Maital Neta

Sports-related concussion represents a major public health concern, with millions of cases diagnosed annually. Despite significant methodological advances in functional brain imaging, a clinically meaningful neuroimaging biomarker of concussion has yet to be established. This may be due in part to a reliance on traditional measures. For example, approaches examining mean activation across trials reduce responses to a single measure of central tendency and therefore fail to capture important individual differences. In contrast, blood oxygenation level dependent (BOLD) variability offers a promising new approach to measuring brain function, Specifically, it captures individual differences in the temporal variability in the BOLD signal over time. Further, it is sensitive to neural, vascular, and neurovascular coupling changes that accompany concussion. We collected baseline (prior to injury) and post-concussion (within 48 hours of injury) neuroimaging data in 56 collegiate athletes. Within this longitudinal dataset, we investigated changes in BOLD variability across multiple spatial scales. In addition, we examined their relationships with self-reported symptoms and cognitive performance. As expected, symptoms increased following concussion while computerized cognitive performance declined. BOLD variability decreased from baseline to post-concussion, particularly in the somatomotor and language networks. Moreover, changes in BOLD variability were related to changes in symptom reporting and cognitive performance. Together, these findings advance our understanding of how concussion affects brain function and highlight BOLD signal variability as a promising biomarker to aid ongoing efforts to improve the diagnosis and treatment of sports-related concussion.

An extensive body of research on human and nonhuman animals has examined responses to clear valence, including stimuli that either represent a relatively clear threat (e.g., electric shock) or a clear reward (e.g., money). But daily life is replete with events or situations that are ambiguous—they could be threatening and/or rewarding. This article describes work that examines the wide interindividual variability with which humans respond to this dual-valence ambiguity. Although some individuals more readily categorize these events as negative, others are prone to arrive at more positive categorizations. This predilection to lean in a more negative versus positive direction represents a stable, trait-like difference and is referred to as “valence bias.” Valence bias is generalizable across categories of dual-valence ambiguity and has important implications for health and well-being. Here I focus on extensive findings that lend support for the initial negativity hypothesis, which posits that the initial or default response is negative across people and that positivity relies on an additional regulatory mechanism that helps to overcome the initial negativity. I also describe the cognitive and brain mechanisms underlying the valence bias, including emphasizing the importance of a broad set of systems that support human responses to ambiguity.

The Sierpinski carpet was developed as a two-dimension extension of the Cantor set. Here we discuss the artistic expression of such carpets along with the development of more visually pleasing Sierpi´nski-like carpets created by using the basins of attraction of iterative methods for the solution of certain nonlinear equations.

Both emotion regulation and physical activity are associated with improved emotional well-being, including high self-esteem. However, most prior work comparing this relationship is limited by either subjective bias or ecological validity. Using objective (i.e., accelerometer-derived) measures of physical activity, this study investigated the relationship between moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) and two trait emotion regulation strategies. We predicted that trait reappraisal (i.e., the habitual use of cognitive reappraisal to regulate emotions in daily life), but not trait suppression (i.e., the habitual use of expressive suppression to regulate emotions in daily life), would be associated with higher engagement in MVPA. We also predicted that physical activity would buffer reliance on trait reappraisal, such that individuals who engaged in more MVPA would be less likely to report emotion regulation difficulties or low self-esteem. Participants (N = 251 adults, ages 17–88 years) filled out questionnaires assessing trait emotion regulation, emotion regulation difficulties, and self-esteem, and wore an ActiGraph® on their non-dominant wrist for one week (M(SD) = 7.46(2.32) days). Regression and moderation analyses were conducted on variables of interest. Neither trait reappraisal nor suppression were associated with MVPA. MVPA significantly moderated the negative relationship between trait reappraisal and emotion regulation difficulties, such that the relationship was stronger at lower levels of MVPA. Effects were not found with self-esteem or trait suppression. These results indicate that MVPA may be beneficial in maintaining emotional well-being, particularly in the face of emotion regulation difficulties.

Semantic priming has been studied for nearly 50 years across various experimental manipulations and theoretical frameworks. Although previous studies provide insight into the cognitive underpinnings of semantic representations, they have suffered from small sample sizes and a lack of linguistic and cultural diversity. In this Registered Report, we measured the size and the variability of the semantic priming effect across 19 languages (n = 25,163 participants analysed) by creating the largest available database of semantic priming values using an adaptive sampling procedure. We found evidence for semantic priming in terms of differences in response latencies between related word-pair conditions and unrelated word-pair conditions. Model comparisons showed that the inclusion of a random intercept for language improved model fit, providing support for variability in semantic priming across languages. This study highlights the robustness and variability of semantic priming across languages and provides a rich, linguistically diverse dataset for further analysis. The Stage 1 protocol for this Registered Report was accepted in principle on 15 July 2022. The protocol, as accepted by the journal, can be found at https://osf.io/u5bp6 (registration) or https://osf.io/q4fjy (preprint version 6, 31 May 2022).

There are individual differences in how people respond to emotionally ambiguous cues (i.e., valence bias), which have important consequences for mental health, development, and social functioning, yet how these differences develop in childhood and adolescence is unknown. Extensive literature shows that children's cognitive biases, including appraisals in uncertain situations, can be influenced by parents. The current study collected valence bias from parent and child dyads ( n = 136, children ages 6–17 years, M = 10.92, SD = 3.22) using a dual‐valence ambiguity task (i.e., the valence bias task). Using structural equation modeling, we found that a child's valence bias was associated with their parent's valence bias ( β = 0.283, p = 0.005). We also explored the effect of parent–child attachment in three facets (communication, alienation, and trust) on this intergenerational transmission. Communication moderated the relationship between parent and child valence bias, such that higher communication led to a stronger relationship between parent and child valence bias ( β = 0.03, p = 0.04). These findings suggest that one mechanism that supports valence bias development is the parent's bias, and this may be uniquely influenced by the degree of parent–child communication. This tendency to similarly interpret ambiguous stimuli may result from social learning. Specifically, our results support a theory of generalized shared reality where parents and children who have a greater interpersonal connection (i.e., communication) also share a more similar world view (i.e., valence bias). A video abstract of this article can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlSDxFDmP7g Summary: Valence bias represents variability in appraisals of emotional ambiguity, with some people showing greater negativity, and others more positive. There is evidence of intergenerational transmission of valence bias, such that children tend to have a bias that mirrors their parents. Transmission was moderated by parent-child attachment, such that children that report greater communication with their parent show a more similar bias to their parent. These findings are discussed in the context of theories on development and generalized shared realities.

Cognitive reappraisal is a form of emotion regulation that involves the reinterpretation of stimuli to change one’s emotional state, often to reduce negative affect. Emotion regulation fMRI tasks generally yield increased activation in prefrontal cortex and, less consistently, decreased amygdala activation. Only a few studies, however, have examined how intrinsic brain organization, characterized via resting-state fMRI, relates to reappraisal, typically focusing on the same task-derived brain regions. Here, we administered an emotion regulation task where participants (n = 227, 6-80 years) viewed or downregulated responses to negative images, then completed a resting-state fMRI scan. We examined the functional connectivity in 300 whole-brain regions of interest comprising 13 functional networks. We found that the network segregation, or relative balance of within- and between-network connectivity, in the default mode (DMN), dorsal attention (DAN), and dorsal somatomotor (SMd) networks was associated with reappraisal success (controlling for age and movement). Specifically, greater connectivity within the DMN and DAN, lower connectivity within the SMd, and greater connectivity between the SMd and lateral SM networks predicted better reappraisal ability. These networks also partially overlapped with brain areas supporting emotion regulation and reactivity, suggesting that functional brain organization is a key factor in shaping emotion regulation across the lifespan.

Emotions are the fuel that motivates behavior, and without well-developed theories of emotion, our understanding of human psychology is incomplete... In the present chapter, we review contemporary perspectives and research in affective science.

The long-term consequences of concussion are still being uncovered but have been linked to disruptions in cognition and psychological well-being. Previous studies focusing on the association between concussion history and structural changes in the brain have reported inconsistent results. We sought to examine the effect of concussion history on cortical volume with a focus on functional networks. These networks are associated with many of the functions that can be disrupted in those with an extensive concussion history. We collected baseline behavioral data including the Immediate Post-Concussion Assessment and Cognitive Testing, a self-report measure of the number of diagnosed concussions, and structural MRI in college athletes (n=296; 263 men and 33 women, age range 17-24). Behavioral measures were collected by members of the Department of Athletics concussion management team using a standardized protocol as part of their on-boarding process. Collegiate athletes in the present study who self-reported concussion history did not report different baseline symptoms and did not exhibit consistent differences in cognitive performance relative to those who reported no concussion history. We found that concussion history was not related to cortical volume at the network or region level, even when we compared participants with two or more concussions to those with no concussion history. We did identify relationships between cortical volume in the visual network and dorsal attention network with cognitive performance. In addition to comparing cortical volume between individuals with and without reported concussion history, we also examined whether cortical volume changes could be observed within individuals from baseline to acutely following concussion. We found that network level cortical volume did not change within subjects from baseline measurement to acutely post-concussion. Together, these results suggest that both self-reported concussion history and acute concussion effects are not associated with changes in cortical volume in young adult athletes.

Semantic priming has been studied for nearly 50 years across various experimental manipulations and theoretical frameworks. Although previous studies provide insight into the cognitive underpinnings of semantic representations, they have suffered from small sample sizes and a lack of linguistic and cultural diversity. In this Registered Report, we measured the size and the variability of the semantic priming effect across 19 languages (N = 25,163 participants analyzed) by creating the largest available database of semantic priming values based on an adaptive sampling procedure. We found evidence for semantic priming in terms of differences in response latencies between related word-pair conditions and unrelated word-pair conditions. Model comparisons showed that inclusion of a random intercept for language improved model fit, providing support for variability in semantic priming across languages. This study highlights the robustness and variability of semantic priming across languages and provides a rich, linguistically diverse dataset for further analysis.