Mothers need more information to recognise associated emotions in child facial expressions.

Parenting requires mothers to read social cues and understand their children. It is particularly important that they recognise their child's emotions to react appropriately, for example, with compassion to sadness or compersion to happiness. Despite this importance, it is unclear how motherhood affects women's ability to recognise emotions associated with facial expressions in children.

Increased child-evoked activation in the precuneus during facial affect recognition in mothers.

Successful parenting requires constant inferring of affective states. Especially vital is the correct identification of facial affect. Previous studies have shown that infant faces are processed preferentially compared to adult faces both on the behavioural and the neural level.

Neurofunctional alterations of cognitive down-regulation of craving in quitting motivated smokers.

Objective: Cognitive down-regulation of craving involves a neural network within the prefrontal cortex. Tobacco use disorder (TUD) and trait impulsivity have been associated with prefrontal cortex impairments and down-regulation deficits. However, general deficits in down-regulation of craving (regarding non-drug-related cues) compared to never-smokers (NS), differential alterations between drug-related and non-drug-related cues, as well as its links to subject characteristics (smoking severity, trait impulsivity) have so far sparsely been investigated in TUD.

Increased activation in the bilateral anterior insulae in response to others in pain in mothers compared to non-mothers.

Empathy allows us to share emotions and encourages us to help others. It is especially important in the context of parenting where children's wellbeing is dependent on their parents' understanding and fulfilment of their needs. To date, little is known about differences in empathy responses of parents and non-parents.

Motherhood and theory of mind: increased activation in the posterior cingulate cortex and insulae.

Despite growing evidence on effects of parenthood on social understanding, little is known about the influence of parenthood on theory of mind (ToM), the capacity to infer mental and affective states of others. It is also unclear whether any possible effects of parenthood on ToM would generalise to inferring states of adults or are specific to children. We investigated neural activation in mothers and women without children while they predicted action intentions from child and adult faces.

Aversive drug cues reduce cigarette craving and increase prefrontal cortex activation during processing of cigarette cues in quitting motivated smokers.

Aversive drug cues can be used to support smoking cessation and create awareness of negative health consequences of smoking. Better understanding of the effects of aversive drug cues on craving and the processing of appetitive drug cues in abstinence motivated smokers is important to further improve their use in cessation therapy and smoking-related public health measures. In this study, 38 quitting motivated smokers underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanning while performing a novel extended cue-reactivity paradigm.

Evidence for a hijacked brain reward system but no desensitized threat system in quitting-motivated smokers: An fMRI study.

Background And Aims: Several aspects of how quitting-motivated tobacco use disorder (TUD) subjects and never-smokers differ in terms of reward and threat processing remain unresolved. We aimed to examine aberrant reward and threat processes in TUD and the association with smoking characteristics.

Design: A between- and within-subjects functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiment with a 2 (groups) × 4 (stimulus type) factorial design.

Longitudinal changes of anxiety and depressive symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany: The role of pre-existing anxiety, depressive, and other mental disorders.

Especially individuals with mental disorders might experience an escalation of psychopathological symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, we investigated the role of anxiety, depressive, and other mental disorders for levels and longitudinal changes of COVID-19-related fear, anxiety and depressive symptoms during the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany. In a longitudinal observational design with four assessment waves from March, 27th until June, 15th 2020, a total of 6,551 adults from Germany was assessed.

Longitudinal changes in anxiety and psychological distress, and associated risk and protective factors during the first three months of the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany.

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic is related to multiple stressors and therefore may be associated with psychological distress. The aim of this study was to longitudinally assess symptoms of (un-)specific anxiety and depression along different stages of the pandemic to generate knowledge about the progress of psychological consequences of the pandemic and to test the role of potential risk and resilience factors that were derived from cross-sectional studies and official recommendations.

Methods: The present study uses a longitudinal observational design with four waves of online data collection (from March 27 to June 15, 2020) in a convenience sample of the general population in Germany.

Identifying CBT non-response among OCD outpatients: A machine-learning approach.

Machine learning models predicting treatment outcomes for individual patients may yield high clinical utility. However, few studies tested the utility of easy to acquire and low-cost sociodemographic and clinical data. In previous work, we reported significant predictions still insufficient for immediate clinical use in a sample with broad diagnostic spectrum.

Psychological Predictors of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy Outcomes for Anxiety and Depressive Disorders in Children and Adolescents: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

Background: By understanding specific differences between responders to a treatment and non-responders, treatment modalities may be fitted to the individual in order to increase effectiveness, a concept known as "precision medicine". This systematic review and meta-analysis investigated which pretreatment patient and family characteristics may predict the outcome of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) in clinically anxious and/or depressed youth. In particular, higher symptom severity, more severe co-occurring anxiety or depression and more severe parental psychopathology were hypothesized to predict a worse CBT outcome.

Maternal personality, social support, and changes in depressive, anxiety, and stress symptoms during pregnancy and after delivery: A prospective-longitudinal study.

Background: The role of maternal personality and perceived social support for peripartum changes in psychopathological symptoms remains unresolved.

Methods: In a regional-epidemiological sample of 306 women, depressive, anxiety, and stress symptoms were assessed three times during pregnancy and three times after delivery with the 21-item version of the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale. In pregnancy, the Big Five personality traits and perceived social support were assessed with the short version of the Big Five Inventory and the Social Support Questionnaire.

Graded fMRI Neurofeedback Training of Motor Imagery in Middle Cerebral Artery Stroke Patients: A Preregistered Proof-of-Concept Study.

Ischemic stroke of the middle cerebral artery (MCA), a major brain vessel that supplies the primary motor and premotor cortex, is one of the most common causes for severe upper limb impairment. Currently available motor rehabilitation training largely lacks satisfying efficacy with over 70% of stroke survivors showing residual upper limb dysfunction. Motor imagery-based functional magnetic resonance imaging neurofeedback (fMRI-NF) has been suggested as a potential therapeutic technique to improve motor impairment in stroke survivors.

The modulating impact of cigarette smoking on brain structure in panic disorder: a voxel-based morphometry study.

Cigarette smoking increases the likelihood of developing anxiety disorders, among them panic disorder (PD). While brain structures altered by smoking partly overlap with morphological changes identified in PD, the modulating impact of smoking as a potential confounder on structural alterations in PD has not yet been addressed. In total, 143 PD patients (71 smokers) and 178 healthy controls (62 smokers) participated in a multicenter magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) study.

The impact of depressive comorbidity on neural plasticity following cognitive-behavioral therapy in panic disorder with agoraphobia.

Background: Depressive disorders are a frequent comorbidity of panic disorder with agoraphobia (PD/AG). Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) for PD/AG effectively reduces anxiety and depressive symptoms, irrespective of comorbidities. However, as depressive comorbidities can confound fear circuitry activation (i.