Publications by authors named "Stenfors C"

It has long been speculated that psychedelic use could provoke the onset of psychosis, but there is little evidence to support this conjecture. Using a longitudinal research design with samples representative of the US and UK adult populations with regard to sex, age, and ethnicity (n = 9732), we investigated associations between psychedelic use and change in the number of psychotic symptoms during the two-month study period. In covariate-adjusted regression models, psychedelic use during the study period was not associated with a change in the number of psychotic symptoms unless it interacted with a personal or family history of bipolar disorder, in which case the number of symptoms increased, or with a personal (but not family) history of psychotic disorders, in which case the number of symptoms decreased.

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Background: Whereas findings from case reports and cross-sectional studies suggest that naturalistic psychedelic use may be associated with unusual visual experiences that occur after the acute pharmacological effects have subsided, such findings need to be replicated in longitudinal studies to better understand potential cause-and-effect relationships.

Aims: To investigate longitudinal associations between naturalistic psychedelic use and unusual visual experiences.

Methods: Using a longitudinal observational research design with samples representative of the US and UK adult populations with regard to sex, age, and ethnicity ( = 9732), we investigated the relationship between psychedelic use during the 2-month study period and changes in past-week unusual visual experiences.

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Background: Previous research has proposed that there may be potential synergies between psychedelic and meditation interventions, but there are still knowledge gaps that merit further investigation.

Methods: Using a longitudinal observational research design with samples representative of the US and UK adult population with regard to sex, age, and ethnicity ( = 9732), we investigated potential associations between self-reported psychedelic use and meditation practice.

Results: The follow-up survey was completed by 7667 respondents (79% retention rate), with 100 respondents reporting psychedelic use during the 2-month study period (1.

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Background: Previous research suggests that mindfulness meditation and psychedelic substances show promise as mental health interventions, but relatively little remains known about their potential impact on leadership outcomes.

Aims: This study aimed to investigate if and how mindfulness meditation and psychedelic use may impact leadership among respondents with a management position as their primary role at work.

Methods: Using samples representative of the US and UK adult populations with regard to sex, age, and ethnicity, this study used quantitative and qualitative methods to examine if and how mindfulness meditation and psychedelic use may impact leadership.

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Objective: Sleep is pivotal to health, wellbeing and functioning in daily life, but sleep difficulties are common and may be affected by modifiable qualities in the residential surrounding environment, in terms of greenspace. However, population-based studies on individual-level greenspace and sleep are limited. The objective of the current study was thus to investigate prospective associations between fine-grained individual-level residential greenspace and sleep, and moderating effects of life style (physical activity, work status) and sex, in a nationwide population-based Swedish cohort.

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Recent research suggests that mindfulness, compassion, and self-compassion relate to inner transformative qualities/capacities and intermediary factors that can support increased pro-environmental behavior and attitudes across individual, collective, organizational, and system levels. However, current insights focus on the individual level, are restricted to certain sustainability fields, and wider experimental evidence is scarce and contradictory. Our pilot study addresses this gap and tests the aforementioned proposition in the context of an intervention: an EU Climate Leadership Program for high-level decision-makers.

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Introduction: Chronic low back pain (CLBP) is a major public health problem. Reliably measuring the effects of chronic pain on movement and activity, and any changes due to treatment, is a healthcare challenge. A recently published paper demonstrated that a novel digital therapeutic (DTxP) was efficacious in reducing fear of movement and increasing the quality of life of adult patients with moderate to severe CLBP.

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Previous research has found associations between classic psychedelic use and nature-relatedness, but the link between classic psychedelic use and human−animal relations remains largely unexplored. Using data representative of the US adult population, with regard to age, sex and ethnicity (N = 2822), this pre-registered study assessed lifetime classic psychedelic use, ego dissolution during respondents’ most intense experience using a classic psychedelic, and three measures related to human−animal relations: speciesism, animal solidarity and desire to help animals. The results showed that lifetime classic psychedelic use was negatively associated with speciesism (β = −0.

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Population-based studies of individual-level residential greenspace and mental health outcomes are still limited. Thus, the present study investigates greenspace-mental health associations-including depressive symptoms, burnout symptoms, and life satisfaction-in a population-based sample of adults, the Swedish Longitudinal Occupational Survey of Health, in 2016 ( = 14,641). High-resolution land cover of greenspace and green-blue-space was assessed at 50, 100, 300 and 500 m buffers around residential addresses.

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Adults with chronic low back pain, disability, moderate-to-severe pain, and high fear of movement and reinjury were recruited into a trial of a novel, automated, digital therapeutics, virtual reality, psychological intervention for pain (DTxP). We conducted a 3-arm, prospective, double-blind, pilot, randomized, controlled trial comparing DTxP with a sham placebo comparator and an open-label standard care. Participants were enrolled for 6 to 8 weeks, after which, the standard care control arm were rerandomized to receive either the DTxP or sham placebo.

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Objective: Benevolence is an emerging concept in motivation theory and research as well as in on pro-social behavior, which has stimulated increasing interest in studying factors that impair or facilitate benevolence and effects thereof. This exploratory study examines the associations between benevolence, stress, mental health, self-compassion, and satisfaction with life in two workplace samples.

Methods: In the first study = 522 (38% = female, median age = 42) participants answered questionnaires regarding self-reported stress symptoms (i.

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The physical boundaries of office work have become increasingly flexible. Work is conducted at multiple locations outside the office, such as at clients' premises, at home, in cafés, or when traveling. However, the boundary between indoor and outdoor environment seems to be strong and normative regarding how office work is performed.

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International data suggest that exposure to nature is beneficial for mental health and well-being. The restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic have created a setting that allows us to investigate the importance of greenness exposure on mental health during a period of increased isolation and worry. Based on 2060 responses from an online survey in Stockholm County, Sweden, we investigated: (1) whether the COVID-19 pandemic changed peoples' lifestyle and nature-related habits, and (2) if peoples' mental health differed depending on their exposure to greenness.

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Nature interactions have been demonstrated to produce reliable affective benefits. While adults demonstrate strong preferences for natural environments over urban ones, it is not clear whether these affective benefits result from exposure to nature stimuli per se, or result from viewing a highly preferred stimulus. In one set of studies (Study 1 and 2), state affect before and after image viewing was examined as a function of both preference level (high, low, very high, or very low aesthetic value) and environment type (nature or urban).

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Objective: Disability and movement-related pain are major symptoms of joint disease, motivating the development of methods to quantify motor behaviour in rodent joint pain models. We compared effects on behaviour, assessed the levels of biochemical mediators and made a detailed histopathological evaluation after induction of rat monoiodoacetate (MIA) monoarthritis into the ankle or knee joint.

Design: Twenty-seven male Lewis rats were used.

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To assess environmental preferences in a wide age range of children, a tablet-based task was developed which can be used with children as young as 4-years-old. The current method uses images which have been rated on aesthetic preference in a separate adult sample to ensure that the nature and urban images shown are matched on aesthetics, allowing for a true evaluation of environmental preferences (without any confound of general aesthetics). However, the app is customizable and can evaluate preference for any set of 10 images researchers may be interested in (i.

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Interactions with natural environments and nature-related stimuli have been found to be beneficial to cognitive performance, in particular on executive cognitive tasks with high demands on directed attention processes. However, results vary across different studies. The aim of the present paper was to evaluate the effects of nature vs.

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Maintaining goal representations is a critical component of cognitive control and is required for successful performance in many daily activities. This is particularly important when goal-relevant information needs to be maintained in working memory (WM), updated in response to changing task demands or internal goal states, and protected from interference by inhibiting counter-goal behaviors. Modulation of fronto-striatal dopamine is critical for updating and maintaining goals and representations.

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Background and aims Pain is a subjective experience, and as such, pre-clinical models of human pain are highly simplified representations of clinical features. These models are nevertheless critical for the delivery of novel analgesics for human pain, providing pharmacodynamic measurements of activity and, where possible, on-target confirmation of that activity. It has, however, been suggested that at least 50% of all pre-clinical data, independent of discipline, cannot be replicated.

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Background: The knowledge is limited regarding the relation between systemic inflammatory biomarkers and subjective and objective cognitive functioning in population-based samples of healthy adults across the adult age-span. Thus, the aim of this study was to study a selection of four pro-inflammatory biomarkers (IL-6, MCP-1, TNF-α, CRP) in relation to executive cognitive functioning, episodic memory and subjective cognitive complaints (SCC) in a population-based sample of 215 working adults (age 25-67).

Results: Higher levels of MCP-1 were associated with poorer executive cognitive functioning, even after adjustments for demographical factors, health status/conditions, SCC and depressive symptoms.

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Background: There is a need for better joint pain treatment, but development of new medication has not been successful. Pre-clinical models with readouts that better reflect the clinical situation are needed. In patients with joint pain, pain at rest and pain at walking are two major complaints.

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Burrowing, an ethologically relevant rodent behaviour, has been proposed as a novel outcome measure to assess the global impact of pain in rats. In a prospective multicentre study using male rats (Wistar, Sprague-Dawley), replication of suppressed burrowing behaviour in the complete Freund adjuvant (CFA)-induced model of inflammatory pain (unilateral, 1 mg/mL in 100 µL) was evaluated in 11 studies across 8 centres. Following a standard protocol, data from participating centres were collected centrally and analysed with a restricted maximum likelihood-based mixed model for repeated measures.

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Executive cognitive functioning is essential in private and working life and is sensitive to stress and aging. Cardiovascular (CV) health factors are related to cognitive decline and dementia, but there is relatively few studies of the role of CV autonomic regulation, a key component in stress responses and risk factor for cardiovascular disease (CVD), and executive processes. An emerging pattern of results from previous studies suggest that different executive processes may be differentially associated with CV autonomic regulation.

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Burrowing, an ethologically relevant rodent behaviour, has been proposed as a novel outcome measure to assess the global impact of pain in rats. In a prospective multicentre study using male rats (Wistar, Sprague-Dawley), replication of suppressed burrowing behaviour in the complete Freund adjuvant (CFA)-induced model of inflammatory pain (unilateral, 1 mg/mL in 100 µL) was evaluated in 11 studies across 8 centres. Following a standard protocol, data from participating centres were collected centrally and analysed with a restricted maximum likelihood-based mixed model for repeated measures.

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