Establishing a Neural Signature of Acute Stress Reactivity

行为科学中的许多人接受这样的观点，即大脑活动和行为受到压力经历的影响，无论这些经历会导致唤醒的轻微增加还是痛苦和焦虑的大幅增加。然而，在经历压力的过程中，还没有程序性的研究来检验大脑功能和外周觉醒(例如心率)之间的相互关系。研究表明，实验室对压力的诱导会改变执行功能，如注意力、记忆力和自控力。然而，我们还不知道是什么潜在的生物学机制导致了这种与压力相关的表现变化。具体地说，我们不知道在经历压力的过程中，神经和自主活动是如何一起波动的，尽管许多研究表明，在典型的、无压力的情况下，神经和自主活动一起工作。更好地了解这些潜在的神经生物学机制可以更好地告诉我们如何促进对压力影响更具弹性的表现，并将其应用于具有高压力暴露特征的行业，如执法、军事、急救医学和体育。这一建议寻求开发一种新的方法来同时评估中枢(即神经)和外周(即自主)神经系统的活动。使用这一方法，该提案寻求在神经-自主神经相互作用对认知功能的影响方面对基础科学做出重大贡献。我将研究各种压力诱导任务中中枢和外周活动之间的协方差，包括生理、心理和与表现相关的压力源。最初的分析将集中于识别急性应激的神经特征，定义为跟踪外周活动的脑电活动的带宽，特别是那些显示在应激期间与波动的外周反应性同时发生活动变化的脑电带宽。这些分析技术随后将被应用于认知任务，以评估神经和心脏功能之间与任务相关的交互作用是如何受到压力的调节的。这项研究的一个关键目标将是开发一种适用于整个生命周期的研究工具。为此，这项工作将与幼儿和成年人一起进行。作为这项研究的结果，我们预计将为研究界带来多重成果，包括开发用于整合脑电和外围心理生理学测量的开源软件工具，以及为不同年龄段设计并适合纳入标准生物应激测量的实验室应激源任务。透明度和可复制性将是这项工作的指导原则。所有研究程序将在研究开始前在线注册，所有用于复制分析的已确定数据和脚本将公开下载。

Many within the behavioural sciences accept the notion that brain activity and behaviour are impacted by stressful experiences, whether these experiences lead to slight increase in arousal or a major increase in distress and anxiety. Yet, there has been an absence of programmatic research examining the interrelationship between brain function and peripheral arousal (e.g., heart rate) during experiences of stress. Research has been shown that laboratory inductions of stress alter executive functions, such as attention, memory, and self-control. However, we don't yet know what underlying biological mechanisms contribute to such stress-related alterations in performance. Specifically, we don't know how neural and autonomic activity fluctuate together during the experience of stress, despite a number of studies showing that neural and autonomic activity work together during typical, non-stressful situations. A better understanding of these underlying neurobiological mechanisms can better inform us how to facilitate performance that is more resilient to the effects of stress, with applications to industries characterized by high exposure to stress, such as law enforcement, military, emergency medicine, and athletics. This proposal seeks to develop a novel methodology for simultaneous assessment of central (i.e., neural) and peripheral (i.e., autonomic) nervous system activity. Using this methodology, the proposal seeks to make major contributions to the basic science regarding the implications of neural-autonomic interactions for cognitive function. I will examine covariance between central and peripheral activity during a variety of stress-induction tasks, including physical, psychological, and performance-related stressors. Initial analyses will focus on identifying a neural signature of acute stress, defined as bandwidths of EEG activity that track peripheral activity, in particular, those EEG bandwidths that show changes in activity concurrent with fluctuating peripheral reactivity during stress. These analytic techniques will then be applied to a cognitive task to assess how task-relevant interactions between neural and cardiac function are modulated by stress. A key aim of this research will be to develop a research tool that is applicable across the lifespan. To this end, this work will be performed with both young children and adults. As a result of this research, we expect to deliver multiple outcomes to the research community, including the development of open-source software tool for the integration of EEG and peripheral psychophysiological measures, and a laboratory stressor task designed for a variety of age ranges and suitable for incorporating standard biological measures of stress. Transparency and replicability will be a guiding principle of this work. All research procedures will be registered online before research begins, and all de-identified data and scripts for replicating analyses will be publicly available for download.