moderating music. In Experiment 2, participants preferred arousal-moderating music over arousal-polarizing music, such that their listening times contrasted clearly with those in the first study even though the same music and methods were used. Thus musical preferences interact with the listening situation, and participants' music selections represent an attempt to optimize their responses to that situation. When motivated to maintain a state of polarized arousal, listeners use music to achieve this; when they have no such goal, they use music to moderate arousal.

Negative arousal amplifies the effects of saliency in short-term memory.

PubMed

Sutherland, Matthew R; Mather, Mara

2012-12-01

Evidence from 2 experiments suggests that negative arousal increases biases in attention that result from differences in visual salience. Participants were exposed to negative arousing or neutral sounds before briefly viewing an array of letters. They reported as many of the letters as they could, and attention was biased to certain letters by increasing salience through visual contrast. Regardless of the type of sound heard, participants were more likely to recall high-salience letters than low-salience letters. However, on arousing trials recall of high-salience letters increased, while recall of low-salience letters did not. These findings indicate that negative emotional arousal increases the selectivity of attention, and provides evidence for arousal-biased competition theory (Mather & Sutherland, 2011), which predicts that emotional arousal enhances representations of stimuli that have priority. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved.

Pleasant music improves visual attention in patients with unilateral neglect after stroke.

PubMed

Chen, Mei-Ching; Tsai, Pei-Luen; Huang, Yu-Ting; Lin, Keh-Chung

2013-01-01

To investigate whether listening to pleasant music improves visual attention to and awareness of contralesional stimuli in patients with unilateral neglect after stroke. A within-subject design was used with 19 participants with unilateral neglect following a right hemisphere stroke. Participants were tested in three conditions (pleasant music, unpleasant music and white noise) within 1 week. All musical pieces were chosen by the participants. In each condition, participants were asked to complete three sub-tests of the Behavioural Inattention Test (the Star Cancellation Test, the Line Bisection Test and the Picture Scanning test) and a visual exploration task with everyday scenes. Eye movements in the visual exploration task were recorded simultaneously. Mood and arousal induced by different auditory stimuli were assessed using visual analogue scales, heart rate and galvanic skin response. Compared with unpleasant music and white noise, participants rated their moods as more positive and arousal as higher with pleasant music, but also showed significant improvement on all tasks and eye movement data, except the Line Bisection Test. The findings suggest that pleasant music can improve visual attention in patients with unilateral neglect after stroke. Additional research using randomized controlled trials is required to validate these findings.

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

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

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…

Physiology-Based Modeling May Predict Surgical Treatment Outcome for Obstructive Sleep Apnea

PubMed Central

Li, Yanru; Ye, Jingying; Han, Demin; Cao, Xin; Ding, Xiu; Zhang, Yuhuan; Xu, Wen; Orr, Jeremy; Jen, Rachel; Sands, Scott; Malhotra, Atul; Owens, Robert

2017-01-01

Study Objectives: To test whether the integration of both anatomical and nonanatomical parameters (ventilatory control, arousal threshold, muscle responsiveness) in a physiology-based model will improve the ability to predict outcomes after upper airway surgery for obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). Methods: In 31 patients who underwent upper airway surgery for OSA, loop gain and arousal threshold were calculated from preoperative polysomnography (PSG). Three models were compared: (1) a multiple regression based on an extensive list of PSG parameters alone; (2) a multivariate regression using PSG parameters plus PSG-derived estimates of loop gain, arousal threshold, and other trait surrogates; (3) a physiological model incorporating selected variables as surrogates of anatomical and nonanatomical traits important for OSA pathogenesis. Results: Although preoperative loop gain was positively correlated with postoperative apnea-hypopnea index (AHI) (P = .008) and arousal threshold was negatively correlated (P = .011), in both model 1 and 2, the only significant variable was preoperative AHI, which explained 42% of the variance in postoperative AHI. In contrast, the physiological model (model 3), which included AHIREM (anatomy term), fraction of events that were hypopnea (arousal term), the ratio of AHIREM and AHINREM (muscle responsiveness term), loop gain, and central/mixed apnea index (control of breathing terms), was able to explain 61% of the variance in postoperative AHI. Conclusions: Although loop gain and arousal threshold are associated with residual AHI after surgery, only preoperative AHI was predictive using multivariate regression modeling. Instead, incorporating selected surrogates of physiological traits on the basis of OSA pathophysiology created a model that has more association with actual residual AHI. Commentary: A commentary on this article appears in this issue on page 1023. Clinical Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.Gov; Title: The Impact of Sleep Apnea Treatment on Physiology Traits in Chinese Patients With Obstructive Sleep Apnea; Identifier: NCT02696629; URL: https://clinicaltrials.gov/show/NCT02696629 Citation: Li Y, Ye J, Han D, Cao X, Ding X, Zhang Y, Xu W, Orr J, Jen R, Sands S, Malhotra A, Owens R. Physiology-based modeling may predict surgical treatment outcome for obstructive sleep apnea. J Clin Sleep Med. 2017;13(9):1029–1037. PMID:28818154

Developmental reversals in false memory: Effects of emotional valence and arousal.

PubMed

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

2010-10-01

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 memory to total memory) decreased with age. These surprising developmental trends were more pronounced for negatively valenced materials than for positively valenced materials, they were more pronounced for high-arousal materials than for low-arousal materials, and developmental increases in the effects of arousal were small in comparison with developmental increases in the effects of valence. These findings have ramifications for legal applications of false memory research; materials that share the emotional hallmark of crimes (events that are negatively valenced and arousing) produced the largest age increases in false memory and the largest age declines in net accuracy. Copyright 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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

PubMed

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.

Emotion Induced Blindness Is More Sensitive to Changes in Arousal As Compared to Valence of the Emotional Distractor

PubMed Central

Singh, Divita; Sunny, Meera M.

2017-01-01

Emotion Induced Blindness (EIB) refers to the impairment in the identification of a neutral target image that follows a threatening or fearful distractor image. It has been suggested that valence plays a significant role in driving the perceptual impairment in EIB. Recent findings from the literature suggest that arousal has a very important role in biasing early cognitive functions. Hence, in the present study, we systematically investigate the role of valence (Experiment 1) and arousal (Experiment 2) in determining the impairment in EIB. The results suggest that when valence is controlled for, the stimuli with higher arousal level lead to greater impairment in target detection. Moreover, under high arousal condition, both positive and negative stimuli lead to significantly greater impairment in target detection. Present study suggests that impairment in EIB is sensitive to the arousal component of the emotional image as compared to valence. The arousal biased competition account that explains the effect of arousal on cognitive processing can sufficiently explains the current results. PMID:28861017

Affect Dynamics, Affective Forecasting, and Aging

PubMed Central

Nielsen, Lisbeth; Knutson, Brian; Carstensen, Laura L.

2008-01-01

Affective forecasting, experienced affect, and recalled affect were compared in younger and older adults during a task in which participants worked to win and avoid losing small monetary sums. Dynamic changes in affect were measured along valence and arousal dimensions, with probes during both anticipatory and consummatory task phases. Older and younger adults displayed distinct patterns of affect dynamics. Younger adults reported increased negative arousal during loss anticipation and positive arousal during gain anticipation. In contrast, older adults reported increased positive arousal during gain anticipation but showed no increase in negative arousal on trials involving loss anticipation. Additionally, younger adults reported large increases in valence after avoiding an anticipated loss, but older adults did not. Younger, but not older, adults exhibited forecasting errors on the arousal dimension, underestimating increases in arousal during anticipation of gains and losses and overestimating increases in arousal in response to gain outcomes. Overall, the findings are consistent with a growing literature suggesting that older people experience less negative emotion than their younger counterparts and further suggest that they may better predict dynamic changes in affect. PMID:18540748

Cynicism, anger and cardiovascular reactivity during anger recall and human-computer interaction.

PubMed

Why, Yong Peng; Johnston, Derek W

2008-06-01

Cynicism moderated by interpersonal anger has been found to be related to cardiovascular reactivity. This paper reports two studies; Study 1 used an Anger Recall task, which aroused interpersonal anger, while participants in Study 2 engaged in a multitasking computer task, which aroused non-interpersonal anger via systematic manipulation of the functioning of the computer mouse. The Cynicism by State Anger interaction was significant for blood pressure arousal in Study 2 but not for Study 1: in Study 2, when State Anger was high, cynicism was positively related to blood pressure arousal but when State Anger was low, cynicism was negatively related to blood pressure arousal. For both studies, when State Anger was low, cynicism was positively related to cardiac output arousal and negatively related to vascular arousal. The results suggest that Cynicism-State Anger interaction can be generalised to non-social anger-arousing situations for hemodynamic processes but blood pressure reactivity is task-dependent. The implication for the role of job control and cardiovascular health during human-computer interactions is discussed.

Arousal and gambling mode preference: a review of the literature.

PubMed

Baudinet, Julian; Blaszczynski, Alexander

2013-06-01

The purpose of this paper is to review the literature examining subjective and physiological arousal associated with an individual's preferred modes of gambling. Arousal is hypothesised to play a central role in the onset and maintenance of problem gambling. Most studies have failed to differentiate relevant patterns of arousal elicited by stimuli associated with preferred versus non-preferred modes of gambling on the assumption that similar processes motivate all gamblers. At the conceptual level, sub-typing theories of problem gambling propose differences in the motivation to gamble, and the associated role arousal plays in maintaining behaviours. A review of the existing literature reveals preliminary findings that indicate that gamblers respond differentially to preferred compared to non-preferred gambling stimuli, and that gamblers may display greater reactivity in arousal to gambling cues compared to non-gamblers. Understanding differences in such patterns of arousal can be used to inform clinical interventions by effectively targeting the nature and role of arousal associated with preferred modes of gambling, and determining the extent to which non-preferred modes act as secondary reinforces triggering by gambling urges.

Emotional Reactions Mediate the Effect of Music Listening on Creative Thinking: Perspective of the Arousal-and-Mood Hypothesis.

PubMed

He, Wu-Jing; Wong, Wan-Chi; Hui, Anna N-N

2017-01-01

This study examined the effect of music listening on creative thinking through the lens of the arousal-and-mood hypothesis, which posits that emotional reactions (i.e., arousal and valence) mediate the effect of music listening on cognitive functioning. Participants were randomly assigned to three groups: a positive music group ( n = 198), a negative music group ( n = 195), and a control group ( n = 191). Creative thinking and emotional reactions were assessed with the Test for Creative Thinking-Drawing Production and the Affect Grid, respectively. The results showed that both positively and negatively arousing music enhanced creative thinking. The results further revealed that arousal, regardless of valence, significantly mediated the music-creativity relationship. This study enriches the research on the arousal-and-mood hypothesis by (1) providing direct empirical testing on the mediating roles of emotional reactions; (2) including both positively and negatively arousing music in the study design; and (3) identifying that only arousal, and not valence, was a significant mediator in the music-creativity link.

Emotional Reactions Mediate the Effect of Music Listening on Creative Thinking: Perspective of the Arousal-and-Mood Hypothesis

PubMed Central

He, Wu-Jing; Wong, Wan-Chi; Hui, Anna N.-N.

2017-01-01

This study examined the effect of music listening on creative thinking through the lens of the arousal-and-mood hypothesis, which posits that emotional reactions (i.e., arousal and valence) mediate the effect of music listening on cognitive functioning. Participants were randomly assigned to three groups: a positive music group (n = 198), a negative music group (n = 195), and a control group (n = 191). Creative thinking and emotional reactions were assessed with the Test for Creative Thinking-Drawing Production and the Affect Grid, respectively. The results showed that both positively and negatively arousing music enhanced creative thinking. The results further revealed that arousal, regardless of valence, significantly mediated the music-creativity relationship. This study enriches the research on the arousal-and-mood hypothesis by (1) providing direct empirical testing on the mediating roles of emotional reactions; (2) including both positively and negatively arousing music in the study design; and (3) identifying that only arousal, and not valence, was a significant mediator in the music-creativity link. PMID:29018395

The Interaction of Arousal and Valence in Affective Priming: Behavioral and Electrophysiological Evidence

PubMed Central

Zhang, Qin; Kong, Lingyue; Jiang, Yang

2013-01-01

The affective priming paradigm has been studied extensively and applied in many fields during the past two decades. Most research thus far has focused on the valence dimension. Whether emotional arousal influences affective priming remains poorly understood. The present study demonstrates how arousal impacts evaluation of affective words using reaction time and event-related potential (ERP) measures. Eighteen younger subjects evaluated pleasantness of target words after seeing affective pictures as primes. The participants’ responses were faster and/or more accurate for valence-congruent trials than for incongruent trials, particularly with high-arousal stimuli. An ERP affective priming effect (N400) also occurred mainly in high-arousing stimulus pairs. In addition, whereas valence congruency influenced both the N400 and the LPP, arousal congruency influenced only the LPP, suggesting that arousal congruency mainly modulates post-semantic processes, but valence congruency effects begin with semantic processes. Overall, our current findings indicate that the arousal level of visual images impacts both behavioral and ERP effects of affective priming. Section Cognitive and Behavioral Neuroscience PMID:22820299

Affective and cognitive determinants of women's sexual response to erotica.

PubMed

Vilarinho, Sandra; Laja, Pedro; Carvalho, Joana; Quinta-Gomes, Ana Luísa; Oliveira, Cátia; Janssen, Erick; Nobre, Pedro J

2014-11-01

The specific cognitive-affective mechanisms involved in the activation and regulation of the subjective and genital components of sexual arousal are not fully understood yet. The aim of the present study was to investigate the contribution of self-reported thoughts and affect to the prediction of women's subjective and genital responses to erotica. Twenty-eight sexually functional women (mean age = 32, SD = 6.29) were presented with sexually explicit and nonexplicit romantic films. Genital responses, subjective sexual arousal, state affect, and self-reported thoughts were assessed. Vaginal pulse amplitude was measured using a vaginal photoplethysmograph. Subjective sexual arousal, thoughts, and affective responses were assessed through self-report scales. Correlations between subjective and physiological sexual arousal were low (r = -0.05, P > 0.05). Self-reported thoughts and affect were significant predictors of subjective sexual arousal. The strongest single predictor of subjective arousal was sexual arousal thoughts (e.g., "I'm getting excited") (β = 0.63, P < 0.01). None of the cognitive or affective variables predicted women's genital responses. Overall, results support the role of cognitive (self-reported thoughts) and affective dimensions in women's subjective sexual arousal to erotica and, consistent with previous findings, suggest that subjective and physiological sexual arousal may be impacted by different processes. © 2014 International Society for Sexual Medicine.

The temporal relation between seizure onset and arousal-awakening in temporal lobe seizures.

PubMed

Gumusyayla, Sadiye; Erdal, Abidin; Tezer, F Irsel; Saygi, Serap

2016-07-01

Our main aim was to determine the time interval between the seizure onsets and arousal-awakening related to these seizures in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) and to discuss the role of lateralization on arousal-awakening mechanisms. Thirty-three TLE patients who underwent video-EEG monitoring with simultaneous polysomnography (PSG) and had recorded nocturnal seizures were retrospectively examined. These TLE patients had 64 seizures during sleep. The onsets of seizures and arousal-awakening related to these seizures were marked according to clinical and electrophysiological features. The time interval between the seizure onset and arousal-awakening related to the seizure was compared in patients with right- or left-sided temporal lobe seizures. In our TLE patients nocturnal seizures mostly followed arousal-awakening (64%). The time interval between the seizure onset and arousal-awakening related to the seizure was significantly shorter in patients with left-sided temporal lobe seizures (p=0.01). Video-EEG monitoring and PSG with scalp electrodes in our TLE patients showed that nocturnal seizures mostly followed arousal-awakening, and it was more pronounced in those with left-sided seizures. Arousal-awakening might be a signal for subsequent seizures in patients with TLE. Copyright © 2016 British Epilepsy Association. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Brief Emotion Regulation Training Facilitates Arousal Control During Sexual Stimuli.

PubMed

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.

Gender-Specificity of Women's and Men's Self-Reported Attention to Sexual Stimuli.

PubMed

Huberman, Jackie S; Maracle, Amanda C; Chivers, Meredith L

2015-01-01

Men's sexual arousal is largely dependent on the actor's gender in a sexual stimulus (gender-specific), whereas for women, particularly androphilic women, arousal is less dependent on gender (gender-nonspecific). According to information-processing models of sexual response, sexual arousal requires that attention be directed toward sexual cues. We evaluated whether men's and women's self-reported attention to sexual stimuli of men or women were consistent with genital responses and self-reported arousal. We presented gynephilic men (n = 21) and women (n = 22) and androphilic men (n = 16) and women (n = 33) with audiovisual stimuli depicting men or women engaged in sexual activities. Genital responses were continuously recorded and, following each stimulus, participants reported the amount of attention paid to the video and feelings of sexual arousal. Self-reported attention was gender-specific for men and gender-nonspecific for women, and generally mirrored genital responses and self-reported arousal. Gender-specificity of genital responses significantly predicted gender-specificity of self-reported arousal; however, for men only, this effect was significantly mediated by gender-specificity of self-reported attention. Gender differences in gender-specificity of sexual arousal may be partially accounted for by differences in gender-specificity of self-reported attention, although attention may play a greater role in men's sexual arousal than women's.

The semantics of emotion in false memory.

PubMed

Brainerd, C J; Bookbinder, S H

2018-03-26

The emotional valence of target information has been a centerpiece of recent false memory research, but in most experiments, it has been confounded with emotional arousal. We sought to clarify the results of such research by identifying a shared mathematical relation between valence and arousal ratings in commonly administered normed materials. That relation was then used to (a) decide whether arousal as well as valence influences false memory when they are confounded and to (b) determine whether semantic properties that are known to affect false memory covary with valence and arousal ratings. In Study 1, we identified a quadratic relation between valence and arousal ratings of words and pictures that has 2 key properties: Arousal increases more rapidly as function of negative valence than positive valence, and hence, a given level of negative valence is more arousing than the same level of positive valence. This quadratic function predicts that if arousal as well as valence affects false memory when they are confounded, false memory data must have certain fine-grained properties. In Study 2, those properties were absent from norming data for the Cornell-Cortland Emotional Word Lists, indicating that valence but not arousal affects false memory in those norms. In Study 3, we tested fuzzy-trace theory's explanation of that pattern: that valence ratings are positively related to semantic properties that are known to increase false memory, but arousal ratings are not. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

Emotional Arousal at Memory Encoding Enhanced P300 in the Concealed Information Test

PubMed Central

Osugi, Akemi; Ohira, Hideki

2018-01-01

Previous studies have reported that the concealed information test (CIT) is a reliable and powerful method for detecting information. However, the external validity of the CIT studies has not been fully proven. In particular, few studies have examined the effects of emotional arousal at memory encoding on physiological responses in the CIT. The present study investigated the influence on the CIT of the magnitude of emotional arousal at memory encoding of a mock crime, using the P300 component of the event-related brain potential (ERP). In accord with the assumptions of excitation-transfer theory, we presented emotionally arousing pictures before a mock crime. Participants were randomly assigned to either a high emotional arousal group (n = 10) or a low emotional arousal group (n = 11), viewing pictures expected to arouse emotion at a high or low level, respectively. Subsequently, all participants enacted the same mock crime, in which they were instructed to stab a pillow with a sharp-edged tool (e.g., a kitchen knife or ice pick) as if harassing a mannequin lying on a bed. After the antecedent emotional experience, the P300-based CIT was conducted. Participants in the high arousal group showed significantly greater P300 amplitudes in response to a probe stimulus compared with the low arousal group. No differences were found between the groups in response to irrelevant stimuli. These results support the notion that emotional arousal influences the P300 in the CIT paradigm. PMID:29375446

Humans identify negative (but not positive) arousal in silver fox vocalizations: implications for the adaptive value of interspecific eavesdropping.

PubMed

Filippi, Piera; Gogoleva, Svetlana S; Volodina, Elena V; Volodin, Ilya A; de Boer, Bart

2017-08-01

The ability to identify emotional arousal in heterospecific vocalizations may facilitate behaviors that increase survival opportunities. Crucially, this ability may orient inter-species interactions, particularly between humans and other species. Research shows that humans identify emotional arousal in vocalizations across multiple species, such as cats, dogs, and piglets. However, no previous study has addressed humans' ability to identify emotional arousal in silver foxes. Here, we adopted low- and high-arousal calls emitted by three strains of silver fox-Tame, Aggressive, and Unselected-in response to human approach. Tame and Aggressive foxes are genetically selected for friendly and attacking behaviors toward humans, respectively. Unselected foxes show aggressive and fearful behaviors toward humans. These three strains show similar levels of emotional arousal, but different levels of emotional valence in relation to humans. This emotional information is reflected in the acoustic features of the calls. Our data suggest that humans can identify high-arousal calls of Aggressive and Unselected foxes, but not of Tame foxes. Further analyses revealed that, although within each strain different acoustic parameters affect human accuracy in identifying high-arousal calls, spectral center of gravity, harmonic-to-noise ratio, and F0 best predict humans' ability to discriminate high-arousal calls across all strains. Furthermore, we identified in spectral center of gravity and F0 the best predictors for humans' absolute ratings of arousal in each call. Implications for research on the adaptive value of inter-specific eavesdropping are discussed.

A rationale for cognitively-based resilience and psychological first aid (PFA) training: a structural modeling analysis.

PubMed

Everly, George S; Smith, Kenneth J; Lating, Jeffrey M

2009-01-01

Based on the recommendations of Rodgers (2010) and practices by Smith, Davy, & Everly (2007) and Everly, Smith, and Welzant (2008), structural modeling was used in this investigation designed to better discern causal mechanisms within the cognitive-affective arousal construct that contribute to burnout, job dissatisfaction, turnover intention, and performance. The primary purpose of this study was to better inform those interested in program develop and clinical intervention of the nature of mechanisms of pathogenesis and resiliency. This study utilized the responses of the 491 individuals employed in public accounting. Results indicate that the cognitive-affective domain is an essential determinant of burnout, job dissatisfaction, turnover intention, and performance. Furthermore, cognitive states appear to exert their effect through affective arousal that subsequently appears to have a defining role in the development of the aforementioned variables.

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

PubMed

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.

Arousal from sleep does not lead to reduced dilator muscle activity or elevated upper airway resistance on return to sleep in healthy individuals.

PubMed

Jordan, Amy S; Cori, Jennifer M; Dawson, Andrew; Nicholas, Christian L; O'Donoghue, Fergal J; Catcheside, Peter G; Eckert, Danny J; McEvoy, R Doug; Trinder, John

2015-01-01

To compare changes in end-tidal CO2, genioglossus muscle activity and upper airway resistance following tone-induced arousal and the return to sleep in healthy individuals with small and large ventilatory responses to arousal. Observational study. Two sleep physiology laboratories. 35 men and 25 women with no medical or sleep disorders. Auditory tones to induce 3-s to 15-s cortical arousals from sleep. During arousal from sleep, subjects with large ventilatory responses to arousal had higher ventilation (by analytical design) and tidal volume, and more marked reductions in the partial pressure of end-tidal CO2 compared to subjects with small ventilatory responses to arousal. However, following the return to sleep, ventilation, genioglossus muscle activity, and upper airway resistance did not differ between high and low ventilatory response groups (Breath 1 on return to sleep: ventilation 6.7±0.4 and 5.5±0.3 L/min, peak genioglossus activity 3.4%±1.0% and 4.8%±1.0% maximum, upper airway resistance 4.7±0.7 and 5.5±1.0 cm H2O/L/s, respectively). Furthermore, dilator muscle activity did not fall below the pre-arousal sleeping level and upper airway resistance did not rise above the pre-arousal sleeping level in either group for 10 breaths following the return to sleep. Regardless of the magnitude of the ventilatory response to arousal from sleep and subsequent reduction in PETCO2, healthy individuals did not develop reduced dilator muscle activity nor increased upper airway resistance, indicative of partial airway collapse, on the return to sleep. These findings challenge the commonly stated notion that arousals predispose to upper airway obstruction. © 2014 Associated Professional Sleep Societies, LLC.

Effectiveness of Psycho-Physiological Portable Devices to Analyse Effect of Ergogenic Aids in Military Population.

PubMed

Diaz-Manzano, Montaña; Robles-Pérez, José Juan; Herrera-Mendoza, Ketty; Herrera-Tapias, Beliña; Fernández-Lucas, Jesús; Aznar-Lain, Susana; Clemente-Suárez, Vicente Javier

2018-03-24

Caffeine is one of the ergogenic substances most used by warfighters in current operation areas, but the effect on the organic response and operational performed is already poor knowledge. This research aimed to study the acute effect of 400 mg of caffeine monohydrate on the psycho-physiological response and rifle marksmanship of warfighters during a close quarter combat simulation. We analysed parameter of heart rate, blood lactate, cortical arousal, state anxiety and marksmanship of 20 Spanish Army veteran warfighters before and after a close quarter combat simulation in a double-blind procedure, also a correlation analysis was conducted between all the study variables. Marksmanship of warfighters did not improve with the caffeine ingestion, but it produced an increase in blood lactate concentration (caffeine: 1.9 ± 0.5 vs. 9.2 ± 1.1 mmol.l -1 ; placebo: 1.8 ± 0.7 vs. 6.9 ± 2.2 mmol.l -1 ), cortical arousal (% of change: caffeine: 2.51; placebo: -1.96) and heart rate (caffeine: 80.0 ± 7.2 vs. 172.9 ± 28.2 bpm; placebo: 79.3 ± 6.4 vs. 154.0 ± 26.8 bpm). In addition, higher heart rate values correlated negatively with marksmanship in close quarter combat. We concluded that caffeine intake did not improve the warfighters rifle marksmanship in close quarter combat possibly due to the increase in the physiological response.

5-HT2A receptor activation is necessary for CO2-induced arousal

PubMed Central

Smith, Haleigh R.; MacAskill, Amanda; Richerson, George B.

2015-01-01

Hypercapnia-induced arousal from sleep is an important protective mechanism pertinent to a number of diseases. Most notably among these are the sudden infant death syndrome, obstructive sleep apnea and sudden unexpected death in epilepsy. Serotonin (5-HT) plays a significant role in hypercapnia-induced arousal. The mechanism of 5-HT's role in this protective response is unknown. Here we sought to identify the specific 5-HT receptor subtype(s) involved in this response. Wild-type mice were pretreated with antagonists against 5-HT receptor subtypes, as well as antagonists against adrenergic, cholinergic, histaminergic, dopaminergic, and orexinergic receptors before challenge with inspired CO2 or hypoxia. Antagonists of 5-HT2A receptors dose-dependently blocked CO2-induced arousal. The 5-HT2C receptor antagonist, RS-102221, and the 5-HT1A receptor agonist, 8-OH-DPAT, attenuated but did not completely block CO2-induced arousal. Blockade of non-5-HT receptors did not affect CO2-induced arousal. None of these drugs had any effect on hypoxia-induced arousal. 5-HT2 receptor agonists were given to mice in which 5-HT neurons had been genetically eliminated during embryonic life (Lmx1bf/f/p) and which are known to lack CO2-induced arousal. Application of agonists to 5-HT2A, but not 5-HT2C, receptors, dose-dependently restored CO2-induced arousal in these mice. These data identify the 5-HT2A receptor as an important mediator of CO2-induced arousal and suggest that, while 5-HT neurons can be independently activated to drive CO2-induced arousal, in the absence of 5-HT neurons and endogenous 5-HT, 5-HT receptor activation can act in a permissive fashion to facilitate CO2-induced arousal via another as yet unidentified chemosensor system. PMID:25925320

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

PubMed

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 a role in women's experience of sexual dysfunction and might be more clinically relevant for women with sexual dysfunction than genital blood flow. This study's large sample is unique in sexual psychophysiology, and it strengthens the credibility of the findings. However, this study is limited in that arousal-specific dysfunction was determined with self-report measures, not by a clinician-administered assessment. These findings suggest distinct response trajectories in women with and without sexual dysfunction, and although perceived genital responses are important for women who are experiencing problems with arousal, they do not seem to be related to objective measures of physiologic arousal. Handy AB, Stanton AM, Pulverman CS, Meston CM. Differences in Perceived and Physiologic Genital Arousal Between Women With and Without Sexual Dysfunction. J Sex Med 2018;15:52-63. Copyright © 2017 International Society for Sexual Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Sexual affordances, perceptual-motor invariance extraction and intentional nonlinear dynamics: sexually deviant and non-deviant patterns in male subjects.

PubMed

Renaud, Patrice; Goyette, Mathieu; Chartier, Sylvain; Zhornitski, Simon; Trottier, Dominique; Rouleau, Joanne-L; Proulx, Jean; Fedoroff, Paul; Bradford, John-P; Dassylva, Benoit; Bouchard, Stephane

2010-10-01

Sexual arousal and gaze behavior dynamics are used to characterize deviant sexual interests in male subjects. Pedophile patients and non-deviant subjects are immersed with virtual characters depicting relevant sexual features. Gaze behavior dynamics as indexed from correlation dimensions (D2) appears to be fractal in nature and significantly different from colored noise (surrogate data tests and recurrence plot analyses were performed). This perceptual-motor fractal dynamics parallels sexual arousal and differs from pedophiles to non-deviant subjects when critical sexual information is processed. Results are interpreted in terms of sexual affordance, perceptual invariance extraction and intentional nonlinear dynamics.

Bruxism in children: effect on sleep architecture and daytime cognitive performance and behavior.

PubMed

Herrera, Marcela; Valencia, Ignacio; Grant, Mitzie; Metroka, David; Chialastri, Augustine; Kothare, Sanjeev V

2006-09-01

Sleep bruxism is an involuntary mandibular movement with tooth grinding during sleep. The prevalence of sleep bruxism in children is high and may lead to frequent arousals with altered daytime functioning. We investigated the sleep architecture, the incidence of gastroesophageal reflux, and the daytime cognitive behavioral functioning in a group of children with sleep bruxism. DESIGN-PATIENTS: This prospective pilot study included 10 children. Polysomnographic data with pH-probe analysis was compared with 10 age- and sex-matched controls. Each patient completed a dental evaluation, a nighttime polysomnogram, and cognitive behavioral tests (Kaufman Brief Intelligence Test and Achenbach Child Behavior Checklist). Eight of 10 children had clinically significant bruxism and the 2 remaining patients had recent teeth exfoliation. There was no difference on sleep architecture between patients and controls, except for a higher arousal index for the bruxism group (36.7 vs 20.7, p < .007). Sleep bruxism occurred more frequently in stage 2 and rapid eye movement sleep, with arousals in 66% of the cases. There was no relationship of bruxism to gastroesophageal reflux or intelligence. However, 40% of the patients had elevated scores on the Achenbach Child Behavior Checklist, indicating significant attention and behavior problems, and there were moderate correlations between the arousal index and several of the behavior-problem scales from the Achenbach Child Behavior Checklist (0.5 to 0.6). The data suggest that children with bruxism have a higher arousal index, which may be associated with an increased incidence of attention-behavior problems. Future studies investigating pediatric sleep bruxism will need to focus on behavior issues that may be prevalent in this population.

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

PubMed Central

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

Platelet Dynamics during Natural and Pharmacologically Induced Torpor and Forced Hypothermia

PubMed Central

de Vrij, Edwin L.; Vogelaar, Pieter C.; Goris, Maaike; Houwertjes, Martin C.; Herwig, Annika; Dugbartey, George J.; Boerema, Ate S.; Strijkstra, Arjen M.; Bouma, Hjalmar R.; Henning, Robert H.

2014-01-01

Hibernation is an energy-conserving behavior in winter characterized by two phases: torpor and arousal. During torpor, markedly reduced metabolic activity results in inactivity and decreased body temperature. Arousal periods intersperse the torpor bouts and feature increased metabolism and euthermic body temperature. Alterations in physiological parameters, such as suppression of hemostasis, are thought to allow hibernators to survive periods of torpor and arousal without organ injury. While the state of torpor is potentially procoagulant, due to low blood flow, increased viscosity, immobility, hypoxia, and low body temperature, organ injury due to thromboembolism is absent. To investigate platelet dynamics during hibernation, we measured platelet count and function during and after natural torpor, pharmacologically induced torpor and forced hypothermia. Splenectomies were performed to unravel potential storage sites of platelets during torpor. Here we show that decreasing body temperature drives thrombocytopenia during torpor in hamster with maintained functionality of circulating platelets. Interestingly, hamster platelets during torpor do not express P-selectin, but expression is induced by treatment with ADP. Platelet count rapidly restores during arousal and rewarming. Platelet dynamics in hibernation are not affected by splenectomy before or during torpor. Reversible thrombocytopenia was also induced by forced hypothermia in both hibernating (hamster) and non-hibernating (rat and mouse) species without changing platelet function. Pharmacological torpor induced by injection of 5′-AMP in mice did not induce thrombocytopenia, possibly because 5′-AMP inhibits platelet function. The rapidness of changes in the numbers of circulating platelets, as well as marginal changes in immature platelet fractions upon arousal, strongly suggest that storage-and-release underlies the reversible thrombocytopenia during natural torpor. Possibly, margination of platelets, dependent on intrinsic platelet functionality, governs clearance of circulating platelets during torpor. PMID:24722364

Don't Look down: Emotional Arousal Elevates Height Perception

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Stefanucci, Jeanine K.; Storbeck, Justin

2009-01-01

In a series of experiments, it was found that emotional arousal can influence height perception. In Experiment 1, participants viewed either arousing or nonarousing images before estimating the height of a 2-story balcony and the size of a target on the ground below the balcony. People who viewed arousing images overestimated height and target…

Distinct Brain Systems Underlie the Processing of Valence and Arousal of Affective Pictures

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nielen, M. M. A.; Heslenfeld, D. J.; Heinen, K.; Van Strien, J. W.; Witter, M. P.; Jonker, C.; Veltman, D. J.

2009-01-01

Valence and arousal are thought to be the primary dimensions of human emotion. However, the degree to which valence and arousal interact in determining brain responses to emotional pictures is still elusive. This functional MRI study aimed to delineate neural systems responding to valence and arousal, and their interaction. We measured neural…

Effects of Arousal on Interpreting Other People's Emotions.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Clark, Margaret S.; And Others

Previous research has found that sympathetic arousal will cue information stored in memory with a similar level of arousal. To investigate the effect of arousal on the interpretation of other people's emotions, three studies were conducted. In the first study, 37 adult tennis players, who were either about to play tennis or who had just played,…

Emotions and false memories: valence or arousal?

PubMed

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.

Reduction of the misinformation effect by arousal induced after learning.

PubMed

English, Shaun M; Nielson, Kristy A

2010-11-01

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 test, which for some participants included misinformation. Afterward, participants viewed another film clip that was either arousing or neutral. One week later, the arousal group recognized significantly more veridical details and endorsed significantly fewer misinformation items than the neutral group. The findings suggest that arousal induced after learning reduced source confusion, allowing participants to better retrieve accurate details and to better reject misinformation. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The Neuropeptides FLP-2 and PDF-1 Act in Concert To Arouse Caenorhabditis elegans Locomotion

PubMed Central

Chen, Didi; Taylor, Kelsey P.; Hall, Qi; Kaplan, Joshua M.

2016-01-01

During larval molts, Caenorhabditis elegans exhibits a sleep-like state (termed lethargus) that is characterized by the absence of feeding and profound locomotion quiescence. The rhythmic pattern of locomotion quiescence and arousal linked to the molting cycle is mediated by reciprocal changes in sensory responsiveness, whereby arousal is associated with increased responsiveness. Sensory neurons arouse locomotion via release of a neuropeptide (PDF-1) and glutamate. Here we identify a second arousing neuropeptide (FLP-2). We show that FLP-2 acts via an orexin-like receptor (FRPR-18), and that FLP-2 and PDF-1 secretion are regulated by reciprocal positive feedback. These results suggest that the aroused behavioral state is stabilized by positive feedback between two neuropeptides. PMID:27585848

Unexpected Dual Task Benefits on Cycling in Parkinson Disease and Healthy Adults: A Neuro-Behavioral Model

PubMed Central

Altmann, Lori J. P.; Stegemöller, Elizabeth; Hazamy, Audrey A.; Wilson, Jonathan P.; Okun, Michael S.; McFarland, Nikolaus R.; Shukla, Aparna Wagle; Hass, Chris J.

2015-01-01

Background When performing two tasks at once, a dual task, performance on one or both tasks typically suffers. People with Parkinson’s disease (PD) usually experience larger dual task decrements on motor tasks than healthy older adults (HOA). Our objective was to investigate the decrements in cycling caused by performing cognitive tasks with a range of difficulty in people with PD and HOAs. Methods Twenty-eight participants with Parkinson’s disease and 20 healthy older adults completed a baseline cycling task with no secondary tasks and then completed dual task cycling while performing 12 tasks from six cognitive domains representing a wide range of difficulty. Results Cycling was faster during dual task conditions than at baseline, and was significantly faster for six tasks (all p<.02) across both groups. Cycling speed improved the most during the easiest cognitive tasks, and cognitive performance was largely unaffected. Cycling improvement was predicted by task difficulty (p<.001). People with Parkinson’s disease cycled slower (p<.03) and showed reduced dual task benefits (p<.01) than healthy older adults. Conclusions Unexpectedly, participants’ motor performance improved during cognitive dual tasks, which cannot be explained in current models of dual task performance. To account for these findings, we propose a model integrating dual task and acute exercise approaches which posits that cognitive arousal during dual tasks increases resources to facilitate motor and cognitive performance, which is subsequently modulated by motor and cognitive task difficulty. This model can explain both the improvement observed on dual tasks in the current study and more typical dual task findings in other studies. PMID:25970607

Symbolic online exposure for spider fear: habituation of fear, disgust and physiological arousal and predictors of symptom improvement.

PubMed

Matthews, Allison; Naran, Nishma; Kirkby, Kenneth C

2015-06-01

This research compared the effects of real versus hyper-real images on anxiety, disgust, and physiological arousal during internet-delivered exposure in high spider-fearfuls. Hyper-real images were digitally altered to highlight fearful aspects. A further aim was to examine self-reported and behavioural therapeutic outcomes and exposure-related predictors of these outcomes. Twenty-eight females were randomised to real (n = 14) or hyper-real (n = 14) treatment groups and nine participants were subsequently allocated to a wait-list control group. Treatment groups viewed an 8-stage exposure hierarchy of real or hyper-real spider images. Subjective anxiety and disgust ratings were taken during each stage (0, 60, 120, 180 s) with heart rate and skin conductance recorded throughout. Anxiety, disgust and physiological arousal habituated within each exposure stage, with no differential effect of real compared to hyper-real images. Both treatment groups but not controls demonstrated significant reductions in behavioural avoidance and self-reported phobic symptoms from pre-treatment to post-treatment with large effect sizes noted. The change in within-stage habituation of anxiety, disgust and heart rate, between the first and last stage, predicted improvement in behavioural avoidance at post-treatment. This suggests that generalisation of habituation to multiple images is an important predictor of improvement. While findings in relation to therapeutic outcome should be considered preliminary, clear relationships were found between exposure-related variables and outcome among those who undertook treatment. Findings provide evidence in support of the efficacy of online image-based exposure and have implications for informing further research into the underlying mechanisms of image-based exposure treatment. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Deep brain stimulation of anterior nucleus thalami disrupts sleep in epilepsy patients.

PubMed

Voges, Berthold R; Schmitt, Friedhelm C; Hamel, Wolfgang; House, Patrick M; Kluge, Christian; Moll, Christian K E; Stodieck, Stefan R

2015-08-01

In view of the regulatory function of the thalamus in the sleep-wake cycle, the impact of deep brain stimulation (DBS) of the anterior nucleus thalami (ANT) on sleep was assessed in a small consecutive cohort of epilepsy patients with standardized polysomnography (PSG). In nine patients treated with ANT-DBS (voltage 5 V, frequency 145 Hz, cyclic mode), the number of arousals during stimulation and nonstimulation periods, neuropsychiatric symptoms (npS), and seizure frequency were determined. Electroclinical arousals were triggered in 14.0 to 67.0% (mean 42.4 ± SD 16.8%) of all deep brain stimuli. Six patients reported npS. Nocturnal DBS voltages were reduced in eight patients (one patient without npS refused) and PSGs were repeated. Electroclinical arousals occurred between 1.4 and 6.7 (mean 3.3 ± 1.7) times more frequently during stimulation periods compared to nonstimulation periods; the number of arousals positively correlated with the level of DBS voltage (range 1 V to 5 V) (Spearman's rank coefficient 0.53121; p < 0.05). No patient experienced seizure deterioration and four patients reported remission of npS. This case-cohort study provides evidence that ANT-DBS interrupts sleep in a voltage-dependent manner, thus putatively resulting in an increase of npS. Reduction of nocturnal DBS voltage seems to lead to improvement of npS without hampering efficacy of ANT-DBS. Wiley Periodicals, Inc. © 2015 International League Against Epilepsy.

Persistent genital arousal disorder associated with functional hyperconnectivity of an epileptic focus.

PubMed

Anzellotti, F; Franciotti, R; Bonanni, L; Tamburro, G; Perrucci, M G; Thomas, A; Pizzella, V; Romani, G L; Onofrj, M

2010-04-28

Persistent Genital Arousal Disorder (PGAD) refers to the experience of persistent sensations of genital arousal that are felt to be unprovoked, intrusive and unrelieved by one or several orgasms. It is often mistaken for hypersexuality since PGAD often results in a high frequency of sexual behaviour. At present little is known with certainty about the etiology of this condition. We described a woman with typical PGAD symptoms and orgasmic seizures that we found to be related to a specific epileptic focus. We performed a EEG/MEG and fMRI spontaneous activity study during genital arousal symptoms and after the chronic administration of 300 mg/day of topiramate. From MEG data an epileptic focus was localized in the left posterior insular gyrus (LPIG). FMRI data evidenced that sexual excitation symptoms with PGAD could be correlated with an increased functional connectivity (FC) between different brain areas: LPIG (epileptic focus), left middle frontal gyrus, left inferior and superior temporal gyrus and left inferior parietal lobe. The reduction of the FC observed after antiepileptic therapy was more marked in the left than in the right hemisphere in agreement with the lateralization identified by MEG results. Treatment completely abolished PGAD symptoms and functional hyperconnectivity. The functional hyperconnectivity found in the neuronal network including the epileptic focus could suggest a possible central mechanism for PGAD. Copyright 2010 IBRO. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

PubMed Central

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 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 (TSST). Salivary cortisol was measured at standard intervals. Consistent with our prediction, we found a significant post-event stress × thematic arousal × 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. PMID:22936900

[Sleep deprivation in somnambulism. Effect of arousal, deep sleep and sleep stage changes].

PubMed

Mayer, G; Neissner, V; Schwarzmayr, P; Meier-Ewert, K

1998-06-01

Diagnosis of parasomnias in the sleep laboratory is difficult since the nocturnal behavior reported by the patients often does not show up in the laboratory. To test the efficacy of sleep deprivation as a tool to provoke somnambulism we investigated ten patients (three women and seven men, mean age 27 +/- 3.4) with somnambulism. Their standard polysomnographies and videomonitored nocturnal behavior was compared to that of sex- and age-matched controls and to polysomnography and behavior after sleep deprivation. Patients with parasomnias and controls did not show significant differences in sleep parameters with the exception of longer arousal duration in controls, which was nonsignificant. In magnetic resonance tomography, patients with parasomnias did not reveal abnormality of the brain that might explain release of nocturnal behavior. Sleep deprivation led to significantly reduced number of arousals, reduced arousal index, significantly prolonged arousal duration and more stage shifts from all sleep stages (nonsignificant). Complex behavior during sleep increased under sleep deprivation, whereas sleepwalking did not increase. The majority of complex behavior during sleep is triggered by stage shifts and not by arousal in the sense of the arousal definition of the American Sleep Disorder Society. Complex behavior in sleep is stereotypical and nonviolent. Its complexity seems to depend on the duration and intensity of arousals. Sleep deprivation can be recommended as an efficacious method of increasing complex behavior in sleep, which is a preliminary stage of sleepwalking. Concerning the underlying pathology it seems to be important to register the quality and duration of stimuli that trigger arousals instead of focusing the number of arousals alone.

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

PubMed

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.

Antioxidant and molecular chaperone defences during estivation and arousal in the South American apple snail Pomacea canaliculata.

PubMed

Giraud-Billoud, Maximiliano; Vega, Israel A; Tosi, Martín E Rinaldi; Abud, María A; Calderón, María L; Castro-Vazquez, Alfredo

2013-02-15

The invasive Pomacea canaliculata estivates during periods of drought and should cope with harmful effects of reoxygenation during arousal. We studied thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS), enzymatic (superoxide dismutase, SOD and catalase, CAT) and non-enzymatic antioxidants (uric acid and reduced glutathione), and heat shock protein expression (Hsc70, Hsp70 and Hsp90) in (1) active control snails, (2) snails after 45 days of estivation, and (3) aroused snails 20 min and (4) 24 h after water exposure, in midgut gland, kidney and foot. Both kidney and foot (but not the midgut gland) showed a TBARS increase during estivation and a decrease after arousal. Tissue SOD and CAT did not change in any experimental groups. Uric acid increased during estivation in all tissues, and it decreased after arousal in the kidney. Allantoin, the oxidation product of uric acid, remained constant in the midgut gland but it decreased in the kidney until 20 min after arousal; however, allantoin levels rose in both kidney and foot 24 h after arousal. Reduced glutathione decreased during estivation and arousal, in both midgut gland and kidney, and it remained constant in the foot. Hsc70 and Hsp70 kidney levels were stable during the activity-estivation cycle and Hsp90 expression decreases during estivation and recovers in the early arousal. In foot, the expression of Hsp70 and Hsp90 was high during activity and estivation periods and disminished after arousal. Results indicate that a panoply of antioxidant and molecular chaperone defences may be involved during the activity-estivation cycle in this freshwater gastropod.

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

PubMed

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 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 (TSST). Salivary cortisol was measured at standard intervals. Consistent with our prediction, we found a significant post-event stress × thematic arousal × 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.

Negative arousal increases the effects of stimulus salience in older adults.

PubMed

Sutherland, Matthew R; Mather, Mara

2015-01-01

BACKGROUND/STUDY CONTEXT: Stimuli compete for mental representation, with salient stimuli attracting more attention than less salient stimuli. In a recent study, we found that presenting an emotionally negative arousing sound before briefly showing an array of letters with different levels of salience increased the reporting of the more salient letters but decreased reporting of the less salient letters (Sutherland & Mather, 2012, Emotion, 12, 1367-1372). In the current study we examined whether negative arousal produces similar effects on attention in older adults. Data from 55 older adults (61-80 years; M = 70.7, SD = 5.1) were compared with those from 110 younger adults (18-29 years; M = 20.3, SD = 2.3) from Sutherland and Mather (2012). Neutral or negative arousing sound clips were played before a brief presentation of eight letters, three of which were presented in a darker font than the others to create a group of high- and low-salience targets. Next, participants recalled as many of the letters as they could. At the end of the study, participants rated the emotional arousal and the valence of the sounds. Higher ratings of emotional arousal for the sounds predicted a greater advantage for high-salience letters in recall. This influence of arousal did not significantly differ by age. The effects of negative arousal on subsequent attention were similar in older adults as in younger adults. Moreover, the results support arousal-biased competition theory (Mather & Sutherland, 2011, Perspectives on Psychological Science, 6, 114-133), which predicts that emotional arousal amplifies the effects of stimulus salience in attention and memory.

Opposite brain emotion-regulation patterns in identity states of dissociative identity disorder: a PET study and neurobiological model.

PubMed

Reinders, Antje A T S; Willemsen, Antoon T M; den Boer, Johan A; Vos, Herry P J; Veltman, Dick J; Loewenstein, Richard J

2014-09-30

Imaging studies in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) have shown differing neural network patterns between hypo-aroused/dissociative and hyper-aroused subtypes. Since dissociative identity disorder (DID) involves different emotional states, this study tests whether DID fits aspects of the differing brain-activation patterns in PTSD. While brain activation was monitored using positron emission tomography, DID individuals (n=11) and matched DID-simulating healthy controls (n=16) underwent an autobiographic script-driven imagery paradigm in a hypo-aroused and a hyper-aroused identity state. Results were consistent with those previously found in the two PTSD subtypes for the rostral/dorsal anterior cingulate, the prefrontal cortex, and the amygdala and insula, respectively. Furthermore, the dissociative identity state uniquely activated the posterior association areas and the parahippocampal gyri, whereas the hyper-aroused identity state uniquely activated the caudate nucleus. Therefore, we proposed an extended PTSD-based neurobiological model for emotion modulation in DID: the hypo-aroused identity state activates the prefrontal cortex, cingulate, posterior association areas and parahippocampal gyri, thereby overmodulating emotion regulation; the hyper-aroused identity state activates the amygdala and insula as well as the dorsal striatum, thereby undermodulating emotion regulation. This confirms the notion that DID is related to PTSD as hypo-aroused and hyper-arousal states in DID and PTSD are similar. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Physiological and subjective sexual arousal in self-identified asexual women.

PubMed

Brotto, Lori A; Yule, Morag A

2011-08-01

Asexuality can be defined as a lifelong lack of sexual attraction. Empirical research on asexuality reveals significantly lower self-reported sexual desire and arousal and lower rates of sexual activity; however, the speculation that there may also be an impaired psychophysiological sexual arousal response has never been tested. The aim of this study was to compare genital (vaginal pulse amplitude; VPA) and subjective sexual arousal in asexual and non-asexual women. Thirty-eight women between the ages of 19 and 55 years (10 heterosexual, 10 bisexual, 11 homosexual, and 7 asexual) viewed neutral and erotic audiovisual stimuli while VPA and self-reported sexual arousal and affect were measured. There were no significant group differences in the increased VPA and self-reported sexual arousal response to the erotic film between the groups. Asexuals showed significantly less positive affect, sensuality-sexual attraction, and self-reported autonomic arousal to the erotic film compared to the other groups; however, there were no group differences in negative affect or anxiety. Genital-subjective sexual arousal concordance was significantly positive for the asexual women and non-significant for the other three groups, suggesting higher levels of interoceptive awareness among asexuals. Taken together, the findings suggest normal subjective and physiological sexual arousal capacity in asexual women and challenge the view that asexuality should be characterized as a sexual dysfunction.

Cortical evoked responses associated with arousal from sleep.

PubMed

Phillips, Derrick J; Schei, Jennifer L; Meighan, Peter C; Rector, David M

2011-01-01

To determine if low-level intermittent auditory stimuli have the potential to disrupt sleep during 24-h recordings, we assessed arousal occurrence to varying stimulus intensities. Additionally, if stimulus-generated evoked response potential (ERP) components provide a metric of underlying cortical state, then a particular ERP structure may precede an arousal. Physiological electrodes measuring EEG, EKG, and EMG were implanted into 5 adult female Sprague-Dawley rats. We delivered auditory stimuli of varying intensities (50-75 dBa sound pressure level SPL) at random intervals of 6-12 s over a 24-hour period. Recordings were divided into 2-s epochs and scored for sleep/wake state. Following each stimulus, we identified whether the animal stayed asleep or woke. We then sorted the stimuli depending on prior and post-stimulus state, and measured ERP components. Auditory stimuli did not produce a significant increase in the number of arousals compared to silent control periods. Overall, arousal from REM sleep occurred more often compared to quiet sleep. ERPs preceding an arousal had decreased mean area and shorter N1 latency. Low level auditory stimuli did not fragment animal sleep since we observed no significant change in arousal occurrence. Arousals that occurred within 4 s of a stimulus exhibited an ERP mean area and latency had features similar to ERPs generated during wake, indicating that the underlying cortical tissue state may contribute to physiological conditions required for arousal.

Matter Over Mind: A Randomised-Controlled Trial of Single-Session Biofeedback Training on Performance Anxiety and Heart Rate Variability in Musicians

PubMed Central

Wells, Ruth; Outhred, Tim; Heathers, James A. J.; Quintana, Daniel S.; Kemp, Andrew H.

2012-01-01

Background Musical performance is a skilled activity performed under intense pressure, thus is often a profound source of anxiety. In other contexts, anxiety and its concomitant symptoms of sympathetic nervous system arousal have been successfully ameliorated with HRV biofeedback (HRV BF), a technique involving slow breathing which augments autonomic and emotional regulatory capacity. Objective: This randomised-controlled study explored the impact of a single 30-minute session of HRV BF on anxiety in response to a highly stressful music performance. Methods A total of 46 trained musicians participated in this study and were randomly allocated to a slow breathing with or without biofeedback or no-treatment control group. A 3 Group×2 Time mixed experimental design was employed to compare the effect of group before and after intervention on performance anxiety (STAI-S) and frequency domain measures of HRV. Results Slow breathing groups (n = 30) showed significantly greater improvements in high frequency (HF) and LF/HF ratio measures of HRV relative to control (n = 15) during 5 minute recordings of performance anticipation following the intervention (effect size: η2 = 0.122 and η2 = 0.116, respectively). The addition of biofeedback to a slow breathing protocol did not produce differential results. While intervention groups did not exhibit an overall reduction in self-reported anxiety, participants with high baseline anxiety who received the intervention (n = 15) displayed greater reductions in self-reported state anxiety relative to those in the control condition (n = 7) (r = 0.379). Conclusions These findings indicate that a single session of slow breathing, regardless of biofeedback, is sufficient for controlling physiological arousal in anticipation of psychosocial stress associated with music performance and that slow breathing is particularly helpful for musicians with high levels of anxiety. Future research is needed to further examine the effects of HRV BF as a low-cost, non-pharmacological treatment for music performance anxiety. PMID:23056361

Aroused with heart: Modulation of heartbeat evoked potential by arousal induction and its oscillatory correlates

PubMed Central

Luft, Caroline Di Bernardi; Bhattacharya, Joydeep

2015-01-01

Recent studies showed that the visceral information is constantly processed by the brain, thereby potentially influencing cognition. One index of such process is the heartbeat evoked potential (HEP), an ERP component related to the cortical processing of the heartbeat. The HEP is sensitive to a number of factors such as motivation, attention, pain, which are associated with higher levels of arousal. However, the role of arousal and its associated brain oscillations on the HEP has not been characterized, yet it could underlie the previous findings. Here we analysed the effects of high- (HA) and low-arousal (LA) induction on the HEP. Further, we investigated the brain oscillations and their role in the HEP in response to HA and LA inductions. As compared to LA, HA was associated with a higher HEP and lower alpha oscillations. Interestingly, individual differences in the HEP modulation by arousal induction were correlated with alpha oscillations. In particular, participants with higher alpha power during the arousal inductions showed a larger HEP in response to HA compared to LA. In summary, we demonstrated that arousal induction affects the cortical processing of heartbeats; and that the alpha oscillations may modulate this effect. PMID:26503014

A balancing act: physical balance, through arousal, influences size perception.

PubMed

Geuss, Michael N; Stefanucci, Jeanine K; de Benedictis-Kessner, Justin; Stevens, Nicholas R

2010-10-01

Previous research has demonstrated that manipulating vision influences balance. Here, we question whether manipulating balance can influence vision and how it may influence vision--specifically, the perception of width. In Experiment 1, participants estimated the width of beams while balanced and unbalanced. When unbalanced, participants judged the widths to be smaller. One possible explanation is that unbalanced participants did not view the stimulus as long as when balanced because they were focused on remaining balanced. In Experiment 2, we tested this notion by limiting viewing time. Experiment 2 replicated the findings of Experiment 1, but viewing time had no effect on width judgments. In Experiment 3, participants' level of arousal was manipulated, because the balancing task likely produced arousal. While jogging, participants judged the beams to be smaller. In Experiment 4, participants completed another arousing task (counting backward by sevens) that did not involve movement. Again, participants judged the beams to be smaller when aroused. Experiment 5A raised participants' level of arousal before estimating the board widths (to control for potential dual-task effects) and showed that heightened arousal still influenced perceived width of the boards. Collectively, heightened levels of arousal, caused by multiple manipulations (including balance), influenced perceived width.

Two Aspects of Activation: Arousal and Subjective Significance – Behavioral and Event-Related Potential Correlates Investigated by Means of a Modified Emotional Stroop Task

PubMed Central

Imbir, Kamil; Spustek, Tomasz; Bernatowicz, Gabriela; Duda, Joanna; Żygierewicz, Jarosław

2017-01-01

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. PMID:29311872

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

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

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.

A pilot study evaluating acute use of eszopiclone in patients with mild to moderate obstructive sleep apnea syndrome.

PubMed

Rosenberg, Russell; Roach, James M; Scharf, Martin; Amato, David A

2007-08-01

To evaluate the effects of eszopiclone on measures of respiration and sleep using polysomnography in patients with mild to moderate obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS). This double-blind, randomized crossover study included patients (35-64 years) with mild-to-moderate OSAS [apnea and hypopnea index (AHI) range 10 and 40]. Patients received either eszopiclone 3mg or placebo for two consecutive nights, with a 5-7 day washout between treatments. Continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) was not allowed on nights in the sleep laboratory. The primary endpoint, mean total AHI, was not significantly different from placebo (16.5 with placebo and 16.7 with eszopiclone; 90% confidence interval (CI) -1.7, 1.9). No significant differences in total arousals, respiratory arousals, duration of apnea and hypopnea episodes, or oxygen saturation were noted. Significant differences in spontaneous arousals (13.6 versus 11.4 for placebo and eszopiclone, respectively; 90% CI -3.7, -0.7), sleep efficiency (85.1% and 88.4%; p=0.0075), wake time after sleep onset (61.8 and 48.1 min; p=0.0125), and wake time during sleep (55.9 and 43.2 min; p=0.013) were noted after eszopiclone treatment. Eszopiclone was well tolerated. In this pilot study, eszopiclone did not worsen AHI, and it improved sleep maintenance and efficiency. Further study is warranted to determine whether eszopiclone could improve CPAP compliance or next-day function in patients with OSAS.

Preliminary Development of a Multidimensional Semantic Patient Experience Measurement Questionnaire.

PubMed

Kleiss, James A

2016-10-01

The purpose of this research was to assess the utility and reliability of a multidimensional patient experience measurement questionnaire in a clinical setting. Patient experience has emerged as an important metric for quality of healthcare. A number of separate concepts have been used to measure patient experience, but psychological research suggests that subjective experience is actually a composite of several independent concepts including: (a) evaluation/valence, (b) potency/control, (c) activity/arousal, and (d) novelty. The present research evaluates the reliability of a multidimensional patient experience measurement questionnaire in a clinical setting. A multidimensional semantic differential questionnaire was developed to measure the four underlying semantic dimensions of patient experience mentioned above. A group of 60 patients used the questionnaire to assess prescan expectations and postscan experience of a magnetic resonance scan. Data for one patient were deleted because their scan was interrupted. Results revealed more positive evaluation/valence, higher potency/control, and lower activity/arousal for postscan ratings compared to prescan expectations. Ratings of novelty were neutral in both the prescan and the postscan conditions. Subsequent analysis suggested that internal consistency for some concepts could be improved by replacing several specific rating scales. Present results provide evidence of the utility and reliability of a multidimensional semantic questionnaire for measuring patient experience in an actual clinical setting. Recommendations to improve internal consistency for the concepts potency/control, activity/arousal, and novelty were also provided. © The Author(s) 2016.

Arousal and locomotion make distinct contributions to cortical activity patterns and visual encoding

PubMed Central

Vinck, Martin; Batista-Brito, Renata; Knoblich, Ulf; Cardin, Jessica A.

2015-01-01

Spontaneous and sensory-evoked cortical activity is highly state-dependent, yet relatively little is known about transitions between distinct waking states. Patterns of activity in mouse V1 differ dramatically between quiescence and locomotion, but this difference could be explained by either motor feedback or a change in arousal levels. We recorded single cells and local field potentials from area V1 in mice head-fixed on a running wheel and monitored pupil diameter to assay arousal. Using naturally occurring and induced state transitions, we dissociated arousal and locomotion effects in V1. Arousal suppressed spontaneous firing and strongly altered the temporal patterning of population activity. Moreover, heightened arousal increased the signal-to-noise ratio of visual responses and reduced noise correlations. In contrast, increased firing in anticipation of and during movement was attributable to locomotion effects. Our findings suggest complementary roles of arousal and locomotion in promoting functional flexibility in cortical circuits. PMID:25892300

Tracking brain arousal fluctuations with fMRI

PubMed Central

Chang, Catie; Leopold, David A.; Schölvinck, Marieke Louise; Mandelkow, Hendrik; Picchioni, Dante; Liu, Xiao; Ye, Frank Q.; Turchi, Janita N.; Duyn, Jeff H.

2016-01-01

Changes in brain activity accompanying shifts in vigilance and arousal can interfere with the study of other intrinsic and task-evoked characteristics of brain function. However, the difficulty of tracking and modeling the arousal state during functional MRI (fMRI) typically precludes the assessment of arousal-dependent influences on fMRI signals. Here we combine fMRI, electrophysiology, and the monitoring of eyelid behavior to demonstrate an approach for tracking continuous variations in arousal level from fMRI data. We first characterize the spatial distribution of fMRI signal fluctuations that track a measure of behavioral arousal; taking this pattern as a template, and using the local field potential as a simultaneous and independent measure of cortical activity, we observe that the time-varying expression level of this template in fMRI data provides a close approximation of electrophysiological arousal. We discuss the potential benefit of these findings for increasing the sensitivity of fMRI as a cognitive and clinical biomarker. PMID:27051064

Assessing a five factor model of PTSD: is dysphoric arousal a unique PTSD construct showing differential relationships with anxiety and depression?

PubMed

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.

Turning on and turning off: a focus group study of the factors that affect women's sexual arousal.

PubMed

Graham, Cynthia A; Sanders, Stephanie A; Milhausen, Robin R; McBride, Kimberly R

2004-12-01

The aim of this study was to inform the development of a questionnaire to assess a woman's tendency to respond with sexual excitation/inhibition in different situations. Nine focus groups, involving 80 women (M age = 34.3 years; range, 18-84), were conducted. Women described a wide range of physical (genital and nongenital), cognitive/emotional, and behavioral cues to arousal. The relationship between sexual interest (desire) and sexual arousal was complex; sexual interest was reported as sometimes preceding arousal, but at other times following it. Many women did not clearly differentiate between arousal and interest. Qualitative data on the factors that women perceived as "enhancers" and "inhibitors" of sexual arousal are presented, with a focus on the following themes: feelings about one's body; concern about reputation; unwanted pregnancy/contraception; feeling desired versus feeling used by a partner; feeling accepted by a partner; style of approach/initiation; and negative mood. The findings can help inform conceptualizations of sexual arousal in women.

Gender-specific genital and subjective sexual arousal to prepotent sexual features in heterosexual women and men.

PubMed

Spape, Jessica; Timmers, Amanda D; Yoon, Samuel; Ponseti, Jorge; Chivers, Meredith L

2014-10-01

Heterosexual women respond genitally to stimuli featuring both their preferred and nonpreferred genders, whereas men's genital responses are gender-specific, suggesting that gender cues are less relevant to women's sexual response. Instead, prepotent sexual features (exposed and sexually aroused genitals), ubiquitous in audiovisual sexual stimuli, may elicit automatic genital responses, thereby leading to a nonspecific sexual arousal pattern in women. To examine the role of stimulus potency in women's sexual response, we assessed heterosexual women's and men's genital and subjective sexual arousal to slideshows of prepotent stimuli (erect penises and aroused vulvas), non-prepotent stimuli (flaccid penises and female pubic triangles), and sexually neutral stimuli. Contrary to our hypotheses, both women and men demonstrated gender-specific genital and subjective sexual arousal, such that sexual arousal was greatest to prepotent male and female stimuli, respectively. This is the first study to demonstrate gender-specific genital responding in heterosexual women. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Damage to Arousal-Promoting Brainstem Neurons with Traumatic Brain Injury.

PubMed

Valko, Philipp O; Gavrilov, Yuri V; Yamamoto, Mihoko; Noaín, Daniela; Reddy, Hasini; Haybaeck, Johannes; Weis, Serge; Baumann, Christian R; Scammell, Thomas E

2016-06-01

Coma and chronic sleepiness are common after traumatic brain injury (TBI). Here, we explored whether injury to arousal-promoting brainstem neurons occurs in patients with fatal TBI. Postmortem examination of 8 TBI patients and 10 controls. Compared to controls, TBI patients had 17% fewer serotonergic neurons in the dorsal raphe nucleus (effect size: 1.25), but the number of serotonergic neurons did not differ in the median raphe nucleus. TBI patients also had 29% fewer noradrenergic neurons in the locus coeruleus (effect size: 0.96). The number of cholinergic neurons in the pedunculopontine and laterodorsal tegmental nuclei (PPT/LDT) was similar in TBI patients and controls. TBI injures arousal-promoting neurons of the mesopontine tegmentum, but this injury is less severe than previously observed in hypothalamic arousal-promoting neurons. Most likely, posttraumatic arousal disturbances are not primarily caused by damage to these brainstem neurons, but arise from an aggregate of injuries, including damage to hypothalamic arousal nuclei and disruption of other arousal-related circuitries. © 2016 Associated Professional Sleep Societies, LLC.

Male bisexual arousal: a matter of curiosity?

PubMed

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.

Caffeine ingestion enhances perceptual responses during intermittent exercise in female team-game players.

PubMed

Ali, Ajmol; O'Donnell, Jemma; Von Hurst, Pamela; Foskett, Andrew; Holland, Sherina; Starck, Carlene; Rutherfurd-Markwick, Kay

2016-01-01

We examined the influence of caffeine supplementation on cognitive performance and perceptual responses in female team-game players taking low-dose monophasic oral contraceptives of the same hormonal composition. Ten females (24 ± 4 years; 59.7 ± 3.5 kg body mass; 2-6 training sessions per week) took part in a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover-design trial. A 90-min intermittent treadmill-running protocol was completed 60 min following ingestion of a capsule containing either 6 mg • kg(-1) anhydrous caffeine or artificial sweetener (placebo). Perceptual responses (ratings of perceived exertion (RPE), feeling scale (FS), felt arousal scale (FAS)), mood (profile of mood states (POMS)) and cognitive performance (Stroop test, choice reaction time (CRT)) were completed before, during and after the exercise protocol, as well as after ~12 h post exercise. Caffeine ingestion significantly enhanced the ratings of pleasure (P = 0.008) and arousal (P = 0.002) during the exercise protocol, as well as increased vigour (POMS; P = 0.007), while there was a tendency for reduced fatigue (POMS; P = 0.068). Caffeine ingestion showed a tendency to decrease RPE (P = 0.068) and improve reaction times in the Stroop (P = 0.072) and CRT (P = 0.087) tests. Caffeine supplementation showed a positive effect on perceptual parameters by increasing vigour and a tendency to decrease fatigue during intermittent running activity in female games players taking low-dose monophasic oral contraceptive steroids (OCS).

Three Human Attributes

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Eaves, Ronald C.; Williams, Thomas O., Jr.

2004-01-01

This study represents a beginning step in research that may ultimately show that the multitudes of human behavior that educators currently encounter may be reduced to three broad human attributes: arousal, affect, and cognition. The resulting simplicity should lead to improved understanding and better decision making by practitioners. Four…

Emotional valence and arousal interact in attentional control.

PubMed

Jefferies, Lisa N; Smilek, Daniel; Eich, Eric; Enns, James T

2008-03-01

A recent study demonstrated that observers' ability to identify targets in a rapid visual sequence was enhanced when they simultaneously listened to happy music. In the study reported here, we examined how the emotion-attention relationship is influenced by changes in both mood valence (negative vs. positive) and arousal (low vs. high). We used a standard induction procedure to generate calm, happy, sad, and anxious moods in participants. Results for an attentional blink task showed no differences in first-target accuracy, but second-target accuracy was highest for participants with low arousal and negative affect (sad), lowest for those with strong arousal and negative affect (anxious), and intermediate for those with positive affect regardless of their arousal (calm, happy). We discuss implications of this valence-arousal interaction for the control of visual attention.

The Neuropeptides FLP-2 and PDF-1 Act in Concert To Arouse Caenorhabditis elegans Locomotion.

PubMed

Chen, Didi; Taylor, Kelsey P; Hall, Qi; Kaplan, Joshua M

2016-11-01

During larval molts, Caenorhabditis elegans exhibits a sleep-like state (termed lethargus) that is characterized by the absence of feeding and profound locomotion quiescence. The rhythmic pattern of locomotion quiescence and arousal linked to the molting cycle is mediated by reciprocal changes in sensory responsiveness, whereby arousal is associated with increased responsiveness. Sensory neurons arouse locomotion via release of a neuropeptide (PDF-1) and glutamate. Here we identify a second arousing neuropeptide (FLP-2). We show that FLP-2 acts via an orexin-like receptor (FRPR-18), and that FLP-2 and PDF-1 secretion are regulated by reciprocal positive feedback. These results suggest that the aroused behavioral state is stabilized by positive feedback between two neuropeptides. Copyright © 2016 by the Genetics Society of America.

Effects of Fear-Arousing Components of Driver Education on Students' Safety Attitudes and Simulator Performance

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Griffeth, Rodger W.; Rogers, Ronald W.

1976-01-01

Examining the effects of the noxiousness of an automobile accident, probability of being in an accident, and efficacy of safe driving practices on driver education students, the results disclosed that all three independent variables affected attitudes toward safety, and performance on the simulator. (Author/BW)

Vicarious and Persuasive Influences on Efficacy Expectations and Intentions To Perform Breast Self-Examination.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Anderson, Ronald B.

2000-01-01

Tests the impact of symbolic modeling and persuasive efficacy information on self-efficacy beliefs and intentions to perform breast self-examinations among 147 undergraduate students. Assesses the effects of these modes of efficacy induction on fear arousal and response-outcome expectations. Finds symbolic modeling engendered greater efficacy…

Arousal from Sleep Does Not Lead to Reduced Dilator Muscle Activity or Elevated Upper Airway Resistance on Return to Sleep in Healthy Individuals

PubMed Central

Jordan, Amy S.; Cori, Jennifer M.; Dawson, Andrew; Nicholas, Christian L.; O'Donoghue, Fergal J.; Catcheside, Peter G.; Eckert, Danny J.; McEvoy, R. Doug; Trinder, John

2015-01-01

Study Objectives: To compare changes in end-tidal CO2, genioglossus muscle activity and upper airway resistance following tone-induced arousal and the return to sleep in healthy individuals with small and large ventilatory responses to arousal. Design: Observational study. Setting: Two sleep physiology laboratories. Patients or Participants: 35 men and 25 women with no medical or sleep disorders. Interventions: Auditory tones to induce 3-s to 15-s cortical arousals from sleep. Measurements and Results: During arousal from sleep, subjects with large ventilatory responses to arousal had higher ventilation (by analytical design) and tidal volume, and more marked reductions in the partial pressure of end-tidal CO2 compared to subjects with small ventilatory responses to arousal. However, following the return to sleep, ventilation, genioglossus muscle activity, and upper airway resistance did not differ between high and low ventilatory response groups (Breath 1 on return to sleep: ventilation 6.7 ± 0.4 and 5.5 ± 0.3 L/min, peak genioglossus activity 3.4% ± 1.0% and 4.8% ± 1.0% maximum, upper airway resistance 4.7 ± 0.7 and 5.5 ± 1.0 cm H2O/L/s, respectively). Furthermore, dilator muscle activity did not fall below the pre-arousal sleeping level and upper airway resistance did not rise above the pre-arousal sleeping level in either group for 10 breaths following the return to sleep. Conclusions: Regardless of the magnitude of the ventilatory response to arousal from sleep and subsequent reduction in PETCO2, healthy individuals did not develop reduced dilator muscle activity nor increased upper airway resistance, indicative of partial airway collapse, on the return to sleep. These findings challenge the commonly stated notion that arousals predispose to upper airway obstruction. Citation: Jordan AS, Cori JM, Dawson A, Nicholas CL, O'Donoghue FJ, Catcheside PG, Eckert DJ, McEvoy RD, Trinder J. Arousal from sleep does not lead to reduced dilator muscle activity or elevated upper airway resistance on return to sleep in healthy individuals. SLEEP 2015;38(1):53–59. PMID:25325511

Esophageal sensation in premature human neonates: temporal relationships and implications of aerodigestive reflexes and electrocortical arousals

PubMed Central

Parks, Vanessa N.; Peng, Juan; Dzodzomenyo, Samuel; Fernandez, Soledad; Shaker, Reza; Splaingard, Mark

2012-01-01

Electrocortical arousal (ECA) as an effect of visceral provocation or of its temporal relationships with aerodigestive reflexes in premature neonates is not known. We tested the hypothesis that esophageal provocation results in both esophageal reflex responses and ECAs during sleep and that ECAs are dependent on the frequency characteristics of esophageal neuromotor responses. We defined the spatiotemporal relationship of ECAs in relation to 1) spontaneous pharyngoesophageal swallow sequences and gastroesophageal reflux (GER) events and 2) sensory-motor characteristics of esophageal reflexes. Sixteen healthy premature neonates born at 27.9 ± 3.4 wk were tested at 36.8 ± 1.9 wk postmenstrual age. Ninety-five midesophageal and 31 sham stimuli were given in sleep during concurrent manometry and videopolysomnography. With stimulus onset as reference point, we scored the response latency, frequency occurrence and duration of arousals, peristaltic reflex, and upper esophageal sphincter contractile reflex (UESCR). Changes in polysomnography-respiratory patterns and esophageal sensory-motor parameters were scored by blinded observers. Significantly (for each characteristic listed, P < 0.05), swallow sequences were associated with arousals and sleep state changes, and arousals were associated with incomplete peristalsis, response delays to lower esophageal sphincter relaxation, and prolonged esophageal clearance. GER events (73.5%) provoked arousals, and arousals were associated with response delays to peristaltic reflexes or clearance, sleep state modification, and prolonged respiratory arousal. Midesophageal stimuli (54%) provoked arousals and were associated with increased frequency, prolonged latency, prolonged response duration of peristaltic reflexes and UESCR, and increased frequency of sleep state changes and respiratory arousals. In human neonates, ECAs are provoked upon esophageal stimulation; the sensory-motor characteristics of esophageal reflexes are distinct when accompanied by arousals. Aerodigestive homeostasis is defended by multiple tiers of aerodigestive safety mechanisms, and when esophageal reflexes are delayed, cortical hypervigilance (ECAs) occurs. PMID:21852361

Effects of valence and arousal on emotional word processing are modulated by concreteness: Behavioral and ERP evidence from a lexical decision task.

PubMed

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.

Sexual Health

MedlinePlus

... in your sex life relating to things like: sexual performance reduced arousal pain during sex general lack of interest loss of climax (orgasm) worry or anxiety that interferes with sex reduced frequency of sex physical obstacles arising from a disease or health condition ...