EEG correlates of induced anxiety in obsessive–compulsive patients: comparison of autobiographical and general anxiety scenarios

Dana Kamaradova,1 Martin Brunovsky,2 Jan Prasko,1 Jiri Horacek,2 Miroslav Hajda,1 Ales Grambal,1 Klara Latalova1 1Department of Psychiatry, University Hospital Olomouc, Olomouc, Czech Republic; 2National Institute of Mental Health, Klecany, Czech Republic Background: The underlying symptomatology of obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) can be viewed as an impairment in both cognitive and behavioral inhibition, regarding difficult inhibition of obsessions and behavioral compulsions. Converging results from neuroimaging and electroencephalographic (EEG) studies have identified changes in activities throughout the medial frontal and orbital cortex and subcortical structures supporting the cortico-striato-thalamo-cortical circuit model of OCD. This study aimed to elucidate the electrophysiological changes induced by autobiographical and general anxiety scenarios in patients with OCD.Methods: Resting-state eyes-closed EEG data were recorded in 19 OCD patients and 15 healthy controls. Cortical EEG sources were estimated by standardized low-resolution electromagnetic tomography (sLORETA). The changes in the emotional state were induced by two different scenarios: the autobiographical script related to patient’s OCD symptoms and the script triggering general anxiety.Results: During the resting state, we proved increased delta activity in the frontal, limbic and temporal lobe and the sub-lobar area in OCD patients. In a comparison of neural activities during general anxiety in OCD patients and the control group, we proved an increase in delta (parietal, temporal, occipital, frontal and limbic lobes, and sub-lobal area), theta (temporal, parietal and occipital lobes) and alpha-1 activities (parietal lobe). Finally, we explored the neural activity of OCD patients during exposure to the autobiographic scenario. We proved an increase in beta-3 activity (left frontal lobe).Conclusion: Our study proved differences in neural activation in OCD patients and healthy controls during imagination of general anxiety. Exposure to the autobiographic OCD scenario leads to activation of left frontal brain areas. The results show the possibility of using specific scenarios in OCD therapy. Keywords: anxiety, obsessive–compulsive disorder, autobiographical script, electroencephalography, cognitive-behavior therap

Unmet needs of bipolar disorder patients

Miroslav Hajda,1 Jan Prasko,1 Klara Latalova,1 Radovan Hruby,2 Marie Ociskova,1 Michaela Holubova,1,3 Dana Kamaradova,1 Barbora Mainerova1 1Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, Palacky University Olomouc, University Hospital Olomouc, Olomouc, Czech Republic; 2Outpatient Psychiatric Department, Martin, Slovak Republic; 3Department of Psychiatry, Regional Hospital Liberec, Liberec, Czech Republic Background: Bipolar disorder (BD) is a serious mental illness with adverse impact on the lives of the patients and their caregivers. BD is associated with many limitations in personal and interpersonal functioning and restricts the patients’ ability to use their potential capabilities fully. Bipolar patients long to live meaningful lives, but this goal is hard to achieve for those with poor insight. With progress and humanization of society, the issue of patients’ needs became an important topic. The objective of the paper is to provide the up-to-date data on the unmet needs of BD patients and their caregivers. Methods: A systematic computerized examination of MEDLINE publications from 1970 to 2015, via the keywords “bipolar disorder”, “mania”, “bipolar depression”, and “unmet needs”, was performed. Results: Patients’ needs may differ in various stages of the disorder and may have different origin and goals. Thus, we divided them into five groups relating to their nature: those connected with symptoms, treatment, quality of life, family, and pharmacotherapy. We suggested several implications of these needs for pharmacotherapy and psychotherapy. Conclusion: Trying to follow patients’ needs may be a crucial point in the treatment of BD patients. However, many needs remain unmet due to both medical and social factors. Keywords: bipolar disorder, unmet needs, stigma, treatment, medication, quality of life, family, psychotherap

Acoustic structure of the five perceptual dimensions of timbre in orchestral instrument tones

Attempts to relate the perceptual dimensions of timbre to quantitative acoustical dimensions have been tenuous, leading to claims that timbre is an emergent property, if measurable at all. Here, a three-pronged analysis shows that the timbre space of sustained instrument tones occupies 5 dimensions and that a specific combination of acoustic properties uniquely determines gestalt perception of timbre. Firstly, multidimensional scaling (MDS) of dissimilarity judgments generated a perceptual timbre space in which 5 dimensions were cross-validated and selected by traditional model comparisons. Secondly, subjects rated tones on semantic scales. A discriminant function analysis (DFA) accounting for variance of these semantic ratings across instruments and between subjects also yielded 5 significant dimensions with similar stimulus ordination. The dimensions of timbre space were then interpreted semantically by rotational and reflectional projection of the MDS solution into two DFA dimensions. Thirdly, to relate this final space to acoustical structure, the perceptual MDS coordinates of each sound were regressed with its joint spectrotemporal modulation power spectrum. Sound structures correlated significantly with distances in perceptual timbre space. Contrary to previous studies, most perceptual timbre dimensions are not the result of purely temporal or spectral features but instead depend on signature spectrotemporal patterns

It’s not what you sing, it’s how you sing it: How the emotional valence of vocal timbre influences listeners’ emotional perception of words

This Here we present an investigation into whether vocal timbre impacts on emotional perception of sung words, and whether this effect is intersubjective. That is, does vocal timbre influence the processing of emotion in words, and does it do so in a similar way across listeners? If so, this could help overcome the lack of appropriate analytical techniques for vocal timbre analysis in popular music by approaching such analysis from the perspective of vocal timbres emotive content and how this emotive content impacts emotional perception of sung words (lyrics), specifically in popular, lyric-based, vocal songs. The results of a reception test on emotional word perception according to timbre valence show that participants are significantly less accurate in identifying the emotional valence of words when they are sung with a vocal timbre that has an incongruent emotional valence and, for sad words, they are also slower in arriving at a correct identification of the word’s emotional valence when sung with an emotionally incongruent timbre. This supports the hypothesis that timbre conveys emotional meaning and that the experience of vocal timbre may be intersubjective