Serotonin 4 receptor brain binding and oxytocin-promoted affective and social cognition in healthy women - A randomized controlled trial.

Background: Oxytocin is a neuropeptide known for its prosocial properties and role in social bonding, and intervention with intranasal oxytocin is posited to modulate affective and social cognition (i.e., hot cognition). Serotonin (5-HT) neurotransmission is also involved in emotional and social behaviors and appear to work in concert with oxytocin. However, this interaction so far remains elusive in humans. Therefore, we here investigate the relation between brain 5-HT 4 receptor (5-HT4R) levels and oxytocin-modulated hot cognition. Methods: Using a double blind, placebo-controlled, randomized crossover design, 35 healthy women received a dose of 24 IU intranasal oxytocin or placebo one month apart. The women were naturally cycling and to control for hormonal fluctuations across the menstrual cycle, intervention days were placed during the early follicular phase. Following intervention cognitive domains including affective memory, affective bias in emotion processing, moral emotions and social information preference were assessed. In a subgroup (n = 25), Positron Emission Tomography (PET) was used to image 5-HT4R brain binding at baseline with the [11C]SB207145 radiotracer. Results: No effect of oxytocin intervention relative to placebo was observed for any of the cognitive outcomes. Likewise, regional brain 5-HT4R binding at baseline was not associated with cognitive responses to oxytocin intervention. Conclusion: Our data suggest that intervention with intranasal oxytocin does not have an overall effect on hot cognition in healthy women and further that 5-HT4R brain architecture does not mediate cognitive effects of oxytocin in the healthy state.

Associations of negative affective biases and depressive symptoms in a community-based sample.

BACKGROUND: Major depressive disorder (MDD) was previously associated with negative affective biases. Evidence from larger population-based studies, however, is lacking, including whether biases normalise with remission. We investigated associations between affective bias measures and depressive symptom severity across a large community-based sample, followed by examining differences between remitted individuals and controls. METHODS: Participants from Generation Scotland (N = 1109) completed the: (i) Bristol Emotion Recognition Task (BERT), (ii) Face Affective Go/No-go (FAGN), and (iii) Cambridge Gambling Task (CGT). Individuals were classified as MDD-current (n = 43), MDD-remitted (n = 282), or controls (n = 784). Analyses included using affective bias summary measures (primary analyses), followed by detailed emotion/condition analyses of BERT and FAGN (secondary analyses). RESULTS: For summary measures, the only significant finding was an association between greater symptoms and lower risk adjustment for CGT across the sample (individuals with greater symptoms were less likely to bet more, despite increasingly favourable conditions). This was no longer significant when controlling for non-affective cognition. No differences were found for remitted-MDD v. controls. Detailed analysis of BERT and FAGN indicated subtle negative biases across multiple measures of affective cognition with increasing symptom severity, that were independent of non-effective cognition [e.g. greater tendency to rate faces as angry (BERT), and lower accuracy for happy/neutral conditions (FAGN)]. Results for remitted-MDD were inconsistent. CONCLUSIONS: This suggests the presence of subtle negative affective biases at the level of emotion/condition in association with depressive symptoms across the sample, over and above those accounted for by non-affective cognition, with no evidence for affective biases in remitted individuals.

Validación de una versión en español abreviada de la batería EMOTICOM (VEA-EMOTICOM) / Validation of a Spanish short version of the EMOTICOM battery (VEA-EMTICOM)

RESUMEN: Introducción: la mayoría de las escalas empleadas en la evaluación de los trastornos psiquiátricos se centran en el estado clínico del paciente. Sin embargo, es importante medir cuantitativamente dimensiones específicas, como el funcionamiento cognitivo, afectivo o social, y registrar su evolución en el ámbito clínico o de investigación. La batería EMOTICOM incluye cuatro dominios de cognición afectiva, procesamiento de emociones, motivación, impulsividad y cognición social. Aquí presentamos datos psicométricos de una versión en español abreviada (VEA-EMOTICOM). Metodología: la muestra incluyó doscientos voluntarios sanos (31,68 años ± 8,38; 111 hombres). Cuarenta y dos sujetos fueron re-evaluados para determinar la fiabilidad test-retest. La VEA-EMOTICOM comprende 9 tareas programadas en una computadora portátil a completar en una hora. La batería se administró en una secuencia aleatoria y se permitió períodos de descanso. Resultados: se observaron efectos de piso pequeños para 3 resultados y moderados para 1 resultado, además de efectos de techo pequeño para 3 resultados y moderado para 1 resultado. Dos tareas exhibieron una excelente confiabilidad prueba-reprueba, cuatro una buena confiabilidad, siete confiabilidad moderada, y, dos mostraron una confiabilidad de prueba-reprueba deficiente. Los resultados de la mayoría de las tareas no se correlacionaron con la edad ni con el género. No se pudo confirmar una estructura subyacente de 4 factores. Conclusiones: La VEA-EMOTICOM parece ser una batería práctica y adecuada para evaluar cognición afectiva en población hispano parlante.

ABSTRACT Introduction: Most scales used in the assessment of psychiatric disorders focus on the clinical status of the patient. However, it is important to quantitatively measure specific dimensions, such as cognitive, affective or social functioning, and to record their evolution in the clinical or research setting. The EMOTICOM battery includes four domains of affective cognition; processing of emotions; motivation; impulsivity; and social cognition. Here we present psychometric data from an abbreviated Spanish version (VEA-EMOTICOM). Methodology: The sample included two hundred healthy volunteers (31.68 years ± 8.38; 111 men). Forty-two subjects were re-evaluated, to determine test-retest reliability. The VEA-EMOTICOM comprises 9 tasks programmed on a laptop computer to be completed in one hour. The battery was administered in a random sequence and rest periods were allowed. Results: Small floor effects were observed for 3 outcomes and moderate for 1 outcome, as well as small ceiling effects for 3 outcomes and moderate for 1 outcome. Two tasks showed excellent test-retest reliability; four showed good reliability; seven showed moderate reliability; and two showed poor test-retest reliability. The results of most of the tasks were not correlated with age or gender. An underlying four-factor structure could not be confirmed. Conclusions: The VEA-EMOTICOM seems to be a practical and adequate battery to evaluate affective cognition in Spanish-speaking population

Listen to my feelings! How prosody and accent drive the empathic relevance of complaining speech.

Interpersonal communication often involves sharing our feelings with others; complaining, for example, aims to elicit empathy in listeners by vocally expressing a speaker's suffering. Despite the growing neuroscientific interest in the phenomenon of empathy, few have investigated how it is elicited in real time by vocal signals (prosody), and how this might be affected by interpersonal factors, such as a speaker's cultural background (based on their accent). To investigate the neural processes at play when hearing spoken complaints, twenty-six French participants listened to complaining and neutral utterances produced by in-group French and out-group Québécois (i.e., French-Canadian) speakers. Participants rated how hurt the speaker felt while their cerebral activity was monitored with electroencephalography (EEG). Principal Component Analysis of Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) taken at utterance onset showed culture-dependent time courses of emotive prosody processing. The high motivational relevance of ingroup complaints increased the P200 response compared to all other utterance types; in contrast, outgroup complaints selectively elicited an early posterior negativity in the same time window, followed by an increased N400 (due to ongoing effort to derive affective meaning from outgroup voices). Ingroup neutral utterances evoked a late negativity which may reflect re-analysis of emotively less salient, but culturally relevant ingroup speech. Results highlight the time-course of neurocognitive responses that contribute to emotive speech processing for complaints, establishing the critical role of prosody as well as social-relational factors (i.e., cultural identity) on how listeners are likely to "empathize" with a speaker.

Mu rhythm suppression over sensorimotor regions is associated with greater empathic accuracy.

When people encounter others' emotions, they engage multiple brain systems, including parts of the sensorimotor cortex associated with motor simulation. Simulation-related brain activity is commonly described as a 'low-level' component of empathy and social cognition. It remains unclear whether and how sensorimotor simulation contributes to complex empathic judgments. Here, we combine a naturalistic social paradigm with a reliable index of sensorimotor cortex-based simulation: electroencephalography suppression of oscillatory activity in the mu frequency band. We recruited participants to watch naturalistic video clips of people ('targets') describing emotional life events. In two experiments, participants viewed these clips (i) with video and sound, (ii) with only video or (iii) with only sound and provided continuous ratings of how they believed the target felt. We operationalized 'empathic accuracy' as the correlation between participants' inferences and targets' self-report. In Experiment 1 (US sample), across all conditions, right-lateralized mu suppression tracked empathic accuracy. In Experiment 2 (Israeli sample), this replicated only when using individualized frequency-bands and only for the visual stimuli. Our results provide novel evidence that sensorimotor representations-as measured through mu suppression-play a role not only in low-level motor simulation, but also in higher-level inferences about others' emotions, especially when visual cues are crucial for accuracy.

Pharmacological compounds targeting emotional cognition in alcohol use disorder: A systematic review.

Non-emotional (e.g., executive functions) and emotional cognitive (e.g., facial emotion recognition) impairments are a well-known aspect of alcohol use disorder (AUD). These deficits may impede on treatment outcomes, increase the risk of relapse, and lead to socio-occupational disabilities. Previous systematic reviews have examined the effectiveness of cognitive enhancing pharmacological agents (CEPAs) targeting non-emotional, but not emotional, cognition in AUD. Our aim was to systematically review the effectiveness of CEPAs targeting emotional cognition in subclinical and clinical AUD populations. A qualitative synthesis of controlled trials was conducted, and the studies were assessed for risk of bias. Eight studies were eligible (15 ≤ ns ≤ 143), and they all had a moderate risk of bias. Modafinil and nalmefene were the most examined agents, with the findings suggesting a potential beneficial effect of the agents on implicit emotional domains (i.e., reward processing). Methodological shortcomings and heterogeneous findings across the studies do not allow inferences about the effectiveness of these compounds in AUD. Future studies should examine CEPAs targeting emotional cognition in more detail.

Is social functioning in older age patients with bipolar disorder associated with affective and/or non-affective cognition?

OBJECTIVES: Previous research showed impairments in non-affective cognition, affective cognition, and social functioning in adult patients with bipolar disorder (BD). Only 37% of adult BD patients recovers in social functioning, and both aspects of cognition are important constructs of influence. The role of affective cognition in older age bipolar disorder (OABD) patients is still unclear. Therefore, the aim of our study was to examine the separate and combined effects of affective cognition and non-affective cognition on social functioning. METHODS: The current study included 60 euthymic patients (aged >60) of the Dutch Older Bipolar Study. Affective cognition was measured by Theory of Mind and Emotion Recognition. Non-affective cognition was assessed through the measurements of attention, learning and memory, and executive functioning. Social functioning was examined through global social functioning, social participation, and meaningful contacts. The research questions were tested with linear and ordinal regression analyses. RESULTS: Results showed a positive association of all non-affective cognitive domains with global social functioning. Associations between affective cognition and social functioning were non-significant. Results did show an interaction between non-affective and affective cognition. CONCLUSIONS: Associations between non-affective cognition and social functioning were confirmed, associations between affective cognition and social function were not found. For generalizability, studies with a greater sample size are needed. Conducting additional research about OABD patients and affective cognition is important. It may lead to more insight in impairment and guide tailored treatment that focusses more on all aspects of recovery and the needs of OABD patients.

Pharmacological enhancing agents targeting cognition in patients with alcohol-induced neurocognitive disorders: A systematic review.

Debilitating neurocognitive deficits are seen in alcohol use disorders (AUD) and Wernicke-Korsakoff's syndrome (WKS). These shared characteristics suggest a spectrum of alcohol-induced neurocognitive disorders (AIND). Cognitive pharmacological enhancing agents (CPEA) have been examined in the treatment of other psychiatric disorders, but little is known about the effects of these agents on AINDs. Our aim was to synthesize the evidence for the effectiveness of CPEAs on AINDs. Databases were searched for controlled trials examining CPEAs on AUD, WKS, and alcohol-related dementia (ARD). Eligible studies were included in a qualitative synthesis and a quality assessment was conducted. The search identified 23 studies (4 ≤ ns ≤ 98). Evidence suggests that modafinil may improve executive functions in AUD and ARD, but this effect may only be present in patients with severe deficits. The studies were rated as having a moderate risk of bias. Despite the promising effects of modafinil, small samples and inconsistent evidence deem the results preliminary. More research is warranted examining the effects of transdiagnostic CPEAs on deficits across AINDs.

The role of interoception in understanding others' affect. Dissociation between superficial and detailed appraisal of facial expressions.

Embodied models of social cognition argue that others' emotional states are processed by re-enacting a representation of the same state in the observer, along with associated somatic and physiological responses. In this framework, previous studies tested whether a strong sensitivity to interoceptive signals (i.e., inputs arising from within one's body) facilitates the understanding of others' affect, leading to mixed results. Such heterogeneity in the literature could reflect methodological differences in paradigms employed, with some probing classification of a precise condition, and others requiring the assessment of supra-ordinal dimensions orthogonal to many states. Here, we engaged fifty young women in a study where they evaluated others' naturalistic facial reactions to painful and disgusting stimuli of comparable unpleasantness. Separately, we measured their interoceptive abilities through a well-known heartbeat counting task. We found that individuals that were more accurate in tracking their heartbeats across time were also more prone to judge facial expressions as more unpleasant (supra-ordinal assessment). However, when specifically asked to discriminate between comparably-unpleasant pain and disgust (state-specific assessment), participants' performance was not influenced by their interoceptive abilities. Although confined to a female sample, this study extends our knowledge on the role of interoception in the understanding of others, which influences only the evaluation of general features such as unpleasantness (common between pain and disgust), without extending to the appraisal of a precise state. This finding supports multi-componential models of social cognition, suggesting that only part of our ability to assess others' affect is mediated by a representation of one's affective/somatic responses.

Aberrant cognition in newly diagnosed patients with bipolar disorder and their unaffected relatives.

BACKGROUND: Patients with bipolar disorder (BD) experience persistent impairments in both affective and non-affective cognitive function, which is associated with a worse course of illness and poor functional outcomes. Nevertheless, the temporal progression of cognitive dysfunction in BD remains unclear and the identification of objective endophenotypes can inform the aetiology of BD. METHODS: The present study is a cross-sectional investigation of cognitive baseline data from the longitudinal Bipolar Illness Onset-study. One hundred seventy-two remitted patients newly diagnosed with BD, 52 of their unaffected relatives (UR), and 110 healthy controls (HC) were compared on a large battery of behavioural cognitive tasks tapping into non-affective (i.e. neurocognitive) and affective (i.e. emotion processing and regulation) cognition. RESULTS: Relative to HCs, patients with BD exhibited global neurocognitive deficits (ps < 0.001), as well as aberrant emotion processing and regulation (ps ⩽ 0.011); including decreased emotional reactivity to positive social scenarios, impaired ability to down-regulate positive emotion, as well as a specific deficit in the ability to recognise surprised facial expressions. Their URs also showed a trend towards difficulties identifying surprised faces (p = 0.075). No other differences in cognitive function were found for URs compared to HCs. CONCLUSIONS: Neurocognitive deficits and impairments within emotion processing and regulation may be illness-related deficits of BD that present after illness-onset, whereas processing of emotional faces may represent an early risk marker of BD. However, longitudinal studies are needed to examine the association between cognitive impairments and illness progression in BD.

Psychometric Properties and Validation of the EMOTICOM Test Battery in a Healthy Danish Population.

Disruptions in hot cognition, i.e., the processing of emotionally salient information, are prevalent in most neuropsychiatric disorders and constitute a potential treatment target. EMOTICOM is the first comprehensive neuropsychological test battery developed specifically to assess hot cognition. The aim of the study was to validate and establish a Danish language version and reference data for the EMOTICOM test battery. To evaluate the psychometric properties of 11 EMOTICOM tasks, we collected data from 100 healthy Danish participants (50 males, 50 females) including retest data from 49 participants. We assessed test-retest reliability, floor and ceiling effects, task-intercorrelations, and correlations between task performance and relevant demographic and descriptive factors. We found that test-retest reliability varied from poor to excellent while some tasks exhibited floor or ceiling effects. Intercorrelations among EMOTICOM task outcomes were low, indicating that the tasks capture different cognitive constructs. EMOTICOM task performance was largely independent of age, sex, education, and IQ as well as current mood, personality, and self-reported motivation and diligence during task completion. Overall, many of the EMOTICOM tasks were found to be useful and objective measures of hot cognition although select tasks may benefit from modifications to avoid floor and ceiling effects in healthy individuals.

Visual Working Memory for Faces and Facial Expressions as a Useful "Tool" for Understanding Social and Affective Cognition.

Visual working memory (VWM) is one of the most investigated cognitive systems functioning as a hub between low- and high-level processes. Remarkably, its role in human cognitive architecture makes it a stage of crucial importance for the study of socio-affective cognition, also in relation with psychopathology such as anxiety. Among socio-affective stimuli, faces occupy a place of first importance. How faces and facial expressions are encoded and maintained in VWM is the focus of this review. Within the main theoretical VWM models, we will review research comparing VWM representations of faces and of other classes of stimuli. We will further present previous work investigating if and how both static (i.e., ethnicity, trustworthiness and identity) and changeable (i.e., facial expressions) facial features are represented in VWM. Finally, we will examine research showing qualitative differences in VWM for face representations as a function of psychopathology and personality traits. The findings that we will review are not always coherent with each other, and for this reason we will highlight the main methodological differences as the main source of inconsistency. Finally, we will provide some suggestions for future research in this field in order to foster our understanding of representation of faces in VWM and its potential role in supporting socio-affective cognition.

Affective cognition in bipolar disorder: A systematic review by the ISBD targeting cognition task force.

BACKGROUND: Impairments in affective cognition are part of the neurocognitive profile and possible treatment targets in bipolar disorder (BD), but the findings are heterogeneous. The International Society of Bipolar Disorder (ISBD) Targeting Cognition Task Force conducted a systematic review to (i) identify the most consistent findings in affective cognition in BD, and (ii) provide suggestions for affective cognitive domains for future study and meta-analyses. METHODS: The review included original studies reporting behavioral measures of affective cognition in BD patients vs controls following the procedures of the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) statement. Searches were conducted on PubMed/MEDLINE, EMBASE, and PsychInfo from inception until November 2018. RESULTS: A total of 106 articles were included (of which nine included data for several affective domains); 41 studies assessed emotional face processing; 23 studies investigated reactivity to emotional words and images; 3 investigated explicit emotion regulation; 17 assessed implicit emotion regulation; 31 assessed reward processing and affective decision making. In general, findings were inconsistent. The most consistent findings were trait-related difficulties in facial emotion recognition and implicit emotion regulation, and impairments in reward processing and affective decision making during mood episodes. Studies using eye-tracking and facial emotion analysis revealed subtle trait-related abnormalities in emotional reactivity. CONCLUSION: The ISBD Task Force recommends facial expression recognition, implicit emotion regulation, and reward processing as domains for future research and meta-analyses. An important step to aid comparability between studies in the field would be to reach consensus on an affective cognition test battery for BD.

Risk assessment and serotonin: Animal models and human psychopathologies.

Risk assessment (RA) is an evolved, generally adaptive, mechanism comprising focused attention and appraisal of potential threat stimuli and situations. Initially characterized in animal models, it provides a number of behavioral and functional parallels to patterns of rumination, gaze biases, and other forms of affective cognition that appear to be disregulated in depression and anxiety. Serotonergic mechanisms are involved in these mood disorders, and an emerging body of evidence suggests that they may modulate the affective cognitive changes common to such psychopathologies. Findings of parallel effects of serotonin systems in RA would support a view that it may provide a useful behavioral endophenotype for translational research on mood disorders. This review examines the involvement of serotonergic mechanisms in both animal models of RA, and in an array of tasks focusing on affective cognitive changes in individuals with depression or anxiety. Results suggest substantial serotonin involvement in both RA behaviors measured in rats or mice, and in the "intersection of emotional and cognitive processes" [43] in people.

Is aberrant affective cognition an endophenotype for affective disorders? - A monozygotic twin study.

BACKGROUND: Identification of endophenotypes can improve prevention, detection and development of new treatments. We therefore investigated whether aberrant affective cognition constitutes an endophenotype for affective disorders by being present in monozygotic (MZ) twins with unipolar or bipolar disorder in partial remission (i.e. affected) and their unaffected co-twins (i.e. high-risk) relative to twins with no family history of affective disorder (i.e. low-risk). METHODS: We conducted an assessor blind cross-sectional study from 2014 to 2017 of MZ twins using Danish population-based registers in recruitment. Twins attended one test session involving neurocognitive testing, clinical ratings and questionnaires. Main outcomes were attention to and recognition of emotional facial expressions, the memory of emotional self-referential words, emotion regulation and coping strategies. RESULTS: Participants were 103 affected, 44 high-risk and 36 low-risk MZ twins. Groups were demographically well-balanced and showed comparable non-affective cognitive performance. We observed no aberrant affective cognition in affected and high-risk relative to low-risk twins. However, high-risk twins displayed attentional avoidance of emotional faces (ps ⩽ 0.009) and more use of task-oriented coping strategies (p = 0.01) compared with affected twins. In contrast did affected twins show more emotion-oriented coping than high- and low-risk twins (ps ⩽ 0.004). CONCLUSIONS: Our findings provide no support of aberrant affective cognition as an endophenotype for affective disorders. High-risk twins' attentional avoidance of emotional faces and greater use of task-oriented coping strategies may reflect compensatory mechanisms.

Computational Models of Emotion Inference in Theory of Mind: A Review and Roadmap.

Research on social cognition has fruitfully applied computational modeling approaches to explain how observers understand and reason about others' mental states. By contrast, there has been less work on modeling observers' understanding of emotional states. We propose an intuitive theory framework to studying affective cognition-how humans reason about emotions-and derive a taxonomy of inferences within affective cognition. Using this taxonomy, we review formal computational modeling work on such inferences, including causal reasoning about how others react to events, reasoning about unseen causes of emotions, reasoning with multiple cues, as well as reasoning from emotions to other mental states. In addition, we provide a roadmap for future research by charting out inferences-such as hypothetical and counterfactual reasoning about emotions-that are ripe for future computational modeling work. This framework proposes unifying these various types of reasoning as Bayesian inference within a common "intuitive Theory of Emotion." Finally, we end with a discussion of important theoretical and methodological challenges that lie ahead in modeling affective cognition.

[The features of emotional processing in patients with depressive disorders]. / Osobennosti pererabotki émotsional'noi informatsii u bol'nykh s depressivnymi rasstroistvami.

AIM: To study neurocognitive symptoms in depressive disorders with the designation of their brain and psychological mechanisms. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Thirty-three patients diagnosed with depression and 33 healthy controls were studied using standardized neuropsychological tests and tests comprising emotiogenic stimuli. RESULTS: A neurocognitive deficit in patients with depression manifested as changes in speed of emotional processing and some cognitive functions. These patients demonstrate decreased attention to negative stimuli combined with decreased attention to positive stimuli. CONCLUSION: The abnormal processes of 'hot' cognition in patients with depressive disorders conceptualize such a core symptom of depression as anhedonia, which is a probable endophenotype of depression.

Increased sensitivity to positive social stimuli in monozygotic twins at risk of bipolar vs. unipolar disorder.

BACKGROUND: Abnormalities in affective cognition are putative endophenotypes for bipolar and unipolar disorders but it is unclear whether some abnormalities are disorder-specific. We therefore investigated affective cognition in monozygotic twins at familial risk of bipolar disorder relative to those at risk of unipolar disorder and to low-risk twins. METHODS: Seventy monozygotic twins with a co-twin history of bipolar disorder (n = 11), of unipolar disorder (n = 38) or without co-twin history of affective disorder (n = 21) were included. Variables of interest were recognition of and vigilance to emotional faces, emotional reactivity and -regulation in social scenarios and non-affective cognition. RESULTS: Twins at familial risk of bipolar disorder showed increased recognition of low to moderate intensity of happy facial expressions relative to both unipolar disorder high-risk twins and low-risk twins. Bipolar disorder high-risk twins also displayed supraliminal attentional avoidance of happy faces compared with unipolar disorder high-risk twins and greater emotional reactivity in positive and neutral social scenarios and less reactivity in negative social scenarios than low-risk twins. In contrast with our hypothesis, there was no negative bias in unipolar disorder high-risk twins. There were no differences between the groups in demographic characteristics or non-affective cognition. LIMITATIONS: The modest sample size limited the statistical power of the study. CONCLUSIONS: Increased sensitivity and reactivity to positive social stimuli may be a neurocognitive endophenotype that is specific for bipolar disorder. If replicated in larger samples, this 'positive endophenotype' could potentially aid future diagnostic differentiation between unipolar and bipolar disorder.

Low Arousal Positive Emotional Stimuli Attenuate Aberrant Working Memory Processing in Persons with Mild Cognitive Impairment.

Emotional enhancement effects on memory have been reported to mitigate the pathophysiology of Alzheimer's disease (AD). However, relative to their manifestation in persons without pathologic aging, these effects may be reduced in magnitude or even deleterious, especially in tasks that more closely model ecologic memory performance. Based upon a synthesis of such reports, we hypothesized that in persons with AD low arousal positive stimuli would evoke relatively intact emotional enhancement effects, but that high arousal negative stimuli would evoke disordered emotional enhancement effects. To assess this, participants with and without mild cognitive impairment (MCI) presumed to be due to AD performed an emotionally-valenced short-term memory task while encephalography was recorded. Results indicated that for persons with MCI, high arousal negative stimuli led to working memory processing patterns previously associated with MCI presumed due to AD and dementia of the Alzheimer-type. In contrast, low arousal positive stimuli evoked a processing pattern similar to MCI participants' unaffected spouses. Our current findings suggest that low arousal positive stimuli attenuate working memory deficits of MCI due to AD.