Publications by authors named "Sarah Zapetis"

Article Synopsis
  • - The study investigated personal space preferences in individuals with psychotic disorders (PD) compared to healthy controls (HC), using a method called the Stop Distance Procedure to measure reactions to both human and virtual intruders.
  • - Results showed that individuals with PD maintained a larger personal space, which correlated with the severity of positive symptoms, while their physiological and subjective reactions to intrusions varied based on the type of intruder.
  • - Researchers concluded that the findings highlight both intact and altered components of personal space regulation in psychotic disorders, suggesting that objective measurements of personal space could be useful for understanding these disorders better.
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Spontaneous mind-wandering has been theorized to increase susceptibility for rumination, contributing to risk for major depressive disorder (MDD). Clarifying whether-and under what circumstances-mind-wandering leads to rumination could inform the development of targeted interventions to reduce risk for ruminative sequelae. Using intensively sampled data in 44 young adults with remitted MDD and 38 healthy volunteers with 1,558 total observations collected from 2018 to 2022, we conducted multilevel models to investigate temporal relationships between mind-wandering and rumination.

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Background: Selectively prioritizing some emotion regulation (ER) strategies over others has been shown to predict well-being; however, it is unclear what mechanisms underlie this process. Impulsivity, which captures both top-down control of and bottom-up reactivity to emotions, is one potential mechanism of interest.

Methods: Using multilevel mediation modeling, we investigated whether lower ER strategy prioritization (i.

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Affect regulation often is disrupted in depression. Understanding biomarkers of affect regulation in ecologically valid contexts is critical for identifying moments when interventions can be delivered to improve regulation and may have utility for identifying which individuals are vulnerable to psychopathology. Autonomic complexity, which includes linear and nonlinear indices of heart rate variability, has been proposed as a novel marker of neurovisceral integration.

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Background: Environmental adversity and subclinical symptoms of psychopathology in adolescents increase their risk for developing a future psychiatric disorder, yet interventions that may prevent poor outcomes in these vulnerable adolescents are not widely available.

Aims: To develop and test the feasibility and acceptability of a prevention-focused program to enhance resilience in high-risk adolescents.

Method: Adolescents with subclinical psychopathology living in a predominantly low-income, Latinx immigrant community were identified during pediatrician visits.

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Personal space is the distance that people tend to maintain from others during daily life in a largely unconscious manner. For humans, personal space-related behaviors represent one form of non-verbal social communication, similar to facial expressions and eye contact. Given that the changes in social behavior and experiences that occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic, including "social distancing" and widespread social isolation, may have altered personal space preferences, we investigated this possibility in two independent samples.

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Background: Changes in the regulation of interpersonal distance, or "personal space" (PS), have been repeatedly observed in schizophrenia and, in some studies, linked to negative symptoms. However, the neurobiological basis of these impairments is poorly understood.

Methods: Personal space measurements, functional connectivity of a brain network sensitive to intrusions into PS, and symptoms of social withdrawal and anhedonia were assessed, and associations among these outcomes measured, in 33 individuals with a psychotic disorder (primarily schizophrenia [SCZ]) and 36 control subjects (CON).

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Personal space has been defined as "the area individuals maintain around themselves into which others cannot intrude without arousing discomfort". However, the precise relationship between discomfort (or arousal) responses as a function of distance from an observer remains incompletely understood. Also the mechanisms involved in recognizing conspecifics and distinguishing them from other objects within personal space have not been identified.

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