Mentalizing Imagery Therapy for depressed family dementia caregivers: Feasibility, clinical outcomes and brain connectivity changes

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Felipe A. Jain ◽  
Sergey Chernyak ◽  
Lisa Nickerson ◽  
Michelle Abrams ◽  
Marco Iacoboni ◽  
...  

Background: Family dementia caregivers experience high rates of depression and anxiety that often go untreated due to time demands. We aimed to determine the feasibility of a brief, 4-week Mentalizing Imagery Therapy intervention, which couples mindfulness with guided imagery practices aimed at bolstering mentalizing capacity, to reduce caregiver psychological symptoms and to explore potential impact on dorsolateral prefrontal cortex connectivity.Methods: Twenty-four family dementia caregivers with moderate depression symptoms (a score of ≥10 in Patient Health Questionnaire-9) were assigned to either group Mentalizing Imagery Therapy (MIT, n=12) or a waitlist augmented by optional relaxation exercises (n=12). Participants completed questionnaires to measure depression and anxiety at baseline and follow-up, and those eligible also underwent resting state functional magnetic resonance (fMRI) brain imaging at these time points.Results: Eleven of 12 caregivers assigned to MIT completed the intervention and attended weekly groups 98% of the time. MIT home practice logs indicated average practice of 52 sessions per week for 238 minutes per session. All participants in waitlist completed the post-assessment. MIT participants exhibited significantly greater improvement than waitlist on self-reported depression and anxiety symptoms (p<.05) after 4 weeks. Neuroimaging results revealed increased dorsolateral prefrontal cortex connectivity with a putative emotion regulation network in the MIT group (p=.05) but not in waitlist (p=1.0).Limitations: Sample size limitations necessitate validation of findings in larger, randomized controlled trials. Conclusions: A 4-week group MIT program was feasible for caregivers, with high levels of participation in weekly group meetings and home practice exercises. This manuscript describes outcomes of a feasibility study of Mentalizing Imagery Therapy and is in review for peer reviewed publication as of 02.06.21.

Gesture ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 196-222
Author(s):  
Michela Balconi ◽  
Angela Bartolo ◽  
Giulia Fronda

Abstract The interest of neuroscience has been aimed at the investigation of the neural bases underlying gestural communication. This research explored the intra- and inter-brain connectivity between encoder and decoder. Specifically, adopting a “hyperscanning paradigm” with the functional Near-infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) cerebral connectivity in oxygenated (O2Hb) and deoxygenated (HHb) hemoglobin levels were revealed during the reproduction of affective, social, and informative gestures of different valence. Results showed an increase of intra- and inter-brain connectivity in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex for affective gestures, in superior frontal gyrus for social gestures and in frontal eyes field for informative gestures. Moreover, encoder showed a higher intra-brain connectivity in posterior parietal areas more than decoder. Finally, an increasing of inter-brain connectivity more than intra-brain (ConIndex) was observed in left regions for positive gestures. The present research has explored how the individuals neural tuning mechanisms turn out to be strongly influenced by the nature of specific gestures.


2016 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 292-298 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristopher Grajny ◽  
Harshini Pyata ◽  
Katherine Spiegel ◽  
Elizabeth H. Lacey ◽  
Shihui Xing ◽  
...  

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seda Sacu ◽  
Carolin Wackerhagen ◽  
Susanne Erk ◽  
Nina Romanczuk-Seiferth ◽  
Kristina Schwarz ◽  
...  

Abstract Background: Aberrant brain connectivity during emotional processing, especially within the fronto-limbic pathway, is one of the hallmarks of major depressive disorder (MDD). However, a lack of systematic approaches in previous studies made it difficult to determine whether a specific alteration in brain connectivity reflects a cause, correlate, or effect of the disorder. The current study aimed to investigate neural mechanisms that correspond to disease, risk and resilience in major depression during implicit processing of emotion cues. Methods: Forty-eight patients with MDD, 49 first-degree relatives of patients with MDD and 103 healthy controls performed a face-matching task during functional magnetic resonance imaging. We used dynamic causal modelling to estimate task-dependent effective connectivity at the subject level. Parametric empirical Bayes was then performed to quantify group differences in effective connectivity. Results: Depressive pathology was associated with decreased effective connectivity from the left amygdala and left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex to the right fusiform gyrus, whereas familial risk for depression corresponded to decreased connectivity from the right orbitofrontal cortex to the left insula and from the left orbitofrontal cortex to the right fusiform gyrus. Resilience for depression was related to increased connectivity from the anterior cingulate cortex to the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Conclusions: Our results suggest that the depressive state alters top-down control of higher visual regions during the processing of emotional faces, whereas increased connectivity within the cognitive control network promotes resilience to depression.


2021 ◽  
Vol 177 ◽  
pp. 110804
Author(s):  
Shuoqi Xiang ◽  
Senqing Qi ◽  
Yangping Li ◽  
Luchun Wang ◽  
David Yun Dai ◽  
...  

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document