Emotionally anesthetized: media violence induces neural changes during emotional face processing

The concept of artificially depicted emotions and their effect on emotional development has been a particularly hot button issue within the last few decades. The main driving force behind this topic of general research interest seems to be what the effect of modern technology have been on human, social interactions. The advent of the internet has allowed for humans to interact with each other more and more distantly which has continually raised questions of the neural value of social interactions held via the internet,

Video games have been an even more specified area of focus within this topic as well because most people seem to make the assumption that increased exposure to artificial violence from video games is likely to cause you to be more prone to violent outbursts in your life outside of video games. Laura Stockdale’s article titled: “Emotionally anesthetized: media violence induces neural changes during face processing” describes a study she and her colleagues conducted in order to elucidate the nature of the relationship between media violence exposure and increased aggression as well as decreased prosocial behavior. The results of this study showed that short-term exposure to violent film can lead to emotional anesthetization or a reduction in cognitive resources allocated to processing emotional face expression.

            As of very recently it has been proposed that mothers who have undergone extensive rhinoplastic surgery, reduce their ability to facially communicate emotion. This hypothesis, although untested, makes the claim that infants whose mothers have had extensive rhinoplastic surgery have a diminished ability to process emotional face expressions and therefore develop an atypical sense of empathy and sympathy and a diminished ability to relate to other people. Often in scientific research, if a particular topic doesn’t have enough prior evidentiary support, the topic will remain unexplored until some researcher manages to make a substantiated claim that their hypothesis is worth testing. Although it would be incredibly difficult to create research circumstances in which it be possible to assess the role or lack thereof facial emotional indicators, it still seems like a subject worth exploring.

References

Stockdale, L. A., Morrison, R.G., Kmiecik, M.J., Garbarino, J., & Silton, R.L. (2015) Emotionally anesthetized: media violence induces neural changes during face processing. 

Effects of Violent Media in Young Adults

           In modern society, people are frequently exposed to violence through media such as video games and television. Considering the high prevalence of media use among young adults, it is important to consider the possible physiological effects of violent media. 

In the article, “Cool , callous and in control: superior inhibitory control in frequent players of video games with violent content,” Laura Stockdale and colleagues examined the effects of media violence in frequent and infrequent players of video games with graphically violent content by measuring neural correlates of response inhibition in the context of attention to emotion, and they looked at how these factors were related to empathetic responses. The researchers found that participants who play violent video games more frequently exhibited lower levels of empathy. In addition, measurements of P100 and N200/P300 event related potentials indicated that there is an association between violent media and reduced brain activity. The results of this study suggest that long-term exposure to violence in media may have serious consequences in terms of emotional and cognitive processes.

A 2014 study by Hummer, Kronenberger, Wang, Anderson and Matthews examined the relationship between exposure to violent television and executive functioning, as well as the association between media exposure and brain structure. Participants, who were adult males with limited video game experience, were asked to report estimations of their television use over the past year. They then reported both the amount of time spent watching and characteristics of television over a period of one week before receiving tests to measure executive functioning and an MRI. The data collected revealed a positive correlation between violent television exposure and lower scores of inhibition, attention, and interference control. Researchers also observed reduced frontoparietal white matter volume in participants with higher exposure to violent television.  

The two articles described above have important associations with one another due to the fact that both studies have found evidence that constant exposure to violent media can physically modulate functions of the brain, such as emotional and cognitive processes. These physiological changes could potentially lead to real life enactments of violence. 

References

Hummer, T.A., Kronenberger, W.G., Wang, Y., Anderson C.C., & Mathews, V.P. (2014). Association of television violence exposure with executive functioning and white matter volume in young adult males. Brain and Cognition, 88, 26-34. https://doi-org.flagship.luc.edu/10.1016/j.bandc.2014.04.010

Stockdale, L.A., Morrison, R.G., Palumbo, R.T., Garbarino, J., & Silton, R.L. (2017). Cool, callous and in control: superior inhibitory control in frequent players of video games with violent content. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 12, 1869 - 1880.

Intervention through Autism Face Processing Observation

Common symptoms of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) include avoidance or poor of eye contact and anxiousness or inappropriateness in social interactions. Both of which cause ASD’s current diagnosis to be particularlystressful for individuals suffering with ASD, especially children. Additionally, intervention is unfortunately usually made around the ages of 2-3 years old to avoid false-positive autism diagnosis. Due to this rather late intervention, Dr. Guy and colleagues researched event-related potentials in children with varying risks of autism spectrum disorders (ASD) as they were exposed to familiar and novel, face and toy stimuli.Dr. Guy and colleagues chose to research this neural activation because individuals with ASD have been found to have atypical processing of faces and we have seen that this ability emerges early in development. Researchers found that infants with fragile X syndrome (FXS) and infant siblings of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASIBs), both considered to be groups at high risk for developing autism spectrum disorder (ASD), respond very differently to familiar and novel stimuli in terms of their neural activity compared to both controls and to each other.  

Like Dr. Guy, in Science Daily’s article “New technique developed to detect autism in children” researchers from the University of Waterloo’s main motivation for their research is also early intervention and diagnosis in children with ASD. Researchers in this study have similarly described how children with ASD view a person's face differently than a neuro-typical child. However, researchers in this study evaluated how individuals with ASD move their eyes and scan faces, instead of their neural activation towards faces like in Dr. Guy’s study. In this study, researchers were able to establish a diagnosis approach based on the results that consider how a child with ASD looks at an area to a person’s face and transitions to another area. 

These two studies complement each other because we can identify how the whole process of face perception, starting with eye movement and face scanning and ending in the neural activation towards faces, in high-risk infants is different than that of children with typical development. Additionally, as both of these articles study individuals with ASD or individuals with high risk of ASD, they study groups that may differ too much in brain structure or function. This may greatly affect as to how these individuals behave and differences in neural activation or brain function may be too different between them and this can potentially lead to changing results. Reflecting and analyzing both of these articles can allow us to conclude that better diagnostic methods could favor neuroscientists diagnosing children with ASD at earlier ages by not depending only on behavior that could potentially change with development, but rather using different techniques to create more reliable diagnosis. 

New technique developed to detect autism in children. (2019, July 9). Retrieved from https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/07/190709091139.htm

Guy, M. W., Richards, J. E., Tonnsen, B. L., & Roberts, J. E. (2018). Neural
correlates of face processing in etiologically-distinct 12-month-old infants at high-risk of autism spectrum disorder. Developmental cognitive neuroscience, 29, 61-71. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcn.2017.03.002

Does Exposure to Media Violence change who we are?

Violence is  prevalent in the media. In fact, it occurs so often that people have begun to care less and less about it. This is demonstrated by Robert Jay Lifton, who formulated the term “psychic numbing.” Psychic numbing refers to the inability to appreciate the losses of life as they increase. This is essentially saying that when the person’s frequency of losses increased, the less of an emotional reaction they had. In a sense, this relates to Laura Stockdale’s presentation of her and her colleagues' study in that when people are constantly exposed to violence, they become desensitized. This desensitization is also seen in Helen Vossen and her colleagues’ study, but they tested to find out whether it is media violence exposure that negatively influences desensitization or desensitization that negatively influences desensitization. They also addressed desensitization by testing for empathy and sympathy. 

In the article “Emotionally anesthetized: Media violence induces neural changes during emotional face processing,” Stockdale and colleagues suggest that exposure to media violence causes a decrease in empathy and prosocial behavior. They argue that the changes in emotional face processing after being exposed to media violence can result in desensitization to other’s emotional states. In order to test this, participants watched a nonviolent or violent film clip and then completed an implicit attention-to-emotion task. The researchers found that there was a decrease in frontal central P300 amplitude regardless of the emotion they saw. This suggests that the participants who watched the violent film clip were in less need of cognitive resources to process the emotions they observed, and to inhibit their own behavior in response.Thus, the researchers’ hypothesis was confirmed: exposure to media violence led to desensitization and a decrease in emotional face processing; therefore proposing that less cognitive resources are required for behavior to be hindered.  

Empathy plays a critical role in moral development and is considered negatively linked to aggression. Although many studies have found a negative relationship between media violence and empathy, Helen Vossen and colleagues are concerned that these studies frequently treat empathy as a one-dimensional construct as well as mistake empathy for sympathy. In designing their own longitudinal study, they address these issues by considering empathy as a multidimensional construct; measuring for affective empathy, cognitive empathy and sympathy. They define affective empathy as the sharing of another’s emotions and cognitive empathy as understanding another’s emotions based on using one’s own representations of those emotions. On the contrary, sympathy is defined as the feelings of concern one has about distressing events in another’s life. In the study, the participants were adolescents, who filled out two questionnaires a year apart, asking of their violent media exposure, nonviolent media exposure as well as sympathy and empathy. Vossen and colleagues hypothesize that adolescents’ exposure to violent media has a negative longitudinal effect on affective and cognitive empathy. They also hypothesize that affective and cognitive empathy have a negative longitudinal effect on the adolescents’ media violence exposure. In their results, they found that media violence was negatively correlated with affective empathy, cognitive empathy and sympathy. They also found that boys were significantly more exposed to media violence than girls, showing that girls had higher levels of all three categories at both time points. Out of all of their hypotheses, they only accepted that exposure to violent media had a negative longitudinal effect on sympathy. This means that media violence exposure influences sympathy, not empathy. As in Stockdale and her colleagues’ study, this study confirms that media violence causes people to become desensitized, specifically adolescents. 

These studies were similar in that they both demonstrated that there is an association between media violence exposure and desensitization. Specifically in the study that Stockdale presented on, it was confirmed that exposure to media violence led to desensitization and a decrease in emotional face processing. Thinking about it, this makes complete sense. We as humans are not sentimental to every single violent act we hear about. The more violence one is exposed to, the less sensitive they are to it, meaning they have less of an emotional reaction. This is explained by the phrase “neurons that fire together wire together,” each time a behavior is repeated, our brains learn to trigger the same neurons each time. influences one’s sympathy. So, these studies connect in that they demonstrate how exposure to media violence changes our brain function and behavior. 

Stockdale, L. A., Morrison, R. G., Kmiecik, M. J., Garbarino, J., & Silton, R. L. (2015). Emotionally anesthetized: media violence induces neural changes during emotional face processing. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 10(10), 1373–1382. doi: 10.1093/scan/nsv025

Vossen, H. G. M., Piotrowski, J. T., & Valkenburg, P. M. (2016). The Longitudinal Relationship Between Media Violence and Empathy: Was It Sympathy All Along? Media Psychology, 20(2), 175–193. doi: 10.1080/15213269.2015.1121825

Slovic, P. (2007, November). Psychic Numbing and Genocide. Retrieved from https://www.apa.org/science/about/psa/2007/11/slovic

Video Games and The Effect on Empathy and Hippocampus Plasticity

In a study titled "Cool Calloused and in Control:  Superior inhibitory Control of Frequent Players of Video Games with Violent Content", which was conducted by Laura Stockdale and colleagues at Loyola University in Chicago, researchers investigated whether chronic exposure to violent video games had an impact on neural functions that modulate affect and emotion. They compared the results of experiments between chronic violent and nonviolent gamers and found that subjects who played video games that were violent in nature were less empathetic than infrequent players of less violent video games. The studies were conducted by measuring VEP’s (visual evoked potentials). It was found that chronic players of violent video games had less P100 amplitudes evoked upon presentation of happy facial expressions when compared to non violent video gamers, as well as a lower P100 amplitude across valenced stimuli. In contrast, Infrequent players had a higher P100 amplitude in response to happy facial expressions compared to frequent players. The fact that the visual stimuli evoked a lower level of visually evoked potential in frequent players indicates that frequent players attend less to facial expressions compared to infrequent players, who allocate more attentional resources towards processing stimuli that are positive in nature

In the same vein, there there is another study titled “Impact of video games on plasticity of the hippocampus”, which was conducted by G.L. West et al, and published by Molecular Psychiatry. Researchers scanned participants' brains using MRIs, and found that action video game players who spent on average 19 hours a week  playing video games had significantly less gray matter in their hippocampus than non-video game players. This is concerning, as loss in gray matter in the hippocampus is associated with many psychiatric diseases, including Alzheimers. They then conducted an experiment in which they asked non-video game players to spend 90 hours over the course of 10 weeks playing video games. One group was to play 1st person action video games that were violent in nature, while the other group was to play Super Mario games, both in a controlled setting. The results were intriguing. The group who played action video games lost gray matter in their hippocampus, while people who played Super Mario gained gray matter in their hippocampus. West and colleagues speculated that in action video games, there is often an on screen GPS and markers in the scene that help the player navigate, because of this, they are not using their hippocampal memory system to navigate spatially. Instead, their reward system is more activated, so they are using and therefore have more growth in their caudate nucleus. When one system is trained, the other is potentially neglected and shows signs of atrophy.

While these two studies focus on different aspects of brain function when engaging in video games, they both
draw attention to the fact that engagement in video game activity has a direct effect on neural function. More than that, they both underline the fact that the content of visual stimuli determines the manner in which neural function is modulated. In each of the studies, it is clear that there is a difference in neural modulation between the violent versus nonviolent groups. This draws attention to the importance of modulating one's exposure and engagement in visual activity, since the content of what you see or engage in can quite literally have an effect on the manner in which your brain fires. This is an especially important fact to ponder, as people around the world have been sheltering in place due to COVID-19 outbreak, many of whom likely choose to pass time by playing video games. It is not a bad idea to think about the fact that the types of games you choose to engage in could affect your ability to accurately interpret the expressions of those around you as well as causes a physical structural change in your brain that can be detrimental in the future.

Stockdale, Laura et al. “Cool, callous and in control: superior inhibitory control in frequent players of video games with violent content.” Social cognitive and affective neuroscience vol. 12,12 (2017): 1869-1880. doi:10.1093/scan/nsx115

West, G.L., Konishi, K., Diarra, M. et al. Impact of video games on plasticity of the hippocampus. Mol Psychiatry 23, 1566–1574 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/mp.2017.155

Video Games Are Not to Blame for Mass Shootings and Violent Crime

With an increase in mass violence in the past couple of decades, after each crime people look for something to throw the blame on, and one of the most popular one in recent years has been violent video games. 

An article published by the New York Times — “Video Games Aren’t Why Shootings Happen. Politicians Still Blame Them.” — described the reaction of multiple politicians following two mass shootings that occured over one weekend, one in El Paso, Texas and one in Dayton, Ohio in August 2019. A gunman came to a Walmart supercenter in El Paso and opened fire, killing 23 people and injuring 23 more. The following day, a man shot and killed nine people and injured 17 others outside a bar in Dayton. According to the article, following the two shootings many politicians, including President Donald Trump, lieutenant governor of Texas Dan Patrick, and Republican House minority leader Kevin McCarthy all commented on the notion that violent video games are the root of the problem for those who cause mass shootings. President Trump said, “We must stop the glorification of violence in our society. This includes the gruesome and grisly video games that are now commonplace.”

Another article in the New York Times described Walmart’s response to the El Paso shooting. Here the author explained that following the shooting Walmart announced that it would remove displays and images that depicted any kind of violent activity. This included things like not playing videos that depicted any kind of violence on their TVs and removing posters and advertisements for video games that showed violent activity in the games. Any content that displayed messages of violent or aggressive behavior was to be removed from stores. 

However, both articles also pointed out that extensive research by psychologists has shown that there is not truly any evidence that shows a connection between playing violent video games and committing violent crimes. 

Dr. Laura Stockdale has studied this idea as well. In her lecture (April 21, 2020), Dr. Laura Stockdale described the effects that violence in various forms of media had on development, including aggressive behavior, personality and cognition. She also discussed how just simple exposure to aggressive behavior could influence one’s own aggressive behavior. In particular she gave an example of Albert Bandura’s Bobo doll experiment, which showed that children who observed the aggressive behavior of other people could learn to be more aggressive themselves. She further explained how exposure to media violence could affect prosocial behavior, empathy, attitudes and more. 

The article, “Emotionally anesthetized: media violence induces neural changes during emotional face processing,” described Stockdale’s study which was “designed to examine the influence of short-term exposure to film violence on emotional face processing.” Stockdale (et al.) used electroencephalography to examine the connection between exposure to media violence and neural changes which were associated with emotional processing. The main results of this study showed that exposure to media violence was associated with “emotional anesthetization,” or a reduction in the cognitive ability to process emotions in facial expressions. Similarly, these results showed that exposure to media violence can change the way humans view other people’s faces. Overall, the results of this study were consistent with the results of previous research that showed that being exposed to violence in the media (whether that was video games, film, etc.) was associated with an increase in aggressive behavior and a decrease in prosocial behavior. It also corresponded with previous research that showed desensitization to emotion. 

Although the results of this study may seem like they support the false claims that playing video games is associated with committing violent crimes, there is an important distinction to make. Aggressive behavior and criminal behavior are very different. Although observing aggression in video games might make people behave more aggressively or might make them emotionally desensitized to the aggressive behavior of others, does not mean it will make them more likely to commit violent crimes. There has been no evidence linking media violence to criminal activity, so to place the blame on that — rather than trying to decrease mass violence with increased regulation and policy —is wrong and, in my opinion, irresponsible. 

Link to articles: 

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/05/sports/trump-violent-video-games-studies.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/09/business/walmart-video-games-mass-shootings.html

Innovative Treatment for Epilepsy

The New York Times recently published an article regarding a young girl named Charlotte Figi, who had passed away from what was believed to be Covid-19. She had been diagnosed with Dravet syndrome, a severe form of epilepsy, as an infant. At five years old, she had tried dozens of medications and was in an extremely restricted state, fed through a feeding tube and stuck in a wheelchair. Finally, her mother began to research CBD, and Charlotte “became the face of the medicinal CBD movement” when it relieved many symptoms of her severe epilepsy and drastically improved her quality of life. Six years later, the FDA approved a CBD-based medication as the first medication to treat seizures caused by Dravet syndrome, as well as the first medication made from marijuana in the US.

This drug, Epidiolex, is one of many attempts to treat epilepsy, a neurological disorder characterized by abnormal brain activity which causes seizures. The symptoms of these seizures vary widely across the epileptic population, some causing momentary loss of awareness and others causing twitching throughout the body. The disorder can affect all ages and genders, and 1 in 26 Americans will develop the disorder over the course of their lives (epilepsy.com). While a variety of medications, therapies, and surgeries exist, a cure has not yet been found. Researchers continue to develop treatments and perform clinical trials, and some appear to be promising.

At Loyola University of Chicago, Dr. Hui Ye is using the brains of mice to experiment with seizure control using miniature magnetic coils. In his paper “Focal suppression of Epileptiform Activity in the Hippocampus by a High-frequency Magnetic Field” he articulates that while generation of electric current in the brain is a relatively common therapy for epilepsy, using miniature magnetic coils to do so allows for avoidance of direct contact between electrodes and neural tissue, as well as higher accuracy and precision when targeting the necessary brain areas. He tested multiple frequencies and durations of the magnetic field to inhibit epileptiform activity, and has found that higher frequency is more effective. While this therapy needs to be fleshed out before it can be used on humans, it shows promise where medication fails to treat epilepsy. Typical deep brain stimulation requires direct contact between electrodes and brain tissue, which often causes inflammatory and immune reactions, and reduced effectiveness of the stimulation due to scarring where glial cells attempt to reform around the electrode. Magnetic stimulation with miniature coils is less invasive and therefore does not have these effects.

Another therapy being continuously tested as an alternative to medication and more invasive therapies is the Ketogenic diet. This low carb, high fat diet has been proven to reduce seizures in children with epilepsy. Researchers at the Mayo Clinic wrote a paper, “The Ketogenic and Modified Atkins Diet Therapy for Children With Refractory Epilepsy of Genetic Etiology”, in which they studied the progress of children with a genetic etiology for refractory epilepsy when put on the Ketogenic or modified Atkins diet. The Atkins diet is similar to the ketogenic diet, but carbohydrate intake is slowly increased overtime. Although three children left the study early due poor compliance, severe reflux, and ketoacidosis, they found that the diet was an effective treatment for most children put on it, as their seizures were reduced by at least 50%. This therapy is beneficial for children because unforeseen side effects from medications could manifest in adulthood, and electrical therapies could induce a lot of stress in children due to fear.

Clinical trials being performed to find treatments for epilepsy expand far beyond CBD, miniature magnetic coils, and dieting. Researchers are testing new treatments across the globe to help the many people who have been diagnosed with this disorder. While this innovation is helpful and is improving every day, it is imperative that more attention is brought to the disorder in hopes of pushing for a cure. For those of us who are unaffected, it is extremely important to understand the disorder and the procedure for helping someone who is having a seizure. This education can help those living with epilepsy to live more normal and safe lives.

Ye H, Chen V, Helon J, Apostolopoulos N, (2020) Focal suppression of epileptiform activity in the hippocampus by a high-frequency magnetic field. Neuroscience 432 (1-14).

Garcia SE, (2020) Charlotte Figi, Who Helped Popularize CBD for Medical Use, Dies at 13. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/09/us/charlotte-figi-dead.html?searchResultPosition=1

Jagadish S, Payne ET, Wong-Kisiel L, Nickeles KC, Eckert S, Wirrell EC, (2019) The ketogenic and modified atkins diet therapy for children with refractory epilepsy of genetic etiology. Pediatr Neurol 94:32-37. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=The+Ketogenic+and+Modified+Atkins+Diet+Therapy+for+Children+With+Refractory+Epilepsy+of+Genetic+Etiology.

Media Violence Exposure and Personality Disorders

Lara Stockdale presented her research on “Emotionally anesthetized: media violence induces neural changes during emotional face processing”. The collection of studies that contribute to this field of research make up the meta-analytical study backing much of the foundation of this research. During her presentation, Stockdale explained that meta analytical studies essentially use research articles to summarize a huge body of research. The results suggested that various media exposures, specifically those with violence, may deprive frequent viewers of violent media/frequent players of violent video games of the basic skill of emotional face processing. 

Emotional face processing allows us to process and interpret facial expressions which in turn assist us with negotiating our life experiences. Individuals who are frequently exposed to media violence tend to lack these essential processing skills, making it difficult for them to perceive and interpret threats which are necessary for survival. The article explains a crucial aspect of this research which is that “emotional anesthetization” can contribute to moral disengagement. I would like to make the argument that this can result in the endangerment of others along with the possible threat of the individual to him/herself. Feelings of disengagement can result in an individual creating internal justifications for aggressive behavior. Another factor that supports my argument is that emotional anesthetization also increases enjoyment and pleasure during playing violent video games. The article states that, “Violent-video gamers show evidence of denying the humanness of others and report victims of violence as less human.” (Stockdale)  A major research question this study proposed was, is there a relationship between exposure to media violence and real-world aggression? As it turns out, short term exposure to violent media is related to increased aggressive behavior. It was also found that with short term exposure to violent video games comes increased aggressive affects and cognition contributing to increased aggressive arousal. I am currently enrolled in a social psychology course and in a recent case study we reviewed alarming evidence that high levels of exposure to violence can trigger sociopathic and psychopathic behavior in some individuals. We have read studies for classes that had results that supported similar hypotheses, yet results are contradictory. 

I am now wondering, can media violence exposure/video game violence participation be a trigger for individuals and promote the possibility of sociopath/psychopath tendencies and responses to various experiences and stimuli? Additionally, can emotional anesthetization enable narcissistic personality disorders? I personally think that violent media exposure wouldn’t necessarily CAUSE a personality disorder, however I would like to know if there are various effects that this research can help us understand in that regard. One frequently overlooked factor is that the general aggression model considers inputs including the person and the situation. A person and the situation work in correspondence to influence how the person behaves. In terms of the long term repeated exposure to violent media: will this eventually change your personality? For example, with an increase in aggression, I am interested in exploring any possibilities for chronic personality shifts. This is important to investigate because individuals are much more likely to behave aggressively in these ambiguous social situations due to vicarious operant conditioning while playing violent video games as well as self-identification with violent “protagonists”. The “protagonists” are rewarded for their violent behavior, and therefore are conditioned to have violent behavioral inclinations.

It has been hypothesized in a wide range of other studies relevant to aggression and violence exposure that feelings of inferiority can often lead individuals to demonstrate aggressive behavioral outcomes towards those individuals perceived as threatening. However, recent studies are beginning to suggest that looking at related constructs such as narcissism is critical in trying to understand aggressive behavior. Recent studies have been looking at the relationship between narcissism and violence in both clinical and student populations.  In 2016, Sinead Lambe published the team's research titled, “The Role of Narcissism in Aggression and Violence”. This article aims to systematically integrate the findings found in these recent studies into existing theories of violence. More specifically, however, this systematic review used a twenty article review and worked to describe 25 different samples. 

Although emotional face processing has proven itself to be a significant contribution to research on aggression and media violence, the results of this study indicate that narcissism is a relevant construct to understand when it comes to the understanding of aggression and violence. These findings dismantle the limitations of knowledge about the affective processing and cognitive control mechanisms. These results were found consistently in both populations; student and clinical. Additionally, it is known that cognitive control is considered to be higher order processing. It grants us the ability to control our behavior. In her study, Stockdale demonstrated that through chronic exposure to violent media and video games some aspects of cognitive control can be damaged. This happens because the ability to inhibit the less favorable response is compromised. This leads me into my discussion on empathy. According to Lambe’s study, since sociopaths also possess a limited ability to experience empathy to an extent where it could influence behavioral outcomes, I was curious to find out whether or not sociopathic behavioral outcomes can be related to understanding  aggression, empathy, and violent media exposure in similar ways we are learning that narcissistic personality disorder helps us understand some of these concepts. 

The reason these findings are a crucial contribution to this field of study is because they can help us gain a greater understanding of violence and in turn be able to predict and reduce it. One relevant potential problem is that currently, during covid children in their stages of development are constantly being exposed to various forms of media, including violent media. Due to the necessity of staying inside, the majority of children are resorting to technology for routine entertainment. One final question to consider; what are some of the potential chronic long term effects of a drastic social change as such and could we experience a generational personality shift? In both my social psychology class I previously mentioned as well as the study “The Role of Narcissism in Aggression and Violence”, it was explained that the social learning theory helps us understand learning based on exposure and association. Basically, there is a stimuli focus which directs our attention. Next comes rehearsal and encoding which result in retention. This is then followed by an important aspect of the theory, practice and feedback which should, in theory, be followed by a reward which reinforces and promotes motivation. This theory in correspondence with many others can help in discovering life altering interventions and solutions to various problems with violence exposure and aggression. 

Link to New Journal Study: 

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1524838016650190

In Class Article: 

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/hdluh1vfs2cphhz/AADh1d3KFXR-ZhKBCLY9-dSba/(04.21.20)%20-%20Laura%20Stockdale?dl=0&preview=Stockdale_etal_2015_SCAN.pdf&subfolder_nav_tracking=1

The Microbiome and its Effect on our Nervous System

During the second half of the semester, Dr. Hemraj presented his research on evidence that microbiomes have a role in the development of A-Beta protein deposits and microglia phenotypes typical of Alzheimer’s disease in a sex-specific manner in mice. His research is part of a novel field that has only recently been brought to the spotlight and has begun gaining traction in news articles and opened a new market in consumer health products. Dr. Hemraj’s research was particularly interesting because it showed how male mice with differing microbiomes had significant changes in the typical progression of A-Beta amyloidosis and microglia phenotypes that are markers for Alzheimer’s disease. Male mice that was given an antibiotic cocktail from birth was shown to have a wildly different gut microbiome than a wildtype mouse as well as significantly less, if any of the markers for Alzheimer’s. In addition, upon transferring a wild-type mouse’s fecal matter to an antibiotic treated mouse, you could induce changes to the recipient and ‘rescue’ the wild-type condition. This fecal-transplant mouse would once again exhibit higher markers of Alzheimer’s than the antibiotic treated mice who did not receive transplants. Essentially, this research meant that there was something about the wild-types gut flora and diversity of bacteria, which is absent in the experimental mouse, that was producing the progression of Alzheimer’s in male mice. This research is quite thought provoking and in fact was mentioned in The New York Times article Germs in Your Gut Are Talking to Your Brain. Scientists Want to Know What They’re Saying (Carl Zimmer) along with a few other similar research papers done by differing groups. Since the goal of the blog is to avoid an article referencing the research, I’ll strictly stick to the section regarding the other research that has been done in this field. First off, the author introduces this field as exactly what Dr. Hemraj was explaining that the idea of researching the microbiome in relation to disease and behavior was ‘considered crazy’ as for a long time we weren’t able to preserve the entirety of an animals gut flora in vitro. The author quotes Dr. Rob Knight of UC San Diego that “As recently as 2011, it was considered crazy to look for associations between the microbiome and behavior.” Dr. Rob Knight was one of the earliest investigators in the field and discovered that germ-free mice that received a fecal transplant from mice with a genetic mutation that caused them to be overeat would begin overeating and gaining weight. This sort of research shows that the microbiome is playing a very complex role with our bodies and brain backing the idea that Alzheimer’s could be due to the gut as much as genetic predispositions would, and maybe the genetic predispositions are affecting the immune system – gut flora interactions. The article additionally mentions research by Dr. Cryan who found sterile mice to become loners and prefer staying away from fellow rodents. Not only did Dr. Cryan find a behavioral change, but a significant change to the amygdala, the center for emotional processing. According to Dr. Cryan the amygdala of these germ-free mice made an unusual set of proteins, changing the connectivity of these neurons. Evidently, being germ-free not only plays a role in A-Beta clumps but also the genetic expression of neurons in the amygdala as well. Further behavioral changes are found as we look at the gut flora of humans and further, those with Autism, who have been shown to “Have unusual patterns of microbial species in their stool” (Carl Zimmer). Researchers in this field, like Dr. Sisodia and Dr. Hemraj are confident that these results are due to the bacterial changes, however, the author brings up a good point of the limitation to this research done so far. Because these researchers are transferring hundreds of bacterial species at once in fecal transplants, the experiments don’t have the ability to know what species the cause of the brain changes are observed among all these studies. In addition, it is still somewhat unclear if the disease is causing the changes to the gut flora or rather what these scientists speculate: the opposite. As the author makes note, this uncertainty is due to the known fact that those with Alzheimer’s change their diet as the disease progresses, which could be responsible for changes in the gut flora as well. The is one study discussed with some certainly though, and that’s one done by Dr. Costa-Mattioli, who found that feeding mothers a high-fat diet makes it more likely that their pups develop antisocial behaviors as previously seen in SHANK3 mutant mice. When they compared the microbiomes of these mice, they found a specific stain, Lactobacillus reuteri, which was lacking in both populations. When this stain was added to either animals’ diet, the animals became social again. The author quotes Dr. Consta-Mattioli’s statement that he “found evident that L. reuteri releases compounds that send a signal to nerve endings in the intestines. The Vagus nerve sends these signals from the gut to the brain, where they alter production of a hormone called oxytocin that promotes social bonds.” The author states that research points to the gut microbiome developing before birth as a pregnant mother’s own microbiome releases molecules that enter the fetal brain as well as other research showing a seeding of microbes during childbirth and breast feeding. The final section of this article shows further research showing the microbiomes impact on both epileptic and Parkinson type symptoms in mice. The author depicts these researchers new struggle to not be overly enthusiastic about these results as they may be skewed by the media and the reality is that we’re only just starting to get a glimpse of what’s going on. The author depicts the problems with emerging OTC probiotic supplements and the pseudoscience claims of curing depression among other diseases they have begun to claim. There is still more to be done in research to figure out what strains should be included in these probiotics and at what dose which will require many clinical trials. While research like Dr. Hemraj and others are showing to be quite significant in their effects on our nervous system, its too early to buy into PR campaigns that are based off these first signs of importance. The science still has much time to mature, but it is interesting nonetheless.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/28/health/microbiome-brain-behavior-dementia.html