manuel garcia - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by manuel garcia

PloS one, 2017

Attention capture by potentially relevant environmental stimuli is critical for human survival, y... more Attention capture by potentially relevant environmental stimuli is critical for human survival, yet it varies considerably among individuals. A large series of studies has suggested that attention capture may depend on the cognitive balance between maintenance and manipulation of mental representations and the flexible switch between goal-directed representations and potentially relevant stimuli outside the focus of attention; a balance that seems modulated by a prefrontostriatal dopamine pathway. Here, we examined inter-individual differences in the cognitive control of attention through studying the effects of two single nucleotide polymorphisms regulating dopamine at the prefrontal cortex and the striatum (i.e., COMTMet108/158Val and ANKK1/DRD2TaqIA) on stimulus-driven attention capture. Healthy adult participants (N = 40) were assigned to different groups according to the combination of the polymorphisms COMTMet108/158Val and ANKK1/DRD2TaqIA, and were instructed to perform on a ...

NeuroReport, 2008

We used an auditory^visual distraction task to investigate the functional relationship between di... more We used an auditory^visual distraction task to investigate the functional relationship between distraction elicited by auditory novel events and a context of negative emotional processing, both at behavioural and electrophysiological (event-related brain potentials) levels in humans. Participants performed a decision task on pictures disclosing sceneries with a task-irrelevant emotional load or neutral, whereas ignoring sounds presented concomitantly. Our data showed that novel sounds yielded stronger behavioural disruption on participants' visual task performance in negative context compared to the neutral one. Accordingly, late novelty P3 responses to novel sounds were enhanced. These results demonstrate that the negative emotional context enhances the activation of neural networks in the auditory novelty system, enhancing auditory novelty processing under potentially threatening conditions. NeuroReport 19:503^507

Neuropsychologia, 2010

The dopaminergic (DA) system has been recently related the emotional modulation of cognitive proc... more The dopaminergic (DA) system has been recently related the emotional modulation of cognitive processes. Moreover, patients with midbrain DA depletion, such as Parkinson's Disease (PD), have shown diminished reactivity during unpleasant events. Here, we examined the role of DA in the enhancement of novelty processing during negative emotion. Forty healthy volunteers were genotyped for the dopamine transporter (DAT) gene SLC6A3 or DAT1 and performed an auditory-visual distraction paradigm in negative and neutral emotional context conditions. 9R− individuals, associated to a lesser striatal DA display, failed to show increased distraction during negative emotion, but experienced an enhancement of the early phase of the novelty-P3 brain response, associated to the evaluation of novel events, in the negative relative to the neutral context. However, 9R+ individuals (associated to larger striatal DA display) showed larger distraction during negative emotion and larger amplitudes of the novelty-P3, irrespective of the condition. These results suggest a blunted reactivity to novelty during negative emotion in 9R− individuals due to a lesser DA display and stronger activation of the representation of novel events in the 9R+ group, due to a larger DA availability, thus reaching a ceiling effect in the neutral context condition with no further enhancement during negative emotion. The present results might help to understand the functional implications of dopamine in some neuropsychiatric disorders.

NeuroImage, 2011

This article appeared in a journal published by Elsevier. The attached copy is furnished to the a... more This article appeared in a journal published by Elsevier. The attached copy is furnished to the author for internal non-commercial research and education use, including for instruction at the authors institution and sharing with colleagues. Other uses, including reproduction and distribution, or selling or licensing copies, or posting to personal, institutional or third party websites are prohibited. In most cases authors are permitted to post their version of the article (e.g. in Word or Tex form) to their personal website or institutional repository. Authors requiring further information regarding Elsevier's archiving and manuscript policies are

NeuroImage, 2010

Effective orienting of attention towards novel events is crucial for survival, particularly if th... more Effective orienting of attention towards novel events is crucial for survival, particularly if they occur in a dangerous situation. This is why stimuli with emotional value are more efficient in capturing attention than neutral stimuli, and why the processing of unexpected novel stimuli is enhanced under a negative emotional context. Here we measured the phase-synchronization (PS) of gamma-band responses (GBR) from human EEG scalp-recordings during performance of a visual discrimination task in which task-irrelevant standard and novel sounds were presented in either a neutral or a negative emotional context, in order to elucidate the brain mechanisms by which emotion tunes the processing of novel events. Visual task performance was distracted by novel sounds, and this distraction was enhanced by the negative emotional context. Similarly, gamma PS was enhanced after novel as compared to standard sounds and it was also larger to auditory stimuli in the negative than in the neutral emotional context, reflecting the synchronization of neural networks for increasing of attentional processing. Remarkably, the larger PS increase of GBR after novel sounds in the negative as compared to the neutral emotional context over midline and right frontal regions reveals that a negative emotional context tunes novelty processing by means of the PS of brain activity in the gamma frequency band around 40 Hz in specific neural networks.

International Journal of Psychophysiology, 2010

Cerebral Cortex, 2008

Visualizing emotionally loaded pictures intensifies peripheral reflexes toward sudden auditory st... more Visualizing emotionally loaded pictures intensifies peripheral reflexes toward sudden auditory stimuli, suggesting that the emotional context may potentiate responses elicited by novel events in the acoustic environment. However, psychophysiological results have reported that attentional resources available to sounds become depleted, as attention allocation to emotional pictures increases. These findings have raised the challenging question of whether an emotional context actually enhances or attenuates auditory novelty processing at a central level in the brain. To solve this issue, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to first identify brain activations induced by novel sounds (NOV) when participants made a color decision on visual stimuli containing both negative (NEG) and neutral (NEU) facial expressions. We then measured modulation of these auditory responses by the emotional load of the task. Contrary to what was assumed, activation induced by NOV in superior temporal gyrus (STG) was enhanced when subjects responded to faces with a NEG emotional expression compared with NEU ones. Accordingly, NOV yielded stronger behavioral disruption on subjects' performance in the NEG context. These results demonstrate that the emotional context modulates the excitability of auditory and possibly multimodal novelty cerebral regions, enhancing acoustic novelty processing in a potentially harming environment.

Biological Psychology, 2012

Based on the previous study where phase-synchronization (PS) of gamma-band responses (GBRs) prove... more Based on the previous study where phase-synchronization (PS) of gamma-band responses (GBRs) proved a reliable cerebral correlate of involuntary attention and its enhancement under threat, we measured gamma-PS elicited by novel sounds from human electroencephalogram (EEG) scalp-recordings when participants responded to visual stimuli displaying either highly motivational or neutral sceneries. We then tested the modulatory effect of the emotional conditions on auditory responses. Novel distractor sounds did not affect behavioural accuracy on subjects' visual task performance in neutral context but markedly decreased hit rate in the appetitive one. Similarly, gamma-PS to novel sounds remained intact in neutral context, whereas it showed an increase, within the 35-Hz sub-range, in the appetitive context. These results suggest that a context of processing positive emotional stimuli results into an enhanced processing of task-irrelevant novel auditory events, and, furthermore, that gamma-PS is tuned under conditions that could promote long-term survival.

Biological Psychology, 2008

Journal of Family History, 2011

In this article, the author explains how the support of new technologies has helped historians to... more In this article, the author explains how the support of new technologies has helped historians to develop their research over the last few decades. The author, therefore, summarizes the application of both database and genealogical programs for the southern Europe family studies as a methodological tool. First, the author will establish the importance of the creation of databases using the File Maker program, after which they will explain the value of using genealogical programs such as Genopro and Heredis. The main aim of this article is to give detail about the use of these new technologies as applied to a particular study of southern Europe, specifically the Crown of Castile, during the Late Modern period. The use of these computer programs has helped to develop the field of Social Sciences and Family History, in particular Social History, during the last decade.