Do emotions evoked by music modulate visuospatial working memory capacity? A physiological study

Previous studies have shown that emotions evoked through music can have transient effects on cognitive performance. Considering the importance of working memory (WM) in the processing of new information, in this study, we investigated the impact of positive and negative emotions evoked through music on visuospatial WM performance using a within-subjects design. Moreover, we concomitantly recorded the participants’ physiological responses during listening to musical stimuli. Seventy-eight participants were allocated to counterbalanced positive, negative, and neutral emotional inductions through music (EIM) followed by an adaptive visuospatial WM task. Results revealed that participants’ visuospatial WM performance was increased after positive EIM compared with negative and neutral EIMs transiently. We also observed increased skin conductance levels during positive EIM compared with baseline and a lower heart rate throughout positive EIM than the other conditions. Overall, these findings suggest that music evoking positive emotions can boost visuospatial WM performance. This is the first study to explore cognitive performance after EIM and physiological responses to musical stimuli simultaneously, which may have important practical implications since we engage in cognitively demanding activities after listening to music that could evoke happy or sad emotions.The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This study was funded by the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological development - CNPq under Grant 229520/2013-8. Furthermore, this study was conducted at the Psychology Research Centre (PSI/01662), School of Psychology, University of Minho, and supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology and the Portuguese Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education through the State Budget (UID/PSI/01662/2019)

How does performing demanding activities influence prospective memory? A systematic review

This paper is the first systematic review on the role of ongoing task load in prospective remembering, which was conducted according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA). Forty articles published between 1995 and 2020 were included. They evaluated prospective memory (PM) performance (i.e., the ability to remember to execute a delayed intention) in adult samples aged between 19 and 50 years old when the PM cue appeared under cognitively demanding conditions.The results revealed that people are more likely to fail to remember to perform a delayed intention at the appropriate circumstances or time in the future when their cognitive resources are taxed by demanding ongoing activities. We conclude the review by highlighting that the degree of working memory and executive resources seems to account for some of the discrepant findings and by proposing directions for future research.- This project was founded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT, Portugal) with the grant BD/123421/2016 awarded to Patricia Matos and with thegrant PD/BD/105964/2014 awarded to Diana R. Pereira. This study was conducted at the Psychology Research Centre (UID/PSI/01662/2019), University of Minho, and supported by the Portuguese Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education, through the State Budget (UID/PSI/01662/2019). Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Patricia Fernanda Ferreira Matos, School of Psychology, University of Minho, Campus de Gualtar, 4710-057 Braga, Portugal

Inclusive Place-Making in Spartanburg, SC: Amplifying Latinx Voices through Community-Based Research

In response to a growing local interest in “place-making” work, our team developed and carried out a research project centered on the ideas of inclusive place, community, and health, with a focus on the inclusion of the growing Latinx community in the Spartanburg area. The project is a first step in what we imagine to be a long arc of community-based research and is in response to the desire of community collaborators for better information to inform their decision-making, particularly with regard to inclusion of Latinx residents. The long-term arc of the research will be shaped by ideas from community partners related to inclusivity; thriving and welcoming community spaces; health equity; and food access and is adaptable to a focus on particular areas or demographics within Spartanburg County. The goal of the present phase of research was to generate qualitative data (1) to inform the implementation of upcoming community projects; (2) to be available to community leaders as a complement to existing quantitative data about areas related to the research focus; (3) to inform the scope, design, and methods of other groups interested in doing related research work, including program evaluation or assessment. Our qualitative approach has sought to respect the “Don’t do anything for us without us” imperative for inclusive community work and aims to create a way to include and amplify the voices of those who will be affected by coming community projects, in informing the implementation of those projects

Relay of affective stimuli from amygdala to thalamus parallels sensory pathways

The amygdala, the emotional sensor of the brain, is strongly connected with the posterior orbitofrontal cortex (pOFC), forming a pathway activated by reward learning. In addition, the amygdala innervates neurons in the mediodorsal thalamic nucleus (MD) that project to pOFC, forming a second, indirect route for the amygdala to inuence the pOFC sector of the prefrontal cortex. The indirect pathway that connects the amygdala and pOFC through the thalamus may be similar to sensory pathways connecting peripheral receptors with sensory cortices through sensory relay thalamic nuclei. The indirect pathway is morphologically distinct from the direct pathway; amygdalar pathway terminals in MD are larger than those in the pOFC, and likely derive from separate neuronal populations in the amygdala (Timbie and Barbas, Society for Neuroscience, 2013; J Neurosci, 2015). The synaptic interactions and potential specializations of amygdalar terminals in MD have not yet been described in comparison to other thalamic afferents. We addressed this issue by labeling amygdalar axons in MD in rhesus monkeys and compared them with retinal axons terminating in the lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN). We studied axon terminations in MD and LGN using serial section electron microscopy and analyzed pre- and post-synaptic elements by morphology. All amygdalar terminals in MD and retinal ganglion terminals in LGN contained multiple mitochondria, and were classed as round, large (RL) boutons. Amygdalar and retinal RL boutons contained excitatory type vesicles and formed several asymmetric (excitatory) synapses with dendrites of thalamocortical relay neurons and dendrites of inhibitory interneurons. In a significant proportion of these multi-synaptic arrangements, the inhibitory dendrites contained vesicles and formed symmetric synapses with the dendrite of the thalamocortical neuron. These novel findings reveal that amygdalar terminals in MD form synaptic triads, reminiscent of those found in sensory thalamic relay nuclei, like LGN. Our findings suggest that amygdalar inputs to MD can drive signals to cortex, ensuring efficient transmission of salient emotional information, akin to sensory thalamic relays.Published versio

The statistical neuroanatomy of frontal networks in the macaque

We were interested in gaining insight into the functional properties of frontal networks based upon their anatomical inputs. We took a neuroinformatics approach, carrying out maximum likelihood hierarchical cluster analysis on 25 frontal cortical areas based upon their anatomical connections, with 68 input areas representing exterosensory, chemosensory, motor, limbic, and other frontal inputs. The analysis revealed a set of statistically robust clusters. We used these clusters to divide the frontal areas into 5 groups, including ventral-lateral, ventral-medial, dorsal-medial, dorsal-lateral, and caudal-orbital groups. Each of these groups was defined by a unique set of inputs. This organization provides insight into the differential roles of each group of areas and suggests a gradient by which orbital and ventral-medial areas may be responsible for decision-making processes based on emotion and primary reinforcers, and lateral frontal areas are more involved in integrating affective and rational information into a common framework

Phage Display in the Quest for New Selective Recognition Elements for Biosensors

Phages are bacterial viruses that have gained a significant role in biotechnology owing to their widely studied biology and many advantageous characteristics. Perhaps the best-known application of phages is phage display that refers to the expression of foreign peptides or proteins outside the phage virion as a fusion with one of the phage coat proteins. In 2018, one half of the Nobel prize in chemistry was awarded jointly to George P. Smith and Sir Gregory P. Winter "for the phage display of peptides and antibodies." The outstanding technology has evolved and developed considerably since its first description in 1985, and today phage display is commonly used in a wide variety of disciplines, including drug discovery, enzyme optimization, biomolecular interaction studies, as well as biosensor development. A cornerstone of all biosensors, regardless of the sensor platform or transduction scheme used, is a sensitive and selective bioreceptor, or a recognition element, that can provide specific binding to the target analyte. Many environmentally or pharmacologically interesting target analytes might not have naturally appropriate binding partners for biosensor development, but phage display can facilitate the production of novel receptors beyond known biomolecular interactions, or against toxic or nonimmunogenic targets, making the technology a valuable tool in the quest of new recognition elements for biosensor development.This study was supported by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades RTI2018-096410-B-C21). R.P. acknowledges UCM for a predoctoral grant and R.B. the PI17CIII/00045 grant from the AES-ISCIII program.S

The origin of large molecules in primordial autocatalytic reaction networks

Large molecules such as proteins and nucleic acids are crucial for life, yet their primordial origin remains a major puzzle. The production of large molecules, as we know it today, requires good catalysts, and the only good catalysts we know that can accomplish this task consist of large molecules. Thus the origin of large molecules is a chicken and egg problem in chemistry. Here we present a mechanism, based on autocatalytic sets (ACSs), that is a possible solution to this problem. We discuss a mathematical model describing the population dynamics of molecules in a stylized but prebiotically plausible chemistry. Large molecules can be produced in this chemistry by the coalescing of smaller ones, with the smallest molecules, the `food set', being buffered. Some of the reactions can be catalyzed by molecules within the chemistry with varying catalytic strengths. Normally the concentrations of large molecules in such a scenario are very small, diminishing exponentially with their size. ACSs, if present in the catalytic network, can focus the resources of the system into a sparse set of molecules. ACSs can produce a bistability in the population dynamics and, in particular, steady states wherein the ACS molecules dominate the population. However to reach these steady states from initial conditions that contain only the food set typically requires very large catalytic strengths, growing exponentially with the size of the catalyst molecule. We present a solution to this problem by studying `nested ACSs', a structure in which a small ACS is connected to a larger one and reinforces it. We show that when the network contains a cascade of nested ACSs with the catalytic strengths of molecules increasing gradually with their size (e.g., as a power law), a sparse subset of molecules including some very large molecules can come to dominate the system.Comment: 49 pages, 17 figures including supporting informatio