Competing influences on healthy food choices: Mindsetting versus contextual food cues.

Food choices are influenced by one's current mindset, suggesting that supporting health (vs. a palatability) mindsets could improve daily food choices. The question rises, however, to what extent internal mindsets still guide choices when people are exposed to external food-context stimuli in an obesogenic environment.

Sleep strengthens integration of spatial memory systems.

Spatial memory comprises different representational systems that are sensitive to different environmental cues, like proximal landmarks or local boundaries. Here we examined how sleep affects the formation of a spatial representation integrating landmark-referenced and boundary-referenced representations. To this end, participants ( = 42) were familiarized with an environment featuring both a proximal landmark and a local boundary.

Adverse impact of polyphasic sleep patterns in humans: Report of the National Sleep Foundation sleep timing and variability consensus panel.

Polyphasic sleep is the practice of distributing multiple short sleep episodes across the 24-hour day rather than having one major and possibly a minor ("nap") sleep episode each day. While the prevalence of polyphasic sleep is unknown, anecdotal reports suggest attempts to follow this practice are common, particularly among young adults. Polyphasic-sleep advocates claim to thrive on as little as 2 hours of total sleep per day.

Body composition in term offspring after maternal gestational diabetes does not predict postnatal hypoglycemia.

Background: Offspring of mothers with gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) have an increased risk of neonatal complications like birth trauma due to macrosomia or postnatal hypoglycemia, as well as long-term metabolic sequelae. Neonatal body composition may be a sensitive marker of metabolic effects on the fetus caused by suboptimal glycemic control during pregnancy.

Objective: To determine body composition in offspring of mothers with GDM compared to a reference cohort of healthy term neonates and to assess whether increased body fat would be associated with postnatal hypoglycemia.

Suddenly safe: Processing of conflicting feedback in assisted driving.

Based on a conceptual model of operational anticipation, we propose an experimental paradigm for assisted car driving. In a pilot study, unpredicted negative outcomes, but not ambiguous intermediate feedback with positive outcomes, led to reduced feeling of safety and heightened brain activations in left anterior insular cortex attributable to error awareness.

Strategies for involving patients and the public in scaling-up initiatives in health and social services: protocol for a scoping review and Delphi survey.

Background: The scale-up of evidence-based innovations is required to reduce waste and inequities in health and social services (HSS). However, it often tends to be a top-down process initiated by policy makers, and the values of the intended beneficiaries are forgotten. Involving multiple stakeholders including patients and the public in the scaling-up process is thus essential but highly complex.

Precursor fractions of neurotensin and enkephalin might point to molecular mechanisms of cancer risk modulation during a lifestyle-intervention in germline BRCA1/2 gene mutation carriers.

Background: Germline BRCA1/2 mutation carriers (gBMC) face increased cancer risks that are modulated via non-genetic lifestyle factors whose underlying molecular mechanisms are unknown. The peptides Neurotensin (NT) and Enkephalin (ENK)-involved in tumorigenesis and obesity-related diseases-are of interest. We wanted to know whether these biomarkers differ between gBMC and women from the general population and what effect a 1-year lifestyle-intervention has in gBMC.

Effects of a brief alcohol intervention addressing the full spectrum of drinking in an adult general population sample: a randomized controlled trial.

Background And Aims: Evidence for efficacy of brief alcohol interventions (BAIs) is mainly limited to primary care and at-risk drinkers. The aim was to test the efficacy of a BAI addressing the full spectrum of alcohol use in a general population sample and across alcohol risk groups.

Design: Two-parallel-group randomized controlled trial (allocation ratio 1:1) with post-baseline assessments at months 3, 6 and 12.

The effect of a video-supported assessment to increase the accuracy of self-reported physical activity.

Self-reported physical activity differs from activity levels measured by device. We tested the effect of a video that visualizes the intensity levels of physical activity to increase the agreement between self-reported and accelerometer-based moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) within a single-blinded, randomized study. Participants (N = 378, 40-75 years) wore an accelerometer for seven days.

Balancing the brain of offenders with psychopathy? Resting state EEG and electrodermal activity after a pilot study of brain self-regulation training.

Although investigation of the brains of criminals began quite early in the history of psychophysiological research, little is known about brain plasticity of offenders with psychopathy. Building on our preliminary study reporting successful brain self-regulation using slow cortical potential (SCP) neurofeedback in offenders with psychopathy, we investigated the central nervous and autonomic peripheral changes occurring after brain self-regulation in a group of severe male offenders with psychopathy. Regarding the central nervous system, an overall suppression of the psychopathic overrepresentation of slow frequency bands was found, such as delta and theta band activity, after EEG neurofeedback.

Semantic fluency including task switching predicts academic success in medical school.

Objectives: The future state treaty on the admission of students to German medical schools calls for a variety of selection criteria among which at least two are required to be independent of school leaving grades. Against this background, the present study investigated achievement motivation and executive functions as predictors of academic success in medical school.

Material And Methods: Second year medical students were assessed for executive functioning by using the Tower of London Test (ToL), a German version of the Controlled Oral Word Association Test (COWAT), the Trail Making Test (TMT-A) and for motivation by using the Achievement Motivation Inventory (AMI).

Skin and Psychosomatics - Psychodermatology today.

Modern psychodermatology relies on the bio-psycho-social disease model in psychosomatics, according to which biological, psychological and social factors (on various levels, from molecules to the biosphere) play a major role in the disease pathogenesis through complex, non-linear interactions over the entire disease course. It is nowadays experimentally proven that "emotions get into the skin". Recent research shows close anatomical, physiological and functional connections between skin and nervous system, already known to be ontogenetically related.

Evaluation of two family-based intervention programs for children affected by rare disease and their families - research network (CARE-FAM-NET): study protocol for a rater-blinded, randomized, controlled, multicenter trial in a 2x2 factorial design.

Background: Families of children with rare diseases (i.e., not more than 5 out of 10,000 people are affected) are often highly burdened with fears, insecurities and concerns regarding the affected child and its siblings.

Brief alcohol intervention at a municipal registry office: reach and retention.

Background: The aim was to investigate the suitability of a municipal registry office for alcohol screening and brief intervention. We analyzed whether trial participation and retention differ by alcohol- and health-related, demographic and socio-economic participant characteristics.

Methods: Over 3 months, all 18- to 64-year-old visitors of a registry office were systematically screened.

Signature of consciousness in brain-wide synchronization patterns of monkey and human fMRI signals.

During the sleep-wake cycle, the brain undergoes profound dynamical changes, which manifest subjectively as transitions between conscious experience and unconsciousness. Yet, neurophysiological signatures that can objectively distinguish different consciousness states based are scarce. Here, we show that differences in the level of brain-wide signals can reliably distinguish different stages of sleep and anesthesia from the awake state in human and monkey fMRI resting state data.

Latent alcohol use patterns and their link to depressive symptomatology in medical care patients.

Aims: To investigate latent patterns of alcohol use and bingeing by gender and their association with depressive symptom severity and individual depressive symptoms.

Design: Cross-sectional data were collected from January 2017 to March 2018 as part of a joint screening recruiting for different intervention studies.

Setting: Ambulatory practices and general hospitals from three sites in Germany.

Gut Microbiota, Probiotics and Psychological States and Behaviors after Bariatric Surgery-A Systematic Review of Their Interrelation.

The gastrointestinal (GI) microbiota plays an important role in health and disease, including brain function and behavior. Bariatric surgery (BS) has been reported to result in various changes in the GI microbiota, therefore demanding the investigation of the impact of GI microbiota on treatment success. The goal of this systematic review was to assess the effects of BS on the microbiota composition in humans and other vertebrates, whether probiotics influence postoperative health, and whether microbiota and psychological and behavioral factors interact.

Validation of the Portuguese Variant of the Munich Chronotype Questionnaire (MCTQ).

Introduction: Differences in the manner circadian clocks entrain to the 24-h day are expressions of different chronotypes that can range from extreme early to extreme late, from proverbial larks to owls. The Morningness Eveningness Questionnaire (MEQ) was one of the first to assess daily preference based on subjective self-assessment - a psychological construct. The later developed Munich Chronotype Questionnaire (MCTQ) uses instead the actual sleep timing to assess chronotype.

Attention and emotion: An integrative review of emotional face processing as a function of attention.

Paying attention to faces is of special interest for humans as well as for scientific research. The experimental manipulation of facial information offers an ecologically valid approach to investigate emotion, attention and social functioning. Humans are highly specialized in face perception and event-related brain potentials (ERP) provide insights into the temporal dynamics of involved neuronal mechanisms.

Susceptibility to auditory closed-loop stimulation of sleep slow oscillations changes with age.

Study Objectives: Cortical slow oscillations (SOs) and thalamocortical sleep spindles hallmark slow wave sleep and facilitate memory consolidation, both of which are reduced with age. Experiments utilizing auditory closed-loop stimulation to enhance these oscillations showed great potential in young and older subjects. However, the magnitude of responses has yet to be compared between these age groups.

Maternal subjective social standing is related to inflammation during pregnancy.

Background: The association of socioeconomic status (SES) with health and disease risk is well established. Low-grade inflammation represents a key pathway believed to underlie this association. Previous research has suggested that subjective social standing (SSS) is more consistently associated with health outcomes than objective measures of SES such as income and education.

Sick days in general hospital patients two years after brief alcohol intervention: Secondary outcomes from a randomized controlled trial.

Little is known about the long-term impact of brief alcohol interventions (BAIs) on health and on sick days in particular. The aim was to investigate whether BAIs reduce sick days in general hospital patients over two years, and whether effects depend on how BAIs are delivered; either through in-person counseling (PE) or computer-generated written feedback (CO). To investigate this, secondary outcome data from a three-arm randomized controlled trial with 6-, 12-, 18- and 24-month follow-ups were used.

Stability of At-risk Alcohol Use Screening Results in a General Population Sample.

Background: In combination with systematic routine screening, brief alcohol interventions have the potential to promote population health. Little is known on the optimal screening interval. Therefore, this study pursued 2 research questions: (i) How stable are screening results for at-risk drinking over 12 months? (ii) Can the transition from low-risk to at-risk drinking be predicted by gender, age, school education, employment, or past week alcohol use?

Methods: A sample of 831 adults (55% female; mean age = 30.

Consensus on the reporting and experimental design of clinical and cognitive-behavioural neurofeedback studies (CRED-nf checklist).

Neurofeedback has begun to attract the attention and scrutiny of the scientific and medical mainstream. Here, neurofeedback researchers present a consensus-derived checklist that aims to improve the reporting and experimental design standards in the field.

Intergenerational transmission of health disparities among Turkish-origin immigrants in Germany: study protocol of a multi-centric cohort study (BaBi-stress and BaBeK study).

Background: Immigrants in Germany exhibit higher levels of social disadvantage when compared to the non-immigrated population. Turkish-origin immigrants constitute an important immigrant group in Germany and show disparities in some health domains that are evident from birth onwards. Several studies have shown the mechanisms by which social disadvantage is biologically embedded to affect health over the lifespan.