Effects of familiar music exposure on deliberate retrieval of remote episodic and semantic memories in healthy aging adults.

Familiar music facilitates memory retrieval in adults with dementia. However, mechanisms behind this effect, and its generality, are unclear because of a lack of parallel work in healthy aging. Exposure to familiar music enhances spontaneous recall of memories directly cued by the music, but it is unknown whether such effects extend to deliberate recall more generally - e.g., to memories not directly linked to the music being played. It is also unclear whether familiar music boosts recall of specific episodes versus more generalised semantic memories, or whether effects are driven by domain-general mechanisms (e.g., improved mood). In a registered report study, we examined effects of familiar music on deliberate recall in healthy adults ages 65-80 years (N = 75) by presenting familiar music from earlier in life, unfamiliar music, and non-musical audio clips across three sessions. After each clip, we assessed free recall of remote memories for pre-selected events. Contrary to our hypotheses, we found no effects of music exposure on recall of prompted events, though familiar music evoked spontaneous memories most often. These results suggest that effects of familiar music on recall may be limited to memories specifically evoked in response to the music (Preprint and registered report protocol at https://osf.io/kjnwd/).

Alpha Suppression Is Associated with the Tip-of-the-Tongue (TOT) State Whereas Alpha Expression Is Associated with Knowing That One Does Not Know.

The tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) state is a spontaneously occurring metacognitive state that indicates that the answer to a query is almost, but not quite, at hand, i.e., that resolution is imminent. Since the time of William James, a distinctive feeling of nagging frustration has been observed to be associated with TOT states. On a more positive note, TOT states are also associated with intense goal-directed curiosity and with a strong desire to know that translates into successful mental action. The present study showed that prior to the presentation of resolving feedback to verbal queries-if the individual was in a TOT state-alpha suppression was in evidence in the EEG. This alpha suppression appears to be a marker of a spontaneously occurring, conscious, and highly motivating goal-directed internal metacognitive state. At the same time, alpha expression in the same time period was associated with the feeling of not knowing, indicating a more discursive state. Both alpha and alpha suppression were observed broadly across centro-parietal scalp electrodes and disappeared immediately upon presentation of the resolving feedback. Analyses indicated that the occurrence of alpha suppression was associated with participants' verbal affirmations of being in a TOT state, which is also related to subsequent expression of a late positivity when feedback is provided, and to enhanced memory.

Age-related change in task-evoked amygdala-prefrontal circuitry: A multiverse approach with an accelerated longitudinal cohort aged 4-22 years.

The amygdala and its connections with medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) play central roles in the development of emotional processes. While several studies have suggested that this circuitry exhibits functional changes across the first two decades of life, findings have been mixed - perhaps resulting from differences in analytic choices across studies. Here we used multiverse analyses to examine the robustness of task-based amygdala-mPFC function findings to analytic choices within the context of an accelerated longitudinal design (4-22 years-old; N = 98; 183 scans; 1-3 scans/participant). Participants recruited from the greater Los Angeles area completed an event-related emotional face (fear, neutral) task. Parallel analyses varying in preprocessing and modeling choices found that age-related change estimates for amygdala reactivity were more robust than task-evoked amygdala-mPFC functional connectivity to varied analytical choices. Specification curves indicated evidence for age-related decreases in amygdala reactivity to faces, though within-participant changes in amygdala reactivity could not be differentiated from between-participant differences. In contrast, amygdala-mPFC functional connectivity results varied across methods much more, and evidence for age-related change in amygdala-mPFC connectivity was not consistent. Generalized psychophysiological interaction (gPPI) measurements of connectivity were especially sensitive to whether a deconvolution step was applied. Our findings demonstrate the importance of assessing the robustness of findings to analysis choices, although the age-related changes in our current work cannot be overinterpreted given low test-retest reliability. Together, these findings highlight both the challenges in estimating developmental change in longitudinal cohorts and the value of multiverse approaches in developmental neuroimaging for assessing robustness of results.

Using gastrointestinal distress reports to predict youth anxiety risk: Implications for mental health literacy and community care.

This study investigates the generalizability and predictive validity of associations between gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms and youth anxiety to establish their utility in community mental health decision-making. We analyzed data from youth ages 3 to 21 years in volunteer cohorts collected in Los Angeles (N = 327) and New York City (N = 102), as well as the Healthy Brain Network cohort (N = 1957). Youth GI distress was measured through items taken from the parent-reported Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL). We examined generalizability of GI-anxiety associations across cohorts and anxiety reporters, then evaluated the performance of these models in predicting youth anxiety in holdout data. Consistent with previous work, higher levels of gastrointestinal distress were associated with more parent-reported youth anxiety behaviors in all three cohorts. Models trained on data from the Healthy Brain Network cohort predicted parent-reported and child-reported anxiety behaviors, as well as clinician-evaluated anxiety diagnoses, at above chance levels in holdout data. Models which included GI symptoms often, but not always, outperformed models based on age and sex alone in predicting youth anxiety. Based on the generalizability and predictive validity of GI-anxiety associations investigated here, GI symptoms may be an effective tool for child-facing professionals for identifying children at risk for anxiety (Preprint: https://psyarxiv.com/zgavu/).