Four-Week Mentalizing Imagery Therapy for Family Dementia Caregivers: A Randomized Controlled Trial with Neural Circuit Changes.

Introduction: Family caregivers of patients with dementia suffer a high burden of depression and reduced positive emotions. Mentalizing imagery therapy (MIT) provides mindfulness and guided imagery skills training to improve balanced mentalizing and emotion regulation.

Objective: Our aims were to test the hypotheses that MIT for family caregivers would reduce depression symptoms and improve positive psychological traits more than a support group (SG), and would increase dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) connectivity and reduce subgenual anterior cingulate cortex (sgACC) connectivity.

Mentalizing imagery therapy for depressed family dementia caregivers: Feasibility, clinical outcomes and brain connectivity changes.

Background: Family dementia caregivers experience high rates of depression and anxiety that often go untreated due to time demands. We aimed to determine the feasibility of a brief, 4-week Mentalizing Imagery Therapy intervention, which couples mindfulness with guided imagery practices aimed at bolstering mentalizing capacity, to reduce caregiver psychological symptoms and to explore potential impact on dorsolateral prefrontal cortex connectivity.

Methods: Twenty-four family dementia caregivers with moderate depression symptoms (a score of 10 in Patient Health Questionnaire-9) were assigned to either group Mentalizing Imagery Therapy (MIT, = 12) or a waitlist augmented by optional relaxation exercises ( = 12).

Sex differences in default mode and dorsal attention network engagement.

Focusing on sex differences is necessary to fully understand basic neurobiological processes such as the engagement of large-scale brain networks involved in attention. Prior work suggests that women show enhanced attention during tasks of reward/punishment relative to men. Yet, sex differences in the engagement of neural networks sub serving internal and external focus has been unexplored in regard to reward and punishment.

Advice Taking from Humans and Machines: An fMRI and Effective Connectivity Study.

With new technological advances, advice can come from different sources such as machines or humans, but how individuals respond to such advice and the neural correlates involved need to be better understood. We combined functional MRI and multivariate Granger causality analysis with an X-ray luggage-screening task to investigate the neural basis and corresponding effective connectivity involved with advice utilization from agents framed as experts. Participants were asked to accept or reject good or bad advice from a human or machine agent with low reliability (high false alarm rate).

Neural signatures of trust in reciprocity: A coordinate-based meta-analysis.

Trust in reciprocity (TR) is defined as the risky decision to invest valued resources in another party with the hope of mutual benefit. Several fMRI studies have investigated the neural correlates of TR in one-shot and multiround versions of the investment game (IG). However, an overall characterization of the underlying neural networks remains elusive.

An fMRI and effective connectivity study investigating miss errors during advice utilization from human and machine agents.

As society becomes more reliant on machines and automation, understanding how people utilize advice is a necessary endeavor. Our objective was to reveal the underlying neural associations during advice utilization from expert human and machine agents with fMRI and multivariate Granger causality analysis. During an X-ray luggage-screening task, participants accepted or rejected good or bad advice from either the human or machine agent framed as experts with manipulated reliability (high miss rate).

Association of Environmental Toxins With Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis.

Importance: Persistent environmental pollutants may represent a modifiable risk factor involved in the gene-time-environment hypothesis in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

Objective: To evaluate the association of occupational exposures and environmental toxins on the odds of developing ALS in Michigan.

Design, Setting, And Participants: Case-control study conducted between 2011 and 2014 at a tertiary referral center for ALS.

Measurement and Comparison of Organic Compound Concentrations in Plasma, Whole Blood, and Dried Blood Spot Samples.

The preferred sampling medium for measuring human exposures of persistent organic compounds (POPs) is blood, and relevant sample types include whole blood, plasma, and dried blood spots (DBS). Because information regarding the performance and comparability of measurements across these sample types is limited, it is difficult to compare across studies. This study evaluates the performance of POP measurements in plasma, whole blood and DBS, and presents the distribution coefficients needed to convert concentrations among the three sample types.

Effective connectivity of brain regions underlying third-party punishment: Functional MRI and Granger causality evidence.

Third-party punishment (TPP) for norm violations is an essential deterrent in large-scale human societies, and builds on two essential cognitive functions: evaluating legal responsibility and determining appropriate punishment. Despite converging evidence that TPP is mediated by a specific set of brain regions, little is known about their effective connectivity (direction and strength of connections). Applying parametric event-related functional MRI in conjunction with multivariate Granger causality analysis, we asked healthy participants to estimate how much punishment a hypothetical perpetrator deserves for intentionally committing criminal offenses varying in levels of harm.

Oxytocin influences intuitions about the relationship between belief in free will and moral responsibility.

Philosophers have proposed that laypeople can have deterministic or indeterministic intuitions about the relationship between free will and moral responsibility. However, the psychophysiological mechanisms that generate these extreme intuitions are still underexplored. Exogenous oxytocin offers a unique opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of these underlying mechanisms, since this neuropeptide influences a wide range of outcomes related to social cognition and prosociality.