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Frontiers in Neuroanatomy 2019
PubMed: 31447656
DOI: 10.3389/fnana.2019.00080 -
Journal of Neuroscience Research May 2023Many studies have reported sex differences in empathy and social skills. In this review, several lines of empirical evidences about sex differences in functions and... (Review)
Review
Many studies have reported sex differences in empathy and social skills. In this review, several lines of empirical evidences about sex differences in functions and anatomy of social brain are discussed. The most relevant differences involve face processing, facial expression recognition, response to baby schema, the ability to see faces in things, the processing of social interactions, the response to the others' pain, interest in social information, processing of gestures and actions, biological motion, erotic, and affective stimuli. Sex differences in oxytocin-based parental response are also reported. In conclusion, the female and male brains show several neuro-functional differences in various aspects of social cognition, and especially in emotional coding, face processing, and response to baby schema. An interpretation of this sexual dimorphism is provided in the view of evolutionary psychobiology.
Topics: Male; Female; Humans; Sex Characteristics; Social Cognition; Brain; Emotions; Empathy; Facial Expression; Cognition
PubMed: 33608982
DOI: 10.1002/jnr.24787 -
Sleep Advances : a Journal of the Sleep... 2023My long day's journey into sleep began as an adolescent trying to manage my evening chronotype. The relief, I felt when my undergraduate finals were scheduled at night...
My long day's journey into sleep began as an adolescent trying to manage my evening chronotype. The relief, I felt when my undergraduate finals were scheduled at night and as a medical student being able to select psychiatry over surgery deepened my interest in sleep and chronobiology. That interest was allowed to flourish at the National Institute of Mental Health and then at Yale Medical School in setting up a sleep laboratory. The decision to move to the University of Pittsburgh in 1973 led to a 42-year adventure in which we were able to initiate research efforts on the psychobiology of depression. Our interest in social zeitgebers (daily routines) led directly to the development and testing of a treatment intervention for mood disorders, interpersonal, and social rhythm therapy. Our continued emphasis on sleep and circadian rhythms convinced us that sleep and circadian factors were central to all of health, based on the importance of connectivity between sleep and major metabolic and cell functions. This ongoing research motivated our strong desire to study the developmental aspects of sleep. Our success was influenced immensely by the presence of young scientists and a strong subsequent interest in career mentoring. Finally, as we left Pittsburgh in 2015, we became involved in the field of continuous objective monitoring using the commercial smartphone's behavioral sensing capabilities. Our journey is not over. We hope to explore the potential of these remarkable devices to improve our understanding of sleep/wake and circadian factors across all of health.
PubMed: 37614777
DOI: 10.1093/sleepadvances/zpad002 -
Biological Psychology Jan 2023
PubMed: 36521652
DOI: 10.1016/j.biopsycho.2022.108478 -
Menopause (New York, N.Y.) May 2020
Topics: Canada; Female; Humans; Longitudinal Studies; Menopause; Sleep; Sleep Wake Disorders
PubMed: 32235158
DOI: 10.1097/GME.0000000000001549 -
European Journal of Clinical Nutrition Sep 2018
Review
Topics: Adult; Capitalism; Child; Energy Metabolism; Feeding Behavior; Humans; Models, Theoretical; Obesity; United States
PubMed: 30185852
DOI: 10.1038/s41430-018-0231-x -
International Journal of Psychological... 2023Stress is fundamental for health and adaptation; it is an evolutionarily conserved response that involves several systems in the organism. The study of the stress...
Stress is fundamental for health and adaptation; it is an evolutionarily conserved response that involves several systems in the organism. The study of the stress response could be traced back to the end of the nineteenth century with George Beard's or Claude Bernard's work and, from that moment on, several studies that have allowed the elucidation of its neurobiology and the consequences of suffering from it were consolidated. In this theoretical review, we discuss the most relevant researches to our knowledge on the study of stress response, from the concept of stress, its neurobiology, the hormonal response during stress, as well as its regulation, the effects of acute and chronic stress, stress from cognition, the different stress responses during life, as well as its relationship with different psychiatric disorders. Taken together, the reviewed research updates the classic perspective on stress, increasing the factors that should be considered in research to explore the effects of stress on health.
PubMed: 38106958
DOI: 10.21500/20112084.5815 -
Current Opinion in Psychiatry Jan 2023People and communities around the world face many crises, including increasing burdens from disease, psychopathology, burn-out, social distrust, and acts of hate and... (Review)
Review
PURPOSE OF REVIEW
People and communities around the world face many crises, including increasing burdens from disease, psychopathology, burn-out, social distrust, and acts of hate and terrorism. Personality disorder is arguably both a root cause and a consequence of these problems, creating a vicious cycle of suffering caused by fears, immoderate desires, and social distrust that are inconsistent with rational goals and prosocial values. Fortunately, recent advances in understanding the biopsychosocial basis and dynamics of development in personality and its disorders offer insights to address these problems in effective person-centered ways.
RECENT FINDINGS
Fundamental advances have been made recently in the understanding of the psychobiology and sociology of personality in relationship to health, and in basic mechanisms of personality change as a complex process of learning and memory. Promotion of self-awareness and intentional self-control releases a strong tendency for people to seek coherence of their emotions and habits with what gives their life meaning and value.
SUMMARY
People have a strong drive to cultivate personalities in which their emotions and habits are reliably in accord with reasonable goals and prosocial values. Person-centered therapeutics provide practical ways to promote a virtuous cycle of increasing well being for individuals and their communities and habitats.
Topics: Humans; Temperament; Personality Disorders; Personality; Emotions; Psychopathology
PubMed: 36449732
DOI: 10.1097/YCO.0000000000000833 -
Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews Jan 2021Sociality has profound evolutionary roots and is observed from unicellular organisms to multicellular animals. In line with the view that social principles apply across... (Review)
Review
Sociality has profound evolutionary roots and is observed from unicellular organisms to multicellular animals. In line with the view that social principles apply across levels of biological complexity, a growing body of data highlights the remarkable social nature of mitochondria - life-sustaining endosymbiotic organelles with their own genome that populate the cell cytoplasm. Here, we draw from organizing principles of behavior in social organisms to reveal that similar to individuals among social networks, mitochondria communicate with each other and with the cell nucleus, exhibit group formation and interdependence, synchronize their behaviors, and functionally specialize to accomplish specific functions within the organism. Mitochondria are social organelles. The extension of social principles across levels of biological complexity is a theoretical shift that emphasizes the role of communication and interdependence in cell biology, physiology, and neuroscience. With the help of emerging computational methods capable of capturing complex dynamic behavioral patterns, the implementation of social concepts in mitochondrial biology may facilitate cross-talk across disciplines towards increasingly holistic and accurate models of human health.
Topics: Animals; Biological Evolution; Humans; Mitochondria; Social Behavior
PubMed: 32651001
DOI: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2020.04.017 -
Behavioural Brain Research Jun 2021Fear and safety learning are necessary adaptive behaviors that develop over the course of maturation. While there is a large body of literature regarding the... (Review)
Review
Fear and safety learning are necessary adaptive behaviors that develop over the course of maturation. While there is a large body of literature regarding the neurobiology of fear and safety learning in adults, less is known regarding safety learning during development. Given developmental changes in the brain, there are corresponding changes in safety learning that are quantifiable; these may serve to predict risk and point to treatment targets for fear and anxiety-related disorders in children and adolescents. For healthy, typically developing youth, the main developmental variation observed is reduced discrimination between threat and safety cues in children compared to adolescents and adults, while lower expression of extinction learning is exhibited in adolescents compared to adults. Such distinctions may be related to faster maturation of the amygdala relative to the prefrontal cortex, as well as incompletely developed functional circuits between the two. Fear and anxiety-related disorders, childhood maltreatment, and behavioral problems are all associated with alterations in safety learning for youth, and this dysfunction may proceed into adulthood with corresponding abnormalities in brain structure and function-including amygdala hypertrophy and hyperreactivity. As impaired inhibition of fear to safety may reflect abnormalities in the developing brain and subsequent psychopathology, impaired safety learning may be considered as both a predictor of risk and a treatment target. Longitudinal neuroimaging studies over the course of development, and studies that query change with interventions are needed in order to improve outcomes for individuals and reduce long-term impact of developmental psychopathology.
Topics: Amygdala; Fear; Hippocampus; Human Development; Humans; Learning; Safety
PubMed: 33862062
DOI: 10.1016/j.bbr.2021.113297