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Effects of a three-week executive control training on adaptation to task difficulty and emotional interference

Intact executive functions are characterized by flexible adaptation to task requirements, while these effects are reduced in internalizing disorders. Furthermore, as executive functions play an important role in emotion regulation, deficits in executive functions may contribute to symptom generation...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Grützmann, Rosa, Kathmann, Norbert, Heinzel, Stephan
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9681094/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36413545
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0276994
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author Grützmann, Rosa
Kathmann, Norbert
Heinzel, Stephan
author_facet Grützmann, Rosa
Kathmann, Norbert
Heinzel, Stephan
author_sort Grützmann, Rosa
collection PubMed
description Intact executive functions are characterized by flexible adaptation to task requirements, while these effects are reduced in internalizing disorders. Furthermore, as executive functions play an important role in emotion regulation, deficits in executive functions may contribute to symptom generation in psychological disorders through increased emotional interference. Thus, the present study investigated transfer effects of a three-week executive control training on adaptation to task difficulty and emotional interference in healthy participants (n = 24) to further explore the training’s suitability for clinical application. To assess the adaptation to task difficulty, the proportion congruency effect on behavioral data (response times, error rates) and ERP measures (N2, CRN) was assessed in a flanker task with varying frequency of incompatible trials (25%, 75%). To quantify emotional interference, flanker stimuli were superimposed on neutral or negative pictures. Replicating previous results, the training increased interference control as indexed by decreased response times and errors rates, increased N2 amplitude and decreased CRN amplitude in incompatible trials after training. Proportion congruency effects were weaker than expected and not affected by the training intervention. The training lead to a shift in the time-point of emotional interference: before training negative pictures lead to a reduction in CRN amplitude, while after training this reduction was observed for the N2. This pattern illustrates that the training leads to a change in task processing mode from predominant response-related cognitive control to predominant stimulus-related cognitive control (N2), indicating a proactive processing mode.
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spelling pubmed-96810942022-11-23 Effects of a three-week executive control training on adaptation to task difficulty and emotional interference Grützmann, Rosa Kathmann, Norbert Heinzel, Stephan PLoS One Research Article Intact executive functions are characterized by flexible adaptation to task requirements, while these effects are reduced in internalizing disorders. Furthermore, as executive functions play an important role in emotion regulation, deficits in executive functions may contribute to symptom generation in psychological disorders through increased emotional interference. Thus, the present study investigated transfer effects of a three-week executive control training on adaptation to task difficulty and emotional interference in healthy participants (n = 24) to further explore the training’s suitability for clinical application. To assess the adaptation to task difficulty, the proportion congruency effect on behavioral data (response times, error rates) and ERP measures (N2, CRN) was assessed in a flanker task with varying frequency of incompatible trials (25%, 75%). To quantify emotional interference, flanker stimuli were superimposed on neutral or negative pictures. Replicating previous results, the training increased interference control as indexed by decreased response times and errors rates, increased N2 amplitude and decreased CRN amplitude in incompatible trials after training. Proportion congruency effects were weaker than expected and not affected by the training intervention. The training lead to a shift in the time-point of emotional interference: before training negative pictures lead to a reduction in CRN amplitude, while after training this reduction was observed for the N2. This pattern illustrates that the training leads to a change in task processing mode from predominant response-related cognitive control to predominant stimulus-related cognitive control (N2), indicating a proactive processing mode. Public Library of Science 2022-11-22 /pmc/articles/PMC9681094/ /pubmed/36413545 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0276994 Text en © 2022 Grützmann et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Grützmann, Rosa
Kathmann, Norbert
Heinzel, Stephan
Effects of a three-week executive control training on adaptation to task difficulty and emotional interference
title Effects of a three-week executive control training on adaptation to task difficulty and emotional interference
title_full Effects of a three-week executive control training on adaptation to task difficulty and emotional interference
title_fullStr Effects of a three-week executive control training on adaptation to task difficulty and emotional interference
title_full_unstemmed Effects of a three-week executive control training on adaptation to task difficulty and emotional interference
title_short Effects of a three-week executive control training on adaptation to task difficulty and emotional interference
title_sort effects of a three-week executive control training on adaptation to task difficulty and emotional interference
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9681094/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36413545
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0276994
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