Prospective Relationship between Hemispheric Lateralisation and CD4+ T Cells in Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1

Objectives: Neuromodulation of the immune system has been proposed to be influenced by hemispheric lateralisation (HL). The present study tested whether HL predicted CD4+ levels, statistically controlling for confounders. Methods: Employing two assessments of HL, 68 human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-1+ patients were followed prospectively. Numerous exclusion criteria and confounder assessments were employed (e.g. age/medication). Results: Left HL significantly positively predicted CD4+ levels at follow-up, and this was qualified by medication (HAART) status: only in HAART-naïve patients did HL predict CD4 levels. Furthermore, HL significantly predicted whether patients had clinically significantly high/low CD4+ counts. Conclusions: Using a more rigorous methodology than a previous study, the present work partly corroborated the theory of HL influences on immunity, extended it to HIV immunity and identified a possible moderator: HAART medication. Implications for future research and treatments are provided

Microbiota and Metabolite Profiling as Markers of Mood Disorders: A Cross-Sectional Study in Obese Patients

Obesity is associated with an increased risk of several neurological and psychiatric diseases, but few studies report the contribution of biological features in the occurrence of mood disorders in obese patients. The aim of the study is to evaluate the potential links between serum metabolomics and gut microbiome, and mood disturbances in a cohort of obese patients. Psychological, biological characteristics and nutritional habits were evaluated in 94 obese subjects from the Food4Gut study stratified according to their mood score assessed by the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS). The fecal gut microbiota and plasma non-targeted metabolomics were analysed. Obese subjects with increased negative mood display elevated levels of Coprococcus as well as decreased levels of Sutterella and Lactobacillus. Serum metabolite profile analysis reveals in these subjects altered levels of several amino acid-derived metabolites, such as an increased level of L-histidine and a decreased in phenylacetylglutamine, linked to altered gut microbiota composition and function rather than to differences in dietary amino acid intake. Regarding clinical profile, we did not observe any differences between both groups. Our results reveal new microbiota-derived metabolites that characterize the alterations of mood in obese subjects, thereby allowing to propose new targets to tackle mood disturbances in this context. Food4gut, clinicaltrial.gov: NCT03852069

Affect, cognition, awareness and behavior in eating disorders : comparison between obesity and anorexia nervosa

Eating is a highly motivated and reinforced behaviour, therefore human eating behaviour is not a passive response or merely physiological drives providing nutrients for survival; it is about cognitive and emotional processes based choice. Obesity is a condition in which the natural energy reserve, stored in the fatty tissue of humans is increased to a point where it is associated with certain health conditions or increased mortality. Anorexia nervosa is a condition of self initiated weight loss characterised by a profound disturbance of the body image, distorted self-perception, and obsessive fear of gaining weight and problem in the cognitive and the emotional functioning. Continuum model proposed that eating disorders from restriction to overeating can be placed on a linear dimension. Aim: The main goal of the doctorate thesis is to examine the existence of certain common dysfunction related to the two extreme sides of the dimension of the eating disorders (restrictive anorexia and stable obesity). Therefore we compared cognitive profile, emotion functioning (explicit and early categorization of facial emotions) and attitudes (explicit and implicit) towards body image both in obesity and anorexia. Results: The neuropsychological tasks show attentional deficit and distractibility in obesity and anorexia nervosa. In obesity we have found perseveration, deficit on the shifting and inhibition capacity, while in anorexia nervosa perseveration was linked to anxiety. These findings suggest that the PFC based executive function can be associated with modified brain dopamine turnover in the PFC area in obesity. Beside, the higher level of depression in both patient groups; our findings proved that obese patients were more sensitive to the positive emotions and the same time they ignored the negative emotions. In contrary to obesity, anorexic patients were more sensitive to negative emotions specifically those one which represent possible threats such as anger. Obese patients evaluated implicitly more positive the overweight body figures than controls. There was an attitudinal discrepancy between the explicit, socially exposed “ideal body” and the internal (implicit) body shape preference. The anorexic group did not evaluate positively the underweight body shape as we expected either implicitly or explicitly. Based on these findings we suggest that not the underweight body preference is a key issue in anorexia, but the obsessive fear for the obesity. Conclusion: We have found different psychological mechanisms in the pathology of restrictive anorexia nervosa and stable obesity. Our results did not confirm the idea of the continuum model about the linear spectrum based on eating behaviour (from the restriction to overeating), and from body weight (from underweight to obese). Our results suggest that restrictive anorexia nervosa has several common features with anxiety disorder or affective disorders, while obesity most probably can be associated with addictive pathologies.(PSY 3) -- UCL, 200

Reduced capacity in automatic processing of facial expression in restrictive anorexia nervosa and obesity

There is growing evidence that disordered eating is associated with facial expression recognition and emotion processing problems. In this study, we investigated the question of whether anorexia and obesity occur on a continuum of attention bias towards negative facial expressions in comparison with healthy individuals of normal weight. Thirty-three patients with restrictive anorexia nervosa (AN-R), 30 patients with obesity (OB) and 63 healthy age and social-economic status matched controls were recruited. Our results indicated that AN-R patients were more attentive to angry faces and had difficulties in being attentive to positive expressions, whilst OB patients had problems in looking for or being attentive to negative expressions independently of self-reported depression and anxiety. Our findings did not support the idea that AN-R and OB occur on a continuum. We found that AN-R was associated with a reduced capacity in positive facial expression processing, whereas OB was associated with a reduced capacity in negative facial expressions processing. The social relevance of our findings and a possible explanation based upon neuroscience are discussed. © 2010 Elsevier Ltd

Does immersion or detachment facilitate healthy eating? Comparing the effects of sensory imagery and mindful decentering on attitudes and behavior towards healthy and unhealthy food

Many people would like to reduce indulging in unhealthy foods, but find it difficult to do so. Previous research shows that individuals eat smaller portions of unhealthy hedonic food if they first imagine the sensory properties of tempting food (sensory imagery; Cornil & Chandon, 2016). Similarly, they show less preference for such food if they think about food in a detached way (decentering; Papies, Barsalou, & Custers, 2012; Papies, Pronk, Keesman, & Barsalou, 2015). Given that these two mindsets are seemingly at odds with each other, we compared them across two studies to examine their effects on the preference for (Experiment 1) and consumption of (Experiment 2) hedonic healthy and unhealthy food. Although sensory imagery and decentering had largely different effects for preferences towards healthy and unhealthy foods, they had comparable effects on the consumption of both types of foods, serving to reduce the effects of consumption in participants affected by hunger and emotional eating. These results suggest that while sensory imagery and decentering are based on different mechanisms, they produce similar results when it comes to the consumption of hedonic food, regardless of how healthy the food is.SCOPUS: ar.jinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Personality and occupational markers of 'solid citizenship' are associated with having fewer children

Investigating associations between personality and reproductive fitness may reveal the adaptive significance of human behavioural traits. What we dub 'solid-citizenship' personality characteristics such as self-control, diligence and responsibility may repay study from an evolutionary perspective as they protect against negative life-outcomes. We explored associations between reproductive fitness and personality questionnaire markers of solid citizenship in 4981 women from four Australian samples. We also examined relations between reproductive fitness and army discharge status, an applied measure of solid citizenship, in 15,283 Vietnam War-era military veterans. In two Australian samples there were significant negative associations between reproductive fitness and personality measures of solid citizenship. Similarly, in the US study honourably discharged servicemen on average fathered significantly fewer children than non-honourably discharged servicemen. Since personality is genetically influenced, our results suggest that genetic variants for solid citizenship may be decreasing in frequency in some populations, in line with other modern findings but in contrast to historical analyses. Causes for this change may include relatively more conscientious women using contraception to prioritise their careers over reproduction and the availability of systematic welfare provisioning. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd

Flexibility in autism during unpredictable shifts of socio-emotional stimuli: Investigation of group and sex differences

International audienceConsidering the mixed nature of reports of flexibility difficulties in autism, we hypothesized that a task that more closely resembles the challenges faced in real life would help to assess these difficulties. Autistic and typically developing adults performed an online Emotional Shifting Task, involving non-explicit unpredictable shifts of complex socio-emotional stimuli, and the Task Switching Task, involving explicit predictable shifts of simple character stimuli. Switch cost (i.e. the difference in performance between Shift and Non Shift conditions) was larger in the autistic group than in the comparison group for the Emotional Shifting Task but not for the Task Switching Task. Females responded faster than males in the Emotional Shifting Task. On the Task Switching Task, typically developing males responded faster than typically developing females, whereas there was a female advantage in the autistic group. Our findings suggest that factors such as predictability, explicitness of the shift rule, stimulus type as well as sex could play a critical role in flexibility difficulties in autism. Lay abstract Flexibility difficulties in autism might be particularly common in complex situations, when shifts (i.e. the switch of attentional resources or strategy according to the situation) are unpredictable, implicit (i.e. not guided by explicit rules) and the stimuli are complex. We analyzed the data of 101 autistic and 145 non-autistic adults, without intellectual deficiency, on two flexibility tasks performed online. The first task involved unpredictable and non-explicit shifts of complex socio-emotional stimuli, whereas the second task involved predictable and explicit shifts of character stimuli. Considering the discrepancies between laboratory results and the real-life flexibility-related challenges faced by autistic individuals, we need to determine which factor could be of particular importance in flexibility difficulties. We point out that the switch cost (i.e. the difference between shift and non-shift condition) was larger for autistic than for non-autistic participants on the complex flexibility task with unpredictable and non-explicit shifts of socio-emotional stimuli, whereas this was not the case when shifts were predictable, explicit and involved less complex stimuli. We also highlight sex differences, suggesting that autistic females have better social skills than autistic males and that they also have a specific cognitive profile, which could contribute to social camouflaging. The findings of this work help us understand which factors could influence flexibility difficulties in autism and are important for designing future studies. They also add to the literature on sex differences in autism which underpin better social skills, executive function, and camouflaging in autistic females

Reduced flexibility in autism on an unpredicted emotional flexibility task.

International audienc