Stability of Attention Performance of Adults with ADHD over Time: Evidence from Repeated Neuropsychological Assessments in One-Month Intervals.

Neuropsychological assessments of attention are valuable sources of information in the clinical evaluation of adults with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). However, it is unclear whether the attention performance of adults with ADHD is stable or fluctuates over time, which is of great importance in the interpretation of clinical assessments. This study aimed to explore the stability of attention performance of adults with ADHD in repeated assessments at one-month intervals.

[Diagnostic Performance and Validity of the German Version of the BDI-II - A Secondary Analysis with Data from Clinical and Nonclinical Samples].

Objectives: Study of the diagnostic performance and validity of the German Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-II) in a large data set from multiple adult samples.

Methods: The BDI-II was assessed together with the SCID-I as external criterion in 638 individuals (385 currently or remitted depressed individuals, 253 controls). The screening performance of the BDI-II was calculated for suggested cut-offs from the BDI-II manual and for optimal cut-offs derived from ROC-analyses.

Family-centered music therapy-Empowering premature infants and their primary caregivers through music: Results of a pilot study.

Background: In Neonatal Intensive Care Units (NICUs) premature infants are exposed to various acoustic, environmental and emotional stressors which have a negative impact on their development and the mental health of their parents. Family-centred music therapy bears the potential to positively influence these stressors. The few existing studies indicate that interactive live-improvised music therapy interventions both reduce parental stress factors and support preterm infants' development.

Scary symptoms? Functional magnetic resonance imaging evidence for symptom interpretation bias in pathological health anxiety.

Patients with pathological health anxiety (PHA) tend to automatically interpret bodily sensations as sign of a severe illness. To elucidate the neural correlates of this cognitive bias, we applied an functional magnetic resonance imaging adaption of a body-symptom implicit association test with symptom words in patients with PHA (n = 32) in comparison to patients with depression (n = 29) and healthy participants (n = 35). On the behavioral level, patients with PHA did not significantly differ from the control groups.

Cough Is Dangerous: Neural Correlates of Implicit Body Symptoms Associations.

The negative interpretation of body sensations (e.g., as sign of a severe illness) is a crucial cognitive process in pathological health anxiety (HA).

Simultaneous EEG-fMRI reveals brain networks underlying recognition memory ERP old/new effects.

The mapping of event-related potentials (ERP) on functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data remains difficult as scalp electroencephalography (EEG) is assumed to be largely insensitive to deep brain structures. Simultaneous recordings of EEG and fMRI might be helpful in reconciling surface ERPs with hemodynamic activations in medial temporal lobe structures related to recognition memory. EEG and imaging studies provide evidence for two independent processes underlying recognition memory, namely recollection and familiarity.

A diary-based modification of symptom attributions in pathological health anxiety: effects on symptom report and cognitive biases.

Objective: To examine whether a 2-week attribution modification training (AMT) changes symptom severity, emotional evaluation of health-threatening stimuli, and cognitive biases in pathological health anxiety.

Method: We randomized 85 patients with pathological health anxiety into an electronic diary-based AMT group (AMTG; n = 42) and a control group without AMT (CG; n = 43). Self-report symptom measures, emotional evaluation, attentional bias, and memory bias toward symptom and illness words were assessed with an emotional Stroop task, a recognition task, and an emotional rating task for valence and arousal.

Contextual fear conditioning in humans using feature-identical contexts.

Contextual fear conditioning studies in animals and humans found an involvement of the hippocampus and amygdala during fear learning. To exclude a focus on elements of the context we employed a paradigm, which uses two feature-identical contexts that only differ in the arrangement of the features and requires configural processing. We employed functional magnetic resonance imaging to determine the role of the hippocampus and neocortical areas during the acquisition of contextual fear in humans.

Altered neural reward and loss processing and prediction error signalling in depression.

Dysfunctional processing of reward and punishment may play an important role in depression. However, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies have shown heterogeneous results for reward processing in fronto-striatal regions. We examined neural responsivity associated with the processing of reward and loss during anticipation and receipt of incentives and related prediction error (PE) signalling in depressed individuals.

Childhood maltreatment is associated with depression but not with hypochondriasis in later life.

Objective: Previous studies demonstrated that a history of childhood trauma is linked to mental disorders in adulthood, particularly to depression. Adverse childhood experiences are also considered to contribute to the risk of hypochondriasis, but the results of previous studies have not been conclusive with respect to the strength and specificity of this association. Therefore, we compared the association of adverse childhood experiences with both hypochondriasis and depression.

Measuring depression with a well-being index: further evidence for the validity of the WHO Well-Being Index (WHO-5) as a measure of the severity of depression.

Background: In recent years, the WHO Wellbeing Index (WHO-5) has been used as a screening measure for depression. Nevertheless, research on the validity of this measure in the context of clinical depression is sparse.

Questions: The aim of the present study was to investigate the measurement invariance of the WHO-5 across depressed and non-depressed individuals, as well as the shape and specificity of its relationship to measures of depression severity.

Effects of normal aging and SCN1A risk-gene expression on brain metabolites: evidence for an association between SCN1A and myo-inositol.

Previously reported MRS findings in the aging brain include lower N-acetylaspartate (NAA) and higher myo-inositol (mI), total creatine (Cr) and choline-containing compound (Cho) concentrations. Alterations in the sodium channel voltage gated type I, alpha subunit SCN1A variant rs10930201 have been reported to be associated with several neurological disorders with cognitive deficits. MRS studies in SCN1A-related diseases have reported striking differences in the mI concentrations between patients and controls.

Simultaneous EEG and fMRI reveals a causally connected subcortical-cortical network during reward anticipation.

Electroencephalography (EEG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) have been used to study the neural correlates of reward anticipation, but the interrelation of EEG and fMRI measures remains unknown. The goal of the present study was to investigate this relationship in response to a well established reward anticipation paradigm using simultaneous EEG-fMRI recording in healthy human subjects. Analysis of causal interactions between the thalamus (THAL), ventral-striatum (VS), and supplementary motor area (SMA), using both mediator analysis and dynamic causal modeling, revealed that (1) THAL fMRI blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD) activity is mediating intermodal correlations between the EEG contingent negative variation (CNV) signal and the fMRI BOLD signal in SMA and VS, (2) the underlying causal connectivity network consists of top-down regulation from SMA to VS and SMA to THAL along with an excitatory information flow through a THAL→VS→SMA route during reward anticipation, and (3) the EEG CNV signal is best predicted by a combination of THAL fMRI BOLD response and strength of top-down regulation from SMA to VS and SMA to THAL.

Does body shaping influence brain shape? Habitual physical activity is linked to brain morphology independent of age.

Objectives: Physical activity (PA) was found to influence human brain morphology. However, the impact of PA on brain morphology was mainly demonstrated in seniors. We investigated healthy individuals across a broad age range for the relation between habitual PA and brain morphology.

Effects of age on the structure of functional connectivity networks during episodic and working memory demand.

The aim of the study was to investigate age-related differences in large-scale functional connectivity networks during episodic and working memory challenge. A graph theoretical approach was used providing an exhaustive set of topological measures to quantify age-related differences in the network structure on various scales. In a single session, 10 young (22-30 years) and 10 senior (62-77 years) subjects performed an episodic and a working memory task during functional magnetic resonance imaging.

SCN1A affects brain structure and the neural activity of the aging brain.

Background: The aging of the human brain is accompanied by changes in cortical structure as well as functional activity and variable degrees of cognitive decline. One-third of the observable inter-individual differences in cognitive decline are thought to be heritable. SCN1A encodes the sodium channel α subunit and is considered to be a susceptibility gene for several neurological disorders with prominent cognitive deficits.

A meta-analysis of neurofunctional imaging studies of emotion and cognition in major depression.

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is characterized by altered emotional and cognitive functioning. We performed a voxel-based whole-brain meta-analysis of functional neuroimaging data on altered emotion and cognition in MDD. Forty peer-reviewed studies in English-language published between 1998 and 2010 were included, which used functional neuroimaging during cognitive-emotional challenge in adult individuals with MDD and healthy controls.

The role of context in the processing of alcohol-relevant cues.

In line with learning theories of drug addiction, drug-related cues may be viewed as important motivators of continued drug use. They may be differentially effective depending on the context and motivational significance. The present study aimed to test the significance of different contexts in modulating alcohol-related cue reactivity.

Neuroimaging-based markers of bipolar disorder: evidence from two meta-analyses.

Background: Bipolar disorder (BD) is often misdiagnosed or tardily detected, leading to inadequate treatment and devastating consequences. The identification of objective biomarkers, such as functional and structural brain abnormalities of BD might improve diagnosis and help elucidate its pathophysiology.

Methods: To identify neurobiological markers of BD, two meta-analyses, one of functional neuroimaging studies related to emotional processing and a second of structural whole-brain neuroimaging studies in BD were conducted in the present study.

Loss of control during instrumental learning: a source localization study.

This study used multi-channel electroencephalography (EEG) to investigate cortical correlates of response-outcome contingency appraisal as indexed by the postimperative negative variation (PINV) during instrumental learning. PINV data were subjected to standardized low resolution brain electromagnetic tomography (sLORETA) for source localization. Forty-six healthy adult persons underwent a forewarned S1-S2 paradigm where response-outcome contingencies varied in three consecutive conditions.

Exposure to uncontrollable stress and the postimperative negative variation (PINV): prior control matters.

The main goal of this study was to assess cortical functioning as indexed by the postimperative negative variation (PINV) induced by uncontrollable stress. Sixty-six persons were randomly assigned to three groups who underwent different sequences of stressor controllability. Within an S1-S2 paradigm, one group had initial control over aversive stimulation followed by loss of control and restitution of control.

The startle reflex in alcohol-dependent patients: changes after cognitive-behavioral therapy and predictive validity for drinking behavior. A pilot study.

Background: Previous studies demonstrated an attenuation of the affect-modulated startle reflex when alcohol-dependent patients were viewing alcohol-associated pictures. This indicates an appetitive valence of these stimuli. We used the affect-modulated startle reflex to assess the effects of behavioral treatment on the emotional processing of alcohol-associated stimuli.