Thomas Dresler

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• PhD
• Group Leader at Universitätsklinikum Tübingen

Background: When comparing fractions, students often focus on the natural number components rather than on the fractions' numerical values (e.g., they reason that 2/4 > 1/2 because 2 > 1 and 4 > 2). This phenomenon is known as natural number bias. To date, there has been little research on ways to reduce this bias. Aims: We investigated whether a...

Zusammenfassung Für die Diagnosestellung, Therapie und Verlaufsbeurteilung von Kopfschmerzerkrankungen müssen in der Anamnese zahlreiche Informationen erfragt werden. Dies wird wesentlich erleichtert, wenn die Patient:innen diese Informationen bereits vorab anhand eines Fragebogens zusammenstellen. Expert:innen der Deutschen Migräne- und Kopfschmer...

This article investigates cross-cultural differences in analytic/holistic cognitive styles among participants from 11 countries: Armenia, Australia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Czechia, Germany, Ghana, Philippines, Slovakia, Taiwan, and Türkiye. Using a preregistered design, 993 university students were assessed with three perceptual tasks based on Navon’s h...

Background Headache disorders are among the most prevalent neurological disorders worldwide. However, whether groups differing in socioeconomic position (SEP) are disproportionately affected by headache disorders has not yet been adequately clarified. Our aim was to analyse (1) the headache prevalence by socioeconomic position (SEP) and (2) the att...

Introduction Despite having sufficient formal education, a large group of people cannot complete everyday tasks like reading, writing, or making basic calculations. Regarding reading, millions of people are not able to understand more complex texts despite the ability to read simple words or sentences; they have low literacy skills. Even though thi...

Background The Migraine Disability Assessment (MIDAS) is widely used. However, there are limited data on how much a reduction in the MIDAS score indicates a change that matters to the patient. Methods Data from the DMKG (i.e. German Migraine and Headache Society) Headache Registry were used to determine the minimal important difference (MID) of th...

Zusammenfassung Kopfschmerzerkrankungen (die auch die Gesichtsschmerzen umfassen) sind vielfältig und häufig. Es besteht eine hohe Krankheitslast, dennoch sind Kopfschmerzerkrankungen unterdiagnostiziert und unterversorgt. Kopfschmerzen sollten vor dem Hintergrund des biopsychosozialen Modells gesehen werden. Für die psychologische Diagnostik exist...

Zusammenfassung Hintergrund Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) beschreibt die Partizipation von Betroffenen und Angehörigen, d. h. Erfahrungsexpert:innen (EE), am Forschungsprozess. PPI ist in Deutschland in der Medizin und klinischen Psychologie wenig verbreitet, eine institutionelle Verankerung fehlt bislang. Die deutschlandweite und zentrumsü...

Neuroanatomical findings on youth anxiety disorders are notoriously difficult to replicate, small in effect size and have limited clinical relevance. These concerns have prompted a paradigm shift toward highly powered (that is, big data) individual-level inferences, which are data driven, transdiagnostic and neurobiologically informed. Here we buil...

Neuroanatomical findings on youth anxiety disorders are notoriously difficult to replicate, small in effect size and have limited clinical relevance. These concerns have prompted a paradigm shift toward highly powered (that is, big data) individual-level inferences, which are data driven, transdiagnostic and neurobiologically informed. Here we buil...

Humans spontaneously take the perspective of others when encoding spatial information in a scene, especially with agentive action cues present. This functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) study explored how action observation influences implicit spatial perspective-taking (SPT) by adapting a left–right spatial judgment task to investigate wh...

Background Triptans are effective for many migraine patients, but some do not experience adequate efficacy and tolerability. The European Headache Federation (EHF) has proposed that patients with lack of efficacy and/or tolerability of ≥ 2 triptans (‘triptan resistance’) could be considered eligible for treatment with the novel medications from the...

This eye-tracking research investigates cross-cultural similarities and differences in visual attention in complex scenes free-viewing perception. The study utilizes 70 real-world photos with one or two focal objects as stimulus materials. The study examines the amount of time spent on focal objects, saccadic lengths, temporal changes in saccadic l...

This paper investigates cross-cultural differences in analytic/holistic cognitive styles among participants from eleven countries: Armenia, Australia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Czechia, Germany, Ghana, Philippines, Slovakia, Taiwan, and Türkiye. Using a pre-registered design, 993 university students were assessed with three perceptual tasks based on Navon...

Primary headaches are among the most common pain disorders. They include migraines (prevalence 15%), tension headaches (up to 80%), and others, including trigeminal autonomic headaches (about 0.2%). Migraine, in particular, leads to significant impairment of personal life and high societal costs. Therefore, the need for effective and sustainable th...

Background: Most migraine patients need an effective acute medication. Real-world data can provide important information on the performance of acute migraine medication in clinical practice. Methods: We used data from the German Migraine and Headache Society Headache Registry, where patients rate efficacy and tolerability of and satisfaction wit...

(1) Cognitive impairments such as working memory (WM) deficits are amongst the most common dysfunctions characterizing bipolar disorder (BD) patients, severely contributing to functional impairment. We aimed to investigate WM performance and associated brain activation during the acute phase of BD and to observe changes in the same patients during...

Backgound Headache disorders are not only among the most prevalent, they are also among the most disabling disorders worldwide. This paper investigates the association between headache impact on daily life and the socioeconomic status (SES) of headache sufferers. Methods Data stem from a random general population sample in Germany. Respondents who...

Neuroimaging studies point to neurostructural abnormalities in youth with anxiety disorders. Yet, findings are based on small-scale studies, often with small effect sizes, and have limited generalizability and clinical relevance. These issues have prompted a paradigm shift in the field towards highly powered (i.e., big data) individual-level infere...

Overweight with and without comorbid binge-eating disorder (BED) has been associated with increased reward sensitivity, though evidence is heterogeneous. To disentangle this heterogeneity and gain insights into mechanisms of impaired reward processing, this study applied multi-method neuro-behavioural techniques. Reward sensitivity was investigated...

Migraine is the most common neurological disorder and can be associated with a high degree of disability. In addition to non-pharmacological approaches to reduce migraine frequency, pharmacological migraine preventatives are available. Evidence-based guidelines from the German Migraine and Headache Society (DMKG), and German Society for Neurology (...

Zusammenfassung Migräne ist die häufigste neurologische Erkrankung und kann mit einem hohen Grad der Beeinträchtigung einhergehen. Neben nichtmedikamentösen Ansätzen zur Reduktion der Migränefrequenz stehen medikamentöse Migräneprophylaxen zur Verfügung. Zur Indikation und Anwendung liegen evidenzbasierte Leitlinien der Deutschen Migräne- und Kopfs...

Das Kapitel Definition enthält kurze Darstellungen der für die Leitlinie relevanten Begriffe und deren Erläuterung für Fachpersonal. Das Kapitel erhebt den Anspruch, die in der Literatur häufig verwendeten Begriffe zu erläutern, jedoch kein Glossar sämtlicher im Zusammenhang mit substanzbezogenen Störungen verwendeten Begriffe darzustellen.

Introduction Chronic headache due to the overuse of medication for the treatment of migraine attacks has a prevalence of 0.5–2.0%. This guideline provides guidance for the management of medication overuse (MO) and medication overuse headache (MOH). Recommendations Treatment of headache due to overuse of analgesics or specific migraine medications...

While arithmetic training reduces fronto-temporo-parietal activation related to domain-general processes in typically developing (TD) children, we know very little about the training-related neurocognitive changes in children with mathematical disabilities (MD), who seek evidenced-based educational interventions. In a within-participant design, a g...

Most children use their fingers when learning to count and calculate. These sensorimotor experiences were argued to underlie reported behavioral associations of finger gnosis and counting with mathematical skills. On the neural level, associations were assumed to originate from overlapping neural representations of fingers and numbers. This study e...

We aimed to investigate stress-reactive rumination in response to social stress and its association with social anxiety and trait rumination. From previous investigations we know that people with a certain vulnerability to rumination show increased stress-reactive rumination. However, up to date the possible influence of social anxiety on this rela...

Introduction: The aim of this analysis is to determine whether regular physical activity is associated with less analgesic use in men and women suffering from headache disorders based on population-based cross-sectional data. Methods: We used data from a random general population sample in Germany that comprised 2477 participants aged ≥ 14 years...

Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) provides reliable results for determining cognitive load based on averaged cortical blood flow during multiple repetitions of short cognitive tasks. At the same time, it remains unclear how to use this technique for assessing cognitive load during prolonged single-trial activity. In this study, we used...

Anxiety disorders are highly prevalent and disabling but seem particularly tractable to investigation with translational neuroscience methodologies. Neuroimaging has informed our understanding of the neurobiology of anxiety disorders, but research has been limited by small sample sizes and low statistical power, as well as heterogenous imaging meth...

This study set out to examine the basic reading skills (accuracy and fluency in decoding, word and text reading) and some of the reading-related language skills (phonological awareness and rapid-naming) of 54 adults with low reading comprehension, who read the transparent German orthography. Participants were born in Germany and showed a typical no...

Auditory verbal hallucinations (AVH) are a characteristic symptom of psychosis. An influential cognitive model accounting for the mechanisms in the generation of AVHs describes a defective monitoring of inner speech, leading to the misidentification of internally generated thoughts as externally generated events. In this study, we utilized an inner...

We aimed to investigate the stress-reactive rumination response to social stress and its association with social anxiety and trait rumination. From previous investigations we know that people with a certain vulnerability to rumination show increased stress-reactive rumination. However, up to date the possible influence of social anxiety to this rel...

Recent research has emphasized rumination as an important maintaining factor in various mental disorders. However, operationalization and therefore induction of rumination in experimental settings poses a major challenge in terms of ecological validity. As stress seems to play a key role in everyday situations eliciting rumination, we conducted two...

Biofeedback is an instrument-based treatment procedure that is derived from behavioral therapy and aims to actively and consciously regulate the normally autonomic physiological processes (“bio”). These are acquired via a measuring device and transformed so that they can be acoustically, visually or tactually perceived. As soon as such a perception...

Previous research repeatedly found basic numerical abilities (e.g., magnitude understanding, arithmetic fact knowledge, etc.) to predict young students' current and later arithmetic achievement as assessed by achievement tests – even when controlling for the influence of domain-general abilities (e.g., intelligence, working memory). However, to the...

Background: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has substantially changed life worldwide in 2020. This also influences the psychological treatment options of patients with headache. Aim: The present article intends to illustrate the different psychological forms of treatment for headache patients and their implementation during the...

Background Digitalization offers support and innovative approaches in the diagnosis and therapy of headaches. With the German digital health care act (Digitale-Versorgung-Gesetz) it is now possible to integrate this into regular care for the first time. However, it is currently difficult to assess the various offers; quality standards and conclusiv...

Children with developmental dyscalculia (DD) differ from typically developing (TD) children regarding brain activation. While arithmetic training reduces fronto-temporo-parietal activation related to domain-general processes in TD children, we do not know whether these findings also hold for children with DD. Since children with DD are one main tar...

Background: Headache sufferers in need of professional health care often do not utilize the care available, and factors influencing headache-specific physician consultation are not yet understood. Objectives of this study are (1) to assess self-reported headache-specific physician consultations and (2) to identify headache-related and sociodemogra...

Children with attention deficit / hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) show deficient reading skills, which, like ADHD symptoms, are associated with limitations in neurocognitive abilities. Neurofeedback (NF) aims to improve the latter, to alleviate ADHD symptoms, and to promote school and reading performances. Whether frontal lobe-NF based on functional...

Functional lateralization is established for various cognitive functions, but was hardly ever investigated for arithmetic processing. Most neurocognitive models assume a central role of the bilateral intraparietal sulcus (IPS) in arithmetic processing and there is some evidence for more pronounced left-hemispheric activation for symbolic arithmetic...

It is under debate whether the neural representation of numbers and letters might rely on distinct neural correlates, or on a mostly shared neural network. In the present study, a total of 47 children in fifth grade (Experiment 1) and sixth grade (Experiment 2) simply copied numbers and letters on a touch screen while brain activation changes were...

Background: Reliable population-based data on the prevalence and characteristics of primary headache across the lifespan are essential. However, robust data are lacking. Methods: We utilized questionnaire data from a random general population sample in Germany, that comprised 2,478 participants aged ≥14 years. A standardized questionnaire addressin...

ZUSAMMENFASSUNG In diesem Beitrag wird beschrieben, welche psychologischen Behandlungsverfahren in der Therapie von Kopfschmerzerkrankungen eingesetzt werden können. Technologische Entwicklungen in den letzten Jahrzehnten habe neue Möglichkeiten eröffnet, deren Potenzial es allerdings noch genauer auszuloten gilt. Die Idee moderner Kopfschmerzthera...

ZUSAMMENFASSUNG Trotz hoher Prävalenz von Kopfschmerzerkrankungen und bedeutender Beeinträchtigung vieler Betroffener ist die Versorgung von Menschen mit häufigen Kopfschmerzen in Deutschland unzureichend. Zur Verbesserung der Versorgung und Erhebung von Daten zur Versorgungs- und Kopfschmerzforschung richtet die Deutsche Migräne- und Kopfschmerzge...

Attention biases towards threat signals have been linked to the etiology and symptomatology of social anxiety disorder (SAD). Dysfunction of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) may contribute to attention biases in anxious individuals. The aim of this study was to investigate the feasibility of near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) neurofeedback...

Immer mehr Kopfschmerz-Apps werden zum Download angeboten. Sie sollen Kopfschmerzen dokumentieren, bei der Suche nach Triggerfaktoren helfen und die Möglichkeit bieten, dass sich Patienten untereinander oder mit dem Therapeuten austauschen können. Dem stehen Fragen nach nicht einheitlichen Qualitätsstandards und Datenschutzproblemen gegenüber — und...

Some individuals experience more difficulties with math than others, in particular when arithmetic problems get more complex. Math ability, on one hand, and arithmetic complexity, on the other hand, seem to partly share neural underpinnings. This study addresses the question of whether this leads to an interaction of math ability and arithmetic com...

Immer mehr Kopfschmerz-Apps sind auf dem Markt — die bekannteste ist derzeit wohl die „Migräne App“ der Schmerzklinik Kiel unter Leitung von Professor Hartmut Göbel. Die Apps sollen Kopfschmerzen dokumentieren, bei der Suche nach Triggerfaktoren helfen und die Möglichkeit bieten, dass sich Patienten untereinander oder mit dem Therapeuten austausche...

Background Migraine is a highly prevalent and disabling neurological disorder which is commonly linked with a broad range of psychiatric comorbidities, especially among subjects with migraine with aura or chronic migraine. Defining the exact nature of the association between migraine and psychiatric disorders and bringing out the pathophysiological...

Zusammenfassung Studien legen nahe, dass bei Jugendlichen mit Migräne nur etwa 75 % der Medikamenteneinnahmen wie verordnet erfolgen. Es wäre somit wünschenswert, kostengünstige Interventionen anzubieten, um die Adhärenz und dadurch den Therapieerfolg zu verbessern. Auch die Einbeziehung von Angehörigen stellt hierbei eine Möglichkeit dar, unterstü...

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a neuropsychiatric disorder normally diagnosed in childhood and persisting into adulthood in up to two-thirds of the patients. Its core symptoms comprise inattention and hyperactive–impulsive behaviours. Several studies suggest that patients with ADHD show alterations in self-regulation and self-mo...

Most studies have investigated brain activation changes after the course of arithmetic learning, and the question remains whether these changes are detectable during the course of learning, i.e., before memory consolidation. Twenty-four fifth graders solved multiplication problems while ongoing electroencephalography (EEG) was recorded. The arithme...

Zur Behandlung von Kopfschmerzen sind medikamentöse Therapien nicht immer ausreichend wirksam oder können aus medizinischen Gründen nicht eingesetzt werden. Die psychologische Kopfschmerztherapie ist besonders bei chronischen Kopfschmerzen, einer hohen Beeinträchtigung der Patienten sowie als Ergänzung oder Alternative zur medikamentösen Behandlung...

Math anxiety impairs academic achievements in mathematics. According to the processing efficiency theory (PET), the adverse effect is the result of reduced processing capacity in working memory (WM). However, this relationship has been examined mostly with correlational designs. Therefore, using an intervention paradigm, we examined the effects of...

In collaboration with some of the leading headache centres in Germany, Switzerland and Austria, we have established new guidelines for the treatment of migraine attacks and the prevention of migraine. A thorough literature research of the last 10 years has been the basis of the current recommendations. At the beginning, we present therapeutic novel...

Functional illiteracy characterizes people who, despite formal education, do not possess the basic literacy skills to deal with everyday life requirements. Although a few studies have shown the heterogeneity of functional illiteracy, empirical research to differentiate these people at the individual level of more basic skills is lacking. The goal o...

Many students face difficulties with fractions. Research in mathematics education and cognitive psychology aims at understanding where and why students struggle with fractions and how to make teaching of fractions more effective. Additionally, neuroscience research is beginning to explore how the human brain processes fractions. Yet, attempts to in...

Background Arithmetic processing in adults is known to rely on a frontal-parietal network. However, neurocognitive research focusing on the neural and behavioral correlates of arithmetic development has been scarce, even though the acquisition of arithmetic skills is accompanied by changes within the fronto-parietal network of the developing brain....

This study investigated whether students in grades 5 and 6 learned better when seated proximally to the teacher during a virtual classroom math lesson, taking individual levels of inattention and hyperactivity-impulsivity (i.e., ADHD symptoms) into account. In general, students learned better in the proximal seat location compared to a distant one....

Zur Behandlung von Kopfschmerzen sind medikamentöse Therapien nicht immer ausreichend wirksam oder können aus medizinischen Gründen nicht eingesetzt werden. Die psychologische Kopfschmerztherapie ist besonders bei chronischen Kopfschmerzen, einer hohen Beeinträchtigung der Patienten sowie als Ergänzung oder Alternative zur medikamentösen Behandlung...

Mathematical abilities are essential for an individual, as they predict career prospects among many other abilities. However, little is known about whether neural correlates of arithmetic problem difficulty differ between individuals with high and low math ability. For instance, the difficulty of two-digit addition and subtraction increases wheneve...

Neuroimaging has undergone enormous progress during the last two and a half decades. The combination of neuroscientific methods and educational practice has become a focus of interdisciplinary research in order to answer more applied questions. In this realm, conditions that hamper learning success and have deleterious effects in the population – s...

Background: The frequent or regular use of analgesics and anti-migraine drugs can make headache more frequent and induce the transformation of episodic to chronic headache. Chronic headache due to medication overuse is defined as headache that is present on ≥ 15 days per month for at least three months in a patient who previously suffered from pri...

In this review, we aim to highlight the application of functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) as a useful neuroimaging technique for the investigation of cognitive development. We focus on brain activation changes during the development of mathematics and language skills in schoolchildren. We discuss how technical limitations of common neuro...

In our daily lives, we are constantly exposed to numbers and letters. However, it is still under debate how letters and numbers are processed in the brain, while information on this topic would allow for a more comprehensive understanding of, for example, known influences of language on numerical cognition or neural circuits shared by numerical cog...

Gesundheits-Apps für Smartphone oder Tablet spielen im Alltag vieler Menschen eine immer größere Rolle. Auch bei Kopfschmerzpatienten steigt das Interesse, sie in die Behandlung zu integrieren.

Neurocognitive studies of arithmetic learning in adults have revealed decreasing brain activation in the fronto-parietal network, along with increasing activation of specific cortical and subcortical areas during learning. Both changes are associated with a shift from procedural to retrieval strategies for problem-solving. Here we address the criti...

Objective: Inhibitory control has been discussed as a developmental and maintenance factor in binge-eating disorder (BED). The current study is the first aimed at investigating inhibitory control in a negative mood condition on a psychophysiological and behavioral level in BED with a combination of electroencephalography (EEG) and eye tracking (ET...

Objective: Elevated behavioral impulsivity has been shown to be a core feature of bipolar disorder. However, no study has so far investigated impulsivity-related brain activation in patients with BD during acute vs. remitted phase. To address the question whether elevated behavioural impulsivity and its differential neural pathways is a state or tr...

Introduction Anxiety disorders are the most frequent psychiatric disorders worldwide. The most severe form is panic disorder with a very unfavourable spontaneous course. Although state-of-the art treatment with cognitive behavioural therapy, pharmacotherapy or a combination of both is effective, roughly one third of patients can not be treated suff...

Background Post stroke headache is a symptom which is generally not further differentiated. According to previous European and American studies, it is a common phenomenon. Nevertheless, other symptoms of stroke, such as palsy or aphasia, are dominating clinical assessments. However, the symptom “headache” can be an essential part of the clinical pi...

Introduction: Besides pharmacological and interventional treatments a variety of non-medical therapeutic options exist for migraine, which has largely been derived from behavioral therapy. Areas covered: For our update we collected available studies via PubMed searches. This review highlights that already consulting of the patient is able to reduc...