Vagally-mediated HRV as a marker of trait rumination in healthy individuals? A large cross-sectional analysis.

The tendency to ruminate (i.e., repetitive, self-referential, negative thoughts) is a maladaptive form of emotional regulation and represents a transdiagnostic vulnerability factor for stress-related psychopathology.

The effects of left dorsolateral prefrontal transcranial direct current stimulation on episodic future thinking following acute psychosocial stress.

Introduction: Research on stress-related disorders and brain imaging suggests that (acute) stress might impact the capacity to mentally simulate specific episodic future events (EFT) through the effects of cortisol on brain regions supporting this cognitive function, such as the prefrontal cortices. This study aims to examine the mechanisms underlying this link, using transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) over the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex.

Methods: 60 healthy participants were subjected to the Montreal Imaging Stress Task (MIST), followed by either active or sham tDCS.

The optimized combination of aCompCor and ICA-AROMA to reduce motion and physiologic noise in task fMRI data.

One of the main challenges in fMRI processing is filtering the task BOLD signals from the noise. Independent component analysis with automatic removal of motion artifacts (ICA-AROMA) reduces motion artifacts by identifying ICA noise components based on their location at the brain edges and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), high frequency content and correlation with motion regressors. In anatomical component correction (aCompCor), physiological noise regressors extracted from CSF were regressed out from the fMRI time series.

Mode of birth in monochorionic versus dichorionic twin pregnancies: a retrospective study from a large tertiary centre in Germany.

Background: Optimal mode of birth for twins, in particular monochorionic twins, has been the subject of much debate. This retrospective study compared maternal and newborn outcomes after vaginal birth in monochorionic and dichorionic twins, utilizing a large institutional database.

Methods: Retrospective analysis focusing on 98 monochorionic-diamniotic (MC-DA) and 540 dichorionic-diamniotic (DC-DA) twin births extracted from the perinatal database of a large German hospital.

Individual resting-state frontocingular functional connectivity predicts the intermittent theta burst stimulation response to stress in healthy female volunteers.

Intermittent theta burst stimulation (iTBS) delivered to the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) has been investigated as a promising treatment for stress and stress-related mental disorders such as major depression, yet large individual differences in responsiveness demand further exploration and optimization of its effectiveness. Clinical research suggests that resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) between the DLPFC and the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) can predict iTBS treatment response in depression. The present study aimed to investigate whether rsFC between the left DLPFC and ACC subregions could predict the degree to which the stress system is affected by iTBS.