Does your dog have social skills?

A study suggests that viewing the owner’s face works as a positive social reinforcement for dogs. Learn more about this and other surprising results about “man’s best friend”.

The incidence of NDE in ICU survivors

The research team led by Charlotte Martial assessed the incidence of near-death experiences (NDEs) among patients who survived a prolonged stay (i.e. > 7 days) in intensive care units (ICU), regardless aetiologies. Out of the 126 included patients, 15% reported having experienced an NDE. Higher frequency of dissociative symptoms and a greater spiritual and personal well-being were the strongest predictors for the recall of NDE. One year later, the NDE was not significantly associated with quality of life. These results were reported in the paper Incidence of near-death experiences in patients surviving a prolonged critical illness and their long-term impact: a prospective observational study published in the journal Critical Care and arise from the research project Characterization of “Near-Death Experiences” through the comparison of experiencers and non-experiencers’ particularities: inter-individual differences in cognitive characteristics and susceptibility to false memories, supported by the BIAL Foundation.

Is supplementary motor area involved in automatic control of behavior?

Ignacio Obeso, principal investigator of the research project 230/18 - Unraveling the mechanisms behind automatic and emotional control: Psychophysiological, cortical excitability and functional connectivity measures, supported by the BIAL Foundation, aimed to test the possible direct role of supplementary motor area (SMA) in automatic and voluntary response inhibition by resourcing to two noninvasive brain stimulation (NIBS) inhibitory techniques over SMA, namely repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) and transcranial static magnetic field stimulation (tSMS). Participants received both real and sham NBS techniques over SMA. No relevant impact of treatment (rTMS, tSMS) or condition (real, sham) was seen in the training or test phases of a go/no-go learning task and a stop signal task. It seems that SMA has a reduced or indirect involvement in automatic control of behavior. These results are detailed in the paper The supplementary motor area and automatic cognitive control: Lack of evidence from two neuromodulation techniques published in the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

When psychotic-like experiences become distressing?

Evidence suggests that psychotic-like experiences (PLEs) exist along a continuum progressing from benign subclinical phenomena at one end to severe psychotic symptoms at the other. Among children, PLEs are common and typically benign, but in some cases, they can be distressing and functionally impairing. In the scope of the research project 194/12 - Characterising developmental trajectories of brain function from childhood into adolescence, supported by the BIAL Foundation, Kristin Laurens aimed to examine whether the likelihood of distressing or impairing PLEs differed according to the type of co-occurring psychopathology symptoms. It was observed that children with co-occurring internalising and/or externalising problems had greater odds of distressing and/or impairing PLEs compared to children without co-occurring psychopathology (PLEs only). The implications of these results are discussed in the article Increased likelihood of distressing and functionally impairing psychotic-like experiences among children with co-occurring internalising and externalising problems published in the journal Schizophrenia Research.