Metacognitive beliefs in depressed in-patients: adaptation and validation of the short version of the Metacognitions Questionnaire (MCQ-30) for French clinical and non-clinical samples.

Background: The short form of the Metacognitions Questionnaire (MCQ-30) is a brief multi-dimensional measure which explores the metacognitive processes and beliefs about worry and cognition that are central to the vulnerability and maintenance of emotional disorders.

Aims: The first aim of the study was to create and validate a French version of the MCQ-30 in a non-clinical and a clinical sample of depressed in-patients.

Method: A French adaptation of the MCQ-30 was administered to a sample of 467 individuals from the general population and 73 hospitalized patients with major depressive disorder.

[Virtual reality therapy in the care management of anxiety disorders].

Virtual reality involves the creation of an interactive three-dimensional virtual world which the user can navigate. This technology is proposed for anxiety disorders as an alternative to the in vivo and imaginative exposure provided in cognitive behavioral therapy, the gold standard psychoterapeutic treatment for this pathology. According to a signifcant number of publications including meta-analysis, virtual reality therapy exposure is at least equivalent to in vivo exposure in specifc phobias, panic disorder with agoraphobia, post-traumatic stress disorder and social phobia.

Fear of falling: efficacy of virtual reality associated with serious games in elderly people.

Objective: Fear of falling is defined as an ongoing concern about falling that is not explained by physical examination. Focusing on the psychological dimension of this pathology (phobic reaction to walking), we looked at how virtual reality associated with serious games can be used to treat this pathology.

Methods: Participants with fear of falling were randomly assigned to either a treatment group or a waiting list.

[Therapeutic education for recurrent depressive disorder].

Depression is a serious and recurrent condition which can become chronic. As a complement to other therapeutic approaches, therapeutic patient education (TPE) or psychoeducation is effective. TPE groups led by a multidisciplinary hospitalisation team in a psychiatric department are thereby integrated into the global care in order to reduce relapses and improve patients' quality of life.

E-virtual reality exposure therapy in acrophobia: A pilot study.

Virtual reality therapy is already used for anxiety disorders as an alternative to in vivo and in imagino exposure. To our knowledge, however, no one has yet proposed using remote virtual reality (e-virtual reality). The aim of the present study was to assess e-virtual reality in an acrophobic population.

Gait control and executive dysfunction in early schizophrenia.

Dysexecutive functioning, which is described as an enduring core feature of schizophrenia, has been associated with gait disorders. However, few studies have reported gait disorders in schizophrenia patients. The objective of this study was to examine the association between executive dysfunction and gait performance in recent-onset schizophrenia patients using the dual task paradigm.

MEG evidence for dynamic amygdala modulations by gaze and facial emotions.

Background: Amygdala is a key brain region for face perception. While the role of amygdala in the perception of facial emotion and gaze has been extensively highlighted with fMRI, the unfolding in time of amydgala responses to emotional versus neutral faces with different gaze directions is scarcely known.

Methodology/principal Findings: Here we addressed this question in healthy subjects using MEG combined with an original source imaging method based on individual amygdala volume segmentation and the localization of sources in the amygdala volume.

Gaze behaviour in social blushers.

Gaze aversion could be a central component of social phobia. Fear of blushing is a symptom of social anxiety disorder (SAD) but is not yet described as a specific diagnosis in psychiatric classifications. Our research consists of comparing gaze aversion in SAD participants with or without fear of blushing in front of pictures of different emotional faces using an eye tracker.

Gait and motor imagery of gait in early schizophrenia.

Although gait disorders were described in schizophrenia, motor imagery of gait has not yet been studied in this pathology. We compared gait, motor imagery of gait and the difference between these two conditions in patients with schizophrenia and healthy age-matched controls. The mean ± standard deviation (S.

Human brain spots emotion in non humanoid robots.

The computation by which our brain elaborates fast responses to emotional expressions is currently an active field of brain studies. Previous studies have focused on stimuli taken from everyday life. Here, we investigated event-related potentials in response to happy vs neutral stimuli of human and non-humanoid robots.

Visual modulation of pleasure in subjects with physical and social anhedonia.

Anhedonia is a personality trait associated with a decrease in the ability to feel pleasure. We investigated the experience of pleasure in individuals with physical and social anhedonia for positive pictures with varying levels of luminance contrast. Photographs with either a sensory or a social content were modified with a contrast-gradation procedure.

Gaze avoidance in social phobia: objective measure and correlates.

Gaze aversion could be a central component of the physiopathology of social phobia. The emotions of the people interacting with a person with social phobia seem to model this gaze aversion. Our research consists of testing gaze aversion in subjects with social phobia compared to control subjects in different emotional faces of men and women using an eye tracker.

The experience of pleasure before and after hearing rehabilitation.

Hearing loss may lead to major changes in the social and emotional aspects of daily life. This follow-up study investigated the effect of hearing-aid use on emotional experience in adults with hearing impairment. Thirteen individuals with impaired hearing were tested before and after 6 months of hearing-aid use, and were compared with 19 individuals who had worn hearing aids for many years.

Schizotypy, depression, and anxiety in physical and social anhedonia.

Social anhedonia is a more promising indicator of vulnerability to schizophrenia than physical anhedonia, both as assessed by Chapman scales. More broadly, the populations identified by these scales would have a propensity to different psychiatric disorders. This cross-sectional study examined the respective profiles of schizotypy, anxiety, and depression in French students with physical and social anhedonia, using psychometric and interview-based measures.

Agency, the sense of presence, and schizophrenia.

The objective of this work is to evaluate the impact of agency deficiency on presence. We hypothesize that a deficit in agency, such as occurs in schizophrenia, has repercussions on the sense of presence as well as on performance in a sensorimotor test involving the body. Nineteen healthy controls and 19 stable patients with schizophrenia, matched by age and gender, participated in the study.

Cognitive avoidance of intrusive memories and autobiographical memory: specificity, autonoetic consciousness, and self-perspective.

Autobiographical memory (AM) specificity is impaired in depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. Previous studies emphasised the role of cognitive avoidance of intrusive memories in this impairment. This study aimed to examine the association of cognitive avoidance of intrusive memories with specificity, autonoetic consciousness, and self-perspective.

Spontaneous appetence for wheel-running: a model of dependency on physical activity in rat.

According to human observations of a syndrome of physical activity dependence and its consequences, we tried to examine if running activity in a free activity paradigm, where rats had a free access to activity wheel, may present a valuable animal model for physical activity dependence and most generally to behavioral dependence. The pertinence of reactivity to novelty, a well-known pharmacological dependence predictor was also tested. Given the close linkage observed in human between physical activity and drugs use and abuse, the influence of free activity in activity wheels on reactivity to amphetamine injection and reactivity to novelty were also assessed.

High sensitivity to multisensory conflicts in agoraphobia exhibited by virtual reality.

The primary aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of auditory feedback in a VR system planned for clinical use and to address the different factors that should be taken into account in building a bimodal virtual environment (VE). We conducted an experiment in which we assessed spatial performances in agoraphobic patients and normal subjects comparing two kinds of VEs, visual alone (Vis) and auditory-visual (AVis), during separate sessions. Subjects were equipped with a head-mounted display coupled with an electromagnetic sensor system and immersed in a virtual town.

Negative priming in a numerical Piaget-like task as evidenced by ERP.

Inhibition is a key executive function in adults and children for the acquisition and expression of cognitive abilities. Using event-related potentials in a priming adaptation of a Piaget-like numerical task taken from developmental psychology, we report a negative priming effect in adults measured just after the cognitive inhibition of a misleading strategy, the visuospatial length-equals-number bias. This effect was determined in the N200 information processing stage through increased N200 amplitude.

Episodic autobiographical memory in depression: Specificity, autonoetic consciousness, and self-perspective.

Autobiographical memory (AM) and the self are closely linked. AM retrieval in depression is characterized by a lack of specificity, suggesting an impairment of episodic AM. Autonoetic consciousness and self-perspective, which are critical to episodic AM, have never been addressed in depression.

Generalization of frequency discrimination learning across frequencies and ears: implications for underlying neural mechanisms in humans.

Frequency discrimination thresholds (FDTs) at 750, 1500, 3000, and 6000 Hz were measured in 32 normal-hearing listeners before and after each listener practiced the task for 12 h at one of the above frequencies using a single ear. Marked improvements in thresholds taking place over several hours were observed during the frequency- and ear-specific training period. Comparisons between pre- and posttraining thresholds showed large improvements at the trained frequency, but also at other frequencies.

A new method for the assessment of spatial orientation and spatial anxiety in mice.

The implication of integrated functional sensory relations of the body to space in anxiety disorders is a very important issue which encourages the development of animal models, in particular, for pharmacological perspectives and for the functional assessment of the deficits induced by genetic manipulation in the mouse or the rat. A new experimental device is presented here: It is comprised of a rotating tunnel and a rotating-beam controlled by computer which can be used for multiple visuo-idiothetic and kinesthetic sensory conflict situations during active locomotor behaviour by mice. The system is linked to a digital video system, Video-Track trade mark, designed to track and record the movements of the animals.