Showing papers by "Alexander L. Gerlach published in 2010"
TL;DR: This review provides an overview of methods which are frequently used to assess heartbeat perception in clinical studies and summarizes presently available results referring to interoceptive sensitivity with respect to heartbeat in anxiety-related traits (anxiety sensitivity, state/trait anxiety), panic disorder and other anxiety disorders.
411 citations
TL;DR: Boys and girls with chronic pain show profound similarities in pain-related coping strategies prior and after multimodal pain treatment, and changes in coping are related to positive treatment outcomes.
45 citations
TL;DR: The applicability of this paradigm for the evaluation of neural correlates in conditioning and extinction processes has been proven and is presented a promising paradigm forThe examination of the fear-circuit in patients with anxiety disorders and additionally effects of cognitive-behavioral interventions.
Abstract: The purpose of the present study was to establish a short paradigm for the examination of classical aversive conditioning processes for application in patients with anxiety disorders. We measured behavioral, autonomic and neural correlates of the paradigm in healthy subjects, applying functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and measurement of skin conductance. Therefore, neutral visual stimuli were paired with an unpleasant white noise as unconditioned stimulus. Twenty healthy subjects performed three experimental phases of learning: familiarization, acquisition and extinction. Subjective ratings of valence and arousal after each phase of conditioning as well as skin conductance measurement indicated successful conditioning. During acquisition, fMRI results showed increased activation for the conditioned stimulus (CS+(unpaired)) when compared with the non-conditioned stimulus (CS-) in the right amygdala, the insulae, the anterior cingulate cortex and the parahippocampal gyrus, all regions known to be involved in emotional processing. In addition, a linearly decreasing activation in the right amygdala/hippocampus for the CS- across the acquisition phase was found. There were no significant differences between CS+ and CS- during extinction. In conclusion, the applicability of this paradigm for the evaluation of neural correlates in conditioning and extinction processes has been proven. Thus, we present a promising paradigm for the examination of the fear-circuit in patients with anxiety disorders and additionally effects of cognitive-behavioral interventions.
43 citations
TL;DR: The findings confirm that three negatively keyed items are dubious indicators of social interaction anxiety and only the remaining 17 items should be used for this purpose in future studies.
14 citations
TL;DR: A potentially helpful differential clinical diagnostic criteria is proposed for paroxysmal supraventricular tachycardia (PSVT) and panic disorder, which can occur comorbidly in a chronological sequence.
Abstract: Panic disorder (PD) is characterised by sudden attacks of intense fear with somatic symptoms including palpitations and tachycardia. Reciprocally, palpitations caused by paroxysmal supraventricular tachycardia (PSVT) are commonly associated with anxiety and may therefore be misdiagnosed as PD. As demonstrated by two case reports, PSVT and PD can occur comorbidly in a chronological sequence, with PSVT possibly precipitating and maintaining PD via interoceptive processes or, alternatively, with PD increasing the risk for PSVT by elevating stress levels. As both PSVT and PD require different treatments, potentially helpful differential clinical diagnostic criteria are proposed.
10 citations