Uso de una red social segura para el estudio de la ansiedad en la adolescencia

Bornas, X.; Llabrés, J.; Balle, M.; de la Torre-Luque, A.; Fiol-Veny, A.

The aim of this paper is to introduce the TrANS Project and the first results obtained from two studies. This Project allows to examine trajectories of anxiety symptoms and state anxiety in adolescents by means of ICT, in particular a secure social network for data collection. Study 1 describes the structure and functioning of the secure social network XS2 and provides results of the participant’s login and use. Study 2 presents the fluctuations of the daily emotional state and the use of maladaptive emotion regulation strategies during an exam period, as well as the influence of risk factors on these fluctuations. In conclusion, the advantages derived from the use of a secure social network are emphasized, in comparison to other traditional data collection methods, in the study of the adolescent anxiety.

http://dx.doi.org/10.5944/rppc.vol.19.num.3.2014.13899

Spontaneous EEG activity and spontaneous emotion regulation

M. Tortella-Feliu, A. Morillas-Romero, M. Balle, J. Llabrés, X. Bornas, P. Putman

International Journal of Psychophysiology, Volume 94, Issue 3, December 2014, Pages 365-372, ISSN 0167-8760,

Abstract
Variability in both frontal and parietal spontaneous EEG activity, using α and β band power and θ/β and δ/β ratios, was explored in a sample of 96 healthy volunteers as a potential correlate of individual differences in spontaneous emotion regulation (SER). Following a baseline EEG recording, participants were asked to continuously rate their discomfort while looking at affective pictures, as well as for a period of time after exposure. Greater spontaneous β band power in parietal locations, lower frontal and parietal δ/β ratios, and lower parietal θ/β ratio were associated with lower ratings of discomfort after the offset of unpleasant pictures. Moreover, lower parietal δ/β ratio was also related to less time needed to recover from discomfort after exposure to aversive pictures, while only a greater frontal and parietal α band power appeared to be associated with faster recovery from discomfort induced by normative-neutral pictures. However, parietal δ/β ratio was the only predictor of both minimum discomfort ratings and time needed to downregulate following exposure to unpleasant pictures, and frontal α band power the only spontaneous EEG index that predicted variability in spontaneous down-regulation after the exposure to normative-neutral pictures. Results are discussed focusing on the utility of diverse spontaneous EEG measures in several cortical regions when capturing trait-like individual differences in emotion regulation capabilities and processes.
Keywords: Emotion regulation; Spontaneous emotion regulation; Resting EEG; delta/beta ratio; theta/beta ratio