An influence of menopausal symptoms on mental health, emotion perception, and quality of life: a multi-faceted approach.

PURPOSE: The menopausal transition brings with it many physical, cognitive, and affective changes in a woman's life, impacting quality of life. Whereas prior work has examined impact on general mental health and cognitive function, research on basic affective processing during menopause remains scarce. METHODS: Using a median-split procedure, this pre-registered study examined the impact of stronger (N = 46 women) vs. milder (N = 47 women) menopausal symptoms using a behavioural task of subjective emotion perception (embody) and a passive eye tracking viewing task of emotional faces in addition to self-report questionnaires. After 3 months, participants completed the questionnaires again to examine whether objective measures of emotion perception (eye tracking) might predict mental health at follow-up. RESULTS: As anticipated, women with stronger vs. milder menopausal symptoms reported increased symptoms of anxiety, depression, stress, emotion regulation difficulties, and lower quality of life during both time points. While no evidence was found in the behavioural task, eye tracking data indicated blunted emotion perception in women with high menopausal symptoms, while women with low symptoms spent more time looking at happy faces relative to fearful or surprised faces. Although eye tracking or hormonal data did not predict mental health at follow-up, a higher estradiol/FSH ratio indicated a higher quality of life. CONCLUSIONS: This study documented an impact of the menopausal transition and strength of menopausal symptoms in particular on objective emotion perception as well as mental health and quality of life in women suffering from stronger vs. milder menopausal symptoms. Clinical implications are discussed.

Bodily confusion: Lower differentiation of emotional and physiological states in student alcohol users.

BACKGROUND: Alexithymia, difficulty in recognising and naming emotions, is common among people who use alcohol. There is also emerging evidence that people with alexithymia are unable to distinguish emotions from non-emotional physiological states. The project aimed to test if alcohol use is related to the way student drinkers experience emotions and physiological states in the body. METHODS: We employed a novel method to study bodily sensations related to emotions and physiological states in the context of alcohol use: the emBODY tool, which allowed participants to mark areas of the body in which they experience various emotions and physiological states. RESULTS: Students who showed a hazardous pattern of alcohol use (alcohol use disorders identification test [AUDIT] score ≥ 7, N = 91), overall, presented higher alexithymia levels and coloured larger areas for emotions and physiological states (showed less specificity) than those who show low-risk alcohol consumption (AUDIT ≤ 4, N = 90). Moreover, statistical classifiers distinguished feeling-specific maps less accurately for hazardous drinkers than low-risk drinkers [F(1,1998) = 441.16; p < 0.001], confirming that higher alcohol use is related to higher confusion of emotional and non-emotional bodily feelings. CONCLUSIONS: Plausibly, this increased bodily confusion drives alcohol consumption: alcohol may serve as a means of dealing with undifferentiated changes in psychophysiological arousal accompanying emotional states.

Understanding functional brain reorganization for naturalistic piano playing in novice pianists.

Learning to play the piano is a unique complex task, integrating multiple sensory modalities and higher order cognitive functions. Longitudinal neuroimaging studies on adult novice musicians show training-related functional changes in music perception tasks. The reorganization of brain activity while actually playing an instrument was studied only on a very short time frame of a single fMRI session, and longer interventions have not yet been performed. Thus, our aim was to investigate the dynamic complexity of functional brain reorganization while playing the piano within the first half year of musical training. We scanned 24 novice keyboard learners (female, 18-23 years old) using fMRI while they played increasingly complex musical pieces after 1, 6, 13, and 26 weeks of training. Playing music evoked responses bilaterally in the auditory, inferior frontal, and supplementary motor areas, and the left sensorimotor cortex. The effect of training over time, however, invoked widespread changes encompassing the right sensorimotor cortex, cerebellum, superior parietal cortex, anterior insula and hippocampus, among others. As the training progressed, the activation of these regions decreased while playing music. Post hoc analysis revealed region-specific time-courses for independent auditory and motor regions of interest. These results suggest that while the primary sensory, motor, and frontal regions are associated with playing music, the training decreases the involvement of higher order cognitive control and integrative regions, and basal ganglia. Moreover, training might affect distinct brain regions in different ways, providing evidence in favor of the dynamic nature of brain plasticity.

Interoception and the musical brain: Evidence from cross-sectional and longitudinal behavioral and resting-state fMRI study.

Musical training has been linked to enhanced interoceptive abilities and increased resting-state (RS) functional connectivity (FC) within the interoceptive brain network. We aimed to replicate and extend these findings with a unique cross-sectional and longitudinal study design. Professional musicians and matched individuals with no prior musical experience (training group) were recruited. Participants underwent RS fMRI scans and completed heartbeat counting and discrimination tasks outside of the scanner (time point 1). The training group additionally had RS scans and interoception tests repeated after a 6-month-long keyboard course training (time point 2). We found no evidence for increased interoceptive abilities in professional musicians relative to non-musicians, nor did we observe any improvements in interoception over the course of musical training. RS FC analysis revealed increased FC within the sensorimotor network in professional musicians compared to the training group at the first time point with no change in FC over time in the Training group. These findings challenge the view that musical training may improve interoceptive abilities. Yet, the results suggest that musical training is related to increased communication within the sensorimotor RS network, which consists of some hubs important for interoceptive processing (namely pre- and postcentral gyri and supplementary motor area).

Unlocking the musical brain: A proof-of-concept study on playing the piano in MRI scanner with naturalistic stimuli.

Music is a universal human phenomenon, and can be studied for itself or as a window into the understanding of the brain. Few neuroimaging studies investigate actual playing in the MRI scanner, likely because of the lack of available experimental hardware and analysis tools. Here, we offer an innovative paradigm that addresses this issue in neuromusicology using naturalistic, polyphonic musical stimuli, presents a commercially available MRI-compatible piano, and a flexible approach to quantify participant's performance. We show how making errors while playing can be investigated using an altered auditory feedback paradigm. In the spirit of open science, we make our experimental paradigms and analysis tools available to other researchers studying pianists in MRI. Altogether, we present a proof-of-concept study which shows the feasibility of playing the novel piano in MRI, and a step towards using more naturalistic stimuli.

Interoception Within the Context of Impulsivity and Addiction.

Purpose of Review: The goal of this review is to examine the relationship between impulsivity and interoception in addiction, to summarize the current understanding of the topic, identify any gaps in knowledge, and provide directions for future research. Research Findings: Interoception may be a contributing factor to impulsive behaviour and, thus, addiction. Substance abuse can negatively impact the brain's ability to process interoceptive information and impact the reward system, leading to decreased sensitivity to natural rewards and increased sensitivity to drugs. There is potential for new therapies, such as mindfulness, interoceptive training, brain stimulation, or vagal nerve stimulation to target both impulsivity and interoception in the treatment of addiction. Summary: Despite a growing interest in interoception in addiction research, further research is needed to better understand the role of interoception in addiction and to develop new methods for studying how individuals with addiction process and perceive internal bodily sensations.

Emotion-related impulsivity moderates the role of arousal on reflection impulsivity.

Emotion-related impulsivity is an important behavioural phenotype in clinical psychology and public health. Here, we test the hypothesis that emotion-related impulsivity moderates the effects of arousal on cognition using pharmacological manipulation. Participants completed a measure of emotion-related impulsivity, four cognitive tasks tapping onto different facets of impulsive behaviours, and a blinded arousal manipulation using yohimbine hydrochloride, which acts on noradrenergic receptors. Our findings suggest that emotion-related impulsivity moderates the role of arousal on impulsive performance on the Information Sampling Task. As expected, more severe emotion-related impulsivity was related to more impulsive decisions in the yohimbine but not in the placebo group. Results provide some of the first experimental evidence that emotion-related impulsivity is related to differential behavioural responses in the face of high arousal. Despite this preliminary support, we discuss findings for one task that did not fit hypotheses, and provide suggestions for replication and extension.

The utility of the emBODY tool as a novel method of studying complex phenomena-related emotions.

Bodily sensations are one of the major building blocks of emotional experience. However, people differ in their ability to recognise and name their emotions, especially those in response to complex phenomena such as climate change or the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, we investigated whether the bodily sensation maps (BSMs) approach can be employed to study emotions related to phenomena that are likely to evoke various, and perhaps even conflicting, emotions in people. Using a unique topographical self-report method-the previously established emBODY tool, 548 participants marked where in the body they feel sensations (activations and deactivations) when they experience distinct emotions (e.g. happiness) and when they think about different phenomena, namely climate change, COVID-19 pandemic, war, nature, friends, and summer holidays. We revealed maps of bodily sensations associated with different emotions and phenomena. Importantly, each phenomenon was related to a statistically unique BSM, suggesting that participants were able to differentiate between feelings associated with distinct phenomena. Yet, we also found that BSMs of phenomena showed some similarity with maps of emotions. Together, these findings indicate that the emBODY tool might be useful in uncovering the range of emotions individuals experience towards complex phenomena.

In sync with the heart.

People actively adjust how they acquire sensory information, such as tactile cues, based on how their bodily functions alter their senses.

Delay and Effort-Based Discounting, and the Role of Bodily Awareness, In People Experiencing Long-Term Pain: A Cross-Sectional Study.

Pain interventions typically include effortful exercise and long-term treatment - ie, short-term costs (effort) with delayed benefit (improved pain and/or function). Thus, understanding if long-term pain influences decision-making in context of delays and effort is essential given clear relevance to treatment uptake and/or adherence. We evaluated delay and effort attitudes in those experiencing chronic pain (n = 391) and in pain-free controls (n = 263). Additionally, we investigated the role of bodily sensation awareness and/or interpretation as potential contributing factors to altered decision-making. Volunteers completed three discounting questionnaires, assessing the influence of temporal delays (gains, losses) and effort on devaluation of monetary outcomes. Individuals with chronic pain had more short-sighted decisions for monetary gains, but not losses, and decreased willingness to undertake effort for monetary gains than the No Pain group. The Pain group had higher bodily sensation awareness and while this related to higher impulsivity, delay and effort discounting, neither awareness nor interpretation of bodily sensations interacted with pain levels or explained group differences in discounting behavior. These findings suggest that impaired delay and effort-based discounting is present in people with chronic pain, and that this may be driven by pain-induced changes, but not pain-induced enhancements in bodily sensation awareness and/or interpretation. Exploring the utility of interventions targeting discounting behavior is warranted. Data availability: Study materials are available here: https://osf.io/zexm7/?view_only=c9848597361c41808c612874da6f33b7. PERSPECTIVE: People with chronic pain make more short-sighted decisions (prefer less reward sooner) and decreased willingness to undertake effort (prefer less reward with little effort) for monetary gains than people without pain. Interventions targeting discounting behavior may help improve both uptake and adherence for evidence-based, effortful treatments, such as exercise.

Body in the face of uncertainty: The role of autonomic arousal and interoception in decision-making under risk and ambiguity.

Influential theories posit that bodily responses are important for decision-making under uncertainty. However, the evidence of the role of our ability to perceive subtle bodily changes (interoception) in decision-making under uncertainty is mixed. These differences may arise from the fact that uncertainty, a part of daily decision-making, can be fractionated into risk (known probabilities) and ambiguity (unknown probabilities). Here we examine the role of arousal and interoception in shaping risky and ambiguous decisions. We measured skin conductance responses and heart rate changes while participants (N = 40) made gambling decisions in the context of risky and ambiguous lotteries. Results reveal that the anticipation phase produced the largest arousal responses, suggesting that the anticipation is a major contributor to arousal during gambling behavior, regardless of the uncertainty type. Moreover, physiological responses were higher following positive outcomes than negative outcomes. We did not find any direct relation between interoceptive dimensions and the attitudes toward risk and ambiguity. However, in those with higher interoceptive accuracy, skin conductance responses differentiated between risk and ambiguity as well as between the gamble phases (decision, anticipation, and outcome). Together, our findings demonstrate that decision-making under uncertainty is to some extent associated with individual differences in the ability both to generate and to perceive accurately subtle changes in bodily arousal during the decision-making process. However, these changes seem to be moderately related to the type of uncertainty (risk or ambiguity).

How Musical Training Shapes the Adult Brain: Predispositions and Neuroplasticity.

Learning to play a musical instrument is a complex task that integrates multiple sensory modalities and higher-order cognitive functions. Therefore, musical training is considered a useful framework for the research on training-induced neuroplasticity. However, the classical nature-or-nurture question remains, whether the differences observed between musicians and non-musicians are due to predispositions or result from the training itself. Here we present a review of recent publications with strong focus on experimental designs to better understand both brain reorganization and the neuronal markers of predispositions when learning to play a musical instrument. Cross-sectional studies identified structural and functional differences between the brains of musicians and non-musicians, especially in regions related to motor control and auditory processing. A few longitudinal studies showed functional changes related to training while listening to and producing music, in the motor network and its connectivity with the auditory system, in line with the outcomes of cross-sectional studies. Parallel changes within the motor system and between the motor and auditory systems were revealed for structural connectivity. In addition, potential predictors of musical learning success were found including increased brain activation in the auditory and motor systems during listening, the microstructure of the arcuate fasciculus, and the functional connectivity between the auditory and the motor systems. We show that "the musical brain" is a product of both the natural human neurodiversity and the training practice.

The impact of cardiac afferent signaling and interoceptive abilities on passive information sampling.

A growing body of research suggests that perception and cognition are affected by fluctuating bodily states. For example, the rate of information sampling is coupled with cardiac phases. However, the benefits of such spontaneous coupling between bodily oscillations and decision-making remains unclear. Here, we studied the role of the cardiac cycle in information sampling by testing whether sequential information sampling phase-locked to systolic or diastolic parts of the cardiac cycle impacts the rate of information gathering and processing. To this aim, we employed a modified Information Sampling Task, a standard measure of the rate of information gathering before reaching a decision, in which the onset of new information delivery in each trial was coupled either to cardiac systole or diastole. Information presented within cardiac systole did not significantly modulate the information processing in a manner that would produce clear behavioral changes. However, we found evidence suggesting that higher interoceptive awareness increased accuracy, especially in the costly version of the task, when new information was sequentially presented at systole. Overall, our results add to a growing body of research on body-brain interactions and suggest that our internal bodily rhythms (i.e., heartbeats) and our awareness of them can interact with the way we process the noisy world around us.

Neural divergence and convergence for attention to and detection of interoceptive and somatosensory stimuli.

Body awareness is constructed by signals originating from within and outside the body. How do these apparently divergent signals converge? We developed a signal detection task to study the neural convergence and divergence of interoceptive and somatosensory signals. Participants focused on either cardiac or tactile events and reported their presence or absence. Beyond some evidence of divergence, we observed a robust overlap in the pattern of activation evoked across both conditions in frontal areas including the insular cortex, as well as parietal and occipital areas, and for both attention and detection of these signals. Psycho-physiological interaction analysis revealed that right insular cortex connectivity was modulated by the conscious detection of cardiac compared to somatosensory sensations, with greater connectivity to occipito-parietal regions when attending to cardiac signals. Our findings speak in favour of the inherent convergence of bodily-related signals and move beyond the apparent antagonism between exteroception and interoception.

Deter the emotions: Alexithymia, impulsivity and their relationship to binge drinking.

INTRODUCTION: The relevance of both emotion processing and impulsivity to alcohol use and misuse is increasingly recognised, yet there is a scarcity of studies addressing their reciprocal interaction. The present study aimed to examine the role that difficulties in emotion processing and trait impulsivity play in explaining binge drinking pattern of alcohol use in student population. We looked at binge drinking, as it is a risk factor to later alcohol abuse and is a common alcohol drinking habit among students. Alexithymia (from Greek as "deter/repel emotions"), a difficulty in identifying and describing feelings in self and others is increasingly recognised as a feature of alcohol misuse. METHODS: One-hundred and seventy-four student alcohol drinkers were assessed for their drinking habits (Alcohol Use Questionnaire), as well as for alexithymia (Toronto Alexithymia Scale) and impulsivity trait (Barratt Impulsiveness Scale); facial emotional expression judgements were also tested. RESULTS: A direct relationships between, both, alexithymia and impulsivity, and binge drinking was found. When combined, trait impulsivity partially mediated the relationship between alexithymia and binge drinking. Facial emotional expression judgements also showed a relationship with binge drinking. CONCLUSIONS: These findings highlight the importance of both emotion processing and impulsivity in understanding binge drinking and indicate potential routes for prevention and intervention techniques, especially towards those who may be at risk of later alcohol abuse.

Trait Impulsivity Associated With Altered Resting-State Functional Connectivity Within the Somatomotor Network.

Knowledge of brain mechanisms underlying self-regulation can provide valuable insights into how people regulate their thoughts, behaviors, and emotional states, and what happens when such regulation fails. Self-regulation is supported by coordinated interactions of brain systems. Hence, behavioral dysregulation, and its expression as impulsivity, can be usefully characterized using functional connectivity methodologies applied to resting brain networks. The current study tested whether individual differences in trait impulsivity are reflected in the functional architecture within and between resting-state brain networks. Thirty healthy individuals completed a self-report measure of trait impulsivity and underwent resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging. Using Probabilistic Independent Components Analysis in FSL MELODIC, we identified across participants 10 networks of regions (resting-state networks) with temporally correlated time courses. We then explored how individual expression of these spatial networks covaried with trait impulsivity. Across participants, we observed that greater self-reported impulsivity was associated with decreased connectivity of the right lateral occipital cortex (peak mm 46/-70/16, FWE 1-p = 0.981) with the somatomotor network. No supratheshold differences were observed in between-network connectivity. Our findings implicate the somatomotor network, and its interaction with sensory cortices, in the control of (self-reported) impulsivity. The observed "decoupling" may compromise effective integration of early perceptual information (from visual and somatosensory cortices) with behavioral control programs, potentially resulting in negative consequences.

The Role of Impulsivity Facets on the Incidence and Development of Alcohol Use Disorders.

Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD) is a chronic relapsing disorder defined according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 5 (DSM-5; American Psychiatric Association 2013), "by a cluster of behavioural and physical symptoms, which can include, withdrawal, tolerance and craving". Social, emotional, behavioural and cognitive factors are important contributors to AUD. Impulsivity, a multifaceted behavioural concept, defined as a predisposition for rapid and unplanned actions, without considering potential negative consequences of these actions, represents an important such factor. In this chapter, research on the role of distinct impulsivity dimensions in different severity stages of alcohol use is presented.Increased self-reported (trait) impulsivity and an inability to wait, as well as difficulty to adjust behaviour appropriately following a failure to withhold a response are observed across the spectrum of alcohol-use severities. Research on temporal impulsivity (inability to delay gratification) consistently shows deficits in more severe alcohol users. Data on temporal impulsivity in early stages of alcohol use are less consistent, with some studies showing no differences between high and moderate drinkers, while others indicating increased impulsivity in high alcohol users. Data on reflexion impulsivity are currently limited to draw conclusions. Recent research is also presented suggesting the importance of perception and interpretation of physiological and emotional signals on alcohol use behaviour highlighting the necessity of comprehensive integration of the field of the study of emotion and interoception with impulsivity research.

Feeling in Control: The Role of Cardiac Timing in the Sense of Agency.

The sense of agency describes the experience of controlling one's body to cause desired effects in the world. We explored whether this is influenced by interoceptive processes. Specifically, we investigated whether the sense of agency changes depending on where, in the cardiac cycle (systole or diastole), the action was executed and where the outcome of the action occurred. In two experiments, participants completed decision-making task to win/lose money. Explicit (ratings of control) and implicit (temporal judgement) measures of agency were differentially affected by cardiovascular state. Implicit agency scores were affected by the cardiac phase at the point of action execution. Explicit ratings of control were affected by the type of (free vs. instructed) and by outcome valence (win vs. lose). The time of the action was uniformly distributed across the cardiac cycle. These results show interoceptive impact on agency, but that cardiac cycle may affect explicit and implicit agency differently.

Interoceptive accuracy predicts nonplanning trait impulsivity.

Influential theories concerning personality argue that many impulsive individuals show physiological underarousal at rest. This interoceptive state is proposed to be egodystonic, motivating impulsive maladaptive actions to enhance arousal. However, there is little empirical research on this matter. The current study tested the relationship between physiological markers of arousal, measures of interoceptive (in)sensitivity, and trait impulsivity in a nonclinical sample of young adults. Experiment 1 investigated whether individuals (N = 31) with high trait impulsivity show decreased resting measures of arousal (indexed from heart rate, heart rate variability, and sympathetic electrodermal activity). Experiment 2 assessed whether trait impulsivity is linked to interoceptive abilities (N = 60). Overall, our results do not provide any compelling support for the underarousal theory of impulsivity. However, impaired interoceptive (cardiac discrimination) accuracy predicted the degree of Barratt nonplanning impulsivity, such that individuals with a better ability to distinguish between internal (bodily) and external signals manifest lower levels of nonplanning trait impulsivity. These findings open an avenue for potential novel interventions aimed at improving planning abilities via better interoceptive discrimination.

The impact of Yohimbine-induced arousal on facets of behavioural impulsivity.

RATIONALE: State-dependent changes in physiological arousal may influence impulsive behaviours. OBJECTIVES: To examine the relationship between arousal and impulsivity, we assessed the effects of yohimbine (an α2-adrenergic receptor antagonist, which increases physiological arousal via noradrenaline release) on performance on established laboratory-based impulsivity measures in healthy volunteers. METHODS: Forty-three participants received a single dose of either yohimbine hydrochloride or placebo before completing a battery of impulsivity measures. Blood pressure and heart rate were monitored throughout the study. RESULTS: Participants in the yohimbine group showed higher blood pressure and better response inhibition in the Stop Signal Task, relative to the placebo group. Additionally, individual changes in blood pressure were associated with performance on Delay Discounting and Information Sampling tasks: raised blood pressure following drug ingestion was associated with more far-sighted decisions in the Delay Discounting Task (lower temporal impulsivity) yet reduced information gathering in the Information Sampling Task (increased reflection impulsivity). CONCLUSIONS: These results support the notion that impulsive behaviour is dependent upon state physiological arousal; however, distinct facets of impulsivity are differentially affected by physiological changes.