This network can be trained to
develop more robust capacity for executive control. This, as we all experience,
is what parenting and schooling are about. Such training is especially crucial
in early childhood when the challenges of school are first encountered. Even
so, such training takes many years and for most of us may never be completed.
The question arises: can such
executive control training be expedited? One possibility has recently arisen
from several studies showing that working memory capacity can be expanded by a
relatively short training time, and in the process general intelligence may be
improved. Since the same system that determines intelligence is also operative
in executive control, it seems reasonable that working memory training might
also enhance executive control. To pursue this possibility in a specific
context, researchers have hypothesized that inappropriate or maladaptive
behaviors might be reduced by effective working memory training based on
emotion-laded stimuli.
In a study by Suaznne Schweizer
and colleagues in England, subjects in their early 20s were assessed for emotional control before and after 20 training days of 20-30 minute sessions.
The experimental groups received dual n-back training with a simultaneously
presented face and a word that was either emotionally negative or neutral.
After each picture-word pair, subjects were to press a button to indicate if
either or both members of the pair matched the stimulus presented n-positions
back. Tests began with n = 1 and increased as subjects gain proficiency.
Not surprisingly, errors in both
trained and untrained subjects increased at levels beyond n = 1, and the error
rate was comparable for both groups. Results also indicated that subjects
reported less distress when they consciously willed to suppress the distress
compared with the null state of just attending to negative stimuli. But this
distress reduction occurred only in the emotional working memory training
group.
No change in neural activity
levels was indicated in brain scans as a result of placebo training, but
significant increases occurred in the executive control regions of interest as
a result of emotional working memory training, irrespective of the level of n-back
achievement.
The study also compared emotional
responsivity before and after training. Subjects were asked to just pay
attention or to pay attention and cognitively suppress their emotional
reaction. Subjects rated their emotions on a numerical scale from negative to
positive while viewing films that were emotionally neutral (such as weather
forecasts) or that were emotionally disturbing (such as war scenes, accidents,
etc.). Training caused no change in the group that viewed only neutral images,
but in the groups viewing disturbing scenes, training decreased the perceived
distress in a group told just to attend the scenes and was even more effective
in the group told to suppress emotional reaction.
The emotional working memory
training produced benefits that transferred to the emotional response task.
Trained subjects not only regulated their emotions better but also developed
greater brain-scan activity during the emotional task in the predicted brain
regions of interest, the executive control loci. In other words, the training
actually changed brain function on a lasting basis. Traditionally, we have
always thought that the sole benefit of n-back memory training is to expand the
amount of information that can be held in working memory. But now we see that
such training can improve our ability to control emotions. Emotional working
memory training improves the ability to suppress disturbing emotional responses
and does so presumably because the executive control network is more activated.
Thus, such training might also enhance many executive control functions,
particularly responses to emotionally disturbing circumstances. A new tool for
self-control may have been discovered.
Sources:
Banich, M. T., Mackiewicz, K. L., Depue, B. E., Whitmer, A.
J., Miller, G. A. , Heller, W. (2009) Cognitive control mechanisms, emotions
and memory: a neural perspective with implications for psychopathology. Neurosci. Biobehav. Rev. 33, 613-630.
Beck, A. T. (2008) The evolution of the cognitive model of
depression and its neurobiological correlates. Am. J. Psychiatry. 165, 969-977.
Schweizer, S., Grahn, J., Hampshire, A., Mobbs, D., and
Dalgleish, T. (2013). Training the
emotional brain: improving affective control through emotional working memory
training. J. Neurosci. 33(12),
5301-5311.
Readers of this
column can learn more about n-back training and numerous other ways to improve
brain function in "Memory Medic's" e-book, Improve Your Memory for a Healthy Brain. For a limited time only,
this book is priced at 99 cents, available in all formats from Smashwords.com.
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