Brain Training

The Brain Training That Could Reduce Sadness and Anxiety

Brain scans showed that people who practised a difficult version of this task coped better with negative emotions.

PsyBlog | January 11, 2016

Computer training can change how the brain regulates emotional reactions, a new study finds.
Researchers have found that a simple attentional training task encourages the brain to ignore irrelevant information.
The task involves identifying whether arrows on the screen are pointing left or right.

Source: http://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/S10538119.gif

<more at http://www.spring.org.uk/2016/01/the-brain-training-that-could-reduce-sadness-and-anxiety.php; related links: http://www.hrplab.org/review-brain-training-depression-anxiety/ (Brief Review of 2015-2016 Studies on Brain Training for Depression, Anxiety and Burnout. November 18, 2015) and http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053811915009866 (Using executive control training to suppress amygdala reactivity to aversive information. N. Cohena, D.S. Marguliesb, S. Ashkenazid, A. Schaeferc, M. Taubertc, A. Henika, A. Villringerc, and H. Okon-Singere. NeuroImage, Volume 125, 15 January 2016, Pages 1022–1031. [Abstract: The ability to regulate emotions is essential for adaptive behavior. This ability is suggested to be mediated by the connectivity between prefrontal brain regions and the amygdala. Yet, it is still unknown whether the ability to regulate emotions can be trained by using a non-emotional procedure, such as the recruitment of executive control (EC). Participants who were trained using a high-frequent executive control (EC) task (80% incongruent trials) showed reduced amygdala reactivity and behavioral interference of aversive pictures. These effects were observed only following multiple-session training and not following one training session. In addition, they were not observed for participants exposed to low-frequent EC training (20% incongruent trials). Resting-state functional connectivity analysis revealed a marginally significant interaction between training group and change in the connectivity between the amygdala and the right inferior frontal gyrus (IFG). Amygdala–IFG connectivity was significantly increased following the training only in the high-frequent EC training group. These findings are the first to show that non-emotional training can induce changes in amygdala reactivity to aversive information and alter amygdala–prefrontal connectivity.])>