Browsing by Author "Katz, Benjamin"
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- Adolescent Interventions to Manage Self-Regulation in Type 1 Diabetes (AIMS-T1D): randomized control trial study protocolMiller, Alison L.; Lo, Sharon L.; Albright, Dana; Lee, Joyce M.; Hunter, Christine M.; Bauer, Katherine W.; King, Rosalind; Clark, Katy M.; Chaudhry, Kiren; Kaciroti, Niko; Katz, Benjamin; Fredericks, Emily M. (2020-03-07)Background Self-regulation (SR), or the capacity to control one's thoughts, emotions, and behaviors in order to achieve a desired goal, shapes health outcomes through many pathways, including supporting adherence to medical treatment regimens. Type 1 Diabetes (T1D) is one specific condition that requires SR to ensure adherence to daily treatment regimens that can be arduous and effortful (e.g., monitoring blood glucose). Adolescents, in particular, have poor adherence to T1D treatment regimens, yet it is essential that they assume increased responsibility for managing their T1D as they approach young adulthood. Adolescence is also a time of rapid changes in SR capacity and thus a compelling period for intervention. Promoting SR among adolescents with T1D may thus be a novel method to improve treatment regimen adherence. The current study tests a behavioral intervention to enhance SR among adolescents with T1D. SR and T1D medical regimen adherence will be examined as primary and secondary outcomes, respectively. Methods We will use a randomized control trial design to test the impact of a behavioral intervention on three SR targets: Executive Functioning (EF), Emotion Regulation (ER), and Future Orientation (FO); and T1D medical regimen adherence. Adolescents with T1D (n = 94) will be recruited from pediatric endocrinology clinics and randomly assigned to treatment or control group. The behavioral intervention consists of working memory training (to enhance EF), biofeedback and relaxation training (to enhance ER), and episodic future thinking training (to enhance FO) across an 8-week period. SR and treatment regimen adherence will be assessed at pre- and post-test using multiple methods (behavioral tasks, diabetes device downloads, self- and parent-report). We will use an intent-to-treat framework using generalized linear mixed models to test our hypotheses that: 1) the treatment group will demonstrate greater improvements in SR than the control group, and 2) the treatment group will demonstrate better treatment regimen adherence outcomes than the control group. Discussion If successful, SR-focused behavioral interventions could improve health outcomes among adolescents with T1D and have transdiagnostic implications across multiple chronic conditions requiring treatment regimen adherence.
- Age differences in functional network reconfiguration with working memory trainingIordan, Alexandru D.; Moored, Kyle D.; Katz, Benjamin; Cooke, Katherine A.; Buschkuehl, Martin; Jaeggi, Susanne M.; Polk, Thad A.; Peltier, Scott J.; Jonides, John; Reuter-Lorenz, Patricia A. (2021-04-15)Demanding cognitive functions like working memory (WM) depend on functional brain networks being able to communicate efficiently while also maintaining some degree of modularity. Evidence suggests that aging can disrupt this balance between integration and modularity. In this study, we examined how cognitive training affects the integration and modularity of functional networks in older and younger adults. Twenty three younger and 23 older adults participated in 10 days of verbal WM training, leading to performance gains in both age groups. Older adults exhibited lower modularity overall and a greater decrement when switching from rest to task, compared to younger adults. Interestingly, younger but not older adults showed increased task-related modularity with training. Furthermore, whereas training increased efficiency within, and decreased participation of, the default-mode network for younger adults, it enhanced efficiency within a task-specific salience/sensorimotor network for older adults. Finally, training increased segregation of the default-mode from frontoparietal/salience and visual networks in younger adults, while it diffusely increased between-network connectivity in older adults. Thus, while younger adults increase network segregation with training, suggesting more automated processing, older adults persist in, and potentially amplify, a more integrated and costly global workspace, suggesting different age-related trajectories in functional network reorganization with WM training.
- Aging and network properties: Stability over time and links with learning during working memory trainingIordan, Alexandru D.; Cooke, Katherine A.; Moored, Kyle D.; Katz, Benjamin; Buschkuehl, Martin; Jaeggi, Susanne M.; Jonides, John; Peltier, Scott J.; Polk, Thad A.; Reuter-Lorenz, Patricia A. (Frontiers Media S.A., 2018-01-04)Growing evidence suggests that healthy aging affects the configuration of large-scale functional brain networks. This includes reducing network modularity and local efficiency. However, the stability of these effects over time and their potential role in learning remain poorly understood. The goal of the present study was to further clarify previously reported age effects on “resting-state” networks, to test their reliability over time, and to assess their relation to subsequent learning during training. Resting-state fMRI data from 23 young (YA) and 20 older adults (OA) were acquired in 2 sessions 2 weeks apart. Graph-theoretic analyses identified both consistencies in network structure and differences in module composition between YA and OA, suggesting topological changes and less stability of functional network configuration with aging. Brain-wide, OA showed lower modularity and local efficiency compared to YA, consistent with the idea of age-related functional dedifferentiation, and these effects were replicable over time. At the level of individual networks, OA consistently showed greater participation and lower local efficiency and within-network connectivity in the cingulo-opercular network, as well as lower intra-network connectivity in the default-mode network and greater participation of the somato-sensorimotor network, suggesting age-related differential effects at the level of specialized brain modules. Finally, brain-wide network properties showed associations, albeit limited, with learning rates, as assessed with 10 days of computerized working memory training administered after the resting-state sessions, suggesting that baseline network configuration may influence subsequent learning outcomes. Identification of neural mechanisms associated with learning-induced plasticity is important for further clarifying whether and how such changes predict the magnitude and maintenance of training gains, as well as the extent and limits of cognitive transfer in both younger and older adults.
- A collection of 157 individual neuromelanin-sensitive images accompanied by non-linear neuromelanin-sensitive atlas and a probabilistic locus coeruleus atlasLee, Tae-Ho; Kim, Sun Hyung; Neal, Joshua; Katz, Benjamin; Kim, Il Hwan (2024-02)The current dataset aims to support and enhance the research reliability of neuromelanin regions in the brain- stem, such as locus coeruleus (LC), by offering raw neuromelanin-sensitive images. The dataset includes raw neuromelanin-sensitive images from 157 healthy individuals (8–64 years old). In addition, leveraging individual neuromelanin-sensitive images, a non-linear neuromelanin- sensitive atlas, generated through an iterative warping pro- cess, is included to tackle the common challenge of a limited field of view in neuromelanin-sensitive images. Finally, the dataset encompasses a probabilistic LC atlas generated through a majority voting approach with pre-existing multiple atlas-based segmentations. This process entails warping pre-existing atlases onto individual spaces and identifying voxels with a majority consensus of over 50 % across the atlases. This LC probabilistic atlas can minimize uncertainty variance associated with choosing a specific single atlas.
- The Decline in Intrinsic Connectivity Between the Salience Network and Locus Coeruleus in Older Adults: Implications for DistractibilityLee, Tae-Ho; Kim, Sun Hyung; Katz, Benjamin; Mather, Mara (2020-01-31)We examined functional connectivity between the locus coeruleus (LC) and the salience network in healthy young and older adults to investigate why people become more prone to distraction with age. Recent findings suggest that the LC plays an important role in focusing processing on salient or goal-relevant information from multiple incoming sensory inputs (Mather et al., 2016). We hypothesized that the connection between LC and the salience network declines in older adults, and therefore the salience network fails to appropriately filter out irrelevant sensory signals. To examine this possibility, we used resting-state-like fMRI data, in which all task-related activities were regressed out (Fair et al., 2007; Elliott et al., 2019) and performed a functional connectivity analysis based on the time-course of LC activity. Older adults showed reduced functional connectivity between the LC and salience network compared with younger adults. Additionally, the salience network was relatively more coupled with the frontoparietal network than the default-mode network in older adults compared with younger adults, even though all task-related activities were regressed out. Together, these findings suggest that reduced interactions between LC and the salience network impairs the ability to prioritize the importance of incoming events, and in turn, the salience network fails to initiate network switching (e.g., Menon and Uddin, 2010; Uddin, 2015) that would promote further attentional processing. A chronic lack of functional connection between LC and salience network may limit older adults' attentional and executive control resources.
- Differential effect of motivational features on training improvements in school-based cognitive trainingKatz, Benjamin; Jaeggi, Susanne M.; Buschkuehl, Martin; Stegman, Alyse; Shah, Priti (Frontiers, 2014-04-24)Cognitive training often utilizes game-like motivational features to keep participants engaged. It is unclear how these elements, such as feedback, reward, and theming impact player performance during training. Recent research suggests that motivation and engagement are closely related to improvements following cognitive training. We hypothesized that training paradigms featuring game-like motivational elements would be more effective than a version with no motivational elements. Five distinct motivational features were chosen for examination: a real-time scoring system, theme changes, prizes, end-of-session certificates, and scaffolding to explain the lives and leveling system included in the game. One version of the game was created with all these motivational elements included, and one was created with all of them removed. Other versions removed a single element at a time. Seven versions of a game-like n-back working memory task were then created and administered to 128 students in second through eight grade at school-based summer camps in southeastern Michigan. The inclusion of real-time scoring during play, a popular motivational component in both entertainment games and cognitive training, was found to negatively impact training improvements over the three day period. Surprisingly, scaffolding to explain lives and levels also negatively impacted training gains. The other game adjustments did not significantly impact training improvement compared to the original version of the game with all features included. These findings are preliminary and are limited by both the small sample size and the brevity of the intervention. Nonetheless, these findings suggest that certain motivational elements may distract from the core cognitive training task, reducing task improvement, especially at the initial stage of learning.
- Dose-Response Effects of Working Memory Training Among Adolescents with Type 1 DiabetesMansoor, Marrium (Virginia Tech, 2023-02)Type 1 diabetes (T1D) is a chronic disease that is due to the dysregulation of glucose in the blood when insulin is not made endogenously. Patients rely on a combination of exogenic insulin, medications, blood glucose monitoring, and healthy lifestyle activities such as dietary control and exercise to manage their blood glucose levels. T1D typically begins its onset during childhood or adolescence, where it may also affect the development of executive function (EF) processes which are also relevant for self-regulation, or goal-directed behavior. This in turn may affect individuals’ adherence to their T1D management regimens, which can result in severe short- and long-term complications. Despite evidence for the plasticity of EF during childhood, previous research has not frequently focused on EF or self-regulation (SR) as a possible mechanism for improving health outcomes in adolescents with T1D. This study focused on the dosage of EF training and its possible effects on both cognitive and health outcomes for 47 adolescents (M= 15.4, SD =1.45) with T1D undergoing a larger adherence intervention. EF was measured by the Digit Span and Go/No-Go tests, while composite measures of T1D treatment adherence were aggregated via separate parent and adolescent reports. It was hypothesized that both cognitive measures and treatment adherence would have a dose-dependent relationship with n-back training. However, no association was found between training dosage and EF outcomes or treatment adherence. The study’s limitations include a relatively small sample size along with low participant compliance for the EF training. It also might be that the relationship between EF, SR, and health behaviors is more nuanced than previously suggested and that there are a variety of reasons why dosage of training was not linked to differential outcomes. As such, further investigation is required to better understand this relationship in the search for effective interventions for health behavior.
- Emotion Regulation and Screen Use among Parents of Toddlers: A Moderating Role of Parental PersonalityGurdal, Mahmut Sami (Virginia Tech, 2024-05)Despite the American Academy of Pediatrics’ (2016) recommendation to limit screen exposure in the early years, toddlers’ screen use exceeds these guidelines (Rideout & Robb, 2020). Given the significant role of parental media use in children’s exposure to screens (Domoff et al., 2020; Lauricella et al., 2015), it is important to understand the factors that contribute to parental screen use. Digital technologies have been posited as tools for emotion regulation (Wadley et al., 2020), suggesting that parental emotion regulation may serve as a significant determinant of parental media use. Prior studies have shown the association between emotion regulation strategies and different types of screen use, including non-interactive and interactive media (Extremera et al., 2019; Rozgonjuk & Elhai, 2021). It has also been suggested that the role of emotion regulations strategies may differ by personality traits (Gross & John, 2003). However, limited research to date examined these associations with the focus on parents of toddlers. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine the association between parents’ emotion regulation strategies on their screen use and the moderating role of personality traits in this association. This study used secondary data collected from an online survey of 296 mothers of children between 18 to 36 months in the United States. Linear regression models were fitted to examine the association between emotion regulation strategies and parental screen use, with a focus on two specific regulation strategies and interactive and non-interactive screen use. They were founded that cognitive reappraisal was not related either non-interactive and interactive screen uses and that expressive suppression was only associated with non-interactive screen use. Cognitive reappraisal was related to agreeableness and expressive suppression was related to extraversion. No moderator roles of agreeableness on the association between cognitive reappraisal and both types of screen use and extraversion on the association between expressive suppression and both types of screen use were found. Future research is needed to test the possible biases resulting from the self-report technique, understand the causation between emotion regulation strategies and screen use, and include the context of screen media for deeper understanding.
- How Is Your Cognitive Reserve?Katz, Benjamin; Rafie, Carlin; Santiago, Vanessa; Wright, LaWanda; Barber, Crystal; Butterfield, Kimberly; Henderson, Jane; Salazar, Aisha (Virginia Cooperative Extension, 2021-06-01)
- Internet Addiction, Cognitive, and Dispositional Factors among US AdultsDevine, Diana; Ogletree, Aaron M.; Shah, Priti; Katz, Benjamin (Elsevier, 2022-05)While a growing body of literature has examined internet addiction in the context of psychological factors, most of this work has focused on younger populations outside of the United States. A sample of 898 US adults ranging from 18 to 76 years of age were recruited through Amazon's Mechanical Turk platform to complete the Internet Addiction Test and key measures of affect, disposition, and cognitive function. A series of multiple regressions were conducted to examine Internet Addiction level as a predictor of outcome variables. ANCOVAs with Fisher 's LSD post-hoc analyses were conducted using level of internet addiction as the grouping variable to examine differences between groups. Results found that Internet Addiction was a significant predictor of depression, impulsiveness, self-control, need for cognition, theories of cognitive abilities, creativity achievement, cognitive failures, smartphone use behaviors, mental rotation test, and cognitive reflection test. Further, even mild levels of internet addiction were associated with less optimal outcomes. Additionally, a significant relation between age and internet addiction also emerged such that older adults were less likely to have higher levels of internet addiction than younger adults. However, age did not appear to modulate the association between internet addiction status and key psychological variables. To further elucidate the mechanisms and impact of internet addiction throughout the life course, future studies should collect online and in-person data, from individuals across a variety of backgrounds, throughout the lifespan.
- Midfrontal Theta Power and Attention in Middle ChildhoodHarrison, J. Douglas Jr. (Virginia Tech, 2023-09-08)Middle childhood is a critical period of attentional development. Previous research has linked neural oscillations in the theta frequency band to controlled attentional and cognitive processes, which has been replicated in children and adults. The development of executive attention, which biases attention and alters mental representation in the service of task goals, is preceded by development of sustained attention, and further selective sustained attention. These three attentional constructs can be represented by Posner’s altering (sustained) orienting (selective sustained) and executive attention networks. Effortful control, a temperament trait describing individual differences in ability to exert self-regulation, has been linked to efficiency of the executive attention system. To examine attentional engagement (within task) and demand (between task) electroencephalography was recorded from 226 six- and nine-year-old children at medial and lateral, frontal, and parietal scalp locations during a baseline, visual search, and the Attention Network Task to measure sustained, selective sustained and executive attention, respectively. Repeated measures MANOVA of frontal and parietal scalp locations indicate multiple complex three-way interactions of region (medial vs lateral), Age, and Block/Task. Frontal and parietal activation patterns were also different from each other, as well as between age groups. When temperament factors, effortful control and surgency, were included in the model (repeated measures MANCOVA) most interactions were no longer significant. We therefore find, in accord with previous literature, that medial frontal theta is impacted by attentional engagement and demand but this association is heavily impacted by individual biologically based differences.
- Neural correlates of working memory training: Evidence for plasticity in older adultsIordan, Alexandru D.; Cooke, Katherine A.; Moored, Kyle D.; Katz, Benjamin; Buschkuehl, Martin; Jaeggi, Susanne M.; Polk, Thad A.; Peltier, Scott J.; Jonides, John; Reuter-Lorenz, Patricia A. (2020-08-15)Brain activity typically increases with increasing working memory (WM) load, regardless of age, before reaching an apparent ceiling. However, older adults exhibit greater brain activity and reach ceiling at lower loads than younger adults, possibly reflecting compensation at lower loads and dysfunction at higher loads. We hypothesized that WM training would bolster neural efficiency, such that the activation peak would shift towards higher memory loads after training. Pre-training, older adults showed greater recruitment of the WM network than younger adults across all loads, with decline at the highest load. Ten days of adaptive training on a verbal WM task improved performance and led to greater brain responsiveness at higher loads for both groups. For older adults the activation peak shifted rightward towards higher loads. Finally, training increased task-related functional connectivity in older adults, both within the WM network and between this task-positive network and the task-negative/default-mode network. These results provide new evidence for functional plasticity with training in older adults and identify a potential signature of improvement at the neural level.
- Post-training stimulation of the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex impairs working memory training performanceAu, Jacky; Katz, Benjamin; Moon, Austin; Talati, Sheebani; Abagis, Tessa R.; Jonides, John; Jaeggi, Susanne M. (Wiley, 2021-10)Research investigating transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to enhance cognitive training augments both our understanding of its long-term effects on cognitive plasticity as well as potential applications to strengthen cognitive interventions. Previous work has demonstrated enhancement of working memory training while applying concurrent tDCS to the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC). However, the optimal stimulation parameters are still unknown. For example, the timing of tDCS delivery has been shown to be an influential variable that can interact with task learning. In the present study, we used tDCS to target the right DLPFC while participants trained on a visuospatial working memory task. We sought to compare the relative efficacy of online stimulation delivered during training to offline stimulation delivered either immediately before or afterwards. We were unable to replicate previously demonstrated benefits of online stimulation; however, we did find evidence that offline stimulation delivered after training can actually be detrimental to training performance relative to sham. We interpret our results in light of evidence suggesting a role of the right DLPFC in promoting memory interference, and conclude that while tDCS may be a promising tool to influence the results of cognitive training, more research and an abundance of caution are needed before fully endorsing its use for cognitive enhancement. This work suggests that effects can vary substantially in magnitude and direction between studies, and may be heavily dependent on a variety of intervention protocol parameters such as the timing and location of stimulation delivery, about which our understanding is still nascent.
- Targeted self-regulation interventions in low-income children: Clinical trial results and implications for health behavior changeLo, Sharon L.; Gearhardt, Ashley N.; Fredericks, Emily M.; Katz, Benjamin; Sturza, Julie; Kaciroti, Niko; Gonzalez, Richard; Hunter, Christine M.; Sonneville, Kendrin; Chaudhry, Kiren; Lumeng, Julie C.; Miller, Alison L. (Elsevier, 2021-08-01)Self-regulation, known as the ability to harness cognitive, emotional, and motivational resources to achieve goals, is hypothesized to contribute to health behaviors across the lifespan. Enhancing self-regulation early in life may increase positive health outcomes. During pre-adolescence, children assume increased autonomy in health behaviors (e.g., eating; physical activity), many of which involve self-regulation. This article presents results from a clinical trial (NCT03060863) that used a factorial design to test behavioral interventions designed to enhance self-regulation, specifically targeting executive functioning, emotion regulation, future-oriented thinking, and approach biases. Participants were 118 children (9–12 years of age, M = 10.2 years) who had a history of living in poverty. They were randomized to receive up to four interventions that were delivered via home visits. Self-regulation was assayed using behavioral tasks, observations, interviews, and parent- and child-report surveys. Results were that self-regulation targets were reliably assessed and that interventions were delivered with high fidelity. Intervention effect sizes were very small to moderate (d range = .02–.65, median = .14), and most were not statistically significant. Intercorrelation analyses indicated that associations between measures within each target varied based on the self-regulation target evaluated. Results are discussed with regard to the role of self-regulation-focused interventions in child health promotion. Implications of findings are reviewed for informing next steps in behavioral self-regulation interventions among children from low-income backgrounds.
- Third-person self-talk facilitates emotion regulation without engaging cognitive control: Converging evidence from ERP and FMRIMoser, Jason S.; Katz, Benjamin (Nature Research, 2017-07-03)Does silently talking to yourself in the third-person constitute a relatively effortless form of self control? We hypothesized that it does under the premise that third-person self-talk leads people to think about the self similar to how they think about others, which provides them with the psychological distance needed to facilitate self control. We tested this prediction by asking participants to reflect on feelings elicited by viewing aversive images (Study 1) and recalling negative autobiographical memories (Study 2) using either “I” or their name while measuring neural activity via ERPs (Study 1) and fMRI (Study 2). Study 1 demonstrated that third-person self-talk reduced an ERP marker of selfreferential emotional reactivity (i.e., late positive potential) within the first second of viewing aversive images without enhancing an ERP marker of cognitive control (i.e., stimulus preceding negativity). Conceptually replicating these results, Study 2 demonstrated that third-person self-talk was linked with reduced levels of activation in an a priori defined fMRI marker of self-referential processing (i.e., medial prefrontal cortex) when participants reflected on negative memories without eliciting increased levels of activity in a priori defined fMRI markers of cognitive control. Together, these results suggest that third-person self-talk may constitute a relatively effortless form of self-control.