{"title":"Intranasal Oxytocin Improves Interoceptive Accuracy and Heartbeat-Evoked Potentials During a Cardiac Interoceptive Task","authors":"","doi":"10.1016/j.bpsc.2024.05.004","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.bpsc.2024.05.004","url":null,"abstract":"<div><h3>Background</h3><div>Interoception represents perception of the internal bodily state, which is closely associated with social/emotional processing and physical health in humans. Understanding the mechanism that underlies interoceptive processing, particularly its modulation, is therefore of great importance. Given the overlap between oxytocinergic pathways and interoceptive signaling substrates in both peripheral visceral organs and the brain, intranasal oxytocin administration is a promising approach for modulating interoceptive processing.</div></div><div><h3>Methods</h3><div><span>Using a double-blind, placebo-controlled, between-participant design, we recruited 72 healthy male participants who performed a cardiac interoceptive task during electroencephalograph and electrocardiograph recording to examine whether intranasal administration of the </span>neuropeptide oxytocin could modulate interoceptive processing. We also collected data in a resting state to examine whether we could replicate previous findings.</div></div><div><h3>Results</h3><div>The results showed that in the interoceptive task, oxytocin increased interoceptive accuracy at the behavioral level, which was paralleled by larger heartbeat-evoked potential amplitudes in frontocentral and central regions on the neural level. However, there were no significant effects of oxytocin on electroencephalograph or electrocardiograph during resting state.</div></div><div><h3>Conclusions</h3><div>These findings suggest that oxytocin may only have a facilitatory effect on interoceptive processing under task-based conditions. Our findings not only provide new insights into the modulation of interoceptive processing via targeting the oxytocinergic system but also provide proof-of-concept evidence for the therapeutic potential of intranasal oxytocin in mental disorders with dysfunctional interoception.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":54231,"journal":{"name":"Biological Psychiatry-Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging","volume":"9 10","pages":"Pages 1019-1027"},"PeriodicalIF":5.7,"publicationDate":"2024-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141262975","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Oral Oxytocin Blurs Sex Differences in Amygdala Responses to Emotional Scenes","authors":"","doi":"10.1016/j.bpsc.2024.05.010","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.bpsc.2024.05.010","url":null,"abstract":"<div><h3>Background</h3><div>Sex differences are shaped both by innate biological differences and the social environment and are frequently observed in human emotional neural responses. Oral administration of oxytocin (OXT), as an alternative and noninvasive intake method, has been shown to produce sex-dependent effects on emotional face processing. However, it is unclear whether oral OXT produces similar sex-dependent effects on processing continuous emotional scenes.</div></div><div><h3>Methods</h3><div>The current randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled neuropsychopharmacological functional magnetic resonance imaging experiment was conducted in 147 healthy participants (OXT = 74, men/women = 37/37; placebo = 73, men/women = 36/37) to examine the oral OXT effect on plasma OXT concentrations and neural response to emotional scenes in both sexes.</div></div><div><h3>Results</h3><div>At the neuroendocrine level, women showed lower endogenous OXT concentrations than men, but oral OXT increased OXT concentrations equally in both sexes. Regarding neural activity, emotional scenes evoked opposite valence-independent effects on right amygdala activation (women > men) and its functional connectivity with the insula (men > women) in men and women in the placebo group. This sex difference was either attenuated (amygdala response) or even completely eliminated (amygdala-insula functional connectivity) in the OXT group. Multivariate pattern analysis confirmed these findings by developing an accurate sex-predictive neural pattern that included the amygdala and the insula under the placebo but not the OXT condition.</div></div><div><h3>Conclusions</h3><div>The results of the current study suggest a pronounced sex difference in neural responses to emotional scenes that was eliminated by oral OXT, with OXT having opposite modulatory effects in men and women. This may reflect oral OXT enhancing emotional regulation to continuous emotional stimuli in both sexes by facilitating appropriate changes in sex-specific amygdala-insula circuitry.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":54231,"journal":{"name":"Biological Psychiatry-Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging","volume":"9 10","pages":"Pages 1028-1038"},"PeriodicalIF":5.7,"publicationDate":"2024-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141297532","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Alexander Ehlert , Josua Zimmermann , David Johann , Denis Ribeaud , Manuel Eisner , Markus R. Baumgartner , Lilly Shanahan , Heiko Rauhut , Boris B. Quednow
{"title":"Substance Use–Related Alterations of Social Decision Making in a Longitudinal Cohort of Young Adults","authors":"Alexander Ehlert , Josua Zimmermann , David Johann , Denis Ribeaud , Manuel Eisner , Markus R. Baumgartner , Lilly Shanahan , Heiko Rauhut , Boris B. Quednow","doi":"10.1016/j.bpsc.2024.06.014","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.bpsc.2024.06.014","url":null,"abstract":"<div><h3>Background</h3><div>Substance use disorders are associated with severe negative social and health-related outcomes. Evidence has accumulated that long-term substance use is associated with alterations in social interaction behavior, which likely contributes to the vicious cycle of substance use disorder. However, little is known about whether these social problems originate from contextual factors only or also from the substance use itself—in other words, if they are predisposed or substance induced.</div></div><div><h3>Methods</h3><div>We studied the causation behind behavioral alterations of substance users over a 9-year period (ages 11–20 years) in an urban age cohort (<em>N</em> = 1002) with a high prevalence of substance use at age 20. We identified common substance use patterns using toxicological hair analysis, examined behavioral alterations with incentivized games, and used teacher assessments across different ages to determine the causes and effects that underlie substance use–related impairments in social interaction.</div></div><div><h3>Results</h3><div>We found that opioid and stimulant users showed reduced prosocial behavior compared with nonusers, particularly in interpersonal trust and perspective taking (e.g., they were approximately 50% less likely to trust others). Our longitudinal analyses suggest a causal relationship between the nonmedical use of prescription opioids and impaired social behavior, whereas impairments among stimulant users seem to be partially predisposed. Moreover, women tended to be more severely affected by opioid use than men. However, no behavioral alterations were found among young adult cannabis or ecstasy users.</div></div><div><h3>Conclusions</h3><div>Highly addictive substances such as opioids can impair users’ social behavior by undermining fundamental human interaction, thereby fueling a vicious cycle of substance use and social isolation.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":54231,"journal":{"name":"Biological Psychiatry-Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging","volume":"9 10","pages":"Pages 1058-1065"},"PeriodicalIF":5.7,"publicationDate":"2024-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141621974","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Cognitive Training Prevents Stress-Induced Working Memory Deficits","authors":"","doi":"10.1016/j.bpsc.2024.06.006","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.bpsc.2024.06.006","url":null,"abstract":"<div><h3>Background</h3><div>Working memory is a fundamental cognitive process that is critically involved in planning, comprehension, reasoning, and problem solving. Acute stress has been shown to impair working memory. This stress-induced working memory deficit has profound implications for cognitive functioning in everyday life as well as for stress-related mental disorders. Here, we tested whether a cognitive training intervention would make working memory more resistant to disruptive effects of acute stress.</div></div><div><h3>Methods</h3><div>In a preregistered, fully crossed between-subjects design with the factors stress (vs. control) and cognitive training (vs. sham), 123 healthy men and women (ages 18–35 years) completed a daily cognitive training program targeting working memory–related processes or a sham training over a period of 6 weeks. After this 6-week training intervention, participants underwent a standardized stress or control manipulation shortly before their working memory performance was tested.</div></div><div><h3>Results</h3><div>As expected, the exposure to acute stress led to a significant working memory impairment in the sham training group. Critically, although the subjective, autonomic, and endocrine stress responses were comparable in the 2 training groups, this stress-induced working memory impairment was abolished in the intervention training group.</div></div><div><h3>Conclusions</h3><div>These results are the first to show that a cognitive training intervention directed at prefrontal and hippocampal functioning can prevent the detrimental effects of stressful events on working memory performance.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":54231,"journal":{"name":"Biological Psychiatry-Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging","volume":"9 10","pages":"Pages 1039-1047"},"PeriodicalIF":5.7,"publicationDate":"2024-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141443939","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Contributions of Cerebral White Matter Hyperintensities to Postural Instability in Aging With and Without Alcohol Use Disorder","authors":"","doi":"10.1016/j.bpsc.2024.03.005","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.bpsc.2024.03.005","url":null,"abstract":"<div><h3>Background</h3><div>Both postural instability and brain white matter hyperintensities (WMHs) are noted markers of normal aging and alcohol use disorder (AUD). Here, we questioned what variables contribute to the sway path–WMH relationship in individuals with AUD and healthy control participants.</div></div><div><h3>Methods</h3><div>The data comprised 404 balance platform sessions, yielding sway path length and magnetic resonance imaging data acquired cross-sectionally or longitudinally in 102 control participants and 158 participants with AUD ages 25 to 80 years. Balance sessions were typically conducted on the same day as magnetic resonance imaging fluid-attenuated inversion recovery acquisitions, permitting WMH volume quantification. Factors considered in multiple regression analyses as potential contributors to the relationship between WMH volumes and postural instability were age, sex, socioeconomic status, education, pedal 2-point discrimination, systolic and diastolic blood pressure<span>, body mass index, depressive symptoms, total alcohol consumed in the past year, and race.</span></div></div><div><h3>Results</h3><div>Initial analysis identified diagnosis, age, sex, and race as significant contributors to observed sway path–WMH relationships. Inclusion of these factors as predictors in multiple regression analyses substantially attenuated the sway path–WMH relationships in both AUD and healthy control groups. Women, irrespective of diagnosis or race, had shorter sway paths than men. Black participants, irrespective of diagnosis or sex, had shorter sway paths than non-Black participants despite having modestly larger WMH volumes than non-Black participants, which is possibly a reflection of the younger age of the Black sample.</div></div><div><h3>Conclusions</h3><div>Longer sway paths were related to larger WMH volumes in healthy men and women with and without AUD. Critically, however, age almost fully accounted for these associations.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":54231,"journal":{"name":"Biological Psychiatry-Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging","volume":"9 10","pages":"Pages 998-1009"},"PeriodicalIF":5.7,"publicationDate":"2024-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140786544","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Resting-State Changes in Aging and Parkinson’s Disease Are Shaped by Underlying Neurotransmission: A Normative Modeling Study","authors":"","doi":"10.1016/j.bpsc.2024.04.010","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.bpsc.2024.04.010","url":null,"abstract":"<div><h3>Background</h3><div>Human healthy and pathological aging is linked to a steady decline in brain resting-state activity and connectivity measures. The neurophysiological mechanisms that underlie these changes remain poorly understood.</div></div><div><h3>Methods</h3><div>Making use of recent developments in normative modeling and availability of in vivo maps for various neurochemical systems, we tested in the UK Biobank cohort (<em>n</em> = 25,917) whether and how age- and Parkinson’s disease–related resting-state changes in commonly applied local and global activity and connectivity measures colocalize with underlying neurotransmitter systems.</div></div><div><h3>Results</h3><div>We found that the distributions of several major neurotransmitter systems including serotonergic, dopaminergic, noradrenergic, and glutamatergic neurotransmission correlated with age-related changes across functional activity and connectivity measures. Colocalization patterns in Parkinson’s disease deviated from normative aging trajectories for these, as well as for cholinergic and GABAergic (gamma-aminobutyric acidergic) neurotransmission. The deviation from normal colocalization of brain function and GABA<sub>A</sub> correlated with disease duration.</div></div><div><h3>Conclusions</h3><div>These findings provide new insights into molecular mechanisms underlying age- and Parkinson’s-related brain functional changes by extending the existing evidence elucidating the vulnerability of specific neurochemical attributes to normal aging and Parkinson’s disease. The results particularly indicate that alongside dopamine and serotonin, increased vulnerability of glutamatergic, cholinergic, and GABAergic systems may also contribute to Parkinson’s disease–related functional alterations. Combining normative modeling and neurotransmitter mapping may aid future research and drug development through deeper understanding of neurophysiological mechanisms that underlie specific clinical conditions.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":54231,"journal":{"name":"Biological Psychiatry-Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging","volume":"9 10","pages":"Pages 986-997"},"PeriodicalIF":5.7,"publicationDate":"2024-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140861201","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Voice Hearing in Trauma-Related Psychopathology: Continued Exploration of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Heterogeneity in Functional Neuroimaging Research","authors":"Alyssa R. Roeckner","doi":"10.1016/j.bpsc.2024.08.012","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.bpsc.2024.08.012","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":54231,"journal":{"name":"Biological Psychiatry-Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging","volume":"9 10","pages":"Pages 973-974"},"PeriodicalIF":5.7,"publicationDate":"2024-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142382751","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Altered Structural Connectivity and Functional Brain Dynamics in Individuals With Heavy Alcohol Use Elucidated via Network Control Theory","authors":"","doi":"10.1016/j.bpsc.2024.05.006","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.bpsc.2024.05.006","url":null,"abstract":"<div><h3>Background</h3><div>Heavy alcohol use and its associated conditions, such as alcohol use disorder, impact millions of individuals worldwide. While our understanding of the neurobiological correlates of alcohol use has evolved substantially, we still lack models that incorporate whole-brain neuroanatomical, functional, and pharmacological information under one framework.</div></div><div><h3>Methods</h3><div>Here, we utilized diffusion and functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate alterations to brain dynamics in 130 individuals with a high amount of current alcohol use. We compared these alcohol-using individuals to 308 individuals with minimal use of any substances.</div></div><div><h3>Results</h3><div>We found that individuals with heavy alcohol use had less dynamic and complex brain activity, and through leveraging network control theory, had increased control energy to complete transitions between activation states. Furthermore, using separately acquired positron emission tomography data, we deployed an in silico evaluation demonstrating that decreased D<sub>2</sub> receptor levels, as found previously in individuals with alcohol use disorder, may relate to our observed findings.</div></div><div><h3>Conclusions</h3><div>This work demonstrates that whole-brain, multimodal imaging information can be combined under a network control framework to identify and evaluate neurobiological correlates and mechanisms of heavy alcohol use.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":54231,"journal":{"name":"Biological Psychiatry-Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging","volume":"9 10","pages":"Pages 1010-1018"},"PeriodicalIF":5.7,"publicationDate":"2024-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141262861","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}