90 results on '"Vanessa Nieratschker"'
Search Results
2. Neural correlates of stress-reactive rumination in depression – The role of childhood trauma and social anxiety
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David Rosenbaum, Isabell Int-Veen, Hendrik Laicher, Leonie Woloszyn, Ariane Wiegand, Sandra Ladegast, Ute Eßer, Agnes Kroczek, Daniel Sippel, Sebastian Menkor, Glenn Lawyer, Francesco Albasini, Christian Frischholz, Rainald Mössner, Vanessa Nieratschker, Elisabeth J. Leehr, Julian Rubel, Andreas J. Fallgatter, and Ann-Christine Ehlis
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Functional near-infrared spectroscopy ,fNIRS ,Rumination ,Repetitive negative thinking ,Perseverative thinking ,Trier social stress test ,Neurosciences. Biological psychiatry. Neuropsychiatry ,RC321-571 ,Neurology. Diseases of the nervous system ,RC346-429 ,Neurophysiology and neuropsychology ,QP351-495 - Abstract
Recent work showed an association of prefrontal dysfunctions in patients with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) and social stress induced rumination. However, up to date it is unclear which etiological features of MDD might cause prefrontal dysfunctions. In the study at hand, we aimed to replicate recent findings, that showed prefrontal activation alterations during the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) and subsequently increased stress-reactive rumination in MDD compared to healthy controls. Moreover, we aimed to explore the role of adverse childhood experiences and other clinical variables in this relationship. N = 55 patients currently suffering from MDD and n = 42 healthy controls (HC) underwent the TSST, while cortical activity in areas of the Cognitive Control Network (CCN) was measured via functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). The TSST successfully induced a stress reaction (physiologically, as well as indicated by subjective stress ratings) and state rumination in all subjects with moderate to large effect sizes. In comparison to HC, MDD patients showed elevated levels of state rumination with large effect sizes, as well as a typical pattern of reduced cortical oxygenation during stress in the CCN with moderate effect sizes. Self-reported emotional abuse and social anxiety were moderately positively associated with increased stress-reactive rumination. Within the MDD sample, emotional abuse was negatively and social anxiety positively associated with cortical oxygenation within the CCN with moderate to large effect sizes. In conclusion, our results replicate previous findings on MDD-associated prefrontal hypoactivity during stress and extends the research toward specific subtypes of depression.
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- 2024
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3. DNA Methylation of PXDN Is Associated with Early-Life Adversity in Adult Mental Disorders
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Susanne Edelmann, Jeysri Balaji, Sarah Pasche, Ariane Wiegand, and Vanessa Nieratschker
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DNA methylation ,Early-life Adversity (ELA) ,Mental Disorders ,Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) ,Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) ,Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) ,Microbiology ,QR1-502 - Abstract
Early-life adversity (ELA) is characterized by exposure to traumatic events during early periods of life, particularly involving emotional, sexual and/or physical adversities during childhood. Mental disorders are strongly influenced by environmental and lifestyle-related risk factors including ELA. However, the molecular link between ELA and the risk of an adult mental disorder is still not fully understood. Evidence is emerging that long-lasting changes in the epigenetic processes regulating gene expression, such as DNA methylation, play an important role in the biological mechanisms linking ELA and mental disorders. Based on a recent study, we analyzed the DNA methylation of a specific CpG site within the gene PXDN—cg10888111—in blood in the context of ELA across a set of psychiatric disorders, namely Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) and Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD), and its potential contribution to their pathogenesis. We found significant hypermethylation in mentally ill patients with high levels of ELA compared to patients with low levels of ELA, whereas cg10888111 methylation in healthy control individuals was not affected by ELA. Further investigations revealed that this effect was driven by the MDD cohort. Providing a direct comparison of cg10888111 DNA methylation in blood in the context of ELA across three mental disorders, our results indicate the role of PXDN regulation in the response to ELA in the pathogenesis of mental disorders, especially MDD. Further studies will be needed to validate these results and decipher the corresponding biological network that is involved in the transmission of ELA to an adult mental disorder in general.
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- 2024
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4. Hypnotherapy for agoraphobia—Feasibility and efficacy investigated in a pilot study
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Kristina Fuhr, Annika Bender, Ariane Wiegand, Paul Janouch, Marta Drujan, Barbara Cyrny, Cornelie Schweizer, Benjamin Kreifelts, Vanessa Nieratschker, and Anil Batra
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agoraphobia ,psychotherapy ,hypnotherapy ,(epi-)genetic ,feasibility ,Psychology ,BF1-990 - Abstract
A number of case studies describing hypnotherapy in the treatment of anxiety disorder patients have already been published. Only a few randomized controlled trials (RCTs) investigated the efficacy of hypnotherapy but focused mainly on symptoms rather than specific mental disorders. The goal of this study was to investigate whether hypnotherapy (HT) was superior to a waitlist control group (WL) in the reduction of agoraphobia-related symptoms. Further goals were to report the feasibility of hypnotherapy as well as attrition and completion rates and detect (epi-)genetic variables, which might play a role in treatment outcome. This pilot study was based on a monocentric two-armed randomized controlled rater-blind clinical trial that was conducted between 2018 and 2020 with a waitlist control group. A total of 36 patients diagnosed with agoraphobia were randomized to either HT or WL. Patients in HT received individual outpatient treatment with hypnotherapy with 8 to 12 sessions for a period of 3 months. Patients in WL received HT after 3 months. Agoraphobia-related symptoms were assessed at baseline, after the treatment, and 3 months later in both groups with a clinician rating. The primary hypothesis concerning the difference between groups in the individual percentage symptom reduction could be confirmed in the intention-to-treat, not the per-protocol sample. Additionally, we applied repeated-measures analyses of variance and found a higher symptom decrease in HT compared with WL patients in three of the five imputed datasets. The dropout rate was low, and satisfaction with the treatment was high. HT patients experienced a strong symptom reduction after receiving hypnotherapy. WL patients improved slightly during the waiting period. The COMT Val108/158Met genotype had an effect on the agoraphobia-related symptoms as well as on COMT DNA methylation levels. This is the first study to indicate that hypnotherapy performed better than a waitlist control group regarding the reduction in anxiety symptoms in an RCT. Future studies should confirm the efficacy of hypnotherapy and compare the treatment with a standard treatment for anxiety disorders in a larger trial. Future studies should also investigate whether hypnotic susceptibility is associated with COMT Val108/158Met genotype and could predict treatment success for HT.Clinical trial registrationhttps://classic.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03684577, identifier: NCT03684577.
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- 2023
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5. Blood transcriptome analysis suggests an indirect molecular association of early life adversities and adult social anxiety disorder by immune-related signal transduction
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Susanne Edelmann, Ariane Wiegand, Thomas Hentrich, Sarah Pasche, Julia Maria Schulze-Hentrich, Matthias H. J. Munk, Andreas J. Fallgatter, Benjamin Kreifelts, and Vanessa Nieratschker
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RNA sequencing ,gene expression ,social anxiety disorder ,early life adversity ,transcriptome ,immune system ,Psychiatry ,RC435-571 - Abstract
Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is a psychiatric disorder characterized by severe fear in social situations and avoidance of these. Multiple genetic as well as environmental factors contribute to the etiopathology of SAD. One of the main risk factors for SAD is stress, especially during early periods of life (early life adversity; ELA). ELA leads to structural and regulatory alterations contributing to disease vulnerability. This includes the dysregulation of the immune response. However, the molecular link between ELA and the risk for SAD in adulthood remains largely unclear. Evidence is emerging that long-lasting changes of gene expression patterns play an important role in the biological mechanisms linking ELA and SAD. Therefore, we conducted a transcriptome study of SAD and ELA performing RNA sequencing in peripheral blood samples. Analyzing differential gene expression between individuals suffering from SAD with high or low levels of ELA and healthy individuals with high or low levels of ELA, 13 significantly differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified with respect to SAD while no significant differences in expression were identified with respect to ELA. The most significantly expressed gene was MAPK3 (p = 0.003) being upregulated in the SAD group compared to control individuals. In contrary, weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA) identified only modules significantly associated with ELA (p ≤ 0.05), not with SAD. Furthermore, analyzing interaction networks of the genes from the ELA-associated modules and the SAD-related MAPK3 revealed complex interactions of those genes. Gene functional enrichment analyses indicate a role of signal transduction pathways as well as inflammatory responses supporting an involvement of the immune system in the association of ELA and SAD. In conclusion, we did not identify a direct molecular link between ELA and adult SAD by transcriptional changes. However, our data indicate an indirect association of ELA and SAD mediated by the interaction of genes involved in immune-related signal transduction.
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- 2023
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6. In situ fNIRS measurements during cognitive behavioral emotion regulation training in rumination-focused therapy: A randomized-controlled trial
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Hendrik Laicher, Isabell Int-Veen, Leonie Woloszyn, Ariane Wiegand, Agnes Kroczek, Daniel Sippel, Elisabeth J. Leehr, Glenn Lawyer, Francesco Albasini, Christian Frischholz, Rainald Mössner, Vanessa Nieratschker, Julian Rubel, Andreas Fallgatter, Ann-Christine Ehlis, and David Rosenbaum
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functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) ,Emotion Regulation ,Major Depression ,Psychotherapy ,In situ measurements ,Repetitive Negative Thinking (RNT) ,Computer applications to medicine. Medical informatics ,R858-859.7 ,Neurology. Diseases of the nervous system ,RC346-429 - Abstract
Repetitive negative thinking (RNT), including rumination, plays a key role in various psychopathologies. Although several psychotherapeutic treatments have been developed to reduce RNT, the neural correlates of those specific treatments and of psychotherapy in general are largely unknown. Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) offers the potential to investigate the neural correlates of psychotherapeutic techniques in situ. Therefore, in this study we investigated the efficacy and neural correlates of a fNIRS adapted Mindfulness-based Emotion Regulation Training (MBERT) for the treatment of depressive rumination in 42 subjects with major depressive disorder (MDD) in a cross-over designed randomized controlled trial. Using psychometric measures, subjective ratings and fNIRS, we analyzed in situ changes in depressive symptom severity, ruminative thoughts and cortical activity in the Cognitive Control Network (CCN). Our results show that MBERT is effective in treating depressive symptoms and rumination. On a neural level, we found consistently higher cortical activation during emotion regulation training compared to control trials in the bilateral inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC). Furthermore, cortical oxygenation decreased from session to session in the bilateral DLPFC. The relevance of the results for the psychotherapeutic treatment of MDD as well as further necessary investigations are discussed.
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- 2023
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7. Polygenic risk scores across the extended psychosis spectrum
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Lukasz Smigielski, Sergi Papiol, Anastasia Theodoridou, Karsten Heekeren, Miriam Gerstenberg, Diana Wotruba, Roman Buechler, Per Hoffmann, Stefan Herms, Kristina Adorjan, Heike Anderson-Schmidt, Monika Budde, Ashley L. Comes, Katrin Gade, Maria Heilbronner, Urs Heilbronner, Janos L. Kalman, Farahnaz Klöhn-Saghatolislam, Daniela Reich-Erkelenz, Sabrina K. Schaupp, Eva C. Schulte, Fanny Senner, Ion-George Anghelescu, Volker Arolt, Bernhard T. Baune, Udo Dannlowski, Detlef E. Dietrich, Andreas J. Fallgatter, Christian Figge, Markus Jäger, Georg Juckel, Carsten Konrad, Vanessa Nieratschker, Jens Reimer, Eva Reininghaus, Max Schmauß, Carsten Spitzer, Martin von Hagen, Jens Wiltfang, Jörg Zimmermann, Anna Gryaznova, Laura Flatau-Nagel, Markus Reitt, Milena Meyers, Barbara Emons, Ida Sybille Haußleiter, Fabian U. Lang, Thomas Becker, Moritz E. Wigand, Stephanie H. Witt, Franziska Degenhardt, Andreas J. Forstner, Marcella Rietschel, Markus M. Nöthen, Till F. M. Andlauer, Wulf Rössler, Susanne Walitza, Peter Falkai, Thomas G. Schulze, and Edna Grünblatt
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Neurosciences. Biological psychiatry. Neuropsychiatry ,RC321-571 - Abstract
Abstract As early detection of symptoms in the subclinical to clinical psychosis spectrum may improve health outcomes, knowing the probabilistic susceptibility of developing a disorder could guide mitigation measures and clinical intervention. In this context, polygenic risk scores (PRSs) quantifying the additive effects of multiple common genetic variants hold the potential to predict complex diseases and index severity gradients. PRSs for schizophrenia (SZ) and bipolar disorder (BD) were computed using Bayesian regression and continuous shrinkage priors based on the latest SZ and BD genome-wide association studies (Psychiatric Genomics Consortium, third release). Eight well-phenotyped groups (n = 1580; 56% males) were assessed: control (n = 305), lower (n = 117) and higher (n = 113) schizotypy (both groups of healthy individuals), at-risk for psychosis (n = 120), BD type-I (n = 359), BD type-II (n = 96), schizoaffective disorder (n = 86), and SZ groups (n = 384). PRS differences were investigated for binary traits and the quantitative Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale. Both BD-PRS and SZ-PRS significantly differentiated controls from at-risk and clinical groups (Nagelkerke’s pseudo-R 2: 1.3–7.7%), except for BD type-II for SZ-PRS. Out of 28 pairwise comparisons for SZ-PRS and BD-PRS, 9 and 12, respectively, reached the Bonferroni-corrected significance. BD-PRS differed between control and at-risk groups, but not between at-risk and BD type-I groups. There was no difference between controls and schizotypy. SZ-PRSs, but not BD-PRSs, were positively associated with transdiagnostic symptomology. Overall, PRSs support the continuum model across the psychosis spectrum at the genomic level with possible irregularities for schizotypy. The at-risk state demands heightened clinical attention and research addressing symptom course specifiers. Continued efforts are needed to refine the diagnostic and prognostic accuracy of PRSs in mental healthcare.
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- 2021
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8. Corrigendum: GH responsiveness is not correlated to IGF1 P2 promoter methylation in children with Turner syndrome, GHD and SGA short stature
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Anja Apel, Daniel I. Iliev, Christina Urban, Karin Weber, Roland Schweizer, Gunnar Blumenstock, Sarah Pasche, Vanessa Nieratschker, and Gerhard Binder
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IGF-1 ,promotor methylation ,GH response ,prediction ,short stature ,GH treatment ,Diseases of the endocrine glands. Clinical endocrinology ,RC648-665 - Published
- 2022
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9. GH Responsiveness Is not Correlated to IGF1 P2 Promoter Methylation in Children With Turner Syndrome, GHD and SGA Short Stature
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Anja Apel, Daniel I. Iliev, Christina Urban, Karin Weber, Roland Schweizer, Gunnar Blumenstock, Sarah Pasche, Vanessa Nieratschker, and Gerhard Binder
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IGF-1 ,promotor methylation ,GH response ,prediction ,short stature ,GH treatment ,Diseases of the endocrine glands. Clinical endocrinology ,RC648-665 - Abstract
BackgroundThe methylation of IGF1 promoter P2 was reported to negatively correlate with serum IGF-1 concentration and rhGH treatment response in children with idiopathic short stature. These findings have not yet been confirmed.ObjectiveThis study aimed to determine IGF1 promoter P2 methylation in short children treated with rhGH and correlate clinical parameters with the methylation status. In addition, long-term stability of methylation during rhGH treatment was studied.DesignThis was a single tertiary center study analyzing clinical GH response and IGF-1 serum concentration changes in patients with GHD (n=40), SGA short stature (n=36), and Turner syndrome (n=16) treated with rhGH. Data were correlated to the methylation of two cytosine residues (-137, +97) of the P2 promoter of IGF1 in blood cells measured by pyrosequencing in 443 patient samples.ResultsBasal and stimulated IGF-1 concentrations, first year increment in height velocity and studentized residuals of a prediction model did not correlate to the methylation of -137 und +97 in IGF1 P2 promoter. The methylation of these two sites was relatively stable during treatment.ConclusionsThis study did not confirm IGF1 P2 promotor being a major epigenetic locus for GH responsiveness in patients treated with a normal dose of rhGH. Additional studies are warranted.
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- 2022
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10. DNA methylation differences associated with social anxiety disorder and early life adversity
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Ariane Wiegand, Benjamin Kreifelts, Matthias H. J. Munk, Nadja Geiselhart, Katia E. Ramadori, Julia L. MacIsaac, Andreas J. Fallgatter, Michael S. Kobor, and Vanessa Nieratschker
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Neurosciences. Biological psychiatry. Neuropsychiatry ,RC321-571 - Abstract
Abstract Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is a psychiatric disorder characterized by extensive fear in social situations. Multiple genetic and environmental factors are known to contribute to its pathogenesis. One of the main environmental risk factors is early life adversity (ELA). Evidence is emerging that epigenetic mechanisms such as DNA methylation might play an important role in the biological mechanisms underlying SAD and ELA. To investigate the relationship between ELA, DNA methylation, and SAD, we performed an epigenome-wide association study for SAD and ELA examining DNA from whole blood of a cohort of 143 individuals using DNA methylation arrays. We identified two differentially methylated regions (DMRs) associated with SAD located within the genes SLC43A2 and TNXB. As this was the first epigenome-wide association study for SAD, it is worth noting that both genes have previously been associated with panic disorder. Further, we identified two DMRs associated with ELA within the SLC17A3 promoter region and the SIAH3 gene and several DMRs that were associated with the interaction of SAD and ELA. Of these, the regions within C2CD2L and MRPL28 showed the largest difference in DNA methylation. Lastly, we found that two DMRs were associated with both the severity of social anxiety and ELA, however, neither of them was found to mediate the contribution of ELA to SAD later in life. Future studies are needed to replicate our findings in independent cohorts and to investigate the biological pathways underlying these effects.
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- 2021
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11. Insights from a laboratory and naturalistic investigation on stress, rumination and frontal brain functioning in MDD: An fNIRS study
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David Rosenbaum, Isabell Int-Veen, Hendrik Laicher, Florian Torka, Agnes Kroczek, Julian Rubel, Glenn Lawyer, Zoé Bürger, Isabel Bihlmaier, Helena Storchak, Kerstin Velten-Schurian, Thomas Dresler, Ramona Täglich, Betti Schopp, Hans-Christoph Nürk, Birgit Derntl, Vanessa Nieratschker, Andreas J. Fallgatter, and Ann-Christine Ehlis
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Rumination ,Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) ,Socially Evaluated Cold-Pressor Test (SECPT) ,functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) ,Repetitive negative thought ,Major Depressive Disorder ,Neurosciences. Biological psychiatry. Neuropsychiatry ,RC321-571 ,Neurology. Diseases of the nervous system ,RC346-429 ,Neurophysiology and neuropsychology ,QP351-495 - Abstract
Recent research has emphasized rumination as an important maintaining factor in various mental disorders. However, operationalization and therefore induction of rumination in experimental settings poses a major challenge in terms of ecological validity. As stress seems to play a key role in everyday situations eliciting rumination, we conducted two stress paradigms while assessing behavioral and neurophysiological measures.Aiming to replicate previous findings on induced rumination by means of the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) and comparing them to physiological (pain) stress, a clinical sample of patients with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD; n = 22) and healthy controls (HC; n = 23) was recruited. Cortical blood oxygenation was assessed during the stress paradigms using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). Further, we used ecological momentary assessment (EMA) of stress, rumination and mood to be able to correlate ruminative responses during induced stress and everyday rumination.Our results showed that social stress but not physiological stress induced depressive rumination in MDD but not in HC. Further, rumination reactivity in response to social stress but not to physiological stress was significantly associated with rumination reactivity in everyday life as assessed with EMA. With respect to cortical oxygenation, MDD subjects showed hypoactivity in the Cognitive Control Network during the TSST, which mediated the differences between MDD and HC in post-stress rumination.Our findings emphasize the role of negative social triggers in depressive rumination and validate the TSST as an induction method for depressive rumination. The results inform future developments in psychotherapeutic treatment for depressive rumination.
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- 2021
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12. Stress-related dysfunction of the right inferior frontal cortex in high ruminators: An fNIRS study
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David Rosenbaum, Mara Thomas, Paula Hilsendegen, Florian G. Metzger, Florian B. Haeussinger, Hans-Christoph Nuerk, Andreas J. Fallgatter, Vanessa Nieratschker, and Ann-Christine Ehlis
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Computer applications to medicine. Medical informatics ,R858-859.7 ,Neurology. Diseases of the nervous system ,RC346-429 - Abstract
Repetitive thinking styles such as rumination are considered to be a key factor in the development and maintenance of mental disorders. Different situational triggers (e.g., social stressors) have been shown to elicit rumination in subjects exhibiting such habitual thinking styles. At the same time, the process of rumination influences the adaption to stressful situations. The study at hand aims to investigate the effect of trait rumination on neuronal activation patterns during the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) as well as the physiological and affective adaptation to this high-stress situation. Methods: A sample of 23 high and 22 low ruminators underwent the TSST and two control conditions while their cortical hemodynamic reactions were measured with functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). Additional behavioral, physiological and endocrinological measures of the stress response were assessed. Results: Subjects showed a linear increase from non-stressful control conditions to the TSST in cortical activity of the cognitive control network (CCN) and dorsal attention network (DAN), comprising the bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC), inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and superior parietal cortex/somatosensory association cortex (SAC). During stress, high ruminators showed attenuated cortical activity in the right IFG, whereby deficits in IFG activation mediated group differences in post-stress state rumination and negative affect. Conclusions: Aberrant activation of the CCN and DAN during social stress likely reflects deficits in inhibition and attention with corresponding negative emotional and cognitive consequences. The results shed light on possible neuronal underpinnings by which high trait rumination may act as a risk factor for the development of clinical syndromes. Keywords: Trier Social Stress Test (TSST), Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), Inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), Functional connectivity, Rumination, Cognitive control network (CCN)
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- 2018
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13. Dynamic DNA Methylation Changes in the COMT Gene Promoter Region in Response to Mental Stress and Its Modulation by Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation
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Ariane Wiegand, Arne Blickle, Christof Brückmann, Simone Weller, Vanessa Nieratschker, and Christian Plewnia
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transcranial direct current stimulation ,epigenetics ,DNA methylation ,stress response ,COMT ,Microbiology ,QR1-502 - Abstract
Changes in epigenetic modifications present a mechanism how environmental factors, such as the experience of stress, can alter gene regulation. While stress-related disorders have consistently been associated with differential DNA methylation, little is known about the time scale in which these alterations emerge. We investigated dynamic DNA methylation changes in whole blood of 42 healthy male individuals in response to a stressful cognitive task, its association with concentration changes in cortisol, and its modulation by transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS). We observed a continuous increase in COMT promotor DNA methylation which correlated with higher saliva cortisol levels and was still detectable one week later. However, this lasting effect was suppressed by concurrent activity-enhancing anodal tDCS to the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Our findings support the significance of gene-specific DNA methylation in whole blood as potential biomarkers for stress-related effects. Moreover, they suggest alternative molecular mechanisms possibly involved in lasting behavioral effects of tDCS.
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- 2021
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14. DNA methylation signatures of chronic alcohol dependence in purified CD3+ T-cells of patients undergoing alcohol treatment
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Christof Brückmann, Sumaiya A. Islam, Julia L. MacIsaac, Alexander M. Morin, Kathrin N. Karle, Adriana Di Santo, Richard Wüst, Immanuel Lang, Anil Batra, Michael S. Kobor, and Vanessa Nieratschker
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Medicine ,Science - Abstract
Abstract Several studies have shown an association of alcohol dependence with DNA methylation (DNAm), suggesting that environmentally-induced changes on epigenomic variation may play an important role in alcohol dependence. In the present study, we analysed genome-wide DNAm profiles of purified CD3+ T-cells from pre- and post-treatment alcohol dependent patients, as well as closely matched healthy controls. We identified 59 differentially methylated CpG sites comparing patients prior to treatment with healthy controls and were able to confirm 8 of those sites in additional analyses for differentially methylated regions. Comparing patients before and after a 3-week alcohol treatment program we revealed another unique set of 48 differentially methylated CpG sites. Additionally, we found that the mean global DNAm was significantly lower in patients prior to treatment compared to controls, but reverted back to levels similar to controls after treatment. We validated top-ranked hits derived from the epigenome-wide analysis by pyrosequencing and further replicated two of them in an independent cohort and confirmed differential DNAm of HECW2 and SRPK3 in whole blood. This study is the first to show widespread DNAm variation in a disease-relevant blood cell type and implicates HECW2 and SRPK3 DNAm as promising blood-based candidates to follow up in future studies.
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- 2017
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15. CACNA1C risk variant affects microstructural connectivity of the amygdala
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Katharina Koch, Sophia Stegmaier, Lena Schwarz, Michael Erb, Mara Thomas, Klaus Scheffler, Dirk Wildgruber, Vanessa Nieratschker, and Thomas Ethofer
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Computer applications to medicine. Medical informatics ,R858-859.7 ,Neurology. Diseases of the nervous system ,RC346-429 - Abstract
Deficits in perception of emotional prosody have been described in patients with affective disorders at behavioral and neural level. In the current study, we use an imaging genetics approach to examine the impact of CACNA1C, one of the most promising genetic risk factors for psychiatric disorders, on prosody processing on a behavioral, functional and microstructural level. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) we examined key areas involved in prosody processing, i.e. the amygdala and voice areas, in a healthy population. We found stronger activation to emotional than neutral prosody in the voice areas and the amygdala, but CACNA1C rs1006737 genotype had no influence on fMRI activity. However, significant microstructural differences (i.e. mean diffusivity) between CACNA1C rs1006737 risk allele carriers and non carriers were found in the amygdala, but not the voice areas. These modifications in brain architecture associated with CACNA1C might reflect a neurobiological marker predisposing to affective disorders and concomitant alterations in emotion perception. Keywords: CACNA1C, Prosody, Amygdala, Emotion processing, Auditory cortex
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- 2019
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16. New genetic findings in schizophrenia: is there still room for the dopamine hypothesis of schizophrenia?
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Vanessa Nieratschker, Markus M Nöthen, and Marcella Rietschel
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Genome-Wide Association Study ,Schizophrenia ,genetic variants ,CNV ,heritability ,candidate gene ,Neurosciences. Biological psychiatry. Neuropsychiatry ,RC321-571 - Abstract
Schizophrenia is a highly heritable disorder, but the identification of specific genes has proven to be a difficult endeavour. Genes involved in the dopaminergic system are considered to be major candidates since the “dopamine hypothesis” of impairment in dopaminergic neurotransmission is one of the most widely accepted hypotheses of the aetiology of schizophrenia. The overall findings from candidate studies do provide some support for the “dopamine hypothesis”. However, results from the first systematic genome-wide association (GWA) studies have implicated variants within ZNF804A, NRGN, TCF4, and variants in the MHC region on chromosome 6p22.1. Although these genes may not immediately impact on dopaminergic neurotransmission, it remains possible that downstream impairments in dopaminergic function are caused. Furthermore, only a very small fraction of all truly associated genetic variants have been detected and many more associated variants will be identified in the future by GWA studies and alternative approaches. The results of these studies may allow a more comprehensive re-evaluation of the dopamine hypothesis.
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- 2010
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17. Bruchpilot in ribbon-like axonal agglomerates, behavioral defects, and early death in SRPK79D kinase mutants of Drosophila.
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Vanessa Nieratschker, Alice Schubert, Mandy Jauch, Nicole Bock, Daniel Bucher, Sonja Dippacher, Georg Krohne, Esther Asan, Sigrid Buchner, and Erich Buchner
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Genetics ,QH426-470 - Abstract
Defining the molecular structure and function of synapses is a central theme in brain research. In Drosophila the Bruchpilot (BRP) protein is associated with T-shaped ribbons ("T-bars") at presynaptic active zones (AZs). BRP is required for intact AZ structure and normal evoked neurotransmitter release. By screening for mutations that affect the tissue distribution of Bruchpilot, we have identified a P-transposon insertion in gene CG11489 (location 79D) which shows high homology to mammalian genes for SR protein kinases (SRPKs). SRPKs phosphorylate serine-arginine rich splicing factors (SR proteins). Since proteins expressed from CG11489 cDNAs phosphorylate a peptide from a human SR protein in vitro, we name CG11489 the Drosophila Srpk79D gene. We have characterized Srpk79D transcripts and generated a null mutant. Mutation of the Srpk79D gene causes conspicuous accumulations of BRP in larval and adult nerves. At the ultrastructural level, these correspond to extensive axonal agglomerates of electron-dense ribbons surrounded by clear vesicles. Basic synaptic structure and function at larval neuromuscular junctions appears normal, whereas life expectancy and locomotor behavior of adult mutants are significantly impaired. All phenotypes of the mutant can be largely or completely rescued by panneural expression of SRPK79D isoforms. Isoform-specific antibodies recognize panneurally overexpressed GFP-tagged SRPK79D-PC isoform co-localized with BRP at presynaptic active zones while the tagged -PB isoform is found in spots within neuronal perikarya. SRPK79D concentrations in wild type apparently are too low to be revealed by these antisera. We propose that the Drosophila Srpk79D gene characterized here may be expressed at low levels throughout the nervous system to prevent the assembly of BRP containing agglomerates in axons and maintain intact brain function. The discovery of an SR protein kinase required for normal BRP distribution calls for the identification of its substrate and the detailed analysis of SRPK function for the maintenance of nervous system integrity.
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- 2009
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18. Cortical hemodynamic changes during the Trier Social Stress Test: An fNIRS study.
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David Rosenbaum, Paula Hilsendegen, Mara Thomas, Florian B. Haeussinger, Florian G. Metzger, Hans-Christoph Nuerk, Andreas J. Fallgatter, Vanessa Nieratschker, and Ann-Christine Ehlis
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- 2018
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19. Neural correlates of attentional control in social anxiety disorder: the impact of early-life adversity and DNA methylation
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Ariane Wiegand, Matthias H. J. Munk, Sanja Drohm, Andreas J. Fallgatter, Julia L. MacIsaac, Michael S. Kobor, Vanessa Nieratschker, and Benjamin Kreifelts
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Adult ,Male ,Adolescent ,Brain ,Phobia, Social ,Anxiety ,DNA Methylation ,Middle Aged ,Young Adult ,Psychiatry and Mental health ,Adverse Childhood Experiences ,Humans ,Female ,Pharmacology (medical) ,Biological Psychiatry ,Research Paper - Abstract
Background: Social anxiety disorder is characterized by intense fear and avoidance of social interactions and scrutiny by others. Although alterations in attentional control seem to play a central role in the psychopathology of social anxiety disorder, the neural underpinnings in prefrontal brain regions have not yet been fully clarified. Methods: The present study used functional MRI in participants (age 18–50 yr) with social anxiety disorder (n = 42, 31 female) and without (n = 58, 33 female). It investigated the interrelation of the effects of social anxiety disorder and early-life adversity (a main environmental risk factor of social anxiety disorder) on brain activity during an attentional control task. We applied DNA methylation analysis to determine whether epigenetic modulation in the gene encoding the glucocorticoid receptor, NR3C1, might play a mediating role in this process. Results: We identified 2 brain regions in the left and medial prefrontal cortex that exhibited an interaction effect of social anxiety disorder and early-life adversity. In participants with low levels of early-life adversity, neural activity in response to disorder-related stimuli was increased in association with social anxiety disorder. In participants with high levels of early-life adversity, neural activity was increased only in participants without social anxiety disorder. NR3C1 DNA methylation partly mediated the effect of social anxiety disorder on brain activity as a function of early-life adversity. Limitations: The absence of behavioural correlates associated with social anxiety disorder limited functional interpretation of the results. Conclusion: These findings demonstrate that the neurobiological processes that underlie social anxiety disorder might be fundamentally different depending on experiences of early-life adversity. Long-lasting effects of early-life adversity might be encoded in NR3C1 DNA methylation and entail alterations in social anxiety disorder–related activity patterns in the neural network of attentional control.
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- 2021
20. Blood transcriptome analysis suggests an indirect molecular association of early life adversities and adult social anxiety disorder by immune-related signal transduction
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Susanne Edelmann, Ariane Wiegand, Thomas Hentrich, Sarah Pasche, Julia Schulze-Hentrich, Matthias H. J. Munk, Andreas J. Fallgatter, Benjamin Kreifelts, and Vanessa Nieratschker
- Subjects
Psychiatry and Mental health - Abstract
Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is a psychiatric disorder characterized by severe fear in social situations and avoidance of these. Multiple genetic as well as environmental factors contribute to the etiopathology of SAD. One of the main risk factors for SAD is stress, especially during early periods of life (early life adversity; ELA). ELA leads to structural and regulatory alterations contributing to disease vulnerability. This includes the dysregulation of the immune response. However, the molecular link between ELA and the risk for SAD in adulthood remains largely unclear. Evidence is emerging that long-lasting changes of gene expression patterns play an important role in the biological mechanisms linking ELA and SAD. Therefore, we conducted a transcriptome study of SAD and ELA performing RNA sequencing in peripheral blood samples. Analyzing differential gene expression between individuals suffering from SAD with high or low levels of ELA and healthy individuals with high or low levels of ELA, 13 significantly differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified with respect to SAD while no significant differences in expression were identified with respect to ELA. The most significantly expressed gene was MAPK3 (p = 0.003) being upregulated in the SAD group compared to control individuals. In contrary, weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA) identified only modules significantly associated with ELA (p ≤ 0.05), not with SAD. Furthermore, analyzing interaction networks of the genes from the ELA-associated modules and the SAD-related MAPK3 revealed complex interactions of those genes. Gene functional enrichment analyses indicate a role of signal transduction pathways as well as inflammatory responses supporting an involvement of the immune system in the association of ELA and SAD. In conclusion, we did not identify a direct molecular link between ELA and adult SAD by transcriptional changes. However, our data indicate an indirect association of ELA and SAD mediated by the interaction of genes involved in immune-related signal transduction.
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- 2022
21. Treatment of major depressive disorder with bilateral theta burst stimulation: study protocol for a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled multicenter trial (TBS-D)
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Christian Plewnia, Thomas Ethofer, Vanessa Nieratschker, Andreas J. Fallgatter, Tobias Schwippel, Frank Padberg, Peter Martus, Bettina Brendel, and Thomas Kammer
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medicine.medical_specialty ,medicine.medical_treatment ,CTBS ,Placebo ,behavioral disciplines and activities ,law.invention ,03 medical and health sciences ,0302 clinical medicine ,Physical medicine and rehabilitation ,Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex ,Randomized controlled trial ,Double-Blind Method ,law ,Multicenter trial ,Theta burst stimulation ,mental disorders ,medicine ,Major depression ,Humans ,Multicenter Studies as Topic ,Pharmacology (medical) ,Multicenter ,Biological Psychiatry ,Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic ,Original Paper ,Depressive Disorder, Major ,business.industry ,General Medicine ,medicine.disease ,Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation ,030227 psychiatry ,Transcranial magnetic stimulation ,Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex ,Psychiatry and Mental health ,medicine.anatomical_structure ,Treatment Outcome ,Brain stimulation ,Major depressive disorder ,business ,030217 neurology & neurosurgery - Abstract
Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) is currently evolving as an effective and safe therapeutic tool in the treatment of major depressive disorder (MDD). However, already established rTMS treatment paradigms are rather time-consuming. With theta burst stimulation (TBS), a patterned form of rTMS, treatment time can be substantially reduced. Pilot studies and a randomized controlled trial (RCT) demonstrate non-inferiority of TBS to 10 Hz rTMS and support a wider use in MDD. Still, data from placebo-controlled multicenter RCTs are lacking. In this placebo-controlled multicenter study, 236 patients with MDD will be randomized to either intermittent TBS (iTBS) to the left and continuous TBS (cTBS) to the right dlPFC or bilateral sham stimulation (1:1 ratio). The treatment will be performed with 80% resting motor threshold intensity over six consecutive weeks (30 sessions). The primary outcome is the treatment response rate (Montgomery-Asberg Depression Rating Scale reduction ≥ 50%). The aim of the study is to confirm the superiority of active bilateral TBS compared to placebo treatment. In two satellite studies, we intend to identify possible MRI-based and (epi-)genetic predictors of responsiveness to TBS therapy. Positive results will support the clinical use of bilateral TBS as an advantageous, efficient, and well-tolerated treatment and pave the way for further individualization of MDD therapy.Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT04392947).
- Published
- 2021
22. DIFFERENTIAL REGULATION OF GENE EXPRESSION THROUGH DNA METHYLATION: INVESTIGATING THE MOLECULAR LINK BETWEEN EARLY LIFE ADVERSITIES (ELA) AND SOCIAL ANXIETY DISORDER (SAD)
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Susanne Edelmann, Ariane Wiegand, Sanja Drohm, Matthias Munk, Benjamin Kreifelts, and Vanessa Nieratschker
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Pharmacology ,Psychiatry and Mental health ,Neurology ,Pharmacology (medical) ,Neurology (clinical) ,Biological Psychiatry - Published
- 2022
23. Validity of chronotype questionnaires in adolescents: Correlations with actigraphy
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Leonie M. Paciello, Mirja Quante, Corina Weidenauer, Michael Rueschman, Vanessa Nieratschker, Christian F. Poets, and Christoph Randler
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Behavioral Neuroscience ,Adolescent ,Cognitive Neuroscience ,Surveys and Questionnaires ,Humans ,General Medicine ,Disorders of Excessive Somnolence ,Child ,Sleep ,Actigraphy ,Circadian Rhythm - Abstract
There are only a few validated chronotype and morningness-eveningness questionnaires for adolescents. We evaluated three such questionnaires, namely Morningness-Eveningness Stability Scale improved; reduced Morningness-Eveningness Questionnaire for Children and Adolescents; and Composite Scale of Morningness in adolescents against actigraphy. Fifty-five healthy 13- to 16-year-old adolescents completed the Morningness-Eveningness Stability Scale improved, reduced Morningness-Eveningness Questionnaire for Children and Adolescents, Composite Scale of Morningness, and Pediatric Daytime Sleepiness Scale, and provided a 7-day actigraphy and sleep diary recording about their sleep-wake patterns. We examined the correlations between sleep-wake and activity parameters, and the questionnaires. The influence of age and sex on chronotype classification was studied using uni- and multivariate analyses. All three chronotype questionnaires showed good internal consistency and convergent validity. Spearman correlations reflected less daytime sleepiness, earlier sleep times, midpoints of sleep, and acrophase in morning-oriented participants. Evening-oriented participants had more sleepiness and later respective sleep-wake times. Chronotype classification differed significantly between questionnaires. The Composite Scale of Morningness classified more participants as morning types when compared with the reduced Morningness-Eveningness Questionnaire for Children and Adolescents (12 versus 7, respectively), and fewer adolescents as evening types (5 versus 9, respectively). Age and sex had no significant influence on questionnaire scores. The Morningness-Eveningness Stability Scale improved, reduced Morningness-Eveningness Questionnaire for Children and Adolescents, and Composite Scale of Morningness are valid instruments to determine circadian preference in adolescents; however, chronotype classification from the Composite Scale of Morningness and reduced Morningness-Eveningness Questionnaire for Children and Adolescents cannot be used interchangeably.
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- 2022
24. OXTR DNA methylation differentiates men on the obesity spectrum with and without binge eating disorder
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Katrin Elisabeth, Giel, Kathrin, Schag, Elisabeth Johanna, Leehr, Isabelle, Mack, Lea-Sarah, Schuster, Ariane, Wiegand, Stephan, Zipfel, Manfred, Hallschmid, and Vanessa, Nieratschker
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Male ,Receptors, Oxytocin ,Dna ,Eating Disorder ,Epigenetics ,Methylation ,Obesity ,Oxytocin ,Humans ,Female ,DNA Methylation ,Binge-Eating Disorder - Abstract
BACKGROUND: The neuropeptide oxytocin (OXT) plays a role in the regulation of eating behavior and metabolism. OXT functioning is altered in patients with eating and weight disorders, and a variant of the oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR) has been associated with impulsive eating behavior as it is seen in patients with binge eating disorder (BED). Gene × environment interactions could play a role in BED. One mechanism mediating this interaction is the epigenetic alteration of gene expression. We therefore investigated if DNA methylation of the OXTR differs between individuals with obesity depending on a comorbid BED. We analyzed DNA methylation of the OXTR in peripheral blood of 227 individuals on the obesity spectrum (mean age: 40.3 ± 13.1 yrs; mean BMI: 38.6 ± 7.3kg/m2), 130 of which were diagnosed with BED. RESULTS: There were no overall differences in OXTR methylation between participants with and those without BED (p > 0.05), while both subgroups were comparable regarding age and body mass index (BMI), but significantly differed in sex distribution (p = 0.035). We found no relationship between mean DNA methylation and BMI or self-reported eating disorder (ED) pathology. Analyzing potential sex differences revealed a significantly lower OXTR DNA methylation in male participants with BED ascompared to those without BED (p = 0.017). No such difference was found in the female subsample (p > 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: Clinically significant binge eating pathology might be associated with lower OXTR DNA methylation exclusively in males. The differential DNA methylation of OXTR in males with BED supports the view that BED represents a phenotype within the obesity spectrum that is characterized by specific vulnerability factors. A better understanding of the epigenetic underpinnings of the OXT system might contribute to the refinement of OXT administration approaches as potential interventions in eating and weight disorders.
- Published
- 2022
25. Genome-wide supported risk variant for bipolar disorder alters anatomical connectivity in the human brain.
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Julia Linke, Stephanie H. Witt, Andrea V. King, Vanessa Nieratschker, Cyril Poupon, Achim Gass, Michael Hennerici, Marcella Rietschel, and Michèle Wessa
- Published
- 2012
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
26. Effect of CACNA1C rs1006737 on neural correlates of verbal fluency in healthy individuals.
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Axel Krug, Vanessa Nieratschker, Valentin Markov, Sören Krach, Andreas Jansen, Klaus Zerres, Thomas Eggermann, Tony Stöcker, N. Jon Shah, Jens Treutlein, Thomas W. Mühleisen, and Tilo Kircher
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- 2010
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
27. Differential COMT DNA methylation in patients with Borderline Personality Disorder: Genotype matters
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Nora Banet, Julia Becker-Sadzio, Vanessa Nieratschker, Mara Thomas, Friederike Gundel, Katarzyna Glowacz, and Annalena Wallisch
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Adult ,Male ,Candidate gene ,Genotype ,Catechol O-Methyltransferase ,Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide ,behavioral disciplines and activities ,Epigenesis, Genetic ,Borderline Personality Disorder ,mental disorders ,Humans ,Medicine ,Pharmacology (medical) ,In patient ,Epigenetics ,Allele ,Promoter Regions, Genetic ,Borderline personality disorder ,Gene ,Alleles ,Biological Psychiatry ,Pharmacology ,Genetics ,business.industry ,fungi ,DNA Methylation ,medicine.disease ,Psychiatry and Mental health ,nervous system ,Neurology ,Case-Control Studies ,DNA methylation ,Female ,Neurology (clinical) ,business - Abstract
Differential DNA methylation in peripheral tissues has been associated with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). Alterations have been found in several genes, among them the Catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) gene. COMT is a known neuropsychiatric candidate gene, which contains a genotype variant (Val108/158Met) that affects protein function and has been found associated with several psychiatric disorders. In addition, this variant also affects COMT DNA methylation. However, in previous epigenetic studies, the DNA methylation results have not always been controlled for genotype, even though overrepresentation of the Met allele has been frequently reported in cohorts of BPD patients. Therefore, in the present study, we investigated whether alteration of COMT DNA methylation in BPD patients is indeed associated with mental health status or merely influenced by a differential distribution of the COMT genotype between BPD patients and healthy control individuals. We found significant group differences, as well as a strong effect of genotype on COMT DNA methylation. While the direction of effect was different compared to a previous study, our study supports the finding of altered COMT DNA methylation in patients with BPD and reinforces the need to include genotype information in future DNA methylation studies of COMT.
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- 2019
28. Sex-dependent multimodal response profiles to psychosocial stress
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Leandra Kuhn, Hannes Noack, Lisa Wagels, Anna Prothmann, Anna Schulik, Ece Aydin, Vanessa Nieratschker, Birgit Derntl, and Ute Habel
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Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience ,Cognitive Neuroscience - Abstract
Introduction Sex differences in stress reactions are often reported in the literature. However, the sex-dependent interplay of different facets of stress is still not fully understood. Particularly in neuroimaging research, studies on large samples combining different indicators of stress remain scarce. Materials and Methods In a functional magnetic resonance imaging study, a sample of 140 healthy participants (67 females using oral contraceptives) underwent a standardized stress induction protocol, the ScanSTRESS. During the experiment, salivary cortisol and subjective ratings were obtained at multiple time points and heart rate was recorded. Results Sex differences emerged in different facets of the stress response:Women reacted with enhanced subjective feelings of stress and increases in heart rate, while men showed more pronounced neural activation in stress-related brain regions such as the inferior frontal gyrus and insula. Subjective feelings of stress and (para) hippocampal activity were negatively related in women,whereas a slightly positive association was observed in men. Discussion These results provide further insight in the sex-specific stress response patterns. Moreover, they emphasize the role of the hippocampus in the regulation of the stress response. This paves the way for the identification of sex-dependent vulnerability factors that can, in the future, be implemented in the prevention and treatment of stress-related disorders.
- Published
- 2021
29. Polygenic risk scores across the extended psychosis spectrum
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Wulf Rössler, Stefan Herms, Franziska Degenhardt, Milena Meyers, Thomas G. Schulze, Vanessa Nieratschker, Fabian U. Lang, Georg Juckel, Monika Budde, Anna Gryaznova, Stephanie H. Witt, Detlef E. Dietrich, Laura Flatau-Nagel, Till F. M. Andlauer, Markus M. Nöthen, Thomas Becker, Janos Kalman, Ashley L. Comes, Carsten Spitzer, Roman Buechler, Max Schmauß, Christian Figge, Katrin Gade, Heike Anderson-Schmidt, Markus Reitt, Eva Z. Reininghaus, Farahnaz Klöhn-Saghatolislam, Barbara Emons, Maria Heilbronner, Miriam Gerstenberg, Lukasz Smigielski, Diana Wotruba, Sergi Papiol, Eva C. Schulte, Volker Arolt, Kristina Adorjan, Daniela Reich-Erkelenz, Jörg Zimmermann, Bernhard T. Baune, Andreas J. Forstner, Peter Falkai, Martin von Hagen, Jens Reimer, Urs Heilbronner, Anastasia Theodoridou, Andreas J. Fallgatter, Susanne Walitza, Per Hoffmann, Karsten Heekeren, Jens Wiltfang, Udo Dannlowski, Markus Jäger, Ida Sybille Haußleiter, Marcella Rietschel, Moritz E. Wigand, Carsten Konrad, Sabrina K. Schaupp, Fanny Senner, Ion-George Anghelescu, and Edna Grünblatt
- Subjects
Male ,Psychosis ,Multifactorial Inheritance ,Bipolar disorder ,Schizotypy ,Neurosciences. Biological psychiatry. Neuropsychiatry ,Context (language use) ,Schizoaffective disorder ,genetics [Psychotic Disorders] ,Article ,Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience ,Prognostic markers ,Risk Factors ,Medicine ,Humans ,Genetic Predisposition to Disease ,ddc:610 ,Clinical genetics ,Biological Psychiatry ,Subclinical infection ,Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale ,business.industry ,Bayes Theorem ,medicine.disease ,Psychiatry and Mental health ,Psychotic Disorders ,Schizophrenia ,Female ,business ,RC321-571 ,Clinical psychology ,Genome-Wide Association Study - Abstract
As early detection of symptoms in the subclinical to clinical psychosis spectrum may improve health outcomes, knowing the probabilistic susceptibility of developing a disorder could guide mitigation measures and clinical intervention. In this context, polygenic risk scores (PRSs) quantifying the additive effects of multiple common genetic variants hold the potential to predict complex diseases and index severity gradients. PRSs for schizophrenia (SZ) and bipolar disorder (BD) were computed using Bayesian regression and continuous shrinkage priors based on the latest SZ and BD genome-wide association studies (Psychiatric Genomics Consortium, third release). Eight well-phenotyped groups (n = 1580; 56% males) were assessed: control (n = 305), lower (n = 117) and higher (n = 113) schizotypy (both groups of healthy individuals), at-risk for psychosis (n = 120), BD type-I (n = 359), BD type-II (n = 96), schizoaffective disorder (n = 86), and SZ groups (n = 384). PRS differences were investigated for binary traits and the quantitative Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale. Both BD-PRS and SZ-PRS significantly differentiated controls from at-risk and clinical groups (Nagelkerke’s pseudo-R2: 1.3–7.7%), except for BD type-II for SZ-PRS. Out of 28 pairwise comparisons for SZ-PRS and BD-PRS, 9 and 12, respectively, reached the Bonferroni-corrected significance. BD-PRS differed between control and at-risk groups, but not between at-risk and BD type-I groups. There was no difference between controls and schizotypy. SZ-PRSs, but not BD-PRSs, were positively associated with transdiagnostic symptomology. Overall, PRSs support the continuum model across the psychosis spectrum at the genomic level with possible irregularities for schizotypy. The at-risk state demands heightened clinical attention and research addressing symptom course specifiers. Continued efforts are needed to refine the diagnostic and prognostic accuracy of PRSs in mental healthcare.
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- 2021
30. GENOME-WIDE ASSOCIATION STUDY META-ANALYSIS OF SOCIAL ANXIETY DISORDER
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Andreas J. Forstner, Carlo Maj, Angelina Vogelsang, Eric Leibing, Vanessa Nieratschker, Katharina Domschke, Elisabeth J. Leehr, Börge Schmidt, Kelli Lehto, Silvia Paracchini, Hans Grabe, Iiris Hovatta, Markus M. Nöthen, Rupert Conrad, and Johannes Schumacher
- Subjects
Pharmacology ,Psychiatry and Mental health ,Neurology ,Pharmacology (medical) ,Neurology (clinical) ,Biological Psychiatry - Published
- 2022
31. The genetic relationship between educational attainment and cognitive performance in major psychiatric disorders
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Sebastian Stierl, Andreas Thiel, Fanny Senner, Volker Arolt, Ion-George Anghelescu, Manfred Koller, Eva C. Schulte, Markus M. Noethen, Janos L. Kalman, Daniela Reich-Erkelenz, Markus Jaeger, Here Folkerts, Urs Heilbronner, Bernhard T. Baune, Katrin Gade, Heike Anderson-Schmidt, Ashley L. Comes, Eva Z. Reininghaus, Kristina Adorjan, Georg Juckel, Maria Hake, Stephanie H. Witt, Harald Scherk, Farah Kloehn-Saghatolislam, Till F. M. Andlauer, Sabrina K. Schaupp, Jens Wiltfang, Franziska Degenhardt, Udo Dannlowski, Martin von Hagen, Max Schmauss, Monika Budde, Marcella Rietschel, Andreas J. Forstner, Moritz E. Wigand, Peter Falkai, Christian Figge, Thomas Becker, Carsten Konrad, Carsten Spitzer, Jens Reimer, Joerg Zimmermann, Sergi Papiol, Andreas J. Fallgatter, Detlef E. Dietrich, Vanessa Nieratschker, and Thomas G. Schulze
- Subjects
0301 basic medicine ,Male ,Multifactorial Inheritance ,Intelligence ,Neuropsychological Tests ,genetics [Mental Disorders] ,Cognition ,0302 clinical medicine ,Memory span ,Mental Disorders ,physiology [Cognition] ,Genomics ,Middle Aged ,ddc ,Psychiatry and Mental health ,Memory, Short-Term ,Schizophrenia ,physiology [Memory, Short-Term] ,Educational Status ,Female ,Psychology ,Adult ,medicine.medical_specialty ,Bipolar disorder ,Fluid and crystallized intelligence ,Verbal learning ,physiology [Intelligence] ,Article ,Learning and memory ,lcsh:RC321-571 ,03 medical and health sciences ,Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience ,Young Adult ,medicine ,Humans ,Clinical genetics ,Effects of sleep deprivation on cognitive performance ,ddc:610 ,Psychiatry ,lcsh:Neurosciences. Biological psychiatry. Neuropsychiatry ,Biological Psychiatry ,medicine.disease ,030104 developmental biology ,psychology [Mental Disorders] ,Endophenotype ,030217 neurology & neurosurgery - Abstract
Cognitive deficits are a core feature of psychiatric disorders like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Evidence supports a genome-wide polygenic score (GPS) for educational attainment (GPSEDU) can be used to explain variability in cognitive performance. We aimed to identify different cognitive domains associated with GPSEDU in a transdiagnostic clinical cohort of chronic psychiatric patients with known cognitive deficits. Bipolar and schizophrenia patients from the PsyCourse cohort (N = 730; 43% female) were used. Likewise, we tested whether GPSs for schizophrenia (GPSSZ) and bipolar disorder (GPSBD) were associated with cognitive outcomes. GPSEDU explained 1.5% of variance in the backward verbal digit span, 1.9% in the number of correctly recalled words of the Verbal Learning and Memory Test, and 1.1% in crystallized intelligence. These effects were robust to the influences of treatment and diagnosis. No significant associations between GPSSZ or GPSBD with cognitive outcomes were found. Furthermore, these risk scores did not confound the effect of GPSEDU on cognitive outcomes. GPSEDU explains a small fraction of cognitive performance in adults with psychiatric disorders, specifically for domains related to linguistic learning and working memory. Investigating such a proxy-phenotype longitudinally, could give intriguing insight into the disease course, highlighting at what time genes play a more influential role on cognitive performance. Better understanding the origin of these deficits might help identify those patients at risk for lower levels of functioning and poor social outcomes. Polygenic estimates may in the future be part of predictive models for more personalized interventions.
- Published
- 2019
32. Improvement of cognitive control and stabilization of affect by prefrontal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS)
- Author
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Ariane Wiegand, Vanessa Nieratschker, Anja Sommer, and Christian Plewnia
- Subjects
0301 basic medicine ,Adult ,Male ,medicine.medical_specialty ,Adolescent ,medicine.medical_treatment ,Emotions ,Prefrontal Cortex ,lcsh:Medicine ,Stimulation ,Audiology ,Affect (psychology) ,Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation ,Article ,Task (project management) ,03 medical and health sciences ,Young Adult ,0302 clinical medicine ,Cognition ,Human behaviour ,Task Performance and Analysis ,medicine ,Humans ,Attention ,lcsh:Science ,Multidisciplinary ,Transcranial direct-current stimulation ,lcsh:R ,Information processing ,Crossover study ,Healthy Volunteers ,Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex ,030104 developmental biology ,medicine.anatomical_structure ,Cognitive control ,lcsh:Q ,Psychology ,030217 neurology & neurosurgery - Abstract
Cognitive control of information processing is an essential prerequisite of human behavior. Particularly, focusing attention in the face of failure poses a common challenge. Previous work has demonstrated that transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) can improve cognitive control in a challenging and repeatedly frustrating task. In a randomized, sham-controlled, crossover design 22 healthy, male participants performed an adaptive 2-back version of the Paced Auditory Serial Addition Task (PASAT), parallel to anodal or sham tDCS over the left dlPFC and the return electrode on the right upper arm. Before and after the 2-back PASAT, the affective state was assessed by means of the Positive and Negative Affective Schedule (PANAS). We observed an interaction between stimulation condition and task performance driven by an increase in performance with anodal tDCS and no improvement with sham stimulation. In addition, after the 2-back PASAT we found a higher positive and a trend towards lower negative affect with anodal as compared to sham tDCS. Our data support and extend previous results showing improved processing speed under anodal stimulation associated with a reduced task-induced negative affect indicating an improvement of cognitive control. Further studies will investigate long-term effects and clinical applicability.
- Published
- 2019
33. Imaging stress: an overview of stress induction methods in the MR scanner
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Vanessa Nieratschker, Leandra Nolte, Hannes Noack, Ute Habel, and Birgit Derntl
- Subjects
0301 basic medicine ,Autonomic Nervous System ,Gyrus Cinguli ,Hippocampus ,Amygdala ,Fight-or-flight response ,03 medical and health sciences ,0302 clinical medicine ,Neuroimaging ,Stress test ,Stress (linguistics) ,medicine ,Humans ,Biological Psychiatry ,Neural correlates of consciousness ,Neurosciences ,Cognition ,Psychiatry and Mental health ,030104 developmental biology ,medicine.anatomical_structure ,Neurology ,Stress induction ,Neurology (clinical) ,Psychology ,Neuroscience ,Stress, Psychological ,030217 neurology & neurosurgery - Abstract
Processing of acute stress has potential implications for mental and physical health. At the same time, individuals differ largely in how strongly they react to stress. Neuroimaging paradigms have been developed to characterize the neural underpinnings of the stress response in general and to understand the mechanisms that differentiate high and low susceptible individuals. The goal of the present review was to summarize the current literature on psychosocial stress in the brain imaging environment. That is, we focused on the most common neuroimaging paradigms that have been used to induce acute stress and map out the questions that have been addressed with respect to the determinants, the consequences, and the processing of stress. We identified four major paradigms that have been used with different scientific aims. The Montreal Imaging Stress Test and the ScanSTRESS involve cognitive challenge and social-evaluative threat and yielded a stress-related network including most significantly the perigenual ACC, the hippocampus, and the amygdala. The social-evaluative threat paradigm was used to predict the autonomic stress response on the basis of multivariate pattern analysis. The aversive video paradigm, on the other hand, was mainly used to investigate the consequences of stress on emotional and cognitive processes and their neural correlates. We conclude our review with a critical evaluation of methodological and conceptual issues in the study of the neural correlates of acute stress.
- Published
- 2019
34. ADHD patients with DIRAS2 risk allele need more thalamic activation during emotional face-voice recognition
- Author
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Bastian, Hillmann, Agnieszka, Zuberer, Lena, Obermeyer, Michael, Erb, Klaus, Scheffler, Vanessa, Nieratschker, and Thomas, Ethofer
- Subjects
rho GTP-Binding Proteins ,Brain Mapping ,Psychiatry and Mental health ,Voice Recognition ,Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity ,Emotions ,Voice ,Humans ,Facial Recognition ,Magnetic Resonance Imaging ,Alleles ,Biological Psychiatry - Published
- 2022
35. DNA methylation differences associated with social anxiety disorder and early life adversity
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Ariane, Wiegand, Benjamin, Kreifelts, Matthias H J, Munk, Nadja, Geiselhart, Katia E, Ramadori, Julia L, MacIsaac, Andreas J, Fallgatter, Michael S, Kobor, and Vanessa, Nieratschker
- Subjects
Epigenome ,Adverse Childhood Experiences ,mental disorders ,Humans ,Phobia, Social ,Clinical genetics ,DNA Methylation ,Psychiatric disorders ,behavioral disciplines and activities ,Article ,Epigenesis, Genetic - Abstract
Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is a psychiatric disorder characterized by extensive fear in social situations. Multiple genetic and environmental factors are known to contribute to its pathogenesis. One of the main environmental risk factors is early life adversity (ELA). Evidence is emerging that epigenetic mechanisms such as DNA methylation might play an important role in the biological mechanisms underlying SAD and ELA. To investigate the relationship between ELA, DNA methylation, and SAD, we performed an epigenome-wide association study for SAD and ELA examining DNA from whole blood of a cohort of 143 individuals using DNA methylation arrays. We identified two differentially methylated regions (DMRs) associated with SAD located within the genes SLC43A2 and TNXB. As this was the first epigenome-wide association study for SAD, it is worth noting that both genes have previously been associated with panic disorder. Further, we identified two DMRs associated with ELA within the SLC17A3 promoter region and the SIAH3 gene and several DMRs that were associated with the interaction of SAD and ELA. Of these, the regions within C2CD2L and MRPL28 showed the largest difference in DNA methylation. Lastly, we found that two DMRs were associated with both the severity of social anxiety and ELA, however, neither of them was found to mediate the contribution of ELA to SAD later in life. Future studies are needed to replicate our findings in independent cohorts and to investigate the biological pathways underlying these effects.
- Published
- 2020
36. An investigation of psychosis subgroups with prognostic validation and exploration of genetic underpinnings: the PsyCourse Study
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Ida Sybille Haußleiter, Sabrina K. Schaupp, Nikola S. Mueller, Eva Z. Reininghaus, Joseph Kambeitz, Sophia Stegmaier, Anne Ruef, Andreas J. Forstner, Markus Jäger, Georg Juckel, Jörg Zimmermann, Jens Reimer, Here Folkerts, Stephanie H. Witt, Katrin Gade, Laura Flatau-Nagel, Alkomiet Hasan, Fabian U. Lang, Harald Scherk, Lana Kambeitz-Ilankovic, Dominic B. Dwyer, Kristina Adorjan, Carsten Konrad, Thomas Becker, Till F. M. Andlauer, Ivan Kondofersky, Volker Arolt, Sergi Papiol, Monika Budde, Farah Klöhn-Saghatolislam, Anna Gryaznova, Daniela Reich-Erkelenz, Markus Reitt, Martin von Hagen, Maria Hake, Janos Kalman, Vanessa Nieratschker, Bernhard T. Baune, Max Schmauß, Christian Figge, Tomoya Yoshida, Ashley L. Comes, Carsten Spitzer, Urs Heilbronner, Linda A. Antonucci, Fanny Senner, Moritz E. Wigand, Jens Wiltfang, Ion-George Anghelescu, Udo Dannlowski, Nikolaos Koutsouleris, Detlef E. Dietrich, Kim Bartholdi, Milena Meyers, Thomas G. Schulze, Barbara Emons, Markus M. Nöthen, Marcella Rietschel, Manfred Koller, Eva C. Schulte, Andreas Thiel, Andreas J. Fallgatter, Peter Falkai, Silke Quast, Heike Anderson-Schmidt, and Franziska Degenhardt
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Adult ,Male ,Multifactorial Inheritance ,Psychosis ,Bipolar Disorder ,Schizoaffective disorder ,03 medical and health sciences ,0302 clinical medicine ,medicine ,Humans ,Genetic Predisposition to Disease ,Longitudinal Studies ,Bipolar disorder ,Schizophreniform disorder ,Original Investigation ,Depressive Disorder, Major ,business.industry ,Reproducibility of Results ,Brief psychotic disorder ,Middle Aged ,Prognosis ,medicine.disease ,3. Good health ,030227 psychiatry ,Psychiatry and Mental health ,Psychotic Disorders ,Schizophrenia ,Educational Status ,Major depressive disorder ,Female ,business ,030217 neurology & neurosurgery ,Clinical psychology ,Cohort study - Abstract
IMPORTANCE: Identifying psychosis subgroups could improve clinical and research precision. Research has focused on symptom subgroups, but there is a need to consider a broader clinical spectrum, disentangle illness trajectories, and investigate genetic associations. OBJECTIVE: To detect psychosis subgroups using data-driven methods and examine their illness courses over 1.5 years and polygenic scores for schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major depression disorder, and educational achievement. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: This ongoing multisite, naturalistic, longitudinal (6-month intervals) cohort study began in January 2012 across 18 sites. Data from a referred sample of 1223 individuals (765 in the discovery sample and 458 in the validation sample) with DSM-IV diagnoses of schizophrenia, bipolar affective disorder (I/II), schizoaffective disorder, schizophreniform disorder, and brief psychotic disorder were collected from secondary and tertiary care sites. Discovery data were extracted in September 2016 and analyzed from November 2016 to January 2018, and prospective validation data were extracted in October 2018 and analyzed from January to May 2019. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES: A clinical battery of 188 variables measuring demographic characteristics, clinical history, symptoms, functioning, and cognition was decomposed using nonnegative matrix factorization clustering. Subtype-specific illness courses were compared with mixed models and polygenic scores with analysis of covariance. Supervised learning was used to replicate results in validation data with the most reliably discriminative 45 variables. RESULTS: Of the 765 individuals in the discovery sample, 341 (44.6%) were women, and the mean (SD) age was 42.7 (12.9) years. Five subgroups were found and labeled as affective psychosis (n = 252), suicidal psychosis (n = 44), depressive psychosis (n = 131), high-functioning psychosis (n = 252), and severe psychosis (n = 86). Illness courses with significant quadratic interaction terms were found for psychosis symptoms (R(2) = 0.41; 95% CI, 0.38-0.44), depression symptoms (R(2) = 0.28; 95% CI, 0.25-0.32), global functioning (R(2) = 0.16; 95% CI, 0.14-0.20), and quality of life (R(2) = 0.20; 95% CI, 0.17-0.23). The depressive and severe psychosis subgroups exhibited the lowest functioning and quadratic illness courses with partial recovery followed by reoccurrence of severe illness. Differences were found for educational attainment polygenic scores (mean [SD] partial η(2) = 0.014 [0.003]) but not for diagnostic polygenic risk. Results were largely replicated in the validation cohort. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: Psychosis subgroups were detected with distinctive clinical signatures and illness courses and specificity for a nondiagnostic genetic marker. New data-driven clinical approaches are important for future psychosis taxonomies. The findings suggest a need to consider short-term to medium-term service provision to restore functioning in patients stratified into the depressive and severe psychosis subgroups.
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- 2020
37. A longitudinal approach to biological psychiatric research: The PsyCourse study
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Monika Budde, Janos Kalman, Harald Scherk, Martin von Hagen, Fabian U. Lang, Markus Jäger, Jens Wiltfang, Georg Juckel, Udo Dannlowski, Manfred Koller, Fanny Senner, Katrin Gade, Kristina Adorjan, Eva Z. Reininghaus, Eva C. Schulte, Ida Sybille Haußleiter, Anna Gryaznova, Andreas J. Fallgatter, Till F. M. Andlauer, Ion-George Anghelescu, Markus Reitt, Here Folkerts, Sybille Schulz, Urs Heilbronner, Jens Reimer, Marcella Rietschel, Max Schmauß, Christian Figge, Maria Hake, Sebastian Stierl, Andreas Thiel, Laura Flatau, Markus M. Nöthen, Stephanie H. Witt, Moritz E. Wigand, Detlef E. Dietrich, Heike Anderson-Schmidt, Ashley L. Comes, Carsten Spitzer, Thomas Becker, Volker Arolt, Daniela Reich-Erkelenz, Bernhard T. Baune, Kim Bartholdi, Milena Meyers, Thomas G. Schulze, Vanessa Nieratschker, Barbara Emons, Franziska Degenhardt, Peter Falkai, Carsten Konrad, Silke Quast, Sabrina K. Schaupp, Jörg Zimmermann, Sophia Stegmaier, Andreas J. Forstner, Sergi Papiol, and Farah Klöhn-Saghatolislam
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Male ,Research design ,Bipolar Disorder ,diagnosis ,psychology [Psychotic Disorders] ,diagnosis [Schizophrenia] ,0302 clinical medicine ,psychosis ,Longitudinal Studies ,Research Articles ,psychology [Bipolar Disorder] ,Genetics (clinical) ,Psychopathology ,Mental Disorders ,Middle Aged ,3. Good health ,Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders ,Psychiatry and Mental health ,Phenotype ,Research Design ,Schizophrenia ,diagnosis [Psychotic Disorders] ,Female ,Schizophrenic Psychology ,Research Article ,Clinical psychology ,Adult ,Psychosis ,medicine.medical_specialty ,diagnosis [Mental Disorders] ,methods [Psychopathology] ,03 medical and health sciences ,Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience ,RDoC ,medicine ,Humans ,ddc:610 ,Bipolar disorder ,diagnosis [Bipolar Disorder] ,Psychiatry ,Kraepelinian dichotomy ,Aged ,affective disorder ,medicine.disease ,Mental health ,030227 psychiatry ,Psychotic Disorders ,psychology [Mental Disorders] ,polygenic risk score ,030217 neurology & neurosurgery - Abstract
In current diagnostic systems, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are still conceptualized as distinct categorical entities. Recently, both clinical and genomic evidence have challenged this Kraepelinian dichotomy. There are only few longitudinal studies addressing potential overlaps between these conditions. Here, we present design and first results of the PsyCourse study (N = 891 individuals at baseline), an ongoing transdiagnostic study of the affective-to-psychotic continuum that combines longitudinal deep phenotyping and dimensional assessment of psychopathology with an extensive collection of biomaterial. To provide an initial characterization of the PsyCourse study sample, we compare two broad diagnostic groups defined by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition (DSM-IV) classification system, that is, predominantly affective (n = 367 individuals) versus predominantly psychotic disorders (n = 524 individuals). Depressive, manic, and psychotic symptoms as well as global functioning over time were contrasted using linear mixed models. Furthermore, we explored the effects of polygenic risk scores for schizophrenia on diagnostic group membership and addressed their effects on nonparticipation in follow-up visits. While phenotypic results confirmed expected differences in current psychotic symptoms and global functioning, both manic and depressive symptoms did not vary between both groups after correction for multiple testing. Polygenic risk scores for schizophrenia significantly explained part of the variability of diagnostic group. The PsyCourse study presents a unique resource to research the complex relationships of psychopathology and biology in severe mental disorders not confined to traditional diagnostic boundaries and is open for collaborations.
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- 2018
38. Investigating polygenic burden in age at disease onset in bipolar disorder: Findings from an international multicentric study
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Francis M. Mondimore, Farah Klohn-Sagatholislam, Jana Strohmaier, Jens Wiltfang, Jay Raymond DePaulo, Udo Dannlowski, Markus Jäger, Moritz E. Wigand, Ion Anghelescu, Michael Bauer, Louise Frisén, Ashley L. Comes, Carsten Spitzer, Claire Slaney, Janice M. Fullerton, Giovanni Severino, Janusz K. Rybakowski, Andreas J. Fallgatter, Maria Hake, Martin Alda, Peter R. Schofield, Susanne Bengesser, Nirmala Akula, Stefan Herms, Paul D. Shilling, Franziska Degenhardt, Mazda Adli, Armin Birner, Alexandre Dayer, Cristiana Cruceanu, Fanny Senner, Peter Falkai, Maria Del Zompo, Mark A. Frye, Christian Simhandl, Stéphane Jamain, Andrea Pfennig, Layla Kassem, Sébastien Gard, Heike Anderson-Schmidt, Marion Leboyer, Peter P. Zandi, Susan L. McElroy, Martin Schalling, Sebastian Stierl, Detlef E. Dietrich, Frank Bellivier, Palmiero Monteleone, Sybille Schulz, Caterina Chillotti, Volker Arolt, Michael McCarthy, Alfonso Tortorella, Andreas Thiel, Marcella Rietschel, Kristina Adorjan, Tatyana Shekhtman, Maria Grigoroiu-Serbanescu, Jean-Michel Aubry, Daniela Reich-Erkelenz, Laura Flatau, Markus Reitt, Harald Scherk, Here Folkerts, Julia Veeh, Joanna Hauser, Fernando S. Goes, Philip B. Mitchell, Gustavo Turecki, John R. Kelsoe, Thomas Stamm, Sophia Stegmaier, Georg Juckel, Markus M. Nöthen, Lina Martinsson, Bárbara Arias, Vanessa Nieratschker, Clara Brichant-Petitjean, Antonio Benabarre, Bernhard T. Baune, James B. Potash, Urs Heilbronner, Caroline M. Nievergelt, Raffaella Ardau, Mikael Landén, Pablo Cervantes, Pavla Stopkova, Adam Wright, Tomas Novak, Scott R. Clark, Manfred Koller, Gonzalo Laje, Katrin Gade, Andreas J. Forstner, Sarah Kittel-Schneider, Susan G. Leckband, Sebastian Kliwicki, Guy A. Rouleau, Kim Bartholdi, Martin von Hagen, Per Hoffmann, Eva C. Schulte, Alessio Squassina, Monika Budde, Thomas G. Schulze, Eduard Vieta, Liping Hou, Jörg Zimmermann, Barbara König, Stephan Ripke, Sarah K. Tighe, Jean-Pierre Kahn, Julie Garnham, Piotr M. Czerski, Janos Kalman, Anna Gryaznova, Francis J. McMahon, Mario Maj, Thomas Becker, Thomas Ethofer, Andreas Reif, Carsten Konrad, Mirko Manchia, Lena Backlund, Jens Reimer, Urban Ösby, Esther Jiménez, Abesh Kumar Bhattacharjee, Marina Mitjans, Sergi Papiol, Stephanie H. Witt, Sven Cichon, Bruno Etain, Till F. M. Andlauer, Joanna M. Biernacka, Max Schmauß, Christian Figge, Fabian U. Lang, N. Lackner, Eva Z. Reininghaus, Francesc Colom, Catharina Lavebratt, K Oliver Schubert, Kalman, Janos L, Papiol, Sergi, Forstner, Andreas J, Heilbronner, Ur, Degenhardt, Franziska, Strohmaier, Jana, Adli, Mazda, Adorjan, Kristina, Akula, Nirmala, Alda, Martin, Anderson-Schmidt, Heike, Andlauer, Till Fm, Anghelescu, Ion-George, Ardau, Raffaella, Arias, Bárbara, Arolt, Volker, Aubry, Jean-Michel, Backlund, Lena, Bartholdi, Kim, Bauer, Michael, Baune, Bernhard T, Becker, Thoma, Bellivier, Frank, Benabarre, Antonio, Bengesser, Susanne, Bhattacharjee, Abesh Kumar, Biernacka, Joanna M, Birner, Armin, Brichant-Petitjean, Clara, Budde, Monika, Cervantes, Pablo, Chillotti, Caterina, Cichon, Sven, Clark, Scott R, Colom, Francesc, Comes, Ashley L, Cruceanu, Cristiana, Czerski, Piotr M, Dannlowski, Udo, Dayer, Alexandre, Del Zompo, Maria, Depaulo, Jay Raymond, Dietrich, Detlef E, Étain, Bruno, Ethofer, Thoma, Falkai, Peter, Fallgatter, Andrea, Figge, Christian, Flatau, Laura, Folkerts, Here, Frisen, Louise, Frye, Mark A, Fullerton, Janice M, Gade, Katrin, Gard, Sébastien, Garnham, Julie S, Goes, Fernando S, Grigoroiu-Serbanescu, Maria, Gryaznova, Anna, Hake, Maria, Hauser, Joanna, Herms, Stefan, Hoffmann, Per, Hou, Liping, Jäger, Marku, Jamain, Stephane, Jiménez, Esther, Juckel, Georg, Kahn, Jean-Pierre, Kassem, Layla, Kelsoe, John, Kittel-Schneider, Sarah, Kliwicki, Sebastian, Klohn-Sagatholislam, Farah, Koller, Manfred, König, Barbara, Konrad, Carsten, Lackner, Nina, Laje, Gonzalo, Landén, Mikael, Lang, Fabian U, Lavebratt, Catharina, Leboyer, Marion, Leckband, Susan G, Maj, Mario, Manchia, Mirko, Martinsson, Lina, Mccarthy, Michael J, Mcelroy, Susan L, Mcmahon, Francis J, Mitchell, Philip B, Mitjans, Marina, Mondimore, Francis M, Monteleone, Palmiero, Nieratschker, Vanessa, Nievergelt, Caroline M, Novák, Toma, Ösby, Urban, Pfennig, Andrea, Potash, James B, Reich-Erkelenz, Daniela, Reif, Andrea, Reimer, Jen, Reininghaus, Eva, Reitt, Marku, Ripke, Stephan, Rouleau, Guy A, Rybakowski, Janusz K, Schalling, Martin, Scherk, Harald, Schmauß, Max, Schofield, Peter R, Schubert, K Oliver, Schulte, Eva C, Schulz, Sybille, Senner, Fanny, Severino, Giovanni, Shekhtman, Tatyana, Shilling, Paul D, Simhandl, Christian, Slaney, Claire M, Spitzer, Carsten, Squassina, Alessio, Stamm, Thoma, Stegmaier, Sophia, Stierl, Sebastian, Stopkova, Pavla, Thiel, Andrea, Tighe, Sarah K, Tortorella, Alfonso, Turecki, Gustavo, Vieta, Eduard, Veeh, Julia, von Hagen, Martin, Wigand, Moritz E, Wiltfang, Jen, Witt, Stephanie, Wright, Adam, Zandi, Peter P, Zimmermann, Jörg, Nöthen, Marku, Rietschel, Marcella, and Schulze, Thomas G
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Adult ,Male ,Oncology ,Multifactorial Inheritance ,medicine.medical_specialty ,Schizophrenia/genetics ,Disease onset ,Adolescent ,early onset ,Late onset ,ddc:616.89 ,03 medical and health sciences ,0302 clinical medicine ,Internal medicine ,medicine ,Humans ,Bipolar disorder ,Child ,Research Articles ,Biological Psychiatry ,bipolar disorder ,Trastorn bipolar ,business.industry ,Bipolar Disorder/genetics ,age at onset ,polygenic risk score ,schizophrenia ,Age Factors ,Bipolar Disorder ,Female ,Middle Aged ,Phenotype ,Schizophrenia ,Original Articles ,medicine.disease ,Genetic architecture ,030227 psychiatry ,Psychiatry and Mental health ,Institutional repository ,Clinical research ,Esquizofrènia ,Original Article ,business ,030217 neurology & neurosurgery - Abstract
OBJECTIVES: Bipolar disorder (BD) with early disease onset is associated with an unfavorable clinical outcome and constitutes a clinically and biologically homogenous subgroup within the heterogeneous BD spectrum. Previous studies have found an accumulation of early age at onset (AAO) in BD families and have therefore hypothesized that there is a larger genetic contribution to the early-onset cases than to late onset BD. To investigate the genetic background of this subphenotype, we evaluated whether an increased polygenic burden of BD- and schizophrenia (SCZ)-associated risk variants is associated with an earlier AAO in BD patients. METHODS: A total of 1995 BD type 1 patients from the Consortium of Lithium Genetics (ConLiGen), PsyCourse and Bonn-Mannheim samples were genotyped and their BD and SCZ polygenic risk scores (PRSs) were calculated using the summary statistics of the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium as a training data set. AAO was either separated into onset groups of clinical interest (childhood and adolescence [≤18 years] vs adulthood [>18 years]) or considered as a continuous measure. The associations between BD- and SCZ-PRSs and AAO were evaluated with regression models. RESULTS: BD- and SCZ-PRSs were not significantly associated with age at disease onset. Results remained the same when analyses were stratified by site of recruitment. CONCLUSIONS: The current study is the largest conducted so far to investigate the association between the cumulative BD and SCZ polygenic risk and AAO in BD patients. The reported negative results suggest that such a polygenic influence, if there is any, is not large, and highlight the importance of conducting further, larger scale studies to obtain more information on the genetic architecture of this clinically relevant phenotype. peerReviewed
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- 2018
39. DNA methylation of APBA3 and MCF2 in borderline personality disorder: Potential biomarkers for response to psychotherapy
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Vanessa Nieratschker, Christian Frischholz, Julia Becker-Sadzio, Nora Knoblich, Friederike Gundel, and Christof Brückmann
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Adult ,Male ,0301 basic medicine ,Psychotherapist ,medicine.medical_treatment ,Epigenesis, Genetic ,Cohort Studies ,03 medical and health sciences ,0302 clinical medicine ,Borderline Personality Disorder ,Proto-Oncogene Proteins ,mental disorders ,medicine ,Guanine Nucleotide Exchange Factors ,Humans ,Pharmacology (medical) ,Epigenetics ,Borderline personality disorder ,Gene ,Biological Psychiatry ,Adaptor Proteins, Signal Transducing ,Pharmacology ,business.industry ,Methylation ,DNA Methylation ,Prognosis ,medicine.disease ,Dialectical behavior therapy ,Psychotherapy ,Psychiatry and Mental health ,030104 developmental biology ,Neurology ,DNA methylation ,Cohort ,Etiology ,Female ,Neurology (clinical) ,Carrier Proteins ,business ,Biomarkers ,030217 neurology & neurosurgery - Abstract
Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a severe and complex mental disease associated with high suicidal tendencies and hospitalization rates. Accumulating evidence suggests that epigenetic mechanisms are implicated in the etiology of BPD. A recent epigenome-wide study identified several novel genes which are epigenetically dysregulated in BPD. Those genes include APBA3 and MCF2. Psychotherapy such as Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), an established treatment for BPD, provides an excellent setting to investigate environmental influences on epigenetic mechanisms in order to identify biomarkers for disease status and therapy success. However, the effects of DBT on epigenetic regulation has only been researched in one previous study analyzing BDNF. In the present study, we aimed to investigate the role of DNA methylation of APBA3 and MCF2 as possible biomarkers for treatment outcome in BPD, whilst validating the previous findings of differential DNA methylation in a cohort of 44 BPD patients and 44 well-matched healthy control individuals. Unexpectedly, we did not detect significant DNA methylation differences between patients and control individuals. However, we found a high correlation between the methylation status of APBA3 and MCF2 and therapy outcome: before DBT treatment, both genes were significantly higher methylated in patients responding to therapy compared to patients that did not respond. Our study is the first to report results pointing to possible predictive epigenetic biomarkers of DBT outcome in BPD patients. Following replication in independent cohorts, our finding could facilitate the development of more personalized therapy concepts for BPD patients by including epigenetic information.
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- 2018
40. Bayesian informed evidence against modulation of androstadienone-effects by genotypic receptor variants and participant sex: A study assessing Stroop interference control, mood and olfaction
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Hannes Noack, Jonas Hornung, Vanessa Nieratschker, Mara Thomas, Birgit Derntl, Jessica Freiherr, and Gisbert Farger
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Adult ,Male ,medicine.medical_specialty ,Adolescent ,Genotype ,media_common.quotation_subject ,Emotions ,Olfaction ,Luteal Phase ,Audiology ,Receptors, Odorant ,Affect (psychology) ,050105 experimental psychology ,Young Adult ,03 medical and health sciences ,Behavioral Neuroscience ,chemistry.chemical_compound ,0302 clinical medicine ,Endocrinology ,Humans ,Medicine ,Testosterone ,0501 psychology and cognitive sciences ,Progesterone ,Menstrual cycle ,media_common ,Psychological Tests ,Sex Characteristics ,Estradiol ,Endocrine and Autonomic Systems ,business.industry ,05 social sciences ,Androstadienone ,Bayes Theorem ,Cognition ,Androstadienes ,Smell ,Affect ,Mood ,chemistry ,Female ,Gene-Environment Interaction ,business ,030217 neurology & neurosurgery ,Stroop effect ,Sex characteristics - Abstract
The androgen derivative androstadienone (AND) is present in human sweat and may act as human chemosignal. Though effects of AND have been reported with respect to emotional and cognitive processes, results have been highly inconsistent. For this reason, it is likely that AND-action is dependent on modulatory factors. Here we wanted to specifically investigate the impact of genotypic variations of the AND-receptor OR7D4, as well as the influence of participant sex and concomitant hormonal fluctuations on AND-action during emotional interference processing, olfactory performance and mood assessments. To this end 80 healthy individuals (women taking oral contraceptives; naturally cycling women measured during the luteal phase and men) were tested twice on two consecutive days (AND vs. placebo exposure) with an emotional Stroop task. Also, olfactory performance and mood was assessed. Participants provided saliva samples to measure testosterone, progesterone and estradiol and a blood sample to assess genotypic variations of the AND-receptor OR7D4. We found a small task-dependent reduction of overall error rates under AND but no modulation of effects by genetic variation or group (female OC, female NC, male) with respect to olfactory performance and mood. Additional analyses with help of Bayesian statistics gave strong evidence in favor of specific null hypotheses suggesting that the action of AND was not modulated by either genotypic variations or sex of participants with respect to interference control (bias indices), olfactory self-reports and mood parameters. Additional effects of AND in connection with hormonal fluctuations are reported.
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- 2018
41. Insights from a laboratory and naturalistic investigation on stress, rumination and frontal brain functioning in MDD: An fNIRS study
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Vanessa Nieratschker, Kerstin Velten-Schurian, Helena Storchak, David Rosenbaum, Florian Torka, Isabel Bihlmaier, Betti Schopp, Ann-Christine Ehlis, Thomas Dresler, Agnes Kroczek, Ramona Täglich, Andreas J. Fallgatter, Julian A. Rubel, Zoé Bürger, Glenn Lawyer, Isabell Int-Veen, Hendrik Laicher, Birgit Derntl, and Hans-Christoph Nürk
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Neurophysiology and neuropsychology ,Major Depressive Disorder ,Physiology ,Ecological validity ,functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) ,Neurosciences. Biological psychiatry. Neuropsychiatry ,Biochemistry ,Repetitive negative thought ,Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) ,03 medical and health sciences ,Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience ,0302 clinical medicine ,Endocrinology ,ddc:570 ,Rumination ,medicine ,Trier social stress test ,Original Research Article ,RC346-429 ,Reactivity (psychology) ,Molecular Biology ,Social stress ,Endocrine and Autonomic Systems ,QP351-495 ,medicine.disease ,030227 psychiatry ,Mood ,Major depressive disorder ,Neurology. Diseases of the nervous system ,Socially Evaluated Cold-Pressor Test (SECPT) ,medicine.symptom ,Hypoactivity ,Psychology ,030217 neurology & neurosurgery ,RC321-571 ,Clinical psychology - Abstract
Recent research has emphasized rumination as an important maintaining factor in various mental disorders. However, operationalization and therefore induction of rumination in experimental settings poses a major challenge in terms of ecological validity. As stress seems to play a key role in everyday situations eliciting rumination, we conducted two stress paradigms while assessing behavioral and neurophysiological measures. Aiming to replicate previous findings on induced rumination by means of the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) and comparing them to physiological (pain) stress, a clinical sample of patients with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD; n = 22) and healthy controls (HC; n = 23) was recruited. Cortical blood oxygenation was assessed during the stress paradigms using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). Further, we used ecological momentary assessment (EMA) of stress, rumination and mood to be able to correlate ruminative responses during induced stress and everyday rumination. Our results showed that social stress but not physiological stress induced depressive rumination in MDD but not in HC. Further, rumination reactivity in response to social stress but not to physiological stress was significantly associated with rumination reactivity in everyday life as assessed with EMA. With respect to cortical oxygenation, MDD subjects showed hypoactivity in the Cognitive Control Network during the TSST, which mediated the differences between MDD and HC in post-stress rumination. Our findings emphasize the role of negative social triggers in depressive rumination and validate the TSST as an induction method for depressive rumination. The results inform future developments in psychotherapeutic treatment for depressive rumination.
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- 2021
42. W44. OXTR DNA METHYLATION DIFFERENTIATES MEN ON THE OBESITY SPECTRUM WITH AND WITHOUT AN EATING DISORDER
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Elisabeth J. Leehr, Lea-Sarah Schuster, Manfred Hallschmid, Ariane Wiegand, Vanessa Nieratschker, Stephan Zipfel, Isabelle Mack, Katrin Elisabeth Giel, and Katrin Schag
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Pharmacology ,Genetics ,business.industry ,medicine.disease ,Oxytocin receptor ,Obesity ,Psychiatry and Mental health ,Neurology ,DNA methylation ,medicine ,Pharmacology (medical) ,Neurology (clinical) ,business ,Biological Psychiatry - Published
- 2021
43. Cover Image, Volume 180B, Number 2, March 2019
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Monika Budde, Heike Anderson‐Schmidt, Katrin Gade, Daniela Reich‐Erkelenz, Kristina Adorjan, Janos L. Kalman, Fanny Senner, Sergi Papiol, Till F. M. Andlauer, Ashley L. Comes, Eva C. Schulte, Farah Klöhn‐Saghatolislam, Anna Gryaznova, Maria Hake, Kim Bartholdi, Laura Flatau, Markus Reitt, Silke Quast, Sophia Stegmaier, Milena Meyers, Barbara Emons, Ida Sybille Haußleiter, Georg Juckel, Vanessa Nieratschker, Udo Dannlowski, Sabrina K. Schaupp, Max Schmauß, Jörg Zimmermann, Jens Reimer, Sybille Schulz, Jens Wiltfang, Eva Reininghaus, Ion‐George Anghelescu, Volker Arolt, Bernhard T. Baune, Carsten Konrad, Andreas Thiel, Andreas J. Fallgatter, Christian Figge, Martin von Hagen, Manfred Koller, Fabian U. Lang, Moritz E. Wigand, Thomas Becker, Markus Jäger, Detlef E. Dietrich, Sebastian Stierl, Harald Scherk, Carsten Spitzer, Here Folkerts, Stephanie H. Witt, Franziska Degenhardt, Andreas J. Forstner, Marcella Rietschel, Markus M. Nöthen, Peter Falkai, Thomas G. Schulze, and Urs Heilbronner
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Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience ,Psychiatry and Mental health ,Genetics (clinical) - Published
- 2019
44. CACNA1C risk variant affects microstructural connectivity of the amygdala
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Katharina Koch, Sophia Stegmaier, Lena Schwarz, Michael Erb, Mara Thomas, Klaus Scheffler, Dirk Wildgruber, Vanessa Nieratschker, and Thomas Ethofer
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Adult ,Auditory Cortex ,Male ,Brain Mapping ,Calcium Channels, L-Type ,Emotions ,Regular Article ,Emotion processing ,Prosody ,lcsh:Computer applications to medicine. Medical informatics ,Amygdala ,lcsh:RC346-429 ,Young Adult ,Diffusion Tensor Imaging ,CACNA1C ,nervous system ,Social Perception ,Speech Perception ,lcsh:R858-859.7 ,Humans ,Female ,lcsh:Neurology. Diseases of the nervous system ,psychological phenomena and processes - Abstract
Deficits in perception of emotional prosody have been described in patients with affective disorders at behavioral and neural level. In the current study, we use an imaging genetics approach to examine the impact of CACNA1C, one of the most promising genetic risk factors for psychiatric disorders, on prosody processing on a behavioral, functional and microstructural level. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) we examined key areas involved in prosody processing, i.e. the amygdala and voice areas, in a healthy population. We found stronger activation to emotional than neutral prosody in the voice areas and the amygdala, but CACNA1C rs1006737 genotype had no influence on fMRI activity. However, significant microstructural differences (i.e. mean diffusivity) between CACNA1C rs1006737 risk allele carriers and non carriers were found in the amygdala, but not the voice areas. These modifications in brain architecture associated with CACNA1C might reflect a neurobiological marker predisposing to affective disorders and concomitant alterations in emotion perception., Highlights • Emotional prosody increases activation irrespective of genotype. • CACNA1C rs1006737 influences mean diffusivity in amygdala, not voice areas • CACNA1C rs1006737 results in changes of brain microstructure rather than function.
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- 2018
45. Increased BDNF methylation in saliva, but not blood, of patients with borderline personality disorder
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Mara, Thomas, Nora, Knoblich, Annalena, Wallisch, Katarzyna, Glowacz, Julia, Becker-Sadzio, Friederike, Gundel, Christof, Brückmann, and Vanessa, Nieratschker
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Adult ,Male ,DNA methylation ,Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor ,Research ,BPD ,DBT ,Biomarker ,Epigenesis, Genetic ,Young Adult ,Treatment Outcome ,BDNF ,Borderline Personality Disorder ,Case-Control Studies ,Humans ,CpG Islands ,Female ,Epigenetics ,Promoter Regions, Genetic ,Saliva ,Biomarkers - Abstract
Background The importance of epigenetic alterations in psychiatric disorders is increasingly acknowledged and the use of DNA methylation patterns as markers of disease is a topic of ongoing investigation. Recent studies suggest that patients suffering from Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) display differential DNA methylation of various genes relevant for neuropsychiatric conditions. For example, several studies report differential methylation in the promoter region of the brain-derived neurotrophic factor gene (BDNF) in blood. However, little is known about BDNF methylation in other tissues. Results In the present study, we analyzed DNA methylation of the BDNF IV promoter in saliva and blood of 41 BPD patients and 41 matched healthy controls and found significant hypermethylation in the BPD patient’s saliva, but not blood. Further, we report that BDNF methylation in saliva of BPD patients significantly decreased after a 12-week psychotherapeutic intervention. Conclusions Providing a direct comparison of BDNF methylation in blood and saliva of the same individuals, our results demonstrate the importance of choice of tissue for the study of DNA methylation. In addition, they indicate a better suitability of saliva for the study of differential BDNF methylation in BPD patients. Further, our data appear to indicate a reversal of disease-specific alterations in BDNF methylation in response to psychotherapy, though further experiments are necessary to validate these results and determine the specificity of the effect. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1186/s13148-018-0544-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
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- 2018
46. SA64DIFFERENTIAL DNA METHYLATION OF GDAP1 AND HECW2 IN POST MORTEM BRAIN SAMPLES AND IN A RAT MODEL FOR ALCOHOL DEPENDENCE
- Author
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Anita C. Hansson, Wolfgang H. Sommer, Ariane Wiegand, Vanessa Gräf Olmos, and Vanessa Nieratschker
- Subjects
Pharmacology ,Andrology ,Psychiatry and Mental health ,Neurology ,Chemistry ,Alcohol dependence ,Rat model ,DNA methylation ,Pharmacology (medical) ,Neurology (clinical) ,Post mortem brain ,Biological Psychiatry - Published
- 2019
47. DNA METHYLATION SIGNATURES OF CHRONIC ALCOHOL DEPENDENCE IN PURIFIED CD3+ T-CELLS OF PATIENTS UNDERGOING ALCOHOL TREATMENT
- Author
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Anil Batra, Vanessa Nieratschker, Mara Thomas, Adriana Di Santo, Christof Brueckmann, Julia L. Maclsaac, Richard Wuest, Sumaiya A. Islam, Kathrin N. Karle, Michael S. Kobor, Immanuel Lang, and Alexander M. Morin
- Subjects
Pharmacology ,Oncology ,medicine.medical_specialty ,business.industry ,Alcohol dependence ,dNaM ,Psychiatry and Mental health ,Differentially methylated regions ,Neurology ,CpG site ,Internal medicine ,Cohort ,DNA methylation ,medicine ,Pharmacology (medical) ,Neurology (clinical) ,Epigenetics ,business ,Biological Psychiatry ,Epigenomics - Abstract
Background Alcohol Dependence (AD) is a severe disorder that has long-lasting detrimental consequences, resulting in considerable health, economic and societal burden. According to the World Health Organization, alcohol related diseases account for approximately 3.3 million deaths per year (WHO, 2014). The pathogenesis of AD is complex, as the disease arises from the interaction of genetic as well as environmental factors. One of the most compelling candidate mechanisms for the mediation of such gene x environment effects is epigenetic regulation, among which DNA methylation is the most frequently studied mechanism. In fact, several recent studies have shown an association of alcohol dependence with DNA methylation (DNAm), suggesting that environmentally-induced changes on epigenomic variation may play an important role in alcohol dependence. Methods In the present study, we assessed genome-wide DNAm profiles of purified CD3+ T-cells of a well-characterized cohort of long-term chronic AD patients participating in a clinical 3-week alcohol treatment program, along with the profiles of healthy controls closely matched for sex, age, ethnicity and smoking behaviour. 42,43 Furthermore, by comparing the patients before and after 3 weeks of participating in a clinical alcohol treatment program, we sought to identify differentially methylated sites that may play a potential role in alcohol withdrawal and early recovery. In order to test whether our findings were robust, we validated four of our top-ranked hits by pyrosequencing, replicated the top-ranking hits in an independent second cohort of AD patients and matched controls and additionally confirmed the top-ranking hits in whole blood DNA of our cohort samples. Results We identified 59 differentially methylated CpG sites comparing patients prior to treatment with healthy controls and were able to confirm 8 of those sites in additional analyses for differentially methylated regions. Comparing patients before and after a 3-week alcohol treatment program we revealed another unique set of 48 differentially methylated CpG sites. Additionally, we found that the mean global DNAm was significantly lower in patients prior to treatment compared to controls, but reverted back to levels similar to controls after treatment. We validated top-ranked hits derived from the epigenome-wide analysis by pyrosequencing and further replicated two of them in an independent cohort and confirmed differential DNAm of HECW2 and SRPK3 in whole blood. Discussion The reduction in mean global DNAm observed in AD patients and our finding that DNAm in patients reverts back to levels comparable to those in controls after alcohol treatment are supported by previous studies. However, the top hits of differentially methylated sites derived from T-cells did not overlap with previously reported associations of AD with DNAm.This can at least in part be explained by the use of heterogeneous biological material (i.e. whole blood, PBMCs), differences in the cohorts used or in the strategies applied to match patients and controls as well as by varying methodologies for DNAm measurement, with reduced or discordant coverage of CpG sites in previous studies. Still, our top-ranking hits in HECW2 and SRPK3 might contribute to reveal mechanisms that may play a role in AD. This study is the first to show widespread DNAm variation in a disease-relevant blood cell type and implicates HECW2 and SRPK3 DNAm as promising blood-based candidates to follow up in future studies.
- Published
- 2019
48. SU57INCREASED BDNF METHYLATION IN SALIVA, BUT NOT BLOOD, OF PATIENTS WITH BORDERLINE PERSONALITY DISORDER
- Author
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Katarzyna Glowacz, Vanessa Nieratschker, Friederike Gundel, Christof Brueckmann, Annalena Wallisch, Mara Thomas, Nora Knoblich, and Julia Becker-Sadzio
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Pharmacology ,medicine.medical_specialty ,Saliva ,business.industry ,Methylation ,medicine.disease ,Psychiatry and Mental health ,Endocrinology ,Neurology ,Internal medicine ,medicine ,Pharmacology (medical) ,Neurology (clinical) ,business ,Borderline personality disorder ,Biological Psychiatry - Published
- 2019
49. EFFECTS OF TRANSCRANIAL DIRECT CURRENT STIMULATION ON COGNITIVE CONTROL AND DNA METHYLATION
- Author
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Ariane Wiegand, Christof Brückmann, Christian Plewnia, and Vanessa Nieratschker
- Subjects
Pharmacology ,Transcranial direct-current stimulation ,business.industry ,medicine.medical_treatment ,Cognitive flexibility ,Stimulation ,Cognition ,medicine.disease ,behavioral disciplines and activities ,Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex ,Psychiatry and Mental health ,medicine.anatomical_structure ,Neurology ,Brain stimulation ,medicine ,Major depressive disorder ,Pharmacology (medical) ,Neurology (clinical) ,Effects of sleep deprivation on cognitive performance ,business ,Neuroscience ,Biological Psychiatry - Abstract
Background Coping with the complexity of our daily life requires cognitive flexibility and control over emotions and behavior. Deficits in cognitive control are often involved in the psychopathology of psychiatric diseases, e.g. Major Depressive Disorder (MDD), a severe mental illness characterized by increased receptiveness for negative stimuli and unbalanced emotion processing. On a neural basis, MDD as well as deficient cognitive control are associated with hypoactivity of the Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex (dlPFC). Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) is a well-established brain stimulation technique inducing targeted modulation of cortical activity. It is discussed as promising approach to support conventional psychiatric therapies but so far little is known about the underlying molecular mechanisms. Epigenetic changes might be a potential mechanism how tDCS effects manifest as long-lasting cognitive improvements and amelioration of psychiatric symptoms. In two previous stimulation genetics studies, we demonstrated an influence of the COMT genotype, which renders this gene an interesting candidate for a stimulation epigenetics study. Methods For the present study, healthy male participants performed a potentially frustrating and challenging task, a 2-back version of the Paced Auditory Serial Addition Task (PASAT), once under sham stimulation and once under anodal tDCS over the left dlPFC. Participants’ affective states were assessed several times throughout the experiment. To investigate epigenetic effects of the stimulation protocol, one blood sample was collected before the PASAT and five blood samples were collected after task completion. DNA methylation status of the COMT gene promoter region was assessed by pyrosequencing. Results Our results provide further evidence that anodal tDCS applied to the left dlPFC improves task performance. In addition, tDCS seems to prevent task-induced decline in positive affect, whereas task-related negative affect was suppressed. Furthermore, our data suggest a dynamic increase in DNA methylation of the COMT gene promoter region in response to the task. Depending on the type of stimulation (anodal or sham) participants received during their first session, they showed different methylation levels in their second session. Discussion Together, our data extend previous findings showing improved cognitive performance under anodal stimulation, which correlates with enhanced control over emotions. In response to stimulation, we observed increased positive affect and reduced negative affect, which supports the idea of tDCS as a potential treatment approach for MDD targeting the negativity bias. In addition, we observed dynamic methylation changes in the COMT gene promoter region in response to a challenging cognitive task, which might be differentially modulated by tDCS. COMT is an enzyme involved in the degradation of dopamine and dopamine levels are critical in executive functioning. Therefore, the observed changes in COMT promoter methylation might indicate an adaptive process to the task and they might indicate an underlying mechanism to induce long-lasting tDCS effects.
- Published
- 2019
50. A Longitudinal Approach to Biological Psychiatric Research: The PsyCourse Study
- Author
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Georg Juckel, Carsten Spitzer, Kim Bartholdi, Jörg Zimmermann, Heike Anderson-Schmidt, Andreas J. Fallgatter, Urs Heilbronner, Milena Meyers, Thomas G. Schulze, Detlef E. Dietrich, Peter Falkai, Markus M. Nöthen, Manfred Koller, Jens Wiltfang, Eva C. Schulte, Silke Quast, Markus Reitt, Carsten Konrad, Thomas Becker, Volker Arolt, Katrin Gade, Sergi Papiol, Farah Klöhn-Saghatolislam, Daniela Reich-Erkelenz, Stephanie H. Witt, Moritz E. Wigand, Monika Budde, Bernhard T. Baune, Sebastian Stierl, Andreas Thiel, Laura Flatau, Anna Gryaznova, Udo Dannlowski, Markus Jäger, Fabian U. Lang, Ashley L. Comes, Till F. M. Andlauer, Marcella Rietschel, Kristina Adorjan, Ida Sybille Haußleiter, Franziska Degenhardt, Max Schmauß, Janos Kalman, Christian Figge, Harald Scherk, Eva Z. Reininghaus, Jens Reimer, Martin von Hagen, Sophia Stegmaier, Here Folkerts, Andreas J. Forstner, Fanny Senner, Ion-George Anghelescu, Sybille Schulz, Vanessa Nieratschker, Barbara Emons, and Maria Hake
- Subjects
psychiatry_mental_health_studies ,medicine.medical_specialty ,Psychosis ,business.industry ,medicine.disease ,030227 psychiatry ,3. Good health ,03 medical and health sciences ,0302 clinical medicine ,Schizophrenia ,mental disorders ,medicine ,Polygenic risk score ,Psychiatry ,business ,030217 neurology & neurosurgery ,Depression (differential diagnoses) - Abstract
In current diagnostic systems, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are still conceptualized as distinct categorical entities. Recently, both clinical and genetic evidence have challenged this Kraepelinian dichotomy. There are only few longitudinal studies addressing the potential overlaps between these conditions. Here, we present design and first results of the PsyCourse study, an ongoing transdiagnostic study of the affective-to-psychotic continuum that combines longitudinal deep phenotyping and dimensional assessment of psychopathology with an extensive collection of biomaterial. Within the DSM-IV framework, we compare two broad diagnostic groups: one consisting of predominantly affective and one of predominantly psychotic disorders. Depressive, manic, and psychotic symptoms as well as global functioning over time were analyzed. Furthermore, we explore the effects of polygenic risk scores for schizophrenia on diagnostic group membership and address their effects on non-participation in follow-up visits. While phenotypic results show differences in both current psychotic and manic symptoms, depressive symptoms did not vary between both groups. Polygenic risk scores for schizophrenia significantly explained part of the variability of the diagnostic group. Furthermore, there was a trend that a higher polygenic loading for schizophrenia was associated with attrition. Because of its unique properties, the PsyCourse study presents a prime resource for the interrogation of complex genotype-phenotype relationships.
- Published
- 2017
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