I just lost it! Fear and anger reduce the sense of agency: a study using intentional binding

Two recent studies have demonstrated that increases in arousal states lead to an increase people’s sense of agency, i.e., the subjective experience of controlling one’s own voluntary actions (Minohara et al. in Front Psychol 7:1165, 2016; Wen et al. in Conscious Cogn 36:87–95, 2015). We here extend these findings by showing that arousal states with negative emotional valence, such as fear and anger, decrease sense of agency. Anger and fear are negative emotional states. Anecdotally, they are often invoked as reasons for losing control, and neuroscientific evidence confirms important effects on the brain’s action control systems. Surprisingly, the subjective experience of acting in anger or fear has scarcely been investigated experimentally. Thus, the legal notion that these intense emotions may undermine normal voluntary control over actions and outcomes (the ‘Loss of Control’, a partial defence for murder) lacks any clear evidence base. In three laboratory experiments, we measured sense of agency using an implicit measure based on time perception (the “intentional binding” paradigm). These actions occurred in either an emotionally neutral condition, or in a fearful (experiments 1 and 2) or angry state (experiment 3). In line with our hypotheses, fear or anger reduced the subjective sense of control over an action outcome, even though the objective causal link between action and outcome remained the same. This gap between the objective facts of agency, and a reduced subjective experience of agency under emotional conditions, has important implications for society and law

Dopamine boosts intention and action awareness in Parkinson’s disease

Dopaminergic deficiency in Parkinson’s disease (PD) has been associated with underactivation of the supplementary motor area and a reduction of voluntary actions. In these patients, awareness of intention to act has been shown to be delayed. However, delayed awareness of intention to act has also been shown in patients with hyperdopaminergic states and an excess of unwilled movements, as in Tourette’s, and in patients with functional movement disorders. Hence, the role of dopamine in the awareness of intention and action remains unclear. 36 PD patients were tested ON and OFF dopaminergic medication and compared with 35 healthy age-matched controls. In addition, 17 PD patients with subthalamic deep brain stimulation (DBS) were tested ON medication and ON and OFF stimulation. Participants judged either the moment a self-generated action was performed, or the moment the urge to perform the action was felt, using the “Libet method”. Temporal judgments of intention and action awareness were comparable between unmedicated PD patients and controls. Dopaminergic medication boosted anticipatory awareness of both intentions and actions in PD patients, relative to an unmedicated condition. The difference between ON/OFF DBS was not statistically reliable. Functional improvement of motor ability in PD through dopaminergic supplementation leads to earlier awareness of both intention, and of voluntary action

Attachment style moderates partner presence effects on pain : A laser-evoked potentials study

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly citedSocial support is crucial for psychological and physical well-being. Yet, in experimental and clinical pain research, the presence of others has been found to both attenuate and intensify pain. To investigate the factors underlying these mixed effects, we administered noxious laser stimuli to 39 healthy women while their romantic partner was present or absent, and measured pain ratings and laser-evoked potentials to assess the effects of partner presence on subjective pain experience and underlying neural processes. Further, we examined whether individual differences in adult attachment style, alone or in interaction with the partner's level of attentional focus (manipulated to be either on or away from the participant) might modulate these effects. We found that the effects of partner presence versus absence on pain-related measures depended on adult attachment style but not partner attentional focus. The higher participants' attachment avoidance, the higher pain ratings and N2 and P2 local peak amplitudes were in the presence compared to the absence of the romantic partner. As laser-evoked potentials are thought to reflect activity relating to the salience of events, our data suggest that partner presence may influence the perceived salience of events threatening the body, particularly in individuals who tend to mistrust others.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

The Milky Way Tomography With SDSS. III. Stellar Kinematics

We study Milky Way kinematics using a sample of 18.8 million main-sequence stars with r 20 degrees). We find that in the region defined by 1 kpc < Z < 5 kpc and 3 kpc < R < 13 kpc, the rotational velocity for disk stars smoothly decreases, and all three components of the velocity dispersion increase, with distance from the Galactic plane. In contrast, the velocity ellipsoid for halo stars is aligned with a spherical coordinate system and appears to be spatially invariant within the probed volume. The velocity distribution of nearby (Z < 1 kpc) K/M stars is complex, and cannot be described by a standard Schwarzschild ellipsoid. For stars in a distance-limited subsample of stars (< 100 pc), we detect a multi-modal velocity distribution consistent with that seen by HIPPARCOS. This strong non-Gaussianity significantly affects the measurements of the velocity-ellipsoid tilt and vertex deviation when using the Schwarzschild approximation. We develop and test a simple descriptive model for the overall kinematic behavior that captures these features over most of the probed volume, and can be used to search for substructure in kinematic and metallicity space. We use this model to predict further improvements in kinematic mapping of the Galaxy expected from Gaia and the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope.NSF AST-615991, AST-0707901, AST-0551161, AST-02-38683, AST-06-07634, AST-0807444, PHY05-51164NASA NAG5-13057, NAG5-13147, NNXO-8AH83GPhysics Frontier Center/Joint Institute for Nuclear Astrophysics (JINA) PHY 08-22648U.S. National Science FoundationMarie Curie Research Training Network ELSA (European Leadership in Space Astrometry) MRTN-CT-2006-033481Fermi Research Alliance, LLC, United States Department of Energy DE-AC02-07CH11359Alfred P. Sloan FoundationParticipating InstitutionsJapanese MonbukagakushoMax Planck SocietyHigher Education Funding Council for EnglandMcDonald Observator

The Milky Way Tomography with SDSS: III. Stellar Kinematics

We study Milky Way kinematics using a sample of 18.8 million main-sequence stars with r<20 and proper-motion measurements derived from SDSS and POSS astrometry, including ~170,000 stars with radial-velocity measurements from the SDSS spectroscopic survey. Distances to stars are determined using a photometric parallax relation, covering a distance range from ~100 pc to 10 kpc over a quarter of the sky at high Galactic latitudes (|b|>20 degrees). We find that in the region defined by 1 kpc <Z< 5 kpc and 3 kpc <R< 13 kpc, the rotational velocity for disk stars smoothly decreases, and all three components of the velocity dispersion increase, with distance from the Galactic plane. In contrast, the velocity ellipsoid for halo stars is aligned with a spherical coordinate system and appears to be spatially invariant within the probed volume. The velocity distribution of nearby ($Z<1$ kpc) K/M stars is complex, and cannot be described by a standard Schwarzschild ellipsoid. For stars in a distance-limited subsample of stars (<100 pc), we detect a multimodal velocity distribution consistent with that seen by HIPPARCOS. This strong non-Gaussianity significantly affects the measurements of the velocity ellipsoid tilt and vertex deviation when using the Schwarzschild approximation. We develop and test a simple descriptive model for the overall kinematic behavior that captures these features over most of the probed volume, and can be used to search for substructure in kinematic and metallicity space. We use this model to predict further improvements in kinematic mapping of the Galaxy expected from Gaia and LSST.Comment: 90 pages, 26 figures, submitted to Ap

Monolithic Fuel Fabrication Process Development at the Idaho National Laboratory

Within the Reduced Enrichment for Research and Test Reactors (RERTR) program directed by the US Department of Energy (DOE), UMo fuel-foils are being developed in an effort to realize high density monolithic fuel plates for use in high-flux research and test reactors. Namely, targeted are reactors that are not amenable to Low Enriched Uranium (LEU) fuel conversion via utilization of high density dispersion-based fuels, i.e. 8-9 gU/cc. LEU conversion of reactors having a need for >8-9 gU/cc fuel density will only be possible by way of monolithic fuel forms. The UMo fuel foils under development afford fuel meat density of ~16 gU/cc and thus have the potential to facilitate LEU conversions without any significant reactor-performance penalty. Two primary challenges have been established with respect to UMo monolithic fuel development; namely, fuel element fabrication and in-reactor fuel element performance. Both issues are being addressed concurrently at the Idaho National Laboratory. An overview is provided of the ongoing monolithic UMo fuel development effort at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL); including development of complex/graded fuel foils. Fabrication processes to be discussed include: UMo alloying and casting, foil fabrication via hot rolling, fuel-clad interlayer application via co-rolling and thermal spray processes, clad bonding via Hot Isostatic Pressing (HIP) and Friction Bonding (FB), and fuel plate finishing

The Ninth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: First Spectroscopic Data from the SDSS-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey III (SDSS-III) presents the first spectroscopic data from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS). This ninth data release (DR9) of the SDSS project includes 535,995 new galaxy spectra (median z=0.52), 102,100 new quasar spectra (median z=2.32), and 90,897 new stellar spectra, along with the data presented in previous data releases. These spectra were obtained with the new BOSS spectrograph and were taken between 2009 December and 2011 July. In addition, the stellar parameters pipeline, which determines radial velocities, surface temperatures, surface gravities, and metallicities of stars, has been updated and refined with improvements in temperature estimates for stars with T_eff<5000 K and in metallicity estimates for stars with [Fe/H]>-0.5. DR9 includes new stellar parameters for all stars presented in DR8, including stars from SDSS-I and II, as well as those observed as part of the SDSS-III Sloan Extension for Galactic Understanding and Exploration-2 (SEGUE-2). The astrometry error introduced in the DR8 imaging catalogs has been corrected in the DR9 data products. The next data release for SDSS-III will be in Summer 2013, which will present the first data from the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE) along with another year of data from BOSS, followed by the final SDSS-III data release in December 2014.Comment: 9 figures; 2 tables. Submitted to ApJS. DR9 is available at http://www.sdss3.org/dr