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Who hasn’t been distracted during their workday by a negative thought or a persistent backache? For some thirty years, we have known that the brain is strongly influenced by emotions or pain, but nobody knows exactly how our grey matter simultaneously manages both emotions or pain and cognitive tasks, nor how this affects our functioning.

This what the research team composed of Isabelle Blanchette, professor in the Department of Psychology at Université Laval and researcher at CERVO centre; Mathieu Piché, professor in the Department of Anatomy at UQTR and researcher at Université de Montréal’s Centre de Recherche de l’Institut de gériatrie; and Benoit Brisson, professor in the Department of Psychology at UQTR and member of the CogNAC research group on cognition, neurosciences, affect and behaviour; set out to understand.

The scientists used neurostimulation techniques to study the brains of healthy participants tasked with memorizing shapes displayed on a screen while being distracted by words dictated in an emotional tone (angry, fearful or neutral) or by sensory stimuli (slightly painful or not).

Their brains’ electrical activity was measured in order to analyze what happens when the brain has to manage a cognitive task at the same time as emotions or pain.

The study showed that these distractions deplete some of the cognitive resources that a person needs to think or memorize, particularly when the task at hand requires a high level of concentration. The three collaborators also showed that neurostimulation can mitigate the negative effect of emotions or pain.

Trials are underway to see if it is possible to improve cognitive mechanisms in the context of aging, chronic pain or attention deficit. Ultimately, the scientists hope to contribute to the development of non-pharmacological approaches to help the brain manage certain distractions.

References

Thiffault, F. et al. (2024). Hearing fearful prosody impairs visual working memory maintenance. International Journal of Psychophysiology, vol. 199, 112338. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2024.112338

Wagenaar-Tison, A. et al. (2022). Disruption of working memory and contralateral delay activity by nociceptive stimuli is modulated by task demands. International Association for the Study of Pain, 163(7), 1335-1345. doi: 10.1097/j.pain