Leveraging occasional reinforced extinction via mental imagery of the unconditioned stimulus to optimize extinction learning.

Occasionally presenting the unconditioned stimulus (US) during extinction training (occasional reinforced extinction, ORE) either unpaired or paired with the conditioned stimulus (CS) provides initial evidence for a less pronounced return of fear. However, translating this approach into clinical practice is challenging due to ethical and practical concerns of exposing patients to the original USs. The present study investigated extinction of fear responses in a novel approach employing ORE using vivid fear imagery of the US instead of actually exposing to it.

Fear of COVID-19 predicts increases in anxiety, depressive symptoms, health anxiety, psychosocial distress, and loneliness: Findings from a prospective two-year follow-up study.

The role of fear of COVID-19 in prospectively predicting changes in psychopathological symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic remains unclear. The present data were obtained from a longitudinal non-probability sample in Germany, initially assessed at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany (April-May 2020) and reassessed after two years (n = 846; 83% female; mean age: 44.59 years, SD = 12.

Where was this thing again? Evaluating methods to indicate remembered object positions in virtual reality.

A current focus in sensorimotor research is the study of human perception and action in increasingly naturalistic tasks and visual environments. This is further enabled by the recent commercial success of virtual reality (VR) technology, which allows for highly realistic but well-controlled three-dimensional (3D) scenes. VR enables a multitude of different ways to interact with virtual objects, but only rarely are such interaction techniques evaluated and compared before being selected for a sensorimotor experiment.

Representations of imaginary scenes and their properties in cortical alpha activity.

Imagining natural scenes enables us to engage with a myriad of simulated environments. How do our brains generate such complex mental images? Recent research suggests that cortical alpha activity carries information about individual objects during visual imagery. However, it remains unclear if more complex imagined contents such as natural scenes are similarly represented in alpha activity.

Role of interoceptive fear and maladaptive attention and behaviors in the escalation of psychopathology-a network analysis.

The complex interplay of fear, attention, and behavior toward bodily sensations with psychopathological symptoms and how they mutually influence and potentially reinforce one another remains to be fully elucidated. In this study, we used a network analytical approach to unravel these complex interactions. Specifically, we aimed to identify central symptoms and etiologically relevant factors that might be associated with anxiety and depressive core symptoms.

Integrative processing in artificial and biological vision predicts the perceived beauty of natural images.

Previous research shows that the beauty of natural images is already determined during perceptual analysis. However, it is unclear which perceptual computations give rise to the perception of beauty. Here, we tested whether perceived beauty is predicted by spatial integration across an image, a perceptual computation that reduces processing demands by aggregating image parts into more efficient representations of the whole.

Urine-based point-of-care testing for factor-Xa-inhibitors in acute ischemic stroke patients: a feasibility study.

Introduction: Direct oral anticoagulants (DOACs) have become widely used in clinical practice for preventing thromboembolic events. Point-of-care testing methods, particularly those based on urine samples, offer a promising approach for rapid and accurate assessment of DOAC presence. This pilot study aims to evaluate the utility of a urine-based DOAC dipstick test as a point-of-care tool for identifying DOAB presence in acute ischemic stroke (AIS) or transient ischemic attack (TIA) patients.

Homology judgements of pre-evolutionary naturalists explained by general human shape matching abilities.

Many biological homologies were discovered before Darwin and without agreed criteria. Paradigmatic examples include the phylogenetic homology of mammalian forelimb bones and the serial homology of floral organs in waterlilies. It is generally assumed that perceiving similarities intuitively was the first step towards establishing morphological homologies.

EEG Decoding Reveals Neural Predictions for Naturalistic Material Behaviors.

Material properties, such as softness or stickiness, determine how an object can be used. Based on our real-life experience, we form strong expectations about how objects should behave under force, given their typical material properties. Such expectations have been shown to modulate perceptual processes, but we currently do not know how expectation influences the temporal dynamics of the cortical visual analysis for objects and their materials.

Unraveling the neural basis of spatial orientation in arthropods.

The neural basis underlying spatial orientation in arthropods, in particular insects, has received considerable interest in recent years. This special issue of the Journal of Comparative Physiology A seeks to take account of these developments by presenting a collection of eight review articles and eight original research articles highlighting hotspots of research on spatial orientation in arthropods ranging from flies to spiders and the underlying neural circuits. The contributions impressively illustrate the wide range of tools available to arthropods extending from specific sensory channels to highly sophisticated neural computations for mastering complex navigational challenges.

Stimulation of non-motor subthalamic nucleus impairs selective response inhibition via prefrontal connectivity.

Given the inconsistent results in the past, there is an ongoing debate whether and how deep brain stimulation in the subthalamic nucleus modifies cognitive control processes like response inhibition in persons with Parkinson's disease. In this study, we examined how the location of the stimulation volume within the subthalamic nucleus affects the performance in an antisaccade task but also how its structural connectivity is related to response inhibition. Antisaccade error rates and latencies were collected in 14 participants on and off deep brain stimulation in a randomized order.

Anxiety sensitivity elevates the risk of mental health problems in employees with higher probability of contacting COVID-19 at work.

Individuals with increased risk of being in contact with COVID-19 cases at work have been reported to suffer from higher fear of infection and associated mental health problems. The present study examines whether this risk is further increased by higher anxiety sensitivity (AS, i.e.

High (130 Hz)- and mid (60 Hz)-frequency deep brain stimulation in the subthalamic nucleus differentially modulate response inhibition: A preliminary combined EEG and eye tracking study.

While deep brain stimulation (DBS) in the subthalamic nucleus (STN) improves motor functions in Parkinson's disease (PD), it may also increase impulsivity by interfering with the inhibition of reflexive responses. The aim of this study was to investigate if varying the pulse frequency of STN-DBS has a modulating effect on response inhibition and its neural correlates. For this purpose, 14 persons with PD repeated an antisaccade task in three stimulation settings (DBS off, high-frequency DBS (130 Hz), mid-frequency DBS (60 Hz)) in a randomized order, while eye movements and brain activity via high-density EEG were recorded.

Spectral brain signatures of aesthetic natural perception in the α and β frequency bands.

During our everyday lives, visual beauty is often conveyed by sustained and dynamic visual stimulation, such as when we walk through an enchanting forest or watch our pets playing. Here, I devised an MEG experiment that mimics such situations: participants viewed 8 s videos of everyday situations and rated their beauty. Using multivariate analysis, I linked aesthetic ratings to ) sustained MEG broadband responses and ) spectral MEG responses in the α and β frequency bands.

Processing of sensory, painful and vestibular stimuli in the thalamus.

Objectives: The thalamus plays an important role in the mediation and integration of various stimuli (e.g., somatosensory, pain, and vestibular).

Moderators of pre-post changes in school-based mental health promotion: Psychological stress symptom decrease for adolescents with mental health problems, knowledge increase for all.

Background: School-based mental health promotion aims to strengthen mental health and reduce stress. Results on the effectiveness of such programs are heterogeneous. This study realized a school-based mental health promotion program () for all students and aimed to identify moderators (mental health status, gender, grade level) of pre- to post-changes in stress symptoms and knowledge.

Multimodal speech-gesture training in patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorder: Effects on quality of life and neural processing.

Dysfunctional social communication is one of the most stable characteristics in patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorder (SSD) that severely affects quality of life. Interpreting abstract speech and integrating nonverbal information is particularly affected. Considering the difficulty to treat communication dysfunctions with usual intervention, we investigated the possibility to apply a multimodal speech-gesture (MSG) training.

Social phobic beliefs mediate the relationship between post-event processing regarding the worst socially aversive experience and fear of negative evaluation.

Unlabelled: The experience of socially aversive events is proposed to be a critical etiological factor in the development of social anxiety symptoms even though the experience itself is also common among healthy individuals. Rather than the event itself, accompanying factors such as maladaptive processing might be associated with higher levels of social anxiety symptoms. One-hundred-seventy-four individuals participated in this online-survey comprising questionnaires regarding social anxiety symptoms and retrospective reports concerning maladaptive processing of the worst socially aversive event.

Different contributions of efferent and reafferent feedback to sensorimotor temporal recalibration.

Adaptation to delays between actions and sensory feedback is important for efficiently interacting with our environment. Adaptation may rely on predictions of action-feedback pairing (motor-sensory component), or predictions of tactile-proprioceptive sensation from the action and sensory feedback of the action (inter-sensory component). Reliability of temporal information might differ across sensory feedback modalities (e.

Developmental changes within the extended face processing network: A cross-sectional functional magnetic resonance imaging study.

In the field of face processing, the so-called "core network" has been intensively researched. Its neural activity can be reliably detected in children and adults using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). However, the core network's counterpart, the so-called "extended network," has been less researched.

Purchasing under threat: Changes in shopping patterns during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The spreading of COVID-19 has led to panic buying all over the world. In this study, we applied an animal model framework to elucidate changes in human purchasing behavior under COVID-19 pandemic conditions. Purchasing behavior and potential predictors were assessed in an online questionnaire format (N = 813).

Neural Basis of Speech-Gesture Mismatch Detection in Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders.

Patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders (SSD) exhibit an aberrant perception and comprehension of abstract speech-gesture combinations associated with dysfunctional activation of the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG). Recently, a significant deficit of speech-gesture mismatch detection was identified in SSD, but the underlying neural mechanisms have not yet been examined. A novel mismatch-detection fMRI paradigm was implemented manipulating speech-gesture abstractness (abstract/concrete) and relatedness (related/unrelated).

Alike and different: Associations between orthorexic eating behaviors and exercise addiction.

Objective: Symptoms of exercise addiction, a state of compulsively engaging in intense exercise, and orthorexic eating attitudes, the obsession with eating only healthy foods, often occur together. It is assumed that some more general psychological traits underlie this association. Main aim of this report was to examine similarities and differences between orthorexic eating and addictive exercising.

Matched-filter coding of sky polarization results in an internal sun compass in the brain of the desert locust.

Many animals use celestial cues for spatial orientation. These include the sun and, in insects, the polarization pattern of the sky, which depends on the position of the sun. The central complex in the insect brain plays a key role in spatial orientation.