Biology subjects

Gallinat, J.

Publications and source records attributed to Gallinat, J..

3 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2018

Evaluation of FlowVR: a virtual reality game for improvement of depressive mood

ObjectiveThis study evaluated the efficacy of FlowVR, a virtual reality (VR) game designed to improve mood and reduce feelings of depression. The aim is to contribute to the question of whether and how VR could be used for depression therapy, as research in this area is quite rare.\n\nMethod18 healthy participants (9 female; Mage = 25.9) underwent three conditions, playing FlowVR in VR with a head-mounted display, playing FlowVR on a tablet or reading a text on a tablet. For each condition, they were tested on a separate day at the same time of day within a two-week period. Before and after every condition participants completed the Becks Depression Inventory II (BDI-II), the state part of the State-Trait-Anxiety-Depression-Inventory (STADI(S)) and the Positive Affect Negative Affect Schedule-Expanded Form (PANAS-X).\n\nResultsWhile the participants showed only a reduction in acute anxiety in the control and the tablet conditions, they showed improved affectivity in all variables measured in the VR condition. In addition, VR had significantly better results than the control condition in improving positive affectivity, negative affectivity and acute feelings of depression. Using a less conservative statistical approach, these significant differences could also be found between the tablet and the VR condition. There were no significant differences between the tablet and the control condition.\n\nConclusionThe results indicate that due to its immersive nature, VR can be used effectively to improve mood and temporarily reduce feelings of depression. Long-term effects of FlowVR on participants with depression must be investigated in consecutive research.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2018

3-D navigation: A core driver of brain plasticity in video game interventions

Recent evidence has repeatedly shown that 3D platform video game training leads to substantial brain structural plasticity in hippocampus, prefrontal cortex and cerebellum. However, a great disadvantage of using complex video game interventions is the difficulty to attribute the observed effects to specific game mechanics.\n\nIn order to address this caveat, we conducted a longitudinal training study in which 40 participants were randomly assigned to train with a 3D platformer game or a 2D platformer game. The main difference between the two games lies within their affordance for spatial exploration. After a training phase of two months, we observed extended brain structural increases in the 3D in comparison to the 2D condition in bilateral prefrontal areas, hippocampus/ entorhinal cortex as well as precuneus and the temporal lobe. In the reverse contrast an increase in bilateral caudate nucleus was observed.\n\nThe results demonstrate a crucial role of 3D spatial navigation for widespread brain plasticity effects within a two-months training setup. Given the vast complexity of video games, spatial navigation seems to play an outstanding role in structural plasticity. Since prefrontal, temporal and hippocampal volume deficits are prominent risk factors for several psychiatric disorders, daily navigation habits (outdoor movement, using GPS devices etc.) have to be considered in future mental disorders prevention research.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2018

Influence of nutritional tyrosine on cognition and functional connectivity in healthy old humans

Tyrosine is precursor for monoamine neurotransmitters such as dopamine (DA), which is one of the key neurotransmitters in the frontostriatal network and of crucial relevance for mental disorders. Recent research reported that high dose tyrosine application resulted in increased brain DA synthesis, which is consistent with the observation of positive associations between daily tyrosine intake and cognitive test performance. In the present study, we investigated the associations between working memory (WM) dependent tasks and self-reported nutritional tyrosine intake within a large group of healthy elderly humans (286 subjects) by additionally including brain functional data. We observed a negative correlation between tyrosine intake and resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) between the striatum (putamen) and the prefrontal cortex. That is to say, we found higher rsFC in individuals consuming less tyrosine per day. At the same time, this increased rsFC or hyperconnectivity was associated with lower WM performance. These findings suggest that lower or insufficient supply of tyrosine might result in dysfunctional connectivity between striatal and frontal regions leading to lower WM capacity in healthy elderly humans.

neuroscience↗