Alike but not the same: Psychological profiles of COVID-19 vaccine skeptics.

One of the challenges of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic was a widespread skepticism about vaccination. To elucidate the underlying mental and emotional predispositions, we examined a sample of 1428 participants using latent profile analysis (LPA) on selected personality trait variables, mental health status, and measures of irrational beliefs. LPA revealed five distinct profiles: two classes of non-skeptics and three of skeptics.

Dreaming during a pandemic: Low incorporation of COVID-19-specific themes and lucidity in dreams of psychiatric patients and healthy controls.

The present study examined the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the emotional quality of dreams, the incorporation of pandemic-related themes, and the occurrence of lucid dreaming. Dream reports and lucidity ratings of psychiatric outpatients ( = 30) and healthy controls ( = 81) during two lockdowns in Germany were compared to those of healthy controls ( = 33) before the pandemic. Results confirmed previous reports that pandemic-specific themes were incorporated into dreams.

Adapting to a major crisis: Sleep and mental health during two lockdowns.

The present study aimed at investigating the impact of the pandemic on sleep and mental health in healthy individuals (n = 78) as well as in psychiatric outpatients (n = 30) during the first and the second lockdown in Germany, in March and November 2020, respectively. Sleep quality and anxiety were worse in patients compared with controls during both lockdowns. Further, patients but not controls exhibited higher levels of depression and overall psychiatric symptomatology during the second lockdown.

Investigating Nuisance Effects Induced in EEG During tACS Application.

Transcranial alternating-current stimulation (tACS) in the frequency range of 1-100 Hz has come to be used routinely in electroencephalogram (EEG) studies of brain function through entrainment of neuronal oscillations. It turned out, however, to be highly non-trivial to remove the strong stimulation signal, including its harmonic and non-harmonic distortions, as well as various induced higher-order artifacts from the EEG data recorded during the stimulation. In this paper, we discuss some of the problems encountered and present methodological approaches aimed at overcoming them.

Sleep spindles and K-complex activities are decreased in spinocerebellar ataxia type 2: relationship to memory and motor performances.

Background: Sleep spindles and K-complexes are electroencephalographic hallmarks of non-rapid eye movement (non-REM) sleep that provide valuable information into brain functioning, plasticity and sleep functions in normal and pathological conditions. However, they have not been systematically investigated in spinocerebellar ataxias (SCA). To close this gap, the current study was carried out to quantify sleep spindles and K-complexes in SCA2 and to assess their relationship with clinical and molecular measures, as well as with memory and attention/executive functioning.

Insight and Dissociation in Lucid Dreaming and Psychosis.

Dreams and psychosis share several important features regarding symptoms and underlying neurobiology, which is helpful in constructing a testable model of, for example, schizophrenia and delirium. The purpose of the present communication is to discuss two major concepts in dreaming and psychosis that have received much attention in the recent literature: insight and dissociation. Both phenomena are considered functions of higher order consciousness because they involve metacognition in the form of reflective thought and attempted control of negative emotional impact.

A template model of embodiment while dreaming: Proposal of a mini-me.

Dreams are usually centered around a dream self capable of tasks generally impossible in waking, e.g. flying or walking through walls.

Induction of self awareness in dreams through frontal low current stimulation of gamma activity.

Recent findings link fronto-temporal gamma electroencephalographic (EEG) activity to conscious awareness in dreams, but a causal relationship has not yet been established. We found that current stimulation in the lower gamma band during REM sleep influences ongoing brain activity and induces self-reflective awareness in dreams. Other stimulation frequencies were not effective, suggesting that higher order consciousness is indeed related to synchronous oscillations around 25 and 40 Hz.

A differentiating empirical linguistic analysis of dreamer activity in reports of EEG-controlled REM-dreams and hypnagogic hallucinations.

We present Activity Analysis as a new method for the quantification of subjective reports of altered states of consciousness with regard to the indicated level of simulated motor activity. Empirical linguistic activity analysis was conducted with dream reports conceived immediately after EEG-controlled periods of hypnagogic hallucinations and REM-sleep in the sleep laboratory. Reports of REM-dreams exhibited a significantly higher level of simulated physical dreamer activity, while hypnagogic hallucinations appear to be experienced mostly from the point of passive observer.

Measuring consciousness in dreams: the lucidity and consciousness in dreams scale.

In this article, we present results from an interdisciplinary research project aimed at assessing consciousness in dreams. For this purpose, we compared lucid dreams with normal non-lucid dreams from REM sleep. Both lucid and non-lucid dreams are an important contrast condition for theories of waking consciousness, giving valuable insights into the structure of conscious experience and its neural correlates during sleep.

Lucid dreaming: an age-dependent brain dissociation.

The current study focused on the distribution of lucid dreams in school children and young adults. The survey was conducted on a large sample of students aged 6-19 years. Questions distinguished between past and current experience with lucid dreams.

Waking and dreaming: related but structurally independent. Dream reports of congenitally paraplegic and deaf-mute persons.

Models of dream analysis either assume a continuum of waking and dreaming or the existence of two dissociated realities. Both approaches rely on different methodology. Whereas continuity models are based on content analysis, discontinuity models use a structural approach.

Changes in EEG pre and post awakening.

This chapter is concerned with behavioral and electrophysiologic evidence of awakenings. Awakenings are understood here as a state change from sleeping to waking. We will discuss the methodological issues and the problem of properly defining an awakening.

A mind to go out of: reflections on primary and secondary consciousness.

Dreaming and waking are two brain-mind states, which are characterized by shared and differentiated properties at the levels of brain and consciousness. As part of our effort to capitalize on a comparison of these two states we have applied Edelman's distinction between primary and secondary consciousness, which we link to dreaming and waking respectively. In this paper we examine the implications of this contrastive analysis for theories of mental illness.

Arousal thresholds during human tonic and phasic REM sleep.

The goal of the present study was to investigate arousal thresholds (ATs) in tonic and phasic episodes of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, and to compare the frequency spectrum of these sub-states of REM to non-REM (NREM) stages of sleep. We found the two REM stages to differ with regard to behavioural responses to external acoustic stimuli. The AT in tonic REM was indifferent from that in sleep stage 2, and ATs in phasic REM were similar to those in slow-wave sleep (stage 4).

Lucid dreaming: a state of consciousness with features of both waking and non-lucid dreaming.

Study Objectives: The goal of the study was to seek physiological correlates of lucid dreaming. Lucid dreaming is a dissociated state with aspects of waking and dreaming combined in a way so as to suggest a specific alteration in brain physiology for which we now present preliminary but intriguing evidence. We show that the unusual combination of hallucinatory dream activity and wake-like reflective awareness and agentive control experienced in lucid dreams is paralleled by significant changes in electrophysiology.

The spectrum of syndromes and manifestations in individuals screened for suspected Marfan syndrome.

The diagnosis of Marfan syndrome (MFS) is based on evaluating a large number of clinical criteria. We have observed that many persons presenting in specialized centers for "Marfan-like" features do not have MFS, but exhibit a large spectrum of other syndromes. The spectrum of these syndromes and the distribution of "Marfan-like" features remain to be characterized.

Integration of immigrants into a new culture is related to poor sleep quality.

Background: This article reports on the relationship between cultural influences on life style, coping style, and sleep in a sample of female Portuguese immigrants living in Germany. Sleep quality is known to be poorer in women than in men, yet little is known about mediating psychological and sociological variables such as stress and coping with stressful life circumstances. Migration constitutes a particularly difficult life circumstance for women if it involves differing role conceptions in the country of origin and the emigrant country.

Relationship of sleep quality with coping and life styles in female Moroccan immigrants in Germany.

Background: Epidemiologic studies conducted in Western societies show poorer sleep quality in women compared with men. Socioeconomic and stress-related psychological variables have been shown to influence sleep, but not much is known about sociological and psychological influences on the sleep of women in general and non-Western women in particular. The present study reports on sociodemographic and coping variables in relation to sleep quality in female Moroccan immigrants living in Germany.

Sleep improvement in an insomniac patient with global pituitary insufficiency after change from triple to quadruple cortisol replacement therapy.

Although cortisol has a distinct circadian rhythm, patients with adrenal insufficiency usually receive diurnal hydrocortisone replacement therapy (HRT), disregarding possible consequences for sleep quality. The case reported here concerns the resolution of severe insomnia in a patient with global hypopituitary insufficiency upon adjustment of triple HRT to quadruple HRT. The data show a strong influence of cortisol on total sleep time and slow wave sleep (SWS) as well as rapid eye movement (REM) sleep.

Role of monitoring and blunting coping styles in primary insomnia.

Objective: Primary insomnia is one of the most prevalent sleep disorders and assumed to be initiated and maintained, among other factors, by psychological variables such as coping strategies, sleep hygiene techniques, and arousability. Althouugh the number and kind of stressors seem to be important initiators of insomnia, individual coping dispositions appear to play a larger role in maintaining it. This study explores the relationship between different coping dispositions (monitoring/blunting) and insomnia.

The effects of experimenter characteristics on pain reports in women and men.

The present study investigated the effects of two attributes of the experimenter (gender and professional status) on the report and tolerance of pain in male and female subjects. 160 non-psychology students (80 male and 80 female, aged 17-59 years) participated in a cold-pressor task. Subjects were assigned to one of 8 groups: male (M) and female (F) experimenters tested male (m) and female (f) students.

Functions of sleep architecture and the concept of protective fields.

This article focuses on the function of human sleep architecture and, where it adjoins, on the ultradian rhythm of NREM and REM cycles. In healthy adult human sleep, NREM and REM sleep succeed each other in 90-110 min intervals. This ultradian pattern of NREM/REM succession is cyclical.