Anxious anticipation prolongs emotional interference for rapid visual detection.

When we view emotionally arousing images, our perception of stimuli that follow soon afterward is transiently impaired-a phenomenon known as emotion-induced blindness. Previous studies have demonstrated that the magnitude and time course of this visual processing impairment is exaggerated by the presence of psychopathology and anxiety-related traits. Here, we tested whether emotional interference on a primary task can be modulated on a more dynamic basis, by the anticipation of unpredictable electric shock. We embedded naturalistic scenes in a 10-Hz rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) stream, while varying the hedonic content of distractor images (aversive or neutral) and their temporal position (200, 400, and 700 ms) with respect to landscape targets. In Experiment 1, we found that, under typical conditions, aversive distractors induced a temporary visual performance decrement that exhibited a full rebound following a 400-ms distractor-target lag. In Experiment 2, subjects performed an identical RSVP task while under continuous threat of electric shock. We found that threat of unpredictable electric shock prolonged the duration of the emotional interference out to 400 ms and 700 ms, without affecting the overall magnitude of the performance impairment. In Experiment 3, the prolonged emotional interference under threat of unpredictable electric shock persisted at the 400-ms lag despite observed practice effects within subjects. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Contributions to hepatic fibrosis in HIV-HCV coinfected and HCV monoinfected patients.

OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to further explore the severity of liver disease and its predictors in a cohort of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infected patients, some of whom were coinfected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). METHODS: This is a retrospective, cross-sectional study of patients undergoing liver biopsy to stage HCV disease prior to consideration of anti-HCV therapy. RESULTS: A total of 92 HIV-HCV coinfected and 372 HCV monoinfected patients were included. As might be expected, coinfected patients differed from monoinfected patients in a number of ways, including having lower body mass index (BMI), and lower alcohol intake. Liver disease was very similar between the two groups, with mean fibrosis score of 1.45 u for coinfected and 1.53 u for monoinfected (p = NS). Histological inflammation score dominated multivariate models of fibrosis when it was included in them. When only clinical predictors were used in multivariate models, BMI and type 2 diabetes had independent associations in monoinfected patients, whereas low CD4 count, current or nadir, was the only variable with an independent association in coinfected patients. CONCLUSIONS: Coinfected patients do not have uniformly worse liver disease than monoinfected patients. Immune compromise plays an important role in liver disease in coinfected patients, and the role of other clinical factors in liver disease may differ between these two groups, as well.