Sadness, depression, and the Dark Night of the Soul: transcending the medicalisation of sadness, by Gloria Dura-Vila, London, Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2017, 357 pp., £21.99 (paperback), ISBN-10: ...1785920561
A lockdown of people has been used as an efficient public health measure to fight against the exponential spread of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) and allows the health system to manage the ...number of patients. The aim of this study (clinicaltrials.gov NCT00430818) was to evaluate the impact of both perceived stress aroused by Covid-19 and of emotions triggered by the lockdown situation on the individual experience of time. A large sample of the French population responded to a survey on their experience of the passage of time during the lockdown compared to before the lockdown. The perceived stress resulting from Covid-19 and stress at work and home were also assessed, as were the emotions felt. The results showed that people have experienced a slowing down of time during the lockdown. This time experience was not explained by the levels of perceived stress or anxiety, although these were considerable, but rather by the increase in boredom and sadness felt in the lockdown situation. The increased anger and fear of death only explained a small part of variance in the time judgment. The conscious experience of time therefore reflected the psychological difficulties experienced during lockdown and was not related to their perceived level of stress or anxiety.
•Participants who believed that they were receiving a medication that would protect them from negative emotions experienced less sadness.•The effect sizes were medium to large, suggesting that these ...effects could be clinically relevant.•Our results suggest that at least one symptom of depression (sadness) can be significantly influenced by placebos.
We aimed to examine whether drug-associated expectations have an impact on the experience of sadness. We hypothesized that participants who received an active placebo nasal spray (but were told that it was an antidepressant that would protect them from experiencing negative emotions) would become less sad than the control groups.
128 healthy female participants were randomly allocated to one of four groups: the experimental group, which received an active placebo and the expectancy-modifying instructions (“Protection: the spray protects from experiencing negative emotions”, n = 32), or one of three different control groups (“Sensitization”: the spray sensitizes to negative emotions”, n = 31; “Placebo: the spray is a placebo”, n = 32; and “Control: no nasal spray”, n = 32)
In line with our hypotheses, the experimental group experienced significantly less sadness after having watched a sadness provoking film sequence compared to the three control groups, with medium- to large effect sizes (Hedge´s gs 0.59–0.87).
Our results suggest that sadness can be significantly influenced by placebos in the short-term. Our study further suggests that knowledge about the effect of placebos on depressive symptoms should be utilized in clinical practice. However, depression is a complex disorder and antidepressants address a wide range of symptoms associated with depression such as suicidal thoughts, disturbed sleep and loss of energy. Further research on the placebo effects associated with the antidepressant treatment is needed.
concern generalizability to treatment because sadness is only one potential symptom of depression and antidepressants often also address other symptoms.
Neighborhoods provide essential resources (eg, education, safe housing, green space) that influence neurodevelopment and mental health. However, we need a clearer understanding of the mechanisms ...mediating these relationships. Limited access to neighborhood resources may hinder youths from achieving their goals and, over time, shape their behavioral and neurobiological response to negatively biased environments blocking goals and rewards.
To test this hypothesis, 211 youths (aged ∼13.0 years, 48% boys, 62% identifying as White, 75% with a psychiatric disorder diagnosis) performed a task during functional magnetic resonance imaging. Initially, rewards depended on performance (unbiased condition); but later, rewards were randomly withheld under the pretense that youths did not perform adequately (negatively biased condition), a manipulation that elicits frustration, sadness, and a broad response in neural networks. We investigated associations between the Childhood Opportunity Index (COI), which quantifies access to youth-relevant neighborhood features in 1 metric, and the multimodal response to the negatively biased condition, controlling for age, sex, medication, and psychopathology.
Youths from less-resourced neighborhoods responded with less anger (p < .001, marginal R2 = 0.42) and more sadness (p < .001, marginal R2 = 0.46) to the negatively biased condition than youths from well-resourced neighborhoods. On the neurobiological level, lower COI scores were associated with a more localized processing mode (p = .039, marginal R2 = 0.076), reduced connectivity between the somatic–motor–salience and the control network (p = .041, marginal R2 = 0.040), and fewer provincial hubs in the somatic–motor–salience, control, and default mode networks (all pFWE < .05).
The present study adds to a growing literature documenting how inequity may affect the brain and emotions in youths. Future work should test whether findings generalize to more diverse samples and should explore effects on neurodevelopmental trajectories and emerging mood disorders during adolescence.
One or more of the authors of this paper self-identifies as a member of one or more historically underrepresented racial and/or ethnic groups in science. One or more of the authors of this paper self-identifies as a member of one or more historically underrepresented sexual and/or gender groups in science. One or more of the authors of this paper received support from a program designed to increase minority representation in science. We actively worked to promote sex and gender balance in our author group. We actively worked to promote inclusion of historically underrepresented racial and/or ethnic groups in science in our author group.
•Sadness involves reduction of cortical control over evolutionarily ancient brain systems.•Basic emotion theorists have identified a SADNESS circuit, based on animal research.•Psychological ...constructionists have identified patterns of activity that dependent on context.•Competing models may relate to different levels on a phylogenetic hierarchy.•Dedicated funding to facilitate collaborative and transdisciplinary opportunities is needed.
Sadness is typically characterized by raised inner eyebrows, lowered corners of the mouth, reduced walking speed, and slumped posture. Ancient subcortical circuitry provides a neuroanatomical foundation, extending from dorsal periaqueductal grey to subgenual anterior cingulate, the latter of which is now a treatment target in disorders of sadness. Electrophysiological studies further emphasize a role for reduced left relative to right frontal asymmetry in sadness, underpinning interest in the transcranial stimulation of left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex as an antidepressant target. Neuroimaging studies – including meta-analyses – indicate that sadness is associated with reduced cortical activation, which may contribute to reduced parasympathetic inhibitory control over medullary cardioacceleratory circuits. Reduced cardiac control may – in part – contribute to epidemiological reports of reduced life expectancy in affective disorders, effects equivalent to heavy smoking. We suggest that the field may be moving toward a theoretical consensus, in which different models relating to basic emotion theory and psychological constructionism may be considered as complementary, working at different levels of the phylogenetic hierarchy.
Music is a ubiquitous phenomenon in human cultures, mostly due to its power to evoke and regulate emotions. However, effects of music evoking different emotional experiences such as sadness and ...happiness on cognition, and in particular on self-generated thought, are unknown. Here we use probe-caught thought sampling and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate the influence of sad and happy music on mind-wandering and its underlying neuronal mechanisms. In three experiments we found that sad music, compared with happy music, is associated with stronger mind-wandering (Experiments 1A and 1B) and greater centrality of the nodes of the Default Mode Network (DMN) (Experiment 2). Thus, our results demonstrate that, when listening to sad vs. happy music, people withdraw their attention inwards and engage in spontaneous, self-referential cognitive processes. Importantly, our results also underscore that DMN activity can be modulated as a function of sad and happy music. These findings call for a systematic investigation of the relation between music and thought, having broad implications for the use of music in education and clinical settings.
The current global pandemic situation due to the Covid-19 has implied several consequences at all psychological levels. One of the main differences with respect to the pre-pandemic life in most of ...countries around the world is the obligation to wear a mask for citizens. This new habit could have several issues for human relationships. The current research aimed to explore the effect of wearing a mask on both emotion recognition and perception of attractiveness. Two hundred and two participants completed a task consisting of 24 face images presented twice, with and without mask. Of them, there were six images for emotion: anger, sadness, fear, and happiness. The results showed that emotion recognition was worse when wearing a face mask except for surprise: happiness, η2 = 0.84; anger, η2 = 0.74; anger, η2 = 52. Moreover, wearing a mask enhanced the perception of attractiveness both in male and female in all emotions except for happiness: sadness, η2 = 0.22; surprise, η2 = 0.05, and anger, η2 = 0.03. Finally, social implications and limitations of the study are discussed.
The aim of this study was to assess the emotions of happiness and sadness objectively to develop Artificial Intelligence (AI) tool in education. There were two stages in the study. The inclusion ...criteria for selecting participants were healthy adults in local community with no known medical diagnosis. Those with a history of mental health problems, mood disorders, and cardiovascular and pulmonary problems were excluded. At Stage 1, subjects were asked to categorize the selected video clips downloaded from YouTube into happiness, sadness, and others. The subjects in Stage 1 did not participate in Stage 2. At Stage 2, the videos were presented randomly via computer to each subject who could, immediately after he/she had watched a video clip, input his/her respective emotion ratings through a touch-screen monitor. Simultaneously his/her HRV was captured using a Polar watch with chest belt during the entire Stage 2. A total of 239 subjects participated in the study. Of them, 158 (66.1%) were female and 81 (33.9%) were male. The mean ages for females and males were 34.10 (sd = 18.11) and 37.51 (sd = 18.35) respectively. In the Partial Least Squares Discriminant Analysis (PLS-DA) model, a sensitivity of 70.7% that the model correctly identified a subject’s happiness, while a specificity of 58.4% that the model correctly identified sadness. Prediction of the emotions of happiness and sadness using HRV measures was supported. HRV measures does provide an objective method to assess the emotions. Further work could be done to explore the prediction of other emotions.
•The classification method of the PLS-DA is a feasible process for classifying emotions.•Prediction of the emotions of happiness and sadness by HRV measures was supported.•Stable peaks of the R-R interval are crucial to the emotion prediction model.
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