The effects of multiple forms of disgust exposure on the processing of emotional photographic images

Exposure to disgust has been found to influence both short term attentional processes and decision making. This thesis proposed to investigate the extent to which disgust exposure can also influence emotion processing and evaluation – specifically of real world photographic images. To this end, both behavioural and event related potential (ERP) paradigms were utilised. Disgust was induced in multiple ways – through videos, written scenarios and briefly presented prime images. After exposure to disgusting prime images, participants high in disgust propensity were quicker to respond to disgust targets (a congruence effect that was not obtained for fear targets preceded by fear primes). After reading disgusting sentences, participants who were high in disgust propensity were more likely to judge pleasant food images (as well as disgusting images) as unpleasant (but not other pleasant images) thus reconfirming the relationship between disgust and digestion. ERP data revealed that individuals high in attentional shifting ability had a suppressed Late Positive Potential (LPP) to both disgusting and threatening images but that this effect was washed out through reading disgusting scenarios. After exposure to disgusting videos, attentional focus was associated with an increased LPP response to disgust (but not fear) images. There was a strong occipital LPP enhancement for disgust (over both fear and neutral) that was independent of disgust exposure and could represent an electrophysiological marker of disgust processing. The results demonstrate that both the processing of disgusting images, as well as the processing of emotional images of a variety of content (both positive and negative), can be affected by disgust exposure. These effects can be seen early in processing and also influence later emotional assessments, and are strongly dependent on individual differences in disgust propensity and attentional control. The results highlight the extent to which disgust can influence multiple short-term emotion processing mechanisms

Disgust exposure and explicit emotional appraisal enhance the LPP in response to disgusted facial expressions

The influence of prior exposure to disgusting imagery and the conscious appraisal of facial expressions were examined in an event-related potential (ERP) experiment. Participants were exposed to either a disgust or a control manipulation and then presented with emotional and neutral expressions. An assessment of the gender of the face was required during half the blocks and an affective assessment of the emotion in the other half. The emotion-related early posterior negativity (EPN) and late positive potential (LPP) ERP components were examined for disgust and neutral stimuli. Results indicated that the EPN was enhanced for disgusted over neutral expressions. Prior disgust exposure modulated the middle phase of the LPP in response to disgusted but not neutral expressions, but only when the emotion of the face was explicitly evaluated. The late LPP was enhanced independently of stimuli when an emotional decision was made. Results demonstrated that exposure to disgusting imagery can affect the subsequent processing of disgusted facial expressions when the emotion is under conscious appraisal

Public policy (not the coronavirus) should shape what endemic means

Endemicity is not only a biological and health event but has several inter-dependencies cross-cutting with the management of the economy, including governance and policies. Within the context of the discourse on inequity, what does endemicity mean for poor and low-income families, where policies on social inclusion and social welfare need to be re-calibrated

Behavioral Indicators on a Mobile Sensing Platform Predict Clinically Validated Psychiatric Symptoms of Mood and Anxiety Disorders

Background: There is a critical need for real-time tracking of behavioral indicators of mental disorders. Mobile sensing platforms that objectively and noninvasively collect, store, and analyze behavioral indicators have not yet been clinically validated or scalable. Objective: The aim of our study was to report on models of clinical symptoms for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression derived from a scalable mobile sensing platform. Methods: A total of 73 participants (67% [49/73] male, 48% [35/73] non-Hispanic white, 33% [24/73] veteran status) who reported at least one symptom of PTSD or depression completed a 12-week field trial. Behavioral indicators were collected through the noninvasive mobile sensing platform on participants’ mobile phones. Clinical symptoms were measured through validated clinical interviews with a licensed clinical social worker. A combination hypothesis and data-driven approach was used to derive key features for modeling symptoms, including the sum of outgoing calls, count of unique numbers texted, absolute distance traveled, dynamic variation of the voice, speaking rate, and voice quality. Participants also reported ease of use and data sharing concerns. Results: Behavioral indicators predicted clinically assessed symptoms of depression and PTSD (cross-validated area under the curve [AUC] for depressed mood=.74, fatigue=.56, interest in activities=.75, and social connectedness=.83). Participants reported comfort sharing individual data with physicians (Mean 3.08, SD 1.22), mental health providers (Mean 3.25, SD 1.39), and medical researchers (Mean 3.03, SD 1.36). Conclusions: Behavioral indicators passively collected through a mobile sensing platform predicted symptoms of depression and PTSD. The use of mobile sensing platforms can provide clinically validated behavioral indicators in real time; however, further validation of these models and this platform in large clinical samples is needed.United States. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (contract N66001-11-C-4094

Disruption of the HLA-E/NKG2X axis is associated with uncontrolled HIV infections

The contribution of the HLA-E/NKG2X axis in NK-mediated control of HIV infection remains unclear. We have studied the relationship between HLA-E expression and phenotypical as well as functional characteristics of NK cells, in the context of chronic HIV infection and in an in vitro model of acute infection. High viremia in HIV+ individuals was related to increased HLA-E expression, and changes in NK subpopulations, especially a reduction of the CD56 bright as well as an increase in adaptive NK subpopulation. Uncontrolled HIV infection was also characterized by a reversion of the NKG2A/NKG2C expression ratio and a loss of positive and negative regulation of NK mediated by HLA-E. This was reflected in a lower cytotoxic, degranulation and cytokine production capacity, especially in CD56 bright and adaptive NK. In line with these results, HLA-E expression showed a positive correlation with viral growth inhibition in an in vitro model of acute infection at day 7, which was lost after 14 days of culture. Using HLA-E expressing K562 cells, we determined that only one out of 11 described HIV-derived HLA-E epitopes increased HLA-E surface stability. In spite of that, eight of the 11 epitopes were capable of increasing degranulation and three drove differences in NK-cell mediated cell lysis or cytokine secretion. In conclusion, our results indicate that HLA-E molecules presenting HIV-derived epitopes may sensitize target cells for NK lysis in early HIV infection. However, prolonged exposure to elevated HLA-E expression levels in vivo may lead to NK cell dysfunction and reduced viral control In chronic infection

High-quality Extragalactic Legacy-field Monitoring (HELM) with DECam : project overview and first data release

Funding: This work is supported by NSF grants AST-2206499 and AST-2308077. R.J.A. was supported by FONDECYT grant No. 1231718 and by the ANID BASAL project FB210003. F.E.B. acknowledges support from ANID—Millennium Science Initiative Program —ICN12_009, CATA-BASAL—FB210003, and FONDECYT Regular—1200495. Y.Q.X. acknowledges support from the National Key R&D Program of China (2023YFA1608100), NSFC grants (12025303, 12393814), and the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (XDB0550300).High-quality Extragalactic Legacy-field Monitoring (HELM) is a long-term observing program that photometrically monitors several well-studied extragalactic legacy fields with the Dark Energy Camera (DECam) imager on the CTIO 4 m Blanco telescope. Since 2019 February, HELM has been monitoring regions within COSMOS, XMM-LSS, CDF-S, S-CVZ, ELAIS-S1, and SDSS Stripe 82 with few-day cadences in the (u)gri(z) bands, over a collective sky area of ∼38 deg2. The main science goal of HELM is to provide high-quality optical light curves for a large sample of active galactic nuclei (AGNs), and to build decades-long time baselines when combining past and future optical light curves in these legacy fields. These optical images and light curves will facilitate the measurements of AGN reverberation mapping lags, as well as studies of AGN variability and its dependencies on accretion properties. In addition, the time-resolved and coadded DECam photometry will enable a broad range of science applications from galaxy evolution to time-domain science. We describe the design and implementation of the program and present the first data release that includes source catalogs and the first ∼3.5 yr of light curves during 2019A–2022A.Peer reviewe

Individual differences in processing emotional images after reading disgusting and neutral sentences

The present study examined the extent to which Event Related Potentials (ERPs) evoked by disgusting, threatening and neutral photographic images were influenced by disgust propensity, disgust sensitivity and attentional control following exposure to disgusting information. Emotional cognition was manipulated by instructing participants to remember either disgusting or neutral sentences; participants in both groups then viewed emotional images while ERPs were recorded. Disgust propensity was associated with a reduced Late Positive Potential (LPP) gap between threatening and neutral stimuli (an effect driven by a rise in the LPP for neutral images) but only amongst individuals who were exposed to disgusting sentences. The typical LPP increase for disgust over neutral was reduced by attentional shifting capacity but only for individuals who were not previously exposed to disgust. There was also a persistent occipital shifted late positivity that was enhanced for disgust for the entire LPP window and was independent of exposure. Results suggest that emotion specific ERP effects can emerge within the broad unpleasant emotional category in conjunction with individual differences and prior emotional exposure. These results have important implications for the ways in which the perception of emotion is impacted by short term cognitive influences and longer term individual differences

Internet influences on adolescent attitudes to alcohol.

The current study had the broad aim of examining the alcohol content encountered online by young people, evaluating young people's responses to that content and assessing whether relationships exist between consumption, implicit attitude and online alcohol exposure. This was achieved by focusing on three objectives through three studies. Study 1 used thematic analysis of semi-­structured interviews to examine young people's response to actual online screenshots encountered during internet-­use. Study 2 was a content analysis of the actual Internet use of 91 participants, examined for instances of alcohol and non-­alcohol, coded by website type, activity, source, prominence and valence. Study 3 examined relationships between drinking behaviour, implicit attitude (assessed through the Implicit Association Test) the alcohol content encountered by participants' in Study 2. Alcohol content online mainly manifested as passive references from sources outside participants' peer network and was generally of positive valence relative to non-­alcohol. Associations were found between alcohol exposure and consumption as well as between implicit attitudes and consumption. Thematic analysis revealed the high level of discrepant speculative assumptions made when interpreting online media, with general trends towards a focus on the aesthetics of the setting and the appearance of people in the screenshot. Results were discussed with implications for future research and policy