Accelerated Outpatient Individual Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Social Anxiety Disorder: A Preliminary Pilot Study.

Background: Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is a common and chronic mental health condition. Given the significant prevalence and impairment caused by SAD, it is important to investigate novel ways to improve the efficacy of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) for SAD. One approach may be to provide CBT in an accelerated fashion, which involves multiple sessions per week.

Women in the midluteal phase of the menstrual cycle have difficulty suppressing the processing of negative emotional stimuli: An event-related potential study.

Emotion regulation deficits have been implicated in anxiety and depressive disorders, and these internalising disorders are more prevalent in women than men. Few electrophysiological studies have investigated sex differences in emotional reactivity and emotion regulation controlling for menstrual phase. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded from 28 early follicular women, 29 midluteal women, and 27 men who completed an emotion regulation task.

Early visual processing is enhanced in the midluteal phase of the menstrual cycle.

Event-related potential (ERP) studies have revealed an early attentional bias in processing unpleasant emotional images in women. Recent neuroimaging data suggests there are significant differences in cortical emotional processing according to menstrual phase. This study examined the impact of menstrual phase on visual emotional processing in women compared to men.