ABSTRACT Psychopathy is a personality disorder characterized by emotional deficits and a failure to inhibit impulsive behavior and is often subdivided into “primary” and “secondary” psychopathic subtypes. The maladaptive behavior related to primary psychopathy is thought to reflect constitutional “fearlessness,” while the problematic behavior related to secondary psychopathy is motivated by other factors. The fearlessness […]
Category Archives: Research & Projects
Cortical Gyrification Patterns Associated with Trait Anxiety
ABSTRACT Dispositional anxiety is a stable personality trait that is a key risk factor for internalizing disorders, and understanding the neural correlates of trait anxiety may help us better understand the development of these disorders. Abnormal cortical folding is thought to reflect differences in cortical connectivity occurring during brain development. Therefore, assessing gyrification may advance […]
State Anxiety Carried Over From Prior Threat Increases Late Positive Potential Amplitude During an Instructed Emotion Regulation Task
ABSTRACT Emotion regulation has important consequences for emotional and mental health (Saxena, Dubey & Pandey, 2011) and is dependent on executive function (Eisenberg, Smith & Spinrad, 2011). Because state anxiety disrupts executive function (Robinson, Vytal, Cornwell & Grillon, 2013), we tested whether state anxiety disrupts emotion regulation by having participants complete an instructed emotion regulation […]
Imbalance of Default Mode and Regulatory Networks during Externally-Focused Processing in Depression
abstract A core cognitive vulnerability in major depressive disorder (MDD) is the tendency to ruminate. Attentional control difficulties likely underlie this maladaptive thinking style. Previous studies suggest that abnormalities in the default mode, executive, and salience networks are implicated in both rumination and attentional control difficulties in MDD. In the current study, individuals with MDD […]
BAS Reward Responsiveness: A unique predictor of positive psychological functioning
Abstract Previous research on Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory has well-characterized the Behavioral Inhibition System in terms of its behavioral and emotional manifestations, but the Behavioral Approach System (BAS) is less well-defined, particularly regarding the prominence of reward sensitivity versus impulsivity. Furthermore, few researchers evaluate both systems in one model. We evaluated the relationship between Carver and […]
State rumination enhances elaborative processing of negative material as evidenced by the late positive potential.
Abstract Rumination has been shown to increase negative affect and is highly associated with increased duration of depressive episodes. Previous research has shown that enhanced elaborative processing of negative stimuli is often associated with depression and trait rumination. We hypothesized that engaging in rumination would result in sustained elaborative processing of negative information, as measured […]
Relations between Resilience, Positive and Negative Emotionality, and Symptoms of Anxiety and Depression
Abstract Although research concerning the effects of traumatic and stressful life events on an individual’s mental health has been plentiful in the past several decades, research aimed at understanding the nature of resilience and its role in this process has been less plentiful. The present study examined the relationship between a commonly used measure of […]
Imbalance of default mode and regulatory networks during externally focused processing in depression
Abstract Attentional control difficulties likely underlie rumination, a core cognitive vulnerability in major depressive disorder (MDD). Abnormalities in the default mode, executive and salience networks are implicated in both rumination and attentional control difficulties in MDD. In the current study, individuals with MDD (n =16) and healthy controls (n = 16) completed tasks designed to […]
Brain, body, and cognition: Neural, physiological, and self-report correlates of phobic and normative fear
The phobic fear response appears to resemble an intense form of normal threat responding that can be induced in a nonthreatening situation. However, normative and phobic fear are rarely contrasted directly, thus the degree to which these two types of fear elicit similar neural and bodily responses is not well understood. To examine biological correlates […]
Relations between PET-derived measures of thalamic glucose metabolism and EEG alpha power.
Abstract Electroencephalogram (EEG) alpha power has been demonstrated to be inversely related to mental activity and has subsequently been used as an indirect measure of brain activation. The thalamus has been proposed as an important site for modulation of rhythmic alpha activity. Studies in animals have suggested that cortical alpha rhythms are correlated with alpha […]