Research indicates that cognitive processes linked to the detection of threat stimuli are associated with poor attentional control, placing children and adolescents at increased risk for the development of anxious affect. The current study aimed to provide preliminary data to assess whether an intervention designed to improve attentional control (via working memory; WM) would lead to better per...

The evidence for amygdala processing of emotional items outside the focus of attention is mixed. We hypothesized that differences in attentional demands may, at least in part, explain prior discrepancies. In the present study, attention was manipulated by parametrically varying the difficulty of a central task, allowing us to compare responses evoked by unattended emotion-laden faces while the ...

A small but growing neuroimaging literature has begun to examine the neural mechanisms underlying the difficulty that substance-use dependent (SUD) groups have with ignoring salient, drug-related stimuli. Drug-related attentional bias appears to implicate the countermanding forces of cognitive control and reward salience. Basic cognitive neuroscience research suggests that ignoring emotionally ...

The topic of spatial attention is of great relevance for researchers in various fields, including neuropsychology, cognitive neuroscience, and cognitive psychology, as well as for clinical practice. Deficits of spatial attentional arising from parietal brain damage remain largely confined to the left visual field. The mechanisms underlying this hemispheric asymmetry are still elusive. We mimick...

The mechanisms by which aging and other processes can affect the structure and function of brain networks are important to understanding normal age-related cognitive decline. Advancing age is known to be associated with various disease processes, including clinically asymptomatic vascular and inflammation processes that contribute to white matter structural alteration and potential injury. The ...

Many previous studies reported that the hyperpolarization of cortical neurons following cathodal stimulation (in transcranial direct current stimulation) has resulted in cognitive performance degradation. Here, we challenge this assumption by showing that cathodal stimulation will not always degrade cognitive performance. We used an attentional load paradigm in which irrelevant stimuli are proc...

During electroencephalography (EEG) neurofeedback training, individuals learn to willfully modulate their brain oscillations. Successful modulation has been shown to be related to cognitive benefits and wellbeing. The current paper addresses the specificity of three neurofeedback protocols in influencing first(basic Stroop effect) and second-order (Gratton effect) measures of attentional contro...

This study attempted to replicate findings of an attentional bias towards supraliminal and subliminal smoking cues in the dot-probe task for smokers. Food-related cues were used as a control due to its natural reward properties. Further, the effects of cognitive load during the dot-probe task on attentional bias was explored. Smokers (n=43) and non-smokers (n=41) completed two versions (load an...