Machine learning meta-analysis identifies individual characteristics moderating cognitive intervention efficacy for anxiety and depression symptoms.

Cognitive training is a promising intervention for psychological distress; however, its effectiveness has yielded inconsistent outcomes across studies. This research is a pre-registered individual-level meta-analysis to identify factors contributing to cognitive training efficacy for anxiety and depression symptoms. Machine learning methods, alongside traditional statistical approaches, were employed to analyze 22 datasets with 1544 participants who underwent working memory training, attention bias modification, interpretation bias modification, or inhibitory control training.

Stress and telomere length in leukocytes: Investigating the role of GABRA6 gene polymorphism and cortisol.

Telomere length (TL) is considered a biomarker of aging, and short TL in leukocytes is related to age and stress-related health problems. Cumulative lifetime stress exposure has also been associated with shorter TL and age-related health problems, but the mechanisms are not well understood. We tested in 108 individuals whether shorter TL in leukocytes is observed in individuals with the GABRA6 TT genotype, which has been associated with dysregulation of hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis activity (the main biological stress system) compared to the CC genotype.

Vestibular function in children with neurodevelopmental disorders: A neglected sense?

Objective: The study aimed to explore the vestibular function in children with neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs).

Methods: Twenty-eight participants with a NDD (6 girls, 22 boys; 6-13 years; 9;3 ± 2;4 years) were enrolled in this pilot study. Sixteen participants had a single NDD (Autism Spectrum Disorder: n = 7, Developmental Coordination Disorder: n = 3; Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: n = 6), the remaining 12 had comorbid NDDs.

The impact of model eyesight and social reward on automatic imitation in virtual reality.

Motivational theories of imitation state that we imitate because this led to positive social consequences in the past. Because movement imitation typically only leads to these consequences when perceived by the imitated person, it should increase when the interaction partner sees the imitator. Current evidence for this hypothesis is mixed, potentially due to the low ecological validity in previous studies.

Self-Bias and Self-Related Mentalizing are Unaltered in Adolescents with Autism.

Purpose: The self is a multidimensional concept that can be represented at a pre-reflective (first-order) level, at a deeper, reflective level (second-order), or even at a meta-level (representing one's own thoughts, i.e. self-related mentalizing).

Gamified Web-Delivered Attentional Bias Modification Training for Adults With Chronic Pain: Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Trial.

Background: Attentional bias to pain-related information has been implicated in pain chronicity. To date, research investigating attentional bias modification training (ABMT) procedures in people with chronic pain has found variable success, perhaps because training paradigms are typically repetitive and monotonous, which could negatively affect engagement and adherence. Increasing engagement through the gamification (ie, the use of game elements) of ABMT may provide the opportunity to overcome some of these barriers.

Altered Neural Responses to Punishment Learning in Conduct Disorder.

Objective: Conduct disorder (CD) is associated with deficits in the use of punishment for reinforcement learning (RL) and subsequent decision-making, contributing to reckless, antisocial, and aggressive behaviors. Here, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine whether differences in behavioral learning rates derived from computational modeling, particularly for punishment, are reflected in aberrant neural responses in youths with CD compared to typically-developing controls (TDCs).

Methods: 75 youths with CD and 99 TDCs (9-18 years, 47% girls) performed a probabilistic RL task with punishment, reward, and neutral contingencies.

The Cost of Regulating Effort: Reward and Difficulty Cues With Longer Prediction Horizons Have a Stronger Impact on Performance.

Many theories on cognitive effort start from the assumption that cognitive effort can be expended at will, and flexibly up- or down-regulated depending on expected task demand and rewards. However, while effort regulation has been investigated across a wide range of incentive conditions, few investigated the cost of effort regulation itself. Across four experiments, we studied the effects of reward expectancy and task difficulty on effort expenditure in a perceptual decision-making task (random-dot-motion) and a cognitive control task (colour-naming Stroop), and within each task comparted cues between short (cueing the next trial) and long (cueing the next six trials) prediction horizons.

Reward and Efficacy Modulate the Rate of Anticipatory Pupil Dilation.

Pupil size is a well-established marker of cognitive effort, with greater efforts leading to larger pupils. This is particularly true for pupil size during task performance, whereas findings on anticipatory effort triggered by a cue stimulus are less consistent. For example, a recent report by Frömer et al.

Intact Neural Responding to Hearing One's Own Name in Children with Autism.

Diminished responding to one's own name is one of the strongest and earliest predictors of autism. However, research on the neural correlates of this response in autism is scarce. Here we investigate neural responses to hearing the own name in school-aged children with and without autism.

From trainee to general practitioner: A qualitative study of transition experiences of Flemish GP trainees.

Background: The transition from trainee to professional marks a key milestone in a family doctor's career, bringing both emotional and mental challenges. This critical period of specialisation shapes how young doctors adapt and influences their future career choices.

Objectives: We explored trainees' experiences during their first year of advanced medical training in family medicine/general practice, including barriers and facilitators.

Contextualized Experiences and Predictors of Condom Use in a Flemish Population: A Mixed Methods Study.

This study aims to address the gap in understanding condom use (CU) behavior in Flanders (the Dutch-speaking community in Belgium) by applying a mixed methods approach, integrating both quantitative and qualitative data. Utilizing a large-scale survey of over 14,000 participants and 11 in-depth interviews, the study explores key factors influencing CU, including (amongst others) relationship status, attitudes toward condoms, and STI testing. Quantitative findings highlight significant predictors such as the type of partner (casual vs.

The role of awareness and demand in evaluative learning.

Human likes and dislikes can be established or changed in numerous ways. Three of the most well-studied procedures involve exposing people to regularities in the environment (evaluative conditioning, approach-avoidance, mere exposure), to verbal information about upcoming regularities (evaluative conditioning, approach-avoidance, or mere exposure information), or to verbal information about the evaluative properties of an attitude object (persuasive messages). In the present study, we investigated the relation between, on the one hand, different types of experiment-related beliefs (regularity, influence, and hypothesis awareness) and demand reactions (demand compliance and reactance) and, on the other hand, evaluative learning about novel food brands (Experiments 1 and 2) and well-known food brands (Experiment 2) via persuasive messages, experienced regularities, and verbal information about regularities.

Patterns of the left thalamus embedding into the connectome associated with reading skills in children with reading disabilities.

We examined how thalamocortical connectivity structure reflects children's reading performance. Diffusion-weighted MRI at 3 T and a series of reading measures were collected from 64 children (33 girls) ages 8-14 years with and without dyslexia. The topological properties of the left and right thalamus were computed based on the whole-brain white matter network and a hub-attached reading network, and were correlated with scores on several tests of children's reading and reading-related abilities.

Psychological Distress and Relational Intimacy following Sexual Violence: A Longitudinal Study.

Increasing evidence shows how distress following sexual violence might spill over to victims' romantic relationship functioning. However, studies investigating the reverse spillover between relationship functioning and psychological distress following sexual violence are lacking. The current study therefore aimed to investigate the bidirectional association between victims' psychological distress (posttraumatic stress, depression, anxiety and stress) and emotional and sexual intimacy using a three-wave yearly survey study of a community sample of sexual violence victims ( = 274, 89% women, 3% men and 8% trans persons, = 32 years, = 10.

An interdisciplinary e-learning intervention for professionals working with breast cancer survivors and chronic pain: a realist evaluation.

Purpose: Chronic pain is prevalent among breast cancer survivors. Bio-psychosocial factors interplay in its exacerbation and maintenance. Therefore, prevention and treatment require an interdisciplinary response and the integration of various approaches.

A minor role for hemispheric specialization in determining pseudoneglect: A pre-registered replication-extension study.

Neurologically intact individuals display a mild asymmetry in spatial attention that can be measured during experimental spatial tasks such as line bisection. Although this phenomenon, known as pseudoneglect, is traditionally explained as the consequence of right hemisphere dominance for visuospatial attention, surmounting evidence suggests this is not its sole or even its most important determinant. For instance, a recent fMRI study in left-handers revealed that rare individuals with a reversed, left hemispheric dominance (LHDS, N = 23) also demonstrated left-sided pseudoneglect, although their spatial bias was less marked compared to typically lateralized controls (N = 40).

Growth Trajectories of Joint Attention and Play as Predictors for Language in Young Children at Elevated Likelihood for Autism.

This longitudinal study investigated the predictive value of initial level and growth rate of joint attention and play from 10 to 24 months for language abilities of 24-month-old toddlers at elevated likelihood (EL) for autism. (Semi-)structured assessments were used to measure all variables at different timepoints prospectively in younger siblings of children with autism (siblings, n = 48) and children born before 30 gestational weeks (preterms, n = 49). A positive association was found between initial level of play at 10 months and expressive language at 24 months in siblings, but not in preterms.

An analysis of physical activity coping plans: mapping barriers and coping strategies based on user ratings.

Introduction: Personalising recommendations for physical activity coping plans can help bridging the physical activity intention-behaviour gap. Data-driven 'black-box' approaches result in recommendations that prove difficult to explain, and may have undesired consequences. This study aimed to explicitly link barriers and coping strategies using end-user input.

High-Frequency Cognitive Control Training for Depression: Case Report.

Background: Cognitive control training (CCT) has gained attention in recent years as a preventative intervention in the context of major depressive disorder. To date, uncertainty exists around the working mechanisms of CCT and how its effects unfold overtime.

Objective: This study aimed to examine cognitive and affective transfer effects following an unusually high number of training sessions.

The effect of retrieval-induced forgetting for pain-related memories on child pain-related outcomes: A randomized experimental study.

Background: Children's inability to forget the negative aspects of a painful event is associated with more anticipatory anxiety at an upcoming pain task and lower pain thresholds; however, the impact of forgetting on children's pain outcomes has not been examined. Retrieval-Induced Forgetting (RIF) was experimentally induced to investigate whether children would (1) forget more negative details of a previous painful autobiographic event and; (2) report better pain-related outcomes for an unrelated pain task (i.e.

EEG frequency tagging reveals the integration of dissimilar observed actions.

Extensive research has demonstrated that visual and motor cortices can simultaneously represent multiple observed actions. This ability undoubtedly constitutes a crucial ingredient for the understanding of complex visual scenes involving different agents. However, it is still unclear how these distinct representations are integrated into coherent and meaningful percepts.

Minority Stress and Dyadic Stress in Same-Sex Couples: The Role of Dyadic Coping and Relationship Duration.

Objectives: We investigated how internalized homonegativity and dyadic stress predicted relationship satisfaction in same-sex romantic relationships and explored the moderating roles of dyadic coping and relationship duration in the aforementioned associations.

Methods: The actor-partner interdependence moderation model (APIMoM) was introduced to deal with mutual influences between both partners in 241 same-sex romantic relationships.

Results: (1) individual internalized homonegativity, dyadic stress, and dyadic coping predict their own relationship satisfaction (i.

The influence of expectations and attention on conditioned pain modulation: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

Conditioned pain modulation (CPM) is a psychophysical experimental measure of endogenous pain inhibition in humans. Within this paradigm, one noxious stimulus, the conditioning stimulus (CS), reduces the pain perception from another heterotopic noxious stimulus, the test stimulus (TS). Cognitive processes are known to influence pain perception and might impact the underlying mechanisms of CPM.