Search results for "NEUROPSYCHOLOGY AND PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY"
showing 10 items of 759 documents
Psychophysiological responses to the Stroop Task after a maximal cycle ergometry in elite sportsmen and physically active subjects.
2001
Physical fitness moderates the psychophysiological responses to stress. This study attempts to determine whether the degree of fitness could affect the response to physical and psychological stress after comparing two groups of men with good physical fitness. Saliva samples from 18 elite sportsmen, and 11 physically active subjects were collected to determine hormonal levels after carrying out a maximal cycle ergometry. Heart rate and skin conductance level were continuously recorded before, during, and after a modified version of the Stroop Color-Word Task. With similar scores in trait anxiety and mood, elite sportsmen had lower basal salivary testosterone, testosterone/cortisol ratio, and…
Cortisol response to stress in caregivers of offspring with autism spectrum disorder is associated with care recipient characteristics.
2013
Providing care for people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is particularly stressful and frequently associated with disturbances in the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis of the caregiver. This study examined whether the stress response is modulated by factors such as age of the care recipient and number of years spent by the caregiver in providing care for the ASD individual. Caregivers of children (n = 15), adolescents (n = 12), and adults (n = 11) with ASD were exposed to two episodes of acute psychosocial stressor in a 1 day session. Salivary cortisol samples were obtained before, during, and after the stressor episodes. Psychological characteristics (states of anxiety, anger,…
Distraction of task-relevant information processing by irrelevant changes in auditory, visual, and bimodal stimulus features: A behavioral and event-…
2009
Distractibility with auditory, visual, and bimodal stimulus changes was investigated using an audio-visual distraction paradigm. Participants were asked to discriminate between equiprobable short and long audio-visual stimuli. Infrequently, the auditory, the visual, or both parts of the stimuli changed. These rare deviations (deviants) were irrelevant for the actual task. The influence of the three types of deviant stimuli on the processing of task-relevant information was assessed with behavioral and event-related potential (ERP) measures assuming that bimodal deviants would lead to an increase in distraction. Behavioral and ERP results did not support this assumption, as reaction time (RT…
Self-esteem fluctuations and cardiac vagal control in everyday life
2012
It has been proposed that self-esteem buffers threat-responding. The same effect is ascribed to the vagus nerve, which is a primary nerve of the parasympathetic nervous system. Consequently, it has been suggested that self-esteem and cardiac vagal tone are interconnected on a trait, as well as on a state, level. In this study, we examined the relationship of vagal cardiac control and self-esteem fluctuations across a single day using ecological momentary assessment. Eighty-four participants were recruited, and self-esteem, negative affect, and vagal tone were recorded throughout a 22-hour period. Men provided higher self-esteem ratings than women, but the negative relationship between self-…
The cardiac anxiety syndrome ? a subtype of panic attacks
1985
Cardiac anxiety syndrome and the diagnosis of cardiac neurosis respectively are characterized by panic attacks. Panic attacks are the core syndrome of a validated anxiety disorder (panic disorder). The purpose of this study was to investigate if the cardiac anxiety syndrome represents a separate disorder or if it is only a subtype of panic attacks. In a sample of 122 patients with panic attacks, all patients with a cardiac anxiety syndrome were selected (n = 31). Furthermore, parallel to this group--matched in the variables age and sex--a second group of patients with no cardiac anxiety syndrome was selected. There were no significant differences in course; in clinical phenomenology, patien…
Lower cardiovascular reactivity to acute stress in informal caregivers of people with autism spectrum disorder than in non-caregivers: Implications f…
2015
Abstract Caring for offspring with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is associated with chronic stress. Such a situation could alter body homeostasis, and in turn, physiological systems associated with the stress response and health, such as the autonomic nervous system. The primary aim of the present study was to compare the cardiovascular response with a set of mental tasks in parents of people with (n = 34) and without (n = 36) ASD. The secondary aim was to explore a potential relationship between cardiovascular response and self-reported health. Caregivers had lower sympathetic activity than non-caregivers, especially during the acute stress period. Higher sympathetic activity was related …
Optokinetic stimulation affects temporal estimation in healthy humans
2007
The representation of time and space are closely linked in the cognitive system. Optokinetic stimulation modulates spatial attention in healthy subjects and patients with spatial neglect. In order to evaluate whether optokinetic stimulation could influence time perception, a group of healthy subjects performed "time-comparison" tasks of sub- and supra-second intervals before and after leftward or rightward optokinetic stimulation. Subjective time perception was biased by the direction of optokinetic stimulation. Rightward optokinetic stimulation induced an overestimation of time perception compared with baseline and leftward optokinetic stimulation. These results indicate a directional bias…
The neuropsychological profile of Othello syndrome in Parkinson's disease.
2017
One-year follow-up of cardiac anxiety syndromes. Outcome and predictors of course.
1987
In a representative sample (n = 31) of patients with panic attacks and a cardiac anxiety syndrome, a prospective follow-up study after a 1-year interval was performed. At the follow-up assessment 33% of the patients were in remission, whereas the majority of patients had an unfavorable course. Avoidance behavior and female sexual status were found to be predictive for an unfavorable course. Within a matched-pair design controlled for age and sex, no difference between panic disorder with and without cardiac anxiety syndrome was observed in any psychosocial or psychopathological outcome variable. This result is an argument against the validity of the subtype cardiac anxiety syndrome.
The P300 event-related potential and smoking--a population-based case-control study.
2009
A better understanding of the factors underlying habitual tobacco smoking may further new strategies to go about this major health problem. The P300 event-related potential (ERP) has emerged as a valuable (endo)phenotype in neuropsychiatric research. Previous studies suggested the P300 ERP to be reduced in smokers. The main purpose of the present study was to provide an in-depth description of smoking-related behavioral, biological and electrophysiological phenotypes with an emphasis on the P300 ERP and its mutual relationship with other smoking-related parameters. In this case-control study N=1318 participants (smokers and never-smoking controls) were investigated at 6 German academic inst…