@article{Bilek2015, abstract = {Social interactions are fundamental for human behavior, but the quantification of their neural underpinnings remains challenging. Here, we used hyperscanning functional MRI (fMRI) to study information flow between brains of human dyads during real-time social interaction in a joint attention paradigm. In a hardware setup enabling immersive audiovisual interaction of subjects in linked fMRI scanners, we characterize cross-brain connectivity components that are unique to interacting individuals, identifying information flow between the sender's and receiver's temporoparietal junction. We replicate these findings in an independent sample and validate our methods by demonstrating that cross-brain connectivity relates to a key real-world measure of social behavior. Together, our findings support a central role of human-specific cortical areas in the brain dynamics of dyadic interactions and provide an approach for the noninvasive examination of the neural basis of healthy and disturbed human social behavior with minimal a priori assumptions.}, author = {Bilek, Edda and Ruf, Matthias and Schäfer, Axel and Akdeniz, Ceren and Calhoun, Vince D. and Schmahl, Christian and Demanuele, Charmaine and Tost, Heike and Kirsch, Peter and Meyer-Lindenberg, Andreas}, doi = {10.1073/pnas.1421831112}, journal = {Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences}, month = {apr}, pages = {5207-5212}, title = {Information flow between interacting human brains: Identification, validation, and relationship to social expertise}, url = {http://www.pnas.org/content/112/16/5207.full.pdf}, volume = {112}, year = {2015} } @article{Bähner2015, abstract = {Hippocampal-prefrontal interactions are implicated in working memory (WM) and altered in psychiatric conditions with cognitive impairment such as schizophrenia. While coupling between both structures is crucial for WM performance in rodents, evidence from human studies is conflicting and translation of findings is complicated by the use of differing paradigms across species. We therefore used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) together with a spatial WM paradigm adapted from rodent research to examine hippocampal-prefrontal coupling in humans. A prefrontal-parietal network was functionally connected to hippocampus (HC) during task stages requiring high levels of executive control but not during a matched control condition. The magnitude of coupling in a network comprising HC, bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and right supramarginal gyrus explained one fourth of the variability in an independent spatial WM task but was unrelated to visual WM performance. HC-DLPFC coupling may thus represent a systems-level mechanism specific to spatial WM that is conserved across species, suggesting its utility for modeling cognitive dysfunction in translational neuroscience.Neuropsychopharmacology accepted article preview online, 12 January 2015. doi:10.1038/npp.2015.13.}, author = {Bähner, Florian and Demanuele, Charmaine and Schweiger, Janina and Gerchen, Martin F. and Zamoscik, Vera and Ueltzhöffer, Kai and Hahn, Tim and Meyer, Patric and Flor, Herta and Durstewitz, Daniel and Tost, Heike and Kirsch, Peter and Plichta, Michael M. and Meyer-Lindenberg, Andreas}, doi = {10.1038/npp.2015.13}, journal = {Neuropsychopharmacology}, month = {jan}, pages = {1674-1681}, title = {Hippocampal–Dorsolateral Prefrontal Coupling as a Species-Conserved Cognitive Mechanism: A Human Translational Imaging Study}, url = {https://www.nature.com/articles/npp201513.pdf}, volume = {40}, year = {2015} } @article{Demanuele2015, author = {Demanuele, Charmaine and Kirsch, Peter and Esslinger, Christine and Zink, Mathias and Meyer-Lindenberg, Andreas and Durstewitz, Daniel}, doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0135424}, journal = {PLoS ONE}, month = {aug}, pages = {e0135424}, title = {Area-Specific Information Processing in Prefrontal Cortex during a Probabilistic Inference Task: A Multivariate fMRI BOLD Time Series Analysis}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0135424}, volume = {10}, year = {2015} } @article{Eifler2014, abstract = {Previous studies have demonstrated a cognitive bias in the integration of disconfirmatory evidence (BADE) in patients with schizophrenia. This bias has been associated with delusions. So far, it is unclear how the integration of evidence is associated with neurocognitive capabilities. In the current study, 31 patients with schizophrenia and 29 healthy controls, matched on age, gender, education and premorbid verbal intelligence, underwent a BADE task. Written scenarios of three consecutive sentences each were presented, which progressively reduced the ambiguity of situations. Participants were asked to rate the plausibility of four possible interpretations and adjust their ratings in response to the provided sentences. Psychometric rating scales and a neuropsychological test battery were applied. Patients displayed a bias in the integration of confirmatory, but not disconfirmatory evidence and a liberal acceptance of belief formation. Correlation analyses revealed no associations of evidence integration with the severity of positive symptoms, but with neurocognitive domains, especially with processing speed, executive functioning, vigilance and working memory. In conclusion, patients with schizophrenia show a bias in evidence integration. Neurocognitive functioning emerged as a modulatory factor that should be considered in further research. Studies investigating BADE in earlier stages of psychosis will be necessary to reveal causal relationships.}, author = {Eifler, Sarah and Rausch, Franziska and Schirmbeck, Frederike and Veckenstedt, Ruth and Englisch, Susanne and Meyer-Lindenberg, Andreas and Kirsch, Peter and Zink, Mathias}, doi = {10.1016/j.psychres.2014.04.056}, journal = {Psychiatry Research}, month = {may}, pages = {72-78}, title = {Neurocognitive capabilities modulate the integration of evidence in schizophrenia}, url = {https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Andreas_Meyer-Lindenberg/publication/262734707_Neurocognitive_capabilities_modulate_the_integration_of_evidence_in_schizophrenia/links/53d6545a0cf228d363ea4e3f.pdf}, volume = {219}, year = {2014} } @article{Eisenacher2015, abstract = {BackgroundMetamemory describes the monitoring and knowledge about one's memory capabilities. Patients with schizophrenia have been found to be less able in differentiating between correct and false answers (smaller confidence gap) when asked to provide retrospective confidence ratings in previous studies. Furthermore, higher proportions of very-high-confident but false responses have been found in this patient group (high knowledge corruption). Whether and how these biases contribute to the early pathogenesis of psychosis is yet unclear. This study thus aimed at investigating metamemory function in the early course of psychosis.MethodPatients in an at-risk mental state for psychosis (ARMS, n = 34), patients with a first episode of psychosis (FEP, n = 21) and healthy controls (HCs, n = 38) were compared on a verbal recognition task combined with retrospective confidence-level ratings.ResultsFEP patients showed the smallest confidence gap, followed by ARMS patients, followed by HCs. All groups differed significantly from each other. Regarding knowledge corruption, FEP patients differed significantly from HCs, whereas a statistical trend was revealed in comparison of ARMS and FEP groups. Correlations were revealed between metamemory, measures of positive symptoms and working memory performance.ConclusionsThese data underline the presence of a metamemory bias in ARMS patients which is even more pronounced in FEP patients. The bias might represent an early cognitive marker of the beginning psychotic state. Longitudinal studies are needed to unravel whether metacognitive deficits predict the transition to psychosis and to evaluate therapeutic interventions.}, author = {Eisenacher, S. and Rausch, F. and Ainser, F. and Mier, D. and Veckenstedt, R. and Schirmbeck, F. and Lewien, A. and Englisch, S. and Andreou, C. and Moritz, S. and Meyer-Lindenberg, A. and Kirsch, P. and Zink, M.}, doi = {10.1017/s0033291715001373}, journal = {Psychological Medicine}, month = {jul}, pages = {3329-3340}, title = {Investigation of metamemory functioning in the at-risk mental state for psychosis}, url = {https://oadoi.org/10.1017/s0033291715001373}, volume = {45}, year = {2015} } @article{Fenske2015, abstract = {Abstract Background Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is characterized by severe deficits in social interactions, which might be linked to deficits in emotion recognition. Research on emotion recognition abilities in BPD revealed heterogeneous results, ranging from deficits to heightened sensitivity. The most stable findings point to an impairment in the evaluation of neutral facial expressions as neutral, as well as to a negative bias in emotion recognition; that is the tendency to attribute negative emotions to neutral expressions, or in a broader sense to report a more negative emotion category than depicted. However, it remains unclear which contextual factors influence the occurrence of this negative bias. Previous studies suggest that priming by preceding emotional information and also constrained processing time might augment the emotion recognition deficit in BPD. Methods To test these assumptions, 32 female BPD patients and 31 healthy females, matched for age and education, participated in an emotion recognition study, in which every facial expression was preceded by either a positive, neutral or negative scene. Furthermore, time constraints for processing were varied by presenting the facial expressions with short (100 ms) or long duration (up to 3000 ms) in two separate blocks. Results BPD patients showed a significant deficit in emotion recognition for neutral and positive facial expression, associated with a significant negative bias. In BPD patients, this emotion recognition deficit was differentially affected by preceding emotional information and time constraints, with a greater influence of emotional information during long face presentations and a greater influence of neutral information during short face presentations. Conclusions Our results are in line with previous findings supporting the existence of a negative bias in emotion recognition in BPD patients, and provide further insights into biased social perceptions in BPD patients.}, author = {Fenske, Sabrina and Lis, Stefanie and Liebke, Lisa and Niedtfeld, Inga and Kirsch, Peter and Mier, Daniela}, doi = {10.1186/s40479-015-0031-z}, journal = {Borderline Personality Disorder and Emotion Dysregulation}, month = {jun}, title = {Emotion recognition in borderline personality disorder: effects of emotional information on negative bias}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40479-015-0031-z}, volume = {2}, year = {2015} } @article{Gerchen2020, author = {Gerchen, Martin Fungisai and Weiss, Franziska and Kirsch, Martina and Rentsch, Alena and Halli, Patrick and Kiefer, Falk and Kirsch, Peter}, doi = {10.1002/hbm.25201}, journal = {Human Brain Mapping}, month = {sep}, pages = {36-46}, title = {Dynamic frontostriatal functional peak connectivity (in alcohol use disorder)}, url = {https://oadoi.org/10.1002/hbm.25201}, volume = {42}, year = {2020} } @article{Haddad2014, abstract = {Urban upbringing has consistently been associated with schizophrenia, but which specific environmental exposures are reflected by this epidemiological observation and how they impact the developing brain to increase risk is largely unknown. On the basis of prior observations of abnormal functional brain processing of social stress in urban-born humans and preclinical evidence for enduring structural brain effects of early social stress, we investigated a possible morphological correlate of urban upbringing in human brain. In a sample of 110 healthy subjects studied with voxel-based morphometry, we detected a strong inverse correlation between early-life urbanicity and gray matter (GM) volume in the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC, Brodmann area 9). Furthermore, we detected a negative correlation of early-life urbanicity and GM volumes in the perigenual anterior cingulate cortex (pACC) in men only. Previous work has linked volume reductions in the DLPFC to the exposure to psychosocial stress, including stressful experiences in early life. Besides, anatomical and functional alterations of this region have been identified in schizophrenic patients and high-risk populations. Previous data linking functional hyperactivation of pACC during social stress to urban upbringing suggest that the present interaction effect in brain structure might contribute to an increased risk for schizophrenia in males brought up in cities. Taken together, our results suggest a neural mechanism by which early-life urbanicity could impact brain architecture to increase the risk for schizophrenia.}, author = {Haddad, Leila and Schäfer, Axel and Streit, Fabian and Lederbogen, Florian and Grimm, Oliver and Wüst, Stefan and Deuschle, Michael and Kirsch, Peter and Tost, Heike and Meyer-Lindenberg, Andreas}, doi = {10.1093/schbul/sbu072}, journal = {Schizophrenia Bulletin: The Journal of Psychoses and Related Disorders}, month = {jun}, pages = {115-122}, title = {Brain Structure Correlates of Urban Upbringing, an Environmental Risk Factor for Schizophrenia}, url = {https://academic.oup.com/schizophreniabulletin/article-pdf/41/1/115/7708372/sbu072.pdf}, volume = {41}, year = {2014} } @article{Heinz2019, abstract = {One of the major risk factors for global death and disability is alcohol, tobacco, and illicit drug use. While there is increasing knowledge with respect to individual factors promoting the initiation and maintenance of substance use disorders (SUDs), disease trajectories involved in losing and regaining control over drug intake (ReCoDe) are still not well described. Our newly formed German Collaborative Research Centre (CRC) on ReCoDe has an interdisciplinary approach funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) with a 12-year perspective. The main goals of our research consortium are (i) to identify triggers and modifying factors that longitudinally modulate the trajectories of losing and regaining control over drug consumption in real life, (ii) to study underlying behavioral, cognitive, and neurobiological mechanisms, and (iii) to implicate mechanism-based interventions. These goals will be achieved by: (i) using mobile health (m-health) tools to longitudinally monitor the effects of triggers (drug cues, stressors, and priming doses) and modify factors (eg, age, gender, physical activity, and cognitive control) on drug consumption patterns in real-life conditions and in animal models of addiction; (ii) the identification and computational modeling of key mechanisms mediating the effects of such triggers and modifying factors on goal-directed, habitual, and compulsive aspects of behavior from human studies and animal models; and (iii) developing and testing interventions that specifically target the underlying mechanisms for regaining control over drug intake.}, author = {Heinz, Andreas and Kiefer, Falk and Smolka, Michael N. and Endrass, Tanja and Beste, Christian and Beck, Anne and Liu, Shuyan and Genauck, Alexander and Banaschewski, Tobias and Bermpohl, Felix and Romund, Lydia and Deserno, Lorenz and Dolan, Raymond J. and Durstewitz, Daniel and Ebner‐Priemer, Ulrich and Flor, Herta and Hansson, Anita C. and Heim, Christine and Hermann, Derik and Kiebel, Stefan and Kirsch, Peter and Kirschbaum, Clemens and Koppe, Georgia and Marxen, Michael and Nagel, Wolfgang E. and Meyer‐Lindenberg, Andreas and Noori, Hamid R. and Pilhatsch, Maximilian and Priller, Josef and Vollstädt‐Klein, Sabine and Rietschel, Marcella and Romanczuk‐Seiferth, Nina and Schlagenhauf, Florian and Sommer, Wolfgang H. and Winterer, Georg and Stallkamp, Jan and Winter, Christine and Ströhle, Andreas and Walter, Henrik and Stock, Ann‐Kathrin-K. and Witt, Stephanie and Rapp, Michael A. and Tost, Heike and Spanagel, Rainer}, doi = {10.25932/publishup-52597}, journal = {Addiction Biology}, month = {dec}, title = {Addiction Research Consortium: Losing and regaining control over drug intake (ReCoDe)—From trajectories to mechanisms and interventions}, url = {https://api.wiley.com/onlinelibrary/tdm/v1/articles/10.1111%2Fadb.12866}, volume = {25}, year = {2019} } @article{Koppe2014, author = {Koppe, Georgia and Gruppe, Harald and Sammer, Gebhard and Gallhofer, Bernd and Kirsch, Peter and Lis, Stefanie}, doi = {10.1016/j.neuroimage.2014.07.008}, journal = {NeuroImage}, month = {nov}, pages = {236-244}, title = {Temporal unpredictability of a stimulus sequence affects brain activation differently depending on cognitive task demands}, url = {https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2014.07.008}, volume = {101}, year = {2014} } @article{Koppe2015, author = {Koppe, G. and Heidel, A. and Sammer, G. and Bohus, M. and Gallhofer, B. and Kirsch, P. and Lis, S.}, doi = {10.1016/j.neuroimage.2015.06.081}, journal = {NeuroImage}, month = {oct}, pages = {214-224}, title = {Temporal unpredictability of a stimulus sequence and the processing of neutral and emotional stimuli}, url = {https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2015.06.081}, volume = {120}, year = {2015} } @article{Plichta2014, abstract = {Amygdala function is of high interest for cognitive, social and psychiatric neuroscience, emphasizing the need for reliable assessments in humans. Previous work has indicated unsatisfactorily low within-subject reliability of amygdala activation fMRI measures. Based on basic science evidence for strong habituation of amygdala response to repeated stimuli, we investigated whether a quantification of habituation provides additional information beyond the usual estimate of the overall mean activity. We assessed the within-subject reliability of amygdala habituation measures during a facial emotion matching paradigm in 25 healthy subjects. We extracted the amygdala signal decrement across the course of the fMRI run for the two test-retest measurement sessions and compared reliability estimates with previous findings based on mean response amplitude. Retest-reliability of the session-wise amygdala habituation was significantly higher than the evoked amygdala mean amplitude (intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC) = 0.53 vs. 0.16). To test the task-specificity of this finding, we compared the retest-reliability of amygdala habituation across two different tasks. Significant amygdala response decrement was also seen in a cognitive task (n-back working memory) that did not per se activate the amygdala, but was totally unreliable in that context (ICC ~ 0.0), arguing for task-specificity. Together the results show that emotion-dependent amygdala habituation is a robust and considerably more reliable index than the mean amplitude, and provides a robust potential endpoint for within-subject designs including pharmaco-fMRI studies.}, author = {Plichta, Michael M. and Grimm, Oliver and Morgen, Katrin and Mier, Daniela and Sauer, Carina and Haddad, Leila and Tost, Heike and Esslinger, Christine and Kirsch, Peter and Schwarz, Adam J. and Meyer-Lindenberg, Andreas}, doi = {10.1016/j.neuroimage.2014.09.059}, journal = {NeuroImage}, month = {oct}, pages = {383-390}, title = {Amygdala habituation: A reliable fMRI phenotype}, url = {https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2014.09.059}, volume = {103}, year = {2014} } @article{Rausch2014, author = {Rausch, Franziska and Mier, Daniela and Eifler, Sarah and Esslinger, Christine and Schilling, Claudia and Schirmbeck, Frederike and Englisch, Susanne and Meyer-Lindenberg, Andreas and Kirsch, Peter and Zink, Mathias}, doi = {10.1016/j.schres.2014.04.020}, journal = {Schizophrenia Research}, month = {jul}, pages = {143-149}, title = {Reduced activation in ventral striatum and ventral tegmental area during probabilistic decision-making in schizophrenia}, url = {https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Mathias_Zink/publication/262267020_Reduced_activation_in_ventral_striatum_and_ventral_tegmental_area_during_probabilistic_decision-making_in_schizophrenia/links/54afed250cf220c63ccdc76f.pdf}, volume = {156}, year = {2014} } @article{Rausch2015, abstract = {BACKGROUND: Patients with schizophrenia display metacognitive impairments, such as hasty decision-making during probabilistic reasoning - the "jumping to conclusion" bias (JTC). Our recent fMRI study revealed reduced activations in the right ventral striatum (VS) and the ventral tegmental area (VTA) to be associated with decision-making in patients with schizophrenia. It is unclear whether these functional alterations occur in the at-risk mental state (ARMS). METHODS: We administered the classical beads task and fMRI among ARMS patients and healthy controls matched for age, sex, education and premorbid verbal intelligence. None of the ARMS patients was treated with antipsychotics. Both tasks request probabilistic decisions after a variable amount of stimuli. We evaluated activation during decision-making under certainty versus uncertainty and the process of final decision-making. RESULTS: We included 24 AMRS patients and 24 controls in our study. Compared with controls, ARMS patients tended to draw fewer beads and showed significantly more JTC bias in the classical beads task, mirroring findings in patients with schizophrenia. During fMRI, ARMS patients did not demonstrate JTC bias on the behavioural level, but showed a significant hypoactivation in the right VS during the decision stage. LIMITATIONS: Owing to the cross-sectional design of the study, results are constrained to a better insight into the neurobiology of risk constellations, but not prepsychotic stages. Nine of the ARMS patients were treated with antidepressants and/or lorazepam. CONCLUSION: As in patients with schizophrenia, a striatal hypoactivation was found in ARMS patients. Confounding effects of antipsychotic medication can be excluded. Our findings indicate that error prediction signalling and reward anticipation may be linked to striatal dysfunction during prodromal stages and should be examined for their utility in predicting transition risk.}, author = {Rausch, Franziska and Mier, Daniela and Eifler, Sarah and Schirmbeck, Frederike and Fenske, Sabrina and Schilling, Claudia and Englisch, Susanne and Meyer-Lindenberg, Andreas and Kirsch, Peter and Zink, Mathias}, doi = {10.1503/jpn.140191}, journal = {Journal of Psychiatry & Neuroscience}, month = {may}, pages = {163-173}, title = {Reduced activation in the ventral striatum during probabilistic decision-making in patients in an at-risk mental state}, url = {http://jpn.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/40-3-163.pdf}, volume = {40}, year = {2015} } @article{Reitz2015, abstract = {BackgroundPatients with borderline personality disorder frequently show non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI). In these patients, NSSI often serves to reduce high levels of stress.AimsInvestigation of neurobiological mechanisms of NSSI in borderline personality disorderMethodIn total, 21 women with borderline personality disorder and 17 healthy controls underwent a stress induction, followed by either an incision into the forearm or a sham treatment. Afterwards participants underwent resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging while aversive tension, heart rate and heart rate variability were assessed.ResultsWe found a significant influence of incision on subjective and objective stress levels with a stronger decrease of aversive tension in the borderline personality disorder group following incision than sham. Amygdala activity decreased more and functional connectivity with superior frontal gyrus normalised after incision in the borderline personality disorder group.ConclusionsDecreased stress levels and amygdala activity after incision support the assumption of an influence of NSSI on emotion regulation in individuals with borderline personality disorder and aids in understanding why these patients use self-inflicted pain to reduce inner tension.}, author = {Reitz, Sarah and Kluetsch, Rosemarie and Niedtfeld, Inga and Knorz, Teresa and Lis, Stefanie and Paret, Christian and Kirsch, Peter and Meyer-Lindenberg, Andreas and Treede, Rolf-Detlef and Baumgärtner, Ulf and Bohus, Martin and Schmahl, Christian}, doi = {10.1192/bjp.bp.114.153379}, journal = {British Journal of Psychiatry}, month = {apr}, pages = {165-172}, title = {Incision and stress regulation in borderline personality disorder: Neurobiological mechanisms of self-injurious behaviour}, url = {http://bjp.rcpsych.org/content/bjprcpsych/207/2/165.full.pdf}, volume = {207}, year = {2015} } @article{Schirmbeck2015, abstract = {Background: Patients with schizophrenia have an approximately 10-fold higher risk for obsessive-compulsive symptoms (OCS) than the general population. A large subgroup seems to experience OCS as a consequence of second-generation antipsychotic agents (SGA), such as clozapine. So far little is known about underlying neural mechanisms. Methods: To investigate the role of SGA treatment on neural processing related to OCS in patients with schizophrenia, we stratified patients according to their monotherapy into 2 groups (group I: clozapine or olanzapine; group II: amisulpride or aripiprazole). We used an fMRI approach, applying a go/no-go task assessing inhibitory control and an n-back task measuring working memory. Results: We enrolled 21 patients in group I and 19 patients in group II. Groups did not differ regarding age, sex, education or severity of psychotic symptoms. Frequency and severity of OCS were significantly higher in group I and were associated with pronounced deficits in specific cognitive abilities. Whereas brain activation patterns did not differ during working memory, group I showed significantly increased activation in the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) during response inhibition. Alterations in OFC activation were associated with the severity of obsessions and mediated the association between SGA treatment and co-occurring OCS on a trend level. Limitations: The main limitation of this study is its cross-sectional design. Conclusion: To our knowledge, this is the first imaging study conducted to elucidate SGA effects on neural systems related to OCS. We propose that alterations in brain functioning reflect a pathogenic mechanism in the development of SGA-induced OCS in patients with schizophrenia. Longitudinal studies and randomized interventions are needed to prove the suggested causal interrelations.}, author = {Schirmbeck, Frederike and Mier, Daniela and Rausch, Franziska and Meyer-Lindenberg, Andreas and Zink, Mathias and Esslinger, Christine and Englisch, Susanne and Eifler, Sarah and Kirsch, Peter}, doi = {10.1503/jpn.140021}, journal = {Journal of Psychiatry & Neuroscience}, month = {mar}, pages = {89-99}, title = {Increased orbitofrontal cortex activation associated with “pro-obsessive” antipsychotic treatment in patients with schizophrenia}, url = {http://jpn.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/40-2-89.pdf}, volume = {40}, year = {2015} } @article{Streit2014, abstract = {Abstract We have previously shown that urban upbringing and city living were associated with stress-induced activity in the amygdala and the perigenual anterior cingulate cortex (pACC). This finding might link the epidemiological risk factor "urbanicity" to neurobiological mechanisms of psychiatric disorders. However, given the heritability of stress related phenotypes, it appears likely that genetic factors can modulate the effect of urbanicity on social stress processing. In the present exploratory study, we investigated if a functional sequence variation in the neuropeptide S receptor gene (NPSR1 rs324981) is associated with brain activation patterns under acute psychosocial stress and if it modulates the link between urbanicity and central stress processing. In animals, neuropeptide S has strong anxiolytic effects and it induces hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis activation. In humans, rs324981 was found to be associated with anxiety and stress related phenotypes. Forty-two subjects were exposed to a psychosocial stress task for scanner environments (ScanSTRESS). While no main effect of rs324981 on amygdala and pACC activity was detected, we found a distinct interaction between rs324981 and urban upbringing modulating right amygdala responses. Moreover, right amygdala responses were significantly higher in subjects who also showed a salivary cortisol response to the stress exposure. The present finding of a gene x environment interaction further supports the view that the brain NPS system is involved in central stress regulation. This study provides first evidence for the assumption that a NPSR1 variant modulates brain activation under stress, interacting with the environmental risk factor urban upbringing.}, author = {Streit, Fabian and Haddad, Leila and Paul, Torsten and Frank, Josef and Schäfer, Axel and Nikitopoulos, Jörg and Akdeniz, Ceren and Lederbogen, Florian and Treutlein, Jens and Witt, Stephanie and Meyer-Lindenberg, Andreas and Rietschel, Marcella and Kirsch, Peter and Wüst, Stefan}, doi = {10.3109/10253890.2014.921903}, journal = {Stress: The International Journal on the Biology of Stress}, month = {may}, pages = {352-361}, title = {A functional variant in the neuropeptide S receptor 1 gene moderates the influence of urban upbringing on stress processing in the amygdala}, url = {https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Andreas_Meyer-Lindenberg/publication/262109205_A_functional_variant_in_the_neuropeptide_S_receptor_1_gene_moderates_the_influence_of_urban_upbringing_on_stress_processing_in_the_amygdala/links/550a75390cf20ed529e33132.pdf}, volume = {17}, year = {2014} } @article{Ubl2015, author = {Ubl, Bettina and Kuehner, Christine and Kirsch, Peter and Ruttorf, Michaela and Diener, Carsten and Flor, Herta}, doi = {10.1093/scan/nsu158}, journal = {Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience}, month = {jan}, pages = {1102-1112}, title = {Altered neural reward and loss processing and prediction error signalling in depression}, url = {https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsu158}, volume = {10}, year = {2015} } @article{Ubl2015_2, abstract = {Background.Dysfunctional behavioural and neural processing of reward has been found in currently depressed individuals. However, little is known about altered reward processing in remitted depressed individuals.Method.A total of 23 medication-free individuals with remitted major depressive disorder (rMDD) and 23 matched healthy controls (HCs) performed a reward task during functional magnetic resonance imaging. We also investigated reward dependence, novelty seeking and harm avoidance using the Tridimensional Personality Questionnaire and their association with neural responses of reward processing.Results.Compared to HCs, individuals with rMDD exhibited enhanced responses to reward-predicting cues in the hippocampus, amygdala and superior frontal gyrus. When reward was delivered, rMDD subjects did not significantly differ from HCs. In both groups neural activity during reward anticipation was negatively correlated with harm avoidance.Conclusions.Our results show that rMDD is characterized by hyperactivation in fronto-limbic regions during reward anticipation. Alterations in neural activation during reward processing might reflect an increased effort in remitted depressed individuals to allocate neural activity for executive and evaluative processes during anticipatory reward processing.}, author = {Ubl, B. and Kuehner, C. and Kirsch, Peter and Ruttorf, M. and Flor, H. and Diener, C.}, doi = {10.1017/s0033291715001452}, journal = {Psychological Medicine}, month = {aug}, pages = {3549-3558}, title = {Neural reward processing in individuals remitted from major depression}, url = {https://oadoi.org/10.1017/s0033291715001452}, volume = {45}, year = {2015} } @article{Zänkert2015, author = {Zänkert, Sandra and Streit, Fabian and Haddad, Leila and Akdeniz, Ceren and Trost, Heike and Kumsta, Robert and Entringer, Sonja and Yim, Ilona S. and Witt, Stephanie and Kirsch, Peter and Rietschel, Marcella and Wüst, Stefan}, doi = {10.1016/j.psyneuen.2015.07.550}, journal = {Psychoneuroendocrinology}, month = {nov}, pages = {59}, title = {Sex modulates the interaction between neuropeptide S gene variants and endocrine and central stress responses}, url = {https://oadoi.org/10.1016/j.psyneuen.2015.07.550}, volume = {61}, year = {2015} }