Showing papers in "Biological Psychology in 2006"

TL;DR: Data suggest that the feedback-related negativity reflects the early appraisal of feedback based on a binary classification of good versus bad outcomes, as well as appraisal processes implicated in emotional processing.

TL;DR: Findings from rat studies may allow us to develop new fear extinction paradigms in human, make specific predictions as to the location of extinction-related areas in humans, and improve current extinction-based behavioral therapies for anxiety disorders.

TL;DR: It is demonstrated that matrix size and ISI are important variables to consider when optimizing a BCI system for individual users and that a P300-BCI can be used for effective communication.

TL;DR: Changes in task performance due to fatigue were accompanied by a decrease in Ne/ERN and N2 amplitude, reflecting impaired action monitoring, as well as a decreases in CNV amplitude which reflects reduced response preparation with increasing fatigue.

TL;DR: The main findings are that certain tests of frontal lobe function are very sensitive to several neurocognitive and neuropsychiatric disorders, and the nature of some of these deficits often differs qualitatively from those produced by frontal lobe lesions.

TL;DR: This manuscript reviews how animal models of fear are translated to human behavior, and how some fears are more easily acquired in humans (i.e., social-cultural), and attempts to extend these findings to human models targeted to helping facilitate extinction or abolishment of fears.

TL;DR: The capability approach confers a variety of advantages to the study of affective style and personality, and suggests new possibilities for the approach/withdrawal motivational model of frontal EEG asymmetry and emotion.

TL;DR: Data from the rat are reviewed that suggest comparable forms of maternal effects on defensive responses stress, which are mediated by the effects of variations in maternal behavior on gene expression, which enhance the capacity for defensive responses in the offspring.

TL;DR: An acute bout of aerobic exercise appears to have a significant impact on the BP response to a psychosocial stressor, according to a systematic review of randomised controlled trials.

TL;DR: Evidence is described that weakening the experimental situation through reducing the certainty, temporal proximity, and/or potency of the aversive stimulus may facilitate the emergence of patient-control differences in psychobiological measures of anxious arousal.

TL;DR: A significant negative relationship was found between fundamental frequency and measures of body shape and weight and formant dispersion and the 'good genes' model of sexual selection and the size exaggeration theory of laryngeal descent.

TL;DR: The results suggest that persons with PTSD exhibit alterations in the amplitude and latency of ERP within these paradigms that support the hypothesis that changes in information processing can accompany PTSD.

TL;DR: A study to investigate the convergent validity between psychophysiological measurement and changes in the subjective status of the individual found that psychophysiology predicted a substantial proportion of the variance for both Task Engagement and Distress but not for the Worry meta-factor.

TL;DR: Preliminary results suggest that relative right frontal EEG activity may predict future development of anxiety symptoms.

TL;DR: The present data support the idea that morning relative to evening chronotypes might show higher cortisol levels in the first hour after awakening, and individual chronotype should be acknowledged as one further possible source of interindividual variability in the cortisol rise after awakening.

TL;DR: Overall, there was substantial agreement between animal and human data, with each having predictive value, and it is suggested that abuse-potential screening of new medications would benefit from an organized, integrated cross-species program.

TL;DR: Emotional reactions when people viewed pictures depicting members of the same or different ethnic group were assessed and facial EMG, skin conductance, rating, and viewing time data lent support to the ingroup empathy hypothesis, in which greater pleasure and displeasure were apparent when viewing ingroup pictures.

TL;DR: The present findings support the suggestion that ERP components in the stop task reflect endogenous aspects of stop-signal processing, such as effective inhibition of responses on successful stop trials and detection of errors on failed inhibition trials.

TL;DR: Using data from three studies of men and women engaging in masturbation or penile-vaginal intercourse to orgasm in the laboratory, it is reported that for both sexes (adjusted for prolactin changes in a non-sexual control condition), the magnitude of Prolactin increase following intercourse is 400% greater than that following masturbation.

TL;DR: Evidence is presented indicating that the rodent amygdala is involved in some types of fear, but not all types (unconditioned fear), and may therefore have significance for a differential neurobiology of certain anxiety disorders in humans.

TL;DR: An empirical investigation on the relation between cortical trait activity, BIS and BAS found subjects with greater bilateral frontal cortical activity showed higher BAS scores, which may suggest that behavioral activation comprises approach and withdrawal motivation.

TL;DR: These studies demonstrate causal relations between acute stressors and DNA-damage in animals and significant correlations between psychological factors (e.g., depression, coping), which are moderated by gender, in humans.

TL;DR: The data support the idea that similar functions are observed in rats and humans with hippocampal damage using analogous tasks, and provide support for evolutionary continuity in cognitive function assigned to the hippocampus of Rats and humans.

TL;DR: Psychosocial factors are of significance to the level of salivary cortisol, and high degrees of effort, effort reward imbalance and overcommitment were significantly associated with higher levels of cortisol.

TL;DR: It is hypothesized that impaired habituation to repeated exposure to the same stressor could reflect a state of increased vulnerability for allostatic load, and absence of normal habituation might be one potential mechanism how exhaustion relates to increased disease vulnerability.

TL;DR: The results suggest that fatigue is associated with a predisposition to be anxious, depressive, less self-assured, more conscientious (rule bound), less socially bold, less adaptable and low vigour.

TL;DR: Two experiments examined event-related potentials and behavioral correlates of categorizing stimuli varying in perceptual similarity to targets to suggest that the P300 amplitude may be used as a good index of perceptual similarity between target and non-target stimuli.

TL;DR: The magnitude of the sexual behavior effect on BP reactivity is greater than of other factors in the literature and this findings add to the research corpus on the benefits of PVI.

TL;DR: Results indicate that motor learning was consolidated in a brief nap and was associated with stage 2 spindles, but only for those who habitually take naps.

TL;DR: A substantial role is suggested for prenatal testosterone but not current testosterone in determining cognitive performance, with sex found to be the sole predictor of targeting, exhibiting a curvilinear relation, and figure-disembedding performance, showing a linear relation.