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This paper positions urban ecology as increasingly conversant with multiple perspectives and methods for understanding the functions and qualities of diverse cities and urban situations. Despite progress in the field, we need clear pathways for positioning, connecting and synthesising specific knowledge and to make it speak to more systemic questions about cities and the life within them. These pathways need to be able to make use of diverse sources of information to better account for the diverse relations between people, other species and the ecological, social, cultural, economic, technical and increasingly digital structures that they are embedded in. Grounded in a description of the systemic knowledge needed, we propose five complementary and often connected approaches for building cumulative systemic understandings, and a framework for connecting and combining different methods and evidence. The approaches and the framework help position urban ecology and other fields of study as entry points to further advance interdisciplinary synthesis and open up new fields of research.

This perspective emerged from ongoing dialogue among ecologists initiated by a virtual workshop in 2021. A transdisciplinary group of researchers and practitioners conclude that urban ecology as a science can better contribute to positive futures by focusing on relationships, rather than prioritizing urban structures. Insights from other relational disciplines, such as political ecology, governance, urban design, and conservation also contribute. Relationality is especially powerful given the need to rapidly adapt to the changing social and biophysical drivers of global urban systems. These unprecedented dynamics are better understood through a relational lens than traditional structural questions. We use three kinds of coproduction—of the social-ecological world, of science, and of actionable knowledge—to identify key processes of coproduction within urban places. Connectivity is crucial to relational urban ecology. Eight themes emerge from the joint explorations of the paper and point toward social action for improving life and environment in urban futures.

Meta-analyses indicate differences in Pavlovian fear responses between anxious and non-anxious individuals using electrodermal activity (EDA). Recent research, however, has cast doubt on whether these effects are robust to different analytic choices. Using the multiverse approach conceived by Steegen et al. (2016), we surveyed analytic choices typically implemented in clinical fear conditioning research by conducting 1240 analyses reflecting different choice permutations. Only 1.45% of our analyses produced theoretically congruent statistically significant effects, and the strength and direction of the estimated effects varied substantially across EDA processing methods. We conclude that EDA-estimated fear learning differences are vulnerable to researcher degrees of freedom and make recommendations regarding which analytical choices should be approached with a high degree of caution.

It remains unexplored in the field of fear memory whether functional neuronal connectivity between two brain areas is necessary for one sex but not the other. Here, we show that chemogenetic silencing of centromedial (CeM)-Tac2 fibers in the lateral posterior BNST (BNSTpl) decreased fear memory consolidation in male mice but not females. Optogenetic excitation of CeM-Tac2 fibers in the BNSTpl exhibited enhanced inhibitory postsynaptic currents in males compared to females. In vivo calcium imaging analysis revealed a sex-dimorphic fear memory engram in the BNSTpl. Furthermore, in humans, the single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) in the Tac2 receptor (rs2765) (TAC3R) decreased CeM-BNST connectivity in a fear task, impaired fear memory consolidation, and increased the expression of the TAC3R mRNA in AA-carrier men but not in women. These sex differences in critical neuronal circuits underlying fear memory formation may be relevant to human neuropsychiatric disorders with fear memory alterations such as posttraumatic stress disorder.

Dysfunctional activity of the rostral anterior cingulate cortex (rACC) - an extensively connected hub region of the default mode network - has been broadly linked to cognitive and affective impairments in depression. However, the nature of aberrant task-related rACC suppression in depression is incompletely understood. In this study, we sought to characterize functional connectivity of rACC activity suppression ('deactivation') - an essential feature of rACC function - during external task engagement in depression. Specifically, we aimed to explore neural patterns of functional decoupling and coupling with the rACC during its task-driven suppression. We enrolled 81 15- to 25-year-old young people with moderate-to-severe major depressive disorder (MDD) before they commenced a 12-week clinical trial that assessed the effectiveness of cognitive behavioral therapy plus either fluoxetine or placebo. Ninety-four matched healthy controls were also recruited. Participants completed a functional magnetic resonance imaging face matching task known to elicit rACC suppression. To identify brain regions associated with the rACC during its task-driven suppression, we employed a seed-based functional connectivity analysis. We found MDD participants, compared to controls, showed significantly reduced 'decoupling' of the rACC with extended task-specific regions during task performance. Specifically, less decoupling was observed in the occipital and fusiform gyrus, dorsal ACC, medial prefrontal cortex, cuneus, amygdala, thalamus, and hippocampus. Notably, impaired decoupling was apparent in participants who did not remit to treatment, but not treatment remitters. Further, we found MDD participants showed significant increased coupling with the anterior insula cortex during task engagement. Our findings indicate that aberrant task-related rACC suppression is associated with disruptions in adaptive neural communication and dynamic switching between internal and external cognitive modes

BACKGROUND: Emotion regulation deficits are characteristic of youth depression and are underpinned by altered frontoamygdalar function. However, the causal dynamics of frontoamygdalar pathways in depression and how these dynamics relate to treatment prognosis remain unexplored. This study aimed to assess frontoamygdalar effective connectivity during cognitive reappraisal in youths with depression and to test whether pathway dynamics are predictive of individual response to combined cognitive behavioral therapy plus treatment with fluoxetine or placebo. METHODS: One hundred seven young people with moderate to severe depression and 94 healthy control participants completed a functional magnetic resonance imaging cognitive reappraisal task. After the task, 87 participants with depression were randomized and received 12 weeks of cognitive behavioral therapy plus either fluoxetine or placebo. Dynamic causal modeling was used to map frontoamygdalar effective connectivity during reappraisal and to assess the predictive capacity of baseline frontoamygdalar effective connectivity on depression diagnosis and posttreatment depression remission. RESULTS: Young people with depression showed weaker inhibitory modulation of ventrolateral prefrontal cortex to amygdala connectivity during reappraisal (0.29 Hz, posterior probability = 1.00). Leave-one-out cross-validation demonstrated that this effect was sufficiently large to predict individual diagnostic status (r = 0.20, p = .003). Posttreatment depression remission was associated with weaker excitatory ventromedial prefrontal cortex to amygdala connectivity (-0.56 Hz, posterior probability = 1.00) during reappraisal at baseline, though this effect did not predict individual remission status (r = -0.02, p = .561). CONCLUSIONS: Frontoamygdalar effective connectivity shows promise in identifying youth depression diagnosis, and circuits responsible for negative affect regulation are implicated in responsiveness to first-line depressi

Cities across the Unites States have embraced green infrastructure (GI) in official planning efforts. The plans conceptualize GI as providing multiple functions and benefits for urban residents, and form part of complex responses to intersectional urban challenges of social injustice and inequity, climate change, aging and expensive infrastructure, and socio-economic change. To date, it is unclear whether official city GI programs address systemic racism and urban inequality. To fill this knowledge gap, we coded and analyzed 122 formal plans from 20 US cities to examine if and how they address equity and justice in three domains: visions, processes, and distributions. We find a widespread failure of plans to conceptualize and operationalize equity planning prin-ciples. Only 13% of plans define equity or justice. Only 30% of cities recognize that they are on Native land. Over 90% of plans do not utilize inclusive processes to plan, design, implement, or evaluate GI, and so target many communities for green improvements without their consent. Although 80% of plans use GI to manage hazards and provide multiple benefits with GI, less than 10% identify the causes of uneven distributions and vulnera-bility. Even fewer recognize related issues of houselessness and gentrification. Very few plans have mechanisms to build community wealth through new GI jobs. We find promising seeds of best practices in some cities and plan types, but no plan exemplified best practices across all equity dimensions. If formal GI planning in US cities does not explicitly and comprehensively address equity concerns, it may reproduce the inequalities that GI is meant to alleviate. Based on our results, we identify-three key needs to improve current GI planning practices for green infrastructure and equity. First, clear definitions of equity and justice are needed, second, planning must engage with causes of inequality and displacement, and third, urban GI planning needs to be transformed through

Lottery gambling can become an addictive behavior which can significantly interfere with daily functioning. The objectives of this work were to estimate the prevalence of lottery gambling, to assess the profile related to this gambling type in a large clinical sample of patients who met criteria for gambling disorder (GD), and to compare this profile with the other two non-strategic forms of gambling (slot-machines and bingo). Sample included n = 3,531 patients consecutively attended for treatment-seeking due to gambling-related problems. All the participants met criteria for GD and were into the range of 18 to 85 years old. Sociodemographic variables, GD severity, psychopathological state, and personality traits were assessed. Statistical comparisons between the groups defined by the patients’ gambling preference (lotteries versus other gambling activities) were conducted, with chi-square test and analysis of variance. The prevalence of lotteries as the only gambling activity was 2.5%, 8.9% for lottery gambling as primary activity with other secondary gambling types, and 20.6% for lotteries as primary or secondary gambling activity. Lottery gambling and bingo gambling were more prevalent among women (bingo included the highest percentage of women). Compared to slot machine gambling, lotteries and bingo grouped older patients and those with later age of onset of the gambling-related problems. Bingo gambling showed the highest psychological distress and the most dysfunctional personality traits. This study shows the high frequency of lottery gambling among treatment-seeking for GD patients, and it provides empirical evidence about the profile associated with this gambling activity compared to other non-strategic gambling forms. The likelihood of lottery gambling is higher for women, patients married or living with a stable partner, and those within higher social position indexes.

Suppression of the brain’s default mode network (DMN) during external goal-directed cognitive tasks has been consistently observed in neuroimaging studies. However, emerging insights suggest the DMN is not a monolithic “task-negative” network but is comprised of subsystems that show functional heterogeneity. Despite considerable research interest, no study has investigated the consistency of DMN activity suppression across multiple cognitive tasks within the same individuals. In this study, 85 healthy 15- to 25-year-olds completed three functional magnetic resonance imaging tasks that were designed to reliably map DMN suppression from a resting baseline. Our findings revealed a distinct suppression subnetwork across the three tasks that comprised traditional DMN and adjacent regions. Specifically, common suppression was observed in the medial prefrontal cortex, the dorsal-to-mid posterior cingulate cortex extending to the precuneus, and the posterior insular cortex and parietal operculum. Further, we found the magnitude of suppression of these regions were significantly correlated within participants across tasks. Overall, our findings indicate that externally oriented cognitive tasks elicit common suppression of a distinct subnetwork of the broader DMN. The consistency to which the DMN is suppressed within individuals suggests a domain-general mechanism that may reflect a stable feature of cognitive function that optimizes external goal-directed behavior.

Core regions of the salience network (SN), including the anterior insula (aINS) and dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC), coordinate rapid adaptive changes in attentional and autonomic processes in response to negative emotional events. In doing so, the SN incorporates bottom-up signals from subcortical brain regions, such as the amygdala and periaqueductal gray (PAG). However, the precise influence of these subcortical regions is not well understood. Using ultra-high field 7-Tesla functional magnetic resonance imaging, this study investigated the bottom-up interactions of the amygdala and PAG with the SN during negative emotional salience processing. Thirty-seven healthy participants completed an emotional oddball paradigm designed to elicit a salient negative emotional response via the presentation of random, task-irrelevant negative emotional images. Negative emotional processing was associated with prominent activation in the SN, spanning the amygdala, PAG, aINS, and dACC. Consistent with previous research, analysis using dynamic causal modelling revealed an excitatory influence from the amygdala to the aINS, dACC, and PAG. In contrast, the PAG showed an inhibitory influence on amygdala, aINS and dACC activity. Our findings suggest that the amygdala may amplify the processing of negative emotional stimuli in the SN to enable upstream access to attentional resources. In comparison, the inhibitory influence of the PAG possibly reflects its involvement in modulating sympathetic-parasympathetic autonomic arousal mediated by the SN. This PAG-mediated effect may be driven by amygdala input and facilitate bottom-up processing of negative emotional stimuli. Overall, our results show that the amygdala and PAG modulate divergent functions of the SN during negative emotional processing.

Negative self-beliefs are a core feature of psychopathology, encompassing both negative appraisals about oneself directly (i.e. self-judgment) and negative inferences of how the self is appraised by others (i.e. social judgment). Challenging maladaptive self-beliefs via cognitive restructuring is a core treatment mechanism of gold-standard psychotherapies. However, the neural mechanisms underlying the restructuring of these two kinds of negative self-beliefs are poorly understood. Eighty-six healthy participants cognitively restructured self-judgment and social-judgment negative self-belief statements during 7 Tesla functional magnetic resonance imaging scanning. Cognitive restructuring broadly elicited activation in the core default mode network (DMN), salience and frontoparietal control regions. Restructuring self-judgment relative to social-judgment beliefs was associated with comparatively higher activation in the ventral posterior cingulate cortex (PCC)/retrosplenial cortex, while challenging social-judgment statements was associated with higher activation in the dorsal PCC/precuneus. While both regions showed increased functional connectivity with the supplementary and pre-supplementary motor areas during restructuring, the dorsal PCC displayed greater task-dependent connectivity with distributed regions involved in salience, attention and social cognition. Our findings indicate distinct patterns of PCC engagement contingent upon self- and social domains, highlighting a specialized role of the dorsal PCC in supporting neural interactions between the DMN and frontoparietal/salience networks during cognitive restructuring.

The brain's "default mode network" (DMN) enables flexible switching between internally and externally focused cognition. Precisely how this modulation occurs is not well understood, although it may involve key subcortical mechanisms, including hypothesized influences from the basal forebrain (BF) and mediodorsal thalamus (MD). Here, we used ultra-high field (7 T) functional magnetic resonance imaging to examine the involvement of the BF and MD across states of task-induced DMN activity modulation. Specifically, we mapped DMN activity suppression ("deactivation") when participants transitioned between rest and externally focused task performance, as well as DMN activity engagement ("activation") when task performance was internally (i.e., self) focused. Consistent with recent rodent studies, the BF showed overall activity suppression with DMN cortical regions when comparing the rest to external task conditions. Further analyses, including dynamic causal modeling, confirmed that the BF drove changes in DMN cortical activity during these rest-to-task transitions. The MD, by comparison, was specifically engaged during internally focused cognition and demonstrated a broad excitatory influence on DMN cortical activation. These results provide the first direct evidence in humans of distinct BF and thalamic circuit influences on the control of DMN function and suggest novel mechanistic avenues for ongoing translational research.

BACKGROUND: Pituitary adenylate cyclase-activating polypeptide (PACAP) receptor gene polymorphism has been postulated as a potential sex-specific diagnostic biomarker of trauma-related disorders. However, no research to date has evaluated whether the PACAPergic system may act as a vulnerability/resilience neuromechanism to trauma-induced psychopathology in healthy participants without heightened risk to experience traumatic events. METHODS: Here, we compared the amygdala and hippocampus response to fearful faces in participants with at-risk genotype versus non-risk participants from the Human Connectome Project (n = 991; 53.4% female). RESULTS: Increased hippocampal response to fearful faces in the female risk group emerged in sex by genetic risk interaction. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings revealed the first sex-specific neurogenetic vulnerability factor to trauma-related disorders, and emphasize the importance of prevention-based strategies to ameliorate neuropsychiatric pathophysiology.

Functional neuroimaging has become a widely used tool in obesity and eating disorder research to explore the alterations in neurobiology that underlie overeating and binge eating behaviors. Current and traditional neurobiological models underscore the importance of impairments in brain systems supporting reward, cognitive control, attention, and emotion regulation as primary drivers for overeating. Due to the technical limitations of standard field strength functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanners, human neuroimaging research to date has focused largely on cortical and basal ganglia effects on appetitive behaviors. The present review draws on animal and human research to highlight how neural signaling encoding energy regulation, reward-learning, and habit formation converge on hypothalamic, brainstem, thalamic, and striatal regions to contribute to overeating in humans. We also consider the role of regions such as the mediodorsal thalamus, ventral striatum, lateral hypothalamus and locus coeruleus in supporting habit formation, inhibitory control of food craving, and attentional biases. Through these discussions, we present proposals on how the neurobiology underlying these processes could be examined using functional neuroimaging and highlight how ultra-high field 7-Tesla (7 T) fMRI may be leveraged to elucidate the potential functional alterations in subcortical networks. Focus is given to how interactions of these regions with peripheral endocannabinoids and neuropeptides, such as orexin, could be explored. Technical and methodological aspects regarding the use of ultra-high field 7 T fMRI to study eating behaviors are also reviewed.

Fear conditioning paradigms are critical to understanding anxiety-related disorders, but studies use an inconsistent array of methods to quantify the same underlying learning process. We previously demonstrated that selection of trials from different stages of experimental phases and inconsistent use of average compared to trial-by-trial analysis can deliver significantly divergent outcomes, regardless of whether the data is analysed with extinction as a single effect, as a learning process over the course of the experiment, or in relation to acquisition learning. Since small sample sizes are attributed as sources of poor replicability in psychological science, in this study we aimed to investigate if changes in sample size influences the divergences that occur when different kinds of fear conditioning analyses are used. We analysed a large data set of fear acquisition and extinction learning (N = 379), measured via skin conductance responses (SCRs), which was resampled with replacement to create a wide range of bootstrapped databases (N = 30, N = 60, N = 120, N = 180, N = 240, N = 360, N = 480, N = 600, N = 720, N = 840, N = 960, N = 1080, N = 1200, N = 1500, N = 1750, N = 2000) and tested whether use of different analyses continued to produce deviating outcomes. We found that sample size did not significantly influence the effects of inconsistent analytic strategy when no group-level effect was included but found strategy-dependent effects when group-level effects were simulated. These findings suggest that confounds incurred by inconsistent analyses remain stable in the face of sample size variation, but only under specific circumstances with overall robustness strongly hinging on the relationship between experimental design and choice of analyses. This supports the view that such variations reflect a more fundamental confound in psychological science-the measurement of a single process by multiple methods.

The 'core' regions of the default mode network (DMN) - the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC), the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), and inferior parietal lobules (IPL) - show consistent engagement across mental states that involve self-oriented processing. Precisely how these regions interact in support of such processes remains an important unanswered question. In the current functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, we examined dynamic interactions of the 'core-self' DMN regions during two forms of self-referential cognition: direct self-appraisal (thinking about oneself) and reflected self-appraisal (thinking about oneself from a third-person perspective). One-hundred and eleven participants completed our dual self-appraisal task during fMRI, and general linear models were used to characterize common and distinct neural responses to these conditions. Informed by these results, we then applied dynamic causal modelling to examine causal interactions among the 'core-self' regions, and how they were specifically modulated under the influence of direct and reflected self-appraisal. As a primary observation, this network modelling revealed a distinct inhibitory influence of the left IPL on the PCC during reflected compared to direct self-appraisal, which was accompanied by evidence of greater activation in both regions during the reflected self-appraisal condition. We suggest that the greater engagement of posterior DMN regions during reflected self-appraisal is a function of the higher-order processing needed for this form of self-appraisal, with the left IPL supporting abstract self-related processes including episodic memory retrieval and shifts of perspective. Overall, we show that core DMN regions interact in functionally unique ways in support of self-referential processes, even when these processes are inter-related. Further characterization of DMN functional interactions across self-related mental states is likely to inform a deeper understanding of how

Negative self-beliefs are a core feature of psychopathology. Despite this, we have a limited understanding of the brain mechanisms by which negative self-beliefs are cognitively restructured. Using a novel paradigm, we had participants use Socratic questioning techniques to restructure negative beliefs during ultra-high resolution 7-Tesla functional magnetic resonance imaging (UHF 7 T fMRI) scanning. Cognitive restructuring elicited prominent activation in a fronto-striato-thalamic circuit, including the mediodorsal thalamus (MD), a group of deep subcortical nuclei believed to synchronize and integrate prefrontal cortex activity, but which has seldom been directly examined with fMRI due to its small size. Increased activity was also identified in the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC), a region consistently activated by internally focused mental processing, as well as in lateral prefrontal regions associated with regulating emotional reactivity. Using Dynamic Causal Modelling (DCM), evidence was found to support the MD as having a strong excitatory effect on the activity of regions within the broader network mediating cognitive restructuring. Moreover, the degree to which participants modulated MPFC-to-MD effective connectivity during cognitive restructuring predicted their individual tendency to engage in repetitive negative thinking. Our findings represent a major shift from a cortico-centric framework of cognition and provide important mechanistic insights into how the MD facilitates key processes in cognitive interventions for common psychiatric disorders. In addition to relaying integrative information across basal ganglia and the cortex, we propose a multifaceted role for the MD whose broad excitatory pathways act to increase synchrony between cortical regions to sustain complex mental representations, including the self.

In response to interdependent challenges, city planners are increasingly adopting “green infrastructure” (GI). Reviewing 122 plans from 20 US cities, we identify what types of city plans address and define GI, including the concepts associated with GI, as well as the types, functions, and benefits of GI. The most common plans that feature GI, some of which focus exclusively on GI, comply with US Clean Water Act regulations for stormwater and sewer systems. Municipalities also address GI through diverse planning processes, including the creation of comprehensive citywide plans. Many of these plans (~40%) do not explicitly define GI. When they do, stormwater concepts predominate, followed by landscape concepts, along with an emergent emphasis on integrating GI with other built infrastructure systems. Large differences in GI types, functions, and benefits across concepts, plan types, and cities indicate a need for synthesis of GI definitions. To facilitate this synthesis, we provide a database of GI definitions from plans used in our analysis. We conclude with a broad synthetic definition of GI to provide clarity and stimulate discussion in rapidly evolving planning, policy, and research arenas.

Safety learning generates associative links between neutral stimuli and the absence of threat, promoting the inhibition of fear and security-seeking behaviors. Precisely how safety learning is mediated at the level of underlying brain systems, particularly in humans, remains unclear. Here, we integrated a novel Pavlovian conditioned inhibition task with ultra-high field (7 Tesla) fMRI to examine the neural basis of safety learning in 49 healthy participants. In our task, participants were conditioned to two safety signals: a conditioned inhibitor that predicted threat omission when paired with a known threat signal (A+/AX-), and a standard safety signal that generally predicted threat omission (BC-). Both safety signals evoked equivalent autonomic and subjective learning responses but diverged strongly in terms of underlying brain activation (PFDR whole-brain corrected). The conditioned inhibitor was characterized by more prominent activation of the dorsal striatum, anterior insular, and dorsolateral PFC compared with the standard safety signal, whereas the latter evoked greater activation of the ventromedial PFC, posterior cingulate, and hippocampus, among other regions. Further analyses of the conditioned inhibitor indicated that its initial learning was characterized by consistent engagement of dorsal striatal, midbrain, thalamic, premotor, and prefrontal subregions. These findings suggest that safety learning via conditioned inhibition involves a distributed cortico-striatal circuitry, separable from broader cortical regions involved with processing standard safety signals (e.g., CS-). This cortico-striatal system could represent a novel neural substrate of safety learning, underlying the initial generation of "stimulus-safety" associations, distinct from wider cortical correlates of safety processing, which facilitate the behavioral outcomes of learning.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Identifying safety is critical for maintaining adaptive levels of anxiety, but the neu

Background and Objective: Complex associations between gambling disorder (GD) and impulsivity have been identified. However, little is known regarding how compulsivity associates with different impulsivity domains in GD. In this study, we examined associations between self-reported and behavioral measures of impulsivity-assessed through the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (BIS-11) and the Experiential Discounting Task (EDT), respectively- and compulsivity-measured using the Padua Inventory and the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST), respectively-, in an adult sample with GD (N = 132, 94 men and 38 women, ages ranging from 18 to 69 years). GD severity was assessed using the South Oaks Gambling Screen. Methods: Structural Equation Modeling was used to examine relationships between impulsivity and compulsivity measures, age, and GD severity. Results: BIS-11 non-planning and BIS-11 total scores positively correlated with GD severity. The standardized coefficients for the SEM showed direct positive contributions of BIS-11 non-planning, Padua and EDT scores to GD severity. Only participants' ages directly contributed to WCST perseverative errors, and no direct or indirect effects were found with respect to GD severity. Conclusion: The findings suggest that specific aspects of impulsivity and compulsivity contribute to GD severity. Interventions specifically targeting domains that are most relevant to GD severity may improve treatment outcomes.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Increased delay discounting is associated with obesity and binge eating disorder (BED). Although BED and obesity frequently co-occur, the neural mechanisms underlying delay discounting in these conditions remain poorly understood. METHODS: Thirtyfive women with obesity, including 10 participants with obesity and BED and 31 controls completed a monetary delay discounting task during functional magnetic resonance imaging. RESULTS: We identified that increased discounting rates were associated with decreased activity in the left anterior insula in participants with obesity compared to controls when choosing immediate rewards over delayed rewards (PFWE < 0.05). An exploratory analysis comparing the BED subsample to the other groups did not detect significant differences. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest decreased activity in the anterior insula may underlie heightened delay discounting in individuals with obesity, contributing the probability of choosing immediate rewards over delayed rewards based on emotional states. Future studies including larger, more diverse samples are required to confirm these effects.

Background: Serious games have shown positive results in increasing motivation, adherence to treatment and strengthening the therapeutic alliance in multiple psychiatric disorders. In particular, patients with impulse control disorders and other disorders in which the patient suffers from inhibitory control deficits (e.g., behavioral addictions) have been shown to benefit from serious games. Aim: The aim of this study was to describe the characteristics and to evaluate the usability of a new serious videogame, e-Estesia. This serious videogame was designed to improve emotion regulation in patients with gambling disorder (GD). Preliminary results from a pilot sample are also reported. Method: A pilot sample of 26 patients undergoing treatment for GD was recruited (ranging from 22 to 74 years, mean = 41.2 and SD = 12.9; 80.8% men). Participants used e-Estesia on a tablet, which was connected to a thoracic band that sent heart rate (HR) and heart rate variability (HRV) data to the videogame platform in order to provide biofeedback. The System Usability Scale was completed by patients to determine the usability of e-Estesia. Results and Discussion: e-Estesia performed comparatively well for all the explored groups (i.e., sex, age, and online vs. offline gambling: mean usability score = 83.8, SD = 13.1). Around 84.6% of the patients endorsed that it was easy to use. Female patients with GD presented higher HRV during the use of the serious videogame compared to men.

• PTSD with alexithymia and PTSD-related emotion numbing show unique neural profiles. • Alexithymia is linked to alterations in the default mode network. • Alexithymia is associated with emotional meta-cognition and attentional control. • PTSD-related emotion numbing is linked to alterations in the salience network. • Emotion numbing is linked to disorder-level negative affect. Alexithymia is very common among those with Post-traumatic stress disorder with estimates suggesting that as many as 42% of individuals with PTSD exhibit clinically-relevant alexithymia. One proposed explanation for this comorbidity is that alexithymia symptoms exhibit structural overlap with PTSD-related emotion numbing. Given the need to identify via objective measurement whether alexithymia and emotional numbing are overlapping or different experiences, a review of neural circuitry involved in these conditions is warranted. In this paper, we briefly discuss emotion processing in Alexithymia and PTSD, presenting a PRISMA systematic review of the relevant functional neuroimaging studies. Our results suggest that alexithymia is linked to alterations in the Default Mode Network (DMN) while PTSD-related emotion numbing appears to be primarily linked to alterations in the salience network. Our results suggest that emotion numbing may be linked to neural networks associated with disorder-level negative affect while alexithymia is linked to alterations in neural networks associated with emotional meta-cognition and attentional control, providing evidence that these constructs are at least partially distinct in the brain. This has important clinical implications and may inform the selection of appropriate treatments. The impact of the review may be limited due to cross-study variations in control groups, different trauma histories, individual differences and emotion processing paradigms utilised.

BACKGROUND: The endocannabinoid system is gaining increasing attention as a favorable target for improving posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) treatments. Exposure therapy is the gold-standard treatment for PTSD, and fear extinction learning is a key concept underlying successful exposure. METHODS: This study examined the role of genetic endocannabinoid polymorphisms in a fear extinction paradigm with PTSD compared to healthy participants (N = 220). Participants provided saliva for genotyping, completed a fear conditioning and extinction task, with blood samples taken before and after the task (n = 57). Skin conductance was the outcome and was analyzed using mixed models. RESULTS: Results for cannabinoid receptor type 1 polymorphisms suggested that minor alleles of rs2180619 and rs1049353 were associated with poorer extinction learning in PTSD participants. The minor allele of the fatty acid amide hydrolase (FAAH) polymorphism rs324420 was associated with worse extinction in PTSD participants. Subanalysis of healthy participants (n = 57) showed the FAAH rs324420 genotype effect was dependent on plasma arachidonoyl ethanolamide (AEA) level, but not oleoylethanolamide or 2-arachidonoyl glycerol. Specifically, higher but not lower AEA levels in conjunction with the minor allele of FAAH rs324420 were associated with better extinction learning. CONCLUSIONS: These findings provide translational evidence that cannabinoid receptor 1 and AEA are involved in extinction learning in humans. FAAH rs324420's effect on fear extinction is moderated by AEA plasma level in healthy controls. These findings imply that FAAH inhibitors may be effective for targeting anxiety in PTSD, but this effect needs to be explored further in clinical populations.

BACKGROUND: One common denominator to the clinical phenotypes of borderline personality disorder (BPD) and major depressive disorder (MDD) is emotion regulation impairment. Although these two conditions have been extensively studied separately, it remains unclear whether their emotion regulation impairments are underpinned by shared or distinct neurobiological alterations. METHODS: We contrasted the neural correlates of negative emotion regulation across an adult sample of BPD patients (n = 19), MDD patients (n = 20), and healthy controls (HCs; n = 19). Emotion regulation was assessed using an established functional magnetic resonance imaging cognitive reappraisal paradigm. We assessed both task-related activations and modulations of interregional connectivity. RESULTS: When compared to HCs, patients with BPD and MDD displayed homologous decreased activation in the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (vlPFC) during cognitive reappraisal. In addition, the MDD group presented decreased activations in other prefrontal areas (i.e., left dorsolateral and bilateral orbitofrontal cortices), while the BPD group was characterized by a more extended pattern of alteration in the connectivity between the vlPFC and cortices of the visual ventral stream during reappraisal. CONCLUSIONS: This study identified, for the first time, a shared neurobiological contributor to emotion regulation deficits in MDD and BPD characterized by decreased vlPFC activity, although we also observed disorder-specific alterations. In MDD, results suggest a primary deficit in the strength of prefrontal activations, while BPD is better defined by connectivity disruptions between the vlPFC and temporal emotion processing regions. These findings substantiate, in neurobiological terms, the different profiles of emotion regulation alterations observed in these disorders.

Cities are home to around half of the global population but face intensified and unevenly distributed heat stresses. Trees are utilized to adapt to urban heat; however, most tree planting is prioritized by either biophysical or social metrics, rather than an integration of the two. It therefore remains unclear how to maximize ecological and social benefits of tree planting in the context of environmental justice. Here, we analyze social vulnerability to heat and the cooling capacity of trees across 38 of the largest cities in the United States. We find that socially vulnerable people tend to live in hotter neighborhoods with less tree canopy. Furthermore, tree planting in such neighborhoods can achieve greater cooling benefits per unit increase in canopy. Increasing tree cover in these neighborhoods will meet the greatest need for cooling and achieve greater cooling capacity, creating social and ecological co-benefits. Adaptation measures must address both the distributional injustices of urban heat and procedural justice in planning and managing nature-based cooling approaches.

Impulsivity is a multidimensional construct. Although gambling disorder (GD) has been associated with high impulsivity, impulsivity across multiple domains has not been thoroughly investigated in this population. We first aimed to examine whether associations between three facets of impulsivity (response impulsivity, choice impulsivity and impulsive tendency) varied between GD patients and healthy controls (HC). We next aimed to evaluate relationships between these three types of impulsivity, as proposed by theoretical models of impulsivity, and their associations with GD severity. The sample included 97 treatment-seeking adult men with GD, diagnosed according to DSM-5 criteria, and 32 male HCs recruited from the general population. Greater impulsivity in all three domains was found in men with GD in comparison to men without GD. Associations between impulsivity facets were found in both groups, with response impulsivity being the only domain associated with GD severity. Our findings confirm that multiple domains of impulsivity are relevant in GD. Future studies should examine the extent to which treatments aimed at targeting specific aspects of impulsivity improve outcomes.

Robustness of fear conditioning and extinction paradigms has become increasingly important for many researchers interested in improving the study of anxiety and trauma disorders. We recently illustrated the wide variability in data analysis techniques in this paradigm, which we argued may result in a lack of robustness. In the current study, we resampled data from six of our own fear acquisition and extinction data sets, with skin conductance as the outcome. In the resampled and original data sets, we found that effect sizes that were calculated using discrepant statistical strategies, sourced from a non-exhaustive search of high-impact articles, were often poorly correlated. The main contributors to poor correlations were the selection of trials from different stages of each experimental phase and the use of average compared to trial-by-trial analysis. These findings reinforce the importance of focusing on robustness in the psychophysiological measurement of fear acquisition and extinction in the laboratory and may guide prospective researchers in which decisions may most impact the robustness of their results.

Confinement during the COVID-19 pandemic is expected to have a serious and complex impact on the mental health of patients with an eating disorder (ED) and of patients with obesity. The present manuscript has the following aims: (1) to analyse the psychometric properties of the COVID Isolation Eating Scale (CIES), (2) to explore changes that occurred due to confinement in eating symptomatology; and (3) to explore the general acceptation of the use of telemedicine during confinement. The sample comprised 121 participants (87 ED patients and 34 patients with obesity) recruited from six different centres. Confirmatory Factor Analyses (CFA) tested the rational-theoretical structure of the CIES. Adequate goodness-of-fit was obtained for the confirmatory factor analysis, and Cronbach alpha values ranged from good to excellent. Regarding the effects of confinement, positive and negative impacts of the confinement depends of the eating disorder subtype. Patients with anorexia nervosa (AN) and with obesity endorsed a positive response to treatment during confinement, no significant changes were found in bulimia nervosa (BN) patients, whereas Other Specified Feeding or Eating Disorder (OSFED) patients endorsed an increase in eating symptomatology and in psychopathology. Furthermore, AN patients expressed the greatest dissatisfaction and accommodation difficulty with remote therapy when compared with the previously provided face-to-face therapy. The present study provides empirical evidence on the psychometric robustness of the CIES tool and shows that a negative confinement impact was associated with ED subtype, whereas OSFED patients showed the highest impairment in eating symptomatology and in psychopathology.

Altered activity in decision-making neural circuitry may underlie the maladaptive food choices found in obesity. Here, we aimed to identify the brain regions purportedly underpinning risk-taking behavior in individuals with obesity. Twenty-three adult women with obesity and twenty-three healthy weight controls completed the Risky Gains Task during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). This task allows participants to choose between a safe option for a small, guaranteed monetary reward and risky options with larger rewards. fMRI analyses comparing losing trials to winning trials found that participants with obesity presented decreased activity in the left anterior insula in comparison to controls (p < 0.05, AlphaSim corrected). Moreover, left insula activation during losses vs. wins was negatively correlated with UPPS-P questionnaire sensation seeking scores. During safe vs. risky trials following a loss, the control group exhibited increased activation in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) (p < 0.05, AlphaSim corrected) in comparison to the OB group. Moreover, vmPFC response in the obesity group during post-loss trials was negatively correlated with risky choices on the task overall. As a whole, our findings support that diminished tuning of the insula towards interoceptive signals may lead to a lack of input to the vmPFC when weighing the costs and benefits of risky choices.

Difficulties in emotion regulation (ER) are common in females with eating disorders (ED). However, no study to date has analyzed ER in males with ED. In the study at hand, we assessed ER in males with ED and compared results to both females with ED and healthy controls (HC). We also examined associations between ER difficulties, personality, and psychopathology. A total of 62 males with ED were compared with 656 females with ED, as well as 78 male and 286 female HC. ER was assessed by means of the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS). We found that males and females with ED showed greater ER difficulties compared to HC. Pronounced general psychopathology was a shared factor associated with higher ER difficulties in both males and females with ED. However, whereas higher novelty seeking, higher cooperativeness, lower reward dependence, and lower self-directedness were related to higher ER difficulties in females with ED, lower persistence was associated with ER difficulties in males with ED. In sum, males and females with ED show similar ER difficulties, yet they are distinct in how ER deficits relate to specific personality traits. Research on strategies promoting ER in the treatment of males with ED is warranted.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fpsyt.2019.00173.].

Maladaptive emotion regulation contributes to overeating and impedes weight loss. Our study aimed to compare the voluntary downregulation of negative emotions by means of cognitive reappraisal in adult women with obesity (OB) and female healthy controls (HC) using a data-driven, multimodal magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) approach. Women with OB (n = 24) and HC (n = 25) carried out an emotion regulation task during functional MRI scanning. Seed-to-voxel resting-state connectivity patterns derived from activation peaks identified by this task were compared between groups. Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) was used to examine white matter microstructure integrity between regions exhibiting group differences in resting-state functional connectivity. Participants in the OB group presented reduced activation in the ventromedial prefrontal (vmPFC) cortex in comparison to the HC group when downregulating negative emotions, along with heightened activation in the extrastriate visual cortex (p < 0.05, AlphaSim-corrected). Moreover, vmPFC peak activity levels during cognitive reappraisal were negatively correlated with self-reported difficulties in emotion regulation. OB patients exhibited decreased functional connectivity between the vmPFC and the temporal pole during rest (peak-pFWE = 0.039). Decreased fractional white-matter track volume in the uncinate fasciculus, which links these two regions, was also found in participants with OB. Taken together, our findings are indicative of emotion regulation deficits in OB being underpinned by dysfunctional hypoactivity in the vmPFC and hyperactivity in the extrastriate visual cortex. Our results provide a potential target circuit for neuromodulatory interventions to improve emotion regulation skills and weight-loss intervention outcomes.

Background and Aims: Gambling-related crimes are known to be associated with gambling disorder (GD). Due to a lack of consensus in the scientific community regarding the relevance of this diagnostic criterion, it was removed from the DSM-5. The primary aim of this study was to investigate through structural equation modeling (SEM) whether higher GD severity in treatment-seeking GD patients with a criminal record is mediated through the illegal acts criterion itself, or whether it can be better explained by other related clinical factors. Methods: An initial sample of 2,081 patients seeking treatment for gambling problems was included in the sample. SEM was used to evaluate the mediational role of the illegal acts criterion between the sex, age and personality traits, gambling severity, and comorbid depression levels. Comparisons between patients with coinciding and divergent DSM criterion for GD diagnosis were carried out. Results: Illegal acts mediated the relationship between personality traits and GD severity: younger age, high levels of novelty seeking, and low levels of self-transcendence increased the risk of endorsing the illegal acts criterion. No differences between coincident-divergent groups in terms of DSM-IV and DSM-5 diagnosis were found with regards to sex (p = 0.878), education level (p = 0.387), or civil status (p = 0.792). Discussion and Conclusion: The results obtained in the present study offer new insights into the utility of using a history of illegal acts, their different personality characteristics, and psychopathology to categorize GD patients. Our findings suggest that patients who engage in criminal behavior may require a more comprehensive intervention.

Orexins/hypocretins are neuropeptides implicated in numerous processes, including food intake and cognition. The role of these peptides in the psychopathology of anorexia nervosa (AN) remains poorly understood. The aim of the current study was to evaluate the associations between plasma orexin-A (OXA) concentrations and neuropsychological functioning in adult women with AN, and a matched control group. Fasting plasma OXA concentrations were taken in 51 females with AN and in 51 matched healthy controls. Set-shifting was assessed using the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST), whereas decision making was measured using the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT). The AN group exhibited lower plasma OXA levels than the HC group. Lower mean scores were obtained on the IGT in AN patients. WCST perseverative errors were significantly higher in the AN group compared to HC. In both the AN and HC group, OXA levels were negatively correlated with WCST non-perseverative errors. Reduced plasma OXA concentrations were found to be associated with set-shifting impairments in AN. Taking into consideration the function of orexins in promoting arousal and cognitive flexibility, future studies should explore whether orexin partly underpins the cognitive impairments found in AN.

UNLABELLED: Introduction: Impairments in emotion regulation are understood to be a transdiagnostic risk factor of suffering from compulsive and addictive behaviors. The aim of this study was to investigate the role of emotion regulation deficits in gambling disorder and to analyze these differences taking gender, age, and gambling activity preferences into account. METHODS: The sample included n = 484 patients seeking treatment for gambling disorder at a specialized outpatient service. Main outcomes were sociodemographic variables, emotion regulation, and gambling severity. RESULTS: Differences between sexes were found in non-acceptance of emotions. Older patients obtained higher levels in non-acceptance of emotions, lack of emotion regulation strategies, emotional clarity, and global emotion regulation scores. No differences were found in emotion scores considering gambling preferences (non-strategic versus strategic). Path analysis showed that emotion regulation scores and age had a direct effect on gambling disorder severity, while emotion regulation and gambling preference were not mediational variables in the relationships of gender and age with gambling severity. CONCLUSIONS: Emotion regulation impairments differ in patients seeking treatment for gambling problems. Early prevention and intervention programs should incorporate the different dimensions of this process, taking into account clinical phenotypes.

Background: Gambling disorder (GD) is a heterogeneous disorder which has clinical manifestations that vary according to variables in each individual. Considering the importance of the application of specific therapeutic interventions, it is essential to obtain clinical classifications based on differentiated phenotypes for patients diagnosed with GD. Objectives: To identify gambling profiles in a large clinical sample of n = 2,570 patients seeking treatment for GD. Methods: An agglomerative hierarchical clustering method defining a combination of the Schwarz Bayesian Information Criterion and log-likelihood was used, considering a large set of variables including sociodemographic, gambling, psychopathological, and personality measures as indicators. Results: Three-mutually-exclusive groups were obtained. Cluster 1 (n = 908 participants, 35.5%), labeled as "high emotional distress," included the oldest patients with the longest illness duration, the highest GD severity, and the most severe levels of psychopathology. Cluster 2 (n = 1,555, 60.5%), labeled as "mild emotional distress," included patients with the lowest levels of GD severity and the lowest levels of psychopathology. Cluster 3 (n = 107, 4.2%), labeled as "moderate emotional distress," included the youngest patients with the shortest illness duration, the highest level of education and moderate levels of psychopathology. Conclusion: In this study, the general psychopathological state obtained the highest importance for clustering.

BACKGROUND: Individuals with obesity (OB) often report suffering from addiction-like symptoms. As in addictions, deficits in executive function domains, such as decision-making and sustained attention, are found in OB. No study to date has examined the associations between food addiction, OB, and neuropsychological performance. METHOD: Thirty-three adult women with OB and 36 healthy weight controls completed the Yale Food Addiction Scale Version 2.0, a validated instrument used to assess food-related addictive behaviours. Additionally, participants completed computerized versions of the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) and Conners' Continuous Performance Test, second edition (CPT-II) to examine decision-making and attentional control, respectively. RESULTS: Food addiction criteria were met in 24.2% of the participants with OB and in 2.8% of the control group. In the OB group, food addiction severity levels were negatively correlated with overall scores on the IGT. Participants with OB meeting criteria for food addiction committed more omissions and perseveration errors on the CPT-II compared with those without food addiction. CONCLUSIONS: Our results point to an association between food addiction severity levels and impairments in decision-making and attentional capacity in individuals with OB. Given the heterogeneity found in OB, it stands to reason that this subset of patients with food addiction could potentially benefit from interventions targeting neuropsychological deficits.

BACKGROUND: The prevalence of gambling disorder (GD) in women has increased, but, to date, few studies have explored the features of clinical GD subtypes in female samples. AIMS: The aim of this study is to identify empirical clusters based on clinical/sociodemographic variables in a sample of treatment-seeking women with GD. METHODS: Agglomerative hierarchical clustering was applied to a sample of n = 280 patients, using sociodemographic variables, psychopathology, and personality traits as indicators for the grouping procedure. RESULTS: Three mutually exclusive groups were obtained: (a) Cluster 1 (highly dysfunctional; n = 82, 29.3%) endorsed the highest levels in gambling severity, comorbid psychopathology, novelty seeking, harm avoidance, and self-transcendence, and the lowest scores in self-directedness and cooperativeness; (b) Cluster 2 (dysfunctional; n = 142, 50.7%) achieved medium mean scores in gambling severity and psychopathological symptoms; and (c) Cluster 3 (functional; n = 56, 20.0%) obtained the lowest mean scores in gambling severity and in psychopathology, and a personality profile characterized by low levels in novelty seeking, harm avoidance, and self-transcendence, and the highest levels in self-directedness and cooperativeness. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS: This study sheds light on the clinical heterogeneity of women suffering from GD. Identifying the differing features of women with GD is vital to developing prevention programs and personalized treatment protocols for this overlooked population.

Gambling disorder (GD) is a psychiatric condition that was recently recategorized as a non-substance-related addiction in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Health Disorders. Criminal activity is commonly associated with gambling; however, few empirical studies to date have examined sociodemographic and psychological variables in this population. In this study, we explored criminal behavior history in a sample of consecutively recruited treatment-seeking gamblers (n = 382) and compared subjects with a history of illegal acts (n = 103, 26.9%) to those with no criminal record (n = 279, 73.1%). Impulsivity and personality traits were specifically explored, along with other gambling-related severity factors. We found that gamblers who engaged in illegal activity were more likely to endorse high levels of urgency (i.e., the tendency to act out when experiencing heightened emotional states) and increased lack of premeditation. Gamblers with a history of criminal behavior also had greater GD severity levels and gambling-related debts. Additionally, these gamblers reported lower levels of self-directedness, which is characterized by difficulty in establishing and redirecting behavior toward one's goals. Likewise, gamblers who had conducted criminal acts showed a tendency to engage in greater risk-taking behavior. These results shed new light on this understudied population and provide insights for developing targeted harm-prevention interventions and treatment protocols.

Gambling disorder (GD) has been reclassified recently into the "Substance-Related and Addictive Disorders" category of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5), a landmark occurrence for a behavioral addiction. GD is characterized by recurrent, maladaptive gambling behavior that results in clinically significant distress. Although the number of randomized controlled trials assessing the effectiveness of pharmacological treatments is limited, some pharmacological treatments, notably opiate antagonists, have been employed in the treatment of GD. Patients with GD often present cognitive distortions and specific personality traits, making treatment more difficult. Cognitive behavioral therapy has become the most common psychological intervention for treating gambling problems, and it is effective in reducing gambling behavior. In this brief overview, we provide a report on the state of pharmacological and psychological treatments for gambling disorder. Risk factors and potential future lines of research are addressed.

Aims: Due to the increasing evidence of shared vulnerabilities between addictive behaviors and excessive food intake, the concept of food addiction in specific clinical populations has become a topic of scientific interest. The aim of this study was to validate the Yale Food Addiction Scale (YFAS) 2.0 in a Spanish sample. We also sought to explore food addiction and its clinical correlates in eating disorder (ED) and gambling disorder (GD) patients. Methods: The sample included 301 clinical cases (135 ED and 166 GD), diagnosed according to DSM-5 criteria, and 152 healthy controls (HC) recruited from the general population. Results: Food addiction was more prevalent in patients with ED, than in patients with GD and HC (77.8, 7.8, and 3.3%, respectively). Food addiction severity was associated with higher BMI, psychopathology and specific personality traits, such as higher harm avoidance, and lower self-directedness. The psychometrical properties of the Spanish version of the YFAS 2.0 were excellent with good convergent validity. Moreover, it obtained good accuracy in discriminating between diagnostic subtypes. Conclusions: Our results provide empirical support for the use of the Spanish YFAS 2.0 as a reliable and valid tool to assess food addiction among several clinical populations (namely ED and GD). The prevalence of food addiction is heterogeneous between disorders. Common risk factors such as high levels of psychopathology and low self-directedness appear to be present in individuals with food addiction.

Background and aims: Increases in the prevalence of behavioral addictions worldwide have led to a growth in the etiological research of the specific contribution of risk/protective factors to these disorders. The objective of this study was to assess the relative role of patients' sex, age of disorder onset and disorder duration on the clinical profile of behavioral addictions. Methods: Our sample included treatment-seeking patients diagnosed with gambling disorder (GD, n = 3,174), internet gambling disorder (IGD, n = 45), compulsive buying (CB, n = 113), and sex addiction (SA, n = 34). Results: The pattern of associations between the independent variables and the outcomes were strongly related to the behavioral addiction subtype: (a) for GD-men early onset of the disorder was related to GD severity, while for GD-women early onset was linked to novelty seeking; (b) for IGD-men, late onset correlated with addiction severity, worse psychopathological state, and high harm avoidance and self-transcendence levels; (c) for CB-women, early onset was related to higher reward-dependence scores and lower self-transcendence levels, and longer duration predicted higher cumulate debts; for CB-men, early onset and long duration correlated with high scores in harm-avoidance, self-directedness, self-transcendence, and cooperativeness; and (d) for SA-men, late onset and longer duration correlated with high disorder severity. Discussion and Conclusions: These findings are relevant for developing prevention and treatment programs specific to different behavioral addictions.

OBJECTIVE: We examined the association between lifetime nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI), emotion regulation, and food addiction (FA) in women (n = 220) with eating disorders (ED) compared with (n = 121) healthy controls (HC). METHOD: Participants were assessed via face-to-face interviews for ED diagnosis and lifetime NSSI. FA was assessed with Yale Food Addiction Scale 2.0 and emotion regulation using the Difficulty in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS). RESULTS: The prevalence of FA was significantly higher among women with an ED when compared with HC (75.9% vs. 4.1%, p < 0.001). Similarly, subjects presenting FA showed a high prevalence of lifetime NSSI, in both ED and HC (40.7% and 60.0%, respectively). Our predictive model revealed FA and DERS total scores as indicators of the presence of lifetime NSSI independent of group assignment, ED diagnosis, and age. CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest a shared aetiology between ED, NSSI, and FA, explained possibly in part by emotion-regulation deficits.

BACKGROUND: Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has provided insight on how neural abnormalities are related to the symptomatology of the eating disorders (EDs): anorexia nervosa (AN), bulimia nervosa (BN), and binge eating disorder (BED). More specifically, an increasingly growing number of brain imaging studies has shed light on how functionally connected brain networks contribute not only to disturbed eating behavior, but also to transdiagnostic alterations in body/interoceptive perception, reward processing and executive functioning. METHODS: This narrative review aims to summarize recent advances in fMRI studies of patients with EDs by highlighting studies investigating network alterations that are shared across EDs. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: Findings on reward processing in both AN and BN patients point to the presence of altered sensitivity to salient food stimuli in striatal regions and to the possibility of hypothalamic inputs being overridden by top-down emotional-cognitive control regions. Additionally, innovative new lines of research suggest that increased activations in fronto-striatal circuits are strongly associated with the maintenance of restrictive eating habits in AN patients. Although significantly fewer studies have been carried out in patients with BN and BED, aberrant neural responses to both food cues and anticipated food receipt appear to occur in these populations. These altered responses, coupled with diminished recruitment of prefrontal cognitive control circuitry, are believed to contribute to the binge eating of palatable foods. Results from functional network connectivity studies are diverse, but findings tend to converge on indicating disrupted resting-state connectivity in executive networks, the default-mode network and the salience network across EDs.

Background and aims Abnormal cognitions are among the most salient domain-specific features of gambling disorder. The aims of this study were: (a) to examine and validate a Spanish version of the Gambling-Related Cognitions Scale (GRCS; Raylu & Oei, 2004) and (b) to examine associations between cognitive distortion levels, impulsivity, and gambling behavior. Methods This study first recruited a convenience sample of 500 adults who had gambled during the previous year. Participants were assessed using the Spanish version of GRCS (GRCS-S) questionnaire, the UPPS-P impulsivity questionnaire, measures of gambling behavior, and potentially relevant confounders. Robust confirmatory factor analysis methods on half the sample were used to select the best models from a hypothesis-driven set. The best solutions were validated on the other half, and the resulting factors were later correlated with impulsivity dimensions (in the whole n = 500 factor analysis sample) and clinically relevant gambling indices (in a separate convenience sample of 137 disordered and non-disordered gamblers; validity sample). Results This study supports the original five-factor model, suggests an alternative four-factor solution, and confirms the psychometric soundness of the GRCS-S. Importantly, cognitive distortions consistently correlated with affect- or motivation-driven aspects of impulsivity (urgency and sensation seeking), but not with cognitive impulsivity (lack of premeditation and lack of perseverance). Discussion and conclusions Our findings suggest that the GRCS-S is a valid and reliable instrument to identify gambling cognitions in Spanish samples. Our results expand upon previous research signaling specific associations between gambling-related distortions and affect-driven impulsivity in line with models of motivated reasoning., Depto. de Personalidad, Evaluación y Psicología Clínica, Fac. de Psicología, TRUE, pub

Background: The food addiction (FA) model is receiving increasing interest from the scientific community. Available empirical evidence suggests that this condition may play an important role in the development and course of physical and mental health conditions such as obesity, eating disorders, and other addictive behaviors. However, no epidemiological data exist on the comorbidity of FA and gambling disorder (GD), or on the phenotype for the co-occurrence of GD+FA. Objectives: To determine the frequency of the comorbid condition GD+FA, to assess whether this comorbidity features a unique clinical profile compared to GD without FA, and to generate predictive models for the presence of FA in a GD sample. Method: Data correspond to N = 458 treatment-seeking patients who met criteria for GD in a hospital unit specialized in behavioral addictions. Results: Point prevalence for FA diagnosis was 9.2%. A higher ratio of FA was found in women (30.5%) compared to men (6.0%). Lower FA prevalence was associated with older age. Patients with high FA scores were characterized by worse psychological state, and the risk of a FA diagnosis was increased in patients with high scores in the personality traits harm avoidance and self-transcendence, and low scores in cooperativeness (R2 = 0.18). Conclusion: The co-occurrence of FA in treatment-seeking GD patients is related to poorer emotional and psychological states. GD treatment interventions and related behavioral addictions should consider potential associations with problematic eating behavior and aim to include techniques that aid patients in better managing this behavior.