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.