The Influence of Anger on Implicit Biases

Interpretation of ambiguous information is influenced by anxious (Richards, Reynolds, & French, 1992) and depressive (Wisco, & Nolen-Hoeksema, 2010) symptoms. Emotion regulation strategies, and in particular, cognitive reappraisal has shown to be effective at reducing feelings of distress (Denson, Grisham, & Moulds, 2011). The current study seeks to understand the extent that emotion regulation can influence interpretation bias, thoughts and behaviors. In the current study, participants underwent both Angry and Neutral mood inductions. For each mood condition, participants were instructed to cognitively reappraise and attend to their emotions. Participants rated the degree of negative affect they experienced, and completed 6 sentence completion items to assess interpretation bias. Results indicated that participants exhibited an increased negative interpretation bias in the Angry condition relative to baseline. Following reappraisal, participants rated less negative affect in the Angry condition. Though, reappraisal did not change interpretation bias. However, self-report data indicated that individuals who tend to struggle to engage in emotion regulation techniques and those who endorsed higher levels of state anger, both showed greater negative affect following cognitive reappraisal and an increased negativity bias. Participants who reported that they engaged in cognitive reappraisal during the mood induction, exhibited an increased positivity bias. Results from this study indicate that cognitive reappraisal is an effective strategy to reduce feelings of negativity in an angry mood state, however, participants are still at risk for displaying a negative interpretation bias to ambiguous information

Aging, Executive Function, Fronto-Parietal Network Cortical Thickness: Insights from Cognitive Reserve

Cognitive reserve (CR) indexes the nonlinear relationship between neurological insult and behavioral change. CR is manifested in both static factors (e.g., childhood environment, education) and modifiable lifestyle factors, (e.g., leisure activities). Detailed investigation of the influence of CR on cortical thickness, which indexes neuropathology, and cognitive functioning could be particularly important in understanding the heterogeneity of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). While memory decline is the hallmark of AD, executive functioning (EF) decline often predates memory changes, making EF an important target for investigating CR influences. The current study examines the relationship of CR and genetic risk for AD (ε4) on EF as it relates to fronto-parietal neural network cortical thickness, and memory performance as it relates to medial temporal lobe thickness and hippocampal volume. This study addresses the heterogeneity of CR measurement by examining three different CR factors (CR1=IQ; CR2=IQ, Activities, CR3=IQ, Activities, Health) in 35 healthy elders age 51-84 (19 ε4+/16 ε4-). High CR was associated with better cognition. CR2 was associated with memory and CR3 was predictive of EF. High CR was also associated with greater cortical thickness: CR1 with cingulate; CR2 with inferior and superior parietal; and CR3 with insula, inferior and superior parietal. Across all CR measures, the interaction of ε4 and CR was associated with insula, inferior and superior parietal thickness. CR2 and CR3 further revealed interactions within frontal regions: CR1 and CR2 were associated with right parahippocampal gyrus (PHG), CR2 with left hippocampus, and CR3 with left PHG. Some regions showed an ‘Additive Benefit’, where high CR was particularly beneficial to ε4 carriers, while others showed an ‘Additive Detriment’, where low CR was particularly detrimental to ε4 carriers. This study also demonstrated that different CR measures yield disparate results. Nevertheless, CR was beneficial to both cognitive functioning and cortical thickness, particularly in ε4 carriers. Results are clinically translatable to identify mechanisms to delay the onset of AD

Exercise Training and Functional Connectivity Changes in Mild Cognitive Empairment and Healthy Elders

Background: Effective interventions are needed to improve brain function in mild cognitive impairment (MCI), an early stage of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). The posterior cingulate cortex (PCC)/precuneus is a hub of the default mode network (DMN) and is preferentially vulnerable to disruption of functional connectivity in MCI and AD. Objective: We investigated whether 12 weeks of aerobic exercise could enhance functional connectivity of the PCC/precuneus in MCI and healthy elders. Methods: Sixteen MCI and 16 healthy elders (age range = 60–88) engaged in a supervised 12-week walking exercise intervention. Functional MRI was acquired at rest; the PCC/precuneus was used as a seed for correlated brain activity maps. Results: A linear mixed effects model revealed a significant interaction in the right parietal lobe: the MCI group showed increased connectivity while the healthy elders showed decreased connectivity. In addition, both groups showed increased connectivity with the left postcentral gyrus. Comparing pre to post intervention changes within each group, the MCI group showed increased connectivity in 10 regions spanning frontal, parietal, temporal and insular lobes, and the cerebellum. Healthy elders did not demonstrate any significant connectivity changes. Conclusion: The observed results show increased functional connectivity of the PCC/precuneus in individuals with MCI after 12 weeks of moderate intensity walking exercise training. The protective effects of exercise training on cognition may be realized through the enhancement of neural recruitment mechanisms, which may possibly increase cognitive reserve. Whether these effects of exercise training may delay further cognitive decline in patients diagnosed with MCI remains to be demonstrated

Racial Discrimination, Social Support, and Mental Health

Previous research has shown that there is an association between racial discrimination and detrimental mental health outcomes. Drawing on the social support buffering hypothesis and the social support deterioration model, the current study examined the amount of social support and social support satisfaction as moderators and mediators in the longitudinal link between racial discrimination and psychological distress. The study used three waves of survey data collected over two years to examine racial discrimination, social support, and psychological distress in a sample of 155 African American undergraduate students (67.7 % female; mean age = 18.3) attending a predominately white institution. Analyses revealed that social support satisfaction buffered the relationship between racial discrimination and subsequent psychological distress, while amount of social support mediated the relationship between racial discrimination and subsequent distress. These findings suggest that social support is an important variable to consider when examining race-related stress and its impact on psychological health.Bachelor of Art

Improved Cardiorespiratory Fitness Is Associated with Increased Cortical Thickness in Mild Cognitive Impairment

Cortical atrophy is a biomarker of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) that correlates with clinical symptoms. This study examined changes in cortical thickness from before to after an exercise intervention in mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and healthy elders. Thirty physically inactive older adults (14 MCI, 16 healthy controls) underwent MRI before and after participating in a 12-week moderate intensity walking intervention. Participants were between the ages of 61 and 88. Change in cardiorespiratory fitness was assessed using residualized scores of the peak rate of oxygen consumption (V̇O2peak) from pre- to post-intervention. Structural magnetic resonance images were processed using FreeSurfer v5.1.0. V̇O2peak increased an average of 8.49%, which was comparable between MCI and healthy elders. Overall, cortical thickness was stable except for a significant decrease in the right fusiform gyrus in both groups. However, improvement in cardiorespiratory fitness due to the intervention (V̇O2peak) was positively correlated with cortical thickness change in the bilateral insula, precentral gyri, precuneus, posterior cingulate, and inferior and superior frontal cortices. Moreover, MCI participants exhibited stronger positive correlations compared to healthy elders in the left insula and superior temporal gyrus. A 12-week moderate intensity walking intervention led to significantly improved fitness in both MCI and healthy elders. Improved V̇O2peak was associated with widespread increased cortical thickness, which was similar between MCI and healthy elders. Thus, regular exercise may be an especially beneficial intervention to counteract cortical atrophy in all risk groups, and may provide protection against future cognitive decline in both healthy elders and MCI

When Auditory and Visual Signal Processing Conflict: Cross-Modal Interference in Extended Work Periods

Auditory and visual stimuli presented at intervals of about 300 m sec often produce miss errors in one or the other channel, which result from a bottleneck in a neural circuit associated with executive memory. The present study examined the possibility that cross-modal interference could carry over to performance units that transpire over 3 min or longer. An N-back task performed by 113 undergraduates with simultaneous auditory and visual stimuli was organised into 1-min blocks of 20 trials in 2-back and 3-back conditions. Results showed that impairment of visual processing was more frequent than impairment of auditory processing under conditions of fatigue. A substantial number of person blocks showed no such interference, however. Bottlenecks during early stages of processing may have more extensive effects on later processing than previously recognised. Further research should consider perceptual cycling in longer term tasks involving complex stimuli

Good Catch! Using Interdisciplinary Teams and Team Reflexivity to Improve Patient Safety

Interdisciplinary teams play an important role implementing innovations that facilitate the quality and safety of patient care. This article examined the role of reflexivity in team innovation implementation and its association with an objective patient safety outcome, inpatient fall rates (a fall is an unintended downward displacement of a patient’s body to the ground or other object). In this study, we implemented, supported, and evaluated interdisciplinary teams intended to decrease fall risk in 16 small rural hospitals. These hospitals were part of a collaborative that sought to increase knowledge and facilitate reflexivity about fall event reporting and fall risk reduction structures and processes. We assessed team reflexivity at the start and at the end of the 2-year intervention and innovation implementation at the end of the intervention. The 16 hospitals reported objective fall event data and patient days throughout the project, which we used to calculate comparative rates for assisted, unassisted, and injurious falls. The results suggest that teams benefited from the intervention, increasing reflexivity from the start of the project to the end, which was related to innovation implementation and decreases in fall rates. Theoretical and practical applications of the results are discussed

Group and Organizational Safety Norms Set the Stage for Good Post-Fall Huddles

We explored group and organizational safety norms as antecedents to meeting leader behaviors and achievement of desired outcomes in a special after-action review case—a post-fall huddle. A longitudinal survey design was used to investigate the relationship between organizational/group safety norms, huddle leader behavior, and huddle meeting effectiveness. The sample included health care workers in critical access hospitals (N = 206) who completed a baseline safety norm assessment and an assessment of post-fall huddle experiences 3 to 6 months later. Findings indicate that organizational and group safety norms relate to perceived huddle meeting effectiveness through appropriate huddle leader behavior in a partial mediated framework. In contrast to previous research showing after-action reviews predicting group and organizational safety norms, the longitudinal study presented here suggests that group and organizational safety norms set the stage for the enactment of post-fall huddles in an effective manner

A Theory-Driven, Longitudinal Evaluation of the Impact of Team Training on Safety Culture in 24 Hospitals

Effective teamwork facilitates collective learning, which is integral to safety culture. There are no rigorous evaluations of the impact of team training on the four components of safety culture—reporting, just, flexible and learning cultures. We evaluated the impact of a year-long team training programme on safety culture in 24 hospitals using two theoretical frameworks