The structure underlying core affect and perceived affective qualities of human vocal bursts.

Vocal bursts are non-linguistic affectively-laden sounds with a crucial function in human communication, yet their affective structure is still debated. Studies showed that ratings of valence and arousal follow a V-shaped relationship in several kinds of stimuli: high arousal ratings are more likely to go on a par with very negative or very positive valence. Across two studies, we asked participants to listen to 1,008 vocal bursts and judge both how they felt when listening to the sound (i.e. core affect condition), and how the speaker felt when producing it (i.e. perception of affective quality condition). We show that a V-shaped fit outperforms a linear model in explaining the valence-arousal relationship across conditions and studies, even after equating the number of exemplars across emotion categories. Also, although subjective experience can be significantly predicted using affective quality ratings, core affect scores are significantly lower in arousal, less extreme in valence, more variable between individuals, and less reproducible between studies. Nonetheless, stimuli rated with opposite valence between conditions range from 11% (study 1) to 17% (study 2). Lastly, we demonstrate that ambiguity in valence (i.e. high between-participants variability) explains violations of the V-shape and relates to higher arousal.

The role of ventromedial prefrontal cortex and temporo-parietal junction in third-party punishment behavior.

Third parties punish, sacrificing personal interests, offenders who violate either fairness or cooperation norms. This behavior is defined altruistic punishment and the degree of punishment typically increases with the severity of the norm violation. An opposite and apparently paradoxical behavior, namely anti-social punishment, is the tendency to spend own money to punish cooperative or fair behaviors. Previous fMRI studies correlated punishment behavior with increased activation of brain areas belonging to the reward system (e.g. the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, VMPFC), the mentalizing (e.g. the temporoparietal junction, TPJ) and central-executive networks. In the present study, we aimed at investigating the causal role of VMPFC and TPJ in punishment behaviors through the application of anodal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS). Sixty healthy participants were randomly assigned to three tDCS conditions: (1) anodal tDCS over VMPFC, (2) anodal tDCS over right TPJ (rTPJ), (3) sham stimulation. At the end of the stimulation, participants played a third-party punishment game, consisting in viewing a series of fair or unfair monetary allocations between unknown proposers and recipients. Participants were asked whether and how much they would punish the proposers using their own monetary endowment. To test membership effects, proposers and recipients could be either Italian or Chinese. Anodal tDCS over VMPFC increased altruistic punishment behavior whereas anodal tDCS over rTPJ increased anti-social punishment choices compared with sham condition, while membership did not influence participant's choices. Our results support the idea that the two types of punishment behaviors rely upon different brain regions, suggesting that reward and mentalizing systems underlie, respectively, altruistic and anti-social punishment behaviors.

Involvement in cyberbullying events and empathy are related to emotional responses to simulated social pain tasks.

Introduction: This study aims to explore the relationship between cyberbullying involvement either as a perpetrator or a victim and emotional responses to virtual social exclusion and inclusion. Previous research has predominantly focused on the impacts of in-person bullying. Our study shifts this focus to the cyber realm. Methods: A total of 156 adolescents living in northern Italy were recruited (Mage: 12.26; SD = 0.87; 43% female). After completing measures of empathy and involvement in cyberbullying, adolescents participated in the cyberball tasks. Latent profile analysis was used to identify subgroups. Results: We found three groups: Class 3, reporting negative responses to the social exclusion tasks and positive responses to the social inclusion tasks; Class 1, reporting neutral emotional responses to social inclusion and negative emotional responses to social exclusion; and Class 2, showing neutral responses to 'social exclusion' tasks and strongly positive responses to 'social inclusion' tasks. Linear regression revealed that cyberbullies report a typical emotional response to exclusion and inclusion tasks (Class 3), whereas cybervictims are more likely to report negative responses to both exclusion and inclusion events (Class 1). High levels of empathy are associated with the manifestation of a typical emotional response (Class 3), in contrast to an impaired emotional response characterized by neutral or positive responses to conditions of 'social exclusion' and positive responses to conditions of 'social inclusion' (Class 2). Conclusion: Results underscore the complex interplay between cyberbullying roles and emotional responses to virtual social experiences. Theoretical implications and limitations of the research are discussed.

Correction: Fabris et al. Exploring Multivariate Profiles of Psychological Distress and Empathy in Early Adolescent Victims, Bullies, and Bystanders Involved in Cyberbullying Episodes. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022, 19, 9871.

In the published publication [...].

Sensory processing sensitivity and social pain: a hypothesis and theory.

Sensory-processing sensitivity (SPS) defined, as a personality trait, seems to be characterized by emotional sensitivity, and stronger reactivity to both external and internal stimuli. SPS can represent a risk factor for developing clinical conditions during childhood and adolescence. This personality trait is not to be considered a pathological clinical condition, however, can expose to greater environmental vulnerability. In particular, the recent studies about SPS can be contextualized to social situations that evoke traumatic and stressful emotional responses such as social exclusion. We hypothesize that highly sensitive people (HSP) are more vulnerable to social exclusion and social pain. This hypothesis could help structure new educational and intervention models designed to improve coping strategies and promote HSP's psychophysical and social well-being.

Persistent 18F-FDG Brain PET Fronto-Temporal Hypometabolism and Cognitive Symptoms Two Years after SARS-CoV-2 Infection: A Case Report.

At least 10% of patients experience persistent symptoms after SARS-CoV-2 infection, a condition referred to as post-acute COVID-19, post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection (PASC), long COVID, long-haul COVID, long-term effects of COVID, post-COVID-19 and chronic COVID. In this report, we describe a case of persistent cognitive deficits developed after SARS-CoV-2 infection in a 40-year-old woman with a family history of early-onset Alzheimer's disease (EOAD) since her father was diagnosed with EOAD at the age of 50. We describe the clinical picture and workup, with special emphasis on the alterations of brain glucose metabolism evidenced by 18-fluoro-deoxy-glucose positron emission tomography (FDG-PET), which could be considered a useful marker of the presence and persistence of cognitive deficits.

Alteration of the Functional Connectivity of the Cortical Areas Characterized by the Presence of Von Economo Neurons in Schizophrenia, a Pilot Study.

Von Economo neurons (VENs) are rod, stick, or corkscrew cells mostly located in layer V of the frontoinsular and anterior cingulate cortices. VENs are projection neurons related to human-like social cognitive abilities. Post-mortem histological studies found VEN alterations in several neuropsychiatric disorders, including schizophrenia (SZ). This pilot study aimed to evaluate the role of VEN-containing areas in shaping patterns of resting-state brain activation in patients with SZ (n = 20) compared to healthy controls (HCs; n = 20). We performed a functional connectivity analysis seeded in the cortical areas with the highest density of VENs followed by fuzzy clustering. The alterations found in the SZ group were correlated with psychopathological, cognitive, and functioning variables. We found a frontotemporal network that was shared by four clusters overlapping with the salience, superior-frontal, orbitofrontal, and central executive networks. Differences between the HC and SZ groups emerged only in the salience network. The functional connectivity of the right anterior insula and ventral tegmental area within this network were negatively correlated with experiential negative symptoms and positively correlated with functioning. This study provides some evidence to show that in vivo, VEN-enriched cortical areas are associated with an altered resting-state brain activity in people with SZ.

The Impact of Physical Distancing in the Pandemic Situation: Considering the Role of Loneliness and Social Brain.

The new normal has made social distancing a new way of experiencing sociality. Social neuroscience has for a long time been concerned with studying the beneficial effects of social relationships, of physical contact. It is known that physical contact activates neurophysiological processes that reduce the perception of discomfort and even physical pain. So in the absence of physical contact, our social brain may be modulated differently when we are with others. But what could be the long-term effects of this normality? This mini-review focuses on highlighting with the support of social neuroscience evidence such as isolation, distancing can affect people's health.

Exploring Multivariate Profiles of Psychological Distress and Empathy in Early Adolescent Victims, Bullies, and Bystanders Involved in Cyberbullying Episodes.

(1) Background: Adolescents may be involved in cyberbullying as victims, perpetrators, or to a lesser extent, victim-perpetrators simultaneously. The present research investigated differences between participants acting in different bullying roles-namely, bully, victim, or bully/victim-and bystander roles-namely, defending, passive bystander, and passive/defending; (2) Methods: We used multivariate analysis of covariance to determine how, in the same individuals, direct involvement in cyberbullying episodes compares to participating in them as by-standers in relation to both psychological distress and empathy; (3) Results: Both victims and bully/victims were found to be at increased risk for suicidal ideation, internalizing and externalizing symptoms, and emotional dysregulation compared with students who were neither victims nor perpetrators of cyberbullying episodes. Additionally, victims showed higher empathy scores when compared with bullies and bully/victims. All bystander roles showed increased emotional dysregulation compared with uninvolved students, but no differences emerged on other psychological distress measures. Finally, defending bystanders showed increased cognitive empathy. (4) Conclusions: During early adolescence, the direct experience of cyberbullying, as a bully or a victim (or both), show a stronger association with psychological distress than the mere participation in cyberbullying as a witness, regardless of the witness acting defensive toward the victim, or passive. However, both cyberbullying and bystanding roles provide a similar (small) explicative power over empathy variables.

Screen time and adolescents' mental health before and after the COVID-19 lockdown in Switzerland: A natural experiment.

Background: During the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020, adolescents' mental health was largely undermined. A general increment in screen time was reported. However, the long-term effects of the latter on adolescents' mental health are still little explored. Methods: In the present natural experiment, we investigated these effects using longitudinal data collected before and after the first lockdown in Switzerland. Data come from 674 Swiss adolescents (56.7% females, Mage = 14.45, SDage = 0.50) during Spring 2019 (T1) and Autumn 2020 (T2) as part of the longitudinal MEDIATICINO study. Self-reported mental health measures included somatic symptoms, inattention, anxiety, irritability, anger, sleep problems, obsessive-compulsive symptoms, loneliness, and depression. Measures for screen-media activities included time spent on the Internet, smartphones, social media, video gaming, instant messaging, and television viewing. They were all assessed at T1 and T2. Results: Paired-sample t-tests with Bonferroni's correction showed that most mental health problems increased over time with an overall medium effect size (Hedge's g = 0.337). In particular, medium effect sizes were found for anxiety, depression, and inattention; small-to-medium effect sizes were reported for loneliness, sleep problems, and obsessive-compulsive symptoms; and a small effect size was found for somatic symptoms. Screen-media activities increased, with the exception of television viewing and video gaming. The results of the hierarchical regression analyses showed that, controlling for covariates, increased time spent on social media - calculated as the difference between T2 and T1 - was the only screen-media activity significantly associated with worse mental health at T2 (ß = 0.112, p = 0.016). More time spent in structured media activities like television viewing diminished levels of inattention (ß = -0.091, p = 0.021) and anxiety (ß = -0.093, p = 0.014). Among covariates, being female, experiencing two or more life events, having mental health problems at T1, and using screens for homeschooling negatively influenced mental health at T2. Conclusion: These results align with literature indicating a small but negative effect of social media time on mental health. Underlying mechanisms are manifold, including increased exposure to COVID-19 news, heightened fear of missing out, social comparison, and time-displaced for activities such as physical activity and green time. However, in line with the structured days hypothesis, getting involved in media-structured activities like television viewing might protect against mental health symptoms.

Detecting Suicide Ideation in the Era of Social Media: The Population Neuroscience Perspective.

Social media platforms are increasingly used across many population groups not only to communicate and consume information, but also to express symptoms of psychological distress and suicidal thoughts. The detection of suicidal ideation (SI) can contribute to suicide prevention. Twitter data suggesting SI have been associated with negative emotions (e.g., shame, sadness) and a number of geographical and ecological variables (e.g., geographic location, environmental stress). Other important research contributions on SI come from studies in neuroscience. To date, very few research studies have been conducted that combine different disciplines (epidemiology, health geography, neurosciences, psychology, and social media big data science), to build innovative research directions on this topic. This article aims to offer a new interdisciplinary perspective, that is, a Population Neuroscience perspective on SI in order to highlight new ways in which multiple scientific fields interact to successfully investigate emotions and stress in social media to detect SI in the population. We argue that a Population Neuroscience perspective may help to better understand the mechanisms underpinning SI and to promote more effective strategies to prevent suicide timely and at scale.

Social Cognition in Adult ADHD: A Systematic Review.

The aim of this systematic review was to collect and align the research on social cognition impairments in adults with Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). In particular, we selected and analyzed papers on emotion recognition and processing, Theory of Mind (TOM), empathy, and other facets of social cognition as decision making. We identified 16 papers published between 2012 and 2022 which meet inclusion criteria. Papers search, selection, and extraction followed the PRISMA guidelines. In order to summarize data from papers, we used a narrative synthesis approach. Results show different evidence of impairment in social cognition domains in adults with ADHD. Our systematic review suggests the importance of promoting more research on this topic because it is essential to keep in mind that social cognition plays a central role in socialization and social relationships.

Ethical issues of collecting, storing, and analyzing geo-referenced tweets for mental health research.

Spatial approaches to epidemiological research with big social media data provide tremendous opportunities to study the relationship between the socio-ecological context where these data are generated and health indicators of interest. Such research poses a number of ethical challenges, particularly in relation to issues such as privacy, informed consent, data security, and storage. While these issues have received considerable attention by researchers in relation to research for physical health purposes in the past 10 years, there have been few efforts to consider the ethical challenges of conducting mental health research, particularly with geo-referenced social media data. The aim of this article is to identify strengths and limitations of current recommendations to address the specific ethical issues of geo-referenced tweets for mental health research. We contribute to the ongoing debate on the ethical implications of big data research and also provide recommendations to researchers and stakeholders alike on how to tackle them, with a specific focus on the use of geo-referenced data for mental health research purposes. With increasing awareness of data privacy and confidentiality issues (even for non-spatial social media data) it becomes crucial to establish professional standards of conduct so that compliance with ethical standards of conducting research with health-related social media data can be prioritized and easily assessed.

The Developing Brain in the Digital Era: A Scoping Review of Structural and Functional Correlates of Screen Time in Adolescence.

The widespread diffusion of screen-based devices in adolescence has fueled a debate about the beneficial and detrimental effects on adolescents' well-being and development. With the aim of summarizing the existing literature on the associations between screen time (including Internet-related addictions) and adolescent brain development, the present scoping review summarized evidence from 16 task-unrelated and task-related neuroimaging studies, published between 2010 and 2020. Results highlight three important key messages: (i) a frequent and longer duration of screen-based media consumption (including Internet-related addictive behaviors) is related to a less efficient cognitive control system in adolescence, including areas of the Default Mode Network and the Central Executive Network; (ii) online activities act as strong rewards to the brain and repeated screen time augments the tendency to seek short-term gratifications; and (iii) neuroscientific research on the correlates between screen time and adolescent brain development is still at the beginning and in urgent need for further evidence, especially on the underlying causality mechanisms. Methodological, theoretical, and conceptual implications are discussed.

Understanding communicative intentions in schizophrenia using an error analysis approach.

Patients with schizophrenia (SCZ) have a core impairment in the communicative-pragmatic domain, characterized by severe difficulties in correctly inferring the speaker's communicative intentions. While several studies have investigated pragmatic performance of patients with SCZ, little research has analyzed the errors committed in the comprehension of different communicative acts. The present research investigated error patterns in 24 patients with SCZ and 24 healthy controls (HC) during a task assessing the comprehension of different communicative acts, i.e., sincere, deceitful and ironic, and their relationship with the clinical features of SCZ. We used signal detection analysis to quantify participants' ability to correctly detect the speakers' communicative intention, i.e., sensitivity, and their tendency to wrongly perceive a communicative intention when not present, i.e., response bias. Further, we investigated the relationship between sensitivity and response bias, and the clinical features of the disorder, namely symptom severity, pharmacotherapy, and personal and social functioning. The results showed that the ability to infer the speaker's communicative intention is impaired in SCZ, as patients exhibited lower sensitivity, compared to HC, for all the pragmatic phenomena evaluated, i.e., sincere, deceitful, and ironic communicative acts. Further, we found that the sensitivity measure for irony was related to disorganized/concrete symptoms. Moreover, patients with SCZ showed a stronger response bias for deceitful communicative acts compared to HC: when committing errors, they tended to misattribute deceitful intentions more often than sincere and ironic ones. This tendency to misattribute deceitful communicative intentions may be related to the attributional bias characterizing the disorder.

Dancing in Your Head: An Interdisciplinary Review.

The aim of this review is to highlight the most relevant contributions on dance in neuroscientific research. Neuroscience has analyzed the mirror system through neuroimaging techniques, testing its role in imitative learning, in the recognition of other people's emotions and especially in the understanding of the motor behavior of others. This review analyses the literature related to five general areas: (I) breakthrough studies on the mirror system, and subsequent studies on its involvement in the prediction, the execution, the control of movement, and in the process of "embodied simulation" within the intersubjective relationship; (II) research focused on investigating the neural networks in action observation, and the neural correlates of motor expertise highlighted by comparative studies on different dance styles; (III) studies dealing with the viewer's experience of dance according to specific dance repertoires, which revealed the relevance of choreographic choices for aesthetic appreciation; (IV) studies focused on dance as an aesthetic experience, where both the emotional and the cultural dimension play a significant role, and whose investigation paves the way to further progress both in empirical and in phenomenological research methodologies; (V) collaboration-based experiments, in which neuroscientists and choreographers developed expertise-related questions, especially focusing on the multiple phenomena that underlie motor imagery.

How Interpersonal Psychotherapy Changes the Brain: A Study of fMRI in Borderline Personality Disorder.

Background: Recent guidelines and systematic reviews suggest that disorder-specific psychotherapeutic interventions are the first choice in the treatment of borderline personality disorder (BPD). The aim of this study is to examine brain activity changes in BPD patients (DSM-5) who received a revised BPD-adapted interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT-BPD-R) compared with patients on the waiting list.Methods: Forty-three patients with a BPD diagnosis (DSM-5) were randomly assigned to IPT-BPD-R (n = 22 patients) or the waiting list with clinical management (n = 21 patients) for 10 months. Both groups were tested before and after treatment with the Social and Occupational Functioning Assessment Scale (SOFAS), the Clinical Global Impressions-Severity of Illness scale (CGI-S), the Borderline Personality Disorder Severity Index (BPDSI), the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale-version 11 (BIS-11), and the Autobiographical Interview. Both groups underwent pre- and posttreatment functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) testing. The fMRI task consisted of the presentation of resolved and unresolved life events compared to a neutral condition. All structural and functional images were analyzed using Statistical Parametric Mapping 12 software, which interfaces with MATLAB. Clinical data were analyzed using analysis of variance for repeated measures. Patients were recruited between September 2017 and April 2019.Results: In clinical results, for the 4 rating scales, a significant between-subject effect was found in favor of the IPT-BPD-R-treated group (CGI-S: P = .011; BPDSI: P = .009; BIS-11: P = .033; SOFAS: P = .022). In fMRI results, posttreatment versus pretreatment for the contrast unresolved life event versus neutral condition showed significantly decreased right temporoparietal junction (rTPJ: x = 45, y = -51, z = 36) (P = .043) and right anterior cingulate cortex (rACC: x = -4, y = 37, z = 8) activity (P = .021).Conclusions: IPT-BPD-R appears to be effective in treating BPD symptoms, and these clinical effects are reflected in the functional changes observed with fMRI. Brain areas that showed modulation of their activity are the rTPJ and rACC, which are involved in mentalization processes that are fundamental to BPD pathology.Trial Registration: Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry (ANZCTR) code: ACTRN12619000078156.

Eating behaviour and body image in a sample of young athletes.

UNLABELLED: BACKGROUND ANDAIM: Adolescence is a period of great risk for the development of eating disorders since many teenagers engage in long periods of dieting or exhausting sports activities in order to achieve their ideal body image. Research has shown that a potential majority of athletes display attitudes very similar to those observed in cases involving disturbed eating behaviour, particularly with regard to their exaggerated attention to their body image and the type of diet that they consider necessary for their activities. The aim of this study is to analyze young athletes dedicated to attaining the mesomorphic physical ideal and to identify possible dysfunctional eating habits like risk factors in the development of more serious disturbances. We further plan to evaluate possible differences in how members of the sample group perceive their bodies and behave in connection with their diet. METHODS: The sample is made up of 109 males and females, aged 16-24 years. Participants completed the Pisa Survey for Eating Disorders and underwent measurements for the calculation of body mass index (BMI). RESULTS: The young athletes in our sample show a markedly distorted perception of their own bodies. They show a widespread presence of eating behaviour that is not functional to high athletic achievement as well as a series of noteworthy risk factors connected with the onset of eating behaviour disturbances. CONCLUSIONS: The obtained results underscore the need for primary projects in prevention against and awareness of eating problems and awareness of dysmorphic and phobic disturbances in young athletes.

Altruistic Punishment and Impulsivity in Parkinson's Disease: A Social Neuroscience Perspective.

Non-motor symptoms of Parkinson's disease (PD) are of increasing interest in clinical and psychological research. Disinhibition-the inability to inhibit inappropriate behavior-leads to social and emotional impairments, including impulsive behavior and disregard for social conventions and decision-making behavior. In recent years, the latter has been investigated using economic exchanges during social interactions. Altruistic punishment-to punish someone who violates group norms even if it foresees a personal cost-is one of the most useful and fruitful paradigms; it allows to maintain a cooperation system within social groups. Alterations of this cognitive ability negatively impact the quality of life of the individual and social stability. Social neuroscience has suggested association between impulsive behaviors and altruistic punishment. Neuroimaging research aimed at exploring functional networks and intrinsic functional connectivity went in this direction. To date, little is known about these issues in neurodegenerative diseases such as PD. Dopamine replacement treatment and dopamine-agonists have been associated with impulse-control disorder and impulsive-compulsive behavior able to affect social decision-making. Frontal-executive dysfunction determines an alteration of social functioning through a mechanism of subversion of online action-monitoring, which associates disinhibition with volition. Genetic polymorphisms, alterations of the nigro-striatal substance, and impairment in the medial prefrontal cortex and in the Default mode network (DMN) seem to be able to explain these mechanisms. This theoretical perspective article aims to present these topics in order to encourage an interdisciplinary discussion capable of generating new research and developing rehabilitative intervention to improve social decision-making in PD patients.

Suicidal Ideation in Adolescence: A Perspective View on the Role of the Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex.

Suicide in adolescence is a worldwide issue, and it continues to present a serious problem in terms of its prevention. Among the various aspects of suicide, a very interesting area of research is represented by suicidal ideation. Recently, neuroimaging-based methods have made it possible to study the cognitive processes involved in several social situations and clinical conditions. This theoretical perspective article with an interdisciplinary approach integrates evidence from developmental psychology and social neuroscience with the aim of investigating the role of the brain area responsible for regulating negative emotions during the cognitive processes of suicidal ideation: the ventromedial prefrontal cortex. By highlighting the role of brain areas in the few studies published so far, it is possible to develop perspectives of considerable impact. Studying and understanding the role of brain areas involved in suicidal thoughts in adolescents could facilitate the creation of new perspectives on prevention programs and interventions.