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International audience; Eye movements and alternating stimuli for brain integration (MOSAIC) is a promising but untested new therapy. Its four-step protocol is based on the effects of bilateral alternating stimulation (BAS) (as in eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy) on the brain. This solution-oriented therapy promotes experiencing solutions through bodily sensations. Through BAS and bodily sensations, MOSAIC therapy aims to enrich the traumatic memory neuronal network with new information so that the client's psychological trauma is no longer distressing. Thus, MOSAIC can be used to treat psychological trauma without the pain associated with reliving the traumatic situation. This method may be particularly adaptive for patients who have experienced complex trauma and who have dissociative experiences.

Objective: Neurobiological models of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) implicate fear processing impairments in the maintenance of the disorder. Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is one of the most efficient psychotherapies to treat PTSD. We aimed at exploring the brain mechanisms of the fear circuitry involved in PTSD patients’ symptom remission after EMDR therapy. Method: Thirty-six PTSD participants were randomly assigned to either EMDR group receiving EMDR therapy or Wait-List (WL) group receiving supportive therapy. Participants underwent a behavioural fear conditioning and extinction paradigm during functional magnetic resonance (fMRI). In the EMDR group, patients were scanned at baseline, before EMDR and one week after remission. In the WL group, patients were scanned at baseline and within the same time interval as the EMDR group. Results: In the EMDR group after treatment, fear responses in the late extinction were significantly lower than before therapy. In parallel, significant functional activity and connectivity changes were found in the EMDR group versus the WL during the late extinction. These changes involve the fear circuit (amygdalae, left hippocampus), the right inferior frontal gyrus, the right frontal eye field and insula (pFWE < .05). Conclusion: These functional modifications underlie a significant improvement of fear extinction learning in PTSD patients after EMDR therapy., HIGHLIGHTS • PTSD patients have a deficit to extinguish a conditioned fear• This deficit is reversible after treatment• EMDR therapy restoration of the fear conditioning ability in PTSD relies upon fear circuitry (amygdala, hippocampus) and other cortical brain structures (insula, posterior cingulate cortex, right frontal eye field, right inferior frontal gyrus and left Heschl gyrus).

Background The aim of this pilot study is to investigate the impact of virtual reality exposure therapy (VRET) on brain metabolism and connectivity. Eighteen patients with acrophobia were assessed by an 18F-FDG PET scan sensitized by virtual exposure before treatment, and nine of them were assessed again after eight sessions of VRET. Statistical Parametric Mapping was used to study the correlations between metabolism and pretherapeutic clinical scores and to compare metabolism before and after VRET (p voxel

Background : Temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) and psychogenic non-epileptic seizures (PNES) are conditions frequently associated with dysfunction in emotional regulation leading to increased risk of affective disorders. This study investigates emotional processing with an objective measure of emotional reactivity in patients with TLE and patients with PNES. Methods : 34 patients with TLE and 14 patients with PNES were evaluated on skin conductance responses (SCR) to emotions induced by short films and compared to 34 healthy controls. An attention and a suppression condition were performed while viewing the films. Results : The both groups of patients disclosed lower SCR to emotions compared to controls, mainly in suppression condition. While TLE patients had lower SCR in attention condition than controls for fear, sadness and happiness, PNES had lower SCR only for happiness. In suppression condition, both had lower SCR than controls except for peacefulness in both groups and sadness in PNES. Subjective evaluations revealed that both patient's groups scored a higher intensity for sadness than controls in attention and lower for in fear and disgust in suppression only in TLE. Limitations : The sample size in the PNES group and the lack of a control group with similar levels of mood symptoms limited the interpretation of our results. Conclusion : As no correlation were found between SCR to emotions and scores of affective disorders, this pattern of responses might be underpinned by specific pathophysiological and cognitive mechanisms related to TLE and to PNES. Thus, therapeutic approaches targeting emotional autonomic responses can be of interest in the management of these conditions.

Objective Psychosocial trauma during childhood is associated with schizophrenia vulnerability. The pattern of grey matter decrease is similar to brain alterations seen in schizophrenia. Our objective was to explore the links between childhood trauma, brain morphology and schizophrenia symptoms. Method Twenty-one patients with schizophrenia stabilized with atypical antipsychotic monotherapy and 30 healthy control subjects completed the study. Anatomical MRI images were analysed using optimized voxel-based morphometry (VBM). Childhood trauma was assessed with the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire, and symptoms were rated on the Scale for the Assessment of Negative Symptoms (SANS) and Scale for the Assessment of Positive Symptoms (SAPS) (disorganization, positive and negative symptoms). In the schizophrenia group, we used structural equation modelling in a path analysis. Results Total grey matter volume was negatively associated with emotional neglect (EN) in patients with schizophrenia. Whole-brain VBM analyses of grey matter in the schizophrenia group revealed a specific inversed association between EN and the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC). Path analyses identified a well-fitted model in which EN predicted grey matter density in DLPFC, which in turn predicted the disorganization score. Conclusion Our findings suggest that EN during childhood could have an impact on psychopathology in schizophrenia, which would be mediated by developmental effects on brain regions such as the DLPFC.

Converging evidence points to a link between anxiety proneness and altered emotional functioning, including threat-related biases in selective attention and higher susceptibility to emotionally ambiguous stimuli. However, during these complex emotional situations, it remains unclear how trait anxiety affects the engagement of the prefrontal emotional control system and particularly the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), a core region at the intersection of the limbic and prefrontal systems. Using an emotional conflict task and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we investigated in healthy subjects the relations between trait anxiety and both regional activity and functional connectivity (psychophysiological interaction) of the ACC. Higher levels of anxiety were associated with stronger task-related activation in ACC but with reduced functional connectivity between ACC and lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC). These results support the hypothesis that when one is faced with emotionally incompatible information, anxiety leads to inefficient high-order control, characterized by insufficient ACC-LPFC functional coupling and increases, possibly compensatory, in activation of ACC. Our findings provide a deeper understanding of the pathophysiology of the neural circuitry underlying anxiety and may offer potential treatment markers for anxiety disorders.

Item does not contain fulltext OBJECTIVE: This double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled study investigated the impact of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) on quality of life (QoL) of patients with fibromyalgia, and its possible brain metabolic substrate. METHODS: Thirty-eight patients were randomly assigned to receive high-frequency rTMS (n = 19) or sham stimulation (n = 19), applied to left primary motor cortex in 14 sessions over 10 weeks. Primary clinical outcomes were QoL changes at the end of week 11, measured using the Fibromyalgia Impact Questionnaire (FIQ). Secondary clinical outcomes were mental and physical QoL component measured using the 36-Item Short Form Health Survey (SF-36), but also pain, mood, and anxiety. Resting-state [(18)F]-fluorodeoxyglucose-PET metabolism was assessed at baseline, week 2, and week 11. Whole-brain voxel-based analysis was performed to study between-group metabolic changes over time. RESULTS: At week 11, patients of the active rTMS group had greater QoL improvement in the FIQ (p = 0.032) and in the mental component of the SF-36 (p = 0.019) than the sham stimulation group. No significant impact was found for other clinical outcomes. Compared with the sham stimulation group, patients of the active rTMS group presented an increase in right medial temporal metabolism between baseline and week 11 (p < 0.001), which was correlated with FIQ and mental component SF-36 concomitant changes (r = -0.38, p = 0.043; r = 0.51, p = 0.009, respectively). QoL improvement involved mainly affective, emotional, and social dimensions. CONCLUSION: Our study shows that rTMS improves QoL of patients with fibromyalgia. This improvement is associated with a concomitant increase in right limbic metabolism, arguing for a neural substrate to the impact of rTMS on emotional dimensions involved in QoL. CLASSIFICATION OF EVIDENCE: This study provides Class II evidence that rTMS compared with sham rTMS improves QoL in patients with fibromyalgia.

Resilience refers to the capacity to cope effectively in stressful situations or adversity. It may involve the ability to experience emotions matching the demands of environmental circumstances. The brain mechanisms underlying resilience remain unclear. In this study, we aim to investigate the relationship between the neural basis of emotional experience and resilience. Thirty-six fire-fighters were included. They performed an fMRI script-driven paradigm comprising relaxing and trauma-related scripts to evaluate the cerebral substrate of emotional experience (p

A fundamental aspect of successful social interaction is the fact people do not always experience or express emotions to their fullest extent but instead control them in a context-dependent manner. Emotion regulation involves the manipulation of subjective experience, behavior, and physiology. Previous researches have studied autonomic nervous system (ANS) responses during emotion regulation using only positive and negative stimuli without distinguishing between emotions, or it has focused on one specific emotion. Given the differences of ANS reactions to different categories of emotional stimuli, our study aims at comparing the physiological activity during emotion attending and emotion suppression using specific and distinct categories of emotions. Fifty subjects were presented with five films, inducing one of five emotions: happiness, sadness, fear, peacefulness, and disgust. While viewing the films, participants were instructed to perform an attending and a suppression task. We evaluated the following physiological measures as participants engaged in these tasks: skin conductance response (SCR), heart rate (HR), and activity of zygomatic and corrugator muscles. Performing a suppression task when viewing the happy and disgusting film clips resulted in diminished, respectively, zygomatic and corrugator muscle activities. Emotion regulation leads to a lower HR when viewing the happy film, and a higher SCR when viewing the fear-inducing film. The effects of emotional control on EMG and HR are observed on the emotions that drive the most important physiological changes in the noncontrol setting, while the increased SCR for the fear-inducing film indicates that the conscious and volitional regulation of emotion has selective effect on fear emotion as compared to happiness, disgust, sadness, and peacefulness.

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is an anxiety disorder arising in the aftermath of a traumatic event. The most prevalent hypothesis is that of an increased amygdala activity to threat cues. The amygdala has also shown an implication in orienting attention toward threat. The aim of the study was to explore the correlations between amygdala activity, symptom severity and attentional bias in PTSD. Patients and healthy controls were assayed on an fMRI emotional face matching task and an attentional detection of target (DOT) task. The amygdala showed enhanced activity in PTSD (vs. controls). It positively correlated with anxiety scores and PTSD symptomatology. It also positively correlated with the disengagement index. Mostly, these results provide preliminary support for an implication of the amygdala in attention orientation to threat in PTSD. These results are further discussed in light of recent theories concerned with cortico-limbic functioning.

On meconnait le sort reserve aux personnes nees dans les colonies francaises, en France donc, et qui ont conserve par la loi leur nationalite francaise apres l’independance du pays ou elles n’ont cesse de resider. Or, aujourd’hui, cette nationalite est deniee a leurs descendant·es qui pourraient la revendiquer par filiation, mais que l’on accuse d’etre des « Fancais·es d’opportunite ».

De par sa forte prevalence, sa chronicite et son impact social, la peur des hauteurs ou acrophobie represente un domaine de recherche important. La therapie comportementale par exposition a la realite virtuelle (TERV) a demontre son efficacite clinique dans le traitement de cette pathologie. Le but de cette etude TEP etait de caracteriser le metabolisme cerebral des patients atteints d’acrophobie et d’etudier l’impact de la TERV sur ce metabolisme cerebral et les modifications associees de connectivite. Methodes Dix-huit patients atteints d’acrophobie, inclus dans l’etude CTRLSTRESS (financee par la Mission pour l’Interdisciplinarite du CNRS), ont eu une TEP au 18F-FDG cerebrale, sensibilisee par une exposition concomitante a la peur du vide par realite virtuelle, avant traitement par TERV. Parmi eux, 9 patients ont de nouveau ete testes en TEP sensibilisee par realite virtuelle apres traitement. La reponse clinique a la TERV a ete evaluee par une echelle visuelle analogique (EVA) et le test comportemental d’evitement (TCE). Des comparaisons de cartes statistiques a l’aide du logiciel SPM ont ete realisees entre les patients et 18 sujets temoins sains apparies selon l’âge et le sexe (p 178). La connectivite metabolique a ete evaluee par analyse de correlation interregionale (p 84). Resultats L’echelle EVA et le test TCE ont ete significativement ameliores chez les patients apres TERV (p = 0,02). Avant TERV, les patients atteints d’acrophobie presentaient une diminution du metabolisme des regions temporales internes bilaterales en comparaison aux sujets sains. Apres TERV, les patients presentaient une augmentation de metabolisme dans les gyri superieurs frontaux et le gyrus precentral gauche, et une augmentation de la connectivite metabolique entre ce meme gyrus precentral gauche et les regions occipitales (coefficient de correlation avant et apres traitement de respectivement 0,24, p = 0,34 et 0,73, p = 0,03). Conclusion Cette etude montre l’implication du systeme limbique chez les patients atteints d’acrophobie. Par ailleurs, l’efficacite de la TERV dans cette pathologie semble liee a une augmentation de la connectivite au sein du systeme visuo-moteur, potentielle cible pour de futurs travaux de rehabilitation chez ces patients.

The right and left anteromedial temporal lobes have been shown to participate in emotion processing. The aim of the study was to further address their role in music emotion perception/recognition, and assessment by two emotional determinants, i.e., arousal (relaxing versus stimulating aspects) and valence (pleasantness degree). Epileptic patients with right or left anterior mesio-temporal resection (including the amygdala), and control subjects were presented with happy musical (chosen highly stimulating) or sad excerpts (chosen to be relaxing), that were either consonant (pleasant) or dissonant (unpleasant). The patients demonstrated an abnormal perception of dissonant music disregarding of the side of the resection; thereby confirming the role of the parahippocampal gyrus in the perception of unpleasantness. Moreover, the pleasantness of musical excerpts, in particular the happy consonant ones, was overestimated by patients with right temporal damage. In contrast, the arousal rating for happy consonant excerpts was reduced only in the group with left-resections. This modified perception of arousal might be related to the decreased ability of those patients to recognize happy and sad music. Indeed, both right and left temporal resections impaired sadness recognition, whereas happiness recognition was only reduced by the left-resections. The main result was that for the first time, the mesio-temporal structures were demonstrated to be asymmetrically involved in positive musical emotion recognition.

Studies on emotional processing report that schizophrenic patients present a specific pattern of emotional responding that usually includes deficits in emotional expressiveness, increased feelings of unpleasant emotion but decreased feelings of pleasant emotion, and increased physiological reactivity. However, studies have rarely controlled the nature of antipsychotic medication. Yet, the influence of these drugs on emotional response is uncertain and could vary depending on their pharmacological profile.This prospective and randomized study aimed to compare the effects of an atypical antipsychotic, risperidone, to a typical one, haloperidol, on patients' emotional responding during an emotional induction task.Twenty-five schizophrenic patients underwent two emotional and clinical evaluations: one before treatment initiation and a second 4 weeks after. Emotional states of fear, sadness, anger, joy, and disgust were induced, as well as a neutral baseline state. Video recordings of patients during the induction task allowed for assessment of emotional expressiveness. Self-reports and measures of skin conductance and heart rate were performed to determine both subjective and physiological reactions to emotional experience.Compared to haloperidol, risperidone did not reduce patients' facial expressiveness, decreased physiological reactivity, and decreased experience of unpleasant emotion but maintained experience of pleasant emotion. Emotional expressiveness was negatively correlated to parkisonism.Our preliminary results suggest that atypical antipsychotics allow for better-adapted patterns of emotional responding than typical ones do. We suggest that this effect is due to reduced striatal D2 blockade, therefore, attenuating akinesia, coupled with increased 5HT and DA levels in prefrontal cortex, which improves emotional regulation.

Three experiments were conducted in order to validate 56 musical excerpts that conveyed four intended emotions (happiness, sadness, threat and peacefulness). In Experiment 1, the musical clips were rated in terms of how clearly the intended emotion was portrayed, and for valence and arousal. In Experiment 2, a gating paradigm was used to evaluate the course for emotion recognition. In Experiment 3, a dissimilarity judgement task and multidimensional scaling analysis were used to probe emotional content with no emotional labels. The results showed that emotions are easily recognised and discriminated on the basis of valence and arousal and with relative immediacy. Happy and sad excerpts were identified after the presentation of fewer than three musical events. With no labelling, emotion discrimination remained highly accurate and could be mapped on energetic and tense dimensions. The present study provides suitable musical material for research on emotions.

Very few studies in humans have quantified the effect obtained after direct electrical stimulation of the amygdala, in terms of both emotional and physiological responses. We tested patients with drug-resistant partial epilepsies who were explored with intracerebral electrodes in the setting of presurgical evaluation. We assessed the effects of direct electric stimulations in either the right or the left amygdala on verbally self-reported emotions (Izard scale) and on psychophysiological markers of emotions by recording skin conductance responses (SCRs) and by measuring the electromyographic responses of the corrugator supercilii (EMGc). According to responses on Izard scales, electrical stimulations of the right amygdala induced negative emotions, especially fear and sadness. In contrast, stimulations of the left amygdala were able to induce either pleasant (happiness) or unpleasant (fear, anxiety, sadness) emotions. Unpleasant states induced by electrical stimulations were accompanied by an increase in EMGc activity. In addition, when emotional changes were reported after electrical stimulation, SCR amplitude for the positively valenced emotions was larger than for the negative ones. These findings provide direct in vivo evidence that the human amygdala is involved in emotional experiences and strengthen the hypothesis of a functional asymmetry of the amygdala for valence and arousal processing.

Clinical reports on autism describe abnormal responses to auditory stimuli such as intolerance to sounds. The present study assessed subjective perception of loudness in subjects with autism compared to healthy controls, using two psychoacoustic tests. First, the auditory dynamic range was evaluated at six different tone frequencies. Secondly, loudness growth as a function of the intensity level of a 1 kHz tone was estimated. Verbal responses from a group of 11 children and adolescents with autism were compared to responses of 11 age- and gender- matched healthy controls. Smaller auditory dynamic ranges were found in the autistic group than in the control group, as well as increased perception of loudness, indicating hyperacusis in subjects with autism.

The diagnosis constraint of acute stress disorder (ASD), consisting of testing individuals in the month following trauma exposure, limits research on the very early and initial stage of the disease. In this regard, this work aims to explore the cerebral mechanism of ASD in a population of fire-fighters before and after trauma exposure. Thirty-six healthy non-traumatized male fire-fighters were explored by an fMRI emotional face-matching task to evaluate the cerebral substrate of emotional recognition. During the two years of the follow-up, two subjects were traumatized, and thus retested, as were 10 non-traumatized subjects among the initial non-exposed ones. In comparison to non-exposed subjects, fire-fighters with ASD had enhanced amygdala, orbitofrontal, and dorsolateral prefrontal BOLD responses to fearful and angry faces (p < .05, FDR-corrected). These results shed new light on the cerebral mechanism associated with ASD. We observed for the first time the existence of an altered fear processing pathway in ASD that is mediated by amygdala and prefrontal cortex hyperactivity, which might be at the core of the disorder.

While the reasons underlying musical emotions are unclear, music is nevertheless a powerful elicitor of emotion, and as such, may induce autonomic nervous system responses. One typical measure of this neural pathway is the skin conductance response (SCR). This response generally depends upon stimulus arousal, one of the two motivational determinants of emotion. The objective of the present study was to verify whether emotional reactions to music elicit such event-related autonomic responses. To this aim, four musical emotions varying in arousal were employed: fear, happiness, sadness and peacefulness. SCRs were found to be greater with the two more stimulating emotions, fear and happiness, as compared to the two more relaxing emotions, sadness and peacefulness (P , 0:05). In addition, subjects’ ratings of the emotional clarity for each excerpt did not parallel the corresponding SCRs magnitudes. The results show that SCRs can be evoked and modulated by musical emotional arousal, but are not sensitive to emotional clarity. While several studies have been performed with visual scenes and environmental sounds, the present study brings similar evidence from the musical domain. q 2002 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

The cortico-limbic system is critically involved in emotional responses and resulting adaptive behaviors. Within this circuit, complementary regions are believed to be involved in either the appraisal or the regulation of affective state. However, the respective contribution of these bottom-up and top-down mechanisms during emotion processing remains to be clarified. We used a new functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) paradigm varying 3 parameters: emotional valence, emotional congruency, and allocation of attention, to distinguish the functional variation in activity and connectivity between amygdala, anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC). Bottom-up appraisal of negative compared with positive stimuli led to a greater amygdala response and stronger functional interaction between amygdala and both dorsal ACC and DLPFC. Top-down resolution of emotional conflict was associated with increased activity within ACC and higher functional connectivity between this structure, and both the amygdala and DLPFC. Finally, increased top-down attentional control caused greater engagement of the DLPFC, accompanied by increased connectivity between DLPFC and dorsal ACC. This novel task provides an efficient tool for exploring bottom-up and top-down processes underlying emotion and may be particularly helpful for investigating the neurofunctional underpinnings of psychiatric disorders.

At the auditory periphery, the medial olivocochlear system is assumed to be involved in complex sound processing and may be influenced by feedback from higher auditory nuclei. Indeed, the descending auditory pathway includes fibers coming from the auditory cortex that are anatomically well positioned to influence the superior olivary complex, and thus the medial efferent system. The aim of the present study was to verify the hypothesis of an implied influence of the auditory cortex on the peripheral auditory system. In three rare cases of patients presenting with intractable temporal lobe epilepsy, Heschl's gyrus (i.e. the temporal superior gyrus) was surgically removed in the right hemisphere in two patients and in the left hemisphere in a third patient, in order to minimize epilepsy attacks, as preoperative stereoencephalography had shown the epileptic focus or tumor to be situated in those locations. In all three cases, several weeks after the operation the medial olivocochlear system was clearly less functional on both sides, but especially on the side contralateral to the resection. In healthy controls, no such pattern was obtained. In four other epileptic patients, who were operated unilaterally at the anterior temporal pole, amygdala and hippocampus with the temporal gyrus partially spared, efferent suppression grew stronger in the ear ipsilateral to surgery. These results revealed that, in humans, the primary and secondary auditory cortex play a role in modulating auditory periphery activity through direct or indirect efferent fibers. In accordance with previous findings, this descending influence may improve the auditory afferent message by adapting the hearing function according to cortical analysis of the ascending input.

Difficulty in filtering relevant auditory information in background noise is one of the features of autism. Auditory filtering processes can be investigated at the peripheral level as they are hypothesized to involve active cochlear mechanisms which are regulated by the efferent activity of the medial olivocochlear (MOC) system. The aim of the present work was therefore to assess these peripheral auditory processes in 22 children and adolescents with autism compared with age- and gender-matched normal controls. Active cochlear mechanisms were evaluated with transiently evoked otoacoustic emissions (TEOAEs) and MOC system efficiency was assessed via TEOAEs which are decreased when stimulating the contralateral ear with noise. The MOC system evaluation was performed on 18 of the 22 children. In both studies, results were analysed according to age (from 4 to 10 years and from 11 to 20 years). The main result concerns the asymmetry of the efferent system which differs in individuals with autism. Several neural processes might be hypothesized as involved in the results obtained as the MOC system which originates in the brainstem received regulating controls from upper brain structures including auditory cortex. Lateralization abnormalities at the auditory periphery may reflect indirectly a problem at a higher level of auditory processing. A second important result shows a decrease in TEOAE amplitude with age, in patients, that may correspond to a decrease in hearing sensitivity.

The auditory sensory end organ is under the control of the central nervous system via efferent projections. Contralateral suppression of otoacoustic emissions (acoustic signatures of the cochlear biomechanical activity) provides a non-invasive approach to assess olivocochlear efferent activity in humans. Using this approach, the present study compared professional musicians with musically-inexperienced subjects. The results revealed stronger bilateral cochlear suppression, suggesting larger efferent influences in both ears, in musicians. Furthermore, in indicating no difference in left/right asymmetry of efferent-mediated suppression between the two groups, the present findings suggest that the observed differences in olivocochlear activity reflect bilaterally-enhanced activity of the cortical auditory structures in musicians rather than differences in cerebral hemispheric asymmetry between the two groups.

It is well established that in humans many differences between right- and left-handers, anatomical, physiological and functional, exist. Left- and mixed-handedness is associated with greater bihemispheric representation of cognitive functions than in right-handers. Several studies indicate a left-right asymmetry in the function of hearing pathways between cochlea and auditory cortex, and furthermore, that this asymmetry is associated with handedness. Our investigation focuses on the medial olivo-cochlear system, which has been demonstrated to be more effective in the right than left ear in right-handers. The aim of the study was to investigate this auditory efferent system asymmetry according to handedness, gender, eyedness, footedness and the presence of spontaneous otoacoustic emissions. The medial efferent system has been found to be more effective in the right than left ear in right-handers, while functioning symmetrically in left-handers. Furthermore, the olivo-cochlear system, assumed to be involved in basic language processing, shows an asymmetrical pattern of functioning influenced by handedness as well as by hemispheric language representation. Reverse medial efferent system asymmetry was observed in left-handers compared to that in right-handers, on condition that only left-handed males were considered, or that the left-handers were also left-eyed, or that spontaneous otoacoustic emissions were present in the left ear of the left-handers, or when only left-handers without mixed-handers were considered.

Previous studies indicate a left-right asymmetry in the function of peripheral auditory system. Contralateral acoustic suppression of TEOAEs (transient evoked otoacoustic emissions) enables assessment of medial olivocochlear efferent system functioning, and has demonstrated that this system is more effective in the right than in the left ear. Moreover, TEOAE amplitudes are lower in the left than in the right ear. The aim of the present experiment was to verify firstly the absence of a relationship between medial efferent system asymmetry and TEOAE amplitude asymmetry, and secondly to study TEOAE input/output function slopes. There was no link between the asymmetries in TEOAE amplitude and in the medial efferent system functioning. Further, as previously shown, the medial olivocochlear system increased the TEOAE input/output function slopes. These TEOAE input/output function slopes seem to be consistent factors in peripheral asymmetry since the slope is lower in the right than in the left ear. Moreover, the lower the TEOAE amplitudes, the greater the TEOAE slopes. The slope asymmetry of the two ears could correspond to earlier saturation or a lower augmentation ability of the TEOAE response in the right ear, where the TEOAE amplitude is higher. This asymmetry in growth slopes reinforces the notion of peripheral auditory lateralization.

Auditory system hemispheric asymmetry in language processing is well-established, and there are many indications of lateralization as of the peripheral auditory system i.e., as of the cochlea. The left ear is more susceptible to noise damage; tinnitus is more predominant there, while spontaneous otoacoustic emissions (SOAEs) are more often found in the right ear. The present study addressed the following two questions: Does this right-ear SOAE prevalence exist as early as preterm birth? Is there any functional asymmetry in the medial olivo-cochlear (MOC) efferent system, known to modulate outer hair cell contractions? The study involved 483 preterm neonates (gestional age: 24-37 weeks) and 70 right-handed adults (age: 18-31 years). In each ear, SOAEs and evoked otoacoustic emissions (EOAEs) were recorded and analysed, and, for the adults, functional MOC system assessment was made. Results showed SOAEs and EOAE amplitude to be right-predominant and in adults a right MOC functional predominance. These results indicate peripheral auditory system lateralisation, and an early origin thereof. The MOC system being thought to play a protective role, its physiological lateralisation may be relevant to the left prevalence of tinnitus and of auditory fatigue.

The aim of this study was to investigate the human peripheral auditory system in either ear to allow comparison of right and left medial olivocochlear inhibition during contralateral ear stimulation with a broad band noise. The efferent system showed a statistically significant greater right-side activity among 44 young subjects. This laterality appeared to be related to the presence of spontaneous otoacoustic emission but not to gender. This efferent asymmetry and the parallel spontaneous otoacoustic emission asymmetry could explain the lateralization of auditory sensitivity, temporary threshold shift and tinnitus.

Background Avoidance and hypervigilance to reminders of a traumatic event are among the main characteristics of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Attentional bias toward aversive cues in PTSD has been hypothesized as being part of the dysfunction causing etiology and maintenance of PTSD. The aim of the present study was to investigate the cognitive strategy underlying attentional bias in PTSD and whether normal cognitive processing is restored after a treatment suppressing core PTSD symptoms. Methods Nineteen healthy controls were matched for age, sex and education to 19 PTSD patients. We used the emotional stroop and detection of target tasks, before and after an average of 4.1 sessions of eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy. Results We found that on both tasks, patients were slower than controls in responding in the presence of emotionally negative words compared to neutral ones. After symptoms removal, patients no longer had attentional bias, and responded similarly to controls. Conclusion These results support the existence of an attentional bias in PTSD patients due to a disengagement difficulty. There was also preliminary evidence that the disengagement was linked to PTSD symptomatology. It should be further explored whether attentional bias and PTSD involve common brain mechanisms.

Respiration rate allows to differentiate between happy and sad excerpts which may be attributable to entrainment of respiration to the rhythm or the tempo rather than to emotions [Etzel, J.A., Johnsen, E.L., Dickerson, J., Tranel, D., Adolphs, R., 2006. Cardiovascular and respiratory responses during musical mood induction. Int. J. Psychophysiol. 61(1), 57-69]. In order to test for this hypothesis, this study intended to verify whether fast and slow rhythm, and/or tempo alone are sufficient to induce differential physiological effects. Psychophysiological responses (electrodermal responses, facial muscles activity, blood pressure, heart and respiration rate) were then measured in fifty young adults listening to fast/happy and slow/sad music, and to two control versions of these excerpts created by removing pitch variations (rhythmic version) and both pitch and temporal variations (beat-alone). The results indicate that happy and sad music are significantly differentiated (happy>sad) by diastolic blood pressure, electrodermal activity, and zygomatic activity, while the fast and slow rhythmic and tempo control versions did not elicit such differentiations. In contrast, respiration rate was faster with stimuli presented at fast tempi relative to slow stimuli in the beat-alone condition. It was thus demonstrated that the psychophysiological happy/sad distinction requires the tonal variations and cannot be explained solely by entrainment to tempo and rhythm. The tempo entrainment exists in the tempo alone condition but our results suggest this effect may disappear when embedded in music or with rhythm.

Here, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to test for the lateralization of the brain regions specifically involved in the recognition of negatively and positively valenced musical emotions. The manipulation of two major musical features (mode and tempo), resulting in the variation of emotional perception along the happiness-sadness axis, was shown to principally involve subcortical and neocortical brain structures, which are known to intervene in emotion processing in other modalities. In particular, the minor mode (sad excerpts) involved the left orbito and mid-dorsolateral frontal cortex, which does not confirm the valence lateralization model. We also show that the recognition of emotions elicited by variations of the two perceptual determinants rely on both common (BA 9) and distinct neural mechanisms.

IntroductionLa réponse normale ou pathologique à la peur peut être étudiée par un protocole de conditionnement à la peur et à son extinction. Nous avons étudié les mécanismes cérébraux centraux de réponses à la peur à l’aide du modèle pathologique que constitue l’État de Stress Post-Traumatique (ESPT), par un protocole de conditionnement à la peur et à son extinction en IRM fonctionnelle (IRMf). Notre hypothèse est que si ce mécanisme de conditionnement/extinction est central dans l’ESPT, alors après disparition des symptômes, les anomalies fonctionnelles des structures impliquées dans ce mécanisme (amygdale et cortex préfrontal médian) disparaîtront. MéthodesCinquante-deux sujets, 22 témoins sains et 30 patients atteints d’ESPT sont inclus. Les patients effectuaient le protocole de conditionnement à la peur et à son extinction avant puis après traitement et disparition des symptômes. Le contraste d’intérêt était la différence de signal BOLD après moins avant traitement chez les sujets ESPT.RésultatsLes patients présentent un retard dans l’extinction d’une peur conditionnée (p < 0,001). Une augmentation du signal BOLD après disparition des symptômes chez les patients ESPT est retrouvée dans des clusters centrés sur le noyau médiodorsal du thalamus, les gyrus frontaux inférieurs et supérieurs gauche (p < 0,005 et k > 5). Discussion et conclusionTémoignant d’une dérégulation des réponses à la peur, l’ESPT se caractérise par un déficit dans l’extinction d’une peur conditionnée. Le traitement de l’ESPT restaure la fonction du thalamus et du cortex préfrontal dorsolatéral gauche. Le circuit neuronal sous-jacent aux mécanismes de stress ferait donc intervenir le noyau médiodorsal du thalamus gauche, inhibé chez les malades, qui ne jouerait plus son rôle dans l’encodage et le rappel des informations en lien avec le cortex préfrontal dorsolatéral gauche. Ces structures seraient donc essentielles pour permettre une « extinction » des événements traumatisants, c’est-à-dire une intégration de nos émotions négatives.

International audience; Clinical hyperacusis consists of a marked intolerance to ordinary environmental sounds, while hearing thresholds are quite often normal. Hyperacusis appears to be a subjective phenomenon, which is not easily defined or quantified by objective measurements. In order to create a tool suitable to quantify and evaluate various hyperacusis symptoms, a questionnaire screening several aspects of auditory symptomatology has been constructed. Two hundred and one subjects (who were either hyperacusic or not), randomly selected from the general population, were tested. A principal component analysis performed on the correlation matrix of the 14 items of the questionnaire isolated three dimensions: attentional, social, and emotional. The three dimensions had satisfactory internal consistency reliability. The mean +/- SD total score was 15 +/- 6.7 out of 42 (maximum of hyperacusis) and a score greater than 28 seems to represent a strong auditory hypersensitivity. This new psychometric tool should further be tested on hyperacusic patients to verify its relevance in pathology and define the involvement of the three dimensions statistically obtained on the hyperacusis symptomatology.

In order to gain further information on the characteristics and physiological correlates of tone decay in humans, the tone decay test was administered to 58 normal-hearing subjects, successively in the left and right ears and in absence and presence of a contralateral noise. The results revealed that tone decay was greater in the right than in the left ear and was increased by contralateral noise. The contralateral effect of this noise on cochlear biomechanisms was then estimated by measuring contralaterally induced variations in the amplitude of click-evoked otoacoustic emissions in the same subjects. In the right ear, the increase in tone decay and the decrease in otoacoustic emission amplitude--both induced by contralateral noise--were positively correlated (r = .315, p = .016). Furthermore, the contralateral changes in otoacoustic emission amplitude were found to be on average larger in the right than in the left ear, this asymmetry being correlated with that observed for the tone decay. These findings are discussed in relation to previous results on simple and induced loudness adaptation in the vicinity of threshold, on contralateral attenuation of otoacoustic emissions and on the influence of the auditory efferents on cochlear biomechanisms.

The cortico-limbic system, critically involved in emotional responses, has become increasingly central to models of psychopathology. Indeed, most psychiatric disorders are believed to be defined by some level of dysfunction in this circuit such as exacerbated limbic activity and/or inefficient prefrontal control. We here propose a novel functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) paradigm, the VAAT (Variable Attention And congruency Task) which intends to dissociate bottom-up from top-down subnetworks within the cortico-limbic circuit. Twenty-six healthy volunteers completed psychometric assessments and the VAAT Task. In this task, activity as well as connectivity between the amygdala, the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) was tested by varying three parameters: emotional valence, emotional congruency and attention load respectively. Functional relevance of this circuit was examined through multiple correlations analyses between BOLD/PPI (psychophysiological interactions) measures and trait anxiety, as assessed by The State-Trait-Anxiety Inventory (STAI). The amygdala, and its connections to DLPFC and dorsal ACC, was engaged in bottom-up emotional processing. ACC, and its connections to DLPFC and amygdala, was preferentially recruited in top-down resolution of emotional conflict. DLPFC, and its connections to dorsal ACC, was engaged in top-down attentional control. In addition, trait anxiety was associated with increased ACC and DLPFC activity but decreased functional connectivity between these two regions. This novel task provides a useful tool for exploring bottom-up and top-down processes underlying emotion. Furthermore, our findings suggest that trait anxiety is associated with less efficient connectivity in the higher-order cortical circuit involved in emotion regulation.

IntroductionUne controverse existe concernant la nature et l’origine des réductions de densité de matière grise (dMG) dans l’État de Stress Post-Traumatique (ESPT). Ces atrophies pourraient être des facteurs de vulnérabilité pour le développement de l’ESPT [2] ou bien être la conséquence des symptômes liés au traumatisme [1]. Le but de cette étude a été d’étudier la question. Notre hypothèse est que les principales atrophies décrites dans la littérature évolueront avec l’amélioration des symptômes une semaine et 6 mois après une thérapie de désensibilisation et de retraitement de l’information par les mouvements oculaires (EMDR). Patients et méthodesNous avons étudié l’évolution des symptômes et la dMG chez 9 sujets atteints d’ESPT et chez 17 sujets témoins avant, une semaine et 6 mois après thérapie. Cette étude a été réalisée avec une technique d’IRM à haute résolution : la Voxel Based Morphometry (VBM).RésultatsAvant thérapie, les patients atteints d’ESPT présentaient des atrophies au niveau de 4 régions incluant le lobe frontal (Aire de Brodmann [BA] 32 droite, BA 10 droite, BA 9 gauche, BA 11 droite), le lobe pariétal (BA 43 droite, BA 40 droite), le lobe temporal (BA 42 droite, BA 38 droite) et le cervelet postérieur gauche. L’intensité des symptômes a diminué une semaine et 6 mois après thérapie. Pour BA 38, nous avons observé une augmentation de la dMG une semaine et 6 mois après traitement, mais pas pour les autres régions. Discussion et conclusionLes atrophies trouvées dans cette étude sont en accord avec la littérature et expliqueraient notamment les déficits concernant les processus de peur et la régulation des émotions [3]. Certaines structures semblent constituer des facteurs de risque et leurs atrophies pourraient préexister avant la venue de l’événement traumatique alors que d’autres atrophies pourraient être la conséquence de cet événement.

IntroductionL’étude des facteurs de vulnérabilité à la schizophrénie est un enjeu majeur de la psychiatrie actuelle [3]. Nous avons donc réalisé une étude dans l’objectif d’expliciter les liens existant entre traumatismes subis dans l’enfance et anomalies anatomiques observées dans la schizophrénie. Patients et méthodeAu total 26 sujets schizophrènes stabilisés par rispéridone ou aripiprazole depuis au moins 6 semaines et 31 volontaires sains appariés ont été inclus. La sévérité des traumatismes infantiles a été évaluée avec la Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ). L’analyse en Voxel-Based Morphometry (VBM) a été réalisée à partir d’IRM anatomiques haute résolution en veillant à la qualité du prétraitement [1] et après correction pour les comparaisons multiples.RésultatsEn cohérence avec notre hypothèse principale, il a été retrouvé une corrélation négative entre la négligence émotionnelle dans l’enfance et le volume total de matière grise chez les schizophrènes (Δ = −0,50 ; p = 0,003 après ajustement sur l’âge, le sexe et le niveau éducatif). La même tendance est retrouvée non significative chez les volontaires sains. Outre cet effet global, il existe une corrélation négative entre la négligence émotionnelle et la densité de matière grise des schizophrènes dans le cortex cingulaire antérieur dorsal gauche (Z-score = 3,9 ; pFWE = 0,046) et le cortex préfrontal dorsolatéral droit (Z-score = 4,19 ; pFWE = 0,002). La comparaison de la densité de matière grise entre sujets schizophrènes et volontaires sains révèle des diminutions de densités centrées sur la partie antérieure des insula et le gyrus temporal supérieur gauche. ConclusionCe résultat original démontre l’impact des interactions précoces, auxquelles les schizophrènes semblent particulièrement sensibles, sur la morphologie cérébrale. Les régions retrouvées, cortex cingulaire antérieur dorsal et cortex préfrontal dorsolatéral, sont particulièrement impliquées dans les troubles cognitifs et la dimension de désorganisation de la schizophrénie [2].

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is an anxiety disorder that arises in the aftermath of a traumatic event. The most prevalent hypothesis is that of an increased amygdala activity to threat cues. The amygdala has also shown an implication in orienting attention toward threat. The aim of this study was to explore the correlations between amygdala activity, symptom severity and attentional bias to threat. PTSD patients and healthy controls were assayed on an fMRI emotional face matching task and an attentional detection of target (DOT) task. The amygdala showed enhanced activity in PTSD patients (vs. healthy individuals). It positively correlated with anxiety scores and PTSD symptoms. It also positively correlated with the disengagement index during the attentional DOT task. Mostly, these results provide preliminary support for an implication of the amygdala in attention orientation to threat in PTSD, whereby in patients amygdala hyperactivity would cause attentional biases, which in turn would induce anxious symptomatology. These results are further discussed in light of recent theories concerned with cortico-limbic functioning and clinical implications.

BackgroundNeuroticism is a personality component frequently found in anxious and depressive psychiatric disorders. The influence of neuroticism on negative emotions could be due to its action on stimuli related to fear and sadness, but this remains debated. Our goal was thus to better understand the impact of neuroticism through verbal and physiological assessment in response to stimuli inducing fear and sadness as compared to another negative emotion (disgust).MethodsFifteen low neurotic and 18 high neurotic subjects were assessed on an emotional attending task by using film excerpts inducing fear, disgust, and sadness. We recorded skin conductance response (SCR) and corrugator muscle activity (frowning) as indices of emotional expression.ResultsSCR was larger in high neurotic subjects than in low neurotics for fear relative to sadness and disgust. Moreover, corrugator activity and SCR were larger in high than in low neurotic subjects when fear was induced.ConclusionAfter decades of evidence that individuals higher in neuroticism experience more intense emotional reactions to even minor stressors, our results indicate that they show greater SCR and expressive reactivity specifically to stimuli evoking fear rather than to those inducing sadness or disgust. Fear processing seems mainly under the influence of neuroticism. This modulation of autonomic activity by neurotics in response to threat/fear may explain their increased vulnerability to anxious psychopathologies such as PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder).