Background: Emotion recognition constitutes a pivotal process of social cognition. It involves decoding social cues (e.g., facial expressions) to maximise social adjustment. Current theoretical... Show moreBackground: Emotion recognition constitutes a pivotal process of social cognition. It involves decoding social cues (e.g., facial expressions) to maximise social adjustment. Current theoretical models posit the relationship between social withdrawal factors (social disengagement, lack of social interactions and loneliness) and emotion decoding. Objective: To investigate the role of social withdrawal in patients with schizophrenia (SZ) or probable Alzheimer's disease (AD), neuropsychiatric conditions associated with social dysfunction. Methods: A sample of 156 participants was recruited: schizophrenia patients (SZ; n = 53), Alzheimer's disease patients (AD; n = 46), and two age-matched control groups (SZc, n = 29; ADc, n = 28). All participants provided self-report measures of loneliness and social functioning, and completed a facial emotion detection task. Results: Neuropsychiatric patients (both groups) showed poorer performance in detecting both positive and negative emotions compared with their healthy counterparts (p < .01). Social withdrawal was associated with higher accuracy in negative emotion detection, across all groups. Additionally, neuropsychiatric patients with higher social withdrawal showed lower positive emotion misclassification. Conclusions: Our findings help to detail the similarities and differences in social function and facial emotion recognition in two disorders rarely studied in parallel, AD and SZ. Transdiagnostic patterns in these results suggest that social withdrawal is associated with heightened sensitivity to negative emotion expressions, potentially reflecting hypervigilance to social threat. Across the neuropsychiatric groups specifically, this hypervigilance associated with social withdrawal extended to positive emotion expressions, an emotionalcognitive bias that may impact social functioning in people with severe mental illness. Show less
Aghajani, M.; Klapwijk, E.T.; Andershed, H.; Fanti, K.A.; Wee, N.J.A. van der; Vermeiren, R.R.J.M.; Colins, O.F. 2021
Background: Reflecting evidence on Callous-Unemotional (CU) traits (e.g., lack of empathy and guilt, shallow affect), the DSM-5 added a categorical CU-based specifier for Conduct Disorder (CD),... Show moreBackground: Reflecting evidence on Callous-Unemotional (CU) traits (e.g., lack of empathy and guilt, shallow affect), the DSM-5 added a categorical CU-based specifier for Conduct Disorder (CD), labeled 'with Limited Prosocial Emotions' (LPE). Theory and prior work suggest that CD youths with and without LPE will likely differ in neural processing of negative socioemotional content. This proposition, however, is mainly derived from studies employing related, yet distinct, operationalizations of CU traits (e.g., dimensional measure/median split/top quartile), thus precluding direct examination of LPE-specific neurocognitive deficits.Methods: Employing a DSM-5 informed LPE proxy, neural processing of recognizing and resonating negative socioemotional content (angry and fearful faces) was therefore examined here among CD offenders with LPE (CD/LPE+; N = 19), relative to CD offenders without LPE (CD/LPE-; N = 31) and healthy controls (HC; N = 31).Results: Relative to HC and CD/LPEyouths and according to a linearly increasing trend (CD/LPE- < HC < CD/LPE+), CD/LPE+ youths exhibited hyperactivity within dorsolateral, dorsomedial, and ventromedial prefrontal regions during both emotion recognition and resonance. During emotion resonance, CD/LPE+ youths additionally showed increased activity within the posterior cingulate and precuneal cortices in comparison to HC and CD/LPE- youths, which again followed a linearly increasing trend (CD/LPE- < HC < CD/LPE+). These effects moreover seemed specific to the LPE specifier, when compared to a commonly employed method for CU-based grouping in CD (i.e., median split on CU scores).Conclusions: These data cautiously suggest that CD/LPE+ youths may exhibit an over-reliance on cortical neurocognitive systems when explicitly processing negative socioemotional information, which could have adverse downstream effects on relevant socioemotional functions. The findings thus seem to provide novel, yet preliminary, clues on the neurocognitive profile of CD/LPE+, and additionally highlight the potential scientific utility of the LPE specifier. Show less
Moffat, J.J.; Jung, E.M.; Ka, M.; Smith, A.L.; Jeon, B.T.; Santen, G.W.E.; Kim, W.Y. 2019
OBJECTIVE Personality and childhood trauma may affect cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk. However, evidence for an association with metabolic risk factors for CVD is limited and ambiguous. Moreover,... Show moreOBJECTIVE Personality and childhood trauma may affect cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk. However, evidence for an association with metabolic risk factors for CVD is limited and ambiguous. Moreover, despite their interrelatedness, personality and childhood trauma were not yet studied simultaneously. Therefore, we aimed to explore whether personality and childhood trauma are correlates of metabolic risk factors. METHODS Among 2755 participants of the Netherlands Study of Depression and Anxiety (NESDA), we investigated through linear regression models whether Big Five personality traits (i.e., extraversion, openness, agreeableness, neuroticism and conscientiousness) and childhood trauma type (i.e., emotional neglect, and psychological, physical and sexual abuse) were correlates of metabolic risk factors (i.e., lipids, waist circumference (WC), glucose and blood pressure). Basic covariates (i.e., age, sex and income level), lifestyle, severity of depressive symptoms and years of education were taken into account. RESULTS Openness was the most robust favorable correlate, and sexual abuse was the most robust unfavorable correlate of lipids and WC, and of overall metabolic risk (β=-.070; p<.001 and β=.035; p=.04, respectively). CONCLUSIONS People with a low openness trait and those who experienced childhood sexual abuse are at higher risk of dyslipidemia and abdominal obesity. Show less
Introduction and purpose: Functional proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) can be applied to measure pharmacodynamic effects of central nervous system (CNS)-active drugs. The serotonin... Show moreIntroduction and purpose: Functional proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) can be applied to measure pharmacodynamic effects of central nervous system (CNS)-active drugs. The serotonin precursor 5-hydroxytryptophan (5-HIP), administered together with carbidopa and granisetron to improve kinetics and reduce adverse effects, acutely enhances central serotonergic neurotransmission and induces hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal-(HPA) axis activation. We studied the hypothalamic levels of glutamate/glutamine (Glx), choline (Chol), N-acetyl-aspartate (NM) and creatine using 7-Tesla (7 T) MRS, and adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) and cortisol in peripheral blood, after the administration of the 5-HTP function test in healthy volunteers. Methods: A randomized, double blind, placebo-controlled, two-way cross-over study was performed in 12 healthy males with a 7 day wash-out period. After administration of the oral 5-HTP function test. ACTH and cortisol were measured over 4 h and MRS scans at 71 were performed every 30 min over 3 h measuring Glx: Creatine, Chol:Creatine and NAA:Creatine ratios. Results: In the hypothalamus, the administration of 5-HTP had no effect on the average Glx, Chol or NM levels over 180 min but induced a significant decrease of Glx at 60 min on post-hoc analysis. 5-Hip-induced significant ACTH release reaching an E-max of 60.2 ng/L at 80 min followed by cortisol with an E-max, of 246.4 ng/mL at 110 min. Conclusions: The reduction in hypothalamic Glx levels after serotonergic stimulation is compatible with activation of excitatory neurons in this region, which is expected to cause depletion of local glutamate stores. The hypothalamic MRS-response reached its maximum prior to subsequent increases of ACTH and cortisol, which support the functional relevance of hypothalamic Glx-depletion for activation of the HPA-axis. This exploratory study shows that MRS is capable of detecting neuronal activation following functional stimulation of a targeted brain area. (C) 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Show less
Jacobs, G.E.; Grond, J. van der; Teeuwisse, W.M.; Langeveld, T.J.C.; Pelt, J. van; Verhagen, J.C.M.; ... ; Gerven, J.M.A. van 2010
INTRODUCTION AND PURPOSE: Functional proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) can be applied to measure pharmacodynamic effects of central nervous system (CNS)-active drugs. The serotonin... Show moreINTRODUCTION AND PURPOSE: Functional proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) can be applied to measure pharmacodynamic effects of central nervous system (CNS)-active drugs. The serotonin precursor 5-hydroxytryptophan (5-HTP), administered together with carbidopa and granisetron to improve kinetics and reduce adverse effects, acutely enhances central serotonergic neurotransmission and induces hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal-(HPA) axis activation. We studied the hypothalamic levels of glutamate/glutamine (Glx), choline (Chol), N-acetyl-aspartate (NAA) and creatine using 7-Tesla (7T) MRS, and adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) and cortisol in peripheral blood, after the administration of the 5-HTP function test in healthy volunteers. METHODS: A randomized, double blind, placebo-controlled, two-way cross-over study was performed in 12 healthy males with a 7day wash-out period. After administration of the oral 5-HTP function test, ACTH and cortisol were measured over 4h and MRS scans at 7T were performed every 30min over 3h measuring Glx:Creatine, Chol:Creatine and NAA:Creatine ratios. RESULTS: In the hypothalamus, the administration of 5-HTP had no effect on the average Glx, Chol or NAA levels over 180min but induced a significant decrease of Glx at 60min on post-hoc analysis. 5-HTP-induced significant ACTH release reaching an E(max) of 60.2ng/L at 80min followed by cortisol with an E(max) of 246.4ng/mL at 110min. CONCLUSIONS: The reduction in hypothalamic Glx levels after serotonergic stimulation is compatible with activation of excitatory neurons in this region, which is expected to cause depletion of local glutamate stores. The hypothalamic MRS-response reached its maximum prior to subsequent increases of ACTH and cortisol, which support the functional relevance of hypothalamic Glx-depletion for activation of the HPA-axis. This exploratory study shows that MRS is capable of detecting neuronal activation following functional stimulation of a targeted brain area. Show less
