Specialization of amygdala subregions in emotion processing.

The amygdala is important for human fear processing. However, recent research has failed to reveal specificity, with evidence that the amygdala also responds to other emotions. A more nuanced understanding of the amygdala's role in emotion processing, particularly relating to fear, is needed given the importance of effective emotional functioning for everyday function and mental health.

Self-initiating and applying episodic foresight in middle childhood.

This study provides an important extension to the growing literature on prospection in children by providing the first test of whether one's ability to engage in the functional (as opposed to the purely phenomenological) aspect of episodic foresight improves across middle childhood. Of the various forms of prospection, episodic foresight has been proposed to be one of the most flexible and functionally powerful, defined as the ability to not only imagine future events (simulative aspect) but also use those imaginings to guide behavior in the present (functional aspect). The current study tested 80 typically developing children aged 8 to 12 years using an extensive cognitive battery comprising Virtual Week Foresight, the Autobiographical Interview, and a series of crystallized and fluid intelligence measures.

Cognitive Reappraisal Impairs Negative Affect Regulation in the Context of Social Rejection for Youth With Early-Stage Borderline Personality Disorder.

Application of emotion regulation strategies might be susceptible to the context of social rejection for individuals with borderline personality disorder (BPD). This study compared the ability of 27 outpatient youths (15-25 years old) with early-stage BPD and 37 healthy controls (HC) to apply expressive suppression and cognitive reappraisal in standard and socially rejecting laboratory contexts. BPD youths were largely as able as HCs to regulate negative affect across instruction and contexts.

Episodic foresight is impaired following acute alcohol intoxication.

Background: Alcohol intoxication disrupts many aspects of cognition, including the generation of phenomenological characteristics of future events (a component of episodic foresight), and the execution of directed preparatory behaviours (a component of prospective memory). However, no study has tested whether alcohol intoxication is also associated with deficits engaging episodic foresight to future-directed behaviour.

Aims: This study was designed to provide the first test of how alcohol intoxication influences the functional application of episodic foresight.

Concordance in salivary cortisol and subjective anxiety to the trier social stress test in social anxiety disorder.

Background: Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is characterised by an excessive fear of negative social evaluation. There is a limited understanding of how individuals with SAD react physiologically and subjectively to social stress.

Method: The Trier Social Stress Test (TSST), an acute social stress task, was completed by 40 SAD individuals (50% female) and 41 healthy controls (matched on age, sex, and education) to examine salivary cortisol and self-reported stress reactivity.

Deficits in episodic future thinking following acute alcohol consumption.

Rationale: Acute alcohol consumption adversely affects many cognitive abilities, including episodic memory and executive functioning. However, no study to date has tested whether these acute effects of alcohol also extend to episodic future thinking (EFT). This is a surprising omission given that EFT refers to the ability to imagine oneself experiencing the future, a highly adaptive ability that has been implicated in many important functional behaviours.

Prospective memory deficits following acute alcohol consumption.

Background: Prospective memory is a critical neurocognitive capacity that refers to the ability to execute delayed intentions. To date, few studies have investigated the effects of acute alcohol consumption on prospective memory, and important questions remain about the mechanisms that might underpin acute alcohol-induced prospective memory impairment.

Aims: The current study sought to clarify the nature and magnitude of prospective memory difficulties following acute alcohol consumption and to test the degree to which any problems with prospective remembering might be a secondary consequence of broader cognitive impairment.

Patterns of brain function associated with cannabis cue-reactivity in regular cannabis users: a systematic review of fMRI studies.

Rationale: Regular cannabis use (i.e. ≥ monthly) is highly prevalent, with past year use being reported by ~ 200 million people globally.

Sex differences in the neuroanatomy of alcohol dependence: hippocampus and amygdala subregions in a sample of 966 people from the ENIGMA Addiction Working Group.

Males and females with alcohol dependence have distinct mental health and cognitive problems. Animal models of addiction postulate that the underlying neurobiological mechanisms are partially distinct, but there is little evidence of sex differences in humans with alcohol dependence as most neuroimaging studies have been conducted in males. We examined hippocampal and amygdala subregions in a large sample of 966 people from the ENIGMA Addiction Working Group.

Implementation intentions and prospective memory function in late adulthood.

Prospective memory (PM) is a critically important component of memory that often declines in late adulthood. Implementation intentions, an encoding strategy, consisting of an explicit if-then "I will . .

Differences in time-based task characteristics help to explain the age-prospective memory paradox.

Prior prospective memory (PM) research shows paradoxical findings-young adults outperform older adults in laboratory settings, but the reverse is found in naturalistic settings. Moreover, young-old outperform old-old adults in laboratory settings, but show no age differences in naturalistic settings. Here we highlight how time-based task characteristics have differed systematically between studies conducted in laboratory (time-interval cues) and naturalistic settings (time-of-day cues) and argue that this apparent paradox is a function of comparing disparate task types.

Rapid facial mimicry responses are preserved in youth with first presentation borderline personality disorder.

Background: Empathy is a complex and multifaceted construct comprising cognitive and affective components. Abnormal empathic responses are implicated in borderline personality disorder (BPD). Specifically, unconscious motor mimicry (a primitive component of affective empathy evident from infancy) is theorized to be heightened and to contribute to the heightened emotional contagion often seen in people with BPD.

Task characteristics influence facial emotion recognition age-effects: A meta-analytic review.

Relative to their young counterparts, older adults are poorer at recognizing facial expressions. A 2008 meta-analysis of 17 facial emotion recognition data sets showed that these age-related difficulties are not uniform. Rather, they are greatest for the emotions of anger, fear, and sadness, comparative with happiness and surprise, with no age-effect found for disgust.

A meta-analytic review of prospection deficits in Parkinson's disease.

Parkinson's disease (PD) is one of the most common neurodegenerative disorders, and is associated with prominent motor deficits. However, neurocognitive impairment is also a common clinical feature that can contribute greatly to the overall disease burden. In the current study, a meta-analysis was conducted to gain a clearer understanding of how PD affects one of the most functionally important domains of cognition: prospection.

An introductory guide to conducting the Trier Social Stress Test.

The Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) is a reliable biopsychological tool to examine the effects of acute stress on psychological and physiological functioning in humans. While the TSST reliably increases hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis activation, amongst other biomarkers, through a combination of social evaluative threat and uncontrollability, the original protocol is limited in methodological detail that has impacted its reproducibility. Although many studies include a mock job interview and surprise arithmetic task, there are large variations in the timing of events, the number and method of biological (e.

Social cognition impairments in long-term opiate users in treatment.

Background: Long-term opiate users experience pervasive social difficulties, but there has been surprisingly limited research focused on social-cognitive functioning in this population.

Aim: The aim of this study was to investigate whether three important aspects of social cognition (facial emotion recognition, theory of mind (ToM) and rapid facial mimicry) differ between long-term opiate users and healthy controls.

Methods: The participants were 25 long-term opiate users who were enrolled in opiate substitution programmes, and 25 healthy controls.

Age Differences in Emotion Regulation and Facial Muscle Reactivity to Emotional Films.

Background: Age-related declines in many cognitive abilities are common in healthy aging. However, the ability to effectively regulate emotions is preserved, and possibly even enhanced, in late adulthood. This capacity has been examined most commonly in relation to low-intensity emotional stimuli that typically involve static pictures.

A comparison of different types of prospective memory reminders in schizophrenia.

People with schizophrenia often experience difficulties with prospective memory (PM), but few empirical studies have directly compared the effectiveness of different types of reminders in remediating these difficulties. In the present study, two distinct types of reminders were compared to a standard (no reminder) condition in outpatients with schizophrenia (n = 30) and controls (n = 30). Using an adapted version of the well-validated laboratory PM measure, Virtual Week, participants were asked to complete three different conditions (counterbalanced), in which they were (i) provided with access to self-initiated reminders, (ii) provided with experimenter-initiated reminders, and (iii) completed a standard (no-reminder) condition.

The relationship between episodic future thinking and prospective memory in middle childhood: Mechanisms depend on task type.

Episodic future thinking (EFT), the ability to imagine experiencing a future event, and prospective memory (PM), the ability to remember and carry out a planned action, are core aspects of future-oriented cognition that have individually been the focus of research attention in the developmental literature. However, the relationship between EFT and PM, including the extent to which it varies with PM task type, remains poorly delineated, particularly in middle childhood. The current study tested this relationship in 62 typically developing children aged 8-12 years.

The relationship between body dysmorphic disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder: A systematic review of direct comparative studies.

Objective: Current nosology conceptualises body dysmorphic disorder as being related to obsessive-compulsive disorder, but the direct evidence to support this conceptualisation is mixed. In this systematic review, we aimed to provide an integrated overview of research that has directly compared body dysmorphic disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Method: The PubMed database was searched for empirical studies which had directly compared body dysmorphic disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder groups across any subject matter.

Episodic foresight deficits in regular, but not recreational, cannabis users.

Background: Cannabis use is associated with a range of neurocognitive deficits, including impaired episodic memory. However, no study to date has assessed whether these difficulties extend to episodic foresight, a core component of which is the ability to mentally travel into one's personal future. This is a particularly surprising omission given that episodic memory is considered to be critical to engage episodic foresight.