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Wang GY, Crook-Rumsey M, Sumich A, Dulson D, Gao TT, Premkumar P. The relationships between expressed emotion, cortisol, and EEG alpha asymmetry. Physiol Behav 2023:114276. [PMID: 37364671 DOI: 10.1016/j.physbeh.2023.114276] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/16/2023] [Revised: 05/29/2023] [Accepted: 06/20/2023] [Indexed: 06/28/2023]
Abstract
Families can express high criticism, hostility and emotional over-involvement towards a person with or at risk of mental health problems. Perceiving such high expressed emotion (EE) can be a major psychological stressor for individuals, especially those at risk of mental health problems. To reveal the biological mechanisms underlying the effect of EE on health, this study investigated physiological response (salivary cortisol, frontal alpha asymmetry (FAA)) to verbal criticism and their relationship to anxiety and perceived EE. Using a repeated-measures design, healthy participants attended three testing sessions on non-consecutive days. On each day, participants listened to one of three types of auditory stimuli, namely criticism, neutral or praise, and Electroencephalography (EEG) and salivary cortisol were measured. Results showed a reduction in cortisol following criticism but there was no significant change in FAA. Post-criticism cortisol concentration negatively correlated with perceived EE after controlling for baseline mood. Our findings suggest that salivary cortisol change responds to criticism in non-clinical populations might be largely driven by individual differences in the perception of criticism (e.g., arousal and relevance). Criticisms expressed by audio comments may not be explicitly perceived as an acute emotional stressor, and thus, physiological change responds to criticisms could be minimum.
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Affiliation(s)
- Grace Y Wang
- School of Psychology and Wellbeing, University of Southern Queensland, Australia; Centre for Health Research, University of Southern Queensland, University of Southern Queensland, Australia.
| | | | | | - Deb Dulson
- School of Biomedical, Nutritional and Sport Sciences, Newcastle University, UK; Sports Performance Research Institute New Zealand (SPRINZ), Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand
| | - Terry T Gao
- Morton Bay Regional Council, Queensland, Australia
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Hrivikova K, Marko M, Karailievova L, Romanova Z, Oravcova H, Riecansky I, Jezova D. Neuroendocrine response to a psychosocial stress test is not related to schizotypy but cortisol elevation predicts inflexibility of semantic memory retrieval. Psychoneuroendocrinology 2023; 154:106287. [PMID: 37182519 DOI: 10.1016/j.psyneuen.2023.106287] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/16/2022] [Revised: 03/30/2023] [Accepted: 05/02/2023] [Indexed: 05/16/2023]
Abstract
An altered stress response can contribute to the transition from preclinical psychotic symptoms to the clinical manifestation of schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders. The present study was aimed at testing the hypotheses that (i) the autonomic and neuroendocrine responses under psychosocial stress are dysregulated in individuals with high psychosis proneness (schizotypy); (ii) the magnitude of post-stress autonomic activation and cortisol release predicts alterations in semantic memory retrieval. The study was performed in 73 healthy individuals of both sexes with either high or low schizotypal traits preselected out of 609 individuals using the Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire. A psychosocial stress procedure based on public speech was used as a stress model. We found that individuals with high schizotypy engaged in less adaptive emotional stress-coping strategies than low schizotypy individuals. Yet, the neuroendocrine, immune, and sympathetic activation in response to the stress test was not different between the groups. Irrespective of the exposure to the stressor, individuals with high schizotypy were less fluent when retrieving associations from semantic memory. In addition, we demonstrated that acute psychosocial stress reduced the flexibility of semantic memory retrieval. The post-stress mental inflexibility was reliably predicted by the concomitant elevation of cortisol concentrations in saliva. The present study thus brings novel evidence indicating that the acute psychosocial challenge impairs retrieval flexibility in the semantic domain, which may be due to neuroendocrine activation.
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Affiliation(s)
- K Hrivikova
- Laboratory of Pharmacological Neuroendocrinology, Institute of Experimental Endocrinology, Biomedical Research Center of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava, Slovakia
| | - M Marko
- Department of Behavioural Neuroscience, Institute of Normal and Pathological Physiology, Centre of Experimental Medicine, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava, Slovakia; Department of Applied Informatics, Faculty of Mathematics, Physics and Informatics, Comenius University in Bratislava, Bratislava, Slovakia
| | - L Karailievova
- Laboratory of Pharmacological Neuroendocrinology, Institute of Experimental Endocrinology, Biomedical Research Center of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava, Slovakia
| | - Z Romanova
- Laboratory of Pharmacological Neuroendocrinology, Institute of Experimental Endocrinology, Biomedical Research Center of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava, Slovakia
| | - H Oravcova
- Laboratory of Pharmacological Neuroendocrinology, Institute of Experimental Endocrinology, Biomedical Research Center of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava, Slovakia; Department of Pharmacology and toxicology, Faculty of Pharmacy, Comenius University in Bratislava, Bratislava, Slovakia
| | - I Riecansky
- Department of Behavioural Neuroscience, Institute of Normal and Pathological Physiology, Centre of Experimental Medicine, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava, Slovakia; Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, Slovak Medical University in Bratislava, Bratislava, Slovakia.
| | - D Jezova
- Laboratory of Pharmacological Neuroendocrinology, Institute of Experimental Endocrinology, Biomedical Research Center of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava, Slovakia.
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Zandbagleh A, Mirzakuchaki S, Daliri MR, Premkumar P, Carretié L, Sanei S. Tensor factorization approach for ERP-based assessment of schizotypy in a novel auditory oddball task on perceived family stress. J Neural Eng 2022; 19. [PMID: 36541455 DOI: 10.1088/1741-2552/aca69f] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/08/2022] [Accepted: 11/28/2022] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
Abstract
Objective. Schizotypy, a potential phenotype for schizophrenia, is a personality trait that depicts psychosis-like signs in the normal range of psychosis continuum. Family communication may affect the social functioning of people with schizotypy. Greater family stress, such as irritability, criticism and less praise, is perceived at a higher level of schizotypy. This study aims to determine the differences between people with high and low levels of schizotypy using electroencephalography (EEG) during criticism, praise and neutral comments. EEGs were recorded from 29 participants in the general community who varied from low schizotypy to high schizotypy (HS) during a novel emotional auditory oddball task.Approach. We consider the difference in event-related potential parameters, namely the amplitude and latency of P300 subcomponents (P3a and P3b), between pairs of target words (standard, positive, negative and neutral). A model based on tensor factorization is then proposed to detect these components from the EEG using the CANDECOMP/PARAFAC decomposition technique. Finally, we employ the mutual information estimation method to select influential features for classification.Main results.The highest classification accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity of 93.1%, 94.73%, and 90% are obtained via leave-one-out cross validation.Significance. This is the first attempt to investigate the identification of individuals with psychometrically-defined HS from brain responses that are specifically associated with perceiving family stress and schizotypy. By measuring these brain responses to social stress, we achieve the goal of improving the accuracy in detection of early episodes of psychosis.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ahmad Zandbagleh
- School of Electrical Engineering, Iran University of Science and Technology, Tehran, Iran
| | - Sattar Mirzakuchaki
- School of Electrical Engineering, Iran University of Science and Technology, Tehran, Iran
| | - Mohammad Reza Daliri
- School of Electrical Engineering, Iran University of Science and Technology, Tehran, Iran
| | - Preethi Premkumar
- Division of Psychology, School of Applied Sciences, London Southbank University, London, United Kingdom
| | - Luis Carretié
- Facultad de Psicología, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, 28049 Madrid, Spain
| | - Saeid Sanei
- School of Science and Technology, Nottingham Trent University, Clifton Lane, Nottingham, United Kingdom
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Premkumar P, Kumari V. Rejection sensitivity and its relationship to schizotypy and aggression: current status and future directions. Curr Opin Behav Sci 2022. [DOI: 10.1016/j.cobeha.2022.101110] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/25/2022]
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Gerhart J, Russ EU, Alonzi S, Hoerger M. Shame in Response to Affective Expression and Its Relation to Social Anhedonia and Schizotypy Traits. J Nerv Ment Dis 2022; 210:54-60. [PMID: 34982751 DOI: 10.1097/nmd.0000000000001412] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/26/2022]
Abstract
ABSTRACT Schizotypy is marked by negative symptoms including blunted affect, social isolation, and social anhedonia. Contemporary personality theory suggests that maladaptive shame regulation may disrupt interpersonal function across personality disorders. We hypothesized that "affect shame"-a conditioned response of shame evoked by openly expressing emotions would co-occur with interpersonal deficits in schizotypy. As hypothesized, affect shame was associated with interpersonal deficits (r = 0.17, p < 0.001), physical anhedonia (r = 0.13, p = 0.001), and social anhedonia (r = 0.17, p = 0.001). The observed findings were upheld in analyses controlling for demographic characteristics, depression symptom severity, and neuroticism and were maintained consistently across sensitivity analyses. Findings suggest that shame related to emotional expression is related to interpersonal deficits in schizotypy and have implications for our understanding of the etiology and treatment of this disorder.
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Affiliation(s)
- James Gerhart
- Department of Psychology, Central Michigan University, Mount Pleasant, Michigan
| | - Eric U Russ
- Department of Psychiatry, University of Louisville, Louisville, Kentucky
| | - Sarah Alonzi
- Department of Psychology, Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana
| | - Michael Hoerger
- Department of Psychology, Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana
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Walter EE, Fernandez F, Barkus E. Not all stress is created equal: Acute, not ambient stress, impairs learning in high schizotypes. Psych J 2021; 11:179-193. [PMID: 33915603 DOI: 10.1002/pchj.452] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/14/2020] [Revised: 03/12/2021] [Accepted: 03/15/2021] [Indexed: 11/08/2022]
Abstract
Learning from feedback is essential for daily functioning, with factors that impact learning having implications for healthy and clinical populations. Reinforcement learning appears impaired across the psychosis continuum, with deficits reported in patients with psychotic disorders as well as high schizotypes from the general population. Stress can impair learning, and sensitivity to stress is present along the psychosis continuum. The aim of the present study was to understand if stress impairs reinforcement learning in those at the lower end of the psychosis continuum. We investigated both naturalistic stress in everyday life using daily hassles (Study 1: n = 70; 31% male, M age = 22.67 years) and acute psychosocial stress using the Trier Social Stress Test (Study 2: n = 57; 32% male, M age = 22.43 years). In the presence of naturalistic stress, learning did not differ across schizotypes. However, under acute psychosocial stress, high schizotypes experienced impaired learning. Our results suggest trail-and-error learning is robust to the ebbs and flows of everyday stress for high schizotypes; however, acute stress is associated with decrements in learning. This indicates that the magnitude of stressors should be considered when designing cognitive and functional interventions for those along the psychosis continuum.
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Affiliation(s)
- Emma E Walter
- School of Psychology, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia
| | - Francesca Fernandez
- Illawarra Health and Medical Research Institute, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia
| | - Emma Barkus
- School of Psychology, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia
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Abstract
Background. Schizotypy is a multidimensional construct that is linked to the vulnerability for psychosis. Positive schizotypy includes having paranormal beliefs. Negative schizotypy includes social anhedonia. Disorganized schizotypy includes social anxiety and communication disorder. Schizotypy relates to depression and aggression. Family stress from high expressed emotion (EE; a rating of criticism, hostility, and emotional overinvolvement in a close relative toward a person showing signs of mental disorder) may mediate the link between schizotypy, depression and aggression. This study tested, using path analyses, the hypotheses that schizotypy predicts depression and aggression through high perceived EE as criticism and irritability (hypothesis 1) and praise and intrusiveness in a close relative (hypothesis 2). Methods. One hundred and four healthy participants listened to and rated the self-relevance of standard criticism and standard praise that denote EE. Participants rated their level of schizotypy, depression, aggression, and perceived EE in self-report questionnaires. Two path models tested the hypotheses. Results. Disorganized schizotypy, more than positive schizotypy, predicted the path to depression and aggression when perceived criticism and perceived EE-irritability were mediators. Disorganised schizotypy, more than negative schizotypy, predicted the path to depression and aggression when perceived praise and perceived EE-intrusiveness were mediators. Conclusions. Greater perceived criticism and less perceived praise in family communication explain the path from disorganized schizotypy (more so than positive or negative schizotypy) to depression and aggression. These findings indicate a need to consider the thought disorder-EE link as a potential contributor to depression and aggression in people with schizophrenia.
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Affiliation(s)
- Preethi Premkumar
- Department of Psychology, School of Social Sciences, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, United Kingdom
| | - Elizabeth Kuipers
- King's College London, Department of Psychology, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, London, United Kingdom.,NIHR Biomedical Research Centre for Mental Health, South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, London, United Kingdom
| | - Veena Kumari
- Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience, College of Life and Health Sciences, Brunel University London, Uxbridge, United Kingdom
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