Bennedsenvinther1810

74, p < 0.05) and general symptoms (r = -0.77, p < 0.05). However promising, these findings should be treated as preliminary, and further research must verify whether they can be treated as potential biomarkers of psychosis.The COVID-19 pandemic has posed challenges to maintaining medical care for patients with Parkinson's disease (PD). The Parkinson's Disease during the COVID-19 Pandemic (ParCoPa) survey was conducted as an online, nationwide, cross-sectional survey from December 2020 to March 2021 and aimed to assess the impact of the pandemic on the medical care of PD patients from the physicians' perspective. Invitations containing a randomly generated registration code were mailed to healthcare professionals from sixty-seven specialty centers in Germany. Confounders for the worsening of subjective treatment quality, perceived health risk due to the profession, and adequate protective measures against SARS-CoV-2 were assessed using logistic regression analysis. Of all forty physicians who responded, 87.5% reported a worsening of motor and nonmotor symptoms in their patients, 97.5% experienced cancellation of appointments, and difficulties in organizing advanced and supplementary therapies were reported by over 95%. SNS-032 inhibitor Participants offered alternative consultation options, mostly in the form of telephone (77.5%) or online (64.1%) consultations, but telephone consultations were the most accepted by patients ("broadly accepted", 40.0%). We identified pandemic-related deficits in providing care for patients with PD and areas of improvement to ensure continued care for this vulnerable patient population.Perturbations in dopamine system function may increase risk of substance use disorder (SUD). We recently demonstrated that neuromelanin (NM) MRI signal in the substantia nigra, a non-invasive index of dopamine system function, is elevated in long term cocaine users (Cassidy et al., 2020). However, it is unclear whether elevated NM-MRI signal is linked to risk of SUD, or is a byproduct of long-term drug use. Our prior work failed to show relations between NM-MRI signal and functional engagement of ventral striatum during a monetary reward task. However, social experiences are commonly linked to drug use and relapse. Given that, NM-MRI signal may be more closely linked to ventral striatal engagement during social, rather than monetary reward processing. Emerging adults (n = 33, 21.88 ± 4.35 years) with varying levels of substance abuse, but without SUD, underwent NM-MRI and fMRI during social and monetary reward processing tasks. Voxelwise analysis within the substantia nigra (SN) demonstrated lower NM-MRI signal was associated with more severe substance abuse. Lower right ventral striatal engagement to social reward was also associated with more severe substance abuse. This relation was moderated by SN NM-MRI signal such that diminished striatal response to reward was associated with greater substance abuse among those with low NM-MRI signal, but lower substance abuse among those with high NM-MRI signal. Unexpectedly, higher right ventral striatal engagement during monetary reward was associated with more severe substance abuse. This relation was moderated by SN NM-MRI signal such that greater striatal response to reward was associated with greater substance abuse among those with low NM-MRI signal. Taken together, we provide preliminary evidence that, in emerging adults, low rather than high dopamine system function may increase risk of substance abuse, and strengthen the association between substance use and the brain's sensitivity to social and monetary outcomes in different ways.Deficits in the executive control of attention greatly impact the quality of life of patients diagnosed with major depressive disorder (MDD). However, attentional deficits are often underemphasized in clinical contexts compared with mood-based symptoms, and a comprehensive approach for specifically evaluating and treating them has yet to be developed. The present study evaluates the efficacy of bifrontal electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) combined with drug therapy (DT) in alleviating mood-related symptomatology and executive control deficits in drug-refractory MDD patients and compares these effects with those observed in MDD patients undergoing DT only. The Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression and the Lateralized Attentional Network Test-Revised were administered across two test sessions to assess treatment-related changes in mood-based symptoms and conflict processing, respectively, in patients undergoing ECT + DT (n = 23), patients undergoing DT (n = 33), and healthy controls (n = 40). Although both groups showed an improvement in mood-based symptoms following treatment and a deficit in conflict processing estimated on error rate, a post-treatment reduction of an executive control deficit estimated on RT was solely observed in the ECT + DT patient group. Furthermore, Bayesian correlational analyses confirmed the dissociation of mood-related symptoms and of executive control measures, supporting existing literature proposing that attentional deficits and mood symptoms are independent aspects of MDD. The cognitive profile of MDD includes executive control deficits, and while both treatments improved mood-based symptoms, only ECT + DT exerted an effect on both measures of the executive control deficit. Our findings highlight the importance of considering the improvement in both mood and cognitive deficits when determining the efficacy of therapeutic approaches for MDD.Striatal dopamine dysfunction is associated with the altered top-down modulation of pain processing. The dopamine D2-like receptor family is a potential substrate for such effects due to its primary expression in the striatum, but evidence for this is currently lacking. Here, we investigated the effect of pharmacologically manipulating striatal dopamine D2 receptor activity on the anticipation and perception of acute pain stimuli in humans. Participants received visual cues that induced either certain or uncertain anticipation of two pain intensity levels delivered via a CO2 laser. Rating of the pain intensity and unpleasantness was recorded. Brain activity was recorded with EEG and analysed via source localisation to investigate neural activity during the anticipation and receipt of pain. Participants completed the experiment under three conditions, control (Sodium Chloride), D2 receptor agonist (Cabergoline), and D2 receptor antagonist (Amisulpride), in a repeated-measures, triple-crossover, double-blind study. The antagonist reduced an individuals' ability to distinguish between low and high pain following uncertain anticipation. The EEG source localisation showed that the agonist and antagonist reduced neural activations in specific brain regions associated with the sensory integration of salient stimuli during the anticipation and receipt of pain. During anticipation, the agonist reduced activity in the right mid-temporal region and the right angular gyrus, whilst the antagonist reduced activity within the right postcentral, right mid-temporal, and right inferior parietal regions. In comparison to control, the antagonist reduced activity within the insula during the receipt of pain, a key structure involved in the integration of the sensory and affective aspects of pain. Pain sensitivity and unpleasantness were not changed by D2R modulation. Our results support the notion that D2 receptor neurotransmission has a role in the top-down modulation of pain.Cognitive conflict effects are well characterized within unimodality. However, little is known about cross-modal conflicts and their neural bases. This study characterizes the two types of visual and auditory cross-modal conflicts through working memory tasks and brain activities. The participants consisted of 31 healthy, right-handed, young male adults. The Paced Auditory Serial Addition Test (PASAT) and the Paced Visual Serial Addition Test (PVSAT) were performed under distractor and no distractor conditions. Distractor conditions comprised two conditions in which either the PASAT or PVSAT was the target task, and the other was used as a distractor stimulus. Additionally, oxygenated hemoglobin (Oxy-Hb) concentration changes in the frontoparietal regions were measured during tasks. The results showed significantly lower PASAT performance under distractor conditions than under no distractor conditions, but not in the PVSAT. Oxy-Hb changes in the bilateral ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC) and inferior parietal cortex (IPC) significantly increased in the PASAT with distractor compared with no distractor conditions, but not in the PVSAT. Furthermore, there were significant positive correlations between Δtask performance accuracy and ΔOxy-Hb in the bilateral IPC only in the PASAT. Visual cross-modal conflict significantly impairs auditory task performance, and bilateral VLPFC and IPC are key regions in inhibiting visual cross-modal distractors.Alpha is the predominant rhythm of the human electroencephalogram, but its function, multiple generators and functional coupling patterns are still relatively unknown. In this regard, alpha connectivity patterns can change between different cortical generators depending on the status of the brain. Therefore, in the light of the communication through coherence framework, an alpha functional network depends on the functional coupling patterns in a determined state. This notion has a relevance for brain-state dependent EEG-TMS because, beyond the local state, a network connectivity overview at rest could provide further and more comprehensive information for the definition of 'instantaneous state' at the stimulation moment, rather than just the local state around the stimulation site. For this reason, we studied functional coupling at rest in 203 healthy subjects with MEG data. Sensor signals were source localized and connectivity was studied at the Individual Alpha Frequency (IAF) between three different cortical areas (occipital, parietal and prefrontal). Two different and complementary phase-coherence metrices were used. Our results show a consistent connectivity between parietal and prefrontal regions whereas occipito-prefrontal connectivity is less marked and occipito-parietal connectivity is extremely low, despite physical closeness. We consider our results a relevant add-on for informed, individualized real-time brain state dependent stimulation, with possible contributions to novel, personalized non-invasive therapeutic approaches.This Special Issue brings together recent research on aggression on different scales, starting from animal models in low-aggression, healthy populations to patients with aggression problems [...].As is widely understood, brain functioning depends on the interaction among several neural populations, which are linked via complex connectivity circuits and work together (in antagonistic or synergistic ways) to exchange information, synchronize their activity, adapt plastically to external stimuli or internal requirements, and more generally to participate in solving multifaceted cognitive tasks [...].Metals-especially iron, copper and manganese-are important elements of brain functions and development. Metal-dysregulation homeostasis is associated with brain-structure damage to the motor, cognitive and emotional systems, and leads to neurodegenerative processes. There is more and more evidence that specialized cognitive and motor exercises can enhance brain function and attenuate neurodegeneration in mechanisms, such as improving neuroplasticity by altering the synaptic structure and function in many brain regions. Psychological and physical methods of rehabilitation are now becoming increasingly important, as pharmacological treatments for movement, cognitive and emotional symptoms are limited. The present study describes physical and cognitive rehabilitation methods of patients associated with metal-induced neurotoxicity such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Huntington's disease and Wilson's disease. In our review, we describe physical (e.g., virtual-reality environments, robotic-assists training) and psychological (cognitive training, cognitive stimulation, neuropsychological rehabilitation and cognitive-behavioral and mindfulness-based therapies) methods, significantly improving the quality of life and independence of patients associated with storage diseases.