Biology subjects

Corradi-Dell'Acqua, C.

Publications and source records attributed to Corradi-Dell'Acqua, C..

4 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2022

Distraction and cognitive control independently impact parietal and prefrontal neural response to pain

Previous studies found that distracting someone through a challenging activity leads to hypoalgesia, an effect mediated by parietal and prefrontal processes. Other studies suggest that challenging activities affect the ability to regulate ones aching experiences, due to partially-common neural substrate between cognitive control and pain at the level the medial prefrontal cortex. We investigated effects of distraction and cognitive control on pain by delivering noxious stimulations during or after a Stroop paradigm (requiring high cognitive load) or a neutral condition. We found less intense and unpleasant subjective pain ratings during (compared to after) task execution. This hypoalgesia was associated with enhanced activity at the level of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the posterior parietal cortex, which also showed negative connectivity with the insula. Furthermore, multivariate pattern analysis revealed that distraction altered the neural response to pain, by making it more similar to that associated with previous Stroop tasks. All these effects were independent of the nature of the task which, instead, led to a localized neural modulation around the anterior cingulate cortex. Overall, our study underscores the role played by two facets of human executive functions, which exert independent influence in the neural response of pain.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2022

Cognitive exertion affects the appraisal of one's own and other people's pain

Correctly evaluating others pain is a crucial prosocial ability, especially relevant for the healthcare system. In clinical settings, caregivers assess their patients pain under high workload and fatigue, often while dealing with competing information/tasks. However, the effect played by such cognitive strain in the appraisal of others pain remains unclear. Following embodied accounts that posit a shared representational code between self and others states, it could be hypothesized that the representation of peoples pain might be influenced by cognitive exertion similarly to first-hand experiences. Fifty participants underwent one of two demanding tasks, involving either working memory (Experiment 1: N-Back task) or cognitive interference (Experiment 2: Stroop task). After each task, participants were exposed to painful laser stimulations at three intensity levels (low, medium, high), or video-clips of patients experiencing three intensity levels of pain (low, medium, high). Participants rated the intensity of each pain event on a visual analogue scale. We found that the two tasks influenced rating of both ones own and others pain, by decreasing the sensitivity to medium and high events. This was observed either when comparing the demanding condition to a control (Stroop), or when modelling linearly the difficulty/performance of each depleting task (N-Back). We provide converging evidence that cognitive exertion affects the subsequent appraisal of ones own and likewise others pain. Healthcare personnel should be aware that high workload might alter their cognitive abilities. Perspectivethis research shows that cognitive effort aftereffects impact negatively the assessment of of medium/high pain in others, reminiscently to what was observed in first-hand experiences. Healthcare professionals should be aware that high workload and severe cognitive fatigue could affect their diagnostic skills.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2021

Cognitive and affective Theory of Mind double dissociation after parietal and temporal lobe tumors

Extensive neuroimaging literature suggests that understanding others thoughts and emotions engages a wide network encompassing parietal, temporal and medial frontal brain areas. However, the causal role played by these regions in social inferential abilities is still unclear. Moreover very little is known about ToM deficits in brain tumours and whether potential anatomical substrates are comparable to those identified in fMRI literature. This study evaluated the performance of 105 tumour patients, before and immediately after brain surgery, on a cartoon-based non-verbal task evaluating Cognitive (Intention Attribution) and Affective (Emotion Attribution) ToM, as well as a non-social control condition (Causal Inference). Across multiple analyses, we found converging evidence of a double dissociation between patients with right superior parietal damage, selectively impaired in Intention Attribution, and those with right antero-medial temporal lesion, exhibiting deficits only in Emotion attribution. Instead, patients with damage to the frontal cortex were impaired in all kinds of inferential processes, including those from the non-social control conditions. Overall, our data provides novel reliable causal evidence of segregation between different aspects of the ToM network from both the cognitive and also the anatomical point of view.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2021

Healthcare experience disrupts representational similarity between one's and others' pain in anterior insula

Medical students and professional healthcare providers often underestimate patients pain, together with decreased neural responses to pain information in the anterior insula (AI), a brain region implicated in self-pain processing and negative affect. However, the functional significance and specificity of these neural changes remains debated. Across two experiments, we recruited university medical students and emergency nurses to test the role of healthcare experience on the brain reactivity to others pain, emotions, and beliefs, using both pictorial and verbal cues. Brain responses to self-pain was also assessed and compared with those to observed pain. Our results confirmed that healthcare experience decreased the activity in AI in response to others suffering. This effect was independent from stimulus modality (pictures or texts), but specific for pain, as it did not generalize to inferences about other mental or affective states. Furthermore, representational similarity and multivariate pattern analysis revealed that healthcare experience impacted specifically a component of the neural representation of others pain that is shared with that of first-hand nociception, and related more to AI than to other pain-responsive regions. Taken together, our study suggests a decreased propensity to appraise others suffering as ones own, associated with a reduced recruitment of pain-specific information in AI. These findings provide new insights into neural mechanisms leading to pain underestimation by caregivers in clinical settings.

neuroscience↗