Highlights • Sport expertise affects cognitive brain processes and behavioral performance in speeded tasks outside of the sport context. • Neural proficiency may represent a brain mechanism ...responsible for skilled performance. • Sport-specific practice can modulate brain functions and performances in a decision-making task. • Competitive sport training enhances not only sport-specific but also sport-general cognitive skills. • Public health should encourage fencing practice because it improves strongly both physical and cognitive skills.
A large literature indicated hypnosis as a useful tool to reduce pain perception, especially in high susceptible individuals. However, due to different methodological aspects, it was still not clear ...whether hypnosis modulates the early sensory processing of the stimuli or if it affects only the later stages of affective processing. In the present study, we measured the EEG activity of subjects with a medium level of hypnotizability while receiving electrical non-painful stimuli on the median nerve in the conditions of awake and hypnosis with suggestions of hypoesthesia. Subjective reports indicated that hypnosis reduced both the sensory and the affective perception of the stimuli. ERP data revealed that hypnosis reduced the activity of both the early (N20) and the late (P100, P150, P250) SEP components. Neuroelectric source imaging further confirmed the top-down hypnotic modulation of a network of brain areas including the SI (N20), SII (P100), right anterior insula (P150) and cingulate cortex (P150/P250). The present study provides neurophysiological evidence to the hypnotic regulation of somatosensory inputs outside of pain, that is since the earliest stage of thalamocortical processing. Also, because present subjects were selected regardless of the level of hypnotizability, inferences from the present study are more generalizable than investigations restricted to high-hypnotizable individuals.
•Hypnotic hypoesthesia reduces subjective perception of somatosensory stimuli.•Hypnotic hypoesthesia reduces the N20 ERP in the medium hypnotizable individuals.•Hypnotic hypoesthesia reduces the somatosensory P100, P150 and P250 ERPs.•Somatosensory cortex, anterior insula and cingulate cortex are involved in hypnosis.•Effects of hypnotic hypoesthesia are generalizable to medium susceptible subjects.
Hypnosis research indicates that subjects are not equally hypnotizable. Most studies on hypnotizability focused on the relationships with personality or cognitive variables. At the same time, only a ...few proposed the contribution of the attachment style, defined as the result of the childhood relationship with the caregivers and influencing the adult relations.
In the present investigation, two studies were carried out to test the possible association between adult attachment and hypnotic responsivity. The adult attachment was assessed using the Experiences in Close Relationships-Revised (ECR-R) questionnaire, while hypnosis was assessed through the Harvard Group Scale of Hypnotic Susceptibility (HGSHS:A; Study 1) and the Phenomenology of Consciousness Inventory: Hypnotic Assessment Procedure (PCI-HAP; Study 2) in order to adopt a behavioral and a phenomenological approach, respectively.
Analyses showed that attachment factors (anxiety and avoidance) were not associated with the level of hypnotizability, whereas it was associated with variations of consciousness during hypnosis, mainly internal dialogue, absorption and negative emotions. Overall, the insecure attachment styles yielded increased mind wandering and restlessness during hypnosis when compared to the secure style. The reason probably lies in the feeling of anxiety or danger of insecurely attached individuals when involved in intimate or confidential relationships.
These findings clarify a still poorly investigated aspect concerning the influence of attachment style on hypnotic experience and further highlight the need to consider inter-individual differences and the phenomenological perspective when assessing hypnosis and hypnotizability.
Many attempts have been made to enhance hypnotizability. The most recent studies adopted the non-invasive brain stimulation to deactivate the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) during hypnosis, ...indicating this as a promising approach. However, it is still no clear whether individual factors can predict the effects of stimulation on hypnotizability. In the present study we adopted the phenomenological consciousness inventory (PCI) to retrospectively assess the mental processes during hypnosis and to predict hypnotizability, here defined as "hypnoidal state." The aim was to investigate the possible role of the hypnotic susceptibility on the efficacy of a validated approach of hypnosis enhancement through cathodal transcranial electrical stimulation (tDCS) of the left DLPFC. Results indicated that the lower hypnoidal state at baseline predicted the greater enhancement after the active tDCS. These findings suggest the subjects with lower hypnotic responsiveness as the best candidates for the tDCS interventions of hypnosis enhancement, at least for the montage targeting the left DLPFC. Neurocognitive underpinnings and clinical implications of the results are discussed.
The present work follows recent evidences of studies showing that visual stimuli evoke two early prefrontal event-related potentials (ERP) concomitant to the canonical occipital activities, but ...originating within the anterior insula (the pN1 and the pP1 components). To clarify the exogenous/endogenous nature of these components, we performed two experiments in which stimulus physical features (Experiment 1) and motor demands of the task (Experiment 2) were considered. In a simple response task (SRT), low-visibility stimuli evoked larger pN1 over the prefrontal areas (Experiment 1) with respect to high-visibility stimuli; in contrast, the occipital P1 component (concomitant to the pN1) had reduced amplitude in the low-visibility condition as expected. Furthermore, the latency of the P1, pN1 and pP1 was slower in the low-visibility condition (from 8 to 18 ms), and the motor response was slowed down as well (on average 14 ms). Pre-stimulus analysis showed that low-visibility stimuli were preceded by greater motor readiness. On the other hand, Experiment 2 showed that, compared with the SRT, the request to passively view the same stimuli was associated with smaller pP1. ERP source analysis confirmed the anterior insula source of the prefrontal ERPs; we interpreted these activities as the correlate of two top-down perceptual processing: the sensory awareness (the pN1) and the awareness of the sensory–motor integration (the pP1), associated with the subjective experience of the visual perception and the conscious experience of the sensory–motor coupling, respectively.
The Bereitschaftspotential (BP) and the P3 are well‐known ERPs usually observed during self‐paced and externally triggered tasks. Recently, the BP was also detected in externally triggered tasks ...before stimulus onset. However, doubts have been raised about the authenticity of the BP in these tasks due to possible overlaps with the previous trial P3 (hereinafter s‐1 P3). Here, we aim to test the authenticity of the BP in externally triggered tasks by comparing ERPs obtained during two visuomotor response tasks with different interstimulus intervals (ISIs) allowing (short‐ISI; 1,000–2,000 ms) or not (long‐ISI; 2,000–4,000 ms) P3‐BP overlaps. In line with previous research, we hypothesize that BP and the s‐1 P3 contribute independently to the scalp‐detected activities during these tasks. ERPs were recorded from 14 healthy participants during the short‐ISI and long‐ISI visuomotor response tasks. Amplitudes and latencies of pre‐ (BP and pN) and poststimulus ERP components (P1, pN1, pP1, N1, pP2, dpP2, N2, P3) were compared between conditions. No effect of ISI was found on the amplitude of any pre‐ and poststimulus components. In contrast, longer ISI is associated with earlier onsets of the BP and pN components. In visuomotor response tasks, the BP is independent from the P3 elicited by the previous trial (s‐1 P3), even using relatively short ISI. Since the different ISIs did not affect the amplitude of the BP and the P3 components, we conclude that also a short ISI can be adopted safely and conveniently to keep a reasonable duration of the overall experiment.
The omissions are infrequent errors consisting in missing responses to the target stimuli. This is the first study aimed at investigating the brain activities associated with omissions in a ...decision-making task. We recorded event-related potentials (ERPs) in 12 subjects which reported a suitable number of omissions in a visual go/no-go task. We investigated both the pre- and post-stimulus brain activities associated with correct and omitted trials. The electrical neuroimaging technique (BESA) was adopted to extract the anterior insula (aIns) activity associated with the prefrontal P2 component (pP2) peaking about 300 ms after the stimulus and reflecting the stimulus–response mapping process. We found that omissions were predicted by a delayed onset (about half a second) of two pre-stimulus components, i.e. the prefrontal negativity (pN) and the Bereitschaftspotential (BP) associated with the top-down control and the motor preparation, respectively. Further, at the post-stimulus stage the omission trials were characterized by the suppression of the pP2 (and the aIns activity as measured by BESA). No differences between omission and correct trials were detected at the level of the P1 and N1 visual components, as well as the P3. These findings would suggest that omissions are attentional lapsebased errors, as indicated by the delayed brain preparation before the stimulus onset. The reduced cortical activity during the preparation phase did not affect the visual processing; in contrast the stimulus categorization process at the level of the anterior insula did not start at all, resulting in the inability to reach a decision.
The present study aims at identifying reliable markers of neural preparatory processes during hypnosis. To this goal, we recorded the electroencephalographic activity of 23 volunteers regardless of ...their hypnotizability score. Somatosensory evoked potentials (SEPs) were elicited while participants received non‐painful electrical stimuli on the left median nerve in the conditions of relaxation and hypnosis with suggestions of reduced sensation. SEPs analysis was focused on the pre‐stimulus activity and revealed two main components: the prefrontal negativity (pN) and the somatosensory negativity (sN) over the frontal and parietal areas of the scalp, respectively. Results showed reduced amplitudes for both components under hypnosis, mostly for the pN, suggesting a change of top‐down control of parietal and prefrontal areas. Furthermore, the sLORETA source imaging showed a deactivation of the lateral and anterior portions of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) during the hypnotic state. The present study highlights the downregulation of the PFC as a core aspect of the adopted hypnotic task and confirms the ability of hypnosis to modulate the activity of frontal executive functions. Further, since the majority of participants fell into the medium range of hypnotizability, the present findings could reflect the hypnosis effects in most of the population.
This is the first ERP study that recruited participants with a medium level of hypnotizability to identify the neurocognitive effects of the hypnotic hypoestesia. Results reported reduced subjective experience of the electrical stimulation, along with reduced activity of the prefrontal and somatosensory cortex during the preparation stage. This investigation confirms the ability of hypnosis to modulate the executive functions, even in the medium hypnotizables.
Spatial attention can improve performance in terms of speed and accuracy; this advantage may be mediated by brain processes at both poststimulus (reactive) and prestimulus (proactive) stages. Here, ...we studied how visuospatial attention affects both proactive and reactive brain functions using event‐related potentials (ERPs). At reactive stage, effects of attention on parietal‐occipital components are well documented; little data are available on anterior components. Seventeen participants performed simple and discriminative response tasks, while voluntarily and steadily attending either the left or right visual hemifield throughout one block. Response speed was faster for the attended side. At ERP level, attending to one hemifield did not produce lateralization of proactive components—that is, the BP and the pN. As for poststimulus components, we confirmed the well‐known amplitude effects on the P1, N1, and P3. More interesting are results for the prefrontal components previously neglected in tasks modulating spatial attention. Previous studies suggest that these components reflect perceptual and sensory‐motor awareness (pN1 and pP1 components), and stimulus‐response mapping (pP2 component) associated to anterior insular activity. Spatial attention enhanced the pN1 and the pP1 amplitude but had no effect on the pP2. Overall, results extend knowledge on spatial attention, showing that sustained spatial attention affects the activity of anterior areas, such as the anterior insula, in addition to the known influence on occipital‐parietal areas. Top‐down spatial attention is likely mediated by increased sensory and sensory‐motor awareness for attended events; this effect is evident in reactive, not proactive, brain activity.
Spatial attention can improve performance, and this advantage may be mediated by brain processing at both pre‐ and poststimulus stages. By means of event‐related‐potentials (ERPs) and behavioral measures, here we show that orienting attention toward one side produces faster responses, and this advantage seems to be mainly mediated by processing at poststimulus (reactive) stage. Indeed, sustained spatial attention not only affects the activity on occipital‐parietal areas but also modulates the more anterior areas, such as the anterior insula. Top‐down spatial attention is likely mediated by increased sensory and sensory‐motor awareness for attended events.
Using two independent electrical neuroimaging techniques (BESA and sLORETA), we tested a fMRI-seeded source modeling indicating that in visual discriminative tasks the anterior insula (aIns) ...participates in the generation of three prefrontal ERP components: the pN1 (at 115 ms), the pP1 (at 170 ms), and the pP2 (at 300 ms). This latter component represented the focus of the present study. Results showed that the pP2 had different activation profiles across hemispheres. The left aIns activity peaked at 420 ms (30 ms before the response) for both Go and No-go trials, that is independently from the ultimate choice (response or inhibition). The right aIns activity started at about 250 ms and progressively increased for a time interval extending after the motor response; its amplitude was larger in case of Go than No-go stimuli. We suggest that the activation of the left aIns reflected the timing of the decision, and the right aIns the categorization and the performance monitoring processes. A control experiment requiring simple (not discriminative) motor response revealed that the pP2 and the aIns activity were nearly absent after the 250 ms; this result confirmed that the aIns activity at this stage is associated with the decisional processes, and not with the motor response per se. The present investigation shed new lights on the insular contribution to perceptual decision-making, and opens to the possibility of assessing the aIns activity via ERP analysis.
