@article{VenturaBortWendtWeymar2021, author = {Ventura-Bort, Carlos and Wendt, Julia and Weymar, Mathias}, title = {The Role of Interoceptive Sensibility and Emotional Conceptualization for the Experience of Emotions}, series = {Frontiers in psychology}, volume = {12}, journal = {Frontiers in psychology}, publisher = {Frontiers Research Foundation}, address = {Lausanne, Schweiz}, issn = {1664-1078}, doi = {10.3389/fpsyg.2021.712418}, pages = {1 -- 15}, year = {2021}, abstract = {The theory of constructed emotions suggests that different psychological components, including core affect (mental and neural representations of bodily changes), and conceptualization (meaning-making based on prior experiences and semantic knowledge), are involved in the formation of emotions. However, little is known about their role in experiencing emotions. In the current study, we investigated how individual differences in interoceptive sensibility and emotional conceptualization (as potential correlates of these components) interact to moderate three important aspects of emotional experiences: emotional intensity (strength of emotion felt), arousal (degree of activation), and granularity (ability to differentiate emotions with precision). To this end, participants completed a series of questionnaires assessing interoceptive sensibility and emotional conceptualization and underwent two emotion experience tasks, which included standardized material (emotion differentiation task; ED task) and self-experienced episodes (day reconstruction method; DRM). Correlational analysis showed that individual differences in interoceptive sensibility and emotional conceptualization were related to each other. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) revealed two independent factors that were referred to as sensibility and monitoring. The Sensibility factor, interpreted as beliefs about the accuracy of an individual in detecting internal physiological and emotional states, predicted higher granularity for negative words. The Monitoring factor, interpreted as the tendency to focus on the internal states of an individual, was negatively related to emotional granularity and intensity. Additionally, Sensibility scores were more strongly associated with greater well-being and adaptability measures than Monitoring scores. Our results indicate that independent processes underlying individual differences in interoceptive sensibility and emotional conceptualization contribute to emotion experiencing.}, language = {en} } @inproceedings{VenturaBortSchneiderWeymar2021, author = {Ventura-Bort, Carlos and Schneider, Paula and Weymar, Mathias}, title = {Effects of transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation (TAVNS) on interoception}, series = {Psychophysiology : journal of the Society for Psychophysiological Research}, volume = {58}, booktitle = {Psychophysiology : journal of the Society for Psychophysiological Research}, publisher = {Wiley-Blackwell}, address = {Malden, Mass. [u.a.]}, issn = {1469-8986}, doi = {10.1111/psyp.13928}, pages = {S58 -- S58}, year = {2021}, language = {en} } @article{D'AgostiniBurgerFranssenetal.2021, author = {D'Agostini, Martina and Burger, Andreas M. and Franssen, Mathijs and Claes, Nathalie and Weymar, Mathias and Leupoldt, Andreas von and Van Diest, Ilse}, title = {Effects of transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation on reversal learning, tonic pupil size, salivary alpha-amylase, and cortisol}, series = {Psychophysiology : journal of the Society for Psychophysiological Research}, volume = {58}, journal = {Psychophysiology : journal of the Society for Psychophysiological Research}, number = {10}, publisher = {Wiley-Blackwell}, address = {Malden, Mass. [u.a.]}, issn = {1469-8986}, doi = {10.1111/psyp.13885}, pages = {20}, year = {2021}, abstract = {This study investigated whether transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation (taVNS) enhances reversal learning and augments noradrenergic biomarkers (i.e., pupil size, cortisol, and salivary alpha-amylase [sAA]). We also explored the effect of taVNS on respiratory rate and cardiac vagal activity (CVA). Seventy-one participants received stimulation of either the cymba concha (taVNS) or the earlobe (sham) of the left ear. After learning a series of cue-outcome associations, the stimulation was applied before and throughout a reversal phase in which cue-outcome associations were changed for some (reversal), but not for other (distractor) cues. Tonic pupil size, salivary cortisol, sAA, respiratory rate, and CVA were assessed at different time points. Contrary to our hypothesis, taVNS was not associated with an overall improvement in performance on the reversal task. Compared to sham, the taVNS group performed worse for distractor than reversal cues. taVNS did not increase tonic pupil size and sAA. Only post hoc analyses indicated that the cortisol decline was steeper in the sham compared to the taVNS group. Exploratory analyses showed that taVNS decreased respiratory rate but did not affect CVA. The weak and unexpected effects found in this study might relate to the lack of parameters optimization for taVNS and invite to further investigate the effect of taVNS on cortisol and respiratory rate.}, language = {en} } @inproceedings{GiraudierVenturaBortWeymar2021, author = {Giraudier, Manon and Ventura-Bort, Carlos and Weymar, Mathias}, title = {A pooled preliminary analysis on the effects of transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation on salivary alpha-amylase as noradrenergic biomarker}, series = {Psychophysiology : journal of the Society for Psychophysiological Research}, volume = {58}, booktitle = {Psychophysiology : journal of the Society for Psychophysiological Research}, publisher = {Wiley-Blackwell}, address = {Malden, Mass. [u.a.]}, issn = {1469-8986}, pages = {S60 -- S60}, year = {2021}, language = {en} } @article{VenturaBortSchnabelWendtetal.2020, author = {Ventura-Bort, Carlos and Schnabel, Ella and Wendt, Julia and Weymar, Mathias}, title = {Influence of resting heart rate variability on affect processing in different induction contexts}, series = {Psychophysiology : journal of the Society for Psychophysiological Research}, volume = {57}, journal = {Psychophysiology : journal of the Society for Psychophysiological Research}, publisher = {Wiley-Blackwell}, address = {Malden}, issn = {0048-5772}, pages = {S39 -- S39}, year = {2020}, language = {en} } @article{MichałowskiWiwatowskaWeymar2020, author = {Michałowski, Jarosław M. and Wiwatowska, Ewa and Weymar, Mathias}, title = {Brain potentials reveal reduced attention and error-processing during a monetary Go/No-Go task in procrastination}, series = {Scientific reports}, volume = {10}, journal = {Scientific reports}, number = {1}, publisher = {Macmillan Publishers Limited, part of Springer Nature}, address = {London}, issn = {2045-2322}, doi = {10.1038/s41598-020-75311-2}, pages = {12}, year = {2020}, abstract = {Procrastination is a self-regulatory problem of voluntarily and destructively delaying intended and necessary or personally important tasks. Previous studies showed that procrastination is associated with executive dysfunctions that seem to be particularly strong in punishing contexts. In the present event-related potential (ERP) study a monetary version of the parametric Go/No-Go task was performed by high and low academic procrastinators to verify the influence of motivational context (reward vs. punishment expectation) and task difficulty (easy vs. hard) on procrastination-related executive dysfunctions. The results revealed increased post-error slowing along with reduced P300 and error-related negativity (ERN) amplitudes in high (vs. low) procrastination participants-effects that indicate impaired attention and error-related processing in this group. This pattern of results did not differ as a function of task difficulty and motivation condition. However, when the task got more difficult executive attention deficits became even more apparent at the behavioral level in high procrastinators, as indexed by increased reaction time variability. The findings substantiate prior preliminary evidence that procrastinators show difficulties in certain aspects of executive functioning (in attention and error processing) during execution of task-relevant behavior, which may be more apparent in highly demanding situations.}, language = {en} } @article{DolcosKatsumiBogdanetal.2020, author = {Dolcos, Florin and Katsumi, Yuta and Bogdan, Paul C. and Shen, Chen and Jun, Suhnyoung and Buetti, Simona and Lleras, Alejandro and Bost, Kelly Freeman and Weymar, Mathias and Dolcos, Sanda}, title = {The impact of focused attention on subsequent emotional recollection}, series = {Neuropsychologia : an international journal in behavioural and cognitive neuroscience}, volume = {138}, journal = {Neuropsychologia : an international journal in behavioural and cognitive neuroscience}, publisher = {Elsevier}, address = {Oxford}, issn = {0028-3932}, doi = {10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2020.107338}, pages = {12}, year = {2020}, abstract = {In his seminal works, Endel Tulving argued that functionally distinct memory systems give rise to subjective experiences of remembering and knowing (i.e., recollection- vs. familiarity-based memory, respectively). Evidence shows that emotion specifically enhances recollection, and this effect is subserved by a synergistic mechanism involving the amygdala (AMY) and hippocampus (HC). In extreme circumstances, however, uncontrolled recollection of highly distressing memories may lead to symptoms of affective disorders. Therefore, it is important to understand the factors that can diminish such detrimental effects. Here, we investigated the effects of Focused Attention (FA) on emotional recollection. FA is an emotion regulation strategy that has been proven quite effective in reducing the impact of emotional responses associated with the recollection of distressing autobiographical memories, but its impact during emotional memory encoding is not known. Functional MRI and eye-tracking data were recorded while participants viewed a series of composite negative and neutral images with distinguishable foreground (FG) and background (BG) areas. Participants were instructed to focus either on the FG or BG content of the images and to rate their emotional responses. About 4 days later, participants' memory was assessed using the R/K procedure, to indicate whether they Recollected specific contextual details about the encoded images or the images were just familiar to them - i.e., participants only Knew that they saw the pictures without being able to remember specific contextual details. First, results revealed that FA was successful in decreasing memory for emotional pictures viewed in BG Focus condition, and this effect was driven by recollection-based retrieval. Second, the BG Focus condition was associated with decreased activity in the AMY, HC, and anterior parahippocampal gyrus for subsequently recollected emotional items. Moreover, correlation analyses also showed that reduced activity in these regions predicted greater reduction in emotional recollection following FA. These results demonstrate the effectiveness of FA in mitigating emotional experiences and emotional recollection associated with unpleasant emotional events.}, language = {en} } @article{KoenigAblerAgartzetal.2020, author = {Koenig, Julian and Abler, Birgit and Agartz, Ingrid and akerstedt, Torbjorn and Andreassen, Ole A. and Anthony, Mia and Baer, Karl-Juergen and Bertsch, Katja and Brown, Rebecca C. and Brunner, Romuald and Carnevali, Luca and Critchley, Hugo D. and Cullen, Kathryn R. and de Geus, Eco J. C. and de la Cruz, Feliberto and Dziobek, Isabel and Ferger, Marc D. and Fischer, Hakan and Flor, Herta and Gaebler, Michael and Gianaros, Peter J. and Giummarra, Melita J. and Greening, Steven G. and Guendelman, Simon and Heathers, James A. J. and Herpertz, Sabine C. and Hu, Mandy X. and Jentschke, Sebastian and Kaess, Michael and Kaufmann, Tobias and Klimes-Dougan, Bonnie and Koelsch, Stefan and Krauch, Marlene and Kumral, Deniz and Lamers, Femke and Lee, Tae-Ho and Lekander, Mats and Lin, Feng and Lotze, Martin and Makovac, Elena and Mancini, Matteo and Mancke, Falk and Mansson, Kristoffer N. T. and Manuck, Stephen B. and Mather, Mara and Meeten, Frances and Min, Jungwon and Mueller, Bryon and Muench, Vera and Nees, Frauke and Nga, Lin and Nilsonne, Gustav and Ordonez Acuna, Daniela and Osnes, Berge and Ottaviani, Cristina and Penninx, Brenda W. J. H. and Ponzio, Allison and Poudel, Govinda R. and Reinelt, Janis and Ren, Ping and Sakaki, Michiko and Schumann, Andy and Sorensen, Lin and Specht, Karsten and Straub, Joana and Tamm, Sandra and Thai, Michelle and Thayer, Julian F. and Ubani, Benjamin and van Der Mee, Denise J. and van Velzen, Laura S. and Ventura-Bort, Carlos and Villringer, Arno and Watson, David R. and Wei, Luqing and Wendt, Julia and Schreiner, Melinda Westlund and Westlye, Lars T. and Weymar, Mathias and Winkelmann, Tobias and Wu, Guo-Rong and Yoo, Hyun Joo and Quintana, Daniel S.}, title = {Cortical thickness and resting-state cardiac function across the lifespan}, series = {Psychophysiology : journal of the Society for Psychophysiological Research}, volume = {58}, journal = {Psychophysiology : journal of the Society for Psychophysiological Research}, number = {7}, publisher = {Wiley}, address = {Hoboken}, issn = {0048-5772}, doi = {10.1111/psyp.13688}, pages = {16}, year = {2020}, abstract = {Understanding the association between autonomic nervous system [ANS] function and brain morphology across the lifespan provides important insights into neurovisceral mechanisms underlying health and disease. Resting-state ANS activity, indexed by measures of heart rate [HR] and its variability [HRV] has been associated with brain morphology, particularly cortical thickness [CT]. While findings have been mixed regarding the anatomical distribution and direction of the associations, these inconsistencies may be due to sex and age differences in HR/HRV and CT. Previous studies have been limited by small sample sizes, which impede the assessment of sex differences and aging effects on the association between ANS function and CT. To overcome these limitations, 20 groups worldwide contributed data collected under similar protocols of CT assessment and HR/HRV recording to be pooled in a mega-analysis (N = 1,218 (50.5\% female), mean age 36.7 years (range: 12-87)). Findings suggest a decline in HRV as well as CT with increasing age. CT, particularly in the orbitofrontal cortex, explained additional variance in HRV, beyond the effects of aging. This pattern of results may suggest that the decline in HRV with increasing age is related to a decline in orbitofrontal CT. These effects were independent of sex and specific to HRV; with no significant association between CT and HR. Greater CT across the adult lifespan may be vital for the maintenance of healthy cardiac regulation via the ANS-or greater cardiac vagal activity as indirectly reflected in HRV may slow brain atrophy. Findings reveal an important association between CT and cardiac parasympathetic activity with implications for healthy aging and longevity that should be studied further in longitudinal research.}, language = {en} } @article{SzeskaRichterWendtetal.2020, author = {Szeska, Christoph and Richter, Jan and Wendt, Julia and Weymar, Mathias and Hamm, Alfons O.}, title = {Promoting long-term inhibition of human fear responses by non-invasive transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation during extinction training}, series = {Scientific reports}, volume = {10}, journal = {Scientific reports}, number = {1}, publisher = {Nature Publishing Group}, address = {London}, issn = {2045-2322}, doi = {10.1038/s41598-020-58412-w}, pages = {16}, year = {2020}, abstract = {Inhibiting fear-related thoughts and defensive behaviors when they are no longer appropriate to the situation is a prerequisite for flexible and adaptive responding to changing environments. Such inhibition of defensive systems is mediated by ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), limbic basolateral amygdala (BLA), and brain stem locus-coeruleus noradrenergic system (LC-NAs). Non-invasive, transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation (tVNS) has shown to activate this circuit. Using a multiple-day single-cue fear conditioning and extinction paradigm, we investigated long-term effects of tVNS on inhibition of low-level amygdala modulated fear potentiated startle and cognitive risk assessments. We found that administration of tVNS during extinction training facilitated inhibition of fear potentiated startle responses and cognitive risk assessments, resulting in facilitated formation, consolidation and long-term recall of extinction memory, and prevention of the return of fear. These findings might indicate new ways to increase the efficacy of exposure-based treatments of anxiety disorders.}, language = {en} } @article{MeierWeymarSchwabe2020, author = {Meier, Jacqueline Katharina and Weymar, Mathias and Schwabe, Lars}, title = {Stress alters the neural context for building new memories}, series = {Journal of cognitive neuroscience}, volume = {32}, journal = {Journal of cognitive neuroscience}, number = {12}, publisher = {MIT Press}, address = {Cambridge}, issn = {0898-929X}, doi = {10.1162/jocn_a_01613}, pages = {2226 -- 2240}, year = {2020}, abstract = {Stressful events affect mnemonic processing, in particular for emotionally arousing events. Previous research on the mechanisms underlying stress effects on human memory focused on stress-induced changes in the neural activity elicited by a stimulus. We tested an alternative mechanism and hypothesized that stress may already alter the neural context for successful memory formation, reflected in the neural activity preceding a stimulus. Therefore, 69 participants underwent a stress or control procedure before encoding neutral and negative pictures. During encoding, we recorded high-density EEG and analyzed-based on multivariate searchlight analyses-oscillatory activity and cross-frequency coupling patterns before stimulus onset that were predictive of memory tested 24 hr later. Prestimulus theta predicted subsequent memory in controls but not in stressed participants. Instead, prestimulus gamma predicted successful memory formation after stress, specifically for emotional material. Likewise, stress altered the patterns of prestimulus theta-beta and theta-gamma phase-amplitude coupling predictive of subsequent memory, again depending on the emotionality of the presented material. Our data suggest that stress changes the neural context for building new memories, tuning this neural context specifically to the encoding of emotionally salient events. These findings point to a yet unknown mechanism through which stressful events may change (emotional) memory formation.}, language = {en} }