The Role of Expectancy Violation in Extinction Learning: A Two-Day Online Fear Conditioning Study.

Background: Exposure therapy is at the core of the treatment of pathological anxiety. While the inhibitory learning model proposes a framework for the mechanisms underlying exposure therapy, in particular expectancy violation, causal evidence for its assumptions remains elusive. Therefore, the aim of the current study was to provide evidence for the influence of expectancy violation on extinction retention by manipulating the magnitude of expectancy violation during extinction learning. Method: In total, 101 individuals completed a web-based fear conditioning protocol, consisting of a fear acquisition and extinction phase, as well as a spontaneous recovery and fear reinstatement test 24h later. To experimentally manipulate expectancy violation, participants were presented only with states of the conditioned stimulus that either weakly or strongly predicted the aversive outcome. Consequently, the absence of any aversive outcomes in the extinction phase resulted in low or high expectancy violation, respectively. Results: We found successful fear acquisition and manipulation of expectancy violation, which was associated with reduced threat ratings for the high compared to the low expectancy violation group directly after extinction learning. On Day 2, inhibitory CS-noUS associations could be retrieved for expectancy ratings, whereas there were no substantial group differences for threat ratings. Conclusion: These findings indicate that the magnitude of expectancy violation is related to the retrieval of conscious threat expectancies, but it is unclear how these changes translate to affective components (i.e., threat ratings) of the fear response and to symptoms of pathological anxiety.

The Impact of Obesity on T and NK Cells after LVAD Implantation.

INTRODUCTION: Infections are a major problem after left ventricular assist device (LVAD) implantation that affects morbidity, mortality, and the quality of life. Obesity often increases the risk for infection. In the cohort of LVAD patients, it is unknown if obesity affects the immunological parameters involved in viral defense. Therefore, this study investigated whether overweight or obesity affects immunological parameters such as CD8+ T cells and natural killer (NK) cells. METHODS: Immune cell subsets of CD8+ T cells and NK cells were compared between normal-weight (BMI 18.5-24.9 kg/m2, n = 17), pre-obese (BMI 25.0-29.9 kg/m2, n = 24), and obese (BMI ≥30 kg/m2, n = 27) patients. Cell subsets and cytokine serum levels were quantified prior to LVAD implantation and at 3, 6, and 12 months after LVAD implantation. RESULTS: At the end of the first postoperative year, obese patients (31.8% ± 2.1%) had a lower proportion of CD8+ T cells than normal-weight patients (42.4% ± 4.1%; p = 0.04), and the percentage of CD8+ T cells was negatively correlated with BMI (p = 0.03; r = -0.329). The proportion of circulating NK cells increased after LVAD implantation patients in normal-weight (p = 0.01) and obese patients (p < 0.01). Patients with pre-obesity showed a delayed increase (p < 0.01) 12 months after LVAD implantation. Further, obese patients showed an increase in the percentage of CD57+ NK cells after 6 and 12 months (p = 0.01) of treatment, higher proportions of CD56bright NK cells (p = 0.01), and lower proportions of CD56dim/neg NK cells (p = 0.03) 3 months after LVAD implantation than normal-weight patients. The proportion of CD56bright NK cells positively correlated with BMI (p < 0.01, r = 0.403) 1 year after LVAD implantation. CONCLUSIONS: This study documented that obesity affects CD8+ T cells and subsets of NK cells in patients with LVAD in the first year after LVAD implantation. Lower proportions of CD8+ T cells and CD56dim/neg NK cells and higher proportion of CD56bright NK cells were detected in obese but not in pre-obese and normal-weight LVAD patients during the first year after LVAD implantation. The induced immunological imbalance and phenotypic changes of T and NK cells may influence viral and bacterial immunoreactivity.

Idiosyncratic viewing patterns of social scenes reflect individual preferences.

In general, humans preferentially look at conspecifics in naturalistic images. However, such group-based effects might conceal systematic individual differences concerning the preference for social information. Here, we investigated to what degree fixations on social features occur consistently within observers and whether this preference generalizes to other measures of social prioritization in the laboratory as well as the real world. Participants carried out a free viewing task, a relevance taps task that required them to actively select image regions that are crucial for understanding a given scene, and they were asked to freely take photographs outside the laboratory that were later classified regarding their social content. We observed stable individual differences in the fixation and active selection of human heads and faces that were correlated across tasks and partly predicted the social content of self-taken photographs. Such relationship was not observed for human bodies indicating that different social elements need to be dissociated. These findings suggest that idiosyncrasies in the visual exploration and interpretation of social features exist and predict real-world behavior. Future studies should further characterize these preferences and elucidate how they shape perception and interpretation of social contexts in healthy participants and patients with mental disorders that affect social functioning.

Myostatin/AKT/FOXO Signaling Is Altered in Human Non-Ischemic Dilated Cardiomyopathy.

Disturbances in the ubiquitin proteasome system, and especially changes of the E3 ligases, are subjects of interest when searching for causes and therapies for cardiomyopathies. The aim of this study was to clarify whether the myostatin/AKT/forkhead box O (FOXO) pathway, which regulates the expression of the E3 ligases muscle atrophy F-box gene (MAFbx) and muscle ring-finger protein-1 (MuRF1), is changed in dilated cardiomyopathy of ischemic origin (IDCM) and dilated cardiomyopathy of non-ischemic origin (NIDCM). The mRNA and protein expression of myostatin, AKT, FOXO1, FOXO3, MAFbx and MuRF1 were quantified by real-time polymerase chain reaction and ELISA, respectively, in myocardial tissue from 26 IDCM and 23 NIDCM patients. Septal tissue from 17 patients undergoing Morrow resection served as a control. MAFbx and FOXO1 mRNA and protein expression (all p < 0.05), AKT mRNA (p < 0.01) and myostatin protein expression (p = 0.02) were decreased in NIDCM patients compared to the control group. Apart from decreases of AKT and MAFbx mRNA expression (both p < 0.01), no significant differences were detected in IDCM patients compared to the control group. Our results demonstrate that the myostatin/AKT/FOXO pathway is altered in NIDCM but not in IDCM patients. FOXO1 seems to be an important drug target for regulating the expression of MAFbx in NIDCM patients.

Socioaffective versus sociocognitive mental trainings differentially affect emotion regulation strategies.

A variety of contemplative practices putatively improves the ability to deal with difficult emotions. However, it is unclear how these different types of mental training differentially affect the use of different emotion regulation strategies. We addressed this question in a 9-month longitudinal study in which participants (N = 332) took part in three distinct 3-month mental training modules cultivating attentional (the Presence module), sociocognitive (the Perspective module), and socioaffective, compassion-based skills (the Affect module). In addition, the participants completed the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire and the Brief COPE Inventory at baseline and after every module. The Presence module did not notably change the use of any emotion regulation strategies, whereas the Perspective and the Affect modules both increased the use of acceptance. Moreover, the Perspective module was especially effective in increasing the use of adaptive, cognitive transformations such as reappraisal, perspective taking, and planning, whereas the Affect module uniquely led to decreases in maladaptive avoidant strategies such as distraction and refocusing. These findings imply that (a) cultivating present-moment focused attention might not be sufficient to change emotion regulation strategies, (b) different types of mental practices focusing on either cognitive perspective taking or sociomotivational capacities lead to adaptive emotion regulation via different strategies, and (c) specifically cultivating positive affect and compassion can decrease avoidance of difficult emotions. This research suggests that different mental training exercises affect the use of specific emotion regulation strategies and that clinical interventions should be designed accordingly. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Differential Effects of Attention-, Compassion-, and Socio-Cognitively Based Mental Practices on Self-Reports of Mindfulness and Compassion.

Research on the effects of mindfulness- and compassion-based interventions is flourishing along with self-report scales to assess facets of these broad concepts. However, debates remain as to which mental practices are most appropriate to develop the attentional, cognitive, and socio-affective facets of mindfulness and compassion. One crucial question is whether present-moment, attention-focused mindfulness practices are sufficient to induce a cascade of changes across the different proposed facets of mindfulness, including nonjudgmental acceptance, as well as compassion or whether explicit socio-affective training is required. Here, we address these questions in the context of a 9-month longitudinal study (the ReSource Project) by examining the differential effects of three different 3-month mental training modules on subscales of mindfulness and compassion questionnaires. The "Presence" module, which aimed at cultivating present-moment-focused attention and body awareness, led to increases in the observing, nonreacting, and presence subscales, but not to increases in acceptance or nonjudging. These latter facets benefitted from specific cultivation through the socio-cognitive "Perspective" module and socio-affective, compassion-based "Affect" module, respectively. These modules also led to further increases in scores on the subscales affected by the Presence module. Moreover, scores on the compassion scales were uniquely influenced by the Affect module. Thus, whereas a present-moment attention-focused training, as implemented in many mindfulness-based programs, was indeed able to increase attentional facets of mindfulness, only socio-cognitive and compassion-based practices led to broad changes in ethical-motivational qualities like a nonjudgmental attitude, compassion, and self-compassion.

Cognitive flexibility, heart rate variability, and resilience predict fine-grained regulation of arousal during prolonged threat.

Emotion regulation in the ongoing presence of a threat is essential for adaptive behavior. Threatening situations change over time and, as a consequence, require a fine-tuned, dynamic regulation of arousal to match the current state of the environment. Constructs such as cognitive flexibility, heart rate variability, and resilience have been proposed as resources for adaptive emotion regulation, especially in a moment-to-moment fashion. Nevertheless, none of these constructs has been empirically related to the dynamic regulation of arousal as it unfolds over the course of a prolonged threatening episode. Here, we do so by placing participants in a threatening and evolving immersive virtual environment called Room 101, while recording their skin conductance. Subsequently, participants rated their subjective arousal continuously over the course of the experience. Participants who had shown greater cognitive flexibility in a separate task (i.e., fewer task-switching costs when switching to evaluating the valence of positive stimuli) showed better regulation of physiological arousal (skin conductance level), during less-threatening phases of Room 101. Individuals with higher trait resilience and individuals with higher resting heart rate variability showed more regulation in terms of their subjective arousal experience. The results indicate that emotional, cognitive, and physiological flexibility support nuanced adaptive regulation of objective and experienced arousal in the ongoing presence of threats. Furthermore, the results indicate that these forms of flexibility differentially affect automatic and objective versus reflective and subjective processes.

Physiophenomenology in retrospect: Memory reliably reflects physiological arousal during a prior threatening experience.

Psychologists have long studied links between physiology and subjective feelings, but little is known about how those links are preserved in memory. Here we examine this question via arousal, a subjective feeling with strong physiological correlates. Using virtual reality, we immersed participants in a threatening scene (Room 101) where they confronted a variety of disturbing events. Later, participants watched the scene on a desktop computer while continuously rating how aroused they remembered feeling. Analyses of those time series revealed that retrospective reports were coherent with participants' unique patterns in physiological arousal (skin conductance and heart rate) during the original events. Analyses further revealed that coherence did not depend on simulating physiological arousal and that it was particularly strong among individuals high in interoceptive accuracy. These data demonstrate that memory encodes physiological information during emotional episodes such that individuals' recall of arousal reliably reflects physiological signals as they unfolded over time.

Evaluating the mixing of organic aerosol components using high-resolution aerosol mass spectrometry.

According to the pseudo-ideal mixing assumption employed in practically all chemical transport models, organic aerosol components from different sources interact with each other in a single solution, independent of their composition. This critical assumption greatly affects modeled organic aerosol concentrations, but there is little direct experimental evidence to support it. A main experimental challenge is that organic aerosol components from different sources often look similar when analyzed with an aerosol mass spectrometer. We developed a new experimental method to overcome this challenge, using isotopically labeled compounds ((13)C or D) and a high-resolution time-of-flight aerosol mass spectrometer (HR-ToF-AMS). We generated mixtures of secondary organic aerosol (SOA) from isotopically labeled toluene and from unlabeled α-pinene and used the HR-ToF-AMS data to separate these different SOA types. We evaluated their interaction by comparing the aerosol mass yields of toluene and α-pinene when the SOA was formed in these mixtures to their yields when the SOA was formed in isolation. At equilibrium, our results are consistent with pseudo-ideal mixing of anthropogenic and biogenic SOA components from these chemically dissimilar precursors.

Chemical composition of secondary organic aerosol formed from the photooxidation of isoprene.

Recent work in our laboratory has shown that the photooxidation of isoprene (2-methyl-1,3-butadiene, C(5)H(8)) leads to the formation of secondary organic aerosol (SOA). In the current study, the chemical composition of SOA from the photooxidation of isoprene over the full range of NO(x) conditions is investigated through a series of controlled laboratory chamber experiments. SOA composition is studied using a wide range of experimental techniques: electrospray ionization-mass spectrometry, matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization-mass spectrometry, high-resolution mass spectrometry, online aerosol mass spectrometry, gas chromatography/mass spectrometry, and an iodometric-spectroscopic method. Oligomerization was observed to be an important SOA formation pathway in all cases; however, the nature of the oligomers depends strongly on the NO(x) level, with acidic products formed under high-NO(x) conditions only. We present, to our knowledge, the first evidence of particle-phase esterification reactions in SOA, where the further oxidation of the isoprene oxidation product methacrolein under high-NO(x) conditions produces polyesters involving 2-methylglyceric acid as a key monomeric unit. These oligomers comprise approximately 22-34% of the high-NO(x) SOA mass. Under low-NO(x) conditions, organic peroxides contribute significantly to the low-NO(x) SOA mass (approximately 61% when SOA forms by nucleation and approximately 25-30% in the presence of seed particles). The contribution of organic peroxides in the SOA decreases with time, indicating photochemical aging. Hemiacetal dimers are found to form from C(5) alkene triols and 2-methyltetrols under low-NO(x) conditions; these compounds are also found in aerosol collected from the Amazonian rainforest, demonstrating the atmospheric relevance of these low-NO(x) chamber experiments.

Cooperative hydration of pyruvic acid in ice.

About 3.5 +/- 0.3 water molecules are still involved in the exothermic hydration of 2-oxopropanoic acid (PA) into its monohydrate (2,2-dihydroxypropanoic acid, PAH) in ice at 230 K. This is borne out by thermodynamic analysis of the fact that QH(T) = [PAH]/[PA] becomes temperature independent below approximately 250 K (in chemically and thermally equilibrated frozen 0.1 < or = [PA]/M < or = 4.6 solutions in D2O), which requires that the enthalpy of PA hydration (DeltaHH approximately -22 kJ mol(-1)) be balanced by a multiple of the enthalpy of ice melting (DeltaHM = 6.3 kJ mol(-1)). Considering that: (1) thermograms of frozen PA solutions display a single endotherm, at the onset of ice melting, (2) the sum of the integral intensities of the 1deltaPAH and 1deltaPA methyl proton NMR resonances is nearly constant while, (3) line widths increase exponentially with decreasing temperature before diverging below approximately 230 K, we infer that PA in ice remains cooperatively hydrated within interstitial microfluids until they vitrify.