Stress has a broad impact on animals’ behavior, profoundly affects brain regions involved on cognition and motivation and, when maladaptive, is also a trigger for neuropsychiatric disorders. This book focuses on advances in understanding how stressful events impact cognition and motivation, and the neural mechanisms that mediate their effects. Additionally, this book seeks to highlight the most recent efforts to identify individual factors that can alter an organism’s response to stressful stimuli, and to describe pharmacological and non-pharmacological interventions that can mitigate the deleterious effects of stress on cognition and motivation.
A comprehensive, multidisciplinary review, Neural Plasticity and Memory: From Genes to Brain Imaging provides an in-depth, up-to-date analysis of the study of the neurobiology of memory. Leading specialists share their scientific experience in the field, covering a wide range of topics where molecular, genetic, behavioral, and brain imaging techniq
Emotion can impact various aspects of our cognition and behavior, by enhancing or impairing them (e.g., enhanced attention to and memory for emotional events, or increased distraction produced by goal-irrelevant emotional information). On the other hand, emotion processing is also susceptible to cognitive influences, typically exerted in the form of cognitive control of motion, or emotion regulation. Despite important recent progress in understanding emotion- cognition interactions, a number of aspects remain unclear. The present book comprises a collection of manuscripts discussing emerging evidence regarding the mechanisms underlying emotion- cognition interactions in healthy functioning and alterations associated with clinical conditions, in which such interactions are dysfunctional. Initiated with a more restricted focus, targeting (1) identification and in depth analysis of the circumstances in which emotion enhances or impairs cognition and (2)identification of the role of individual differences in these effects, our book has emerged into a comprehensive collection of outstanding contributions investigating emotion-cognition interactions, based on approaches spanning from behavioral and lesion to pharmacological and brain imaging, and including empirical, theoretical, and review papers alike. Co-hosted by the Frontiers in Neuroscience - Integrative Neuroscience and Frontiers in Psychology - Emotion Science, the contributions comprising our book and the associated research topic are grouped around the following seven main themes, distributed across the two hosting journals: I. Emotion and Selectivity in Attention and Memory; II. The Impact of Emotional Distraction; Linking Enhancing and Impairing Effects of Emotion; III. What Really is the Role of the Amygdala?; IV. Age Differences in Emotion Processing; The Role of Emotional Valence; V. Affective Face Processing, Social Cognition, and Personality Neuroscience; VI. Stress, Mood, Emotion, and the Prefrontal Cortex; The Role of Control in the Stress Response; VII. Emotion-Cognition Interactions in Clinical Conditions. As illustrated by the present collection of contributions, emotion-cognition interactions can be identified at different levels of processing, from perception and attention to long- term memory, decision making processes, and social cognition and behavior. Notably, these effects are subject to individual differences that may affect the way we perceive, experience, and remember emotional experiences, or cope with emotionally challenging situations. Moreover, these opposing effects tend to co-occur in affective disorders, such as depression and PTSD, where uncontrolled recollection of and rumination on distressing memories also lead to impaired cognition due to emotional distraction. Understanding the nature and neural mechanisms of these effects is critical, as their exacerbation and co-occurrence in clinical conditions lead to devastating effects and debilitation. Hence, bringing together such diverse contributions has allowed not only an integrative understanding of the current extant evidence but also identification of emerging directions and concrete venues for future investigations.
Pituitary Adenylate Cyclase-Activating Polypeptide is the first volume to be written on the neuropeptide PACAP. It covers all domains of PACAP from molecular and cellular aspects to physiological activities and promises for new therapeutic strategies. Pituitary Adenylate Cyclase-Activating Polypeptide is the twentieth volume published in the Endocrine Updates book series under the Series Editorship of Shlomo Melmed, MD.
Emotional, physical and social well-being describe human health from birth. Good health goes hand in hand with the ability to handle stress for the future. However, biological factors such as diet, life experiences such as drug abuse, bullying, burnout and social factors such as family and community support at the school stage tend to mold health problems, affecting academic achievements. This book is a compilation of current scientific information about the challenges that students, families and teachers face regarding health and academic achievements. Contributions also relate to how physical activity, psychosocial support and other interventions can be made to understand resilience and vulnerability to school desertion. This book will be of interest to readers from broad professional fields, non-specialist readers, and those involved in education policy.
The physiological or psychological stresses that employees bring to their workplace affect not only their own performance but that of their co-workers and others. These stresses are often compounded by those of the job itself. Medical personnel, firefighters, police, and military personnel in combat settingsâ€"among othersâ€"experience highly unpredictable timing and types of stressors. This book reviews and comments on the performance-enhancing potential of specific food components. It reflects the views of military and non-military scientists from such fields as neuroscience, nutrition, physiology, various medical specialties, and performance psychology on the most up-to-date research available on physical and mental performance enhancement in stressful conditions. Although placed within the context of military tasks, the volume will have wide-reaching implications for individuals in any job setting.
The world is a dangerous place and recent events have served to make it less safe. There are many arenas of conflict and even combat across the world. Such situations are the quintessential expression of stress; you stand in imminent danger and live with the knowledge that you may be attacked, injured or even killed at any moment. How do people perform under these conditions? How do they keep a heightened level of vigilance when nothing may happen in their immediate location for weeks or even months? What happens when the bullets actually start flying? How is it you distinguish friend from foe, and each from innocent bystanders when in immediate peril of your life? Can we design technology to help people make good decisions in these ultimately hazardous situations? To what degree does your membership in a team act to dissipate these particular effects? Can we generate sufficiently stressful field exercises to simulate these conditions and can we train and/or select those most able to withstand such adverse conditions? How will the next generation of servicemen deal with these inherent problems? These are the sorts of questions that Performance Under Stress addresses. This book is derived largely from a multiple-year, multiple university initiative (MURI) on stress and soldier performance on the modern, electronic battlefield. It involved leading researchers from many institutions who have brought their individual expertise to bear on these crucial, contemporary concerns. United by a common research framework, these groups attacked the issue from different methodological and conceptual approaches, ranging from traditional laboratory modeling and experimentation, to realistic simulations; from involved field exercises to personal experiences of actual combat conditions. The insights generated have been distilled and presented as a benchmark of current understanding and provide future directions for research in this arena. Although this work focuses on soldier stress and soldier performance, the principles that are derived extend well beyond this single application. Their findings can be applied to people facing the demands of the business world or research as much as to those who meet life or death situations, such as homeland security, first responders, and law enforcement personnel.
By 2030 there will be about 70 million people in the United States who are older than 64. Approximately 26 percent of these will be racial and ethnic minorities. Overall, the older population will be more diverse and better educated than their earlier cohorts. The range of late-life outcomes is very dramatic with old age being a significantly different experience for financially secure and well-educated people than for poor and uneducated people. The early mission of behavioral science research focused on identifying problems of older adults, such as isolation, caregiving, and dementia. Today, the field of gerontology is more interdisciplinary. When I'm 64 examines how individual and social behavior play a role in understanding diverse outcomes in old age. It also explores the implications of an aging workforce on the economy. The book recommends that the National Institute on Aging focus its research support in social, personality, and life-span psychology in four areas: motivation and behavioral change; socioemotional influences on decision-making; the influence of social engagement on cognition; and the effects of stereotypes on self and others. When I'm 64 is a useful resource for policymakers, researchers and medical professionals.
This book covers human factors and ergonomics; clinical and applied differential psychology; and applications in industrial, military, and non-work domains.
Fatigue can have a major impact on an individual's performance and well-being, yet is poorly understood, even within the scientific community. There is no developed theory of its origins or functions, and different types of fatigue (mental, physical, sleepiness) are routinely confused. The widespread interpretation of fatigue as a negative consequence of work may be true only for externally imposed goals; meaningful or self-initiated work is rarely tiring and often invigorating. In the first book dedicated to the systematic treatment of fatigue for over sixty years, Robert Hockey examines its many aspects - social history, neuroscience, energetics, exercise physiology, sleep and clinical implications - and develops a new motivational control theory, in which fatigue is treated as an emotion having a fundamental adaptive role in the management of goals. He then uses this new perspective to explore the role of fatigue in relation to individual motivation, working life and well-being.
