Feelings are Messy: The Feelings We Study in Affective Science Should Be Too.

Affective science has taken up the challenge of building a bridge between basic affective science and practical applications. The articles in the Future of Affective Science issue lay out methodological and conceptual frameworks that allow us to expand affective science into real-world settings and to handle naturalistic methods. Along with these advances, accomplishing this goal will require additionally refocusing the types of experiences we study, and the measures of experience we are interested in.

Intrinsic connectivity demonstrates a shared role of the posterior cingulate for cue reactivity in both gambling and cocaine use disorders.

Cue reactivity is relevant across addictive disorders as a process relevant to maintenance, relapse, and craving. Understanding the neurobiological foundations of cue reactivity across substance and behavioral addictions has important implications for intervention development. The present study used intrinsic connectivity distribution methods to examine functional connectivity during a cue-exposure fMRI task involving gambling, cocaine and sad videos in 22 subjects with gambling disorder, 24 with cocaine use disorder, and 40 healthy comparison subjects.

Neural patterns associated with mixed valence feelings differ in consistency and predictability throughout the brain.

Mixed feelings, the simultaneous presence of feelings with positive and negative valence, remain an understudied topic. They pose a specific set of challenges due to individual variation, and their investigation requires analtyic approaches focusing on individually self-reported states. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to scan 27 subjects watching an animated short film chosen to induce bittersweet mixed feelings.

Neural correlates of inhibitory control in the context of infant cry and paternal postpartum mental health.

Background: Inhibitory control, a form of self-regulation, may support sensitive parenting, but has been understudied in new fathers despite their pronounced risk for stress and mental health challenges.

Methods: This study probed the neural correlates of inhibitory control and its associations to first-time fathers' postpartum mental health, focusing on depressive symptoms, state anxiety, and perceived stress. Six months after their child's birth, 38 fathers self-reported on their mood, anxiety, and stress, and performed a Go/No-Go fMRI task while listening to three sets of sounds (infant cry, pink noise, and silence).

Preventing antisocial robots: A pathway to artificial empathy.

Given the accelerating powers of artificial intelligence (AI), we must equip artificial agents and robots with empathy to prevent harmful and irreversible decisions. Current approaches to artificial empathy focus on its cognitive or performative processes, overlooking affect, and thus promote sociopathic behaviors. Artificially vulnerable, fully empathic AI is necessary to prevent sociopathic robots and protect human welfare.

Moral reframing of messages about mask-wearing during the COVID-19 pandemic.

When communicating about political issues, messages targeted to resonate with the core values of the receiver may be effective, an approach known as moral reframing. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we tested the relationships between moral values and mask-wearing in a sample (N = 540) of self-identified liberals, conservatives, and moderates in the United States. Anti-mask attitudes were stronger in conservatives, and were associated with increased concerns for in-group loyalty, national identity, and personal liberty.

Perspective-taking is associated with increased discriminability of affective states in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex.

Recent work using multivariate-pattern analysis (MVPA) on functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data has found that distinct affective states produce correspondingly distinct patterns of neural activity in the cerebral cortex. However, it is unclear whether individual differences in the distinctiveness of neural patterns evoked by affective stimuli underlie empathic abilities such as perspective-taking (PT). Accordingly, we examined whether we could predict PT tendency from the classification of blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) fMRI activation patterns while participants (n = 57) imagined themselves in affectively charged scenarios.

Functional Brain Connectivity During Narrative Processing Relates to Transportation and Story Influence.

Engaging with narratives involves a complex array of cognitive and affective processes. These processes make stories persuasive in ways that standard arguments are not, though the underlying reasons for this remain unclear. Transportation theory proposes a potential explanation for this: narratives are processed in a way which makes individuals feel immersed in the world of a story, which in turn leads people to resonate emotionally with the events of the story.

Bittersweet: The Neuroscience of Ambivalent Affect.

Ambivalent affective states, such as bittersweetness, nostalgia, and longing, which are felt as having both positive and negative aspects, are an important component of human experience but have received little attention. The most influential theoretical frameworks in affective neuroscience focus largely on univalenced states. As a result, it is not known whether ambivalent affect corresponds to a simultaneously positive and negative valenced state or whether it results from a rapid vacillation between positive and negative states.

Diagnostic and Classification Considerations Regarding Gaming Disorder: Neurocognitive and Neurobiological Features.

Video gaming and Internet use have become a part of the everyday lives of many individuals, especially during adolescence. Given the health concerns related to problematic gaming behaviors, gaming disorder (GD) has been included in the version of the 11th edition of (ICD-11) ratified by the secretariat of the World Health Organization. Given these considerations and others (including debate regarding the most appropriate classification of GD and how best to prevent and treat the condition), there is a need for further research into GD.

Thinking about thinking: A coordinate-based meta-analysis of neuroimaging studies of metacognitive judgements.

Metacognition supports reflection upon and control of other cognitive processes. Despite metacognition occupying a central role in human psychology, its neural substrates remain underdetermined, partly due to study-specific differences in task domain and type of metacognitive judgement under study. It is also unclear how metacognition relates to other apparently similar abilities that depend on recursive thought such as theory of mind or mentalising.

Concomitant use of an active boosted protease inhibitor with enfuvirtide in treatment-experienced, HIV-infected individuals: recent data and consensus recommendations.

Recent data from clinical trials investigating the efficacy of enfuvirtide, a fusion inhibitor, in treatment-experienced patients have revealed that the addition of enfuvirtide (ENF) to an active boosted protease inhibitor regimen doubles the rate of virological response. At week 48 of the TORO studies, 55% of patients previously naive to and receiving lopinavir/ritonavir (LPV/r) with ENF achieved a viral load of <400 copies/mL compared with 24% of patients treated with LPV/r alone. At week 24 of the RESIST studies, 70% of previously ENF-naive patients who took both ENF and tipranavir/ritonavir (TPV/r) achieved a >or=1 log10 reduction in viral load compared with 37% of such patients treated with TPV/r alone.