Presentation 1: Personalised transcranial alternating current stimulation as a novel therapeutic treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder.

Presenter: Stephanie Gotsis completed her masters in neuroscience (2015) and PhD in psychology (2023) here at the ANU. Her core area of research involves non-invasive brain stimulation (transcranial electrical and magnetic stimulation). Stephanie’s research focuses on understanding brain stimulation effects on neurophysiology (e.g., neural noise and theta activity in the brain), and how these neurophysiological changes relate to behaviour and mood. Her current work also involves the development of electrical and magnetic brain stimulation methods for the treatment of depression, OCD, and PTSD.

Abstract:  Brain waves (also known as neural oscillations) in the brain’s default mode network (DMN) and visual cortex (VC) appear to be functionally and clinically relevant targets for the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Novel non-invasive brain stimulation techniques can directly target neural oscillations, potentially providing a safe and effective means to treat this complex disorder. Using transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS), this research project will directly investigate for the first time whether stimulating alpha oscillations (8-12 Hz) to treat pathophysiological DMN activity results in improved clinical outcomes in patients with PTSD. This essential research is a crucial first step in demonstrating the potential of tACS as a novel therapeutic treatment option for those with PTSD. This research project is funded by the ANU SMP Fast Grant Seed Funding Scheme (2024). In this talk I will present the rationale, our current progress, and how we intend to use the outcomes of this project.

Presentation 2:  Individual differences in attentional bias to emotionally salient stimuli: Are they reliable?

Presenter: Professor Mark Edward’s first degree was Mechanical Engineering from the University of Queensland. He completed a Bachelor of Science (Psychology with First Class Honours) in 1990 and a PhD at Melbourne University in 1994. Mark then completed postdoctoral fellowships at the Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Company in Japan (1994 to 1995) and the University of California at Berkeley (1995 to 2001). Mark commenced a research and teaching academic position at the Australian National University in 2001.

Mark’s earlier research was on visual perception, with a particular focus on motion perception, how to use psychophysical tasks to gauge the function of interaction of different cortical pathways in the brain. His recent research has moved into cognitive psychology, focusing on attentional control with a particular emphasis on how it is used in everyday applications, like driving, and in social interactions. 

Abstract: Visual attention selects a subset of objects for detailed processing. Consequently, attention can play an important role in shaping how we experience the world. Emotionally salient stimuli (i.e., those that signal threat, punishment or reward) are prioritised over emotionally neutral stimuli. It is thought that are individual differences in the magnitude of this attentional bias to ESS, and that these differences are associated with individual differences in negative affect in people. However, there are mixed findings regarding this relationship. While such a relationship may not exist, it is also possible that there are methodological issues with the previous studies that have investigated this issue. Here we interrogated this in relation to the measurement reliability of a particular paradigm used in these studies - emotion-induced-blindness (EIB) – which reflects attentional bias to emotionally salient stimuli. Specifically, the low reliability of EIB scores may limit the effectiveness of the paradigm for investigating individual differences. Here, across two studies, we investigated whether we could improve the reliability of EIB scores. In Experiment 1, we introduced a Mid-intensity emotionally salient stimuli condition, with the goal of obtaining a wider range of EIB magnitudes to promote reliability. In Experiment 2 we sought to remove attentional odd-ball effect of the distractors compared to the filler images, so we created a modified EIB paradigm by removing the filler images. Neither of these approaches improved the reliability of the EIB scores. However, we found high correlations in performance between the neutral and emotionally salient conditions. The implications of these results, including for the idea of individual differences in attentional biases to emotionally salient stimuli, will be discussed.