@article{BertiVosselGamer2017,
  author    = {Berti, Stefan and Vossel, Gerhard and Gamer, Matthias},
  title     = {The orienting response in healthy aging: Novelty P3 indicates no general decline but reduced efficacy for fast stimulation rates},
  series = {Frontiers in Psychology},
  volume    = {8},
  journal   = {Frontiers in Psychology},
  doi       = {10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01780},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-173651},
  year      = {2017},
  abstract  = {Automatic orienting to unexpected changes in the environment is a pre-requisite for adaptive behavior. One prominent mechanism of automatic attentional control is the Orienting Response (OR). Despite the fundamental significance of the OR in everyday life, only little is known about how the OR is affected by healthy aging. We tested this question in two age groups (19-38 and 55-72 years) and measured skin-conductance responses (SCRs) and event-related brain potentials (ERPs) to novels (i.e., short environmental sounds presented only once in the experiment; 10\% of the trials) compared to standard sounds (600 Hz sinusoidal tones with 200 ms duration; 90\% of the trials). Novel and standard stimuli were presented in four conditions differing in the inter-stimulus interval (ISI) with a mean ISI of either 10, 3, 1, or 0.5 s (blocked presentation). In both age groups, pronounced SCRs were elicited by novels in the 10 s ISI condition, suggesting the elicitation of stable ORs. These effects were accompanied by pronounced N1 and frontal P3 amplitudes in the ERP, suggesting that automatic novelty processing and orientation of attention are effective in both age groups. Furthermore, the SCR and ERP effects declined with decreasing ISI length. In addition, differences between the two groups were observable with the fastest presentation rates (i.e., 1 and 0.5 s ISI length). The most prominent difference was a shift of the peak of the frontal positivity from around 300 to 200 ms in the 19-38 years group while in the 55-72 years group the amplitude of the frontal P3 decreased linearly with decreasing ISI length. Taken together, this pattern of results does not suggest a general decline in processing efficacy with healthy aging. At least with very rare changes (here, the novels in the 10 s ISI condition) the OR is as effective in healthy older adults as in younger adults. With faster presentation rates, however, the efficacy of the OR decreases. This seems to result in a switch from novelty to deviant processing in younger adults, but less so in the group of older adults.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{LischkeHerpertzBergeretal.2017,
  author    = {Lischke, Alexander and Herpertz, Sabine C. and Berger, Christoph and Domes, Gregor and Gamer, Matthias},
  title     = {Divergent effects of oxytocin on (para-)limbic reactivity to emotional and neutral scenes in females with and without borderline personality disorder},
  series = {Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience},
  volume    = {12},
  journal   = {Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience},
  number    = {11},
  doi       = {10.1093/scan/nsx107},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-173309},
  pages     = {1783-1792},
  year      = {2017},
  abstract  = {Borderline personality disorder (BPD) patients' hypersensitivity for emotionally relevant stimuli has been suggested be due to abnormal activity and connectivity in (para-)limbic and prefrontal brain regions during stimulus processing. The neuropeptide oxytocin has been shown to modulate activity and functional connectivity in these brain regions, thereby optimizing the processing of emotional and neutral stimuli. To investigate whether oxytocin would be capable of attenuating BPD patients' hypersensitivity for such stimuli, we recorded brain activity and gaze behavior during the processing of complex scenes in 51 females with and 48 without BPD after intranasal application of either oxytocin or placebo. We found divergent effects of oxytocin on BPD and healthy control (HC) participants' (para-)limbic reactivity to emotional and neutral scenes: Oxytocin decreased amygdala and insula reactivity in BPD participants but increased it in HC participants, indicating an oxytocin-induced normalization of amygdala and insula activity during scene processing. In addition, oxytocin normalized the abnormal coupling between amygdala activity and gaze behavior across all scenes in BPD participants. Overall, these findings suggest that oxytocin may be capable of attenuating BPD patients' hypersensitivity for complex scenes, irrespective of their valence.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{GenheimerAndreattaAsanetal.2017,
  author    = {Genheimer, Hannah and Andreatta, Marta and Asan, Esther and Pauli, Paul},
  title     = {Reinstatement of contextual conditioned anxiety in virtual reality and the effects of transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation in humans},
  series = {Scientific Reports},
  volume    = {7},
  journal   = {Scientific Reports},
  number    = {17886},
  doi       = {10.1038/s41598-017-18183-3},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-169892},
  year      = {2017},
  abstract  = {Since exposure therapy for anxiety disorders incorporates extinction of contextual anxiety, relapses may be due to reinstatement processes. Animal research demonstrated more stable extinction memory and less anxiety relapse due to vagus nerve stimulation (VNS). We report a valid human three-day context conditioning, extinction and return of anxiety protocol, which we used to examine effects of transcutaneous VNS (tVNS). Seventy-five healthy participants received electric stimuli (unconditioned stimuli, US) during acquisition (Day1) when guided through one virtual office (anxiety context, CTX+) but never in another (safety context, CTX-). During extinction (Day2), participants received tVNS, sham, or no stimulation and revisited both contexts without US delivery. On Day3, participants received three USs for reinstatement followed by a test phase. Successful acquisition, i.e. startle potentiation, lower valence, higher arousal, anxiety and contingency ratings in CTX+ versus CTX-, the disappearance of these effects during extinction, and successful reinstatement indicate validity of this paradigm. Interestingly, we found generalized reinstatement in startle responses and differential reinstatement in valence ratings. Altogether, our protocol serves as valid conditioning paradigm. Reinstatement effects indicate different anxiety networks underlying physiological versus verbal responses. However, tVNS did neither affect extinction nor reinstatement, which asks for validation and improvement of the stimulation protocol.},
  language  = {en}
}