Advances in Emotion Recognition: Link to Depressive Disorder

Emotion recognition enables real-time analysis, tagging, and inference of cognitive affective states from human facial expression, speech and tone, body posture and physiological signal, as well as social text on social network platform. Recognition of emotion pattern based on explicit and implicit features extracted through wearable and other devices could be decoded through computational modeling. Meanwhile, emotion recognition and computation are critical to detection and diagnosis of potential patients of mood disorder. The chapter aims to summarize the main findings in the area of affective recognition and its applications in major depressive disorder (MDD), which have made rapid progress in the last decade

Impulsiveness indirectly affects suicidal ideation through depression and simultaneously moderates the indirect effect: A moderated mediation path model

ObjectiveThis study aims to investigate the indirect effect of impulsiveness on suicidal ideation through depression and the moderating effect of impulsiveness on the indirect effect in an integrated path model.MethodsSelf-rating depression scale (SDS), Barratt impulsiveness scale-11th version (BIS-11), and self-rating idea of suicide scale (SIOSS) were applied. A moderated mediation path model was established including impulsiveness, depression, and suicidal ideation as observed variables.ResultsThe main results revealed that the moderated mediation path model fit well in describing the relationships among impulsiveness, depression, and suicidal ideation. The indirect effect of impulsiveness mediated by depression and the moderating effect of impulsiveness on suicidal ideation was significant. Multiple comparisons showed that the indirect effects under different conditions of impulsiveness had statistical differences. The higher the impulsiveness was, the stronger the predictive effect of depression on suicidal ideation was.ConclusionsThe present study confirms that people who have impulsive traits are riskier to generate suicidal thoughts because they are more likely to suffer from depression and that people who are depressive have even higher risk to develop suicidal thoughts when they simultaneously have impulsive traits. In clinical and health care work, when considering depression to prevent suicidal ideation, impulsiveness needs to be monitored throughout the process of premorbid and onset stages of depression

Longitudinal in vivo Diffusion Tensor Imaging Detects Differential Microstructural Alterations in the Hippocampus of Chronic Social Defeat Stress-Susceptible and Resilient Mice

Background: Microstructural alterations in the hippocampus may underlie stress-related disorders and stress susceptibility. However, whether these alterations are pre-existing stress vulnerability biomarkers or accumulative results of chronic stress remain unclear. Moreover, examining the whole hippocampus as one unit and ignoring the possibility of a lateralized effect of stress may mask some stress effects and contribute to the heterogeneity of previous findings.Methods: After C57BL/6 mice were exposed to a 10-day chronic social defeat stress (CSDS) paradigm, different stress phenotypes, i.e., susceptible (n = 10) and resilient (n = 7) mice, were discriminated by the behavior of the mice in a social interaction test. With in vivo diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) scans that were conducted both before and after the stress paradigm, we evaluated diffusion properties in the left and right, dorsal (dHi) and ventral hippocampus (vHi) of experimental mice.Results: A significantly lower fractional anisotropy (FA) was found in the right vHi of the susceptible mice prior to the CSDS paradigm than that found in the resilient mice, suggesting that pre-existing microstructural abnormalities may result in stress susceptibility. However, no significant group differences were found in the post-stress FA values of any of the hippocampal regions of interest (ROIs). In addition, mean diffusivity (MD) and radial diffusivity (RD) values were found to be significantly greater only in the right dHi of the resilient group compared to those of the susceptible mice. Furthermore, a significant longitudinal decrease was only observed in the right dHi RD value of the susceptible mice. Moreover, the social interaction (SI) ratio was positively related to post-stress left MD, right dHi MD, and right dHi RD values and the longitudinal right dHi MD percent change. Meanwhile, a negative relationship was detected between the SI ratio and bilateral mean of the post-stress left relative to right vHi FA value, highlighting the important role of right hippocampus in stress-resilience phenotype.Conclusion: Our findings demonstrated different longitudinal microstructural alterations in the bilateral dHi and vHi between stress-susceptible and resilient subgroups and indicated a right-sided lateralized stress effect, which may be useful in the diagnosis and prevention of stress-related disorders as well as their intervention

A feasibility study of goal-directed network-based real-time fMRI neurofeedback for anhedonic depression

Anhedonia is a hallmark symptom of depression that often lacks adequate interventions. The translational gap remains in clinical treatments based on neural substrates of anhedonia. Our pilot study found that depressed individuals depended less on goal-directed (GD) reward learning (RL), with reduced reward prediction error (RPE) BOLD signal. Previous studies have found that anhedonia is related to abnormal activities and/or functional connectivities of the central executive network (CEN) and salience network (SN), both of which belong to the goal-directed system. In addition, it was found that real-time functional magnetic resonance imaging (rt-fMRI) neurofeedback (NF) could improve the balance between CEN and SN in healthy individuals. Therefore, we speculate that rt-fMRI NF of the CEN and SN associated with the GD system may improve depressive and/or anhedonic symptoms. Therefore, this study (1) will examine individuals with anhedonic depression using GD-RL behavioral task, combined with functional magnetic resonance imaging and computational modeling to explore the role of CEN/SN deficits in anhedonic depression; and (2) will utilize network-based rt-fMRI NF to investigate whether it is feasible to regulate the differential signals of brain CEN/SN of GD system through rt-fMRI NF to alleviate depressive and/or anhedonic symptoms. This study highlights the need to elucidate the intervention effects of rt-fMRI NF and the underlying computational network neural mechanisms

The Efficacy and Safety of the Combination of Total Glucosides of Peony and Leflunomide for the Treatment of Rheumatoid Arthritis: A Systemic Review and Meta-Analysis

Objective. To evaluate the efficacy and safety of the total glucosides of peony (TGP) and leflunomide (LEF) for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Methods. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) on the efficacy and safety of the combination of TGP and LEF versus LEF alone for the treatment of RA were retrieved by searching PubMed, EMBASE, Cochrane Library, the China National Knowledge Infrastructure database, and Wanfang database. Results. Eight RCTs including 643 RA patients were included in the present meta-analysis. The quality of included studies was poor. The levels of ESR ( < 0.0001), CRP ( < 0.0001), and RF ( < 0.0001) in RA patients who received the combination of TGP and LEF were significantly lower than RA patients who received LEF therapy alone. The pooled results suggest that the combination of TGP and LEF caused less abnormal liver function than LEF alone ( = 0.02). No significant difference in the gastrointestinal discomfort was identified between the combination of TGP and LEF and LEF alone groups ( = 0.18). Conclusion. The combination of TGP and LEF in treatment of RA presented the characteristics of notably decreasing the levels of laboratory indexes and higher safety in terms of liver function. However, this conclusion should be further investigated based on a larger sample size

Development and validation of interpretation bias questionnaire with ambiguous scenarios

Objective To develop a depressive interpretation bias questionnaire with Chinese culture based on the similarity rating task (SRT), and to test its reliability and validity. Methods After being authorized, the ambiguous paragraphs in cognitive behavior modification errors prospective training items (CBM-I) were translated and screened in the first round, the screened paragraphs combined with the remaining of SRT and the self-written ambiguous paragraphs to form the screening questionnaire of the second round.Fourteen ambiguous paragraphs were selected as the items, and then the ambiguous situation interpretation bias questionnaire was compiled using SRT as the template.The reliability and validity analysis and item analysis were launched after 477 were tested by the questionnaire mentioned before. Results A 14-item-formed questionnaire was compiled after 2 rounds of screening, then 5 factors were extracted by exploratory factor analysis, and the cumulative contribution rate was 52.67%.The confirmatory factor analysis showed that the five-factor model fitted well.Cronbach's α was 0.613, and split-half reliability was 0.617;Paired t-test was used to test the content validity, which showed significant difference between the target sentences and the foil sentences (t=-12.90, P < 0.01).The questionnaire had good criterion validity, regarding the center for epidemiologic studies depression scale (CES-D) in Chinese version as criterion, while the total T score was significantly correlated with the total score of the CES-D (r=-0.224, P < 0.01). Conclusion The interpretation bias questionnaire with ambiguous scenarios is a applicable measurement of depression interpretation bias in China

Experimental and Modeling Study of Phase-Specific Flow Stress Distribution in Intercritically Annealed Quenching and Partitioning Steels

To meet the increasing demand and stringent requirements of automotive structural steels, intercritically annealed quenching and partitioning (QP) steels are attracting significant attention owing to their excellent strength–plasticity balance. However, to date, limited reports have focused on the correlation between the microstructure and strength of intercritically annealed QP. In this study, the mechanical behaviors of QP steels with different Si contents were investigated by developing a physical-based mechanical model based on microstructural characterizations. In situ neutron diffraction was used to analyze the evolution of the phase constitution. Si content influenced the phase transformation behavior of the test steel. In the early stages of deformation, Si-strengthened steel exhibited lower retained austenite (RA) stability and faster transformation kinetics. The variation in the RA volume fraction with the deformation was fitted using a segmented exponential function. Based on the microstructure and strengthening mechanisms, a mechanical model considering grain refinement during phase transformation was proposed. The model was validated using intercritically annealed QP steels with different Si contents. The transformation-induced plasticity effect, that is, the contribution of RA to the strength, was discussed from two perspectives. Deformation-induced martensite (DIM) exhibited a significant work-hardening rate owing to the high solid solution strengthening by carbon and the high dislocation density. The residual RA after the DIM transformation exhibited a non-negligible stress distribution. Particularly, the grain boundary density and dislocations increased with strain, strengthening the remaining RA