The current study aimed to explore the behavioral and neural correlates of mindfulness-based music listening regulation of induced negative emotions related to COVID-19 using the face–word Stroop task. Eighty-five young adults visited the laboratory and were randomly assigned to three groups: a calm music group (CMG: n = 28), a happy music group (HMG: n = 30), and a sad music group (SMG: n = 27). Negative emotions were induced in all participants using a COVID-19 video, followed by the music intervention condition. Participants underwent the face–word Stroop tasks during which event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded. The N2, N3, P3, and late positive component (LPC) were investigated. The results showed that calm music and happy music effectively regulate young adults’ induced negative emotions, while young adults experienced more negative emotions when listening to sad music; the negative mood states at the post-induction phase inhibited the reaction of conflict control in face–word Stroop tasks, which manifested as lower accuracy (ACC) and slower reaction times (RTs). ERP results showed negative mood states elicited greater N2, N3, and LPC amplitudes and smaller P3 amplitudes. Further studies are needed to develop intervention strategies to enhance emotion regulation related to COVID-19 for other groups.

Long-term excessive intake of high-calorie foods might lead to cognitive impairments and overweight or obesity. The current study aimed to examine the effects of high-calorie foods on the behavioral and neurological correlates of food-related conflict control ability. A food-related Stroop task, which asked the participants to respond to the food images and ignore the calorie information, were employed. A total of 61 individuals were recruited and who completed the food-related Stroop task with event-related potentials (ERPs). Participants exhibited a slower reaction time and lower accuracy in high-calorie food stimuli than that in low-calorie food stimuli. The ERP results exhibited a reduction in N2 amplitudes when responding to high-calorie food stimuli compared to when responding to low-calorie food stimuli. In addition, time-frequency analysis revealed that theta power induced by low-calorie food stimuli was significantly greater than that of high-calorie food stimuli. The findings indicated that high-calorie foods impair food-related conflict control. The present study expands on the previous studies of the neural correlates of food cues and provides new insights into the processing and resolving of conflicting information for eating behavior and weight control.

Background: Overweight people have been revealed to have poor cognitive flexibility. Cognitive flexibility reflects proactive and reactive control abilities. However, the impairment had not been explicitly positioned at the cognitive stage. Therefore, this study provides increased support for impairment of cognitive flexibility due to overweight. Method: The study included 34 overweight and 35 normal-weight participants. They were required to complete the food and flower target AX-continuous performance test (AX–CPT), including the resting-state fMRI and cue-triggered food craving subscales. We compared the performance difference between the two tasks. Furthermore, we investigated whether the cue-triggered food cravings and the corresponding brain regions mediated the effect of overweight on the two control mechanisms. Result: Significant differences were found only in the food target AX-CPT task, where overweight participants performed worse. Cue-triggered food cravings mediated this relationship. Additionally, we found that the brain regions associated with cue-triggered food cravings (bilateral SFG) can completely mediate the relationship between BMI and the z-value of the fat mass index and sensitivity to proactive control. Conclusion: In the food target task, overweight participants performed worse in both control mechanisms. Moreover, we also revealed the potential mechanism by which being overweight might affect the two control mechanisms through cue-triggered food cravings.

Mind-wandering (MW) is a common phenomenon, defined as task-unrelated thoughts. This study is based on event-related potentials (ERPs), using modified sustained attention to response task (modified SART, mSART) to discuss the neural patterns of different types of MW. In the current study, we defined the MW realized by participants as self-caught MW, and the MW measurement acquired by probes as probe-caught MW. The behavioral results showed that the reaction times (RTs) during self-caught MW were greater than those during non-self-caught MW. The ERP results showed that during self-caught MW, the mean amplitudes of N1 decreased significantly, indicating that the participants’ attention had deviated from the current task. The increase in the mean amplitudes of P2 during self-caught MW indicated lower vigilance. We also found that the mean amplitudes of N300 reduced during self-caught MW, which indicated that cognitive control or monitoring might be affected by self-caught MW. The average amplitudes of P300 were significantly lower during probe-caught MW than during on-task, indicating the impact on high-level cognitive processing. In addition, the amplitudes of N1, P2, and N300 in anterior regions were greater than those in posterior regions. P300 amplitudes during probe-caught MW in the right hemisphere were greater than those of the left hemisphere. In summary, our research results demonstrated that alertness and cognitive processing decreased during both self-caught MW and probe-caught MW. ERPs were statistically different under the conditions of self-caught MW and probe-caught MW. The current study provided new insights into the relationship between MW and neural markers. It was the first study exploring the ERP correlates between self-caught MW and probe-caught MW based on mSART.