Brain signatures of catastrophic events: Emotion, salience, and cognitive control.

Anticipatory brain activity makes it possible to predict the occurrence of expected situations. However, events such as traffic accidents are statistically unpredictable and can generate catastrophic consequences. This study investigates the brain activity and effective connectivity associated with anticipating and processing such unexpected, unavoidable accidents. We asked 161 participants to ride a motorcycle simulator while recording their electroencephalographic activity. Of these, 90 participants experienced at least one accident while driving. We conducted both within-subjects and between-subjects comparisons. During the pre-accident period, the right inferior parietal lobe (IPL), left anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), and right insula showed higher activity in the accident condition. In the post-accident period, the bilateral orbitofrontal cortex, right IPL, bilateral ACC, and middle and superior frontal gyrus also showed increased activity in the accident condition. We observed greater effective connectivity within the nodes of the limbic network (LN) and between the nodes of the attentional networks in the pre-accident period. In the post-accident period, we also observed greater effective connectivity between networks, from the ventral attention network (VAN) to the somatomotor network and from nodes in the visual network, VAN, and default mode network to nodes in the frontoparietal network, LN, and attentional networks. This suggests that activating salience-related processes and emotional processing allows the anticipation of accidents. Once an accident has occurred, integration and valuation of the new information takes place, and control processes are initiated to adapt behavior to the new demands of the environment.

Brain changes following mindfulness: Reduced caudate volume is associated with decreased positive urgency.

Mindfulness training has been shown to improve psychological health and general well-being. However, it is unclear which brain and personality systems may be affected by this practice for improving adaptive behavior and quality of life. The present study explores the effects of a 5-week mindfulness-based intervention (MBI) at the neuroanatomical level and its relationship with dispositional mindfulness and impulsivity. Sixty-six risky drivers were quasi-randomly assigned to a mindfulness training group (MT) or a control group (N). Participants underwent magnetic resonance imaging and completed the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ) and the UPPS-P impulsivity scale twice, at baseline and after receiving the MBI. We observed that MBI changes dispositional mindfulness in the non-reactivity and observing facets. Further, we observed that the magnitude of change in impulsivity was associated with the change in dispositional mindfulness. Whole-brain voxel-wise analysis revealed that the volume of the right caudate nucleus of the MT group (n = 27) showed a reduction compared to that of the control group (n = 33), which increased in terms of the pre-post measurement (MT=-1.76 mm3; N = 6.31 mm3). We also observed that reduced caudate nucleus volume correlated with decreased positive urgency in the MT group. Taken together, our results show that MBI improves the skills of observing and non-reactivity to inner experience, while producing changes in the structure of the caudate nucleus. These structural changes are associated with a reduction in impulsivity levels, decreasing the tendency to act rashly in situations that generate positive emotions and thus facilitating more adaptive behavior.

Relationships between Personality Traits and Brain Gray Matter Are Different in Risky and Non-risky Drivers.

Personality traits such as impulsivity or sensitivity to rewards and punishments have been associated with risky driving behavior, but it is still unclear how brain anatomy is related to these traits as a function of risky driving. In the present study, we explore the neuroanatomical basis of risky driving behavior and how the level of risk-taking influences the relationship between the traits of impulsivity and sensitivity to rewards and punishments and brain gray matter volume. One hundred forty-four participants with different risk-taking tendencies assessed by real-life driving situations underwent MRI. Personality traits were assessed with self-report measures. We observed that the total gray matter volume varied as a function of risky driving tendencies, with higher risk individuals showing lower gray matter volumes. Similar results were found for volumes of brain areas involved in the reward and cognitive control networks, such as the frontotemporal, parietal, limbic, and cerebellar cortices. We have also shown that sensitivity to reward and punishment and impulsivity are differentially related to gray matter volumes as a function of risky driving tendencies. Highly risky individuals show lower absolute correlations with gray matter volumes than less risk-prone individuals. Taken together, our results show that risky drivers differ in the brain structure of the areas involved in reward processing, cognitive control, and behavioral modulation, which may lead to dysfunctional decision-making and riskier driving behavior.

Social and Non-social Brain Areas in Risk Behaviour: The Role of Social Context.

The human brain contains social areas that become active when interacting with another human. These are located in the ventral prefrontal and mediodorsal cortices, adjacent to areas involved in reward processing and cognitive control. Human behaviour is strongly influenced by the social context. This is particularly evident when observing greater risk propensity in the presence of a peer, particularly during adolescence and emerging adulthood. We explored the widely held view that enhanced risk propensity is the consequence of weak cognitive control. We used brain activity, estimated from EEG recordings in a sample of 114 emerging adult dyads whilst performing a risk perception task, to predict risk behaviour in a subsequent driving simulation task. Being with a peer reduced the ability to discriminate riskiness in images of traffic scenes, biased responses towards the perception of no-risk, and increased the rate of accidents in the driving simulation. Risk perception involved three sets of clusters showing activity only when being with a peer, only when being alone, and in both social contexts. Functional connectivity between the clusters accounted for the later driving simulation performance depending on the peer's presence. In the light of our findings, greater risk-taking, when a peer is present, seems to be triggered by the activation of a different, less efficient brain network for risk-processing.

There Is More to Mindfulness Than Emotion Regulation: A Study on Brain Structural Networks.

Dispositional mindfulness and emotion regulation are two psychological constructs closely interrelated, and both appear to improve with the long-term practice of mindfulness meditation. These constructs appear to be related to subcortical, prefrontal, and posterior brain areas involved in emotional processing, cognitive control, self-awareness, and mind wandering. However, no studies have yet discerned the neural basis of dispositional mindfulness that are minimally associated with emotion regulation. In the present study, we use a novel brain structural network analysis approach to study the relationship between structural networks and dispositional mindfulness, measured with two different and widely used instruments [Mindfulness Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS) and Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ)], taking into account the effect of emotion regulation difficulties. We observed a number of different brain regions associated with the different scales and dimensions. The total score of FFMQ and MAAS overlap with the bilateral parahippocampal and fusiform gyri. Additionally, MAAS scores were related to the bilateral hippocampus and the FFMQ total score to the right insula and bilateral amygdala. These results indicate that, depending on the instrument used, the characteristics measured could differ and could also involve different brain systems. However, it seems that brain areas related to emotional reactivity and semantic processing are generally related to Dispositional or trait mindfulness (DM), regardless of the instrument used.

Contextual control of the retardation of flavour aversion learning by preexposure to the unconditioned stimulus: Acquisition or retrieval deficit?

Two experiments, using rats as the subjects, and flavour aversion learning with an injection of lithium chloride (LiCl) as the unconditioned stimulus (US), examined the effects of a context shift between phases of the procedure on the retardation of learning produced by preexposure to the US. Experiment 1 showed that the US-preexposure effect (the reduction in the size of the conditioned aversion) was not attenuated when the animals were given both preexposure to the US and the conditioning procedure in a novel context but received the test phase in a different context (the home cages). Experiment 2 showed that, after degrading the injection cues-illness association by interpolating saline injections between LiCl preexposures, the US-preexposure effect was attenuated when there was a context shift between preexposure and conditioning, but that the context shift was without effect when it occurred between conditioning and test. These results are consistent with the proposal that US preexposure obtained in this procedure has its effect by interfering with the formation of the target association; they provide no support for the suggestion that the effect depends on interference at the test stage.

A cross-cultural comparison of visual search strategies and response times in road hazard perception testing.

Road hazard perception is considered the most prominent higher-order cognitive skill related to traffic-accident involvement. Regional cultures and social rules that govern acceptable behavior may influence drivers' interpretation of a traffic situation and, consequently, the correct identification of potentially hazardous situations. Here, we aimed to compare hazard perception skills among four European countries that differ in their traffic culture, policies to reduce traffic risks, and fatal crashes: Ukraine, Italy, Spain, and Sweden. We developed a static hazard perception test in which driving scenes with different levels of braking affordance were presented while drivers' gaze was recorded. The test required drivers to indicate the action they would undertake: to brake vs. to keep driving. We assessed 218 young adult drivers. Multilevel models revealed that the scenes' levels of braking affordance (i.e., road hazard) modulated drivers' behavior. As the levels of braking affordance increased, drivers' responses became faster and their gaze entropy decreased (i.e., visual search strategy became less erratic). The country of origin influenced these effects. Ukrainian drivers were the fastest and Swedish drivers were the slowest to respond. For all countries, the decrement in response times was less marked in the case of experienced drivers. Also, Spanish drivers showed the most structured (least erratic) visual search strategy, whereas the Italians had the most rigid (most constant) one. These results suggest that road hazard perception can be defined cross-culturally, with cultural factors (e.g., traffic climate, legislation) modulating response times and visual search strategies. Our results also support the idea that a multimodal assessment methodology is possible for mass testing of road hazard perception and its outcomes would be relevant to understand how different traffic cultures shape driving behavior.

Repeat Traffic Offenders Improve Their Performance in Risky Driving Situations and Have Fewer Accidents Following a Mindfulness-Based Intervention.

Risky decision-making is highly influenced by emotions and can lead to fatal consequences. Attempts to reduce risk-taking include the use of mindfulness-based interventions (MBI), which have shown promising results for both emotion regulation (ER) and risk-taking. However, it is still unclear whether improved emotion regulation is the mechanism responsible for reduced risk-taking. In the present study, we explore the effect of a 5-week MBI on risky driving in a group of repeat traffic offenders by comparing them with non-repeat offenders and repeat offenders without training. We evaluated the driving behavior of the participants through a driving simulation, and self-reported emotion regulation, both before and after the intervention. At baseline, poor emotion regulation was related to a more unstable driving behavior, and speeding. The group that received mindfulness training showed improved performance during risky driving situations and had fewer accidents, although their overall driving behavior remained largely unchanged. The observed trend toward improved emotion regulation was not significant. We discuss whether other effects of MBI - such as self-regulation of attention - could underlie the observed reduction in risky driving in the initial stages. Nonetheless, our findings still confirm the close relationship between emotion regulation skills and risky driving.

Risk proneness modulates the impact of impulsivity on brain functional connectivity.

Impulsivity and sensation seeking are considered to be among the most important personality traits involved in risk-taking behavior. This study is focused on whether the association of these personality traits and brain functional connectivity depends on individuals' risk proneness. Risk proneness was assessed with the DOSPERT-30 scale and corroborated with performance in a motorcycle simulator. The associations of impulsivity- and sensation seeking-related traits with the between and within coupling of seven major brain functional networks, estimated from electroencefalograma (EEG) recordings, differ according to whether an individual is risk prone or not. In risk-prone individuals, (lack of) premeditation enhanced the coupling of the ventral attention and limbic networks. At the same time, emotion seeking increased the coupling of the frontoparietal network and the default mode networks (DMNs). Finally, (lack of) perseverance had a positive impact on the coupling of anterior temporal nodes of the limbic network whilst having a negative impact on some frontal nodes of the frontoparietal network and the DMNs. In general, the results suggest that the predisposition to behave riskily modulates the way in which impulsivity traits are linked to brain functionality, seemingly making the brain networks prepare for an immediate, automatic, and maladaptive response.

Electrophysiological brain indices of risk behavior modification induced by contingent feedback.

The main aim of this research was to study the effects of response feedback on risk behavior and the neural and cognitive mechanisms involved, as a function of the feedback contingency. Sixty drivers were randomly assigned to one of three feedback groups: contingent, non-contingent and no feedback. The participants' task consisted of braking or not when confronted with a set of risky driving situations, while their electroencephalographic activity was continuously recorded. We observed that contingent feedback, as opposed to non-contingent feedback, promoted changes in the response bias towards safer decisions. This behavioral modification implied a higher demand on cognitive control, reflected in a larger amplitude of the N400 component. Moreover, the contingent feedback, being predictable and entailing more informative value, gave rise to smaller SPN and larger FRN scores when compared with non-contingent feedback. Taken together, these findings provide a new and complex insight into the neurophysiological basis of the influence of feedback contingency on the processing of decision-making under risk. We suggest that response feedback, when contingent upon the risky behavior, appears to improve the functionality of the brain mechanisms involved in decision-making and can be a powerful tool for reducing the tendency to choose risky options in risk-prone individuals.

Spanish validation of the Domain-Specific Risk-Taking (DOSPERT-30) Scale.

BACKGROUND: The aim of the present study was to develop and validate a Spanish version of the short Domain-Specific Risk-Taking (DOSPERT-30) scale, measuring risk-taking behavior, risk perception, and expected beneficial consequences (from taking risks) in five life domains: ethics, finance, health/security, recreational, and social decisions. METHOD: The scale was back-translated, and administered online to 826 participants. Validity evidence was tested using correlations with construct-related instruments (UPPS-P and SSS-V), as well as using factor analysis. Internal consistency reliability was calculated with the ordinal Alpha coefficient, and gender differences were considered. RESULTS: Internal consistency was good, and factor analysis confirmed the five factors proposed by the authors. With respect to the external validity, high correlations with the positive urgency and the sensation seeking subscales of the UPPS-P, as well as with the thrill and adventure seeking and disinhibition subscales of the SSS-V were found. Finally, gender differences were found in all subscales and domains, with men tending to take more risks, perceive less risk and expect more beneficial consequences, except for the social domain where an inverse pattern was found. CONCLUSIONS: As these findings are in line with the original version, they indicate the scale was successfully adapted.

Using negative emotional feedback to modify risky behavior of young moped riders.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this research was to investigate whether the use of messages with negative emotional content is effective in promoting safe behavior of moped riders and how exactly these messages modulate rider behavior. METHODS: Participants received negative feedback when performing risky behaviors using a computer task. The effectiveness of this treatment was subsequently tested in a riding simulator. RESULTS: The results demonstrated how riders receiving negative feedback had a lower number of traffic accidents than a control group. The reduction in accidents was accompanied by a set of changes in the riding behavior. We observed a lower average speed and greater respect for speed limits. Furthermore, analysis of the steering wheel variance, throttle variance, and average braking force provided evidence for a more even and homogenous riding style. This greater abidance of traffic regulations and friendlier riding style could explain some of the causes behind the reduction in accidents. CONCLUSIONS: The use of negative emotional feedback in driving schools or advanced rider assistance systems could enhance riding performance, making riders aware of unsafe practices and helping them to establish more accurate riding habits. Moreover, the combination of riding simulators and feedback-for example, in the training of novice riders and traffic offenders-could be an efficient tool to improve their hazard perception skills and promote safer behaviors.

Modifying Evaluations and Decisions in Risky Situations.

The main aim of this research was to investigate the decision making process in risky situations. We studied how different types of feedback on risky driving behaviors modulate risk evaluation and risk-taking. For a set of risky traffic situations, participants had to make evaluative judgments (judge the situation as risky or not) and urgent decisions (brake or not). In Experiment 1, participants received feedback with and without negative emotional content when they made risky behaviors. In Experiment 2 we investigated the independent effects of feedback and negative emotional stimuli. The results showed three important findings: First, urgent decisions were faster [F(1, 92) = 6.76, p = .01] and more cautious [F(1, 92) = 17.16, p < .001] than evaluative judgments. These results suggest that evaluative judgments of risk and actual risk-taking may not always coincide, and that they seem to be controlled by two different processing systems as proposed by dual process theories. Second, feedback made participants' responses even faster [F(1, 111) = 71.53, p < .001], allowing greater risk sensitivity [F(1, 111) = 22.12, p < .001] and skewing towards more cautious responses [F(1, 111) = 14.09, p < .001]. Finally, emotional stimuli had an effect only when they were presented as feedback. The results of this research increase our understanding of the processes involved in risky driving behavior and suggest efficient ways to control risk taking through the use of feedback.

Disentangling the Effect of Valence and Arousal on Judgments Concerning Moral Transgressions.

An increasing body of research has investigated the effect of emotions on judgments concerning moral transgressions. Yet, few studies have controlled for arousal levels associated with the emotions. High arousal may affect moral processing by triggering attention to salient features of transgressions, independently of valence. Therefore previously documented differences in effects of negative and positive emotions may have been confounded by differences in arousal. We conducted two studies to shed light on this issue. In Study 1 we developed a questionnaire including vignettes selected on the basis of psychometrical properties (i.e., mean ratings of the actions and variability). This questionnaire was administered to participants in Study 2, after presenting them with selected pictures inducing different valence but equivalent levels of arousal. Negative pictures led to more severe moral judgments than neutral (p = .054, d = 0.60) and positive pictures (p = .002, d = 1.02), for vignettes that were not associated with extreme judgments. In contrast, positive pictures did not reliably affect judgments concerning such vignettes. These findings suggest that the observed effects of emotions cannot be accounted for by an increase in attention linked to the arousal which accompanies these emotions.

The influence of traffic signal solutions on self-reported road-crossing behavior.

Injury to pedestrians is a major safety hazard in many countries. Since the beginning of the last century, modern cities have been designed around the use of motor vehicles despite the unfavourable interactions between the vehicles and pedestrians. This push towards urbanization resulted in a substantial number of crashes and fatalities involving pedestrians every day, all over the world. Thus, improving the design of urban cities and townships is a pressing issue for modern society. The study presented here provides a characterization of pedestrian safety problems, with the emphasis on signalized crosswalks (i.e. traffic signal) design solutions. We tested the impact of seven different traffic light configurations (steady [green, yellow, and red], flashing [green, yellow, and red], and light off) on pedestrian self-reported road-crossing behavior, using a 11-point scale -ranging from 0 ("I never cross in this situation") to 10 ("I always cross in this situation"). Results showed that mandatory solutions (steady green vs. steady red) are the best solutions to avoid unsafe pedestrian behaviors while crossing controlled intersections (frequency of crossing: Mgreen = 9.4 ± 1 vs. Mred = 2.6 ± 2). These findings offer important guidelines for the design of future traffic signals for encouraging a pedestrian/transit-friendly environment.

Neural mechanisms underlying urgent and evaluative behaviors: An fMRI study on the interaction of automatic and controlled processes.

Dual-process theories have dominated the study of risk perception and risk-taking over the last two decades. However, there is a lack of objective brain-level evidence supporting the two systems of processing in every-day risky behavior. To address this issue, we propose the dissociation between evaluative and urgent behaviors as evidence of dual processing in risky driving situations. Our findings show a dissociation of evaluative and urgent behavior both at the behavioral and neural level. fMRI data showed an increase of activation in areas implicated in motor programming, emotional processing, and visuomotor integration in urgent behavior compared to evaluative behavior. These results support a more automatic processing of risk in urgent tasks, relying mainly on heuristics and experiential appraisal. The urgent task, which is characterized by strong time pressure and the possibility for negative consequences among others factors, creates a suitable context for the experiential-affective system to guide the decision-making process. Moreover, we observed greater frontal activation in the urgent task, suggesting the participation of cognitive control in safe behaviors. The findings of this research are relevant for the study of the neural mechanisms underlying dual process models in risky perception and decision-making, especially because of their proximity to everyday activities.

Cocaine Dependent Individuals and Gamblers Present Different Associative Learning Anomalies in Feedback-Driven Decision Making: A Behavioral and ERP Study.

Several recent studies have demonstrated that addicts behave less flexibly than healthy controls in the probabilistic reversal learning task (PRLT), in which participants must gradually learn to choose between a probably rewarded option and an improbably rewarded one, on the basis of corrective feedback, and in which preferences must adjust to abrupt reward contingency changes (reversals). In the present study, pathological gamblers (PG) and cocaine dependent individuals (CDI) showed different learning curves in the PRLT. PG also showed a reduced electroencephalographic response to feedback (Feedback-Related Negativity, FRN) when compared to controls. CDI's FRN was not significantly different either from PG or from healthy controls. Additionally, according to Standardized Low-Resolution Electromagnetic Tomography analysis, cortical activity in regions of interest (previously selected by virtue of their involvement in FRN generation in controls) strongly differed between CDI and PG. However, the nature of such anomalies varied within-groups across individuals. Cocaine use severity had a strong deleterious impact on the learning asymptote, whereas gambling intensity significantly increased reversal cost. These two effects have remained confounded in most previous studies, which can be hiding important associative learning differences between different populations of addicts.

Emotional and non-emotional pathways to impulsive behavior and addiction.

Impulsivity is tightly linked to addiction. However, there are several pathways by means of which impulsive individuals are more prone to become addicts, or to suffer an addiction more intensely and for a longer period. One of those pathways involves an inadequate appraisal or regulation of positive and negative emotions, leading to lack of control over hazardous behaviors, and inappropriate decisions. In the present work, we assessed cocaine-dependent individuals (CDI; n = 20), pathological gamblers (PG; n = 21), and healthy controls (HC; n = 23) in trait impulsivity measures (UPPS-P model's dimensions), and decision-making tasks (Go/No-go; delay-discounting task). During the Go/No-go task, electroencephalographic (EEG) activity was recorded, and Go/No-go stimuli-evoked potentials (ERP) were extracted. Theory-driven ERP analyses focused on the No-go > Go difference in the N2 ERP. Our results show that negative urgency is one of the several psychological features that distinguish addicts from HC. Nevertheless, among the dimensions of trait impulsivity, negative urgency is unique at independently covarying with gambling over-pathologization in the PG sample. Cocaine-dependent individuals performed more poorly than gamblers in the Go/No-go task, and showed abnormal Go/No-go stimuli-evoked potentials. The difference between the No-go stimulus-evoked N2, and the Go one was attenuated by severity and intensity of chronic cocaine use. Emotional dimensions of impulsivity, however, did not influence Go/No-go performance.

The brain network of expectancy and uncertainty processing.

BACKGROUND: The Stimulus Preceding Negativity (SPN) is a non-motor slow cortical potential elicited by temporally predictable stimuli, customarily interpreted as a physiological index of expectancy. Its origin would be the brain activity responsible for generating the anticipatory mental representation of an expected upcoming event. The SPN manifests itself as a slow cortical potential with negative slope, growing in amplitude as the stimulus approximates. The uncertainty hypothesis we present here postulates that the SPN is linked to control-related areas in the prefrontal cortex that become more active before the occurrence of an upcoming outcome perceived as uncertain. METHODS/FINDINGS: We tested the uncertainty hypothesis by using a repeated measures design in a Human Contingency Learning task with two levels of uncertainty. In the high uncertainty condition, the outcome is unpredictable. In the mid uncertainty condition, the outcome can be learnt to be predicted in 75% of the trials. Our experiment shows that the Stimulus Preceding Negativity is larger for probabilistically unpredictable (uncertain) outcomes than for probabilistically predictable ones. sLoreta estimations of the brain activity preceding the outcome suggest that prefrontal and parietal areas can be involved in its generation. Prefrontal sites activation (Anterior Cingulate and Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex) seems to be related to the degree of uncertainty. Activation in posterior parietal areas, however, does not correlates with uncertainty. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: We suggest that the Stimulus Preceding Negativity reflects the attempt to predict the outcome, when posterior brain areas fail to generate a stable expectancy. Uncertainty is thus conceptualized, not just as the absence of learned expectancy, but as a state with psychological and physiological entity.

Emotional modulation of urgent and evaluative behaviors in risky driving scenarios.

This study demonstrated that task features are important factors for the understanding of risk behavior under emotional conditions in driving scenarios. We introduce a distinction between urgent and evaluative behaviors. Urgent behaviors are performed under high time-pressure and, when successful, they will help to avoid high negative outcomes. According to some social psychologists, evaluation is considered a type of value categorization (for example, risk or no risk). Emotional cues in the urgency task make participants slower and less able to discriminate risk from no risk, and prone to positive responses. However, negative emotional pictures speed up the evaluation of risk without affecting the ability to discriminate risk from no risk in a driving scenario.