| 1. |
- Cortes, Diana S., et al.
(författare)
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Oxytocin may facilitate neural recruitment in medial prefrontal cortex and superior temporal gyrus during emotion recognition in young but not older adults
- 2020
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Ingår i: 2020 Cognitive Aging Conference. ; , s. 22-23
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Normal adult aging is associated with decline in some socioemotional abilities, such as the ability to recognize emotions in others, and age-related neurobiological processes may contribute to these deficits. There is increasing evidence that the neuropeptide oxytocin plays a key role in social cognition, including emotion recognition. The mechanisms through which oxytocin promotes emotion recognition are not well understood yet, and particularly in aging. In a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled within-subjects design, we investigated the extent to which a single dose of 40 IU of intranasal oxytocin facilitates emotion recognition in 40 younger (M = 24.90 yrs., SD = 2.97, 48% women) and 40 older (M = 69.70 yrs., SD = 2.99, 55% women) men and women. During two fMRI sessions, participants viewed dynamic positive and negative emotional displays. Preliminary analyses show that younger participants recognized positive and negative emotions more accurately than older participants (p < .001), with this behavioral effect not modulated by oxytocin. In the brain data, however, we found an age x treatment interaction in medial prefrontal cortex (xyz [14, 14, 6], p = .007) and superior temporal gyrus (xyz [53, 9, 2], p = .031). In particular, oxytocin (vs. placebo) reduced activity in these regions for older participants, while it enhanced activity in these regions for younger participants. In line with previous research, these findings support the notion that the effects of oxytocin vary by context and individual factors (e.g., social proficiency, age).
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| 2. |
- Forsström, David, 1981-, et al.
(författare)
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Isolation and worry in relation to gambling and onset of gambling among psychiatry patients during the COVID-19 pandemic : A mediation study
- 2022
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Ingår i: Frontiers in Psychology. - : Frontiers Media SA. - 1664-1078. ; 13
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- When the COVID-19 pandemic started spreading globally, there was a fear that addictive behaviors would increase due to changes in everyday life caused by restrictions due to COVID-19. Studies were carried out to explore if this was true for gambling, typically revealing no overall increase in gambling behavior, although individuals who had previous experience with gambling problems were more likely to increase gambling during the pandemic. However, these studies only included individuals with previous gambling problems. It remains unknown whether other vulnerable groups, such as individuals with common mental disorders increased their gambling. This study aimed to explore the level of gambling problems among individuals with a history of mental disorders, namely, (i) pre-pandemic gamblers and (ii) pandemic-onset gamblers. Furthermore, we explored if worry and isolation mediate gambling and problem gambling. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and a structural equation model to investigate mediation. The results showed a high prevalence of at-risk and problem gambling in both groups. The pre-pandemic gamblers had a high level of at-risk and problem gambling. Furthermore, the individuals that started to gamble during the pandemic had an even higher degree of at-risk and problem gambling. The mediation showed that the onset of gambling was linked with the worry of COVID-infection and that worry predicted the level of gambling problems. This study highlights that vulnerability factors, isolation, and worry can be triggers for individuals with common mental disorders to engage in gambling as well as the importance of screening this population for gambling problems.
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| 3. |
- Groenewold, Nynke A., et al.
(författare)
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Volume of subcortical brain regions in social anxiety disorder : mega-analytic results from 37 samples in the ENIGMA-Anxiety Working Group
- 2023
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Ingår i: Molecular Psychiatry. - : Springer Nature. - 1359-4184 .- 1476-5578. ; 28:3, s. 1079-1089
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- There is limited convergence in neuroimaging investigations into volumes of subcortical brain regions in social anxiety disorder (SAD). The inconsistent findings may arise from variations in methodological approaches across studies, including sample selection based on age and clinical characteristics. The ENIGMA-Anxiety Working Group initiated a global mega-analysis to determine whether differences in subcortical volumes can be detected in adults and adolescents with SAD relative to healthy controls. Volumetric data from 37 international samples with 1115 SAD patients and 2775 controls were obtained from ENIGMA-standardized protocols for image segmentation and quality assurance. Linear mixed-effects analyses were adjusted for comparisons across seven subcortical regions in each hemisphere using family-wise error (FWE)-correction. Mixed-effects d effect sizes were calculated. In the full sample, SAD patients showed smaller bilateral putamen volume than controls (left: d = −0.077, pFWE = 0.037; right: d = −0.104, pFWE = 0.001), and a significant interaction between SAD and age was found for the left putamen (r = −0.034, pFWE = 0.045). Smaller bilateral putamen volumes (left: d = −0.141, pFWE < 0.001; right: d = −0.158, pFWE < 0.001) and larger bilateral pallidum volumes (left: d = 0.129, pFWE = 0.006; right: d = 0.099, pFWE = 0.046) were detected in adult SAD patients relative to controls, but no volumetric differences were apparent in adolescent SAD patients relative to controls. Comorbid anxiety disorders and age of SAD onset were additional determinants of SAD-related volumetric differences in subcortical regions. To conclude, subtle volumetric alterations in subcortical regions in SAD were detected. Heterogeneity in age and clinical characteristics may partly explain inconsistencies in previous findings. The association between alterations in subcortical volumes and SAD illness progression deserves further investigation, especially from adolescence into adulthood.
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| 4. |
- Hjorth, Olof, et al.
(författare)
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Expression and co-expression of serotonin and dopamine transporters in social anxiety disorder : a multitracer positron emission tomography study
- 2021
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Ingår i: Molecular Psychiatry. - : Springer Nature. - 1359-4184 .- 1476-5578. ; 26:8, s. 3970-3979
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Serotonin and dopamine are putatively involved in the etiology and treatment of anxiety disorders, but positron emission tomography (PET) studies probing the two neurotransmitters in the same individuals are lacking. The aim of this multitracer PET study was to evaluate the regional expression and co-expression of the transporter proteins for serotonin (SERT) and dopamine (DAT) in patients with social anxiety disorder (SAD). Voxel-wise binding potentials (BPND) for SERT and DAT were determined in 27 patients with SAD and 43 age- and sex-matched healthy controls, using the radioligands [11C]DASB (3-amino-4-(2-dimethylaminomethylphenylsulfanyl)-benzonitrile) and [11C]PE2I (N-(3-iodopro-2E-enyl)-2beta-carbomethoxy-3beta-(4'-methylphenyl)nortropane). Results showed that, within transmitter systems, SAD patients exhibited higher SERT binding in the nucleus accumbens while DAT availability in the amygdala, hippocampus, and putamen correlated positively with symptom severity. At a more lenient statistical threshold, SERT and DAT BPND were also higher in other striatal and limbic regions in patients, and correlated with symptom severity, whereas no brain region showed higher binding in healthy controls. Moreover, SERT/DAT co-expression was significantly higher in SAD patients in the amygdala, nucleus accumbens, caudate, putamen, and posterior ventral thalamus, while lower co-expression was noted in the dorsomedial thalamus. Follow-up logistic regression analysis confirmed that SAD diagnosis was significantly predicted by the statistical interaction between SERT and DAT availability, in the amygdala, putamen, and dorsomedial thalamus. Thus, SAD was associated with mainly increased expression and co-expression of the transporters for serotonin and dopamine in fear and reward-related brain regions. Resultant monoamine dysregulation may underlie SAD symptomatology and constitute a target for treatment.
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| 5. |
- Koenig, Julian, et al.
(författare)
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Cortical thickness and resting-state cardiac function across the lifespan : A cross-sectional pooled mega-analysis
- 2021
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Ingår i: Psychophysiology. - : Wiley. - 0048-5772 .- 1469-8986 .- 1540-5958. ; 58:7
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Understanding the association between autonomic nervous system [ANS] function and brain morphology across the lifespan provides important insights into neurovisceral mechanisms underlying health and disease. Resting-state ANS activity, indexed by measures of heart rate [HR] and its variability [HRV] has been associated with brain morphology, particularly cortical thickness [CT]. While findings have been mixed regarding the anatomical distribution and direction of the associations, these inconsistencies may be due to sex and age differences in HR/HRV and CT. Previous studies have been limited by small sample sizes, which impede the assessment of sex differences and aging effects on the association between ANS function and CT. To overcome these limitations, 20 groups worldwide contributed data collected under similar protocols of CT assessment and HR/HRV recording to be pooled in a mega-analysis (N = 1,218 (50.5% female), mean age 36.7 years (range: 12–87)). Findings suggest a decline in HRV as well as CT with increasing age. CT, particularly in the orbitofrontal cortex, explained additional variance in HRV, beyond the effects of aging. This pattern of results may suggest that the decline in HRV with increasing age is related to a decline in orbitofrontal CT. These effects were independent of sex and specific to HRV; with no significant association between CT and HR. Greater CT across the adult lifespan may be vital for the maintenance of healthy cardiac regulation via the ANS—or greater cardiac vagal activity as indirectly reflected in HRV may slow brain atrophy. Findings reveal an important association between CT and cardiac parasympathetic activity with implications for healthy aging and longevity that should be studied further in longitudinal research.
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| 6. |
- Laukka, Petri, 1971-, et al.
(författare)
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Neural correlates of individual differences in multimodal emotion recognition ability
- 2024
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Ingår i: Cortex. - : Elsevier. - 0010-9452 .- 1973-8102. ; 175, s. 1-11
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Studies have reported substantial variability in emotion recognition ability (ERA) – an important social skill – but possible neural underpinnings for such individual differences are not well understood. This functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study investigated neural responses during emotion recognition in young adults (N=49) who were selected for inclusion based on their performance (high or low) during previous testing of ERA. Participants were asked to judge brief video recordings in a forced-choice emotion recognition task, wherein stimuli were presented in visual, auditory and multimodal (audiovisual) blocks. Emotion recognition rates during brain scanning confirmed that individuals with high (vs. low) ERA received higher accuracy for all presentation blocks. fMRI-analyses focused on key regions of interest (ROIs) involved in the processing of multimodal emotion expressions, based on previous meta-analyses. In neural response to emotional stimuli contrasted with neutral stimuli, individuals with high (vs. low) ERA showed higher activation in the following ROIs during the multimodal condition: right middle superior temporal gyrus (mSTG), right posterior superior temporal sulcus (PSTS), and right inferior frontal cortex (IFC). Overall, results suggest that individual variability in ERA may be reflected across several stages of decisional processing, including extraction (mSTG), integration (PSTS) and evaluation (IFC) of emotional information.
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| 7. |
- Li, Xia, et al.
(författare)
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A Quantitative Data-Driven Analysis Framework for Resting-State Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging : A Study of the Impact of Adult Age
- 2021
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Ingår i: Frontiers in Neuroscience. - : Frontiers Media SA. - 1662-4548 .- 1662-453X. ; 15
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The objective of this study is to introduce a new quantitative data-driven analysis (QDA) framework for the analysis of resting-state fMRI (R-fMRI) and use it to investigate the effect of adult age on resting-state functional connectivity (RFC). Whole-brain R-fMRI measurements were conducted on a 3T clinical MRI scanner in 227 healthy adult volunteers (N = 227, aged 18–76 years old, male/female = 99/128). With the proposed QDA framework we derived two types of voxel-wise RFC metrics: the connectivity strength index and connectivity density index utilizing the convolutions of the cross-correlation histogram with different kernels. Furthermore, we assessed the negative and positive portions of these metrics separately. With the QDA framework we found age-related declines of RFC metrics in the superior and middle frontal gyri, posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), right insula and inferior parietal lobule of the default mode network (DMN), which resembles previously reported results using other types of RFC data processing methods. Importantly, our new findings complement previously undocumented results in the following aspects: (1) the PCC and right insula are anti-correlated and tend to manifest simultaneously declines of both the negative and positive connectivity strength with subjects’ age; (2) separate assessment of the negative and positive RFC metrics provides enhanced sensitivity to the aging effect; and (3) the sensorimotor network depicts enhanced negative connectivity strength with the adult age. The proposed QDA framework can produce threshold-free and voxel-wise RFC metrics from R-fMRI data. The detected adult age effect is largely consistent with previously reported studies using different R-fMRI analysis approaches. Moreover, the separate assessment of the negative and positive contributions to the RFC metrics can enhance the RFC sensitivity and clarify some of the mixed results in the literature regarding to the DMN and sensorimotor network involvement in adult aging.
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| 8. |
- Li, Xia, et al.
(författare)
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Dataset of whole-brain resting-state fMRI of 227 young and elderly adults acquired at 3T
- 2021
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Ingår i: Data in Brief. - : Elsevier BV. - 2352-3409. ; 38
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- To investigate the impact of adult age on the brain functional connectivity, whole-brain resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (R-fMRI) data were acquired on a 3T clinical MRI scanner in a cohort of 227, right-handed, native Swedish-speaking, healthy adult volunteers (N=227, aged 18-74 years old, male/female=99/128). The dataset is mainly consisted of a younger (18-30 years old n=124, males/females=51/73) and elderly adult (n=76, 60-76 years old, males/females=35/41) subgroups. The dataset was analyzed using a new data-driven analysis (QDA) framework. With QDA two types of threshold-free voxel-wise resting-state functional connectivity (RFC) metrics were derived: the connectivity strength index (CSI) and connectivity density index (CDI), which can be utilized to assess the brain changes in functional connectivity associated with adult age. The dataset can also be useful as a reference to identify abnormal changes in brain functional connectivity resulted from neurodegenerative or neuropsychiatric disorders.
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| 9. |
- Lindqvist, Daniel, et al.
(författare)
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Plasma circulating cell-free mitochondrial DNA in social anxiety disorder
- 2022
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Ingår i: Psychoneuroendocrinology. - : Elsevier. - 0306-4530 .- 1873-3360. ; 148
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- OBJECTIVE: To investigate plasma levels of circulating cell-free mitochondrial DNA (ccf-mtDNA) in patients with social anxiety disorder (SAD) and healthy controls (HC).METHODS: In this study, 88 participants (46 patients with SAD and 42 HCs) were enrolled and both ccf-mtDNA and peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) mtDNA copy number (mtDNA-cn) were measured at up to three times per individual (9-11 weeks apart). SAD patients also received cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) between the second and third time-point.RESULTS: SAD patients had significantly lower ccf-mtDNA compared to HCs at all time points, but ccf-mtDNA did not change significantly after CBT, and was not associated with severity of anxiety symptoms. Plasma ccf-mtDNA did not significantly correlate with PBMC mtDNA-cn in patients.CONCLUSION: This is the first report of lower ccf-mtDNA in patients with an anxiety disorder. Our findings could reflect a more chronic illness course in SAD patients with prolonged periods of psychological stress leading to decreased levels of ccf-mtDNA, but future longitudinal studies are needed to confirm or refute this hypothesis.
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| 10. |
- Månsson, Kristoffer N. T., et al.
(författare)
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Anterior insula morphology and vulnerability to psychopathology-related symptoms in response to acute inflammation
- 2022
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Ingår i: Brain, behavior, and immunity. - : Elsevier BV. - 0889-1591 .- 1090-2139. ; 99, s. 9-16
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Introduction: The role of inflammation in common psychiatric diseases is now well acknowledged. However, the factors and mechanisms underlying inter-individual variability in the vulnerability to develop psychopathology related symptoms in response to inflammation are not well characterized. Herein, we aimed at investigating morphological brain regions central for interoception and emotion regulation, and if these are associated with acute inflammation-induced sickness and anxiety responses.Methods: Systemic inflammation was induced using an intravenous injection of lipopolysaccharide (LPS) at a dose of 0.6 ng/kg body weight in 28 healthy individuals, while 21 individuals received an injection of saline (placebo). Individuals' gray matter volume was investigated by automated voxel-based morphometry technique on T1-weighted anatomical images derived from magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Plasma concentrations of TNF alpha and IL-6, sickness symptoms (SicknessQ), and state anxiety (STAI-S) were measured before and after the injection.Results: A stronger sickness response to LPS was significantly associated with a larger anterior insula gray matter volume, independently from increases in cytokine concentrations, age, sex and body mass index (R-2 = 65.6%). Similarly, a greater LPS-induced state anxiety response was related to a larger anterior insula gray matter volume, and also by a stronger increase in plasma TNF-alpha concentrations (R-2 = 40.4%).Discussion: Anterior insula morphology appears central in the sensitivity to develop symptoms of sickness and anxiety in response to inflammation, and could thus be one risk factor in inflammation-related psychopathologies. Because of the limited sample size, the current results need to be replicated.
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