Alpha oscillations and their impairment in affective and post-traumatic stress disorders.

Affective and anxiety disorders are debilitating conditions characterized by impairments in cognitive and social functioning. Elucidating their neural underpinnings may assist in improving diagnosis and developing targeted interventions. Neural oscillations are fundamental for brain functioning.

Prior exposure to extreme pain alters neural response to pain in others.

In the extant literature examining the brain mechanisms implicated in pain perception, researchers have theorized that the overlapping responses to pain in the self and in others mark the human capacity for empathy. Here we investigated how prior exposure to extreme pain affects pain perception, by assessing the dynamics of pain processing in veterans who were previously exposed to severe injury. Forty-three participants (28 pain-exposed and 15 controls) underwent whole-head magnetoencephalography (MEG) while viewing photographs of limbs in painful and nonpainful (neutral) conditions.

Oxytocin selectively modulates brain response to stimuli probing social synchrony.

The capacity to act collectively within groups has led to the survival and thriving of Homo sapiens. A central group collaboration mechanism is "social synchrony," the coordination of behavior during joint action among affiliative members, which intensifies under threat. Here, we tested brain response to vignettes depicting social synchrony among combat veterans trained for coordinated action and following life-threatening group experience, versus controls, as modulated by oxytocin (OT), a neuropeptide supporting social synchrony.

Oxytocin affects spontaneous neural oscillations in trauma-exposed war veterans.

Exposure to combat-related trauma often leads to lifetime functional impairments. Previous research demonstrated the effects of oxytocin (OT) administration on brain regions implicated in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD); yet OT's effects on brain patterns in trauma-exposed veterans have not been studied. In the current study the effects of OT on spontaneous brain oscillatory activity were measured in 43 veterans using magnetoencephalography (MEG): 28 veterans who were exposed to a combat-related trauma and 15 trauma-unexposed controls.

Stress reactivity in war-exposed young children with and without posttraumatic stress disorder: relations to maternal stress hormones, parenting, and child emotionality and regulation.

The current study examined biomarkers of stress in war-exposed young children and addressed maternal and child factors that may correlate with children's stress response. Participants were 232 Israeli children aged 1.5-5 years, including 148 children exposed to continuous war.