Burkhard Brocke

Technische Universität Dresden | TUD · Department of Psychology

Der IST 5 ist ein vielseitig einsetzbarer, ökonomischer Intelligenztest-Struktur-Test für Jugendliche und Erwachsene im Alter von 15 bis 60 Jahren Insgesamt beinhaltet der IST 5 folgende Aufgabengruppen, die sich in die drei Inhaltsbereiche Verbal, Numerisch und Figural unterteilen lassen. Die Verbalen Aufgabengruppen sind: Satzergänzung, Analogien...

It is an open question in cognitive emotion regulation research how emotion regulation unfolds over time, and whether the brain regions involved in down-regulation are also recruited during up-regulation of emotions. As a replication and extension of our preceding study, we conducted an fMRI study in young healthy adults on the neural basis of up-...

CRC 940, project A5; www.dfg.de), which were not involved in the study design; in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report; and in the decision to submit the article for publication. • Investigation of emotional up-and down-regulation • Temporal dynamics for immediate, short-(10 min) and long-term (1 week) i...

It is an open question in cognitive emotion regulation research how emotion regulation unfolds over time, and whether the brain regions involved in down-regulation are also recruited during up-regulation of emotions. As a replication and extension of our preceding study, we conducted an fMRI study in N=47 young healthy adults on the neural basis of...

Emotion regulation (ER) is an indispensable part of mental health and adaptive behavior. Research into ER processes has largely focused on the concurrent effects during regulation. However, there is scarce evidence considering post-regulatory effects with regard to neural mechanisms and emotional experiences. Therefore, we compared concurrent effec...

Emotion regulation is an indispensable part of mental health and adaptive behavior. Research into emotion regulation processes has largely focused on the concurrent effects of volitional emotion regulation. However, there is scarce evidence considering post-regulatory effects with regard to neural mechanisms and emotional experiences. Therefore, we...

Emotion regulation is an indispensable part of mental health and adaptive behavior. Research into emotion regulation processes has largely focused on the concurrent effects of volitional emotion regulation. However, there is scarce evidence considering post-regulatory effects with regard to neural mechanisms and emotional experiences. Therefore, we...

Dysfunction in the circadian system has been linked to emotion regulation and mood disorders with genetic variation in clock genes as likely contributors. Here, we focused on endophenotypes of affective processing and investigated in two independent samples of healthy individuals (n1=99, n2=108) whether genotypes of a functional single nucleotide p...

A common and mostly effective emotion regulation strategy is reappraisal. During reappraisal, activity in cognitive control brain regions increases and activity in brain regions associated with emotion responding (e.g., the amygdala) diminishes. Immediately after reappraisal, it has been observed that activity in the amygdala increases again, which...

Das in mehreren Isoformen existierende Enzym Phosphodiesterase 4 (PDE4) co-reguliert die Verfügbarkeit von cyclischem Adenosinmonophosphat (cAMP). Das Gen für die Isoform PDE4D ist auf Chromosom 5 lokalisiert (5q11.2-q12.1). Genetische Variationen in PDE4D wurden mit Schlaganfallrisiko aber auch kognitiven Parametern insbesondere Lernen und Gedächt...

Recent translational studies identified a common endocannabinoid polymorphism, FAAH C385A, in the gene for the fatty acid amide hydrolase (FAAH). This polymorphism alters endocannabinoid anandamide levels, which are known to be involved in the fronto-amygdala circuitry implicated in mood regulation and anxiety-like behaviors. While it has been show...

Emotion regulation (ER) is necessary, when type, intensity, or duration of an emotion is not adequate for a specific situation. During emotion regulation, activity in brain regions associated with cognitive control intensifies, and activity in brain regions associated with emotion responding diminishes. Immediately after regulation, activity in the...

Autorka české verze: Simona Hoskovcová Věkové rozmezí: adolescenti a dospělá populace Využití: diagnostika struktury poznávacích schopností, zejména v oblasti poradenské a školní psychologie, psychologie práce, organizace a řízení, při přijímacích zkouškách na různé typy škol aj. Administrace: individuální i skupinová, časový limit 35 minut. Více i...

Recent translational studies identified a common endocannabinoid polymorphism, FAAH C385A, in the gene for the fatty acid amide hydrolase (FAAH). This polymorphism alters endocannabinoid anandamide levels, which are known to be involved in the fronto-amygdala circuitry implicated in mood regulation and anxiety-like behaviors. While it has been show...

Emotion regulation is necessary, when type, intensity, or duration of an emotion is not adequate for a specific situation. A common used emotion regulation strategy is detachment. During emotion regulation, activity in brain regions associated with cognitive control intensifies, and activity in brain regions associated with emotion responding dimin...

Circannual rhythms and seasonality have long been in the interest of research. In humans, seasonal changes in mood have been extensively investigated since a substantial part of the population experiences worsening of mood during winter. Questions remain regarding accompanying physiological phenomena. We report seasonal effects on the acoustic star...

Brain Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF) is a crucial regulator of neuronal development, organization and function and the val66met polymorphism in the BDNF gene has been associated with several (endo-) phenotypes of cognitive and affective processing. The BDNF met allele is considered a risk factor for anxiety and fear related phenotypes although...

Insufficient default mode network (DMN) suppression was linked to increased rumination in symptomatic Major Depressive Disorder (MDD). Since rumination is known to predict relapse and a more severe course of MDD, we hypothesized that similar DMN alterations might also exist during full remission of MDD (rMDD), a condition known to be associated wit...

Sex differences in fear and anxiety have been widely reported although results are not entirely consistent depending on measures used. Also, a possible influence of the menstrual cycle is often not taken into account, and effect sizes are not always discussed. In a sample of healthy young adults (n=111 women without hormonal contraceptives and n=10...

Hippocampal volume loss has been related to chronic stress as well as genetic factors. Although genetic and environmental variables affecting hippocampal volume have extensively been studied and related to mental illness, limited evidence is available with respect to G ϫ E interactions on hippocampal volume. The present MRI study investigated inter...

Until recently, no direct comparison between [(15)O]water positron emission tomography (PET) and arterial spin labeling (ASL) for measuring cerebral blood flow (CBF) was possible. With the introduction of integrated, hybrid magnetic resonance (MR)-PET scanners, such a comparison becomes feasible. This study presents results of CBF measurements reco...

The choice of a meaningful baseline condition is a crucial issue for each experimental design. In the case of cognitive emotion regulation, it is common to either let participants passively view emotional stimuli without any further specific instructions or to instruct them to actively attend to and permit any arising emotions, and to contrast one...

The serotonin transporter (5-HTT) is abundantly expressed in humans by the serotonin transporter gene SLC6A4 and removes serotonin (5-HT) from extracellular space. A blood-brain relationship between platelet and synaptosomal 5-HT reuptake has been suggested, but it is unknown today, if platelet 5-HT uptake can predict neural activation of human bra...

A mobile device for transcranial auto-stimulation and a method for controlling and regulating the mobile device are provided. The mobile device is controlled according to need, of circumscribed brain structures and brain systems. The device for transcranial electric current stimulation includes the following components:—electrodes with fasteners to...

Measurements of cerebral blood flow (CBF) using 15O-water-PET and ASL-MRI have been compared previously. Until now the two procedures were not performed simultaneously. Using a 3TMR-BrainPET, which integrates a BrainPET developed by Siemens as an insert in a Siemens 3T MAGNETOM MRI, we studied 15O-water-PET and ASL-MRI simultaneously in 10 healthy...

Dopamine and norepinephrine are key regulators of cognitive and affective processes. The enzyme catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) catabolizes catecholamines and the COMT Val158Met polymorphism has been linked to several neuropsychiatric variables. Additionally, stressful life events (SLEs) contribute substantially to affective processes. We used...

Identification of genetic factors that influence stress reactivity is important in order to link environmental demands, particularly adversity to disease outcome. There is ample literature on genetic contribution to the endocrine stress response, while evidence for genetic contribution to individual differences in autonomic nervous system function...

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Introduction The natural course of Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) encompasses the occurrence of alternating intervals of major depressive episodes and remission. While several abnormalities in neural circuits related to acute MDD have been identified, the neural mechanisms underlying stable remission remain obscure. Objectives Acute MDD is charac...

Dopamine is a key regulator of several cognitive and affective processes. The enzyme catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) terminates synaptic dopamine action and the val158met polymorphism in the COMT gene has been linked to differences in emotional regulation and neuropsychiatric disorders. In addition to genetic variation, environmental stress con...

There has been significant controversy whether stressful life events (SLEs) experienced over the lifespan may elevate the risk of depression in individuals who are homozygous for the short (S) allele of the repeat length polymorphism (5-HTTLPR) in the regulatory region of the serotonin transporter gene (SLC6A4), compared with individuals homozygous...

The dopamine transporter (DAT) and the enzyme catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) both terminate synaptic dopamine action. Here, we investigated the influence of two polymorphisms in the respective genes: DAT1 (SLC6A3) VNTR and COMT val(158)met (rs4680). Startle magnitudes to intense noise bursts as measured with the eye blink response were recorde...

Considerable variability in the activity of the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis in response to stress has been found in quantitative genetic studies investigating healthy individuals suggesting that at least part of this variance is due to genetic factors. Since the HPA axis is regulated by a neuronal network including amygdala, hippocamp...

Introduction Foundations and Methods Candidate Gene Approaches: Theories Informing about Gene-Trait Associations Molecular Genetic Main Effects Gene–Gene and Gene–Environment Interactions, and Pleiotropic Gene Effects Future Directions References

The identification of biological mechanisms underlying emotional behavior is crucial for our understanding of the pathogenesis of mental disorders. Besides genes modulating neural transmission and influencing amygdala reactivity and anxiety-related temperamental traits a different plasticity regulating genes affect interindividual differences in em...

In the electroencephalogram (EEG), early anticipatory processes are accompanied by a slow negative potential, the initial contingent negative variation (iCNV), occurring between 500 and 1500 ms after cue onset over prefrontal cortical regions in tasks with cue-target intervals of about 3 s or longer. However, the temporal sequence of the distribute...

Serotonin, a key regulator of emotional behavior, is synthesized by tryptophan hydroxylase (TPH). Allelic variation of TPH2 gene expression influences serotonin synthesis in the brain and therefore may modulate emotional processing. Here, we investigated the influence of the -703 G/T polymorphism in the regulatory promoter region of the TPH2 gene o...

A functional polymorphism in the 5′flanking region of the serotonin transporter gene (17q11.2, 5-HTTLPR) alters the transcription of the 5-HT transporter gene and seems to be associated with depression and anxiety-related personality traits in humans. This effect appears to be the most pronounced in individuals who are homozygous for the low-expres...

Genetic variation of the serotonin transporter (SCL6A4, 5-HTT) has been associated with fear- and anxiety-related behaviors, while a polymorphism in exon III of the D4 dopamine receptor gene (DRD4) has been linked to novelty seeking. The dopaminergic and the serotonergic neurotransmitter system have been found to modulate the amygdala-connected cir...

Need for cognition (NFC) refers to an individual's tendency to engage in and enjoy effortful cognitive processing. So far, little attention has been paid to a systematic evaluation of the distinctiveness of NFC from traits with similar conceptualization and from intelligence. The present research contributes to filling this gap by examining the rel...

Prepulse inhibition (PPI) is the attenuation of the startle response towards an instantaneous and intense stimulus when preceded by a weaker non-startling stimulus. Deficits in this sensorimotor gating process have been associated with the pathophysiology of schizophrenia and other psychiatric disorders. Among the neurotransmitters involved in PPI...

Genetic variation of the serotonin transporter (5-HTT) has been associated with fear- and anxiety-related behaviours. The amygdala is considered crucial in emotional modulation and stronger amygdala reactivity in response to fearful stimuli has been found in carriers of the short (S) allele of the 5-HTT gene in imaging studies. Additionally, reacti...

Cortical excitability is assumed to depend on cortical arousal level in an inverted U-shaped fashion: Largest (optimal) excitability is usually associated with medium levels of arousal. It has been proposed that under conditions of low arousal, compensatory effort is exerted if attentional demands persist. People tend to avoid this resource-consumi...

Need for cognition (NFC) refers to stable individual differences in the intrinsic motivation to engage in and enjoy effortful cognitive endeavors and has been a useful predictor of dispositional differences in information processing. Although cognitive resource allocation conceptualized as cognitive effort is assumed to be the key mediator of NFC-s...

Transcription factor AP-2beta may influence brain monoaminergic systems by regulating target genes. Several monoaminergic genes, including the serotonin transporter gene, have AP-2beta binding sites. Late auditory-evoked potentials (P1, N1/P2) and impulsiveness-related personality traits are correlated, and both are modulated by monoaminergic neuro...

Recent evidence suggests that both spatiotemporally distinct and overlapping brain regions are involved in bottom-up- and top-down-driven attentional processing. However, existing studies are based on a variety of different approaches, including electroencephalography (EEG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), raising the question of h...

Intensity dependence of auditory-evoked potentials (IAEP) is a suggested indicator of serotonergic neurotransmission. In contrast to its clinical renaissance, the reliability of IAEP has only been examined in a few studies, most of which are limited due to the possibly confounding effects of age and gender. Therefore, the present study examines dif...

Positive affect and the activity of the neurotransmitter dopamine seem to shift the balance between cognitive flexibility vs stability towards increased flexibility. Here we examined the impact of prospective monetary gains on this balance. Seventy healthy volunteers performed a set-shifting task comprising a condition in which a bias towards new s...

Although it is widely accepted that serotonin plays a pivotal role in the modulation of anxiety- and depression-related personality traits as well as in the pathogenesis of anxiety disorders and depression, the role of serotonin in cognition is less clear. In the present study, we investigated the involvement of serotonin in cognitive behaviors by...

The involvement in neural plasticity and the mediation of effects of repeated stress exposure and long-term antidepressant treatment on hippocampal neurogenesis supports a critical role of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) in the pathophysiology of affective and other stress-related disorders. A previously reported valine to methionine subst...

The prevalence and consequences of co-morbid axis-I and axis-II disorders as well as personality traits were examined in a large cohort of adult attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (AADHD) at a tertiary referral center. In- and outpatients referred for diagnostic assessment of AADHD were screened. 372 affected probands were examined by means o...

Hyperthymic Temperament (HYT) and a closely related trait, Hypomanic Personality (HYP), have both been related to bipolar affective disorder (BAD). Intensity dependence of auditory evoked potentials (IAEP) is a suggested inverse indicator of serotonergic neurotransmission and has been found to be elevated in BAD. Therefore the present study explore...

This study tested predictions of Gray's Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory (RST) in subgroups of sex offenders and male non-offenders using an experimental choice task consisting of a reward and a non-reward phase. In addition, RST-related psychometric measures were used. Both experimental and psychometric data were of interest to determine whether s...

Variation in the tryptophan hydroxylase-2 gene (TPH2) coding for the rate-limiting enzyme of serotonin (5-HT) synthesis in the brain modulates responses of limbic circuits to emotional stimuli and has been linked to a spectrum of clinical populations characterized by emotional dysregulation. Here, we tested a set of common single nucleotide polymor...

Converging evidence suggests a modulatory role of dopamine in cognitive control. We investigated the influence of two correlates of dopaminergic activity, the spontaneous eyeblink rate and the DRD4 exon III polymorphism, and the potential impact of gender on flexibility in an attentional set-shifting paradigm. The objective of the study was to conf...

Anxiety-related behaviors are closely linked to neural circuits relaying fear-specific information to the amygdala. Many of these circuits, like those underlying processing of innate fear, are remarkably well understood. Recent imaging studies have contributed to this knowledge by discriminating more detailed corticoamygdalar associations mediating...

This study investigates an extension of H.J. Eysenck's [Eysenck, H.J., 1967. The Biological Basis of Personality. Charles C. Thomas, Springfield, IL] arousal theory of extraversion, incorporating an effort system as a control system for different aspects of arousal. Extraverts were expected to have lower levels of reticocortical arousal than introv...

Intensity dependence of auditory-evoked potentials (IAEP) has been suggested as an indicator of central serotonergic neurotransmission. Two recent studies investigated a possible association of IAEP with a functional polymorphism in the transcriptional control region of the serotonin transporter gene (5-HTTLPR) that has a short (s) and a long (l) v...

This study examined the relationship between individual differences in depression and brain asymmetry during task performance in a subclinical sample. It was investigated whether depression is associated with lower right posterior activation during performance of spatial tasks. We recorded electroencephalographic (EEG) activity from 31 university s...

One fundamental problem of intelligent organisms pursuing goal-directed behavior is how to dynamically regulate the balance between maintenance and flexibility. The authors show that central dopaminergic activity, as indicated by spontaneous eyeblink rate and dopamine gene polymorphisms, plays an important role in the modulation of this balance. Se...

Because figural reasoning tasks are often assumed to indicate fluid intelligence (gf), we investigated which aspect of figural reasoning tasks make that they tend to mark gf—the figural content itself or the high degree of abstraction in these tasks. To this end, the assessment of figural reasoning abilities by means of concrete figural task materi...

This study examined the relationship between individual differences in depression and brain asymmetry during task performance in a subclinical sample. It was investigated whether depression is associated with lower right posterior activation during performance of spatial tasks. We recorded electroencephalographic (EEG) activity from 31 university s...

This chapter discusses how the causal multilevel approach to sensation seeking (SS) theory not only allows individual differences to be described and assessed, it also makes it possible to explain these differences on various levels. A research project that was designed to systematically investigate explanatory assumptions of sensation seeking theo...

The functional implications of the dopamine D4 receptor gene (DRD4) exon III polymorphism and its role in the modulation of temperament and in the pathophysiology of psychiatric disorders are still a matter of debate. Based on evidence from animal studies, we hypothesised that this polymorphism is involved in the modulation of the cortical response...