Article
Neurosciences
Xiao Zhu, Hui Zhou, Fengji Geng, Jun Wang, Han Xu, Yuzheng Hu
Summary: Anxiety is characterized by fear of evaluation and withdrawal from social situations. Investigating the neural substrates of subclinical social anxiety is crucial for early diagnosis and intervention to prevent social anxiety disorder.
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Joshua C. Peterson, Stefan Uddenberg, Thomas L. Griffiths, Alexander Todorov, Jordan W. Suchow
Summary: The diversity of human faces enables people to make inferences about psychological traits and other attributes. Researchers combined deep generative image models with a large amount of judgments to model the inferences of over 30 attributes in the face space. The predictive accuracy of their model approaches human interrater reliability, and it can be used to predict and manipulate inferences about face photographs or generate synthetic stimuli with adjusted attributes.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
(2022)
Review
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Hongbo Yu, Chujun Lin, Sai Sun, Runnan Cao, Kohitij Kar, Shuo Wang
Summary: This article emphasizes the importance of faces in emotional processing and social evaluations, and advocates for the use of multimodal cognitive neuroscience methods to study these processes. Through specific case studies, the article demonstrates the application of multimodal approaches in investigating ambiguity in facial expressions of emotion and social trait judgment of faces, and explores the differences in facial processing between neurotypicals and people with autism spectrum disorder. Additionally, the article suggests new practices for studying the emotional processing and social evaluations of faces.
ANNALS OF THE NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
(2023)
Article
Psychology, Multidisciplinary
Tian Lin, Didem Pehlivanoglu, Maryam Ziaei, Peiwei Liu, Adam J. Woods, David Feifel, Hakan Fischer, Natalie C. Ebner
Summary: The study found that older adults show dampened response to faces with lower trustworthiness compared to young adults, supporting the idea of reduced sensitivity to cues of untrustworthiness in aging. Additionally, the results extend evidence of an age-related positivity effect to the evaluation of face trustworthiness.
FRONTIERS IN PSYCHOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Psychology, Developmental
Tammo Viering, Jilly Naaijen, Daan van Rooij, Christiane Thiel, Alexandra Philipsen, Andrea Dietrich, Barbara Franke, Jan Buitelaar, Pieter J. Hoekstra
Summary: Impaired emotion recognition is common in individuals with ADHD and is related to deficient emotion self-regulation, affective and social problems. ADHD participants showed lower amygdala activation and altered functional connections with medial prefrontal areas during emotional face-matching tasks, which were not related to emotion dysregulation, ADHD type, or age.
EUROPEAN CHILD & ADOLESCENT PSYCHIATRY
(2022)
Article
Neurosciences
Jana Lieberz, Simone G. Shamay-Tsoory, Nira Saporta, Alisa Kanterman, Jessica Gorni, Timo Esser, Ekaterina Kuskova, Johannes Schultz, Rene Hurlemann, Dirk Scheele
Summary: This study aimed to investigate the behavioral and neural correlates of social avoidance in loneliness, revealing that lonely individuals show a distinct pattern of behavioral and neural responsiveness to social decision-making and social feedback compared to social anxiety.
JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE
(2022)
Article
Neurosciences
Nathalie E. Holz, Alexander Haege, Michael M. Plichta, Regina Boecker-Schlier, Christine Jennen-Steinmetz, Sarah Baumeister, Andreas Meyer-Lindenberg, Manfred Laucht, Tobias Banaschewski, Daniel Brandeis
Summary: Evidence suggests that early maternal care plays a crucial role in socioemotional neurodevelopment of offspring, especially in high familial risk situations. Furthermore, there is an interaction effect between maternal stimulation and familial risk on amygdala habituation, but not on activation.
SOCIAL COGNITIVE AND AFFECTIVE NEUROSCIENCE
(2021)
Article
Neurosciences
Michael Marxen, Mark J. Jacob, Lydia Hellrung, Philipp Riedel, Michael N. Smolka
Summary: Our study investigated the correlation between BOLD activity and RTs in the context of emotional distractor effects. Results showed significant regression coefficients in regions such as the anterior insula, supplementary motor cortex, medial precentral regions, and sensory-motor areas, but not in the amygdala. Subjects exhibiting a stronger RT distractor effect across trials also showed a stronger BOLD valence contrast in the right anterior insula but not in the amygdala.
HUMAN BRAIN MAPPING
(2021)
Article
Immunology
Johnna R. Swartz, Angelica F. Carranza, Annchen R. Knodt, Michael R. Irwin, Camelia E. Hostinar
Summary: This study examined the association between peripheral inflammation and amygdala activity and connectivity in adolescents. The results showed that peripheral inflammation was associated with increased amygdala activity to emotional face stimuli and reduced connectivity with occipital and parietal regions. These findings enhance our understanding of the relationship between peripheral inflammation and neural response to emotional faces in adolescents.
BRAIN BEHAVIOR AND IMMUNITY
(2022)
Article
Psychology, Multidisciplinary
Katja Koelkebeck, Jochen Bauer, Thomas Suslow, Patricia Ohrmann
Summary: This case report describes a male patient with right amygdala damage and an ASD. He displayed a non-response of the amygdala to fearful faces and tended to misinterpret fearful expressions. Moreover, a non-reactivity of both amygdalae to emotional facial expressions at an implicit processing level was revealed.
FRONTIERS IN PSYCHOLOGY
(2021)
Article
Psychology, Biological
Nicola Sambuco
Summary: Recent findings questioned the replicability of fMRI in affective processing studies, suggesting that poor replicability may be due to a lack of emotional engagement. The current study tested the replicability of emotional enhancement using a large sample size, showing that replicability increased with increasing sample size. Importantly, even with relatively small samples, fMRI replicability during emotional compared to neutral scene viewing was good to excellent, indicating the importance of successful emotional engagement in task-related brain regions.
Article
Neurosciences
Raphael Guex, Emilie Meaux, Pierre Megevand, Judith Dominguez-Borras, Margitta Seeck, Patrik Vuilleumier
Summary: Using intracranial electroencephalography, we found that gaze direction has an impact on the neural activity of the amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex. The amygdala shows stronger activity for self-relevant threat signals, while the orbitofrontal cortex shows differential activity for different emotional expressions. These findings provide frequency-specific effects of emotion and gaze on amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex activity.
Article
Neurosciences
Nikki A. Puccetti, Stacey M. Schaefer, Carien M. van Reekum, Anthony D. Ong, David M. Almeida, Carol D. Ryff, Richard J. Davidson, Aaron S. Heller
Summary: This study explored the links between individual differences in brain function, daily affect experiences, and well-being by analyzing neural persistence in the amygdala. Results showed that individuals with less persistent activation patterns in the left amygdala to aversive stimuli reported more positive and less negative affect in daily life, with daily positive affect serving as an indirect link to psychological well-being. These findings clarify important connections between brain function, daily affect, and well-being.
JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE
(2021)
Article
Neurosciences
Sevil Ince, Trevor Steward, Ben J. Harrison, Alec J. Jamieson, Christopher G. Davey, James A. Agathos, Bradford A. Moffat, Rebecca K. Glarin, Kim L. Felmingham
Summary: The amygdala enhances the processing of negative emotional stimuli and access to attentional resources, while the periaqueductal gray modulates autonomic arousal through inhibitory influence on the amygdala, anterior insula, and dorsal anterior cingulate cortex.
Article
Neurosciences
Jessica Taubert, Susan G. Wardle, Clarissa T. Tardiff, Elissa A. Koele, Susheel Kumar, Adam Messinger, Leslie G. Ungerleider
Summary: Face detection is a fundamental social skill for primates, supported by specialized neural mechanisms. This study found that certain regions in the macaque brain, including parts of the inferior temporal cortex, the lower lateral edge of the superior temporal sulcus, and the amygdala, responded more strongly to objects with illusory facial features than non-face objects. Furthermore, differences in the representation of illusory faces were observed across these regions, suggesting unique contributions to facial feature detection.
SOCIAL COGNITIVE AND AFFECTIVE NEUROSCIENCE
(2022)
Review
Clinical Neurology
Melanie Filser, Axel Buchner, Gereon Rudolf Fink, Stefan M. Gold, Iris-Katharina Penner
Summary: Patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) are at increased risk of experiencing mental health problems, including depression and anxiety. However, there is limited knowledge about the assessment and association of these affective symptoms in MS. Further research is needed to improve diagnosis and care.
JOURNAL OF NEUROLOGY
(2023)
Article
Oncology
Michael M. Wollring, Jan-Michael Werner, Elena K. Bauer, Caroline Tscherpel, Garry S. Ceccon, Philipp Lohmann, Gabriele Stoffels, Christoph Kabbasch, Roland Goldbrunner, Gereon R. Fink, Karl-Josef Langen, Norbert Galldiks
Summary: This study evaluated the use of FET PET and MRI for early response assessment in recurrent glioma patients treated with lomustine-based chemotherapy. The results suggest that FET PET provides complementary information to RANO criteria for response evaluation early after treatment initiation.
Review
Oncology
Michael M. Wollring, Jan-Michael Werner, Garry Ceccon, Philipp Lohmann, Christian P. Filss, Gereon R. Fink, Karl-Josef Langen, Norbert Galldiks
Summary: PET imaging using radiolabeled amino acids combined with MRI is a valuable diagnostic tool in managing brain tumor patients. This review provides an overview of PET studies in glioma patients with IDH mutation, which typically do not show contrast enhancement on MRI. The review focuses on the role of amino acid PET in differential diagnosis, treatment planning, and response assessment in patients with IDH-mutant gliomas.
JOURNAL OF NEURO-ONCOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Clinical Neurology
Ann-Katrin Schild, Yasemin Goereci, Daniel Scharfenberg, Kim Klein, Joachim Luelling, Dix Meiberth, Finja Schweitzer, Sophie Stuermer, Philip Zeyen, Derya Sahin, Gereon R. Fink, Frank Jessen, Christiana Franke, Oezguer A. Onur, Josef Kessler, Clemens Warnke, Franziska Maier
Summary: The aim of this study was to assess the neuropsychological profile of patients with asymptomatic to mild/moderate acute COVID-19 disease. The study found that approximately 60% of participants reported cognitive deficits, particularly in the domains of learning/memory and executive functions. These deficits were associated with daytime sleepiness but not with depression, anxiety, sleep quality, general health status, or fatigue.
JOURNAL OF NEUROLOGY
(2023)
Article
Neurosciences
Anja Schaffrath, Sophia Schleyken, Aline Seger, Hannah Jergas, Pelin Ozduzenciler, Marlene Pils, Lara Bloemeke, Anneliese Cousin, Johannes Willbold, Tuyen Bujnicki, Oliver Bannach, Gereon R. Fink, Dieter Willbold, Michael Sommerauer, Michael T. Barbe, Gultekin Tamguney
Summary: This study used surface-based fluorescence intensity distribution analysis (sFIDA) to detect and quantify single particles of alpha-synuclein aggregates in stool samples of 94 PD patients, 72 isolated rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder (iRBD) patients, and 51 healthy controls. The results showed significantly elevated concentrations of alpha-synuclein aggregates in stool samples of iRBD patients compared to controls (p = 0.024) or PD patients (p < 0.001). The study suggests that measuring alpha-synuclein aggregates in stool using the sFIDA assay could support the diagnosis of prodromal synucleinopathies.
NPJ PARKINSONS DISEASE
(2023)
Editorial Material
Radiology, Nuclear Medicine & Medical Imaging
Isabelle Stetter, Jan-Michael Werner, Michael Schroeter, Claudia Baumann, Janina Neuneier, Marc Schlamann, Matthias Schmidt, Alexander Drzezga, Gereon R. Fink, Norbert Galldiks
Summary: Differentiating brain tumors from nonneoplastic lesions using conventional MRI may be challenging. Clinical symptoms often remain unspecific, and imaging findings from MRI may be inconclusive. PET with the radiolabeled somatostatin receptor ligand DOTATATE was performed, and it facilitated the diagnosis of a falcine meningioma consistent with its value for the differential diagnosis of meningioma.
CLINICAL NUCLEAR MEDICINE
(2023)
Article
Clinical Neurology
Anja Ophey, Ezequiel Farrher, Nora Pagel, Aline Seger, Christopher E. J. Doppler, N. Jon Shah, Elke Kalbe, Gereon R. Fink, Michael Sommerauer
Summary: Cognitive decline is a common and debilitating symptom in patients with Parkinson's disease. Metabolic changes in the occipital cortex during visual processing may serve as a biomarker for cognitive decline in these patients.
EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF NEUROLOGY
(2023)
Article
Oncology
Alexander Heinzel, Felix M. Mottaghy, Christian Filss, Gabriele Stoffels, Philipp Lohmann, Michel Friedrich, Nadim J. Shah, Svenja Caspers, Carolin Weiss Lucas, Maximilian I. Ruge, Norbert Galldiks, Gereon R. Fink, Karl-Josef Langen, Martin Kocher
Summary: This study investigated the impact of tumor development and multimodality therapy on health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in glioma patients. The results showed that right hemisphere gliomas were associated with less favorable outcomes in most functional domains except communication ability. This relationship was mainly observed in T2/FLAIR lesions involving structural and functional networks in the right hemisphere.
JOURNAL OF NEURO-ONCOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Immunology
Felix Kohle, Robin Ackfeld, Franziska Hommen, Ines Klein, Martin K. R. Svacina, Christian Schneider, Gereon R. R. Fink, Mohammed Barham, David Vilchez, Helmar C. C. Lehmann
Summary: This study evaluated the neuro-regenerative effects of the small molecule kinesin-5 inhibitor monastrol in a rodent model of acute autoimmune neuropathies. The results showed that treatment with monastrol improved the functional and histological recovery of neuropathies and promoted the regeneration of nerve terminals, possibly through accelerated motor neurite outgrowth.
JOURNAL OF NEUROINFLAMMATION
(2023)
Article
Radiology, Nuclear Medicine & Medical Imaging
Norbert Galldiks, Philipp Lohmann, Gereon R. Fink, Karl-Josef Langen
Summary: For decades, amino acid PET tracers have been used to optimize diagnostics in brain tumor patients, with clinical indications including differentiation of neoplasm from nonneoplastic etiologies, delineation of tumor extent for further diagnostic and treatment planning, differentiation of treatment-related changes, and assessment of response to anticancer therapy. This article focuses on the diagnostic value of amino acid PET for patients with glioblastoma or metastatic brain cancer.
JOURNAL OF NUCLEAR MEDICINE
(2023)
Article
Clinical Neurology
Felix Kohle, Marie Madlener, Emanuel F. Bruno, Gereon R. Fink, Volker Limmroth, Lothar Burghaus, Michael P. Malter
Summary: This study revealed that most patients with status epilepticus (SE) were not effectively treated with benzodiazepines (BZDs) according to current guidelines. Sufficient dosing of BZDs was found to be beneficial for patients with generalised convulsive SE, but not for other types of SE. Treatment decisions guided by the semiology of SE are crucial, and further evidence is urgently needed for the management of non-generalised convulsive SE.
SEIZURE-EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF EPILEPSY
(2023)
Article
Clinical Neurology
Ann-Katrin Schild, Daniel Scharfenberg, Lukas Kirchner, Kim Klein, Anton Regorius, Yasemin Goereci, Dix Meiberth, Lena Sannemann, Joachim Luelling, Finja Schweitzer, Gereon R. Fink, Frank Jessen, Christiana Franke, Oezguer Onur, Stefanie Jost, Clemens Warnke, Franziska Maier
Summary: Cognitive impairment is a common symptom of post-COVID syndrome (PCS), but there is inconsistency between subjective cognitive complaints (SCC) and objective results. This study investigated this discrepancy and found a 40% difference between subjective reports and test results. Patients with SCC and objective impairment showed elevated fatigue and reduced quality of life. The study suggests that more patients will likely request neuropsychological assessments even after mild infections.
ZEITSCHRIFT FUR NEUROPSYCHOLOGIE
(2023)
Article
Clinical Neurology
Ji-Won Kim, Henning R. Stetefeld, Gereon R. Fink, Michael P. Malter
Summary: This study reports on the clinical practice in managing stroke patients with seizures at onset (SaO) from a large tertiary stroke center in Germany. The data show that SaO is rare in stroke patients but associated with more extensive strokes and increased in-hospital mortality.
SEIZURE-EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF EPILEPSY
(2023)
Article
Chemistry, Analytical
Christina van der Linden, Thea Berger, Gregor A. Brandt, Joshua N. Strelow, Hannah Jergas, Juan Carlos Baldermann, Veerle Visser-Vandewalle, Gereon R. Fink, Michael T. Barbe, Jan Niklas Petry-Schmelzer, Till A. Dembek
Summary: Clinical rating scales for tremor have limitations, and reliable quantitative approaches are needed. This study investigated the use of accelerometry metrics to objectively classify tremor amplitude and compared them to clinical ratings. The results showed that accelerometry can reliably quantify tremor amplitude, with finger-worn accelerometry performing slightly better.
Article
Clinical Neurology
Stefan J. J. Blaschke, Susan Vlachakis, Niklas Pallast, Helene L. L. Walter, Lukas J. J. Volz, Dirk Wiedermann, Gereon R. R. Fink, Mathias Hoehn, Markus Aswendt, Michael Schroeter, Maria A. A. Rueger
Summary: In this study, the researchers investigated whether transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) can alter the network changes caused by cerebral ischemia and whether functional network parameters can predict the therapeutic efficacy of tDCS. The results showed that tDCS reversed the increased connectivity and reduced characteristic path length caused by ischemia. Additionally, early network changes and the network configuration prior to stroke predicted motor recovery.