Longer-term increased cortisol levels in young people with mental health problems.

Disturbance of hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis activity is commonly reported in a range of mental disorders in blood, saliva and urine samples. This study aimed to look at longer-term cortisol levels and their association with clinical symptoms. Hair strands of 30 young people (16-25 years) presenting with mental health problems (Mage±SD=21±2.4, 26 females) and 28 healthy controls (HC, Mage±SD=20±2.9, 26 females) were analyzed for cortisol concentrations, representing the past 6 months prior to hair sampling. Clinical participants completed an assessment on psychiatric symptoms, functioning and lifestyle factors. All participants completed the Perceived Stress Scale. Hair cortisol concentrations representing the past 3 (but not 3-6) months were significantly increased in clinical participants compared to HC. Perceived stress in the past month was significantly higher in clinical participants compared to HC, but not significantly correlated with hair cortisol. Hair cortisol levels were not significantly associated with any other measures. Hair segment analyses revealed longer-term increased levels of cortisol in the past 3 months in early mental health problems. Further insight into the role of cortisol on the pathogenesis of mental illnesses requires longitudinal studies relating cortisol to psychopathology and progression of illness

People with higher interoceptive sensitivity are more altruistic, but improving interoception does not increase altruism

People consistently show preferences and behaviors that benefit others at a cost to themselves, a phenomenon termed altruism. We investigated if perception of one’s body signals – interoception - may be underlying such behaviors. We tested if participants’ sensitivity to their own heartbeat predicted their decision on a choice between self-interest and altruism, and if improving this sensitivity through training would make participants more altruistic. Across these two experiments, interoceptive sensitivity predicted altruism measured through monetary generosity. Improving interoceptive sensitivity did, however, not lead to more altruistic behaviour. We conclude that there is a unique link between interoception and altruistic behaviour, likely established over an individual’s history of altruistic acts, and the body responses they elicit. The findings suggest that humans might literally ‘listen to their heart’ to guide their altruistic behavior

Social cognition and idiopathic isolated cervical dystonia

For a long time, cervical dystonia (CD) has been characterised only by disturbances in motor functioning. Despite accumulating evidence for symptomatology in various non-motor domains, to date no study has investigated social cognition in CD. The aim of this study was to compare performance of CD patients and healthy controls in neurocognitive and socio-cognitive domain. Twenty-five non-depressed patients with CD and 26 healthy controls underwent neuropsychological testing. This involved assessment of cognitive status (general intellect, verbal memory, and executive function), and socio-cognitive functions using a Theory of mind task and self-report on empathy and emotion regulation. In comparison to controls, CD patients displayed significantly decreased cognitive abilities, particularly in executive function and verbal memory tasks. Difficulties in inferring mental states on both cognitive and affective levels were also observed. The largest discrepancies were detected in understanding intentionality in others. Poorer performance in cognitive and socio-cognitive tasks was unrelated to severity of the disease. This is the first evidence of compromised socio-cognitive functions in CD patients, highlighting this domain as another facet of non-motor symptoms of this disease. Future studies should advance our understanding of the extent, nature, and time course of these deficits in other aspects of social cognition in this patient population

Choice-Disability and HIV Infection: A Cross Sectional Study of HIV Status in Botswana, Namibia and Swaziland

Interpersonal power gradients may prevent people implementing HIV prevention decisions. Among 7,464 youth aged 15–29 years in Botswana, Namibia and Swaziland we documented indicators of choice-disability (low education, educational disparity with partner, experience of sexual violence, experience of intimate partner violence (IPV), poverty, partner income disparity, willingness to have sex without a condom despite believing partner at risk of HIV), and risk behaviours like inconsistent use of condoms and multiple partners. In Botswana, Namibia and Swaziland, 22.9, 9.1, and 26.1% women, and 8.3, 2.8, and 9.3% men, were HIV positive. Among both women and men, experience of IPV, IPV interacted with age, and partner income disparity interacted with age were associated with HIV positivity in multivariate analysis. Additional factors were low education (for women) and poverty (for men). Choice disability may be an important driver of the AIDS epidemic. New strategies are needed that favour the choice-disabled

Genetics of self-reported risk-taking behaviour, trans-ethnic consistency and relevance to brain gene expression

Risk-taking behaviour is an important component of several psychiatric disorders, including attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Previously, two genetic loci have been associated with self-reported risk taking and significant genetic overlap with psychiatric disorders was identified within a subsample of UK Biobank. Using the white British participants of the full UK Biobank cohort (n = 83,677 risk takers versus 244,662 controls) for our primary analysis, we conducted a genome-wide association study of self-reported risk-taking behaviour. In secondary analyses, we assessed sex-specific effects, trans-ethnic heterogeneity and genetic overlap with psychiatric traits. We also investigated the impact of risk-taking-associated SNPs on both gene expression and structural brain imaging. We identified 10 independent loci for risk-taking behaviour, of which eight were novel and two replicated previous findings. In addition, we found two further sex-specific risk-taking loci. There were strong positive genetic correlations between risk-taking and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. Index genetic variants demonstrated effects generally consistent with the discovery analysis in individuals of non-British White, South Asian, African-Caribbean or mixed ethnicity. Polygenic risk scores comprising alleles associated with increased risk taking were associated with lower white matter integrity. Genotype-specific expression pattern analyses highlighted DPYSL5, CGREF1 and C15orf59 as plausible candidate genes. Overall, our findings substantially advance our understanding of the biology of risk-taking behaviour, including the possibility of sex-specific contributions, and reveal consistency across ethnicities. We further highlight several putative novel candidate genes, which may mediate these genetic effects

The feeling of me feeling for you: Interoception, alexithymia and empathy in autism.

Following recent evidence for a link between interoception, emotion and empathy, we investigated relationships between these factors in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). 26 adults with ASD and 26 healthy participants completed tasks measuring interoception, alexithymia and empathy. ASD participants with alexithymia demonstrated lower cognitive and affective empathy than ASD participants without alexithymia. ASD participants showed reduced interoceptive sensitivity (IS), and also reduced interoceptive awareness (IA). IA was correlated with empathy and alexithymia, but IS was related to neither. Alexithymia fulfilled a mediating role between IA and empathy. Our findings are suggestive of an alexithymic subgroup in ASD, with distinct interoceptive processing abilities, and have implications for diagnosis and interventions

The Development and Validation of the Empathy Components Questionnaire (ECQ)

Key research suggests that empathy is a multidimensional construct comprising of both cognitive and affective components. More recent theories and research suggest even further factors within these components of empathy, including the ability to empathize with others versus the drive towards empathizing with others. While numerous self-report measures have been developed to examine empathy, none of them currently index all of these wider components together. The aim of the present research was to develop and validate the Empathy Components Questionnaire (ECQ) to measure cognitive and affective components, as well as ability and drive components within each. Study one utilized items measuring cognitive and affective empathy taken from various established questionnaires to create an initial version of the ECQ. Principal component analysis (PCA) was used to examine the underlying components of empathy within the ECQ in a sample of 101 typical adults. Results revealed a five-component model consisting of cognitive ability, cognitive drive, affective ability, affective drive, and a fifth factor assessing affective reactivity. This five-component structure was then validated and confirmed using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) in an independent sample of 211 typical adults. Results also showed that females scored higher than males overall on the ECQ, and on specific components, which is consistent with previous findings of a female advantage on self-reported empathy. Findings also showed certain components predicted scores on an independent measure of social behavior, which provided good convergent validity of the ECQ. Together, these findings validate the newly developed ECQ as a multidimensional measure of empathy more in-line with current theories of empathy. The ECQ provides a useful new tool for quick and easy measurement of empathy and its components for research with both healthy and clinical populations