Face processing in adolescents with positive and negative threat bias

BackgroundIndividuals with anxiety disorders exhibit a ‘vigilance-avoidance’ pattern of attention to threatening stimuli when threatening and neutral stimuli are presented simultaneously, a phenomenon referred to as ‘threat bias’. Modifying threat bias through cognitive retraining during adolescence reduces symptoms of anxiety, and so elucidating neural mechanisms of threat bias during adolescence is of high importance. We explored neural mechanisms by testing whether threat bias in adolescents is associated with generalized or threat-specific differences in the neural processing of faces.MethodSubjects were categorized into those with (n = 25) and without (n = 27) threat avoidance based on a dot-probe task at average age 12.9 years. Threat avoidance in this cohort has previously been shown to index threat bias. Brain response to individually presented angry and neutral faces was assessed in a separate session using functional magnetic resonance imaging.ResultsAdolescents with threat avoidance exhibited lower activity for both angry and neutral faces relative to controls in several regions in the occipital, parietal, and temporal lobes involved in early visual and facial processing. Results generalized to happy, sad, and fearful faces. Adolescents with a prior history of depression and/or an anxiety disorder had lower activity for all faces in these same regions. A subset of results replicated in an independent dataset.ConclusionsThreat bias is associated with generalized, rather than threat-specific, differences in the neural processing of faces in adolescents. Findings may aid in the development of novel treatments for anxiety disorders that use attention training to modify threat bias.</jats:sec

Automated analysis of atrial late gadolinium enhancement imaging that correlates with endocardial voltage and clinical outcomes: A 2-center study

This work was supported by the British Heart Foundation PG/10/37/28347, RG/10/11/28457, NIHR Biomedical Research Centre funding, and the ElectroCardioMaths Programme of the Imperial BHF Centre of Research Excellence

Inside Ownership, Risk Sharing and Tobin's q -Ratios: Evidence from REITs

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/73828/1/1540-6229.00070.pd

EACVI appropriateness criteria for the use of cardiovascular imaging in heart failure derived from European National Imaging Societies voting

This paper presents the first European appropriateness criteria for the use of cardiovascular imaging in heart failure, derived from voting of the European National Imaging Societies representatives. The paper describes the development process and discusses the results

Familial co-aggregation of schizophrenia and eating disorders in Sweden and Denmark

Eating disorders and schizophrenia are both moderately to highly heritable and share significant genetic risk despite distinct diagnostic criteria. Large-scale family studies on the co-aggregation of these disorders are lacking. Thus, we aimed to estimate the co-occurrence and familial co-aggregation of these disorders within the entire Swedish and Danish population. The proband cohort consisted of individuals born in Sweden (1977–2003) and Denmark (1984–2006) and still residing in their respective country at age six (NSweden = 2,535,191, NDenmark = 1,382,367). Probands were linked to their biological parents, siblings, grandparents, uncles/aunts, and cousins. Diagnoses for anorexia nervosa (AN) and other eating disorders (OED: bulimia nervosa, binge-eating disorder, and eating disorder not otherwise specified) for probands and schizophrenia diagnoses for both probands and relatives were obtained. The likelihood of having schizophrenia in those with AN or OED and their relatives was compared with individuals without eating disorder diagnoses and their relatives. Probands with AN or OED were more likely to have schizophrenia than probands without these disorders. All relatives of probands with AN or OED (except parents and uncles/aunts of probands with AN) were at increased risk of schizophrenia. In general, the magnitude of odds ratios attenuated with decreasing genetic relatedness. These results suggest familial liability contributes to the association between eating disorders and schizophrenia. Clinicians should be mindful of this comorbid and co-aggregation pattern as it may influence case conceptualization and treatment decisions

Restricted and Repetitive Behavior and Brain Functional Connectivity in Infants at Risk for Developing Autism Spectrum Disorder

Background: Restricted and repetitive behaviors (RRBs), detectable by 12 months in many infants in whom autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is later diagnosed, may represent some of the earliest behavioral markers of ASD. However, brain function underlying the emergence of these key behaviors remains unknown. Methods: Behavioral and resting-state functional connectivity (fc) magnetic resonance imaging data were collected from 167 children at high and low familial risk for ASD at 12 and 24 months (n = 38 at both time points). Twenty infants met criteria for ASD at 24 months. We divided RRBs into four subcategories (restricted, stereotyped, ritualistic/sameness, self-injurious) and used a data-driven approach to identify functional brain networks associated with the development of each RRB subcategory. Results: Higher scores for ritualistic/sameness behavior were associated with less positive fc between visual and control networks at 12 and 24 months. Ritualistic/sameness and stereotyped behaviors were associated with less positive fc between visual and default mode networks at 12 months. At 24 months, stereotyped and restricted behaviors were associated with more positive fc between default mode and control networks. Additionally, at 24 months, stereotyped behavior was associated with more positive fc between dorsal attention and subcortical networks, whereas restricted behavior was associated with more positive fc between default mode and dorsal attention networks. No significant network-level associations were observed for self-injurious behavior. Conclusions: These observations mark the earliest known description of functional brain systems underlying RRBs, reinforce the construct validity of RRB subcategories in infants, and implicate specific neural substrates for future interventions targeting RRBs

Prediction of Choice from Competing Mechanosensory and Choice-Memory Cues during Active Tactile Decision Making

Perceptual decision making is an active process where animals move their sense organs to extract task-relevant information. To investigate how the brain translates sensory input into decisions during active sensation, we developed a mouse active touch task where the mechanosensory input can be precisely measured and that challenges animals to use multiple mechanosensory cues. Male mice were trained to localize a pole using a single whisker and to report their decision by selecting one of three choices. Using high-speed imaging and machine vision, we estimated whisker–object mechanical forces at millisecond resolution. Mice solved the task by a sensory-motor strategy where both the strength and direction of whisker bending were informative cues to pole location. We found competing influences of immediate sensory input and choice memory on mouse choice. On correct trials, choice could be predicted from the direction and strength of whisker bending, but not from previous choice. In contrast, on error trials, choice could be predicted from previous choice but not from whisker bending. This study shows that animal choices during active tactile decision making can be predicted from mechanosensory and choice-memory signals, and provides a new task well suited for the future study of the neural basis of active perceptual decisions