TY - JOUR A1 - Figel, Benedikt A1 - Brinkmann, Leonie A1 - Buff, Christine A1 - Heitmann, Carina Y. A1 - Hofmann, David A1 - Bruchmann, Maximilian A1 - Becker, Michael P. I. A1 - Herrmann, Martin J. A1 - Straube, Thomas T1 - Phasic amygdala and BNST activation during the anticipation of temporally unpredictable social observation in social anxiety disorder patients JF - NeuroImage: Clinical N2 - Anticipation of potentially threatening social situations is a key process in social anxiety disorder (SAD). In other anxiety disorders, recent research of neural correlates of anticipation of temporally unpredictable threat suggests a temporally dissociable involvement of amygdala and bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST) with phasic amygdala responses and sustained BNST activation. However, the temporal profile of amygdala and BNST responses during temporal unpredictability of threat has not been investigated in patients suffering from SAD. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate neural activation in the central nucleus of the amygdala (CeA) and the BNST during anticipation of temporally unpredictable aversive (video camera observation) relative to neutral (no camera observation) events in SAD patients compared to healthy controls (HC). For the analysis of fMRI data, we applied two regressors (phasic/sustained) within the same model to detect temporally dissociable brain responses. The aversive condition induced increased anxiety in patients compared to HC. SAD patients compared to HC showed increased phasic activation in the CeA and the BNST for anticipation of aversive relative to neutral events. SAD patients as well as HC showed sustained activity alterations in the BNST for aversive relative to neutral anticipation. No differential activity during sustained threat anticipation in SAD patients compared to HC was found. Taken together, our study reveals both CeA and BNST involvement during threat anticipation in SAD patients. The present results point towards potentially SAD-specific threat processing marked by elevated phasic but not sustained CeA and BNST responses when compared to HC. KW - FMRI KW - threat anticipation KW - social anxiety disorder KW - bed nucleus of stria terminalis KW - amygdala Y1 - 2019 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-228071 VL - 22 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Verner, Martin A1 - Herrmann, Martin J. A1 - Troche, Stefan J. A1 - Roebers, Claudia M. A1 - Rammsayer, Thomas H. T1 - Cortical oxygen consumption in mental arithmetic as a function of task difficulty: a near-infrared spectroscopy approach JF - Frontiers in Human Neuroscience N2 - The present study investigated changes in cortical oxygenation during mental arithmetic using near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS). Twenty-nine male volunteers were examined using a 52-channel continuous wave system for analyzing activity in prefrontal areas. With the help of a probabilistic mapping method, three regions of interest (ROIs) on each hemisphere were defined: The inferior frontal gyri (IFG), the middle frontal gyri (MFG), and the superior frontal gyri (SFG). Oxygenation as an indicator of functional brain activation was compared over the three ROI and two levels of arithmetic task difficulty (simple and complex additions). In contrast to most previous studies using fMRI or NIRS, in the present study arithmetic tasks were presented verbally in analogue to many daily life situations. With respect to task difficulty, more complex addition tasks led to higher oxygenation in all defined ROI except in the left IFG compared to simple addition tasks. When compared to the channel positions covering different gyri of the temporal lobe, the observed sensitivity to task complexity was found to be restricted to the specified ROIs. As to the comparison of ROIs, the highest oxygenation was found in the IFG, while MFG and SFG showed significantly less activation compared to IFG. The present cognitive-neuroscience approach demonstrated that NIRS is a suitable and highly feasible research tool for investigating and quantifying neural effects of increasing arithmetic task difficulty. KW - cortical activation KW - working memory KW - individual differences KW - prefrontal cortex KW - FMRI KW - brain-regions KW - subsctraction KW - activation KW - bold KW - intelligibility KW - NIRS KW - oxygen consumption KW - task difficulty KW - mental arithmetic KW - near-infrared spectroscopy Y1 - 2013 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-122449 SN - 1662-5161 VL - 7 IS - 217 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Schecklmann, Martin A1 - Giani, Anette A1 - Tupak, Sara A1 - Langguth, Berthold A1 - Raab, Vincent A1 - Polak, Thomas A1 - Varallyay, Csanad A1 - Harnisch, Wilma A1 - Herrmann, Martin J. A1 - Fallgatter, Andreas J. T1 - Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy to Probe State- and Trait-Like Conditions in Chronic Tinnitus: A Proof-of-Principle Study JF - Neural Plasticity N2 - Objective. Several neuroscience tools showed the involvement of auditory cortex in chronic tinnitus. In this proof-of-principle study we probed the capability of functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) for the measurement of brain oxygenation in auditory cortex in dependence from chronic tinnitus and from intervention with transcranial magnetic stimulation. Methods. Twenty-three patients received continuous theta burst stimulation over the left primary auditory cortex in a randomized sham-controlled neuronavigated trial (verum = 12; placebo = 11). Before and after treatment, sound-evoked brain oxygenation in temporal areas was measured with fNIRS. Brain oxygenation was measured once in healthy controls (n = 12). Results. Sound-evoked activity in right temporal areas was increased in the patients in contrast to healthy controls. Left-sided temporal activity under the stimulated area changed over the course of the trial; high baseline oxygenation was reduced and vice versa. Conclusions. By demonstrating that rTMS interacts with auditory evoked brain activity, our results confirm earlier electrophysiological findings and indicate the sensitivity of fNIRS for detecting rTMS induced changes in brain activity. Moreover, our findings of trait-and state-related oxygenation changes indicate the potential of fNIRS for the investigation of tinnitus pathophysiology and treatment response. KW - transcranial magnetic stimulation KW - positron-emission-tomography KW - auditory cortex KW - FNIRS KW - RTMS KW - neural activity KW - FMRI KW - brain KW - activation KW - humans Y1 - 2014 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-117801 SN - 1687-5443 IS - 894203 ER -