The effects of Tai Chi exercise on sleep quality among the elderly: a study based on polysomnographic monitoring.

Background: Sleep disorders contribute to an increased risk of depression, cardiovascular issues, and various other diseases among older individuals. Consequently, enhancing the sleep quality of this demographic population has become a pressing concern. The objective of this study was to investigate the influence of an 8-week Tai Chi exercise intervention in the sleep quality of older adults. Methods: Sixty individuals aged 60 years and above, recruited from the community around Southwest University in Beibei District, Chongqing City, were randomly assigned to either a control group (30 participants) or an intervention group (30 participants). The control group adhered to their normal daily routines during the 8-week experimental period, while the intervention group engaged in a 60-min Tai Chi practice three times a week for 8 weeks. Sleep quality was assessed using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), the Insomnia Severity Index (ISI), and the Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS). Additionally, the Polysomnographic Sleep Quality Monitoring System (PSG) was employed to monitor the sleep process before and after the Tai Chi intervention. Results: After the experiment, significant differences were observed in PSQI and IEI scores between the intervention and control groups (p < 0.05). In the experimental group, the pre-post comparisons revealed a significant increase in time spent in bed (p < 0.05), total sleep time (p < 0.05), and non-REM sleep stage 2 (p < 0.05). Conclusion: The findings indicate that Tai Chi exercise may improve subjective reported sleep quality. In addition, Tai Chi exercise may alleviate general drowsiness, extend sleep duration, and optimize the sleep process and structure. Consequently, Tai Chi exercise may be a suitable exercise to improve sleep quality in older individuals.

Unconscious processing of prototype heuristics in scientific innovation problem-solving.

Previously published studies on the effect of how different levels of unconsciousness (UC) and different loads of executive functions (EFs) affect insight problem solving are inconsistent. In a set of three experiments, we used scientific innovation problems (SIP) as insight metrics and distractor tasks to induce UC. Experiment 1 confirmed that, compared with conscious processing, unconscious processing is more conducive to obtaining prototype heuristics for correctly solving scientific innovation problems creatively. Furthermore, Experiment 2 found that different levels of unconscious processing, which were induced by different distractor tasks, made a different impact on high or low difficulty creative problem solving. Experiment 3 indicated that unconscious processing could improve prototype activation and the ability to use key heuristics information in prototype heuristics processing by improving working memory, inhibitory control, and shifting ability of EFs. Overall, the present results provide additional evidence for the role of consciousness levels in insight problem solving.

Preference of harmonic loudness degree on piano timbre.

This study exploratively conducted two investigations of timbre influenced by harmonic loudness. Investigation 1 examined piano timbre preference between non-processed melodies and two kinds of adjustments created via an equalizer-a basic tool used for sound engineering and for producing audio materials. Using the paired comparison method, 98 respondents were surveyed. The results show that in the bass range of the piano sound, the preferred audio material was that produced via an equalizer by reducing the loudness of the 7th and 9th harmonics by 15 dB, while enhancing the loudness of the 8th harmonic by 15 dB. Investigation 2 examined three degrees of the processed melodies-adjusting the harmonics by 15, 10, and 5 dB. The results show that the 15 dB change was the best, while the 10 dB change was the worst. These results provide a new approach to improving the sound timbre for sound engineering and artificial intelligence music production.

Does Exposure to Foreign Culture Influence Creativity? Maybe It's Not Only Due to Concept Expansion.

Multicultural experience refers to those experiences gained through individuals' contact with other cultures. This study focused on exploring whether knowledge of different cultures can improve creative performance-and also how multicultural experiences influenced this performance through changes in individual's physiological mechanisms. Study 1 explored the influence of different cultural priming on creative story-writing tasks. Eighty-nine Chinese college students were randomly assigned to 4 conditions: sole American culture, dual cultures, sole Chinese culture or control condition, and made to watch 45 min slides with cultural elements-including pictures, music and videos,-and then they were asked to complete the creative story-writing task. The results showed that American culture priming group's score was significantly higher than the control condition with regards to the uniqueness and novelty of the creative story-writing task. Study 2 was aimed at exploring the relationship between physiological arousal levels induced by different cultural and creative performance. We divided the whole experiment into five stages,-including the baseline, picture, listening to music, watching video, and completing creative tasks. Through Biofeedback measurement, we recorded the physiological indexes of participants in different groups in every stage, including skin conductance, thermal, electroencephalographic, and heart rate. The results showed that contacting with foreign cultures would increase individuals' physiological arousal level and brain activity, which contributed to the following creative task.

The Relationship Between Self-Efficacy and Aggressive Behavior in Boxers: The Mediating Role of Self-Control.

Aggressive behavior has been one of the core issues in sports psychology, whereas boxers' aggressive behavior has received limited attention. Although some literature reported that self-efficacy is related to aggressive behavior, the mechanism whereby self-efficacy affects aggressive behavior remains unclear. The present study investigated the relationship between self-efficacy and aggressive behavior, as well as the effect of self-control as a mediating factor. This study uses the Self-efficacy Scale for Athletes, the Self-control Questionnaire for Athletes, and the Buss-Perry Aggression Questionnaire. This relationship is explored through self-reported measures from N = 414 Chinese professional boxers, n = 243 were male and n = 171 were female, the average age was M = 17.72 years (SD = 3.147), the participants, the average number of years of exercise was M = 3.89 years (SD = 2.734); Results showed that male boxers reported greater aggression than female boxers; It was found that the self-efficacy and self-control improved as age of the participants increased; The higher the level of competition, the higher levels of self-efficacy and self-control; Self-efficacy was negatively related with aggressive behavior and positively correlated with self-control. Self-control was also negatively correlated with aggressive behavior among boxers. Self-control had a full mediating effect on the relationship between self-efficacy and aggressive behavior.

The association between visual creativity and cortical thickness in healthy adults.

Creativity is necessary to human survival, human prosperity, civilization and well-being. Visual creativity is an important part of creativity and is the ability to create products of novel and useful visual forms, playing important role in many fields such as art, painting and sculpture. There have been several neuroimaging studies exploring the neural basis of visual creativity. However, to date, little is known about the relationship between cortical structure and visual creativity as measured by the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking. Here, we investigated the association between cortical thickness and visual creativity in a large sample of 310 healthy adults. We used multiple regression to analyze the correlation between cortical thickness and visual creativity, adjusting for gender, age and general intelligence. The results showed that visual creativity was significantly negatively correlated with cortical thickness in the left middle frontal gyrus (MFG), right inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), right supplementary motor cortex (SMA) and the left insula. These observations have implications for understanding that a thinner prefrontal cortex (PFC) (e.g. IFG, MFG), SMA and insula correspond to higher visual creative performance, presumably due to their role in executive attention, cognitive control, motor planning and dynamic switching.

Getting the Joke: Insight during Humor Comprehension - Evidence from an fMRI Study.

As a high-level cognitive activity, humor comprehension requires incongruity detection and incongruity resolution, which then elicits an insight moment. The purpose of the study was to explore the neural basis of humor comprehension, particularly the moment of insight, by using both characters and language-free cartoons in a functional magnetic resonance imaging study. The results showed that insight involving jokes elicited greater activation in language and semantic-related brain regions as well as a variety of additional regions, such as the superior frontal gyrus (SFG), the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), the middle temporal gyrus (MTG), the superior temporal gyrus (STG), the temporoparietal junctions (TPJ), the hippocampus and visual areas. These findings indicate that the MTG might play a role in incongruity detection, while the SFG, IFG and the TPJ might be involved in incongruity detection. The passive insight event elicited by jokes appears to be mediated by a limited number of brain areas. Our study showed that the brain regions associated with humor comprehension were not affected by the type of stimuli and that humor and insight shared common brain areas. These results indicate that one experiences a feeling of insight during humor comprehension, which contributes to the understanding of humor comprehension.

Common and distinct brain networks underlying verbal and visual creativity.

Creativity is imperative to the progression of human civilization, prosperity, and well-being. Past creative researches tends to emphasize the default mode network (DMN) or the frontoparietal network (FPN) somewhat exclusively. However, little is known about how these networks interact to contribute to creativity and whether common or distinct brain networks are responsible for visual and verbal creativity. Here, we use functional connectivity analysis of resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging data to investigate visual and verbal creativity-related regions and networks in 282 healthy subjects. We found that functional connectivity within the bilateral superior parietal cortex of the FPN was negatively associated with visual and verbal creativity. The strength of connectivity between the DMN and FPN was positively related to both creative domains. Visual creativity was negatively correlated with functional connectivity within the precuneus of the pDMN and right middle frontal gyrus of the FPN, and verbal creativity was negatively correlated with functional connectivity within the medial prefrontal cortex of the aDMN. Critically, the FPN mediated the relationship between the aDMN and verbal creativity, and it also mediated the relationship between the pDMN and visual creativity. Taken together, decreased within-network connectivity of the FPN and DMN may allow for flexible between-network coupling in the highly creative brain. These findings provide indirect evidence for the cooperative role of the default and executive control networks in creativity, extending past research by revealing common and distinct brain systems underlying verbal and visual creative cognition. Hum Brain Mapp 38:2094-2111, 2017. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Brain structure links everyday creativity to creative achievement.

Although creativity is commonly considered to be a cornerstone of human progress and vital to all realms of our lives, its neural basis remains elusive, partly due to the different tasks and measurement methods applied in research. In particular, the neural correlates of everyday creativity that can be experienced by everyone, to some extent, are still unexplored. The present study was designed to investigate the brain structure underlying individual differences in everyday creativity, as measured by the Creative Behavioral Inventory (CBI) (N=163). The results revealed that more creative activities were significantly and positively associated with larger gray matter volume (GMV) in the regional premotor cortex (PMC), which is a motor planning area involved in the creation and selection of novel actions and inhibition. In addition, the gray volume of the PMC had a significant positive relationship with creative achievement and Art scores, which supports the notion that training and practice may induce changes in brain structures. These results indicate that everyday creativity is linked to the PMC and that PMC volume can predict creative achievement, supporting the view that motor planning may play a crucial role in creative behavior.

Association between regional white and gray matter volume and ambiguity tolerance: Evidence from voxel-based morphometry.

The concept of tolerance of ambiguity (AT) is defined as the way in which an individual tends to perceive and deal with confusing, vague, and unclear situations. AT is generally considered as an important personality trait, but the neural mechanisms underlying individual differences in AT have never been investigated. Using voxel-based morphometry and MSTAT-II scale, we investigated the correlations between AT and regional white matter volume (rWMV) and regional gray matter volume (rGMV) in 351 young healthy subjects. We found AT to be positively correlated with rGMV in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), and negatively correlated with rGMV in the precuneus. These results indicate that increased rGMV in the left DLPFC may lead to characteristics of ambiguous stimuli consideration from multiple contexts and risk taking. Decreased rGMV in the left precuneus may be associated with a high tolerance for ambiguity, which attributes uncertainty to self-related factors.

Regional brain activity during early-stage intense romantic love predicted relationship outcomes after 40 months: an fMRI assessment.

Early-stage romantic love is associated with activation in reward and motivation systems of the brain. Can these localized activations, or others, predict long-term relationship stability? We contacted participants from a previous fMRI study of early-stage love by Xu et al. [34] after 40 months from initial assessments. We compared brain activation during the initial assessment at early-stage love for those who were still together at 40 months and those who were apart, and surveyed those still together about their relationship happiness and commitment at 40 months. Six participants who were still with their partners at 40 months (compared to six who had broken up) showed less activation during early-stage love in the medial orbitofrontal cortex, right subcallosal cingulate and right accumbens, regions implicated in long-term love and relationship satisfaction [1,2]. These regions of deactivation at the early stage of love were also negatively correlated with relationship happiness scores collected at 40 months. Other areas involved were the caudate tail, and temporal and parietal lobes. These data are preliminary evidence that neural responses in the early stages of romantic love can predict relationship stability and quality up to 40 months later in the relationship. The brain regions involved suggest that forebrain reward functions may be predictive for relationship stability, as well as regions involved in social evaluation, emotional regulation, and mood.

Reward and motivation systems: a brain mapping study of early-stage intense romantic love in Chinese participants.

Early-stage romantic love has been studied previously in the United States and United Kingdom (Aron et al. [2005]: J Neurophysiol 94:327­337; Bartels and Zeki [2000]: Neuroreport 11:3829­3834; Ortigue et al. [2007]: J Cogn Neurosci 19:1218­1230), revealing activation in the reward and motivation systems of the brain. In this study, we asked what systems are activated for early-stage romantic love in Easterners, specifically Chinese participants? Are these activations affected by individual differences within a cultural context of Traditionality and Modernity? Also, are these brain activations correlated with later satisfaction in the relationship? In Beijing, we used the same procedure used by Aron et al. (Aron et al. [2005]: J Neurophysiol 94:327­337). The stimuli for 18 Chinese participants were a picture of the face of their beloved, the face of a familiar acquaintance, and a countback task. We found significant activations specific to the beloved in the reward and motivation systems, particularly, the ventral tegmental area and the caudate. The mid-orbitofrontal cortex and cerebellum were also activated, whereas amygdala, medial orbitofrontal, and medial accumbens activity were decreased relative to the familiar acquaintance. Self-reported Traditionality and Modernity scores were each positively correlated with activity in the nucleus accumbens, although in different regions and sides of the brain. Activity in the subgenual area and the superior frontal gyrus was associated with higher relationship happiness at 18-month follow-up. Our results show that midbrain dopamine-rich reward/motivation systems were activated by early-stage romantic love in Chinese participants, as found by other studies. Neural activity was associated with Traditionality and Modernity attitudes as well as with later relationship happiness for Chinese participants.

The trait of sensory processing sensitivity and neural responses to changes in visual scenes.

This exploratory study examined the extent to which individual differences in sensory processing sensitivity (SPS), a temperament/personality trait characterized by social, emotional and physical sensitivity, are associated with neural response in visual areas in response to subtle changes in visual scenes. Sixteen participants completed the Highly Sensitive Person questionnaire, a standard measure of SPS. Subsequently, they were tested on a change detection task while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). SPS was associated with significantly greater activation in brain areas involved in high-order visual processing (i.e. right claustrum, left occipitotemporal, bilateral temporal and medial and posterior parietal regions) as well as in the right cerebellum, when detecting minor (vs major) changes in stimuli. These findings remained strong and significant after controlling for neuroticism and introversion, traits that are often correlated with SPS. These results provide the first evidence of neural differences associated with SPS, the first direct support for the sensory aspect of this trait that has been studied primarily for its social and affective implications, and preliminary evidence for heightened sensory processing in individuals high in SPS.