Selective effects of acute low-grade inflammation on human visual attention

When acute inflammation occurs, individuals must exert greater cognitive effort to maintain adequate performance, highlighting selective effects on task preparation.

Physical and psychological illnesses often coincide, with cognitive sluggishness potentially linked to immune system activation. The immune system plays a crucial role in maintaining overall health. Psychologists from Free University Amsterdam utilized electroencephalography (EEG) to investigate how inflammation impacts various attentional processes, including alerting, orienting, and executive control. Their study revealed how inflammation affects cognitive functions by examining changes in brain activity related to these processes. This research reveals how immune responses affect cognitive performance, highlighting the complex link between physical health and cognitive functioning.

Selective Neurophysiological Sensitivity to Acute Inflammation: Impact on Attentional Alerting and Cognitive Effort

In a double-blind, placebo-controlled study, researchers investigated the effects of inflammation on cognitive processes. The sample consisted of 20 healthy males with a mean age of 24.5 years. Participants received either a Salmonella typhoid vaccination to induce transient mild inflammation or a saline injection as a placebo control. The The study aimed to evaluate how acute inflammation influences different aspects of attention, including alerting, orienting, and executive control. Using rigorous controls and detailed cognitive analysis, the research aimed to uncover inflammations’ impact on brain activity and function.

Participants then had to complete the Attention Network Test with concurrent EEG which was recorded 6 hours post-injection. Analyses tried to take a look at behavioral task performance and on modulation of oscillatory EEG activity in the alpha band (9-12 Hz) for alerting and the orienting attention and frontal theta band (4-8 Hz) for executive control. Although the study found no differences in behavioral task performance between inflammation and placebo conditions, inflammation significantly altered task-related brain activity. Inflammation led to greater alpha power suppression in alerting attention, with individual responses correlating significantly with this suppression. Note that inflammation did not affect orientation or executive control.

Therefore, the results reveal a unique neurophysiological sensitivity to acute mild inflammation within the neural network, underpinning selective attentional alerting functions. Findings suggest acute inflammation requires more cognitive effort for task preparation to maintain adequate behavioral performance.