People convey their emotional state in their face and voice. We present an audio-visual data set uniquely suited for the study of multi-modal emotion expression and perception. The data set consists of facial and vocal emotional expressions in sentences spoken in a range of basic emotional states (happy, sad, anger, fear, disgust, and neutral). 7,442 clips of 91 actors with diverse ethnic backgrounds were rated by multiple raters in three modalities: audio, visual, and audio-visual. Categorical emotion labels and real-value intensity values for the perceived emotion were collected using crowd-sourcing from 2,443 raters. The human recognition of intended emotion for the audio-only, visual-only, and audio-visual data are 40.9%, 58.2% and 63.6% respectively. Recognition rates are highest for neutral, followed by happy, anger, disgust, fear, and sad. Average intensity levels of emotion are rated highest for visual-only perception. The accurate recognition of disgust and fear requires simultaneous audio-visual cues, while anger and happiness can be well recognized based on evidence from a single modality. The large dataset we introduce can be used to probe other questions concerning the audio-visual perception of emotion.

BackgroundAberrant amygdala-prefrontal interactions at rest and during emotion processing are implicated in the pathophysiology of generalized social anxiety disorder (gSAD), a common disorder characterized by fears of potential scrutiny. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is first-line psychotherapy for gSAD and other anxiety disorders. While CBT is generally effective, there is a great deal of heterogeneity in treatment response. To date, predictors of success in CBT for gSAD include reduced amygdala reactivity and increased activity in prefrontal regulatory regions (e.g., anterior cingulate cortex, “ACC”) during emotion processing. However, studies have not examined whether tonic (i.e., at rest) coupling of amygdala and these prefrontal regions also predict response to CBT.ResultsTwenty-one patients with gSAD participated in resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) before 12 weeks of CBT. Overall, symptom severity was significantly reduced after completing CBT; however, the patients varied considerably in degree of symptom change. Whole-brain voxel-wise findings showed symptom improvement after CBT was predicted by greater right amygdala-pregenual ACC (“pgACC”) connectivity and greater left amygdala-pgACC coupling encompassing medial prefrontal cortex. In support of their predictive value, area under receiver operating characteristic curve was significant for the left and right amygdala-pgACC in relation to treatment responders.ConclusionsImprovement after CBT was predicted by enhanced resting-state bilateral amygdala-prefrontal coupling in gSAD. Preliminary results suggest baseline individual differences in a fundamental circuitry that may underlie emotion regulation contributed to variation in symptom change after CBT. Findings offer a new approach towards using a biological measure to foretell who will most likely benefit from CBT. In particular, the departure from neural predictors based on illness-relevant stimuli (e.g., socio-emotional stimuli in gSAD) permits the development of biomarkers that reflect commonalities in the neurobiology of anxiety and mood disorders.

HIV’s effects on episodic memory have not been compared systematically between male and female substance-dependent individuals. We administered the Brief Visuospatial Memory Test–Revised (BVMT–R) to 280 substance-dependent HIV+ and HIV− men and women. Groups were comparable on demographic, substance use, and comorbid characteristics. There were no significant main effects of sex or HIV serostatus on BVMT–R performance, but HIV+ women performed significantly more poorly on delayed recall. This effect was most prominent among cocaine-dependent HIV+ women. Our findings are consistent with recent speculation that memory impairment may be more common among HIV+ women, particularly those with a history of cocaine dependence.

Spatial learning and memory are critically dependent on the integrity of hippocampal systems. Functional MRI and neuropathological studies show that hippocampal circuitry is prominently affected among HIV-seropositive individuals, but potential spatial learning and memory deficits have not been studied in detail in this population. We investigated the independent and interactive effects of sex and HIV serostatus on performance of a spatial learning and memory task in a sample of 181 individuals with a history of cocaine dependence. We found that men showed faster times to completion on immediate recall trials compared with women and that delayed recall was significantly poorer among HIV-infected compared with HIV-uninfected participants. Additionally, a sex × serostatus effect was found on the total number of completed learning trials. Specifically, HIV-infected men successfully completed more learning trials compared with HIV-infected women. Results are discussed in the context of recent reports of sex and HIV serostatus effects on episodic memory performance.

Drugs that disrupt microtubule dynamics include some of the most important of cancer chemotherapies. While these drugs, which include paclitaxel (Taxol), are known to invoke the mitotic checkpoint, the factors that determine cancer cell killing remain incompletely characterized. Cells that are relatively resistant to killing by these drugs block robustly in mitosis, whereas cells sensitive to killing block only transiently in mitosis before undergoing nuclear fragmentation and death. Passage through mitosis was an absolute requirement of drug-induced death, because death was markedly reduced in cells blocked at both G1-S and G2. Cell killing was at least in part linked to the absence or inactivation of BubR1, a kinetochore-associated phosphoprotein that mediates the mitotic checkpoint. Sensitivity to paclitaxel correlated with decreased BubR1 protein expression in human cancer cell lines, including those derived from breast and ovarian cancers. Silencing of BubR1 via RNA interference inactivated the mitotic checkpoint in drug-resistant cells, and reversed resistance to paclitaxel and nocodazole. Together, these results suggest that the mitotic checkpoint is an important determinant of the efficacy of microtubule-targeting drugs in killing cancer cells, potentially providing novel targets for increasing treatment efficacy.

Working memory (WM) is a critical component of many neurocognitive functions. The literature has demonstrated consistently that WM impairment is more frequent and severe among substance-dependent individuals (SDIs) infected with HIV compared with uninfected SDIs; however, the SDIs who participated in these previous studies were primarily male. There are few published data on WM performance among HIV+ women with or without substance use disorders, and essentially no direct comparisons of WM performance between HIV+ men and women, regardless of substance use. We investigated potential sex and serostatus effects on WM among a sample of 360 SDIs (114 with HIV; 66% female) verified abstinent from alcohol and drugs of abuse at testing and generally comparable on substance use and comorbid characteristics. Participants were tested with the n-back task, a well-established WM measure that is sensitive to HIV-associated cognitive impairment. HIV+ men and women performed spatial and verbal versions of the n-back significantly less accurately compared with HIV- participants. Women showed slower response times compared with men on both versions, regardless of HIV serostatus. Individuals dependent on cocaine showed faster RTs compared with non-dependent users, but this effect was not apparent among opioid- or alcohol-dependent groups. Findings on n-back accuracy are consistent with our previous proposal that WM impairment represents a signature deficit among HIV+ SDIs; however, WM impairment appears less common among HIV+ women without a substance use history. The pattern of sex differences in response speed but serostatus effects on response accuracy is comparable to a recent report by our group of sex differences in learning speed but serostatus effects on delayed recall.

Existing sets of social and emotional stimuli suitable for social cognition research are limited in many ways, including size, unimodal stimulus delivery, and restriction to major universal emotions. Existing measures of social cognition could be improved by taking advantage of item response theory and adaptive testing technology to develop instruments that obtain more efficient measures of multimodal social cognition. However, for this to be possible, large pools of emotional stimuli must be obtained and validated. We present the development of a large, high-quality multimedia stimulus set produced by professional adult and child actors (ages 5 to 74) containing both visual and vocal emotional expressions. We obtained over 74,000 audiovisual recordings of a wide array of emotional and social behaviors, including the main universal emotions (happiness, sadness, anger, fear, disgust, and surprise), as well as more complex social expressions (pride, affection, sarcasm, jealousy, and shame). The actors generated a high quantity of technically superior, ecologically valid stimuli that were digitized, archived, and rated for accuracy and intensity of expressions. A subset of these facial and vocal expressions of emotion and social behavior were submitted for quantitative ratings to generate parameters for validity and discriminability. These stimuli are suitable for affective neuroscience-based psychometric tests, functional neuroimaging, and social cognitive rehabilitation programs. The purposes of this report are to describe the method of obtaining and validating this database and to make it accessible to the scientific community. We invite all those interested in participating in the use and validation of these stimuli to access them at www.med.upenn.edu/bbl/actors/index.shtml .

Hypertonic saline (HTS) may decrease intracranial pressure (ICP) in severe traumatic brain injury (STBI) and effectively resuscitates hypotensive patients. No data exist on institutional standardization of HTS for hypotensive patients with STBI. It remains unclear how HTS affects brain tissue oxygenation (PbtO2) in STBI. We hypothesized HTS could be safely standardized in patients with STBI and would lower ICP while improving cerebral perfusion pressure (CPP) and PbtO2. Under institutional guidelines in a Level I trauma center, 12 hypotensive STBI intensive care unit subjects received HTS. Inclusion criteria included mean arterial pressure (MAP) ≤ 90 mmHg, Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) ≤ 8, ICP ≥ 20 mmHg, and serum [Na+] < 155 mEq/L. All patients underwent ICP monitoring. Hemodynamics, CPP, ICP, and PbtO2 data were collected before and hourly for 6 hours after HTS infusion. Guideline criteria compliance was greater than 95 per cent. No major complications occurred. Mean ICP levels dropped by 45 per cent (P < 0.01) and this drop persisted for 6 hours. CPP levels increased by 20 per cent (P < 0.05). PbtO2 remained persistently elevated for all time points after HTS infusion. Institutional use of HTS in STBI can be safely implemented in a center caring for neurotrauma patients. HTS infusion in hypotensive STBI reduces ICP and raises CPP. Brain tissue oxygenation tends to improve after HTS infusion.