NP_Publications

Neurostimulation to Improve Cognitive Flexibility

4 hours 21 minutes ago
Cognitive flexibility, the capacity to adapt behaviors in response to changing environments, is impaired across mental illnesses, including depression, anxiety, addiction, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Cortico-striatal-cortical circuits are integral to cognition and goal-directed behavior and disruptions in these circuits are linked to cognitive inflexibility in mental illnesses. We review evidence that neurostimulation of these circuits can improve cognitive flexibility and ameliorate...
Elizabeth M Sachse

Delineating empirically plausible causal pathways to suicidality among people at clinical high risk for psychosis

4 days 4 hours ago
Suicidality is common among people at clinical high risk (CHR) for psychosis. Delineating causal pathways to suicidality and identifying its determinants would inform tailored intervention efforts for these individuals. To this end, we analyzed data on CHR samples from the second and third North American Prodrome Longitudinal Studies (NAPLS-2, n = 355; NAPLS-3, n = 266). Data on correlates of suicidality-including depression and attenuated psychosis symptoms, sleep, and childhood trauma-from two...
Michael V Bronstein

Regional hippocampal thinning and gyrification abnormalities and associated cognition in children with prenatal alcohol exposure

5 days 4 hours ago
CONCLUSIONS: We used a novel MRI method to evaluate hippocampal structure in children with PAE and an unexposed comparison group. The data suggest that PAE disrupts hippocampal development, impacting both the early-stage folding of the structure and its ultimate thickness. The data also demonstrate that these developmental anomalies have functional consequences in terms of core memory functions as well as global intellectual functioning in children with PAE.
Blake A Gimbel

Inhibition of the angiotensin-converting enzyme N-terminal catalytic domain prevents endogenous opioid degradation in brain tissue

1 week ago
Angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) regulates blood pressure by cleaving angiotensin peptides in the periphery, and can also regulate endogenous opioid signaling by degrading enkephalin peptides in the brain. ACE has two catalytic domains, located in the N-terminal or C-terminal region of the protein, but little is known about the roles that these two catalytic domains play in regulating endogenous opioid degradation in brain tissue. Using acute brain slice preparations from mice of both sexes,...
Filip Hanak

Posttraumatic reexperiencing and alcohol use: Mediofrontal theta as a neural mechanism for negative reinforcement

1 week ago
Over half of U.S. military veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) use alcohol heavily, potentially to cope with their symptoms. This study investigated the neural underpinnings of PTSD symptoms and heavy drinking in veterans. We focused on brain responses to salient outcomes within predictive coding theory. This framework suggests the brain generates prediction errors (PEs) when outcomes deviate from expectations. Alcohol use might provide negative reinforcement by reducing the...
Eric Rawls

High beta power in the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex indexes human approach behavior: a case study

1 week 3 days ago
Deep brain stimulation (DBS) of the ventral capsule and ventral striatum (VC/VS) is an effective therapy for treatment resistant obsessive-compulsive disorder (trOCD). DBS initiation often produces acute improvements in mood and energy. These acute behavioral changes, which we refer to as "approach behaviors", include increased social engagement and talkativeness. We investigated the relationship between stimulation amplitude, spectral power in the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (vlPFC), and...
Nicole R Provenza

Predicting accrual success for better clinical trial resource allocation

1 week 3 days ago
Accrual success is one key determining factor for the success of clinical trials. Global data analyses of all terminated trials reported that 55% of trials were terminated due to low accrual rates. Failure to meet accrual goals have a significant impact on costs for sponsors, academic institutions, investigators, and society at large. The ability to predict trial accrual success with high precision before the trial starts would be highly valuable, preventing the allocation of critical resources...
Sisi Ma

Muscle Strength and Size Relationships with Unilateral Progressive Resistance Training

2 weeks ago
CONCLUSIONS: Sex differences occur in muscle size and strength relationship adaptations following resistance training, most notably the absence of significant relationships between relative size and strength changes in men. Simpson's paradox bias, where assessing the combined data of males and females (also affecting overall sample size) affects identifies patterns differently than assessing relationships within each sex, may partially explain our findings.
Donald D Deiwert

Constructs across a hierarchical, dimensional model of psychopathology show differential associations with social and general cognitive ability

2 weeks 5 days ago
Many psychiatric disorders and associated psychopathology dimensions are related to social cognitive deficits and reduced general cognitive ability. The current study applied a hierarchical, dimensional approach to better understand associations among psychopathology, social cognition, and general cognitive ability. Data were collected from two samples (n = 653), including psychosis-spectrum patients, their first-degree relatives, and individuals from community sources. Participants completed...
Scott D Blain

Perceptions of science, science communication, and climate change attitudes in 68 countries - the TISP dataset

3 weeks ago
Science is integral to society because it can inform individual, government, corporate, and civil society decision-making on issues such as public health, new technologies or climate change. Yet, public distrust and populist sentiment challenge the relationship between science and society. To help researchers analyse the science-society nexus across different geographical and cultural contexts, we undertook a cross-sectional population survey resulting in a dataset of 71,922 participants in 68...
Niels G Mede

Trust in scientists and their role in society across 68 countries

3 weeks ago
Science is crucial for evidence-based decision-making. Public trust in scientists can help decision makers act on the basis of the best available evidence, especially during crises. However, in recent years the epistemic authority of science has been challenged, causing concerns about low public trust in scientists. We interrogated these concerns with a preregistered 68-country survey of 71,922 respondents and found that in most countries, most people trust scientists and agree that scientists...
Viktoria Cologna

Using creativity and the arts to promote mental health in youth living with HIV in South Africa

3 weeks 3 days ago
Access to adolescent-friendly, culturally relevant and stigma-free mental health support is essential for reducing the long-term psychological, social and economic challenges of mental illness of youth living with HIV (YLWH). Now more than ever, innovative task-shifting interventions, through which non-mental health professionals provide mental health support to YLWH, need to be explored and supported. While many of these have considered shifting tasks to nurses, tapping into the wisdom and...
Jacqueline Hoare

Dorsal hippocampus represents locations to avoid as well as locations to approach during approach-avoidance conflict

3 weeks 6 days ago
Worrying about perceived threats is a hallmark of multiple psychological disorders including anxiety. This concern about future events is particularly important when an individual is faced with an approach-avoidance conflict. Potential goals to approach are known to be represented in the dorsal hippocampus during theta cycles. Similarly, important information that is distant from the animal's position is represented during hippocampal high-synchrony events (HSEs), which coincide with sharp-wave...
Olivia L Calvin

Transdiagnostic alterations in white matter microstructure associated with suicidal thoughts and behaviours in the ENIGMA Suicidal Thoughts and Behaviours consortium

4 weeks ago
Previous studies have suggested that alterations in white matter (WM) microstructure are implicated in suicidal thoughts and behaviours (STBs). However, findings of diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) studies have been inconsistent. In this large-scale mega-analysis conducted by the ENIGMA Suicidal Thoughts and Behaviours (ENIGMA-STB) consortium, we examined WM alterations associated with STBs. Data processing was standardised across sites, and resulting WM microstructure measures (fractional...
Laura S van Velzen

Targeting VMPFC-amygdala circuit with TMS in substance use disorder: A mechanistic framework

1 month ago
The ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC), located along the medial aspect of the frontal area, plays a critical role in regulating arousal/emotions. Its intricate connections with subcortical structures, including the striatum and amygdala, highlight the VMPFC's importance in the neurocircuitry of addiction. Due to these features, the VMPFC is considered a promising target for transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) in substance use disorders (SUD). By the end of 2023, all 21 studies targeting...
Ghazaleh Soleimani

Expert Rater Agreement for Symptoms and Diagnosis of Bipolar Disorder in Youth

1 month ago
The diagnosis of bipolar disorder (BD) in young children has been a topic of debate, in part owing to varied interpretation of manic-like symptoms. We examined how expert academic clinicians participating in the pediatric bipolar biobank varied in their interpretation and application of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) criteria and diagnoses. Study co-investigators reviewed 12 standardized narratives and for each marked a visual analog scale with their confidence in...
Jarrod M Leffler
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1 hour 31 minutes ago
(minnesota[Affiliation]) AND Sophia Vinogradov OR A. David Redish OR Cristina Sophia Albott OR C Sophia Albott OR Jazmin Camchong OR Gamze B Camsari OR Matthew V Chafee OR Christine A Conelea OR Kath…: Latest results from PubMed
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