International Journal of Psychophysiology

Mental imagery is known to be accompanied by autonomic responses, traditionally viewed as merely downstream consequences of imagery. Recent theoretical work has challenged this view, proposing that mental imagery requires the integration of cortical sensory representations with ascending interoceptive signals supplied by the autonomic nervous system. These two views make opposite predictions: if autonomic activity is only a consequence of imagery, then the responsiveness of the autonomic nervous system should not predict imagery vividness. If instead autonomic input shapes the generation of mental images, individuals with greater autonomic responsiveness should experience more vivid imagery. The present study tested these competing predictions by examining whether individual differences in cardiac vagal reactivity (indexed by the magnitude of HRV change in response to a paced breathing manipulation) predict self-reported visual imagery vividness. Imagery vividness was assessed using the Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire (VVIQ) at a separate time point from the paced breathing protocol, ensuring that any observed relationship between cardiac vagal capacity cannot reflect autonomic activation driven by imagery itself. The key result was that cardiac vagal reactivity (indexed by RMSSD change normalized by mean R-R interval), significantly predicted higher VVIQ scores (r = .30, p = .031). These findings demonstrate that vividness of mental imagery is not exclusively central in origin but also shaped by the capacity of the autonomic nervous system to enter a high-parasympathetic state. Imagery thus likely involves bidirectional autonomic-cortical interaction, with descending pathways triggering the intention to generate an image and ascending interoceptive signals contributing to its generation.

Flow, as defined by Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi (1975), is a holistic sensation experienced when individuals are fully immersed in an activity, resulting in a mental state characterized by a diminished sense of self and altered perception of time. To investigate the global neural dynamics underlying flow, we employed EEG microstate analysis to capture the spatial and temporal properties of dominant transient global brain states (Lehmann et al., 1998). In a study involving 43 participants playing the video game Thumper for 25 minutes, we extracted three four-minute EEG segments from each session corresponding to reported experiences of flow, boredom, and frustration, as determined by self-reports and performance metrics. Across conditions, six distinct microstate topographies (A-F) accounted for most of the global variance. Given that reduced self-referential processing is a key feature of flow, we hypothesized that flow would modulate the properties of microstates C and E, which have been associated with brain regions resembling the default mode network (DMN). Compared to boredom and frustration, the flow condition showed significantly decreased global explained variance, mean duration, time coverage, and occurrence frequency of microstate E, as well as reduced mean duration and time coverage of microstate C. These findings suggest that microstates associated with self-referential processing are shorter and less frequent during flow than during boredom and frustration. This supports the notion that the flow experience modulates global brain dynamics, particularly within the DMN. Furthermore, our results align with previous research reporting reduced DMN activity during meditative and psychedelic states, reinforcing the idea of diminished self-awareness in such conditions.

Pleasurable urge to move to music is often referred to as groove. Although previous studies have shown an association between the supplementary motor area (SMA) and the groove experience, its causal role remains unclear. Here, we investigated whether the SMA is causally involved in groove experience during music listening using repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation. Fifteen healthy participants completed three sessions on separate days: excitatory stimulation (intermittent theta burst stimulation; iTBS) over the SMA, inhibitory stimulation (continuous theta burst stimulation; cTBS) over the SMA, and sham stimulation (iTBS or cTBS) over the vertex. After each stimulation session, participants listened to five high-groove and five low-groove musical excerpts and rated urge-to-move and pleasure on a 0-100 scale. Heart rate was additionally recorded as an exploratory physiological measure during music listening. Linear mixed-effects models (LMM) showed that pleasure ratings, but not urge-to-move ratings, were higher following both iTBS and cTBS compared with sham stimulation. In exploratory LMMs, reduced log-transformed heart rate variability (HRV) significantly predicted higher pleasure ratings. These findings suggest that SMA stimulation modulates the pleasurable component of the groove experience, likely via network-level mechanisms rather than a simple linear relationship between SMA excitability and pleasure. They also raise the possibility that reduced parasympathetic activity, reflected by lower HRV, mediates the stimulation-related increase in musical pleasure. Future studies should investigate the causal roles of other brain regions as well as clarify the directionality between autonomic changes and the groove experience.

Abstract Background: Biological systems exhibit dynamic patterns over multiple temporal scales -from minutes to months- that are poorly captured by conventional cross-sectional or low-frequency longitudinal studies. These patterns, including circadian and ultradian rhythms, may be critical determinants of health, resilience, and disease risk in aging. Existing longitudinal studies in older adults lack high-frequency, multimodal measurements that integrate molecular, physiological, and digital health data streams. Objectives: The TIME Study aims to: (i) Characterize temporal patterns in molecular, physiological, and digital health measures in healthy older adults; (ii) determine how these patterns vary across biological domains and relate to each other; and (iii) assess how physiological systems respond to defined perturbations (oral glucose tolerance and maximal exercise). Methods: TIME is a single-site, observational, longitudinal study enrolling up to 150 adults aged [≥] 55 years. Over an 11-week main phase, participants complete seven weekly low-frequency visits, two perturbation challenge visits, and two, two-day high-frequency sampling epochs. Biospecimens, clinical measures, cognitive and physical performance tests, and continuous digital health data are collected. Follow-up visits occur at 6 and 12 months. Expected Impact: By integrating multimodal, temporally resolved data, TIME will provide a foundational dataset for understanding the role of biological rhythms in aging and inform future precision health strategies.

Summary paragraphA hallmark of learning is the need for sensory stimuli (Ginns, 2015; McGraw et al., 2009; Reinwein, 2012; Spence, 1950) so that learning is fundamentally based on sensory input signals affecting behaviour, physiology, and neurology. If behavioural measures of learning can be causally linked to physiological and neurological variables, a broader understanding of the mechanisms related to learning in schools, learning disabilities, and learning and health issues may emerge (McGraw et al., 2009). Despite decades of research on the physiological/neurological variable of sympathetic activation, learning, and achievement (Horvers et al., 2021), any causal relation remains unclear (Cowley et al., 2014; Mason et al., 2020; Pijeira-Diaz et al., 2016; Sung et al., 2023; Yu et al., 2024) and issues with instrument validation remain (Costantini et al., 2023; Hu et al., 2024; Milstein & Gordon, 2020; Van Der Mee et al., 2021). Here we investigate the effect of sensory input on sympathetic activation by using validated instruments for skin conductance measurement (Batista et al., 2019) and whether sympathetic activation is connected to learning in a cognitive laboratory context and an ecologically valid classroom context. In both contexts, we found a physiological variable which correlated with learning and that sensory input affected this variable while student movement did not. These sensory inputs varied depending on the different instructional activities the students participated in. Together, these findings bring us one step closer to a model linking sensory input to behavioural, physiological, and neurological variables.

Singing is an innate human behaviour present across cultures and the lifespan. Despite lacking direct biological advantages, its ubiquity suggests that it is intrinsically rewarding. This research aimed to investigate the underlying factors that explain variability in sensitivity to deriving reward and enjoyment from natural singing in the general population. In Study 1 (n = 606), an initial pool of items describing daily, non-professional singing behaviours were administered to an international adult sample. Exploratory factor analysis revealed a unidimensional structure of 20 items with acceptable model fit, organized into five facets representing distinct domains of singing-related rewards: 1) pleasure and emotional evocation, 2) social singing reward, 3) singing frequency, 4) mood regulation through singing, and 5) inattentional singing during routine tasks. In Study 2 (n = 430), confirmatory factor analysis in a new sample supported this structure. When both samples were combined (n = 1036), the unidimensional model defined by these five facets showed acceptable to excellent goodness-of-fit indices, supporting the conceptualization of singing reward as a multidimensional construct with differentiated facets. This led to the Barcelona-Aarhus Natural Singing Engagement Questionnaire (BANSEQ), which demonstrated excellent reliability ( = .94) and population-level stability. Study 3 (n = 1036) tested the convergent validity of BANSEQ with measures of music reward and engagement and identified sociodemographic and psychological correlates across the five facets of singing reward. Overall, these findings characterize the sources of individual differences in the hedonic experience of natural singing and propose BANSEQ as a robust psychometric tool for its assessment in the general population.

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and alcohol use disorder (AUD) are chronic psychiatric disorders that have overlapping symptomology and risk factors, including altered motivation and impulsive behavior. Inescapable exposure to a predator odor stressor (2,3,5-Trimethyl-3-Thiazoline (TMT)) produces PTSD-like symptomology in rats. Individual differences in stress-coping behaviors such as freezing and defensive digging during TMT exposure can predict long-term differences in alcohol-related behaviors and altered neurobiology. Here, we sought to evaluate the relationship between stress coping behavior during TMT exposure and different aspects of decision making. In Experiment 1, male and female rats were trained on an adjusting-amounts delay discounting task, and delay discounting curves were established before and >2 weeks after TMT exposure. In Experiment 2, female rats were trained to self-administer alcohol and sucrose in a concurrent choice procedure. Lever responses and preference for alcohol over sucrose were evaluated before and >2 weeks after TMT exposure, and then motivation for competing reinforcers was evaluated using progressive ratios. Active coping (digging) during TMT exposure was correlated with increased post-TMT impulsive choice (Experiment 1), reduced sucrose lever responses both before and after TMT exposure (Experiment 2), and reduced sucrose lever breakpoint (Experiment 2). Additionally, TMT-exposed rats had increased motivation for both alcohol and sucrose self-administration when available concurrently (Experiment 2). Overall, these findings suggest that behavior prior to and during a stressful experience can predict susceptibility to negative effects on decision making, which may help future studies identify the neurobiology underlying risk for aberrant reward-related behaviors after a traumatic event.

Perinatal opioid exposure is a prevalent clinical concern linked to respiratory instability and adverse infant outcomes. The opioid buprenorphine is prescribed as a medication for opioid use disorder during pregnancy and used to treat neonatal opioid withdrawal syndrome, yet its direct effects on neonatal control of breathing have not been examined. Here, we asked how acute buprenorphine exposure affects breathing at rest, and during chemoreceptor stimulation. Using dual-chamber head-out plethysmography, we measured pulmonary ventilation rate ([V]I) and metabolic rate in awake male and female Sprague-Dawley neonatal rats on postnatal days 4-5 (P4-5) during eupnea and a hypoxic-hypercapnic (HH) challenge. The effects of buprenorphine and two opioid receptor antagonists, naloxone hydrochloride, or peripherally restricted naloxone methiodide, were assessed using a repeated measures design. [V]I during eupnea and HH were markedly depressed following buprenorphine administration. Buprenorphine reduced [V]O2 and [V]CO2 and produced ventilatory equivalents for O2 and CO2 consistent with frank hypoventilation, driven by reduced breathing frequency and tidal volume (VT). When administered after buprenorphine, neither naloxone hydrochloride nor naloxone methiodide could rescue the buprenorphine-mediated hypoventilation in eupnea or during HH. In contrast, pre-treatment with either naloxone hydrochloride or naloxone methiodide attenuated buprenorphine-induced hypoventilation by preserving VT. These findings demonstrate that neonatal protective chemoreceptor reflexes are depressed by buprenorphine and suggest that pre-treatment with a peripheral opioid receptor antagonist could mitigate buprenorphine-induced hypoventilation without inducing opioid withdrawal. Key PointsO_LIAcute buprenorphine exposure significantly depressed pulmonary ventilation rate ([V]I) during eupnea and hypoxic hypercapnia (HH) in awake neonatal rats. C_LIO_LIBuprenorphine-induced hypoventilation was driven by reduced tidal volume (VT) and breathing frequency. C_LIO_LIBuprenorphine also reduced oxygen consumption ([V]O2) and carbon dioxide production ([V]CO2). C_LIO_LINaloxone given after buprenorphine failed to reverse hypoventilation. C_LIO_LIIn contrast, pre-treatment with either naloxone hydrochloride or peripherally restricted naloxone methiodide mitigated buprenorphine-induced hypoventilation by preserving VT. C_LI

Conversations can feel effortlessly engaging or, conversely, difficult and unrewarding. Multiple factors contribute to the experienced quality and outcomes of a conversation, among them how interlocutors align with each other. The present study investigated speech-to-speech, brain-to-speech, and brain-to-brain coordination as markers of interpersonal alignment, examining their relationship with jointly perceived interaction quality and mutual affinity between conversational partners. Pairs of previously unacquainted participants (dyads) engaged in multiple short, free-form conversations on topics of varying interest while their vocal and neural activity were simultaneously recorded in a dual-EEG ("hyperscanning") setup. We analyzed interlocutors prosodic adaptation, neural speech tracking, and neural coordination during each conversation. At the speech-to-speech level, our findings reveal that partners with more positive mutual impressions became more similar in their volume and voice quality over the course of the experiment session, reflecting greater prosodic convergence. At the brain-to-speech level, we found no reliable effect of interaction quality on neural tracking of unfolding speech within any individual region, although topographical differences suggested relative modulation across scalp sites. Finally, at the brain-to-brain level, our findings show that higher perceived interaction quality enhanced inter-brain relationships across frequency bands (alpha and theta) and temporal dependencies (concurrent/near-instantaneous and recurrent/listener-lagging), with the strongest effects observed for concurrent alpha-band coupling. These findings suggest that distinct coordination processes are involved in how interlocutors experience an interaction and how they establish relational affinity, casting new light into the mechanisms that make a conversation worthwhile.

Meditation has been associated with improvements in attention, emotional regulation, and mental well-being, motivating increasing interest in objective methods for assessing meditative states. In this study, we investigate whether EEG-based machine learning can reliably distinguish between multiple meditation styles and mind-wandering states. EEG data were recorded from experienced meditators performing three meditation styles, Shamatha, Vipassana, and Metta, together with an eyes-closed mind-wandering condition. EEG signals were preprocessed to remove artifacts, and features were extracted from frequency, time-frequency, and time domains. Classification was evaluated using both intra-subject and inter-subject strategies with multiple machine learning classifiers. Results demonstrate high intra-subject classification accuracy across meditation-versus-mind-wandering and meditation-style comparisons, indicating strongly discriminative subject-specific neural signatures. In contrast, inter-subject performance decreased substantially, particularly for distinguishing meditation styles, suggesting considerable inter-individual variability in meditation-related EEG patterns. Furthermore, temporal analysis revealed that classification performance increase over time, indicating that the neural distinctions between meditation states become increasingly pronounced over time. Additionally, t-SNE visualization showed clear within-subject clustering but increased overlap across subjects, explaining the reduced inter-subject generalization. Overall, these findings highlight the potential of EEG-based machine learning for personalized assessment and monitoring of meditative states while emphasizing the challenges of developing subject-independent meditation classification systems.

In a single-blind randomized controlled trial, we investigated the effectiveness of real-time fMRI neurofeedback delivered in 7 runs over three sessions across two weeks in N = 65 patients with alcohol use disorder. The intervention targeted modulation of ventral striatal cue reactivity to alcohol-related cues as well as enhancement of prefrontal control mechanisms in the right inferior frontal gyrus. The study design incorporate three experimental groups that either were instructed to downregulate a ventral striatum signal, upregulate the right inferior frontal gyrus, or upregulate negative functional connectivity between these two structures. In two active control groups participants were instructed to either up- or downregulate the primary auditory cortex. We did not find an effect of ventral striatal downregulation or negative connectivity feedback, and a reduced striatal activation in the right inferior frontal gyrus upregulation group was accompanied by concurrent lower activation in the target structure, suggesting that our intended modulation approaches were not effective. Identified problems that might have contributed to this unexpected outcome might have been the use of continuous feedback presentation that potentially confuses regulation target and reward processing in the ventral striatum, counterintuitive regulation directions, a lack of explicit strategy guidance and transparency about the targeted process, and generally the difficulty to recruit a sufficient number of eligible voluntary participants for a well-powered study with a complex design. These insights emphasize the complex challenges of real-time fMRI neurofeedback interventions for the treatment of substance use disorders and could provide guidance for the development of more effective future approaches.

Subthreshold depression is associated with significant functional impairment and elevated risk of major depressive disorder. A negative self-concept may disrupt the implicit positive association evoked by ones own face, impairing incidental encoding of self-relevant information. Whether subthreshold depression involves a selective deficit in encoding self-face identity remains unclear. The attribute amnesia paradigm is well suited to address this question because it can dissociate attentional selection from working memory encoding. Using this paradigm, we examined the issue across two experiments. Experiment 1 employed nonsocial stimuli (animal drawings) and confirmed an intact attribute amnesia effect in subthreshold depression (n = 30) comparable to healthy controls (n = 30), ruling out a generalized encoding deficit. Experiment 2 replaced targets with faces (self or other) and revealed a selective enhancement of the attribute amnesia effect for self-face identity in subthreshold depression. Specifically, on the surprise trial, accuracy for self-face identity dropped to near-chance levels in the subthreshold depression group, whereas no such deficit emerged for other-faces or in controls. Encoding recovered rapidly once explicit memory expectations were introduced, indicating intact basic encoding capacity. These findings suggest that subthreshold depression is associated with a specific impairment in incidentally encoding self-face identity. This impairment likely stems from a negative self-concept that weakens self-face salience under incidental encoding conditions. By capturing this selective encoding failure, the present study reveals that the self-processing deficit in subthreshold depression can arise at the gating stage between attention and working memory consolidation.

I ntroduction: Prospective memory (PM) deficits in children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) significantly impact academic and daily functioning. Through two experiments, this study investigated how cognitive load and encoding strategies modulate PM performance. Methods: Experiment 1 included 43 children (21 ADHD, 22 typically developing) who completed an n-back task under high and low cognitive load. Experiment 2 included 44 children with ADHD who were randomly assigned to either a standard encoding group or an implementation intention encoding group, also completing the n-back task under both load conditions. Results: Experiment 1 showed that children with ADHD had significantly lower PM accuracy than typically developing peers. Signal detection analysis revealed that this deficit stemmed from a more conservative response bias rather than impaired perceptual sensitivity. Unexpectedly, PM accuracy and perceptual sensitivity were higher under high cognitive load than low load for both groups. Experiment 2 demonstrated that implementation intention encoding significantly enhanced PM accuracy and perceptual sensitivity in children with ADHD, with stable effects across load conditions and no interference with ongoing task performance. Discussion: These findings indicate that PM deficits in children with ADHD reflect a conservative response strategy rather than an inability to detect target cues. Implementation intention encoding provides an effective, load-independent cognitive strategy for enhancing PM performance. These results offer novel insights into the cognitive mechanisms underlying PM deficits in ADHD and provide evidence-based guidance for targeted interventions.

IntroductionFunctional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is widely used to study neural processes of behavior, but evaluations of test-retest reliability (TRR) of task-related blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) responses are scarce for many cognitive tasks. Such information is particularly important for longitudinal and intervention research. The ability to learn associations between choices and outcomes across decision stages is crucial for daily behavior. We assessed the measurement reliability of behavioral performance and fMRI BOLD signals during value-based sequential decision making to evaluate the TRR of task-relevant regions for future research on non-invasive brain stimulations. MethodsTwenty healthy adults (22 to 40 years) completed two task-fMRI sessions that were at least 2 weeks apart. During scanning, participants performed two variants of a three-stage Markov decision task with conditions varied in temporal contingency (immediate vs. delayed) and magnitude of choice outcomes (high vs. low). Both sessions were conducted under sham tDCS via a focal 3 x 1 montage targeting left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC). The TRR was assessed using intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC) with a two-way mixed-effects consistency model for decision performance and task-related fMRI signals at voxel-wise level and summarized in key regions defined by the extended Human Connectome Project atlas (HCPex). ResultsDecision performance was lower with delayed than immediate outcomes (p < 0.001). Higher outcome magnitude improved performance (p < 0.001). Decision performance increased across learning bins (p < 0.001). The behavioral TRR was in the moderate to good level (ICC(3,1) = 0.742 for accuracy; ICC(3,1) = 0.801 for reaction time). At the whole-brain level, contrasting brain activities in delayed with immediate condition revealed suprathreshold cluster peaks in several frontal-parietal (e.g., bilateral orbitofrontal, bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal, and medial parietal cortices) and striatal regions (e.g., bilateral putamen). Voxel-wise ICCs revealed variable but partly good-to-excellent TRR across task-relevant regions, with stronger reliability in several striatal, orbitofrontal, and left dorsolateral prefrontal parcels, and more variable reliability across anterior cingulate and medial prefrontal parcels. ConclusionThese results from a 2-session tDCS sham-sham stimulation study establish the validity of using the three-stage Markov decision task in future studies about intervention effects on the frontal-parietal-striatal network.

Background: Internet-based cognitive behavioral therapy (iCBT) is efficacious for panic disorder (PD), yet the mechanisms of change remain underspecified. Anxiety sensitivity (AS) is theoretically central to PD maintenance, but its role as a mediator has not been formally tested in Spanish-speaking populations using minimal-contact formats. This study evaluates the efficacy of the "Free from Anxiety" iCBT program and examines AS as a mediator of clinical outcomes. Methods: In a randomized controlled trial, 95 adults meeting DSM-IV-TR criteria for PD were assigned to an 8-week iCBT program with optional email support (n = 49) or a waiting-list control (n = 46). Primary outcome was PD severity (PDSS); secondary outcomes included anxiety sensitivity (ASI-3), general anxiety (BAI), and depression (BDI-II). Mediation was assessed via Baron and Kenny's framework with bootstrapping (5,000 resamples) to estimate the indirect effect of ASI-3 change on PDSS reduction. Results: The treatment group showed significant improvements across all measures compared to controls (PDSS: d = 0.76, 95% CI [0.10, 1.42]; mean d = 1.30). Mediation analysis confirmed that ASI-3 change partially mediated the treatment effect on PDSS (indirect effect = 1.85, 95% CI [0.36, 3.70]), accounting for 27.4% of the total effect. The direct effect remained significant (b = 4.89, p < .001). Intent-to-treat (ITT) analyses supported robustness (d = 0.47 to 1.47). Gains were maintained at 6-month follow-up (d = 1.19 to 1.26). Conclusions: iCBT reduces anxiety sensitivity as a partial mechanism of change, aligning with cognitive models of panic. These findings support Free from Anxiety as an evidence-based, viable first-step intervention for Spanish-speaking clinical populations within stepped-care pathways.

Separate research has evaluated trajectories of posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) and obsessive-compulsive symptoms (OCS), but no study has evaluated OCS trajectories following trauma exposure nor combined PTSS/OCS trajectories. The present study evaluated combined PTSS/OCS trajectories among 585 survivors of Hurricane Helene, spanning three waves of data collection over 12 months. A 3-class solution was supported, including resilient (i.e., consistently low PTSS and OCS), chronic (i.e., elevated PTSS and OCS with gradual reduction over time), and moderate-yet-diverging (i.e., moderate elevations in PTSS and OCS with gradually declining PTSS and persistent and increasing OCS over time) classes. This study shows both overlap and differentiation in symptom trajectories from earlier research, with the moderate-yet-diverging trajectory suggesting unique OCS pathways distinct from PTSS.

Background: Dissociative experiences encompass a variety of discontinuities in awareness and perception that are elevated in the dissociative disorders and associated with extensive comorbid symptomatology. Accumulating evidence points to developmental trauma and trait responsiveness to verbal suggestions (REVS) as factors that confer risk for severe dissociative symptoms, but they have typically been studied in isolation. This study integrated these measures using prediction modelling to better understand their predictive value for the risk of dissociative psychopathology. Method: 1,104 non-clinical participants completed measures of trauma, dissociation and trait REVS. The predictive model was developed using elastic net logistic regression, internally validated with 10-fold cross-validation, and assessed using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve and area under the ROC (AUROC). Variables entered into the model were components of REVS, trauma, age, and their interactions. Results: A dissociative psychopathology at-risk group (7%) was characterised by younger age, greater trauma and elevated REVS, particularly involuntariness during cognitive-perceptual suggestions. The prediction model retained nine of ten predictors, with an AUROC of .77 [95% CI: .73, .82], reflecting good discrimination with moderate sensitivity (78%) but modest specificity (67%). Conclusions: These findings reinforce trauma and trait REVS as risk factors for dissociative psychopathology and demonstrate that they can be integrated in a model that can identify at-risk individuals. Further validation and extension of the model is necessary to improve the identification of individuals at risk for severe dissociative symptomatology and the diagnosis of dissociative disorders with implications for outcome trajectories.

It has been proposed that bilinguals have better executive function (EF) arising from the constant selection of one language while inhibiting the other, and gray matter has been found to differ in bilinguals in regions linked to EF (frontal-parietal and subcortical structures). Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is associated with poorer EF and neuroanatomical differences underlying EF. Given the EF advantage in bilinguals, we investigated whether a bilingual experience affects EF performance and brain structure differentially in those with ADHD. Using the Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development Study, we compared early Spanish-English bilinguals and English-speaking monolinguals with and without ADHD. ANOVAs for the Flanker, Working Memory, and Card Sort Tasks revealed no main effects of Language Experience (Bilingual versus Monolingual), a main effect of Diagnostic Group for Card Sort (ADHD worse than Controls), and no interaction effects on performance for any task. ANOVAs for gray matter volume (GMV) revealed a main effect of Language Experience in many regions, a main effect of Diagnostic Group in some regions, but no interactions. GMV in left thalamus was affected by both ADHD and bilingualism, but the effect of ADHD was not significantly diminished or enhanced by the dual-language experience. For cortical thickness, there was a main effect of Language Experience in several regions, no main effect of Diagnostic Group, and no interactions. Taken together, bilingualism has some impact on EF performance, a strong impact on neuroanatomy, but there was no disproportionate impact by bilingualism on the differences caused by ADHD for any measure. Research HighlightsExecutive function and brain structure differ in ADHD and in bilinguals, prompting the need to investigate interactive effects. Bilingualism did not disproportionately affect performance differences in ADHD for executive function, nor for gray matter volume or for cortical thickness differences in ADHD. Gray matter volume was less in ADHD than non-ADHD, as well as greater in bilinguals than monolinguals in the left thalamus, but without interaction effect. These independent effects indicate that the brain basis of ADHD is not impacted by a dual-language experience.

Background: Childhood adversity (CA) is recognized as a distal risk-factor for suicide attempts (SA) in individuals with psychiatric disorders. However, not all individuals with experiences of CA will engage in SA. Contributing to this relationship may be proximal factors such as impulsivity, inward anger and self-aggression. However, these factors are often conceptually blended and measured in different samples. We sought to clarify association among CA and personality factors in persons with SA. Methods: Participants from two studies comprised individuals with a diagnosed psychiatric disorder and history of SA (n= 139) and individuals with depressive disorder (clinical controls, CC; n= 24). We investigated self-reported levels of CA, impulsivity, inward anger, and self-aggression between the SA and CC (pcorr< .012). We tested the relationship among the factors using regression (pcorr<.017) and mediation model (indirect effects, p<.05) within the SA group. Sensitivity models were run controlling for age, gender, symptom severity, trait anger, and externally oriented aggression. Results: SA group had higher impulsivity (pcorr=.067) in a model controlled for age and gender. Other factors did not differ among groups. Within the SA group the analyses revealed positive association among CA and personality factors (pcorr<.06) in basic and model with age and gender, however the association was not specific for internally (self) oriented factors (coefficient comparison, p<.07). Parallel mediation model indicated that CA had indirect effect on self-aggression through impulsivity (p=.001) and to a lesser extent through inward anger (p=.066). Generally, models controlling for cognitive depression symptoms showed less prominent effects (pcorr>.1). Limitations: The study was cross-sectional and did not include behavioral tasks (state) measures of proximal factors. Conclusions: CA and personality factors showed similar severity levels among the SA and CC groups suggesting they may relate to broader psychopathologies, rather than specifically to SA. The association of CA with anger and aggression was unspecific to internally oriented factors indicating the need for more precise measuring instruments developed specifically for individuals with SA. Overall, the study highlights personality factors as being associated with risk in broader vulnerable populations.

Aging and noise over-exposure lead to complex mixtures of cochlear degradation that impair the structure and function of outer hair cells, inner hair cells (IHCs), and the cochlear nerve. However, IHC damage and cochlear synaptopathy (CS) remain pathologies "hidden" from the audiogram. This study aimed to identify and differentiate the physiological signatures of these two distinct pathologies using promising non-invasive assays: Envelope Following Responses (EFRs), Auditory Brainstem Response (ABRs), Wideband middle-ear reflexes (WB-MEMRs), and Distortion Product Otoacoustic Emissions (DPOAEs). We utilized chinchilla models of carboplatin-induced (CA) IHC damage (N = 4) and temporary threshold shift (TTS) noise-induced CS (N = 4) to compare the physiological signatures of each pathology. While both groups showed unchanged ABR thresholds two weeks after exposure, EFRs, ABR Wave V/I ratios, and MEMRs showed distinct effects of exposure. Despite non-elevated ABR-derived audiometric thresholds after exposure, both CA and TTS exposure resulted in severe in EFR "peakiness", particularly for sharp, short-duty-cycle stimuli and significant elevations in ABR Wave V/I ratios. However, these findings were less-pronounced in the TTS-exposed animals. WB-MEMR amplitudes were decreased with elevated thresholds in both groups; this effect was more pronounced in the TTS group. Opposite trends in DPOAE amplitudes indicated that while both IHC damage and CS result in similar suprathreshold temporal coding deficits, effects on outer-hair-cell integrity and auditory efferent physiology may differ between the two pathologies. Future work and novel diagnostics should aim to distinguish these specific cochlear pathologies in clinical populations, or at the very least consider their overlap. HighlightsO_LIA multi-metric diagnostic approach was used with chinchilla models of inner-hair-cell (IHC) damage and cochlear synaptopathy (CS). C_LIO_LIIHC damage and synaptopathy both cause suprathreshold deficits "hidden" from the audiogram. C_LIO_LIIHC damage results in more severe temporal envelope coding degradation than does synaptopathy. C_LIO_LIA combination of EFR "peakiness", ABR Wave V/I ratio, and Wideband Middle Ear Muscle Reflex (WB-MEMR) appear to be useful measures for profiling IHC damage and CS. C_LI