Herwig
Fakultäten » Medizinische Fakultät » Psychiatrische Universitätsklinik » Soziale Psychiatrie und Allgemeinpsychiatrie Zürich West, Klinik für » Prof. Dr. Wulf Rössler » Herwig
Current research project
| Title / Titel | Emotion regulation and self-reference in affective disorders | ||||
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| Abstract (PDF, 14 KB) | |||||
| Summary / Zusammenfassung | Affective disorders are leading causes of disease in general. The investigation of the neural correlates of disordered emotion processing in affective disorders such as depression, social anxiety disorder and borderline personality disorder (BPD), and of effects of psychotherapy on brain activity, may provide a significant contribution towards elucidating their pathophysiology and developing new treatment strategies. Central psychological features representing disturbed processing in affective disorders are dysfunctional emotion regulation and self-reference. Based on the literature and on our previous findings we hypothesize specific neural correlates for depression, anxiety and BPD related to pathological activation of medial and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex as well as insular, thalamic and amygdalar regions during anticipation of future events with an unknown emotional impact. This is also reflected in disturbed emotion regulation in the form of dysfunctional cognitive control, and in anatomical features related to psychometry. The pathophysiological involvement of these areas will be further substantiated by evidence of altered activity associated with self-referential processing in affective disorders compared with healthy subjects, and by effects of psychotherapeutic strategies as cognitive-behavioural therapy in anxiety and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy in depression on respective brain activation in for instance medial prefrontal areas and amygdala. Functionally, we hypothesize that focusing awareness onto own current emotions will have an attenuating effect on emotional arousal related brain activity, as a possible principle for therapeutic efficiency. The primary aim is to understand emotion regulation and self-referential functions on the neurobiological level in healthy subjects and in patients with affective disorders as depression, anxiety and BPD. We intend to detect functional and structural neurobiological markers for these disorders and to assess the predictive value of these markers for treatment response. Finally, we intend to uncover modes of treatment efficacy on the biological level in order to improve therapeutic interventions. Healthy subjects and patients with depression, social anxiety and BPD will be recruited. Participants will undergo functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while performing tasks involving anticipation and experience of emotional events with a native and a cognitive control condition, and further tasks assessing self-referential brain activation. Anatomical data will be used for voxel based morphometry and for diffusion tensor imaging. In anxiety patients, activation changes in emotion processing due to cognitive-behavioural therapy will be evaluated in a pre-/post treatment scanning design, and in depressed patients we will examine activity changes in the course of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy by applying an established self-referential task in fMRI. The results will contribute to a pathophysiological concept of affective disorders on the systems neuroscience level. They will serve to establish neurobiological markers for diagnostics, to reveal treatment response predictors, to understand modes of action of psychotherapeutic interventions, and to guide future research on new treatment strategies for affective disorders. |
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| Publications / Publikationen | Baur V, Brühl AB, Herwig, U, Eberle, T, Rufer M, Delsignore A, Jäncke L, Hänggi J: Evidence of fronto-temporal structural hypoconnectivity in social anxiety disorder: a quantitative fiber tractography study. Human Brain Mapping, epub 2011, in press. IF 5.1Herwig U, Brühl AB, Viebke MC, Scholz R, Knoch D, Siegrist M: Neural correlates of evaluating hazards of high risk. Brain Research, 2011, 11;1400:78-86. IF 2.6Baur V, Herwig U, Hänggi J, Rufer M, Jäncke L, Brühl A: White Matter alterations in social anxiety disorder. Journal of Psychiatric Research, 2011, 45(10):1366-72. IF 3.8Brühl AB, Jäncke L, Herwig U: Differential modulation of emotion processing brain regions by noradrenergic and serotonergic antidepressants. Psychopharmacology, 2011, 216(3):389-99. IF 3.8Brühl AB, Rufer M, Delsignore A, Kaffenberger T, Jäncke L, Herwig U: Neural correlates of altered general emotion processing in Social Anxiety Disorder. Brain Research, 2011, 10;1378:72-83.Brühl A, Viebke MC, Baumgartner T, Kaffenberger T, Herwig U: Neural correlates of personality dimensions and affective measures during the anticipation of emotional stimuli. Brain Imaging and Behavior, 2011, 5(2):86-96. IF 0.9Kaffenberger T, Brühl AB, Baumgartner T, Jäncke L, Herwig U: Negative bias of processing ambiguously cued emotional stimuli. Neuroreport, 2010, 21(9):601-5. IF 1.8Herwig U, Kaffenberger T, Jäncke L, Brühl AB: Self-related awareness and emotion regulation. Neuroimage, 2010, 50(2):734-41. IF 5.7Brühl AB, Kaffenberger T, Herwig U: Serotonergic and noradrenergic modulation of emotion processing by single dose antidepressants. Neuropsychopharmacology, 2010, 35(2):521-33. IF 7.0Herwig U, Brühl AB, Kaffenberger T, Baumgartner T, Boeker H, Jäncke L: Neural correlates of ‚pessimistic’ attitude in depression. Psychological Medicine, 2010, 40(5):789-800. IF 5.0Brühl AB, Rufer M, Delsignore A, Kaffenberger T, Jäncke L, Herwig U: Neural correlates of altered general emotion processing in Social Anxiety Disorder. Brain Research, in press. | ||||
| Keywords / Suchbegriffe | emotion regulation, affective disorders | ||||
| Project leadership and contacts / Projektleitung und Kontakte |
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| Funding source(s) / Unterstützt durch |
SNF (Personen- und Projektförderung) |
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| In collaboration with / In Zusammenarbeit mit |
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| Duration of Project / Projektdauer | Oct 2006 to Mar 2013 |