Mercedes Fernandez

Previous work from our laboratory has shown that a measure of attention to emotionally-charged stimuli, the late positive potential (LPP) event related potential (ERP), distinguished neutral from emotional pictures on a baseline day, but not after sleep deprivation. Here we sought to extend these findings and address the uncertainty about the effect of time-of-day on emotion processing by testing a morning group (8:00-10:00 a.m., n = 30) and an evening group (8:00-10:00 p.m., n = 30). We also examined the extent of diurnal changes in cortisol related to the emotion processing task. Results from this study mirrored those found after one night of sleep deprivation. Compared to the morning group, the LPP generated by the evening group (who had a greater homeostatic sleep drive) did not distinguish neutral from emotionally-charged stimuli. New to this study, we also found that there was a time-of-day effect on positive, but not negative pictures. While, as expected, cortisol levels were higher in the morning relative to the evening group, there was no relationship between cortisol and the LPP ERP emotion measure. In addition, neither time-of-day preference nor sleep quality was related to the LPP measure. These findings show that, similar to what occurs after sleep deprivation, increased sleep pressure throughout the day interferes with attention processing to emotional stimuli.

Ciguatera Fish Poisoning (CFP) is the most frequently reported seafood-toxin illness in the world. It causes substantial human health, social, and economic impacts. The illness produces a complex array of gastrointestinal, neurological and neuropsychological, and cardiovascular symptoms, which may last days, weeks, or months. This paper is a general review of CFP including the human health effects of exposure to ciguatoxins (CTXs), diagnosis, human pathophysiology of CFP, treatment, detection of CTXs in fish, epidemiology of the illness, global dimensions, prevention, future directions, and recommendations for clinicians and patients. It updates and expands upon the previous review of CFP published by Friedman et al. (2008) and addresses new insights and relevant emerging global themes such as climate and environmental change, international market issues, and socioeconomic impacts of CFP. It also provides a proposed universal case definition for CFP designed to account for the variability in symptom presentation across different geographic regions. Information that is important but unchanged since the previous review has been reiterated. This article is intended for a broad audience, including resource and fishery managers, commercial and recreational fishers, public health officials, medical professionals, and other interested parties.

Stress can increase emotional vigilance at the cost of a decrease in attention towards non-emotional stimuli. However, the time-dependent effects of acute stress on emotion processing are uncertain. We tested the effects of acute stress on subsequent emotion processing up to 40 min following an acute stressor. Our measure of emotion processing was the late positive potential (LPP) component of the visual event-related potential (ERP), and our measure of non-emotional attention was the sustained attention to response task (SART). We also measured cortisol levels before and after the socially evaluated cold pressor test (SECPT) induction. We found that the effects of stress on the LPP ERP emotion measure were time sensitive. Specifically, the LPP ERP was only altered in the late time-point (30–40 min post-stress) when cortisol was at its highest level. Here, the LPP no longer discriminated between the emotional and non-emotional picture categories, most likely because neutral pictures were perceived as emotional. Moreover, compared to the non-stress condition, the stress-condition showed impaired performance on the SART. Our results support the idea that a limit in attention resources after an emotional stressor is associated with the brain incorrectly processing non-emotional stimuli as emotional and interferes with sustained attention.

This study examined the relationship between the degree of balance in bilinguals (i.e., degree to which an individual shows equivalence in their level of mastery of two languages) and performance on executive function tests. Twenty-four “more balanced” and 16 “less balanced” Spanish-English bilingual, third- and fourth-grade children completed the Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence, the English and Spanish Bilingual Verbal Ability Test (BVAT) (an objective measure of English and Spanish language proficiency), and executive function tests (Wisconsin Card Sorting Test [WCST] and Stroop Test). Significant correlations were found between the degree of balance and error scores on the WCST, such that participants with more similar scores on both English and Spanish BVAT (i.e., the more-balanced group) scored lower on perseveration measures of the WCST than the less-balanced group. Between-group comparisons showed significantly fewer perseverative errors and perseverative responses on the WCST in the more-balanced group compared with the less-balanced group. Stroop Test scores did not reveal group differences. These findings support previous results documenting a “bilingual advantage” on executive function tests and provide support for the hypothesis that the degree of balance moderates the relationship between bilingualism and executive functions.