Resective epilepsy surgery and its impact on depression in adults: a systematic review, meta-analysis, and implications for future research.

BACKGROUND: How epilepsy surgery influences the bidirectional relationship of epilepsy and depression remains poorly defined. METHOD: For a better understanding of this question, we conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of risk ratio on depression prevalence before and after epilepsy surgery, using Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines. Three databases were comprehensively screened for all studies assessing depression before and after resective surgery in adult epileptic patients until 8 October 2022. Studies were included if depression was assessed before and after epilepsy surgery regardless of the time of follow-up. A total of 1917 studies were screened for eligibility and 91 full-texts up for inclusion; 35 studies were finally included, 25 studies and 2563 patients were included in main meta-analysis and 10 for exploratory analysis. Risk of bias was assessed using Risk Of Bias In Non-randomised Studies - of Interventions (ROBINS-I) from Cochrane. To derive the pooled depression rates before and after surgery, a meta-analysis with inversed-variance was performed using random-effects logistic models with Peto's correction and a 95% CI. Heterogeneity was assessed with Cochran's Q-test along with its derived measure of inconsistency I2. RESULTS: Overall, the depression rates before and after resective epilepsy surgery were 0.70 (0.53 to 0.91) 95% CI, suggesting that the rate of depression at last follow-up evaluation tends to decrease after Resective Epilepsy Surgery (RES). Subgroup analysis suggest a positive long-term effect appears with a significant lower rates of depression already 6 months (0.61 (0.38 to 0.98)), after surgery which is maintained over time after 1 year (0.53 (0.31 to 0.90)), and after 2 years (0.62 (0.42 to 0.92)). CONCLUSION: This important finding should be taken in consideration before resective surgery for drug-resistant epilepsies. However, prospective studies should be conducted to characterise which patient, at the individual level, might be at risk of de novo or worsening of depression. PROSPERO REGISTRATION NUMBER: CRD42022355386.

Dental sleep medicine education among undergraduate dental students in France.

INTRODUCTION: Dental sleep medicine (DSM) is an emerging discipline that studies the oral and maxillofacial causes and consequences of sleep-related problems. DSM is of upmost importance given the major medical challenge it represents. Therefore, to verify whether the future generation of dentists would be ready to face this challenge, the main objective of this study was to assess the degree of involvement of the French dental schools in teaching DSM at the undergraduate level. MATERIALS AND METHODS: All 16 dental schools in France were asked to participate in the study by answering to an online survey concerning the DSM curriculum during the 2018-2019 academic year. The survey was addressed to the head of the dental school and/or to relevant course coordinators and contained 10 questions related to the type, content and amount of DSM teaching to undergraduate dental students. RESULTS: Nine of the 16 (56.2%) French dental schools responded to the questionnaire. All these nine reported the inclusion of DSM in their undergraduate curriculum. The total average hours dedicated to teaching DSM was 5.6 h (SD 4.2; range 1-15 h). Seven of the 9 dental schools spent most of their DSM curriculum teaching time in the fifth year. All of them reviewed obstructive sleep apnoea and sleep-related bruxism and covered some topics related to therapies for sleep-related breathing disorders, such as the use of oral appliance. CONCLUSION: The results of this survey showed that, although the average hourly volume is relatively high, the DSM teaching in French dental schools appeared to be non-standardised, heterogeneous and often lacunar. It is therefore essential to develop a common curriculum and implement it in all dental schools to provide undergraduate students a comprehensive and updated teaching in DSM.

Eco-anxiety: An adaptive behavior or a mental disorder? Results of a psychometric study.

OBJECTIVE: Eco-anxiety is a complex construct that has been created to grasp the psychological impact of the consequences of global warming. The concept needs a reliably valid questionnaire to better evaluate its impact on the risk of anxiety and depressive disorders. The Eco-Anxiety Questionnaire (EAQ-22) evaluates two dimensions: 'habitual ecological anxiety' and 'distress related to eco-anxiety'. However, a version in French, one of the world's widely spoken languages, was until now lacking. We aimed to translate and validate the French EAQ-22 and to evaluate the prevalence of the level of the two dimensions of eco-anxiety and the relationship with anxiety and depressive symptoms in a representative adult sample of the French general population. METHODS: This study was performed under the auspices of the Institut national du sommeil et de la vigilance (INSV). Participants (18-65 years) were recruited by an institute specialized in conducting online surveys of representative population samples (quota sampling). Two native French speakers and two native English speakers performed a forward-backward translation of the questionnaire. The Hospital Anxiety and Depression scale (HAD) was administered to assess anxiety (HAD-A) and depressive (HAD-D) symptoms and for external validity. Internal structural validity and external validity were analysed. RESULTS: Evaluation was performed on 1004 participants: mean age 43.47 years (SD=13.41, range: [19-66]); 54.1% (n=543) women. Using the HAD, 312 (31.1%) patients had current clinically significant anxiety symptoms (HAD-A>10) and 150 (14.9%) had current clinically significant depressive symptoms (HAD-D>10). Cronbach's alpha coefficient was 0.934, indicating very good internal consistency. Correlation between EAQ-22 and HAD scores was low (r[1004]=0.209, P<0.001), 'habitual ecological anxiety' was correlated less with HAD-A and HAD-D than 'distress related to eco-anxiety', indicating good external validity. CONCLUSION: This study validates the French EAQ-22 and paves the way for using the EAQ-22 as a global tool for assessing eco-anxiety. Further prospective studies are now required to better evaluate the impact of eco-anxiety on the occurrence of anxiety and depressive disorder.

The screening and management of sleep disturbances in people living with HIV: Delphi consensus.

Sleep disturbances in people living with HIV (PLHIV) are frequent but their management remains insufficient. In the absence of specific recommendations, a DELPHI consensus research project was conducted in France to establish best practice. A multidisciplinary Steering Committee (STC) undertook a literature review and used it with clinical expertise to create statements that were voted on. Two profiles of healthcare professionals with significant experience in monitoring PLHIV were selected for the voting: physicians and nurses/psychologists. Votes were collected electronically, independently, and anonymously. The STC created 27 statements covering six areas: Screening of sleep disturbances, Investigation, First-line management, Referral to a specialist, Antiretroviral treatment (ARV), and Prevention. Two rounds of votes included 42 physicians and 32 nurses/psychologists. Consensus was reached for 24 out of 27 statements (89%) including: to assess quantity and quality of sleep among PLHIV at least annually, ideally using a common methodology within the medical department; to consider the temporary addition of a hypnotic treatment in cases of acute insomnia not improved by the rules of sleep hygiene, with full awareness of potential drug-drug interactions and risk of dependence; to correct ferritinaemia if <100 ng/mL before referral to a specialist when restless legs syndrome is suspected; to consider changing the time of ARV administration or an ARV switch within the same class when sleep disturbances are caused by an ARV. This DELPHI Consensus provides best practice for screening and managing sleep disturbances in PLHIV and optimising their quality of life.

The nightmare severity index (NSI): A short new multidimensional tool for assessing nightmares.

This psychometric pilot study aims to evaluate a new multidimensional simple scale, named the nightmare severity index (NSI) - close to the existing insomnia (ISI) and hypersomnia (HSI) severity indexes. The NSI encompasses all main dimensions of nightmare disorder, evaluating four subdimensions: frequency, emotional impact, diurnal impact, and nocturnal impact of nightmares. The NSI was completed by a total of 102 patients. The majority of the population consisted of women (64%) and outpatient individuals (76%) diagnosed with mood disorders such as depression (31%) and bipolar disorder (41%). Comorbidity with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) was prevalent (44%), and psychotropic medications were commonly used (47%). Internal validity analyses indicated that the NSI was well suited for exploratory factor analysis. All items demonstrated satisfactory correlations with the factors, and the questionnaire exhibited good internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha >0.7). Higher NSI scores were observed among individuals experiencing nightmare symptoms considering the DSM-5/ICSD-3 criteria. In summary, the NSI proves to be a promising and valuable tool for clinical practice, demonstrating good acceptability, internal validity, and the ability to assess nightmare severity.

Psychosomatic states and their correlation with letting-go: two newly evaluated core factors for investigating the therapeutic effect of spa treatment.

Spa therapy (aka crenobalneotherapy) has been the object of criticism due to insufficient evidence of its effectiveness. While further effectiveness studies are needed, others are also required to better evaluate the curative factors involved during spa therapy that may contribute to the effectiveness. The current study used specific scales to investigate two possible curative factors: the psychosomatic state and the letting-go of patients with mental disorders after 3 weeks of spa therapy. The Saujon Psychosomatic Questionnaire (SPQ) and the Quantified Assessment of Fluidity of Consciousness Questionnaire (QACF) evaluate psychosomatic state and letting-go, respectively. The Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HAD) and the Insomnia Severity Index (ISI) evaluate depression and anxiety symptoms and insomnia symptoms, respectively. Sixty-five subjects (57 women (87.69%); 8 men), with a mean age of 56.9 (± 9.7) years, were included. SPQ and QAFC scores improved significantly before and after the 3 weeks of spa therapy. Improvement in HAD and ISI scores was significantly correlated with SPQ and QACF scores. These preliminary results suggest that the induced psychosomatic state and the letting-go induced by spa treatment with bubbling baths, jet showers, pool bathing and massage could help patients to become more available and more able to change their psychophysiological state.

Why could sleep medicine never do without polysomnography?

Given the clinical, methodological, conceptual and modelling challenges within the field of sleep medicine, polysomnography (PSG) has emerged as a central diagnostic tool over time. It has been highly beneficial to clinical practice over the years, thanks to the scientific data that it provides. More recently, sleep medicine has sought answers in precision medicine, broadening its quest for biomarkers that take into account environmental factors, big data, and nosological refinement. However, despite these innovative developments that are relatively independent of PSG, sleep medicine remains intimately associated with the latter. The aim of this paper was to show the central role of PSG for sleep medicine. Indeed, PSG is central to sleep medicine, not only due to the empirical data it provides but also because it represents an obligatory passage point (OPP) within the discipline. It crystallizes debate, pulls disparate types of data together, and facilitates a common language for the different specialties involved in sleep medicine, thereby lending legitimacy and credibility to the specialty. Thus, the role of polysomnography as an OPP in the field of sleep medicine reinforces the discipline, especially because critics (e.g., of the Apnea Hypopnea Index) cannot easily find fault with it.

Smartphone-based virtual agents and insomnia management: A proof-of-concept study for new methods of autonomous screening and management of insomnia symptoms in the general population.

Insomnia is the most frequent sleep disorder, and the COVID-19 crisis has massively increased its prevalence in the population, due to psychosocial stress or direct viral contamination. KANOPEE_2 is a smartphone-based application that provides interactions with a virtual agent to autonomously screen and alleviate insomnia symptoms through an intervention programme giving personalized advices regarding sleep hygiene, relaxation techniques and stimulus-control. In this proof-of-concept study, we tested the effects of KANOPEE_2 among users from all over the country (France) who downloaded the app between 1 June and 26 October 2020 (to focus on effects after the end of COVID-19 confinement). Outcome measures include insomnia severity (Insomnia Severity Index) and sleep/wake schedules measured by a sleep diary. One-thousand and thirty-four users answered the screening interview (Mage  = 43.76 years; SD = 13.14), and 108 completed the two-step programme (Mage  = 46.64 years; SD = 13.63). Of those who answered the screening, 42.8% did not report sleep complaints, while 57.2% presented mild-to-severe insomnia symptoms. At the end of the intervention, users reported significantly fewer sleep complaints compared with the beginning of the intervention (Insomnia Severity Indexbeginning  = 13.58; Insomnia Severity Indexend  = 11.30; p < 0.001), and significantly increased their sleep efficiency (sleep efficiencybeginning  = 76.46%; sleep efficiencyend  = 80.17%; p = 0.013). KANOPEE_2 is a promising solution both to provide autonomous evaluation of individuals' sleep hygiene and reduce insomnia symptoms over a brief and simple intervention. These results are very encouraging for addressing the issue of insomnia management in people exposed to major psychosocial stress and the consequences of COVID-19 infection.

Symptom network analysis of the sleep disorders diagnostic criteria based on the clinical text of the ICSD-3.

The third edition of the International Classification of Sleep Disorders (ICSD-3) is the authoritative clinical text for the diagnosis of sleep disorders. An important issue of sleep nosology is to better understand the relationship between symptoms found in conventional diagnostic manuals and to compare classifications. Nevertheless, to our knowledge, there is no specific exhaustive work on the general structure of the networks of symptoms of sleep disorders as described in diagnostic manuals. The general aim of the present study was to use symptom network analysis to explore the diagnostic criteria in the ICSD-3 manual. The ICSD-3 diagnostic criteria related to clinical manifestations were systematically identified, and the units of analysis (symptoms) were labelled from these clinical manifestation diagnostic criteria using three rules ("Conservation", "Splitting", "Lumping"). A total of 37 of the 43 main sleep disorders with 160 units of analysis from 114 clinical manifestations in the ICSD-3 were analysed. A symptom network representing all individual ICSD-3 criteria and connections between them was constructed graphically (network estimation), quantified with classical metrics (network inference with global and local measures) and tested for robustness. The global measure of the sleep symptoms network shows that it can be considered as a small world, suggesting a strong interconnection between symptoms in the ICSD-3. Local measures show the central role of three kinds of bridge sleep symptoms: daytime sleepiness, insomnia, and behaviour during sleep symptoms. Such a symptom network analysis of the ICSD-3 structure could provide a framework for better systematising and organising symptomatology in sleep medicine.

Screening for epilepsy-specific anxiety symptoms: French validation of the EASI.

OBJECTIVES: (1) To translate and validate the Epilepsy Anxiety Survey Instrument (EASI) in French people with epilepsy (PWE); (2) to further investigate the screening properties of each dimension of the EASI in terms of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) anxiety disorders and of epilepsy-specific anxiety disorders, namely, anticipatory anxiety of seizures (AAS) and epileptic social phobia. METHODS: Following back-translation, the French EASI was tested in PWE > 18 years using the Mini-International Neuropsychiatric Interview (MINI) as gold standard for DSM anxiety disorders. We added 3 original questions to explore epilepsy-specific anxiety symptoms. The Generalized Anxiety Disorders-7 (GAD-7), Neurological Disorders Depression Inventory for Epilepsy (NDDI-E), and Adverse Events Profile were performed for external validity. Receiver operator characteristics (ROC) were analyzed. RESULTS: One hundred and forty nine native French speakers with epilepsy were included. Concerning DSM disorders, around 25% had GAD, 18% Agoraphobia, and <10% Social Phobia or Panic Disorder. Concerning possible epilepsy-specific anxiety disorder, 35% had AAS and 38% had epileptic social phobia. Bi-dimensional structure of the EASI was confirmed. Internal and external validity was satisfactory. ROC analysis showed AUC of 0.83 for detection of GAD and AUC 0.79 for other DSM anxiety disorders. ROC analysis of the 8-item French brEASI showed good performance for detection of GAD (AUC 0.83) and other DSM anxiety disorders (AUC 0.76) but not for epilepsy-specific anxiety symptoms (AUC 0.63). Conversely, dimension 2 of the French EASI (=10 items) allowed good detection of epilepsy-specific anxiety symptoms (AUC 0.78); cutoff > 4, sensitivity 82.4, specificity 66.7. CONCLUSION: Epilepsy-specific anxiety symptoms were prevalent, in around 60%. The French version of the EASI showed robust performance. The French 8-item brEASI allows screening for all DSM anxiety disorders with superior performance than the GAD-7, but is less suited to screening for epilepsy-specific anxiety. We propose the "Epilepsy-Specific Anxiety" (ESA) 10-item screening instrument, based on dimension 2 of the EASI, as a complementary clinical and research tool.

Popular and Scientific Discourse on Autism: Representational Cross-Cultural Analysis of Epistemic Communities to Inform Policy and Practice.

BACKGROUND: Social media provide a window onto the circulation of ideas in everyday folk psychiatry, revealing the themes and issues discussed both by the public and by various scientific communities. OBJECTIVE: This study explores the trends in health information about autism spectrum disorder within popular and scientific communities through the systematic semantic exploration of big data gathered from Twitter and PubMed. METHODS: First, we performed a natural language processing by text-mining analysis and with unsupervised (machine learning) topic modeling on a sample of the last 10,000 tweets in English posted with the term #autism (January 2021). We built a network of words to visualize the main dimensions representing these data. Second, we performed precisely the same analysis with all the articles using the term "autism" in PubMed without time restriction. Lastly, we compared the results of the 2 databases. RESULTS: We retrieved 121,556 terms related to autism in 10,000 tweets and 5.7x109 terms in 57,121 biomedical scientific articles. The 4 main dimensions extracted from Twitter were as follows: integration and social support, understanding and mental health, child welfare, and daily challenges and difficulties. The 4 main dimensions extracted from PubMed were as follows: diagnostic and skills, research challenges, clinical and therapeutical challenges, and neuropsychology and behavior. CONCLUSIONS: This study provides the first systematic and rigorous comparison between 2 corpora of interests, in terms of lay representations and scientific research, regarding the significant increase in information available on autism spectrum disorder and of the difficulty to connect fragments of knowledge from the general population. The results suggest a clear distinction between the focus of topics used in the social media and that of scientific communities. This distinction highlights the importance of knowledge mobilization and exchange to better align research priorities with personal concerns and to address dimensions of well-being, adaptation, and resilience. Health care professionals and researchers can use these dimensions as a framework in their consultations to engage in discussions on issues that matter to beneficiaries and develop clinical approaches and research policies in line with these interests. Finally, our study can inform policy makers on the health and social needs and concerns of individuals with autism and their caregivers, especially to define health indicators based on important issues for beneficiaries.

Acceptance of virtual agents in a homecare context: Evaluation of excessive daytime sleepiness in apneic patients during interventions by continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) providers.

Sleep apnea syndrome treatment relies primarily on continuous positive airway pressure, which requires a homecare follow-up. Excessive daytime sleepiness is a key symptom to be measured during follow-up, and there is a need for more easy-to-administer, ecological and engaging tools to assess it. Virtual agents have shown their effectiveness in performing clinical evaluation in a medical environment. A virtual agent assessing excessive daytime sleepiness via the Epworth Sleepiness Scale has been tested at home by 102 patients treated by continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) and their homecare providers. Acceptance and trustworthiness of the agent, as well as the influence of demographics and clinical characteristics of patients, were investigated. Results showed that both patients and homecare providers reported a positive attitude towards the virtual agent, which was found to be usable, satisfactory, credible and benevolent. Homecare providers reported that it was not a burden to their working routine. Positive regression coefficients were found between patients' and homecare providers' attitudes towards the virtual agent. We found no influence of patients' demographics and clinical characteristics on their acceptance of the virtual agent. This shows that virtual agents are well accepted by patients and homecare providers, independently of their demographics and clinical characteristics. Positive regression coefficients observed between patients' and homecare providers' perceptions of the agent indicate that the opinions of both influence acceptance of the virtual agent in a homecare context. Virtual agents are new innovative digital solutions to be considered in homecare follow-up of apneic patients treated by CPAP.

Consensus on the reporting and experimental design of clinical and cognitive-behavioural neurofeedback studies (CRED-nf checklist).

Neurofeedback has begun to attract the attention and scrutiny of the scientific and medical mainstream. Here, neurofeedback researchers present a consensus-derived checklist that aims to improve the reporting and experimental design standards in the field.

Insomnia does not affect heart rate changes when young adults watch humorous films: An exploratory study.

Emotional reactivity in insomnia is affected both subjectively and on a physiological level for negative emotional material, but little is known about reactions to positive stimuli. We here investigated whether in younger adult insomnia patients, presentation of short humorous films would lead to heart rate decreases during and after film viewing, as compared to heart rate changes when falling asleep. Investigating 20 participants with DSM-5-diagnosed insomnia and 18 participants without insomnia, we found that heart rate decreased when falling asleep, increased when watching humorous films and returned to normal values afterwards for all participants. Film-related heart rate increases were strongly related to humour ratings of the films. No differences were found between those with and without insomnia on subjective ratings of the films, film-related heart rate changes or when falling asleep. We conclude that the experience of positive daily life stimuli in younger adults is not affected by insomnia in our study, despite insomnia having a known more profound effect on negative stimuli. Future studies exploring insomnia-related autonomous nervous system responses combining different neurophysiological modalities should confirm our findings.

Altered sleep quality is associated with Crohn's disease activity: an actimetry study.

BACKGROUND: Sleep is involved in the regulation of inflammation, healing, and digestion. The pathophysiology of Crohn's disease (CD) is unclear, and the role of sleep disturbances has recently been suggested. OBJECTIVE: The present study investigated a putative association between sleep disturbances and CD activity. METHODS: We conducted a prospective observational monocenter translational study, recruiting major CD patients from 2013 to 2015. Disease activity was assessed by the Harvey-Bradshaw index and the CD activity index. Objective sleep quantity and quality were measured by wrist actigraphy over a period of 7 days. The primary objective was to look for an association between wrist actigraphy parameters and CD activity. RESULTS: Thirty-four CD patients, including 14 with active disease and 20 in remission, were included. Sleep efficiency measured by wrist actigraphy was lower in patients with active CD compared to patients in remission. Wake after sleep onset time best predicted CD activity with an AUROC of 0.83. Patients with active CD were more frequently characterized as "poor sleepers" and frequently suffered from excessive daytime sleepiness. CONCLUSION: Sleep efficiency is lower in patients with active CD than in those in remission. Further studies aimed at better characterizing CD patients' sleep are warranted.

Smartphone-Based Virtual Agents to Help Individuals With Sleep Concerns During COVID-19 Confinement: Feasibility Study.

BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 crisis and consequent confinement restrictions have caused significant psychosocial stress and reports of sleep complaints, which require early management, have increased during recent months. To help individuals concerned about their sleep, we developed a smartphone-based app called KANOPEE that allows users to interact with a virtual agent dedicated to autonomous screening and delivering digital behavioral interventions. OBJECTIVE: Our objective was to assess the feasibility of this app, in terms of inclusion rate, follow-up rate, perceived trust and acceptance of the virtual agent, and effects of the intervention program, in the context of COVID-19 confinement in France. METHODS: The virtual agent is an artificial intelligence program using decision tree architecture and interacting through natural body motion and natural voice. A total of 2069 users aged 18 years and above downloaded the free app during the study period (April 22 to May 5, 2020). These users first completed a screening interview based on the Insomnia Severity Index (ISI) conducted by the virtual agent. If the users were positive for insomnia complaints (ISI score >14), they were eligible to join the 2-stage intervention program: (1) complete an electronic sleep diary for 1 week and (2) follow personalized sleep recommendations for 10 days. We collected and analyzed the following measures: sociodemographic information, ISI scores and sleep/wake schedules, and acceptance and trust of the agent. RESULTS: Approximately 76% (1574/2069) of the app users completed the screening interview with the virtual agent. The virtual agent was well accepted by 27.4% (431/1574) of the users who answered the acceptance and trust questionnaires on its usability, satisfaction, benevolence, and credibility. Of the 773 screened users who reported sleep complaints (ISI score >14), 166 (21.5%) followed Step 1 of the intervention, and only 47 of those (28.3%) followed Step 2. Users who completed Step 1 found that their insomnia complaints (baseline mean ISI score 18.56, mean ISI score after Step 1 15.99; P<.001) and nocturnal sleep quality improved significantly after 1 week. Users who completed Step 2 also showed an improvement compared to the initial measures (baseline mean ISI score 18.87, mean ISI score after Step 2 14.68; P<.001). Users that were most severely affected (ISI score >21) did not respond to either intervention. CONCLUSIONS: These preliminary results suggest that the KANOPEE app is a promising solution to screen populations for sleep complaints and that it provides acceptable and practical behavioral advice for individuals reporting moderately severe insomnia.

Event-Related Electrodermal Response to Stress: Results From a Realistic Driving Simulator Scenario.

OBJECTIVE: The study goal was to test whether induced stress during driving could be measured at the event level through electrodermal activity responses. BACKGROUND: Stress measured in simulation scenarios could thus far show an overall change in the stress state, but not be well attributed to acute stressful events. Driving simulator scenarios that induce stress measurable at the event level in realistic situations are thus warranted. As such, acute stress reactions can be measured in the context of changing situational factors such as fatigue, substance abuse, or medical conditions. METHOD: Twelve healthy female participants drove the same route numerous times in a driving simulator, each time with different random traffic events occurring throughout. During one of the scenarios, unknown to the participants, 10 programmed neutral traffic events occurred, whereas in another scenario, at the same location, 10 stressful events occurred. RESULTS: Electrodermal response results showed both effects of scenario type and of events. The amplitude of the electrodermal response was significantly correlated with subjective stress experience. CONCLUSION: We conclude that our developed ecological driving simulation scenarios can be used to induce and measure stress at the event level. APPLICATION: The developed simulator scenarios enable us to measure stress reactions in driving situations at the time when the event actually happens. With these scenarios, we can measure how situational factors, such as fatigue or substance abuse, can change immediate stress reactions when driving. We can further measure more specifically how induced driving stress can affect physical and mental functioning afterward.

"Social physiology" for psychiatric semiology: How TTOM can initiate an interactive turn for computational psychiatry?

Thinking through other minds (TTOM) encompasses new dimensions in computational psychiatry: social interaction and mutual sense-making. It questions the nature of psychiatric manifestations (semiology) in light of recent data on social interaction in neuroscience. We propose the concept of "social physiology" in response to the call by the conceivers of TTOM for the renewal of computational psychiatry.

How sleep problems contribute to simulator sickness: Preliminary results from a realistic driving scenario.

Virtual reality and simulation tools enable us to assess daytime functioning in environments that simulate real life as close as possible. Simulator sickness, however, poses a problem in the application of these tools, and has been related to pre-existing health problems. How sleep problems contribute to simulator sickness has not yet been investigated. In the current study, 20 female chronic insomnia patients and 32 female age-matched controls drove in a driving simulator covering realistic city, country and highway scenes. Fifty percent of the insomnia patients as opposed to 12.5% of controls reported excessive simulator sickness leading to experiment withdrawal. In the remaining participants, patients with insomnia showed overall increased levels of oculomotor symptoms even before driving, while nausea symptoms further increased after driving. These results, as well as the realistic simulation paradigm developed, give more insight on how vestibular and oculomotor functions as well as interoceptive functions are affected in insomnia. Importantly, our results have direct implications for both the actual driving experience and the wider context of deploying simulation techniques to mimic real life functioning, in particular in those professions often exposed to sleep problems.

The Relationship Between Epilepsy and Anxiety Disorders.

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: The current review aims at providing an overview of relevant aspects of anxiety symptoms and anxiety disorders (AD) in adults patients with epilepsy (PWE). RECENT FINDINGS: Firstly, the appropriate diagnosis of type of anxiety symptoms and AD in PWE will be presented. Anxiety symptoms are often peri-ictal and classified in relation to their temporal occurrence to seizures. Anxiety symptoms are of three types: preictal (preceding a seizure), ictal (presenting as part of the seizure symptoms and signs), and postictal (occurring within 72 h of a seizure). AD are diagnosed in the interictal period and occur independently of seizures. Four specific AD in PWE can be objectified: anticipatory anxiety of epileptic seizures (AAS), seizure phobia, epileptic social phobia, and epileptic panic disorder. Secondly, the bidirectional pathophysiological relationship between anxiety and epilepsy will be described. Anxiety is a trigger for seizures in some patients, and the notion of stress and arousal is essential to understand the relationship between anxiety and seizure. Moreover, seizures arising from the limbic network especially involving amygdala, which may express fear-related semiology, provide insight into the pathophysiology of AD comorbidities. Thirdly, the methods of screening for AD and anxiety symptoms will be detailed. Fourthly, the pharmacological and psychobehavioral management of anxiety symptoms and AD in PWE will be presented. Arousal-based approaches for preictal and ictal symptoms and anxiety-based approaches for postictal and interictal symptoms will be presented. Despite lack of evidence-based approaches, it is recognized that management of epilepsy is not only about controlling seizures, but also depends heavily on detecting, correctly diagnosing, and appropriately managing anxiety symptoms and AD comorbidities, in order to maximize quality of life. Improving self-control and self-efficacy is of fundamental importance in the management of PWE. Further rigorously designed studies focusing on anxiety symptoms and AD are essential to improve the overall care of PWE.