Aging is associated with positive responding to neutral information but reduced recovery from negative information

Studies on aging and emotion suggest an increase in reported positive affect, a processing bias of positive over negative information, as well as increasingly adaptive regulation in response to negative events with advancing age. These findings imply that older individuals evaluate information differently, resulting in lowered reactivity to, and/or faster recovery from, negative information, while maintaining more positive responding to positive information. We examined this hypothesis in an ongoing study on Midlife in the US (MIDUS II) where emotional reactivity and recovery were assessed in a large number of respondents (N = 159) from a wide age range (36–84 years). We recorded eye-blink startle magnitudes and corrugator activity during and after the presentation of positive, neutral and negative pictures. The most robust age effect was found in response to neutral stimuli, where increasing age is associated with a decreased corrugator and eyeblink startle response to neutral stimuli. These data suggest that an age-related positivity effect does not essentially alter the response to emotion-laden information, but is reflected in a more positive interpretation of affectively ambiguous information. Furthermore, older women showed reduced corrugator recovery from negative pictures relative to the younger women and men, suggesting that an age-related prioritization of well-being is not necessarily reflected in adaptive regulation of negative affect

Spontaneous eyeblinks during breaking continuous flash suppression are associated with increased detection times

An eyeblink has a clear effect on low-level information processing because it temporarily occludes all visual information. Recent evidence suggests that eyeblinks can also modulate higher level processes (e.g. attentional resources), and vice versa. Despite these putative effects on different levels of information processing, eyeblinks are typically neglected in vision and in consciousness research. The main aim of this study was to investigate the timing and the effect of eyeblinks in an increasingly popular paradigm in consciousness research, namely breaking continuous flash suppression (b-CFS). Results show that participants generally refrain from blinking during a trial, that is, when they need to detect a suppressed stimulus. However, when they do blink during a trial, we observed a sharp increase in suppression time. This suggests that one needs to control for blinking when comparing detection times between conditions that could elicit phasic changes in blinking.SCOPUS: ar.jinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Effects of a Secretin Receptor Antagonist on Cerebellar Learning

Eyeblink conditioning (EBC) is an important procedure used to understand the neuronal plasticity that occurs with learning and memory. Delay EBC requires a brainstem-cerebellar circuit while the role of the cerebellum in trace EBC is not as well understood because it requires a more complex neural circuitry involving regions of the medial prefrontal cortex and hippocampus. Secretin is a neuropeptide that is found in high concentrations within the cerebellum. Previous work has shown that blocking secretin’s effects in the cerebellum with intra-cerebellar infusion of relatively large volume of a secretin receptor antagonist impairs delay EBC (Fuchs et al. 2014). Here we study the effect that intra-cerebellar infusion of 0.5 μL secretin receptor antagonist (5-27 secretin) or vehicle prior to training sessions 1 and 2 has on delay and trace EBC in rats. A 600-ms tone CS was used for the delay EBC paradigm and a 300-ms tone CS followed by a 300-ms trace interval was used for the trace EBC paradigm. For delay EBC, the delay vehicle and antagonist groups displayed similar acquisition of conditioned responses (CRs). There was a trend for the trace antagonist group to underperform compared to the trace vehicle group though not quite at a significant level. One explanation for why the results for the delay EBC do not support previous work is that slow learning occurred in the delay vehicle group that may have prevented the effects of secretin receptor antagonist from reaching significance. The trend for the trace antagonist group to display decreased acquisition of CRs suggests that the cerebellum does play an important role in trace EBC. However, in order to better understand the neural circuitry involved in trace EBC, future work should analyze the role that cerebellar secretin itself has on trace EBC

Memory consolidation in the cerebellar cortex

Several forms of learning, including classical conditioning of the eyeblink, depend upon the cerebellum. In examining mechanisms of eyeblink conditioning in rabbits, reversible inactivations of the control circuitry have begun to dissociate aspects of cerebellar cortical and nuclear function in memory consolidation. It was previously shown that post-training cerebellar cortical, but not nuclear, inactivations with the GABA(A) agonist muscimol prevented consolidation but these findings left open the question as to how final memory storage was partitioned across cortical and nuclear levels. Memory consolidation might be essentially cortical and directly disturbed by actions of the muscimol, or it might be nuclear, and sensitive to the raised excitability of the nuclear neurons following the loss of cortical inhibition. To resolve this question, we simultaneously inactivated cerebellar cortical lobule HVI and the anterior interpositus nucleus of rabbits during the post-training period, so protecting the nuclei from disinhibitory effects of cortical inactivation. Consolidation was impaired by these simultaneous inactivations. Because direct application of muscimol to the nuclei alone has no impact upon consolidation, we can conclude that post-training, consolidation processes and memory storage for eyeblink conditioning have critical cerebellar cortical components. The findings are consistent with a recent model that suggests the distribution of learning-related plasticity across cortical and nuclear levels is task-dependent. There can be transfer to nuclear or brainstem levels for control of high-frequency responses but learning with lower frequency response components, such as in eyeblink conditioning, remains mainly dependent upon cortical memory storage

Explicit and Implicit Processes in Human Aversive Conditioning

The ability to adapt to a changing environment is central to an organism’s success. The process of associating two stimuli (as in associative conditioning) requires very little in the way of neural machinery. In fact, organisms with only a few hundred neurons show conditioning that is specific to an associated cue. This type of learning is commonly referred to as implicit learning. The learning can be performed in the absence of the subject’s ability to describe it. One example of learning that is thought to be implicit is delay conditioning. Delay conditioning consists of a single cue (a tone, for example) that starts before, and then overlaps with, an outcome (like a pain stimulus). In addition to associating sensory cues, humans routinely link abstract concepts with an outcome. This more complex learning is often described as explicit since subjects are able to describe the link between the stimulus and outcome. An example of conditioning that requires this type of knowledge is trace conditioning. Trace conditioning includes a separation of a few seconds between the cue and outcome. Explicit learning is often proposed to involve a separate system, but the degree of separation between implicit associations and explicit learning is still debated. We describe aversive conditioning experiments in human subjects used to study the degree of interaction that takes place between explicit and implicit systems. We do this in three ways. First, if a higher order task (in this case a working memory task) is performed during conditioning, it reduces not only explicit learning but also implicit learning. Second, we describe the area of the brain involved in explicit learning during conditioning and confirm that it is active during both trace and delay conditioning. Third, using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we describe hemodynamic activity changes in perceptual areas of the brain that occur during delay conditioning and persist after the learned association has faded. From these studies, we conclude that there is a strong interaction between explicit and implicit learning systems, with one often directly changing the function of the other.</p

Tremor in motor neuron disease may be central rather than peripheral in origin

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Motor neuron disease (MND) refers to a spectrum of degenerative diseases affecting motor neurons. Recent clinical and post-mortem observations have revealed considerable variability in the phenotype. Rhythmic involuntary oscillations of the hands during action, resembling tremor, can occur in MND, but their pathophysiology has not yet been investigated. METHODS: A total of 120 consecutive patients with MND were screened for tremor. Twelve patients with action tremor and no other movement disorders were found. Ten took part in the study. Tremor was recorded bilaterally using surface electromyography (EMG) and triaxial accelerometer, with and without a variable weight load. Power spectra of rectified EMG and accelerometric signal were calculated. To investigate a possible cerebellar involvement, eyeblink classic conditioning was performed in five patients. RESULTS: Action tremor was present in about 10% of our population. All patients showed distal postural tremor of low amplitude and constant frequency, bilateral with a small degree of asymmetry. Two also showed simple kinetic tremor. A peak at the EMG and accelerometric recordings ranging from 4 to 12 Hz was found in all patients. Loading did not change peak frequency in either the electromyographic or accelerometric power spectra. Compared with healthy volunteers, patients had a smaller number of conditioned responses during eyeblink classic conditioning. CONCLUSIONS: Our data suggest that patients with MND can present with action tremor of a central origin, possibly due to a cerebellar dysfunction. This evidence supports the novel idea of MND as a multisystem neurodegenerative disease and that action tremor can be part of this condition

Adenosine A2A receptor modulation of hippocampal CA3-CA1 synapse plasticity during associative learning in behaving mice

© 2009 Nature Publishing Group All rights reservedPrevious in vitro studies have characterized the electrophysiological and molecular signaling pathways of adenosine tonic modulation on long-lasting synaptic plasticity events, particularly for hippocampal long-term potentiation(LTP). However, it remains to be elucidated whether the long-term changes produced by endogenous adenosine in the efficiency of synapses are related to those required for learning and memory formation. Our goal was to understand how endogenous activation of adenosine excitatory A2A receptors modulates the associative learning evolution in conscious behaving mice. We have studied here the effects of the application of a highly selective A2A receptor antagonist, SCH58261, upon a well-known associative learning paradigm - classical eyeblink conditioning. We used a trace paradigm, with a tone as the conditioned stimulus (CS) and an electric shock presented to the supraorbital nerve as the unconditioned stimulus(US). A single electrical pulse was presented to the Schaffer collateral–commissural pathway to evoke field EPSPs (fEPSPs) in the pyramidal CA1 area during the CS–US interval. In vehicle-injected animals, there was a progressive increase in the percentage of conditioning responses (CRs) and in the slope of fEPSPs through conditioning sessions, an effect that was completely prevented (and lost) in SCH58261 (0.5 mg/kg, i.p.)-injected animals. Moreover, experimentally evoked LTP was impaired in SCH58261- injected mice. In conclusion, the endogenous activation of adenosine A2A receptors plays a pivotal effect on the associative learning process and its relevant hippocampal circuits, including activity-dependent changes at the CA3-CA1 synapse.This study was supported by grants from the Spanish Ministry of Education and Research (BFU2005-01024 and BFU2005-02512), Spanish Junta de Andalucía (BIO-122 and CVI-02487), and the Fundación Conocimiento y Cultura of the Pablo de Olavide University (Seville, Spain).B. Fontinha was in receipt of a studentship from a project grant (POCI/SAU-NEU/56332/2004) supported by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT, Portugal), and of an STSM from Cost B30 concerted action of the EU

Detecting short periods of elevated workload. A compari­son of nine workload assessment techniques

The present experiment tested the merits of 9 common workload assessment techniques with relatively short periods of workload in a car-driving task. Twelve participants drove an instrumented car and performed a visually loading task and a mentally loading task for 10, 30, and 60 s. The results show that 10-s periods of visual and mental workload can be measured successfully with subjective ratings and secondary task performance. With respect to longer loading periods (30 and 60 s), steering frequency was found to be sensitive to visual workload, and skin conductance response (SCR) was sensitive to mental workload. The results lead to preliminary guidelines that will help applied researchers to determine which techniques are best suited for assessing visual and mental workload