[Virtual reality in teaching using mentally ill patient avatars].

Background: Medical interaction and exploration techniques are the most important tools that medical students have to acquire in the subject of psychiatry and psychotherapy. The new digital technologies currently available, such as virtual reality (VR), as important supplements can contribute to a significant improvement in the teaching of psychiatric-psychopathological learning content as well as, in particular, the technique of ascertaining the psychiatric history and diagnosis.

Objective: Evaluation of the Bochum Avatar Exploration Project (AVEX) as part of the curricular course in medical studies at the Ruhr University Bochum for its possibilities to convey learning content and techniques of anamnesis and diagnosis in the subject of psychiatry and psychotherapy.

Computer-based mother-infant interaction analysis and mental functioning in postpartum depression.

Background: Among mothers suffering from postpartum depression (PD), 10-13% additionally experience a mother-infant interaction disturbance that causes a severe mental health risk for the infant. Besides depressive symptomology, the underlying factors promoting dysfunctional maternal interaction behavior have not yet been sufficiently investigated. Therefore, we examined potential relationships between computer-based mother-infant interaction among postpartum depressed dyads and maternal mental functioning.

Impairments of Social Interaction in Depressive Disorder.

Objective: Despite the numerous findings on the altered emotion recognition and dysfunctional social interaction behavior of depressive patients, a lot of the relationships are not clearly clarified.

Methods: In this pilot study, 20 depressive patients (mean±SD, 38.4±14.