Inhibitory control effectiveness can be improved: The role of arousal, subjective significance and origin of words in modified Emotional Stroop Test.

The interference control measured in the Emotional Stroop Task is the phenomenon that gives us an insight into mechanisms of emotion-cognition interactions. Especially the role of dimensions of affect can be easily studied with this paradigm. In the current study, we were interested in the role of the complexity of emotional stimuli (origin). We also aimed at searching for activation-like factors that impair (arousal) or improve (subjective significance) the effectiveness of cognitive control. We have used an orthogonal manipulation of all the above dimensions in words. We expected to find the contrastive effects of arousal and subjective significance on reaction times and Event Related Potential's amplitudes. On a behavioural level, we observed the reduction of reaction times with increasing subjective significance of stimuli and reflective origin. We also found a correlation between subjective significance and reduction of amplitude polarisation in the N450 component associated with cognitive control execution effort. This experiment shows that subjective significance has an improving role for cognitive control effectiveness, even when valence, arousal and origin levels are controlled. This guides us to conclude that external stimuli may drive not only disruption of control but also its improvement.

Electrophysiological correlates of interference control in the modified emotional Stroop task with emotional stimuli differing in valence, arousal, and subjective significance.

The role of emotional factors in maintaining cognitive control is one of the most intriguing issues in understanding emotion-cognition interactions. In the current experiment, we assessed the role of emotional factors (valence, arousal, and subjective significance) in perceptual and conceptual inhibition processes. We operationalised both processes with the classical cognitive paradigms, i.e., the flanker task and the emotional Stroop task merged into a single experimental procedure. The procedure was based on the presentation of emotional words displayed in four different font colours flanked by the same emotional word printed with the same or different font colour. We expected to find distinct effects of both types of interference: earlier for perceptual and later for emotional interference. We also predicted an increased arousal level to disturb inhibitory control effectiveness, while increasing the subjective significance level should improve this process. As we used orthogonal manipulations of emotional factors, our study allowed us for the first time to assess interactions within emotional factors and between types of interference. We found on the behavioural level the main effects of flanker congruency as well as effects of emotionality. On the electrophysiological level, we found effects for EPN, P2, and N450 components of ERPs. The exploratory analysis revealed that effects due to perceptual interference appeared earlier than the effects of emotional interference, but they lasted for an extended period of processing, causing perceptual and emotional interference to partially overlap. Finally, in terms of emotional interference, we showed the effect of subjective significance: the reduction of interference cost in N450 for highly subjective significant stimuli. This study is the first one allowing for the investigation of two different types of interference in a single experiment, and provides insight into the role of emotion in cognitive control.

Interoceptive awareness and beliefs about health and the body as predictors of the intensity of emotions experienced at the beginning of the pandemic.

BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic is a type of stressful event which might have an impact on psychological state. A prolonged threat of getting a serious, contagious illness is expected to be associated with an increase of negative emotions and, conversely, with a decrease of positive emotions. As the stressor is strongly linked to health and the body, we decided to investigate what types of factors related to body perception and appraisal are associated with different types of reported emotions. The purpose of the study was to verify the associations between three types of variables: interoceptive awareness as described by Mehling and colleagues (2012a, 2018), negative beliefs about health and body, and different types of emotions. METHODOLOGY: A Multidimensional Assessment of Interoceptive Awareness questionnaire was applied to evaluate interoceptive awareness. The declared emotional state was diagnosed with a list of 20 emotions-divided by valence and origin. Additionally, a list of 10 negative beliefs about health and body was used. The study was held in a correlational schema with 299 subjects recruited via the social media platform Facebook who took part in an online survey. RESULTS: The study revealed that the scales of Self-Regulation and Trusting are primarily associated with negative automatic and reflective emotions and positive automatic emotions. Furthermore, the Self-Regulation, Trusting dimensions of interoceptive awareness predict an intensity of emotions categorised on the basis of valence and origin. In addition, negative beliefs about health and the body provided an adequate explanation of the variance of most of the types of emotions experienced during the pandemic. CONCLUSIONS: Factors related to body perception, such as interoceptive awareness and negative beliefs about health and body provide a significant contribution to explaining emotional state at the beginning of the pandemic.

Electrophysiological and Behavioral Correlates of Valence, Arousal and Subjective Significance in the Lexical Decision Task.

The emotional properties of words, such as valence and arousal, influence the way we perceive and process verbal stimuli. Recently, subjective significance was found to be an additional factor describing the activational aspect of emotional reactions, which is vital for the cognitive consequences of emotional stimuli processing. Subjective significance represents the form of mental activation specific to reflective mind processing. The Lexical Decision Task (LDT) is a paradigm allowing the investigation of the involuntary processing of meaning and differentiating this processing from the formal processing of the perceptual features of words. In this study, we wanted to search for the consequences of valence, arousal, and subjective significance for the involuntary processing of verbal stimuli meaning indexed by both behavioral measures (reaction latencies) and electrophysiological measures (Event-Related Potentials: ERPs). We expected subjective significance, as the reflective form of activation, to shorten response latencies in LDT. We also expected subjective significance to modulate the amplitude of the ERP FN400 component, reducing the negative-going deflection of the potential. We expected valence to shape the LPC component amplitude, differentiating between negative and positive valences, since the LPC indexes the meaning processing. Indeed, the results confirmed our expectations and showed that subjective significance is a factor independent from the arousal and valence that shapes the involuntary processing of verbal stimuli, especially the detection of a link between stimulus and meaning indexed by the FN400. Moreover, we found that the LPC amplitude was differentiated by valence level.

Valence and arousal of words in visual and conceptual interference control efficiency.

Cognitive control efficiency is susceptible to the emotional state of an individual. The aim of the current experiment was to search for the role of valence and arousal of emotion-laden words in a performance efficiency of a modified emotional Stroop task (EST) combined with the flanker task. Both paradigms allow for the measurement of the interference control, but interference appears on different stages of stimulus processing. In the flanker task, the interference is perceptual, while in EST, it is based on the emotional meaning of stimuli. We expected to find the effects of emotionality of words, that is, arousal and valence levels, for interference measured with EST. In a series of two experiments, the results confirmed that a high arousal level enlarges the reaction latencies to the EST. We also identified interaction between valence and arousal in shaping reaction latencies. We found the flanker congruency effect. We did not find interactions between emotional factors and flanker congruency. This suggests that interference measured with the EST and flanker task are in fact different from one another, and while using the modified EST combined with the flanker task, the word-meaning effects do not interfere with pure perceptual interferences.

Inhibition of gluconeogenesis by vanadium and metformin in kidney-cortex tubules isolated from control and diabetic rabbits.

Effect of vanadyl acetylacetonate (VAc) and metformin on gluconeogenesis has been studied in isolated hepatocytes and kidney-cortex tubules of rabbit. Glucose formation from alanine+glycerol+octanoate, pyruvate or dihydroxyacetone was inhibited by 50-80% by 100 microM VAc or 500 microM metformin in renal tubules of control and alloxan-diabetic animals, while the inhibitory action of these compounds in hepatocytes was less pronounced (by about 20-30%). In contrast to VAc, metformin increased the rate of lactate formation by about 2-fold in renal tubules incubated with alanine+glycerol+octanoate. In view of VAc-induced changes in intracellular gluconeogenic intermediates and gluconeogenic enzyme activities, it is likely that this compound may decrease fluxes through pyruvate carboxylase, phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase, fructose-1,6-bisphosphatase and glucose-6-phosphatase. In contrast to VAc, metformin-induced decrease in renal gluconeogenesis may result from a decline of cytosolic oxaloacetate level and consequently PEPCK activity. Following 6 days of VAc administration (1.275 mg Vkg(-1) body weight daily) the blood glucose level in alloxan-diabetic rabbits was normalised while blood glucose changes in control animals were not observed. On the contrary, in diabetic animals treated for 6 days with metformin (200 mg kg(-1) body weight day(-1)) a high blood glucose level was maintained. Unfortunately, VAc-treated control and diabetic rabbits exhibited elevated serum urea and creatinine levels. In VAc-treated animals vanadium was accumulated in kidney-cortex up to 7.6+/-0.6 microg Vg(-1) dry weight. In view of a potential vanadium nephrotoxicity a therapeutic application of vanadium compounds needs a critical re-evaluation.