Long-term findings on working memory neural dynamics in healthcare workers after mild COVID-19.

OBJECTIVE: Understanding the long-term impact of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) on cognitive function, even in mild cases, is critical to the well-being of individuals, especially for healthcare workers who are at increased risk of exposure to the virus. To the best of our knowledge, the electrophysiological activity underlying cognitive functioning has not yet been explored. METHODS: Seventy-seven healthcare workers took part in the study (43 with mild infection about one year before the study and 34 uninfected). To assess cognitive status, event-related potentials (ERPs) and behavioural responses were recorded while participants performed a working memory task. RESULTS: COVID-19 participants exhibited a distinct neural pattern with lower parieto-occipital N1 amplitudes and higher frontal P2 amplitudes as compared to non-infected healthcare workers. We found no behavioural differences (reaction times and error rates) in working memory functioning between groups. CONCLUSIONS: This neural pattern suggests the presence of a decrement of processing resources linked to the encoding of sensory information (N1), followed by the enhanced of the P2 response which could be interpreted as the activation of compensation mechanism in COVID-19 participants. SIGNIFICANCE: The current findings point out that ERPs could serve as valuable neural indices for detecting distinctive patterns in working memory functioning of COVID-19 participants, even in mild cases. However, further research is required to precisely ascertain the long-term cognitive effects of COVID-19 beyond one-year post-infection.

Neural mechanisms underlying attentional bias modification in fibromyalgia patients: a double-blind ERP study.

There is a growing interest in the potential benefits of attentional bias modification (ABM) training in chronic pain patients. However, studies examining the effectiveness of ABM programs in fibromyalgia patients have demonstrated inconclusive effects on both behavioral indices and clinical symptoms. Additionally, underlying neural dynamics of ABM effects could yield new insights but remain yet unexplored. Current study, therefore, aims to investigate the effects of ABM training on known neural electrophysiological indicators of attentional bias to pain (P2, N2a). Thirty-two fibromyalgia patients were enrolled and randomly assigned to an ABM training (N = 16) or control (N = 16) condition (2 weeks duration). Within the ABM training condition participants performed five sessions consisting of a modified version of the dot-probe task in which patients were trained to avoid facial pain expressions, whereas in the control group participants performed five sessions consisting of a standard version of the dot-probe task. Potential ABM training effects were evaluated by comparing a single pre- and post-treatment session, in which event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded in response to both facial expressions and target stimuli. Furthermore, patients filled out a series of self-report questionnaires assessing anxiety, depression, pain-related worrying, fear of pain, fatigue and pain status. After training, results indicated an overall reduction of the amplitude of the P2 component followed by an enhancement of N2a amplitude for the ABM condition compared to control condition. In addition, scores on anxiety and depression decreased in patients assigned to the training condition. However, we found no effects derived from the training on pain-related and fatigue status. Present study offers new insights related to the possible neural mechanisms underlying the effect of ABM training in fibromyalgia. Clinical trial (TRN: NCT05905159) retrospectively registered (30/05/2023).

Pain E-motion Faces Database (PEMF): Pain-related micro-clips for emotion research.

A large number of publications have focused on the study of pain expressions. Despite the growing knowledge, the availability of pain-related face databases is still very scarce compared with other emotional facial expressions. The Pain E-Motion Faces Database (PEMF) is a new open-access database currently consisting of 272 micro-clips of 68 different identities. Each model displays one neutral expression and three pain-related facial expressions: posed, spontaneous-algometer and spontaneous-CO2 laser. Normative ratings of pain intensity, valence and arousal were provided by students of three different European universities. Six independent coders carried out a coding process on the facial stimuli based on the Facial Action Coding System (FACS), in which ratings of intensity of pain, valence and arousal were computed for each type of facial expression. Gender and age effects of models across each type of micro-clip were also analysed. Additionally, participants' ability to discriminate the veracity of pain-related facial expressions (i.e., spontaneous vs posed) was explored. Finally, a series of ANOVAs were carried out to test the presence of other basic emotions and common facial action unit (AU) patterns. The main results revealed that posed facial expressions received higher ratings of pain intensity, more negative valence and higher arousal compared with spontaneous pain-related and neutral faces. No differential effects of model gender were found. Participants were unable to accurately discriminate whether a given pain-related face represented spontaneous or posed pain. PEMF thus constitutes a large open-source and reliable set of dynamic pain expressions useful for designing experimental studies focused on pain processes.

Working memory dysfunction in fibromyalgia is associated with genotypes of the catechol- O-methyltransferase gene: an event-related potential study.

Recent findings have associated different COMT genotypes with working memory capacity in patients with fibromyalgia. Although it is thought that the COMT gene may influence neural correlates (P2 and P3 ERP components) underlying working memory impairment in this chronic-pain syndrome, it has not yet been explored. Therefore, the aim of the present research was to investigate the potential effect of the COMT gene in fibromyalgia patients on ERP working memory indices (P2 and P3 components). For this purpose, 102 participants (51 patients and 51 healthy control participants) took part in the experiment. Event-related potentials and behavioral responses were recorded while participants performed a spatial n-back task. Participants had to decide if the stimulus coincided or not in the same location as the one presented one (1-back condition) or two (2-back condition) trials before. Genotypes of the COMT gene were determined through a saliva sample from all participants. Present results significantly showed lower working memory performance (p < 0.05) in patients with fibromyalgia as compared to control participants (higher rate of errors and slower reaction times). At neural level, we found that patients exhibited enhanced frontocentral and parieto-occipital P2 amplitudes compared to control participants (p < 0.05). Interestingly, we also observed that only fibromyalgia patients carrying the Val/Val genotype of the COMT gene showed higher frontocentral P2 amplitudes than control participants (p < 0.05). Current results (behavioral outcomes and P2 amplitudes) confirmed the presence of an alteration in working memory functioning in fibromyalgia. The enhancement of frontocentral P2 could be reflecting that these patients would manifest an inefficient way of activating executive attention processes, in carriers of the Val/Val genotype of COMT. To our knowledge, the present findings are the first linking neural indices of working memory dysfunctions and COMT genotypes in fibromyalgia. Applying a subgroup of patient's strategy based on this genetic marker could be useful to establish more tailored therapeutical approaches.

Neural correlates of the attentional bias towards pain-related faces in fibromyalgia patients: An ERP study using a dot-probe task.

BACKGROUND: One of the major cognitive deficits in fibromyalgia has been linked to the hypervigilance phenomenon. It is mainly reflected as a negative bias for allocating attentional resources towards both threatening and pain-related information. Although the interest in its study has recently grown, the neural temporal dynamics of the attentional bias in fibromyalgia still remains an open question. METHOD: Fifty participants (25 fibromyalgia patients and 25 healthy control subjects) performed a dot-probe task. Two types of facial expressions (pain-related and neutral) were employed as signal stimuli. Then, as a target stimulus, a single dot replaced the location of one of these two faces. Event-related potentials (ERP) in response to facial expressions and target stimulation (i.e., dot) were recorded. Reaction time (RT) and accuracy measures in the experimental task were collected as behavioural outcomes. RESULTS: Temporal dynamics of brain electrical activity were analysed on two ERP components (P2 and N2a) sensitive to the facial expressions meaning. Pain-related faces elicited higher frontal P2 amplitudes than neutral faces for the whole sample. Interestingly, an interaction effect between group and facial expressions was also found showing that pain-related faces elicited enhanced P2 amplitudes (at fronto-central regions, in this case) compared to neutral faces only when the group of patients was considered. Furthermore, higher P2 amplitudes were observed in response to pain-related faces in patients with fibromyalgia compared to healthy control participants. Additionally, a shorter latency of P2 (at centro-parietal regions) was also detected for pain-related facial expressions compared to neutral faces. Regarding the amplitude of N2a, it was lower for patients as compared to the control group. Non-relevant effects of the target stimulation on the ERPs were found. However, patients with fibromyalgia exhibited slower RT to locate the single dot for incongruent trials as compared to congruent and neutral trials. CONCLUSIONS: Data suggest the presence of an attentional bias in fibromyalgia that it would be followed by a deficit in the allocation of attentional resources to further process pain-related information. Altogether the current results suggest that attentional biases in fibromyalgia might be explained by automatic attentional mechanisms, which seem to be accompanied by an alteration of more strategic or controlled attentional components.

Effects of COMT Genotypes on Working Memory Performance in Fibromyalgia Patients.

Growing research has reported the presence of a clear impairment of working memory functioning in fibromyalgia. Although different genetic factors involving dopamine availability (i.e, the COMT gene) have been associated with the more severe presentation of key symptoms in fibromyalgia, scientific evidence regarding the influence of COMT genotypes on cognitive impairment in these patients is still lacking. To this end, 167 participants took part in the present investigation. Working memory performance was assessed by the application of the SST (Spatial Span Test) and LNST (Letter and Number Sequence Test) belonging to the Weschler Memory Scale III. Significant working memory impairment was shown by the fibromyalgia patients. Remarkably, our results suggest that performance according to different working memory measures might be influenced by different genotypes of the COMT gene. Specifically, fibromyalgia patients carrying the Val/Val genotype exhibited significantly worse outcomes for the span of SST backward, SST backward score, SST total score and the Working Memory Index (WMI) than the Val/Val healthy carriers. Furthermore, the Val/Val patients performed worse on the SST backward and SST score than heterozygotes. Our findings are the first to show a link between the COMT gene and working memory dysfunction in fibromyalgia, supporting the idea that higher COMT enzyme activity would contribute to more severe working memory impairment in fibromyalgia.