Oxytocin promotes face-sensitive neural responses to infant and adult faces in mothers

Research utilizing intranasal oxytocin (OT) administration has shown that OT may increase attention and sensitivity to social cues, such as faces. Given the pivotal role of OT in parental behaviors across mammals, the paucity of intranasal OT research investigating responses to social cues in parents and particularly mothers of young children is a critical limitation. In the current study, we recorded cortical event-related potentials (ERPs) to investigate whether intranasal OT affects the early neural responses to emotional faces in mothers of 1-year-old infants. Using a double-blind, within-subjects design, mothers (n = 38) were administered intranasal OT and placebo on separate sessions and presented with happy and sad infant and adult faces while ERP components reflecting face-sensitive brain activation and attention allocation were measured. We hypothesized that ERP responses to faces would be larger in the OT condition and that the effects of OT on ERP responses would be more pronounced for infant faces. The amplitudes of the face-sensitive N170 ERP component were larger in the OT condition to infant and adult faces, but no clear support was found for the hypothesis that the responses to infant faces would be more susceptible to OT effects than the responses to adult faces. The attention-sensitive late positive potential (LPP) component was not modulated by intranasal substance condition. The results are in line with the view that OT acts to enhance the perceptual salience of social and emotional stimuli. Demonstrating such effects in mothers of young children encourages further investigation of the potential of intranasal OT to affect the perception of social cues relevant for parent-child interaction

Therapeutic Potential of Interactive Audiovisual 360-Degree Virtual Reality Environments for Anxiety Reduction : —A Case Study with an Abstract Art Application

Featured Application: Binaural Odyssey is a virtual reality relaxation application based on generative abstract animations and binaural sounds that react to the user’s head movements with the aim of influencing the user’s emotions. The increasing contrast between limited resources and growing demand in psychiatric care for anxiety disorders has caused an urgent need to find new cost-effective methods for treatment. This article studies the therapeutic potential of interactive audiovisual abstract art in a 360-degree virtual reality environment as a method for reducing anxiety and inducing relaxation. The study consists of experimental research of a virtual reality relaxation application called Binaural Odyssey. This research was conducted with 13 research participants between June and August 2021, and it uses a within-subjects design. Digital questionnaires, structured interviews, Heart Rate Variability (HRV) data, and the researcher’s observations during the research situation were used to gather research data. Results of the study suggest that this method can produce positive mental health effects for the users, such as reduced anxiety and tension, as well as increased relaxation levels and mental resources. Binaural Odyssey is a promising prototype of this method, but it lacks parity regarding application contents and clear therapeutic goals and, therefore, cannot be recommended for treatment purposes. However, further development with mental health professionals could pave the way for a new functional treatment method for reducing and controlling anxiety and tension.publishedVersionPeer reviewe

The significance of adolescent social competence for mental health in young adulthood

Publisher Copyright: © 2021Introduction: Social competence is one of the primary components of mental health development. This study examines the associations between adolescent competence and its components, and adulthood adaptive functioning and internalizing and externalizing problems. Methods: As part of a longitudinal study that begun in Finland in 1989, 191 mothers, 126 fathers and their 192 16–17-year-old adolescent children completed a standardized questionnaire, the Child Behavior Checklist or the Youth Self Report, to analyse the adolescents’ total competence and its subscales (activity, social skills and school performance). Ten years later, the former adolescents completed the corresponding Adult Self Report questionnaire to assess adaptive functioning as well as internalizing and externalizing symptoms. Results: Better total competence or social skills in adolescence were associated with a good level of adaptive functioning and a low level of internalizing symptoms in young adulthood. Better scores in school performance subscale according to the parents’ reports were associated with a low level of externalizing symptoms in young adulthood. Together with total competence and social skills, concurrent partner relationship status was associated with optimal outcomes. Conclusion: This study supports earlier findings that better social competence in adolescence is associated with fewer internalizing problems in young adulthood, and indicates a longitudinal association between adolescent competence and adult adaptive functioning. It is important to study whether interventions supporting adolescents’ competence could promote mental health in their subsequent development into young adulthood.Peer reviewe

In search of measures to improve the detection of increased cardiometabolic risk in children using second-generation antipsychotic medications

Purpose: Second-generation antipsychotic medications (SGAs) are widely used in child psychiatry. SGA-induced metabolic disturbances are common in children, but monitoring practices need systematisation. The study’s aims were to test an SGA-monitoring protocol, examine the distributions of metabolic measurements compared to reference values in child psychiatry patients, and determine whether using a homeostasis model for the assessment of insulin resistance (HOMA-IR) and triglyceride/high-density lipoprotein (TG/HDL) ratio could improve the detection of increased cardiometabolic risk. Materials and methods: A systematic monitoring protocol was implemented. Weight and height, blood pressure, fasting glucose, insulin, HDL, and TG were measured at baseline and four times during follow-up. HOMA-IR, TG/HDL ratio and zBMI were calculated. Age-, gender- and BMI-specific percentile curves for HOMA-IR were used to define elevated cardiometabolic risk. Results: The study patients (n = 55, mean age 9.9 years) were followed for a median of 9 months. A disadvantageous, statistically significant shift, often appearing within the reference range, was seen in zBMI, TG, HDL, glucose, insulin, HOMA-IR, and TG/HDL ratio. The increase in HOMA-IR appeared earlier than individual laboratory values and was more evident than the TG/HDL ratio increase. An HOMA-IR cut point of 1.98 resulted in a sensitivity and specificity of 83%. Compared to a previous study performed in the same location, the monitoring rates of metabolic parameters improved. Conclusion: The monitoring protocol implementation improved the monitoring of metabolic parameters in child psychiatric patients using SGAs. Using HOMA-IR as part of systematic SGA monitoring could help detect metabolic adverse effects.publishedVersionPeer reviewe