Johanna Löchner

• Professor
• Professor at Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nürnberg

As humans, we learn from what we perceive with our senses in our daily lives. Computers can have similar learning capabilities, allowing them to learn from what they “see” and “hear” and to use the knowledge they learn to solve future tasks. This ability is called artificial intelligence (AI). Devices equipped with AI, such as smartphones, smartwat...

BACKGROUND Mobile health (mHealth) interventions offer scalable and personalized options for health promotion, which is particularly important during the vulnerable postpartum period. The engagement and effectiveness of postpartum mHealth approaches in psychosocially burdened populations remains understudied. Understanding how different target grou...

Acute stress triggers adaptive physiological responses—including transient increases in inflammatory cytokines—while chronic stress is associated with sustained inflammatory activity that may underlie the development of various disorders. Despite extensive research on each stress type individually, the transition and interaction between them remain...

Background: Preventive interventions for children of parents with depression are a major public health priority. A family- and group-based cognitive behavioral (FGCB) intervention has shown positive effects on child outcomes in randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in the United States and Germany. Objective: This pilot study explores the feasibility...

Objective: To explore which cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) self-help app usage predicted depression during a selective prevention trial. Method: A recent controlled trial (ECoWeB-PREVENT) randomized young people aged 16–22, at increased risk for depression because of elevated worry/rumination, negative appraisals, and/or rejection sensitivity b...

Repetitive negative thinking (RNT), an important transdiagnostic process, is commonly assessed using trait questionnaires. While these instruments ask respondents to estimate their general tendency towards RNT, ecological momentary assessment (EMA) allows to assess how much individuals actually engage in RNT in their daily lives. In a sample of N =...

Ambulatory Assessment (AA) studies have proliferated in mental health science, promising unparalleled insights into the dynamic nature of mental health. The high methodological heterogeneity of AA studies calls for the harmonization of approaches and the establishment of research standards. This expert consensus provides an overview of best-practic...

The chronotype of individuals has been found to be predictive of depression risk and associated with the severity of depression. However, since depression is a phenotypically heterogeneous disease, it seems improbable that chronotype plays a role in every instance of depression. This study investigates the association between the two, while conside...

Digital technologies have long been explored as a complement to standard procedure in mental health research and practice, ranging from the management of electronic health records to app-based interventions. The recent emergence of large language models (LLMs), both proprietary and open-source ones, represents a major new opportunity on that front....

Physical activity is associated with lower risk of incident depression and anxiety disorders. However, there is no meta-analytic evidence on the associations between physical activity levels and the incident use of psychotropic medications. PubMed, Embase, Scopus, Web of Science, PsycINFO, and Cochrane were searched up until March 2024 to identify...

Introduction The present study investigates the feasibility and usability of a sensor-based eHealth treatment in psychotherapy for pediatric obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), and explores the promises and pitfalls of this novel approach. With eHealth interventions, therapy can be delivered in a patient's home environment, leading to a more ecolo...

The use of ambulatory assessments (AAs) as an approach to gather self-reported questionnaires or self-collected biochemical data is constantly increasing to investigate the experiences, states, and behaviors of individuals and their interaction with external situational factors during everyday life. It is often implicitly assumed that data from dif...

The impact of psychological stress on physiological systems has been a focus of extensive research, particularly in understanding its diverse effects on immune system activity and disease risk. This meta-analysis explores the dynamic effect of acute stress on salivary immunoglobulin-A (S-IgA) levels, a key biomarker for secretory immunity within th...

Stress in parents has a significant impact on parenting and infant's development. However, few studies have examined cross‐sectional and longitudinal links on risk and resilience of burdened families. Thus, this study aimed to investigate subjective risk and resilience factors on family well‐being. Data stem from the 2015 nationwide study “Children...

Mucosal immunity is a multifaceted system of immunological responses that provides a barrier against pathogenic invasion and can be regulated by psychosocial and neuroendocrine factors. The present study aims to elucidate the association between everyday emotional states, emotion regulation skills, and mucosal immunity by utilizing an ambulatory as...

Mobile health (mHealth) interventions are a promising approach to promote mothers' and fathers' health in the perinatal period. This may be particularly true for psychosocially burdened families who are poorly reached by current preventive services. Studies are needed that examine how user‐centered and evidence‐based mHealth interventions look like...

Background From the age of 14, many adolescents enter a vulnerable developmental phase, with a sharp increase in mental illness at 16. The COVID19 pandemic has further exacerbated this issue. Hence, universal and easily accessible prevention in the young is needed. E-mental health interventions are on the rise due to numerous benefits such as poten...

Zusammenfassung Hintergrund und Fragestellung Der Beitrag bietet eine Übersicht zu Belastungen und Ressourcen sowie der Nutzung von Unterstützungsangeboten von Familien mit kleinen Kindern während der Coronapandemie (COVID-19, „coronavirus disease 2019“) in Deutschland. Zielsetzung Hierzu wurden die Auswirkungen der Coronapandemie auf das elterli...

Background Adverse childhood experiences (ACE) are linked to an increased risk of psychological disorders and lower psychosocial functioning throughout life. This study aims to evaluate the FACE self-help app, designed to promote resilience and well-being in emerging adults with a history of ACE. The app is based on cognitive-behavioural principles...

The impact of psychological stress on physiological systems has been a focus of extensive research, particularly in understanding its diverse effects on immune system activity and disease risk. This meta-analysis explores the dynamic effect of acute stress on salivary immunoglobulin-A (S-IgA) levels, a key biomarker for secretory immunity within th...

Lux U, Entleitner-Phleps C, Langmeyer A N et al. Belastungslagen von Alleinerziehenden-, Stief- und Kernfamilien Inanspruchnahme von Unterstützungsangeboten. Befunde aus zwei repräsentativen deutschen Studien. Das Gesundheitswesen 2023; 85(11): 975–981. doi:10.1055/a-2106–9582 Im oben genannten Artikel wurde ein Wort im Titel vergessen. Richtig is...

Ziel der Studie. Die vorliegende Studie untersucht Belastungslagen von Alleinerziehenden, Stief- und Kernfamilien mit jungen Kindern sowie die Nutzung von universellen, selektiven und indizierten Unterstützungsangeboten in den unterschiedlichen Familienformen. Methodik. Anhand von zwei repräsentativen Bevölkerungsstudien mit Müttern von Kindern zwi...

Introduction : The postpartum period goes along with an increased risk of unhealthy weight gain and numerous physical and psychological challenges, which are associated with mental well-being and resilience. Given the individual circumstances and the accompanying time constraints, evidence-based mHealth interventions may be useful for flexible, spo...

Charisma is considered as one's ability to attract and potentially influence others. Clearly, there can be considerable interest from an artificial intelligence's (AI) perspective to provide it with such skill. Beyond, a plethora of use cases opens up for computational measurement of human charisma, such as for tutoring humans in the acquisition of...

Background Parental depression increases children's risk of mental illness and may simultaneously impair the detection of children's symptoms. Here we investigate the nature of parent‐child agreement of children's psychopathology in children of parents with current (cMD) versus remitted (rMD) major depression. Methods Baseline data from 100 parent...

Psychosocial stressors and resources present in the early life of a child play a crucial part in determining outcomes later in life. Preventive early childhood intervention services aim to reduce negative and increase positive outcomes. Home-visiting programs are an example for preventive services that are common in many countries.The present study...

Aims Cognitive models propose that negative cognitive biases in attention (AB) and interpretation (IB) contribute to the onset of depression. This is the first prospective study to test this hypothesis in a sample of youth with no mental disorder. Methods Participants were 61 youth aged 9–14 years with no mental disorder. At baseline (T1) we measu...

Background In a parallel randomized controlled trial the effectiveness of the family- and group-based cognitive-behavioural “Gug-Auf” intervention in preventing depression in children of depressed parents was evaluated. We hypothesized that the intervention would be associated with reduced incidence of depression at 15 months as well as with reduce...

Background The transition to parenthood represents a critical life period with psychosocial, and behavioral changes and challenges for parents. This often increases stress and leads to unhealthy weight gain in families, especially in psychosocially burdened families. Although universal and selective prevention programs are offered to families, spec...

Zusammenfassung Elterlicher Stress ist weit verbreitet und kann sich negativ auf das Familienklima und die kindliche Entwicklung auswirken. Um den Unterstützungsbedarf einschätzen zu können, sollen die Bedeutung von elterlichem Stress und Barrieren der Hilfeannahme aufgezeigt werden. Darüber hinaus wird in der Studie untersucht, welche Persönlichke...

Background In order for Early Childhood Intervention (ECI) to be effective, data-based information on families’ resources, burden and current use of support services for families with young children, as well as on children’s health and development is needed. The study Kinder in Deutschland [Children in Germany]–KiD 0–3 2022 aims at providing these...

Background The transition to parenthood represents a critical life period with psychosocial, and behavioral changes and challenges for parents. This often increases stress and leads to unhealthy weight gain in families, especially in psychosocially burdened families. Although universal and selective prevention programs are offered to families, spec...

Welcome to the last issue of IEEE Transactions On Computational Social Systems (TCSS) of 2022. In this issue, we publish a Special Issue on Advanced Cognitive Computing for Data-Driven Computational Social Systems, which includes 23 articles. Moreover, we also would like to share some of our opinions and perspectives on “Digital Mental Health—Break...

Affective computing has been shown effective and useful in a range of use cases by now, including human–computer interaction, emotionally intelligent tutoring, or depression monitoring. While these could be very useful to the younger among us—including in particular also earlier recognition of developmental disorders, usually research and even work...

Background In a parallel randomized controlled trial the effectiveness of the family- and group-based cognitive-behavioural “Gug-Auf” intervention in preventing depression in children of depressed parents was evaluated. We hypothesized that the intervention would be associated with reduced incidence of depression at 15 months as well as with reduce...

Zusammenfassung Ziel der Studie Psychosoziale Belastungen können die erste Lebensphase von jungen Familien erschweren. Eine bisher wenig beleuchtete Gruppe sind Familien mit erhöhtem elterlichen Stress und Konfliktpotential. In diesem Beitrag sollen 1) die Kenntnis und Nutzung von Unterstützungsangeboten elternstress- und konfliktbelasteter Familie...

Welcome to the fourth issue of IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON COMPUTATIONAL SOCIAL SYSTEMS (TCSS) in 2022. First, we have some exciting news to share. In late June, Clarivate updated the Impact Factor of all journals which are indexed by Web of Science. According to the Journal Citation Reports, the 2021 Journal Impact Factor of IEEE TCSS was 4.727. Many tha...

Zusammenfassung. Theoretischer Hintergrund: Früherkennung bei Entwicklungsauffälligkeiten (EA) ist wichtig, insbesondere wenn diese mit psychosozialer Belastung einhergehen. Fragestellung: Bisher ist wenig darüber bekannt, wie sich die Belastungssituation bei Familien mit Kind mit EA im Alter von 0 – 3 Jahren verändert und welche Unterstützungsange...

Feasible interventions addressing unhealthy changes in energy balance-related behavior (EBRB) during pregnancy and early postpartum are needed. This study identified the needs and wishes of expecting and first-time parents concerning EBRB interventions during the transition to parenthood. Thirteen focus group discussions (n = 74) were conducted. Co...

Quality of life (QoL) is a subjective term often determined by various aspects of living, such as personal well-being, health, family, and safety. QoL is challenging to capture objectively but can be anticipated through a person’s emotional state; especially positive emotions indicate an increased QoL and may be a potential indicator for other QoL...

Attention biases (AB) are a core component of cognitive models of depression yet it is unclear what role they play in the transgenerational transmission of depression. 44 children (9–14 years) with a high familial risk of depression (HR) were compared on multiple measures of AB with 36 children with a low familial risk of depression (LR). Their par...

Objective Parental depression is one of the biggest risk factors for youth depression. This parallel randomized controlled trial evaluates the effectiveness of the German version of the family-group-cognitive-behavioral (FGCB) preventive intervention for children of depressed parents. Methods Families with (i) a parent who has experienced depressi...

The role of negative attention biases (AB), central to cognitive models of adult depression, is yet unclear in youth depression. We investigated negative AB in depressed compared to healthy youth and tested whether AB are more pronounced in depressed than at-risk youth. Negative AB was assessed for sad and angry faces with an eye-tracking paradigm...

Full text: https://www.aerzteblatt.de/archiv/220926/Stabilitaet-und-Veraenderung-von-selbstberichteten-psychosozialen-Belastungen-von-Eltern-mit-Kleinkindern

Deutsche Hebammen Zeitschrift. https://www.dhz-online.de/no_cache/archiv/archiv-inhalt-heft/archiv-detail-abo/artikel/lasten-teilung/

Contemporary cognitive models of depression propose that cognitive biases for negative information at the level of attention (attention biases; AB) and interpretation (interpretation biases; IB) increase depression risk by promoting maladaptive emotion regulation (ER). So far, empirical support testing interactions between these variables is restri...

Objective Parental depression is one of the biggest risk factors for youth depression. This parallel randomized controlled trial evaluates the effectiveness of the German version of the family-group-cognitive-behavioral (FGCB) preventive intervention for children of depressed parents. Methods Families with i) a parent who has experienced depression...

Background Promoting well-being and preventing poor mental health in young people is a major global priority. Building emotional competence (EC) skills via a mobile app may be an effective, scalable and acceptable way to do this. However, few large-scale controlled trials have examined the efficacy of mobile apps in promoting mental health in youn...

Negative interpretation biases have been found to characterize adults with depression and to be involved in the development and maintenance of the disorder. However, less is known about their role in youth depression. The present study investigated i) whether negative interpretation biases characterize children and adolescents with depression and i...

Children of depressed parents are at heightened risk for developing depression, yet relatively little is known about the speciic mechanisms responsible. Since preventive interventions for this risk group show small efects which diminish overtime, it is crucial to uncover the key risk factors for depression. This study compared various potential mec...

Background: Meta-analyses of randomised controlled trials suggest that psychological interventions to reduce children's risk of depression are effective. Nevertheless, these effects are modest and diminish over time. The Medical Research Council recommends a mixed-methods approach to the evaluation of complex interventions. By gaining a more thoro...

Children of parents with a history of depression have an increased risk of developing depression themselves. The present study investigated the role of interpretation biases (that have been found in adults and adolescents with depression but have rarely been examined in at-risk youth) in the transgenerational transmission of depression risk. Interp...

According to the World Health Organisation, depression is one of the most common psychiatric disorders - affecting around 350 million people across all age groups worldwide. Suffering from major depression not only causes great personal burden for the affected person, but also for their family, society and economy. The later the disease is recogniz...

Background: Good communication is a core competency for all physicians. Thus, medical students require adequate preparation in communication skills. For research purposes, as well as for evaluation in teaching, there is a clear need for reliable assessment tools. We analyzed the shortcomings of existing instruments and saw a need for a new rating s...

One major predictor of depression onset is having a depressed parent. This study provides the first systematic review and meta-analysis of preventive interventions for offspring of depressed parents. We searched six literature databases and included randomized controlled trials which concerned the non-depressed offspring (aged 18 or younger) of a d...