This mini review presents the current state of the art in studies on the personalization of virtual reality for basic research and treatment of fear-related disorders. Of particular interest to the review are the choice of self-report measures and manipulations of contextual factors that researchers are using in their virtual reality procedures. As this mini review will show, work is starting ...

According to the placebo-reward hypothesis, placebo is a reward-anticipation process that increases midbrain dopamine (DA) levels. Reward-based learning processes, such as reinforcement learning, involves a large part of the DA-ergic network that is also activated by the placebo intervention. Given the neurochemical overlap between placebo and reward learning, we investigated whether verbal ...

Introduction: Education is important for socioeconomic, work and health status; thus, dropping out of secondary school is of major concern. In Norway, 1 out of 5 is dropping out from upper secondary education. Academic performance is a known predictor for dropout, but the role of mental and general health status is studied less.<p> <p>Methods: By use of student data collected during the first ...

Background Myocardial infarction is likely to be experienced as a life-threatening and potentially traumatic event. Approximately one-third of patients with myocardial infarction experience clinically significant symptoms of anxiety/ depression. However, it is unclear how many of these patients experience these symptoms because of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). We conducted a clinical screening ...

People across the world and throughout history have gone to great lengths to enhance their physical appearance. Evolutionary psychologists and ethologists have largely attempted to explain this phenomenon via mating preferences and strategies. Here, we test one of the most popular evolutionary hypotheses for beauty-enhancing behaviors, drawn from mating market and parasite stress perspectives, ...

Previous research has revealed a higher prevalence of respiratory symptoms in Norwegian smelter workers compared to average population controls. Nevertheless, respiratory protective equipment (RPE) is not always used, even in situations with high exposure risk. A questionnaire was distributed to workers in the Norwegian smelting industry to investigate the relationship between psychological ...

The world lost a very dear and brilliant man when Prof Dr Marcel Waldinger passed away this year. I am proud that I got to know him well, and had the chance to learn a lot from him as a scientist. He was passionate about his work related to men and womens sexual dysfunctions, with a special focus on PE, postorgasm illness syndrome, and persistent sexual arousal syndrome.

Objective: The purpose of the paper is to study the ranking of disorders according to their perceived importance. Previous studies suggest that rankings according to the perceived or attributed “value” or importance create informal hierarchies of disorders on normative attitudes about symptoms, treatment and outcome. In this work we studied disorder ranking in the general population and among health ...

Background: The effectiveness of the universal school-based alcohol prevention program “Unge & Rus” [Youth & Alcohol] was tested by an independent research group. The program aims to prevent alcohol use and to change adolescents’ alcohol-related attitudes. The main outcome measure was frequency of monthly alcohol use, favorable alcohol attitudes, perceived behavioral control (PBC), positive alcohol ...

The present study evaluated whether subjects’ expectations and neurofeedback training performance predict neurofeedback efficacy in cognitive training by controlling both factors as statistical variables. Twenty-two psychology students underwent neurofeedback training, employing beta/theta protocol to enhance beta1 power (13–21 Hz) and suppress theta (4–7 Hz) power. Neurofeedback efficacy was evaluated ...