Olfactory dysfunction in schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders: A comprehensive and updated meta-analysis.

Olfaction plays a key role in our daily life, influencing food enjoyment, threat detection, mood and social relationships. Numerous studies have provided evidence of abnormal olfactory function in schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders. This pre-registered meta-analysis was conducted to (a) provide an updated overview of olfactory function in schizophrenia-spectrum disorders, and (b) examine the modulatory effects of demographic and clinical variables on distinct olfactory abilities.

Sniffing out a solution: How emotional body odors can improve mindfulness therapy for social anxiety.

Background: Human body odors (BOs) serve as an effective means of social communication, with individuals exposed to emotional BOs experiencing a partial replication of the sender's affective state. This phenomenon may be particularly relevant in conditions where social interactions are impaired, such as social anxiety. Our study aimed to investigate if emotional human BOs could augment the benefits of mindfulness-based interventions.

Emotion perception through the nose: how olfactory emotional cues modulate the perception of neutral facial expressions in affective disorders.

Humans can decode emotional states from the body odors of the conspecifics and this type of emotional communication is particularly relevant in conditions in which social interactions are impaired, as in depression and social anxiety. The present study aimed to explore how body odors collected in happiness and fearful conditions modulate the subjective ratings, the psychophysiological response and the neural processing of neutral faces in individuals with depressive symptoms, social anxiety symptoms, and healthy controls (N = 22 per group). To this aim, electrocardiogram (ECG) and HD-EEG were recorded continuously.

Nasal inhalation does not improve memory of visual repetitions.

Several studies suggest that breathing entrains neural oscillations and thereby improves visual detection and memory performance during nasal inhalation. However, the evidence for this association is mixed, with some studies finding no, minor, or opposite effects. Here, we tested whether nasal breathing phase influences memory of repeated images presented in a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) task.

Low odor awareness predicts reduced olfactory abilities in women with depressive symptoms, but not with anxiety symptoms.

Background: Olfactory disorders and affective symptoms are tightly related. However, the factors underlying this association are not yet understood. One candidate factor is "odor awareness": the degree of attention individuals pays to the odors.

Alexithymia modulates the attitudes towards odors but not the olfactory abilities or the affective reactions to odors.

Although emotion and olfaction are closely linked, only a few studies have investigated olfactory processing in alexithymia, a condition characterized by altered emotional processing. These results do not allow comprehensive conclusions on whether individuals with alexithymia present lower olfactory abilities or only altered affective reactions and awareness of odors. Three pre-registered experiments were conducted to clarify this relation.

Human body odors of happiness and fear modulate the late positive potential component during neutral face processing: a preliminary ERP study on healthy subjects.

Human body odors (HBOs) are powerful stimuli that can affect emotional, cognitive and behavioral processes. However, the characterization of the physiological response to HBOs is still to be fully investigated. Here, we analyzed the self-assessed emotion perception and the EEG event-related potentials (ERP) on 17 healthy young women during a simultaneous visual-olfactory stimulation.

EEG time-frequency analysis reveals blunted tendency to approach and increased processing of unpleasant stimuli in dysphoria.

To date, affective and cognitive processing of emotional information in individuals with depressive symptoms have been examined through peripheral psychophysiological measures, event-related potentials, and time-frequency analysis of oscillatory activity. However, electrocortical correlates of emotional and cognitive processing of affective content in depression have not been fully understood. Time-frequency analysis of electroencephalographic activity allows disentangling the brain's parallel processing of information.

Olfactory meta-cognition in individuals with depressive and anxiety symptoms: The differential role of common and social odors.

Background: Diminished olfactory functioning has been reported in depression, whereas evidence in anxiety disorders is still controversial. Olfactory meta-cognitive abilities (i.e.

Emotional processing prospectively modulates the impact of anxiety on COVID-19 pandemic-related post-traumatic stress symptoms: an ERP study.

Background: Considering that the elevated distress caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, in some cases, led to post-traumatic stress symptoms (PTSS), it has been proposed as a specific traumatic event. The present longitudinal study investigated pre-pandemic motivated attention to emotional stimuli, as indexed by Late Positive Potential (LPP) amplitude, in relation with the potential differential role of anxiety and depressive symptoms in predicting PTSS severity related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Methods: A total of 79 university students initially completed self-report measures of depression and anxiety along with a passive viewing task of emotional (pleasant, unpleasant) and neutral pictures while electroencephaloghic activity was recorded.

The social odor scale: Development and initial validation of a new scale for the assessment of social odor awareness.

The degree of attention individuals pay to olfactory cues (called odor awareness) influences the role of odors in everyday life. Particularly, odors produced by the human body (i.e.

Disentangling emotional processing in dysphoria: An ERP and cardiac deceleration study.

The present study aimed to investigate emotional processing in dysphoria. To this end, the amplitude of the Late Positive Potential (LPP) and cardiac deceleration were assessed during the passive viewing of affective (pleasant, neutral, and unpleasant) pictures in 26 individuals with dysphoria and in 25 non-depressed controls. The group with dysphoria revealed a smaller LPP amplitude than the group without dysphoria in response to pleasant and neutral, but not unpleasant, stimuli at centro-parieto-occipital sites.

Depressed mood, brooding rumination and affective interference: The moderating role of heart rate variability.

Facilitated processing of negative information might contribute to the etiopathogenesis and maintenance of depressive symptoms. Cardiac vagal tone, indexed by heart rate variability (HRV), is believed to represent a proxy of the functional integrity of the neural networks implicated in brooding rumination, affective interference and depression. The present study examined whether HRV may moderate the relation between brooding rumination, affective interference and depressive symptoms in a sample of healthy individuals (n = 68) with different degrees of depressed mood.

Brain activity during facial processing in autism spectrum disorder: an activation likelihood estimation (ALE) meta-analysis of neuroimaging studies.

Background: Though aberrant face processing is a hallmark of autistic spectrum disorder (ASD), findings on accompanying brain activity are divergent. Therefore, we conducted an activation likelihood estimation (ALE) meta-analysis of studies examining brain activity during face processing.

Methods: We searched PubMed and PsycINFO using combinations of terms as 'fMRI', 'Autism Spectrum Disorder', 'Face Perception'.

Human Chemosignals and Brain Activity: A Preliminary Meta-analysis of the Processing of Human Body Odors.

Across phyla, chemosignals are a widely used form of social communication and increasing evidence suggests that chemosensory communication is present also in humans. Chemosignals can transfer, via body odors, socially relevant information, such as specific information about identity or emotional states. However, findings on neural correlates of processing of body odors are divergent.

Attention and affect in dysphoria: Insights from startle reflex modulation and cardiac deceleration.

The present study investigated the interplay between attention and affective disposition during emotional processing in dysphoria. Attentional and affective startle modulation and cardiac deceleration were assessed during the viewing of emotional pictures in 38 individuals with dysphoria and in 52 controls. Startle probes during picture viewing were presented at 300, 1500, 3500, 4500 ms after picture onset.

Appetitive and aversive motivation in depression: The temporal dynamics of task-elicited asymmetries in alpha oscillations.

The capability model of alpha asymmetries posits that state emotional manipulations are a more powerful detector of depression-related motivational deficits than alpha activity at rest. The present study used a time-frequency approach to investigate the temporal dynamics of event-related changes in alpha power during passive viewing of emotional pictures in individuals with dysphoria (n = 23) and in individuals without dysphoria (n = 24). In the whole group, the processing of pleasant and unpleasant compared to neutral pictures was associated with a decrease in event-related alpha power (i.