RESUMO Este estudo piloto avaliou os efeitos de cinco dias de meditação focada na relação entre interferência emocional e ansiedade em amostra não clínica randomizada em dois grupos (experimental=13; controle=18). A interferência emocional foi indexada comparando os tempos de reação em uma tarefa de atenção com imagens distratoras negativas ou neutras. Também foi avaliado o autorrelato da ansiedade durante a tarefa. Apenas no grupo controle uma maior ansiedade interagiu com uma maior interferência emocional e uma pior avaliação de valência e alerta (arousal) das imagens emocionais. Esses achados preliminares sugerem que a meditação pode ajudar a modular o efeito da ansiedade no viés para estímulos negativos, e que mesmo um treino breve pode facilitar processos autorregulatórios.

ABSTRACT This pilot study assessed the effects of a five day focused meditation training on the interplay between emotional interference and anxiety in a non clinical sample randomized into two groups (experimental=13; control=18). Emotional interference was indexed comparing the reaction times in an attention span task with negative or neutral distracting images. Anxiety experienced during the task was also assessed through self-report. Only in the control group higher anxiety levels interacted with greater emotional interference and a worse evaluation of valence and arousal of emotional images. These preliminary findings suggest that meditation may help modulating anxiety effects on bias to negative stimuli, and that even a short training may facilitate self-regulatory processes.

Emotion regulation is the capacity to control the way in which people attend, perceive, process and react to emotional information. Practitioners of sitting and silent meditation develop a greater control of their mental processes, culminating in regulatory abilities that lead to well-being and emotional balance. In this paper we reviewed evidence from recent studies on neurophysiology and cognitive psychology on emotion regulation-focusing on negative emotions-and meditation in order to discuss their intertwining. This critical review showed that controlling attention and fostering a relaxation state are the main mechanisms for the interaction between emotion regulation and meditation. Importantly, it is suggested that the effects of meditation on emotion regulation should be conceptualized separately as those taking effect during the practice and those occurring as an outcome of such practice. Finally, it is highlighted that meditation should be conceived as a particular type of emotion regulation strategy, and that further studies comparing these strategies more directly are warranted.

Using a Stroop matching task, we evaluated how alcohol affects the time needed to overcome Stroop conflict and whether practice might reverse the effect of alcohol. Participants (n = 16) performed two sessions in which they had to compare the color of a color-word with the meaning of a color-word in neutral color. The two task stimuli were presented simultaneously or with a Stimulus Onset Asynchrony (SOA) of 200, 500, or 800 ms. For half of the subjects, alcohol was administered in the first session, and for the other half, alcohol was administered in the second session. The results showed that the Stroop effect was significant at the 0 and 200 ms intervals in the sober subjects. Moreover, in untrained intoxicated individuals, interference endured until the 500 ms interval, a result that was abolished in trained intoxicated subjects. In conclusion, alcohol increased the time needed for Stroop matching task conflict resolution. However, this deleterious effect was minimized by a previous practice session.

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is an anxiety disorder that can develop following exposure to a traumatic event, including terrifying or life-threatening situations such as sexual assault or natural disasters. The disorder is characterized by a reaction of intense fear, helplessness, or horror when the individual experiences, testifies about, or is faced with one or more events that involve death, severe wounds, or a threat to one's own or another's physical integrity. One of the most important symptoms of PTSD is the revival of the traumatic event, which has been interpreted as an inability to downregulate negative emotions. Neuroimaging studies that probed the ability to regulate emotions in healthy volunteers have found a pattern characterized by activation of the prefrontal cortex associated with a reduction in amygdala activity. This suggests an inhibitory prefrontal cortex-amygdala circuit that underlies emotional regulation. The hypothesis that increased amygdala activation associated with PTSD results from dysfunction in the inhibitory mechanism exerted by the prefrontal cortex has been the topic of debate. The present review investigates the validity of dysfunction in the prefrontal-amygdala pathway in PTSD. The studies provide evidence that the amygdala and prefrontal cortex exhibit distinct activation patterns in PTSD, thus supporting the model of a dysfunctional circuit. Inconsistencies in the literature may be attributable to distinct PTSD subgroups, different experimental approaches, different contrasts employed in neuroimaging studies, and small sample sizes.

We studied the influence of attention on the timecourse of Stroop-like conflict. Thirty-two volunteers performed a Stroop matching task in which they had to compare either the color (n = 16) or meaning (n = 16) of two stimuli. The first stimulus was always a color-name printed in yellow, red, or blue (i.e., Stroop stimulus), and the second stimulus was either a color-bar (Experiment 1) or color-word in white ink (Experiment 2). Stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) was varied parametrically. Interference by incongruent Stroop stimuli was clearly modulated by SOA manipulation in both cases. The results are discussed in terms of interactions between translational and attentional models in which the degree of Stroop-like interference is attributed to time implementation of attentional mechanisms during color-to-color and color-to-word matching contexts.

A emoção pode ser funcionalmente considerada como uma disposição à ação que prepara o organismo para comportamentos relacionados à aproximação e esquiva. Para preparar uma saída motora apropriada, o organismo tem que ser eficiente na codificação de estímulos relevantes. Neste trabalho, apresentamos evidências a partir de estudos de neuroimagem que revelam que a visualização de imagens emocionais promove uma maior ativação do córtex visual do que a observação de figuras neutras. Além desta facilitação do processamento sensorial, os estímulos emocionais desencadeiam reações somáticas e vegetativas. Registros da dinâmica postural e da freqüência cardíaca enquanto voluntários assistiam a um bloco de figuras desagradáveis revelou uma redução significativa na oscilação corporal e bradicardia. Uma investigação paralela mostrou que o tempo de reação também lentifica após a visualização de figuras negativas. Este conjunto de respostas - imobilidade, bradicardia e tempo de reação mais lento - pode refletir o engajamento do sistema defensivo, similar às reações defensivas desencadeadas em ambiente natural por estímulos ameaçadores distantes. Em resumo, o sistema afetivo influencia um nível precoce de codificação sensorial e a saída motora favorecendo, portanto, disposições para as ações apropriadas.

Emotion can be functionally considered as action dispositions preparing the organism for either avoidance- or approach- related behaviors. In order to prepare an appropriate behavioral output, the organism has to be efficient in the encoding of relevant stimuli. We herein present evidence from neuroimaging studies that seeing emotional and arousing pictures leads to greater activation in visual cortex than seeing neutral ones. In addition to this facilitation of sensory processing, emotional stimuli prompt somatic and vegetative reactions. Recordings of postural oscillations and heart rate while participants visualized a block of unpleasant pictures, revealed a significant reduction of body sway and bradycardia. A parallel investigation showed that reaction time also slows down after the visualization of negative pictures. Taken together, immobility, bradycardia and slower reaction time in the laboratory experimental set may reflect the engagement of the defensive system, resembling the defensive reactions to distant threatening stimuli in natural contexts. In summary, the affective system operates at an early level of sensory encoding and at the motor output favoring dispositions for appropriate actions.