Academic-related stressors predict depressive symptoms in graduate students: A machine learning study.

Background: Graduate students face higher depression rates worldwide, which were further exacerbated during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study employed a machine learning approach to predict depressive symptoms using academic-related stressors.

Methods: We surveyed students across four graduate programs at a Federal University in Brazil between October 15, 2021, and March 26, 2022, when most activities were restricted to taking place online due to the pandemic.

Migraine aura discrimination using machine learning: an fMRI study during ictal and interictal periods.

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies on migraine with aura are challenging due to the rarity of patients with triggered cases. This study optimized methodologies to explore differences in ictal and interictal spatiotemporal activation patterns based on visual stimuli using fMRI in two patients with unique aura triggers. Both patients underwent separate fMRI sessions during the ictal and interictal periods.

Impact of Loneliness on Training Gains with Heart Rate Variability Biofeedback in the Elderly: A Pilot Study.

The negative impact of loneliness on the health of the elderly is particularly noticeable because of the effects of central control on the autonomic nervous system. Such an impact can be assessed through heart rate variability (HRV) analysis and can be modified using HRV biofeedback training. This study aimed to investigate the impact of different levels of social interaction reported by the elderly on HRV before and after training with HRV biofeedback and after a follow-up period.

Long-term benefits of heart rate variability biofeedback training in older adults with different levels of social interaction: a pilot study.

Unlabelled: To test whether heart rate variability (HRV) biofeedback training benefits older adults with different social interaction levels.

Methods: 32 older adults (16 were institutionalized and 16 were not). Both groups received 14 sessions, 15 min, 3 times a week, with half of the individuals receiving HRV biofeedback training and the other half receiving control training.

The impact of a violent community on mental health and the benefits of a sport program for social development.

The aim of the present study was to evaluate the impact of a violent environment on mental health and the impact of a sport for social development (SSD) program on quality of life, mental distress symptoms, and heart rate variability (HRV). HRV and psychometric data were measured from 20 men professional athletes assisted by the SSD and 20 men living in the same violent community. The comparison of groups revealed greater sympathetic parameters of HRV, positive affect, and quality of life in the SSD group.

Heart Rate Variability and Pain Sensitivity in Chronic Low Back Pain Patients Exposed to Passive Viewing of Photographs of Daily Activities.

Objective: Investigation if emotional reactivity by measuring heart rate variability (HRV) and pressure pain sensitivity during a passive visualization task in participants with chronic low back pain (CLBP).

Materials And Methods: This case-control study was composed of 47 participants with CLBP and 47 asymptomatic participants. Both groups were submitted to a passive visualization task using 27 pictures from PHODA (Photograph Series of Daily Activities).

Correction to: How do you perceive threat? It's all in your pattern of brain activity.

The author found a mistake in their published article. They observed that Fig. 2 presented some mistakes as follow.

How do you perceive threat? It's all in your pattern of brain activity.

Whether subtle differences in the emotional context during threat perception can be detected by multi-voxel pattern analysis (MVPA) remains a topic of debate. To investigate this question, we compared the ability of pattern recognition analysis to discriminate between patterns of brain activity to a threatening versus a physically paired neutral stimulus in two different emotional contexts (the stimulus being directed towards or away from the viewer). The directionality of the stimuli is known to be an important factor in activating different defensive responses.

Decoding negative affect personality trait from patterns of brain activation to threat stimuli.

Introduction: Pattern recognition analysis (PRA) applied to functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has been used to decode cognitive processes and identify possible biomarkers for mental illness. In the present study, we investigated whether the positive affect (PA) or negative affect (NA) personality traits could be decoded from patterns of brain activation in response to a human threat using a healthy sample.

Methods: fMRI data from 34 volunteers (15 women) were acquired during a simple motor task while the volunteers viewed a set of threat stimuli that were directed either toward them or away from them and matched neutral pictures.

Exposure to trauma-relevant pictures is associated with tachycardia in victims who had experienced an intense peritraumatic defensive response: the tonic immobility.

Tonic immobility is an involuntary, last-ditch defensive reaction characterized by physical inactivity in a context of inescapable threat that has been described in many species, including humans. The occurrence of this defensive response is a predictor of the severity of psychiatric disorders and may be considered as an index of an intense reaction to a traumatic event. Here, we investigated whether the retrospective reports of peritraumatic tonic immobility reaction in participants exposed to a traumatic event would modify their cardiac responses to pictures related to their trauma.

How you perceive threat determines your behavior.

The prioritization of processing emotional stimuli usually produces deleterious effects on task performance when it distracts from a task. One common explanation is that brain resources are consumed by emotional stimuli, diverting resources away from executing the task. Viewing unpleasant stimuli also generates defensive reactions, and these responses may be at least partially responsible for the effect of the emotional modulation observed in various reaction time (RT) paradigms.