Afraid? Presence of a stranger can have a calming effect
January 30, 2020
Science Daily/University of Würzburg
Going on a journey alone. Sitting in a plane for hours at a height of twelve kilometres above the Atlantic Ocean. With turbulence and all the inconveniences that are part of a long-haul flight. This is the situation Michaela B. is afraid of. If only a friend would be with her on the trip! Then she would certainly feel better.
But Michaela B. shouldn't be afraid of the situation in the plane. She could easily do without her friend as an escort. Because it would help her to have someone sitting next to her. And this person wouldn't even have to talk to her or turn to her in any other way. The mere presence would be enough to reduce her fear.
This is the result of a study conducted by a group led by Professor Grit Hein from Julius-Maximilians-Universität (JMU) Würzburg in Bavaria, Germany. The results are published in the Journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Science.
Physiological tension measured via skin resistance
"Our results show that fear and the resulting physiological tension can be reduced by the mere presence of another person, even if this person is unknown and does not provide active support," explains Grit Hein. She holds a professorship for Translational Social Neuroscience at JMU and investigates how social interactions effect decisions, fear and pain.
The reduced anxiety reaction occurred regardless of whether the unknown person belonged to the same or a different ethnic group. "Interestingly, the anxiety-reducing effect was stronger when the subjects perceived the other person as less similar -- probably because they then assumed that the other person, unlike themselves, was not afraid," says the JMU professor.
In the study, the test subjects were listening to either neutral or fear-inducing sounds via headphones -- the splashing of water or human cries. Their physical reactions to these sounds were measured via skin resistance -- when anxious, the electrical conductivity of the skin changes. The unknown person that was present in the room during the tests was not allowed to say anything and remained physically aloof from the test person. This setting prevented social interaction between the two.
Follow-up studies with men and women
So far, only women have been tested in the presence of women. In follow-up studies, the Würzburg research team now also wants to measure the effects when men with men or men with women are exposed to the uncanny situation in the laboratory.
Differences may become apparent in the process. "There are hints from stress research that the gender of the present person could play a role," says the JMU professor. The findings from this research could possibly be used for the treatment of anxiety disorders.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/01/200130144406.htm
Some surprisingly good news about anxiety
January 7, 2020
Science Daily/University of Toronto
Anxiety disorders are the most common type of psychiatric illness, yet researchers know very little about factors associated with recovery. A new University of Toronto study investigated three levels of recovery in a large, representative sample of more than 2,000 Canadians with a history of generalized anxiety disorder (GAD).
The study reports that 72% of Canadians with a history of GAD have been free of the mental health condition for at least one year. Overall, 40% were in a state of excellent mental health, and almost 60% had no other mental illness or addiction issues, such as suicidal thoughts, substance dependence, a major depressive disorder or a bipolar disorder, in the past year,
The definition of excellent mental health sets a very high bar. To be defined in excellent mental health, respondents had to achieve three things: 1) almost daily happiness or life satisfaction in the past month, 2) high levels of social and psychological well-being in the past month, and 3) freedom from generalized anxiety disorder and depressive disorders, suicidal thoughts and substance dependence for at least the preceding full year.
"We were so encouraged to learn that even among those whose anxiety disorders had lasted a decade or longer, half had been in remission from GAD for the past year and one-quarter had achieved excellent mental health and well-being," says Esme Fuller-Thomson, lead author of the study. Fuller-Thomson is Director of the University of Toronto's Institute for Life Course and Aging and Professor at the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work and the Department of Family & Community Medicine.
"This research provides a very hopeful message for individuals struggling with anxiety, their families and health professionals. Our findings suggest that full recovery is possible, even among those who have suffered for many years with the disorder," she says.
Individuals who had at least one person in their lives who provided them with a sense of emotional security and wellbeing were three times more likely to be in excellent mental health than those without a confidant.
"For those with anxiety disorders, the social support that extends from a confidant can foster a sense of belonging and self-worth which may promote recovery" says co-author Kandace Ryckman, a recent graduate of University of Toronto's Masters of Public Health.
In addition, those who turned to their religious or spiritual beliefs to cope with everyday difficulties had 36% higher odds of excellent mental health than those who did not use spiritual coping. "Other researchers have also found a strong link between recovery from mental illness and belief in a higher power," reports Fuller-Thomson.
The researchers found that poor physical health, functional limitations, insomnia and a history of depression were impediments to excellent mental health in the sample.
"Health professionals who are treating individuals with anxiety disorders need to consider their patients' physical health problems and social isolation in their treatment plans" says Ryckman.
The researchers examined a nationally representative sample of 2,128 Canadian community-dwelling adults who had a generalized anxiety disorder at some point in their lives. The data were drawn from Statistics Canada's Canadian Community Health Survey-Mental Health. This research was published online ahead of press this week in the Journal of Affective Disorders.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/01/200107131832.htm
Stressed to the max? Deep sleep can rewire the anxious brain
A sleepless night can trigger up to a 30 percent rise in emotional stress levels, new study shows
https://www.sciencedaily.com/images/2019/11/191104124140_1_540x360.jpg 11-8
Deep sleep concept (stock image). Credit: © stokkete / Adobe Stock
November 4, 2019
Science Daily/University of California - Berkeley
Researchers have found that the type of sleep most apt to calm and reset the anxious brain is deep sleep, also known as non-rapid eye movement (NREM) slow-wave sleep, a state in which neural oscillations become highly synchronized, and heart rates and blood pressure drop.
When it comes to managing anxiety disorders, William Shakespeare's Macbeth had it right when he referred to sleep as the "balm of hurt minds." While a full night of slumber stabilizes emotions, a sleepless night can trigger up to a 30% rise in anxiety levels, according to new research from the University of California, Berkeley.
UC Berkeley researchers have found that the type of sleep most apt to calm and reset the anxious brain is deep sleep, also known as non-rapid eye movement (NREM) slow-wave sleep, a state in which neural oscillations become highly synchronized, and heart rates and blood pressure drop.
"We have identified a new function of deep sleep, one that decreases anxiety overnight by reorganizing connections in the brain," said study senior author Matthew Walker, a UC Berkeley professor of neuroscience and psychology. "Deep sleep seems to be a natural anxiolytic (anxiety inhibitor), so long as we get it each and every night."
The findings, published today, Nov. 4, in the journal Nature Human Behaviour, provide one of the strongest neural links between sleep and anxiety to date. They also point to sleep as a natural, non-pharmaceutical remedy for anxiety disorders, which have been diagnosed in some 40 million American adults and are rising among children and teens.
"Our study strongly suggests that insufficient sleep amplifies levels of anxiety and, conversely, that deep sleep helps reduce such stress," said study lead author Eti Ben Simon, a postdoctoral fellow in the Center for Human Sleep Science at UC Berkeley.
In a series of experiments using functional MRI and polysomnography, among other measures, Simon and fellow researchers scanned the brains of 18 young adults as they viewed emotionally stirring video clips after a full night of sleep, and again after a sleepless night. Anxiety levels were measured following each session via a questionnaire known as the state-trait anxiety inventory.
After a night of no sleep, brain scans showed a shutdown of the medial prefrontal cortex, which normally helps keep our anxiety in check, while the brain's deeper emotional centers were overactive.
"Without sleep, it's almost as if the brain is too heavy on the emotional accelerator pedal, without enough brake," Walker said.
After a full night of sleep, during which participants' brain waves were measured via electrodes placed on their heads, the results showed their anxiety levels declined significantly, especially for those who experienced more slow-wave NREM sleep.
"Deep sleep had restored the brain's prefrontal mechanism that regulates our emotions, lowering emotional and physiological reactivity and preventing the escalation of anxiety," Simon said.
Beyond gauging the sleep-anxiety connection in the 18 original study participants, the researchers replicated the results in a study of another 30 participants. Across all the participants, the results again showed that those who got more nighttime deep sleep experienced the lowest levels of anxiety the next day.
Moreover, in addition to the lab experiments, the researchers conducted an online study in which they tracked 280 people of all ages about how both their sleep and anxiety levels changed over four consecutive days.
The results showed that the amount and quality of sleep the participants got from one night to the next predicted how anxious they would feel the next day. Even subtle nightly changes in sleep affected their anxiety levels.
"People with anxiety disorders routinely report having disturbed sleep, but rarely is sleep improvement considered as a clinical recommendation for lowering anxiety," Simon said. "Our study not only establishes a causal connection between sleep and anxiety, but it identifies the kind of deep NREM sleep we need to calm the overanxious brain."
On a societal level, "the findings suggest that the decimation of sleep throughout most industrialized nations and the marked escalation in anxiety disorders in these same countries is perhaps not coincidental, but causally related," Walker said. "The best bridge between despair and hope is a good night of sleep."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/11/191104124140.htm
Your nose knows when it comes to stronger memories
New research points to value of unpleasant smells in strengthening recall
June 19, 2019
Science Daily/New York University
Memories are stronger when the original experiences are accompanied by unpleasant odors, a team of researchers has found. The study broadens our understanding of what can drive Pavlovian responses and points to how negative experiences influence our ability to recall past events.
"These results demonstrate that bad smells are capable of producing memory enhancements in both adolescents and adults, pointing to new ways to study how we learn from and remember positive and negative experiences," explains Catherine Hartley, an assistant professor in New York University's Department of Psychology and the senior author of the paper, which appears in the journal Learning and Memory.
"Because our findings spanned different age groups, this study suggests that aversive odors might be used in the future to examine emotional learning and memory processes across development," adds Alexandra Cohen, an NYU postdoctoral fellow and the paper's lead author.
The impact of negative experiences on memory has long been shown -- and is familiar to us. For example, if you are bitten by a dog, you may develop a negative memory of the dog that bit you, and your negative association may also go on to generalize to all dogs. Moreover, because of the trauma surrounding the bite, you are likely to have a better recollection of it than you would other past experiences with dogs.
"The generalization and persistence in memory of learned negative associations are core features of anxiety disorders, which often emerge during adolescence," notes Hartley.
In order to better understand how learned negative associations influence memory during this stage of development, the researchers designed and administered a Pavlovian learning task to individuals aged 13 to 25. Mild electrical shocks are often used in this type of learning task. In this study, the researchers used bad smells because they can be ethically administered in studying children.
The task included the viewing of a series of images belonging to one of two conceptual categories: objects (e.g., a chair) and scenes (e.g., a snow-capped mountain). As the study's participants viewed the images, they wore a nasal mask connected to an olfactometer. While participants viewed images from one category, unpleasant smells were sometimes circulated through the device to the mask; while viewing images from the other category, unscented air was used. This allowed the researchers to examine memory for images associated with a bad smell as well as for generalization to related images. In other words, if the image of a chair was associated with a bad smell, would memory be enhanced only for the chair or for objects in general?
What constitutes a "bad" odor is somewhat subjective. In order to determine which odors the participants found unlikable, the researchers had the subjects -- prior to the start of the experiment -- breathe in a variety of odors and indicate which ones they thought were unpleasant. The odors were blends of chemical compounds provided by a local perfumer and included scents such as rotting fish and manure.
As the subjects viewed the images, the scientists measured perspiration from the palm of the subjects' hands as an index of arousal -- a common research technique used to confirm the creation of a negative association (in this case, of a bad smell). A day later, researchers tested participants' memory for the images.
Their findings showed that both adolescents and adults showed better memory specifically for images paired with the bad smell 24 hours after they saw these images. They also found that individuals with larger arousal responses at the point when they might experience either a bad smell or clean air while viewing the image, regardless of whether or not a smell was actually delivered, had better memory 24 hours later. This suggests that unpredictability or surprise associated with the outcome leads to better memory.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/06/190619085701.htm
Joint hypermobility related to anxiety, also in animals
The relation could be a universal trait among mammals
June 19, 2019
Science Daily/Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona
Researchers report the first evidence in a non-human species, the domestic dog, of a relation between joint hypermobility and excitability: dogs with more joint mobility and flexibility tend to have more anxiety problems.
The relation between collagen laxity and anxiety in humans is widely known, but this relation has never been observed before in other species. A team of researchers led by professors Jaume Fatjó and Antoni Bulbena from the Department of Psychiatry and Legal Medicine at the UAB, the Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute (IMIM) and the UAB Affinity Foundation Chair in Animals and Health, analysed a set of 13 animal behaviour characteristics and hip joint mobility in a total of 5575 domestic dogs. The results point to an association between hip joint hypermobility and a brain activation linked to emotions in dogs, with similar results as to those observed in people.
In the case of humans, researchers observed that this relation is made evident by manifestations of anxiety, fear, agoraphobia and panic, and that it is linked to hypermobility thanks to the indirect effects of emotional and mental states through a deregulation of the brain's independent reactions which intensify emotional states. Scientists maintain that excitability, this emotional reactivity, is one of the risk factors for anxiety disorders.
"Many years ago our research group discovered a relation between hypermobility and anxiety, in which people with more joint mobility and flexibility also tended to have more problems with anxiety. Now for the first time we are able to demonstrate that this association also exists in a non-human species," explains Professor Fatjó.
In the new study published in Scientific Reports, of the Nature group, researchers presented the first evidence of an association between hip joint hypermobility and behavioural alterations in a non-human species, which may suggest a very ancient evolutionary link which could be a universal trait in all mammals.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/06/190619111250.htm
Early exposure to antidepressants affects adult anxiety, serotonin transmission
December 19, 2014
Science Daily/University of California - Los Angeles Health Sciences
http://images.sciencedaily.com/2014/12/141219160606-large.jpg
Early developmental exposure to two different antidepressants, Prozac and Lexapro, has been studied by researchers in a mouse model that mimics human third trimester medication exposure. They found that, although these serotonin-selective reuptake inhibiting antidepressants were thought to work the same way, they did not produce the same long-term changes in anxiety behavior in the adult mice.
About 15 percent of women in the United States suffer from anxiety disorders and depression during their pregnancies, and many are prescribed antidepressants. However little is known about how early exposure to these medications might affect their offspring as they mature into adults.
The answer to that question is vital, as 5 percent of all babies born in the U.S. -- more than 200,000 a year -- are exposed to antidepressants during gestation via transmission from their mothers.
Now, a UCLA team has studied early developmental exposure to two different antidepressants, Prozac and Lexapro, in a mouse model that mimics human third trimester medication exposure. They found that, although these serotonin-selective reuptake inhibiting antidepressants (SSRIs) were thought to work the same way, they did not produce the same long-term changes in anxiety behavior in the adult mice.
"This was quite surprising, since these medications belong to the same drug class and are believed to work by the same mechanism. The implications of these findings are that with additional investigation, it may be possible to identify specific antidepressants that are safer for pregnant women," Andrews said. "It's important to recognize that major depressive disorders and anxiety disorders are serious medical conditions that often require therapeutic intervention. Prescribing the safest medication for mother and child is paramount."
Genetic reductions in serotonin transporters are thought to be a risk factor, particularly when combined with stressful life experiences, for developing anxiety and mood disorders. And in fact, the genetically engineered mice Andrews studied showed more anxiety as adults.
"It might be possible that when mothers are treated for depression or anxiety during pregnancy that certain SSRIs may promote resilience to developing these disorders in children later in life," Andrews said. "However, it will take much more research for us to understand whether this is true and whether certain SSRIs may be better at promoting these effects."
Going forward, Andrews and her team plan to investigate the effects of early exposure to antidepressants on the architectures of serotonin neurons. Based on the current findings, they suspect that early exposure to Lexapro may alter the way serotonin neurons innervate brain regions involved in mood and anxiety behavior. They also plan to investigate other SSRIs such as Paxil and Zoloft.
"Current antidepressant therapies are ineffective in treating anxiety and depression in large numbers of patients, and advances in predicting individual responses are hindered by difficulties associated with characterizing complex influences of genetic and environmental factors on serotonergic transmission in humans," the study states. "Highly controlled animal models, such as those studied here, represent avenues by which to identify factors potentially influencing behavioral domains associated with emotion-related disorders."
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/12/141219160606.htm
Well-being in later life: The mind plays an important role
July 7, 2017
Science Daily/Helmholtz Zentrum München - German Research Center for Environmental Health
Well-being in later life is largely dependent on psychosocial factors. Physical impairments tend to play a secondary role, as scientists have discovered.
"Aging itself is not inevitably associated with a decline in mood and quality of life," says Prof. Karl-Heinz Ladwig, summarizing the results. "It is rather the case that psychosocial factors such as depression or anxiety impair subjective well-being, the Head of the Mental Health Research Group at the Institute of Epidemiology II, Helmholtz Zentrum München and Professor of Psychosomatic Medicine at the TUM University Hospital explains. "And in the case of women, living alone also plays an important role."
"To date the impact of emotional stress has barely been investigated"
For the current study, Prof. Ladwig and his team relied on data derived from about 3,600 participats with an average age of 73 who had taken part in the population-based KORA-Age Study. "What made the study particularly interesting was the fact that the impact of stress on emotional well-being has barely been investigated in a broader, non-clinical context," explains PD Dr. Karoline Lukaschek, epidemiologist in the Mental Health Research Group and lead author of the paper. "Our study therefore explicitly included anxiety, depression and sleep disorders."
Generally high levels of well-being but...
To ascertain levels of subjective well-being, the scientists used a questionnaire devised by the World Health Organization (the WHO-5 Well-Being Index) with a score range of 0 to 100. For the purpose of analysis, they divided the respondents' results into two categories: 'high' (score > 50) and 'low' (score ? 50). The subsequent evaluation revealed a high level of subjective well-being in the majority (79 percent) of the respondents. The average values were also above the threshold set by the WHO. In the 'low' group, however, there was a conspicuously high number of women: about 24 percent compared to 18 percent for men.
Depression and anxiety disorders are the biggest risk
Trying to uncover the most important causes for subjective well-being, the scientists mainly identified psychosocial factors: above all, depression and anxiety disorders had the strongest effect on well-being. Low income and sleep disorders also had a negative effect. However, poor physical health (for example, low physical activity or so-called multimorbidity) seemed to have little impact on perceived life satisfaction. Among women, living alone also significantly increased the probability of a low sense of well-being.
"The findings of the current study clearly demonstrate that appropriate services and interventions can play a major role for older people, especially for older women living on their own," Prof. Ladwig says, categorizing the results. "And this is all the more important, given that we know that high levels of subjective well-being are linked to a lower mortality risk."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/07/170707095413.htm