Article
Psychology, Biological
Vanessa A. van Ast, Floris Klumpers, Raoul P. P. P. Grasman, Angelos-Miltiadis Krypotos, Karin Roelofs
Summary: Freezing in response to impending threat is a core defensive mechanism in humans. Research has shown that human freezing is highly sensitive to fear conditioning and intensifies with the proximity of threat. This animal-like freezing response aids in active preparation for unexpected attacks and captures real-life expressions of anxiety.
Article
Psychology, Biological
Jelena M. Wehrli, Yanfang Xia, Samuel Gerster, Dominik R. Bach
Summary: Trace fear conditioning is an important research paradigm for studying aversive learning, but the optimal measurement of memory retention is unclear. This study used psychophysiological measurements to investigate CS+ and CS- differentiation in a recall test, and found that fear-potentiated startle response was the most effective measure.
Article
Psychology, Biological
Christoph Szeska, Heino Mohrmann, Alfons O. Hamm
Summary: Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy uses eye movements to reduce distress during fear exposure. This study tested the neural mechanism underlying these effects by manipulating eye movements in a fear conditioning and extinction paradigm. The results suggest that saccadic eye movements facilitate the extinction of fear responses.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PSYCHOPHYSIOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Psychology, Biological
Anna Exner, Isabell Tapia Leon, Erik M. Mueller, Tim Klucken
Summary: This study aimed to systematically analyze the effects of aversive and appetitive conditioning on cardiac responses. Results showed conditioned responses in subjective ratings in both types of conditioning, while only aversive conditioning could be discriminated using skin conductance response. Cardiovascular responses indicated that deceleration for the CS+ was longer in both tasks, with aversive conditioning showing higher deceleration magnitude and shorter acceleration for the CS+ compared to the CS-.
Article
Endocrinology & Metabolism
Yi-Han Liao, Li-Han Sun, Ya-Hsuan Chan, Chienfang G. Cherng, Yi-Chi Su, Wei-Jen Yao, Lung Yu
Summary: Vicarious learning is crucial for the survival of social animals, and adrenal hormones play a key role in this type of learning. Mice that observe fear conditioning in others exhibit greater fear responses. Adrenalectomy in observers results in lower fear responses.
PSYCHONEUROENDOCRINOLOGY
(2021)
Review
Psychology, Biological
Julia Wendt, Manuel Kuhn, Alfons O. Hamm, Tina B. Lonsdorf
Summary: The startle response, a defensive reflex, is an important tool in cross-species emotion research. While extensive studies have been conducted on rodents, technical challenges have hindered research on brain-behavior interactions in humans. However, recent non-invasive assessments have overcome these challenges. This work provides key paradigms and methodological tools for assessing startle response in both rodents and humans, reviews the neural circuits underlying startle responses and their affective modulation, and suggests a refined model for these pathways in humans.
Article
Psychology, Biological
Vanetza E. E. Quezada-Scholz, Mario A. A. Laborda, C. San Martin, Gonzalo Miguez, Felipe Alfaro, Jorge Mallea, Francisca Diaz
Summary: Virtual Reality has been proven to be a promising tool for studying fear conditioning in humans, as it allows for the use of complex and realistic experimental situations. This study aimed to validate a task for acquiring and extinguishing fear through VR, and found that participants responded differently to fear and safety cues. The results suggest that VR can be a useful tool in exposure therapy.
LEARNING AND MOTIVATION
(2022)
Article
Psychology, Biological
Yury Lages, Silvia S. Maisonnette, Flavia P. Rosseti, J. Landeira-Fernandez
Summary: The study found that CLF rats were unable to consolidate aversive memories and were unresponsive to extinction, while CHF rats still exhibited a large freezing response to contextual cues but were susceptible to extinction. These findings contribute to validating CHF rats as a model of trait anxiety and provide insights for evaluating exposure protocols to ameliorate excessive levels of context-conditioned fear.
LEARNING AND MOTIVATION
(2021)
Article
Neurosciences
Manivannan Subramaniyan, Sumithrra Manivannan, Vikas Chelur, Theodoros Tsetsenis, Evan Jiang, John A. Dani
Summary: The hippocampus is crucial for spatial learning and memory. In animals learning contextual fear conditioning, the synaptic strength in the commissural pathway is potentiated, and mice spend more time in sleep during the post-conditioning period. There is a significant negative correlation between the animal's speed and field excitatory postsynaptic potential size.
Article
Psychology, Multidisciplinary
A. Pinto Jorge, Becerra Sebastian
Summary: The experiment demonstrated that the association between image A and the electrical pulse affects the eyeblink response in fear-potentiated tests, with the results showing a linear relationship between conditioned fear and the intensity of the electrical pulse.
REVISTA ARGENTINA DE CIENCIAS DEL COMPORTAMIENTO
(2021)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Manon Giraudier, Carlos Ventura-Bort, Julia Wendt, Alexander Lischke, Mathias Weymar
Summary: The Covid-19 pandemic has led researchers to conduct empirical research online. This study compared participants' memory performance for trustworthy and untrustworthy facial stimuli in both a supervised laboratory setting and an unsupervised web setting. The results showed that web-based procedures can be a promising tool for memory research, as the memory bias was consistent across both settings.
Article
Psychology, Biological
Carlos Ventura-Bort, Julia Wendt, Mathias Weymar
Summary: This study used representational similarity analysis to investigate the correspondence between subjective affect and physiological reactions across various emotion induction contexts. The results showed that skin conductance response was significantly related to arousal in the picture viewing task, while none of the other physiological measures showed a significant relation with valence and arousal ratings in any of the tasks.
Article
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Aet O'Leary, Noelia Fernandez-Castillo, Gabriela Gan, Yunbo Yang, Anna Y. Yotova, Thorsten M. Kranz, Lena Gruenewald, Florian Freudenberg, Ester Anton-Galindo, Judit Cabana-Dominguez, Anais Harneit, Janina Schweiger, Kristina Schwarz, Ren Ma, Junfang Chen, Emanuel Schwarz, Marcella Rietschel, Heike Tost, Andreas Meyer-Lindenberg, Christiane A. Pane-Farre, Tilo Kircher, Alfons O. Hamm, Demian Burguera, Nina Roth Mota, Barbara Franke, Susann Schweiger, Jennifer Winter, Andreas Heinz, Susanne Erk, Nina Romanczuk-Seiferth, Henrik Walter, Andreas Stroehle, Lydia Fehm, Thomas Fydrich, Ulrike Lueken, Heike Weber, Thomas Lang, Alexander L. Gerlach, Markus M. Noethen, Georg W. Alpers, Volker Arolt, Stephanie Witt, Jan Richter, Benjamin Straube, Bru Cormand, David A. Slattery, Andreas Reif
Summary: Common variation in RBFOX1 is associated with a broad spectrum of psychiatric disorders, while rare genetic variation is specifically linked to early-onset neurodevelopmental disorders like ASD. RBFOX1 plays an important role in cognitive and emotional processing, and its study can significantly enhance our understanding of mental disorder vulnerability.
MOLECULAR PSYCHIATRY
(2022)
Article
Psychology, Clinical
Tabea Flasinski, Katharina Sommer, Silvia Schneider, Juergen Margraf, Verena Pflug, Michael W. Lippert, Hanna Christiansen, Jan C. Cwik, Alfons O. Hamm, Tina In-Albon, Susanne Knappe, Paul Pauli, Jan Richter, Brunna Tuschen-Caffier, Dirk Adolph
Summary: The number of studies on fear conditioning in children and adolescents has increased in recent years. This study investigated the dropout rates, reasons for dropout, and specific characteristics of non-completers in fear conditioning paradigms. The study found a dropout rate of 24.1% and identified fear of the unconditioned stimulus and the loud startle probe as the most common reasons for discontinuation. Logistic regression analysis revealed that younger age and the presence of an anxiety disorder predicted dropout. These findings highlight the importance of considering non-completers in fear conditioning studies.
JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOPATHOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Clinical Neurology
Manon Giraudier, Carlos Ventura-Bort, Andreas M. Burger, Nathalie Claes, Martina D'Agostini, Rico Fischer, Mathijs Franssen, Michael Kaess, Julian Koenig, Roman Liepelt, Sander Nieuwenhuis, Aldo Sommer, Taras Usichenko, Ilse Van Diest, Andreas von Leupoldt, Christopher M. Warren, Mathias Weymar
Summary: Non-invasive transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation (taVNS) has been shown to increase salivary alpha-amylase (sAA) levels, indicating the activation of the locus coeruleus-noradrenaline (LC-NA) system. Pooling raw data from multiple studies allows for stronger conclusions and highlights the benefits of data sharing in research.
Article
Psychology, Biological
Adrian Wroblewski, Maike Hollandt, Yunbo Yang, Isabelle C. Ridderbusch, Anne Pietzner, Christoph Szeska, Martin Lotze, Hans-Ulrich Wittchen, Ingmar Heinig, Andre Pittig, Volker Arolt, Katja Koelkebeck, Constantin A. Rothkopf, Dirk Adolph, Juergen Margrap, Ulrike Lueken, Paul Pauli, Martin J. Herrmann, Markus H. Winkler, Andreas Strohle, Udo Dannlowski, Tilo Kircher, Alfons O. Hamm, Benjamin Straube, Jan Richter
Summary: The ability to distinguish between threat and safety is impaired in individuals with high dispositional negativity, leading to maladaptive behavior. Research has shown that individual differences in intolerance of uncertainty (IU) and trait anxiety (TA) have an impact on fear conditioning and extinction protocols. However, the results are heterogeneous, possibly due to the different levels of induced threat/safety uncertainty. This study compared groups with high and low IU/TA during periods of low and high uncertainty, and found that high dispositional negativity is associated with greater responding to threat cues during the beginning of delayed extinction, indicating altered learning patterns under changing environments.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PSYCHOPHYSIOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Psychiatry
Christoph Szeska, Hannah Puenjer, Steffen Riemann, Marcus Meinzer, Alfons O. Hamm
Summary: The study found that while anodal tDCS stimulation of the vmPFC area did not affect extinction recall, it was able to inhibit the return of startle potentiation and the autonomic components of the fear response, indicating the important role of vmPFC in human fear inhibition.
TRANSLATIONAL PSYCHIATRY
(2022)
Article
Psychology, Clinical
Andre Pittig, Ingmar Heinig, Stephan Goerigk, Jan Richter, Maike Hollandt, Ulrike Lueken, Paul Pauli, Jurgen Deckert, Tilo Kircher, Benjamin Straube, Peter Neudeck, Katja Koelkebeck, Udo Dannlowski, Volker Arolt, Thomas Fydrich, Lydia Fehm, Andreas Strohle, Christina Totzeck, Jurgen Margraf, Silvia Schneider, Jurgen Hoyer, Winfried Rief, Michelle G. Craske, Alfons O. Hamm, Hans-Ulrich Wittchen
Summary: Individual responses to behavioral treatment of anxiety disorders vary considerably, which requires a better understanding of underlying processes. In this study, the violation and change of threat beliefs during exposure were examined, and it was found that these factors had a significant impact on treatment outcome.
CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE
(2023)
Article
Psychology, Clinical
Maike Hollandt, Jan Richter
Summary: Research shows that interfering with the reconsolidation of fear memories can be an effective approach to reduce clinical fears. This study aimed to investigate the effects of post-retrieval threat exposure on preventing context renewal in individuals with claustrophobic fears.
JOURNAL OF BEHAVIOR THERAPY AND EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHIATRY
(2022)
Article
Psychiatry
Maike Hollandt, Tim Kaiser, Heino Mohrmann, Jan Richter, Janine Wirkner
Summary: This study protocol presents an experimental approach to investigate interpersonal synchrony during emotion processing, aiming to establish research methods for real-life psychotherapy research. The study will analyze synchrony and correlations to examine emotional synchrony in same-sex pairs, as well as the association between physiological and neural synchrony and subjective ratings.
FRONTIERS IN PSYCHIATRY
(2023)
Article
Education & Educational Research
Sylvain Laborde, Stefan Ackermann, Uirassu Borges, Martina D'Agostini, Manon Giraudier, Masa Iskra, Emma Mosley, Cristina Ottaviani, Caterina Salvotti, Maximilian Schmausser, Christoph Szeska, Ilse Van Diest, Carlos Ventura-Bort, Laura Voigt, Julia Wendt, Mathias Weymar
Summary: This paper highlights the importance of using vagally-mediated heart rate variability (vmHRV) as an actionable biomarker to assess and enhance self-regulation abilities in individuals and organizations. It reviews the state-of-the-art on vmHRV and introduces various techniques to enhance it. The recommendations for policymaking are based on recent systematic reviews and meta-analyses. The paper emphasizes the efficacy, accessibility, and cost-effectiveness of vmHRV assessments and offers practical tools for individuals and organizations.
POLICY INSIGHTS FROM THE BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES
(2023)
Article
Psychology, Clinical
Ingmar Heinig, Susanne Knappe, Juergen Hoyer, Hans-Ulrich Wittchen, Jan Richter, Volker Arolt, Juergen Deckert, Katharina Domschke, Alfons Hamm, Tilo Kircher, Ulrike Lueken, Juergen Margraf, Peter Neudeck, Winfried Rief, Benjamin Straube, Andreas Stroehle, Paul Pauli, Andre Pittig
Summary: Despite concerns about rejection and side effects, exposure-based treatments for anxiety disorders are well accepted by patients. This study examined acceptance and side effects of two different variants of prediction error-based exposure treatment. The study found high treatment satisfaction, credibility, and engagement in both variants, despite higher treatment burden and stronger side effects in the intensified treatment. The most frequently reported side effects included treatment stigma, low mood, and dependence on the therapist.
Article
Neurosciences
Friederike Contier, Mathias Weymar, Isabel Wartenburger, Milena Rabovsky
Summary: This study found that the P600 component is sensitive to sustained attention, while the N400 component is not. These results support the view that P600 amplitudes reflect more controlled aspects of sentence comprehension, while N400 amplitudes reflect more automatic aspects.
JOURNAL OF COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE
(2022)
Article
Psychology, Clinical
Anna Pohl, Jessica Werthmann, Jan C. Cwik, Jan Richter, Bernadette von Dawans, Christiane A. Pane-Farre, Fritz Renner, Christina Hunger-Schoppe
Summary: This paper surveyed the opinion of the Division of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy of the German Psychological Society on family-friendly conference arrangements. The survey revealed that many parents had canceled conference attendance due to family obligations, and they desired more family-friendly policies.
ZEITSCHRIFT FUR KLINISCHE PSYCHOLOGIE UND PSYCHOTHERAPIE
(2022)