TY - JOUR A1 - Zech, Linda D. A1 - Scherf-Clavel, Maike A1 - Daniels, Christine A1 - Schwab, Michael A1 - Deckert, Jürgen A1 - Unterecker, Stefan A1 - Herr, Alexandra S. T1 - Patients with higher vitamin D levels show stronger improvement of self-reported depressive symptoms in psychogeriatric day-care setting JF - Journal of Neural Transmission N2 - Depression is a common psychiatric disorder among geriatric patients that decreases the quality of life and increases morbidity and mortality. Vitamin D as a neuro-steroid hormone might play a role in the onset and treatment of depression. In the present study, the association between depressive symptoms and vitamin D concentration in serum was evaluated. 140 patients of a psychogeriatric day-care unit were included. The geriatric depression scale (GDS) and the Hamilton depression rating scale (HDRS) were assessed at the beginning and end of treatment, GDS scores additionally 6 weeks after discharge from the day-care unit. Vitamin D levels were measured at the beginning of the treatment, routinely. Patients with levels below 30 µg/L were treated with 1000 IU vitamin D per day. There was no association between the severity of depressive symptoms and the concentration of vitamin D at the beginning of the treatment. Patients with higher vitamin D levels showed a stronger decline of depressive symptoms measured by the GDS during their stay in the day-care unit. We provide evidence that vitamin D serum levels might influence antidepressant therapy response in a geriatric population. Prospective studies are necessary to determine which patients may profit from add-on vitamin D therapy. KW - anti-depressive treatment KW - psycho-geriatrics KW - vitamin D deficiency KW - depression Y1 - 2021 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-268525 SN - 1435-1463 VL - 128 IS - 8 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Pittig, Andre A1 - Heinig, Ingmar A1 - Goerigk, Stephan A1 - Thiel, Freya A1 - Hummel, Katrin A1 - Scholl, Lucie A1 - Deckert, Jürgen A1 - Pauli, Paul A1 - Domschke, Katharina A1 - Lueken, Ulrike A1 - Fydrich, Thomas A1 - Fehm, Lydia A1 - Plag, Jens A1 - Ströhle, Andreas A1 - Kircher, Tilo A1 - Straube, Benjamin A1 - Rief, Winfried A1 - Koelkebeck, Katja A1 - Arolt, Volker A1 - Dannlowski, Udo A1 - Margraf, Jürgen A1 - Totzeck, Christina A1 - Schneider, Silvia A1 - Neudeck, Peter A1 - Craske, Michelle G. A1 - Hollandt, Maike A1 - Richter, Jan A1 - Hamm, Alfons A1 - Wittchen, Hans-Ulrich T1 - Efficacy of temporally intensified exposure for anxiety disorders: A multicenter randomized clinical trial JF - Depression and Anxiety N2 - Background The need to optimize exposure treatments for anxiety disorders may be addressed by temporally intensified exposure sessions. Effects on symptom reduction and public health benefits should be examined across different anxiety disorders with comorbid conditions. Methods This multicenter randomized controlled trial compared two variants of prediction error-based exposure therapy (PeEx) in various anxiety disorders (both 12 sessions + 2 booster sessions, 100 min/session): temporally intensified exposure (PeEx-I) with exposure sessions condensed to 2 weeks (n = 358) and standard nonintensified exposure (PeEx-S) with weekly exposure sessions (n = 368). Primary outcomes were anxiety symptoms (pre, post, and 6-months follow-up). Secondary outcomes were global severity (across sessions), quality of life, disability days, and comorbid depression. Results Both treatments resulted in substantial improvements at post (PeEx-I: d\(_{within}\) = 1.50, PeEx-S: d\(_{within}\) = 1.78) and follow-up (PeEx-I: d\(_{within}\) = 2.34; PeEx-S: d\(_{within}\) = 2.03). Both groups showed formally equivalent symptom reduction at post and follow-up. However, time until response during treatment was 32% shorter in PeEx-I (median = 68 days) than PeEx-S (108 days; TR\(_{PeEx-I}\)-I = 0.68). Interestingly, drop-out rates were lower during intensified exposure. PeEx-I was also superior in reducing disability days and improving quality of life at follow-up without increasing relapse. Conclusions Both treatment variants focusing on the transdiagnostic exposure-based violation of threat beliefs were effective in reducing symptom severity and disability in severe anxiety disorders. Temporally intensified exposure resulted in faster treatment response with substantial public health benefits and lower drop-out during the exposure phase, without higher relapse. Clinicians can expect better or at least comparable outcomes when delivering exposure in a temporally intensified manner. KW - randomized controlled trial KW - anxiety disorders KW - exposure therapy KW - intensified treatment KW - public health Y1 - 2021 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-257331 VL - 38 IS - 11 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Qi, Yanyan A1 - Bruch, Dorothee A1 - Krop, Philipp A1 - Herrmann, Martin J. A1 - Latoschik, Marc E. A1 - Deckert, Jürgen A1 - Hein, Grit T1 - Social buffering of human fear is shaped by gender, social concern, and the presence of real vs virtual agents JF - Translational Psychiatry N2 - The presence of a partner can attenuate physiological fear responses, a phenomenon known as social buffering. However, not all individuals are equally sociable. Here we investigated whether social buffering of fear is shaped by sensitivity to social anxiety (social concern) and whether these effects are different in females and males. We collected skin conductance responses (SCRs) and affect ratings of female and male participants when they experienced aversive and neutral sounds alone (alone treatment) or in the presence of an unknown person of the same gender (social treatment). Individual differences in social concern were assessed based on a well-established questionnaire. Our results showed that social concern had a stronger effect on social buffering in females than in males. The lower females scored on social concern, the stronger the SCRs reduction in the social compared to the alone treatment. The effect of social concern on social buffering of fear in females disappeared if participants were paired with a virtual agent instead of a real person. Together, these results showed that social buffering of human fear is shaped by gender and social concern. In females, the presence of virtual agents can buffer fear, irrespective of individual differences in social concern. These findings specify factors that shape the social modulation of human fear, and thus might be relevant for the treatment of anxiety disorders. KW - human behaviour KW - physiology Y1 - 2021 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-265782 VL - 11 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Herzog, Katharina A1 - Andreatta, Marta A1 - Schneider, Kristina A1 - Schiele, Miriam A. A1 - Domschke, Katharina A1 - Romanos, Marcel A1 - Deckert, Jürgen A1 - Pauli, Paul T1 - Reducing Generalization of Conditioned Fear: Beneficial Impact of Fear Relevance and Feedback in Discrimination Training JF - Frontiers in Psychology N2 - Anxiety patients over-generalize fear, possibly because of an incapacity to discriminate threat and safety signals. Discrimination trainings are promising approaches for reducing such fear over-generalization. Here we investigated the efficacy of a fear-relevant vs. a fear-irrelevant discrimination training on fear generalization and whether the effects are increased with feedback during training. Eighty participants underwent two fear acquisition blocks, during which one face (conditioned stimulus, CS+), but not another face (CS−), was associated with a female scream (unconditioned stimulus, US). During two generalization blocks, both CSs plus four morphs (generalization stimuli, GS1–GS4) were presented. Between these generalization blocks, half of the participants underwent a fear-relevant discrimination training (discrimination between CS+ and the other faces) with or without feedback and the other half a fear-irrelevant discrimination training (discrimination between the width of lines) with or without feedback. US expectancy, arousal, valence ratings, and skin conductance responses (SCR) indicated successful fear acquisition. Importantly, fear-relevant vs. fear-irrelevant discrimination trainings and feedback vs. no feedback reduced generalization as reflected in US expectancy ratings independently from one another. No effects of training condition were found for arousal and valence ratings or SCR. In summary, this is a first indication that fear-relevant discrimination training and feedback can improve the discrimination between threat and safety signals in healthy individuals, at least for learning-related evaluations, but not evaluations of valence or (physiological) arousal. KW - fear generalization KW - feedback KW - discrimination training KW - fear-relevant training KW - classical conditioning Y1 - 2021 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-239970 SN - 1664-1078 VL - 12 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Beierle, Felix A1 - Schobel, Johannes A1 - Vogel, Carsten A1 - Allgaier, Johannes A1 - Mulansky, Lena A1 - Haug, Fabian A1 - Haug, Julian A1 - Schlee, Winfried A1 - Holfelder, Marc A1 - Stach, Michael A1 - Schickler, Marc A1 - Baumeister, Harald A1 - Cohrdes, Caroline A1 - Deckert, Jürgen A1 - Deserno, Lorenz A1 - Edler, Johanna-Sophie A1 - Eichner, Felizitas A. A1 - Greger, Helmut A1 - Hein, Grit A1 - Heuschmann, Peter A1 - John, Dennis A1 - Kestler, Hans A. A1 - Krefting, Dagmar A1 - Langguth, Berthold A1 - Meybohm, Patrick A1 - Probst, Thomas A1 - Reichert, Manfred A1 - Romanos, Marcel A1 - Störk, Stefan A1 - Terhorst, Yannik A1 - Weiß, Martin A1 - Pryss, Rüdiger T1 - Corona Health — A Study- and Sensor-Based Mobile App Platform Exploring Aspects of the COVID-19 Pandemic JF - International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health N2 - Physical and mental well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic is typically assessed via surveys, which might make it difficult to conduct longitudinal studies and might lead to data suffering from recall bias. Ecological momentary assessment (EMA) driven smartphone apps can help alleviate such issues, allowing for in situ recordings. Implementing such an app is not trivial, necessitates strict regulatory and legal requirements, and requires short development cycles to appropriately react to abrupt changes in the pandemic. Based on an existing app framework, we developed Corona Health, an app that serves as a platform for deploying questionnaire-based studies in combination with recordings of mobile sensors. In this paper, we present the technical details of Corona Health and provide first insights into the collected data. Through collaborative efforts from experts from public health, medicine, psychology, and computer science, we released Corona Health publicly on Google Play and the Apple App Store (in July 2020) in eight languages and attracted 7290 installations so far. Currently, five studies related to physical and mental well-being are deployed and 17,241 questionnaires have been filled out. Corona Health proves to be a viable tool for conducting research related to the COVID-19 pandemic and can serve as a blueprint for future EMA-based studies. The data we collected will substantially improve our knowledge on mental and physical health states, traits and trajectories as well as its risk and protective factors over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic and its diverse prevention measures. KW - mobile health KW - ecological momentary assessment KW - digital phenotyping KW - longitudinal studies KW - mobile crowdsensing Y1 - 2021 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-242658 SN - 1660-4601 VL - 18 IS - 14 ER -