scholarly journals Anhedonia to Gentle Touch in Fibromyalgia: Normal Sensory Processing but Abnormal Evaluation

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. 306 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Boehme ◽  
Helene van Ettinger-Veenstra ◽  
Håkan Olausson ◽  
Björn Gerdle ◽  
Saad S. Nagi
Keyword(s):  
Sensory Processing ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Pain Catastrophizing ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Functional Brain Imaging ◽  
Opposite Pattern ◽  
Tactile Stimuli ◽  
Morphometry Analysis ◽  
The Right ◽  
Healthy Participants

Social touch is important for interpersonal interaction. Gentle touch and slow brushing are typically perceived as pleasant, the degree of pleasantness is linked to the activity of the C-tactile (CT) fibers, a class of unmyelinated nerves in the skin. The inability to experience pleasure in general is called anhedonia, a common phenomenon in the chronic pain condition fibromyalgia. Here, we studied the perception and cortical processing of gentle touch in a well-characterized cohort of fibromyalgia. Patients and controls participated in functional brain imaging while receiving tactile stimuli (brushing) on the forearm. They were asked to provide ratings of pleasantness of the tactile stimulus and ongoing pain. We found high distress, pain catastrophizing, and insomnia, and a low perceived state of health in fibromyalgia. Further, patients rated both slow (CT-optimal) and fast (CT-suboptimal) brushing as less pleasant than healthy participants. While there was no difference in brain activity during touch, patients showed deactivation in the right posterior insula (contralateral to the stimulated arm) during pleasantness rating and activation during pain rating. The opposite pattern was observed in healthy participants. Voxel-based morphometry analysis revealed reduced grey matter density in patients, in the bilateral hippocampus and anterior insula. Our results suggest anhedonia to gentle touch in fibromyalgia with intact early-stage sensory processing but dysfunctional evaluative processing. These findings contribute to our understanding of the mechanisms underlying anhedonia in fibromyalgia.

scholarly journals The Wisdom to Know the Difference

2016 ◽  
Vol 27 (12) ◽  
pp. 1651-1659 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon J. Haines ◽  
John Gleeson ◽  
Peter Kuppens ◽  
Tom Hollenstein ◽  
Joseph Ciarrochi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Emotion Regulation ◽  
Adaptive Strategy ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Opposite Pattern ◽  
Regulation Strategies ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Right ◽  
Ecological Momentary ◽  
Momentary Assessment ◽  
Healthy Participants

The ability to regulate emotions is central to well-being, but healthy emotion regulation may not merely be about using the “right” strategies. According to the strategy-situation-fit hypothesis, emotion-regulation strategies are conducive to well-being only when used in appropriate contexts. This study is the first to test the strategy-situation-fit hypothesis using ecological momentary assessment of cognitive reappraisal—a putatively adaptive strategy. We expected people who used reappraisal more in uncontrollable situations and less in controllable situations to have greater well-being than people with the opposite pattern of reappraisal use. Healthy participants ( n = 74) completed measures of well-being in the lab and used a smartphone app to report their use of reappraisal and perceived controllability of their environment 10 times a day for 1 week. Results supported the strategy-situation-fit hypothesis. Participants with relatively high well-being used reappraisal more in situations they perceived as lower in controllability and less in situations they perceived as higher in controllability. In contrast, we found little evidence for an association between greater well-being and greater mean use of reappraisal across situations.

Three Dimensional PET/MRI Images in OCD and Schizophrenia

CNS Spectrums ◽  
1997 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 26-31 ◽  
Author(s):  
Monte S. Buchsbaum ◽  
Jacqueline Spiegel-Cohen ◽  
Tsechung Wei
Keyword(s):  
Frontal Lobe ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
New Technology ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Normal Activity ◽  
Functional Brain Imaging ◽  
Obsessive Compulsive ◽  
Opposite Pattern ◽  
Compulsive Disorder ◽  
Specific Disorders

AbstractFunctional brain-imaging studies have suggested an opposite pattern of brain activity in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and schizophrenia. Patients with OCD have higher than normal activity in the frontal lobe and caudate nucleus while patients with schizophrenia have lower than normal activity in these areas. Changes in the nature of the connections between the executive and impulse control regions of the frontal lobe and the basal ganglia might be involved in both illnesses. These findings are statistical in nature and involve structures of complex three-dimensional shapes. New technology for studying the function of these structures may be useful in exploring the relation of each structure to symptoms of specific disorders. This technology may also enable identification of anatomical and functional causes of individual differences in medication response.

scholarly journals Hypnotic visual hallucination induces greater lateralised brain activity than visual imagery

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Renzo C. Lanfranco ◽  
Álvaro Rivera-Rei ◽  
David Huepe ◽  
Agustín Ibáñez ◽  
Andrés Canales-Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Mental Imagery ◽  
Sensory Processing ◽  
Visual Imagery ◽  
Visual Hallucination ◽  
Right Hemisphere ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Neural Processes ◽  
Sense Of Reality ◽  
The Right

AbstractHypnotic suggestions can produce a broad range of perceptual experiences, including hallucinations. Visual hypnotic hallucinations differ in many ways from regular mental images. For example, they are usually experienced as automatic, vivid, and real images, typically compromising the sense of reality. While both hypnotic hallucination and mental imagery are believed to mainly rely on the activation of the visual cortex via top-down mechanisms, it is unknown how they differ in the neural processes they engage. Here we used an adaptation paradigm to test and compare top-down processing between hypnotic hallucination, mental imagery, and visual perception in very highly hypnotisable individuals whose ability to hallucinate was assessed. By measuring the N170/VPP event-related complex and using multivariate decoding analysis, we found that hypnotic hallucination of faces involves greater top-down activation of sensory processing through lateralised mechanisms in the right hemisphere compared to mental imagery. Our findings suggest that the neural signatures that distinguish hypnotically hallucinated faces from imagined faces lie in the right brain hemisphere.

scholarly journals Evidence for embodied predictive coding: the anterior insula coordinates cortical processing of tactile deviancy

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Micah Allen ◽  
Francesca Fardo ◽  
Martin Dietz ◽  
Hauke F Hillebrandt ◽  
Geraint Rees ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Brain Activity ◽  
Predictive Coding ◽  
Insular Cortex ◽  
Body Awareness ◽  
Self Awareness ◽  
Cortical Processing ◽  
Subjective Ratings ◽  
Tactile Stimuli ◽  
Sensory Cortices ◽  
Healthy Participants

Embodied awareness is the pervasive, multimodal self-awareness that is thought to form the foundation of emotion. This awareness was recently proposed to rely on the anterior insular cortex (AIC) comparing expected and actual bodily signals arising in prefrontal and sensory cortices. To investigate this possibility in the somatosensory domain, we measured brain activity using functional magnetic resonance imaging while healthy participants discriminated tactile stimuli in a roving oddball design. Dynamic Causal Modelling revealed that unexpected stimuli increased the strength of forward connections in a caudal to rostral ascending hierarchy from thalamic and somatosensory regions towards insula, cingulate and prefrontal cortices, consistent with hierarchical predictive coding. Within this feed-forward flow of neural coupling, the AIC increased both forwards and backwards connections with prefrontal and somatosensory cortex, supporting a comparator role. Further, we found that greater prefrontal to AIC connectivity predicted subjective ratings of stimulus discrimination difficulty. These results are interpreted in light of embodied predictive coding, suggesting that the AIC coordinates global cortical processing of tactile changes to support body awareness.

scholarly journals Atypical Antipsychotics Mediate Dynamics of Intrinsic Brain Activity in Early-Stage Schizophrenia? A Preliminary Study

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (12) ◽  
pp. 1205-1212
Author(s):  
Yingchan Wang ◽  
Yuchao Jiang ◽  
Dengtang Liu ◽  
Jianye Zhang ◽  
Dezhong Yao ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Negative Symptoms ◽  
Atypical Antipsychotics ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Low Frequency ◽  
Antipsychotic Treatment ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Middle Occipital Gyrus ◽  
The Right ◽  
Intrinsic Brain Activity

Objective Abnormalities of static brain activity have been reported in schizophrenia, but it remains to be clarified the temporal variability of intrinsic brain activities in schizophrenia and how atypical antipsychotics affect it.Methods We employed a resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) and a sliding-window analysis of dynamic amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation (dALFF) to evaluate the dynamic brain activities in schizophrenia (SZ) patients before and after 8-week antipsychotic treatment. Twenty-six schizophrenia individuals and 26 matched healthy controls (HC) were included in this study.Results Compared with HC, SZ showed stronger dALFF in the right inferior temporal gyrus (ITG.R) at baseline. After medication, the SZ group exhibited reduced dALFF in the right middle occipital gyrus (MOG.R) and increased dALFF in the left superior frontal gyrus (SFG.L), right middle frontal gyrus (MFG.R), and right inferior parietal lobule (IPL.R). Dynamic ALFF in IPL.R was found to significant negative correlate with the Scale for the Assessment of Negative Symptoms (SANS) scores at baseline.Conclusion Our results showed dynamic intrinsic brain activities altered in schizophrenia after short term antipsychotic treatment. The findings of this study support and expand the application of dALFF method in the study of the pathological mechanism in psychosis in the future.

scholarly journals Exploring alterations in sensory pathways in migraine

2022 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Noemi Meylakh ◽  
Luke A. Henderson
Keyword(s):  
Visual Cortex ◽  
Sensory Processing ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Activity Patterns ◽  
Oscillatory Activity ◽  
Somatosensory Processing ◽  
Somatosensory Cortices ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The Right ◽  
Sensory Processes

Abstract Background Migraine is a neurological disorder characterized by intense, debilitating headaches, often coupled with nausea, vomiting and sensitivity to light and sound. Whilst changes in sensory processes during a migraine attack have been well-described, there is growing evidence that even between migraine attacks, sensory abilities are disrupted in migraine. Brain imaging studies have investigated altered coupling between areas of the descending pain modulatory pathway but coupling between somatosensory processing regions between migraine attacks has not been properly studied. The aim of this study was to determine if ongoing functional connectivity between visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory and somatosensory cortices are altered during the interictal phase of migraine. Methods To explore the neural mechanisms underpinning interictal changes in sensory processing, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to compare resting brain activity patterns and connectivity in migraineurs between migraine attacks (n = 32) and in healthy controls (n = 71). Significant differences between groups were determined using two-sample random effects procedures (p < 0.05, corrected for multiple comparisons, minimum cluster size 10 contiguous voxels, age and gender included as nuisance variables). Results In the migraine group, increases in infra-slow oscillatory activity were detected in the right primary visual cortex (V1), secondary visual cortex (V2) and third visual complex (V3), and left V3. In addition, resting connectivity analysis revealed that migraineurs displayed significantly enhanced connectivity between V1 and V2 with other sensory cortices including the auditory, gustatory, motor and somatosensory cortices. Conclusions These data provide evidence for a dysfunctional sensory network in pain-free migraine patients which may be underlying altered sensory processing between migraine attacks.

scholarly journals Functional Brain Imaging During Extra-Ocular Light Stimulation in Anophthalmic and Sighted Participants: No Evidence for Extra-Ocular Photosensitive Receptors

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Holly Bridge ◽  
Rupal Morjaria ◽  
Stuart N. Peirson ◽  
Gaelle S. L. Coullon ◽  
Catherine E. Warnaby ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Light Source ◽  
Light Stimulus ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Mammalian Species ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Bright Light ◽  
Functional Brain Imaging ◽  
Visual Responses ◽  
Nasal Bridge ◽  
The Right

Light plays a critical role in regulating physiology and behavior, including both visual and non-visual responses. In mammals, loss of both eyes abolishes all of these responses, demonstrating that the photoreceptors involved are exclusively ocular. By contrast, many non-mammalian species possess extra-ocular photoreceptors located in the pineal complex and deep brain. Whilst there have been suggestions of extra-ocular photoreception in mammals, including man, evidence for these photoreceptors is limited. One approach to objectively determine the presence of such receptors is to measure brain responses to light using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Moreover, by using participants who are clinically anophthalmic (congenital and acquired), it is possible to investigate potential light detection in the absence of the retina. Here we scanned participants with anophthalmia and sighted participants in 4 different conditions; the first 3 conditions had a bright light source applied to the following locations: behind the right ear (“ear”), just below the nasal bridge and between the eyes (“head”), and at the right popliteal fossa (“knee”). In the fourth and final scan, the light source was switched off so that there was no light stimulus. All participants were scanned in a completely dark room. No consistent brain activity was detected during any of the light conditions in either sighted controls or anophthalmic participants. Thus, we do not provide any evidence for the presence of extraocular photoreceptors modulating human brain activity, despite recent evidence for gene transcription that may occur as a result of these photoreceptors.

scholarly journals Exploring Alterations in Sensory Pathways in Migraine

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Noemi Meylakh ◽  
Luke A. Henderson
Keyword(s):  
Visual Cortex ◽  
Sensory Processing ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Activity Patterns ◽  
Oscillatory Activity ◽  
Somatosensory Processing ◽  
Somatosensory Cortices ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The Right ◽  
Sensory Processes

Abstract BackgroundMigraine is a neurological disorder characterized by intense, debilitating headaches, often coupled with nausea, vomiting and sensitivity to light and sound. Whilst changes in sensory processes during a migraine attack have been well-described, there is growing evidence that even between migraine attacks, sensory abilities are disrupted in migraine. Brain imaging studies have investigated altered coupling between areas of the descending pain modulatory pathway but coupling between somatosensory processing regions between migraine attacks has not been properly studied. The aim of this study was to determine if ongoing functional connectivity between visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory and somatosensory cortices are altered during the interictal phase of migraine. MethodsTo explore the neural mechanisms underpinning interictal changes in sensory processing, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to compare resting brain activity patterns and connectivity in migraineurs between migraine attacks (n= 32) and in healthy controls (n=71). Significant differences between groups were determined using two-sample random effects procedures (p<0.05, corrected for multiple comparisons, minimum cluster size 10 contiguous voxels, age and gender included as nuisance variables). ResultsIn the migraine group, increases in infra-slow oscillatory activity were detected in the right primary visual cortex (V1), secondary visual cortex (V2) and third visual complex (V3), and left V3. In addition, resting connectivity analysis revealed that migraineurs displayed significantly enhanced connectivity between V1 and V2 with other sensory cortices including the auditory, gustatory, motor and somatosensory cortices. ConclusionsThese data provide evidence for a dysfunctional sensory network in pain-free migraine patients which may be underlying altered sensory processing between migraine attacks.

scholarly journals Evidence for embodied predictive coding: the anterior insula coordinates cortical processing of tactile deviancy

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Micah Allen ◽  
Francesca Fardo ◽  
Martin Dietz ◽  
Hauke F Hillebrandt ◽  
Geraint Rees ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Brain Activity ◽  
Predictive Coding ◽  
Insular Cortex ◽  
Body Awareness ◽  
Self Awareness ◽  
Cortical Processing ◽  
Subjective Ratings ◽  
Tactile Stimuli ◽  
Sensory Cortices ◽  
Healthy Participants

Embodied awareness is the pervasive, multimodal self-awareness that is thought to form the foundation of emotion. This awareness was recently proposed to rely on the anterior insular cortex (AIC) comparing expected and actual bodily signals arising in prefrontal and sensory cortices. To investigate this possibility in the somatosensory domain, we measured brain activity using functional magnetic resonance imaging while healthy participants discriminated tactile stimuli in a roving oddball design. Dynamic Causal Modelling revealed that unexpected stimuli increased the strength of forward connections in a caudal to rostral ascending hierarchy from thalamic and somatosensory regions towards insula, cingulate and prefrontal cortices, consistent with hierarchical predictive coding. Within this feed-forward flow of neural coupling, the AIC increased both forwards and backwards connections with prefrontal and somatosensory cortex, supporting a comparator role. Further, we found that greater prefrontal to AIC connectivity predicted subjective ratings of stimulus discrimination difficulty. These results are interpreted in light of embodied predictive coding, suggesting that the AIC coordinates global cortical processing of tactile changes to support body awareness.

Emotional Reactivity to Visual Content as Revealed by ERP Component Clustering

2015 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 135-146 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miroslaw Wyczesany ◽  
Szczepan J. Grzybowski ◽  
Jan Kaiser
Keyword(s):  
Emotional Reactivity ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Affective State ◽  
Occipital Lobe ◽  
Stimulus Onset ◽  
Emotional States ◽  
Neural Basis ◽  
Temporoparietal Junction ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Impact

Abstract. In the study, the neural basis of emotional reactivity was investigated. Reactivity was operationalized as the impact of emotional pictures on the self-reported ongoing affective state. It was used to divide the subjects into high- and low-responders groups. Independent sources of brain activity were identified, localized with the DIPFIT method, and clustered across subjects to analyse the visual evoked potentials to affective pictures. Four of the identified clusters revealed effects of reactivity. The earliest two started about 120 ms from the stimulus onset and were located in the occipital lobe and the right temporoparietal junction. Another two with a latency of 200 ms were found in the orbitofrontal and the right dorsolateral cortices. Additionally, differences in pre-stimulus alpha level over the visual cortex were observed between the groups. The attentional modulation of perceptual processes is proposed as an early source of emotional reactivity, which forms an automatic mechanism of affective control. The role of top-down processes in affective appraisal and, finally, the experience of ongoing emotional states is also discussed.

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