Click here for the article published by Frontiers in Psychiatry. The prevalence of patent foramen ovale (PFO) is 15–35% among adults. The role of right-to-left shunting through the PFO, anxiety, depression, and hypoxemia in the systemic circulation remains poorly understood. Herein, we present the case of a 52-year-old woman with no heart or lung disease, …
The report author talks to Lisa Salmon about the warning signs to keep in mind.
Journal of Clinical Psychology, EarlyView.
Click here for the article published by Psychology Today. Practicing mindfulness and guided imagery can effectively reduce symptoms of anxiety and stress. This simple 10-step activity is designed to be convenient and can be easily done anywhere you have a quiet space. Continue reading … Disclaimer: The content of this article has not been checked …
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Background
Aberrant brain connectivity during emotional processing, especially within the fronto-limbic pathway, is one of the hallmarks of major depressive disorder (MDD). However, the methodological heterogeneity of previous studies made it difficult to determine the functional and etiological implications of specific alterations in brain connectivity. We previously reported alterations in psychophysiological interaction measures during emotional face processing, distinguishing depressive pathology from at-risk/resilient and healthy states. Here, we extended these findings by effective connectivity analyses in the same sample to establish a refined neural model of emotion processing in depression.
Methods
Thirty-seven patients with MDD, 45 first-degree relatives of patients with MDD and 97 healthy controls performed a face-matching task during functional magnetic resonance imaging. We used dynamic causal modeling to estimate task-dependent effective connectivity at the subject level. Parametric empirical Bayes was performed to quantify group differences in effective connectivity.
Results
MDD patients showed decreased effective connectivity from the left amygdala and left lateral prefrontal cortex to the fusiform gyrus compared to relatives and controls, whereas patients and relatives showed decreased connectivity from the right orbitofrontal cortex to the left insula and from the left orbitofrontal cortex to the right fusiform gyrus compared to controls. Relatives showed increased connectivity from the anterior cingulate cortex to the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex compared to patients and controls.
Conclusions
Our results suggest that the depressive state alters top-down control of higher visual regions during face processing. Alterations in connectivity within the cognitive control network present potential risk or resilience mechanisms.
Background
Gray matter morphometry studies have lent seminal insights into the etiology of mental illness. Existing research has primarily focused on adults and then, typically on a single disorder. Examining brain characteristics in late childhood, when the brain is preparing to undergo significant adolescent reorganization and various forms of serious psychopathology are just first emerging, may allow for a unique and highly important perspective of overlapping and unique pathogenesis.
Methods
A total of 8645 youth were recruited as part of the Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development study. Magnetic resonance imaging scans were collected, and psychotic-like experiences (PLEs), depressive, and anxiety symptoms were assessed three times over a 2-year period. Cortical thickness, surface area, and subcortical volume were used to predict baseline symptomatology and symptom progression over time.
Results
Some features could possibly signal common vulnerability, predicting progression across forms of psychopathology (e.g. superior frontal and middle temporal regions). However, there was a specific predictive value for emerging PLEs (lateral occipital and precentral thickness), anxiety (parietal thickness/area and cingulate), and depression (e.g. parahippocampal and inferior temporal).
Conclusion
Findings indicate common and distinct patterns of vulnerability for varying forms of psychopathology are present during late childhood, before the adolescent reorganization, and have direct relevance for informing novel conceptual models along with early prevention and intervention efforts.
Researchers found college students who tried to cut their social media use to 30 minutes per day scored significantly lower for anxiety, depression, loneliness and fear of missing out at the end of the two-week experiment and when compared to the control group.
Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, Volume 19, Issue 1, Page 79-105, May 2023.
Click here for the article published by UPI. Did you know that anxiety and depression might be playing a role for some people with long COVID? That’s what researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) found in their study. They discovered that patients who experienced difficulties with thinking during COVID-19 infection also tended …
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Publication date: June 2023Source: Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, Volume 149Author(s): Rosalind D. Butterfield, Melanie Grad-Freilich, Jennifer S. Silk
