Empathy and mentalizing abilities in relation to psychosocial stress in healthy adult men and women

Stress and Psychopatholog

Immediate and prolonged effects of cortisol, but not propranolol, on memory retrieval in healthy young men.

FSW - Self-regulation models for health behavior and Psychopathology - Ou

Psychophysiological responding to emotional memories in healthy young men after cortisol and propranolol administration.

FSW - Self-regulation models for health behavior and Psychopathology - Ou

Does oxytocin lead to emotional interference during a working memory paradigm?

FSW - Self-regulation models for health behavior and psychopathology - ou

Prolonged non-metabolic heart rate variability reduction as a physiological marker of psychological stress in daily life

BACKGROUND\nProlonged cardiac activity that exceeds metabolic needs can be detrimental for somatic health. Psychological stress could result in such "additional cardiac activity."\nPURPOSE\nIn this study, we examined whether prolonged additional reductions in heart rate variability (AddHRVr) can be measured in daily life with an algorithm that filters out changes in HRV that are purely due to metabolic demand, as indexed by movement, using a brief calibration procedure. We tested whether these AddHRVr periods were related to worry, stress, and negative emotions.\nMETHODS\nMovement and the root of the mean square of successive differences (RMSSD) in heart rate were measured during a calibration phase and the subsequent 24 h in 32 participants. Worry, stress, explicit and implicit emotions were assessed hourly using smartphones. The Levels of Emotional Awareness Scale and resting HRV were used to account for individual differences. During calibration, person-specific relations between movement and RMSSD were determined. The 24-h data were used to detect prolonged periods (i.e., 7.5 min) of AddHRVr.\nRESULTS\nAddHRVr periods were associated with worrying, with decreased explicit positive affect, and with increased tension, but not with the frequency of stressful events or implicit emotions. Only in people high in emotional awareness and high in resting HRV did changes in AddHRVr covary with changes in explicit emotions.\nCONCLUSIONS\nThe algorithm can be used to capture prolonged reductions in HRV that are not due to metabolic needs. This enables the real-time assessment of episodes of potentially detrimental cardiac activity and its psychological determinants in daily life.FSW - Self-regulation models for health behavior and psychopathology - ou

Sustained attention and executive functioning performance in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder

Contains fulltext : 48157.pdf (publisher's version ) (Closed access)The aim of this study was to further refine the cognitive phenotype of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), with respect to the ability to sustain attention and executive functioning. Participants were 34 boys with ADHD (combined type) and 28 normal controls. The groups were closely matched for age and IQ. All participants were 12 years of age. Both groups performed a computerized sustained attention task and a response interference task. Measures related to speed, accuracy, and time on task were collected. We found that children with ADHD performed slower, less accurately, more impulsively, and with less stability than controls. Both groups produced more errors with increasing time on task, reflecting reduced vigilance. Importantly, no interaction with time on task was found. The overall pattern of results suggests that measures related to accuracy are more informative than measures related to speed of responding in refining the cognitive phenotype of ADHD

Analogue patients’ self-reported engagement and psychophysiological arousal in a video-vignettes design: Patients versus disease-naïve individuals

FSW - Self-regulation models for health behavior and psychopathology - ou

An intergenerational family study on the impact of experienced and perpetrated child maltreatment on neural face processing

Altered processing of emotional faces due to childhood maltreatment has repeatedly been reported, and may be a key process underlying the intergenerational transmission of maltreatment. The current study is the first to examine the role of neural reactivity to emotional and neutral faces in the transmission of maltreatment, using a multi-generational family design including 171 participants of 51 families of two generations with a large age range (8–69 years). The impact of experienced and perpetrated maltreatment (abuse and neglect) on face processing was examined in association with activation in the amygdala, hippocampus, inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and insula in response to angry, fearful, happy and neutral faces. Results showed enhanced bilateral amygdala activation in response to fearful faces in older neglected individuals, whereas reduced amygdala activation was found in response to these faces in younger neglected individuals. Furthermore, while experienced abuse was associated with lower IFG activation in younger individuals, experience of neglect was associated with higher IFG activation in this age group, pointing to potentially differential effects of abuse and neglect and significant age effects. Perpetrated abusive and neglectful behavior were not related to neural activation in any of these regions. Hence, no indications for a role of neural reactivity to emotional faces in the intergenerational transmission of maltreatment were found.Stress and Psychopatholog

Neural and affective responses to prolonged eye contact with one's own adolescent child and unfamiliar others

Stress and Psychopatholog