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Deficits in facial emotion recognition have frequently been established in temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE). However, static, rather than dynamic emotion recognition paradigms have been applied. Affective prosody has been insufficiently studied in TLE, and there is a lack of studies investigating associations between auditory and visual emotion recognition. We wished to investigate potential deficits in a dynamic morph task of facial emotion recognition and in an affective prosody recognition task, as well as associations between both tasks. 25 patients with TLE and 24 healthy controls (CG) performed a morph task with faces continuously changing in their emotional intensity. They had to press a button, as soon as they were able to recognize the emotion expressed, and label it accordingly. In the auditory task, subjects listened to neutral sentences spoken in varying emotional tones, and labeled the emotions. Correlation analyses were conducted across both tasks. TLE patients showed significantly reduced prosody recognition compared to CG, and in the morph task, there was a statistical trend towards significantly reduced performance for TLE. Recognition rates in both tasks were significantly associated. TLE patients show deficits in affective prosody recognition, and they may also be impaired in a morph task with dynamically changing facial expressions. Impairments in basic social-cognitive tasks in TLE seem to be modality-independent., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

Background: Eye-movement patterns during facial emotion recognition are under-researched in patients with focal epilepsy (PWFE). Previous studies including other neurological patients indicate that bilateral mesiotemporal damage could be associated with impaired emotion recognition and abnormal eye-movement patterns., Aims: The current study addresses the question whether PWFE, in whom fronto-(mesio-)temporal networks are often disturbed, also show abnormal eye-movement patterns during facial emotion recognition., Method: 24 PWFE and a group of 29 healthy controls (HC) performed a facial emotion recognition task and a gender recognition task while eye movements were recorded with an eye-tracker. For this purpose, Areas of Interest (AOI) were defined in the presented faces: the eye region and the mouth region. In addition to the proportion of correctly recognized emotions, the following eye-tracking parameters were recorded: Relative fixation duration (FD)/fixation count (FC) in the mouth region/eye region (relative to the FD/FC on the entire screen)., Results: PFWE showed an emotion recognition deficit compared to HC, whereas gender recognition performance did not differ between groups. In addition, PWFE showed significantly fewer and shorter fixations in the mouth region than HC, in both the emotion recognition task and the gender recognition task., Conclusions: When looking at faces, PFWE show eye-movement patterns different from those of healthy controls. Behaviorally, PWFE are only impaired in emotion recognition. Hence, PWFE possibly scan facial regions that are relevant to successful emotion recognition more diffusely and less efficiently than healthy control subjects. Future studies should investigate the etiology of such abnormal eye-movement patterns in PWFE., (Copyright © 2022 British Epilepsy Association. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Objective: Social cognition comprises basic and more complex functions, such as theory of mind (ToM) and affective empathy. Although everyday social interactions may be impaired if such higher-order social cognitive functions are compromised, associations between social functioning and social cognition in people with focal epilepsy (PWFE) are still poorly understood. We used a novel, naturalistic approach to investigate ToM in PWFE by applying the Movie for the Assessment of Social Cognition (MASC). Furthermore, we studied affective empathy, the relationship between social cognitive parameters and measures of social functioning, as well as between epilepsy focus and ToM., Methods: Thirty patients with either temporal (TLE) or frontal lobe epilepsy (FLE) were compared to 29 healthy control subjects (HC). In addition to the MASC, we applied questionnaire measures assessing empathy and everyday social functioning., Results: PWFE, especially with FLE, performed significantly worse than HC on the MASC. Perceived social integration and social activities, but not affective empathy, were reduced in PWFE. Regression analyses revealed associations between perceived social integration, clinical group status, affective empathy and ToM., Conclusion: PWFE displayed ToM deficits during a naturalistic task, whereas affective empathy was unimpaired. FLE may be associated with especially compromised ToM performance. Social cognition and social functioning appear to be interrelated in PWFE, whose self-perceived levels of social integration and social activities are lower than those of HC. More research into the association between social cognition and social functioning in PWFE is needed, in order to develop tailored intervention programs for these patients., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2022 Metternich, Wagner, Geiger, Schulze-Bonhage, Hirsch and Schönenberg.)

Neurofeedback has begun to attract the attention and scrutiny of the scientific and medical mainstream. Here, neurofeedback researchers present a consensus-derived checklist that aims to improve the reporting and experimental design standards in the field., (© The Author(s) (2020). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Guarantors of Brain.)

Objective: Functional abdominal pain (AP) is a prevalent issue in childhood and adolescence. The contribution of psychosocial factors in the development and maintenance of this health problem is rather unclear, and experimental studies about underlying mechanisms are lacking. This study investigates whether experimentally induced social exclusion decreases sensory and pain thresholds in children suffering from AP., Subjects: Twenty children/adolescents with AP and 22 healthy controls., Methods: Children/adolescents participated in the Cyberball paradigm, which affects an experience of social exclusion. Thermal sensory and pain thresholds were measured before and after Cyberball., Results: Children/adolescents with AP showed a divergent reaction regarding their sensory threshold after social exclusion: The control group exhibited a tendency toward a decreased sensory threshold whereas the AP group remained stable. Concerning the pain threshold, no effect of social exclusion could be identified. The increase of both thresholds ("numbing") after Cyberball was positively correlated with symptoms of mental health issues., Conclusions: This is the first study to investigate changes in sensory and pain thresholds following painful social interactions in a sample of children/adolescents with a chronic pain condition. Results suggest that AP and control children differ in their reaction of sensory thresholds, which might indicate an altered processing of social exclusion. Replication and further methodological improvements are needed., (© 2018 American Academy of Pain Medicine. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.)

Background: Cognitive deficits including impaired information processing speed as assessed by the Symbol Digit Modalities Test (SDMT) are common in multiple sclerosis (MS). Oscillatory markers of processing speed may be extracted from magnetoencephalographic (MEG) and electroencephalographic (EEG) resting-state recordings. In this context, an increased proportion of frontal slow-wave (theta, 4-8 Hz) to fast-wave (beta, 13-30 Hz) EEG activity was indicative of impaired SDMT performance. Such an increased theta/beta ratio may reflect oscillatory slowing associated with deficits in attention control. Therapeutic approaches that consider atypical oscillatory activity in MS remain sparse., Objectives: In a cross-sectional design, we examined the relation between SDMT performance, the EEG theta/beta ratio and its components. We also explored longitudinally, whether EEG neurofeedback could be used to induce a putatively adaptive alteration in these EEG parameters, toward a pattern indicative of improved processing speed., Methods: N = 58 MS patients (RRMS/SPMS/PPMS N: 18/35/3, 2 cases excluded) participated in a neuropsychological examination and a resting-state EEG recording. Subsequently, N = 10 patients received neurofeedback training for two weeks in a hospitalized setting. The purpose was to reduce the frontal theta/beta ratio through operant conditioning., Results: In the cross-sectional examination, patients with slow SDMT speed displayed an increased theta/beta ratio, relative to those with normal speed. This involved increased frontal theta power, whereas beta power was equal across groups. The theta/beta ratio remained stable during neurofeedback across sessions of the two-week training period. In an exploratory secondary analysis, within sessions a reduction in the theta/beta ratio during active training blocks relative pre/post session resting-states was observed, driven by reduced theta power., Conclusions: These findings provide support for utilizing frontal EEG theta activity as an inverse marker of processing speed in MS. Across sessions, there was no support for successful operant conditioning of the theta/beta ratio during the two-week training period. The observed state-specific shift within sessions, involving a transient reduction in theta activity, nevertheless may provide a rationale for a further investigation of neurofeedback as a treatment approach in MS., (Copyright © 2019 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Antisocial and psychopathic personality traits constitute a severe and treatment resistant form of externalizing psychopathology. While deficits in social information processing have been extensively investigated in these individuals, less is known about their capacity for altruism and cooperation. In particular, no studies to date have investigated whether established social-contextual determinants of cooperation, e.g., group affiliation and number of expected interactions, can motivate cooperative behaviour in antisocial individuals. The present study compared cooperative behaviour of incarcerated violent offenders (N = 52) and controls (N = 46) by using an established social interaction paradigm (Give Some Dilemma) where two players divide monetary units between themselves and the counterpart. Group affiliation (in- vs. out-group) and number of expected interactions (single-trial vs. repeated-trial interactions) were manipulated. Violent offenders as compared to controls shared less monetary units with their counterparts, indicating an overall reduced cooperation. Both groups showed increased cooperation rates towards in-group members and in repeated interactions. Higher psychopathic traits were associated with lower cooperation in single-trial interactions in the violent offender group. Although cooperation was comparably reduced in violent offenders, behaviour in both groups was determined by the number of expected interactions as well as group affiliation, thus providing evidence for equivalent social-contextual determinants.

A model of the main sequence is proposed based on the logistic function. The model's fit to the peak velocity-amplitude relation resembles an S curve, simultaneously allowing control of the curve's asymptotes at very small and very large amplitudes, as well as its slope over the mid-amplitude range. The proposed inverse-linear logistic model is also able to express the linear relation of duration and amplitude. We demonstrate the utility and robustness of the model when fit to aggregate data at the smalland mid-amplitude ranges, namely when fitting microsaccades, saccades, and superposition of both. We are confident the model will suitably extend to the largeamplitude range of eye movements., Competing Interests: The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest regarding the publication of this paper.

What are the determinants of altruism? While economists assume that altruism is mainly driven by fairness norms, social psychologists consider empathy to be a key motivator for altruistic behavior. To unite these two theories, we conducted an experiment in which we compared behavior in a standard economic game that assesses altruism (the so-called Dictator Game) with a Dictator Game in which participants' behavioral choices were preceded either by an empathy induction or by a control condition without empathy induction. The results of this within-subject manipulation show that the empathy induction substantially increased altruistic behavior. Moreover, the increase in experienced empathy predicted over 40% of the increase in sharing behavior. These data extend standard economic theories that altruism is based on fairness considerations, by showing that empathic feelings can be a key motivator for altruistic behavior in economic interactions.

Socially anxious individuals have been shown to exhibit altered processing of facial affect, especially expressions signaling threat. Enhanced unaware processing has been suggested an important mechanism which may give rise to anxious conscious cognition and behavior. This study investigated whether individuals with social anxiety disorder (SAD) are perceptually more vulnerable to the biasing effects of subliminal threat cues compared to healthy controls. In a perceptual judgment task, 23 SAD and 23 matched control participants were asked to rate the affective valence of parametrically manipulated affective expressions ranging from neutral to angry. Each trial was preceded by subliminal presentation of an angry/neutral cue. The SAD group tended to rate target faces as "angry" when the preceding subliminal stimulus was angry vs. neutral, while healthy participants were not biased by the subliminal stimulus presentation. The perceptual bias in SAD was also associated with higher reaction time latencies in the subliminal angry cue condition. The results provide further support for enhanced unconscious threat processing in SAD individuals. The implications for etiology, maintenance, and treatment of SAD are discussed.