Experimental Induction of Emotional and Sexual Intimacy: Exploring the Validity of the German Fast Friends Procedure in Individuals with and without Childhood Maltreatment.

The Fast Friends Procedure (FFP) is a widely used experimental paradigm to induce emotional intimacy. Besides exploring the validity of a German translation of the paradigm (n = 46), we developed an extension of the FFP that induces sexual intimacy and assessed heart rate, high-frequency heart rate variability, and electrodermal activity responses to the FFP and its extension. Furthermore, we examined its applicability to individuals with childhood maltreatment (n = 56), who frequently suffer from intimacy-related difficulties. Intimacy, positive affect, liking, and attraction increased during the FFP and partly during the sexual intimacy extension in both study groups. Moreover, both groups showed physiological responses consistent with positive social interactions. The use of the German FFP and its sexual intimacy extension can thus be recommended for research in the general population and in individuals with childhood maltreatment, although more studies are needed to further validate the paradigms.

Stage-related PD-L1 expression in Kaposi sarcoma tumor microenvironment.

BACKGROUND: The immune checkpoint molecule PD-L1 represents an important target in oncological immune therapy. The aim of our study was to evaluate PD-L1 expression and the composition of the tumor microenvironment (TME) in Kaposi sarcoma. METHODS: Immunohistochemical stains were performed for PD-L1, CD3, CD33, CD68, and CD168 in 24 Kaposi sarcoma samples. In PD-L1-positive cases, the double stains for PD-L1, CD31, podoplanin, and HHV8 were added. RESULTS: PD-L1 was observed in 71% of the samples and was predominantly located in the TME. PD-L1 expression was significantly higher in nodular stage than in patch/plaque stage. The TME consisted of CD68+/CD163+ macrophages, CD33+ myloid-derived suppressor cells and monocytes and CD3+ T-cells. The TME showed a peritumoral distribution in nodular stage, in contrast to a diffuse distribution in patch/plaque stage. In 12 samples (50%), no plasma cells were found. CONCLUSION: In nodular stage of KS, the TME is pushed back in the periphery of the tumor nodules. The PD-L1-positive TME between the tumor cells might protect them from the immune attack. An anti-PD-L1 treatment might be promising in KS patients.

ANSLAB: Integrated multichannel peripheral biosignal processing in psychophysiological science.

Psychophysiological science employs a large variety of signals from the human body that index the activity of the peripheral nervous system. This allows for studying interactions of psychological and physiological processes that are relevant for understanding cognition, emotion, and psychopathology. The multidimensional nature of the data and the interactions between different physiological signals represent a methodological and computational challenge. Analysis software in this domain is often limited in its coverage of the signals from different physiological systems, and therefore only partially addresses these challenges. ANSLAB (short for Autonomic Nervous System Laboratory) is an integrated software suite that supports data visualization, artifact detection, data reduction, automated processing, and statistical analysis for a large range of autonomic, respiratory, and muscular measures. Analysis modules for cardiovascular (e.g., electrocardiogram, heart rate variability, blood pressure wave, pulse wave, and impedance cardiography), electrodermal (skin conductance level and responses), respiratory (respiratory pattern, timing, and volume variables, as well as capnography), and muscular (eye-blink startle, facial and bodily electromyography) systems are complemented by specialized modules (e.g., body temperature and accelerometry, cross-spectral analysis of respiratory and cardiac measures, signal averaging, and statistical analysis) and productivity-enhancing features (batched processing, fully automatized analyses, and data management). ANSLAB also facilitates the analysis of long-term recordings from ambulatory assessment studies. The present article reviews several analysis modules included in ANSLAB and describes how these address some of the current needs and methodological challenges of psychophysiological science.

It does not need two: Assessing physiological linkage from videos across the valence dimension.

The phenomenon of physiological linkage describes similar fluctuations of two individuals' physiology, for example, the cardiac inter-beat interval (IBI). Physiological linkage is a well-documented occurrence in research settings of interacting dyads but the literature on non-interacting dyads, that is, someone watching a video of another person, is sparse. The current study investigated whether physiological linkage, based on IBI, occurs from watching videos where strangers report about personal (neutral, positive, negative non-traumatic, and negative traumatic) experiences. Videos were produced with six individuals and then presented to observers (N = 26). Time-frequency-domain cross-wavelet analyses supplemented by threshold-free cluster enhancement (TFCE; to account for multiple testing) showed significant physiological linkage between the IBI of observers and persons in the videos for 16 out of the 21 tested videos. Although significant physiological linkage also emerged for neutral videos and positive, negative valence videos led to such associations more reliably. This study shows that physiological linkage can be investigated in highly controlled conditions based on video stimuli paving the path for experimental manipulation in future research. Furthermore, due to the provision of information on time and frequency, the use of cross-wavelet analysis is encouraged to learn more about factors modulating physiological linkage. The current study presents the next step toward identifying psychophysiological causal and modulating factors of physiological linkage.

Adults with a history of childhood maltreatment with and without mental disorders show alterations in the recognition of facial expressions.

Background: Individuals with child maltreatment (CM) experiences show alterations in emotion recognition (ER). However, previous research has mainly focused on populations with specific mental disorders, which makes it unclear whether alterations in the recognition of facial expressions are related to CM, to the presence of mental disorders or to the combination of CM and mental disorders, and on ER of emotional, rather than neutral facial expressions. Moreover, commonly, recognition of static stimulus material was researched.Objective: We assessed recognition of dynamic (closer to real life) negative, positive and neutral facial expressions in individuals characterised by CM, rather than a specific mental disorder. Moreover, we assessed whether they show a negativity bias for neutral facial expressions and whether the presence of one or more mental disorders affects recognition.Methods: Ninety-eight adults with CM experiences (CM+) and 60 non-maltreated (CM-) adult controls watched 200 non-manipulated coloured video sequences, showing 20 neutral and 180 emotional facial expressions, and indicated whether they interpreted each expression as neutral or as one of eight emotions.Results: The CM+ showed significantly lower scores in the recognition of positive, negative and neutral facial expressions than the CM- group (p < .050). Furthermore, the CM+ group showed a negativity bias for neutral facial expressions (p < .001). When accounting for mental disorders, significant effects stayed consistent, except for the recognition of positive facial expressions: individuals from the CM+ group with but not without mental disorder scored lower than controls without mental disorder.Conclusions: CM might have long-lasting influences on the ER abilities of those affected. Future research should explore possible effects of ER alterations on everyday life, including implications of the negativity bias for neutral facial expressions on emotional wellbeing and relationship satisfaction, providing a basis for interventions that improve social functioning.

Child maltreatment (CM) in adults is linked to emotion recognition alterations if no current mental disorders are present.Interpretation of positive, negative and neutral facial expressions is impaired.Adults with a history of CM tend to interpret neutral expressions as negative.

Information processing of food pictures in binge eating disorder.

Previous research has yielded evidence of attentional biases for food-related cues in binge eating disorder (BED) using behavioural measures such as the Stroop and dot probe paradigm. Being a more direct measure of attentional processing, the present study used event related potentials (ERPs) to test reactivity to high caloric and low caloric food pictures in women with BED compared to overweight healthy female controls (HC). In order to detect a possible motivational ambivalence, self-report and psychophysiological measures of the sympathetic and parasympathetic response system were assessed additionally. The main results yielded evidence that in women with BED high caloric food pictures elicit larger long latency ERPs compared to HC. By contrast, no such group difference was found for low caloric food pictures. Peripheral measures did not yield any group differences with respect to the processing of the caloric value of food. The results suggest that for women with BED, high caloric food may have high motivational properties and consume large parts of attentional resources. In the context of an environment in which high caloric food is omnipresent, such an abnormal processing may be relevant for the maintenance of the disorder.

Perception of Discrete Emotions in Others: Evidence for Distinct Facial Mimicry Patterns.

Covert facial mimicry involves subtle facial muscle activation in observers when they perceive the facial emotional expressions of others. It remains uncertain whether prototypical facial features in emotional expressions are being covertly mimicked and also whether covert facial mimicry involves distinct facial muscle activation patterns across muscles per emotion category, or simply distinguishes positive versus negative valence in observed facial emotions. To test whether covert facial mimicry is emotion-specific, we measured facial electromyography (EMG) from five muscle sites (corrugator supercilii, levator labii, frontalis lateralis, depressor anguli oris, zygomaticus major) whilst participants watched videos of people expressing 9 different basic and complex emotions and a neutral expression. This study builds upon previous research by including a greater number of facial muscle measures and emotional expressions. It is the first study to investigate activation patterns across muscles during facial mimicry and to provide evidence for distinct patterns of facial muscle activation when viewing individual emotion categories, suggesting that facial mimicry is emotion-specific, rather than just valence-based.

Facial mimicry, facial emotion recognition and alexithymia in post-traumatic stress disorder.

Individuals with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) show abnormalities in higher-order emotional processes, including emotion regulation and recognition. However, automatic facial responses to observed facial emotion (facial mimicry) has not yet been investigated in PTSD. Furthermore, whereas deficits in facial emotion recognition have been reported, little is known about contributing factors. We thus investigated facial mimicry and potential effects of alexithymia and expressive suppression on facial emotion recognition in PTSD. Thirty-eight PTSD participants, 43 traumatized and 33 non-traumatized healthy controls completed questionnaires assessing alexithymia and expressive suppression. Facial electromyography was measured from the muscles zygomaticus major and corrugator supercilii during a facial emotion recognition task. Corrugator activity was increased in response to negative emotional expressions compared to zygomaticus activity and vice versa for positive emotions, but no significant group differences emerged. Individuals with PTSD reported greater expressive suppression and alexithymia than controls, but only levels of alexithymia predicted lower recognition of negative facial expressions. While automatic facial responses to observed facial emotion seem to be intact in PTSD, alexithymia, but not expressive suppression, plays an important role in facial emotion recognition of negative emotions. If replicated, future research should evaluate whether successful interventions for alexithymia improve facial emotion recognition abilities.

Learning to see the threat: temporal dynamics of ERPs of motivated attention in fear conditioning.

Social threat detection is important in everyday life. Studies of cortical activity have shown that event-related potentials (ERPs) of motivated attention are modulated during fear conditioning. The time course of motivated attention in learning and extinction of fear is, however, still largely unknown. We aimed to study temporal dynamics of learning processes in classical fear conditioning to social cues (neutral faces) by selecting an experimental setup that produces large effects on well-studied ERP components (early posterior negativity, EPN; late positive potential, LPP; stimulus preceding negativity, SPN) and then exploring small consecutive groups of trials. EPN, LPP, and SPN markedly and quickly increased during the acquisition phase in response to the CS+ but not the CS-. These changes were visible even at high temporal resolution and vanished completely during extinction. Moreover, some evidence was found for component differences in extinction learning, with differences between CS+ and CS- extinguishing faster for late as compared to early ERP components. Results demonstrate that fear learning to social cues is a very fast and highly plastic process and conceptually different ERPs of motivated attention are sensitive to these changes at high temporal resolution, pointing to specific neurocognitive and affective processes of social fear learning.

A Longitudinal Examination of Heart-Rate and Heart Rate Variability as Risk Markers for Child Posttraumatic Stress Symptoms in an Acute Injury Sample.

Heart rate (HR) alterations in the immediate aftermath of trauma-exposure have been proposed to be potentially useful markers for child and adolescent posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). However, it is not yet clear if this holds true for measures taken more distal to the trauma, and no studies have investigated the predictive validity of more sensitive HR variability (HRV) indices. We recruited 76 parent-child pairs (child age 6 to 13 years) after the child experienced a traumatic event leading to presentation at a hospital emergency department. At 1-month post trauma (T1), HR recordings were obtained at rest, and while children verbally recounted their traumatic experience, both alone and together with a parent. Child post-traumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) were assessed concurrently (T1), and at 3 (T2) and 6-month (T3) follow-ups. We found that for T1, elevated mean HR during trauma narratives, but not at baseline, was positively associated with PTSS, with some evidence that HRV-indices were negatively cross-sectionally associated with PTSS. Furthermore, T1 HR indices predicted PTSS at T2 and partially at T3, although these effects did not hold when T1 PTSS were added to the model. Findings suggest that, consistent with the adult literature, HR indices in children may be a concurrent marker of higher PTSS and may be predictive of longer term distress. The findings encourage further investigations that track child HR and HRV in relation to PTSS over time after trauma, in order to examine how biological profiles evolve in those with persistent symptoms.

Are you angry at me? Negative interpretations of neutral facial expressions are linked to child maltreatment but not to posttraumatic stress disorder.

Background: Individuals with a high prevalence of child maltreatment, e.g. those with borderline personality disorder, tend to see neutral facial expressions as negative. Objective: Our aim was to assess whether this bias is present in individuals with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and whether it is linked to child maltreatment. Methods: Thirty-nine PTSD participants, 44 traumatized and 35 non-traumatized healthy controls watched 300 one-second movies showing 30 neutral and 270 emotional facial expressions, and indicated whether they interpreted each as a neutral or as one of nine emotional expressions. Results: PTSD individuals did not perform differently than the two control groups in the recognition and interpretation of neutral facial expressions (p's < .300). Higher levels of childhood sexual and emotional abuse, and physical neglect were linked to more interpretations of neutral facial expressions as contempt (p's < .043), and (for sexual abuse and physical neglect) to more interpretations of neutral facial expressions as anger (p's < .014). Comparisons of statistical model fits suggested that childhood sexual abuse was the most relevant predictor of recognition accuracy in our sample. Alexithymia, state dissociation, interpersonal trauma, and number of experienced trauma types were not associated with deficits in the interpretation of neutral expressions. Conclusions: Child maltreatment, especially sexual abuse, may shape the interpretation of neutral facial expressions. Future research should explore whether the observed biases extend to real-life situations. If so, therapists might improve the therapeutic relationship with patients with a history of child maltreatment by paying more attention to their own non-verbal communication and their patients' responses to it. Furthermore, similarly to individuals with high depressive and high social anxiety symptoms, facial expression recognition training might counteract negativity bias in individuals with a history of childhood (sexual and emotional) abuse, and (physical) neglect.

Antecedentes: las personas con una alta prevalencia de maltrato infantil, por ejemplo, aquellos con trastorno límite de la personalidad, tienden a ver las expresiones faciales neutras como negativas.Objetivo: Nuestro objetivo fue evaluar si este sesgo está presente en personas con trastorno de estrés postraumático (TEPT) y si está relacionado con el maltrato infantil.Métodos: Treinta y nueve participantes con TEPT, 44 controles sanos traumatizados y 35 no traumatizados vieron 300 películas de un segundo que mostraban 30 expresiones faciales neutras y 270 emocionales, e indicaron si interpretaron cada una de ellas como una de las nueve expresiones emocionales.Resultados: los individuos con TEPT no tuvieron un desempeño diferente al de los dos grupos de control en el reconocimiento e interpretación de expresiones faciales neutras (p 's <.300). Los niveles más altos de abuso sexual y emocional infantil y negligencia física se vincularon a interpretar más las expresiones faciales neutras como desprecio (p's <.043) y (por abuso sexual y negligencia física) a interpretar más las expresiones faciales neutras como ira (p's <.014). Las comparaciones de los ajustes estadísticos del modelo sugirieron que el abuso sexual infantil fue el predictor más relevante de precisión de reconocimiento en nuestra muestra. La alexitimia, la disociación del estado, el trauma interpersonal y el número de tipos de trauma experimentados no se asociaron con déficits en la interpretación de las expresiones neutrales.Conclusiones: El maltrato infantil, especialmente el abuso sexual, puede dar forma a la interpretación de las expresiones faciales neutras. La investigación futura debería explorar si los sesgos observados se extienden a situaciones de la vida real. De ser así, los terapeutas podrían mejorar la relación terapéutica con pacientes con antecedentes de maltrato infantil prestando más atención a su propia comunicación no verbal y a las respuestas de sus pacientes. Además, de manera similar a las personas con síntomas depresivos y de ansiedad social, el entrenamiento de reconocimiento de la expresión facial podría contrarrestar el sesgo de negatividad en personas con antecedentes de abuso infantil (sexual y emocional) y negligencia (física).

Electromagnetic indication of hypervigilant responses to emotional stimuli in blood-injection-injury fear.

Blood phobia differs from other phobias and anxiety disorders in that no attentional bias for blood-related stimuli has been consistently observed. The present study aimed at clarifying this characteristic by investigating electromagnetic brain activity to blood-related and -unrelated pictures in high blood-fearful and non-fearful individuals. Relative to non-fearful controls, high blood-fearful subjects displayed more intense occipito-parietal activation 190-250ms after picture onset, which was interpreted as non-specifically enhanced sensory encoding of visual stimuli. Blood-related stimuli did not elicit different activity patterns in high blood-fearful subjects and controls, supporting the hypothesis that non-specific hypervigilance does not provide a basis for subsequent, specifically enhanced processing of fear-related contents.

Neuroimaging methods in affective neuroscience: selected methodological issues.

A current goal of affective neuroscience is to reveal the relationship between emotion and dynamic brain activity in specific neural circuits. In humans, noninvasive neuroimaging measures are of primary interest in this endeavor. However, methodological issues, unique to each neuroimaging method, have important implications for the design of studies, interpretation of findings, and comparison across studies. With regard to event-related brain potentials, we discuss the need for dense sensor arrays to achieve reference-independent characterization of field potentials and improved estimate of cortical brain sources. Furthermore, limitations and caveats regarding sparse sensor sampling are discussed. With regard to event-related magnetic field (ERF) recordings, we outline a method to achieve magnetoencephalography (MEG) sensor standardization, which improves effects' sizes in typical neuroscientific investigations, avoids the finding of ghost effects, and facilitates comparison of MEG waveforms across studies. Focusing on functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we question the unjustified application of proportional global signal scaling in emotion research, which can greatly distort statistical findings in key structures implicated in emotional processing and possibly contributing to conflicting results in affective neuroscience fMRI studies, in particular with respect to limbic and paralimbic structures. Finally, a distributed EEG/MEG source analysis with statistical parametric mapping is outlined providing a common software platform for hemodynamic and electromagnetic neuroimaging measures. Taken together, to achieve consistent and replicable patterns of the relationship between emotion and neuroimaging measures, methodological aspects associated with the various neuroimaging techniques may be of similar importance as the definition of emotional cues and task context used to study emotion.

Presence of a dog reduces subjective but not physiological stress responses to an analog trauma.

Dogs are known to have stress and anxiety reducing effects. Several studies have shown that dogs are able to calm people during cognitive and performance stressors. Recently, therapy dogs have been proposed as a treatment adjunct for post-traumatic stress disorder patients. In this study we aimed to investigate, whether dogs also have anxiety- and stress reducing effect during "traumatic stressors." 80 healthy female participants were randomly assigned to one of four conditions. They were exposed to a "traumatic" film clip (trauma-film-paradigm). For one group of participants a friendly dog was present during the film, one group of participants was accompanied by a friendly human, another control group watched the film with a toy animal and the last group watched the film clip alone. Participants that were accompanied by the dog during the film reported lower anxiety ratings and less negative affect after the film clip as compared to the "toy dog group" and the "alone group." Results of the "dog group" were comparable to the group that was accompanied by a friendly human. There were no differences in physiological stress responses between the four conditions. Our results show that dogs are able to lessen subjectively experienced stress and anxiety during a "traumatic" stress situation. This effect was comparable to that of social support by a friendly person. Implications for PTSD patients are discussed.

ElectroMagnetoEncephalography software: overview and integration with other EEG/MEG toolboxes.

EMEGS (electromagnetic encephalography software) is a MATLAB toolbox designed to provide novice as well as expert users in the field of neuroscience with a variety of functions to perform analysis of EEG and MEG data. The software consists of a set of graphical interfaces devoted to preprocessing, analysis, and visualization of electromagnetic data. Moreover, it can be extended using a plug-in interface. Here, an overview of the capabilities of the toolbox is provided, together with a simple tutorial for both a standard ERP analysis and a time-frequency analysis. Latest features and future directions of the software development are presented in the final section.

Parallel processing of affective visual stimuli.

Event-related potential (ERP) studies of affective picture processing have demonstrated an early posterior negativity (EPN) for emotionally arousing pictures that are embedded in a rapid visual stream. The present study examined the selective processing of emotional pictures while systematically varying picture presentation rates between 1 and 16 Hz. Previous results with presentation rates up to 5 Hz were replicated in that emotional compared to neutral pictures were associated with a greater EPN. Discrimination among emotional and neutral contents was maintained up to 12 Hz. To explore the notion of parallel processing, convolution analysis was used: EPNs generated by linear superposition of slow rate ERPs explained 70%-93% of the variance of measured EPNs, giving evidence for an impressive capacity of parallel affective discrimination in rapid serial picture presentation.

Emotion processing in the visual brain: a MEG analysis.

Recent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and event-related brain potential (ERP) studies provide empirical support for the notion that emotional cues guide selective attention. Extending this line of research, whole head magneto-encephalogram (MEG) was measured while participants viewed in separate experimental blocks a continuous stream of either pleasant and neutral or unpleasant and neutral pictures, presented for 330 ms each. Event-related magnetic fields (ERF) were analyzed after intersubject sensor coregistration, complemented by minimum norm estimates (MNE) to explore neural generator sources. Both streams of analysis converge by demonstrating the selective emotion processing in an early (120-170 ms) and a late time interval (220-310 ms). ERF analysis revealed that the polarity of the emotion difference fields was reversed across early and late intervals suggesting distinct patterns of activation in the visual processing stream. Source analysis revealed the amplified processing of emotional pictures in visual processing areas with more pronounced occipito-parieto-temporal activation in the early time interval, and a stronger engagement of more anterior, temporal, regions in the later interval. Confirming previous ERP studies showing facilitated emotion processing, the present data suggest that MEG provides a complementary look at the spread of activation in the visual processing stream.

Buzzwords: early cortical responses to emotional words during reading.

Electroencephalographic event-related brain potentials were recorded as subjects read, without further instruction, consecutively presented sequences of words. We varied the speed at which the sequences were presented (3 Hz and 1 Hz) and the words' emotional significance. Early event-related cortical responses during reading differentiated pleasant and unpleasant words from neutral words. Emotional words were associated with enhanced brain responses arising in predominantly left occipito-temporal areas 200 to 300 ms after presentation. Emotional words were also spontaneously better remembered than neutral words. The early cortical amplification was stable across 10 repetitions, providing evidence for robust enhancement of early visual processing of stimuli with learned emotional significance and underscoring the salience of emotional connotations during reading. During early processing stages, emotion-related enhancement of cortical activity along the dominant processing pathway is due to arousal, rather than valence of the stimuli. This enhancement may be driven by cortico-amygdaloid connections.

Processing of emotional adjectives: Evidence from startle EMG and ERPs.

Affective startle modulation in the electromyographic (EMG), auditory startle evoked potentials, and visually evoked potentials (VEPs) were assessed while subjects evaluated pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral adjectives. Acoustic startle probes were presented at random time points 2.5-4.0 s after word onset. The visual P2 and P3 potentials were generally larger during processing of emotional than of neutral adjectives. In contrast, the late positive component was enhanced and was correlated with larger EMG startle responses and auditory startle evoked potential P3 amplitudes for pleasant words only. During internal cognitive activity, the startle reflex represents a measure of "processing interrupt." Thus the startle tone interrupted processing of particularly pleasant adjectives and caused re-alerting to environmental stimuli. Specific effects for pleasant material may arise from a "positivity offset," favoring responses to pleasant material at lower arousal levels.