Cognitive Neuroscience Research
A related mission of this program is to identify aspects of psychological and brain functioning associated with risk and resilience. The hope is that this information can be used to identify those who can most benefit from learning resilience-promoting skills and how to measure, in an objective manner, improvements in outcomes. Much of this work is conducted by the laboratory of Daphne Holt, MD., PhD., called The Emotion and Social Neuroscience Lab.
Selected Research Findings
(a) Changes in psychotic experiences and related distress in the Resilience Training (n = 43) v. the Waitlist Control condition (n = 45).
(b) Changes in psychotic experiences and related distress in those who completed Resilience Training at the 12 month follow-up time point (n = 42).
Personal space size and discomfort during personal space intrusions increased longitudinally within individuals during the COVID-19 pandemic
(A) Examples of real and virtual human confederates that were used in the Stop Distance Procedure (SDP)
(B) the measurements of mean personal space size in Cohort 2 are shown. Personal space size, measured using the SDP with real and virtual humans, increased significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic within individuals. Also, the increases in personal space during the pandemic to the real and virtual humans correlated with each other (all r > .608; all p < .036).
(C) Power law fits to the before- and during-pandemic discomfort ratings, as a function of distance from real or virtual humans, expressed as percentages of before-pandemic personal space size, are shown.
In a recent pilot study of a virtual reality-based adaptation of our resilience training intervention (called Reconnecting with Ourselves and Others in virtual Meetings, ROOM) conducted with college students, there were significant reductions in levels of depression, anxiety, and emotional reactivity after the program. There was also a significant increase in levels of “comfort being with others,” suggesting that the 6-week program helped young people feel more comfortable being physically near others following the social isolation associated with the COVID-19 pandemic.
For more information about this ongoing study, please click here.
Examples of human and virtual ‘intruders’. The examples shown here include real humans (left and middle right rows, a male and female, respectively) and avatars (middle left and right rows) which served as ‘intruders’ in the Stop Distance Procedures and the Distance Range Experiments. Human and virtual intruders were positioned at systematically varied distances. The distance variations were based on a percentage of each subject’s personal space size. For this illustration, the personal space size was arbitrarily set at 75 cm. The avatars displayed here are highly similar in appearance to the human subjects shown, in order to illustrate the minimum possible differences in appearance between the humans and avatars that could be achieved. Despite the similarities of these examples, it is easy to distinguish the avatars from the human subjects. In the actual experiment, the humans and avatars viewed by each participant were not necessarily similar in appearance. Also, additional cues made it trivial to distinguish the real versus virtual intruders (e.g., subjects were clearly aware of whether they were wearing VR goggles, or not).
Discomfort ratings across a range of distances, normalized to individual personal space size. Group average (n=19) ratings of discomfort (the average of ratings of three statements, see Tootell et al, Sci Rep, 2021, Methods), on a Likert scale of agreement ranging from 1 (‘not at all’) to 5 (‘very much’), to variations in the distance (as a percentage of the personal space size of each subject) (x axis) in response to humans (solid line) and avatars (dotted line). Discomfort ratings were highest when both humans and avatars were presented at the closest distance (25% of personal space size). Conversely, the discomfort ratings were lowest to both humans and avatars (at and near baseline of 1=lowest possible ratings) when presented at distances further than the personal space boundary, i.e. 200% and 400% of a given subjects’ personal space size.
a) Brain State C, which included activation of the visual cortex, insula, and dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, and deactivation in the default mode network, demonstrated a significantly reduced rate of occurrence in the SCZ and PE groups compared to controls (p = 0.012, p < 0.001, respectively, two-tailed t-test).
b and c) The spatial map of State C showed no differences between the SCZ and HC groups, or between the PE and the HY groups (Spearman spatial correlation: r > 0.90 for both), indicating that spatial characteristics of this brain state are preserved, but its temporal characteristics are significantly altered, in the SCZ and PE groups. SCZ= schizophrenia group; HC= healthy control group; PE= psychotic experiences group; HY= healthy youth group.
Within the full young adult cohort (n = 130), the occurrence rate of State C showed a significant correlation with PDI score (r = −0.26, p = 0.003, explaining 6.7% of the variance in PEs), indicating that the loss of State C is associated with the severity of subclinical psychotic symptoms.
A similar correlation between the loss of State C and psychotic symptom severity was not observed in the SCZ group, possibly due to the fact that all of the patients with SCZ enrolled in this study were being treated with antipsychotic medications at the time of data collection. PDI = Peters et al Delusions Inventory; PEs = psychotic experiences.
Following a brief psychosocial intervention, participants were more likely to label neutral faces as happy (baseline: happy: 3.6% + 1.9%; post-intervention: happy: 7.8% + 3.0%, F(1,15)=5.5, p=0.034), but there was no significant pre-post change in rates of labeling neutral faces as fearful or angry.
Clauss et al., Journal of Mental Health, 2022
Selected Publications
DeTore NR, Burke A, Nyer M, Holt DJ. A Brief Resilience-Enhancing Intervention and Loneliness in At-Risk Young Adults: A Secondary Analysis of a Randomized Clinical Trial. JAMA Netw Open. 2024;7(2):e2354728. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.54728
Zimmerman J, DeTore NR, Deng W, Burke A, Nyer M, Holt DJ. Worsening of psychotic experiences in college students during the COVID-19 pandemic. Schizophr Res. 2022 Jun 27:S0920-9964(22)00255-9. Epub ahead of print.
Wright AC, Cather C, Mueser KT, Farabaugh A, Terechina O, Fava M, Holt DJ. Relationships among subclinical psychotic symptoms in young adults over time. Psychiatry Res. 2022 May 10;314:114617.
DeTore NR, Luther L, Deng W, Zimmerman J, Leathem L, Burke AS, Nyer MB, Holt DJ. Efficacy of a transdiagnostic, prevention-focused program for at-risk young adults: a waitlist-controlled trial. Psychol Med. 2022 Mar 1:1-10.
DeTore NR, Sylvia L, Park ER, Burke A, Levison JH, Shannon A, Choi KW, Jain FA, Coman DC, Herman J, Perlis R, Fava M, Holt DJ. Promoting resilience in healthcare workers during the COVID-19 pandemic with a brief online intervention. J Psychiatr Res. 2022 Feb;146:228-233.
Daphne J. Holt and Nicole R. DeTore. Prevention of Psychiatric Illness in the Community: Seeds of Change. Psychiatric Annals 51 (2021): 255-260.
DeTore, N.R., Sylvia, L., Park, E.R., Burke, A., Levison, J.H., Shannon, A., Choi, K.W., Jain, F.A., Coman, D.C., Herman, J., Perlis, R., Fava, M., Holt, D.J. Promoting resilience in healthcare workers during the COVID-19 pandemic with a brief online intervention. J Psychiatr Res. 2021 Nov 7:S0022-3956(21)00660-9.
Burke, A.S., Shapero, B.G., Pelletier-Baldelli, A., Deng, W.Y., Nyer, M.B., Leathem, L., ... & Holt, D.J. (2020). Rationale, Methods, Feasibility, and Preliminary Outcomes of a Transdiagnostic Prevention Program for At-Risk College Students. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 10, 1030.
Barbour, T., Holmes, A. J., Farabaugh, A. H., DeCross, S. N., Coombs, G., Boeke, E. A., ... & Holt, D. J. (2020). Elevated Amygdala Activity in Young Adults With Familial Risk for Depression: A Potential Marker of Low Resilience. Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging, 5(2), 194-202.
Shapero, B. G., Farabaugh, A., Terechina, O., DeCross, S., Cheung, J. C., Fava, M., & Holt, D. J. (2019). Understanding the effects of emotional reactivity on depression and suicidal thoughts and behaviors: Moderating effects of childhood adversity and resilience. Journal of affective disorders, 245, 419-427.
Wolthusen RPF, Coombs III G, Boeke EA, Ehrlich S, DeCross SN, Nasr S, Holt DJ. Correlation between levels of delusional beliefs and perfusion of the hippocampus and an associated network in a non–help-seeking population. Biological Psychiatry CCNI, 2018.
Holt DJ, Cassidy BS, Yue X, Rauch SL, Boeke EA, Nasr S, Tootell RBH, Coombs III G. Neural correlates of personal space intrusion. J Neurosci. 2014; 34:4123-4134.
Brent BK, Coombs G, Keshevan MS, Seidman LJ, Moran JM, Holt DJ. Subclinical delusional thinking predicts lateral temporal cortex responses during social reflection. Soc Cog Aff Neurosci. 2014; 9: 273-282.