Impact of emotion on cognition in trauma survivors: What is the role of posttraumatic stress disorder?

Mueller‐Pfeiffer, Christoph; Martin‐Soelch, Chantal; Blair, James; Carnier, A.; Kaiser, Natalie C.; Rufer, Michael; Schnyder, Ulrich; Hasler, Gregor

doi:10.1016/j.jad.2010.03.006

Cited by 33 publications

(30 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…This is consistent with prior research with the AS in which negative and positive trials are typically analyzed separately (Blair et al, 2007; Vythilingam et al, 2007; Mueller-Pfeiffer et al, 2010). During each number trial, participants viewed a central fixation point, a first numerical display, a picture display, a second number display, and a second picture display of 400ms each, ending in a blank stimulus of 1000ms (Figure 1).…”

Section: Methodssupporting

confidence: 89%

Cognitive-Affective Neural Plasticity following Active-Controlled Mindfulness Intervention

et al. 2012

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Mindfulness meditation is a set of attention-based, regulatory and self-inquiry training regimes. Although the impact of mindfulness meditation training (MT) on self-regulation is well established, the neural mechanisms supporting such plasticity are poorly understood. MT is thought to act on attention through interoceptive salience and attentional control mechanisms, but until now conflicting evidence from behavioral and neural measures has made it difficult to distinguish the role of these mechanisms. To resolve this question we conducted a fully randomized 6-week longitudinal trial of MT, explicitly controlling for cognitive and treatment effects with an active control group. We measured behavioral metacognition and whole-brain Blood Oxygenation Level Dependent (BOLD) signals using functional MRI during an affective Stroop task before and after intervention. Although both groups improved significantly on a response-inhibition task, only the MT group showed reduced affective Stroop conflict. Moreover, the MT group displayed greater dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) responses during executive processing, consistent with increased recruitment of top-down mechanisms to resolve conflict. In contrast, we did not observe overall group by time interactions on negative affect-related RTs or BOLD responses. However, only participants with the greatest amount of MT practice showed improvements in response-inhibition and increased recruitment of dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC), medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), and right anterior insula during negative valence processing. Collectively our findings highlight the importance of active control in MT research, and indicate unique neural mechanisms for progressive stages of mindfulness training.

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Section: Methodssupporting

confidence: 89%

Cognitive-Affective Neural Plasticity following Active-Controlled Mindfulness Intervention

et al. 2012

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“…PTSD has repeatedly been associated with attentional biases towards threat and negative emotional stimuli, as exhibited by performance on the modified Stroop (Williams , et al 1996), which involves timed verbalization regarding the ink color of emotional and neutral words(Mathews and MacLeod 1985), and dot-probe tasks(MacLeod , et al 1986), in which targets are displayed in locations closer to previously-presented trauma-relevant, generally negative, or neutral stimuli (Dalgleish , et al 2003; Foa , et al 1991; McNally , et al 1990; Chemtob , et al 1999; Mueller-Pfeiffer , et al 2010; Kimble , et al 2010); except see (Bremner , et al 2004; Kimble , et al 2009). Observed performance differences on these tasks could be due to either attentional facilitation involving enhanced detection of threat-relevant stimuli, or attentional interference involving difficulty disengaging from threat-related stimuli to focus attention on the task at hand.…”

Section: Attention Working Memory and Executive Function In Ptsdmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Other studies have examined the effect of inserting emotional images into the working memory task as distractors (e.g., directly prior to number Stroop decisions or in between encoding and recall for working memory tasks). Results from these studies have been mixed, with one study reporting PTSD to be associated with worse detectability scores across working memory trials regardless of distractor type (neutral vs. trauma-related) (Morey , et al 2009), while another study reported PTSD patients to exhibit greater response latency for number Stroop after negative (versus positive or neutral) images as compared to trauma-exposed and non-trauma-exposed control groups (Mueller-Pfeiffer , et al 2010). These results suggest that the acute emotional state may not have an overwhelming effect on objective cognitive function in PTSD.…”

Section: Attention Working Memory and Executive Function In Ptsdmentioning

confidence: 99%

Executive function and PTSD: Disengaging from trauma

et al. 2012

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Neuropsychological approaches represent an important avenue for identifying susceptibility and resiliency factors relating to the development and maintenance of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms post-trauma. This review will summarize results from prospective longitudinal and retrospective cross-sectional studies investigating executive function associated with PTSD. This research points specifically towards subtle impairments in response inhibition and attention regulation that may predate trauma exposure, serve as risk factors for the development of PTSD, and relate to the severity of symptoms. These impairments may be exacerbated within emotional or trauma-related contexts, and may relate to dysfunction within dorsal prefrontal networks. A model is presented concerning how such impairments may contribute to the clinical profile of PTSD and lead to the use of alternative coping styles such as avoidance. Further neuropsychological research is needed to identify the effects of treatment on cognitive function and to potentially characterize mechanisms of current PTSD treatments. Knowledge gained from cognitive and neuroscientific research may prove valuable for informing the future development of novel, more effective, treatments for PTSD.

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“…In the present study, we sought to investigate the effects of YM on emotion-cognition interactions. YMP and a matched control group (CG) of yoga and meditation naïve subjects underwent fMRI scanning while performing an Affective Stroop Task (Blair et al, 2007; Vythilingam et al, 2007; Hasler et al, 2009; Mueller-Pfeiffer et al, 2010; Froeliger et al, 2011, 2012), a modified version of the Number Stroop task (Pansky and Algom, 2002). The Affective Stoop task was designed to evaluate emotional information processing and its effects on cognitive conflict resolution.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Neurocognitive correlates of the effects of yoga meditation practice on emotion and cognition: a pilot study

Froeliger¹,

Garland²,

Modlin³

et al. 2012

Front. Integr. Neurosci.

109

120

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Mindfulness meditation involves attending to emotions without cognitive fixation of emotional experience. Over time, this practice is held to promote alterations in trait affectivity and attentional control with resultant effects on well-being and cognition. However, relatively little is known regarding the neural substrates of meditation effects on emotion and cognition. The present study investigated the neurocognitive correlates of emotion interference on cognition in Yoga practitioners and a matched control group (CG) underwent fMRI while performing an event-related affective Stroop task. The task includes image viewing trials and Stroop trials bracketed by neutral or negative emotional distractors. During image viewing trials, Yoga practitioners exhibited less reactivity in right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) to negative as compared to neutral images; whereas the CG had the opposite pattern. A main effect of valence (negative > neutral) was observed in limbic regions (e.g., amygdala), of which the magnitude was inversely related to dlPFC activation. Exploratory analyses revealed that the magnitude of amygdala activation predicted decreased self-reported positive affect in the CG, but not among Yoga practitioners. During Stroop trials, Yoga practitioners had greater activation in ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (vlPFC) during Stroop trials when negative, compared to neutral, emotional distractor were presented; the CG exhibited the opposite pattern. Taken together, these data suggest that though Yoga practitioners exhibit limbic reactivity to negative emotional stimuli, such reactivity does not have downstream effects on later mood state. This uncoupling of viewing negative emotional images and affect among Yoga practitioners may be occasioned by their selective implementation of frontal executive-dependent strategies to reduce emotional interference during competing cognitive demands and not during emotional processing per se.

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Impact of emotion on cognition in trauma survivors: What is the role of posttraumatic stress disorder?

Cited by 33 publications

References 17 publications

Cognitive-Affective Neural Plasticity following Active-Controlled Mindfulness Intervention

Cognitive-Affective Neural Plasticity following Active-Controlled Mindfulness Intervention

Executive function and PTSD: Disengaging from trauma

Neurocognitive correlates of the effects of yoga meditation practice on emotion and cognition: a pilot study

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