What Is Faster than Where in Vocal Emotional Perception.

Voices carry a vast amount of information about speakers (e.g., emotional state; spatial location). Neuroimaging studies postulate that spatial ("where") and emotional ("what") cues are processed by partially independent processing streams. Although behavioral evidence reveals interactions between emotion and space, the temporal dynamics of these processes in the brain and its modulation by attention remain unknown. We investigated whether and how spatial and emotional features interact during voice processing as a function of attention focus. Spatialized nonverbal vocalizations differing in valence (neutral, amusement, anger) were presented at different locations around the head, whereas listeners discriminated either the spatial location or emotional quality of the voice. Neural activity was measured with ERPs of the EEG. Affective ratings were collected at the end of the EEG session. Emotional vocalizations elicited decreased N1 but increased P2 and late positive potential amplitudes. Interactions of space and emotion occurred at the salience detection stage: neutral vocalizations presented at right (vs. left) locations elicited increased P2 amplitudes, but no such differences were observed for emotional vocalizations. When task instructions involved emotion categorization, the P2 was increased for vocalizations presented at front (vs. back) locations. Behaviorally, only valence and arousal ratings showed emotion-space interactions. These findings suggest that emotional representations are activated earlier than spatial representations in voice processing. The perceptual prioritization of emotional cues occurred irrespective of task instructions but was not paralleled by an augmented stimulus representation in space. These findings support the differential responding to emotional information by auditory processing pathways.

Stimuli in 3 Acts: A normative study on action-statements, action videos and object photos.

The study of action observation and imagery, separately and combined, is expanding in diverse research areas (e.g., sports psychology, neurosciences), making clear the need for action-related stimuli (i.e., action statements, videos, and pictures). Although several databases of object and action pictures are available, norms on action videos are scarce. In this study, we validated a set of 60 object-related everyday actions in three different formats: action-statements, and corresponding dynamic (action videos) and static (object photos) stimuli. In Study 1, ratings of imageability, image agreement, action familiarity, action frequency, and action valence were collected from 161 participants. In Study 2, a different sample of 115 participants rated object familiarity, object valence, and object-action prototypicality. Most actions were rated as easy to imagine, familiar, and neutral or positive in valence. However, there was variation in the frequency with which participants perform these actions on a daily basis. High agreement between participants' mental image and action videos was also found, showing that the videos depict a conventional way of performing the actions. Objects were considered familiar and positive in valence. High ratings on object-action prototypicality indicate that the actions correspond to prototypical actions for most objects. 3ActStimuli is a comprehensive set of stimuli that can be useful in several research areas, allowing the combined study of action observation and imagery.

Enhanced salience of musical sounds in singers and instrumentalists.

Music training has been linked to facilitated processing of emotional sounds. However, most studies have focused on speech, and less is known about musicians' brain responses to other emotional sounds and in relation to instrument-specific experience. The current study combined behavioral and EEG methods to address two novel questions related to the perception of auditory emotional cues: whether and how long-term music training relates to a distinct emotional processing of nonverbal vocalizations and music; and whether distinct training profiles (vocal vs. instrumental) modulate brain responses to emotional sounds from early to late processing stages. Fifty-eight participants completed an EEG implicit emotional processing task, in which musical and vocal sounds differing in valence were presented as nontarget stimuli. After this task, participants explicitly evaluated the same sounds regarding the emotion being expressed, their valence, and arousal. Compared with nonmusicians, musicians displayed enhanced salience detection (P2), attention orienting (P3), and elaborative processing (Late Positive Potential) of musical (vs. vocal) sounds in event-related potential (ERP) data. The explicit evaluation of musical sounds also was distinct in musicians: accuracy in the emotional recognition of musical sounds was similar across valence types in musicians, who also judged musical sounds to be more pleasant and more arousing than nonmusicians. Specific profiles of music training (singers vs. instrumentalists) did not relate to differences in the processing of vocal vs. musical sounds. Together, these findings reveal that music has a privileged status in the auditory system of long-term musically trained listeners, irrespective of their instrument-specific experience.

The perceived salience of vocal emotions is dampened in non-clinical auditory verbal hallucinations.

Introduction: Auditory verbal hallucinations (AVH) are a cardinal symptom of schizophrenia but are also reported in the general population without need for psychiatric care. Previous evidence suggests that AVH may reflect an imbalance of prior expectation and sensory information, and that altered salience processing is characteristic of both psychotic and non-clinical voice hearers. However, it remains to be shown how such an imbalance affects the categorisation of vocal emotions in perceptual ambiguity.Methods: Neutral and emotional nonverbal vocalisations were morphed along two continua differing in valence (anger; pleasure), each including 11 morphing steps at intervals of 10%. College students (N = 234) differing in AVH proneness (measured with the Launay-Slade Hallucination Scale) evaluated the emotional quality of the vocalisations.Results: Increased AVH proneness was associated with more frequent categorisation of ambiguous vocalisations as 'neutral', irrespective of valence. Similarly, the perceptual boundary for emotional classification was shifted by AVH proneness: participants needed more emotional information to categorise a voice as emotional.Conclusions: These findings suggest that emotional salience in vocalisations is dampened as a function of increased AVH proneness. This could be related to changes in the acoustic representations of emotions or reflect top-down expectations of less salient information in the social environment.

The Cardiovascular Side Effects of Electroconvulsive Therapy and Their Management.

ABSTRACT: Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) remains stigmatized in the broader medical community because of misunderstandings about treatment procedures, mortality rates, and cardiovascular complications. Electroconvulsive therapy causes periprocedural hemodynamic variability because of the surges in parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous systems after the administration of the electrical charge. Patients experience an increase in cardiac workload, which is potentially dangerous for patients with preexisting heart disease. Several findings suggest that cardiac complications occur most frequently in patients with underlying cardiovascular disease. We describe the cardiovascular complications that may result from ECT treatment and offer insight on how to mitigate these concerns if they occur. PubMed was queried using terms "electroconvulsive therapy" and "cardiovascular adverse effects." A table is provided with the common cardiovascular side effects of ECT and the most recent evidence-based treatment strategies to manage them. Generally, ECT is a safe procedure in which complications are minor and manageable. Most major complications caused by ECT are related to the cardiovascular system; however, with an appropriate pre-ECT evaluation and a comprehensive multidisciplinary team approach, the cardiovascular complications can be well managed and minimized. Providing proper cardiac clearance can prevent cardiac complications and provide timely care to treatment-resistant populations who are at risk for excessive morbidity and suicide.

Ultrabrief Right Unilateral Electroconvulsive Therapy for the Treatment of the Neuropsychiatric Symptoms of Dementia with Lewy Bodies.

OBJECTIVES: Dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) is a debilitating disorder associated with a number of distressing neuropsychiatric symptoms. There is currently limited guidance regarding the most effective strategies of managing these symptoms, and both pharmacologic and nonpharmacologic strategies are often used. Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) has been reported as a potential nonpharmacologic method to alleviate some of these debilitating neuropsychiatric symptoms. However, there remains a paucity of evidence in current literature. This report aims to add to existing literature regarding ECT in DLB by highlighting successful treatment in seven cases. METHODS: Our study is a retrospective case series of 7 patients with DLB who received treatment with ultrabrief (UB) right unilateral (RUL) ECT for the treatment of agitation and depressive symptoms. Participants included patients with a diagnosis of DLB who were admitted to Emory University Hospital at Wesley Woods from 2011 to 2020 presenting with agitation and/or depressive symptoms after failing pharmacologic intervention. Patients underwent UB RUL ECT administered by a board-certified psychiatrist. After treatment, Pittsburg Agitation Scale and Clinical Global Impression-Improvement scales were recorded as measures of agitation and clinical improvement, respectively. RESULTS: All 7 patients responded to UB RUL ECT with marked improvement in their presenting symptoms of agitation and/or depression without significant adverse effects from treatment. CONCLUSIONS: Ultrabrief RUL ECT seems to be a safe and effective treatment of the agitative and depressive features of DLB.

Can musical ability be tested online?

We sought to determine whether an objective test of musical ability could be successfully administered online. A sample of 754 participants was tested with an online version of the Musical Ear Test (MET), which had Melody and Rhythm subtests. Both subtests had 52 trials, each of which required participants to determine whether standard and comparison auditory sequences were identical. The testing session also included the Goldsmiths Musical Sophistication Index (Gold-MSI), a test of general cognitive ability, and self-report questionnaires that measured basic demographics (age, education, gender), mind-wandering, and personality. Approximately 20% of the participants were excluded for incomplete responding or failing to finish the testing session. For the final sample (N = 608), findings were similar to those from in-person testing in many respects: (1) the internal reliability of the MET was maintained, (2) construct validity was confirmed by strong associations with Gold-MSI scores, (3) correlations with other measures (e.g., openness to experience, cognitive ability, mind-wandering) were as predicted, (4) mean levels of performance were similar for individuals with no music training, and (5) musical sophistication was a better predictor of performance on the Melody than on the Rhythm subtest. In sum, online administration of the MET proved to be a reliable and valid way to measure musical ability.

Expectancy changes the self-monitoring of voice identity.

Self-voice attribution can become difficult when voice characteristics are ambiguous, but functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) investigations of such ambiguity are sparse. We utilized voice-morphing (self-other) to manipulate (un-)certainty in self-voice attribution in a button-press paradigm. This allowed investigating how levels of self-voice certainty alter brain activation in brain regions monitoring voice identity and unexpected changes in voice playback quality. FMRI results confirmed a self-voice suppression effect in the right anterior superior temporal gyrus (aSTG) when self-voice attribution was unambiguous. Although the right inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) was more active during a self-generated compared to a passively heard voice, the putative role of this region in detecting unexpected self-voice changes during the action was demonstrated only when hearing the voice of another speaker and not when attribution was uncertain. Further research on the link between right aSTG and IFG is required and may establish a threshold monitoring voice identity in action. The current results have implications for a better understanding of the altered experience of self-voice feedback in auditory verbal hallucinations.

Physician Communication and Patient Understanding of Molecular Testing Terminology.

BACKGROUND: The use of molecular testing in oncology is rapidly expanding. The aim of this study was to determine how oncologists describe molecular testing and whether patients understand the terminology being used. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Sixty conversations between oncologists and patients about molecular testing were observed, and the used technical terms were noted by the researcher. Patients were interviewed post-conversation to assess their understanding of the noted technical terms. A patient understanding score was calculated for each participant. Comparisons of the terms were conducted using χ2 tests, Fisher's exact tests, or ANOVA when appropriate. RESULTS: Sixty-one unique technical terms were used by oncologists, to describe seven topics. "Mutation" was a challenging term for patients to understand with 48.8% (21/43 mentions) of participants correctly defining the term. "Genetic testing" and "Gene" were understood a little more than half the time (53.3%; 8/15 and 56.4%; 22/39 respectively). "DNA" was well understood (80%; 12/15). There was no correlation between the terms being defined by the oncologist in the conversation, and the likelihood of the patient providing a correct definition. White participants were significantly more likely to understand both "mutation" and "genetic testing" than non-White participants. Forty-two percent (n = 25) of participants had an understanding score below 50%, and a higher family income was significantly correlated with a higher score. CONCLUSION: Our results show that oncologists use variable terminology to describe molecular testing, which is often not understood. Because oncologists defining the terms did not correlate with understanding, it is imperative to develop new, improved methods to explain molecular testing. IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE: The use of molecular testing is expanding in oncology, yet little is known about how effectively clinicians are communicating information about molecular testing and whether patients understand the terminology used. The results of this study indicate that patients do not understand some of the terminology used by their clinicians and that clinicians tend to use highly variable terminology to describe molecular testing. These results highlight the need to develop and implement effective methods to explain molecular testing terminology to patients to ensure that patients have the tools to make autonomous and informed decisions about their treatment.

Acoustic salience in emotional voice perception and its relationship with hallucination proneness.

Auditory verbal hallucinations (AVH) are reported in approximately 70% of psychotic patients, but they also may occur in approximately 10% of the healthy general population. AVH have been related to altered processing of vocal emotions at both sensory and higher-order processing stages in psychotic patients. However, it remains to be clarified whether individuals with high hallucination proneness (HP) exhibit a similar pattern of alterations. We investigated the impact of HP on vocal emotional perception and specified whether manipulations of acoustic cues, such as sound intensity and duration, related to salience changes, affect the time course of voice processing reflected in event-related potentials (ERP) of the electroencephalogram. Participants varying in HP performed a task involving the categorization of emotional nonverbal vocalizations (neutral, anger, and amusement) differing in duration and intensity. ERP results demonstrated interactive effects of HP, valence, and acoustic cues on both early (N1, P2) and late (Late Positive Potential [LPP]) processing stages. Higher HP was associated with decreased N1 and increased P2 amplitudes in response to louder and longer neutral (vs. positive) vocalizations, as well as with a larger LPP to louder and longer negative (vs. neutral) vocalizations. These findings suggest that HP is associated with changes in the processing of vocal emotions that might be related to altered salience of acoustic representations of emotions. Consistent with prior studies with psychotic patients, these findings show that altered perception of vocal emotions may additionally contribute to the experience of hallucinations in nonclinical samples.

Interactions of Emotion and Self-reference in Source Memory: An ERP Study.

The way emotional information is encoded (e.g., deciding whether it is self-related or not) has been found to affect source memory. However, few studies have addressed how the emotional quality and self-referential properties of a stimulus interactively modulate brain responses during stimulus encoding and source memory recognition. In the current study, 22 participants completed five study-test cycles with negative, neutral, and positive words encoded in self-referential versus non-self-referential conditions, while event-related potentials of the electroencephalogram were recorded. An advantage of self-referential processing in source memory performance, reflected in increased recognition accuracy, was shown for neutral and positive words. At the electrophysiological level, self-referential words elicited increased amplitudes in later processing stages during encoding (700-1,200 ms) and were associated with the emergence of old/new effects in the 300-500 ms latency window linked to familiarity effects. In the 500-800 ms latency window, old/new effects emerged for all valence conditions except for negative words studied in the non-self-referential condition. Negative self-referential words also elicited a greater mobilization of post-retrieval monitoring processes, reflected in an enhanced mean amplitude in the 800-1,200 ms latency window. Together, the current findings suggest that valence and self-reference interactively modulate source memory. Specifically, negative self-related information is more likely to interfere with the recollection of source memory features.

Is internal source memory recognition modulated by emotional encoding contexts?

The influence of emotion on memory has been mainly examined by manipulating the emotional valence and/or arousal of critical items. Few studies probed how emotional information presented during the encoding of critical neutral items modulates memory recognition, particularly when considering source memory features. In this study, we specified the role of emotional encoding contexts in internal source memory performance (discrimination between encoding tasks) using a mixed (Experiment 1) and a blocked design (Experiment 2). During the study phase, participants were required to evaluate a set of neutral words, using either a self-referential or a semantic (common judgment) encoding strategy. Prior and concomitantly with each word, negative, neutral or positive pictures were presented in the background. The beneficial effect of self-referential encoding was observed for both item and internal source memory in both experiments. Remarkably, item and internal source memory recognition was not modulated by emotion, even though a secondary analysis indicated that the consistent exposure to negative (vs. positive) information led to worse source memory performance. These findings suggest that internal source memory of neutral items is not always affected by changing or repetitive emotional encoding contexts.

The role of the cerebellum in adaptation: ALE meta-analyses on sensory feedback error.

It is widely accepted that unexpected sensory consequences of self-action engage the cerebellum. However, we currently lack consensus on where in the cerebellum, we find fine-grained differentiation to unexpected sensory feedback. This may result from methodological diversity in task-based human neuroimaging studies that experimentally alter the quality of self-generated sensory feedback. We gathered existing studies that manipulated sensory feedback using a variety of methodological approaches and performed activation likelihood estimation (ALE) meta-analyses. Only half of these studies reported cerebellar activation with considerable variation in spatial location. Consequently, ALE analyses did not reveal significantly increased likelihood of activation in the cerebellum despite the broad scientific consensus of the cerebellum's involvement. In light of the high degree of methodological variability in published studies, we tested for statistical dependence between methodological factors that varied across the published studies. Experiments that elicited an adaptive response to continuously altered sensory feedback more frequently reported activation in the cerebellum than those experiments that did not induce adaptation. These findings may explain the surprisingly low rate of significant cerebellar activation across brain imaging studies investigating unexpected sensory feedback. Furthermore, limitations of functional magnetic resonance imaging to probe the cerebellum could play a role as climbing fiber activity associated with feedback error processing may not be captured by it. We provide methodological recommendations that may guide future studies.

Thermal stress induces heat shock protein 70 and apoptosis during embryo development in a Neotropical freshwater fish.

Fish embryos are particularly vulnerable to temperature changes, with the effects varying with developmental stage. The major aim of the present study was to analyse the relationship between apoptosis and heat shock protein (HSP) 70 during embryo development under thermal stress conditions. To this end, Prochilodus lineatus embryos at the blastopore closure stage were subjected to one of three thermal treatments for 1h (Group 1, 25°C (control); Group 2, 20°C; Group 3, 30°C) and then examined at 0, 4 and 8h posttreatment (h.p.t.). The viability of embryos was highest in Group 1 (81.33±16.65%), followed by Group 3 and Group 2 (75.33±12.10% and 68.67±16.86% respectively), with significant difference between Groups 1 and 2 (P<0.05). At 0h.p.t., embryos subjected to thermal stress (Group 3) had a significantly higher number of terminal deoxyribonucleotidyl transferase-mediated dUTP-digoxigenin nick end-labelling (TUNEL)- and caspase-3-labelled cells, and a lower number of HSP70-positive cells than those in the control group. At 4h.p.t., there was a decrease in the TUNEL reaction and an increase in HSP70 in embryos in Group 3. At 8h.p.t., the size of Group 3 embryos was significantly smaller than that of Group 1 embryos. The results indicate a cytoprotective role for HSP70, regulating caspase-3-mediated apoptosis during embryo development of P. lineatus; however, this mechanism is not effective in controlling embryo viability and larval malformations.

Self-voice perception and its relationship with hallucination predisposition.

Introduction: Auditory verbal hallucinations (AVH) are a core symptom of psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia but are also reported in 10-15% of the general population. Impairments in self-voice recognition are frequently reported in schizophrenia and associated with the severity of AVH, particularly when the self-voice has a negative quality. However, whether self-voice processing is also affected in nonclinical voice hearers remains to be specified. Methods: Thirty-five nonclinical participants varying in hallucination predisposition based on the Launay-Slade Hallucination Scale, listened to prerecorded words and vocalisations differing in identity (self/other) and emotional quality. In Experiment 1, participants indicated whether words were spoken in their own voice, another voice, or whether they were unsure (recognition task). They were also asked whether pairs of words/vocalisations were uttered by the same or by a different speaker (discrimination task). In Experiment 2, participants judged the emotional quality of the words/vocalisations. Results: In Experiment 1, hallucination predisposition affected voice discrimination and recognition, irrespective of stimulus valence. Hallucination predisposition did not affect the evaluation of the emotional valence of words/vocalisations (Experiment 2). Conclusions: These findings suggest that nonclinical participants with high HP experience altered voice identity processing, whereas HP does not affect the perception of vocal emotion. Specific alterations in self-voice perception in clinical and nonclinical voice hearers may establish a core feature of the psychosis continuum.

Is the sunny side up and the dark side down? Effects of stimulus type and valence on a spatial detection task.

In verbal communication, affective information is commonly conveyed to others through spatial terms (e.g. in "I am feeling down", negative affect is associated with a lower spatial location). This study used a target location discrimination task with neutral, positive and negative stimuli (words, facial expressions, and vocalizations) to test the automaticity of the emotion-space association, both in the vertical and horizontal spatial axes. The effects of stimulus type on emotion-space representations were also probed. A congruency effect (reflected in reaction times) was observed in the vertical axis: detection of upper targets preceded by positive stimuli was faster. This effect occurred for all stimulus types, indicating that the emotion-space association is not dependent on sensory modality and on the verbal content of affective stimuli.

Spatial location and emotion modulate voice perception.

How do we perceive voices coming from different spatial locations, and how is this affected by emotion? The current study probed the interplay between space and emotion during voice perception. Thirty participants listened to nonverbal vocalizations coming from different locations around the head (left vs. right; front vs. back), and differing in valence (neutral, positive [amusement] or negative [anger]). They were instructed to identify the location of the vocalizations (Experiment 1) and to evaluate their emotional qualities (Experiment 2). Emotion-space interactions were observed, but only in Experiment 1: emotional vocalizations were better localised than neutral ones when they were presented from the back and the right side. In Experiment 2, emotion recognition accuracy was increased for positive vs. negative and neutral vocalizations, and perceived arousal was increased for emotional vs. neutral vocalizations, but this was independent of spatial location. These findings indicate that emotional salience affects how we perceive the spatial location of voices. They additionally suggest that the interaction between spatial ("where") and emotional ("what") properties of the voice differs as a function of task.

Revisiting Activation of and Mechanism of Resistance to Compound IQG-607 in Mycobacterium tuberculosis.

IQG-607 is a metal complex previously reported as a promising anti-tuberculosis (TB) drug against isoniazid (INH)-resistant strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis Unexpectedly, we found that INH-resistant clinical isolates were resistant to IQG-607. Spontaneous mutants resistant to IQG-607 were subjected to whole-genome sequencing, and all sequenced colonies carried alterations in the katG gene. The katG(S315T) mutation was sufficient to confer resistance to IQG-607 in both MIC assays and inside macrophages. Moreover, overexpression of the InhA(S94A) protein caused IQG-607's resistance.

Discussing molecular testing in oncology care: Comparing patient and physician information preferences.

BACKGROUND: Molecular testing to inform treatment and clinical trial choices is now the standard of care for several types of cancer. However, no established guidelines exist for the type of information physicians should cover during discussions with the patient about the test or its results. The objectives of this study were to identify physician and patient preferences regarding information and who should communicate this information and how to inform guidelines for these conversations. METHODS: Physicians and patients who participated in discussions regarding molecular testing were asked to choose 8 topics of most relevance out of a list of 18. The McNemar test was used to determine their top preferences. Patients were asked to identify what information they wanted to receive and who should inform them, and physicians were asked to identify the best aid to communication. RESULTS: Sixty-six patients identified 12 preferred topics: the benefits of testing (88%), how testing determines treatment (88%), implications for family (71%), whether a test indicates the seriousness of disease (68%), purpose of the test (64%), incidental findings (56%), explanation of cancer genetics (53%), how the test is done (46%), limitations (44%), explanation of biomarker (42%), risks (42%), and uninformative results (38%). Physicians added cost (59%). Patients preferred receiving information about molecular testing from their nurse or physician (85%), and physicians preferred using a pamphlet (67%) to augment communication. CONCLUSIONS: The topics identified as important to discuss can inform future guidelines and can contribute to effective communication regarding molecular testing. Cancer 2017;123:1610-1616. © 2017 American Cancer Society.