Bayesian log-Gaussian Cox process regression: applications to meta-analysis of neuroimaging working memory studies

Working memory (WM) was one of the first cognitive processes studied with functional magnetic resonance imaging. With now over 20 years of studies on WM, each study with tiny sample sizes, there is a need for meta-analysis to identify the brain regions that are consistently activated by WM tasks, and to understand the interstudy variation in those activations. However, current methods in the field cannot fully account for the spatial nature of neuroimaging meta-analysis data or the heterogeneity observed among WM studies. In this work, we propose a fully Bayesian random-effects metaregression model based on log-Gaussian Cox processes, which can be used for meta-analysis of neuroimaging studies. An efficient Markov chain Monte Carlo scheme for posterior simulations is presented which makes use of some recent advances in parallel computing using graphics processing units. Application of the proposed model to a real data set provides valuable insights regarding the function of the WM

NLP meets psychotherapy: Using predicted client emotions and self-reported client emotions to measure emotional coherence

Emotions are experienced and expressed through various response systems. Coherence between emotional experience and emotional expression is considered important to clients' well being. To date, emotional coherence (EC) has been studied at a single time point using lab-based tasks with relatively small datasets. No study has examined EC between the subjective experience of emotions and emotion expression in therapy or whether this coherence is associated with clients' well being. Natural language Processing (NLP) approaches have been applied to identify emotions from psychotherapy dialogue, which can be implemented to study emotional processes on a larger scale. However, these methods have yet to be used to study coherence between emotional experience and emotional expression over the course of therapy and whether it relates to clients' well-being. This work presents an end-to-end approach where we use emotion predictions from our transformer based emotion recognition model to study emotional coherence and its diagnostic potential in psychotherapy research. We first employ our transformer based approach on a Hebrew psychotherapy dataset to automatically label clients' emotions at utterance level in psychotherapy dialogues. We subsequently investigate the emotional coherence between clients' self-reported emotional states and our model-based emotion predictions. We also examine the association between emotional coherence and clients' well being. Our findings indicate a significant correlation between clients' self-reported emotions and positive and negative emotions expressed verbally during psychotherapy sessions. Coherence in positive emotions was also highly correlated with clients well-being. These results illustrate how NLP can be applied to identify important emotional processes in psychotherapy to improve diagnosis and treatment for clients suffering from mental-health problems.Comment: Accepted at Empowering Communities: A Participatory Approach to AI for Mental Health, NeurIPS 2022 VIRTUAL Worksho

The Default Mode Network Mediates the Impact of Infant Regulatory Problems on Adult Avoidant Personality Traits

Background Infant regulatory problems (RPs), i.e. problems with crying, feeding, and/or sleeping, are associated with behavioral and emotional problems in childhood. It is unclear, however, whether these behavioral and emotional problems persist into adulthood. The default mode (DMN) and salience networks (SN) support both interoceptive regulation and social/emotional abilities. We thus hypothesized that adults with infant RPs have more behavioral and emotional problems, mediated by DMN/SN alterations. Methods Within the scope of the Bavarian Longitudinal Study, adults (mean age 28 years; 50% females) with (N = 79) and without (N = 254) a history of multiple and/or persistent infant RPs were assessed by the Young Adult Self Report (YASR) to measure behavioral and emotional problems, and – in a sub-sample (N = 49 and N = 71) – by resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) to measure DMN/SN integrity via intrinsic functional connectivity (iFC). Results Compared to adults without infant RPs, adults with infant RPs had more total problems (p=0.002), internalizing problems (p = 0.005), and more avoidant personality traits (p < 0.001). They showed decreased iFC of the DMN and SN. DMN iFC-decreases were strongest in adults with multiple and persistent RPs and linked with avoidant personality traits (r = - 0.42, p = 0.006). Remarkably, DMN iFC-decrements fully mediated the association between infant RPs and adult avoidant personality traits. Conclusions Adults with infant RPs have more avoidant personality traits that are mediated by the DMN. Persistent/multiple infant RPs and the DMN may be targets to attenuate behavioral and emotional problems

The perioperative immune response

PURPOSE OF REVIEW A host of immune modulators are now available in clinical practice. The perioperative period is characterized by profound alterations in host immunity, which can result in poor outcomes, which include infection, cancer recurrence and organ failure. Manipulation of the perioperative immune response has the potential to improve outcomes. A complete understanding of the mechanisms and clinical consequences of altered immune function in this setting is therefore imperative. RECENT FINDINGS Recent in-vivo data have emerged which further our understanding of the interaction between tissue damage, immune modulation and clinical outcomes by utilizing novel laboratory techniques capable of monitoring single-cell immune signatures. Traditional gene expression assays have continued to demonstrate their utility and have been instrumental in defining the host response to perioperative allogeneic blood transfusion. These mechanistic studies are complemented by large clinical studies describing associations between anaesthetic modalities and immune-related outcomes. SUMMARY Laboratory techniques are now available that can monitor the perioperative immune response and could be further developed to introduce personalized care pathways. Consideration must also be given to anaesthesia techniques and perioperative treatments that, although not immediately harmful, may be associated with poor outcomes temporally distant from the treatment, secondary to induced immunosuppression

The paternal transition entails neuroanatomic adaptations that are associated with the father's brain response to his infant cues

The transition into fatherhood is a life-changing event that requires substantial psychological adaptations. In families that include a father figure, sensitive paternal behavior has been shown to positively impact the infant's development. Yet, studies exploring the neuroanatomic adaptations of men in their transition into fatherhood are scarce. The present study used surface-based methods to reanalyze a previously published prospective magnetic resonance imaging dataset comprised of 20 first-time fathers (preconception-to-postpartum) and 17 childless men. We tested if the transition into fatherhood entailed changes in cortical volume, thickness, and area and whether these changes were related to 2 indicators of paternal experience. Specifically, we tested if such changes were associated with (1) the baby's age and/or (2) the fathers' brain activity in response to pictures of their babies compared with an unknown baby. Results indicated that first-time fathers exhibited a significant reduction in cortical volume and thickness of the precuneus. Moreover, higher volume reduction and cortical thinning were associated with stronger brain responses to pictures of their own baby in parental brain regions. This is the first study showing preconception-to-postpartum neuroanatomical adaptations in first-time fathers associated with the father's brain response to cues of his infant.Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades project (RTI2018-093952-B-100); Instituto de Salud Carlos III projects (CP16/00096 and PI17/00064); cofunded by European Regional Development Fund, "A way of making Europe" and by "La Caixa" Foundation under the project code LCF/PR/HR19/52160001, and by the European Research Council under the project code 883069. The project ASPIDE has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement number 801091. M.M.G. and S.S.C. were funded by Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades, Instituto de Salud Carlos III (PFIS contract FI18/00255 and Miguel Servet Type I research contract CP16/00096, respectively), and cofunded by European Social Fund "Investing in your future". The Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares is supported by the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades and the Pro CNIC Foundation, and is a Severo Ochoa Center of Excellence (SEV-2015-0505). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript

The Mindedness of Maternal Touch: An Investigation of Maternal Mind-Mindedness and Mother-Infant Touch Interactions

Increasing evidence shows that maternal touch may promote emotion regulation in infants, however less is known about how parental higher-order social cognition abilities are translated into tactile, affect-regulatory behaviours towards their infants. During 10 min book-reading, mother-infant sessions when infants were 12 months old (N = 45), we investigated maternal mind-mindedness (MM), the social cognitive ability to understand an infant’s mental state, by coding the contingency of maternal verbal statements towards the infants’ needs and desires. We also rated spontaneous tactile interactions in terms of their emotional contingency. We found that frequent non-attuned mind-related comments were associated with touch behaviours that were not contingent with the infant’s emotions; ultimately discouraging affective tactile responses from the infant. However, comments that were more appropriate to infant’s mental states did not necessarily predict more emotionally-contingent tactile behaviours. These findings suggest that when parental high-order social cognitive abilities are compromised, they are also likely to translate into inappropriate, tactile attempts to regulate infant’s emotions

Late weaning and maternal closeness, associated with advanced motor and visual maturation, reinforce autonomy in healthy, 2-year-old children.

We studied neurodevelopmental outcomes and behaviours in healthy 2-year old children (N = 1306) from Brazil, India, Italy, Kenya and the UK participating in the INTERGROWTH-21st Project. There was a positive independent relationship of duration of exclusive breastfeeding (EBF) and age at weaning with gross motor development, vision and autonomic physical activities, most evident if children were exclusively breastfed for ≥7 months or weaned at ≥7 months. There was no association with cognition, language or behaviour. Children exclusively breastfed from birth to 6 months had, in a dose-effect pattern, adjusting for confounding factors, higher scores for "emotional reactivity". The positive effect of EBF and age at weaning on gross motor, running and climbing scores was strongest among children with the highest scores in maternal closeness proxy indicators. EBF, late weaning and maternal closeness, associated with advanced motor and vision maturation, independently influence autonomous behaviours in healthy children

Conceptual Analysis: A Social Neuroscience Approach to Interpersonal Interaction in the Context of Disruption and Disorganization of Attachment (NAMDA)

Humans are strongly dependent upon social resources for allostasis and emotion regulation. This applies especially to early childhood because humans – as an altricial species – have a prolonged period of dependency on support and input from caregivers who typically act as sources of co-regulation. Accordingly, attachment theory proposes that the history and quality of early interactions with primary caregivers shape children’s internal working models of attachment. In turn, these attachment models guide behavior, initially with the set goal of maintaining proximity to caregivers, but eventually paving the way to more generalized mental representations of self and others. Mounting evidence in nonclinical populations suggests that these mental representations coincide with differential patterns of neural structure, function, and connectivity in a range of brain regions previously associated with emotional and cognitive capacities. What is currently lacking, however, is an evidence-based account of how early adverse attachment-related experiences and/or the emergence of attachment disorganization impact the developing brain. While work on early childhood adversities offers important insights, we propose that how these events become biologically embedded crucially hinges on the context of the child-caregiver attachment relationships in which the events take place. Our selective review distinguishes between direct social neuroscience research on disorganized attachment and indirect maltreatment-related research, converging on aberrant functioning in neurobiological systems subserving aversion, approach, emotion regulation, and mental state processing in the wake of severe attachment disruption. To account for heterogeneity of findings, we propose two distinct neurobiological phenotypes characterized by hyper- and hypo-arousal primarily deriving from the caregiver serving either as a threatening or as an insufficient source of co-regulation, respectively