Projects
» Neuronal activation and peripheral physiology reaction pattern due to specific phobia
Alfons Hamm, Julia Wendt, Matthias WeymarPatients who suffer from animal phobia show increased peripheral physiologic reactions (heart rate, rise in skin conductance and higher startle response) especially when exposed to phobia relevant objects.
The main brain structure involved in the phobia specific reaction is the amygdala. The goal of this project is to investigate the correlation between the activation of the amygdala and the peripheral physiology reaction pattern of fear. Moreover, a comparison between the reaction due to the images, which are selected to induce animal phobia, and standardized emotional pictures have been researched with the aid of the functional magnetic resonance imaging.
Editor´s Note entitled "Novel Insights Into Pathological Anxiety and Anxiety-Related Disorders" about the article on panic disorder we coauthored in the American Journal of of Psychiatry:
ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/appi.ajp.2020.20010057
Further reading:
Birbaumer N., Grodd W., Diedrich O., Klose U., Erb M., Lotze M., Schneider F., Flor H. (1998) Functional magnetic resonance imaging reveals amygdala activation during fear-processing in social phobics. NeuroReport 9: 1223-1226.
Veit R., Flor H., Erb M., Hermann C., Lotze M., Grodd W., Birbaumer N. (2002) Brain Circuits Involved in Emotional Learning in Antisocial Behavior and Social Phobia in Humans. Neuroscience Letters 328: 233-236.
Anders S., Lotze M., Erb M., Grodd W., Birbaumer N. (2004) Brain activity underlying emotional valence and arousal: A response-related fMRI study. Human Brain Mapping 23: 200-209.
Wendt J., Lotze M., Weike A.I., Hosten N., Hamm A.O. (2008) Brain activation and defensive response mobilization during sustained exposure to phobia-related and other affective pictures in spider phobia. Psychophysiology 45: 205-215.
Scharpf KR, Wendt J, Lotze M, Hamm AO. (2010) The brain's relevance detection network operates independently of stimulus modality.Behav Brain Res. 26;210(1):16-23.
Wendt J., Weike A., Lotze M., Hamm A.O. (2011) The functional connectivity between amygdala and extrastriate visual cortex activity during emotional picture processing depends on stimulus novelty. Biological Psychology, 86(3): 203-9.
Wendt J., Schmidt L., Lotze M., Hamm A. (2012) Mechanisms of change: Effects of repetitive exposure to feared stimuli on the brain’s fear network. Psychophysiology, 49(10):1319-29.
Holtz K., Pané-Farré C.A., Wendt J., Lotze M., Hamm A.O. (2012) Brain activation during anticipation of interoceptive threat. Neuroimage, 61(4):857-65.
Lindner K., Neubert J., Pfannmöller J., Lotze M., Hamm AO., Wendt J. (2015) Fear-potentiated startle processing in humans: Parallel fMRI and orbicularis EMG assessment during cue conditioning and extinction. Int. J. Psychophysiol., S0167-8760(15)00073-2.
Yang, Y., Lueken, U., Wittmann, A., Holtz, K., Kleint, N.I., Herrmann, M.J., Sass, K., Jansen, A., Konrad, C., Ströhle, A. , Pfleiderer, B., Lotze, M., Hamm, A., Deckert, J., Arolt, V., Wittchen, H-U., Kircher T., Straube, B. (2016) Neural Correlates of Individual Differences in Anxiety Sensitivity: An fMRI Study using Semantic Priming, SCAN, 11(8):1245-54.
Wendt, J. Löw, A., Weymar, M., Lotze, M., Hamm, A.O. (2017) Active Avoidance and Attentive Freezing in the Face of Approaching Threat. Neuroimage, 158:196-204.
Yang Y., Lueken U., Wittmann A., Konrad C., Ströhle A., Pfleiderer B., Richter J., Herrmann M., Lang T., Lotze M., Hamm A., Deckert J., Arolt V., Wittchen H-U., Kircher T., Straube B. (2019) Effect of CBT on Biased Semantic Network in Panic Disorder: A Multicenter fMRI Study Using Semantic Priming. American Journal of Psychiatry, 177(3):254-264.
Ventura Bort C., Wendt J., Wirkner J., König J., Lotze M., Hamm A.O., Dolcos F., Weymar M. (2020). Neural Substrates of Long-term Item and Source Memory for Emotional Associates: An fMRI Study. Neuropsychologia, 147:107561.
König J. et al. (Lotze M. among 78 coauthors) (2020) Cortical Thickness and Resting State Cardiac Function Across the Lifespan: A Cross-Sectional Pooled Mega Analysis; Psychophysiology, 58(7), e13688.
Worblewski A.; 23 authors including Lotze M., Richter J. (2022) Sometimes I feel the fear of uncertainty: How intolerance of uncertainty and trait anxiety impact fear acquisition, extinction and the return of fear. Psychophysiology.
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