TY - JOUR A1 - Schultebraucks, Katharina A1 - Deuter, Christian E. A1 - Duesenberg, Moritz A1 - Schulze, Lars A1 - Hellmann-Regen, Julian A1 - Domke, Antonia A1 - Lockenvitz, Lisa A1 - Kuehl, Linn K. A1 - Otte, Christian A1 - Wingenfeld, Katja T1 - Selective attention to emotional cues and emotion recognition in healthy subjects: the role of mineralocorticoid receptor stimulation JF - Psychopharmacology N2 - Selective attention toward emotional cues and emotion recognition of facial expressions are important aspects of social cognition. Stress modulates social cognition through cortisol, which acts on glucocorticoid (GR) and mineralocorticoid receptors (MR) in the brain. We examined the role of MR activation on attentional bias toward emotional cues and on emotion recognition. We included 40 healthy young women and 40 healthy young men (mean age 23.9 +/- 3.3), who either received 0.4 mg of the MR agonist fludrocortisone or placebo. A dot-probe paradigm was used to test for attentional biases toward emotional cues (happy and sad faces). Moreover, we used a facial emotion recognition task to investigate the ability to recognize emotional valence (anger and sadness) from facial expression in four graded categories of emotional intensity (20, 30, 40, and 80 %). In the emotional dot-probe task, we found a main effect of treatment and a treatment x valence interaction. Post hoc analyses revealed an attentional bias away from sad faces after placebo intake and a shift in selective attention toward sad faces compared to placebo. We found no attentional bias toward happy faces after fludrocortisone or placebo intake. In the facial emotion recognition task, there was no main effect of treatment. MR stimulation seems to be important in modulating quick, automatic emotional processing, i.e., a shift in selective attention toward negative emotional cues. Our results confirm and extend previous findings of MR function. However, we did not find an effect of MR stimulation on emotion recognition. KW - Selective attention KW - Emotion recognition KW - Fludrocortisone KW - Mineralocorticoid receptor KW - Stress KW - Cortisol Y1 - 2016 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s00213-016-4380-0 SN - 0033-3158 SN - 1432-2072 VL - 233 SP - 3405 EP - 3415 PB - Springer CY - New York ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Schaan, Luca A1 - Schulz, Andre A1 - Nuraydin, Sevim A1 - Bergert, Cora A1 - Hilger, Annett A1 - Rach, Hannah A1 - Hechler, Tanja T1 - Interoceptive accuracy, emotion recognition, and emotion regulation in preschool children JF - International journal of psychophysiology N2 - Little is known about the conscious experience of internal bodily sensations in preschool-aged children. Given that preschoolers are in the most rapid phase of brain development, and display profound emotional development, it was the aim of the present study to establish an adapted interoceptive accuracy paradigm and to investigate associations between sociodemographic (age, sex) and emotional variables with interoceptive accuracy. Forty-nine children (aged 4–6 years) completed the jumping jack paradigm (JJP), a heartbeat tracking paradigm, which includes a noninvasive physical perturbation via performing jumping jacks for 10 s. An interoceptive accuracy score was based on the comparison between self-reported and objectively recorded heart rate prior to and after completion of jumping jacks. Children also completed validated measures for emotion recognition and emotion regulation. Children's objectively recorded heart rate significantly increased after the JJP by 20 bpm on average. There was a positive relationship between reactivity on self-reported heart rate and objectively recorded heart rate increase. The derived scores for interoceptive accuracy increased with age, suggesting older children to report more self-reported heart rate change than objectively recorded, but were unrelated to children's sex or BMI. While emotion recognition and regulation significantly increased with age, the interoceptive accuracy score was unrelated to emotion recognition, but marginally associated to emotion regulation. Children with higher interoceptive accuracy score (i.e., self-reporting more heart rate change than objectively recorded) received lower emotion regulation score. The present study is the first to depict a novel behavioral paradigm to assess interoceptive accuracy in preschool-aged children. KW - Interoception KW - Preschoolers KW - Interoceptive accuracy KW - Emotion recognition KW - Emotion regulation Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2019.02.001 SN - 0167-8760 SN - 1872-7697 VL - 138 SP - 47 EP - 56 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Meiser, Susanne A1 - Zietlow, Anna-Lena A1 - Reck, Corinna A1 - Träuble, Birgit T1 - The impact of postpartum depression and anxiety disorders on children's processing of facial emotional expressions at pre-school age JF - ARCHIVES OF WOMENS MENTAL HEALTH N2 - To enhance understanding of impaired socio-emotional development in children of postpartum depressed or anxious mothers, this longitudinal study addressed the question of whether maternal postpartum depression and anxiety disorders result in deficits in children's processing of facial emotional expressions (FEEs) at pre-school age. Thirty-two mothers who had fulfilled Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders IV (DSM-IV) criteria for postpartum depression and/or anxiety disorder and their pre-school aged children were tested for FEE processing abilities and compared to a healthy control group (n = 29). Child assessments included separate tasks for emotion recognition and emotion labelling. Mothers completed an emotion recognition test as well as the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Axis I Disorders I (SCID-I). Children of postpartum depressed and/or anxious mothers performed significantly worse than control children at labelling, but not at recognizing facial expressions of basic emotions. Emotion labelling at pre-school age was predicted by child age and maternal postpartum mental health, but neither current maternal mental health nor current maternal emotion recognition was associated with child FEE processing. Results point to a specific importance of early social experiences for the development of FEE labelling skills. However, further studies involving sensitive measures of emotion recognition are needed to determine if there might also exist subtle effects on FEE recognition. KW - Postpartum depression KW - Postpartum anxiety disorders KW - Emotion recognition KW - Emotion labelling KW - Pre-school children Y1 - 2015 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s00737-015-0519-y SN - 1434-1816 SN - 1435-1102 VL - 18 IS - 5 SP - 707 EP - 716 PB - Springer CY - Wien ER -