Background: Many patients with psychotic disorders have persistent paranoid ideation and avoid social situations because of suspiciousness and anxiety. We investigated the effects of virtual-reality-based cognitive behavioural therapy (VR-CBT) on paranoid thoughts and social participation. Methods: In this randomised controlled trial at seven Dutch mental health centres, outpatients aged 18–65 yea

Background: Negative affective processes may contribute to maintenance of paranoia in patients with psychosis, and vice versa. Successful treatment may break these pathological symptom networks. This study examined whether treatment with virtual reality based cognitive behavioral therapy (VR-CBT) for paranoia influences momentary affective states, and whether VR-CBT changes the adverse interplay b

Background: Virtual reality (VR) enables the administration of realistic and dynamic stimuli within a social context for the assessment and training of emotion recognition. We tested a novel VR emotion recognition task by comparing emotion recognition across a VR, video and photo task, investigating covariates of recognition and exploring visual attention in VR. Methods: Healthy individuals (n = 1

Background: Patients with a psychotic disorder often suffer from low self-esteem, which has been related to higher suicidal risk, poor quality of life and, the maintenance of psychotic and depression symptoms. However, intervention studies are scarce and reported interventions concern individual therapies provided by highly educated psychologists. Both the individual setting and the required quali

Background: Many patients with a psychotic disorder participate poorly in society. When psychotic disorders are in partial remission, feelings of paranoia, delusions of reference, social anxiety and self-stigmatization often remain at diminished severity and may lead to avoidance of places and people. Virtual reality exposure therapy (VRET) is an evidence-based treatment for several anxiety disord

BACKGROUND: Problems in social functioning (e.g., unemployment, social isolation), are common in people with a psychotic disorder. Social cognition is a treatment target to improve social functioning, as it is a proximal predictor of social functioning. Social Cognition Training (SCT) improves social cognition, but may not generalize (enduringly) to social functioning, perhaps due to insufficient

Introduction: Studies have consistently demonstrated increased stress sensitivity in individuals with psychosis. Since stress sensitivity may play a role in the onset and maintenance of psychosis, this could potentially be a promising target for treatment. The current study was the first to investigate whether reactivity to and recovery from daily-life stressors in psychosis change in response to

Background: Patients with generalized social anxiety disorder (SAD) avoid various social situations and can be reluctant to engage in in vivo exposure therapy. Highly personalized practising can be required before patients are ready to perform in vivo exposure. Virtual reality-based therapy could be beneficial for this group.Aims: To assess the feasibility and potential effect of virtual reality-b

This document describes how the Nomenclature for Properties and Units (NPU) terminology can be applied to differentiate between cell subpopulations of the hematopoietic lineage. The clusters of differentiation molecules are included in the NPU syntax, together with its correct affiliations to indicate their presence or absence. This allows for identification and isolation of cell populations, subs

Background: Experimentally studying the influence of social environments on mental health and behavior is challenging, as social context is difficult to standardize in laboratory settings. Virtual Reality (VR) enables studying social interaction in terms of interpersonal distance in a more ecologically valid manner. Regulation of interpersonal distance may be abnormal in patients with psychotic di

Background Cognitive deficits may be characteristic for only a subgroup of first-episode psychosis (FEP) and the link with clinical and functional outcomes is less profound than previously thought. This study aimed to identify cognitive subgroups in a large sample of FEP using a clustering approach with healthy controls as a reference group, subsequently linking cognitive subgroups to clinical and

Background: Virtual Reality cognitive behavioral therapy (VR-CBT) has proven to be an effective treatment method for paranoia and anxiety in psychosis. However, it is unknown, which individuals benefit most from VR-CBT. Previous studies examined factors affecting the treatment effect of regular CBTp, including illness duration, paranoia, depression, and pre-therapy avoidance behaviors, but results

Background and Hypothesis: Social cognition training (SCT), an intervention for social cognition and social functioning, might be improved by using virtual reality (VR), because VR may offer better opportunities to practice in a potentially more realistic environment. To date, no controlled studies have investigated VR-SCT. This study investigated a VR-SCT, "DiSCoVR". We hypothesized that DiSCoVR

Introduction: Problems with adequately regulating aggression are comon in people with mild to borderline intellectual disabilities (MBID). Learning through experience has been shown to be effective in MBID. Therefore, we adapted an aggression prevention training that uses virtual reality (VR), which was initially made for a forensic psychiatric population. We aimed to assess the feasibility of thi

Background: Antipsychotic medication is effective for symptomatic treatment in schizophrenia-spectrum disorders. After symptom remission, continuation of antipsychotic treatment is associated with lower relapse rates and lower symptom severity compared to dose reduction/discontinuation. Therefore, most guidelines recommend continuation of treatment with antipsychotic medication for at least 1 year

Aim: There is an ongoing debate regarding the optimal timing of discontinuation of antipsychotic drugs for patients with first episode psychosis. Although most guidelines recommend maintenance therapy for at least 1 or 2 years after reaching remission, study results indicate that early discontinuation may be beneficial for at least a subsample of patients. To date, little is known about which medi

In this paper, we propose a theoretical and conceptual framework for articulating and studying changes in the global economic landscape and illustrate this framework in the current context. The framework pivots around the notion of rescaling, which is interpreted from a human agency perspective. We disentangle three theoretically distinct dimensions of rescaling and show how they play together usi

Background: Trajectories of asthma and allergy in children are heterogeneous and commonly derived from parental report of disease or clinical records. This study combined parental-reported and register-based dispensed medication data to characterize childhood trajectories of co-existing asthma, allergic rhinitis, and eczema. Methods: From a Swedish population-based birth cohort (N = 5654), survey

This study examines the response among young adults to the closure of a large local employer. By using military base closures in Sweden, I find that men experience lower earnings and enroll in tertiary education. This is driven by low-ability men who choose shortterm enrollment at nearby colleges and universities. For women, the closures have a positive impact after some years, with increases in b