The "Wear and Tear" of the Organism in Temporomandibular Disorders: A Pilot Study Investigating the Effects of Allostatic Load on Heart Rate Variability and Inhibitory Control.

Temporomandibular disorders (TMDs) are the most common cause of non-dental chronic pain in the orofacial region and can chronically increase the activity of the allostatic systems. The allostatic overload related to these conditions causes an autonomic dysregulation, reflected by a reduction in heart rate variability (HRV). Nevertheless, chronic pain in these patients could cause more severe health consequences, such as those related to cognitive functioning.

Brain mechanisms discriminating enactive mental simulations of running and plogging.

Enactive cognition emphasizes co-constructive roles of humans and their environment in shaping cognitive processes. It is specifically engaged in the mental simulation of behaviors, enhancing the connection between perception and action. Here we investigated the core network of brain regions involved in enactive cognition as applied to mental simulations of physical exercise.

Can transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation mitigate vigilance loss? Examining the effects of stimulation at individualized versus constant current intensity.

According to the arousal model of vigilance, the locus coeruleus-norepinephrine (LC-NE) system modulates sustained attention over long periods by regulating physiological arousal. Recent research has proposed that transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation (taVNS) modulates indirect physiological markers of LC-NE activity, although its effects on vigilance have not yet been examined. Aiming to develop a safe and noninvasive procedure to prevent vigilance failures in prolonged tasks, the present study examined whether taVNS can mitigate vigilance loss while modulating indirect markers of LC-NE activity.

Does personality affect the cognitive decline in aging? A systematic review.

Cognitive decline is a natural consequence of aging, but several genetic, environmental, and psychological factors can influence its trajectories. Among the most enduring factors, the Big Five personality traits - defined as relatively stable tendencies to think, behave, and react to the environment - can influence both directly (e.g.

Long-term effects of daylight saving time on driving fatigue.

The study of the relationship between Daylight Saving Time (DST) and road safety has yielded contrasting results, most likely in relation to the inability of crash-database approaches to unravel positive (ambient lighting-related) and negative (circadian/sleep-related) effects, and to significant geographical differences in lighting-related effects. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of DST on driving fatigue, as measured by driving-based, physiological and subjective indicators obtained from a driving simulator experiment. Thirty-seven participants (73 % males, 23 ± 2 years) completed a series of 50-min trials in a monotonous highway environment: Trial 1 was in the week prior to the Spring DST transition, Trial 2 in the following week, and Trial 3 in the fourth week after the transition.

Cortisol Synchrony in Psychotherapy for Major Depressive Disorder.

Introduction: Accumulating research emphasizes the role of interpersonal coordination in arousal levels, which may manifest as cortisol synchrony, in interpersonal interactions. While the role of cortisol has been investigated in psychotherapy, cortisol synchrony and its characteristics and effect on treatment progress remain a relatively unexplored area. This study aims to explore the existence of distinct patterns of cortisol coordination throughout psychotherapy and test the associations of different coordination patterns with patients' pre-treatment characteristics and treatment progress measures.

Stress-induced increase in heart-rate during sleep as an indicator of PTSD risk among combat soldiers.

Study Objectives: Discerning the differential contribution of sleep behavior and sleep physiology to the subsequent development of posttraumatic-stress-disorder (PTSD) symptoms following military operational service among combat soldiers.

Methods: Longitudinal design with three measurement time points: during basic training week (T1), during intensive stressed training week (T2), and following military operational service (T3). Participating soldiers were all from the same unit, ensuring equivalent training schedules and stress exposures.

Burnout and personality factors among surgical area nurses: a cross sectional multicentre study.

Objective: To determine levels of burnout among surgical area nurses in Andalusia (Spain), to identify the phase of burnout in each participant and to consider its relationship with sociodemographic, occupational variables and personality factors considered.

Data Source: Data were collected by means of questionary. All nurses working in the surgical area on the date of data collection participated in the study.

Pilot study on the effectiveness of the socialmind program for the rehabilitation of social cognition following acquired brain injury.

Background: People with acquired brain injury (ABI) often have Social Cognition (SC) deficits. Impairment of SC causes the individual to have difficulties in daily functioning and can lead to social isolation. Research aimed at rehabilitation of SC in individuals with ABI is scarce and almost always addresses only one component of this ability.

Streams of conscious visual experience.

Consciousness, a cornerstone of human cognition, is believed to arise from complex neural interactions. Traditional views have focused on localized fronto-parietal networks or broader inter-regional dynamics. In our study, we leverage advanced fMRI techniques, including the novel Functionnectome framework, to unravel the intricate relationship between brain circuits and functional activity shaping visual consciousness.

Examining the Role of Oxytocinergic Signaling and Neuroinflammatory Markers in the Therapeutic Effects of MDMA in a Rat Model for PTSD.

MDMA-assisted psychotherapy has shown potential as an effective treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Preclinical studies involving rodents have demonstrated that MDMA can facilitate the extinction of fear memories. It has been noted that MDMA impacts oxytocin neurons and pro-inflammatory cytokines.

Contraceptive uptake in postpartum people with and without opioid use disorder and opioid use with co-occurring substance use.

Background: Using contraception to delay pregnancy allows people with opioid use disorder (OUD) to choose when they are ready to continue their families. Yet, postpartum contraceptive uptake among people with OUD has not been well characterized.

Methods: Analyses used 73,811 pregnancy episodes among 61,221 people (2016-2021) from the St.

Intolerance of uncertainty does not significantly predict decisions about delayed, probabilistic rewards: A failure to replicate Luhmann, C. C., Ishida, K., & Hajcak, G. (2011).

Intolerance of Uncertainty (IU) is thought to lead to maladaptive behaviours and dysfunctional decision making, both in the clinical and healthy population. The seminal study reported by Luhmann and collaborators in 2011 showed that IU was negatively associated with choosing a delayed, but more certain and valuable, reward over choosing an immediate, but less certain and valuable, reward. These findings have been widely disseminated across the field of personality and individual differences because of their relevance to understand the role of IU in maladaptive behaviours in anxiety-related disorders.

Generalization of food devaluation following food-specific go/no-go training.

The benefit of food-specific inhibition training on modulating food valuation and eating behaviors has been established, but generalization to untrained foods is seldomly examined. This study investigated whether stimulus variability and practice order, found to effect generalization in motor learning, can improve generalization following food-specific inhibition training. Ninety-three young adults practiced the Go/No-Go task online in three training conditions: 1) Constant (N = 30): inhibition practiced on one food stimulus; 2) Variable-Blocked (N = 32): inhibition practiced on 6 food stimuli, each in a separate block; and 3) Variable-Random (N = 31): inhibition practiced on 6 food stimuli in random order.

Sexually dimorphic oxytocin circuits drive intragroup social conflict and aggression in wild house mice.

In nature, both males and females engage in competitive aggressive interactions to resolve social conflicts, yet the behavioral principles guiding such interactions and their underlying neural mechanisms remain poorly understood. Through circuit manipulations in wild mice, we unveil oxytocin-expressing (OT) neurons in the hypothalamic paraventricular nucleus (PVN) as a neural hub governing behavior in dyadic and intragroup social conflicts, influencing the degree of behavioral sexual dimorphism. We demonstrate that OT PVN neurons are essential and sufficient in promoting aggression and dominance hierarchies, predominantly in females.

The reverse congruency effect elicited by eye-gaze as a function of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder symptoms.

Individuals diagnosed with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have been found to have impairments in multiple aspects of social cognition, thus including the attentional processing of socially relevant stimuli such as eye-gaze. However, to date, it remains unclear whether only the social-specific but not the domain-general directional components, elicited by eye-gaze are affected by ADHD symptomatology. To address this issue, the present study aimed to investigate the impact of ADHD-like traits on the social-specific attentional processing of eye-gaze.

The Effects of High-Intensity Interval Training and Moderate Alcohol Consumption on Cognitive Performance-A Multidisciplinary Intervention in Young Healthy Adults.

Background: The main purpose of this study was to determine the effects of a high-intensity interval training (HIIT) intervention in the context of moderate alcohol consumption on cognitive performance in healthy young adults.

Methods: We conducted a 10-week HIIT program along with four types of beverages with/without alcohol content. A total of 75 healthy adults (18-40 years old; 46% female) were allocated to either a control Non-Training group or an HIIT program group (2 days/week).

The Oropharyngeal Dysphagia Screening Test for Patients and Professionals: Validation in Cognitive Impairment and in Severe Mental Illness.

Dysphagia is a symptom that appears with high prevalence in persons diagnosed with dementia, intellectual disability, or severe mental illness. Risk of aspiration pneumonia or even death is very high in these populations. However, screening for dysphagia risk in these patients is complicated by the fact that most of them suffer from cognitive impairments and behavioral manifestations that hinder the assessment process using the existing screening tests.

Concurrent response and action effect representations across the somatomotor cortices during novel task preparation.

Instructions allow us to fulfill novel and complex tasks on the first try. This skill has been linked to preparatory brain signals that encode upcoming demands in advance, facilitating novel performance. To deepen insight into these processes, we explored whether instructions pre-activated task-relevant motoric and perceptual neural states.