Article
Psychology, Biological
Vicente Javier Clemente-Suarez, Ana Isabel Beltran-Velasco, Domingo Jesus Ramos-Campo, Juan Mielgo-Ayuso, Pantelis A. Nikolaidis, Noelia Belando, Jose Francisco Tornero-Aguilera
Summary: The COVID-19 pandemic has negatively impacted physical activity, exercise habits, dietary patterns, and mental health of individuals. These factors play a role in exacerbating COVID-19 symptoms, increasing the risk of death from SARS-CoV-2, and affecting vaccine effectiveness. Physical activity interventions have been shown to be valuable in preventing and treating COVID-19 by improving body composition, cardiovascular health, metabolic health, mental health, and enhancing antibody responses to vaccines.
PHYSIOLOGY & BEHAVIOR
(2022)
Review
Behavioral Sciences
Darrell W. Brann, Yujiao Lu, Jing Wang, Quanguang Zhang, Roshni Thakkar, Gangadhara R. Sareddy, Uday P. Pratap, Rajeshwar R. Tekmal, Ratna K. Vadlamudi
Summary: This review provides a comprehensive overview of the localization, regulation, sex differences, and roles of brain-derived estrogen in various physiological and pathological processes. The research using specific inhibitors and knockout mouse models reveals that neuron-derived estrogen plays a critical role in synaptic plasticity, memory, socio-sexual behavior, sexual differentiation, reproduction, and neuroprotection. Astrocyte-derived estrogen is also induced after brain injury/ischemia and contributes to reactive gliosis and cognitive preservation.
NEUROSCIENCE AND BIOBEHAVIORAL REVIEWS
(2022)
Article
Psychology, Biological
Chatrin Suksasilp, Sarah N. Garfinkel
Summary: Interoception is commonly assessed through behavioral tests, self-report measures, or neural signal analysis. Recent research has expanded the concept of interoception to include attention and interpretation of interoceptive signals. However, current assessment methods focus on individual dimensions and fail to capture the complexity of interoception. Comprehensive assessment across dimensions can provide a better understanding of overall interoceptive function, revealing differences in processing across dimensions and bodily axes. Future research can explore the relationship between interoceptive measures and different types of processing. Comprehensive interoceptive assessment can help identify selective disruptions in clinical conditions.
BIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY
(2022)
Editorial Material
Psychology, Biological
Nick Chater, George Loewenstein
Summary: There is a misconception in behavioral science that many societal problems can be addressed at the individual level without modifying the overall system. This individual frame of thinking has led to a neglect of systemic policies and actions, thereby restricting the contribution of behavioral scientists to public policy.
BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES
(2023)
Article
Behavioral Sciences
Anees Ahamed Kaleefathullah, Natasha Merat, Yee Mun Lee, Yke Bauke Eisma, Ruth Madigan, Jorge Garcia, Joost de Winter
Summary: This study investigated pedestrians' misuse of an automated vehicle equipped with an external human-machine interface (eHMI). The results showed that eHMI can cause pedestrians to rely too much on it and ignore the vehicle's intrinsic cues. Therefore, it is necessary to educate people about the capabilities of eHMI.
Review
Behavioral Sciences
Caroline Sevoz-Couche, Sylvain Laborde
Summary: Slow-paced breathing has been extensively studied in clinical research and has shown beneficial effects on cardiovascular functioning, executive functions, and stress management. By reducing breathing rate to the resonant frequency, the cardiac oscillations increase, leading to improved heart rate variability and baroreflex sensitivity. Additionally, slow-paced breathing stimulates interoceptive and limbic areas, resulting in multiple peripheral and central benefits.
NEUROSCIENCE AND BIOBEHAVIORAL REVIEWS
(2022)
Article
Behavioral Sciences
Istvan Molnar-Szakacs, Lucina Q. Uddin
Summary: The anterior insular cortex plays an under-appreciated role in executive processes by acting as a gatekeeper to other brain regions and networks. It is a key hub within the broader midcingulo-insular 'salience network' and orchestrates the activity of other major functional brain networks.
NEUROSCIENCE AND BIOBEHAVIORAL REVIEWS
(2022)
Review
Behavioral Sciences
Luca Bonini, Cristina Rotunno, Edoardo Arcuri, Vittorio Gallese
Summary: Mirror neurons are a class of neurons that discharge during both action execution and observation. Recent studies have revealed that beyond traditional mirror neurons, there are other cell types distributed in multiple brain areas that form a more complex and flexible 'mirror mechanism', which plays an important role in social interaction. This discovery has inspired translational research and the development of new neurorehabilitation approaches, and is a milestone in social and affective neuroscience.
TRENDS IN COGNITIVE SCIENCES
(2022)
Article
Behavioral Sciences
Connor Tom Keating, Lydia Hickman, Joan Leung, Ruth Monk, Alicia Montgomery, Hannah Heath, Sophie Sowden
Summary: There has been a lot of debate about what language should be used to talk about autism. Our study assessed the language preferences of 654 English-speaking autistic individuals from multiple different countries and found that there is no universally accepted way to talk about autism. The most popular terms varied between countries, but there were some consistent preferences. The findings emphasize the importance of respecting personal preferences when discussing autism.
Review
Behavioral Sciences
Idil Sezer, Diego A. Pizzagalli, Matthew D. Sacchet
Summary: This review synthesizes the relationships between mindfulness and resting-state fMRI functional connectivity of brain networks, showing that mindfulness is related to functional connectivity in the default mode, frontoparietal, and salience networks. Changes in functional connectivity mediated by mindfulness may facilitate attention control, self-awareness, emotion regulation, and pain relief.
NEUROSCIENCE AND BIOBEHAVIORAL REVIEWS
(2022)
Review
Behavioral Sciences
Damian E. Blasi, Joseph Henrich, Evangelia Adamou, David Kemmerer, Asifa Majid
Summary: English is the dominant language in the study of human cognition and behavior, but its characteristics and the linguistic habits of English speakers bias research and generalize observations to the entire species. Mitigating strategies can help avoid these pitfalls.
TRENDS IN COGNITIVE SCIENCES
(2022)
Review
Behavioral Sciences
Michael K. Yeung
Summary: This review found facial emotion recognition impairment in autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and task characteristics have a certain impact on recognizing facial emotions.
NEUROSCIENCE AND BIOBEHAVIORAL REVIEWS
(2022)
Article
Psychology, Biological
Nicolas Legrand, Niia Nikolova, Camile Correa, Malthe Braendholt, Anna Stuckert, Nanna Kildahl, Melina Vejlo, Francesca Fardo, Micah Allen
Summary: Interoception, the physiological sense of our inner bodies, has become a prominent research area in psychology and psychiatry. However, measuring accuracy in detecting cardiac signals has been challenging due to various limitations. In this study, researchers redefined subjective beliefs about heart rate as a crucial component of interoception and proposed a new psychophysical method to estimate their accuracy. The results showed that cardiac interoceptive beliefs were biased, less precise, and associated with poorer metacognitive insight. The open-source python package provided in this study offers a robust approach for quantifying cardiac beliefs.
BIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY
(2022)
Review
Behavioral Sciences
Desmond McEwan, Ryan E. Rhodes, Mark R. Beauchamp
Summary: Although behavior change interventions can improve physical activity during the intervention, these improvements are generally not sustained after the intervention concludes.
BEHAVIORAL MEDICINE
(2022)
Article
Behavioral Sciences
Georg Northoff, Federico Zilio
Summary: Consciousness and its neural mechanisms are still not fully understood. The Temporo-spatial Theory of Consciousness (TTC) aims to bridge the gap between spontaneous and stimulus-related brain activity, as well as between neuronal and phenomenal features. The TTC proposes four temporo-spatial mechanisms and offers an integrative and unifying framework for understanding different dimensions of consciousness. It provides new insights into the biological and ontological nature of consciousness and its relationship to the brain.
BEHAVIOURAL BRAIN RESEARCH
(2022)
Review
Behavioral Sciences
Margherita Bertuccelli, Luciana Ciringione, Maria Rubega, Patrizia Bisiacchi, Stefano Masiero, Alessandra Del Felice
Summary: A scoping review was conducted to map cognitive domain impairments and associated psycho-affective disorders in COVID-19 survivors. Memory, attention, and executive functions were found to be the most affected domains, while language and visuo-spatial abilities were less impacted. Reports also showed a frequent association between neurological and respiratory conditions with cognitive deficits, but inconclusive results on psycho-affective conditions.
Article
Behavioral Sciences
Paula Varela, Gaelle Arvisenet, Antje Gonera, Kristine S. Myhrer, Viridiana Fifi, Dominique Valentin
Summary: Shifting towards a plant-based diet is desired for sustainability, health improvement, and animal welfare. However, many consumers are reluctant to make this transition due to attachment to meat and resistance to changing habits. This study examined the attitudes, barriers, and opportunities for Norwegian and French consumers to adopt a more plant-based diet. The findings showed low nutritional knowledge of vegetable proteins and a strong attachment to meat in both countries. Participants expressed curiosity about vegetable protein sources, but identified hedonics and convenience as major barriers. Lack of knowledge on how to prepare plant-based meals was identified as the main barrier to a shift in diet.
Review
Behavioral Sciences
Olivier Uwishema, Ashraf Mahmoud, Jeffrey Sun, Ines F. Silva Correia, Niovi Bejjani, Maria Alwan, Aderinto Nicholas, Adekunbi Oluyemisi, Burhan Dost
Summary: This study provides an overview of recent advances in the infection hypothesis of Alzheimer's disease and challenges the validity of the theory. It highlights the importance of pathogenic microbes in the disease and calls for further investigation and alternative approaches to understand the pathophysiology of Alzheimer's disease.
BRAIN AND BEHAVIOR
(2022)
Article
Behavioral Sciences
Ruckwongpatr Kamolthip, Paratthakonkun Chirawat, Simin Ghavifekr, Wan Ying Gan, Serene E. H. Tung, Ira Nurmala, Siti R. Nadhiroh, Iqbal Pramukti, Chung-Ying Lin
Summary: This article aims to discuss several topics related to problematic Internet use and review the impact of COVID-19 on Internet use. The results indicate that problematic Internet use may be associated with health issues among a minority of youth. Additionally, the COVID-19 pandemic may contribute to an increase in problematic Internet use and subsequent health problems.
CURRENT OPINION IN BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
(2022)
Review
Behavioral Sciences
Brent A. Kelsen, Alexander Sumich, Nikola Kasabov, Sophie H. Y. Liang, Grace Y. Wang
Summary: This review summarizes the research on neural synchrony in interpersonal linguistic interaction. Through EEG and fNIRS scanning, researchers have found that participants' brains synchronize during oral communication. This synchronization predominantly occurs in the frontal and temporo-parietal areas, which may reflect activation of the mirror and mentalizing systems in the brain. These studies make a significant contribution to our understanding of mutual understanding between communicators and suggest future research directions.
NEUROSCIENCE AND BIOBEHAVIORAL REVIEWS
(2022)
