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Impairments in decision-making have been reported in brain-damaged (stroke/traumatic brain injury) patients with a wide range of lesion sites. Here, we propose that the performances of patients in complex sequential decision-making (DM) tasks can be explained by their negative affectivity, leading to deliberative processing associated with poor DM performances. We assumed that a slow-paced breathing (SPB) training, by reducing negative affectivity would improve performances in a complex DM task. For 24 days, 34 brain-damaged patients (16 males and 18 females; 12 had a hemorrhagic stroke, 17 with an ischemic stroke and 5 with a TBI), practiced either daily SPB or sham trainings for five min, three times a day. Before and after training, we assessed their vagal tone (electrocardiogram—ECG), affectivity (Positive and Negative Affect Schedule—PANAS) and certainty level (Dimensional Ratings Questionnaire—DRQ) and their performance on the Iowa Gambling Task. All participants showed initial weak performance, which improved only for patients in the SPB training condition. These results suggest that DM disorders in brain-damaged patients can be the consequence of their poor information processing strategy rather than an impairment in their DM abilities. Second, we showed that SPB could be efficient to normalize DM processes in brain injury patients.

The fast reaction of the autonomic nervous system (ANS) to an emotional challenge (EC) is the result of a functional coupling between parasympathetic (PNS) and sympathetic (SNS) branches. This coupling can be characterized by measures of cross-correlations between electrodermal activity (EDA) (under the influence of the SNS) and the RR interval (the interval between R peaks) (under the influence of the PNS and the SNS). Significant interindividual variability has previously been reported in SNS-PNS coupling in emotional situations, and the present study aimed to identify interindividual cross-correlation variability in ANS reactivity. We therefore studied EDA and the RR interval in 62 healthy subjects, recorded during a 24-minute EC. A Gaussian Mixture Model was used to cluster tonic EDA-RR cross-correlations during the EC. This identified two clusters that were characterized by significant or non-significant cross-correlations (SCC and NCC clusters, respectively). The SCC cluster reported higher negative emotion after the EC, while the NCC cluster reported higher scores on the Center for Epidemiologic Studies–Depression scale. The latter finding suggests that NCC is a pathological mood pattern with altered negative perception. Furthermore, a machine learning model that included three parameters indexing the functionality of both branches of the ANS, measured at baseline, predicted cluster membership. Our results are a first step in detecting dysfunctional ANS reactivity in general population.

Human physiological reactions to the environment are coordinated by the interactions between brain and viscera. In particular, the brain, heart, and gastrointestinal tract coordinate with each other to provide physiological equilibrium by involving the central, autonomic, and enteric nervous systems. Recent studies have demonstrated an electrophysiological coupling between the gastrointestinal tract and the brain (gut-brain axis) under resting-state conditions. As the gut-brain axis plays a key role in individual stress regulation, we aimed to examine modulation of gut-brain coupling through the use of an overwhelming and a relaxing module as a first step toward modeling of the underlying mechanisms. This study was performed in 12 participants who, under a virtual reality environment, performed a 9-min cognitive stressful task followed by a 9-min period of relaxation. Brain activity was captured by electroencephalography, autonomic activities by photoplethysmography, and electrodermal and gastric activities by electrogastrography. Results showed that compared with the stressful task, relaxation induced a significant decrease in both tonic and phasic sympathetic activity, with an increase in brain alpha power and a decrease in delta power. The intensity of gut-brain coupling, as assessed by the modulation index of the phase-amplitude coupling between the normogastric slow waves and the brain alpha waves, decreased under the relaxation relative to the stress condition. These results highlight the modulatory effect of biofeedback relaxation on gut-brain coupling and suggest noninvasive multilevel electrophysiology as a promising way to investigate the mechanisms underlying gut-brain coupling in physiological and pathological situations.

Functional neurological disorders (FND), a subtype of functional disorders (FD), are a frequent motive for neurology referrals. The various presentations and the unknown physiopathology of FD have led to the multiplication of terms describing these disorders over the years.We examined the FD-related articles published from 1960 to 2020 in PubMed and PsycINFO databases. We searched for: psychogenic, somatization, somatoform, medically unexplained symptoms, hysteria, conversion disorder, dissociative, functional neurological disorder, and functional disorder. Use rates in the title, abstract, keyword, or MeSH fields were collected over successive 5-year periods. After correcting for off-topic results, we examined proportional distribution over time, term associations, and disciplinary fields (neurology and psychiatry). Term impact was estimated via H-index and number of citations.We found that none of the terms is prevailing in the recent medical literature. We observed three trends in the use rates: stability, increase, and decrease of use over time. While most of the terms were present in a stable proportion of the publications, hysteria and psychogenic lost popularity over time. We found a differential preference for terminology between disciplines. Functional neurological disorder showed the highest citation impact, yielding 10% of highly cited publications.We found a dynamic and evolving use of the different terms describing FD in the last 60 years. Despite the tendency to use the term functional in the recent highly cited publications, its low prevalence and coexistence with several other terms suggest that a precise, explanatory and non-offensive term remains yet to be found.

The functional organisation of the medial temporal lobe (MTL) has long been described on the basis of cognitive processes such as recollection or familiarity. However, this view has recently been challenged, and researchers have proposed decomposing cognitive phenomena into representations and operations. According to the representational view, representations, such as scenes for the hippocampus and objects for the perirhinal cortex, are critical in understanding the role of MTL regions in cognition. In the present study, 51 healthy young participants underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while completing a visual-discrimination task. Subsequently, half of the participants performed a patch-cue recognition procedure in which "Rec" responses are believed to reflect the operation of pattern completion, whereas the other half performed a whole-item remember/know procedure. We replicated the previously-reported demonstration that hippocampal involvement in pattern completion is preferential for scenes as compared with objects. In contrast, the perirhinal cortex was more recruited for object processing than for scene processing. We further extended these results to the operations of strength-signal memory and visual discrimination. Finally, the modulation of hippocampal engagement in pattern completion by representational content was found to be specific to its anterior segment. This observation is consistent with the proposal that this segment would process broad/global representations, whereas the posterior hippocampus would perform sharp/local representations. Taken together, these results favour the representational view of MTL functional organisation, but support that this specialisation differs along the hippocampal long-axis.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the prevalence of early life stress (ELS) in a population with inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) and to estimate its burden on mental, physical, and digestive health. Ninety-three participants with IBD were asked to anonymously complete questionnaires (Childhood Trauma Questionnaire-Short Form, Early Life Event Scale, Perceived Stress Scale, Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, Ways of Coping Checklist, Gastro-Intestinal Quality of Life Index questionnaire, and ad hoc questions about symptoms). The prevalence of patients with IBD who were exposed to at least one childhood abuse was 53%. Mental health and quality of life were significantly poorer in patients with IBD who were exposed to early abuse than in those who were not. Patients exposed to ELS had also more digestive perturbations and fatigue. These results suggest that early abuse should be considered a component of IBD care.

Background/Study Context: To explain the high levels of well-being reported by older adults, socioemotional selectivity theory suggests that emotion regulation becomes more automated with age. Hence, the objective of the present study was to determine whether automatic emotion regulation becomes indeed more efficient with age, as controlled regulation becomes less efficient. We tested this hypothesis with regard to a specific emotion regulation strategy, expressive suppression, and a discrete emotion: disgust. Methods Disgusting videos were presented to 74 young adults (mean (SD) age: 20.1 (1.8)) and 52 older adults (mean (SD) age: 73.6 (9.3)), randomly assigned to one of three conditions: the control condition, the implicit condition (assessing automatic suppression), and the explicit condition (assessing controlled suppression). The disgust expressed and the disgust felt were analyzed separately with factorial analyses of variance that included age group and regulation condition as between-subject variables. Results Our results suggest that automatic and controlled expressive suppression may both be altered in healthy aging. Relative to young adults, older adults do not suppress their facial expressions as much but report feeling less disgust. Conclusion Expressive suppression may not become more automated with age. However, the older adults' ability to suppress facial expressions did not appear to be directly associated with the intensity of their emotions.

International audience; Impairments of emotional processing have been reported in Alzheimer’s disease (AD), consistently with the existence of early amygdala atrophy in the pathology. In this study, we hypothesized that patients with AD might show a deficit of orientation toward emotional information under conditions of visual search. Eighteen patients with AD, 24 age-matched controls, and 35 young controls were eye-tracked while they performed a visual search task on a computer screen. The target was a vehicle with implicit (negative or neutral) emotional content, presented concurrently with one, three, or five non-vehicle neutral distractors. The task was to find the target and to report whether a break in the target frame was on the left or on the right side. Both control groups detected negative targets more efficiently than they detected neutral targets, showing facilitated engagement toward negative information. In contrast, patients with AD showed no influence of emotional information on engagement delays. However, all groups reported the frame break location more slowly for negative than for neutral targets (after accounting for the last fixation delay), showing a more difficult disengagement from negative information. These findings are the first to highlight a selective lack of emotional influence on engagement processes in patients with AD. The involvement of amygdala alterations in this behavioral impairment remains to be investigated.

A growing body of evidence suggests that emotional states under which individuals perform decision-making tasks modulate performance. Studies have mainly reported that negative emotions can differentially increase or decrease performance by modulating feedback processing. In contrast, differential influences of specific emotions inside positive valence have been poorly investigated. The objective of the present work was to assess specific effect of different types of positive emotions on decision-making and to investigate whether this effect also depends on feedback processing. In our study, after being induced to feel either hope or happiness, participants undertook a risky sequential decision-making task in which feedback was required to obtain a good performance. We found that the more positive was the feedback received, the more happiness led participants to make risky decisions. This tendency was not observed among participants in the hopeful or in the control condition. Our results contribute to the literature showing that the effects of emotions on sequential decision-making performance can be explained by feedback processing and are not solely due to the valence of the emotional state. They also suggest that further research is required to determine which potential specific dimension is involved in the effects of positive emotions on sequential decision-making.

Understanding the factors that make working memory (WM) traces stable over time is important because WM is the keystone of general cognitive achievement. Two views of attentional WM maintenance have been suggested to account for the long-term retention of WM information. First, the distractors in a WM task are thought to foster the creation of episodic memory cues through covert retrieval. Second, the cognitive load (CL) of the distractors is thought to vary long-term memory instantiation. In this study, we propose an additional parsimonious perspective: the total time during which each trace is under the control of attention in WM is the key to long-term retention. Participants performed a complex span task in which the CL and number of distractors were orthogonally manipulated, and thereafter the participants performed a delayed recall test. Similar to previous findings, the results showed effects of the number of distractors and of CL on delayed recall. Our results went further, however, by showing a non-linear relationship between delayed recall performance and the free time accumulated between encoding and immediate recall. The role of time in episodic memory performance and the underlying WM maintenance mechanism are discussed.

We report two patients suffering from drug-resistant temporal lobe epilepsy to show how their neuroplasticity can be apprehended using a multimodal, integrative and clinically relevant approach. This is a proof of concept based on using multimodal data including: (1) white matter structural connectivity (DTI) of the main tracts involved in language and memory; (2) neurophysiological biomarkers (fMRI-BOLD signal and LI lateralization indices); and (3) cognitive scores as measured during the neuropsychological assessment. We characterized tri-modal data for each patient using a descriptive integrative approach, in terms of reorganization and by comparing with a group of healthy participants. This proof of concept suggests that the inclusion of multimodal data in clinical studies is currently a major challenge. Since the various datasets obtained from MRI neuroimaging and cognitive scores are probably interrelated, it is important to go beyond the mono-modal approach and move towards greater integration of several multimodal data. Multimodal integration of anatomical, functional, and cognitive data facilitates the identification of comprehensive neurocognitive patterns in epileptic patients, thus enabling clinicians to differentiate between reorganization profiles and help to predict post-surgical outcomes for curative neurosurgery.

Objectives Refreshing, or the act of briefly foregrounding recently presented but now perceptually absent representations, has been identified as a possible source of age differences in working memory and episodic memory. We investigated whether the refreshing deficit contributes to the well-known age-related deficit for retrieving nonsemantic associations, but has no impact on existing semantic associations. Method Younger and older adults judged the relatedness of stimulus word pairs (e.g., pink–blue or pink–cop) after repeating or refreshing one of the words. During a later source recognition memory test, participants determined whether each item recognized as old was presented on the left or right (nonsemantic source memory) and presented in a related or unrelated pair (semantic source memory). The data were analyzed using a hierarchical Bayesian implementation of a multinomial model of multidimensional source memory. Results Neither age group exhibited a refreshing benefit to nonsemantic or semantic source memory parameters. There was a large age difference in nonsemantic source memory, but no age difference in semantic source memory. Discussion The study suggests that the nature of the association is most important to episodic memory performance in older age, irrespective of refreshing, such that source memory is unimpaired for semantically meaningful information.

Emotional stimuli are often more semantically interrelated and relatively distinct than neutral stimuli. These factors can enhance memory for emotional stimuli in young adults, but their effects in older adults-and on the age-related positive memory bias-remain unknown. In the present article, we tested whether item relatedness and distinctiveness affect emotional memory in young adults (Exps. 1 and 2) and the positive memory bias in older adults (Exp. 2). In both experiments, participants studied positive, negative, and neutral pictures and performed free recall after 1 min and 45 min. To manipulate relatedness, the neutral pictures were either as highly interrelated as the emotional pictures ("related neutral") or lower in semantic relatedness ("unrelated neutral"). To manipulate distinctiveness, we had participants process the emotional pictures in either a relatively distinct manner (mixed condition), by studying emotional and neutral pictures at the same time, or in a nondistinctive manner (unmixed condition), by studying and recalling each picture category separately. Overall, higher semantic relatedness (i.e., related-neutral vs. unrelated-neutral pictures) increased memory in both age groups. Distinctiveness did not affect memory in young adults, but it did alter the positive memory bias in older adults. Older adults recalled more positive than negative pictures when the pictures were processed in mixed sets, but not when they were processed in unmixed sets. These findings were consistent across both test delays. This suggests that previous reports, which were often based on mixed designs in which item interrelatedness was not controlled, may have overestimated the size and/or robustness of the positivity bias in older adults.

Despite their high level of exposure to potential traumatic events (TE), the prevalence rate of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among mountain workers was reported as particularly low (Sommer & Ehlert, 2004) although the high exposure of these professionals to TE. This study aimed to estimate the magnitude of PTSD rate in mountain workers once we used a cover story to reduce sample bias. Mountain workers underwent either clinical interviews by means of the Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale (CAPS) (n = 60) or they self-reported their symptoms by means of an appropriate questionnaire of the PTSD Check List (PCL) (n = 73). We also estimated the magnitude of PTSD rate by the means of meta-analysis. A discrepancy in the PTSD rate was observed as a function of the method used for the diagnosis [i.e., the interview method (22%) or the self-report method (5%)]. Furthermore, the meta-analysis shows that the overall estimation of PTSD varies and lies between 2.79% and 5.93% among this specific population with multiple exposures (range from 64% to 96% for exposure at least one TE). Our results are congruent with higher PTSD rates observed with other at-risk professionals. The present study reveals that mountains workers are frequently exposed to TE and according to the method of diagnosis the prevalence rate may present huge variations. This major finding points out the necessity to pay attention to the method used when the PTSD prevalence is estimated in the case of multiple exposure and among occupational population.

International audience

Understanding the factors that make working memory (WM) traces stable over time is important because WM is the keystone of general cognitive achievement. Two views of attentional WM maintenance have been suggested to account for the long-term retention of WM information. First, the distractors in a WM task are thought to foster the creation of episodic memory cues through covert retrieval. Second, the cognitive load (CL) of the distractors is thought to vary long-term memory instantiation. In this study, we propose an additional parsimonious perspective: the total time during which each trace is under the control of attention in WM is the key to long-term retention. Participants performed a complex span task in which the CL and number of distractors were orthogonally manipulated, and thereafter the participants performed a delayed recall test. Similar to previous findings, the results showed effects of the number of distractors and of CL on delayed recall. Our results went further, however, by showing a non-linear relationship between delayed recall performance and the free time accumulated between encoding and immediate recall. The role of time in episodic memory performance and the underlying WM maintenance mechanism are discussed.

Objectives Numerous studies reported an age-related deficit in verbal working memory (WM). Beyond the well-established general factors of cognitive aging, the alteration of the specific WM maintenance mechanisms may account for this deficit. This paper aims to investigate the hypothesis that WM attentional maintenance is impaired with age. Method In a WM task adapted to individual short-term memory and processing speed, younger and older participants maintained letters while verbally responding to a concurrent processing task, in order to constrain the use of rehearsal. Critically, the opportunity to use attentional maintenance was manipulated by varying the cognitive load (CL) of the concurrent processing via its nature and pace. Results Younger participants outperformed older participants and, in both groups, recall performance decreased as the CL increased. Importantly, in line with our predictions, the CL effect was modulated by age. Older adults benefited less from free pauses that allowed participants to engage in attentional maintenance of WM traces. Discussion Although still effective in normal aging, WM attentional maintenance seems to be altered. It could therefore be a good candidate to account for WM age-related deficits.

International audience; Whereas facial emotion recognition protocols have shown that each discrete emotion has a specific time course of brain activation, there is no electrophysiological evidence to support these findings for emotional induction by complex pictures. Our objective was to specify the differences between the time courses of brain activation elicited by feelings of happiness and, with unpleasant pictures, by feelings of disgust and sadness. We compared event-related potentials (ERPs) elicited by the watching of high-arousing pictures from the International Affective Picture System, selected to induce specific emotions. In addition to a classical arousal effect on late positive components, we found specific ERP patterns for each emotion in early temporal windows (

To assess whether the decline of decision-making processes in people diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is explained by the use of an inappropriate analytic strategy induced by their high level of uncertainty about their ability, we used happiness induction to activate an appropriate heuristic processing of information. Healthy older adults and AD patients performed the Iowa Gambling Task either in a standard condition or after viewing a funny film clip. Although AD patients had impaired performances in the standard condition, the happiness condition significantly increased AD patient performance level compared with that of the control subgroups. Additional analyses showed that uncertainty levels were reduced in happy AD patients and that performances in the Iowa Gambling Task were not due to impairment in executive or memory functions. We suggest that higher uncertainty levels in patients with mild AD, which induce an inappropriate analytic strategy, can be reduced through emotional remediation techniques.

International audience; A decline in the ability to identify fearful expression has been frequently reported in patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD). In patients with severe destruction of the bilateral amygdala, similar difficulties have been reduced by using an explicit visual exploration strategy focusing on gaze. The current study assessed the possibility of applying a similar strategy in AD patients to improve fear recognition. It also assessed the possibility of improving fear recognition when a visual exploration strategy induced AD patients to process the eyes region. Seventeen patients with mild AD and 34 healthy subjects (17 young adults and 17 older adults) performed a classical task of emotional identification of faces expressing happiness, anger, and fear in two conditions: The face appeared progressively from the eyes region to the periphery (eyes region condition) or it appeared as a whole (global condition). Specific impairment in identifying a fearful expression was shown in AD patients compared with older adult controls during the global condition. Fear expression recognition was significantly improved in AD patients during the eyes region condition, in which they performed similarly to older adult controls. Our results suggest that using a different strategy of face exploration, starting first with processing of the eyes region, may compensate for a fear recognition deficit in AD patients. Findings suggest that a part of this deficit could be related to visuo-perceptual impairments. Additionally, these findings suggest that the decline of fearful face recognition reported in both normal aging and in AD may result from impairment of non-amygdalar processing in both groups and impairment of amygdalar-dependent processing in AD.

This chapter reviews some key aspects of the relationship between emotion and episodic memory, focusing on the cognitive and neural systems that underlie the relationship. We differentiate between effects of emotion on early and late long-term memory, review evidence for the selectivity of these effects, and discuss existing models that best account for them. We reflect on and evaluate current practices in emotional memory research.

International audience; Objectives: This fMRI study evaluated the cognitive mechanisms and the cerebral substrates when evaluating the healthiness of food products from nutritional information displayed either with a traffic light (TL) system, a colored nutritional label, or with a guideline daily amount (GDA) system, a numeric label. We postulated that TL label would recruit emotional processes and activation of subjacent cerebral regions (e.g. insula and amygdala). On the contrary, the nutritional information presented in a GDA label, would recruit, due to its numeric format and higher complexity, supplementary cognitive processes and activation of related brain regions (e.g. middle and superior frontal as well as parietal cortices).Methods: We examined 50 healthy participants during an evaluation task on the healthiness of real food products from nutritional information only. Per total, 60 food products nutritional labels have been presented, with either colored (TL) or numeric (GDA) nutritional information and three levels of complexity of nutritional information.Results: In line with our predictions, evaluations based on GDA recruited prefrontal and parietal regions reported for analytic processes. Contrary to our predictions, the same network has been recruited when evaluations were based on TL. Finally, we found significant correlation between response time and the superior parietal lobule in the GDA condition.Discussion: Our results suggested that TL did not have an effect on the used strategy compared to GDA, based on calculation and arithmetic processes. Correlations between response time and brain activations suggested a significant involvement of the arithmetic mechanisms in the evaluation of food healthiness.

International audience; Age-related differences in neural correlates underlying implicit and explicit emotion processing are unclear. Within the framework of the Frontoamygdalar Age-related Differences in Emotion model (St Jacques et al., 2009), our objectives were to examine the behavioral and neural modifications that occur with age for both processes. During explicit and implicit processing of fearful faces, we expected to observe less amygdala activity in older adults (OA) than in younger adults (YA), associated with poorer recognition performance in the explicit task, and more frontal activity during implicit processing, suggesting compensation. At a behavioral level, explicit recognition of fearful faces was impaired in OA compared with YA. We did not observe any cerebral differences between OA and YA during the implicit task, whereas in the explicit task, OA recruited more frontal, parietal, temporal, occipital, and cingulate areas. Our findings suggest that automatic processing of emotion may be preserved during aging, whereas deliberate processing is impaired. Additional neural recruitment in OA did not appear to compensate for their behavioral deficits.

Psychogenic nonepileptic seizures (PNES) are paroxysmal attacks that can imitate epileptic seizures but do not have a neurological origin. There has been mounting interest these last few years to unravel psychological and neuronal factors that contribute to the development of PNES. The objective of this review is twofold. First, we examine recent contributions of clinical and researches studies to define the main features of PNES. Then, we focus on the possible link between changes in processing of emotional information and the onset of PNES. In this article, we identify promising directions for future research and argue that affective neuroscience may provide original findings to better understand this disease.

International audience; In this functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, we evaluated the effect of self-relevance on cerebral activity and behavioral performance during an incidental encoding task. Recent findings suggest that pleasantness judgments reliably induce self-oriented (internal) thoughts and increase default mode network (DMN) activity. We hypothesized that this increase in DMN activity would relate to increased memory recognition for pleasantly-judged stimuli (which depend on internally-oriented attention) but decreased recognition for unpleasantly-judged items (which depend on externally-oriented attention). To test this hypothesis, brain activity was recorded from 21 healthy participants while they performed a pleasantness judgment requiring them to rate visual stimuli as pleasant or unpleasant. One hour later, participants performed a surprise memory recognition test outside of the scanner. Thus, we were able to evaluate the effects of pleasant and unpleasant judgments on cerebral activity and incidental encoding. The behavioral results showed that memory recognition was better for items rated as pleasant than items rated as unpleasant. The whole brain analysis indicated that successful encoding (SE) activates the inferior frontal and lateral temporal cortices, whereas unsuccessful encoding (UE) recruits two key medial posterior DMN regions, the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) and precuneus (PCU). A region of interest (ROI) analysis including classic DMN areas, revealed significantly greater involvement of the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) in pleasant compared to unpleasant judgments, suggesting this region’s involvement in self-referential (i.e., internal) processing. This area may be responsible for the greater recognition performance seen for pleasant stimuli. Furthermore, a significant interaction between the encoding performance (successful vs. unsuccessful) and pleasantness was observed for the PCC, PCU and inferior frontal gyrus (IFG). Overall, our results suggest the involvement of medial frontal and parietal DMN regions during the evaluation of self-referential pleasantness. We discuss these results in terms of the introspective referential of pleasantness judgments and the differential brain modulation based on internally- vs. externally-oriented attention during encoding.

Introduction Le modele « Sleep to forget, sleep to remember » postule que le sommeil paradoxal (SP) diminue la reactivite emotionnelle lors de la reexposition a un stimulus negatif. L’impact des strategies de regulation au moment de l’induction emotionnelle reste inconnu. Objectifs Examiner l’impact du SP dans la regulation emotionnelle hypnique, avec initiation de mecanismes conscients de regulation durant la veille. Methodes Apres un premier sommeil, des volontaires sains etaient exposes a un film inducteur de tristesse durant lequel ils devaient reguler leur ressenti emotionnel (R), ou, s’immerger dans le film (I). Chaque groupe etait divise en deux, le premier restait en veille (V), le second se rendormait (S). Quatre groupes etaient constitues : RV, RS, IV et IS. En fin de nuit, les groupes etaient reexposes au film. Les reponses emotionnelles etaient mesurees (variabilite cardiaque, echelles d’autoevaluation). Resultats Quarante-quatre participants etaient inclus, repartis de facon homogene dans chacun des groupes (n = 11). Les groupes RS et IS ont principalement presente du SP en deuxieme partie de nuit. Lors de la reexposition, le groupe RS presentait une amelioration significative des marqueurs physiologiques de la reactivite emotionnelle par rapport au groupe RV. D’autre part, le groupe IS connaissait une deterioration de l’autoevaluation emotionnelle par rapport au groupe IV. Discussion Apres mise en place de strategie consciente de regulation emotionnelle, le SP augmente l’efficacite de ces mecanismes de regulation alors qu’a contrario en l’absence de strategie, le SP augmente la reactivite emotionnelle lors de la reexposition. Nos resultats s’ecartent de ceux predits par le modele SFSR et laissent suggerer que les strategies de regulation jouent un role non negligeable dans la regulation emotionnelle hypnique. Conclusion Le SP aurait un role de consolidation des strategies initiees durant la veille. Informations complementaires Je remercie les JNLF 2016 de m’avoir accordee une bourse pour l’annee 2016–2017 qui m’a permis de realiser ce travail dans le cadre de mon master 2.

The aim of this study was to examine the ultradian dynamic of emotional processing in men. Event-related potentials were recorded while participants watched different sets of unpleasant and neutral pictures every 15 min for 3 h. Emotional feelings induced by unpleasant pictures were also assessed with self-rating scales at the end of each picture set. Whereas brain processing of neutral pictures remained stable over time, a late positive component elicited by unpleasant pictures presented ultradian oscillations varying between 65 and 110 min in 77% of the participants, mainly in the right centro-posterior area. Ultradian rhythms were also observed for values self-rating the intensity of unpleasant feelings. Correlative analyses performed between brain and behavioral ultradian oscillations indicated that these rhythms follow a temporal opposite pattern. For the first time, these results raise questions regarding the modulating role of ultradian oscillations when the brain computes the significance of unpleasant stimuli and produces the final emotional feelings. Overall, these findings open new perspectives on the temporal regulation of emotional reactivity in healthy individuals and in those with affective disorders.

International audience; This article examined neural time course differences in the processing of emotional pictures in European and Asian individuals. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded in 15 French and 15 Japanese volunteers during the presentation of neutral and emotional pictures in their own country. ERPs were analyzed by means of spatio-temporal Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and allow to evaluate cultural influences on emotional processing along three temporal windows: 105 to 140 ms, 176 to 230 ms and 255 to 455 ms. Main results highlight that (1) early ERP components coded emotional charge but were not modulated by cultural background, (2) later components showed a significant decrease of amplitudes at parieto-occipital areas for Japanese participants compared to French ones in emotional condition. These findings suggest that, in both populations, similar neurocognitive processes are involved in the early stage of the emotional stimuli processing and effects observed on later components may reflect a poorer engagement of parietal areas, known to be involved in emotional arousal dimension. Considering that cognitive judgments were similar in both populations, electrophysiological findings suggest that cultural influences on later stage of emotional processing could be related to the known lower level of emotionally expressive behavior in Japanese than in Caucasians.

International audience; Diurnal temporal variations of emotional reactivity were investigated in relationship with fluctuations of psychophysiological state, evaluated by tonic autonomic activity. Neutral and unpleasant pictures, selected to constitute seven matched sets, were evaluated by 12 participants during seven sessions in the course of daytime. Skin conductance level (SCL) was recorded at the beginning of each session, whereas skin conductance responses (SCRs), affective evaluation and emotional experience were measured during or after each session. Data show significant temporal variations for SCL, SCRs and emotional experience which follow similar patterns during the daytime. Discussion highlights the role of temporal patterns of autonomic activity as an interesting basis to better understand the emotional regulation and affective disorders.

In the past decade, our understanding of the sleep and emotion mechanisms in young adults has markedly increased. Recent findings suggest that sleep stages could play a crucial role in emotion regulation processes. This chapter considers how sleep and emotion regulation processes change across the life span, exploring possible interrelations between these changes. We provide an overview of converging studies showing a greater motivation in older adults to voluntarily direct their attention to emotionally meaningful goals, allowing them to preserve a good level of well-being until an old age, even when other regulatory subprocesses are altered. From a sleep perspective, cerebral aging affects early sleep architecture, in particular non-rapid-eye movement sleep, and it increases the risk of sleep disturbances. Few studies have jointly investigated aging, sleep, and emotion. The last part of this chapter examines two hypotheses explaining how sleep-dependent emotion regulation can be modulated in the elderly.

Prominent disturbances in the experience, expression, and emotion recognition in patients with schizophrenia have been relatively well documented over the last few years. Furthermore, sex differences in behavior and brain activity, associated with the processing of various emotions, have been reported in the general population and in schizophrenia patients. Others proposed that sex differences should be rather attributed to testosterone, which may play a role in the etiology of schizophrenia. Also, it had been suggested that estradiol may play a protective role in schizophrenia. Surprisingly, few studies investigating this pathology have focused on both brain substrates and gonadal steroid hormone levels, in emotional processing. In the present study, we investigated electrocortical responses related to emotional valence and arousal as well as gonadal steroid hormone levels in patients with schizophrenia. Event-Related Potentials (ERP) were recorded during exposition to emotional pictures in 18 patients with schizophrenia and in 24 control participants paired on intelligence, manual dominance and socioeconomic status. Given their previous sensitivity to emotional and attention processes, the P200, N200 and the P300 were selected for analysis. More precisely, emotional valence generally affects early components (N200), which reflect early process of selective attention, whereas emotional arousal and valence both influences the P300 component, which is related to memory context updating, and stimulus categorization. Results showed that, in the control group, the amplitude of the N200 was significantly more lateralized over the right hemisphere, while there was no such lateralization in patients with schizophrenia. In patients with schizophrenia, significantly smaller anterior P300 amplitude was observed to the unpleasant, compared to the pleasant. That anterior P300 reduction was also correlated with negative symptoms. The N200 and P300 amplitudes were positively correlated with the estradiol level in all conditions, revealing that the N200 and the P300 were reduced, when estradiol level was higher. Conversely, only the P300 amplitude showed positive correlation with the testosterone level.

International audience; Current research suggests that amygdalar volumes in patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) may be a relevant measure for its early diagnosis. However, findings are still inconclusive and controversial, partly because studies did not focus on the earliest stage of the disease. In this study, we measured amygdalar atrophy in 48 AD patients and 82 healthy controls (HC) by using a multi-atlas procedure, MAPER. Both hippocampal and amygdalar volumes, normalized by intracranial volume, were significantly reduced in AD compared with HC. The volume loss in the two structures was of similar magnitude (~24%). Amygdalar volume loss in AD predicted memory impairment after we controlled for age, gender, education, and, more important, hippocampal volume, indicating that memory decline correlates with amygdalar atrophy over and above hippocampal atrophy. Amygdalar volume may thus be as useful as hippocampal volume for the diagnosis of early AD. In addition, it could be an independent marker of cognitive decline. The role of the amygdala in AD should be reconsidered to guide further research and clinical practice.

L’electrophysiologie au sens large est l’etude de l’activite electrique liee au fonctionnement des organes. Cet ensemble de techniques constitue un outil unique en psychologie clinique car il permet de mieux connaitre a la fois la chronometrie mentale des processus cognitifs et leur impact corporel. Ces dernieres annees, les techniques d’investigations electrophysiologiques se sont profondement enrichies. Les outils de mesure (electroencephalographie, magnetoencephalographie, stimulation cerebrale profonde, etc.) se sont faits plus precis et les methodes d’analyse gagnant en complexite apportent un gain d’informations considerable. Cet ouvrage presente donc les differentes techniques d’enregistrement et de stimulations de l’activite electrique cerebrale et peripherique. En plus d’apporter les informations de base de l’electrophysiologie, il vise a en montrer les interets, enjeux et limites.

International audience; Studies on emotional processing in Alzheimer's disease (AD) have reported abnormalities in emotional decoding. However, it remains unclear whether the impairment depends on a general cognitive decline that characterizes these patients or is an independent deficit. We conducted a comprehensive meta-analysis of existing studies that compared AD patients with age-matched healthy older adults (HOA) on measures of emotional decoding abilities. Our first goal was to quantify the magnitude of the AD patients' deficit. The second goal was to identify variables that may modulate the deficit, including emotional task design and participants' characteristics. The random-effects model analysis on 212 effect sizes indicated that AD patients showed significant impairment in emotional decoding abilities. This deficit is consistent regardless of the emotional task, stimuli, type of emotion considered, or disease severity. After we controlled for cognitive status, the emotional performance in AD patients was still poorer than that in HOA. The effect size of emotional performance was significantly lower when the cognitive status was considered than when it was not. Thus, our results suggest that impaired emotion processing in AD patients cannot be solely explained by the cognitive deficit. These findings provide evidence that progressive neuropathological changes characterizing the disease could affect emotional processing, which may suggest that clinicians should be sensitive to the emergence of impairments in emotional decoding. Further research that addresses the limitations of existing studies is needed to draw conclusions about methodological issues and the impact of the AD patient's depression symptoms on emotional decoding.

Background: The aim of the present study was to assess the possibility of compensating early facial expression recognition impairments in amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment (a-MCI) patients. Methods: Twelve patients with a-MCI and 17 healthy participants matched according to age and education participated in the study. The originality of the present study was to cue the recognition of facial expressions (happiness, anger, fear, and neutral) by comparing eye region expressions and entire facial expressions. Results: A deficit in the recognition of fearful expressions was observed in a-MCI patients relative to the control group, whereas recognition of all the other emotional expressions was spared. Nevertheless, when eye expressions cued the recognition of fearful facial expressions, the performance of normal controls and a-MCI patients was comparable. Conclusion: The present paper indicates a selective impairment in fear recognition in the prodromal state of Alzheimer’s disease, and the possibility of compensating this deficit by orienting selective attention on specific facial features.