Sex Differences in Neural Activation to Facial Expressions Denoting Contempt and Disgust

The facial expression of contempt has been regarded to communicate feelings of moral superiority. Contempt is an emotion that is closely related to disgust, but in contrast to disgust, contempt is inherently interpersonal and hierarchical. The aim of this study was twofold. First, to investigate the hypothesis of preferential amygdala responses to contempt expressions versus disgust. Second, to investigate whether, at a neural level, men would respond stronger to biological signals of interpersonal superiority (e.g., contempt) than women. We performed an experiment using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), in which participants watched facial expressions of contempt and disgust in addition to neutral expressions. The faces were presented as distractors in an oddball task in which participants had to react to one target face. Facial expressions of contempt and disgust activated a network of brain regions, including prefrontal areas (superior, middle and medial prefrontal gyrus), anterior cingulate, insula, amygdala, parietal cortex, fusiform gyrus, occipital cortex, putamen and thalamus. Contemptuous faces did not elicit stronger amygdala activation than did disgusted expressions. To limit the number of statistical comparisons, we confined our analyses of sex differences to the frontal and temporal lobes. Men displayed stronger brain activation than women to facial expressions of contempt in the medial frontal gyrus, inferior frontal gyrus, and superior temporal gyrus. Conversely, women showed stronger neural responses than men to facial expressions of disgust. In addition, the effect of stimulus sex differed for men versus women. Specifically, women showed stronger responses to male contemptuous faces (as compared to female expressions), in the insula and middle frontal gyrus. Contempt has been conceptualized as signaling perceived moral violations of social hierarchy, whereas disgust would signal violations of physical purity. Thus, our results suggest a neural basis for sex differences in moral sensitivity regarding hierarchy on the one hand and physical purity on the other

What do I do now? Intolerance of uncertainty is associated with discrete patterns of anticipatory physiological responding to different contexts

Heightened physiological responses to uncertainty are a common hallmark of anxiety disorders. Many separate studies have examined the relationship between individual differences in intolerance of uncertainty (IU) and physiological responses to uncertainty during different contexts. Despite this there is a scarcity of research examining the extent to which individual differences in IU are related to shared or discrete patterns of anticipatory physiological responding across different contexts. Anticipatory physiological responses to uncertainty were assessed in three different contexts (associative threat learning and extinction, threat uncertainty, decision-making) within the same sample (n = 45). During these tasks, behavioural responses (i.e. reaction times, choices), skin conductance and corrugator supercilli activity were recorded. In addition, self-reported IU and trait anxiety were measured. IU was related to both skin conductance and corrugator supercilii activity for the associative threat learning and extinction context, and decision-making context. However, trait anxiety was related to corrugator supercilii activity during the threat uncertainty context. Ultimately, this research helps us further tease apart the role of IU on different aspects of anticipation (i.e. valence and arousal) across contexts, which will be relevant for future IU-related models of psychopathology

Generalised Anxiety Disorder – A Twin Study of Genetic Architecture, Genome-Wide Association and Differential Gene Expression

Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD) is a common anxiety-related diagnosis, affecting approximately 5% of the adult population. One characteristic of GAD is a high degree of anxiety sensitivity (AS), a personality trait which describes the fear of arousal-related sensations. Here we present a genome-wide association study of AS using a cohort of 730 MZ and DZ female twins. The GWAS showed a significant association for a variant within the RBFOX1 gene. A heritability analysis of the same cohort also confirmed a significant genetic component with h2 of 0.42. Additionally, a subset of the cohort (25 MZ twins discordant for AS) was studied for evidence of differential expression using RNA-seq data. Significant differential expression of two exons with the ITM2B gene within the discordant MZ subset was observed, a finding that was replicated in an independent cohort. While previous research has shown that anxiety has a high comorbidity with a variety of psychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders, our analysis suggests a novel etiology specific to AS

Neuroimaging in anxiety disorders

Neuroimaging studies have gained increasing importance in validating neurobiological network hypotheses for anxiety disorders. Functional imaging procedures and radioligand binding studies in healthy subjects and in patients with anxiety disorders provide growing evidence of the existence of a complex anxiety network, including limbic, brainstem, temporal, and prefrontal cortical regions. Obviously, “normal anxiety” does not equal “pathological anxiety” although many phenomena are evident in healthy subjects, however to a lower extent. Differential effects of distinct brain regions and lateralization phenomena in different anxiety disorders are mentioned. An overview of neuroimaging investigations in anxiety disorders is given after a brief summary of results from healthy volunteers. Concluding implications for future research are made by the authors

Resting-State Functional Connectivity between Fronto-Parietal and Default Mode Networks in Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

Background: Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is characterized by an excessive focus on upsetting or disturbing thoughts, feelings, and images that are internally-generated. Internally-focused thought processes are subserved by the ‘‘default mode network’ ’ (DMN), which has been found to be hyperactive in OCD during cognitive tasks. In healthy individuals, disengagement from internally-focused thought processes may rely on interactions between DMN and a frontoparietal network (FPN) associated with external attention and task execution. Altered connectivity between FPN and DMN may contribute to the dysfunctional behavior and brain activity found in OCD. Methods: The current study examined interactions between FPN and DMN during rest in 30 patients with OCD (17 unmedicated) and 32 control subjects (17 unmedicated). Timecourses from seven fronto-parietal seeds were correlated across the whole brain and compared between groups. Results: OCD patients exhibited altered connectivity between FPN seeds (primarily anterior insula) and several regions of DMN including posterior cingulate cortex, medial frontal cortex, posterior inferior parietal lobule, and parahippocampus. These differences were driven largely by a reduction of negative correlations among patients compared to controls. Patients also showed greater positive connectivity between FPN and regions outside DMN, including thalamus, lateral frontal cortex, and somatosensory/motor regions

A pre-registered short-term forecasting study of COVID-19 in Germany and Poland during the second wave.

Disease modelling has had considerable policy impact during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, and it is increasingly acknowledged that combining multiple models can improve the reliability of outputs. Here we report insights from ten weeks of collaborative short-term forecasting of COVID-19 in Germany and Poland (12 October-19 December 2020). The study period covers the onset of the second wave in both countries, with tightening non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) and subsequently a decay (Poland) or plateau and renewed increase (Germany) in reported cases. Thirteen independent teams provided probabilistic real-time forecasts of COVID-19 cases and deaths. These were reported for lead times of one to four weeks, with evaluation focused on one- and two-week horizons, which are less affected by changing NPIs. Heterogeneity between forecasts was considerable both in terms of point predictions and forecast spread. Ensemble forecasts showed good relative performance, in particular in terms of coverage, but did not clearly dominate single-model predictions. The study was preregistered and will be followed up in future phases of the pandemic