CONTEXT In the population at large, regular exercise is associated with reduced anxious and depressive symptoms. Results of experimental studies in clinical populations suggest a causal effect of exercise on anxiety and depression, but it is unclear whether such a causal effect also drives the population association. We cannot exclude the major contribution of a third underlying factor influenc...

Close proximity to an attachment figure, such as a caregiver, has been shown to attenuate threat-related activity in limbic regions such as the hypothalamus in healthy individuals. We hypothesized that such features might be similarly attenuated by proximity during a potentially stressful situation in a clinically anxious population of youths. Confirmation of this hypothesis could support the r...

OBJECTIVE To examine attentional bias towards angry and happy faces in 8-12 year old children with anxiety disorders (n=29) and non-anxious controls (n=24). METHOD Children completed a visual-probe task in which pairs of angry/neutral and happy/neutral faces were displayed for 500ms and were replaced by a visual probe in the spatial location of one of the faces. RESULTS Children with more s...

BACKGROUND Mental symptoms are common in heroin addiction and may arise from issues of addiction and withdrawal, raising doubts about the patients truly having co-morbid psychiatric diagnoses. METHODS We studied the mental status of 1090 heroin addicts (831 males and 259 females aged between 16 and 51 years) at the beginning of treatment, and its relationship to relevant demographic and clini...

The vigilance-avoidance attention pattern is found in anxious adults, who initially gaze more at threatening pictures than nonanxious adults (vigilance), but subsequently gaze less at them than nonanxious adults (avoidance). The present research, using eye tracking methodology, tested whether anxious children show the same pattern. Children with separation anxiety disorder or no mental disorder...

Thirty low and 30 high anxious participants performed a speeded Go/noGo task during which they had to rely on evaluative feedback to infer whether their actions were timely (correct) or not. We focused on FRN, an ERP component that is sensitive to the valence of feedback. Depending on the context, neutral faces served either as positive or negative feedback. Whereas the FRN of low anxious indiv...