The role of oxytocin in the facial mimicry of affiliative vs. non-affiliative emotions.

The present paper builds upon a growing body of work documenting oxytocin's role in social functioning, to test whether this hormone facilitates spontaneous mimicry of others' emotional expressions. In a double-blind, randomized trial, adult Caucasian males (n = 145) received a nasal spray of either oxytocin or placebo before completing a facial mimicry task. Facial expressions were coded using automated face analysis. Oxytocin increased mimicry of facial features of sadness (lips and chin, but not areas around the eyes), an affiliative reaction that facilitates social bonding. Oxytocin also increased mimicry of happiness, but only for individuals who expressed low levels of happiness in response to neutral faces. Overall, participants did not reliably mimic expressions of fear and anger, echoing recent theoretical accounts of emotional mimicry as dependent on the social context. In sum, our findings suggest that oxytocin facilitates emotional mimicry in ways that are conducive to affiliation, pointing to a possible pathway through which oxytocin promotes social bonding

Quantification of appetite-regulating hormones in children with hypothalamic and common obesity

Background. Current understanding of the appetite-regulating neuroendocrine circuitry remains incomplete, and efficacious treatments for both common and hypothalamic obesity (HyOb) are lacking. Concurrently, the expanded role of oxytocin (OXT) in energy homeostasis and human behaviour is beginning to be understood. Objectives. To optimise and translate an OXT enzyme immunoassay (EIA) to elucidate whether there were any unique differences in the plasma endocrine milieu in patients with HyOb. Methods. Optimisation work was carried out using EIAs with polyclonal and monoclonal secondary antibodies. Obese (BMI>+2 SDS) and lean (BMI≤+2 SDS) children with (HyOb and HyLean) and without (Ob and Lean) hypothalamic disorders (septo-optic dysplasia or suprasellar tumours) were phenotyped using the Dykens’ Hyperphagia Questionnaire Score (DHQS). Plasma concentrations of leptin, insulin, OXT, BDNF, αMSH, acylated ghrelin, AgRP and copeptin were measured. Results. Solid phase extraction demonstrated markedly variable OXT recovery, and potentially increased rather than decreased interference. A polyclonal secondary antibody-containing EIA showed significant cross-reactivity with several peptides in human plasma compared to a monoclonal secondary antibody-containing EIA. Of the 122 children recruited (50 HyOb, 29 HyLean, 24 Ob, 19 Lean, mean age 11.3±3.9 years) there were no differences in DHQS or hormone concentrations between HyOb and Ob groups. Obesity was associated with compensatorily increased leptin and insulin, and decreased ghrelin and AgRP concentrations. More rapidly increasing BMI was independently associated with a younger age and lower plasma αMSH concentrations. OXT concentrations did not show any correlation with BMI or DHQS. Conclusion. The use of plasma extraction processes and EIAs in the literature needs re-examination. The plasma endocrine milieu in HyOb vs. common obesity does not differ, with a compensatory increase in anorexigens and decrease in orexigens. Lower plasma αMSH was associated with more rapid weight gain, suggesting that MC4R agonists may be a therapeutic option in all forms of obesity

Physiological Synchrony Predicts Cooperative Behavior with High Stakes

Can subconscious bodily responses explain our natural tendency to be trusting and trustworthy towards a stranger? I address this question by conducting, to my knowledge, the first study of physiological synchrony (PS) between pairs of partners playing the trust game face-to-face. Participants were given the choice to send $0,$40, $80, or$120 to their partner; these choices were categorized as showing no, low, medium, and high trust, respectively. Participants were endowed with a more considerable sum of money ($120) than many other trust games (Johnson & Mislin, 2011) to encourage participants to perceive their decisions to have significant consequences, i.e., for ecological validity. Most trust game experiments study college students (Johnson & Mislin, 2011); here participants were working-age adults between the ages of 25–50 from diverse cultural backgrounds. Before making their decisions, partners were given two minutes to interact and make promises to each other about their game decisions. Few studies on the trust game allow participant pairs to communicate face-to-face before making their decisions (Ben-Ner et al., 2011; Johnson & Mislin, 2011; Lev-On et al., 2010; Zak et al. 2022). PS between participants’ skin conductance levels (SCLs) was measured during the interaction period and analyzed using two methods, intersubject correlation (ISC) and dynamic time warping (DTW). The DTW analyses revealed the no trust participants exhibited greater PS than low trust participants. DTW also indicated that high trust individuals exhibited greater PS than low and medium trust individuals, consistent with my expectation. The second mover ISC analysis showed untrustworthy participants exhibited greater PS than trustworthy participants. These findings reveal that participants playing the trust game exhibit PS and engage in no trust, high trust, and untrustworthy behavior, indicating PS, trust, and trustworthy behavior are nonlinear. This is the first study of its kind to demonstrate that individuals display PS in the trust game

Emotions in Eating Disorders: The Interplay of Emotion Regulation and Inhibitory Control in Appetite and Eating Behaviour

[eng] OBJECTIVES: The main goals of this thesis were to examine the link between the regulation of emotions and disordered eating to obtain insights into the processes underlying ED psychopathology. More specifically, this work aimed to expand upon previous knowledge on emotion regulation in ED patients and upon the effects of these difficulties on eating patterns and craving. An additional aim was to advance the research regarding addiction-like eating and to contribute to the discussion about the validity and usefulness of the FA concept. RESULTS: Study 1: A systematic review of a total of 39 studies showed alterations in emotional facial expression across different mental disorders (obsessive-compulsive disorder, depression, bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, AN, BN, autism spectrum disorder, and disruptive behaviour disorder). A meta-analysis showed decreased facial expressivity in response to positive and negative stimuli in patients with AN, with a higher summary effect size for positive (d=1.01) than for negative (d=.58) stimuli. Study 2: ED patients had higher values than HC in the total score and in all subscales of difficulties in emotion regulation. Results furthermore showed that difficulties in emotion regulation mediate the influence of harm avoidance and self-directedness on ED severity. While for self-directedness an indirect and a direct effect on ED was found, the effect of harm avoidance was fully explained through the level of difficulties in emotion regulation. Study 3: This study on predictors of FA in ED patients showed that those patients with higher levels of FA are characterized by lower self-directedness, more negative urgency and less perseverance. The probability of receiving an FA “diagnosis” was predicted by higher reward dependence, higher negative urgency and higher premeditation. Negative urgency was the strongest predictor of FA in patients with an ED. Study 4: Results suggest that of the variables included the only independent predictor of FA might be negative urgency. Self-directedness and emotion regulation predicted negative urgency and were highly related to ED symptomatology in general, but not to FA. Study 5: A systematic review of 26 studies on attentional processing of food stimuli as measured through electrophysiological potentials showed high motivated attention towards food pictures compared to neutral pictures in all participants. This review shows that the type of eating pathology and other factors such as the availability of food and the type of stimuli have an influence on the attentional processing of food cues; however, further research is needed for a better understanding of the subject. Study 6: In this study on stimulus-induced chocolate craving patients with binge-eating pathology reported higher craving than controls; both groups experienced a significant increase in craving when exposed to the smell and sight of chocolate. Amplitudes of electrophysiological event-related potentials were higher for chocolate than for neutral pictures. The Late Positive Potential as measure of motivated attention did not differ between groups. Patients compared to HC had lower baseline amplitudes of an electrophysiological potential related to inhibitory control (N2) in neutral trials but showed a higher relative increase in N2 amplitudes related to chocolate pictures. Priming chocolate pictures by chocolate odour compared to neutral odour led to a slightly increased craving response and to an increased activation of inhibitory control resources in binge-eating patients. CONCLUSIONS: Alterations in facial emotional expressivity and self-reported difficulties in emotion regulation point towards emotional problems underlying ED psychopathology. Unregulated affect and decreased facial emotional expressivity might explain difficulties to recognize own and other’s emotions and thus constrain satisfactory social relations. Negative urgency is a form of impulsivity related to negative affect and is shown to be specifically associated to addictive eating patterns in patients with EDs. There is a possible incentive sensitization of food cues, which is seen in that food stimuli lead to more motivated attention than neutral stimuli.[spa

Targeted Helping in Rodents: Sex Differences and the Role of the Insula in Empathic Behavior

Empathy, the capacity for shared emotional valence with others, allows for cooperativity and social bonding between individuals. The evolutionary basis of the empathic behaviors observed across numerous species can be described using the Perception Action Model (PAM), in which shared affect can promote an action that eliminates the distress of both the Target and, by extension, the Observer . However, clinical studies indicate empathy is dysregulated in neuropsychiatric disorders like autism and addiction, which makes the elucidation of underlying behavioral, affective, and neurobiological variables of empathy paramount. We first introduce and validate a novel model of targeted helping, in which rats learn to aid a distressed conspecific in the absence of social reward. Next, using this model, we identify sex differences in sensory and affective signaling, including the impact of direct visualization of a distressed conspecific, and the type of ultrasonic vocalizations (USV) made between animal pairs, during the task. Further, neuronal activity in cortical and subcortical regions of interest showed distinct sex-specific patterning across time during targeted helping. Finally, we directly examined the effect of the anterior insula, a region active during perspective taking and emotional regulation hypothesized to be a critical node in the empathic brain, during empathic behavior. We not only confirmed that the anterior insula was activated during the task, but inhibition of the insula, both pharmacologically and chemogenetically, significantly attenuated helping behavior. Further, tracer studies were performed in order to elucidate critical insula-specific circuits that may modulate targeted helping. These studies, using a newly validated model of targeted helping, work to inform the underlying affective and biological variables that modulate empathic behavior in the hopes of improving the treatment outcomes and quality of life of those diagnosed with neuropsychiatric disorders

Advances in Autism Research

This book represents one of the most up-to-date collections of articles on clinical practice and research in the field of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). The scholars who contributed to this book are experts in their field, carrying out cutting edge research in prestigious institutes worldwide (e.g., Harvard Medical School, University of California, MIND Institute, King’s College, Karolinska Institute, and many others). The book addressed many topics, including (1) The COVID-19 pandemic; (2) Epidemiology and prevalence; (3) Screening and early behavioral markers; (4) Diagnostic and phenotypic profile; (5) Treatment and intervention; (6) Etiopathogenesis (biomarkers, biology, and genetic, epigenetic, and risk factors); (7) Comorbidity; (8) Adulthood; and (9) Broader Autism Phenotype (BAP). This book testifies to the complexity of performing research in the field of ASD. The published contributions underline areas of progress and ongoing challenges in which more certain data is expected in the coming years. It would be desirable that experts, clinicians, researchers, and trainees could have the opportunity to read this updated text describing the challenging heterogeneity of Autism Spectrum Disorder

Pilot study for subgroup classification for autism spectrum disorder based on dysmorphology and physical measurements in Chinese children

Poster Sessions: 157 - Comorbid Medical Conditions: abstract 157.058 58BACKGROUND: Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a complex neurodevelopmental disorder affecting individuals along a continuum of severity in communication, social interaction and behaviour. The impact of ASD significantly varies amongst individuals, and the cause of ASD can originate broadly between genetic and environmental factors. Objectives: Previous ASD researches indicate that early identification combined with a targeted treatment plan involving behavioural interventions and multidisciplinary therapies can provide substantial improvement for ASD patients. Currently there is no cure for ASD, and the clinical variability and uncertainty of the disorder still remains. Hence, the search to unravel heterogeneity within ASD by subgroup classification may provide clinicians with a better understanding of ASD and to work towards a more definitive course of action. METHODS: In this study, a norm of physical measurements including height, weight, head circumference, ear length, outer and inner canthi, interpupillary distance, philtrum, hand and foot length was collected from 658 Typical Developing (TD) Chinese children aged 1 to 7 years (mean age of 4.19 years). The norm collected was compared against 80 ASD Chinese children aged 1 to 12 years (mean age of 4.36 years). We then further attempted to find subgroups within ASD based on identifying physical abnormalities; individuals were classified as (non) dysmorphic with the Autism Dysmorphology Measure (ADM) from physical examinations of 12 body regions. RESULTS: Our results show that there were significant differences between ASD and TD children for measurements in: head circumference (p=0.009), outer (p=0.021) and inner (p=0.021) canthus, philtrum length (p=0.003), right (p=0.023) and left (p=0.20) foot length. Within the 80 ASD patients, 37(46%) were classified as dysmorphic (p=0.00). CONCLUSIONS: This study attempts to identify subgroups within ASD based on physical measurements and dysmorphology examinations. The information from this study seeks to benefit ASD community by identifying possible subtypes of ASD in Chinese population; in seek for a more definitive diagnosis, referral and treatment plan.published_or_final_versio

The development and evaluation of the Cognitive Behavioural Social Competence Therapeutic Intervention for Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder without an Intellectual Disability (CBSCTI-ASD)

Many young people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) can have an average or above average IQ yet still struggle with the social competencies needed to successfully navigate into adulthood. Despite many individuals with ASD experiencing significant challenges during their transition into adulthood, evidence-based social skills interventions to support individuals with ASD during this transition are rather limited. There is growing evidence to suggest that social competencies in adults with ASD without an intellectual disability (ID) can be enhanced through both individual Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) and group CBT. However, little is known about the benefit of combining these modalities for individuals with ASD transitioning into adulthood. Moreover, there are no studies which have investigated the neural plasticity of a multimodal CBT intervention for adults with ASD without ID. The first stage of this PhD project involved developing and writing the Cognitive Behavioural Social Competence Therapeutic Intervention (CBSCTI-ASD) manual for Adults with ASD without ID. This PhD project includes a total of three studies: Study 1 Evaluation of CBSCTI-ASD; Study 2 Neuroplasticity of the Social Brain Following CBSCTI-ASD and Study 3 Exploring the Experiences of Parents’ with an Adult Child with Autism Spectrum Disorder. For Study 1, CBSCTI-ASD was developed and delivered to five young adults with ASD without ID. The aims of the first study were to evaluate intervention feasibility and efficacy by triangulating data findings. Feasibility was supported and CBSCTI-ASD received high user satisfaction ratings. Adherence to the intervention were high, recorded at ~90% and fidelity to treatment were also high ranging from ~86% to ~100%. Quantitative findings from study 1 indicates that over an eight-week time period the intervention group experienced significant improvements with regard to their social motivation, non-verbal conversation, emotional empathy, assertiveness, interpersonal relationships and self-control. Qualitative findings provide further anecdotal support towards intervention feasibility and efficacy. After the completion of CBSCTI-ASD, four participants who received CBSCTI-ASD and two of their parents completed semi-structured interviews. Thematic Analysis (TA) revealed four main themes: satisfaction with CBSCTI-ASD, important components of CBSCTI-ASD, challenges and critiques and recommendations. Two qualified cognitive behavioural therapists helped with the delivery of CBSCTI-ASD. Their opinions and experiences of CBSCTI-ASD delivery were explored during a focus group. Findings from TA revealed three themes: training and delivery, successes and challenges, and therapist recommendations. The qualitative findings from study 1 also highlight factors which those involved in delivering and receiving CBSCTI-ASD believed could be effective in guiding the further development of the intervention. Study 2 involved applying functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to explore neurological function and changes in neural activity in cortical regions of the Prefrontal Cortex (PFC), an area associated with the social brain. The aim of study 2 was to assess functional regions of the social brain and evaluate the possible neurological effects of CBSCTI-ASD. While applying fNIRS to measure neural functioning, the five participants from the CBSCTI-ASD intervention group from study 1 and a closely matched typically developed control group completed a pre/post-test conversation task. Findings from study 2 show that both the intervention group and the typically developed control group significantly increased neural activity in the Medial PFC (MPFC) during the conversation task, thus confirming a target region of interest for measuring change in neural function. However, no significant differences in brain activity over time between the intervention group and the typically developed control group were identified. Post hoc analysis did shows that the intervention group significantly increased neural activation in the left MPFC from pre-test to post-test. Finally, study 3 aimed to explore the experiences of seven parents with an adult child with ASD without ID. TA was conducted on semi-structured interviews and six main themes emerged: receiving a diagnosis, challenges, parents coping strategies, support and treatment, recommendations for intervention and positive parenting. The findings from study 3 highlight important and complex issues which should be considered when providing support to adults with ASD and their families. The findings from study 1 and 2 indicate that CBSCTI-ASD appears to be a feasible intervention and efficacy is supported at improving social competencies in young adults with ASD without ID. Qualitative findings from study 3 elucidates the intricacies of living with ASD and provides a promising starting point to further the development of CBSCTI-ASD. While these initial findings are promising, additional research is needed to further develop CBSCTI-ASD and provide an assessment of the efficacy of the intervention using larger randomised controlled trials

Examining the Relationship Between Emotional Intelligence and Interpersonal Forgiveness Among Internet Users

Emotional Intelligence (EI) and forgiveness both involve interpreting emotional content. Empirical study of a relationship between these two constructs is lacking. This is a problem as many psychological studies infer a relationship between these two constructs. The purposes of this study were to explore whether EI and forgiveness are correlated and to identify whether predictor variables (empathy, life satisfaction, emotional management, and emotional understanding) contribute to the probability of forgiveness within an interpersonal relationship. A quantitative, nonexperimental research design, based on the theory of mind, was used to answer two research questions: Does a correlational relationship exist between the two EI domains (emotional understanding and emotional management ability) and the three forgiveness domains (affective, behavioral, and cognitive)? And do empathy, life satisfaction, emotional management ability, and emotional understanding predict forgiveness? The sampling strategy involved a convenience sample of Internet users. There were a total of 142 participants. Statistical analysis of data were carried out on the 95 participants whom completed all of the survey items. Results of a Pearson r correlational analysis show no significant relationship between study variables was detected. A multiple regression analysis was planned but not implemented. EI ability directly impacting the process of forgiveness and the process of forgiveness directly impacting EI was unsubstantiated. Social change implications involve consideration of situations and conflict resolution rather than a specific emphasis on EI ability or ability to forgive. Doing so may promote research fostering positive mental health outcomes