Examining a window of vulnerability for affective symptoms in the mid-luteal phase of the menstrual cycle.

Particular phases of the menstrual cycle may exacerbate affective symptoms for females with a diagnosed mental health disorder. However, there are mixed findings regarding whether affective symptoms change across the menstrual cycle in females without a clinical diagnosis. The window of vulnerability model proposes that natural increases in ovarian hormones in the mid-luteal phase of the menstrual cycle lead to systematic changes in brain networks associated with affective processing. Consequently, the model posits that females may experience stress more intensely and remember negative events more readily in the mid-luteal phase, increasing their risk for higher affective symptoms. Using a 35-day longitudinal study design, we tested the window of vulnerability model in a non-clinical sample. We tracked naturally cycling females' daily stress and three types of affective symptoms: anxious apprehension, anxious arousal, and anhedonic depression. Using multilevel modeling, we simultaneously modeled within- and between-person associations among stress and menstrual phase for each affective symptom. We found increased anhedonic depression in the mid-luteal phase but not anxious apprehension or anxious arousal. Moreover, we detected a positive association between within- and between-person stress and anxious apprehension and anhedonic depression, but not anxious arousal. These associations were not stronger in the mid-luteal phase. Overall, we provide weak evidence for a window of vulnerability for affective symptoms in the mid-luteal phase of the menstrual cycle. Our findings suggest that stress is a better predictor of fluctuations in affective symptoms than the menstrual cycle. Moreover, our findings highlight the importance of measuring multiple negative affective symptoms because they may be differentially related to stress and the menstrual cycle.

Placebos without deception reduce self-report and neural measures of emotional distress.

Several recent studies suggest that placebos administered without deception (i.e., non-deceptive placebos) can help people manage a variety of highly distressing clinical disorders and nonclinical impairments. However, whether non-deceptive placebos represent genuine psychobiological effects is unknown. Here we address this issue by demonstrating across two experiments that during a highly arousing negative picture viewing task, non-deceptive placebos reduce both a self-report and neural measure of emotional distress, the late positive potential. These results show that non-deceptive placebo effects are not merely a product of response bias. Additionally, they provide insight into the neural time course of non-deceptive placebo effects on emotional distress and the psychological mechanisms that explain how they function.

Third-person self-talk facilitates emotion regulation without engaging cognitive control: Converging evidence from ERP and fMRI.

Does silently talking to yourself in the third-person constitute a relatively effortless form of self control? We hypothesized that it does under the premise that third-person self-talk leads people to think about the self similar to how they think about others, which provides them with the psychological distance needed to facilitate self control. We tested this prediction by asking participants to reflect on feelings elicited by viewing aversive images (Study 1) and recalling negative autobiographical memories (Study 2) using either "I" or their name while measuring neural activity via ERPs (Study 1) and fMRI (Study 2). Study 1 demonstrated that third-person self-talk reduced an ERP marker of self-referential emotional reactivity (i.e., late positive potential) within the first second of viewing aversive images without enhancing an ERP marker of cognitive control (i.e., stimulus preceding negativity). Conceptually replicating these results, Study 2 demonstrated that third-person self-talk was linked with reduced levels of activation in an a priori defined fMRI marker of self-referential processing (i.e., medial prefrontal cortex) when participants reflected on negative memories without eliciting increased levels of activity in a priori defined fMRI markers of cognitive control. Together, these results suggest that third-person self-talk may constitute a relatively effortless form of self-control.

Self-distancing Buffers High Trait Anxious Pediatric Cancer Caregivers against Short- and Longer-term Distress.

Pediatric cancer caregivers are typically present at their child's frequent, invasive treatments, and such treatments elicit substantial distress. Yet, variability exists in how even the most anxious caregivers cope. Here we examined one potential source of this variability: caregivers' tendencies to self-distance when reflecting on their feelings surrounding their child's treatments. We measured caregivers' self-distancing and trait anxiety at baseline, anticipatory anxiety during their child's treatment procedures, and psychological distress and avoidance three months later. Self-distancing buffered high (but not low) trait anxious caregivers against short- and long-term distress without promoting avoidance. These findings held when controlling for other buffers, highlighting the unique benefits of self-distancing. These results identify a coping process that buffers vulnerable caregivers against a chronic life stressor while also demonstrating the ecological validly of laboratory research on self-distancing. Future research is needed to explicate causality and the cognitive and physiological processes that mediate these results.