Caregiver or Playmate? Fathers' and mothers' brain responses to ball-play with children.

Parents and children often engage in joint play-a domain where mothers and fathers are thought to exhibit disparate behaviors and impact child development via distinct mechanisms. However, little is known about the neural substrates of mother-child and father-child play. In this fMRI study, we sampled the brain activation of parents of preschoolers (N = 88) during a novel event-related adaptation of the virtual ball-tossing game "Cyberball.

Resilience to major life events: Advancing trajectory modeling and resilience factor identification by controlling for background stressor exposure.

Resilience has been defined as the maintenance or quick recovery of mental health during and after stressor exposure. One popular operationalization of this concept is to model prototypical trajectories of mental health in response to an adverse event, where trajectories of undisturbed low or rapidly recovering symptoms both comply with the resilience definition. However, mental health responses are likely also influenced by other stressors occurring before or during the observation time window.

An fMRI study on alexithymia and affective state recognition in the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test.

Recognizing others' affective states is essential for successful social interactions. Alexithymia, characterized by difficulties in identifying and describing one's own emotions, has been linked to deficits in recognizing emotions and mental states in others. To investigate how neural correlates of affective state recognition are affected by different facets of alexithymia, we conducted a functional magnetic resonance imaging study with 53 healthy participants (aged 19-36 years, 51% female) using the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (RMET) and three different measures of alexithymia [Toronto Structured Interview for Alexithymia (TSIA), Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20), and Bermond-Vorst Alexithymia Questionnaire].

Differential increase of hippocampal subfield volume after socio-affective mental training relates to reductions in diurnal cortisol.

The hippocampus is a central modulator of the HPA-axis, impacting the regulation of stress on brain structure, function, and behavior. The current study assessed whether three different types of 3 months mental Training Modules geared towards nurturing (a) attention-based mindfulness, (b) socio-affective, or (c) socio-cognitive skills may impact hippocampal organization by reducing stress. We evaluated mental training-induced changes in hippocampal subfield volume and intrinsic functional connectivity, by combining longitudinal structural and resting-state fMRI connectivity analysis in 332 healthy adults.

Longitudinal variation in resilient psychosocial functioning is associated with ongoing cortical myelination and functional reorganization during adolescence.

Adolescence is a period of dynamic brain remodeling and susceptibility to psychiatric risk factors, mediated by the protracted consolidation of association cortices. Here, we investigated whether longitudinal variation in adolescents' resilience to psychosocial stressors during this vulnerable period is associated with ongoing myeloarchitectural maturation and consolidation of functional networks. We used repeated myelin-sensitive Magnetic Transfer (MT) and resting-state functional neuroimaging (n = 141), and captured adversity exposure by adverse life events, dysfunctional family settings, and socio-economic status at two timepoints, one to two years apart.

Mapping pathways to neuronal atrophy in healthy, mid-aged adults: From chronic stress to systemic inflammation to neurodegeneration?

Growing evidence implicates systemic inflammation in the loss of structural brain integrity in natural ageing and disorder development. Chronic stress and glucocorticoid exposure can potentiate inflammatory processes and may also be linked to neuronal atrophy, particularly in the hippocampus and the human neocortex. To improve understanding of emerging maladaptive interactions between stress and inflammation, this study examined evidence for glucocorticoid- and inflammation-mediated neurodegeneration in healthy mid-aged adults.

Evidence for differential associations of distinct trait mindfulness facets with acute and chronic stress.

Stress and stress-associated disease are considered the health epidemic of the 21st century. Interestingly, despite experiencing similar amounts of stress than those falling ill, some individuals are protected against the "wear and tear of daily life". Based on the notion that mindfulness training strengthens stress resilience, we explored whether facets of trait mindfulness, prior to training intervention, are linked to acute psychosocial stress reactivity and chronic stress load.

Predictors of stress resilience in Parkinson's disease and associations with symptom progression.

People with Parkinson's disease (PD) are sensitive to effects of long-term stress, but might differ in stress resilience, i.e. the ability to maintain mental health despite adversity.

Self-report assessment of Positive Appraisal Style (PAS): Development of a process-focused and a content-focused questionnaire for use in mental health and resilience research.

Positive Appraisal Style Theory of Resilience posits that a person's general style of evaluating stressors plays a central role in mental health and resilience. Specifically, a tendency to appraise stressors positively (positive appraisal style; PAS) is theorized to be protective of mental health and thus a key resilience factor. To this date no measures of PAS exist.

What helps the helpers? Resilience and risk factors for general and profession-specific mental health problems in psychotherapists during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Introduction: Although the COVID-19 pandemic has severely affected wellbeing of at-risk groups, most research on resilience employed convenience samples. We investigated psychosocial resilience and risk factors (RFs) for the wellbeing of psychotherapists and other mental health practitioners, an under-researched population that provides essential support for other at-risk groups and was uniquely burdened by the pandemic.

Method: We examined 18 psychosocial factors for their association with resilience, of which four were chosen due to their likely relevance specifically for therapists, in a cross-sectional multi-national sample ( = 569) surveyed between June and September 2020.

Psychological Resilience Factors and Their Association With Weekly Stressor Reactivity During the COVID-19 Outbreak in Europe: Prospective Longitudinal Study.

Background: Cross-sectional relationships between psychosocial resilience factors (RFs) and resilience, operationalized as the outcome of low mental health reactivity to stressor exposure (low "stressor reactivity" [SR]), were reported during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

Objective: Extending these findings, we here examined prospective relationships and weekly dynamics between the same RFs and SR in a longitudinal sample during the aftermath of the first wave in several European countries.

Methods: Over 5 weeks of app-based assessments, participants reported weekly stressor exposure, mental health problems, RFs, and demographic data in 1 of 6 different languages.

Enhancing precision in human neuroscience.

Human neuroscience has always been pushing the boundary of what is measurable. During the last decade, concerns about statistical power and replicability - in science in general, but also specifically in human neuroscience - have fueled an extensive debate. One important insight from this discourse is the need for larger samples, which naturally increases statistical power.

Dynamic Modelling of Mental Resilience in Young Adults: Protocol for a Longitudinal Observational Study (DynaM-OBS).

Background: Stress-related mental disorders are highly prevalent and pose a substantial burden on individuals and society. Improving strategies for the prevention and treatment of mental disorders requires a better understanding of their risk and resilience factors. This multicenter study aims to contribute to this endeavor by investigating psychological resilience in healthy but susceptible young adults over 9 months.

Revisiting the stress recovery hypothesis: Differential associations of cortisol stress reactivity and recovery after acute psychosocial stress with markers of long-term stress and health.

Exposure to excessive and long-term stress may result in dysregulation of the stress system, including the acute stress response. In particular, failure to downregulate stress-related reactivity may lead to prolonged stress responses and the accumulation of allostatic load. However, the contribution of altered acute cortisol recovery to chronic stress and associated health impairments has often been neglected.

Association of polygenic risk scores and hair cortisol with mental health trajectories during COVID lockdown.

The COVID-19 pandemic is a global stressor with inter-individually differing influences on mental health trajectories. Polygenic Risk Scores (PRSs) for psychiatric phenotypes are associated with individual mental health predispositions. Elevated hair cortisol concentrations (HCC) and high PRSs are related to negative mental health outcomes.

Open and reproducible science practices in psychoneuroendocrinology: Opportunities to foster scientific progress.

This perspective article was written by invitation of the editors in chief as a summary and extension of the symposium entitled which was held at the virtual meeting of the 2021. It highlights the opportunities presented by the application of open and reproducible scientific practices in psychoneuroendocrinology (PNE), an interdisciplinary field at the intersection of psychology, endocrinology, immunology, neurology, and psychiatry. It conveys an introduction to the topics preregistration, registered reports, quantifying the impact of equally-well justifiable analysis decisions, and open data and scripts, while emphasizing 'selfish' reasons to adopt such practices as individual researcher.

Coping with COVID: risk and resilience factors for mental health in a German representative panel study.

Background: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic might affect mental health. Data from population-representative panel surveys with multiple waves including pre-COVID data investigating risk and protective factors are still rare.

Methods: In a stratified random sample of the German household population ( = 6684), we conducted survey-weighted multiple linear regressions to determine the association of various psychological risk and protective factors assessed between 2015 and 2020 with changes in psychological distress [(PD; measured via Patient Health Questionnaire for Depression and Anxiety (PHQ-4)] from pre-pandemic (average of 2016 and 2019) to peri-pandemic (both 2020 and 2021) time points.

A cross-modal component of alexithymia and its relationship with performance in a social cognition task battery.

Background: The personality trait alexithymia describes an altered emotional awareness that is associated with a range of social impairments and constitutes a transdiagnostic risk factor for various psychopathologies. Despite the characteristic interoceptive deficits in alexithymia, it is predominantly assessed via self-reports. This can result in unreliable measurements and arguably contributes to the prevailing uncertainty regarding its components, including constricted imaginal processes and emotional reactivity.

Longitudinal associations between self-reported attachment dimensions and neurostructural development from adolescence to early adulthood.

The existing literature suggests that individual differences in attachment may be associated with differential trajectories of structural brain development. In addition to maturation during infancy and childhood, developmental trajectories are characteristic of adolescence, a period marked by increasingly complex interpersonal relationships and significant neurostructural and functional plasticity. It remains to be examined whether attachment prospectively relates to neurostructural developmental trajectories during adolescence.

Contemplative Mental Training Reduces Hair Glucocorticoid Levels in a Randomized Clinical Trial.

Objective: This study aimed to investigate the effect of regular contemplative mental training on endocrine and psychological indices of long-term stress.

Methods: An open-label efficacy trial that comprised three distinct 3-month long modules targeting attention and interoception, socioaffective, or sociocognitive abilities through dyadic exercises and secularized meditation practices was conducted with healthy adults. Participants underwent the training for 3 or 9 months, or were assigned to a retest control cohort.

Only vulnerable adults show change in chronic low-grade inflammation after contemplative mental training: evidence from a randomized clinical trial.

Growing evidence suggests that chronic low-grade inflammation can be reduced through mindfulness-based mental training interventions. However, these results are inconsistent and based on patient populations with heterogeneous conditions. Similar research in healthy adults is lacking.

Association of Short-term Change in Leukocyte Telomere Length With Cortical Thickness and Outcomes of Mental Training Among Healthy Adults: A Randomized Clinical Trial.

Importance: Telomere length is associated with the development of age-related diseases and structural differences in multiple brain regions. It remains unclear, however, whether change in telomere length is linked to brain structure change, and to what extent telomere length can be influenced through mental training.

Objectives: To assess the dynamic associations between leukocyte telomere length (LTL) and cortical thickness (CT), and to determine whether LTL is affected by a longitudinal contemplative mental training intervention.