Factual and counterfactual learning in major adolescent depressive disorder, evidence from an instrumental learning study.

Background: The incidence of adolescent depressive disorder is globally skyrocketing in recent decades, albeit the causes and the decision deficits depression incurs has yet to be well-examined. With an instrumental learning task, the aim of the current study is to investigate the extent to which learning behavior deviates from that observed in healthy adolescent controls and track the underlying mechanistic channel for such a deviation.

Methods: We recruited a group of adolescents with major depression and age-matched healthy control subjects to carry out the learning task with either gain or loss outcome and applied a reinforcement learning model that dissociates valence (positive .

The heart-brain axis: A proteomics study of meditation on the cardiovascular system of Tibetan Monks.

Background: There have been mixed reports on the beneficial effects of meditation in cardiovascular disease (CVD), which is widely considered the leading cause of death worldwide.

Methods: To clarify the role of meditation in modulating the heart-brain axis, we implemented an extreme phenotype strategy, i.e.

Asymmetric valuation and belief updating over gain and loss in risky decision making: A behavioral and electrophysiological investigation.

Decisions under risk, either for gain or loss, are ubiquitous in our daily life. However, the extent to which the valence (gain or loss) of risky financial choices shapes outcome valuation and belief updating is a relatively overlooked research area. In the current study, we image neural activity using electroencephalography (EEG) combined with a financial decision task to investigate outcome valuation and belief updating.

Blending oxytocin and dopamine with everyday creativity.

Converging evidence suggests that oxytocin (OT) is associated with creative thinking (CT) and that release of OT depends on ADP ribosyl-cyclases (CD38 and CD157). Neural mechanisms of CT and OT show a strong association with dopaminergic (DA) pathways, yet the link between CT and CD38, CD157, dopamine receptor D2 (DRD2) and catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) peripheral gene expression remain inconclusive, thus limiting our understanding of the neurobiology of CT. To address this issue, two principal domains of CT, divergent thinking (AUT), were assessed.