• Psychosocial stressors
• environment
• first-episode psychosis
• hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal
• psychosis onset.
• stress

• Humans
• Hypothalamo-Hypophyseal System
• Pituitary-Adrenal System
• Stress, Psychological/complications
• Stress, Psychological/psychology
• Psychotic Disorders/etiology
• Brain

• epigenetics
• microbiome
• neurodevelopment
• oxytocin
• racism
• social connections

• Humans
• Schizophrenia/epidemiology
• Schizophrenia/etiology
• Schizophrenia/physiopathology
• Quality of Life
• Cross-Sectional Studies
• Social Determinants of Health
• Psychotic Disorders/psychology
• Biology

• K23 MH121792 NIMH NIH HHS
• T32 GM142617 NIGMS NIH HHS
• R01 MH094151 NIMH NIH HHS
• P50 MH100023 NIMH NIH HHS
• MH110418 NIH HHS
• U01 DA041120 NIDA NIH HHS
• 2R01MH094151-08 NIMH NIH HHS
• R01 MH066031 NIMH NIH HHS
• P51 OD011132 NIH HHS
• R01 MH104964 NIMH NIH HHS
• R01 MH113883 NIMH NIH HHS
• Space for Advanced Studies
• University of Costa Rica
• International Life Sciences Institute
• NIH
• NIMH
• SMRI

• Hallucinogens/pharmacology
• Hallucinogens/therapeutic use
• Humans
• Psychotic Disorders/drug therapy

Dopaminergic signaling is believed to be related to autistic traits. We conducted an exploratory 3,4-dihydroxy-6-[¹⁸F]-fluoro-L-phenylalanine positron emission tomography/computed tomography ([¹⁸F]-FDOPA PET/CT) study, to examine cerebral [¹⁸F]-FDOPA influx constant (k_i^cer min⁻¹), reflecting predominantly striatal dopamine synthesis capacity and a mixed monoaminergic innervation in extrastriatal neurons, in 44 adults diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and 22 controls, aged 18 to 30 years. Autistic traits were assessed with the Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ). Region-of-interest and voxel-based analyses showed no statistically significant differences in k_i^cer between autistic adults and controls. In autistic adults, striatal k_i^cer was significantly, negatively associated with AQ attention to detail subscale scores, although Bayesian analyses did not support this finding. In conclusion, among autistic adults, specific autistic traits can be associated with reduced striatal dopamine synthesis capacity. However, replication of this finding is necessary.

• [18F]-FDOPA
• autism spectrum disorder
• autistic traits
• dopamine
• monoamine
• positron emission tomography

• OCT angiography
• OCTA
• arteriole
• retina
• schizophrenia
• venule

• P41 RR012408 NCRR NIH HHS
• T32 GM135141 NIGMS NIH HHS

Individuals with a schizophrenia-spectrum disorder (SSD) and those at familial high risk (FHR) for SSDs experience social difficulties that are related to neural abnormalities in the network of brain regions recruited during theory of mind (ToM). Prior work with these groups has focused almost exclusively on characterizing the involvement of these regions in ToM. Here, we examine the representational content of these regions using multivariate pattern analysis. We analyzed two previously collected datasets of SSD, FHR and control participants who, while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging, completed the false-belief task in which they read stories describing beliefs or physical representations (e.g. photographs). Univariate and multivariate analyses were performed in regions of interest to evaluate group differences in task-based activation and representational content, respectively. Compared to non-SSDs, SSDs showed reduced decoding accuracy for the category of mental states in the right temporo-parietal junction—which was related to false-belief accuracy—and the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex (DMPFC) and reduced involvement of DMPFC for mental state understanding. FHR showed no differences in decoding accuracy or involvement compared to non-FHR. Given prior studies of disrupted neural involvement in FHR and the lack of decoding differences observed here, the onset of illness may involve processes that corrupt how mental state information is represented.

• fMRI
• familial risk
• multivariate pattern analysis
• schizophrenia
• theory of mind

• Discrimination
• epidemiology
• ethnicity
• psychotic disorders
• social disadvantage

• Adolescent
• Adult
• Black People/ethnology
• Case-Control Studies
• Communication Barriers
• Ethnic and Racial Minorities/psychology
• Ethnicity
• Europe
• Female
• Gene-Environment Interaction
• Health Status Disparities
• Humans
• Male
• Middle Aged
• Odds Ratio
• Psychotic Disorders/ethnology
• Schizophrenia/ethnology
• Social Determinants of Health/ethnology
• White People/ethnology
• Young Adult

• 101272/Z/13/Z Wellcome Trust
• Department of Health

• schizophrenia
• neuroscience
• autism spectrum disorders

• Anxiety
• COVID-19
• Depression
• Loneliness
• Psychosis
• Stress

• Adult
• Aged
• Anxiety/epidemiology
• COVID-19/prevention & control
• Depression/epidemiology
• Female
• Humans
• Loneliness
• Male
• Mental Health/statistics & numerical data
• Middle Aged
• Republic of Korea/epidemiology
• Stress, Psychological/epidemiology
• Young Adult

• attachment
• dissociation
• psychosis
• shame
• trauma

Early life stress compromises brain development and can contribute to the development of mental illnesses. A common animal model used to study different facets of psychiatric disorders is social isolation from early life on. In rats, this isolation can induce long-lasting alterations in molecular expression and in behavior. Since social isolation models severe psychiatric symptoms, it is to be expected that it affects the overall wellbeing of the animals. As also promoted by the 3Rs principle, though, it is pivotal to decrease the burden of laboratory animals by limiting the number of subjects (reduce, replace) and by improving the animals’ wellbeing (refine). The aim of this study was therefore to test possible refinement strategies such as resocialization and mere adult social isolation. We examined whether the alternatives still triggered the necessary phenotype while minimizing the stress load on the animals. Interestingly, we did not find reduced wellbeing-associated burrowing performance in isolated rats. The hyperactive phenotype seen in socially isolated animals was observed for rats undergoing the adult-only isolation, but resocializing ameliorated the locomotor abnormality. Isolation strongly affected markers of neuroplasticity in the prefrontal cortex independent of timing: mRNA levels of Arc, Bdnf and the pool of Bdnf transcripts with the 3’ long UTR were reduced in all groups. Bdnf splice variant IV expression was reduced in lifelong-isolated animals. Some of these deficits normalized after resocialization; likewise, exon VI Bdnf mRNA levels were reduced only in animals persistently isolated. Conversely, social deprivation did not affect the expression of Gad67 and Pvb, two GABAergic markers, whereas changes occurred in the expression of dopamine d1 and d2 receptors. As adult isolation was sufficient to trigger the hyperactive phenotype and impaired neuroplasticity in the prefrontal cortex, it could be a candidate for a refinement strategy for certain research questions. To fully grade the severity of post-weaning social isolation and the alternatives, adult isolation and resocialization, a more profound and multimodal assessment approach is necessary.

• Bipolar disorder
• depressive disorder
• dopamine
• ethnicity
• migration
• psychosis
• race
• schizophrenia
• social exclusion
• stress

• Australia/epidemiology
• Canada/epidemiology
• Cohort Studies
• Europe/epidemiology
• Female
• Humans
• Israel/epidemiology
• Male
• Psychotic Disorders/epidemiology
• Psychotic Disorders/ethnology
• Sex Factors
• Transients and Migrants/statistics & numerical data

Social dominance, the main organizing principle of social hierarchies, facilitates priority access to resources by dominant individuals. Throughout taxa, individuals are more likely to become dominant if they act first in social situations and acting fast may provide evolutionary advantage; yet whether fast decision-making is a behavioral predisposition of dominant persons outside of social contexts is not known. Following characterization of participants for social dominance motivation, we found that, indeed, men high in social dominance respond faster–without loss of accuracy–than those low in dominance across a variety of decision-making tasks. Both groups did not differ in a simple reaction task. Then, we selected a decision-making task and applied high-density electroencephalography (EEG) to assess temporal dynamics of brain activation through event related potentials. We found that promptness to respond in the choice task in dominant individuals is related to a strikingly amplified brain signal at approximately 240 ms post-stimulus presentation. Source imaging analyses identified higher activity in the left insula and in the cingulate, right inferior temporal and right angular gyri in high than in low dominance participants. Our findings suggest that promptness to respond in choice situations, regardless of social context, is a biomarker for social disposition.

• Attachment
• Eye-tracking
• Oxytocin
• Schizophrenia
• Social behavior

• Adult
• Double-Blind Method
• Eye Movement Measurements
• Facial Recognition/drug effects
• Fixation, Ocular/drug effects
• Humans
• Male
• Middle Aged
• Object Attachment
• Oxytocin/administration & dosage
• Oxytocin/pharmacology
• Schizophrenia/drug therapy
• Schizophrenia/physiopathology
• Social Perception
• Time Factors

• IK2 CX000758 CSRD VA
• K01 MH109871 NIMH NIH HHS
• R25 MH060482 NIMH NIH HHS

Social interactions have a major impact on well-being. While many individuals actively seek social situations, others avoid them, at great cost to their private and professional life. The neural mechanisms underlying individual differences in social approach or avoidance tendencies are poorly understood. Here we estimated people’s subjective value of engaging in a social situation. In each trial, more or less socially anxious participants chose between an interaction with a human partner providing social feedback and a monetary amount. With increasing social anxiety, the subjective value of social engagement decreased; amygdala BOLD response during decision-making and when experiencing social feedback increased; ventral striatum BOLD response to positive social feedback decreased; and connectivity between these regions during decision-making increased. Amygdala response was negatively related to the subjective value of social engagement. These findings suggest a relation between trait social anxiety/social avoidance and activity in a subcortical network during social decision-making.

Your relationships with the people around you – friends, family, colleagues – have a strong influence on your overall life happiness. Even so, many people struggle to engage with the people around them. Social interactions can be stressful and many people choose to avoid them, even at a cost.

Being able to measure these tendencies experimentally is a first useful step for assessing social avoidance without relying on people’s, often biased, recollections of their actions and behaviours. But how can a tendency to avoid social situations be quantified? And what can an experiment to measure this tendency reveal about the neural underpinnings of social avoidance?

Schultz et al. asked volunteers to play a social game. If they played, the volunteers had the chance to win three euros, but they could choose not to play and receive a fixed amount of money, which varied across trials between zero and three euros. This approach allowed Schultz et al. to quantify how much the volunteers valued playing the game. The game involved playing with other virtual human partners, who gave either positive or negative social feedback depending on the outcome of the game in the form of videos of facial expressions. In a non-social control experiment, a computer gave abstract feedback in the form of symbols.

Schultz et al. found that the value people placed on playing the social game varied with their level of social anxiety (established using a standard questionnaire). The more anxious people attributed less value to engaging in the game. Neuroimaging experiments revealed that the activity and connectivity between the amygdala and ventral striatum, two parts of the brain involved in processing emotions and reward-related stimuli, varied according to people’s levels of social anxiety.

Social interactions have a major impact on the quality of life of both healthy people and those with mental disorders. Developing new ways to measure and understand the differences in the brain linked to social traits could help to characterise certain conditions and document therapy progress. Methods to quantify social anxiety and avoidance are also in line with efforts to explore the neuroscience behind the full range of human behaviour.

• amygdala
• human
• neuroimaging
• neuroscience
• social anxiety
• social avoidance
• social decision-making
• ventral striatum

• Gender differences
• Schizophrenia
• Unmet needs
• Women

• Intermediate phenotype
• MRI
• NSNAP
• Nonschizophrenic nonaffective psychoses
• Primary motor abnormalities
• Schizophrenia

• Brain/diagnostic imaging
• Brain/physiopathology
• Humans
• Movement Disorders/diagnostic imaging
• Movement Disorders/physiopathology
• Phenotype
• Psychotic Disorders/diagnostic imaging
• Psychotic Disorders/physiopathology
• Schizophrenia/diagnostic imaging
• Schizophrenia/physiopathology

• paranoia
• delusions
• social stress
• social exclusion
• vulnerability

• Adult
• Disease Susceptibility
• Emotions/physiology
• Female
• Humans
• Male
• Middle Aged
• Paranoid Disorders/physiopathology
• Psychological Distance
• Psychotic Disorders/physiopathology
• Risk
• Self-Control
• Stress, Psychological/physiopathology
• Young Adult

• Black-Caribbean ethnicity
• Schizophrenia
• antecedents
• environment
• parental factors
• perinatal factors
• psychosis
• risk
• socio-demographic factors
• ultra-high-risk state for psychosis
• urbanicity

• MR/K013807/1 Medical Research Council
• RP-PG-0606-1049 Department of Health
• G1100583 Medical Research Council
• G0700995 Medical Research Council
• MR/K004867/1 Medical Research Council
• G0600972 Medical Research Council
• MR/N026063/1 Medical Research Council

• adaptation
• defense mechanism
• evolution
• psychosis
• social exclusion