Stress effects on conflict processing: The role of cardioafferent traffic

• Applicant: Dr. Mauro Larra
• Subject Area: Biological Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience
• Term: since 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 468148980

Stress is elicited by threatening, potentially harmful situations triggering a neuroendocrine response that is characterized by peripheral release of stress hormones and ensuing increases in heart rate and blood pressure. These peripheral stress reactions are fed back to the brain by various mechanisms, changing the way we process information and react to our environment. Besides the well described humoral transmission of stress messengers, neural projections originating from organ receptors within the cardiovascular system may contribute to stress induced changes in brain activity. As such, we and others could recently show that natural variations in cardioafferent traffic during the cardiac cycle influence the processing of conflicting as well as threat signaling stimuli. The aim of the proposed research project is to systematically investigate the impact of cardioafferent traffic on cognitive conflict processing and how it contributes to stress induced alternations. Several experiments combining cardiac cycle time paradigms and stress interventions are proposed to study how cardioafferent signals influence the processing of different types of conflicts, whether such an influence is dependent on the threat-signaling quality of stimuli, and whether it is modulated by stress.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants