Mind over mood: exploring the executive function's role in downregulation.

Emotion regulation plays a key role in well adapted behaviour, however, factors influencing individual differences in ER are still under investigation. Across two studies we investigate the complex relationship between executive functions (EFs) and emotional downregulation through two complementary research designs. The focus lies on key components of EFs-working memory, inhibitory control, and switching-and their relationship with effective emotional regulation. Surprisingly, switching emerged as the sole significant predictor in two multiple linear regression models, challenging the conventional belief that all major EFs broadly contribute to emotional downregulation. The first study, involving 248 Ecuadorian adults between 18 and 60 years old, used experimental tasks to assess the association between EFs and emotional regulation, aligning with existing literature that posits a link between EFs and emotional control. The second study, involving 180 Ecuadorian adults between 18 and 43 years old, added depth by incorporating self-report measures, providing a broader, ecologically valid perspective. However, these measures did not significantly predict downregulation, highlighting a gap between self-perception and actual cognitive abilities. Additionally, demographic predictors varied between the two studies, urging future research to consider methodological design and task selection carefully. The study also raises questions about the validity of commonly used measures, emphasising the need for more nuanced tools to capture the complexity of EFs and emotional regulation. Our findings suggest a targeted research avenue focusing on EFs for both future research and clinical interventions. Attention is called to the methodological decisions that can influence the observed associations, and the need for broader demographic representation in future studies.

Can we enhance working memory? Bias and effectiveness in cognitive training studies.

Meta-analyses have found that working memory (WM) can be improved with cognitive training; however, some authors have suggested that these improvements are mostly driven by biases in the measurement of WM, especially the use of similar tasks for assessment and training. In the present meta-analysis, we investigated whether WM, fluid intelligence, executive functions, and short-term memory can be improved by cognitive training and evaluated the impact of possible sources of bias. We performed a risk of bias assessment of the included studies and took special care in controlling for practice effects. Data from 52 independent comparisons were analyzed, including cognitive training aimed at different cognitive functions. Our results show small improvements in WM after training (SMD = 0.18). Much larger effects were observed when the analysis was restricted to assessment tasks similar to those used for training (SMD = 1.15). Fluid intelligence was not found to improve as a result of training, and improvements in WM were not related to changes in fluid intelligence. Our analyses did however indicate that cognitive training can improve specific executive functions. Contrary to expectations, a set of meta-regressions indicated that characteristics of the training programme, such as dosage and type of training, do not have an impact on the effectiveness of training. The risk of bias assessment revealed some concerns in the randomization process and possible selective reporting among studies. Overall, our results identified various potential sources of bias, with the most significant being the choice of assessment tasks.

Randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study to evaluate the effect of treatment with an SPMs-enriched oil on chronic pain and inflammation, functionality, and quality of life in patients with symptomatic knee osteoarthritis: GAUDI study.

BACKGROUND: Specialized pro-resolving mediators (SPMs), including 18-HEPE, 17-HDHA, and 14-HDHA are recognized as potentially therapeutic in inflammatory diseases because SPMs regulate the inflammation process, which leads to, for example; swelling and the sensation of pain. In osteoarthritis (OA), chronic pain is described as the symptom that reduces patients´ quality of life (QoL). The GAUDI study evaluated the efficacy of SPMs supplementation in reducing pain in the symptomatic knee of OA patients. METHODS: This randomized, multicenter, double-blind, and placebo-controlled parallel-group pilot study was performed in Spain and conducted on adults 18-68 years old diagnosed with symptomatic knee OA. Patients were enrolled in the study for up to 24 weeks, which included a 12-week intervention period and a follow-up visit on week 24. The primary endpoint was pain change measured through a Visual Analog Scale (VAS). Secondary endpoints included: Pain change evaluation, stiffness, and function according to the WOMAC index; assessment of constant, intermittent, and total pain according to the OMERACT-OARSI score; evaluation of changes in health-related QoL parameters; the use or not of concomitant, rescue, and anti-inflammatory medication; and safety and tolerability assessments. RESULTS: Patients were enrolled in the study from May 2018 to September 2021. VAS pain score was evaluated in the per protocol population (n = 51 patients), in which we observed a statistically significant reduction after 8 weeks (p = 0.039) and 12 weeks (p = 0.031) of treatment in patients consuming SPMs (n = 23 subjects) vs. placebo (n = 28 subjects). In line with the OMERACT-OARSI score, intermittent pain was reduced after 12 weeks with statistical significance (p = 0.019) in patients treated with SPMs (n = 23 subjects) vs. placebo (n = 28 subjects). Functional status as WOMAC score did not significantly change after SPMs or placebo consumption. Notably, patients consuming SPMs showed improvements in all five aspects of the EUROQoL-5, including a significant improvement in the usual-activities dimension. None of the patients required rescue medication, nor were any adverse events reported. CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that sustained SPMs consumption reduces pain in OA patients while also improving their Quality of Life. These results also support the safety profile of SPMs supplementation. Trial registration NCT05633849. Registered 1 December 1 2022. Retrospectively registered, https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/study/NCT05633849.

Psychometric Properties of the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale in a Sample of Adolescents from Ecuador.

The Kessler psychological distress scale is a useful tool for identifying possible psychological problems and has been widely used in research and health services. Unfortunately, its application in various populations has not always been psychometrically supported. For this reason, the present study investigated the psychometric properties of its Spanish version in adolescents, verifying its factorial structure, measurement invariance by gender, internal consistency and the discrimination and difficulty parameters of its items according to the Item Response Theory (IRT). A sample of 5132 Ecuadorian adolescents was evaluated. The sample is equally distributed between male and female participants (50%) and basic and higher education (51% the former). All participants were between 11 and 20 years old. The results show that a 9-item version with correlated intercepts presents the best fit. In addition, it is invariant by gender at a strict level and has adequate internal consistency. IRT analyses indicated that all the items, except for item eight, present adequate discrimination and difficulty. Based on these results, we conclude that the 9-item version of the Psychological Distress Scale is the most appropriate for this population.

Mediating factors of statistics anxiety in university students: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Statistics plays a key role in many areas of modern society, including technology, social and behavior studies, economics, and the sciences. Statistics anxiety (SA) has a detrimental impact on academic experiences in university populations, although the mediating factors remain underexplored. We conducted the first systematic review and meta-analysis focused on SA in university students in the context of statistical performance, individual differences in statistical learning, self-perceptions regarding the statistics course and instructor, and sociodemographic factors. Searches were carried out in the PsycINFO, PubMed, Scielo, and Web of Science databases according to our preregistration. Forty studies were selected for systematic review. Seventeen were included in a series of six meta-analyses concerning academic achievement, attitudes, self-perception, procrastination, and gender. The findings reveal learning strategies, procrastination, self-efficacy, and self-awareness as predictors of SA. However, the impact of sociodemographic data in these moderators is still uncharted. We conclude with a critical appraisal of the selected studies and present future directions for research in SA.

Cognitive emotion regulation strategies and psychological distress during lockdown due to COVID-19.

Several governments have implemented strict measures to reduce the spread of COVID-19, such as lockdown measures. However, these measures have brought negative consequences at an individual level by exacerbating the psychological distress caused by the pandemic. We evaluated the role of cognitive emotion regulation strategies (CERS) on the levels of anxiety and depression during the lockdown in a sample of 663 Spanish-speaking adults, while controlling for variables related to social support, hobbies, seeking information related to COVID-19, perceived risk of infection, time of assessment, number of deaths and contagions during the assessment and age. Using multiple regression analyses with a stepwise model selection procedure, 29% of the variance in anxiety and 38% of the variance of depression were found to be predicted by specific CERS. The impact of CERS on anxiety and depression was moderated by the sex of participants and the time of assessment, indicating that CERS did not have the same protective or harmful effects in all participants and situations. Based on our results, recommendations are provided for improving coping with stressful events where lockdown measures are taken.

Working memory training does not improve executive functioning or fluid intelligence.

Several studies have reported that cognitive training can lead to improvements of complex mental skills such as intelligence. However, attempts to replicate these findings have not been very successful with many studies reporting lack of transferable effects on cognitive processes unrelated to the training task. On the contrary, transfer effects on cognitive processes closely related to the training task have been more commonly reported. In this study, we investigated the effects of a frequently used working-memory training programme on fluid intelligence and specific executive functions (updating, inhibition, switching, the focus of attention, and sustained attention). We remedied common issues with previous training studies by using an active control group, using more than one instrument to assess each function, and including a larger sample size. The experimental group showed significant improvement in the training task, indicating strong practice effects. However, no evidence of training-specific transfer was found in any of the variables investigated, and we could not find any of the previous improvements reported. Participants in both the training and control groups showed post-training improvements in most of the outcome variables, suggesting that practice effects can be found even when a task is only performed twice. We conclude by discussing possible explanations for the differences between our results and those reported in prior studies and recommend that any claims of improvement should be supported by studies capable of replicating them.

Emotion regulation, psychological distress and demographic characteristics from an Ecuadorian sample: Data from the lockdown due to COVID-19.

Due to the rapid spread of COVID-19, several governments around the world implemented strict lockdown measures. However, these measures produced a number of negative psychological effects, such as increased anxiety and depression [1,2]. This article presents raw data from variables related to psychological distress, and from possible sources of psychological distress, such as the use of certain emotion regulation strategies, exposure to different media sources, demographic information (e.g., age, marital status, having children), or characteristics of the house (e.g., overcrowding or isolation). The data were collected online from March to June 2020 on an Ecuadorian sample of 618 participants (18-75 years old). The provided dataset could be useful to other researchers interested in investigating potential sources of psychological distress or vulnerable groups during a lockdown situation.

Factor Validity of Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) Using Robust Estimations in Ecuadorian Adolescents.

OBJECTIVE: Confirm the three correlated factors model of the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) using robust estimations and evaluate its internal consistency with a sample of Ecuadorian adolescents. METHOD: Descriptive and instrumental analysis that includes confirmatory factor analysis with robust estimation and the calculation of its internal consistency. PARTICIPANTS: A total of 1113 adolescents in which 56.1% are men and 43.9% are women), and they were between 11 and 19 years old ($\overline{X} $= 14.9 years; s = 1.67). Students from eight educational centres in Cotopaxi (54.1%) and Tungurahua (45.9%) in Ecuador were also included. RESULTS: The three correlated factors model from the AUDIT is confirmed with χ2 = 95.67; P < 0.001; df = 32; χ2/df = 2.98; comparative adjustment index = 0.93; Tucker-Lewis index = 0.90; standardized root mean square residual = 0.046; root mean square error of approximation = 0.042; 95% confidence interval [0.033-0.052]. CONCLUSIONS: The three correlated factors model from the AUDIT using robust estimations has an adequate fit and is also reliable in a sample of Ecuadorian adolescents.

Decision-making inflexibility in a reversal learning task is associated with severity of problem gambling symptoms but not with a diagnosis of substance use disorder.

BACKGROUND: Decisions made by individuals with disordered gambling are markedly inflexible. However, whether anomalies in learning from feedback are gambling-specific, or extend beyond gambling contexts, remains an open question. More generally, addictive disorders-including gambling disorder-have been proposed to be facilitated by individual differences in feedback-driven decision-making inflexibility, which has been studied in the lab with the Probabilistic Reversal Learning Task (PRLT). In this task, participants are first asked to learn which of two choice options is more advantageous, on the basis of trial-by-trial feedback, but, once preferences are established, reward contingencies are reversed, so that the advantageous option becomes disadvantageous and vice versa. Inflexibility is revealed by a less effective reacquisition of preferences after reversal, which can be distinguished from more generalized learning deficits. METHODS: In the present study, we compared PRLT performance across two groups of 25 treatment-seeking patients diagnosed with an addictive disorder and who reported gambling problems, and 25 matched controls [18 Males/7 Females in both groups, Mage(SDage) = 25.24 (8.42) and 24.96 (7.90), for patients and controls, respectively]. Beyond testing for differences in the shape of PRLT learning curves across groups, the specific effect of problematic gambling symptoms' severity was also assessed independently of group assignment. In order to surpass previous methodological problems, full acquisition and reacquisition curves were fitted using generalized mixed-effect models. RESULTS: Results showed that (1) controls did not significantly differ from patients in global PRLT performance nor showed specific signs of decision-making inflexibility; and (2) regardless of whether group affiliation was controlled for or not, gambling severity was specifically associated with more inefficient learning in phases with reversed contingencies. CONCLUSION: Decision-making inflexibility, as revealed by difficulty to reacquire decisional preferences based on feedback after contingency reversals, seems to be associated with gambling problems, but not necessarily with a substance-use disorder diagnosis. This result aligns with gambling disorder models in which domain-general compulsivity is linked to vulnerability to develop gambling-specific problems with exposure to gambling opportunities.