Reward anticipation revisited- evidence from an fMRI study in euthymic bipolar I patients and healthy first-degree relatives.
Abstract Background Symptomatic phases in bipolar disorder (BD) are hypothesized to result from a hypersensitive behavioral activation system (BAS) being sensitive to potential rewards. However, studies on the neuronal underpinnings of reward anticipation in BD are scarce with contradictory findings and possibly confounded by effects of dopaminergic medication, necessitating further research on dysfunctional motivation in BD. Moreover, its role as vulnerability marker for BD is unclear. Methods Functional imaging was conducted in 16 euthymic BD-I patients free from dopaminergic medication and 19 healthy first-degree relatives using a monetary incentive delay task and compared to parallelize…
Experimental and methodological factors affecting test-retest reliability of amygdala BOLD responses.
Previous studies reported poor to fair test-retest reliability of amygdala BOLD responses to emotional stimuli. However, these findings are very heterogeneous across and within studies. The present study sought to systematically examine experimental and methodological factors that contribute to this heterogeneity. Forty-six young subjects were scanned twice with a mean test-retest interval of 7 weeks. We compared amygdala reliability across three tasks: A face-matching task, passive viewing of emotional faces, and passive viewing of emotional scenes. We also explored whether extraction of physiological noise can affect the stability of amygdala responses. We assessed test-retest reliability…
Large-scale network functional interactions during distraction and reappraisal in remitted bipolar and unipolar patients.
Objectives The human brain is organized into large-scale networks that dynamically interact with each other. Extensive evidence has shown characteristic changes in certain large-scale networks during transitions from internally directed to externally directed attention. The aim of the present study was to compare these context-dependent network interactions during emotion regulation and to examine potential alterations in remitted unipolar and bipolar disorder patients. Methods We employed a multi-region generalized psychophysiological interactions analysis to quantify connectivity changes during distraction vs reappraisal pair-wise across 90 regions placed throughout the four networks of i…
Stress in School. Some Empirical Hints on the Circadian Cortisol Rhythm of Children in Outdoor and Indoor Classes
This prospective longitudinal survey compared the stress levels of students taught using an outdoor curriculum in a forest, with children in a normal school setting. We were especially interested in the effect outdoor teaching might have on the children’s normal diurnal cortisol rhythm. 48 children (mean age = 11.23; standard deviation (SD) = 0.46) were enrolled, with 37 in the intervention group (IG), and 11 in the control group (CG). The intervention consisted of one full school day per week in the forest over the school year. Stress levels were measured in cortisol with three samples of saliva per day. Furthermore, the data allowed for statistical control of physical activity (PA) values…
Investigating individual stress reactivity: High hair cortisol predicts lower acute stress responses
Identifying individual differences in stress reactivity is of particular interest in the context of stress-related disorders and resilience. Previous studies already identified several factors mediating the individual stress response of the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA). However, the impact of long-term HPA axis activity on acute stress reactivity remains inconclusive. To investigate associations between long-term HPA axis variation and individual acute stress reactivity, we tested 40 healthy volunteers for affective, endocrine, physiological, and neural reactions to a modified, compact version of the established in-MR stress paradigm ScanSTRESS (ScanSTRESS-C). Hair cortisol con…
Neuronal and Behavioral Correlates of Health Anxiety: Results of an Illness-Related Emotional Stroop Task
<b><i>Background:</i></b> Health anxiety (HA) is defined as the objectively unfounded fear or conviction of suffering from a severe illness. Predominant attention allocation to illness-related information is regarded as a central process in the development and maintenance of HA, yet little is known about the neuronal correlates of this attentional bias. <b><i>Methods:</i></b> An emotional Stroop task with body symptom, illness, and neutral words was employed to elicit emotional interference in healthy participants with high (HA+, n = 12) and low (HA–, n = 12) HA during functional magnetic resonance imaging. <b><i>Results:</i>…
Sensorik Inventar (SI) – Selbstbeurteilung der sensorischen Sensitivität für Erwachsene und Jugendliche
ZusammenfassungEine adäquate Wahrnehmung der Umwelt repräsentiert eine der Grundvoraussetzungen adaptiven Verhaltens. Gleichzeitig existieren individuelle Unterschiede in der sensorischen Sensitivität, die wiederum eine zentrale Rolle bei der Entstehung und Aufrechterhaltung diverser psychischer Störungen spielen können. Die Fragestellung war die Entwicklung eines Fragebogens zur multidimensionalen Erfassung von sensorischer Sensitivität. Das Sensorik Inventar (SI) wurde von 1417 Personen ausgefüllt. Die faktorielle Validität wurde mit Hilfe explorativer Faktorenanalysen sowie mit Exploratory-Structural-Equation-Modeling überprüft. Es ergab sich eine 6-faktorielle Struktur und eine hohe int…