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The Many Challenges of Human Experimental Itch Research (2023)
Book Chapter
Holle, H., & Lloyd, D. M. (2023). The Many Challenges of Human Experimental Itch Research. In N. P. Holmes (Ed.), Somatosensory Research Methods (161-180). New York: Humana Press. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-3068-6_8

Itch has long been a neglected sense within somatosensory research, and with good reason: acute itch, although relatively easy to trigger, is notoriously difficult to control experimentally. Its time course and behavior cannot easily be predicted and... Read More about The Many Challenges of Human Experimental Itch Research.

No preconscious attentional bias towards itch in healthy individuals (2022)
Journal Article
Becker, J. M., Holle, H., van Ryckeghem, D. M., Van Damme, S., Crombez, G., Veldhuijzen, D. S., …van Laarhoven, A. I. (2022). No preconscious attentional bias towards itch in healthy individuals. PLoS ONE, 17(9), Article e0273581. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0273581

Rapidly attending towards potentially harmful stimuli to prevent possible damage to the body is a critical component of adaptive behavior. Research suggests that individuals display an attentional bias, i.e., preferential allocation of attention, for... Read More about No preconscious attentional bias towards itch in healthy individuals.

Can contagious itch be affected by positive and negative suggestions? (2022)
Journal Article
Meeuwis, S. H., Skvortsova, A., van Laarhoven, A. I. M., Holle, H., & Evers, A. W. (in press). Can contagious itch be affected by positive and negative suggestions?. Experimental Dermatology, https://doi.org/10.1111/exd.14663

Contagious itch can be evoked by observing people scratching. Verbal suggestions about to-be-received itch can influence itch intensity, as shown by placebo research, but it is unknown whether this extends to contagious itch. The current study aimed... Read More about Can contagious itch be affected by positive and negative suggestions?.

Transcranial magnetic stimulation over contralateral primary somatosensory cortex disrupts perception of itch intensity (2018)
Journal Article
Jones, O., Schindler, I., & Holle, H. (2019). Transcranial magnetic stimulation over contralateral primary somatosensory cortex disrupts perception of itch intensity. Experimental Dermatology, 28(12), 1380-1384. https://doi.org/10.1111/exd.13803

© 2018 John Wiley & Sons A/S. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd Itch, a complex unpleasant sensation causing the desire to scratch, results from the activity of a network of brain regions. However, the specific functional contributions of indivi... Read More about Transcranial magnetic stimulation over contralateral primary somatosensory cortex disrupts perception of itch intensity.

Effects of short-term temperature change in the innocuous range on histaminergic and non-histaminergic acute itch (2018)
Journal Article
Lewis, Z., George, D. N., Cowdell, F., & Holle, H. (2019). Effects of short-term temperature change in the innocuous range on histaminergic and non-histaminergic acute itch. Acta Dermato-Venereologica, 99(2), 188-195. https://doi.org/10.2340/00015555-3077

While temperatures in the noxious range are well-known to inhibit acute itch, the impact of temperature in the innocuous temperature range is less well understood. We investigated the effect of alternating short-term temperature changes in the innocu... Read More about Effects of short-term temperature change in the innocuous range on histaminergic and non-histaminergic acute itch.

Differential roles of polar orbital prefrontal cortex and parietal lobes in logical reasoning with neutral and negative emotional content (2018)
Journal Article
Eimontaite, I., Goel, V., Raymont, V., Krueger, F., Schindler, I., & Grafman, J. (2018). Differential roles of polar orbital prefrontal cortex and parietal lobes in logical reasoning with neutral and negative emotional content. Neuropsychologia, 119, 320-329. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2018.05.014

© 2018 The Authors To answer the question of how brain pathology affects reasoning about negative emotional content, we administered a disjunctive logical reasoning task involving arguments with neutral content (e.g. Either there are tigers or women... Read More about Differential roles of polar orbital prefrontal cortex and parietal lobes in logical reasoning with neutral and negative emotional content.

Aspects of alcohol use disorder affecting social cognition as assessed using the Mini Social and Emotional Assessment (mini-SEA) (2018)
Journal Article
Cox, S., Bertoux, M., Turner, J. J., Moss, A., Locker, K., & Riggs, K. (2018). Aspects of alcohol use disorder affecting social cognition as assessed using the Mini Social and Emotional Assessment (mini-SEA). Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 187, 165-170. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2018.03.004

Background: Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD) is associated with problems with processing complex social scenarios. Little is known about the relationship between distinct AUD-related factors (e.g., years of problematic drinking), aspects of cognitive funct... Read More about Aspects of alcohol use disorder affecting social cognition as assessed using the Mini Social and Emotional Assessment (mini-SEA).

Transcranial magnetic stimulation over left inferior frontal and posterior temporal cortex disrupts gesture-speech integration (2018)
Journal Article
Zhao, W., Riggs, K., Schindler, I., & Holle, H. (2018). Transcranial magnetic stimulation over left inferior frontal and posterior temporal cortex disrupts gesture-speech integration. Journal of Neuroscience, 38(8), 1891-1900. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1748-17.2017

Language and action naturally occur together in the form of co-speech gestures and there is now convincing evidence that listeners display a strong tendency to integrate semantic information from both domains during comprehension. A contentious quest... Read More about Transcranial magnetic stimulation over left inferior frontal and posterior temporal cortex disrupts gesture-speech integration.

A brighter future : the effect of positive episodic simulation on future predictions in non-depressed, moderately dysphoric & highly dysphoric individuals (2017)
Journal Article
Boland, J., Riggs, K. J., & Anderson, R. J. (2018). A brighter future : the effect of positive episodic simulation on future predictions in non-depressed, moderately dysphoric & highly dysphoric individuals. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 100, 7-16. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brat.2017.10.010

Previous research suggests depressed individuals have difficulties with future directed cognitions. For instance, compared with non-depressed individuals, they predict positive events are less likely to occur. Recent work suggests that episodic simul... Read More about A brighter future : the effect of positive episodic simulation on future predictions in non-depressed, moderately dysphoric & highly dysphoric individuals.

Cognitive correlates of pragmatic language comprehension in adult traumatic brain injury: A systematic review and meta-analyses (2017)
Journal Article
Rowley, D. A., Rogish, M., Alexander, T., & Riggs, K. J. (2017). Cognitive correlates of pragmatic language comprehension in adult traumatic brain injury: A systematic review and meta-analyses. Brain Injury, 31(12), 1564-1574. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699052.2017.1341645

Effective pragmatic comprehension of language is critical for successful communication and interaction, but this ability is routinely impaired following Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) [1,2]. Individual studies have investigated the cognitive domains as... Read More about Cognitive correlates of pragmatic language comprehension in adult traumatic brain injury: A systematic review and meta-analyses.

Fine motor control underlies the association between response inhibition and drawing skill in early development (2017)
Journal Article
Simpson, A., Al Ruwaili, R., Jolley, R., Leonard, H., Geeraert, N., & Riggs, K. J. (2019). Fine motor control underlies the association between response inhibition and drawing skill in early development. Child Development, 90(3), 911-923. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12949

Previous research shows that the development of response inhibition and drawing skill are linked. The current research investigated whether this association reflects a more fundamental link between response inhibition and motor control. In Experiment... Read More about Fine motor control underlies the association between response inhibition and drawing skill in early development.

Placebo Analgesia From a Rubber Hand (2017)
Journal Article
Coleshill, M. J., George, D. N., & Mazzoni, G. (2017). Placebo Analgesia From a Rubber Hand. Journal of Pain, 18(9), 1067-1077. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpain.2017.04.004

© 2017 American Pain Society Placebo analgesia, reductions in pain after administration of an inert treatment, is a well documented phenomenon. We report, to our knowledge, the first demonstration that placebo analgesia can be experienced when a sham... Read More about Placebo Analgesia From a Rubber Hand.

Counter-intuitive moral judgement following traumatic brain injury (2017)
Journal Article
Rowley, D. A., Rogish, M., Alexander, T., & Riggs, K. J. (2018). Counter-intuitive moral judgement following traumatic brain injury. Journal of neuropsychology, 12(2), 200-215. https://doi.org/10.1111/jnp.12117

Several neurological patient populations, including Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), appear to produce an abnormally ‘utilitarian’ pattern of judgements to moral dilemmas; they tend to make judgements that maximise the welfare of the majority, rather th... Read More about Counter-intuitive moral judgement following traumatic brain injury.

Assessing acute itch intensity : general labelled magnitude scale is more reliable than classic visual analogue scale (2016)
Journal Article
Jones, O., Holle, H., Jones, O., & Schindler, I. (2017). Assessing acute itch intensity : general labelled magnitude scale is more reliable than classic visual analogue scale. Acta Dermato-Venereologica, 97(3), 375-376. https://doi.org/10.2340/00015555-2584

The reliable measurement of itch intensity is crucial, both in research as well as clinical contexts. For example, when the reliability of a measurement scale is unknown, it is impossible to determine whether a patient has changed sufficiently to be... Read More about Assessing acute itch intensity : general labelled magnitude scale is more reliable than classic visual analogue scale.

Action adaptation during natural unfolding social scenes influences action recognition and inferences made about actor beliefs (2016)
Journal Article
Keefe, B. D., Wincenciak, J., Jellema, T., Ward, J. W., & Barraclough, N. E. (2016). Action adaptation during natural unfolding social scenes influences action recognition and inferences made about actor beliefs. Journal of Vision, 16(9), 1-20. https://doi.org/10.1167/16.9.9

When observing another individual's actions, we can both recognize their actions and infer their beliefs concerning the physical and social environment. The extent to which visual adaptation influences action recognition and conceptually later stages... Read More about Action adaptation during natural unfolding social scenes influences action recognition and inferences made about actor beliefs.

The effect of alcohol dependence on automatic visuo-spatial perspective taking (2016)
Journal Article
Riggs, K., Simpson, A., Chandler, C., & Cox, S. (2016). The effect of alcohol dependence on automatic visuo-spatial perspective taking. Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 166, 21-25. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2016.06.007

Background: Alcoholism is associated with cognitive deficits which affect social functioning. Previous research has shown that alcoholism is associated with deficits in conscious, deliberate social processing. However, little is known about whether a... Read More about The effect of alcohol dependence on automatic visuo-spatial perspective taking.

Emotional actions are coded via two mechanisms : with and without identity representation (2016)
Journal Article
Wincenciak, J., Ingham, J., Jellema, T., & Barraclough, N. E. (2016). Emotional actions are coded via two mechanisms : with and without identity representation. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, 693-1-693-13. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00693

Accurate perception of an individual’s identity and emotion derived from their actions and behavior is essential for successful social functioning. Here we determined the role of identity in the representation of emotional whole-body actions using vi... Read More about Emotional actions are coded via two mechanisms : with and without identity representation.

Hand gestures as visual prosody: BOLD responses to audio–visual alignment are modulated by the communicative nature of the stimuli (2016)
Journal Article
Biau, E., Morís Fernández, L., Holle, H., Avila, C., & Soto-Faraco, S. (2016). Hand gestures as visual prosody: BOLD responses to audio–visual alignment are modulated by the communicative nature of the stimuli. NeuroImage, 132, 129-137. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2016.02.018

During public addresses, speakers accompany their discourse with spontaneous hand gestures (beats) that are tightly synchronized with the prosodic contour of the discourse. It has been proposed that speech and beat gestures originate from a common un... Read More about Hand gestures as visual prosody: BOLD responses to audio–visual alignment are modulated by the communicative nature of the stimuli.

The role of auditory itch contagion in psoriasis (2015)
Journal Article
Swithenbank, S., Cowdell, F., & Holle, H. (2016). The role of auditory itch contagion in psoriasis. Acta Dermato-Venereologica, 96(6), 728-731. https://doi.org/10.2340/00015555-2320

Itch and associated scratching is a common and distressing symptom of psoriasis. Here, we tested whether people with psoriasis, relative to healthy controls, show an increased vulnerability to auditory itch contagion (a deleterious influence) when pr... Read More about The role of auditory itch contagion in psoriasis.