Nucleus accumbens activation is linked to salience in social decision making.

Aberrant salience may explain hasty decision making and psychotic symptoms in schizophrenia. In healthy individuals, final decisions in probabilistic reasoning tasks are related to Nucleus accumbens (Nacc) activation. However, research investigating the Nacc in social decision making is missing. Our study aimed at investigating the role of the Nacc for social decision making and its link to (aberrant) salience attribution. 47 healthy individuals completed a novel social jumping-to-conclusion (JTC) fMRI-paradigm, showing morphed faces simultaneously expressing fear and happiness. Participants decided on the 'current' emotion after each picture, and on the 'general' emotion of series of faces. Nacc activation was stronger during final decisions than in previous trials without a decision, particularly in fear rather than happiness series. A JTC-bias was associated with higher Nacc activation for last fearful, but not last happy faces. Apparently, mechanisms underlying probabilistic reasoning are also relevant for social decision making. The pattern of Nacc activation suggests salience, not reward, drives the final decision. Based on these findings, we hypothesize that aberrant salience might also explain social-cognitive deficits in schizophrenia.

Early cognitive basic symptoms are accompanied by neurocognitive impairment in patients with an 'at-risk mental state' for psychosis.

AIM: Patients with an increased risk for psychosis ('at-risk mental state' (ARMS)) present various neurocognitive deficits. Not least because of differences in identifying the ARMS, results of previous studies are inconsistent. In most studies ARMS-patients are classified by the experience of attenuated psychotic symptoms (APS) and/or brief limited intermittent psychotic symptoms (BLIPS). Few studies additionally assessed cognitive basic symptoms (BS). A comprehensive assessment in the very early stage of the ARMS is missing. METHODS: In the present study we characterized ARMS-patients for cognitive BS (ARMS-BS), APS and BLIPS (ARMS-A/B) according to the Early Recognition Inventory based on IRAOS (ERIraos). Furthermore, we assessed neurocognitive deficits using the MATRICS consensus cognitive battery for schizophrenia with a primary hypothesis regarding working memory performance. Groups of 38 ARMS-patients and 38 healthy controls were matched for age, gender, education and premorbid verbal intelligence. RESULTS: Between-group comparisons revealed significant poorer working memory performance in addition to lower verbal learning and problem solving, slower processing speed and lower global neurocognitive functioning in ARMS-patients as compared to controls. ARMS-BS did not differ from ARMS-A/B. CONCLUSIONS: These results underscore the presence of cognitive limitations in patients only presenting with cognitive BS. Knowledge of these early cognitive deviations supports the inclusion of early ARMS-stages into a comprehensive concept of the psychosis risk state. Therapeutic interventions already applied at this stage might prevent deterioration of constraints. Longitudinal and interventional studies investigating the interaction of cognitive BS and neurocognitive as well as metacognitive deficits are warranted.

Impaired emotion processing and a reduction in trust in patients with somatic symptom disorder.

There is accumulating evidence for deficits in the perception and regulation of one's own emotions, as well as the recognition of others' emotions in somatic symptom disorder (SSD). However, investigations of SSD focusing on specific aspects of emotion processing and how these might interact are missing. We included 35 patients with SSD and 35 healthy controls who completed questionnaires on the perception and regulation of their own emotions, as well as experimental investigations of emotion recognition and trust. In line with previous studies, our results show that SSD patients in comparison to healthy controls have difficulties in the identification and description of own feelings (ηp2  = .381 and ηp2  = .315). Furthermore, we found that patients apply less cognitive reappraisal (ηp2  = .185) but tend to use more expressive suppression (ηp2  = .047). In contrast to previous studies, we found SSD patients to perform superior in emotion recognition, in particular for anger (d = 0.40). In addition, patients with SSD invested less in a trust game (d = 0.73). These results point to a higher sensitivity for negative emotions and less trust in others. Further, these findings suggest a dissociation between the ability to recognize one's own emotions versus others' emotions in SSD. Future interventions targeting emotion processing in SSD might focus on the identification of one's own emotions, prior to the training of emotion regulation.

[Sensory Inventory (SI): self-assessment of sensory sensitivity for adults and adolescents]. / Sensorik Inventar (SI) ­ Selbstbeurteilung der sensorischen Sensitivität für Erwachsene und Jugendliche.

An adequate perception of the environment is one of the main foundations of adaptive behavior. Furthermore, sensory sensitivity varies from person to person and can play a central role in the development and course of mental disorders. The objective was the development of a questionnaire for the multidimensional assessment of sensory sensitivity. A total of 1417 persons were evaluated with the Sensory Inventory (SI). The factorial validity was tested with exploratory factor analyses and exploratory structural equation modeling. A 6-factorial structure was established. High internal consistency and retest reliability were shown, as well as increased sensory sensitivity and lower body perception in participants with mental disorders. The SI is a short instrument with good test characteristics that can easily be integrated in a clinical or research environment.

Facing the Problem: Impaired Emotion Recognition During Multimodal Social Information Processing in Borderline Personality Disorder.

Previous research has revealed alterations and deficits in facial emotion recognition in patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD). During interpersonal communication in daily life, social signals such as speech content, variation in prosody, and facial expression need to be considered simultaneously. We hypothesized that deficits in higher level integration of social stimuli contribute to difficulties in emotion recognition in BPD, and heightened arousal might explain this effect. Thirty-one patients with BPD and thirty-one healthy controls were asked to identify emotions in short video clips, which were designed to represent different combinations of the three communication channels: facial expression, speech content, and prosody. Skin conductance was recorded as a measure of sympathetic arousal, while controlling for state dissociation. Patients with BPD showed lower mean accuracy scores than healthy control subjects in all conditions comprising emotional facial expressions. This was true for the condition with facial expression only, and for the combination of all three communication channels. Electrodermal responses were enhanced in BPD only in response to auditory stimuli. In line with the major body of facial emotion recognition studies, we conclude that deficits in the interpretation of facial expressions lead to the difficulties observed in multimodal emotion processing in BPD.

Associations of pineal volume, chronotype and symptom severity in adults with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and healthy controls.

The pineal gland, as part of the human epithalamus, is the main production site of peripheral melatonin, which promotes the modulation of sleep patterns, circadian rhythms and circadian preferences (morningness vs. eveningness). The present study analyses the pineal gland volume (PGV) and its association with circadian preferences and symptom severity in adult ADHD patients compared to healthy controls. PGV was determined manually using high-resolution 3T MRI (T1-magnetization prepared rapid gradient echo) in medication free adult ADHD patients (N=74) compared to healthy controls (N=86). Moreover, the Morningness-Eveningness Questionnaire (MEQ), the ADHD Diagnostic Checklist and the Wender-Utah Rating Scale were conducted. PGV differed between both groups (patients: 59.9±33.8mm(3); healthy controls: 71.4±27.2mm(3), P=0.04). In ADHD patients, more eveningness types were revealed (patients: 29%; healthy controls: 17%; P=0.05) and sum scores of the MEQ were lower (patients: 45.8±11.5; healthy controls 67.2±10.1; P<0.001). Multiple regression analyses indicated a positive correlation of PGV and MEQ scores in ADHD (ß=0.856, P=0.003) but not in healthy controls (ß=0.054, P=0.688). Patients' MEQ scores (ß=-0.473, P=0.003) were negatively correlated to ADHD symptoms. The present results suggest a linkage between the PGV and circadian preference in adults with ADHD and an association of the circadian preference to symptom severity. This may facilitate the development of new chronobiological treatment approaches for the add-on treatment in ADHD.

Bias against disconfirmatory evidence in the 'at-risk mental state' and during psychosis.

Prior studies have confirmed a bias against disconfirmatory evidence (BADE) in schizophrenia which has been associated with delusions. However, its role in the pathogenesis of psychosis is yet unclear. The objective was to investigate BADE for the first time in subjects with an at-risk-mental-state for psychosis (ARMS), patients with a first episode of psychosis without antipsychotic treatment (FEP) and healthy controls (HC). A standard BADE test presenting written scenarios was employed. In addition, psychometric rating scales and a neuropsychological test battery were applied. A three-staged image was revealed. FEP-patients showed a significant BADE compared to the other groups. The performance of ARMS-patients lay in between HC and FEP-patients. A trend towards significance became evident for a bias against confirmatory evidence (BACE) in FEP-patients. Results were not attributable to antipsychotic or other medication or depressive symptoms. Correlations with delusions reached medium effect sizes but failed significance after Bonferroni-corrections. These results provide evidence for aberrations in evidence integration in the pathogenesis of psychosis and contribute to our knowledge of metacognitive functioning which can be used for (meta-)cognitive intervention in psychosis.

Emotion recognition in borderline personality disorder: effects of emotional information on negative bias.

BACKGROUND: Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is characterized by severe deficits in social interactions, which might be linked to deficits in emotion recognition. Research on emotion recognition abilities in BPD revealed heterogeneous results, ranging from deficits to heightened sensitivity. The most stable findings point to an impairment in the evaluation of neutral facial expressions as neutral, as well as to a negative bias in emotion recognition; that is the tendency to attribute negative emotions to neutral expressions, or in a broader sense to report a more negative emotion category than depicted. However, it remains unclear which contextual factors influence the occurrence of this negative bias. Previous studies suggest that priming by preceding emotional information and also constrained processing time might augment the emotion recognition deficit in BPD. METHODS: To test these assumptions, 32 female BPD patients and 31 healthy females, matched for age and education, participated in an emotion recognition study, in which every facial expression was preceded by either a positive, neutral or negative scene. Furthermore, time constraints for processing were varied by presenting the facial expressions with short (100 ms) or long duration (up to 3000 ms) in two separate blocks. RESULTS: BPD patients showed a significant deficit in emotion recognition for neutral and positive facial expression, associated with a significant negative bias. In BPD patients, this emotion recognition deficit was differentially affected by preceding emotional information and time constraints, with a greater influence of emotional information during long face presentations and a greater influence of neutral information during short face presentations. CONCLUSIONS: Our results are in line with previous findings supporting the existence of a negative bias in emotion recognition in BPD patients, and provide further insights into biased social perceptions in BPD patients.

Reduced activation in the ventral striatum during probabilistic decision-making in patients in an at-risk mental state.

BACKGROUND: Patients with schizophrenia display metacognitive impairments, such as hasty decision-making during probabilistic reasoning - the "jumping to conclusion" bias (JTC). Our recent fMRI study revealed reduced activations in the right ventral striatum (VS) and the ventral tegmental area (VTA) to be associated with decision-making in patients with schizophrenia. It is unclear whether these functional alterations occur in the at-risk mental state (ARMS). METHODS: We administered the classical beads task and fMRI among ARMS patients and healthy controls matched for age, sex, education and premorbid verbal intelligence. None of the ARMS patients was treated with antipsychotics. Both tasks request probabilistic decisions after a variable amount of stimuli. We evaluated activation during decision-making under certainty versus uncertainty and the process of final decision-making. RESULTS: We included 24 AMRS patients and 24 controls in our study. Compared with controls, ARMS patients tended to draw fewer beads and showed significantly more JTC bias in the classical beads task, mirroring findings in patients with schizophrenia. During fMRI, ARMS patients did not demonstrate JTC bias on the behavioural level, but showed a significant hypoactivation in the right VS during the decision stage. LIMITATIONS: Owing to the cross-sectional design of the study, results are constrained to a better insight into the neurobiology of risk constellations, but not prepsychotic stages. Nine of the ARMS patients were treated with antidepressants and/or lorazepam. CONCLUSION: As in patients with schizophrenia, a striatal hypoactivation was found in ARMS patients. Confounding effects of antipsychotic medication can be excluded. Our findings indicate that error prediction signalling and reward anticipation may be linked to striatal dysfunction during prodromal stages and should be examined for their utility in predicting transition risk.