The social readjustment rating scale: Updated and modernised.

The Social Readjustment Rating Scale, originally devised in 1967 by Holmes and Rahe, measures the impact of life events stress. At the time, the SRRS advanced its field of research by standardising the impact of stress with a set of independently derived weights called 'life change units' (LCUs) for 43 life events found to predict illness onset. The scale has been criticised for being outdated, e.

Do non-traumatic stressful life events and ageing negatively impact working memory performance and do they interact to further impair working memory performance?

Stress and normal ageing produce allostatic load, which may lead to difficulties with cognition thereby degrading quality of life. The current study's objective was to assess whether ageing and cumulative stress interact to accelerate cognitive decline. With 60 participants, Marshall et al.

Examining the role of attention during feature binding in visuospatial working memory.

The current experiments address the enduring debate regarding the role of attention in feature binding in visuospatial working memory by considering the nature of the to-be-bound features, i.e., whether they are intrinsic (integrated within the object, such as its color and shape) or extrinsic (not part of the object, such as its spatial location).

Outdoor recreational activity experiences improve psychological wellbeing of military veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder: Positive findings from a pilot study and a randomised controlled trial.

The authors confirm that all ongoing and related trials for this intervention are registered. The studies reported in this manuscript are registered as clinical trials at ISRCTN: Pilot ID- ISRCTN15325073 RCT ID- ISRCTN59395217.

Future preferences and prospection of future of outcomes: Independent yet specific associations with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.

Introduction: Symptoms of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and conduct problems have been associated with heightened temporal discounting of reward value resulting in a preference for immediate over delayed outcomes. We examined the cross-sectional relationship between future preference (including intertemporal choice) and prospection (the ability to bring to mind and imagine the experience of future personally-relevant events and outcomes) in adolescents with a range of ADHD symptoms and aggressive behaviour.

Methods: A combination of behavioural tasks and self-reports measured intertemporal decision making, individual differences in preference for future outcomes and experience of prospection in a convenience sample of English adolescents aged 11-17 (n = 64, 43.

Children's mental health and recreation: Limited evidence for associations with screen use.

Aim: This study examined the direct and indirect associations between childhood psychopathology symptoms, screen use, media multitasking and participation in non-digital recreation.

Methods: Psychopathology symptoms, media use, media multitasking, participation in sports, social clubs and reading/games were reported by 520 parents about their 3- to 11-year-old children. The data were analysed using structural equation modelling.

What helps children learn difficult tasks: A teacher's presence may be worth more than a screen.

Aims: What helps children learn: is it a presence of a live teacher or an interaction with the learning materials? Addressing this question, we manipulated a teacher's presence (on-screen vs. present) and activity (observing vs. doing) while teaching children about the properties of geometric shapes.

The Short-Term Effect of Video Editing Pace on Children's Inhibition and N2 and P3 ERP Components during Visual Go/No-Go Task.

We investigated the immediate consequences of differently paced videos on behaviour and neural activity during response inhibition. Forty 7-year-olds watched a fast- or slow-paced video and completed a go/no-go task. Compared to the slow-paced-video group, children in the fast-paced-video group made more no-go errors.

Prefrontal transcranial alternating current stimulation improves motor sequence reproduction.

Cortical activity in frontal, parietal, and motor regions during sequence observation correlates with performance on sequence reproduction. Increased cortical activity observed during observation has therefore been suggested to represent increased learning. Causal relationships have been demonstrated between M1 and motor sequence reproduction and between parietal cortex and bimanual learning.

Cognitive Interpretation Bias: The Effect of a Single Session Moderate Exercise Protocol on Anxiety and Depression.

Research conducted within the cognitive bias modification (CBM) paradigm has revealed that cognitive biases such as negative cognitive interpretation biases contribute to mental health disorders such as anxiety (Beard, 2011). It has been shown that exercise reduces anxiety (Ensari et al., 2015).

The speed of parietal theta frequency drives visuospatial working memory capacity.

The speed of theta brain oscillatory activity is thought to play a key role in determining working memory (WM) capacity. Individual differences in the length of a theta cycle (ranging between 4 and 7 Hz) might determine how many gamma cycles (>30 Hz) can be nested into a theta wave. Gamma cycles are thought to represent single memory items; therefore, this interplay could determine individual memory capacity.

When you can, scale up: Large-scale study shows no effect of tDCS in an ambiguous risk-taking task.

Background: A wide range of neuroimaging and neuromodulation studies have shown that the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) plays a pivotal role in decision-making. Of particular interest is the question of its role in decision-making when conditions are uncertain and whether manipulating this neural substrate through neuromodulation changes subsequent risk-taking behaviour. Previous work using the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART) suggests that bilateral tDCS stimulation of the DLPFC reduces risk-taking behaviour but unilateral stimulation has no effect.

The association between high levels of cumulative life stress and aberrant resting state EEG dynamics in old age.

Cumulative experienced stress produces shortcomings in old adults' cognitive performance. These are reflected in electrophysiological changes tied to task execution. This study explored whether stress-related aberrations in older adults' electroencephalographic (EEG) activity were also apparent in the system at rest.

Differential effects of film on preschool children's behaviour dependent on editing pace.

Aim: Evidence on how the pace of television and film editing affects children's behaviour and attention is inconclusive. We examined whether a fast-paced film affected how preschool-aged children interacted with toys.

Methods: The study comprised 70 children (36 girls) aged two to four-and-a-half years who attended preschools in Essex, United Kingdom.

Transcranial alternating current stimulation to the inferior parietal lobe decreases mu suppression to egocentric, but not allocentric hand movements.

Egocentric vs. allocentric perspective during observation of hand movements has been related to self-other differentiation such that movements observed from an egocentric viewpoint have been considered as self-related while movements observed from an allocentric viewpoint have been considered as belonging to someone else. Correlational studies have generally found that egocentric perspective induces greater neurophysiological responses and larger behavioral effects compared to an allocentric perspective.

Touchscreen generation: children's current media use, parental supervision methods and attitudes towards contemporary media.

Aim: To explore media preferences and use among young children, as well as to obtain information about parental supervision methods and beliefs about media.

Method: Ninety parents of three- to six-year-olds, recruited from a relatively economically advantaged area in the United Kingdom, completed a media opinion survey.

Results: Although traditional television remains the favourite type of media platform among young children, touchscreen devices are gaining in popularity, and may promote simultaneous multi-screen use.

Culture shapes empathic responses to physical and social pain.

The present research investigates the extent to which cultural background moderates empathy in response to observing someone undergoing physical or social pain. In 3 studies, we demonstrate that East Asian and White British participants differ in both affective and cognitive components of their empathic reactions in response to someone else's pain. Compared with East Asian participants, British participants report greater empathic concern and show lower empathic accuracy.

Perceived Comfort and Blinding Efficacy in Randomised Sham-Controlled Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) Trials at 2 mA in Young and Older Healthy Adults.

Background: tDCS studies typically find that: lowest levels of comfort occur at stimulation-onset; young adult participants experience less comfort than older participants; and participants' blinding seems effective at low current strengths. At 2 mA conflicting results have been reported, questioning the effectiveness of blinding in sham-controlled paradigms using higher current strengths. Investigator blinding is rarely reported.

Experienced stress produces inhibitory deficits in old adults' Flanker task performance: First evidence for lifetime stress effects beyond memory.

Studies regarding aged individuals' performance on the Flanker task differ with respect to reporting impaired or intact executive control. Past work has explained this discrepancy by hypothesising that elderly individuals use increased top-down control mechanisms advantageous to Flanker performance. This study investigated this mechanism, focussing on cumulative experienced stress as a factor that may impact on its execution, thereby leading to impaired performance.

The impact of experienced stress on aged spatial discrimination: Cortical overreliance as a result of hippocampal impairment.

A large body of neuroscientific work indicates that exposure to experienced stress causes damage to both cortical and hippocampal cells and results in impairments to cognitive abilities associated with these structures. Similarly, work within the domain of cognitive aging demonstrates that elderly participants who report experiencing greater amounts of stress show reduced levels of cognitive functioning. The present article attempted to combine both findings by collecting data from elderly and young participants who completed a spatial discrimination paradigm developed by Reagh and colleagues [Reagh et al.

The effects of long-term stress exposure on aging cognition: a behavioral and EEG investigation.

A large field of research seeks to explore and understand the factors that may cause different rates of age-related cognitive decline within the general population. However, the impact of experienced stress on the human aging process has remained an under-researched possibility. This study explored the association between cumulative stressful experiences and cognitive aging, addressing whether higher levels of experienced stress correlate with impaired performance on 2 working memory tasks.

The effect of rTMS over the inferior parietal lobule on EEG sensorimotor reactivity differs according to self-reported traits of autism in typically developing individuals.

Previous research suggested that EEG markers of mirror neuron system activation may differ, in the normal population as a function of different levels of the autistic spectrum quotient; (AQ). The present study aimed at modulating the EEG sensorimotor reactivity induced by hand movement observation by means of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) applied to the inferior parietal lobule. We examined how the resulting rTMS modulation differed in relation to the self-reported autistic traits in the typically developing population.

Perception of comfort during active and sham transcranial direct current stimulation: a double blind study.

Background: A limited number of studies have assessed the tolerability and comfort experienced while undertaking transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS).

Objective: This study intended to assess tolerability and the level of comfort experienced in a large sample of participants undertaking tDCS for 30 min at 2 mA of current strength. Moreover, we assessed whether sham and active stimulation are indistinguishable.

Beta event-related desynchronization as an index of individual differences in processing human facial expression: further investigations of autistic traits in typically developing adults.

The human mirror neuron system (hMNS) has been associated with various forms of social cognition and affective processing including vicarious experience. It has also been proposed that a faulty hMNS may underlie some of the deficits seen in the autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). In the present study we set out to investigate whether emotional facial expressions could modulate a putative EEG index of hMNS activation (mu suppression) and if so, would this differ according to the individual level of autistic traits [high versus low Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ) score].

Bridging a yawning chasm: EEG investigations into the debate concerning the role of the human mirror neuron system in contagious yawning.

Ongoing debate in the literature concerns whether there is a link between contagious yawning and the human mirror neuron system (hMNS). One way of examining this issue is with the use of the electroencephalogram (EEG) to measure changes in mu activation during the observation of yawns. Mu oscillations are seen in the alpha bandwidth of the EEG (8-12 Hz) over sensorimotor areas.