Frontal brain asymmetry in restrained eaters.

It is well known that the eating patterns that restrain chronic dieters (restrained eaters) can be disinhibited by anxiety, which in turn has been associated with relative right frontal brain activity in independent electroencephalographic (EEG) studies. Combining these two lines of evidence, the authors tested the hypothesis that chronic restrained eating is associated with relative right frontal asymmetry. Resting anterior brain asymmetry and self-reported measures of anxiety and depression were collected in 23 restrained and 32 unrestrained eaters. As hypothesized, groups differed in tonic frontal activity, with restrained eaters showing more relative right frontal activity. Furthermore, relative right frontal activity was associated with greater self-reported restraint. Right-sided prefrontal asymmetry may thus represent a diathesis associated with increased vulnerability toward restrained eating. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Frontal brain asymmetry predicts affective style in men.

Recent research suggests that a significant relationship between frontal brain asymmetry (FBA) and affective style can be documented in women with l-measurement occasion. The purpose of this study was to determine whether this finding is generalizable to men. Resting electroencephalogram (EEG)- activity was recorded from male adults during 5 60-s baselines on 1 measurement occasion. Mean alpha power asymmetry was extracted in midfrontal and lateral-frontal sites. For the lateral-frontal site, but not the midfrontal site, there was a significant relationship between relative left anterior activation and positive affective style. These results suggest that lateral FBA is a robust and state-independent measure of affective style in men. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Frontal and temporal onset of brain atrophy. Clinical and instrumental findings

We report the cases of a 70-year old man with left temporal brain atrophy and of a 39-year-old man with neuropathologically verified frontal lobe degeneration (FLD) of Non-Alzheimer type. 10 patients with FLD collected during a prospective study on degenerative dementia had more severe volumetric brain changes and less severe quantitative band power changes than a group of matched patients with clinically diagnosed Alzheimer's disease.     

Frontal brain asymmetry predicts infants' response to maternal separation.

Examined whether certain features of infant temperament might be related to individual differences in the asymmetry of resting frontal activation. EEG was recorded from the left and right frontal and parietal scalp regions of 13 normal 10-month-old infants. Infant behavior was then observed during a brief period of maternal separation. Those infants who cried in response to maternal separation showed greater right frontal activation during the preceding baseline period compared with infants who did not cry. Frontal activation asymmetry may be a state-independent marker for individual differences in threshold of reactivity to stressful events and vulnerability to particular emotions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Anxiety report in defensive and nondefensive repressors.

Selected groups of 24 undergraduate sensitizers, defensive repressors, and nondefensive repressors from scores on a questionnaire combining the Byrne Repression-Sensitization scale and the Marlow-Crowne Social Desirability Scale. Each S then took the Institute for Personality and Ability Testing Anxiety Scale. Nondefensive repressors scored significantly higher than defensive repressors. Results confirm "previous findings that repressors are not homogeneous in their reactions to threat and that defensiveness" may be used to identify the 2 subgroups. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Changes in self-ideal discrepancy in repressors and sensitizers.

Self-ideal discrepancies were measured in "repressors" and "sensitizers." That repressors would manifest smaller self-ideal discrepancies was confirmed; not confirmed was that self-ideal discrepancies would change (repressors increase, sensitizers decrease) in response to therapy. Results were related to other findings. (19 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self-disclosure and expectations for psychotherapy in repressors and sensitizers.

Identified 2 groups of 49 university students as repressors and sensitizers based on scores on Byrnes's Repression-Sensitization Scale. Ss completed the Jourard Self-Disclosure Questionnaire and a Likert-type scale rating dimensions of psychotherapy to assess effects of defensive orientation on expectations for a psychotherapy relationship. Repressors indicated significantly more willingness than sensitizers to self-disclose during the 1st 4 hrs of therapy. Repressors expected more planned than spontaneous activity by the therapist, felt therapist personality less important than sensitizers in facilitating change, and rated themselves significantly less likely than sensitizers to enter psychotherapy in the future. Results are discussed within the framework of repressing and sensitizing defensive styles. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Frontal brain lesions affect the use of advance information during response planning.

This study examined the nature of the response programming deficit after frontal cortex lesions through the effects of advance information on sequence initiation time. Nine patients with unilateral frontal lesions, 9 patients with temporal lesions, and 9 controls performed a sequential key-press task involving 4 rapid choice responses to a 4-letter stimulus. Three conditions manipulated the number of responses that subjects knew in advance. The frontal group showed slow initiation times in all conditions. Knowing the first response produced an acceleration of initiation time in all 3 groups. However, knowing 3 responses in advance instead of 1 further accelerated initiation time in the control and temporal groups but not in the frontal group. These results indicate that frontal lesions impair the use of multiple representations during programming. This suggests that the attentional control of response selection is an important element of the response planning deficit. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Regional brain activation with advertising images.

Preferences for purchasing goods and services may be shaped by many factors, including advertisements presenting logical, persuasive information or those using images or text that may modify behavior without requiring conscious recognition of a message. We tested the hypothesis that these two types of messages (logical persuasion [LP] vs. nonrational influence [NI]) might affect brain function differently in a pilot project, using stimuli drawn from real-world print advertisements and quantitative electroencephalography as a noninvasive measure of regional brain activity. Twenty-four healthy subjects, 11 women and 13 men, viewed images while brain electrical activity was recorded. We used the low-resolution brain electromagnetic tomography method to quantify current intensity in brain regions implicated in decision-making and emotional processing. Data were analyzed using a block design to compare brain activity during LP and NI stimuli periods. LP images were associated with consistently and significantly higher activity levels in orbitofrontal, anterior cingulate, amygdala, and hippocampus regions than were NI images. These findings suggest that advertising images can evoke different levels of regional brain activity related to the use of LP and NI elements. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Use of avoidance and vigilance by repressors and sensitizers.

Elucidated the relationship between repression-sensitization (R-S) scale scores and the use of repression and sensitization as demonstrated behaviorally under different degrees of stress, using 90 male undergraduates as Ss. The following hypotheses were not supported: (a) repressors on the R-S scale will avoid the threatening stimuli at some point on a defense profile; (b) sensitizers on the R-S scale will be vigilant at some point on a defense profile; (c) as stress increases, repressors will increase their use of avoidance, and (d) as stress increases, sensitizers will increase their vigilance. In light of recent research it is concluded that the definitions and assumptions of the R-S scale should be reevaluated. (22 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of traumatic brain injury on working memory-related brain activation in adolescents.

Eight adolescents (ages 13-18 years) who sustained traumatic brain injury (TBI) and eight gender- and age-matched typically developing (TD) adolescents underwent event-related functional MRI (fMRI) while performing a Sternberg letter recognition task. Encoding, maintenance, and retrieval were examined with memory loads of one or four items during imaging. Both groups performed above a 70% accuracy criterion and did not differ in performance. TD adolescents showed greater increase in frontal and parietal activation during high-load relative to low-load maintenance than the TBI group. The TBI patients showed greater increase in activation during high-load relative to low-load encoding and retrieval than the TD group. Results from this preliminary study suggest that the capability to differentially allocate neural resources according to memory load is disrupted by TBI for the maintenance subcomponent of working memory. The overrecruitment of frontal and extrafrontal regions during encoding and retrieval following TBI may represent a compensatory process. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Frontal lobe functions in psychopaths.

Hypothesized that psychopaths would exhibit deficits on tasks tapping the frontal lobe functions of cognitive flexibility and perseverance. 20 male psychopaths (mean age 26.5 yrs), 23 male psychiatric controls, and 18 normal male controls (18–20 yrs old) completed the Socialization scale of the California Psychological Inventory, a behavioral checklist, and a task battery. Relative to controls, psychopaths exhibited the performance pattern of frontal lesion patients on all measures empirically related to frontal dysfunction: perseverative errors on the Wisconsin Card Sorting Task, errors on a sequential matching memory task, and Necker Cube reversals. Results encourage the pursuit of a conceptualization of psychopathy based on deficits in cognitive functions previously associated with frontal lobe. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Simulation of normal MMPI profiles by repressors and sensitizers.

Used Byrne's Repression-Sensitization scale to select 21 male and 15 female undergraduate repressors and an equal number of sensitizers. Ss then completed the MMPI under standard and 90 days later under fake-normal instructions. Under standard instructions, the sensitizers were significantly elevated over the repressors on scales representing pathological disturbance. Under the fake-normal instructions, these differences disappeared. Sensitizers regardless of sex, were able to produce more valid profiles than the repressors under both instruction sets, but only in the female dissimulation set were differences significant (p     

Lateral input may shift activation balance in the integrated brain.

Argues that stimulation of a brain area enhances the efficiency with which it functions and the probability that the area will assume control over behavior. Other ways of behaviorally manipulating hemispheric activation include the imposition of a lateralized concurrent task or by having Ss turn their eyes and head in the other direction. Incidences in which Ss performed better with lateral than with the central presentation of stimuli may have been ones in which the lateral presentaion stimulated the brain into an alternative strategy. Central presentation will not serve as a control for excentric presentation; the choice of loci equidistant above and below fixation circumvents this problem. (15 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Interpretive biases for one's own behavior and physiology in high-trait-anxious individuals and repressors.

The experiments reported here were designed to test predictions from a cognitive theory of personality proposed by M. W. Eysenck (1997). According to that theory, many of the observed differences between individuals high in trait anxiety and repressors (individuals low in trait anxiety and high in social desirability) depend on underlying individual differences in cognitive biases. It follows from the theory that high-anxious individuals should have an interpretive bias for their own behavior in social situations, that is, they exaggerate how anxious it is. In contrast, repressors should have an opposite interpretive bias for their own behavior, that is, they underestimate how anxious it is. Evidence consistent with these predictions was obtained in Experiments 1 and 2. Implications of these findings for cognitive theories of personality are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Arousal level in repressors and sensitizers as a function of response context.

Gave 30 male and 30 female undergraduate repressors and sensitizers "noncontextual" and "contextual" tasks, with GSR as a measure of arousal. In the contextual situation, Ss were aware that they would be required to give free associations which might be self-revealing. In the noncontextual situation, Ss were not aware that they would eventually be required to form free associations. Results from the noncontextual task show that repressors had lower arousal levels than sensitizers during perception and verbal report, but higher during free association. Findings were reversed in the contextual condition. Analogies were drawn to the behavior of repressors (hysterics) and sensitizers (obsessive-compulsives) in psychoanalysis: repressors are more easily aroused by the free association condition, whereas sensitizers are able to use free association to diminish emotional reactivity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Frontal EEG asymmetry and premenstrual dysphoric symptomatology.

Resting frontal electroencephalographic (EEG) asymmetry has been hypothesized to tap a diathesis toward depression or other emotion-related psychopathology. Frontal EEG asymmetry was assessed in college women who reported high (n = 12) or low (n = 11) levels of premenstrual negative affect. Participants were assessed during both the follicular and the late luteal phases of the menstrual cycle. Women reporting low premenstrual dysphoric symptomatology exhibited greater relative left frontal activity at rest than did women high in premenstrual dysphoric symptomatology, an effect that was not qualified by phase of cycle. Although women with extreme levels of symptomatology were assessed, the question of whether such symptoms qualified for premenstrual dysphoric disorder criteria was not assessed. These results are consistent with a diathesis-stress model for premenstrual dysphoric symptomatology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Impact of valence and age on olfactory induced brain activation in healthy women.

The aim of the present study was to assess the effect of age on cerebral correlates of olfactory induced negative emotions. We investigated 15 healthy women (aged 21–47) in a functional MRI (fMRI) study during passive smelling of one negative odor (rotten yeast) and two control conditions presenting a neutral odor (vanilla) and odorless ambient air. Besides odor-specific differences in ratings of valence (yeast less pleasant than vanilla and air), intensity (yeast more intense than vanilla and air), and arousal (yeast more arousing than vanilla and air), self-ratings verified the intended mood induction effect: subjects experienced more disgust during yeast stimulation compared to ambient air and vanilla. Along with the superior temporal cortex, medial, and lateral orbitofrontal activations were found to discriminate between negative and neutral olfactory stimulation (yeast and vanilla) directly. Activations of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the caudate were correlated with age and showed stronger valence-related responses (yeast vs. vanilla) in younger compared to older women. Stronger BOLD signals within the anterior cingulate gyrus, insula and motor areas were found during negative compared to neutral stimulation and are considered to represent an attempt to down-regulate the strong emotional experience and the organisms' preparation for withdrawal, respectively. Our results stress the role of orbitofrontal and superior temporal brain regions in odor-related valence coding and stress the necessity to consider age as a modulating factor for further studies, even in relatively young samples. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of task familiarity on stress responses of repressors and sensitizers.

Used R. S. Lazarus's theory of coping to investigate appraisal and reappraisal of threat in undergraduate repressors and sensitizers (n = 14 in each group). Self-report ratings of affect and palmar skin conductance were measured prior to performance on a reaction time task and after 1/3 and 2/3 of the task was completed. Results of the 1st period replicate earlier findings that skin conductance does not differentiate repression-sensitization (R-S) groups and that discrepancy scores between skin conductance and self-reported tenseness show repressors to be relatively higher on the former, while sensitizers are relatively higher on the latter. Ratings of tenseness, excitedness, and interest converged for R-S groups across periods. It is suggested that uncertainty associated with the initial period created threat and the subsequent characteristic defensive patterns in R-S groups, but that increased familiarity with the task and external feedback minimized prior dispositional differences. (16 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Continuous associative responding to threatening and nonthreatening stimuli by repressors and sensitizers.

Selected 18 repressors and 20 sensitizers from scores on the Repression-Sensitization scale. Ss were seated across from the E and presented with 3 trials of a list of nouns containing 5 critical words (e.g., rape) and 5 neutral words. Ss were instructed to give continuous free associations for 10-sec to each of the tape-recorded stimuli. Results support the hypotheses that compared to sensitizers, repressors would exhibit (a) disruption and early termination of chained free associations and (b) a lesser degree of sexual content in their associations. Contrary to expectations, repressors did not show a redundancy in their association repertoires. Results demonstrate that repressors exhibit avoidance reactions in mediational processes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)