Barbara Sperner-Unterweger

Medizinische Universität Innsbruck · Department of Psychosomatic Medicine

Background Recovery trajectories from coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) call for longitudinal investigation. We aimed to characterise the kinetics and status of clinical, cardiopulmonary and mental health recovery up to 1 year following COVID-19. Methods Clinical evaluation, lung function testing (LFT), chest computed tomography (CT) and transth...

Objective: Subjective illness perception (IP) can differ from physician's clinical assessment results. Herein, we explored patient's IP during coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) recovery. Methods: Participants of the prospective observation CovILD study (ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT04416100) with persistent somatic symptoms or cardiopulmonary findin...

Background Previous studies detected changes in the electroencephalographic (EEG) signal as an effect of psychoanalytic interventions. However, no study has investigated neural correlates of specific psychoanalytic interventions in the EEG power spectrum yet. In the present case study, we contrasted three types of interventions (clarification, conf...

Background: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has resulted in significant upheaval in psychiatric care. Despite survey data collected from psychiatric patients and broad samples of individuals in single countries, there is little quantitative or qualitative data on changes to psychiatric care from the perspective of mental health pr...

High-altitude (HA) exposure affects cognitive functions, but studies have found inconsistent results. The aim of this systematic review was to evaluate the effects of HA exposure on cognitive functions in healthy subjects. A structural overview of the applied neuropsychological tests was provided with a classification of superordinate cognitive dom...

Background Group psychotherapy is an effective treatment for patients with mental health issues. This study aims to evaluate data on the effectiveness of a cost-free short-term outpatient group psychotherapy project for patients with mixed mental health issues in Tyrol, Austria. Methods In this naturalistic observational study, outpatients taking...

Background: Exercise has considerable effects on physical and psychological health. Anxiolytic effects of climbing exercise have been found in people suffering from depression. However, there are no studies on patients with severe anxiety disorders or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) practicing climbing as add-on treatment. Additionally, many...

Hüfner, Katharina, Fabio Caramazza, Evelyn R. Pircher Nöckler, Agnieszka E. Stawinoga, Paolo Fusar-Poli, Sanjeeb S. Bhandari, Buddha Basnyat, Monika Brodmann Maeder, Giacomo Strapazzon, Iztok Tomazin, Ken Zafren, Hermann Brugger, and Barbara Sperner-Unterweger. Association of pre-existing mental health conditions with acute mountain sickness at Eve...

Background: Sequelae of Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) were investigated by both patient-initiated and academic initiatives. Patient's subjective illness perceptions might differ from physician's clinical assessment results. Herein, we explored factors influencing patient's perception during COVID-19 recovery. Methods: Participants of the pros...

Common knowledge implies that individuals engaging in outdoor sports and especially in regular and extreme mountaineering are exceptionally healthy and hardened. Physical activity in outdoor environments has a positive effect on physical and mental health. However, regular and/or extreme mountaineering might share similarities with behavioural addi...

Introduction: Next to an increased use of alcohol, the current pandemic has been associated with increased psychological distress among the general population. Research on its effects on individuals suffering from substance use disorders (SUD) is scarce. This study aimed at expanding the existing literature on this topic with a focus on the impact...

Background The COVID-19 pandemic hit Austria in March 2020. This led to a considerable reduction in outpatient psychiatric therapies. People with mental disorders as well as with newly emerging mental health issues found themselves with very limited treatment options. Within only a few days our hospital set up an online mental health self-help prog...

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is frequently associated with iron dyshomeostasis. The latter is related to acute disease severity and COVID-19 convalescence. We herein describe iron dyshomeostasis at COVID-19 follow-up and its association with long-term pulmonary and symptomatic recovery. The prospective, multicentre, observational cohort stud...

Background Olfactory dysfunction (OD) often accompanies acute coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and its sequelae. Herein, we investigated OD during COVID-19 recovery in the context of other symptoms, quality of life, physical and mental health. Methods Symptom recovery patterns were analyzed in a bi-national, ambulatory COVID-19 survey (n = 906,...

Background: Exercise programs have shown anxiolytic effects in psychiatric patients. Adherence to exercise programs and subsequent long-term lifestyle change is influenced by acute affective responses of the exercise programs. This research aimed to assess acute affective responses of two different exercise modalities compared to a non-exercise co...

Background Coronavirus Disease-19 (COVID-19) convalescents are at risk of developing a de novo mental health disorder or worsening of a pre-existing one. COVID-19 outpatients have been less well characterized than their hospitalized counterparts. The objectives of our study were to identify indicators for poor mental health following COVID-19 outpa...

Research on the long-term mental health impact of the COVID-19 pandemic across mental disorders is limited, and information on the impact of public health policy measures with varying strictness is missing. This study therefore aimed at investigating psychological distress among residents of Tyrol (Austria) and South Tyrol (Italy) at the early stag...

Non-communicable diseases, such as hypertension, diabetes, or depression, result from an interplay of physiological, genetic, behavioral, and environmental aspects. Together with climate change, they are arguably among the most significant challenges mankind faces in the 21st century. Additionally, the bidirectional influences of climate change and...

BACKGROUND Long COVID, defined as presence of COVID-19 symptoms 28 days or more after clinical onset, is an emerging challenge to healthcare systems. The objective of this study was to explore recovery phenotypes in non-hospitalized COVID-19 individuals. METHODS A dual cohort, online survey study was conducted between September 2020 and July 2021...

Background: The Covid-19 pandemic and related measures represent an enormous burden on mental health. The aim of this study was to investigate longitudinal changes in psychological distress, loneliness, boredom, and resilience over the course of the pandemic and to examine the associations between resilience and extraversion at baseline (summer 202...

Background: During the first 3 weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic, the federal state of Tyrol, Austria had one of the strictest curfews in Austria and worldwide. The aim of the current study was to investigate the assumingly protective role of resilience and extraversion and its impact on mental health following such an uncertain and unpredictable situ...

Background: COVID-19 convalescents are at risk of developing a de novo mental health disorder or of worsening of a pre-existing one. The objectives of our study was to phenotype individuals at highest risk of mental health disorders among COVID-19 outpatients. Methods: We conducted a binational online survey study with adult non-hospitalized COVID-...

Background: Physical activity in individuals diagnosed with psychiatric conditions (patients) has antidepressant and anxiolytic effects, but levels of physical activity are still low in this population. This study aimed to identify physical activity preferences, motives, and perceived barriers in patients compared to individuals without a diagnose...

BACKGROUND Long COVID, defined as presence of COVID-19 related symptoms 28 days or more after the onset of acute SARS-CoV-2 infection, is an emerging challenge to healthcare systems. The objective of this study was to phenotype recovery trajectories of non-hospitalized COVID-19 individuals. METHODS We performed an international, multi-center, expl...

The immunomodulatory capacity of mental stress is one of the basic concepts of psychoneuroimmunology. The current prospective longitudinal study was designed to evaluate the effect of acute mental stress on neurotransmitter precursor amino acid levels in individuals with depression at 2 time points. Ten physically healthy patients with a diagnosis...

Hüfner, Katharina, Fabio Caramazza, Agnieszka E. Stawinoga, Evelyn R. Pircher Nöckler, Paolo Fusar-Poli, Sanjeeb S. Bhandari, Buddha Basnyat, Monika Brodmann Maeder, Giacomo Strapazzon, Iztok Tomazin, Barbara Sperner-Unterweger, and Hermann Brugger. Assessment of psychotic symptoms in individuals exposed to very high or extreme altitude: A field st...

The role of platelets in hemostasis and thrombosis has long been recognized, recently their contribution to immunological and inflammatory processes is emerging. Platelets could be the missing link between cardiovascular disease, chronic stress and depressive symptoms. Both physical and mental stressors cause platelet activation reflected by change...

Background: COVID-19-related mental health problems are considered a public health challenge. The aim of this study was to investigate psychological distress, loneliness, and boredom among the general population of the federal state of Tyrol, Austria. Methods: Residents of Tyrol aged ≥ 18 years were recruited via dissemination of a link through soc...

We report the development of a regression model to predict the prevalence of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) antibodies on a population level based on self-reported symptoms. We assessed participant-reported symptoms in the past 12 weeks, as well as the presence of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies during a study conducted in April 2...

Background As coronavirus disease 2019 caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 evolved only recently, the persistency of the anti-viral antibody response remains to be determined. Methods We prospectively followed 29 coronavirus disease 2019 cases, mean age 44 ± 13.2 years. Except for one participant with a pre-existing diagnosis...

We report the development of a regression model to predict prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies on a population level based on self-reported symptoms.We assessed participant-reported symptoms in the past twelve weeks, as well as presence of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies during a study conducted in April 2020 in Ischgl, Austria. We conducted multivariate bin...

Background: Patients with somatoform, depressive or anxiety disorders often don't respond well to medical treatment and experience many side effects. It is thus of clinical relevance to identify alternative, scientifically based, treatments. Our approach is based on the recent evidence that urbanicity has been shown to be associated with an increa...

Acute and chronic mental stress are both linked to somatic and psychiatric morbidity, however, the neurobiological pathways of these associations are still not fully elucidated. Mental stress is known to be immunomodulatory, which is one of the basic concepts of psychoneuroimmunology. In the present study, neurotransmitter precursor amino acid leve...

Background: Patients with stress-related psychiatric (psychosomatic) disorders often don´t respond well to medical treatment and experience many side effects. It is thus of clinical relevance to identify alternative, scientifically based, treatments. Our approach is based on the recent evidence that urbanicity has been shown to be associated with a...

Background: Patients with stress-related psychiatric (psychosomatic) disorders often don´t respond well to medical treatment and experience many side effects. It is thus of clinical relevance to identify alternative, scientifically based, treatments. Our approach is based on the recent evidence that urbanicity has been shown to be associated with a...

Background: Patients with somatoform, depressive or anxiety disorders often don´t respond well to medical treatment and experience many side effects. It is thus of clinical relevance to identify alternative, scientifically based, treatments. Our approach is based on the recent evidence that urbanicity has been shown to be associated with an increas...

Background: Patients with somatoform, depressive or anxiety disorders often don´t respond well to medical treatment and experience many side effects. It is thus of clinical relevance to identify alternative, scientifically based, treatments. Our approach is based on the recent evidence that urbanicity has been shown to be associated with an increas...

The Barany society published recently the consensus document for the diagnostic criteria of persistent postural perceptual dizziness (PPPD). In this commentary we highlight the benefits of this new diagnosis and possible problems that can arise during the use of the criteria in day to day clinical practice at a University Clinic for Psychosomatic M...

Hüfner, Katharina, Hermann Brugger, Fabio Caramazza, Agnieszka Elzbieta Stawinoga, Monika Brodmann-Maeder, Hannes Gatterer, Rachel Turner, Iztok Tomazin, Paolo Fusar-Poli, and Barbara Sperner-Unterweger. Development of a self-administered questionnaire to detect psychosis at high altitude: the HAPSY questionnaire. High Alt Med Biol 00:000-000, 2019...

Objective: Physical activity (PA) in an outdoor environment has been shown to exert positive effects on mental well-being beyond those found for PA indoors. The specific effect of an alpine environment has not been investigated so far. Here we evaluate the association of PA in an alpine environment with resilience and quality of life (QOL) in pati...

Psychiatric disorders have a high lifetime prevalence affecting about 30% of the global population. Not much is known about high altitude (HA) sojourns in individuals living with a psychiatric condition. This lack of scientific evidence contrasts with the anticipated increase in numbers of individuals with preexisting psychiatric conditions seeking...

The amino-acids tryptophan, phenylalanine and tyrosine seem to play an important role in the pathophysiology of depressive disorders. We measured daily brain extracellular levels of these amino-acids using cerebral microdialysis (CMD) and high performance liquid chromatography in 26 consecutive subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) patients and associated...

In the past, accelerated tryptophan breakdown was considered to be a feature of clinical conditions, such as infection, inflammation, and malignant disease. More recently, however, the focus has changed to include the additional modulation of tryptophan metabolism by changes in nutrition and microbiota composition. The regulation of tryptophan conc...

Selbstberichte von Patienten („patient-reported outcomes“, PROs) ermöglichen eine systematische Sammlung, Auswertung und Dokumentation von Patientenangaben. Sie rücken die Sichtweise der Patienten in den Mittelpunkt und ermöglichen so individualisierte Behandlungsentscheidungen.

There exists a critical link between immunological processes and metabolic changes. Furthermore, it becomes more and more evident that changes in immunometabolic pathways are highly interconnected with psychological processes and the nervous system. Depressive disorders are a major contributor to the overall burden of disease worldwide. Despite ext...

Background Psychotic episodes during exposure to very high or extreme altitude have been frequently reported in mountain literature, but not systematically analysed and acknowledged as a distinct clinical entity. Methods Episodes reported above 3500 m altitude with possible psychosis were collected from the lay literature and provide the basis for...

Background: Patient-reported outcomes (PROs) can be part of an electronic routine outcome monitoring (eROM). eROM can improve patient involvement, treatment outcomes and simplify scientific data assessment. Available studies on eROM focus on its evaluation only and lack a detailed description of the prior implementation procedure. Objective: The...

Background Cancer survivorship is of increasing importance in post-treatment care. Sexual health (SH) and femininity can be crucial issues for women surviving cancer. We aimed to determine a more complete understanding of the contribution that a breast cancer (BC) diagnosis and its treatment exert on patients’ follow-up SH. For this purpose, self-r...

Background: Gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumours (GEP-NET) are often slow-growing and patients may live for years with metastasised disease. Hence, along with increasing overall and progression-free survival, treatments aim at preserving patients' well-being and health-related quality of life (HRQoL). However, studies on systematic HRQoL...

Liver transplantation has emerged as an established and well-accepted therapeutic option for patients with acute and chronic liver failure and hepatocellular carcinoma. The disproportion between recipients and donors is still an ongoing problem that has only been solved partially over the last centuries. For several patients no life-saving organs c...

Metabolic parameters have a direct role in the regulation of immune cell function. Thereby the inflammation-induced metabolism of aromatic amino acids, most importantly of tryptophan and phenylalanine, plays a central role. In addition, neuropsychiatric conditions that go along with disorders that are characterized by acute or chronic inflammation,...

Platelets are important in hemostasis, but also contain adhesion molecules, pro-inflammatory and immune-modulatory compounds, as well as most of the serotonin outside the central nervous system. Dysbalance in the serotonin pathways is involved in the pathogenesis of depressive symptoms. Thus, changes in platelet aggregation and content of bioactive...

Screening for founder mutations in BRCA1 and BRCA2 has been discussed as a cost-effective testing strategy in certain populations. In this study, comprehensive BRCA1 and BRCA2 testing was performed in a routine diagnostic setting. The prevalence of the BRCA1 stop mutation c.4183C>T, p.(Gln1395Ter), was determined in unselected breast and ovarian ca...

Background Changes in platelet bioactivity and aggregation are of interest when studying patients with depression as this could help to explain the statistically observed association of depression and chronic somatic, especially cardiovascular disease. This link could potentially be mediated through serotonergic signaling or immunological changes....

Immune activation not only accompanies inflammation in various disorders including infections, autoimmune syndromes and cancer, but it also represents a characteristic feature of ageing. Immune deviations which are most widely expressed in the elderly include increased neopterin production and tryptophan breakdown. These biochemical events result f...