Impairment of aversive episodic memories during Covid-19 pandemic: The impact of emotional context on memory processes

  1. Candela Sofía Leon
  2. Matías Bonilla
  3. Facundo Antonio Urreta Benítez
  4. Luis Ignacio Brusco
  5. Jingyi Wang
  6. Cecilia Forcato

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Abstract

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  1. Version published to 10.1016/j.nlm.2021.107575
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2021.07.06.451294: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    EthicsConsent: Prior to their participation, they signed an informed consent approved by the Alberto Taquini Biomedical Research Ethics Committee.
    IRB: Prior to their participation, they signed an informed consent approved by the Alberto Taquini Biomedical Research Ethics Committee.
    Sex as a biological variableThe ‘‘Aversive’’ condition was formed of 47 subjects (32 women, 15 men; mean age ± SD: 26.85 ± 4.80) and the neutral condition was formed of 44 people (30 women, 14 men; mean age ± SD: 24.45 ± 3.48)
    RandomizationEach participant was randomly assigned to the experimental conditions of the first round.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    The participants were asked to choose the value that in their opinion best represented the stimulus (Aversive: -54.00 ± 30.18, Neutral: 11.14 ± 20.91, t (27) = 6.70 p < 0.001). 2.7.
    Neutral
    suggested: None
    Statistical analysis: These analyzes were carried out in the statistical software IBM SPSS Statistics 25.
    SPSS
    suggested: (SPSS, RRID:SCR_002865)

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    The main limitation of this work is the fact of not being able to compare the measurements obtained with measurements outside the context of the pandemic. In Argentina we are still going through the “second wave” of the pandemic and living conditions are far from normal. Finally, it would have been desirable to have a physiological measure of people’s stress (for example blood cortisol measurements), but this was impossible due to the obligation to carry out the experiments virtually. However, we obtained measures of anxiety, previously defined as the psychophysiological signal that the stress response has been initiated (Robinson, 1990). Last but not the least, we did not have a post-event emotional rating scalewhich indicates the emotional state caused by the stimulus. However, the negativity or neutrality of the stories was controlled with an independent group of participants and both stories served their purpose. First, our results add to the increasing evidence that human basic cognitive function is negatively affected by the COVID-19 pandemic context. Second, we provided novel evidence that episodic memory attached with different emotional content are affected differently from normal context. Last but not the least, taking into account that episodic memory is the ability to recall information about what happened, where it happened, and when the event happened (Tulving, 1993) and is a central function for the everyday life, our study can provide information for future ps...

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We found bar graphs of continuous data. We recommend replacing bar graphs with more informative graphics, as many different datasets can lead to the same bar graph. The actual data may suggest different conclusions from the summary statistics. For more information, please see Weissgerber et al (2015).

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No funding statement was detected.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    Results from scite Reference Check: We found no unreliable references.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  3. Version published to 10.1101/2021.07.06.451294v1 on bioRxiv