Establishing a Neural Signature of Acute Stress Reactivity

行为科学领域的许多人都接受这样一种观点，即大脑活动和行为受到压力经历的影响，无论这些经历是导致唤醒的轻微增加，还是导致痛苦和焦虑的大幅增加。然而，在经历压力时，对大脑功能和外周觉醒（如心率）之间相互关系的程序性研究一直缺乏。研究表明，压力的实验室感应会改变执行功能，如注意力、记忆和自我控制。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。具体来说，我们不知道神经和自主活动是如何在压力下一起波动的，尽管许多研究表明，在典型的、无压力的情况下，神经和自主活动是一起工作的。更好地理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，并将其应用于以高压力为特征的行业，如执法，军事，急救医学和体育。本提案旨在开发一种同时评估中枢（即神经）和外周（即自主神经）神经系统活动的新方法。使用这种方法，该提案旨在对认知功能的神经-自主相互作用的含义的基础科学做出重大贡献。我将检查在各种压力诱导任务中中枢和外围活动之间的协方差，包括身体，心理和表现相关的压力源。初步分析将侧重于识别急性应激的神经特征，定义为跟踪外周活动的脑电图活动带宽，特别是在应激期间显示活动变化同时伴有外周反应性波动的脑电图带宽。然后，这些分析技术将被应用于认知任务，以评估神经和心脏功能之间的任务相关相互作用是如何被压力调节的。这项研究的一个关键目标是开发一种适用于整个生命周期的研究工具。为此目的，这项工作将在幼儿和成人中进行。作为这项研究的结果，我们期望为研究界提供多种成果，包括开发用于集成脑电图和外周心理生理测量的开源软件工具，以及为各种年龄范围设计的实验室压力源任务，并适合纳入标准的生物压力测量。透明度和可复制性将是这项工作的指导原则。所有的研究程序都将在研究开始前在网上注册，所有用于复制分析的去识别数据和脚本都将公开供下载。

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.