Neural substrates of defensive reactivity in two subtypes of specific phobia.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Lueken U
PROVIDER: S-EPMC4221204 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Nov
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Project description:BackgroundUnderstanding of exaggerated responsivity in specific phobia-its physiology and neural mediators-has advanced considerably. However, despite strong phenotypic evidence that prominence of specific phobia relative to co-occurring conditions (i.e., principal versus nonprincipal disorder) is associated with dramatic differences in subjective distress, there is yet no consideration of such comorbidity issues on objective defensive reactivity.MethodsA community sample of specific phobia (n = 74 principal; n = 86 nonprincipal) and control (n = 76) participants imagined threatening and neutral events while acoustic startle probes were presented and eyeblinks (orbicularis occuli) recorded. Changes in heart rate, skin conductance level, and facial expressivity were also measured.ResultsPrincipal specific phobia patients far exceeded control participants in startle reflex and autonomic reactivity during idiographic fear imagery. Distinguishing between single and multiple phobias within principal phobia and comparing these with nonprincipal phobia revealed a continuum of decreasing defensive mobilization: single patients were strongly reactive, multiple patients were intermediate, and nonprincipal patients were attenuated-the inverse of measures of pervasive anxiety and dysphoria (i.e., negative affectivity). Further, as more disorders supplanted specific phobia from principal disorder, overall defensive mobilization was systematically more impaired.ConclusionsThe exaggerated responsivity characteristic of specific phobia is limited to those patients for whom circumscribed fear is the most impairing condition and coincident with little additional affective psychopathology. As specific phobia is superseded in severity by broad and chronic negative affectivity, defensive reactivity progressively diminishes. Focal fears may still be clinically significant but not reflected in objective defensive mobilization.
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Project description:Reactivity to smoking-related cues may be an important factor that precipitates relapse in smokers who are trying to quit. The neurobiology of smoking cue reactivity has been investigated in several fMRI studies. We combined the results of these studies using activation likelihood estimation, a meta-analytic technique for fMRI data. Results of the meta-analysis indicated that smoking cues reliably evoke larger fMRI responses than neutral cues in the extended visual system, precuneus, posterior cingulate gyrus, anterior cingulate gyrus, dorsal and medial prefrontal cortex, insula, and dorsal striatum. Subtraction meta-analyses revealed that parts of the extended visual system and dorsal prefrontal cortex are more reliably responsive to smoking cues in deprived smokers than in non-deprived smokers, and that short-duration cues presented in event-related designs produce larger responses in the extended visual system than long-duration cues presented in blocked designs. The areas that were found to be responsive to smoking cues agree with theories of the neurobiology of cue reactivity, with two exceptions. First, there was a reliable cue reactivity effect in the precuneus, which is not typically considered a brain region important to addiction. Second, we found no significant effect in the nucleus accumbens, an area that plays a critical role in addiction, but this effect may have been due to technical difficulties associated with measuring fMRI data in that region. The results of this meta-analysis suggest that the extended visual system should receive more attention in future studies of smoking cue reactivity.
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Project description:BACKGROUND: The neuropsychological features and neuropathological progression patterns associated with rapidly evolving cognitive decline or dementia in Parkinson's disease (PD) remain to be elucidated. METHODS: Fifty-three PD patients without dementia were recruited to participate in a 3-year longitudinal cohort study. The patients were grouped according to the Clinical Dementia Rating (CDR). Group-wise comparisons were made with regard to demographic characteristics, motor symptoms, neuropsychological performances and 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography. RESULTS: Patients who had memory-plus cognitive impairment (patients whose CDR was 0 at baseline and 0.5 in memory and other domains at follow-up, and those whose baseline CDR was 0.5 in memory and other domains) exhibited higher age at onset, visuoperceptual impairment, non-tremor-dominant motor disturbance, rapid symptomatic progression and posterior neocortical hypometabolism. In patients who were cognitively unimpaired and those who had memory-dominant cognitive impairment (patients whose CDR was 0 at baseline and 0.5 only in memory domain at follow-up, and those whose baseline CDR was 0.5 only in memory domain), the posterior neocortex was relatively unaffected until a later stage of the disease. CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that visuoperceptual impairment and the early involvement of the posterior neocortex may be risk factors for rapid symptomatic progression and dementia in PD.
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Project description:Although avoidance and escape behaviors each contribute to maintaining anxiety disorders, only avoidance completely eliminates exposure to the aversive context. Current research compared anticipatory defensive engagement when aversion could either be completely avoided or escaped after initial exposure; in addition, this research examined the impact of trait anxiety on coping-related defensive engagement. Cues signaled that upcoming rapid action would avoid (block), escape (terminate), or not affect subsequent aversive exposure; the acoustic startle reflex was measured during each anticipatory interval to index defensive engagement, and blink magnitudes were compared across low-, moderate-, and high-anxious individuals. For all participants, startle was potentiated when aversive exposure was uncontrollable and attenuated when aversion was avoidable. On escape trials, on the other hand, startle potentiation increased with rising participant anxiety. Results suggest 1) defensive engagement is generally reduced in avoidance contexts relative to contexts in which exposure is certain, and; 2) trait anxiety increases defensive engagement specifically when aversive exposure can be controlled but remains certain.
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Project description:Smoking is partly attributed to alterations of reward processing. However, findings on the neurobiological mechanisms that underlie smoking-related and smoking-unrelated reward processing in smokers have been inconsistent. Neuroimaging experiments that used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and reported brain responses to smoking-related cues and nonsmoking reward-related cues in smokers and healthy controls as coordinates in a standard anatomic reference space were identified by searching the PubMed, Embase, and Web of Science databases up to December 2018. Three meta-analyses were performed using random-effect nonparametric statistics with Seed-based d Mapping software, with brain activity contrast from individual studies as the input. The striatum showed higher activation in response to smoking-related cues compared with neutral cues in 816 smokers from 28 studies and lower activation in response to nonsmoking reward-related cues in 275 smokers compared with 271 healthy control individuals from 13 studies. The relative reactivity of the putamen to smoking-related cues increased in 108 smokers compared with 107 healthy controls from seven studies. Meta-regression showed that smokers with a greater severity of nicotine dependence exhibited less engagement of the striatum in response to both smoking-related cues and nonsmoking reward-related cues. The present results reveal the disruption of reward system function in smokers and provide new insights into diverging theories of addiction. With the escalation of nicotine dependence, nicotine appears to exert dynamic effects on reward processing, based on incentive sensitization theory and reward deficiency syndrome theory.
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