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Neural Predictors of Treatment Response in Depression
Abstract Depression is a leading cause of disability and treatment response is highly variable between patients. The current review focuses on recent findings from studies exploring neural predictors of treatment response to conventional antidepressant drugs, psychological treatment, and novel candidate interventions. Structural markers of response have revealed that decreased volume of key substrates such as the hippocampus and orbitofrontal cortex are predictive of poor response to antidepressant drug treatment, and diffusion tensor imaging offers potentially relevant information for future studies. P...
Source: Current Behavioral Neuroscience Reports - September 1, 2014 Category: Neuroscience Source Type: research

Beyond “Cold” Cognition: Exploring Cognitive Control of Emotion as a Risk Factor for Psychosis
Abstract The past 20 years of research examining psychosis risk factors has predominantly focused on “cold” cognitive (i.e., non-affective) processes. Despite identification of potential cognitive and associated brain-based vulnerability markers, our ability to identify those individuals at highest risk for future psychosis has not substantially improved. Consequently, researchers have begun to examine emotion-processing deficits as potential psychosis vulnerability markers. Here we propose that a particular emotion-processing domain, cognitive control of emotion, is a potential transdiagnostic mec...
Source: Current Behavioral Neuroscience Reports - September 1, 2014 Category: Neuroscience Source Type: research

Developmental Resting State Functional Connectivity for Clinicians
Abstract Resting state functional magnetic imaging (fMRI) is a novel means to examine functional brain networks. It allows investigators to identify functional networks defined by distinct, spontaneous signal fluctuations. Resting state functional connectivity (RSFC) studies examining child and adolescent psychiatric disorders are being published with increasing frequency, despite concerns about the impact of motion on findings. Here we review important RSFC findings on typical brain development and recent publications on child and adolescent psychiatric disorders. We close with a summary of the major f...
Source: Current Behavioral Neuroscience Reports - September 1, 2014 Category: Neuroscience Source Type: research

Current Neural and Behavioral Dimensional Constructs Across Mood Disorders
We present an integrated model for conceptualizing and understanding mood disorders drawing upon a broad literature. This integrated model of emotion processing and regulation incorporates the linguistic constructs of the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) initiative. In particular, we focus on the positive valence domain/circuit (PVC), highlighting recent reward research and the negative valence domain/circuit (NVC), highlighting rumination. Furthermore, we also illustrate the Cognitive Control and Problem Solving (CCaPS) circuit, which is heavily involved in emotion regulation, as well as the default mode network (DMN) and ...
Source: Current Behavioral Neuroscience Reports - September 1, 2014 Category: Neuroscience Source Type: research

Behavioral Inhibition: Temperament or Prodrome?
Abstract Individual differences in temperament emerge in the first months of life. Some infants display a heightened sensitivity to novelty and uncertainty in the world around them, leading a subset to fearfully withdraw from the social environment. Extreme forms of this temperament, Behavioral inhibition (BI), are associated with increased risk for social anxiety disorder. Indeed, the link is so strong that some suggest that BI is not simply a risk factor for anxiety, but rather a milder form of the disorder. The current overview describes the literature linking BI and anxiety, highlighting the unique ...
Source: Current Behavioral Neuroscience Reports - September 1, 2014 Category: Neuroscience Source Type: research

Looking Beyond Fear and Extinction Learning: Considering Novel Treatment Targets for Anxiety
Abstract Fear conditioning studies provide valuable insight into how fears are learned and extinguished. Previous work focuses on fear and extinction learning to understand and treat anxiety disorders. However, a cascade of cognitive processes that extend beyond learning may also yield therapeutic targets for anxiety disorders. Throughout this review, we will discuss recent findings of fear generalization, memory consolidation, and reconsolidation. Factors related to effectiveness, efficiency and durability of extinction-based treatments will be addressed. Moreover, adolescence may be a key developmenta...
Source: Current Behavioral Neuroscience Reports - September 1, 2014 Category: Neuroscience Source Type: research

Neurobiology of Pediatric Anxiety Disorders
Abstract While the fear-based anxiety disorders (i.e., generalized anxiety disorder, social phobia and separation anxiety disorder) are among the most common psychiatric conditions in children and adolescents, only recently has an integrated understanding of the neurobiology of these disorders developed. In this regard, both structural and functional neuroimaging studies have demonstrated neuroanatomic and functional abnormalities within the amygdala and prefrontal cortex in youth with fear-based anxiety disorders, and have also suggested altered functional connectivity among components of the anterior ...
Source: Current Behavioral Neuroscience Reports - September 1, 2014 Category: Neuroscience Source Type: research

The Use of New Communications Technologies to Evaluate and Intervene in Substance Use Disorders
This article reviews recent research on the use of new technology to monitor progress and deliver interventions for SUD. Several studies of telephone-based interventions have shown positive effects, but sometimes only in certain subgroups. However, other studies have produced negative results. Studies have supported the use of interactive voice response (IVR) and personal digital assistants (PDAs) to conduct assessments, but there are few data on whether IVR- or PDA-based interventions improve outcomes. Text messaging has received comparatively little research, but appears promising as a means to conduct assessments and de...
Source: Current Behavioral Neuroscience Reports - June 20, 2014 Category: Neuroscience Source Type: research

Epigenetic Dysregulation in the Schizophrenic Brain
Abstract Schizophrenia (SCZ) is a severe psychiatric disorder, which lacks a unifying neuropathology. However, reproducible molecular alterations exist, including RNA expression changes affecting GABAergic and other neuronal signaling in cerebral cortex, myelination, and other cellular functions. Yet, for the large majority of RNAs altered in the SCZ brain, the underlying transcriptional and post-transcriptional disease-associated mechanisms remain unclear. Here, we provide an update on epigenetic regulators of gene expression that are potentially affected in some cases with SCZ, including DNA cytosine ...
Source: Current Behavioral Neuroscience Reports - June 1, 2014 Category: Neuroscience Source Type: research

Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS): Modulation of Executive Function in Health and Disease
Abstract Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is a noninvasive method of neuromodulation used in human basic and clinical neuroscience. In this article we review its use in the cognitive neurosciences to study executive function, and current preliminary explorations of its therapeutic value as a cognitive enhancer for patients with compromised dysexecutive symptoms. We discuss published studies analyzing their methodology and results. A number of experiments describe improvement in experimental measures of inhibitory control, working memory, and verbal fluency with anodal stimulation over the ...
Source: Current Behavioral Neuroscience Reports - June 1, 2014 Category: Neuroscience Source Type: research

Animal Models of Psychosis: Current State and Future Directions
Abstract Psychosis is an abnormal mental state characterized by disorganization, delusions and hallucinations. Animal models have become an increasingly important research tool in the effort to understand both the underlying pathophysiology and treatment of psychosis. There are multiple animal models for psychosis, with each formed by the coupling of a manipulation and a measurement. In this manuscript we do not address the diseases of which psychosis is a prominent comorbidity. Instead, we summarize the current state of affairs and future directions for animal models of psychosis. To accomplish this, o...
Source: Current Behavioral Neuroscience Reports - June 1, 2014 Category: Neuroscience Source Type: research

Vagus Nerve Stimulation
Abstract The vagus nerve is a major component of the autonomic nervous system, has an important role in the regulation of metabolic homeostasis, and plays a key role in the neuro-endocrine-immune axis to maintain homeostasis through its afferent and efferent pathways. Vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) refers to any technique that stimulates the vagus nerve, including manual or electrical stimulation. Left cervical VNS is an approved therapy for refractory epilepsy and for treatment-resistant depression. Right cervical VNS is effective for treating heart failure in preclinical studies and a phase II clinical...
Source: Current Behavioral Neuroscience Reports - June 1, 2014 Category: Neuroscience Source Type: research

Toward an Understanding of the Neural Circuitry of Major Depressive Disorder Through the Clinical Response to Deep Brain Stimulation of Different Anatomical Targets
Abstract Deep brain stimulation has been proposed as a treatment for treatment-resistant depression. To date, multiple brain targets have been tested in single case studies and case series. The target regions with the most evidence to support their use are the subcallosal cingulate, ventral capsule/ventral striatum, nucleus accumbens, and medial forebrain bundle. Treatment effects of stimulation at each target share some commonalities, including similar response and remission rates, a relatively slow and progressive time course of treatment response, with a comparatively fast depressive relapse after di...
Source: Current Behavioral Neuroscience Reports - June 1, 2014 Category: Neuroscience Source Type: research

The Future of Psychoses as Seen from the History of its Evolution
Abstract Reflecting on the history of psychoses reveals several trends in psychiatry’s approach to this difficult disease. The field initially took a symptom-based categorical approach in the 18th to the early19th century; in the late 19th century, Kraepelin unified diverse categories into the unitary concept of dementia praecox, and separated it from manic depressive insanity. While this distinction has persisted ever since, the last 5 decades witnessed a focus on operationalizing symptomatic criteria continuing into the current Diagnostic and Statistical manual (DSM) classification. While reliabilit...
Source: Current Behavioral Neuroscience Reports - June 1, 2014 Category: Neuroscience Source Type: research

Early Detection of Psychosis: Challenges and Opportunities
Abstract Early identification of individuals at clinical risk for psychotic illness is critical for early intervention. Current studies apply special assessment measures combined with neurocognitive, neuroimaging, and electrophysiology methodologies that have been discovered largely in schizophrenia research. While still limited in sample size, harmonized measures, and longitudinal data, these studies indicate the presence of abnormalities in the clinical-risk state. Such findings suggest that the onset of the psychotic process precedes late adolescence and clinical detection. Efforts at early identific...
Source: Current Behavioral Neuroscience Reports - June 1, 2014 Category: Neuroscience Source Type: research