DSpace Repository :: Browsing by Author "Forcato, Cecilia"

Browsing by Author "Forcato, Cecilia"

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Can we be “out” of our body? Characterization and clinical implications of out-of-body experiences during sleep paralysis: Preliminary results
(2021) Herrero, Nerea; Gallo, Francisco; Forcato, Cecilia
"Sleep paralysis is a period of transitory immobility which occurs during sleep onset or offset. It is characterized by the inability to perform voluntary movements when the person feels awake and conscious about the environment. During an episode of sleep paralysis can occur different types of hallucinations: The Intruder, characterized by the sense of an evil and threatening presence, visual and tactile hallucinations. The Incubus, characterized pressure on the chest and other body parts, breathing difficulties, feelings of suffocation, choking, pain and morbid thoughts of imminent death. Unusual body experiences which includes Illusory Movement Experiences (IMEs) and Out of Body Experiences (OBEs). IMEs are vestibular sensations such as the sensation of rolling or floating, and/or motor sensations of displacement without a visual component.The OBEs are an altered state of consciousness, defined as the experience in which an observer perceives the world from a point of view outside of their physical body. Unlike the other two components (incubus and intruder), during IMEs and OBEs the person may not feel body paralysis, and they are considered as more pleasant. OBEs during sleep paralysis can occur spontaneously or it can be induced with training by the recognition of an aura that precedes the experience. Here, we will discuss preliminary results of an online survey with subjects who had unusual sleep experiences, such as OBEs and Sleep Paralysis and its clinical implications."
Cued memory reactivation is more effective during slow wave sleep than sleep stage 2
(2020) Carbone, Julia; Forcato, Cecilia; Born, Jan; Diekelmann, Susanne
"Compare cued memory reactivation during Slow Wave Sleep (SWS) and sleep Stage 2 (S2)."
Declarative memory consolidation dynamics: new time windows and its implications for clinical application
(2020) Moyano, Malen D.; Bonilla, Matías; Blanco, Marcelo F.; Brusco, Luis Ignacio; Pedreira, María Eugenia; Kaczer, Laura; Forcato, Cecilia
"After encoding, memories go through a labile state followed by a stabilization process known as consolidation. Once consolidated they can enter a new labile state after the presentation of a reminder (cue) of the original memory, followed by a period of re-stabilization (reconsolidation). In both processes, once stabilization/re-stabilization is accomplished the memory cannot be modified. Currently there are studies that show a rapid stabilization after 30 min, while others studies show that stabilization occurs after 6h. However, there are no studies evaluating short and long delays simultaneously. Knowing that there are spontaneous waves of destabilization (without the re-exposure to keys linked to learning) on which the consolidation and memory persistence depend, here we investigate whether declarative memories in humans suffer spontaneous labilization/stabilization processes after learning or if they only pass through a single time window of lability."
Detección de complejos K y su rol en la consolidación de la memoria declarativa durante el sueño
(2021) Carosi, Julia; Vázquez Chenlo, Aylin Agatha; Forcato, Cecilia; Ramele, Rodrigo
"El presente proyecto final tiene los siguientes objetivos: -Estudiar el rol de los Complejos K en la consolidación de la memoria declarativa durante el sueño. -Desarrollar un algoritmo de detección automática de Complejos K durante la fase II del sueño."
Differential neurophysiological correlates of retrieval of consolidated and reconsolidated memories in humans: an ERP and pupillometry study
(2020-10) Campos-Arteaga, G.; Forcato, Cecilia; Wainstein, G.; Lagos, R.; Palacios-García, I.; Artigas, C.; Morales, R.; Pedreira, María Eugenia; Rodríguez, E.
"Consolidated memories can return to a labile state if they are reactivated by unpredictable reminders. To persist, active memories must be re-stabilized through a process known as reconsolidation. Although there is consistent behavioral evidence about this process in humans, the retrieval process of reconsolidated memories remains poorly understood. In this context, one fundamental question is whether the same or different neurophysiological mechanisms are involved in retrieval of consolidated and reconsolidated memories. Because it has been demonstrated that the exposure to the reconsolidation process may restructure and strengthen memories, we hypothesized distinct neurophysiological patterns during retrieval of reconsolidated memories. In addition, we hypothesized that interfering with the reconsolidation process using a new learning can prevent these neurophysiological changes. To test it, consolidated, reconsolidated and declarative memories whose reconsolidation process was interfered (i.e., picture-word pairs) were evaluated in humans in an old/new associative recall task while the brain activity and the pupillary response were recorded using electroencephalography and eyetracking. Our results showed that retrieval of reconsolidated memories elicits specific patterns of brain activation, characterized by an earlier peak latency and a smaller magnitude of the left parietal ERP old/new effect compared to memories that were only consolidated or whose reconsolidation process was interfered by a new learning. Moreover, our results demonstrated that only retrieval of reconsolidated memories is associated with a late reversed mid-frontal effect in a 600–690 time window. Complementarily, memories that were reactivated showed an earlier peak latency of the pupil old/new effect compared to non-reactivated memories. These findings support the idea that reconsolidation has an important impact in how memories are retrieved in the future, showing that retrieval of reconsolidated memories is partially supported by specific brain mechanisms."
Dream content during lucid dreams and out-of body experiences, differences and similarities
(2021) Gallo, Francisco; Herrero, Nerea; Tommasel, a; Gleiser, Pablo; Godoy, Daniela; Forcato, Cecilia
"During sleep, humans experience offline visual content that we call dreams, which are typically emotional and lack rational judgment about their strangeness. However, during lucid dreaming (LD), subjects know they are dreaming and can control the dream content. Another type of awere dream experience is the out-of-body experience (OBE) initiated from sleep paralysis. Although the differences between non-LD, LD and OBEs are evident, there is no record in the literature of such differences in dream content and some researchers describe OBEs as a type of LD. We conducted interviews with subjects who experienced LD and subjects who had OBEs frequently. A portion of them kept a dream journal for two months with precise instructions on how to write down their dreams. The collected dreams were analyzed by automatic methods of analysis of emotions such as EmoLex and Sentisense, also with classifiers such as Empath. The dream stories provided by the participants were scored with a series of ratings using a method based on Hall and Van de Castle's dream content scoring system upon which we developed variations and additional measures to adapt to the requirements of our task. The scoring was divided into sections, hought/emotion/action, presence of entities/characters and social interactions, sensory descriptions, spatial references, fantasy content, among others. Here we present the preliminary progress of this study of oneiric content."
Emotional episodic memory formation during Covid-19 quarentine: preliminary results
(2020) León, Candela S.; Bonilla, Matías; Urreta Benítez, Facundo A.; Forcato, Cecilia
"Episodic memory is the ability to recover past experiences and projects ourselves into the future. It is related to contextual information (both spatially and temporally). This type of memory is highly sensitive to aging, the passage of time, forgetfulness, interference and confusion. Furthermore, episodic memory processes are modulated by both anxiety and depression. People's mental health has deteriorated due to the Covid-19 pandemic, showing higher levels in both values. There is a general consensus that pleasant or aversive events are better remembered than neutral events. Regarding false memories, there is no such consensus. Some authors found that emotional content generates more false memories, however, it was also found that negative content reduces false memories. In this study we evaluated the effects of emotional variables, such as anxiety and depression, on memory encoding and consolidation of true and false details of aversive and neutral stories."
False memory formation during Covid-19 quarantine: age, sleep quality and emotional variables. Preliminary results
(2020) Bonilla, Matías; León, Candela S.; Urreta Benítez, Facundo A.; Lippmann-Mazzaglia, Natalia; Calvo, Camila; Garrido, Manuel; Forcato, Cecilia
"False memories are memories of events that did not happen or are altered in their content. It has been shown that not only small distortions can be introduced into old memories but also entire memories of events that never occurred can be implanted. Age is a crucial factor in the formation of false memories. Currently there is no consensus on which age range is more vulnerable. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, anxiety and depression values are increased and these factors also influence the formation of false memories.Thus, our aim was to study how age and mood factors, such as anxiety and depression, influence the formation of false memories."
Formación de memorias episódicas aversivas durante la pandemia por COVID-19
(2021) León, Candela S.; Bonilla, Matías; Urreta Benítez, Facundo A.; Brusco, Luis Ignacio; Wang, Jingyi; Forcato, Cecilia
"La memoria episódica es la capacidad de recordar qué, dónde y cuándo ocurrió un evento. Además, existe consenso en cuanto a que los eventos agradables o aversivos se recuerdan mejor que los eventos neutrales y que los procesos de memoria episódica están modulados por la ansiedad y la depresión. La salud mental de las personas se ha deteriorado debido a la pandemia de COVID-19, mostrando un aumento de los síntomas de ansiedad y depresión. Aquí, planteamos la hipótesis de que el aumento de síntomas negativos modifica la capacidad de codificar y consolidar recuerdos. Para estudiar esto, evaluamos los efectos del contexto emocional en la codificación y consolidación de recuerdos episódicos neutrales y aversivos."
Identification performance during quarantine by COVID-19 pandemic: Influence of emotional variables and sleep quality
(2021) Urreta Benítez, Facundo A.; León, Candela S.; Bonilla, Matías; Flores-Kanter, Pablo Ezequiel; Forcato, Cecilia
"The COVID-19 pandemic has caused major disruptions in people’s lives around the globe. Sleep habits and emotional balance have been disturbed in a way that could be comparable to the havoc caused by a deep personal crisis or a traumatic experience. This unfortunate situation provides a unique context in which to study the impact of these imbalances on cognitive processes. In particular, the field of eyewitness science could benefit from these conditions, since they are also often present in crime victims, but can only be generated in the laboratory up to a certain ethical and practical limit. For several decades, eyewitness studies have tried to discover what variables affect people’s ability to properly recognize faces. However, the disparity of experimental designs and the limitations of laboratory work could be contributing to the lack of consensus around several factors, such as sleep, anxiety, and depression. Therefore, the possibility of observing the influence of these agents in natural contexts could shed light on this discussion. Here, we perform simple and repeated lineups with witnesses of mock-crime, considering the conditions related to the COVID-19 pandemic, which to some extent allow emulating the deterioration in general well-being that often afflicts crime victims. For this, 72 participants completed symptomatology scales, and watched a video portraying a staged violent episode. Subsequently, they gave testimony and participated in two lineups, in which we manipulated the presence/absence of the perpetrator, to recreate critical scenarios for the appearance of false recognitions. We found an increase in recognition errors in those individuals who did not have access to the perpetrator during the Initial lineup. Additionally, the conditions of the pandemic appear to have adversely affected the ability to witness and accurately perform lineups. These results reaffirm the need to move toward the standardization of research practices and methods for assessing testimonial evidence, especially in relation to the results of the lineups. Considering the degree of fallibility of these processes can lead to a reduction of wrongful convictions."
The impact of sleep hygiene on emotional variables and memory processes in prision inmates
(2021) Martín, Alejandra; Bonilla, Matías; Tassone, Leonela M.; Gallo, Francisco; Forcato, Cecilia
"Having a good sleep quality is essential for a healthy life. Lack or poor quality of sleep can negatively affect various brain functions such as emotional processing and memory acquisition and consolidation. In addition, prolonged sleep deprivation, as well as the deterioration of the sleep quality are correlated with depressed mood, anger, aggressive behavior and anxiety. The prison experience can be inherently stressful and lead to disturbed sleep patterns. In prison, the most common sleep disorder is insomnia. When left untreated, it can negatively affect daytime functioning and work productivity, and it can influence inmate adverse behavior such as exacerbating irritability or aggression. Improving sleep in prison offers the potential to positively impact several of these common risk factors for both staff and inmates. Thus, we propose a sleep hygiene treatment to improve sleep habits in the prison environment. Here, we will discuss the project and preliminary data of one-month treatment of sleep hygiene in prison inmates."
The impact of time, age and frequency of use on recognizing personal items of our closest ones: Forensic implications. Preliminary results
(2021) Bonilla, Matías; Vidal, Vanesa; León, Candela S.; Urreta Benítez, Facundo A.; Forcato, Cecilia
"Sometimes people have to recognize belongings of close ones that were found in places where, for example, genocides took place. This is done in order to pinpoint a missing person's last whereabouts and in some cases because the family asks to keep with their belongings. To do this, one part of the process is asking the relatives of the missing person to identify the items. However, in some cases (e.g. the missing people during the last Argentine military dictatorship) these procedures have been put in doubt by the legal system in order to prevent errors such as two or more families recognizing the same item as their own and thus to prevent nonsense re-exposure to traumatic memories. To the best of our knowledge, there is a lack of studies evaluating our performance on recognition of clothes from close ones. It is known that our capacity to correctly recognize items depends on various factors, such as age, frequency of item exposure, level of stress, sleep, among others [1-4]. Here, we will discuss preliminary data of how different factors such as time, age and frequency of use modulate the capacity to correctly and falsely recognize personal items of close ones. These results can enlighten and help the everyday practice of organizations such asthe “Argentine Team of Forensic Anthropology” (EAAF) to make decisions about the reliability of the clothing recognition by the victim’s relatives."
Impairment of aversive episodic memories during Covid-19 pandemic: The impact of emotional context on memory processes
(2022-06) León, Candela S.; Bonilla, Matías; Urreta Benítez, Facundo A.; Brusco, Luis Ignacio; Wang, Jingyi; Forcato, Cecilia
"The threatening context of the COVID-19 pandemic provided a unique setting to study the effects of negative psychological symptoms on memory processes. Episodic memory is an essential function of the human being related to the ability to store and remember experiences and anticipate possible events in the future. Studying this function in this context is crucial to understand what effects the pandemic will have on the formation of episodic memories. To study this, the formation of episodic memories was evaluated by free recall, recognition, and episode order tasks for an aversive and neutral content. The results indicated that aversive episodic memory is impaired both in the free recall task and in the recognition task. Even the beneficial effect that emotional memory usually has for the episodic order was undermined as there were no differences between the neutral and aversive condition. The present work adds to the evidence that indicates that the level of activation does not modify memory processes in a linear way, which also depends on the type of recall and the characteristics of the content to be encoded."
Impairment of aversive episodic memories during covid-19 pandemic: The impact of emotional context on memory processes
(2021) León, Candela S.; Bonilla, Matías; Urreta Benítez, Facundo A.; Brusco, Luis Ignacio; Wang, Jingyi; Forcato, Cecilia
"Episodic memory is the ability to recall about what, where and when the event happened. Furthermore, there is a consensus that pleasant or aversive events are better remembered than neutral events and that episodic memory processes are modulated by anxiety and depression. People's mental health has deteriorated due to the COVID-19 pandemic, showing a growth in anxiety and depressive symptoms. Here, we hypothesize that the increase in negative symptoms modifies the ability to encode and consolidate memories. To study this, we evaluated the effects of emotional context on encoding and consolidation of aversive and neutral episodic memories."
K-Complex detection algorithm in non-REM sleep
(2020) Vázquez Chenlo, Aylin; Carosi, Julia; Carbonari, Giulia; Forcato, Cecilia; Ramele, Rodrigo
"In order to evaluate the relation between KC and memory processes our main goal was to create a method with Machine Learning techniques to characterize and identify KCs."
K-complex localization and classification algorithm
(2021) Vázquez Chenlo, Aylin; Carbonari, Giulia; Carosi, Julia; Forcato, Cecilia; Ramele, Rodrigo
"K-Complexes (KCs) are events present in non-rapid eye movement (non-REM) sleep, which have cellular dynamics similar to slow waves and have 3 distinguishing components: an initial P200, a posterior N500 and a final P900. Sleep plays a fundamental role in memory consolidation, favoring the transfer of new information from the hippocampus to the neocortex and its cortico-cortical redistribution. There are currently no studies that directly link KCs with memory processes, so they are not being considered as a possible facilitating event of this hippocampal-cortical dialogue. "
Learning new words: memory reactivation as a mechanism for strengthening and updating a novel word´s meaning
(2020-12) Laurino, Julieta; Forcato, Cecilia; Coaker, Nicole; Pedreira, María Eugenia; Kaczer, Laura
"In the present study we explored the post-learning changes in a novel word’s definition using a cue-induced memory reactivation. Native speakers of Spanish (N=373) learned low-frequency words with their corresponding definitions. The following day, reactivated groups were exposed to a reminder and provided a subjective assessment of reactivation for each word, while control groups did not receive a reactivation. Study A demonstrated that memory reactivation enhances both explicit recall and semantic integration of new meanings. Study B investigated the effect of memory reactivation in the modification of the new meanings, through three different experiments. Results show an improvement of the updated definitions according to each word´s reactivation strength. In addition, congruence with previous knowledge was found to be a boundary condition, while consolidation time had a positive modulatory effect. Our findings call attention to reactivation as a factor allowing for malleability as well as persistence of long-term memories for words."
Lucid dreams and out-of-body experiences reports : differences in emotional content, dream awareness, and dream control
(2023) Gallo, Francisco T.; Herrero, Nerea L.; Tommasel, Antonela; Godoy, Daniela; Spiousas, Ignacio; Gasca-Rolin, Miguel; Ramele, Rodrigo; Gleiser, Pablo M.; Forcato, Cecilia
Lucid dreams (LDs) and out-of-body experiences (OBEs) are phenomena characterized by the return of higher cognitive abilities during sleep, including reflective self-awareness and abstract thought. Given the similarities in reflective self-awareness between LDs and OBEs, some authors consider them variations of the same phenomenon. This study aimed to compare the differences in content between non-LDs, LDs, and OBEs obtained from 60 participants over a two-month period, with 916 dream reports collected. The dream reports were analyzed using automatic methods based on Lexicons such as NRC Emotion Lexicon and Empath, and were scored based on Hall and Van de Castle's dream content scoring system with variations and additional measures. Results showed that OBE dreams were characterized by higher occurrences of negative emotions compared to both lucid and non-lucid dreams as measured by automatic and manual scoring systems. Also, more OBE dream reports contained words related to agency and insight, higher manual scoring of dream control-related expressions, and more total sensations, dream activities, reference to prospective memory evocations, spatial and body references, and more difficulties with movement within the dream environment, than lucid dreams. The findings support the idea that OBEs represent unique experiences distinguished from lucid dreams.
Memory reconsolidation as a tool to endure encoding deficits in elderly
(2020-08) Tassone, Leonela M.; Urreta Benítez, Facundo A.; Rochon, Delfina; Martínez, Paula B.; Bonilla, Matías; León, Candela S.; Muchnik, Carolina; Solis, Patricia; Medel, Nancy; Kochen, Silvia; Brusco, Luis Ignacio; Moyano, Malen D.; Forcato, Cecilia
"Normal aging involves changes in the ability to acquire, consolidate and recall new information. It has been recently proposed that the reconsolidation process is also affected in older adults. Reconsolidation is triggered after reminder presentation, allowing memories to be modified: they can be impaired, strengthened or changed in their content. In young adults it was previously shown that the presentation of repetitive reminders induces memory strengthening one day after reactivation and the presentation of at least one reminder increases memory persistence several days after reactivation. However, until now this process has remained elusive in older adults. We hypothesize that older adults need a stronger reminder to induce memory strengthening through the reconsolidation process than young adults. To test this, we perform a three-day experiment. On day 1, participants learned 15 sound-word associations, on day 2 they received no reminders (NR group), one reminder (R group) or two rounds of reactivations (Rx2 group). Finally, they were tested on day 7. We found that, contrary to our hypothesis, older adults show a memory improvement triggered by repeated labilization/reconsolidation processes to an equal extent than young adults. These results open new perspectives into the use of reconsolidation to improve daily acquired information and the development of therapeutic home used tools to produce memory enhancement in healthy older adults or those with cognitive decline."
Modificación de memorias maladaptativas durante el sueño y la vigilia: una visión interdisciplinaria
(2020-11-20) Bonilla, Matías; Jorge, Camila Isabel; Moyano, Malen D.; Forcato, Cecilia
"Las memorias consolidadas pueden atravesar por un período de labilidad frente a la presentación de recordatorios (claves ligadas al aprendizaje inicial), seguido de un proceso de re-estabilización conocido como reconsolidación. Por otro lado, el sueño tiene un rol activo en la formación y modificación de memorias, así como en la reducción del tono emocional de las experiencias. Durante el mismo, las nuevas memorias se reactivan, refuerzan e integran a las redes mnésicas preexistentes. Dentro del contexto terapéutico, se pueden evocar memorias antiguas según la necesidad del sujeto, lo que podría estar desencadenando constantes labilizaciones/reestabilizaciones, quizás sin ser conscientes de ello. En la presente revisión bibliográfica discutimos los avances neurocientíficos relacionados a la reactivación y modificación de memorias durante la vigilia y el sueño, así como los últimos desarrollos en terapias psicoterapéuticas para trastornos de ansiedad, con el objetivo de pensar una práctica más interdisciplinaria."

Browsing by Author "Forcato, Cecilia"

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