Mania risk is characterized by an aberrant optimistic update bias for positive life events

Abstract Background Early cognitive models of mania posit that a cognitive triad consisting of unrealistically optimistic beliefs about the self, world and future may predispose vulnerable individuals to develop manic symptoms. Hypomanic personality traits (HYP) pose such a vulnerability factor in the etiopathogenesis of mania. Methods To test the cognitive tenet of overly optimistic views of the future, 24 individuals with high-HYP and 24 age- and sex-matched controls (low-HYP) performed a belief update paradigm, during which they estimated their personal chances to experience future positive and negative life events. Afterwards, they were presented with the statistical likelihood of each …

Impaired regulation of emotion: Neural correlates of reappraisal and distraction in bipolar disorder and unaffected relatives

Deficient emotion regulation has been proposed as a crucial pathological mechanism in bipolar disorder (BD). We therefore investigated emotion regulation impairments in BD, the related neural underpinnings and their etiological relevance for the disorder. Twenty-two euthymic patients with bipolar-I disorder and 17 unaffected first-degree relatives of BD-I patients, as well as two groups of healthy gender-, age- and education-matched controls (N=22/17, respectively) were included. Participants underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging while applying two different emotion regulation techniques, reappraisal and distraction, when presented with emotional images. BD patients and relatives …

The impact of neuroendocrine stress response on cognitive emotion regulation

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…

Time course of emotion-related responding during distraction and reappraisal

Theoretical accounts of emotion regulation (ER) discriminate various cognitive strategies to voluntarily modify emotional states. Amongst these, attentional deployment (i.e. distraction) and cognitive change (i.e. reappraisal), have been shown to successfully down-regulate emotions. Neuroimaging studies found that both strategies differentially engage neural structures associated with selective attention, working memory and cognitive control. The aim of this study was to further delineate similarities and differences between the ER strategies reappraisal and distraction by investigating their temporal brain dynamics using event-related potentials (ERPs) and their patterns of facial expressi…

Increased impulsivity as a vulnerability marker for bipolar disorder: Evidence from self-report and experimental measures in two high-risk populations

Abstract Background Heightened impulsivity has been suggested as a possible risk factor for bipolar disorder (BD). However, studies on high-risk populations are scarce and have mainly focused on individuals with a genetic risk. The present study investigated two high-risk samples for BD with regard to several aspects of the impulsivity construct. Methods Unaffected relatives of BD patients (genetically defined high-risk group, N=29) and participants scoring high on the Hypomanic Personality Scale (psychometrically defined high-risk sample, N=25) were being compared to respective control groups (N=27 and N=25) using a multi-method approach. Participants were accessed on the Barratt Impulsive…

Inefficiency of emotion regulation as vulnerability marker for bipolar disorder: evidence from healthy individuals with hypomanic personality.

Abstract Objective Emotion regulation deficits are a key characteristic of bipolar disorder (BD). In the present study, we asked if deficits in emotion regulation are also a vulnerability marker for BD. To this end, we investigated a healthy group of participants at high-risk for developing BD, defined on the basis of a hypomanic personality trait. We examined the neural correlates of two emotion regulation strategies, reappraisal and distraction. Method Twenty-two individuals with higher risk for BD and twenty-four controls were investigated in a functional magnetic resonance imaging paradigm. Participants were presented with negative, positive and neutral pictures and were either required…

Emotional modulation of the attentional blink and the relation to interpersonal reactivity

The extent of the attentional blink effect on detection rates in rapid serial visual presentations is modulated by the emotionality of the stimuli. Emotionally salient stimuli are detected more often, even if presented in the attentional blink period, and elicit an enlarged P3 response, which has been interpreted as enhanced consolidation. This effect correlates with individual differences in trait affectivity such as anxiety or dysphoria. Here, we ask if it is also related to the capacity to detect emotions in others, i.e., to interpersonal social traits. We therefore presented emotional and neutral images depicting social scenes as targets in an attentional blink design and measured detec…

Measuring stress in clinical and nonclinical subjects using a German adaptation of the Perceived Stress Scale

ANTECEDENTES/OBJETIVO: El estrés se percibe de manera diferente entre los individuos, lo que podría ser particularmente cierto para los sujetos no clínicos y clínicos. Por esta razón, probamos una adaptación alemana de la Perceived Stress Scale de 10 ítems (PSS-10) para el ajuste del modelo y la invarianza de la medición en una gran muestra clínica y no clínica. MÉTODO: Realizamos (1) un análisis factorial confirmatorio múltiple (CFA) en 1.248 sujetos no clínicos y 575 pacientes ambulatorios, (2) invarianza de medición con CFA multigrupo, (3) correlaciones con constructos relevantes y (4) cálculos de la consistencia interna para la escala general y las subescalas Desvalidez y Autoeficacia. …