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Scandinavian Journal of Pain Jan 2024Pain is still a neglected problem in mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI). In this cross-sectional study, we examined the frequency of musculoskeletal pain in a sample of...
OBJECTIVES
Pain is still a neglected problem in mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI). In this cross-sectional study, we examined the frequency of musculoskeletal pain in a sample of adult patients with persistent cognitive symptoms after mTBI and whether pain level affected cognition.
METHODS
The participants were 23 adult patients aged 18-50 referred to brain injury rehabilitation clinics for neuropsychological assessment after having sustained an mTBI. A non-injured control group ( = 29) was recruited through advertisements. The patients were, on average, assessed 22 months after trauma. All participants completed a comprehensive neuropsychological test battery and completed the Örebro Musculoskeletal Pain Screening Questionnaire, The Rivermead Post-Concussion Symptoms Questionnaire, and the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory.
RESULTS
Patients reported high levels of current pain and significantly more frequent neck and shoulder pain than the non-injured controls. Patients also reported high post-concussive symptoms and anxiety levels and performed less well on several neuropsychological tests. Pain level was associated with slower processing speed among the controls but not related to performance in the mTBI group.
CONCLUSION
We conclude that musculoskeletal pain is frequent in mTBI patients referred to rehabilitation settings. Furthermore, the results indicate that the interaction between pain and cognitive functioning differs in mTBI compared to controls. Our results implicate that pain screening should be an integrated part of neuropsychological rehabilitation after mTBI to identify conditions that run the risk of becoming chronic. The study was approved by the Regional Ethical Board in Stockholm, Sweden (04-415/2).
Topics: Humans; Male; Female; Adult; Cross-Sectional Studies; Brain Concussion; Middle Aged; Neuropsychological Tests; Young Adult; Musculoskeletal Pain; Cognition; Anxiety; Adolescent; Post-Concussion Syndrome
PubMed: 38907605
DOI: 10.1515/sjpain-2023-0124 -
Scientific Reports Jun 2024Interpersonal coordination is a key determinant of successful social interaction but can be disrupted when people experience symptoms related to social anxiety or...
Interpersonal coordination is a key determinant of successful social interaction but can be disrupted when people experience symptoms related to social anxiety or autism. Effective coordination rests on individuals directing their attention towards interaction partners. Yet little is known about the impact of the attentional behaviours of the partner themselves. As the gaze of others has heightened salience for those experiencing social anxiety or autism, addressing this gap can provide insight into how symptoms of these disorders impact coordination. Using a novel virtual reality task, we investigated whether partner gaze (i.e., direct vs. averted) influenced the emergence of interpersonal coordination. Results revealed: (i) spontaneous coordination was diminished in the averted (cf. direct) gaze condition; (ii) spontaneous coordination was positively related to symptoms of social anxiety, but only when partner gaze was averted. This latter finding contrasts the extant literature and points to the importance of social context in shaping the relationship between symptoms of psychopathology and interpersonal coordination.
Topics: Humans; Male; Female; Adult; Interpersonal Relations; Young Adult; Fixation, Ocular; Attention; Social Interaction; Anxiety; Adolescent; Autistic Disorder
PubMed: 38906960
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-65139-5 -
Acta Psychologica Jun 2024The aim of this research is to analyze the impact of mental health on the academic performance of junior and senior students studying in a university setting during the...
The aim of this research is to analyze the impact of mental health on the academic performance of junior and senior students studying in a university setting during the 2022-2023 academic year, in the post-COVID period. The study was conducted in Beijing, China, with the participation of 600 students, including 300 first-year students and 300 fifth-year students. DASS (Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale) and PHQ-9 (Patient Health Questionnaire-9) questionnaires were employed to measure mental health. The DASS assesses symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress, while the PHQ-9 specifically evaluates depression severity. Academic performance was evaluated using a 12-point scale, which incorporated various criteria such as exam scores, coursework performance, and participation in extracurricular activities. The research was conducted across five faculties of the university from 2022 to 2023. In the study, fifth-year students demonstrated a higher level of mental health compared to first-year students, with an average DASS score of 27.1 and 24.2, respectively. Interestingly, despite this, first-year students achieved higher academic performance indicators, with an average score of 8.2 compared to 9.8 in fifth-year students. Correlation analysis revealed significant associations between stress, depression, and anxiety levels with academic performance (stress: r = -0.25, p < 0.001; depression: r = -0.20, p = 0.003; anxiety: r = -0.18, p = 0.008). These findings highlight the critical importance of addressing students' mental well-being, particularly in later academic years. Recommendations include implementing support programs and developing online resources for students.
PubMed: 38905949
DOI: 10.1016/j.actpsy.2024.104351 -
Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience 2024To identify cortical and subcortical volume, thickness and cortical area features and the networks they constituted related to anxiety in Parkinson's disease (PD) using...
OBJECTIVE
To identify cortical and subcortical volume, thickness and cortical area features and the networks they constituted related to anxiety in Parkinson's disease (PD) using structural magnetic resonance imaging (sMRI), and to integrate multimodal features based on machine learning to identify PD-related anxiety.
METHODS
A total of 219 patients with PD were retrospectively enrolled in the study. 291 sMRI features including cortical volume, subcortical volume, cortical thickness, and cortical area, as well as 17 clinical features, were extracted. Graph theory analysis was used to explore structural networks. A support vector machine (SVM) combination model, which used both sMRI and clinical features to identify participants with PD-related anxiety, was developed and evaluated. The performance of SVM models were evaluated. The mean impact value (MIV) of the feature importance evaluation algorithm was used to rank the relative importance of sMRI features and clinical features within the model.
RESULTS
17 significant sMRI variables associated with PD-related anxiety was used to build a brain structural network. And seven sMRI and 5 clinical features with statistically significant differences were incorporated into the SVM model. The comprehensive model achieved higher performance than clinical features or sMRI features did alone, with an accuracy of 0.88, a precision of 0.86, a sensitivity of 0.81, an F1-Score of 0.83, a macro-average of 0.85, a weighted-average of 0.92, an AUC of 0.88, and a result of 10-fold cross-validation of 0.91 in test set. The sMRI feature right medialorbitofrontal thickness had the highest impact on the prediction model.
CONCLUSION
We identified the brain structural features and networks related to anxiety in PD, and developed and internally validated a comprehensive model with multimodal features in identifying.
PubMed: 38903898
DOI: 10.3389/fnagi.2024.1414855 -
Frontiers in Sports and Active Living 2024Professional athletes navigate a multitude of unique challenges associated to sport-specific factors (e.g., training, travel and competition) and non-sport factors...
BACKGROUND
Professional athletes navigate a multitude of unique challenges associated to sport-specific factors (e.g., training, travel and competition) and non-sport factors (e.g., performance pressure, stress and anxiety) that can interfere with healthy sleep behaviors. Sleep plays a key role in proper biopsychosocial development as well as short- and long-term biological, physical, psychological, and cognitive health. As poor sleep quality is known to impair proper brain function, this study aimed to investigate the effect of sleep quality on a professional athlete's ability to train, recover, and perform, as well as their overall emotional and physical well-being.
METHODS
A cohort study was performed in 40 professional male cricket athletes from the Dutch national cricket team (mean age 26.5 ± 5.1 years). The athletes were monitored across a 22 weeks in-season training period. Sleep quality and overall emotional and physical well-being were assessed using daily sleep diaries and questionnaires which scored the readiness to train, stress levels, fatigue, muscle soreness and flu symptoms respectively. Quality of sleep and subsequent association with the consecutive elements of the well-being questionnaire were assessed through statistical using the student -test and clinical differences with the methodology of Osoba and colleagues: <5% "no change", 5%-10% "little change"; 10%-20% "moderate change"; and >20% "very much change".
RESULTS
The results demonstrated that the professional athletes assessed their sleep quality as average with a mean score of 3.4 out of 5. Lower perceived quality of sleep (<75th percentile) was correlated with a decreased readiness to train (mean score 3.2 [IQR: 3.0-4.0] vs. 3.5 [IQR: 3.0-5.0]; < 0.001) and increased extent of muscle soreness (2.7 [IQR: 2.0-3.0] vs. 2.3 [IQR: 2-3]; < 0.001), stress level (mean score 2.3 [IQR: 2.0-3.0] vs. 1.9 [IQR: 1.0-2.0]; < 0.001) and perceived fatigue (mean score 2.9 [IQR: 2.0-3.0] vs. 2.3 [IQR: 2.0-3.0]; < 0.001). Likewise, in patients with lower perceived quality of sleep, the proportion of players presenting with flu symptoms increased over 4-fold (4.1% vs. 17%; < 0.001).
CONCLUSIONS
This study highlights that good sleep quality positively influences the overall emotional and physical well-being of professional athletes. Our results emphasize the importance of targeted sleep interventions to improve sleep quality and subsequently optimize psychological and physiological wellness.
PubMed: 38903388
DOI: 10.3389/fspor.2024.1389565 -
Cureus May 2024Objective A well-established association exists between academic performance and levels of depression and anxiety among medical students. However, the effects of...
Objective A well-established association exists between academic performance and levels of depression and anxiety among medical students. However, the effects of positive psychological factors on symptoms of depression and anxiety and academic performance have not been adequately studied. This study explores the relationship between the above variables and identifies positive psychological factors that can promote medical student wellbeing. Methods Medical students were surveyed at four time points during their first two years of medical education using Qualtrics. The surveys used a five-point Likert scale to assess students' levels of loneliness, religiosity, engaged living, life fulfillment, resilience, psychological wellbeing, and symptoms of depression and anxiety. Academic performance was measured using students' Comprehensive Basic Science Examination scores. Linear mixed effect models with maximum likelihood estimation were used to investigate the relationship between positive psychological factors and scores on depression and anxiety as well as the relationship between demographic and psychological factors and exam scores. Results Seventy-two students completed the study. A significant positive correlation was observed between loneliness and symptoms of depression and anxiety, while the same symptoms had significant negative correlations with engaged living. None of the positive psychological factors were significantly predictive of exam scores. Conclusion Our findings suggest that medical students who develop meaningful relationships and live engaged lives are less likely to develop symptoms of depression and anxiety. Our study lays the groundwork for future research focusing on identifying and implementing pre-clinical curriculum changes aiming to improve medical students' mental health.
PubMed: 38899259
DOI: 10.7759/cureus.60702 -
International Journal of Yoga 2024Untreated stress, anxiety, and depression during the perinatal period can lead to adverse maternal and infant outcomes. Yoga, the practice of body-mind-spirit techniques...
PURPOSE
Untreated stress, anxiety, and depression during the perinatal period can lead to adverse maternal and infant outcomes. Yoga, the practice of body-mind-spirit techniques has been shown to reduce stress, anxiety, and depression.
AIMS
The aim of the study was to examine the feasibility and limited efficacy of the 4-week practice of pregnancy tele-yoga module (PTYM) delivered and monitored through an online platform.
METHODOLOGY
A multicentric, open-label, exploratory study was conducted in the antenatal clinics (ANCs) of three tertiary care hospitals in India. Pregnant women between 13 and 32 weeks of gestation were invited to participate. PTYM was taught by the trained research staff. A YouTube link demonstrating the PTYM developed by the researchers was shared with consenting participants. Using the Yoga Performance Assessment (YPA), research staff monitored the online performance of the PTYM. Pre- and postintervention, women were assessed using the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale-21 (DASS-21).
RESULTS
Preintervention, among 162 consented pregnant women, anxiety (62.34%) was the most common mental health condition, followed by stress (55.55%) and depression (45.67%). YPA at the end of week 1, week 2, week 3, and week 4 was 19.45, 21.35, 24.15, and 28.45, respectively. Postintervention anxiety, stress, and depression persisted in 19.78%, 11.44%, and 10.41% of women. Pregnant women with stress (DASS-21 ≥15; = 90), anxiety (DASS-21 ≥8; = 101), and depressive (DASS-21 ≥10; = 74) symptoms after undergoing 4 weeks of PTYM reported significant reduction in the scores.
CONCLUSION
The current study demonstrated the feasibility and limited efficacy of PTYM in ANCs of a tertiary care hospital in India.
PubMed: 38899135
DOI: 10.4103/ijoy.ijoy_1_24 -
SAGE Open Medicine 2024Anxiety symptoms are widely observed among the youth, and engagement in sports has been demonstrated to mitigate these symptoms. Nonetheless, the effectiveness of...
BACKGROUND
Anxiety symptoms are widely observed among the youth, and engagement in sports has been demonstrated to mitigate these symptoms. Nonetheless, the effectiveness of specific sports and the potential moderating role of psychological factors, such as self-esteem and self-efficacy, on the influence of sports on anxiety, remains to be elucidated. This study was designed to longitudinally assess the impact of sports participation on anxiety symptoms among young individuals.
METHODS
The study encompassed 163 university students, with a male predominance of 81.6%, and explored the influence of sport-related factors (such as mastery of table tennis skills, level and engagement) and psychological aspects (including self-efficacy, self-esteem and resilience) on anxiety symptoms, employing an 8-month longitudinal approach. Physical activity, sedentary and sleep behaviour, along with age, body mass index (BMI), and sex, were accounted for as confounding variables.
RESULTS
The study found that high table tennis performance score was found to buffer the development of anxiety symptoms in students with decreased self-esteem in an exploratory moderation model. Self-esteem and self-efficacy were negatively associated with the development of anxiety symptoms, whereas physical activity factors did not have a direct effect.
CONCLUSION
This study highlights the potential of table tennis as a form of sport to alleviate anxiety symptoms in university students, particularly among those with decreased self-esteem. Future research should address the study's limitations and explore the potential moderating effects of other psychological factors. Overall, these findings suggest a potential new approach to treating anxiety symptoms among university students.
PubMed: 38895545
DOI: 10.1177/20503121241258736 -
BioRxiv : the Preprint Server For... Jun 2024Many psychiatric disorders involve excessive avoidant or defensive behavior, such as avoidance in anxiety and trauma disorders or defensive rituals in...
OBJECTIVE
Many psychiatric disorders involve excessive avoidant or defensive behavior, such as avoidance in anxiety and trauma disorders or defensive rituals in obsessive-compulsive disorders. Developing algorithms to predict these behaviors from local field potentials (LFPs) could serve as foundational technology for closed-loop control of such disorders. A significant challenge is identifying the LFP features that encode these defensive behaviors.
APPROACH
We analyzed LFP signals from the infralimbic cortex and basolateral amygdala of rats undergoing tone-shock conditioning and extinction, standard for investigating defensive behaviors. We utilized a comprehensive set of neuro-markers across spectral, temporal, and connectivity domains, employing SHapley Additive exPlanations for feature importance evaluation within Light Gradient-Boosting Machine models. Our goal was to decode three commonly studied avoidance/defensive behaviors: freezing, bar-press suppression, and motion (accelerometry), examining the impact of different features on decoding performance.
MAIN RESULTS
Band power and band power ratio between channels emerged as optimal features across sessions. High-gamma (80-150 Hz) power, power ratios, and inter-regional correlations were more informative than other bands that are more classically linked to defensive behaviors. Focusing on highly informative features enhanced performance. Across 4 recording sessions with 16 subjects, we achieved an average coefficient of determination of 0.5357 and 0.3476, and Pearson correlation coefficients of 0.7579 and 0.6092 for accelerometry jerk and bar press rate, respectively. Utilizing only the most informative features revealed differential encoding between accelerometry and bar press rate, with the former primarily through local spectral power and the latter via inter-regional connectivity. Our methodology demonstrated remarkably low time complexity, requiring <110 ms for training and <1 ms for inference.
SIGNIFICANCE
Our results demonstrate the feasibility of accurately decoding defensive behaviors with minimal latency, using LFP features from neural circuits strongly linked to these behaviors. This methodology holds promise for real-time decoding to identify physiological targets in closed-loop psychiatric neuromodulation.
PubMed: 38895388
DOI: 10.1101/2024.06.06.597165 -
Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) May 2024This study develops a comprehensive robotic system, termed the robot cognitive system, for complex environments, integrating three models: the engagement model, the...
This study develops a comprehensive robotic system, termed the robot cognitive system, for complex environments, integrating three models: the engagement model, the intention model, and the human-robot interaction (HRI) model. The system aims to enhance the naturalness and comfort of HRI by enabling robots to detect human behaviors, intentions, and emotions accurately. A novel dual-arm-hand mobile robot, Mobi, was designed to demonstrate the system's efficacy. The engagement model utilizes eye gaze, head pose, and action recognition to determine the suitable moment for interaction initiation, addressing potential eye contact anxiety. The intention model employs sentiment analysis and emotion classification to infer the interactor's intentions. The HRI model, integrated with Google Dialogflow, facilitates appropriate robot responses based on user feedback. The system's performance was validated in a retail environment scenario, demonstrating its potential to improve the user experience in HRIs.
Topics: Humans; Robotics; Emotions; User-Computer Interface; Man-Machine Systems
PubMed: 38894102
DOI: 10.3390/s24113311