Exploring the impact of immersive virtual reality on depression knowledge and stigma reduction: a cross-over RCT fMRI study.

The stigma of mental illness is a form of negative judgmental knowledge and is a barrier to individual seeking treatment. Contact-based educational interventions with first-person perspective (1PP) combined with immersive virtual reality (IVR) is promising as an anti-stigma intervention. This study aims to investigate the effectiveness of 1PP anti-stigma IVR intervention compared to video in enhancing depression knowledge and reducing stigma, as well as to examine the corresponding depression knowledge brain activity change using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Participants engaged in a 1PP anti-stigma intervention using both IVR and conventional video, focusing on the daily life and recovery of a patient with mild depression. The change in depression knowledge, stigma-related behavioral, and brain activity using fMRI were measured at pre- and post-interventions. Depression knowledge improved for both interventions; however, only the IVR intervention reduced stigma. In the IVR intervention, depression knowledge score was positively associated with neural response in the right superior frontal gyrus activation, indicative of empathic concern. Conversely, the video intervention correlated with increased activity in the right anterior insula, suggesting a distress-related response. The findings demonstrate that the immersive nature of IVR can reduce stigma more effectively than video intervention. This effectiveness is underpinned by the change in depression knowledge on neural activity, with IVR fostering empathy-related behavioral responses. The results highlight the potential of IVR in enhancing empathic understanding and reducing stigma towards mental illness, emphasizing the need for further exploration into immersive technologies for mental health education.

Public Stigma Related to People With Mental Health Conditions Among Japanese Company Employees.

Background: The public stigma related to mental illness is the general public's negative misconceptions about people with mental health conditions (PMHCs). The public stigma of mental illness is detrimental to PMHC as it leads to loss of opportunities and unemployment. The aim of the study was to clarify the status of public stigma related to PMHC, focusing on knowledge about mental illness and social distance concerning PMHC. Methods: A survey was conducted among 970 Japanese office workers aged 20 to 60 years. Accurate knowledge of mental illness was assessed using the Mental Illness and Disorder Understanding Scale (MIDUS). The Attitudinal Social Distance (ASD) was used to determine social distance in relation to PMHC. The demographic characteristics of the participants evaluated were sex, age group measured in years, employment position, employment status, and attendance at mental illness stigma training. Results: Regular employees (P = 0.03) and those having prior contact experience (P = 0.01) had more accurate knowledge. Participants between 50 to 59 years old (M = 15.87, standard deviation (SD) = 3.35) had greater social distance than those under 30 years old (M = 14.78, SD = 3.97, P < 0.05). The results of multiple linear regression analysis found that employment status (partial r = -0.07, P < 0.05) and prior contact experience (partial r = -0.15, P < 0.01) significantly affected the MIDUS score, whereas no variable had a significant effect on the ASD score. Conclusions: Accurate knowledge of mental illness was significantly higher among regular employees and those with contact experience. Social distance was significantly lower among those under the age of 30 years.

Motivational decline and proactive response under thermal environmental stress are related to emotion- and problem-focused coping, respectively: Questionnaire construction and fMRI study.

Despite the diversity of human behavioral and psychological responses to environmental thermal stress, the major dimensions of these responses have not been formulated. Accordingly, the relevance of these responses to a framework of coping with stress (i.e., emotion- and problem-focused) and the neural correlates are unexplored. In this study, we first developed a multidimensional inventory for such responses using social surveys and a factor analysis, and then examined the neural correlates of each dimension using a functional magnetic resonance imaging; we manipulated the ambient temperature between uncomfortably hot and cold, and the correlations between the inventory factor scores and discomfort-related neural responses were examined. We identified three factors to construct the inventory: motivational decline, proactive response, and an active behavior, which appeared to reflect inefficient emotion-focused coping, efficient problem-focused coping, and positive appreciation of extreme environmental temperatures, respectively, under environmental thermal stress. Motivational decline score was positively associated with common neural response to thermal stress in the frontal and temporoparietal regions, implicated in emotion regulation, while proactive response score negatively with the neural responses related to subjective discomfort in the medial and lateral parietal cortices, implicated in problem-solving. We thus demonstrated that two of three major dimensions of individual variation in response to and coping with environmental thermal stress conform to an influential two-dimensional framework of stress coping. The current three-dimensional model may expand the frontiers of meteorological human science in both basic and application domains.

Loneliness inside of the brain: evidence from a large dataset of resting-state fMRI in young adult.

Although loneliness itself is a natural emotion, prolonged loneliness is detrimental to human health. Despite its detrimental effect, few loneliness-related neuroimaging studies have been published and some have limitations on the sample size number. This study aims to find the difference in resting-state functional connectivity associated with loneliness within a big sample size via the seed-based approach. Functional connectivity analysis was performed on a large cohort of young adults (N = 1336) using the seed-based functional connectivity approach to address the concern from previous studies. The analysis yielded statistically significant positive correlations between loneliness and functional connectivities between the inferior frontal gyrus and supplementary motor area, precentral gyrus, and superior parietal lobule. Additionally, the analysis replicated a finding from a previous study, which is increased functional connectivities between the inferior frontal gyrus and supplementary motor area. In conclusion, greater loneliness is reflected by stronger functional connectivity of the visual attention brain area.

Prior physical synchrony enhances rapport and inter-brain synchronization during subsequent educational communication.

Physical synchrony has been suggested to have positive effects on not only concurrent but also subsequent communication, but the underlying neural processes are unclear. Using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) hyperscanning, we tested the effects of preceding physical synchrony on subsequent dyadic teaching-learning communication. Thirty-two pairs of participants performed two experimental sessions. In each session, they underwent a rhythmic arm movement block with synchronous or asynchronous conditions, and then taught/learned unknown words to/from each other according to a given scenario. Neural activities in their medial and left lateral prefrontal cortex (PFC) were measured and inter-brain synchronization (IBS) during the teaching-learning blocks was evaluated. Participants rated their subjective rapport during the teaching-learning blocks, and took a word memory test. The analyses revealed that (1) prior physical synchrony enhanced teacher-learner rapport; (2) prior physical synchrony also enhanced IBS in the lateral PFC; and (3) IBS changes correlated positively with rapport changes. Physical synchrony did however not affect word memory performance. These results suggest that IBS can be useful to measure the effects of social-bonding facilitation activities for educational communication.

Eficácia terapêutica do programa de remediação fonológica em escolares com dislexia do desenvolvimento / Therapeutic effectiveness of phonological remediation program in students with developmental dyslexia

OBJETIVOS: comparar os achados da avaliação em situação de pré e pós-testagem em escolares com dislexia do desenvolvimento e escolares bons leitores submetidos ao programa de remediação fonológica e verificar a eficácia terapêutica do programa de remediação fonológica em escolares com dislexia do desenvolvimento. MÉTODOS: participaram deste estudo 40 escolares de 2ª a 4ª série de ensino público do município de Marília-SP, de ambos os sexos, na faixa etária de 8 a 12 anos distribuídos em: GI: composto de 20 escolares com diagnóstico interdisciplinar de dislexia do desenvolvimento que foram submetidos a programa de remediação fonológica, GII: composto de 20 escolares sem dificuldades de aprendizagem da rede municipal de ensino público, pareados segundo sexo, faixa etária e escolaridade com os escolares do GI que não foram submetidos aos programas de remediação. Em situação de pré e pós-testagem, todos os escolares foram submetidos à aplicação do Teste de Desempenho Cognitivo-Linguístico nas versões coletiva e individual, seguido de leitura oral e compreensão de textos. RESULTADOS: foram evidenciadas diferenças estatisticamente significantes, indicando que os escolares do GI e GII submetidos ao programa de remediação fonológica apresentaram desempenho superior em situação de pós-testagem em comparação com a situação de pré-testagem para a maioria das habilidades cognitivo-linguísticas avaliadas, incluindo a leitura e compreensão de texto. CONCLUSÃO: o programa de remediação fonológica para crianças com e sem dislexia do desenvolvimento foi eficaz, sugerindo que a habilidade de relação letra-som deve ser utilizada em contexto de sala de aula favorecendo a leitura desses escolares.

PURPOSES: to compare the findings of pre-test and post-test evaluation in students with developmental dyslexia and good readers submitted to phonological remediation program and to check the therapeutic effectiveness of phonological remediation program in students with developmental dyslexia. METHODS: 40 students of the 2nd to 4th grades of public schools of Marília-SP, both genders, from to 8 to 12-year old took part in this study; distributed in GI: 20 students with the interdisciplinary diagnosis of developmental dyslexia and GII: 20 good readers paired according to gender, age and school level. All students were submitted to the Cognitive-Linguistic Performance Test in the collective and individual version, oral reading and text comprehension. RESULTS: the results showed statistically significant differences indicating that the GI and GII students submitted to phonological remediation program showed higher performance in post-test when compared to pre-test in the most evaluated cognitive-linguistic skills, including reading and text comprehension. CONCLUSION: the phonological remediation program was effective for students with or without developmental dyslexia, suggesting that the sound-letter relation skill should be used in the classroom context in order to improve the reading skills for these students.